Blue Bamboo: Japanese Tales of Fantasy

  — II —

  The youngest son, though not very accomplished at this sort of endeavor, was generally the one who started off, and he generally made a mess of things. But this time he really intended to put his heart into it. When, with the five days of New Year’s vacation before them, the brothers and sisters grew bored and decided to engage in the usual storytelling pastime, the youngest son once again expressed a desire to take the lead. “Let me start,” he said. “I’ll go first.” It was always the same, and as usual his elder brothers and sisters just smiled ruefully and let him have his way. This being the first story of the year, they decided to take special care and write it out by turns. The deadline for each contributor was to be the morning of the day after receiving the manuscript. Each therefore had one entire day to conceive and write his or her portion, and the story would be complete by the fifth night or the sixth morning. During these five days, all of the brothers and sisters would be slightly on edge and aware of having a certain rare sense of purpose in their lives.

  The youngest son, then, had once again expressed a desire to go first, and since his wish had been granted he was to begin the story, but unfortunately he had no idea what to write. He appeared to be suffering a block. He wished he hadn’t volunteered to start. On New Year’s Day, the other brothers and sisters all went out to enjoy themselves, and the grandfather too had disappeared early in the morning, decked out in tails. The only ones left in the house were the mother, the grandmother, and the youngest son, who sat in his room sharpening and resharpening a pencil. After some hours had gone by, he could feel tears welling up, and at last, utterly desperate, he abandoned himself to a sinister plot. Plagiarism. He felt he had no choice. His heart pounding, he leafed through various books from his shelf—a copy of Grimm’s Fairy Tales, a volume of stories by Hans Christian Andersen, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and so on. Stealing a little bit from here, a little bit from there, he somehow managed to throw something together.

  Once upon a time, in the middle of a forest in the north country, there lived a horrible, ugly old witch. Though a truly vile old hag in every way, she was kind to one person—her only daughter, Rapunzel. The witch was absolutely devoted to Rapunzel, and every day she combed out her hair with a golden comb. Rapunzel was a beautiful girl. She was also a spirited, sassy child, and by the time she turned fourteen she had ceased to listen to anyone. There were times, in fact, when she went so far as to scold her own mother. But the witch so doted on her daughter that she would merely smile and beg forgiveness.

  It was the time of year when cold north winds blow through the forest, leaving the trees more scantily clad with each passing day, and preparations for winter had begun at the witch’s house. One evening a wonderful prize wandered into the enchanted forest. A handsome young prince, mounted on horseback, had lost his way in the gathering darkness. He was the sixteen-year-old son of the king of this land. Engrossed in the chase during a hunting expedition, he’d lost contact with his servants and was unable to find the path back home. With his golden armor shining like a torch in the dim light, there was small chance that the witch would fail to notice him. She flew out of her house with the speed of the wind and in no time at all had pulled the prince down from his saddle.

  “How nice and plump this boy is!” she gurgled. “Just look at that tender white flesh... Fattened on walnuts, no doubt.” The old witch had long, sparse whiskers, and eyebrows that hung down over her eyes. “He’s like a fat little lamb! I wonder how he tastes. Pickled in brine, he ought to be just the thing for the long winter nights!”

  Grinning with delight, she unsheathed her dagger and had laid its edge on the prince’s white throat when, suddenly, she let out a cry of pain. She’d just been bitten on the left ear by her own daughter, who’d jumped on her back and refused to let go.

  The old witch, who loved and pampered Rapunzel so, did not lose her temper but forced a smile and cried: “Rapunzel! Forgive me!”

  Rapunzel shook her by the shoulders. “I want to play with this pretty boy,” she whined. “Give him to me.” Having grown up spoiled and selfish, she was an obstinate child, and once she’d made a demand she never gave in. Knowing this, the old witch agreed to put off killing and salting the prince for just one night.

  “Very well, very well, you can have him. He’ll be your guest tonight, and we’ll treat him to a splendid feast. But you must give him back to me tomorrow. All right, dear?”

  Rapunzel nodded.

  That night, the prince was shown the utmost in witch hospitality but was nonetheless frightened out of his wits, not knowing if he was to live or die. Dinner consisted of frogs grilled on skewers; the skin of a pit viper stuffed with the fingers of little children; a salad of death cups, wet mouse noses, and the innards of green caterpillars; swamp-scum liqueur; and a nitric acid wine, fresh from the grave it was brewed in. This was all topped off with a confection of rusty nails and fragments of church-window glass. The prince felt sick just looking at it all and didn’t touch a thing, but the old witch and Rapunzel gobbled and guzzled and raved about how delicious it all was. Every dish was a delicacy they’d set aside for a special occasion.

  After dinner Rapunzel took the prince by the hand and led him to her room. They were about the same height, and once they were inside she put her arm around his shoulder, peered into his eyes, and whispered: “As long as you don’t come to hate me, I won’t let anyone kill you. You’re a prince, right?”

  Thanks to the witch’s daily combing, Rapunzel’s hair glistened as if it were made of threads spun from the purest gold, and it hung down almost to her knees. Her angelic, round face made one think of a wild yellow rose, her lips were small and as red as strawberries, and her eyes were dark and clear, with a hint of melancholy deep inside them. The prince thought he’d never seen such a beautiful girl before.

  “Yes,” he answered quietly. Some of the tension inside him melted away with the reply, and tears began to run down his cheeks.

  Rapunzel peered at him with those clear, dark eyes and nodded. “Even if you come to hate me, I won’t let anyone kill you. If you come to hate me, see, I’ll have to kill you myself.” She, too, had begun to weep, but suddenly burst out laughing and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. Then she wiped the prince’s tears as well. “Come on,” she said brightly. “Tonight you’ll sleep with me, where I keep all my pets.” And with that she led him to her bedroom. On the floor were blankets and a pile of straw. The prince looked up at the ceiling to see perhaps a hundred pigeons, all resting on perches and rafters. They appeared to be asleep but stirred slightly when he and Rapunzel approached.

  “All these are mine,” Rapunzel said. She snatched up the pigeon nearest her, held it by the feet, and shook it. The startled pigeon flapped its wings frantically, and Rapunzel thrust it in the prince’s face and cried: “Kiss it!” Then she nodded toward a large bamboo cage in one corner of the room and said: “See those crows over there? They’re the gangsters of the forest. There are ten of them, but they’re bad boys, so I’ve got to keep them locked up or they’ll fly away. And over here is my old sweetheart, Bae.” She went to the opposite corner of the room and came back pulling a deer along by its antlers. The deer had a shiny copper ring around its neck, attached to a thick iron chain. “This one, too, if I don’t keep him chained down, he’ll try to run away. Why don’t they want to stay with me? Oh, well, it doesn’t matter. Every night I take a knife and tickle Bae’s throat with it. He gets really scared when I do that, and starts wriggling around like anything.” Rapunzel pulled a long, shiny knife from a crack in the wall and began stroking the deer’s neck with the blade. The poor deer squirmed in distress and broke out in a greasy sweat. Rapunzel laughed.

  “Do you keep that knife next to you when you sleep too?” the prince asked warily.

  “Sure,” said Rapunzel. “I always go to sleep hugging my knife. You never know what might happen. But never mind that. It doesn’t matter. Let’s go to bed. I want you to tell
me how you ended up wandering into this forest.”

  The two of them lay down side by side on the straw, and the prince haltingly explained how he’d got lost and separated from his servants.

  “Do you miss them?” she asked him.

  “Yes.”

  “You want to go back to your castle?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “I hate children who pout!” Rapunzel said, sitting up suddenly. “It’s better to look happy. I have two loaves of bread and some ham. You can eat that if you get hungry on the way home... Well? What are you waiting for?”

  The prince jumped to his feet, overjoyed, but Rapunzel remained calm and composed. There was something almost maternal about her now.

  “Oh, and put on these fur boots. You can have them. It’ll be cold out there. I don’t want you to get cold. And these are my mother’s fingerless gloves. Shove your hands in. See? Now they look just like my ugly old mother’s hands!”

  As tears of gratitude rolled down the prince’s face, Rapunzel dragged the deer out of its corner and unchained it.

  “Bae. I’m going to miss tickling you with my knife, because you look so funny when I do, but never mind that. I’m going to set you free now. Take this boy back to the castle. He says he wants to go back. It doesn’t matter. You’re the only one who can run faster than the old woman. I want you to run as hard as you can.”

  The prince climbed on the deer’s back.

  “Thank you, Rapunzel. I’ll never forget you.”

  “None of that matters. Run, Bae! Don’t let our guest fall off, or you’ll be sorry!”

  “Goodbye,” said the prince.

  “Yeah, yeah. Goodbye,” Rapunzel said, and burst into tears.

  The deer flew through the darkness like an arrow. Leaping over thickets, it wound its way out of the forest, crossed a lake in a single bound, and in no time at all left behind a wilderness of howling wolves and screeching crows, cutting through the air with a rocketlike whistling sound.

  “You mustn’t look back,” the deer said as it ran. “The old witch is chasing us. But don’t worry. The only thing faster than me is a shooting star. You mustn’t forget Rapunzel’s kindness, though. She’s a willful girl, but she’s very lonely. Well, here we are.”

  Scarcely before he’d realized what was happening, the prince found himself standing in front of the castle. He felt as if he were dreaming.

  Ah, but poor Rapunzel! This time the old witch was furious with her for letting such a valuable catch escape. She said Rapunzel’s selfishness had gone too far this time, and locked her up in a dark tower deep in the forest. The tower had neither a door nor stairs, only one small window in a little room at the top. This was where Rapunzel was to spend her days and nights from then on. Poor, poor Rapunzel! A year passed, another year passed, and still she sat in the dark little room where, unbeknownst to anyone, she grew ever more beautiful. In her solitude she’d become a pensive young woman, and never for a single moment did she forget about her prince. Sometimes, overcome with loneliness, she sang for the moon and stars. The sorrow in her voice made the birds and trees in the forest weep, and even the moon would grow misty listening to her. Once a month the old witch would come to check on the girl, and to leave clean clothing and food, for she still loved her daughter and couldn’t bear to see her starve. But only she, with her invisible wings, was able to enter or leave through the tower window.

  Three years, four years passed, and now Rapunzel was eighteen years old. Alone in the dark room, not even she was aware of her shining beauty, or of her own flowerlike fragrance.

  In the autumn of that year, the prince went out hunting again and once again lost his way in the forest. As he was wandering helplessly about, trying to find the path back home, a sorrowful song reached his ears. The voice touched his heart and moved him powerfully, and he staggered toward it until finally he came to the base of the tower. Perhaps, he thought, it was Rapunzel. The prince, too, you see, had never forgotten the beautiful girl he’d met four years before.

  “Show me your face!” he shouted. “Please don’t sing such a sorrowful song.”

  Rapunzel peeked out from the small window atop the tower. “Who are you, to say that to me? Sorrowful songs are the salvation of sorrow-filled hearts. You just don’t understand the sadness of others.”

  “Ah! Rapunzel!” The prince was beside himself with joy. “Don’t you remember me?”

  Rapunzel’s cheeks went pale for a moment, then flushed with a faint, rosy glow. She had not yet lost all the pig-headedness of her younger days, however.

  “Rapunzel? She died four years ago!” she said in the coldest tone of voice she could manage. Then she drew a deep breath, intending to burst into hearty laughter, but all that came out was a choking sob. It was then that the birds of the forest began to sing, all at once, a peculiar song:

  That child’s hair is a bridge of gold!

  That child’s hair is a rainbow bridge!

  Their voices reached Rapunzel’s ears even as she wept, and she was suddenly struck by a wonderful flash of inspiration. She wound her long, lovely hair twice, three times around her left hand and took up a pair of scissors in her right. By now her shiny locks hung all the way to the floor, yet without the least hesitation or regret she clipped them off, then wove the strands together into a single long rope—the most beautiful rope under the sun. And then, after securing one end to the window ledge, she climbed out and slid down that exquisite golden cable to the ground.

  “Rapunzel!” The prince gazed at her, enraptured, but Rapunzel, for her part, had no sooner reached the ground than she was overcome with shyness. She could not even bring herself to speak, and it was all she could do to place her own fair hand on top of the prince’s.

  “Now, Rapunzel, it’s my turn to help you. No, not just now—let me help you for the rest of my life.” The prince was twenty now, a solid, upstanding young man. Rapunzel smiled at him faintly and nodded.

  The two of them left the forest and ran as fast as they could, hoping to cross the wilderness before the old witch could find them out. Fortunately, they made it back safe and sound to the castle, where they were greeted with cheers.

  It was only with great effort that the youngest son had managed to write this far, and now his mood turned sour. It was a failure. This wouldn’t serve as the beginning of a story at all—he’d written all the way to the ending. His elder brothers and sisters were sure to laugh at him once again. He racked his brains. It was already growing dark, and all the others seemed to have returned from their outings; he could hear their cheerful, laughing voices down in the drawing room, and suffered an indescribable sense of solitude. Then a savior arrived, in the form of his grandmother. She’d been beside herself with concern for the poor youngest son, holed up alone in his room.

  “At it again, are you?” she said as she entered the room. “Did you write something good?”

  “Go away!” He was in a nasty mood.

  “You’ve blundered again, haven’t you? You shouldn’t enter this silly sort of competition—you know it’s not your forte. Let me see.”

  “You wouldn’t understand!”

  “No need to get hysterical. Let me see.” She took her spectacles from her sash and read the youngest son’s fairy tale aloud in a soft voice. “My, my,” she said, chuckling. “Who’d have expected something like this from a child your age? It’s interesting. You’ve done an excellent job. But there’s no way to continue it.”

  “I know that.”

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it? If I were you, this is what I’d write: ‘The two of them were greeted at the castle with cheers. But unhappiness lay ahead for them.’ What do you think of that? A prince and the daughter of a witch—it’s just too great a social gap. Regardless of how much they love each other, there’s sure to be trouble. This sort of pairing is bound to bring unhappiness. See what I mean?” She poked the youngest son in the shoulder with her forefinger.

  “I know that. I know tha
t much. Go away! I’ve got my own ideas.”

  “Oh, is that so?” the grandmother said calmly. She knew more or less what his “own ideas” would amount to. “Hurry up and write it, then, and come on down to the drawing room. You must be hungry. You can have some rice cake and play a game of cards with the others. This writing competition is silly. Leave the rest to your big sister. She’s very good at this, you know.”

  Once he’d chased his grandmother out, the youngest son picked up his pen again and added a few more lines.

  But unhappiness lay ahead. There’s just too great a social gap between a prince and the daughter of a witch. Misfortune was about to befall them. I’ll leave it to my elder sister to explain. Please take good care of Rapunzel.

  Thus he wrote—exactly as his grandmother had suggested—and breathed a sigh of relief.

  — III —

  It was the second day of the new year. Immediately after eating her rice cake with the rest of the family, the elder daughter retired alone to her study. She was wearing a white woolen sweater with a small artificial yellow rose pinned to the breast. Sitting on a cushion before her little writing desk, her legs tucked up beside her, she took off her glasses and smiled to herself as she vigorously polished the lenses with a handkerchief. Putting the glasses back on, she blinked exaggeratedly before adopting, suddenly, a solemn expression. She resettled on the cushion, sitting rigidly on her knees, and sank into contemplation. It was some minutes before she picked up her fountain pen and began to write.