The Cape and Other Stories From the Japanese Ghetto by Kenji Nakagami
Author:Kenji Nakagami [Nakagami, Kenji]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Short Stories, Japanese, Fiction, Family Life, Classics, Novella
ISBN: 9781880656396
Publisher: Stone Bridge Press
Published: 1999-04-30T23:00:00+00:00
House on Fire
He was a big man. No one had a clue where heâd come from. But it was a small town. They could make a rough guess, mostly from his accent. It sounded like Atawa or Kinomoto, or at the furthest Owase. The man wore khaki pants, a khaki vest, and a hunting cap. The son remembered his mother telling him about the man at some point, but he couldnât remember exactly when. A train had been rumbling past the house.
âCome in,â ordered the sonâs older brother.
The man just stood his ground, spitting into the gully that ran along the barley fields.
âPlease, come in,â pleaded the brother, now on the verge of tears.
âNaw.â The man spit again, then wiped his face with his hand, âLater. I gotta job to do today.â
The brother stepped outside. âIâm going with you.â
âNo, this ainât somethinâ I can do with a kid like you.â
The man walked toward the station. The brother followed. Cutting through the barley field, the man jumped over a stick fence and the brother followed. They were on the railroad tracks.
âYou mean Iâd get in your way?â asked the brother as he hopped from one railroad tie to the next.
There was no reply. The sound of the gravel crackling under the manâs footsteps grated on the brotherâs ears. The man was planning to ditch him. A train appeared from the direction of the station. The man jumped aside nimbly, gathering enough momentum to land on the grassy bank opposite. The brother followed.
âI told you not to come, you little shit, get the fuck outta here.â
âCâmon, let me join you.â
âIâm not that desperate.â
âSo let me do stuff for you.â
âYeah, thatâll get âem talkinâ for sureâme chasing a young widow with her kid in tow.â
The man stopped abruptly. He spat, making a whistling sound through the gap in his teeth. It was a habit of his. He had just come back from the war. Or maybe he hadnât gone off to war at all.
âWho cares?â asked the brother, staring at the man. âLet people talk if they want to.â
The train whistle sounded.
How old would his older brother have been then? At least eleven or twelve.
A sharp smell of grass filled the air. Not a breath of wind. Pampas grass and wormwood leaves gleamed as if they had shed their outer layers under the hot sun. The motherâs first husband had died, and now the brother lived in the house with his three young sisters. Copying the man, the brother whistled through his teeth and spat. He tore off a wormwood leaf and bit down on it. The man moved off again and the brother followed.
Together they cut through the train station to get to Ueda no Hideâs house. When Ueda no Hide saw the brother standing behind the man, he laughed. âSo youâve given up becoming a horse trader?â
Ueda no Hide was carefully wiping the lids of surplus canned Occupation goods he had picked up somewhere. Kinoe, who until recently had been living in the red-light district, sat sideways on a futon smoking a cigarette.
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