Chapter 5 — Father's Final Farewell (Part 2)

Yaichirō let out a howl and dunked Kinkaku into the bath. Ignoring Kinkaku’s spluttering screams of “Code! Idd code!” Yaichirō rushed out of the bathhouse stark naked. I chased after him, while Yashirō followed behind, calling, “Yasaburō, what’s wrong?” We transformed into forms less likely to attract public outrage and boarded the rickshaw, heading south down Teramachi Street. When we reached Imadegawa, Yaichirō stopped the cart.

“Yashirō, go back to the forest,” he shouted. “Stay with Mother!”

Yashirō tried to protest, but the look on Yaichirō’s face was so fearsome that he was cowed into silence and quickly got off the cart. Leaving him standing there at Imadegawa forlornly, Yaichirō and I raced down past the forest on the Imperial Palace grounds.

“Why did you leave Yashirō there?”

“Because I would feel bad.”

“So you do dote on him after all.”

“No,” seethed Yaichirō. “I meant for Yajirō.”

He drove the cart on east towards Marutamachi, clattering through the indigo-veiled streets in a harrowing frenzy.

His cherished clockwork driver was creaking and groaning but Yaichirō did not care. The rickshaw whipped indecorously past pedestrians in the gloom, but before they even had time to make a fuss we had whipped past the corner and were gone. We crossed the Kamo River and raced along a deserted alley past the Ebisugawa power plant.

Eventually we drew near the lights of Gion. I instinctively put a hand on Yaichirō’s shoulder, but he showed no signs of slowing. It was only when we were careening through crowded Hanamikoji Street past the denizens of the night that I truly understood how angry he was, for the Yaichirō I knew would never cause trouble and raise mischief like this. Passersby shrieked and leapt out of the way as we rushed through their midst.

At long last we arrived at Rokudō Chinnōji.

We hurdled the wall and approached the well. The inside of the well was pitch black.

“That you, Yaichirō?” we heard Yajirō burble from the bottom of the well. “And Yasaburō, too? Fancy seeing the two of you here together.”

“How’ve you been recently, Yajirō?” I said.

“My world’s not too big, you know, so it’s mostly the same old, same old. I do live at the bottom of a well, you see.” Yajirō chuckled drily. “But come to think of it, I did hear that you’d left hiding and come back to Kyōto. A hearty congratulations.”

“Word reaches you fast for someone who doesn’t get out much.”

“Kaisei came by yesterday to deliver the news.”

“…Say, Yajirō.”

“What’s up?”

I closed my mouth, not knowing how to proceed. Noticing this beside me, Yaichirō placed his hands on the rim of the well and leaned over to stare down into the inky depths, his expression hard.

“Yajirō.”

“What’s wrong, Yaichirō? Sounds like you’ve got a frog in your throat today. Come to lecture me over something or other?” Yajirō remarked flippantly. “I can’t promise you I’ll be able to give you what you’re here for. After all, I am a frog.”

Still hunched over the well, Yaichirō delivered his words into the darkness.

“Yajirō. I remember very well the day I last saw Father. That day, I accompanied Father to see the elders of the eastern side of the city. By the time we finished our business it was late in the day. We visited the tanuki of Gion last. After that, Father said that he had an important engagement to keep. ‘You go on home first,’ he told me. There was nothing uncommon about it, because, of course, he was always busy. He took me over to Higashiōji Street and saw me off at the bus stop, and then he went walking towards Shijō Bridge. I still think about that sight to this day, because it was the last time that I ever saw Father.”

“Yaichirō…” Yajirō mumbled uncomfortably.

“I wanted to ask you when and where you last saw Father. Do you still recall that? I’ve heard a terrible story, just now, and I came all the way here because I just don’t want to believe it. If you tell me it’s not true, that will be the end of it. Well? Did you meet Father that night? Did you drink with him? Did you get drunk? And what of Father? Did you leave Father there, drunk, all alone? Tell me it’s not true!”

There Yaichirō swallowed his voice and closed his eyes. He clenched his hands on the rim of the well, his feet spread wide and his head bowed, as if bracing himself to hear the answer from the bottom of the well.

After a silence, the sound of bursting bubbles came from down below.

“That’s the truth of it, Yaichirō,” I heard Yajirō say. “I’m the one who let Father die.”

“Agh! What have you done!” Yaichirō collapsed by the side of the well. “You cursed, utter fool!”

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Yajirō has always been infamous as the laziest tanuki in all of Kyōto. Respected by none, my useless layabout of a brother spent his days rolling around like a daruma, and the only time that he could be bothered to show motivation was when he was drinking. Father was also an aficionado of Faux Denki Bran, and the two often went into town to drink together.

The important engagement that Father had spoken of before he parted from Yaichirō had been with Yajirō. Father wouldn’t normally have prevaricated so, but that day had been special, for Yajirō, who had inherited Father’s carefree spirit and went where the wind took him, was struggling with a particular problem.

Father and Yajirō went drinking at a small tavern tucked away in an alley in Kiyamachi. The matter was one which they did not wish to leak out, and so Father had specially chosen a bar which was not frequented by tanuki, in order that they not be overheard. They sat face to face in a tatami room on the second floor, nursing their drinks.

Yajirō suffered from an unrequited love, one which would never be fulfilled, and he had confided in Father to seek his advice. The reason this love would never be realized was that the tanuki he had fallen in love with was still exceedingly young, and in fact already had a betrothed. His anguish came from the fact that this tanuki’s fiancé was none other than his own younger brother. In other words, Yajirō’s love was my own former fiancée, Ebisugawa Kaisei.

Over and over Yajirō told Father that he wanted to leave us and depart from Kyōto.

But Father would not have any of it.

Surely someone who had pulled the wool over the eyes of tengu couldn’t possibly have anything to fear, or so my brother had thought. But that day he learned that there was one thing which my Father feared—that his sons would grow apart, or worse, that they would come to hate one another. This was the fervent wish of Father, whose relationship with his own brother, Ebisugawa Sōun, had unhappily become one of mutual enmity.

“My blood is split between the four of you. If any one of you goes missing, the rest can never be whole. People say cruel things about you, but in all things there is equilibrium. I say to you, you are the weight that anchors our family, and don’t let anyone ever tell you otherwise. You must not leave your brothers.”

“But Father,” Yajirō interrupted. “Does that mean I must continue to bear this burden?”

Father thought for a moment, then said, “I have an idea. I don’t know if it will work, but for the moment leave everything to me. Just be patient for a little while longer.”

After that, Father and Yajirō turned to the alcohol and drank their worries away. The hour was late by the time they stumbled out of the bar. As they wandered the streets singing daffy songs, Father turned to Yajirō and commanded, “Do your thing!”

Yajirō transformed into an Eizan railway car, a form with which at the time he often set Kyōto shaking, and letting Father aboard began to rumble through the night along the streets of Shijō. Astonishing drunkards and taunting police officers, Yajirō raced on and on, faster than the wind. Father transformed into Hotei and stood at the front of the car, his great belly wobbling as he convulsed with laughter. They had enjoyed these hijinks many times before, but this would be the last time Yajirō would transform into the train. The cold December wind nipping at his flushed, alcohol-warmed body—the sparkling lights of the town reflecting off his windows—the pleasure of running on and on and on—Father, giving off great belly laughs, roaring in delight—Yajiro remembered it all. But that was all: his memories stopped there, glittering fragments suspended in the night.

The next day, Yajirō woke up in the Tadasu Forest, immobilized by a tremendous hangover. Father didn’t even cross his mind, and he spent the day groaning in bed. It was nighttime by the time he learned that Father had not returned. He didn’t know what had happened to Father after that.

Father didn’t return that night, either, and the following day we learned that the Friday Fellows’ year-end banquet had taken place the previous night.

Of course we all wept and wailed when we discovered he had been made into a stew, but I can’t even begin to imagine what Yajirō had been going through. He must have been devastated. I left Father, in the city, drunk and alone, to fall into the clutches of the Friday Fellows, he had thought to himself.

Standing by the well listening to his confession, I thought back to everything that Yajirō had done after Father departed this world. I remembered how listless he became, and how he had lost even the will to drink. I remembered how he had mumbled, “Breathing is such a pain,” and been kicked by Mother into the Kamo River. I remembered how he had been carried along by the river down to Gojō Bridge, how limp and sorrowful his body was when we dragged him up. And I remember him kicking us away as we tried to stop him from leaving the Tadasu Forest, and how terribly desolate he had looked.

Yaichirō and I listened to him silently. His voice grew quieter and quieter, becoming almost impossible to hear.

“I killed Father. It’s just like everyone always said. I’m a completely worthless tanuki. And it’s not even that I’m just useless, it’s that I did something terrible which can’t be undone. How could I possibly confess that to everyone? I couldn’t go on like nothing had happened with the rest of you either. So I swallowed it all down inside me and became this frog in a well. I gave up on being a tanuki.” Finally we heard him sobbing. “I can’t look Mother in the eye ever again. I’m not fit to call myself a son!”

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On the way back, Yaichirō said nothing and stared at the lights going by.

We had reached Demachiyanagi by the time we finally realized that we had left Master Akadama at the bathhouse.

“We’ll have to go and fetch him,” said Yaichirō, sounding exhausted and rubbing his eyes.

“That’s alright. You head on back, and I’ll go get him.”

Yaichirō disembarked at the end of the Demachi Bridge, and I spurred the rickshaw on towards the bathhouse.

Even at this late hour, and later besides, the little curtain at the entrance still fluttered, indicating that the bathhouse was open. It looked to be very crowded, and clattering from within echoed out onto the street. I parted the curtain and nodded to the lady at the counter before heading inside. The dressing room was jammed with young and old alike, and the terribly human smell of body odor mixed with tobacco smoke mixed with steam saturated the air.

In the midst of this frothing, bubbling clamor sat Master Akadama, glaring at the paneled ceiling as if mug shots of the Kurama tengu were pasted on it. In his left hand was a fistful of kaki-pi rice crackers, and in his right he clutched a can of beer. The large electric fan mounted on the wall revolved in his direction, ruffling the white hairs on his head. The sight was formidable, almost unearthly, and the other bathhouse guests seemed to be instinctively keeping him at a distance. Here, at least, he seemed to have retained some of his tengu majesty, if only a little.

The Master scowled when I knelt in front of his massage chair. “Neglecting your master,” he harrumphed. “Do you mean for me to walk all the way back on my own?”

“Please accept my humblest apologies.”

Enduring his curses and shows of reluctance, I dragged him out of the bathhouse and stuffed him onto the rickshaw. The wheels clicked quietly on the long dark road as I walked alongside. The thick padding in the Master’s quilted coat made him look like a chubby toddler, and when I complimented it, the Master bragged, “Jealous, are you? Kaisei presented it to me.”

“How come?”

“While you had impudently abandoned me and gone off to Ōsaka, Kaisei often came to see me. And by and by she mentioned that the weather was getting chilly and handed this coat over to me. That girl’s language may be vile, but she is most discerning.”

“So you don’t care whether they’re tanuki or human, as long as they’re female, eh?”

“Silence!” spluttered the Master. “…I have very few pleasures left, very few.”

We proceeded in silence.

Teramachi Street was awfully dark and deserted, and it seemed to stretch on forever. Stars twinkled cheerfully above in the exhilarating night sky. I walked along wordlessly, puffing out white breaths before me. Father had once puffed out white breath too, in the still, quiet predawn darkness of the Tadasu Forest. The murmuring of the brook and Father’s sniffing as he breathed in the scent of winter rose into my mind. The fact that my recollection of this scene was so hazy made me feel wretched, and after I had these thoughts had taken up my mind for a while, I started to feel like I had done something that couldn’t be undone. I was so overwhelmed by my failure to have appreciated it for all these years that I almost stopped dead in the street.

“Yasaburō,” said the Master. “What is the matter? Your silence is most unsettling.”

“I was just losing myself in memories of Father.”

“Mammaries? What foolishness has come over you now?”

“Memories, Master, not mammaries.”

“I see. Memories, not mammaries.” The Master exhaled deeply. “And what of Sōichirō? Those who have passed on do not return, no matter how much you may wish it so. Thinking otherwise is what makes you such a fool.”

“I just learned that the last person to meet Father was my brother Yajirō. I never had a clue. Father drank with him that night, and got drunk, and fell into the humans’ hands.”

“He fell into the stewpot, you mean.”

“That is also true.”

“All are bound to fall eventually in life, whether tengu or tanuki. The day may well come when even a tengu who soars the skies as he pleases falls and crashes into the roof of a building. It’s a damned disagreeable world we live in. There is nothing strange about a tanuki falling into a stewpot. Sōichirō committed no fault to fall where he did.”

“I know that already!” I said heatedly.

The Master was silent, like he was sulking, but when he at last spoke again his voice was gentle: “It was not Yajirō who last saw Sōichirō.”

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The night Father turned into a stew, Master Akadama was down at the Scarlet Pane in the Teramachi Street arcade, drinking wine alone. In a foul mood over Benten’s failure to return to him, he was putting about bars he knew, hoping that she might be there. Of course, he had no way to know that Benten was currently with the Friday Fellows, gathering around Father’s stew.

It’s said that were all the tanuki in Kyōto to assemble at the Scarlet Pane, there would still be seats left unwarmed. That was because its underground depths continued onwards and inwards, and no one had ever seen the end of it. The further you went in, the more confined the space became, until it was so narrow it resembled nothing more than a gloomy tunnel.

The pub was filled with the clamor of both humans and tanuki transformed into humans alike, so the Master moved ever deeper in search of a seat, wine bottle in hand. He was so put out that Benten was not by his side that if any silly drunken jobber had gotten too loud he might well have raised a tengu gale then and there.

After he had gone in a considerable ways he sat by a stove, warming himself and sipping his wine. He was too distant for the hubbub by the bar to reach him. Here, the only sounds were the soft crackling of the stove, and occasionally a strange jangling like the traditional ensemble of a faraway festival. The sound seemed strangely familiar to the Master. “I recall hearing it when I had my first bath after being born,” the Master told me, but it was difficult for me to picture something that was basically ancient history. Besides, tanuki aren’t in the custom of commemorating first baths.

The Master thought of Benten. At the time, she had gotten into the habit of leaving the Master without notice and enjoying herself with strange humans. The Master was deeply uneasy for he had heard that she would get on the Eizan line and go to Kurama, and he feared that she was being deceived by those Kurama tengu.

He had sunk deep into these misapprehensions, as well as into the wine, when something scurried past on the dark floor. He glanced over, surprised, to find a tanuki sitting there meekly, its eyes shining in the lamplight as it looked up at the Master. It was shivering despite its sleek coat of fur, probably because of how cold it was in the hallway, the Master assumed.

“Good evening, Master. Fancy seeing you here,” said the tanuki.

“Sōichirō?” chuckled Master Akadama. “How cold it is here. What would you say to a glass?”

“Don’t mind if I do, then, just the one.”

Father clambered onto the chair on the other side of the table, then onto the table itself, and sat there fidgeting with his paws. Master Akadama thought it odd that Father didn’t try to transform into something more convenient. He asked why, to which Father replied, “I am no longer in any shape to transform.” Master Akadama poured a glass of wine and offered it to Father, who cradled it gingerly and lapped it up with his tongue. “My final drink,” he said finally, wiping his mouth. “Thank you.”

Master Akadama looked evenly at him.

“Sōichirō, have you died?” he asked.

“I regret to inform you that I was just made into a stew.”

The Master took back the glass of wine from Father and downed it in one go. “What foolishness you have wrought upon yourself!”

“Don’t be so hasty with your words. This is a path that all come to walk.”

“Have I not told you to be restrained with your mischief?”

“That’s not something done so easily, seeing that I’m a tanuki. It’s just my fool’s blood talking.”

After this, Father spoke of many things. Of how he had taken instruction under Master Akadama when he was young. Of how the Master had scolded him for falling out with his younger brother, Ebisugawa Sōun. Of how the Master had helped him meet Mother. How he had taught the Kurama tengu a lesson. Of how he hoped to send all four of his children to study under the Master, and how he hoped the Master would take special care with the third, Yasaburō.

“Pray give him all the guidance that he will require.”

“That one is a scoundrel, I know. His foolishness reminds me of his father. But do you not think it exceeds yours, perhaps too much so?”

“Indeed that may be so…but I have great faith in him. I know he will be a great nuisance, but still, I beg you to give him your favor. I do not doubt that one day he will be of great service to you.”

“Very well.”

Father jumped off the table. “I think it is time I was on my way.”

“Sōichirō,” Master Akadama suddenly interjected. “I shan’t say this to another soul…but am very sorry, to see you go.”

“I am very glad to have heard that. I shall treasure this memory, in the afterlife,” Father chortled, his fur rippling in waves. He stood erect and offered a furry paw to the Master. The Master stooped down and took his paw, and they shook hands in goodbye. Father drew himself up then, and said, “Farewell, Master. I, Shimogamo Sōichirō, am departing on a journey, by your leave. My life has had its share of troubles, but on the whole it was an enjoyable one. I am eternally indebted to Master Yakushibō of Nyoigatake, for the great kindness he has bestowed on me over these many years.”

Master Akadama watched as Father proceeded down that long hallway to the next world. Further and further he went in, until the gleaming sheen of his fur disappeared into the darkness. The Master sat there alone, drinking the rest of the wine, until he heard that strange jangling sound again. It was the sound of a farewell.

“A fool he was, until the very end,” said the Master. “It’s a pity that he was born a tanuki.”

And thus, Father departed.

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I brought Master Akadama back to his apartment behind the Demachi shopping arcade, swiping a bottle of Akadama port wine on my way out. Parking the rickshaw by the Demachi Bridge I went down to the Kamo Delta. The sky was gloriously clear. Flowing down from the north, the Kamo and Takano Rivers glowed silver, reflecting the lights of the city. On such a chilly night there was no one in sight. I sat down at the tip of the delta and drank the wine. My head started to pound as the alcohol took effect, and swaying unsteadily I murmured “Oh, Yajirō” and “Oh Father” as my head drooped lower and lower. The cold wind moaned.

Finally, unable to withstand the freezing cold, I returned to the Tadasu Forest.

As I moved along the shrine road between the dense trees, the lights of the shrine came into view up ahead. Mother and Yashirō were sitting under that wavering light, looks of worry on their faces. Seeing me coming towards them they waved halfheartedly, and Mother beckoned me to come quickly.

“What happened?” asked Mother when I stepped off the rickshaw, her voice filled with worry. “Yaichirō came back with oh, such a dreadful look on his face, but he wouldn’t say anything!”

“We went to see Yajirō.”

“And then? Did you have an argument?”

Without another word I headed into the trees, returning to my tanuki form. Dead leaves crunched beneath my paws. Mother and Yashirō followed close behind.

Yaichirō was curled up in his bed, motionless. He didn’t seem to be sleeping, and when I went up beside him I could smell in the air the scent of his tears. “Yaichirō,” I called, but he seemed to have been struck dumb. He was curled up facing away from me, but I could tell that he was listening.

“Mother’s worried,” I said. “Say something to her.”

At last he stirred and exhaled heavily. “Mother,” he muttered.

“What is it?” said Mother, coming up to his side. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you know, Mother?”

“Know what?”

“Why Yajirō shut himself in the well.”

Mother looked at me, her wet nose glistening. I said nothing but nodded. Mother returned her gaze to Yaichirō, and thought for a while. I noticed her demeanor become tranquil as a lake. Ah, so Mother did know, I thought to myself.

“He is my child. I’d feel terrible if I didn’t know,” she said.

A shiver went through Yaichirō’s fur, but he did not reply.

Mother nestled up beside him and softly murmured, “Please, Yaichirō. Don’t be so hard on him.” Her quiet voice penetrated through the cold darkness of the forest, and into the chests of Yashirō and me. Yashirō was prodding his nose into my back, warming it like a hot water bottle. We listened silently to Mother’s words.

“I understand him. I understand that child,” she repeated. “And if you’re his brother, you should try to understand how he feels, too.”

“I do understand, Mother. He’s my little brother. I understand that, too.” Yaichirō said, still curled into a ball. “I do understand, and that’s why it hurts.”