The book lies in the water.
It glows as the sky darkens.
From outside the water the book cannot be read.
The monk leaps into the water to read the book.
And he drowns.
He sinks beneath the water and sees not a splinter of
the moon.
He sees the splinters of the reflection.
When the monk leaps into the water the image on its
surface shatters.
The girl squatted down, stretched out her arms toward the book and tried to reach it. The soil beneath her feet was soft and subsided, and the water was much deeper than it had appeared. The girl fell into the cold water and drowned. That night there was no moon.
The moon sees the monk in the water, reading the
prayer book.
The moon leaps into the water to embrace the monk.
It shatters.
It splinters.
The splinters scatter through the water.
The pond now is empty.
In the empty pond lies a book.
And a monk who is reading the book.
And the moon which is embracing the monk.
And a girl who is dead.
Once upon a time.
You are now. You are here.
SPORES
Kinoko-san says “disheard” instead of “misheard.” At first I thought it just sounded that way because my eardrums have gotten loose, but no matter how many times I hear her say it, it really does sound like “disheard.”
Sometimes I almost get up the nerve to correct her: “It’s not ‘disheard,’ actually. One says 'misheard.’” But then I swallow my unspoken words.
Every morning at six, Kinoko-san arranges the neckline of her kimono just so, draws herself up straight and smiles with her shiny cheeks and kindly-looking crow’s feet. Even when I’m absolutely certain about something, she can dismiss it with a bright laugh, saying, “I myself might think the same if I were just a bit younger.”
When Kinoko-san laughs, I think of the word aristocrat. Willowy, pliant, the nape of her neck exposed, her cheeks soft. Aristocrats are crats who have been “arist.” The moment this thought appeared, I realized I didn’t know how to write it out. There are many ways to write a wrist.
I don’t even know how to write “Kinoko”, for that matter. Perhaps Kinoko-san herself doesn’t know, or she has forgotten or wants to keep it hidden — in any case, she won’t tell me. She did, though, tell me this much, that at first she didn’t even realize the name Kinoko sounded just like the Japanese word for mushroom. Furthermore, it was originally her family name, and the “—ko” was simply part of it, but when written phonetically, the “—ko” looks like the kind of ending which used to be tacked on to the end of girls’ names. So people are always assuming Kinoko is her given name and calling her “Kinoko-san” with an air of particular intimacy. Kinoko-san herself doesn’t like to be constantly clearing up misconceptions, so she lets it go. I wish I had a kanji dictionary. Even if I could never leave the house again, even if I could never again have anything to call my own, if only I could just once consult a kanji dictionary! No doubt because of all this brooding, I had a strange dream. I was sitting alone in a big zasbiki room with mats on the floor when a roof beam above me suddenly burst into flames. In a panic I opened the sliding paper doors and rushed into the hall, but then on the hall floor I found a kanji dictionary bound in leather. I tried to escape with it, but the cover was stuck to the floor and I couldn’t pull it loose. The book was going to burn up along with the rest of the house so I tried to look up the most important characters, but when I started to count the number of strokes, smoke came pouring in from one of the rooms and I couldn’t see. I tried to wave away the smoke with my hand, but then I started coughing, my hands were shaking, and I kept losing count. The fire seemed to be getting closer, my skin was hot, and the ends of my hair began to sizzle. Why was the dictionary stuck to the floor? I didn’t need the cover — all I had to do was tear out the pages and take them with me. So I tried to pull out all the pages at once, and heard a shriek. Impossible, I thought, looking around. There was no one there. Perhaps certain books do scream when they’re torn apart. My field of vision was washed in red from the flames. Crying, I woke up.
The Japanese word for “misheard” sounds like a frog croaking. If there is a frog that croaks “misheard,” there must be others that croak “mistook,” “misread,” and so on. You could line them all up in a row.
When Kinoko-san addresses someone, for some reason she always starts by saying, “Lend me your ear.” She says it so deliberately and with such earnestness one really feels one ought to cut off one’s ear with a fruit knife and lend it to her. A chilling thought. If only she would say the words a bit more lightly, it wouldn’t be necessary to take them so literally. She also likes to say, “I’ll just borrow your ear now, if I may.” Sometimes I want to tell her, “An ear isn’t the sort of thing you just borrow from other people whenever you feel like it,” but then I swallow hard and hold my peace. I bite my nails and tell myself, “All right, then. If she wants an ear, I’ll give her an ear. An ear isn’t something you have less of just because you lend it out. Let’s say you slice it off with one slash of a razor — fine! Then just wind a bandage around what’s left” My speech, unlike Kinoko-san’s, is becoming less elegant by the day.
When approaching another person, it’s immature to begin by saying, “Um…” or “Uh…” On the other hand, “You know” is a bit too self-important, “Excuse me” is too formal, “By the way” too inefficient, and “Now then” too brisk. When you consider the options, Kinoko-san’s ear-borrowing isn’t so bad after all. Having heard it so often, I’m getting used to the phrase. You can get used to almost any phrase if you hear it every day.
But now Kinoko-san has come up with more and more radical variants. First she changed the phrase to “Rend me your ear,” then to “render” and even “surrender.” Since she’s been growing more elegant daily, it isn’t surprising to hear her append an extra syllable, or shift the consonants in one direction or another. Still, it makes my chest clench up to think of rendering my ears.
This reminds me of a painting, an old oil painting about the size of a window. An angel is blowing into a horn, and from the other end of the horn a spurt of liquid flies across the sky right into the Virgin Mary’s ear. Just such a portrayal of the Annunciation is hanging in the abbot’s room. It’s certainly a bit risqué.
“Isn’t this picture a bit risqué?” I ask warily, but the abbot only says, “Not at all, not at all.”
Angels are urban creatures, and thus not necessarily dangerous, though apparently you’re running quite a risk when you see a blue butterfly. The day I first heard this, I was out in the yard alone in the evening and saw a butterfly. Was it blue? I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t. Looking at it more carefully, I noticed that the butterfly had a tiny human face. It fluttered around my head until I couldn’t tell where was earth and where was heaven. And then it happened. Before I knew what had hit me, there was a moist afterglow shimmering inside my head. Once that happens, there isn’t much you can do. Still, I could have managed, but then I began to slide backwards, further and further. Perhaps behind me the sea was very low. No matter how far I slipped, I kept slipping more. Instead of screaming for help, I said, “Kinoko-san, courage! Don’t give up.” Kinoko-san gave me a surprised look. Somehow I was back in my room, which was strange.