Keita’s father was both horrified and fascinated by the fact that those two dictators had each died alongside their young lovers.
“I could hardly bring myself to look when I saw it. The film started by showing you the stomach of Mussolini’s lover. They had hung her from her feet, and her skirt had slipped down. I found myself wondering just how far it was dangling; but thankfully, it was bunched up over her chest, just below her breasts.”
Momoko pulled away from Aoki and stopped by the railing of the bridge.
“My apologies,” he said, returning to his senses. “It was a vicious spectacle. Rather intolerable, I thought. In two ways. Firstly, because it was so violent and horrible. But also, I sensed in Mussolini’s unsightly death more than an attachment to life, a sort of radical fulfilment of life; something utterly intolerable for us Japanese. It was quite a revelation.”
He seemed reluctant to abandon the topic. “It was the kind of thing that we, building our tearooms or admiring the hills of Arashiyama in winter, will never be able to understand.”
“But no one else has come to see Arashiyama at this time of year.”
Apart from Momoko and Aoki, there were no other figures crossing the Togetsukyō Bridge.
“It’s a shame. Arashiyama is beautiful, even after the autumn colors have faded.”
“Yes. There’s a stillness, a sense of melancholy.” Momoko stared down into the river. “The pine trees are a lovely color. Their green leaves almost look like they’re a glistening shade of blue.”
The left bank of the river was lined with pine trees, while a sparse grove stretched out on the right. Glancing around, Momoko saw that the slopes of Mount Arashiyama beyond the bridge, along with Mount Kameyama and Mount Ogura farther out, were likewise clad in pines.
Plumes of smoke from two bonfires arose from a small island at the lower reaches of the river.
Silhouetted behind that smoke was the outline of the hills of Higashiyama.
“Up to the bridge here, it’s called the Ōi River, meaning great barrier, but it’s called the Katsura River from this point onward. True to its name, the water is dammed up, forming a basin of sorts in front of Mount Arashiyama. Farther upstream, it has a different name again, the Hozu River.” Aoki continued walking, all but urging Momoko to follow. “Did you ever conduct the coming-of-age pilgrimage to a temple when you were thirteen?” he asked her.
“No.”
“It’s a tradition here in the Kansai region. The Hōrinji Temple holds it every year on the thirteenth of April. The cherry trees are in full bloom, and there are always so many people milling in front of the statue of the bodhisattva Ākāśagarbha.”
On the other side of the bridge, the multistoried pagoda of the Hōrinji stood out like a fresh coat of color.
Aoki began to describe the Festival of the Boats, a celebration held in verdant spring in imitation of the pleasures enjoyed by ancient nobles, featuring poetry, songs, and music. During the autumn colors, those boats were joined by other period-decorated vessels from the Tenryūji, and another named after the merchant Suminokura Ryōi.
But it was difficult in winter to imagine the gaiety of those festivities. Now, the dammed river formed a deep, silent basin, filled with dark winter hues.
“How about we take a short walk?” After crossing the Togetsukyō Bridge, Aoki turned right along the riverbank.
The path led up toward Mount Arashiyama, but it too was deserted. The water that they had seen from atop the bridge now flowed but a short distance away.
“You can see the rocks at the bottom of the river,” Momoko said, pausing to look. “Yet the water looks so deep.”
The rocks, clearly visible through the depths of the water, seemed somehow mystical. A school of small fish was swimming above them.
“Aren’t you cold?” Aoki asked. “You’ve just come out of the hospital, after all.”
“No. When you came to see me the other day, when you told me I could leave whenever I wanted, I suddenly felt much better.”
“It wasn’t me who said that. It was the doctor.”
“Oh? Maybe I’ve been relying on others too much?”
“Do you think so? I would say the opposite. From my standpoint, it looks to me like you’re far too tough on yourself.”
“No.” Momoko shook her head.
“It’s true.” Aoki smiled. “Well, putting your case aside for a moment, when people see someone who is already tormenting themselves, they’re sometimes drawn to add to that torment. You can substitute the word fate for people, if you prefer. I suppose it does sound rather vulgar to mix and match those two words, but trying to separate our individual fate from the people and the world around us leads only to loneliness and solitude.”
“Oh?” Momoko didn’t know how to respond. “Did you make that speech to my father too?”
“We spoke a little about it.”
“But I don’t torment myself. No, there was a time when I thought that was true, but I don’t know anymore.”
“You don’t like to rely on others, do you?”
Momoko felt her face turning red, burning with embarrassment. “On others? You’ve all done so much for me, but I’m too ashamed to offer my thanks.”
“I didn’t want to bring this up now, but if you go back to Tōkyō like this, I worry you’ll end up taking that mental baggage of yours back with you, your habit of tormenting yourself. You might end up resenting yourself for having gone along with what your father and I planned.”
“I do resent myself. I’m ashamed…” Her voice trailed off.
“You should let others carry that burden.”
Momoko couldn’t answer.
But hadn’t she already pushed it on others?
Now, rather than remorse, it was profound shame that lingered inside her.
If Aoki and her father had played a cunning trick on her, wasn’t she more cunning still for having knowingly gone along with it? Her heart smoldered with a grievous sense of self-loathing for the guile to which, in her desperation, she had consigned herself.
Her father and Aoki, but most of all she herself, were acting as though nothing at all had happened.
The fact that she had allowed Aoki to drag her so meekly to Arashiyama seemed to her a continuation of that feigned indifference.
No woman concerned about her modesty would have agreed to stay at Aoki’s home after being discharged from the hospital. She had surrendered herself, had left everything in the hands of others.
She understood that he was asking her to trust him, to let him handle it all.
She saw plainly how docile she had become to the will of others, unable to offer even token resistance. Her heart was empty. In a way, she even found Aoki’s compassion soothing, and so held tightly to him. But at the same time, his presence was oppressive, like an overcast sky.
“Keita shouldn’t have gone off to die,” he said. “The dead are easily forgiven. Because it’s impossible to chase after them, to reach them, to punish them in any way. It may be a profound truth for those of us who are alive today, who will one day die, that the dead escape condemnation. But it’s fine to put the blame on them. That’s what I think.”
“But…” Momoko began, before falling silent.
Did Keita’s father know, perhaps, what his son had done to her?
“My mother ended her own life too. You must have heard from my father.”
“I know. So let’s lay those sins on Keita and your mother.”
“What sins?” Momoko asked outright.
“All of them. The sufferings of the living.”
“Do you mean to plunge them into hell?”
“Do you want to send Keita to hell?”
“No.” Momoko shook her head.
“You can try so hard not to push your loved ones into hell that you end up falling into it yourself. Sometimes, I find myself thinking that none of our pains, none of our sins, are wholly original. They’re an inheritance, imitations of those who preceded us. Our traditions and customs are all inherited from the dead, don’t you think?”
“Maybe we would be better off as birds? Building identical nests for thousands and thousands of years?”
“Little birds don’t have architects like your father.” Aoki laughed. “Anyway, let’s agree that the fault rests with the dead. I know I apologized to you on Keita’s behalf, but I’ve come to believe it isn’t the responsibility of the living to erase the sins of the dead. Rather, we should think more about giving thanks to each other. At least that’s how it seems to me.”
“Is that why you’re so considerate toward me?”
“Let’s call it that.” Aoki lowered his voice. “Whenever we meet, I always end up mentioning Keita, and that alone makes me want to do whatever I can to help. I would love for you to come snow viewing here in Kyōto with me, and to usher in the new year together. I invited your father to visit on New Year’s Eve, even if only for one night. He did mention how he wanted to hear the ringing of the temple bells in person for once, rather than just over the radio.”
“I’ll try to make a fresh start with him too,” Momoko said offhandedly.
In truth, she was amazed that her father could have returned home while entrusting her to Aoki. Had that been, perhaps, an act of cowardice?
Or had her father left her here in Kyōto so that Asako wouldn’t learn of her pregnancy?
Momoko felt as though she had no home to which to return.
“I might still have Natsuji, but he’s his own man. He can’t replace Keita.” Aoki, it seemed, was still reminiscing over his lost son.
The reflection of a small tree on the riverbank caught Momoko’s eye. It was a web of fine branches, drawn clearly over the water. What kind of tree was it? Above the embankment, its intricate, delicate lines were difficult to distinguish among the surrounding foliage, yet they stood out perfectly on the surface of the river. It was as though she were staring not at a reflection but at a tree growing inside the water. It was just an ordinary tree, and yet it stirred in her such a ghostly feeling.
She was mesmerized by what she saw. “I could never imagine such clear blue water in Tōkyō.”
She looked up and found that the hill opposite was reflected in the water too. The trunks of its many pines were more vivid in hue reflected on the river than they were in the world above.
The earthen walls of the Rinsenji Temple at the foot of the mountains were visible at the base of the pine trees.
“It’s a perfect winter landscape,” Aoki said, staring back at the hill reflected in the water.
“I heard it hailed in Tōkyō the other day. My sister mentioned it in her letter. And there was a rainbow after it stopped hailing. I don’t know exactly where she was, but she was walking along a wide road when a rainbow stretched down in front of her. She said she walked straight toward the middle of it.”
Momoko had gotten the sense while reading the letter that Asako and Natsuji had journeyed toward the rainbow in each other’s company. Indeed, she felt the same way now.
Yet she didn’t tell Natsuji’s father that.
Now she was walking alongside Keita’s father, Natsuji’s father, through a secluded path in Arashiyama; or rather, she found herself reflecting on the chain of events that had brought her here.
The steep stone walls and rock formations of the upper course of the river slowly came into view, enclosed on either side by Mount Arashiyama and Mount Kameyama.
She came to a stop as the path rose into the shade of the trees.
“Shall we turn back?” Aoki asked.
“Yes.”
On the far shore, someone was burning a pile of dry leaves. A cotton flag was waving nearby.
“That’s the Cuckoo. I invited your Kyōto sister to meet us there, after you said you wanted to see her.”
“Oh? She’s there now?” Momoko asked sternly. “Why didn’t you say something? How awful, trying to catch me off guard like that.”
“I’m sorry. I wanted it to be a surprise, but I’ve ended up giving it away ahead of time.”
“You adults are truly incorrigible.”
“Yes, but it isn’t a sure thing she’ll even come. I spoke to her elder sister shortly after noon, but she couldn’t give me a definite answer.”
Momoko held her silence, walking on ahead.
Evening clouds had appeared over Mount Hiei, and the Higashiyama area was shrouded in mist. A thin fog had begun to seep down from the trees of Mount Ogura nearby.
“Oh?” Momoko said aloud, startling the moment that she was shown into the private dining room at the Cuckoo.
So the girl whom she had met at the Miyako Odori had been her sister?
Wakako stared at her sternly.
“Have you met before?” Aoki asked.
“Yes. But I didn’t know at the time.”
Wakako and her mother bowed their heads before Momoko could take her seat.
“Welcome. This is Wakako,” the older woman said, motioning toward the younger. “And I’m Kikue.”
“Mizuhara Momoko.”
Kikue bowed her head again. “On this occasion, I…I’m afraid I’m at a loss for words.”
Aoki moved to fill the uneasy silence, turning to Momoko. “Actually, this is my first time meeting you all as well.”
“You’ve been so kind, truly…I don’t know what I can possibly do to thank you.”
“We’ve met before, so there’s no need, really.” Momoko paused before asking, “You realized who we were when we met at the theater, didn’t you, Wakako?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“The business card you gave Mr. Ōtani.”
“Ah, the child’s father?”
“Yes.”
“And you ran away as soon as you guessed who we were?”
“She didn’t run away,” Kikue said, turning to her daughter in embarrassment. “She was in shock, weren’t you?”
“It’s fine, really. It doesn’t matter. I would probably have done the same thing in her position.”
“No, miss, you wouldn’t have run away. If you had been in Wakako’s place, your heart would have been broken. Even today, she said she was so ashamed she didn’t want to come here. I’m even more mortified, seeing as she didn’t have the heart to come alone.”
“Did you know I wasn’t born in our father’s house either?” Momoko asked frankly.
Kikue, sensing at once that she was referring to the fact that she wasn’t the daughter of her father’s lawful wife, lowered her gaze. “And yet you were raised in that house, miss.”
“Because my mother was dead.”
“Don’t say that. Should I have died too?”
“I wonder. Why don’t we ask Wakako?” Momoko pushed back lightly. “Which would have made you happier?”
“Which indeed?” Kikue responded. “Happiness is a difficult thing. Even if it meant its own sorrows, maybe she would have found it preferable.”
“I wonder. If Wakako was to come live with us…”
“Out of the question! How could you even consider such a thing?”
Kikue was flustered, dismayed by the suggestion. Mizuhara had suggested the same thing that spring, but to hear it broached once more…
Nonetheless, she decided against revealing their encounter at the Daitokuji.
“Please don’t trouble yourself over her. She’s her mother’s child.”
“It’s my sister Asako who keeps dwelling on it. She visited Kyōto alone at the end of last year looking for you.”
“Oh.” Kikue had already heard this from Mizuhara and had informed Wakako too.
“I told her it was for the best she didn’t find you. That we all had our own separate lives.” Momoko glanced at her other sister. “Now that we’ve met each other, do you feel a sisterly bond between us, Wakako?”
Wakako blushed, her head still bowed.
Her lashes and eyebrows were thin and delicate, her eyes light brown in hue, though her hair seemed somehow wispy. Momoko realized that she had said something cruel.
“This isn’t your first meeting,” Kikue remarked.
With that prompt, Wakako spoke up. “I realized you were my sister when we met at the theater six months ago. I’ve held that image in my heart ever since. I’ve dreamed about calling you my sisters.”
“Please do. For Asako’s sake, at least. She would have been so happy if she had known the truth back then. You saw how much she doted on the baby you were helping look after.”
“Yes. Mr. Ōtani was moved too,” Wakako said.
“I think Asako was moved by him.” Momoko laughed.
“Mr. Ōtani was indeed impressed,” Kikue said. “And Wakako’s eyes were positively sparkling after she came back from the theater that day. She kept on telling me what sweet, beautiful young ladies her sisters were. She couldn’t even sleep that night. I said she was lucky to meet you. I really did think it was for the best. Of course, she doesn’t have the same social standing you both do, and she’ll have to find her own way to ford the river of life. But when she encounters pain and hardship, the thought of her sisters in Tōkyō should bring her some consolation. I can’t speak for her feelings, but I suppose they must be similar to mine on that count. Mr. Mizuhara and I…well, he left me a long time ago, but it was my reverence for him that helped me to ford these currents by myself.” Kikue was moved to tears. “Wakako doesn’t need to join her Tōkyō sisters, or confide in them. It’s enough just to know they’re kind and beautiful.”
Momoko had difficulty deciding her next words. “Has she met Father recently?”
“Not since she was little. Maybe twelve or thirteen years ago.”
“Oh?”
“We went to admire the camellias at the Daitokuji. You weren’t old enough to walk yet,” Kikue said, turning to her daughter.
“I don’t remember.”
“You should meet our father,” Momoko declared.
Kikue bowed her head. “Thank you for saying that, but we don’t want to bother him. Now that we’ve had the pleasure of meeting you, we’ll wait for him to call on us. We can’t have you embarrass yourself, Wakako.”
Momoko remained silent.
Kikue, remembering how her daughter’s eyes had filled with tears when she had seen her off on her way to meet her father at the Daitokuji, found her own eyes growing moist.
Aoki called the maid over and asked her to bring out the meal.
“How about a toast between sisters?” he suggested.
“Yes,” Momoko agreed reluctantly. “But how strange. Three sisters, each born to different mothers.”
Nonetheless, she took her cup in her hands and glanced up at Wakako, urging her to do likewise.
Her sister, however, didn’t move.
“What’s wrong? Have I offended you?”
Wakako shook her head, but still she didn’t reach for her cup.
Kikue watched on without prevailing on her daughter. “Living in a neighborhood of geisha, perhaps she doesn’t like toasts?”
“Oh? Then let’s dispense with the theatrics,” Momoko said, setting her own cup down.
Kikue had come out with a clever excuse, but Momoko doubted that Wakako truly felt that way.
In any case, her sister’s refusal to accept the cup had struck her as deeply pure and fervent.
“I suppose we should wait until Father can see us both,” Momoko said, rising to her feet. “The sun must be setting over Mount Arashiyama around now.”
She slid open the shōji screen.
From beyond the winter-stripped trees, she could make out the soft murmur of the river.