On the Narrow Road to the Deep North by Lesley Downer

Author:Lesley Downer [Downer, Lesley]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Endeavour Press
Published: 2015-07-28T04:00:00+00:00

10. The Gorge

I turned away from the notch on the horizon that pointed the way back to civilisation and took the road along the valley, through the village, up past the big stone and on, skirting the edge of the hill, to Toshiyuki’s village and the shoe factory. The machines were already clanking and rattling busily. I took my pack off, leaned it against the wall and went in to say ‘Goodbye’.

Everyone but Toshiyuki was there. They all stopped work — Obasan with Toshiyuki’s baby on her back, Junko his smiling wife, the two girls, the old man, even Ocaasan’s sad daughter-in-law — and came to wave me on my way. It was as if I’d known them for years, not just a few days, and I felt a pang of sadness as I walked away. But it was soon forgotten in the excitement of being on the road again with my belongings on my back, heading off towards somewhere unknown.

tabibito to

wa ga na yobaren

hatsu shigure

‘Traveller’ —

Let that be my name

First autumn showers

The little houses and sparkling paddy fields came to an abrupt end and the mountains closed in again. In a moment, when I looked back, the valley had vanished as completely as if it really had been a dream. There was nothing all around but trees and steep hills, long grass and wild flowers sprawling across the road. It was a perfect day for walking, like an English summer’s day, cool and breezy, with snatches of cloud drifting across a sky much too blue really to be England. I tramped along cheerfully, day-dreaming a little, wishing I could identify more of the flowers.

There were wild daisies, bushes covered in tiny white blossoms, huge yellow trumpet-like flowers, towering trees with shiny green leaves that might have been camellias, and flashes of purple in the grass at the edge of the road — violets.

Violets on a mountain path … It reminded me of one of the first haiku I ever learned and of my old calligraphy teacher in Gifu. She lived in a concrete house next to her husband’s concrete dental hospital, somewhere out in the industrial flatlands on the corner of two main roads; though once you were inside it was a traditional Japanese house, all wood and tatami. Shizuko was her name. ‘Shizu-ko, “quiet child” — only I’m not quiet!’ she shrieked when she introduced herself, cackling with laughter. I spent the entire week practising the haiku, trying to get every brush stroke exactly like hers, until it was impossible to forget it. Though it wasn’t until now, seeing the purple violets beside the path, that I realised why she had liked it so much.

yamaji kite

nani yara yukashi

sumiregusa

Coming along a mountain

path

Somehow it tugs my heart —

Wild violet

I used to kneel by the low table in her living-room for hours, so absorbed in grinding the ink and writing and rewriting the haiku that I never noticed that my legs were completely numb. When it was time to stand up

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.