Dark Water

EPILOGUE

In the old days, Cape Kannon used to be called Cape Hotoke, or Cape Buddha. Although almost seventy-two, Kayo had never heard the cape called by the older name.

In the dawn of an early spring morning, Kayo briskly walked the route she always took on her strolls. The Buddhist goddess of mercy, Kannon, was supposed to extend the hand of salvation to all who called upon her. Kayo believed in Kannon, and had made it a rule to come this way on her morning stroll for the past twenty years.

Whether ‘Kannon’ or ‘Hotoke’, the name of the cape had welcome associations. If nothing else, the name revealed that the cape was a place marked by history. In fact, the walk along the promenade revealed among the bushes what were either jizo roadside statues or tombstones. The things were no doubt originally placed there to appease the souls of the dead who’d been washed ashore on the promontory, but none of the local residents had any idea how or why the artefacts had been installed. In any case, there were surprisingly many of them on and around the cape.

It was not yet fully light as Kayo made her way along the path skirting the sea. In a slightly stooped posture, she walked with her eyes cast down. Once the spring holidays arrived, her granddaughter Yuko would come and visit her, and Kayo would be able to take her granddaughter along on her walks. A walk, she felt, was always a little bit more worthwhile with someone by your side.

Her spectacles steamed up with her own breath; Kayo slowed down and looked at the pedometer fastened to her waist. It was hardly necessary for her to check. She could usually guess how many paces she’d walked and was never off by more than a few paces either way. This kind of accuracy was to be expected. After all, she’d been in the habit of walking this route almost every day for the past twenty years.

Coming to a halt in front of a cave of crumbling rock, she looked at her pedometer, which showed exactly two thousand paces. This meant that she had covered roughly a mile since leaving her home in Kamoi. Stretching her back, she walked toward the sea, bringing her two hands together in prayer as she faced the rising sun. The words of her prayer had not changed much over the past two decades. She prayed for the health of her two sons, the one who lived in Tokyo and the one who lived in Hokkaido, and for their families. Now and then, whenever the need arose, she prayed for something she wanted, but never more than one thing. She’d never pray for too much. Kayo believed that if you stood on the tip of Cape Kannon and prayed to the rising sun, all your wishes came true. She’d been petitioning the sun less than two months when her son called to triumphantly announce that he’d been promoted to section supervisor, at an early age.

‘It’s thanks to the goddess Kannon,’ Kayo told him.

‘Ha! I think it was thanks to my being very good at what I do,’ her son replied, laughing.

Originally taken up as a form of rehabilitation, her early morning walks were now undertaken purely for the well-being of her family.

It was now twenty years since Kayo had collapsed on a street corner in Yokosuka. At the time, she had been in her fifties. An ambulance had taken her to hospital, where she had been diagnosed as having suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage. Her condition required immediate surgery. As luck would have it, the operation was successful, but left her with the temporary inability to walk properly. For several months after leaving the hospital, she had to lean on her husband’s shoulder to walk. She had now recovered to an extent that it was no longer immediately noticeable that she dragged her left foot. At one point her spirits sank very low when she thought that, for the remaining years of her life, there would never be a time when she wouldn’t have to limp. Yet her success in overcoming the impediment had boosted her confidence so much that she felt she’d gained a new lease on life. She felt more truly alive after the operation than before. As Kayo would have it, this too was a blessing from the goddess Kannon.

While Kannon may have had a hand in Kayo’s robust recovery, there was one more reason for her renewed vigour. It began as a strip of light that had caught her eye. She could see it even now, for the scene had imprinted itself on her retina. The strip of light emanating from a tidal pool on the beach had been one of the main reasons why she’d become so particular about taking her walks every morning like clockwork. It had happened almost twenty years before, about six months after she was released from the hospital.

Although the doctor had urged Kayo to walk as a way to get better, she considered it such a chore that she kept putting it off. At length, the doctor had told her that she would become bed-ridden if she did not change her attitude. The words shook her into action, and one morning she decided to go for a stroll.

Dragging her bad leg heavily behind her, she nonetheless managed to walk as far as the tip of the cape. As she paused to catch her breath, she leaned over the promenade railings. She was utterly exhausted after having struggled all the way, forcing her left leg to come forward with the rest of her body. Ever since leaving the hospital, she had been distressed by her body’s constant refusal to cooperate with her intentions. She found her disability all the more irksome for once having been such an active person. Huffing and puffing, she sat atop the railings and took a wad of tissue paper from her pocket. After wiping her nose and eyes, she put the tissue paper back into her pocket, seemingly unwilling to throw the used paper away. She had repeatedly used the same wad of tissue in the same way during her walk. The railings gave way to a patch of rocky coast. The waves were breaking at her feet, and when the wind suddenly changed direction, it blew drops of spray onto her cheeks. Directly beneath the railings sprouted tufts of purplish grass. From each short, thick stem flourished a number of sprouts, giving the plant an air of great vitality. The onset of May would see the tips of these sprouts bursting forth in clusters of pale flowers. Yet it was still too early in the year for that. The plant was a species of angelica, known in Japanese as ashitaba. Kayo knew the name of the plant as well as its origin. Rendered in Chinese characters, ashitaba meant ‘tomorrow-leaf’. Indeed, this plant was named so because if its leaves were picked off today, they would sprout again by tomorrow. As she looked down at the Japanese angelica and pondered how it bore witness to the life force, she felt the urge to bend down and pluck off a leaf or two. She did so not out of some destructive impulse but out of the desire that the plant might share with her some of the life force that flowed within it.

As she looked carefully at the broken stems of the leaves she’d just plucked, she noticed a yellow liquid oozing from the veins. She brought the leaves up to her nose in an attempt to detect a aroma. She could not tell whether she smelled nothing because the plant was odourless or because her runny nose had dulled her olfactory sense.

…I’ll have to come back tomorrow and take a look.

She would have to return the next day to see whether the plant, true to its name, sprouted new leaves to replace the ones she’d just plucked. It was an ideal incentive for keeping at her daily early morning walks. She would pluck off the leaves here every day and return the next day to see if they had sprouted again.

Satisfied with her resolution, she looked up. It was then that she saw it. A small strip of light caught her eye. At first, she could not determine the origin of the light. It did not seem to be radiating directly from the sun as it began to peep above the horizon. It gave the impression of having flashed brilliantly for an instant, leaving a lingering image on her retina, before vanishing again.

She tried training her eye on the spot where she had seen the gleam vanish. Sure enough, there it was once again. From the same angle, the gleam caught her eye, only a little less intense than before. Over there in a hollow on the rocky shore, something seemed to be reflecting sunlight as it bobbed in a pool of seawater. At a certain angle, it sent a sharp gleam to catch Kayo’s eye.

Descending to the other side of the railings, she went to the side of the tidal pool. Careful to avoid getting wet, she squatted to take a closer look. She discovered that the source of the reflected light was a plastic bag containing a semi-transparent plastic case. It appeared as though the waves had washed it toward the rocks. The cylindrical case tossed in the water as if endowed with a will of its own. She thought she heard a voice nudging her to reach out and pick up the plastic case. Although she was not in the habit of picking up flotsam washed up onto the shore, she could not resist reaching out and picking up the case. She took the dripping bag between her fingers and held it up to the light of the rising sun. The case it held was securely sealed with rubber tape.

She could see in the case, in turn, a rolled-up piece of paper.

…A letter!

With a flash of intuition, she tore open the plastic bag and removed the case. The romantic fancy that occurred to her in that instant was that she had just received a letter that had been washed up after being carried a great distance. Conversely, it could be a child’s doing. She recalled having seen her elder son once attach fanciful letters to balloons on sports day at his school, releasing all the balloons into the air at the finale. It did occur to Kayo that it was quite possible that some child had done the same kind of thing by entrusting letters to the sea rather than the air.

Kayo decided not to read the contents of the case immediately, putting the case in her pocket instead and starting back home. She somehow felt that her leg was not dragging as heavily now as it had on her way out.

What she found in the case upon opening it was the neatly folded and rolled up copy of a map of the Chichibu Mountains and environs. She could see that there was some writing on the reverse side; before she knew it, she was reading it aloud. The first time, it failed to arouse the least emotion within her. It simply sounded like a phrase or two from some homily.

She noticed that the sender was a Fumihiko Sugiyama and that the message bore a date at the bottom, indicating that it had been written over a year ago. It did not seem too fanciful to conclude that Fumihiko Sugiyama had written the letter to his son Takehiko. Kayo was unable to imagine in what sort of circumstances Fumihiko had written the letter. She was also at a loss to understand the significance of the map of the Chichibu Mountains. Meanwhile, the address on the message said Ohta Ward, Tamagawa (River Tama) and even gave the house number. A look at a map revealed the neighbourhood to which the message was sent. The locale was roughly on the boundary between Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture, at the mouth of the River Tama.

The letter lay in a cupboard drawer for some time after. It had not been put away and forgotten, however. Whenever the fancy struck her, Kayo would take it out and pore over it. The more often she read the message, the more the lines gave off the aura of a powerful will. It occurred to her that this force could become all the greater if the letter were delivered to the intended recipient. She decided to see to it that the letter reached the address it bore. The idea came to her naturally: she’d deliver the letter in person rather than through the mail. During the fortnight or so that she had pored over the letter, she sensed that the letter had imparted strength to her. She felt compelled to seek out the address in order to confirm what she’d been given and to show her gratitude for it.

At the same time, she felt that this would be a new goal for her. It would involve, for one thing, making all the right train connections from Yokosuka to Tamagawa in Ohta Ward. This was not the kind of plan she could feel sure about implementing unless she could make it around Cape Kannon and back again without any trouble.

After this, her early morning routine was to rise before dawn, set out on her walk round the cape, pluck some leaves from the angelica plant and offer them to the little stone jizos, praying that her leg would get well again.

She thought that the delay in getting the letter to its destination was excusable. After all, the message had been written nearly a year and a half ago; surely it could wait a little longer. Yet it was conceivable that the family knew about the letter and was waiting anxiously for its delivery. The thought jolted Kayo out of her complacency and spurred her on in her efforts to rehabilitate her leg.

Around the time the angelica came into bloom, her leg had recovered sufficiently to allow her to travel all the way to Tamagawa and back by herself. Kayo chose a fine, sunny afternoon to put her plan into action.

The condominium of the address was not far from the station, at least as the crow flies. However, Kayo got lost somewhere along the way and had to venture up and down several streets before finally finding the apartment building. By the time she arrived, she was so utterly exhausted that she did not think she could walk another step. She had to lean sideways with her entire weight on the handrail to make it up the three steps leading to the condominium lobby. At this rate, she couldn’t make it back to the station unless she first found somewhere to rest.

Once in the deserted condominium lobby, she saw two sofas set facing each other in the rest area. She decided that was where she’d take her break, but first she had to find the mailboxes.

The names of four people were written on the mailbox to which the letter was addressed: SUGIYAMA, Fumihiko, Kyoko, Takehiko, Akihiko. Kayo felt that the father, who’d sent the message, must be Fumihiko, while Takehiko must be his son. From the content of the message, Kayo had guessed that it was a letter from a father to his son. The names on the mailbox in front of her seemed to corroborate her supposition. She found herself imagining all kinds of possibilities. What kind of circumstances could have made the father write a letter like that to his son? Where was the father now and what was he doing? The father’s name was still on the mailbox. Did that mean that he was still living together with his family? Or did it mean…?

Kayo put the letter back in the film case, just as she’d found it. It made a metallic clang as she dropped it into the mailbox. The sound reassured Kayo that it had finally reached its intended destination.

She had done her part. It was with a mixture of fatigue and satisfaction that her small frame sank to rest on the sofa, there to give herself up to various imaginings. Suddenly, some activity seemed due in the deserted lobby. She looked over to see a little boy of about four or five who’d pushed open the glass door of the entrance with all his might.

‘Mom, hurry-y-y!’ the boy yelled.

At that moment, his mother was trying to get up the steps to the condominium with a baby carriage containing a screaming infant. As she lifted the carriage, she leaned sideways on the handrail to get up the three steps, just like Kayo. Once up the steps, the mother entered the door her son was holding open. Her son ran ahead again to open up the way for his mother, jumping energetically up and down as he went. Making his way to the mailboxes, he again started jumping, to try to reach the family’s box, but fell short. His mother caught up, quickly retrieved the contents, and held them up high. The boy let out a cry of protest; his eyes fixed on the film case as though it were some treasured prize, he started jumping higher than ever. The mother stood there staring suspiciously at the film case that she’d just taken out of the mailbox, while the little boy, leaping up by her side, howled ‘I wannit!’ and ‘Show it!’

Then the elevator doors slid open, and the three of them disappeared inside, leaving the lobby to be completely engulfed in the same deserted silence that had pervaded it before their arrival. In the silence, the baby’s screams and the little boy’s howls lingered in Kayo’s ears. Before the sounds could die down completely, Kayo stood up laboriously.

The clamour that pressed itself into that brief instant in time must have left a deep impression indeed. A full score years later, Kayo could still see that little boy springing up and down. I know I can count on you to take good care of your mother and the child soon to be born. These had been the final words of the father to that little boy, and even now it was with a poignant delight that Kayo remembered his vibrant little face, so full of life.

Naturally, Kayo had memorized the whole letter. Towards the end of the previous summer, she had recited the letter to her granddaughter Yuko, telling her that it was a piece of treasure washed up by the sea. After listening to the words, her granddaughter had stared backed at Kayo dubiously. The girl clearly didn’t understand how the words amounted to any kind of ‘treasure’. Indeed, even Kayo could not say for certain that she understood the truth that lay behind the message. Yet there could be no denying that no matter what that truth may be, it had suffused every inch of her body and provided spiritual support. She’d started to take morning walks every day, and her left leg had begun to heal ever since and was by now almost fully recovered.

It would soon be the spring holidays. It would not be long before Yuko would arrive to stay with her. Kayo plucked off a leaf from an angelica and offered it to a roadside statue. As she hurried home, she bounced with life.