“The truth is,” Unaiko began, “I heard from Asa that you’re planning to go home this summer after a long absence. I gather you’ll be staying in the Forest House, so Asa wanted to give the place a thorough cleaning well in advance. She asked whether the younger members of our troupe — the Caveman Group — might be willing to lend a hand, and of course we happily agreed. But anyway, while we were all working together, we got to hear about the reason for your return. Apparently Asa has been holding on to a certain red leather trunk your mother left in her custody before she passed away, and since this year is the tenth anniversary of your mother’s death, that trunk can now be given to you. Also, Asa said you would most likely pick up where you left off on a book you started many years ago, and that you’d be making use of the stuff in that trunk. She spoke of the book as the ‘drowning novel,’ and I gathered that it begins with an account of what happened one night when the river near your village overflowed its banks.
“Since you’ll be coming home in any case, Asa said she thought you would also do some research for your book around the area — location scouting, as the filmmakers say. She also mentioned that since Masao Anai knows all your work by heart and is in the process of writing a play based on some of your books, he could lend a hand with your research, and vice versa. And she suggested that the other members of our troupe might be able to help out, too, not just with cleaning and other chores but with brain-powered tasks as well. Masao is a different story, of course — he’s supersmart — but I have to wonder whether the rest of us would be very useful with brainwork.” (Even while she was issuing this faux-modest disclaimer, the girl looked as though she had absolute confidence in her own abilities.) “In any case, we were overjoyed at the prospect of getting to work with you and hopefully being able to help. But you’ve probably heard about this already, from Asa?”
“Yes,” I said, “I have spoken with Asa about spending some time in the Forest House, to sort through some things she’s been hanging on to for all these years — a prologue I drafted, and some notes, plus some odds and ends having to do with my father. We did discuss the possibility of ‘location scouting’ for the drowning novel on and around the river. And yes, I have heard her mention the Caveman Group.”
The girl looked thoughtful. “Before I left, Masao kept saying things like ‘Listen, Unaiko, on the chance you manage to meet up with Mr. Choko in Tokyo, make sure you don’t come on too strong. If you do, he may just dig in his heels and refuse to budge.’ Masao knows me pretty well, and I guess he was worried I might mess things up by being overly aggressive. But I was only thinking I’d like to have a chance to tell you in person that all of us in the Caveman Group are wishing and hoping your visit will come to pass.” And then she added in a burst of candor, “Please forgive me for saying this again, but I can’t help feeling what happened at the lamppost was a wonderful stroke of luck, at least for me, because it gave us a chance to talk like this, face-to-face.”
We had come to a halt in front of a horizontal steel pipe that served as a barrier to keep vehicles out, at the juncture where the cycling path intersects a busy city street. This was where I would normally start trudging homeward, up the slope. The bumps beside my ear and on my forehead had continued to swell, and as I was pressing on them gingerly with the fingers of one hand, I ventured another explanation.
“This walking course goes along both banks of the canal, and the two sides are joined by a bridge. Needless to say, depending on the person, it could also be used as a running or jogging course. But if you’re going to have an accidental encounter, the options are limited: you can bump into another person who’s approaching from the front, or you can pass someone, or you can be overtaken from behind. If you had come toward me from the opposite direction and it had been obvious you were targeting me, I would probably have passed by without a word even if you had called out a greeting. On the other hand, when someone creeps up from behind there’s even more of a feeling of pressure, and I wouldn’t have been likely to respond in a friendly way in that case, either. I agree that my collision with the lamppost must have had some deeper significance because I, too, am glad we’ve had this chance to talk. Well then, this is where I take my leave. Please tell Asa to give me a call.”
At that, I started to walk toward the uphill road that led to my house. But instead of taking the social cue and saying good-bye, the girl asked me a question. She seemed suddenly preoccupied, and a subtle change in her facial expression appeared to reflect some interior reverie.
“This is about something completely different,” she said, “but I heard that your old French literature professor at Tokyo University translated an epic novel from the sixteenth century — is that right? And apparently the book contains an episode about a man who uses a crazed bunch of dogs to create some kind of riot in Paris?”
“That’s right,” I said. “The book you’re referring to is The Life of Gargantua and Pantagruel, by Rabelais. The first volume of what is, indeed, a monumental novel, is called simply Pantagruel. The title character is one of a race of giants, and in one chapter his favorite retainer, Panurge, plays a prank on an aristocratic lady who rejected his attempts to court her. According to the story, Panurge found a female dog in heat and fed her all sorts of delicacies, presumably to enhance her sexual energy. Then he killed the dog and took a certain, um, something out of her insides. He mashed it up, stuffed the resulting pulp into the pocket of his greatcoat, and off he went. He tracked down the snooty Parisian lady and furtively smeared the substance on her dress: on the sleeves, in the folds of the skirt, and so on. Of course, the aroma attracted a huge crowd of male dogs. They all came running and leaped on the lady, and the result was a very unseemly sort of mayhem. I mean, you can imagine what would happen if ‘more than 600,014’ male dogs — the story gives the exact number — were whipped into a frenzy.”
“If the first dog, the one that was killed, was a female, what on earth did the retainer take out of her, um, insides?”
“Well … this is a bit awkward. I mean, it isn’t the sort of word I feel comfortable introducing into a conversation with a young woman I’ve only just met.” I was truly flustered by the question, but at the same time I was also pleasantly reminded of Professor Musumi’s transported expression and exuberant manner of speaking whenever he was illuminating some arcane point for his students. Trying to emulate my late mentor’s happily didactic spirit, I did my best to explain, as delicately as possible, one of the footnotes from my late mentor’s translation of the famous medieval novel.
“It was the uterus of the female dog,” I said. “That organ has been known to scholars since Greek times for its medicinal properties, and I’ve read that medieval sorcerers also used it as an ingredient in magical love potions.”
Without saying another word the girl gave a slight bow, then turned and walked away. I felt curiously refreshed and amused, and I also realized that the request from Unaiko and her colleagues in the Caveman Group had made me much more inclined to act on Asa’s invitation to return to Shikoku, after all these years, and explore the contents of the red leather trunk.
Chapter 1. Enter the Caveman Group
1
Asa picked me up at Matsuyama Airport in her car, and as we drove she shared some local news.
“The young folks from the Caveman Group were delighted to hear you’ll be staying at the Forest House for a while,” she began. “The head of the theater group, Masao Anai, was especially happy and relieved. Apparently when he found out that Unaiko — who, of course, is a very important part of the group — had made an arbitrary decision to go to Tokyo to talk to you directly, he was worried the whole thing might fall apart.