Fish of the Seto Inland Sea

Shobei folded his arms. He was not reflecting on what his wife had just said. He was simply impressed.

The duty of telling Haruko about the adoption fell on Tei-ichi.

‘You know your Rinji ojisan and Tetsu obasan, don’t you?’ Tei-ichi began.

Haruko had never seen her uncle except at formal family gatherings. The furtiveness of his demeanour as he talked to elderly relatives was plain even to the children. Beside Shintaro he had always been an undistinguished son and a mediocre brother. For the children, he had never been a respected uncle nor a friend.

The relationship between his wife and the children was even more vague. With the sensitivity of the young, they felt she was not quite one of them. Haruko once heard grandmother Miwa say to Tetsu, ‘Tetsu san, wear your kimono a little longer. The mistress of the Miwa branch family has to look graceful.’

Haruko noticed that Tetsu wore her kimono as Shige and Kiyo did, showing her ankles, while Miwa obahsama and Ayako wore theirs long so that the hem almost touched the floor. Only the white toes of their tabi were seen peeping in and out as they walked.

Interpreting Haruko’s silence as expectancy of what was coming, Tei-ichi pressed on.

‘As you know very well, Rinji ojisan and Tetsu obasan do not have children, and they want someone to succeed them. Miwa ojisama thought that you would be a very good person to become their child and carry on their name.’

Haruko was bewildered and stared at Tei-ichi. She did not understand.

In spite of himself, Tei-ichi felt uneasy as his granddaughter gazed at him.

Haruko did not look as though she was going to be tall and slender like Ayako. She would be more like Kei, dainty and lively, but she had inherited her mother’s eyes. They were large and liquid, and the fold of her eyelid was not common among the people around them.

He looked away. He felt that he was unable to explain to a ten-year-old why it was advantageous for the family to inherit Rinji’s property. It was too pragmatic for the innocent.

‘It will be to Shuichi’s advantage in the future,’ he said, and felt the remark struck a chord.

Haruko did not understand why becoming Rinji’s child would help Shuichi, but the children were not in the habit of asking questions of grown-ups.

‘Of course, your Rinji ojisan’s house is not far away, and you don’t have to stay there all the time. Even your surname is not going to change. It is just that when you grow up, you will succeed him.’

‘Do I have to call them otohsan and okahsan?’ Haruko asked anxiously.

‘No, you don’t have to, if you don’t want to.’

She had not grasped the full implications and Tei-ichi’s tone was reassuring. She could do nothing but trust her grandfather.

‘For Shu-chan’s sake, I will do it.’

‘Thank you,’ Tei-ichi said solemnly.

As Haruko came out of her grandfather’s study, she saw Ayako sitting on the verandah. The sun was shining on her thick coiled hair, making it look deep purple. She was bending over a cloth spread on her lap and peeling a persimmon. More fruit lay in a shallow bamboo basket placed near her. Sachiko and Shuichi were sitting on either side of her. Sachiko moved closer to her mother and made a place for Haruko on the same zabuton.

Ayako had a kitchen knife in her right hand and skilfully turned round and round a persimmon held in her left hand. An orange ribbon grew longer and longer and hung from her hand. When the fruit was peeled, she cut it into four pieces, put them on a plate and stuck a toothpick into each one.

As she handed the plate around, a waft of clean gourd water scent that Kei made for the family as a lotion passed over the children.

Ayako picked up the last piece left on the plate and ate it herself.

‘Very sweet,’ she said smiling at the children. She picked up the peel from her lap and put it in the basket. Then she bent down again to peel another fruit.

‘M-m-m,’ Shuichi uttered. Ayako put down the persimmon she was holding and held out her palm to let Shuichi spit out a stone. She wiped her hand with the cloth and picked up the fruit again.

Haruko suddenly thought that it was unfair that she was to be taken away from her family while the other children could live peacefully in such a loving atmosphere. Why did she alone have to go to her uncle’s house when she hardly knew him?

‘I have to go and live with Rinji ojisan,’ she said, and unexpectedly tears started to roll down her cheeks. They were warm and salty. Ayako looked up.

Sachiko said, ‘Why?’ and started to cry herself. ‘Oh, no, I don’t want you to go away,’ she wailed.

‘I don’t want you to go away, either,’ Shuichi cried, too.

Ayako put down the knife and said, ‘Look, you don’t have to go, if you don’t want to. Don’t cry,’ and put her arms around the three children, holding them tight. ‘There is nothing sad about it. It is to keep our family together. There is nothing to worry about at all. God will be with us always.’

Desperation surged through Haruko. She felt the helplessness of her mother without realising it. Still in his mother’s arms, Shuichi stroked Haruko’s hand. She smiled at him. She had to go to Rinji ojisan’s house. She would go because that would help Shuichi.

In Rinji’s house, there were no thick pillars blackened by time and polished by generations of hands like the Miwas’ main house or the Shirais’. Each room was elaborately decorated but small.

‘Come this way,’ Rinji said, and took Haruko to a tiny room built into the garden. ‘Use this as your own. See, you have your own room. Pleased?’ and he left her.

She sat on the tatami floor. Takeko would not be able to stay here, she thought, as she imagined how dark and quiet it would be at night. She untied the furoshiki she had brought with her and, since there was no desk, spread her school books in front of her. Crouching, she opened them.

As it was getting dark and cold, Tetsu came.

‘We will eat now,’ she said, and led the way to the kitchen. A simple meal of rice, miso soup and cooked beans was ready for two. A bowl of pickles was in the centre of the table. Tetsu ate without speaking. She picked up a piece of pickle with her chopsticks and noisily crunched it. Kei and Ayako would certainly frown. It was good manners to take a piece from the bowl into your own plate and eat it. When Tetsu finished eating, she poured tea into her rice bowl. At the Shirais’, tea was served in a tea cup.

‘I will show you how to wash up,’ Tetsu said. Haruko had never done any washing up and she noticed that Rinji and Tetsu did not have maids. Getting water from the well was not easy, but she felt grown up. When the washing up was done, Tetsu followed Haruko to her room and showed her where the futons were kept. Obviously Haruko was not going to be given a lamp and there was nothing to do but to go to bed.

She wondered how Sachiko was. Neither of them had ever slept alone. Sachiko had a habit of wetting her bed, and she often crawled into Haruko’s bed early in the morning. When Ayako was away and the wind woke them up, all three children slept huddled under one cover. What would Sachiko do? When Shuichi woke up in the middle of the night with nightmares, would Kei be able to hear him scream and sob?

The sliding door was opened and a man’s voice said, ‘You have to get up.’ Haruko jumped out of bed. At the Shirais’, Kiyo softly called them from outside before she came into the room. Each child had a shallow box into which Ayako or Kei would put the clothes they needed for the day. Haruko found that she had gone to bed without changing. She had to go to school in a wrinkled kimono. It was grey and cold. She shivered.

‘From today, you are a child of this family,’ Rinji said. ‘You have to learn lots of things. To get up early is the first important thing. One shouldn’t be idle. Now, the first duty of the day is to clean the verandah.’

‘Children have to be disciplined,’ he had told Tetsu. ‘The worst thing that can happen to a child is to be spoilt.’ He was determined to educate Haruko to be an obedient and hard-working woman capable of managing a house.

Tetsu came out with a bucket of water and a floor cloth and left them in front of Haruko without speaking.

‘I will show you how to clean the floor,’ Rinji said. In front of the astonished Haruko, he knelt down on the floor with his knees apart and his heels together. Supporting himself on his spread-out left hand, he moved the cloth with his right hand from left to right and then, having turned the cloth upside down, wiped the boards this time right to left. He continued this way gradually going backwards. His bottom swayed rhythmically with the motion and Haruko thought it was most undignified. It was comical, too. It was something that she certainly had to tell Sachiko. Ayako would smile and Kei would laugh, Haruko was sure.

In what period of his life had Rinji taken up cleaning the floor, Haruko wondered. She had never seen a man doing housework. At the Shirais’ even Matabei, who did almost everything else, was not expected to clean inside the house.

She received the cloth from Rinji and tried to wash and wring it as he did. The water was icy, and she thought of Tetsu’s large hands. When the cloth was soaked with water, it was too voluminous for the child’s hands to wring it. It was heavy and dripping.

‘Watch it!’ Rinji shouted. ‘Water will mark the floor. Wring it tight. Tighter. Tighter. I will teach you how to sweep the rooms after breakfast.’

Haruko was alarmed. ‘I must go to school,’ she said. Already it was getting late.

‘You don’t have to go to school today,’ Rinji told her. ‘We have more important things for a girl to do.’

Haruko had to dust the sliding screens. She had to polish shelves and sweep the tatami floor. All morning, the house was quiet except for the noise Haruko was making.

Rinji had very few visitors. At the Shirais’, there were always lots of people coming and going. First of all there were patients. Then there were relatives. Merchants called. The most popular merchant among the children was a man from the cake shop in town who came a couple of times a week. He brought a shallow box slung round his neck. The box was neatly sectioned and in each little square, there was a sample of an exquisite cake. They were mostly rice or bean-based and not only tasty but had lovely colours and shapes. Their names were artistic, too, ‘Spring Rain’, ‘Shower of Petals’, ‘Autumn Mist’, ‘Chrysanthemum in the Evening Sun’, ‘Dawn’, and many more. The samples of cake changed according to the season. The cake man would be given a cup of tea while Kei was deciding what to order. The children often sat around hoping that their grandmother’s choice would fall on their favourites.

The tofu man called every day as Tei-ichi had a piece for dinner with ginger and spring onions. Kei made a special citron and soya sauce for that dish. The man carried a pole across his shoulders with a tub hung from either end. He had a little brass trumpet that he would let the children blow if Tei-ichi was not looking. In summer, a goldfish man would call and, from her brocade purse, Ayako would give the children money.

Once a year in the autumn, a man came from Kyoto with a large bundle on his back. Even if it was a chilly day, he wiped his bald head with a folded handkerchief when he put down his load in the living room.

‘Are you all well? Dannasama and young dannasama as well?’ he would inquire politely. He brought silk. It was not the sort of material which Kei bought for daily kimonos; the silk was for special occasions such as New Year’s Day when they had to dress up. The kimono dealer held the end of rolled material and, with a flip of his arm, spread lengths of cloth one after another across the tatami floor. Kei and Ayako would be deep in consultation, discussing and examining each piece.

‘I thought this would particularly suit young Miwa okusama,’ the man would say to Ayako. To Kei, he said, ‘Since you have given me such long patronage, I will make it as cheap as possible. If you just stand, please, allow me.’ He draped a long and narrow cloth over Kei’s shoulder.

‘What do you think, young Miwa okusama?’

Then they began to discuss the linings to go with the kimono material.

Kei and Ayako usually bought several pieces of material for the whole family, and, finally, presents for the servants were put aside as well.

Only the tofu man came to Rinji’s house.

On the fourth day after Haruko arrived at Rinji’s, Matabei came early in the morning bringing some fish and vegetables as presents.

That evening, Haruko was washing rice by the well at the back of the house. She heard a whisper, ‘Haruko nesan.’ At first she thought it was her imagination. She was thinking of Sachiko and home. It was icy cold. She felt miserable and homesick.

‘Haruko nesan.’ It was Sachiko calling her from behind the hedge.

‘Quick!’ Sachiko said. ‘I came to get you. Let’s go home!’

Involuntarily, Haruko looked around. ‘I’ll get my school things.’ She tiptoed into her room and got all her books and pencils. She left her clothes.

Matabei had heard from the tofu man of Haruko’s plight and, having been there himself, told Kei and Ayako.

‘Poor Haruko ojosama! Please being her home. She is too young and the dansama of the branch family does not know how to treat children. After all, he has no experience with them.’

Kei and Ayako were already concerned as Sachiko had been telling them of Haruko’s absence from school.

While the grown-ups were discussing how to deal with the situation, Sachiko heard them and decided to rescue her sister.

The two girls hurried out of the gate. Once outside, they ran. Evening stars were beginning to appear in the pale blue sky. After a while they were out of breath and stopped. Their cheeks were red but their hands were cold.

‘Haruko nesan,’ Sachiko said. Haruko took Sachiko’s hand and they walked home.

That night, Matabei carried a lantern and hurried back along the same path. He had two letters from Tei-ichi to deliver, one, a letter of explanation to Shobei, and the other, a letter of apology to Rinji.

6

Haruko’s Uncles

The drama was soon forgotten in the excitement of the approaching New Year’s celebration and Haruko’s uncle Yasuharu’s home-coming for a holiday from Tokyo.

Tei-ichi was just as pleased as the others to see his son but, to maintain his dignity, he made himself look specially glum on the day of Yasuharu’s arrival. Even so, he could not keep himself away from the rest of the household.

‘Kei.’ He came out from the consulting room. ‘Yasu might like a hot bath after a long journey.’

‘Yes,’ Kei replied. ‘Mata san has it ready.’

‘Hum! One does not want to make a fuss, but I thought it was essential.’

After ten minutes, he came out again.

‘Kei, what are we having tonight? He is coming home just for a holiday. You don’t have to make anything special. Get the front path swept, will you? One’s front garden always has to be clean whether Yasu comes home or not.’

In the afternoon, Matabei brought round a cart. The children crowded around it and walked to the station with him. When Yasuharu appeared at the ticket barrier with a porter behind him, the children shrieked, ‘Yasu ojisama!’ The station master came out from his office to greet him. Passengers who got down from the same train bowed and wished him a good holiday before they parted.

A rickshaw was ready for Yasuharu. Shuichi sat on the cart with the luggage and the rest of the children sometimes ran in front, sometimes dragged behind, chatting and laughing.

The front gate of the Shirais’ was wide open. Yasuharu was to enter the house from the formal open porch and not through the back entrance. The eldest son was the next important person to Tei-ichi in the family and Kei made sure that all the formalities were observed. The members of the household gathered at the front porch to welcome him home. Tei-ichi stayed in his study.

When Yasuharu went in to greet his father, Tei-ichi said, ‘Oh, is it you?’ and, as though he had just remembered that his son was coming home, turned round from his open book. ‘How are you? You look well.’

‘Thank you, otohsan. I am very well. I am glad you are keeping well, too.’

After formal exchanges, Tei-ichi released Yasuharu saying, ‘You must be tired after your long journey. I understand there is a bath ready for you. Relax and let’s hear your news later.’

Yasuharu always brought back lots of presents. For his nieces, there were little silk pouches. Takeko was given a pair of red patent leather zori, a pair of sandals.

‘Let’s see.’ Kei and Ayako admired them. As may be expected, anything you buy in Tokyo is very well made.’ Both women turned the zori and examined them.

‘Isn’t it a lovely colour, okahsan,’ Ayako said to Kei, and eventually to Takeko, ‘Put them away carefully. You can wear them on New Year’s Day when we go and see Miwa oji-isama and obahsama,’ and the sandals were given back to Takeko.

They admired Shuichi’s kaleidoscope, an English dictionary for Hideto, ribbons and hair ornaments and pencil cases, water pistols and toy boats. ‘How nice!’ the women exclaimed. He would bring appropriate presents for Kei and Ayako and the servants.

When everybody was happy, Yasuharu said, ‘Haruko, I hear you had quite an adventure. This is specially for a brave girl,’ and he gave her a book. It was thin but about twenty centimetres wide and three times as long. On a glossy green cover, three bears in European clothes were dancing together. The title was written across the cover but Haruko could not read it.

Inside there were more beautiful illustrations of three bears and a girl. She had blue eyes, and golden hair like the Russian soldier whom Haruko had seen on the beach.

The next day, another family member arrived. Tei-ichi’s younger brother, Haruko’s great-uncle, had gone to a Buddhist temple as a novice when he was a little boy. It was the traditional way for a boy of intelligence to be educated. He had become a priest of high position. With a shaven head and wearing a simple black robe, the venerable man would visit his old home to pray for the ancestral spirits. He was always accompanied by a young novice who looked after him.

Villagers came to pay their respects to him one after another, then they went round to the back of the house and asked for his bath water. No one knew how it had started but the belief was that if one drank this noble priest’s bath water, it would purify the mind and keep the body healthy.

Tei-ichi told them off whenever he found out.

‘Holy Man? Don’t be ridiculous. I have told you before. What a disgusting idea. Matabei, empty the bath tub immediately. Drinking bath water, indeed. You will all die of cholera one day.’

‘They still come for your uncle’s bath water,’ Kei said to Yasuharu. ‘Country folk are so superstitious.’

Yasuharu laughed indulgently. He knew that his mother was also full of odd ideas.

‘Do you remember the Takanos of Miura village?’ The talk of superstition gave Kei the chance she had been waiting for. ‘Their son Fusataro san was at school with you.’

‘Ah, Fusatan.’ Yasuharu involuntarily resorted to the childhood nickname. ‘A very nice guy. He went to Waseda University. I met him in Tokyo by chance some time ago, and we had a meal together.’

‘He is the representative of his village now and comes often to see otohsan. Both of them are very keen on the problem of diet and sanitation.’

‘Oh, that’s good. I want to go and see him one day.’

As the conversation was going in the direction that she wanted, Kei was encouraged.

‘You know Fusataro san has a younger sister.’

Yasuharu said he did not remember, and now realised what was coming.

‘Okahsan,’ he said, ‘I am not against marriage. On the contrary, I know it is important for me to marry.’

He then told Kei that his world was no longer confined to Kitani village or to the prefecture. For that matter, his horizon was beyond Japan.

‘The Ministry of Education has set up a scholarship for medical researchers to go to Germany and study. I haven’t talked to otohsan, yet, but I am thinking of applying for it in a few years’ time. I will get his consent when I know better what I am doing. You see, okahsan, there are things that I want to achieve before I am saddled with responsibilities.’

The news that Yasuharu planned to go abroad did not shock Kei unduly because, in her mind, the distance between Kitani village and Germany was not much further than that between Kitani village and Tokyo. She accepted his view on marriage calmly, and embraced his ambition. Yasuharu told her that he wanted to specialise in ophthalmology and the study of trachoma.

‘Oh, Yasuharu san.’ She was pleased. ‘How marvellous! Go to Germany or anywhere and study as much and as long as you need. When you come home, you can cure Yone san, Katsu’s okahsan, Ken san of the Matsudos and ... oh, they will be so relieved.’

‘Okahsan, it will be a long time before anyone can cure Yone san and everybody else,’ Yasuharu told her in haste. He was horrified to imagine that when he came home next time, there would be a queue of villagers and their friends and relatives waiting for him to cure their trachoma.

‘It does not matter. I will be a good mother for the doctor of trachoma and wait until the time comes.’

‘Can I be a doctor, too?’ Haruko suddenly said from the corner of the room. As she had been quietly looking at her new book, both Kei and Yasuharu had forgotten that she was there. Some of her schoolfriends had eyes caked with mucus. Although she did not know what they were suffering from, the Miwa children were warned by Kei not to hold these friends’ hands.

‘I want to be a doctor and cure people,’ she said. Her grandfather wore a white apron to see his patients, but her uncle wore a smart white coat when he helped grandfather. She had thought that she would become a teacher, but being a doctor seemed more interesting and exciting.

Kei looked at Haruko affectionately and smiled. ‘Oh, what an idea! Girls cannot be doctors. It’s a man’s job. But you will be a lovely bride one day like your okahsan, won’t you?’

It seemed the new year opened a new page for the Shirai family. On the seventh of January, it was the custom to have rice gruel with seven kinds of herbs for breakfast. In the mountain areas, people often had to look for tiny shoots under the snow. On the fifteenth, to mark the end of the New Year’s celebration, they had rice gruel with red beans. The battledore and shuttlecock that girls played, and the kites that boys flew, were all put away.

As if he had been waiting for the holiday season to end, Tei-ichi announced, ‘Kei, I will stand as candidate to be a member of the Prefectural Assembly.’

Kei received the news calmly. For men, the world was changing and progressing, but her role remained the same. She accepted and gave support as always.

She had heard Tei-ichi say many times that hygiene was more important than medicine – ‘The way they live, it is a miracle they don’t get ill’ – and he had been excited about a plan for a health-care centre.