1.

The crisp rustling of the fallen pine-needles sounded a comfortable rhythm over the sand of the pine-grove at the back of the house and echoed across the sky that arched high overhead. Because some time had passed since I had been able to escape the noisy strife of the city and enjoy the gentle peace and quiet of the country where not a single harsh jangled the nerves, I stretched out close to the veranda with a sense of fulfillment not recently felt and, revelling in the sweet fragrance of the European style paper that was rough to the touch, immersed myself in a new book.”

In the break to my senses as I paused briefly to turn a page, I occasionally heard the brisk cadence of a bamboo broom that scraped across the firm sand of the grove and swept the pine-needles with a compellingly familiar tone that brought tears to my eyes as had happened long, long ago when I heard the nursery songs I knew so well as a child.  Losing myself in the sound, I momentarily forgot to turn the page and gazed out absentmindedly at the garden before me while the sun that had blazed for some time across the top of the book threw down its shimmering rays, a little too strong for autumn, over the white sand of the garden. The glare of the sand’s fine, pure whiteness glistened almost voluptuously, contrasting against the clear heights of the balmy sky. I gazed distractedly for a very long time, listening to the far-off sound of pine-needles being swept.

Wrapped in a languor slightly more pleasant than the feeling of waking each morning, I became aware of the voices of my grandmother and younger brother.

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“I told you I didn’t. I just watched.”

“Alright then, but from now on listen to what I say and don’t be so mean to Yoshi-ko. He’s a person, so don’t tease him by poking him with a bamboo stick. No matter what others do, just stand by quietly and don’t take part in anything you shouldn’t.”

“Well, there’s no need to worry because I don’t join in, I only ever watch,” said my brother sounding bored and irritated before running up to the veranda and spinning his top close to where I lay.

“Oh dear, not there again,” scolded Grandma coming directly after the boy. “Haven’t I told you not to spin that thing on the veranda?”

My little brother grinned and, after abruptly grabbing the top with his hand to stop it spinning, began winding the string with a resigned look on his face.

“Has someone been making fun of Yoshi-ko again?” I asked my little brother teasingly.

“Not me,” he said looking up at me with a deeply annoyed face. “It’s no fun teasing someone like that.”

“Why not?” I asked, amused by my brother’s sullen little face.

“Well. Even if someone does something, he just goes quiet and leaves.”

“Does he sometimes chase after you?”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“He’s never, ever chased you?”

“Well.”

Since my childhood, Yoshi-ko, a man with the mental age of a child, has lived with his old mother in a hut that stood in the corner of the grounds of a neighbouring mansion separated from our house by a low, single hedge. Unable to hold his neck upright, Yoshi-ko always looked down at the ground and, with his big rounded back, only ever lifted his head to look with a smirking expression at someone else’s face. He rarely spoke, although, even when he did, his thin, reedy voice made it impossible to pick up anything other than the first few words. When I was five or six years old, Yoshi-ko was still being cared for by his mother who was then said to be close to seventy years of age, but, even so, his amazing physical strength meant that he was often used to do tasks such as hulling rice or carrying fire-wood from the mountains. From a young age, I, too, had often teased Yoshi-ko, and my grandmother had scolded me just as she now had my little brother. When we noisily beleaguered him in those days, he would angrily chase after us, randomly throwing stones. While today the children did the teasing, when I was young it was the nursemaids watching over us who gathered about to torment Yoshi-ko who, when they asked how old he was, would squirm with embarrassment and eventually reply in his reedy voice, “I’m nineteen.” The adults, however, calculated that even then Yoshi-ko must have been more than forty. That was seventeen or eighteen years ago. They might say that simpletons never grow old, but Yoshi-ko certainly seems to have now lost much of the energy and vitality he had shown over a decade and a half before.

“About how old,” I asked, “do you think Yoshi-ko is now? He must be more than fifty, surely.”

“He must surely be.” At some point, Grandmother had changed into something neat and tidy and, head bowed, spoke without seeming to give her answer much thought.

“He’s nineteen, that’s how old Yoshi-ko is…” my little brother commented from the side, looking as if talking about himself.

            “That’s what Yoshi-ko says, isn’t it?”

            “Um.”

“That’s what he said even when I was much younger than you are now. But he must in fact be older than Father.”

“That’s a lie! It’s a lie, isn’t it, Granny?”

“It’s true, Grandmother, isn’t it? It’s just that, because he’s backward, Yoshi-ko doesn’t seem to age.”

“Mmm.” My little brother stared at me with a sceptical air. Having lost interest in our conversation, I again picked up my paper-cutting knife. But just as my brother, seemingly bored, was about to go out to play, he suddenly turned and said with quiet agitation,

“Big sister, Yoshi-ko is being beaten again, look over there…”

The well close to the fence that bordered the neighbouring house was in my diagonal line of sight and beside it I could see Yoshi-ko standing as he always did, back rounded and head hanging down. Before him, his unclean-looking old mother was saying something as she slapped the back of her son’s hand that was limply hanging down. Apparently feeling nothing no matter how many times he was hit, Yoshi-ko stood motionless without ever trying to pull back the hand his mother was beating. With a curious feeling of calm detachment, I silently watched the disturbing sight of the mother and child standing in the sunlight that was too bright for the mild autumn.

“You can see better from here.”

Grandma stood up and scolded my little brother who had run nimbly across to the fence.

“There she goes getting cross at her son again, but since he’ll never understand no matter how she chastises or beats him, she should stop wasting her time like that.”

Seemingly talking to herself, Grandmother slowly stood up, stepped down from the veranda, and left.

2.

In the pine grove two or three days before that incident, early the morning after I had arrived back home, I ran into Yoshi-ko’s unclean-looking mother who seemed strangely insubstantial, like some sort of ghost.

The morning was particularly chilly, and in spite of wearing a serge-lined haori, I felt unpleasantly cold. Unusually for me, I had left my bed before sunrise to go down to the beach. The sea was calm with not the slightest hint of movement. As always, the island and cape that lay directly before me appeared vaguely in the distance through the rising mist while, with the surface of the sea and the pine-grove still completely cloaked in the morning air, both were moistened with damp. Only vaguely aware of the faint sound of my feet on the sand, I left the grove and made my way down to the beach. A small boat floated softly on the water. The lapping at the shoreline was barely audible, almost as if there was no water at all. Walking with the least possible effort, I made my way along the water’s edge to the mouth of the river where the eastern edges of the sandhills spread broadly away. As I turned to walk back, I could see a dark figure in the distance on that long, long shore. Truly pampering myself for the first time in a long while in the refreshing feeling of the seaside morning, I made my way back home up and down over the sand hills.

Just as I went to leave the beach directly beneath my house and ascend to the grove, I spied the old woman standing alone and seemingly leaning against a pine-tree trunk. I remember being repulsed and frowning the instant I caught sight of her face – the dishevelled white hair all over her head, the deeply wrinkled and yellowed face lacking any lustre of life, the blankly gazing eyes that had lost all light, and the tightly closed mouth drooping down at each side.

“My, you’re still alive,” I thought to myself.　

I was shocked by the piteous nature of the woman’s long life. She was now nothing more than mere skin covering hard, angular bones. Over the dead tree of her body, she wore a soiled unlined kimono covered by what, at a glance, looked like some heavy garment made of patched rags. The old woman just gazed vacantly out at the beach. The moment I saw her, I remembered how five or six years ago she had still been upright and sure of herself, and I wondered how old she might be now. She must have been over eighty years old. And although she seemed like some eerie old phantom, I recalled a lovely old lady who had been kind and friendly towards me. The affection I felt for the old woman soon dispelled any sense of unpleasantness. For the first time in a long while, I gave her a smile. But perhaps she had lost the will to remember my features because her dull eyes and expressionless face just continued looking vacantly in my direction. I again felt distaste and quickly went into the house.

This old woman, whose signs of vitality seemed to have completely dried up, was still physically disciplining her huge son. I had been quite surprised to see that.

Eventually, Grandmother walked with heavy steps up to the old woman and said something as she led her back to her hut.

“What was the problem?” I asked as soon as I saw my grandmother who had returned to the house.

“Well, the old woman lost her temper again because Yoshi-ko had been teased by the children. She was also angry because, rather than standing up to them, he came home and took it out on her.”

“Mmm, it’s odd that he’d come home and take things out on the old woman. You’d think he’d at least know the difference between his mother and other people.”

“Well, my dear, no matter how feeble-minded he might be… The old woman is far too strong-willed to be the mother of a child with that sort of problem.”

As if again talking to herself, grandma spread out her pieces of cloth once more.

“In the past,” I reflected, “the old woman seemed to have tremendous spirit, so it’s a shame to see her as she is now. I ran into her just two or three days ago, but she looked like she was no longer alive. She didn’t even recognise me.” As I spoke, I recalled the old woman’s shadowy presence.

“What are you saying? Just because her body’s worn out doesn’t mean that the old woman’s spirit has gone. You’d still never know that she was already over eighty-years-old.”

“I suppose …”

It couldn’t help but think how strange it was that the old woman’s past life-force might still be somewhere in the color of those dull leaden eyes. Grandma put on her glasses and, trying to thread a needle, said as to herself, “I can’t match the old woman’s strong will, but because she’s so single-minded she suffers much more. No matter how long she lives she’ll always face trials and tribulations.”

I suddenly remembered the old woman’s firm stride as she stepped out, looking nothing like someone close to seventy, when she was still fit and healthy. Although my grandmother was ten years or so younger and people said how much stamina she had, she was quite conventional and when I saw her doing the usual things around the house, it was clear that the old woman outmatched my grandmother, that is, outmatched someone ten years younger, in terms of hard work. She had once been a clever, humble woman who was friendly to all. Yet, I first saw her terrifying tenacity in the way that she treated her daughter.

The old woman’s daughter was the wife of the stonemason who lived three or four houses from us. The rumor spread that this wife was possessed by a fox. Frightened, we children went nowhere near the house of the wife for some time. And although I only twice saw that pale hysterical face with its upturned eyes and long, spindly body, I was so terrified both times that I hoped never to see it again.

As time went on, the wife became more and more deranged and would create such a tumult that she was beyond restraint.

Once, when I heard what I thought was agonized, hideous moan, more terrible than words can express, as if someone was being crushed, suddenly there was a shrill, gasping cry. “Ah,” I thought, at which point came a broken maniacal laugh that seemed chillingly to have no end. Gripped with a strangely terrifying curiosity to see what was going on, we children drew close to the house. But no one at first had the courage to peek inside. Before long, however, it was clear that we would never be satisfied with merely hearing that uncanny voice, and we secretly took a look through knotholes of wood and rips in the sliding door. There lay the wife, her hands and feet tightly bound with rope. With her white hair wildly dishevelled, the old woman stood beside her daughter brandishing a long smoking pipe, harshly raining down blows all over the invalid’s frail body. The sight I saw when I first stole a glimpse inscribed itself deep in my mind. Over and over, that image and those wailing cries menaced even my dreams.

Once, on another occasion when a cold north wind was blowing, the wife was bound, hands tied behind her, to a tree at the side of the well. After drawing water that she poured in torrents over the wife’s head as well as her own, the old woman tormented the younger by crying, “Won’t this make it leave you,” or “Hasn’t it left yet?” The screams the old woman’s daughter made with each dousing upset the neighbours for a very long time. When my mother ran out, shocked at the sound, she said, “She’ll catch a chill,” and then took herself home to her bed.

The old woman thought she had not done enough and so deprived her daughter of food. That persecution continued day and night. The old woman felt it was right to torture the body of the daughter she loved in order to drive out the fox.  She insisted that, even if her child’s life was lost, there was nothing else for it. She never doubted that death was better than being possessed by a beast. More than surprise, everyone felt terror at the old woman’s strength of will. After a year or so of this kind of treatment, the wife eventually died. Right up to the death of her daughter, the old woman never once relaxed her harsh torment of the fox. People in the neighborhood chorused strong sympathy for the victim whom they believed had been harried to death. The old woman, however, was unmoved. Without shedding a single tear, she worked busily to tidy things up. And, in tandem with Yoshi-ko, she displayed a work ethic that far outmatched that of the young when helping with farm chores or peddling sundries like sewing goods.

Then, two or three years ago, the old woman began to weaken. Refusing all help, it seems she made do with the tiny amount saved from money earned through her disabled son Yoshi-ko’s work. Given that she accepted no help, she must have saved quite a lot in spite of being impoverished.  Even so, through the good offices of the many people who sympathized with the half-invalid old woman and her piteous lifestyle, her only grandson was able to leave his life as a soldier to return and assist her. As soon as her grandson arrived, however, she drove him away and said, “I’m grateful. But until I need nursing you can go out to work.” Seeing this, her neighbors said to each other, “If she ever really needs help, the old woman will probably take her own life.”

3.

One evening about a week later, I heard the loud crying sound of a woman’s voice and, going outside to investigate, saw one of the village wives, surrounded by a crowd of children, standing outside the old woman’s hut saying something in a tearful voice and covering her face with her apron. Gazing directly ahead, the old woman also was speaking, her jaundiced face expressionless. The distance between us meant that while I could see the scene unfold, I could not be sure what was happening.  Meanwhile, people like the man who was the head of the neighboring family and my grandmother ran up to the scene. I followed my grandmother. Piecing things together from the wife’s words and the comments of the children, it seemed that, Yoshi-ko had become angry about something and chased the youngsters across the pine-grove, eventually following them into the sanctuary of the god of the local shrine, and the children leading the fleeing group had run in noisy confusion down a set of stone stairs. The last child had been pushed by Yoshi-ko with all his might and as a result had taken fall. To the child’s misfortune, he had sprained his foot and grazed off a great deal of skin.

The old woman stood in surprisingly dignified fashion. There was no longer anything leaden about the look in her eyes.

“What he did was terrible, inexcusable. That’s the sort of fellow he is. There’s nothing that can be done. I don’t mind what happens to him so please go ahead, master, and do whatever makes this wife happy.”

With the details of the incident largely explained, the old woman spoke exceptionally clearly, although in quite a cold tone, half to the wife and half to the neighbour. If the wife expected or wished to hear some polite words or humble apology, the old woman showed no such intention. Rather, she stood with a look that was surprisingly cool and composed.

“Something that makes me happy?” the wife cried in distress. “What could make me happy when my precious son has been injured by such a simpleton. What a beast, what a beast.”

“Ah, Mistress,” the master mediated by reasoning calmly spoke with the woman, “there’s no use in being upset. Yoshi-ko did a terrible thing, but I’m not sure you should berate the old woman. And by the way, how is your son?”

“His father has taken him home.”

“I wouldn’t have taken him home first. He should see a doctor right away. Let’s see, I can go with you. And, Grannie, there’s no need for you to worry.”

The master then left with the wife and went off.

My grandmother did her best to console the old woman. “There, now, it’s best not to worry. People will sort things out. While it was a terrible thing for the mother of the boy, it’s been a good lesson for the children. Hopefully, they won’t do silly things in the future.” Making no response, the old woman merely hung her head and returned to the gloom of her hut.

That evening, Yoshi-ko disappeared but, after a child found him the following day standing absent-mindedly beside the hut where oyster shells were burnt, he was taken away by the police. Nothing was done, however, because he was feeble-minded, and by evening the neighboring household head had brought him home from the office of the local police.

Yoshi-ko returned just as I arrived at the old woman’s house to deliver some things that my Grandmother had asked me to take over for supper. As soon as she saw Yoshi-ko coming, his mother stepped down to the dirt-floored entrance to the hut and waited at the door for his arrival.

“Granny, there’s nothing to worry about. I brought him home. Nothing happened because he’s disabled.” As the head of the neighboring family spoke, Yoshi-ko stood as he always did with his head hanging down and smirking.

“Please accept my apologies for the trouble he’s caused and for taking your busy time.”

Politely, the old woman bowed low before the head.

She then turned to her son. “You idiot!” she cried. It was hard to believe that the old woman’s weakened body could produce words so forceful that Yoshi-ko took several steps backwards. Before those nearby could restrain her, the old woman beat her son three or four times with something she had at some point picked up that looked like a piece of bamboo.

“Hey, Granny, what are you doing?” cried the neighbor as he restrained the old woman who, through gritted teeth, replied in a trembling voice.

“Sir, please let me go. It was unforgivable of me to create this feeble excuse for a human. Even if the police pardoned his behaviour because he’s defective, I’m not able to accept that as a reason for him to go about injuring other people’s children. It’s precisely because he’s defective that I can’t look the mother of the injured child in the face. You! Yoshi! Instead of getting so angry when you’re teased the slightest bit that you need to damage someone else’s child, you should show a bit of mettle and go hang yourself. You don’t understand? Don’t understand? You don’t understand anything? I’ll get you! Come on over here, come here. I’m going to give you a thrashing, I’m going to thrash you to death.”

“Granny, what are you thinking? How can you say such a terrible thing? Yoshi-ko, you go over there and, ah, Granny, you go into the house.” The head of the neighboring household spoke while holding the old woman’s grubby body in a firm grip. After watching with eyes full of tears as Yoshi-ko sloped away to the front of the yard, the old woman suddenly slid out of the neighbour’s hold down onto bended knee. There in the falling light she crouched blackly on the ground. Unable to watch any longer, I forgot everything, including the bowl I had placed at the entrance to the hut, and quickly made my way home.

It was three or four days later that the old woman died. On the third morning, Yoshi-ko was taken from his mother and sent off somewhere else. The old woman had been completely immobilized since the evening of that strange commotion so, with the neighbour, our family had helped by doing things for her such as cooking o-kayu rice porridge morning and night. My mother had already said, “This time there’s definitely no hope,” when, just on daybreak that morning, we heard the sound of beating as if someone was breaking down the neighbor’s door. The old woman had hung her desiccated, wraith-like body from a pine-tree at the back of the house. Everyone in the neighborhood was shocked. People could barely believe that in her enfeebled state she had been able to make her way to the pine-grove, tie a rope to a branch high-up in a tree, and hang herself. Everyone raised their eyes as one to stare up at the branch.