Teito Monogatari:
The Tale of the Imperial Capital
Part 2: Supernatural Babylon
Author: Hiroshi Aramata
Part 1: Impossible Fight to the Death
Chapter 5: The Woman Who Stays With Yukari
What with one thing and another, a year passed.
Tatsumiya Yōichirō broadened his sphere of activity more and more as a young official and became a man of society. He spent little time at home these days. The timid, frail boy with the inferiority complex had grown into a man, and he used his former weaknesses as strengths to benefit him. He focused almost pathologically on his work to the exclusion of all other activities.
Yukari resented this. Her brother changed more every day; she could scarcely recognize him. She remembered him as the sickly boy he'd been and wasn't sure she liked the man he was becoming. He had left her behind. Since he'd entered the Ministry of Finance, she had not been able to prevent his headlong charge forward.
Why was he so determined to outpace her? They were siblings and should share pieces of their lives, surely? Yukari was bewildered at first, but over time she came to understand the changes in her brother better.
There were differences--expected ones--in how men and women lived their lives. Meiji society was dominated by men, and women had no say anywhere. This grew worse with each passing year. Yukari and other women she knew were sidelined in their own lives, driven into a tiny corner of society that they were permitted to inhabit on sufferance.
In the late summer of 1909 (Meiji 42), during an intense heatwave, Yukari stood waiting at the Marunouchi streetcar stop, gazing off into the distance at the sweltering summer city.
"Yukari," Kō Hō said softly. She was standing beside Yukari, shading her face with a parasol.
The shade helped Yukari focus on her surroundings. She nodded gratefully at the woman and smiled.
Kō Hō had been looking after Yukari for the better part of a year. She held the parasol over Yukari and offered her a handkerchief.
"Thank you," Yukari said.
The streetcar arrived. As Kō Hō was folding the parasol, some office workers came running up, shoved the two of them aside, and swaggered up the steps. Yukari cried out in pain and staggered back, nearly falling. Kō Hō's eyebrows drew together.
The streetcar driver acted like he'd seen nothing. Watching the two of them struggle to board, he looked more annoyed than anything.
Yukari struggled up the steps and then stood in a corner of the streetcar, catching her breath. It felt like there was no place for a woman to stand. White bubbles burst before her eyes, and her vision grew dim. Kō Hō noticed at once and supported her before she fell.
"I'm all right," Yukari said. She smiled and placed her hand gently on Kō Hō's shoulder.
Why do I have to come out into the very center of Tōkyō? Yukari thought miserably. Why must she go to the heart of the city that was stealing away the places where women lived?
She recalled Dr. Morita's words. "In the ninth month of the old calendar, I will not allow you to go out at all, for your own safety. If there is anywhere you wish to go, you should go now."
Yukari had felt like she wanted to see Tōkyō then. Specifically, she wanted to ride the streetcar from Sukiyabashi through Marunouchi and out to Kanda, sightseeing to her heart's content. She felt like an exchange student about to depart for some distant foreign land. The streets were changing, being remade as part of the renovation of the imperial capital.
Yukari looked outside at the dappled pattern of sun and shade cast by the late summer sunlight. There was no trace of the bright, strong-willed girl she had been only two years earlier in her face.
Kō Hō watched over Tatsumiya Yukari with almost total indifference. The bitter, inescapable sorrow of womanhood that Yukari was only beginning to feel was something Kō Hō had probably overcome long ago. She had spent a year watching over Yukari, and she was used to it. Neither one of them expected anything to change.
No comments:
Post a Comment