The Forest Brims Over, page 5
But when Nowatari became infatuated with Yuko, Kinari felt as though she could finally find peace of mind by his side, that this was the only appropriate way for her to behave. She could only let her guard down with someone if she was certain that they too were happy being with her. She didn’t know why, but she had been that way ever since she was a child.
“Our inner natures have intersected so perfectly. Could there be any greater happiness?” Nowatari said profoundly.
Ding-dong, sounded the doorbell out of nowhere.
For a brief moment, she had trouble breathing. A visitor at this time of day, with no prior notice? She would have to cook extra for dinner. She wanted to get the children into the habit of going to bed early, but at this rate, they would end up staying up late again. Was it her, bringing yet more sweets? They hadn’t even eaten dinner yet. She closed her eyes and imagined using a pair of kitchen scissors to cut away all the unruly images that came to mind.
Her mother-in-law was simply a kindhearted woman who liked to play with her grandchildren. She meant no offense, so it was only natural that Kinari thank her with a warm smile, she repeated to herself three times over, like a magician reciting an incantation. Then, in the blink of an eye, she found that she could greet her kind mother-in-law with an unclouded mind. After all, the older woman had warmly welcomed her clumsy daughter-in-law into her family, even if she hadn’t known how to properly clean or cook, even if, at the time, she truly hadn’t known how to do anything at all to look after a family. It was her mother-in-law who had painstakingly taught her the basics, from how to make soup stock to the proper way to sweep with a broom. Because, she had told her, those were the sorts of things that revealed a person’s true nature.
As expected, when Kinari opened the front door, she was greeted by her good-humored mother-in-law, who lived no more than five minutes away by foot, holding a large cloth-covered tray in her hands.
“Good evening, Yuko. Would you look at this? See how perfectly these adzuki and pumpkin puddings have come out! I saw them on the three o’clock cooking show. They’re supposed to be so healthy. Perfect for Tomo and Shu, don’t you think?”
“Th-thank you. We can have them after dinner then . . .”
“Oh no, they’re supposed to be eaten warm. They’re best fresh. Tomo! Shu! I’ve brought pudding!”
Her mother-in-law was a good person, Kinari repeated to herself.
Surrounded by her cheering grandchildren, her mother-in-law smiled happily. Yes, she might visit three times a week, but still she showered her grandchildren with extra-special affection. That being the case, Kinari could afford to be flexible with the rules of the house whenever she called. That was the sort of daughter-in-law who made for a kind and caring mother. She slowly lost sight of what was irritating her. After all, her mother-in-law and her children looked so joyful.
Her mother-in-law’s homemade puddings were monotonous in flavor. Nonetheless, the children, whose daily intake of sweets had dropped considerably ever since Kinari had decided to limit the amount of sugar that they consumed, were ecstatic, and they devoured two each.
The ginger-fried pork and komatsuna namul that she set on the table went largely untouched. She had prepared extra for her mother-in-law just in case, but the older woman left early to ready her husband’s evening drink. Kinari rushed the children into the bath and put them to bed an hour later than usual.
Finally able to relax, she switched on the TV and began to nibble away at the untouched food.
Less than ten minutes after she had sat down at the dining table, the front door opened as her husband arrived home.
“Welcome back.”
“Yeah.”
She rose to her feet to dish out his dinner and to prepare a serving of pickles and a glass of beer. Her husband, exhausted, sat down at his place at the table, loosened his tie, and turned his gaze to the TV.
The news was on.
Uh-oh. She had switched over to it, without thinking, to check the weather, but a politics segment started playing at the most inopportune moment, and his brow creased in a frown.
“Nothing but idiots on TV these days. See him? He might have a smooth tongue and a friendly face, but he comes from a yakuza family, and he’s not even Japanese. People like him are always trying to rip us normal hardworking folk off. Hey, are you listening? Sit down.”
“Yes. Of course.”
Holding a glass of beer in one hand, Kinari nodded along to the incessant abuse, all but saying that she didn’t really understand these complicated topics, but that if her husband thought so, then it had to be true.
He was tired. He was probably taking out his pent-up frustration from his relentless work schedule on the people on the other side of the TV. Gathering personal information online on the politicians, celebrities, and athletes whom he so disliked and raining insults on them while he watched TV was practically his daily pastime. He earned a steady monthly income, drank modestly, and didn’t gamble. On his days off, he took his sons out to play.
He wasn’t a bad person. She just wished that they could talk about something else every now and then. Her husband might have had a strong sense of justice and a clarity that could penetrate the serious issues to which most Japanese closed their eyes, but he would probably never realize just how painful it was to have to listen to someone else’s trivial grouching at the end of an exhausting day.
Leaving her husband to watch the TV in anger, she casually slipped out from the room and decided to try to get some rest. She made her way to their bedroom and laid out a pair of futons on the tatami-lined floor. The children had been sleeping in a bunk bed in their own room since her younger son started elementary school.
She stared up at the dark ceiling, letting out an exhale. As she tried to nod off to sleep, she found herself thinking about Yuko. The sickly sweet memories of her time with Nowatari relieved the tension in her head and lulled her to drowsiness. It was easier being Yuko. It was easier than facing the people around her—her children, her mother-in-law, her husband . . . So thinking, she was beginning to nod off when she came to a realization.
She had thought of Yuko as a dissociated and unrealistic woman, but the real her was even more dissonant, so much wider, so much deeper.
But weren’t all adults like that? Didn’t they all observe their surroundings and act accordingly? Didn’t they all take care not to make those around them feel uncomfortable? There was nothing strange about that.
Are you kidding me?
A child’s voice resounded in her ears, as vivid and annoying as acrylic paint smeared on her fingertips. A young girl had said that to her while pushing her away in disgust. Who? A girl with dirty hands, a girl who had always glared at her. Right.
Tomoko.
She was standing alongside Tomoko on a narrow mountain path.
They were on their way to find the source of the river.
THE YOUNG OWNER of the soba noodle restaurant, being familiar with the mountain, led at the head of the group, while another adult watched over the children from the tail of the procession. Just in case, the children themselves had been assigned partners and had been instructed to take care so as not to get separated.
Her younger brother, a first grader, had been paired with a middle school student accustomed to mountain climbing, while Kinari, in third grade, had been partnered with her cousin Tomoko. Tomoko was three or four years her senior, with a large build and a spirited disposition, and had been instructed by both families to take care of her younger cousin, who had recently transferred to the same school.
“Everyone’s making a huge deal over it, but it’s actually really lame.”
Yes, it was Tomoko who had said that to her. She had lived in this mountainous area ever since she was born, and it sounded like she had visited the headwaters of the river countless times before. She looked bored, dragging her feet as she walked. Every now and then, she would pick a small fruit from a nearby bush or branch and stuff it into her mouth with a familiar hand. Her fingers were always brown and dirty, stained with grime and plant sap.
“Here,” she said, holding out three black grapelike berries.
Kinari was at a loss, uncertain how to respond, when Tomoko narrowed her eyes in annoyance.
She was never one to hide her displeasure. No sooner would she open her mouth than she would start cursing her hometown, calling it a cramped, lame, worthless country backwater, and then she would stare Kinari’s way, trying to gauge the reaction of her newly arrived cousin whose father had just been transferred by his company from the big city.
“We’ll be going back in two years, so don’t pick up any strange habits, okay? And don’t eat anything you find growing in the wild. The local kids might be used to that sort of thing, but it will give you a bellyache.”
Her fashion-obsessed mother, having grown up in the city, hated the countryside with its mountains and rice fields. By strange habits, she probably meant the kinds of cruel games that were popular among the local children at the time, like breaking the wings of dragonflies or butterflies and throwing them into the cage of a friend’s pet praying mantis, or using the hem of one’s shirt as a grip to pull a grasshopper in half, leaving its severed head attached to the fabric, and competing over who could collect the most.
“No. No!”
She had to stop her brother from trying to tear off the heads of grasshoppers. It was her job to protect him from these strange habits, to make sure that he maintained a proper distance from the local children. She simply did what was expected of her as his older sister.
That was why the berries had caught her so off guard, leaving her racking her brain for an appropriate response.
Three seconds after she let her eyes wander—
“Are you kidding me?” Tomoko, still grasping the black berries, shoved her with all her strength.
Ah, Kinari thought, as she began to roll down the brush-covered slope.
“Yuko!” came her brother’s muffled scream, sounding as though from underwater.
Her memory of what happened next was vague and patchy. The line of the other children spun farther and farther away. Her hands and face were coated in mud, and she was covered in cuts and bruises from some sharp bamboo grass–like plant. Her brother was crying. The young owner of the soba noodle restaurant came to help her back up.
In the end, they had still gone on to the headwaters of the river, so she mustn’t have been too badly hurt.
When Tomoko started middle school, the town was rife with rumors about her dating a stranger—an adult at that—whom she had met on an online dating site. It sounded like she had even aborted a child from an unknown father.
At first, Kinari failed to understand which part of the rumor was so bad. Was it that Tomoko was dating someone without her parents’ knowledge? That she was dating an adult while still a child herself? That she had aborted a baby? Kinari didn’t know which part was worst, but the man was supposed to be older and more mature than Tomoko, so wasn’t he the one at fault?
But as she watched the adults around her discussing her cousin, their lips curling slightly in barely contained grins, she began to think. Tomoko might have been a child, but she had a precocious and lascivious mind, even going so far as to lie to her parents to meet with a stranger. She was bad, she was soiled, and she wouldn’t be able to marry anymore. Shortly thereafter, her family moved away.
Whenever Kinari thought back to Tomoko, a bitterness filled her heart. She was a typical country bully, violent, mean, and unrefined. It served her right that she had met with her terrible fate.
But why, Kinari wondered, had Tomoko had to hate her so much?
“SO DID YOU want to eat the berries? Or were you really put off by the idea?” Nowatari’s voice was always gentle when he asked about her memories. No matter how unseemly her mistakes, he accepted them all with a gentle nod.
“I don’t know.”
“I think that’s why Tomoko got so angry.”
Less than two months had passed since they had moved to the countryside when her mother, finding several grasshopper heads crushed into the hem of her brother’s shirt as she did the laundry, let out a shrill scream.
Though their mother scolded him like a raging tempest, her brother didn’t stop playing with bugs. He later collected a handful of swallowtail larvae and let them loose inside the house, hatched a praying mantis in his desk drawer, and caused various other incidents and quarrels with his parents, until finally he was permitted to keep as many insects as he wanted in an old fish tank in his room.
Her brother was uninhibited. He wasn’t afraid to clash with others when there was something that he wanted to do. When it was time for his university entrance exams, he completely ignored his father’s wishes and accepted an offer from a university in Okinawa. He stayed there after graduating and started working for a research institute dealing with environmental issues. He and their parents feuded for a long time, but once he got married and had a child of his own, their relationship returned to relative normality.
“My parents always like to complain that they can’t get anywhere with him, but they both love him more than they do me. Tomoko didn’t bully him either. I’m the only one she hated.”
She had done her best to live up to everyone’s expectations. She had worked hard. She had tried to be considerate of others. The more that she took care of their needs, the kinder that her parents, her parents-in-law, and her husband were to her.
So why did it feel like no one else in the whole wide world truly saw her for who she was?
A rippling laughter erupted from her side, filling the air of the hotel.
“People look down on things that don’t threaten them. But you know what? I love you, your emptiness and purity. There’s no one to claim you, no self to claim.”
To Kinari, Nowatari was the only person who truly forgave her for being herself. She wanted to cry. Emptiness. Yes, her essence was that of a hollow cavity filled with water. Only the man lying beside her could love such a warped nature. Only he treated her with affection.
It was no longer rain that soaked her heart but an abundant river that took hold of her body, shaking her back and forth.
Nowatari flashed her a faint smile as he watched her linger in those waters.
She should have noticed. That his body, so close that she could touch it to her heart’s content, wasn’t wet with so much as a single drop.
The story of Yuko was featured in a special New Year edition of a literary magazine, then released in a short story collection three months later. It was a beautifully bound book, elegantly arranged with understated illustrations of flowers. It sounded like it had been favorably received, and it was apparently going to be reprinted.
Immediately after the work was first published, Nowatari’s invitations became increasingly infrequent, until by the time of the release of the short story collection, they had ended entirely.
That was when she first heard the rumor—that his wife had fallen ill, and he was busy taking care of her.
SHE DIDN’T EVEN need to use her prepared excuse, that she had forgotten to submit an assignment, to convince Yatabe to give her Nowatari’s address.
With a newly released paperback and a box of sweets in hand, she made her way through town, the autumn breeze blowing around her. The sky had once been so blue that it had stung her retinas on those painful midsummer afternoons awaiting an invitation from her lover, but now it had become much lighter in color. A pale blue. A soft turquoise. The color of the rompers in which she used to dress her sons when they were babies.
She stepped onto the train, making her way to a station that she had only ever before passed through.
The rumor was that Nowatari’s wife had left her husband, but what would she do if she bumped into her? She could say that she was a student from Nowatari’s creative writing course and that she had come to turn in an assignment. She had heard that his wife was in bad shape, and so had brought the sweets as a get-well present. Leaning her head against the handrail on the train, she repeated the same ridiculous simulation over and over.
She might have seen Nowatari in class, but she hadn’t met him privately for more than six months now. Even when she called him, he would turn her down softly, telling her that his wife was unwell and that he had a tight deadline approaching. Still, she couldn’t give up hope. When his wife’s condition improved and his difficult work was out of the way, there was a chance that they could once again let their inner natures intersect. All the more if his wife had left him. She couldn’t quell this meager, twisted hope.
Just as she finished reading the new work, the train arrived at her destination. She closed the book, passed through the ticket gate, and made her way through the unfamiliar town.
Nowatari’s home was a run-of-the-mill two-story house blending so easily into the residential landscape that she almost missed it. Was it newly built? The walls were still clean. She traced her finger across the name Nowatari engraved into the granite nameplate, her heart filling with joy.
When she looked up at the second floor, however, that sweet mood was scattered to the wind.
Green leaves were crammed up against the windows. What was going on?
That wasn’t all that was creepy about the house. Even though it was located in the middle of a residential area, the empty plot next door to the Nowatari residence was overgrown with a dense thicket, the trees so tightly packed that it was impossible to see all the way into the mass of branches.
Kinari felt a shiver course down her spine. Something was happening to the Nowatari family—most likely something much stranger than the malformation that she harbored within herself.
Even after running through the situation so many times in her head, she couldn’t bring herself to press the doorbell. Why not? Was this the guilt of a woman involved in an extramarital affair? But no, it wasn’t that simple. Fear, yes, something close to raw horror, but which, for some reason, also made her heart race.
