A moment later he called out to her. “You said you’d captured herons before.”
She turned around. “Every now and then I find myself in a position to. Usually a car has hit them and I have to bring them to a rehabilitation center. But I’ve never helped one that was assaulted by a boar. I wish they were more grateful. You should see my scars.”
Knowing how dangerous a heron could be, Sedge found it difficult to respond.
“They aren’t particularly disfiguring,” she added, “but I’d rather not suffer those injuries again. I guess that’s why I didn’t try to help you earlier.”
After she left, a breeze lifted through the trees and a cherry blossom fell on the bench where she had sat. In another week the cherries would reach full bloom. He wanted to see them here before moving to Yamanaka Onsen, but he knew this was unlikely.
As he stood to walk home, he felt that summer had eclipsed spring, that the seasons had advanced by some unnatural calamity. And that he was woefully unprepared for the days ahead.
2
April arrived. Sedge vacated his apartment in Korinbō, Kanazawa’s small but bustling shopping district, and boarded a bus headed south to Yamanaka Onsen. He carried a single suitcase and a backpack. An hour later the bus dropped him off at his destination, beside Kikunoyū baths, which were fed by a one-thousand-three-hundred-year-old hot spring. Having entered the baths on previous visits to Yamanaka Onsen, he knew about the spring’s origin—in around AD 700 a Buddhist monk named Gyōki had followed an injured heron here and watched it heal after bathing in the curative waters.
He glanced around to see if Takahashi had come to greet him. Not spotting him at the bus stop, and aware that his arrival probably wasn’t as momentous to him as it was to himself, he decided to wait for a few minutes in case his brother-in-law was only running late. He crossed in front of the men’s baths and into the open space of Yamanaka-za, a plaza used equally by tourists and residents. Even in the early afternoon, local people approached the baths on foot and by bike. They were easily distinguished from tourists, who congregated in the outdoor foot bath nearby or stood beneath a clock tower that opened hourly to reveal automated figurines performing “Seicho Yamanaka Bushi,” a classic song from the town’s celebrated geisha days.
Sedge soon gave up on Takahashi and started toward the ryokan.
He hadn’t traveled here since New Year’s Day last year, when he and Nozomi visited after a traditional osechi meal with her parents in Kanazawa. It had been cold and snowy, and though they had suffered the inclement weather to climb to Iōji temple behind Yamanaka-za, they had returned to Kanazawa before nightfall. Running a shop six days a week was unconducive to travel, even to places only an hour away. When they did go out, it was either to birdwatch somewhere new or to see Nozomi’s parents on the eastern edge of the city.
One could be forgiven for thinking that, aside from some modern conveniences, Yamanaka Onsen had changed little since the Edo period ended a century-and-a-half ago. This was part of the town’s charm, and the old wooden architecture, traditional sake and crafts shops, narrow back roads filled with ryokan and small eateries, and the shrine-ringed, forested mountains in whose shadow all of it sat added to that atmosphere. To Sedge, time here moved at half the pace it did in Kanazawa.
On the back streets leading to the ryokan, wooden sandals clattered distantly. A woman in a light green kimono hurried in his direction. A moment later she called his name. It was Yuki, waving as she ran toward him. Her enthusiastic greeting lifted his spirits.
When she reached him, she bowed and smiled, breathing too heavily to say anything but “Konnichiwa!” She tried to take his suitcase but he declined her help. She made a cursory attempt to fix her hair, a few strands of which had fallen over her face. Her cheeks pink and full, she had filled out slightly since they’d last met. The extra weight was becoming.
“Thank you for coming to meet me,” Sedge said.
After catching her breath she said, “At the last minute Takahashi told me you were arriving. He was too busy to go to the bus stop himself. He told me to hurry to meet you. I guessed which way you’d come and luckily saw you halfway. I’m sorry I’m late.” She bowed again.
“You shouldn’t have gone to the trouble. I’m not worth worrying about.”
“Don’t say that. You’re our special guest now.”
As they started walking Sedge said, “If I seem awkward, it’s because I don’t know how to repay your kindness.”
“Are you doing all right?” she asked with a tone of concern.
Rather than bog her down with the truth, he smiled and said, “I’m fine. Thanks to you and Takahashi.”
They passed through the ryokan’s front gate and walked down a traditional welcome mat, woven from stitched rush, twenty or thirty feet long. A doorman reached for Sedge’s suitcase and led him inside.
The lobby staff greeted and bowed to them. He glanced around for Mariko but saw no sign of her.
When someone set on the counter a form for him to fill in, Yuki explained that he was a personal guest and she’d take care of the form later. She asked if her husband was available but was told he was still in a meeting.
“In that case, I’ll show our guest to his room. By the way, this is Mr. Sedge. We’ve invited him to stay for a while, so please make him feel welcome.”
As Sedge and Yuki walked down the corridors to his room, he noted the familiar interior as well as the old historical objects, Ko-Kutani and Kutani-ware pieces, and black-and-white photos of Yamanaka Onsen displayed against the walls. The ryokan was well-kept, but in places showed its age.
His suitcase and backpack were already in the room waiting for him. Stepping up from the genkan entranceway, he took in the small tatami room in front, where a low tea table sat but would be replaced at night with a futon to sleep on. Behind it was an even smaller room whose tall, wide window half-jutted into a forest. He was pleased to have his own shower and toilet, a small refrigerator, a thermos and teacups, and a water pitcher and glasses. It was perhaps one-fifth the size of his former apartment, but it was more than big enough.
“Does the room meet your expectations?”
“It’s perfect, thank you.”
She pointed to the large window opposite them. “You’ll be able to see many birds from here. It was one reason we gave you this room.”
He could hardly believe they’d chosen a room for him because of this, but he appreciated it and was flattered they’d remembered.
“You’re sure I can stay for three or four months? I hope it goes without saying that I want to be on my own again much sooner.”
She shooed away his question. “You can stay as long as you need to. Please, don’t mention it again.”
“Thank you.”
“By the way, unless you plan to eat outside our inn, we’ll have your breakfast and dinner delivered to your room every day. When you decide what time you’d like your meals, please let us know. Sometimes, of course, my husband and I may want us to eat together. You’re still family to us, you know.”
Sedge hadn’t expected her to say anything so kind. Or to be so kind, after Takahashi had let it slip once that she thought it would be troublesome to let him stay at the ryokan for several months. Trying to compose himself, he bowed and thanked her again.
She smiled and said, “I’m sure you’d like to unpack and relax, and maybe go to the baths downstairs.”
After she left him, he did what she suggested—all while humming and talking to himself, in his habitual attempt to ward off loneliness.
Perched above the Daishōji River, the ryokan sat on the edge of Kakusenkei gorge, an area famed for its natural beauty. Sedge had read Matsuo Bashō’s The Narrow Road to the Deep North, so he knew that centuries ago the haiku master had passed from Kanazawa south into Kaga and stayed in Yamanaka Onsen. Bashō had strolled along the Daishōji River, somewhere below the window of his room, writing poems about the exceptional water of the town’s hot springs, whose scent he compared to chrysanthemums and which he suggested would bring longevity. All over town were old stone kuhi monuments celebrating his visit and the haiku he wrote during his stay.
