When Kuzuha’s son moved out to attend university, Kuzuha found herself with even more time on her hands. She tried attending tanka-composition classes at the local community center, but they didn’t do very much for her. Reading about the ecstasies and tragedies of love, and the various resentments that people of bygone days had felt, immortalized in the form of tanka, the only thought that crossed Kuzuha’s mind was Huh. It wasn’t as if people’s emotions ever really evolved, for better or for worse. There were no particular feelings stashed away inside Kuzuha for which she was desperately seeking an outlet.
It’s time to escape.
Kuzuha began to hear a voice.
It’s time to get out, the voice would say, and then fall silent.
Escape what, though? Kuzuha didn’t really get it.
She was perfectly content with her life as it was.
In her fifties, Kuzuha developed a passion for mountain climbing. A neighbor invited her to climb Mount Takao, and Kuzuha accepted. Why not? she thought, and in no time at all, she was hooked. It was more or less the first hobby Kuzuha had ever had. She breathed the fresh air into her lungs, felt the pulse of the mountains with her whole body. I bloody love the mountains! she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs, but as a demure Japanese woman, of course she didn’t. Everybody praised the formidable power she had in her legs. It was as if she’d been born to climb, a few people suggested, and Kuzuha thought that maybe they were right. Why hadn’t she encountered mountain climbing earlier on in life? It seemed like a bit of a shame.
At first, Kuzuha climbed as part of a group, but no one else could keep up with the pace she set, so at some point she began climbing alone. She’d load rice balls and slices of rolled omelette into her rucksack, fill her flask with tea, tie tight the shoelaces of her chunky climbing shoes, and head determinedly into the mountains.
The mountains always welcomed her. She liked the feeling of post-climb fatigue, too. It was the first tiredness she’d felt in her life. Who would ever have thought it was so pleasurable? Impressed, Kuzuha vowed to remember this lesson life had taught her.
When Kuzuha was in the mountains, the shortcuts disappeared from her head. She understood that mountains were dangerous places, so she was not permitted to stray off course—she had learned as much during her initiation phase. And yet, as she grew more experienced, she began to cave to the pull of temptation, to deviate from the path. Gradually, just a little at a time, and always so that she’d be able to find her way back, Kuzuha veered off the beaten track.
One day, after forcing her way into a forest adjoining the path, Kuzuha stepped off the edge of a cliff. The branch she tried to grab on to slipped from her fingers, and she found herself free-falling through the air.
I’m going to die, Kuzuha thought to herself. Well, never mind. It was a good life I had.
She screwed her eyes shut.
The next instant, her body curled into a perfect ball and executed fifteen perfect 360-degree rotations, landing at the bottom of the cliff on all fours. Well! Kuzuha looked down at her slender front legs covered in white fur. Swiveling her head back, she saw a body, also covered in white fur, complete with a fuzzy tail. When she squinted, she could see a damp little nose just under her eyes, twitching. So, I really was a fox all along. Suddenly a lot of things made sense to Kuzuha. No wonder she’d been so good at being a Japanese woman!
Kuzuha let out a long howl, which went echoing out along the foot of the cliff. Damn, that felt good! And she could hear better, too. Before, the rustling of the trees had been just a far-off presence, a mere block of sound, but now she could make out the cadence of each individual leaf blowing against the wind. Neat, Kuzuha thought to herself.
Kuzuha the beautiful white fox began to run. Like a tightly wound spring suddenly released, the power in her body unfurled itself and Kuzuha went shooting through the green-shrouded forest. The soil she kicked up flew out on either side of her, adding to her momentum.
Gosh, thought Kuzuha as she darted forward, how tedious human life was! The way she’d become used to continually paring down her strength—all that time, she’d been betraying herself! Being unable to fully exert herself had been unbearably dull. Oh, what a stupid situation to have landed myself in! Kuzuha found it all so ridiculous. Feeling a pang of hunger, she ripped off a few wild grapes from their tangled vines, chomping them with great gnashes of her jaw. Purple juice dribbled down the sides of her crimson mouth, but that didn’t bother her. Then Kuzuha’s glinting eyes fell on a field mouse. The last thing the ill-fated creature saw was the film of saliva spreading across the red insides of the white fox’s mouth.
Then Kuzuha ran up the cliff she’d fallen off. When she reached the top, she spun around once and, hey presto, she was a person again. How very convenient! Kuzuha
