and another poem - "Swings"

Sometimes, when your landlord is outside making noise, using a carbon steel circular saw to cut up old appliances so that the garbage truck will take it (only small pieces allowed), and you're driven out onto the street to find some quiet, so you can plan tomorrow's work, and you walk to a nearby park, and say hello to the elderly man walking his cairn terrier, and he explains to you about "cairn", how it's a Celtic word and all that kind of stuff, and then he says goodbye, and then a 20-something girl comes with a little kid and greets the other people at the park, but doesn't greet you, but then the girl and the kid leave and it doesn't really matter anyway, and then finally, some elementary school kids come and start playing around and swinging on the swingset and then they all go off, promising to meet and play together again soon (because it's spring vacation), and in the end, you're there all alone... sometimes, you get an idea for a little poem...

swings
still moving
long after girls have left

"Leaves" Chapter 9

Paul was standing at a pay phone. He dialed Shizuka's number. "She'll be happy to have a record of this in her phone log," he said under his breath, into the receiver, into the sound of the ringing.

Shizuka was in her car when the phone started ringing and she jumped a little and swerved on the road until she found a place to pull over safely. She'd been working the night shift at the clinic and then freshened up her face and set out in her car as she had been doing in all her free time since Paul went off by himself. She wanted to be close to him and Paul had little idea of just how close she was as she answered the call from the number she didn't recognize.

"Hello?"

"Shizuka, this is Paul," he said.

"Oh, hi!!!" she screamed into the phone. Then she began laughing and Paul wondered why. She was always laughing. Well, when she wasn't crying, that is.

"I'm happy you called," she said.

"Oh. Listen, where are you now?"

"Where? I'm driving."

"Oh."

"Why?"

"Well..." he trailed off, looking down at his hand and forearm.

"What's wrong?"
Continued...
"Well, I seem to have picked up some kind of rash."

"Sorry?"

How could he phrase it? "I have an allergy."

"Oh!"

"On my arm. And hand. Red bumps."

Now she understood and she became serious. "How did you get it?"

"I'm not sure." But he was pretty sure. It was that goddamned red stuff. Or was it the lighter fluid? Or maybe the river water? But probably it was the red stuff.

"I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe some stuff I touched by the river."

Shizuka couldn't quite imagine what it would be, but it didn't matter. He'd called her and he needed her help and she was suddenly happy.

She laughed into the phone again.

"It's not funny. Looks pretty bad," Paul said.

"Oh! I'm sorry. I'm just very glad because Paul called me!"

"I know it's too much to ask, but..."

"Yes?"

"I wonder if you could come and look at it."

"Where are you?" But she basically knew. Because it was her that had driven along the river the previous night. It had been her car. She had waited for him where the trail joined the river going upstream and she had watched him walking in the early evening, watched him sit down by the river, but she hadn't wanted to disturb him. Then she'd driven back home and gone directly to her clinic to start her shift.

She felt a little bad because she'd been following him. She only wanted to be near him, but knew he wanted to be alone. Men are funny, she thought. But she loved him. She wasn't going to let him go. He needed her. His call now proved that, beyond a doubt. She was so happy now.

"I'm in the old village by the river. You know, where I lived before," Paul said.

"Oh yes. OK, I'll come now," she said.

"How long do you think it'll take?"

"I don't know. But I'll hurry! I'll drive fast!"

Paul was shaking his head. "You don't have to rush."

"Maybe one hour," Shizuka said.

"OK."

It would only take her fifteen minutes, actually. She'd already been on her way to "check up" on him. But she smiled and thought she could spend a little extra time to do her makeup. She had to look nice when she met him.

"Where should I wait for you?"

"Ummm..."

"How about this park near the station," Paul said. "It's big and it's called Suigen or something like that."

"OK!"

"It's down by the river."

"OK!"

"OK, I'll just go there and wait for you."

"Good."

"Shizuka, sorry to bother you."

"No, no!"

"Especially after I insisted on coming out here alone."

"No, no. I'm happy!"

And she was happy. He needed her. It's a good thing I've been coming to check on him every day, she thought. He's like a little boy, she thought. So cute.

Yes, Shizuka was happy. She'd forgotten all about how it had been when they'd argued about his birthday. She'd forgotten about how she broke down at his apartment. And she'd nearly forgotten about the mean things they'd written on the stone statue up on that mountain. The little monument to the family that had lived down in the valley below. When she watched Paul starting up the mountain trail, and she climbed up after him, she recognized the name on the stone and it made her sad. It made her turn back. She knew it was the name of one of the families, one of the "untouchable" families that had lived down there and all around the surrounding hills, but always apart from the other villagers. And those mean things -- "dirty people get out!" Shizuka was mad then. But now she'd nearly forgotten about it.

Shizuka put the phone away in her handbag and dutifully used the turn signal and when the little van passed, she pulled back onto the road heading for the village. Outside the village, she stopped in a convenience store parking lot and took a mirror and her makeup bag out. Twenty minutes later she was satisfied with everything. Her eyes had been lined, lips glossed, cheeks powdered and lashes curled. Then she drove into the village, got lost for ten minutes, then got her bearings again, and finally, almost on the hour she'd promised, found the park Paul had mentioned. He was sitting on a bench down by the river and his pack was leaned up against the side of the bench.

Shizuka walked across the grass in her heels. She came up from behind him and covered his eyes with her hands.

"Who am I?" she shouted and then began laughing.

"Uh... Norika Fujiwara?" Paul said, and this made her laugh even more, becoming so noisy that the other people in the park looked over at them.

Shizuka took her hands from his face and leaned over farther from behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed Paul's cheek several times.

"OK! OK!" Paul said. He turned his head to kiss her on the lips.

"You're choking me!" he said afterwards.

"Oh! I'm sorry! Are you OK?"

"Yes." He laughed.

"Are you OK!?"

"Yes! Damnit." He patted the space on the bench beside him. "Now sit down and have a look at my gangrenous arm."

"What?"

"Nothing..."

She came around the bench and sat down beside him. She took his wrist in her hands. As she looked at his hand and arm, Paul was watching her. He was watching her with that freshness and resignation that illness or injury bring. That same purple floral skirt she always wore. Her nice legs. Her hair, curly and hard from all the gel she used.

"Oh, by the way, thanks for coming," Paul said and smiled. Then he leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. Shizuka giggled and looked up at his eyes, smiling. Paul lifted his eyebrows and motioned with his eyes and head down to his forearm.

"Oh! Yes. I'm sorry!" Shizuka said.

She held his wrist gently but firmly and ran a finger over the bumps on his skin.

"Well, it doesn't look so bad, I think."

"Really?"

"I can buy medicine at a drugstore. You will be OK."

"Phew! That's a relief. I was afraid they'd have to amputate."

"What?"

"Cut it off."

"No!" But she saw he was joking and then she began laughing again. Again a little noisily.

"But how did you get this?" she asked.

"That's a long story."

Shizuka looked at him, waiting to hear it.

In the car, as they drove to the drugstore, Paul told her about everything. The grove. The "paint, or whatever it was," as he said. And she nodded, with a worried look on her face as she drove. Paul wondered if she really understood. And he wondered if he should mention the person he'd seen.

At the drugstore, Shizuka went in alone. When she came back out, she was holding a bag and in the car she showed Paul the tube of cream. He asked her what kind of medicine it was and she told him the name which meant very little to him, so he just let her put it on his hand, his wrist and forearm. With her rubbing the cream into his skin, holding his wrist from underneath, he suddenly wondered why he'd insisted on coming on the trip alone.

But then she was asking him to take her to the place where he touched the liquid that he thought caused the reaction. And he reluctantly agreed to show her.

---

They were standing on the bridge together.

"It was over there," Paul said.

"Really?"

"Come on, I'll show you."

They crossed over to the walkway. With the day bright and clear, the grove of trees wasn't quite so intimidating as it had been the night before. The bright reflections on the ripples in the stream cheered Paul up a little -- just enough to disregard any misgivings, to put away temporarily the dark sensation this stretch of the river would bring, and would have brought the night before if he hadn't been encouraged by the whiskey and the loneliness.

There were people in the distance. An old couple, a child walking a dog. But there by the trees, Shizuka and Paul were alone and so he led her into the grove. The leaves were still wet under foot.

"Now where was it?" Paul said, thinking out loud.

"Hmmm?"

"Just trying to remember."

Shizuka's eyes were bright, eager. "An adventure with Paul!", she thought. Adventure, indeed.

Paul scanned the leaves strewn and layered over the ground. He looked around for some time, then he thought he'd found it. He walked with careful footsteps over between two cedars, holding his left hand behind him for Shizuka to take it.

She stepped forward delicately in her heels and took his hand. All up through her arm, into her breast, into her heart, the touch tingled. She wasn't thinking of how she'd gotten what she wanted. She was simply happy.

"Yes," Paul said. "Look." He pointed ahead, to the ground. The substance was now very dark, seemingly spilled haphazardly. It sure looks like spilled blood, he thought. Although he wasn't sure where he might have seen such a thing before.

"Where?" Shizuka asked.

"Right here." He kneeled down, taking his hand away from Shizuka. He pointed to a line of the paint, the dark substance.

"Yes, I see it." Shizuka was now squatting beside him.

"And this is probably the leaf I picked up last night." He pointed to a jagged-edged leaf off to the side, mostly covered with the dark red -- now it looked burgundy.

Shizuka came around him to the other side and squatted down again, her floral skirt tight up under her thighs. She reached out to the leaf and Paul took her quickly by the arm, causing her to jump.

"Maybe you shouldn't touch it."

She looked over at him. "Oh, yes..."

Paul found a fallen branch and broke off two long, thin pieces, and using them as chopsticks, he lifted the leaf. Other leaves adhered to where the liquid had dribbled over the side and dried.

"What is it?" Shizuka asked.

"Good question." Paul set the mass down and then pulled off a splinter from one of the sticks and poked at the shiny, deep red substance on the leaf. It was dry. Puckered here and there on the surface, but essentially dry.

Paul turned to look behind him. Shizuka followed his gaze. There were people walking by, out on the walkway, but they didn't seem to notice Paul and Shizuka in the grove. Paul put his hand on her back, somehow trying to convey that they shouldn't speak. Shizuka watched his face. Then the people were gone.

Paul brought his eyes back into the grove. Now he saw that Shizuka was looking out at the leaves, all around the spilled area he'd shown her.

"I think I know what this can be." Then, "What this might be," she said.

"What?"

"Well, I'm not sure."

"OK. But what?"

"It looks liked urushi."

"What?"

"Urushi. I don't know how to say it in English. It sometimes makes an allergy. Like you have."

Paul said nothing. He was still kneeling, looking into her eyes. Then looking past them, thinking.

"So I think your arm is not so serious."

"Really?"

She nodded. Then she said "But why is it here?"

"But what is it? You don't know the word, but try to explain it in other words."

"Well, they put it on bowls and trays. To decorate wood. It's shiny and beautiful."

"Like varnish?"

She didn't know "varnish".

"Maybe," she said.

Then she was tilting her head like a bird. She stood and moved a few paces away and around, in a tight curve.

"What are you looking at?" Paul asked her.

Shizuka looked up at him, but didn't answer. Paul stood and followed her path around and stood beside her.

"It says something."

With her peculiar movements and the way she tilted her head, Paul thought for a moment that she meant "is saying", in a literal sense, which was a little frightening. He watched her closely.

"Writing," she said.

"Oh!" Then, "What?"

"I can't see clearly."

She began writing in her palm with her finger, eyes lingering on the forest floor.

"no-ri-I..."

Paul looked at the ground, at the splashes of red. Now he could see "no" and "ri", but below that, nearer them, it was just random splashes, it seemed to him.

Then Shizuka knit her brows and seemed almost angry.

"What's the matter?"

"I think I can read it now."

"What is it?"

"I'll tell you, but please, let's just go now."

"Why?"

"Please."

"OK, OK. Let's go."

They walked back across the soft, damp leaves, through the trees and came out onto the walkway. There was the same girl walking her dog. But only Paul cared that they'd been seen.

They were walking back to the park, to her car.

"So can you tell me what it said, Shizuka?"

"Yes." Her eyes had the same look of anger, or perhaps it was more a look of fear. "It said 'Nori I'm sorry'"

"Nori was the girl's name," Paul said. He'd told her about finding the girl. But they 'd never talked about it after that.

"Yes, her nickname," Shizuka said.

"Who's sorry? Why?"

"Then it was signed 'girl from the...'. How do you say it? Village?"

"Village?" Paul wrinkled up his forehead.

"Well, not village. A very small village."

"Hamlet?"

When he said it, she winced. "Yes," she said. And whereas she was always happy when he taught her English before, now she didn't seem to be.

"What does it all mean?" Paul asked.

"Well, I don't know completely. But I know a little."

"Oh."

"And we shouldn't tell anybody about this."

"Why not?"

"It's not good to talk about this here."

Paul said nothing. He looked out across the park, at the people walking on the grass.

"But maybe I know someone to ask about it," Shizuka said after a while.

"Leaves" Chapter 8

It was his third day out on the long walk. Paul's shoulders ached from carrying the heavy pack through the hills. He'd followed the river upstream until finally he was near the old village. He'd found a good place to set up the tent, in an orchard near a farm south of the village. He hoped nobody minded, and more importantly, that nobody would find him in the night.

"I should probably get in touch with Naoko and Kaz," he thought. They were friends from back when he lived there. But he sensed that he wouldn't get in touch with them. He sensed that he would continue being alone, as a wallowing and a liberating feeling. It was strange, after all, (and a little embarrassing) to come back like this, in anonymity, and not get in touch with friends. But he wanted to be alone. He wanted to sit by the river here and watch the lights from the traffic signal far off across the river. This was peaceful. The river was much wider here than just upstream in the village. They'd dammed it like that had almost every other flow of water that might threaten to flood their gradual migration into the valleys, and from there into the towns and finally into the cities. He wondered briefly why he had this distaste for the city, but then we know, don't we. Rats in a cage, crowded beyond reason. Makes a rat crazy.

No, being here was right. The calm, slow river here. He'd had a bath at a little inn in the late afternoon. The lady innkeeper was kind and asked if he would like to come into their fancy indoor hotspring, but he thanked her and said he'd like to try the little spring outside, the one by the hut. She smiled and told him to take his time and to let her know if he needed anything. On the wall by the door of the hut, there was a cedar box with a slot just the size for a coin and he dropped one in with a ching onto a few coins already inside. It was about a dollar. And he soaked until the sun was low and he thought he'd better be on his way and find a place to camp. He reluctantly got out of the bath, dried off and put on fresh underwear and the same shirt, sweater and jeans and set out for the trail again.

So he'd had his bath and bought a half pint of whiskey and now here he was, sitting quietly by the river. There was a frog croaking somewhere in the brush down the bank and it made him laugh a little. The frog must have been offended because it plopped into the water with a kerplunk.

Now and then, a car would move along the road on the other side of the river. When it stopped at the signal the taillights brightened and the red reflected brighter, waving on the surface of the water. He was remembering the girl now, and it made him sad, but it was long enough ago that it was a sort of beautiful sadness.

He sipped some whiskey and watched the liquid lights in the river change from red to green. Just like Christmas, he thought. A car moved along the road as if the driver were a little lost. Paul watched the car slow and pull off the road. In silhouette, it looked vaguely like Shizuka's little car. Then he was daydreaming about her.

The driver got out and stood looking at the river -- and it even seemed to Paul -- looking in his direction. He laughed again and took a long swig of whiskey. The driver got back in the car and drove off again slowly and passed under the signal far away. Red lights pooled on the water. Now green, now yellow. Now red. These are like death, too, he thought.

Why not visit there again? Where it happened. Why not?

---

"I didn't kill her." She was thinking to herself. The lady's name was Matsumoto. This was the lady who lived in the thatched house alone. Who'd not been allowed to marry because of her lineage.

"No, I didn't kill her." She meant the girl, the same girl they found in the water. The same girl that came to Matsumoto a week before Paul and the old man found her in the water.

You see, the girl was the daughter of the man Ms. Matsumoto was to marry. The daughter, of course, from his marriage to the other woman, the woman his father hadn't forbidden. The woman whose family wasn't "tainted".
Continued...
The father. The old patriarch. The bitterness was acrid in her -- novelists will tell you "she tasted it as an acrid bitterness welling up in her throat, taking over her body" or something like that. But it's not true. She only tasted it in her mind, which is after all, our whole world.

The father, that Ishihara. She had been a kind woman ever since then. Indeed, she'd always been kind. She'd accepted her lot and gone meekly away, out of their lives, more or less. But now, thinking of the smugness in the old bastard's poker face, she could have slashed his face with the wood carving knife she now noticed she was gripping much too tightly, causing her knuckles to pop under the strain.

But he was dead. He was gone. There would be no revenge.

"My god. What have I done," she said out loud. But she was alone in her house.

Later, she was calm and the hatred was gone. She sat on the smooth and blackened wood of her raised floor, the panel door slid aside. She sat watching the hillside. The fall leaves.

But I didn't kill her, she insisted to herself. That Sagawa did it, didn't he? He said he did, so that makes it so, doesn't it? But still she wondered. She had her doubts. Nori seemed like a strong girl. She should have been my daughter, she thought. Matsumoto did her best to push the thought away. So strong, especially for a ten-year-old. My, the girls these days are stronger than we were. They would never accept what I accepted then.

Poor girl. She was crying now. Calmly, softly. I'll never have a daughter. But I didn't do it. I didn't kill her. Nori, little Nori, seemed devastated when I told her about... her father... and me. And what her grandfather had done.

But I only told her the truth.

She was crying quietly and the hillside was in the last light of evening. A faint smell of smoke from burning leaves drifted over the hills from the farm beyond. "Why can't we just lie," she said out loud.

She slid the panel shut and walked across the wooden floor in the dark. She found her coat and put it on and then left the house without bothering to lock the door. Then she was walking down the path in the dark.

But Sagawa hadn't killed the girl, actually. No, he hadn't killed Noriko. He just found her body in the grove by the river and had taken her down from the rope. And then he'd taken her for a "swim" because he felt it might cheer her up. Yes, in his world, in his mind, he was taking her for a swim. And when the little girl hadn't cheered up after all, he knew he'd killed her. In his mind, he'd killed her.

---

There he was again, after a year. Paul was standing on the bridge and looking down into the water. No one was there. It was dark, but the river and all of the walkway was lit by the streetlights overhead, save the part near the ladder, the metal rungs set in the stone leading down to the water. There, the trees in the grove overhung the walkway and kept it in shadows. He left the bridge and walked over into the shadow. Then he leaned over the railing and looked down into the water. The leaves in the pool were gone. The girl's face was gone, too.

He heard the ring of a bicycle bell and looked down the walkway and saw a rider pass someone. The light on the bicycle flickered and moved left and right as the rider came up the incline unsteadily. From instinct, Paul began walking back up to the bridge and along the road past the trees. He looked back over his shoulder to see which way the bicyclist would go. He saw the beam from the light waving across the walkway, coming up the slope. The rider looked both ways and pedalled across, back onto the walkway beyond the bridge.

Paul went into the grove of trees. He wasn't sure why, but he didn't feel like meeting the eyes of that person he'd seen the rider pass. He felt the exhilaration one gets when taking silly risks. Creeping along through the trees in the dark, feeling ahead with his hands in the cool, moist air. His footfalls were quiet. He was lucky that the evening mists from the river kept the leaves and the pine needles soft back there in the grove of trees.

His eyes were adjusting slowly and he could see faintly through the trees where the lights lit the walkway. Paul moved forward quietly, his feet touching first with the outside edge of his boots and then rolling the foot in, adding weight. One slow step at a time.

A branch scraped against his face and he wanted to curse, but he kept it in. One more step. Another. Then he bent at the knees and got down very low, squatting on his heels. The person the bicyclist had passed would be coming up the path soon, he thought. He watched patiently, and then finally he saw the figure beyond the trees in the low light, walking slowly, entering the shadow of the trees. And there it stopped. Just where the rungs down to the water would be. Paul could see the person only in outline against the lit walkway across the river. Whoever it was, he stood there motionless. He was quite small. Paul tried to breathe quietly. There was the constant rippling sound of the stream out there, but he wasn't taking any chances. He could see his breath fogging off to the left in the low light.

Then the figure turned around slowly and looked into the grove. Paul froze and held his breath. He could see a faintly lighter hue where the person's head would be. It must be a face with a hood pulled over the head, he thought. Paul sank his own head down into his coat collar and lowered his face, hoping the brim of his cap would hide the white of his face. He kneeled there motionless, frozen. Surely no one would be able to see him. It would be embarrassing to have to explain what he was doing, lurking there in the dark, in the grove near where the girl's body was found.

The figure began moving again, going up the slope to the bridge and back into the light from the streetlamps. He watched it turn onto the road and come along beside the grove as he had done moments earlier. Paul rose slowly to his feet and as quickly and quietly as possible crept through the trees, straight toward the walkway and the stream. All the while, he kept his head turned to the right to watch this person and his left arm and hand up in front of him to feel for branches. The person seemed to be going slowly. And then Paul was at the edge of the grove and peered out onto the walkway to check whether anyone was coming, anyone to see him coming out of the woods acting "strangely" -- again, near where the girl was found. Noone was there. He stepped out onto the walkway.

What to do? He made as if admiring the stream and the trees on the far bank. This is stupid, he thought. But he began walking back up the slope to the bridge, with his head seemingly straight ahead, but his eyes cast sharply to the right to the trees, watching for anything out of place. He listened with intensity for any snapped branch, any sound of footfalls, anything, back in the grove of trees. He was taking in much too short breaths and his heart was beating a bit faster than he'd like. Then he was up at the bridge and the road and he made a cursory look left and then with a little dread, to the right.

The man, the person, was gone. The road was fairly well-lit and he could see far off along it. And the person was not there. Damnit. He looked quickly behind him. Nothing there. And he crossed the road trying to think what to do. He set off along the walkway beyond the bridge, going slowly to bide time and looking back the way he'd come. When he was about 50 yards from the bridge he stopped and leaned against the railing, pretending to look down at the water. Since the walkway sloped down on both the upstream and downstream sides of the bridge, he might just be able to see the head and shoulders of someone coming out of the trees down there. If the person came out along the roadway, he'd never know.

He waited there, watching. Every so often he scanned all up and down the river, along the walkway he was on, across the stream, and along the road on both sides of the bridge. And then his eyes came back to the place down past the bridge by the woods. Minutes passed. Paul watched and waited and his breath fogged and drifted along the railing and then down over the edge and out of sight.

He heard some chatter over the sound of the stream and then saw two older ladies walking along the road from the other side of the river. They crossed the bridge, still talking, seeming to talk over one another, and then they turned onto the walkway toward where Paul was standing. Great, that's all I need. When they came near him he made as friendly a face as he knew how and said "Good evening". The one lady who was doing most of the talking returned the greeting, but the other eyed him a little suspiciously. Then they were gone, and Paul was watching the place down by the woods again.

And then there it was again. Dark clothes, dark hood separating from the dark of the grove at first not at all distinctly, but then, yes, definately a figure, a person, moving very slowly from the trees, to the railing, looking into the water. The hair on Paul's arms prickled. The figure was walking away, back the way it had been coming when the man on the bicycle passed. Paul began walking, very slowly at first, back up to the bridge.

He didn't feel like doing this. God this was stupid. Who did he think he was? But he was crossing the road and walking back down along the grove. Very far off, he thought he saw the person still walking. Paul checked all around again and with a sigh, went back into the woods again. He took his keychain from his pocket -- the keychain with only one key. But more importantly he carried a little light that had come as a gift with a package of tea he'd bought years ago. Amazingly, the thing still worked. It was a little light in the shape of a stylized green tea leaf and it ran on a disk watch battery. Whereas he'd admired its design before and thought it was quite a clever little tool, he wasn't thinking about that now.

To work the light, you squeezed the soft plastic in the middle of the leaf and the little green diode in the tip lit. He squeezed it now between his thumb and index finger and the soft green light came on and shielding it from dilated eyes, it cast a soft light ahead, just enough light to make out dark trunks of trees and damp leaves on the ground that looked olive in the green light and... something glistening, brown, spilled on the leaves. He let off the light and spun his head around. Paul listened -- more intently than he ever had before, or so he hoped. He had absolutely no rational reason to believe what was spilled on the leaves was blood. In the damp air, he caught a distinct odor that was so out of place it took him a moment to remember it.

OK. He would squeeze the little tea leaf again and the dead leaves on the forest floor would have splashes of... spilled paint. Yes, it would be paint. Unfortunately, he'd held his breath just after exhaling, with empty lungs. The smell was turpentine. He was light-headed -- a flash came from somewhere, a tableau, into his mind, with a title in gothic script: "Spells and Humours", a shattered mirror still in its frame. Oddly, it made him want to laugh. But he fought it off, and instead he made a sound rather like gagging.

He squeezed the little light, shielded his eyes again and kneeled down by the spilled "paint". He lifted one of the leaves with the glistening liquid and brought it to his nose, but what a ghastly color it was and it spilled onto his hand and he dropped the leaf and was breathing again. Yes, it was paint. Just paint. He rubbed his hand in the leaves off to the side and tried to get as much of it off his hands as he could. But it was drying and sticky and (curiously, he thought) oil-based, and it adhered to the lines in his palm. It looked like a topographic map in green and deep red of some wonderful river system in a strange country. Again, the laugh came and he fought it off.

But he wanted to get it off his hand. He left the grove and took a deliberately circuitous route to the outskirts of the village. He stopped at a little mom-and-pop country store, sliding the wooden door open and walking into the dimly-lit room. He wondered if they were even open, and even then, if they'd feel like selling anything to a foreigner.

"Hello?" he called into the back. He heard footsteps upstairs, someone coming down stairs and then a smiling, middle-aged lady came in through the back door and said "welcome!"

Paul hid his hand and went down the aisle and holding his wallet between his chest and right forearm, managed to fish out a bill with his left. He found a can of lighter fluid and took it to the register, holding it in his left hand, with the bill between his fingers and his right arm hanging at his side, palm back. Standing a little askew to further hide his hand, he hoped he was striking a not completely unnatural pose. The lady didn't seem suspicious, although she should be, he thought.

"Cold out there tonight, isn't it?" she said.

"Yes."

"Living in the village?"

"Yes," he lied. "But up on the north end." It's where he'd lived before.

"Oh well, please come again," she said smiling.

"OK." He smiled, too. But it was a worried smile.

Walking back down the river to the orchard, he stopped and picked up a rag, some sort of pink child's shirt, and he dabbed it with the lighter fluid and more or less managed to clean all the paint off his hand. Then he went down to the river and rinsed his hand in the water.

His pack was still there. The orchard was quiet. He tried to keep his hands from shaking as he set up the tent in the beam of the flashlight, and all the while, he kept checking the surroundings obsessively. Then he crawled in and somehow fell asleep, but he slept uneasily and with odd dreams just before dawn.

Then he woke with it still quite dark outside and his arm on fire. Red welts on his hand and all up his forearm. He clicked on the flashlight. The skin was red, as it is when getting out of a hot bath, only he'd of course been sleeping in the cold night. There was a moment of panic, but then it passed. In its place, came resignation. My own personal stigmata. He was feeling more confident in not being crazy compared to the night before. But he still gave a sickened laugh.

"Leaves" Chapter 7

Paul took the bundle out of his backpack. Darkness had fallen outside. He was in the tent, the cold wind of the mountain ridge blowing against it, the inside lit only with the warm beam of his old flashlight. The bundle was a folded blue canvas bag that Shizuka had given him on a whim when she'd stayed overnight once. He'd found out later that the logo on it was from a ladies' clothing shop and he wondered if that was the reason she'd given it to him, so that whenever he used it, other women would know he had a girl in his life.

The bag was folded over many times. He unfolded it and took out a notebook. It was a journal to keep him company on his trip. He felt around inside the pack for the pen. Then he started writing in the low light:

Day 1: very tired. Hiked from Shinshiro up to the "Old Man" mountain. Scary as hell getting up. Rickety wooden stairs along the sheer cliffs, then rusty old chains to pull yourself up with, all with this goddamned heavy pack on my back making me top-heavy and screwing with my balance. But I made it. Signed the book saying I'd made it. Took in the view, sat a little while with the little stone Jizo statue near the edge of the clearing. Good hard day. Knees ache. I'll drink some much-earned whiskey now & sleep. Good weather up here. Peaceful in the tent. After I put it up, I went back up to the top to watch the sun set. Kinda creepy coming back down with the flashlight. Oh, by the way, today I'm suddenly a year older.

Continued...
He drank his whiskey listening to the wind in the trees high up the mountain. When he wrote "signed the book...", he was referring to a logbook that he'd found in a wooden box fastened to a post on the summit of the mountain. The box had a clear, hard-plastic cover and inside were a notebook and an inkpen, both tethered to the box with worn cotton strings so that they wouldn't "escape". The logbook had dates and names of people who'd made the climb. He dutifully, and with a little pride, wrote his name and the date and in the space over on the right side for comments, he wrote, "I'm tired!"

But he was happy. He and Shizuka had made up and he'd promised her they'd celebrate his birthday just a few days later when he got back from his trip. He didn't think of it as "if he got back".

He was on a small part of the long trail, this country's answer to the "Appalachian Trail" of his home. In the morning, he'd taken the bus over to the next valley where he could join the trail coming from the southeast. He planned to walk for four days with three nights of camping. It was Friday night, and while other people were probably at home watching TV or out drinking and laughing, Paul was up on a mountain ridge, alone in his tent drinking whiskey and listening to the wind blowing outside.

Down on the other side of this mountain, the trail followed the old river upstream and passed quite near the old village he'd moved away from. He would be walking into it again. But that was fine with him. He'd sort of wanted to see the hills to the east and stay in them a while, back when he lived there. But he'd never gotten around to it. The next day he would follow the trail down into the valley and start up along the old river.

And while Paul was walking down into the valley, there would be someone else climbing the mountain behind him and writing a name in the logbook just below his name. If he could see that new entry, that new name, he would recognize it, and it would surprise him. And what would be written off to the side as a comment would make him... uneasy.

Not only would a new entry appear in the logbook, but the little statue nearby would also be visited. And his follower would understand it for what it was -- not just a Jizo statue, but a gravestone. And unlike Paul, his "follower" would understand what was written on the gravestone, both the original name and what had been added later, maliciously: "filth get out".

---

She'd lived there alone in the mountains for over a decade, ever since the life she thought she would have became impossible. Impossible for a reason beyond her control.

She bought the old house with a little money her father had left her. The previous owner was a widow who passed away without any heirs, and the branch of the district court in the nearest town had taken over the house and put it up for auction. She bought it for an impossibly low price. Nobody else wanted an old thatch house on a hill in the middle of nowhere. A house like that was too vivid a memory of the land's not so distant past. Everybody wanted to be in the city. It was "modern" to be in the city, and in their feverish striving to prove themselves modern, and not just simple people a mere hundred years removed from feudal life -- to prove they weren't peasants -- they desperately strained to get into the city. She had wanted that, too, at one time. But feudal ways hadn't died completely, it seemed. They were being preserved by some of the very same people who were striving to be "modern". Life isn't fair and it often does not make sense. But "life" is outdone in this by the particular cruelties of individual people.

She couldn't marry the man she loved and who loved her in return because the man's father forbade it. She was twenty then. And although she knew her father and mother, her grandparents, her great-grandfather and great-grandmother, had all descended from the old "untouchable" class, and that she herself was one of them, she'd allowed herself the naiveté of thinking it wouldn't matter in a world striving to be modern.

She'd been wrong. There was no marriage. She gave up. He married someone else and she moved to this old ramshackle house, restored it as best she could, as lovingly as she knew how, and she lived simply and quietly, almost like a nun, trying not to be bitter. It's easy to decide not to be bitter. But fulfilling that goal is not so easy.

For a little income, she practiced a craft her grandfather had taught her when she was a little girl, a craft his people had done lovingly for generations in his old home far away on the cold western coast by the sea. It was old lacquerware. Beautiful, slow, peaceful lacquer. It was a strange old craft, she thought. The natural resins of the lacquer tree don't dry like a modern synthetic urethane. It requires moisture to cure and harden. It requires damp, cool air. Sometimes she found inspiration in this fact. She imagined that she, too, was hardening, curing up slowly over the time. Only in her case, it was in an atmosphere of tears.

The beauty is what most of us see in lacquerware. But behind the beauty, there is something fickle and spiteful. The raw resins cause horrid allergic reactions when they touch skin, almost as if the tree is seeking revenge for being robbed of its lifeblood. Occasionally, it even causes death.

In this cafe

In this cafe, in this little shop -- it's actually a donut shop -- there are many kinds of girls. There are girls who hold a pen in their right hand, doing homework apparently, while holding a mobile phone in their left, tapping out email. There are girls who laugh feverishly, making a sound as if they were hyperventilating. There are girls with leather Louis Vuitton bags. There's one, just over there, who has a white mobile phone opened on the table in front of her, and another blue one in her hand. She's clicking the buttons with concentration that would drive a Theraveda monk to jealousy. The lady she's with, across the table from her, has a green mobile phone and she is also tapping out email, apparently. They aren't talking to each other. There is a girl with dyed-brown hair -- it's a peculiar shade of brown... what is it? almost the color of a good Thai red curry -- and she's in love, apparently. She's holding hands with the guy next to her. She's staring into his... cheek. From about eight inches away. (I'd like to say she's staring into his eyes -- that would make a better story -- but alas, she's not. It's his cheek.) She has an almost ill look, in her face, in her eyes. It's difficult to say from this far away, but it appears she has a slight cast in her left eye. The guy, he's not looking at her. He's looking down into the table. He, too, appears to be ill.

Hmmm... but this isn't fair, is it? Let's have a look at the guy sitting over against the window, by himself. He's not from around here, apparently. His hair is thinning. He's writing in a little notebook, frantically, using a much too long pencil. He, too, has admirable concentration, although he's not as good as the girl with the two cell phones. I say this because he looks up from time to time, quickly scans the room until his eyes come to rest on a girl -- it seems to always be a girl, even though there are an equal number of guys. He regards the girl for a moment, smiles slightly, and then bends his head over the notebook again and begins his frantic writing again.