"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.