After catching something in his bare hands, he cursed—it obviously hurt—and then, straight after, held up the object, and whooped.
It may have been a primitive version of cricket, but I did eventually recognize the game. For starters, the willow bat was real enough.
‘He borrowed it from one of his mates,’ disclosed Kohana.
The ‘ball’, however, was an endless supply of lumps of rock or concrete, each one replaced when it was accidentally knocked into a rancid pond. There was some hefty surface damage being done to the borrowed willow.
‘The kids here loved it when Les dropped by. He had so much time for the children—sometimes he forgot all about me, to entertain them.’
Kohana put one elbow on her knee, and her chin in her hand. ‘It’s a terrible thing when you become jealous of people no higher than your hip bone.’
21 | 二十一
‘My father’s career choice, in his younger days, was a military vocation—he was captain of a navy vessel immediately before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, in 1904. He was the first member of our family to take to the seas, and no doubt he hoped to elevate his status in the ensuing combat.’
Kohana was staring out of the window of her hovel, while I had a blanket over my lap and was sipping at a delightful cup of tea. I watched Kohana’s reflection over in the glass. Her face was impassive.
‘Things didn’t go as planned. While most of his colleagues celebrated resounding victories against the Russians over the nineteen-month conflict, thereby nurturing often-brilliant careers, my father’s calling careered in the opposite direction. His ship, the Kobayashi Maru, was sunk without a salvo being fired—thanks to poor navigation, he hit a shoal just outside the waters of the Liaodong Peninsula in China, and lost two hundred sailors on board. The fact that he was one of only thirteen survivors was all the more dishonourable.
‘Forced into early retirement after the military enquiry, Oto-sama retreated to the anonymity of rural life in Tokorozawa, about thirty kilometres west of Tokyo. The residence was not far from a new air force base and air service academy, and he developed an enjoyment of watching airplanes. An arranged marriage, with a woman thirty years his junior, took place in 1928. I will never know if he loved her, but judging from the two photographs we had, and my aunt’s glowing description, Noriko was a delicate, charming bride.
‘Any effort Oto-sama put into the marriage bed must have paid dividends, because twelve months after they were wed, my sister and I entered the world—and Noriko passed out of it, aged just twenty-three.
‘Once the funeral was finalized, my father found a live-in nursemaid, while he sat in his study, spending most of his days in the construction of model flying machines, made from match-sticks and glue—not for his children, but for his own gratification. We were never allowed to touch them, not even as we got older. They dangled from fishing wire, just out of reach—though a couple of times, when he wasn’t about, I used to poke at them with a broom.
‘The evenings were different. Oto-sama drank himself into oblivion, but on occasion—before that oblivion crept into his bloodshot eyes—he tried to hit both his daughters into the same state. Sometimes he used a leather belt, at other times one of his wooden geta. Often he’d surprise us with an improvised weapon that was neither strap nor shoe.
‘The highlight of his retirement, however, appears to have been trainspotting the German airship Graf Zeppelin in its only flight over Tokyo, two months before we were born. He had a big-framed photograph of the airship, hanging on a wall beneath the trophy katana sword of my grandfather, a low-ranking samurai who had served in the household of Rokurota Makabe.
‘The hired nursemaid we called Oba-chan, or Auntie, though she wasn’t our real aunt—our mother’s sister lived in Hachioji, and she only visited us twice that I remember. Oba-chan was a nice enough woman. She had her own large family an hour’s walk away, and she gave us any leftover affection she had to spare.
‘I remember ginkgo trees surrounding the ageing wooden house, and there was a huge camphor at the front. Oto-sama kept Jersey cows for milk, as well as a solitary brown goat. Our neighbours Aoki-san and Toyama-san were polite, diffident old men who grew sweet potatoes. There were no other children, for miles.’
I finished my tea and placed it quietly on the table. Time to interrupt the long-winded, disturbing monologue.
‘There’s something I wanted to ask you,’ I said.
Kohana didn’t turn around. ‘Go on.’
‘Your name, the one Oume-san recoiled at when she heard it.’
‘Oh, that. Well, for his children, Oto-sama was very inventive: my elder twin was called Tomeko, using the kanji usually reserved by parents for a child they intend to be their last, while I was anointed Akuma. For anyone interested in video games—don’t worry, Wolram, I know this won’t include you—’
‘Hold on a minute.’ I sat forward at this last phrase. ‘I’ll have you know, I loved my TV games when I was younger. There was one, what was the name of it, the tennis one you played on the telly?’
‘Pong!’
Kohana looked over at me and smiled, but I stared at her.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Not you. The game you’re talking about—it was called Pong, since it simulated ping pong, not tennis.’
‘I honestly don’t remember. But I was also an absolute whiz at another game, Space Invaders.’
‘Those games are a little… shall we say, old school? Single chip and 8-bit—plus the fact you call them “TV games”. I was thinking more along the lines of their sophisticated 32-megabit brethren, about a decade later. Video games.’
‘How in blazes do you know these things?’
‘What can I say? I have a soft spot for new technology.’
‘I thought you liked books.’
‘I’m allowed to have more than one interest, aren’t I?’
‘Given your age, I thought you would have been far too archaic for TV, let alone video games.’
‘Nice. I was lucky. In the 1970s, for a while, I dated Tomohiro Nishikado.’
‘And this should matter to me because…?’
‘He designed your precious Space Invaders.’
‘I thought Space Invaders was an American game.’
‘Are you kidding? The manufacturers, Taito, are as Japanese as my Toto toilet. You know, Nishikado-san was only in his mid-thirties when the game was released? He was an engaging man—he taught me how to use one of his earlier video games, Speed Race, and I was captivated.’
‘Was all of this before, or after, your escapade with my grandfather?’
Kohana rolled her eyes. ‘After, of course. Two decades later. I said already. Anyway. Where on earth was I? I think I need to consult cheat-notes when I’m chatting with you, we get so off-track.’
‘Memory problems can be an issue for the extremely elderly.’
‘Right. So, as I mentioned before we swerved off course, if you have an interest in video gaming—which I now appreciate you do—you might be aware of a hidden character called Akuma in Super Street Fighter II.’
‘The same name as you.’
‘Ah, but this Akuma—who’s actually a chunky male and often referred to as just plain “Devil”—was defeated by Popeye in an episode of South Park. Have I mentioned that, in my time, I had a fond regard for South Park?’
This was getting to be too much. ‘I’m assuming you rolled in the hay with one of the directors?’
‘No. That’s one acerbic tongue you have there, my sweet. Anyway, this name—Akuma—popped up often. Akuma-kun, or Devil Boy, was the name of a 1980s anime; the shōjo manga series Akuma na Eros tells the story of Satan in love; while Gini Piggu: Akuma no Jikken—in English, Guinea Pig: Devil’s Experiment—was a horrible torture movie I would recommend to no one.’
‘Duly noted.’ I stifled a yawn. I was getting pins and needles in my leg, so I tried to give it a shake, once my lector wasn’t looking.
I shouldn’t have been concerned. She was preoccupied.
‘What you may glean, from these admittedly obscure references, is that Akuma wears the reprobate’s badge. Also known as Mara in India, this is the god that maliciously obstructs one’s path to Nirvana. Akuma is also equated with a recurring character in Christianity, Islam and Judaism: you know Lucifer, I suppose?’
‘I think I’ve heard tell of the name.’
‘Akuma didn’t originate from local Japanese mythology, but arrived on the boat from India, via Buddhism. Still, the name resonated with deep meaning in my country. Its mere mention encouraged people to conjure up images of wicked brutes and evil characters—the mere sight of whom is said to bring on bad luck.’
‘I believe I do get the gist.’
‘I thought as much. So Akuma is what my father called me, with the name listed on our koseki, or family registry.’
‘Wait a moment. I thought this kind of business was illegal—an abuse of a parent’s right to decide on a child’s name, or some such guff. I’m fairly certain it was banned in Australia to call your child Beelzebub.’
‘In Japan, we also ended up with similar legislation, but it arrived seventy years too late for me.’
‘I’m guessing it wasn’t retroactive.’
‘I never asked.’ Kohana got up from her place by the window. ‘Another tea?’
‘I thought you’d never ask.’
‘You can make one yourself, you know.’
‘Ahh, but your brews are superb.’
‘Flatterer. No wonder you get pins and needles.’ She picked up my cup and saucer and went over to the fireplace. ‘By the way, there is a point to all this.’
‘I should hope so.’
‘Sometimes it gets difficult to sift through all the memories, and the different angles, at once. It’s so easy to get distracted and end up someplace else entirely.’
‘You started out rambling about your father.’
God knows why I was being helpful. Probably, I bothered because I knew the man was a subject she didn’t relish.
‘Oh—him.’
Bingo.
‘I think I know which tack to take now. Back in Tokorozawa, we lived near a place called Takiyama-jō—the remains of Waterfall Mountain Castle. It was a stronghold that had been abandoned centuries before, and was now not recognizable as a structure, a wild place on a hill, with vague evidence of the fortifications, pathways chiselled into the rock, big boulders laid together, and a dried-up moat.’
‘Then why was it called Waterfall Mountain?’
‘There was also, obviously, a waterfall. I thought that went without saying. From the age of four, I used to go there by myself. On one of her visits, my real aunt had gifted me with a picture book of European fairy tales, illustrated by Arthur Rackham. The text was in Japanese, which I had just started to learn how to read.’
‘I don’t know Rackham. Was he American? Or was he Japanese with an odd-sounding name?’
‘He was English.’ She poked out her tongue. ‘Don’t ask me anything more about him, but I loved his artwork. Waterfall Castle reminded me of those pictures. It’s all very Arthurian—you’d despise the style.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘One day, I met a boy at the site of the old castle. He was five years older than me, and there he was, swinging across the waterfall between two trees, dangling from an old rope. When he jumped down to the ground to confront me, the first thing I noticed was a mole on the tip of his nose. Behind the mole was a wiry boy with untidy clothes, short-cropped hair, and a dirty face.’
‘Another love interest?’
‘I was five.’
‘I had a girlfriend at five. Also, a holiday girlfriend.’
‘At the same time?’
‘Yes, one was in Melbourne and the other up on the Gold Coast, where my grandmother—Pop’s wife—lived.’
‘Well, there was no hanky panky here. Straight away, he handed me the rope to take a swing. Which I did, after fearing for my life. He never told me his name, but we thereafter met every weekend and spent hours together, talking nonsense, playing make-belief, climbing trees, tossing stones into the waterfall. We built ourselves a secret fort, in a glade beneath the old castle foundations. All right, I’ll admit I was in love with his mole. I wanted to show him off to Tomeko, so one day, just before our sixth birthday, I brought her along with me. I coerced her, actually—she was not interested in cavorting around the countryside in the middle of winter.’
‘I think I know why,’ I said, as I slowly looked around.
The landscape surrounding us was blanketed in deep snow, with only the skeletons of trees poking through. It was freezing, and the condensation billowed from my nostrils. I felt my ears were plugged with cotton wool.
Kohana had on a thick coat trimmed with sable fur, but I was clad only in my threadbare smoking jacket—an indoor garment, intended to spend company with a raging fire or a warm heater.
I wrapped arms around myself.
‘This is just not fair. Couldn’t I borrow something from you? I don’t care if it’s a woman’s coat. And there’s ice between my toes! For whatever reason it is that we’re here, can we make it speedy? I don’t want to catch my death.’
There was a skinny kid standing on a small hill nearby, like me inappropriately dressed for this weather. From our distance, I could see the black dot on the end of his nose.
Several metres from him, an equal measure away from us, were a pair of pretty, identical little girls with short, black, bowl-shaped hairstyles. They wore heavy jackets that looked too big for their tiny bodies and probably would have fit me far better.
There seemed to be some sort of standoff going on between one girl and the boy.
Neither moved. Their eyes were glued upon one another.
The other girl fidgeted, and hopped from leg to leg—as uncomfortable with the situation as I was with the climate.
‘He was bewitched,’ Kohana said softly beside me. ‘He couldn’t look away from her, and she felt the same way. I ceased to exist. From that day forward, he only wanted to spend time with Tomeko.’
The woman turned her attention from the children, and as she looked around at the frozen vista, they vanished entirely. ‘I stopped coming here soon after that. Tomeko took my place.’
‘Did you tell him how you felt—about his mole, I mean? Or did you let Tomeko know?’
‘Of course not. That wasn’t the done thing.’
‘Why the Devil not?’
‘Just part of my culture.’
‘To be reticent.’
‘To be discreet.’
‘A trait you’ve since shed.’
‘Having lived to a ripe old age, I realized some things need to be said. But that was later on—when I was five, I abided by the philosophy of my peers. Besides, I was bored of childish games.’
Kohana went over to a place that looked like it might have been the fort she had mentioned earlier, the one she and the boy had made together, and kicked at the snow-covered roof. Of course, she didn’t leave the faintest impression. Without a further attempt, she strode back through the snow.
‘I spent more time in my room in the house, safely out of sight of Oto-sama. I taught myself to read, so that I could pore over more of these brooding, moody books set on moors and in primal forests, a world away from Japan. It was from these that a fancy began—my own private shelter from the real world.’
Thank God, we’d switched scenes and now hovered by a thawing fire in a large room, and for once I could feel the heat. Kohana watched a girl on the floor, with several opened books.
I recognized folk-tale tomes with fairies on their pages, and others awash with knights, princesses, and other such nonsense, looking like bored Pre-Raphaelites had painted the lot.
‘It was always the same daydream: a simple farmhouse atop a cliff on a wild northern European coast, the only abode for miles in each direction, and on the western side was a raging sea, several hundre
d metres below. The sky alternated between slate-grey clouds and sunshine, and there was a forbidding wind, but the farmhouse was inviting, and a fire warmed within. A woman stands at the edge of the cliff, waiting for the return of her knight-errant. There’s a Jersey cow and a scarecrow, and the atmosphere, in spite of the weather, is—’
‘Wait. Hold it right there. A knight-errant?’
‘So I was a hopeless romantic. I was just about to start elementary school. My head was full of these books.’
‘Clearly. But you’re describing precisely this place,’ I waved airily around us, for we were back inside Kohana’s hovel. ‘Looks to me like the motif has been a recurring one far longer than that.’
‘It was a place where I could always hide. Waiting.’
‘For this knight-errant.’ I looked at her. ‘You worry me sometimes.’
‘I think I worry myself.’ She smiled.
‘So what happened to the boy?’
‘I told you previously. We moved away from Tokorozawa, when we were six, taken to the okiya in Tokyo. Oto-sama then returned to Tokorozawa, to continue making his planes. I didn’t cry for my father’s ways when he sold us to the geisha house, but Tomeko did. She wept for days on end. It was pathetic.’
‘And that was that?’
‘Not quite. Years later, once Oto-sama died, I went back to settle up the property. Our neighbour Toyama-san was still alive, pushing ninety, but he came over to pay his respects. At some stage in the polite conversation, he informed me that the boy had got married, fathered two children, and been drafted into the army. He was killed in New Guinea. All before the age of nineteen.’
‘New Guinea? That was the campaign my grandfather fought in.’
‘I know. Les told me.’
Cue visual shift, this time like a page being torn out to reveal the one beneath. Thankfully, a Pre-Raphaelite artist hadn’t been involved. The room was much smaller than Kohana’s hovel or her father’s house, but the floor was covered with tatami mats. There were simple, white sliding doors on two walls, and a window, with its own shōji screen—made from a lattice of wood and paper—allowed in a pale illumination. It would have to have been either early evening, or dawn.