22-24

by Mizukami Kyouka

The woman spoke gently to the idiot, encouraging him. The idiot tilted his head, fiddled with his navel, and began to sing.

“Mount Ontake in Kiso is cold even in summer, I want to wear a lined kimono, and add tabi socks too.”

The woman listened intently to his singing voice and smiled.

Strangely, the idiot's singing voice was so pure and cool that it was hard to believe he was the one singing. It felt as if his soul from a previous life was singing through this boy's body from the underworld. I was overwhelmed by that voice, unable to lift my face from my knees, my heart pounding, and tears streaming down.

The woman seemed to notice my state and asked, "Oh, venerable monk, is something the matter?" I suddenly lost my words, and then said, "No, nothing is amiss. I won't ask you anything about the young lady, so please don't ask me anything either." In truth, I was deeply moved by her beauty. Adorned with golden hairpins and jade hair ornaments, wearing a butterfly-patterned robe and pearl-embroidered shoes, she was like a beautiful mountain goddess, and her kindness brought tears to my eyes.

Then, as if seeing through my heart, the woman said, "You are truly kind, venerable monk," and gazed at me with a strange light in her eyes. I lowered my gaze out of embarrassment.

At that moment, the light from the paper lantern dimmed, perhaps due to the idiot, and the atmosphere in the room fell silent for a moment. For a while, conversation ceased, and the taifu, the singer, perhaps bored, let out a big yawn.

“Shall I sleep, shall I sleep?” he mumbled, swaying his body.

“Are you sleepy? Are you going to rest now?” someone asked. Then, he sat up straight and looked around. Outside, it was as bright as midday, with moonlight streaming into the house, and the colors of the hydrangeas were vivid.

“Will you also retire now, venerable monk?” the woman asked.

“Yes, I will impose upon your hospitality,” I replied.

"I will prepare your lodging now, so please make yourself comfortable. The door is close, but it's better to have more space in summer. We will sleep in the storage room, so please relax here," the woman said, standing up and quickly descending to the dirt floor. Her movements were lively, and her black hair fell over her shoulders.

She peered outside the door and muttered to herself, "Oh dear, it seems I dropped my comb in the earlier commotion."

At that moment, footsteps echoed in the corridor, and loud footsteps were heard in the quietness. After a while, the sound of a storm shutter opening was heard, followed by the sound of a ladle hitting the water basin.

"Oh, it's piled up, it's piled up," murmured the voice of the innkeeper.

"Ho ho, this merchant from Wakasa seems to have stayed somewhere. Is he having some pleasant dream?"

To the person who asked, "Please, after that, and then," I felt reluctant to say anything else and urged them to continue.

"Well, the night has deepened," the traveling monk began. "Most people would guess, but no matter how tired one is, one cannot sleep in an isolated house deep in the mountains. Moreover, something bothered me a little, and it kept me from sleeping at first. My eyes were wide open, but I was so terribly tired that my mind became hazy. In any case, I couldn't wait for dawn to break."

At that moment, the night became as silent as the bottom of a valley, and even the idiot's breathing could no longer be heard. Suddenly, there was a sound outside the door. It sounded like animal footsteps, and it didn't seem to be walking from afar. I tried to distract myself by thinking there might be monkeys or toads, but my anxiety only grew.

After a while, the sound approached the front door. I heard the bleating of a sheep, and I felt the sound coming from my pillow. Under the hydrangeas on my right, there was the sound of a bird flapping its wings. A flying squirrel or something chirped and leaped onto the roof, and soon something the size of a small mountain approached. A cow mooed, and something like a beast with straw sandals on two feet came running in short, quick steps from afar. Various sounds surrounded the house, and an eerie sight, as if a hellish scene from the animal realm was projected onto the moonlit night, pressed in, separated only by a single wooden door.

Holding her breath, the woman in the storage room let out a long sigh, saying, "Hmm." She was having a nightmare. "We have a guest tonight!" she cried out.

"We have a guest, don't we?" a second voice clearly said after a while. In an extremely low voice, it said, "We have a guest," and there was the sound of someone turning over in bed.

The noises outside the door caused a disturbance, and the house shook. I chanted a spell.

"If you do not obey my curse, and disturb those who preach the Dharma, your head will split into seven pieces, like the branches of the Arī tree. Like the sin of killing one's parents, and like the curse of an evil spell, like those who deceive people with scales and measures, and the sin of Devadatta who split the Sangha, those who harm this Dharma Master shall incur such misfortune."

As I continued to chant with single-minded devotion, the wind blew through to the south, and the leaves rustled, but it quickly fell silent. The couple's bedroom also became quiet.

The next day, around noon, I met the old man who had gone to sell the horse yesterday, at a place near the village with a waterfall. It was just when I had decided to stop my ascetic training, return to the isolated house, and spend my life with the woman.

To tell the truth, I had been thinking about nothing else all the way here. There was no snake bridge, no leech forest, the path was steep, sweat flowed, and my heart felt heavy. Continuing the pilgrimage now seemed pointless. What meaning would there be in wearing a purple kesa and living in a magnificent temple? Being praised as a living Buddha and being worshipped with fervent cries would only make me sick to my stomach from the heat of people's devotion.

Let me tell you a little story. I cut my words short earlier, but last night, as I was putting the idiot to bed, the woman came to where the hearth was. She told me she wanted me to stay by her side in this stream, which is cool in summer and warm in winter, rather than struggling in the world. Not only that, but I felt as if I was under a spell, and the only excuse I can make for myself here is that the woman is so uncomfortable. What does it mean to care for an idiot in a lonely house deep in the mountains, unable to communicate, and as the days pass, even forgetting how to speak?

Especially this morning, when I tried to tear myself away at dawn, a pang of regret gripped my chest. I am destined to grow old in a place like this, and I will probably never see you again. At least, I wished I could become the water of a stream, and if I saw white peach blossoms flowing somewhere, I wanted you to think that my body had sunk into the valley stream and been torn to pieces. Although I felt helpless, the path simply followed the flow of this valley stream, and no matter how far, it would lead to a village. When I saw the water dancing below my eyes and falling as a waterfall, I was careful to feel at ease, thinking that human dwellings were approaching, and she pointed the way when the isolated house was no longer visible.

I couldn't hold her hand, but I wanted to stay by her side, to be her companion morning and evening, to eat rice with mushroom juice, for me to burn firewood and her to hang the pot, for me to pick nuts and her to peel them. In such days, we would talk and laugh inside and outside the shoji screen, and in the valley, with both of us, if she were naked and her breath passed through my back, enveloped in subtly fragrant petals, I thought I wouldn't mind losing my life then and there.

Every time I saw the waterfall, that thought was unbearable, and cold sweat ran down my back.

Moreover, my guard was down, my muscles were relaxed, and I quickly grew tired of walking. Even as houses, which should have been a welcome sight, approached, the thought of being served bitter tea by some old woman with bad breath was the most I could expect, and I began to dislike the idea of entering the village. I knelt on a stone, and directly below me was a waterfall. I later heard it was called Meoto-daki (Husband and Wife Falls).

In the middle, a large, pointed black rock protruded, as if a crocodile or shark had opened its mouth. The fast stream flowing from above hit this rock and split into two, forming a waterfall about four jo (approximately 12 meters) high that plunged down with a roar. The dark blue water wove like a white cloth and flowed out towards the village like an arrow. The part that was obstructed by the rock was about six shaku (approximately 1.8 meters) wide, tearing a strip of the river without disturbing its flow, while the other part was narrower, about three shaku (approximately 0.9 meters) wide. Below, various rocks seemed to be arranged, and it looked as if a curtain of jewels had shattered into hundreds and thousands of pieces, clinging and leaning against that crocodile-like rock.