Will the sun still rise
And the birds still sing if I
Do not know of them?
I had no way of knowing if Anzu’s prediction about the heat of the summer was correct or not.
It seemed to me that I slept deeply. My dreams were bad for the whole of that long, long night. There was pain, pain that almost—but never quite—brought me to full wakefulness. I couldn’t understand it, but whenever the pain got so bad that I screamed in my sleep, somebody held a cup of hot liquid to my lips and kept it there until I drank it. The liquid tasted almost like tea but carried an undertone of sweet muskiness that helped it to slip down my throat easily. After a while, I began to like the strange tea very much, as when I drank it the pain went away, for a while at least.
Apart from the pain, there was also terror. People loomed over me, staring down at me with worried faces. People I knew well, but who were somehow distorted. Their familiar faces wavering until, had I had enough breath, I would have begged them to keep still. Father and Anzu, even on one occasion Mother. Other people I thought I recognized but who I could never quite put a name to. I desperately wanted all these visitors to speak to me, but they never did. Occasionally, I heard them whispering when they moved away from my futon, and I tried so very hard to call out to them, to ask them to tell me what they were saying, but they never did.
Anzu was my constant companion. Whenever I clawed my way up from the depths of my sleep, I knew she was at my side without opening my eyes. I could smell her. Always she carried with her a sweet, rather musky odor that recalled memories I had thought long forgotten. Memories of the time when I was very, very young when she would sing nonsense rhymes to me and coax me to eat my rice when I wanted nothing more than to be out in the bright sunshine. If I had resented her preventing me from escaping then, now I hated her for it.
In my muddy thoughts, I was sure that it was Anzu who was keeping me beneath my kakebuton when I wanted to throw it off and run outside into the sweet fresh air. I know I fought her sometimes, pushing and shoving at her to throw her to one side and weeping at my own pathetic lack of strength.
Far, far worse was being washed from head to toe by my faithful amah. The touch of the wet sponge was hateful. It made my skin burn as if the sponge had been dipped in boiling water. It was agony when she turned me over. I wanted her to go away, to leave me alone. What did it matter if I went unwashed for a single day? When I awoke from this terrible dream, I would visit the bathhouse and let the hot water wash away my dirt.
And more terrible than anything were the occasions when I half-awoke and found I was lying on a wet patch. I knew my bladder had betrayed me in my sleep when that happened and I cried and cried, hating the weakness that had caused me to become a helpless babe again. I hated it even more when Anzu rolled me over gently and pulled my bedding from beneath me, somehow tugging me back when she had replaced the soiled shikibuton with a fresh one smelling deliciously of jako.
Anzu was at my side whenever I cried out, whenever I so much as opened my eyes. She must, I thought, be sleeping at the foot of my futon for her to be with me so promptly. I found the knowledge disturbing, as I couldn’t understand why she felt the need to be close to me again, as she had been when I was a young child.
It was a long night. A night that was so very long that even in my confusion I began to wonder if something was very wrong. But the thought never stayed long enough to take root as the fever claimed me time and time again and I slipped away into its hot, demanding grip.
Mine was not a sudden awakening. Rather, very gradually, I became aware of who I was once again. I felt light on my closed eyelids. Light that lacked the intense, humid heat of summer. Light that sat easily on my sore eyelids and felt soothing. I wanted to open my eyes, and that surprised me.
It seemed to me that during the long night that I had been asleep it had been far better to keep my eyes closed in case the monsters that had chased me in my sleep were actually there at my side. But now, the temptation called to me, and I took my courage in my hands and tried to open my closed lids.
But I could not. My eyes were sealed shut, and no amount of effort could pry them apart. I found this deeply distressing and I cried out loud. I was startled by the sound of my own voice. It was so high-pitched, I thought it was the cry of a seagull battling against the wind.
“Mi-chan, lie still.” Anzu’s voice. But not the annoying, persistent voice that had echoed in my dreams. She sounded firm, almost commanding. I wanted to laugh at her overbearing tone, but suddenly I found it was an effort to breathe, and I had to concentrate on that instead.
I was annoyed. This would not do at all. With a huge effort, I forced air into my lungs and spoke in a rush, my words running into each other in my haste to get them out while I still could.
“Anzu, is it morning? Have I overslept? Has Father gone to Edo without me?”
“It is morning, Mi-chan. You have slept for a very long time, but do not worry. You have been very ill, but you will get better now.”
Something hot and wet dripped on my face. I licked it away with my tongue and it was salty. For a moment, my memory refused to tell me what it was, then I understood from the huskiness of her voice that Anzu was crying, and it was her tears that were falling on my face.
I was bewildered, but still one thing above all was important to me and I persisted. “Has Father gone, Anzu? Did he ask for me?”
“Kono-san has not been here for some time, Mi-chan. You…you have been asleep for a very long time. Be still. I will send a messenger for the physician, and I will bring you some tea. Would you like something to eat?”
Her tone was the soothing coo of a mother comforting a very small child. I was bewildered—what need did I have of a physician? I rubbed my eyes fiercely, but still I could see nothing. Suddenly, I understood Anzu’s concern. Somehow, I had gone blind in the night. That was why she wanted the physician to attend me.
“Anzu! I cannot see! What has happened?”
Anzu clucked at me—it was a sound of distress I had heard many times over the years. It was the noise she reserved for when I worried her. When I insisted on going out on my pony when a storm threatened. When I returned home and showed her a particularly bad graze or cut. Suddenly, I remembered her making that noise on the day I had dislocated my shoulder so very long ago. Had I done something equally silly now, only this time to my eyes? I was distressed at the thought and rubbed my eyes fiercely.
“Mi-chan, keep still. I will help you.”
I felt a warm, wet sponge being rubbed very gently across my eyes. I tried to blink again, but my eyes were still glued shut.
“You’re not doing any good.” I sounded petulant and I was immediately sorry. Anzu was clearly doing her best to help me.
I found that speaking the few words had left me short of breath and I was forced to keep quiet as Anzu scrubbed again and again at my eyes.
“Try and open your eyes again, Mi-chan,” she said after a while.
I did as she instructed, but as soon as my eyes opened, I shut them again. The light was so very bright it was painful.
Anzu moaned with me and jerked to her feet. I could tell from the sound of her movements that she was pulling a shoji shut. She kneeled back at my side and spoke encouragingly.
“Try again, Mi-chan.”
I opened my eyes a fraction at a time. They felt very gritty, and I rubbed at them carefully, feeling something brittle between my fingers. I was relieved. This had happened to me before. My eyes must have watered in my sleep and the tears had hardened and glued my eyes together. Anzu’s sponge had solved the problem. I wanted to laugh out loud with delight at the ease of it—I was not blind. How very silly I had been to think something so bad could have happened to me.
I stared around in delight and then blinked.
The light was all wrong. Yesterday had been bright and sunny. The sun had set reluctantly, giving promise of another hot, clear day. But even through the shoji I could see that the weather was cloudy, and my bedroom was so cool I shivered and drew the kakebuton around my shoulders.
“I will leave you for just a moment.” Anzu got to her feet and winced as her knee cracked. I stretched and winced with her as sympathetic pain shot through my left leg. “When I come back, I will bring you some tea.”
I lay back and watched her scurry away, her feet making crisp patting noises on the woodblock floor.
While Anzu had been with me, I had resisted the desire to feel my body, particularly my left leg, which seemed to be lifeless. I knew she was watching my every move, and if I showed the least sign of distress, she would cluck over me like a mother hen, which in turn would annoy me and make me feel worse. I was sure there was something wrong with my leg. No matter how I tried to move it, I had no sensation in it. Had I laid on it too long and it had gone to sleep and not awakened with the rest of me? I supposed I must have had a restless night. My skin felt as if it was as wrinkled as my shikibuton, and my bones ached as if I had woken up an old woman.
It was silly, I knew, but as soon as Anzu had gone I was reluctant to even touch my left leg. Instead, I began with my face and started to work downward.
My face felt alright, although the skin seemed rather dry to me. My hair, on the other hand, felt horribly greasy. I would wash it carefully in the bath as soon as I rose, before I even thought about eating. I ran my hands down my body and was relieved to discover that my stomach seemed to be in good order.
Obviously, I had allowed my night frights to affect me far more than was good for me. I was smiling at my own foolishness as I stretched luxuriously. My right leg moved.
For all my efforts, the only thing my left thigh did was cramp. Hard. The pain was so unexpected and severe that I screamed.