looked at Hiyoshi again, and his mood changed. A father was supposed to be the best judge of his son, but even at his most optimistic, Yaemon could not see how this strange-looking, snotty-nosed little brat was going to rise above his parents and wash away the disgrace from their name. Still, Hiyoshi was his only son, and Yaemon rested impossible hopes in him. 'The sword in the storage shed—do you want it, Hiyoshi?'
'Well…' Hiyoshi shook his head.
'You don't want it?'
'I want it, but…'
'Why don't you say so, then?'
'Mother said absolutely not.'
'That's because women hate swords. Wait here.'
Taking his staff, he limped into the other room. Unlike the house of a poor farmer, this one had several rooms. Hiyoshi's mother's relatives had once lived here. Yaemon had relatives, but his wife had family in the neighborhood.
Hiyoshi had not been scolded, but he still felt uneasy. Yaemon returned, carrying a short sword wrapped in cloth. It was not the one rusting away in the storage shed.
'Hiyoshi, this is yours. Wear it whenever you like.'
'Mine? Really?'
'But considering your age, I'd rather you didn't wear it in public. If you do, people laugh at you. Hurry and grow old enough so you can wear it and not make people laugh. Will you do that for me? Your grandfather had this sword made….' After a pause, Yaemon went on. His eyes were heavy, and he spoke slowly. 'Your grandfather was a farmer. When he tried to raise his station in life and make something of himself, he had a swordsmith make this for him. We Kinoshita had a record of our family tree once, but it was destroyed in a fire. And long before your grandfather could accomplish anything, he was killed. Those were turbulent times, and many people suffered the same fate.'
A lamp was lit in the next room, but the room they were in was brightened by the flame of the hearth. Hiyoshi listened to his father while staring at the red flames. Whether Hiyoshi understood or not, Yaemon felt that he could not speak of such things to his wife or daughter.
'If the Kinoshita family tree still existed, I could tell you about your ancestors, but it burned to ashes. There's a living family tree, though, and it's been transmitted to you. It is this.' Yaemon stroked the blue veins in his wrist. Blood.
This was his teaching. Hiyoshi nodded, then grasped his own wrist. He had such blood vessels in his own body, too. There could be no doubt! No family tree was more alive than this.
'I don't know who our ancestors were before your grandfather's time, but I'm sure that some of them were great men. I suppose there were samurai, maybe scholars. The blood of such men continues to flow, and it's been transmitted from me to you.'
'Yes.' Hiyoshi nodded again.
'However, I'm not great. In the end I'm just a cripple. Therefore, Hiyoshi, you must become a great man!'
'Father,' Hiyoshi said, opening his eyes wide, 'to become great, what kind of man should I become?'
'Well, there's no limit to what you can achieve. If, at the very least, you become a courageous warrior and wear this keepsake from your grandfather, I'll have no regrets when I die.'
Hiyoshi said nothing, looking confused. He lacked self-confidence, and he avoided his father's stare.
After all, it's only natural—he's a child, Yaemon thought, noticing his son's unworthy reaction. Maybe it's not in the blood after all, but in the surroundings. And his heart flooded over with grief.
Hiyoshi's mother had prepared their evening meal and was waiting silently in the corner for her husband to finish his talk. Her thoughts and her husband's were completely at odds. That her husband would push the child to become a samurai was hateful to her. She prayed silently for Hiyoshi's future. This is such an unreasonable thing to say to a child. Hiyoshi, your father speaks such words out of bitterness, she wanted to say. It would be wrong for you to follow in his footsteps. If you are a fool, then be a fool, but please become a farmer, even if you only have one small plot of land. Aloud she said, 'Well, let's eat. Hiyoshi and Otsumi, come a little closer to the hearth.' Starting with the children's father, she passed around the chopsticks and bowls.
Even though it was their usual meal—a bowl of thin millet soup—every time Yaemon looked at it, he felt a bit sadder, because he was a father who could not satisfy the needs of wife and children. Hiyoshi and Otsumi took up their bowls, their cheeks and noses turning red, and they sucked up the food with gusto, hardly thinking of it as poor at all. For them, there was no wealth beyond this.
'There's the bean paste we got from the master of the pottery shop at Shinkawa, and there are dried vegetables and dried chestnuts in the storage shed, so both Otsumi and Hiyoshi should eat a lot,' Onaka said, wanting to reassure her husband about money matters. She herself did not pick up her chopsticks until her children had full stomachs and her husband had finished eating. Once the evening meal was over, they went to bed. It was pretty much the same in every other house. No lights shone in Nakamura after nightfall.
When darkness fell, footsteps could be heard scurrying across the fields and along the roads—the sounds of nearby battles.
Hiyoshi often had nightmares. Was it that he heard footsteps in the dead of night, or did the struggle for mastery over the land fill his dreams? That night he kicked Otsumi, who lay next to him on the sleeping mat, and when she cried out in surprise, he yelled, 'Hachiman! Hachiman! Hachiman!'
Jumping up from the mat, he was instantly alert, and even though he was calmed by his mother, he remained half-awake and elated for a long time.
'It's a fever. Burn some
Hiyoshi's mother answered, 'You shouldn't have shown him that sword, or told him stories about his ancestors.'
* * *
The following year, the house was visited by a great change: Yaemon fell sick and died. Looking upon his dead father's face, Hiyoshi did not cry. At the funeral, he hopped and jumped around playfully.
In the autumn of Hiyoshi's eighth year, crowds of guests came to the house again. They spent the night making rice cakes, drinking
Eating his rice cake, Hiyoshi went and peeked inside. His mother had made up her face and looked unusually pretty. She was with an older man he did not know, her eyes cast down. When he saw this, he became happy. 'Hachiman! Hachiman! Throw flowers!' shouted Hiyoshi, who enjoyed himself more than anyone else that night.
Summer came around again. The corn grew high. Every day Hiyoshi and the other village children would swim naked in the river, and catch and eat the little red frogs in the fields. The meat of the red frog was even tastier than the honey sac of the Korean bee. Hiyoshi's mother had taught him about eating the frogs. She said they were a medicine children's disorders, and ever since then they had become his favorite food. It seemed that every time he was playing, Chikuami would come looking for him. Monkey! Monkey!' called his stepfather.
Chikuami was a hard worker. In less than a year he had put the family finances in order, and the days of hunger had gone. If Hiyoshi was in the house, he was always given chores to do from morning till night. If he was lazy or naughty, Chikuami's huge hand soon landed on his head. Hiyoshi hated this beyond endurance. He did not mind the work, but he tried to avoid attracting his stepfather's eye, even for a moment. Every day, without fail, Chikuami would take an afternoon nap. As soon as he could, Hiyoshi slipped out of the house. But before long Chikuami would go to fetch him back, shouting 'Monkey! Where's our monkey gone?'
When his stepfather came looking for him, Hiyoshi dropped whatever he was doing and slipped in between the rows of millet. Chikuami would get tired of looking for him and start back. Hiyoshi would then jump out and let out a victorious shout. He never considered that when he returned home that night he would be given no dinner and punished. Carried away with his game, he couldn't help himself.
On this particular day, Chikuami was walking nervously through the millet, his eyes darting this way and that. 'Where is the little devil?' Hiyoshi ran up the embankment toward the river.
