Sedge hadn’t expected her invitation. After all, nine months had passed since their spouses had disappeared. But he had welcomed her suggestion that they “compare notes” about what had happened and try to help each other through this difficult time. He hadn’t bothered himself with her situation—had hardly even considered it—but it made sense that she’d be struggling, too. He wasn’t hopeful that talking to her would change anything, however.
The tourist crowds at Kanazawa’s famous landscape garden were small that morning, and the mild, late-March weather was perfect for strolling. He hadn’t visited Kenrokuen since last May, when he and Nozomi had come to see the garden’s celebrated irises. Afterward they had wandered to Kanazawa Castle Park to birdwatch, a tradition they’d started after moving to the city.
He stood on a short wooden bridge over a stream winding away from Kasumagaike pond, admiring a newly blossoming cherry tree, and pines here and there recently freed from their protective winter yukitsuri ropes, when a snapping of branches made him spin around. To his astonishment, a wild boar burst from a bush, colliding with a heron upstream and sending a cloud of feathers into the air.
Unaffected by the collision, the boar charged into an open space before rushing toward the opposite end of the garden. The tourists there swept themselves into a tight, terrified circle and watched the animal dash past them. After several attempts, it clambered over a low wall.
Sedge edged toward the heron. It lay sprawled in the shallow water, long and grayish white. The current swept into it, billowing its plumage, and where the stream soaked its body it appeared half-melted. Before he reached it, the heron stood unsteadily and shook itself dry.
He noted the gray body and wings; the black nuchal markings; the dark crests on either side of its crown, like long painted eyebrows; and the drooping black topknot—an Asian gray heron.
One wing hung awkwardly against its body, no doubt broken.
A college-aged gardener in a light blue uniform, who had been sweeping fallen leaves into a burlap sack, stood before Sedge staring at the heron. Sedge tugged the man’s arm to get his attention.
“Can’t you call in the bird’s injury to a supervisor?” Sedge asked him.
The gardener’s eyes widened at his Japanese. He dug in a pocket for his phone and did what Sedge suggested. After hanging up, he shyly nodded his thanks.
“Hand me your bag,” Sedge told him as he took off his own jacket.
“What did you say?”
Sedge repeated himself more forcefully.
“What do you want it for?”
“To catch the heron with. It’ll hurt itself more if it tries to fly.”
“You want to put it in this sack?”
“No, I want to wrap its body with it.”
The gardener looked at the jacket in Sedge’s hand. “Can’t you use that?”
“That’s to drape over its head. If it can’t see, it won’t be as frightened. Your bag would catch on its beak.”
Looking around for help but finding none, the gardener shook the leaves from his burlap sack and reluctantly handed it to Sedge. Behind them, a crowd of people had gathered.
“Maybe we should wait for someone to come with a net,” the gardener said. “I’m not keen on getting injured.”
“A net would make things worse,” Sedge said. “A heron’s beak is like a weapon. And because it’s probably scared, it may lash out. What we have is better protection.”
The gardener grudgingly followed Sedge.
They reached the stream at the same time a middle-aged man from the crowd crouched before the heron to videotape it with his phone. He was much closer to it than Sedge would have been.
Sedge told the gardener where to place himself and what to do. The young man, finding his voice, barked at the man with the cell phone to back away.
The heron had been squawking since it regained its footing, and it now shook its long beak at them and released what could only be described as a warning cry.
Sedge moved slowly toward the bird, shielding himself from it with his jacket and the gardener’s burlap sack pinched together. He jumped behind it before it could turn completely to face him. The burlap sack fell to the ground as he draped his jacket over the bird’s head. He had covered its eyes, but its beak peeked out.
“I need the sack,” he yelled at the gardener.
He ran over to hand it to Sedge.
“You do it.” He looked down at the bird as it squirmed beneath his hands. “Wrap it around its body. Gently so as not to aggravate its broken wing, but firmly enough to immobilize it.”
The gardener kneeled beside him and wrapped the burlap sack around the bird, encircling its thin body. Beneath the light pressure he applied, the heron resisted. Its strength seemed to jolt him, and he lost his balance. The sack fell to the ground again, and the bird took advantage of its freedom to raise its one good wing and try to escape.
The man with the phone continued to videotape, and he came closer again only for the heron, which somehow sensed his presence, to stab at him with its beak. The bird aimed well, striking his thigh. The man fell to the ground and, shrieking in pain, rolled to where the heron couldn’t strike him a second time.
Sedge used one hand to help the gardener wrap the sack around the heron again. And though it thrashed beneath the young man’s arms, it soon stopped struggling.
“Now what?” the gardener said.
Slightly unsure of himself, Sedge said, “We wait for the people you called to arrive.”
Two groundskeepers finally approached them, while two others set up a barrier around the bird with ropes and metal poles. Because the heron had stopped resisting, it was a simple task to transfer it to these men.
“Thank you for what you did,” one of the groundskeepers told Sedge, ignoring the gardener. “We’re sorry to have put you to the trouble. Are you hurt?”
Sedge assured him that he was fine. The groundskeeper apologized once more, this time about the boar, which he said had made its way into the garden several times in the last few months, though always after hours. This was the first time it had been in the garden when it was open to tourists.
He walked away, coming back a moment later holding Sedge’s jacket. He asked Sedge for his name and phone number, saying that the garden might need to contact him later about what had happened. When Sedge spoke his name, a woman broke off from the gathered crowd, a hand over her mouth as if surprised by something.
“You’re Sedge?” she asked. When he nodded at her, she laughed in disbelief. “I’m Mariko.”
