In any event, I managed to find Akari’s prepacked emergency bag (which I had forgotten to give to Unaiko to take along on their outing), and as I emerged from the house my nephew Tamakichi was already sitting in the driveway in a pickup truck. Without getting out of the cab, he stretched one suntanned arm across the passenger seat and opened the door for me. No sooner had I climbed in than he put his foot on the gas pedal and sped away.
“I’m sorry you had to drive all the way down here,” I said. “I know I was supposed to be waiting for you up by the forest road, but when you start getting older everything seems to move in slow motion.”
“No worries,” Tamakichi replied. “I called Unaiko back, and she said that Akari was already up and about. I gathered they were just heading to the river to get him cleaned up.”
This news came as a great relief, but then I noticed that instead of taking the forest road through the valley, Tamakichi was heading uphill. “Is this the right way?” I asked.
“If you take the forest road to the Saya, you have to park the car and walk quite a ways,” Tamakichi explained. “I’m planning to take a detour, so we’ll be approaching from the top.”
I was forced to admit (although only to myself) that there were some gaps in my knowledge of the local topography these days. “Your mother was saying that when she was making her movie, your knowledge of the entire forest area made location scouting and filming much easier,” I said. “I gather you’re serious about making a career of forestry work?”
Tamakichi nodded. “I am,” he said. “You had the same inclination when you were a child, didn’t you, Uncle Kogito? You mentioned it in a couple of your books. Anyhow, long before we started working on the movie, the local village board had been doing a lot of maintenance work on the Saya and the surrounding area. Then when filming began there was a ‘no men allowed’ rule in effect, so my male colleagues and I were relegated to doing cleanup and postproduction work. I’ve never even seen the finished movie.”
“Didn’t you at least get to watch the daily rushes on video, to see how your carefully tended forest came across on film?”
“No, not really,” Tamakichi replied. “We asked the NHK office in Matsuyama whether that would be possible, and when nothing came of our request we tried contacting the main office of the American production company. They said we would need to submit a request in English, and at that point we just gave up. However, it was really something to have so many local women gathered in one place, and it turned into a kind of giant party or festival. Everyone agreed that the Gathering, as it came to be known, was the biggest women-only event since the famous insurrection. Now whenever people get together at the Saya to celebrate the fall colors or the cherry blossoms someone will always yell, ‘Hurray for the Gathering!’ and that’s the signal for everyone to take a drink.”
“‘The Gathering,’ eh? I’ll drink to that!” I said with feeling.
The forest road we were traveling on passed through a rather sparsely wooded area of broadleaf trees, but soon after crossing a gentle mountain ridge we came upon a lofty wall of cypress and cryptomeria trees, nearly as old as I was, that completely covered the long hill sloping down to the northeast. As we drove along the tree-shadowed road I was reminded of a day in my childhood when all the students at the new postwar middle school I attended were rounded up to participate in a mandatory horticultural project: planting tiny saplings to create the very trees we were looking at now.
By and by we arrived at the uppermost border of the Saya, and Tamakichi stopped the truck. Below us I could see a large rock that looked like an old-fashioned boat, if a boat had somehow become embedded in a grassy meadow. My eyes were drawn to a small stream at the bottom of the hill. On the edge of the little brook I spied some signs of human life: Akari was lying on the faded brown grass and Unaiko was sitting next to him, hugging her knees. Tamakichi and I went charging down the slope, heading straight for that spot.
Akari and Unaiko must surely have noticed our approach, but they didn’t react in any visible way. Unaiko, especially, looked completely shell-shocked and tuckered out. As we drew closer we could hear a CD playing — it was Schubert’s piano quintet, the Trout—but then I saw Akari reaching toward the sound system, and the music stopped in mid-trill.
Unaiko spoke first. “I’m so sorry for causing such a ruckus,” she apologized. “It seemed like a much more serious attack than the kind Asa had told me to expect and I panicked, thinking it might be a new problem. I mean, Akari’s entire body was in the throes of major convulsions.”
“Akari, the seizure’s over now, right?” I asked gently. Akari didn’t reply, but his body language seemed to be saying, You can see perfectly well that it is.
“It happened a few minutes after we got here,” Unaiko said. “We parked the car as usual, and right after we’d started walking, we came upon a puddle left over from last night’s rainstorm. We weren’t able to cross it by holding hands, and Akari was a bit nervous about that. We did somehow manage to get across, one at a time, but a moment later he took a tumble. I thought at first he was lying there for fun, laughing in relief, but then I realized that wasn’t the case.” (It was a natural mistake; the expression Akari wore when he was being stoic about pain could easily be mistaken for mirth.) “Anyway, he got up again, and we kept on walking. The seizure happened just as we reached the Saya, and I’m afraid I kind of lost it.”
“In a situation like this, the best remedy for Akari is to lie down and get some rest,” I said. “Akari, do you want to use the restroom before we head back to the Forest House?”
When Akari didn’t reply, Unaiko picked up on the fact that my son was once again giving me the cold shoulder, and she jumped into the chilly void.
“Asa told me to watch out for the loose bowels that often accompany this type of episode,” she said. “We’ve already dealt with that issue, but Akari was upset because he didn’t have a change of trousers or underwear.”
As I handed the emergency bag to Unaiko, I noticed that the lower part of Akari’s body was covered by a large shawl, which I recognized as Unaiko’s. Her jacket was draped on top for good measure.
“If the road to the valley is too muddy to drive on, my truck is up the hill, and we can go back in that,” Tamakichi offered. “I’d be glad to carry Akari to where it’s parked.”
“No, I want to go home in Unaiko’s van,” Akari declared.
“You might fall again,” I pointed out.
“I’ll carry him on my back, so that won’t happen,” Tamakichi said.
“Okay then,” I said to Akari. “Since the worst is over, there’s no big hurry to get back. Let’s rest here for a while longer before we go.”
“Tamakichi, thank you so much for coming to the rescue,” Unaiko said. “I got your cell-phone number from your mom, and … I hate to impose on you even more, but is there any chance of getting a guided tour as long as you’re here? You seem to know a lot about forestry, and I’d love to hear about the trees around the Saya.”
“That’s the easiest request I’ve had all day!” Tamakichi said happily.
“Oh, and also, I heard that during the filming you were responsible for turning the big, flat rock into a stage, so I’m assuming you must have had a chance to read the screenplay?” Unaiko asked rhetorically. “It would be great if I could pick your brain about that, too.”
Tamakichi looked somewhat taken aback by this additional request — or perhaps he was just feeling shy in the presence of an attractive woman — but he nodded, and he and Unaiko set off toward the Saya. Akari had changed into clean clothes behind a nearby tree and was once again reclining on the grass, so I lay down nearby (being careful not to intrude on his space) using the indispensable emergency bag as a pillow.