Chapter 6 — The Machinations of Ebisugawa Sōun (Part 1)

After Father’s death, the tanuki of Kyōto began to refer to us brothers as fools who had squandered the inheritance of their great father’s blood. Gossipy and malicious though they were, even a broken clock is right twice a day. But the charge that Father’s blood had evaporated into thin air was born out of sheer resentment. In any event all tanuki are more or less fools. And what’s more, the fact that we are fools is proof more than anything else that Father’s blood runs through our veins. After Father reached the summit of the tanuki world, his foolishness grew worse and worse until at last he was put into a stew.

Mother had once instructed us, “Your Father was a great tanuki; I’m sure that he was laughing all the way into the pot, and what a delicious stew it must have been. You must all aspire to become tanuki just like him.” But she had also said, “You must never find out for yourself what kind of stew you would make.”

Foolishness is next to godliness—we all took pride in that idea. Fool if you watch, fool if you prance, if you’re a fool either way, then you might as well dance¹, as the old chant goes, and I intended to dance as skillfully as I could manage it.

Not once have we ever been ashamed of the fool’s blood that flows thickly through our veins. Pleasure or pain, happiness or sorrow: everything we taste in our journey through this halcyon world is brought about by our fool’s blood. Our father, and his father, and his father before him: the fool’s blood spoke through each generation of the Shimogamo clan in turn, and at times they transformed into humans, or brought tengu low, or fell into bubbling iron pots. Far be it for us to be ashamed, for this is something to boast and be proud of.

Though our fool’s blood may bring us to tears, even then we are proud of it, and it is in this that the repute of our family lies.

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Winter trudged on day by day, and the dead leaves by the road blew restlessly hither and thither, east and west.

The day on which the next head of tanuki society would be chosen drew fretfully close. From what I heard, Yaichirō was so worked to the bone making the rounds greeting tanuki bigwigs and giving addresses at shady underground organizations (such as the Society for the Discreet Denunciation of Ebisugawa Sōun) and navigating the web of time-honored, esoteric ceremonies of tanuki society that he hardly had time to shut his eyes.

In the opposite corner, his mortal enemy and uncle: Ebisugawa Sōun. He was the owner of the Faux Denki Bran distillery, and not a few tanuki had been enticed by the sweet fumes of moonshine to throw their support behind him. But even those drunkards readily admitted there was no telling the harm he would do if he were elected head. “That crafty feller is always looking for it anywhere he can get it,” they said. “Give him the chance and he’ll suck the teat dry!”

That was where Yaichirō was hoping to get his shot. My brother was so straight-laced that he could never be so shrewd as to attempt to fill his own pockets by graft, something that many found frankly astonishing.

All over Kyōto, whether in Gosho, Nanzenji, Gion, Kitayama, Tanukifudō, or Mount Yoshida, opinions of Yaichirō and Sōun were equally divided. The task of compiling all these disparate views and making a decision fell to the elders of Ōtō, a cabal of tanuki so elderly that they were apt to be mistaken for the dust bunnies one might find lurking beneath a seat cushion.

This winter, anywhere you found a gaggle of tanuki you were bound to hear them talking about two things. One was the upcoming election, and the other was the Friday Fellows’ tanuki stew.

Two heads are better than one, or so they say, and yet when it came to the tyranny of the Friday Fellows no one seemed to be able to come up with any ideas. The tanuki of Kyōto saw the tumultuous happening at the end of the year as a regular, unavoidable natural disaster. Of course this was a misconception through and through, for the Friday Fellows were nothing if not a manmade disaster, but nevertheless the tanuki faced it with a glum sense of resignation.

“There’s nothing wrong with humans eating tanuki,” Yajirō had once said. I think he meant it in a spiritual sort of sense, but furballs who wriggle along the ground with butts held low are hardly wont to give thought to lofty things like spirituality.

That is to say, we are fools one and all.

Each time the end of the year approaches, all the tanuki in Kyōto think to themselves, “What are the chances that it’ll be me?” Once someone does get eaten, the rest of them tremble and weep, before putting it from mind just as quickly. It’s the same story year after year. We all indulge in our natural slugabed ways, averting our eyes from the manmade tragedy before us. Yet for all that, we are terrified of it, and few are the tanuki who can hear the name of the Friday Fellows without shedding their transformations in fear. Just try going to any street corner and shouting out, “The Friday Fellows are coming!” Without fail every tanuki in earshot will drop into a deep, feigned sleep.

Tanuki are a long way away from being able to perceive the will of heaven and accept fate.

Not that I claim to be an exception.

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Adhering to the principle of nonviolent resistance gradually wears on you, however. Surely a little scheming here and there doesn’t hurt.

I made up my mind to scout out the movements of the Friday Fellows.

Mother looked worried, and Yaichirō admonished me, “Don’t do anything rash!” Yashirō was already quivering in fear.

“I’ll go to see Mr. Yodogawa and sound things out with him.”

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

“Don’t worry about me, I always feel better when I go out to face things head on.”

I transformed into my favorite form, the Unkempt Undergrad. The neighborhood of Hyakumanben was in fact full of other unkempt undergrads, owing to the presence of Kyōto University, so no one would pay me any particular mind.

I left the Tadasu Forest and crossed the Takano River, relying on the crumpled business card the Professor had given me to navigate past Hyakumanben. The Professor’s lab was located smack in the middle of the school of agriculture. I walked through the north gate onto campus, where innumerable fallen gingko leaves turned the path golden, swirling in the biting wind. I shivered. With lectures over for the calendar year, the number of students roaming the campus had dwindled, leaving behind an air of desolation.

Professor Yodogawa’s lab was on the third floor of the agriculture building. I knocked and entered. It was a spacious room, with desks lining the walls and a large brown table with an electric kettle taking up the center. Around this table sat Professor Yodogawa and a male student wearing a white lab coat, gnawing at a tree stump. But of course they would have tree trunks for their afternoon tea! This is Professor Yodogawa’s lab, after all! I marveled to myself for a moment, before I took a closer look and realized that the tree trunk was really an oversized baumkuchen.

“What a fascinating idea, Suzuki,” said the Professor, talking in between chews. “But it’s not a fart of use.”

“You’re right, it’s not worth a fart. What fun life would be if things only had to be interesting.”

And the two of them laughed.

The pair finally looked my way when I called out. “Blechmee!” the Professor gaped, his face brightening around his baumkuchen-filled mouth. “It’s you!”

“I brought the photograph I took that day.”

“Photograph? When did you take it?”

“It was up on the rooftop…”

“Ah! Yes! The couples shot with her, what a precious thing!”

“The student squinted at him. “What do you mean, couples shot? Is this some kind of raunchy business? Are you having an affair?”

“What on earth do you mean, an affair? I would most certainly never do anything raunchy!”

“Sure, sure. I’m not going to poke my head into your private life. Goodbye, Professor. I have a lot of not-worth-a-fart things to deal with.” The student hastily stuffed the remnants of the baumkuchen into his mouth. “And I wouldn’t want to accidentally spend New Year’s here in the lab.”

And with that parting shot Suzuki left the lab.

I took out the photo, a memento of that autumn night when the three of us had escaped the Friday Fellows’ gathering and wandered the rooftops of Teramachi. The photo captured the Professor sitting by that red-leafed tree with a huge grin, while beside him sat Benten with the most listless of smiles. The composition was quite well done, if I do say so myself. During my time working for Konkobu of Iwayasan at the used camera shop, I hadn’t missed the opportunity to polish my photography chops.

The Professor shrieked like a schoolgirl as he looked at the photo, his eyes glittering. “Oh, that’s breathtaking! Yes, the leaves too I suppose, but Benten! It’s like she descended upon us from heaven!”

After discussing the events of that night, including the finer details of Benten’s beauty, I asked, “How are the preparations for the tanuki stew coming along?”

The Professor frowned and shook his head. “Not so well, wouldnchaknow,” he sighed. “And it went so well last time, too. I could never live it down to my pop if I got kicked out!”

The responsibility for preparing the tanuki stew each year rotated among each member of the Friday Fellows. Here, preparing didn’t mean standing in the kitchen; rather, it referred to the task of obtaining the finest, freshest ingredients for the stew. Since there were only seven members, that meant that each member of the Friday Fellows had to gather their wits and catch a tanuki once every seven years. If this had merely been a confederacy of dunces the tanuki of Kyōto would have been safe, but unhappily the Friday Fellows were clever, one and all. As far as I knew, they had never failed to enjoy a tanuki stew at a single one of the year-end parties, and this year the duty had fallen to Professor Yodogawa to proclaim a death sentence over some poor tanuki.

“Don’t you think it would be best to end this uncivilized practice of eating tanuki?”

“I'm sure that would never do.”

“You love them, don’t you? How can you stand to eat things you find so dear?”

“I said, didn’t I? I love them so much I just want to eat them up.”

“Doesn’t your heart break for them?”

“Well sure it does, but I eat anyway. I eat them because eating is love.”

“Think about this, then. You saved a tanuki’s life once, didn’t you? The cute little thing that kept looking over its shoulder at you as it scooted back into the mountains. Could you still eat the stew if it were that tanuki floating in there?”

“What a horrible thing to think of. You’re a villain!” the Professor grimaced. “I...I couldn’t say, not unless it were right in front of me!”

“There, see? You say you’ll eat this tanuki, but you won’t eat that one. If you’re going to say that you spread your love all tanuki unconditionally, you can’t pick and choose like that. That’s a double standard!”

“Now I didn’t say I wouldn’t eat it, I said I didn’t know. Maybe I would eat it. And love isn’t bound to the rules of logic anyhow. Love isn’t fair!”

“Sophistry! That’s sophistry!”

“They always did have high hopes for me as a young man in the sophistry club. But this is a tricky issue to get out of and no mistake!” pondered the Professor. “At any rate why are you so interested in the welfare of tanuki?”

“And why are you so fixated on the Friday Fellows? You’d be much better off quitting that bunch.”

“It doesn’t do to be so rash. As a student you can say whatever you like, but the world of adults is a complicated place. There’s always more to things than meets the eye.”

“Human society really is bizarre, isn’t it?”

“Some things you’re better off not knowing about. Anything that you need to know about you’ll eventually learn, and if you can get away without knowing about something then all the better.”

“Well, in any case I hope it all works out for you.”

“Thanks, I’ll do my best.”

I averted my eyes as I spoke, though, and I was hopeful that perhaps the Professor would fail to catch a tanuki after all.

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Just past the point where you turn from the canyon of office buildings on Karasuma Street onto Rokkaku Street is the eighteenth out of the thirty-three temples of the Saigoku Kannon pilgrimage, Shiunzan Chōhōji. It is commonly known as the Rokkakudō for its famous hexagonal temple building, but there is one other famous landmark on its grounds. That landmark is the Keystone, a six-sided rock that is also known as the Navel Stone. The word “navel” refers to the center of Kyōto, because it is said that when Emperor Kammu built his capital here, he laid out the city using this rock as a reference point.

Some people scoff, “How do you expect me to believe that? I mean, that was over 1200 years ago!” To these people I say that that is not the most unbelievable thing about it.

The Navel Stone does not exist.

Then what is that funny six-sided rock plopped down on the grounds of Hōchōji? It is not the Navel Stone but a fake, and in fact is not a rock at all but merely a tanuki pretending to be one.

“That’s ridiculous!” many people will say.

“That’s ridiculous!” I thought as a young pup. “It’s just a rock. It doesn’t even have any hair! You’re just trying to pull a fast one on me!”

At that age I was brittle as glass, and always looking for a fight. As a little daredevil with a chip on my shoulder I crept into Hōchōji at night and set to work pestering the rock any way I could.

I tickled it with a peacock feather I had swiped from a used good store in Teramachi; I set a giant ball of ice on top of it; I showed it photos from a tanuki girly magazine; I presented it with plates of the most heavenly-smelling, mouthwatering yakitori. This was all out of pure curiosity, of course. If the famous Navel Stone really was a tanuki, then I reasoned that it would give itself away and send its tail shooting out. In the end I was apprehended attempting to impertinently smoke it out.

My youthful shenanigans sent shockwaves throughout the tanuki world. I received a scorcher of a scolding from the elders, which many claimed was the worst tonguelashing in a quarter-century, and as a result of the fright I slept for two weeks afterwards.

I still remember what happened very well.

I fanned the burning pine needles with a rigid fan varnished with persimmon juice², until at last the smoke-enveloped Navel Stone began to quiver like a bowl of pudding. With a whoosh a brown tail-like thing came sprouting out, and the Navel Stone turned into something that resembled a wobbling cushion . My eyes opened wide in surprise, but before I could do anything else I was caught in a net and pushed to the ground, so I didn’t get to see what happened to the Navel Stone after that.

It was a full half year after that forbidden escapade before I was allowed to pass the gates of Hōchōji again. The Navel Stone sat there before me, looking like nothing more or less than a rock.

With tears in my eyes I knelt on the ground and apologized for my rudeness to the Navel Stone, as the sun set on that summer evening.

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The Navel Stone is highly revered, and as such it must be informed whenever the torch is passed at the top of the tanuki world. Hence, all the bigwigs were to assemble at the Rokkakudō.

To kill the time until the gathering was to commence, I read magazines at a nearby convenience store before heading off west down Rokkaku Street. The city was embraced in the crisp air of winter, and the sky was bracingly clear and blue. I pushed open the door of a café at the intersection with Higashinotōin Street, to find Mother and Yaichirō sitting inside meekly. Yaichirō was in his young master’s form wearing traditional robes, while Mother cut a dashing figure as a young man straight out of the Takarazuka.

Looking irritated that I had taken so long to join them, Yaichirō started griping and bringing up the past. “We’ll be lucky if the Navel Stone isn’t in a foul mood.”

“But it’s been a long time since then, don’t you think? The Navel Stone has gotten its proper due since then, I’m sure it’ll be quite pleased.”

“Don’t be so naive, Mother. Yasaburō will get cocky again if you say things like that.”

The Navel Stone is an unreasonably patient tanuki, so much so that the likes of peacock feathers and yakitori couldn’t force it to raise a peep. If it were not so, it could never stand to stay in the form of a rock day in and day out. Yet that virtuosic shapeshifting skill proved, if anything, to be a curse, because the tanuki of Kyōto avoided it on the pretense of showing it respect, treating it more like a pebble lying at the side of the road. It was only when my shenanigans revealed it to be an actual tanuki that other tanuki started to visit it in droves once more, realizing that this tanuki was actually pretty impressive after all.

“Sounds like the ol’ pine needle smokehouse treatment paid off for the Navel Stone in the end, didn’t it?”

Hearing this, Yaichirō huffed, “Things like this are why you are such a good-for-nothing. Keep those thoughts to yourself inside the Rokkakudō!”

At long last my adorable little brother showed up having rushed over from his apprenticeship at the Faux Denki Bran distillery.

“You’re late!” snapped Yaichirō.

“Sorry,” Yashirō mumbled.

“Shouldn’t the distillery have been off today?” I asked, at which Yashirō’s cheeks swelled up in resentment.

“Kinkaku and Ginkaku were mean and made me do all this dumb stuff!”

“Never mind, never mind,” cooed Mother reassuringly. “Stupid is as stupid does.”

“Exactly!” Yaichirō and I agreed.

It was under this harmonious atmosphere of mutual accord that our family rose and departed for the Rokkakudō.

From far and wide the tanuki of Kyōto had come, jostling before the great senjafuda-covered³ gates. Those unable to make their way into the temple proper crowded in the parking lot and the bell tower across the street. Some disguised themselves as sushi deliverymen, or clad themselves in monks’ robes, or impersonated the ladies of Kyōto Notre Dame University, or even pretended to be foreign tourists. It was a veritable exposition of transformation.

Men in black suits stood in formation before the gate, letting in who they chose and turning the rest away. They all wore yellow armbands that read, “EBISUGAWA”. We surveyed them with displeasure, guessing them to be the Ebisugawa Guard Corps and underlings of Kinkaku and Ginkaku. Just as we had feared when we attempted to enter the temple they challenged us and began to quibble, claiming that they didn’t recognize our transformations and demanding that we prove we were members of the Shimogamo clan. Of course, this argument was entirely farcical.

Mother softly growled her favorite phrase, “Go to hell!”; a vein throbbed furiously on Yaichirō’s forehead; I shoved my body wordlessly up against the men, chest to chest; and Yashirō backed away and rolled into a small ball.

“Go home!”

“No, you go home!”

While our ripostes flew pointlessly back and forth, the crowds before the gate only swelled. Thankfully, the head of the Nanzenji clan soon arrived and gave the Ebisugawa Guard Corps a stern talking-to, defusing the situation.

As we passed through the gate, Nanzenji chuckled serenely at Yaichirō. “Hard times, eh, Yaichirō?”

“I am deeply ashamed.”

“He’s a real piece of work, that Ebisugawa, but today isn’t a day to be quarreling.”

A ray of light pierced through the winter sky between the office buildings, coming to rest on the Rokkakudō.

Smoke curled up from sticks of incense beneath the solemn eaves, occasionally set whirling by gusts of wind. The drooping branches of the large willow tree in front of the Rokkakudō swayed gently.

I cast a glance across the temple and saw tanuki staring up at the swaying branches, or pretending to be warabejizō⁴, or wailing as they fled the snapping swans in the pond, or spreading out sheets under the eaves and eating bentos, or clambering up the moss-covered camphor trees, none of them bothering to hide their tanuki natures.

Only the area by the willow where the Navel Stone was enthroned was calm; here, important tanuki were doing their best to look stern and dignified. Pushed on by Mother, Yaichirō pushed through the crowd and approached them. I saw Ebisugawa Sōun look up, glaring at him.

We stood in a corner and watched the proceedings unfold over the packed temple grounds. A pigeon flew over from the handwashing basin, which Mother flapped her hands at to shoo away. “No! Scram! Don’t poop here!”

Finding itself unwelcome, the pigeon flew off.

I gazed up at the Ikebonō building⁵ towering to the north of the Rokkakudō. Just north of it on Karasuma Street was the Rakutenkai building, which was owned jointly by the tengu of Kyōto. On the roof of this building there was a grand old cherry tree, and during spring it would shower the surrounding buildings with falling cherry blossoms. It had been in the midst of one such flurry of flower petals that I first laid eyes on the woman known as Benten.

Nestled up to Master Akadama as she watched the cherry blossoms float through the air, she had seemed as pure and chaste as you could imagine, not letting the tiniest hint of the true nature that would one day out-tengu the tengu themselves show through that facade. It felt these days that the girl of old had been no more than a dream. At the time I had often visited the Master on behalf of Father, and that had been the reason that a lowly tanuki such as myself had nearly fallen in love with a half-tengu.

“Father never did visit Master Akadama much back then, did he? And I thought they got along so well, too.”

“But didn’t you and Yaichirō go in his place?”

“Even so, I know the Master was lonely. He never once asked for Father to come, but I’m sure that was because he was too proud.”

“Oh, Master Akadama is hopeless, isn’t he? Him always being with Benten. Sō never did like being around her.”

“She was such a sweet girl back then, though. I’m surprised a tanuki like Father would be so afraid.”

“I guess it wouldn’t do any harm to talk about it now…” Mother began. “Once, Master Akadama took Benten to the forest. All of a sudden, Sō just couldn’t transform anymore. He tried and he tried, but he was so anxious with Benten being there that his transformations just came right off. And he was the best tanuki in Kyōto when it came to transforming!”

“I’ve never heard this story before.”

“He kept it a secret from his entire family, you know. Only Master Akadama and Benten know about it.”

“Is it like how your transformations come off when you hear thunder?”

“After that Sō always avoided Benten. And back then the Master took her with him everywhere he went.”

“So that’s why me and Yaichirō started going in his place?”

“That pretty much sums it up.” Mother sighed. “Master Akadama must have been lonely, but that was all his own doing. I think Sō must have felt even sadder than he did.”

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A procession of tanuki emerged from the gate with a flourish of trumpets. Walking in the middle of the retinue was the distinguished tanuki who had taken over the reins of the tanuki world from Father, Yasaka Heitarō.

The garish Hawaiian shirt he wore despite the fact that it was winter spoke eloquently to how eager he was to foist the duties of Trick Magister on someone else and set off to some tropical island. His tendency of looking perpetually distracted probably had to do with the fact that his thoughts had long since left behind the world of tanuki and were running along a beach somewhere—the sun sinking below the horizon—waves breaking and retreating on the sand—a large muscled man and his lady friend laughing and throwing coconuts at each other.

Trailing along behind Heitarō came the elders, carried along atop fluffy cushions. They had all neglected their chance to depart from this world and no longer had the strength to transform, but freed from the fetters of being tanuki they now enjoyed their little furball lives. We come into this world as furballs, and depart from it as the same. It almost seems as if there is some deep meaning here, but chances are there isn’t any.

“Close the gates!”

The Ebisugawa Guard Corps shut the gate to prevent outsiders from getting in.

With all these tanuki squashed shoulder to shoulder in the narrow temple, something was bound to go wrong.

A great hullabaloo rose up just before the beginning of the assembly. One of the temple pigeons decided to pick up a furball and carry it off into the sky for fun, sending the cushion-bearers into a panic and the other furballs tumbling. We all worked together to chase down the pigeon and retrieve the elder from its beak, but the elder was completely unfazed and simply wheezed, “I’m alright, I’m alright!” Such was the impressive mindset of an elder, but the task of returning the other elders to their proper cushions proved to be more difficult. Being that they were all furballs, it was impossible to tell them apart.

At last calm was restored to the temple. Heitarō stood in front of the Navel Stone in his Hawaiian shirt. Yaichirō and Sōun sat beside him, while the elders sat down encircling them, and the remaining tanuki pressed in all around them.

“Silence, please.” Yasaka struck his belly with a hollowpong. “This meeting is now in session. I would like to express thanks to Shiunzan Chōhōji for extending us special permission to have this meeting. I greatly appreciate the elders taking time out of their busy schedules to attend. I have the great pleasure of announcing that the Navel Stone has graciously offered some prepared remarks to commemorate this occasion. Please stand up as I read them.”

In unison, the tanuki in the temple stood up.

“‘The weather is getting cold, so be careful not to catch cold. Colds are bad mojo!’ Thank you.”

In unison, the tanuki in the temple bowed and sat down.

Yasaka Heitarō bowed once to the Navel Stone, then turned and surveyed the audience.

“The sudden death of my predecessor, Shimogamo Sōichirō, was an unprecedented shock, and an unprecedented loss for the tanuki community. Even now, the sorrow and grief remain as strong and fresh in my heart as they were that day, and I am certain that the same is true for you all. Shimogamo Sōichirō was an extraordinary tanuki, the likes of whom we shall not see again. I can still hardly believe that I, an utterly ordinary tanuki, was chosen to take his place. And it was only with the support of all of you here, and all tanuki in and around Kyōto, that I was able to fulfill the duties of this great office. I humbly offer my profound gratitude to all.”

Applause.

“Now.” Heitarō cleared his throat and looked at Yaichirō and Sōun meaningfully. “Shimogamo Yaichirō and Ebisugawa Sōun have put forth their names to succeed the office of Trick Magister. Here I would like to formally announce their candidacies to the great Navel Stone.”

Yaichirō and Sōun stood up, and after exchanging glances of pure hatred, bowed their heads to the assembled tanuki, prompting cries and whistles of support from the crowd. “Silence!” shouted Heitarō, thumping his belly.

Following this, Yaichirō and Sōun turned to the Navel Stone and bowed deeply, then approached it and gave it the briefest of touches.

More applause.

The two returned to their seats, and Heitarō allowed a satisfied smile to come to his face.

“The Navel Stone has been duly notified. I now have several announcements for upcoming events that I would like to put to a vote. Firstly, the elders’ meeting is scheduled to be held on the night of December 26th, at the Sensuirō in Kiyamachi. Are there any objections?”

The tanuki in the temple were silent.

“Then I will register no objections. Next, one further order of business. It is our tradition to invite the lord of the Kurama tengu as an observer to the election of the next head of the tanuki world. However, we have received word from Teikinbō of the Kurama tengu that due to the poor condition of his stomach he will not be able to attend. When informed that we wished to extend an invitation to another of the tengu lords to attend the election, he replied, ‘Have Yakushibō do it!’ Therefore I would like to extend an invitation to the election to Yakushibō of Nyoigatake. Are there any objections?”

Many in the crowd shrugged in puzzlement, but nobody raised a voice in dissent.

“I register no objections. Then the elders’ meeting will take place on the night of December 26th at the Sensuirō in Kiyamachi, and an invitation will be sent to Yakushibō of Nyoigatake for the election. That is all.”

Nobody moved. Heitarō frowned and sat there absentminded for a moment, before finally noticing and declaring, “Henceforth today’s meeting is adjourned!”

The crowd bowed down to the ground in a rolling wave, before coming to life like a thousand frothing bubbles.