Cherry Blossom
This story was inspired by the Japanese film Love like falling petals in which the heroine Misaki is afflicted with a progeroid syndrome, making her age rapidly, putting an end to the beautiful romance that had bloomed between her and her photographer lover Haruke.
This is a story set in Edo, which, as you surely know, is now called Tokyo. There was a boy called Haruke, a simple peasant boy, a joy to his mother and father, who was a fisherman, not a shogun or a duke. As the city is built on water with the Oi teeming with koi, and three other good rivers, not to mention the fertile coast, also rich in fish, which happened to be the favourite dish of the citizens and denizens living there, Haruke’s father and his wife were well-to-do without being rich, and had a good life.
The child Haruke was a sweet-tempered little boy full of fun and joy. He was respectful and good-hearted, but a tad spolied, and as he himself said, A saint, I ain’t. He did not always listen to his mum, and when he went on an errand, he never took the shortest route, and when asked what took him so long, he kept schtum and shrugged because he didn’t want to tell lies. Not that he was always honest, but Lord forbids that he would ever tell malicious and harmful lies. But we know that he went chasing butterflies, could stay for hours by a pond staring at tadpoles, chasing rodents and voles. Or listening to the birds on the bough chirruping. And he could not resist climbing trees or watching the buzzing bees busily breezing through the fragrant air before settling on the cherry blossom to suck its attar and its nectar. As a child he had cheeky eyes and a snub nose, which between you and me, he loved to poke the inside of, flicking the snot away on the haori jackets of pompous merchants.
Unlike most other boys in his village, he was rarely caught up in fights, as basically he had a peaceful nature. It was not surprising that most people loved him. It was his good fortune that Toshiro, the village bully rather liked him and usually left him alone when he was delivering crab or abalone to his father’s clients.
Haruke grew up into a handsome teenager, his nose losing its snubness and becoming a bit sharper, and he was pleased to find that the girls in the village seemed to like him, and, as you would expect_ him being no saint, remember_ he exulted in his good luck, and as he had the gift of the gab, with a dab hand at swift repartee, he loved few things better than whispering sweet nonsense into the ears of those naive virgins. At least, in the beginning they were. Naive.
Now, may I introduce you to Misaki who was learning to become a coiffeuse. Sensei Kenji, once a court biyoushi_ biyou means beauty and shi means practitioner_ had now built for himself the highest reputation among the wives of the rich merchants, money-lenders as well as of samurais and shoguns of Edo. He was indeed a magical wielder of his scissors and his Shimada which demanded the most precise but complicated oiling and padding, weaving and pinning, was nonpareil. He was reluctant to take on apprentices, but when his practice needed one he took two weeks, sometimes a full month, to pick the most appropriate one. How did Misaki’s apprenticeship come to pass then, you are wondering? Once, seduced by the aromatic fumes emanating from a dilapidated lane, the sensei found Misaki’s father’s modest eaterie, which catered for ordinary working men, shoemakers, carpenters or small-small hawkers. He savoured the wholesome and simple fareYasujiro served him, and marvelled at how flavoursome it was, pronouncing it awesome. As a result, at least once a week he would go back there. He developed a great friendship for the cook_ don’t they say that a good wife reaches her husband’s heart through his stomach? So must it be with friendship. Inevitably the eminent man met the daughter, who often helped serve customers. He was greatly impressed by her charming and courteous manner, and on a sudden whim one day he asked the innkeeper if he would consider letting him train his daughter in the tonsorial art, and the proud father jumped for joy at the prospect. And when Misaki started working with him, the sensei immediately identified her as a natural, tapped himself on the back for his acumen, and predicted a great future for the newbie.
Esteemed readers, you would be surprised, nay shocked, if the two protagonists, Haruke and Misaki were not to meet. You would demand your money back, and rightly so. But first we must meet Amaya, who as you might know means the Night Rain. She was a wicked witch who went around, sometimes in a cloak of invisibility, more often having taken some other anonymous shape, sowing grief wherever she went. She cursed farm animals so they became sterile or stopped laying eggs, she made the goats break their legs, bewitched the worms on the mulberry trees so that they stopped making silk, tarry the cows’ supply of milk, made the beans on the branch wilt, filled the fishing grounds with silt. It would take me a whole hour to list all the misfortunes that she inflicted on plebs and tribunes, on trees and ponds, but you get the picture.
When he was eighteen, Haruke _ remember he ain’t a saint_ was spending his life having fun. He had given up chasing butterflies but chased comely wenches instead. And yes, he often had his wicked ways with them, with no thought of letting them make an honest man of him, but he vowed (to himself) that if he ever got a girl in trouble he would do the right thing by her, never entertaining the thought that this unwelcome event might occur simultaneously to two girls.
Or more!
Then he met Misaki. The French calls this phenomenon le coup de foudre, somehow thunderstruck isn’t musical, you will agree. And it was mutual. They had come to the riverside to watch the unique colours of the cherry grove flourishing on a long stretch on the bank of Oi, one spring morning in April, the crowd assembled sharing an incalculable joy. This scene was later to be immortalised by Utagawa Hiroshige. It was a sunny April morning and the glorious sakura had a hundred thousand eyes focused on them, each petal a priceless gem.
The young would-be lovers had not met before, but by chance today they had cast a glance at each other. People watched that beauty ethereal and ephemeral, their hearts bursting with unformulable emotions. From the complete list of words available you will not find the right idiom capable of expressing your feelings when you stand in the midst of that bloom, not even the greatest poet has been able to satisfactorily give wings to the bird of inspiration, they don’t exist. The beauty and the occasion grab you by the heart strings, they overwhelm your vision, they speak to your dormant memories, remind you of your time inside your mother’s womb, hints at the life to come when you cross the frontier between earth and paradise. In one prosaic sentence, people are rightly struck dumb at this display. When words cannot do justice to a situation, the wise open their eyes but keep their lips closed. Wich explains the awed silence.
The synchronicity would be quite magical. Unknowingly they started walking in the same direction towards where a small group of young boys and girls were singing the Sakura song:
ya-yo-i no so-ra wa.
Mi-wa-ta-su ka-gi-ri,
Ka-su-mi ka ku-mo-ka,
Ni-o-i zo i-zu ru;
i-za-ya, i-zaya Mi ni yu-kan.
Again at the same time they started walking away towards where one semi-inebriated man _ whether his condition was induced by an intake of sake or he was drunk on the mystic beauty of the moment it was hard to judge_ was holding forth loudly about what he was experiencing. In fact he was spouting inappropriate haikus in a voice choked with emotion, to the discomfiture of the crowd. The young pair had no idea how long they had been staring at the spectacle nature was providing them with, so enraptured were they by it, but they suddenly found themselves walking away side by side. This was the first time that they really saw each other properly. It must be fate which had so decreed. Haruke addressed the young woman first. He wanted to make his mark saying something striking, but fine talker though he was, he started stammering. What a gorgeous display, eh! he finally managed to blurt out. Misaki blinked, opened her mouth but not finding an appropriate response to the young swain’s overture, she simply blushed and nodded. Haruke knew that a nod was worth a thousand words under the circumstances. Girls were warned by their elders not to respond in any way to just such overtures, so the young man was over the moon. It confirmed his belief that no girl could resist him. They continued walking side by side, in silence, along the Oi. He threw an imaginary stone at a family of swans, and she screamed in pretend horror. She isn’t really a swan, Misaki said, but a princess from the Ainu people, sent from paradise to protect us; it was her voice that he first fell in love with. Musical, gentle, tinkling like bells.
By the time they reached her village, they were already chatting like they had been friends for ever, and he was already prey to the fever of love. And truth to tell, she too had fallen under his spell.
Haruke was convinced that he had at last found the one girl who was going to make him forget all the others. The shoemaker’s twins_ yes both of them, the sister of his friend Hiroshi, the daughter of his father’s fisherman associate, the wild girl who lived in a cave, the young apprentice milliner… Misaki lacked nothing the other girls had. She was a pearl of a girl. So that was love, he discovered: when you could see the qualities of all the girls you desired present in a single being. He could easily see himself married to her. He would never look at another girl ever again. He meant not with lust in his eyes. Yes, they would have lovely children together, and he would be the best father possible to them. Like his own dad. He knew that he was reputed to be the handsomest young chap around. And, eh, so was she. She was not a chap, but a maiden.
By now he had his own boat and was acknowledged as a resourceful practitioner of the piscatorial arts. He had learnt everything his old man had taught him, and had even initiated new fishing techniques. The young pair were soon meeting regularly. They took long walks on the banks of the rivers of Edo explored together the Nippara limestone caves in Okutama, the hills and valleys of the city and many other sites.
In six months Haruke had never once raised his lustful eyes on any of the comely lasses that Edo was known to be full of.
However, although he was certain his own feelings for Misaki, he never had a tangible evidence of whether the response of the object of his love was as pronounced. He was to get a watertight proof of reciprocity when Misaki suggested he came to sensei’s salon for a haircut, as his unkempt mane was in need of stylising. The young hairdresser was in a high state of excitement when she woke up that morning. Her heart was a-flutter, and she was overwhelmed by the fear that he was going to make a mess of it and lose his love. The sensei teased her. No dear girl, he assured her, you are a endowed with magical fingers, nothing can go wrong.
But go wrong, it did.
When he arrived, she was trembling and her heart was pounding. She invited him to take a seat in a stuttering voice. The avuncular sensei, who was watching the proceedings with an encouraging smile kept nodding at her, mouthing silently the words, you’re doing fine, sweetheart.
She brushed his wild bird nest, which was what she thought of Haruke’s fur, and tied a clean apron round his neck. She produced a new cherrywood comb that her mentor had given her as a birthday gift, and experienced a near erotic sensation as she dug it in his mane and softly navigated it, the small strands of his shiny black tresses lustily squeezing out through its teeth forming tiny squirmy waves, the slant sunlight shining on them suggesting that they had a life of their own. She gazed at this as if hypnotised and with her scissors meant to snip a small rebel curl near his right ear, when luck intervened. The tip of her scissors slipped causing a nip on his ear lobe. I purposely did not say bad luck. How could such a small cut produce so much blood, Misaki wondered. To the surprise of everybody, the sensei began laughing heartily, which shocked both the cutter and the cuttee, if I am allowed to neologise. The young pair both frowned askance directing a less than friendly gaze at the biyoushi. He continued laughing, but he was also nodding heartily. When he was able to speak, this was what he said. ‘Do not panic, I’ve seen worse, but today I have witnessed the most sincere declaration of love I’ve ever seen in my whole life. Misaki, you’re so sure-handed, you can carry out the best haircut blindfolded,’ adding, rather pleonastically, ‘and in the dark, which makes me arrive at the conclusion that that little happy accident was a result of your emotion which arose from your love for the boy.’ The pair stared at him, and saw the point the wise man was making. Although the boy was bleeding profusely, he nodded happily, letting her soak the blood in his apron. Next day, sporting a bandage round his ear he called on Yasujiro and asked for the hand of his daughter.
Yes, Haruke could see the good life ahead, a life without strife, he could see how he would make Misaki a happy wife, in the full belief that he would never give her any grief. No way would he stray, and always would cherish her for ever and a day.
The engagement ceremony took place in the sensei’s meticulously manicured garden, when the two families exchanged traditional gifts of dried sea-food, bottles of sake, jewellery and rings, haberdasheries and silk fineries.
The couple were all set, with the wedding scheduled in six months.
Unless the unforeseen happened.
And when, dear readers, does the unforeseen fail to happen? And it happened at the engagement party itself. Was there malicious ghostly forces in play?
It’s time to mention Amaya. Malevolent spirits abound, witches, bad fairies, who resent human happiness, which is why the elders never cease advising youngsters to be on their guard, to strive to lead a good life and avoid pitfalls. Amaya was a witch. A wicked fairy. And she had an agenda. I’ll tell you more by and by.
First we must meet the wrecking ball. She had the form of a serving girl, Akasuki, who was barely seventeen, but for whom life held no more secrets, specially the unsavoury ones. But unknown to her, she was a puppet whose strings were being pulled by the aforesaid Amaya.
I need first to explain how these evil creatures operate. No fairy, good or bad, can simply cast their spells, good or bad without an input by the object of their scheme. Story-tellers seem to gloss over their methodology. The good fairy waves her wand and a beautiful rose spontaneously shoots out of the ground. Or a bad fairy whispers a satanic incantation and the beautiful shepherdess becomes blind. No, that’s not how it works. Amaya had identified the flirtatious floozie, and had sprayed a magical perfume around her, thus imbuing her with a sort of malevolent aura whose purpose was attract the boy towards her, like a fly to candlelight. And she had done the same to Haruke, resulting in the auras seeking each other. She could do no more, had no means of bending their resolve. The rest depended on the young pair. The decisive act was theirs alone.
Now, whilst pouring the ceremonial sake for the husband-to-be, Akasuki was able to catch a good glimpse of him, took in his extraordinary beauty, and determined that she would have him in her bed. Half the battle was won. Amaya expected that there was every chance that Haruke would be bewitched by the seductive serving girl, and he was. Done and dusted.
Suffice it to say that as usual, Akasuki, had her wish fulfilled on the very next day. Haruke immediately regretted his folly, but Akasuki bragged to everybody she knew, and quite a few folks she did not, about her irresistibility to all men, and made sure Misaki got to hear about it.
The young hairdresser was the all-or-nothing type, and on seeing Haruke, dripping with contrition on the next day, his erstwhile luminous eyes lifeless, his frame unsteady as a hut after a hurricane, his neck seemingly shortened, the ice in her heart remained unthawed. Go away, she said, I never want to see you ever again. Of course he had not expected the spirited Misaki to nod, smile and rap him on the fingers and say, All right, you bad boy, I’ll let you off this time. And she did not. But worse, he did not see in her eyes the germ of an eventual pardon. Perhaps next time … he told himself and walked away his tail between his legs.
He knew that the last thing he needed was to see Akasuki again, but the temptress was not one to give up, and she was full of guile. She waylaid him as he was walking to his village. I am sorry I caused you so much unhappiness, please forgive me, she greeted him with pretended chagrin. Go away, he said angrily, I never want to see you again. I don’t want you to love me, she said, I know you love the hair-cutter, but if you cannot forgive me, I’ll go and throw myself in the Oi. No she won’t, Haruke told himself. If you don’t believe me, you will find my corpse rotting away in the sun the bank of the Oi tomorrow, she said with a shrug, and began walking away. Let her, Haruke told himself, but immediately started feeling uneasy. She stopped, turned round, dried her tears and said, All I ask is forgiveness, then I swear never to speak to you. Is that too much to ask? Just tell me you forgive me, and let us drink a cup of sake and I’ll disappear from your life. I swear on my mother’s soul…
My friends, you guessed it. One cup of sake is never enough. After they had indulged in six, they indulged in sex. Which, to her shame, was her artful aim from the start. She must take more than half the blame. After a string of lovers, she was determined to hang on to this fellow, forsaking all others.
Misaki, having dismissed her lover, immediately regretted her tone when she saw the miserable figure, shoulders hunched up dragging his feet away from her. She knew that she could never become someone else’s wife. Had he pleaded with her, who knows, she might have hinted that after some penance, he might want to come back and beg for another chance. But who can defeat the schemes wicked and foul of Amaya?
She was now on a roll, and spent a sleepless night in the pursuit of the perfect follow-up. I have started this so I must be allowed to finish it. I have managed to sever a beautiful relationship in the bud, what else are witches and wicked fairies for? All that is missing is the cherry on the cake. And before the next daybreak, after evaluating a good number of schemes she found a masterpiece of a curse.
All along Misaki had never really ceased to love the faithless Haruke by one jot of a tittle although she would not admit this to herself. But every morning she felt a little less heartache. On the first day of the next spring, the sight and fragrance of the cherry blooms mesmerized her so much that she decided that she would visit her wayward lover, inform him that she had forgiven him and tell him that she would be his for ever if he only swore an oath that he would always be true to her.
Sadly this was not to be.
The cherry trees on the bank of the Oi had ripened and were glistening seductively in the morning sun, making the conditions for a reconciliation ideal, but Amaya was ready with her watertight plan. She muttered a satanic incantation and touched one plush cherry emitting an intense fragrance and gorging with juice. She then used her nefarious power and guided the heart-broken girl whose heart was beginning to mend towards the very fruit that she had contaminated. Remember the decision to pluck the cherry was Misaki’s alone.
She was drawn to that bedevilled berry like a bee towards a flower brimming with nectar, plucked it without hesitation, and for the first time since the day of her engagement the ghost of a smile forced the ends of her lips to curl upwards. She thanked the tree for producing such beautiful cherries, and tossed the accursed fruit into her mouth. She pressed it between her tongue and her palate and her taste buds welcomed the succulent flavour, but as she swallowed the juice squeezing out, she knew. She rushed home and shut herself in her room, knowing that another misfortune was about to hit her, although she knew not what. She felt an itch on her head and could not resist scratching it, and when she did, a few strands of her hair came into her fingers. She looked at them in horror and another part of her scalp began to trouble her. She knew that she should not, but she was unable to stop her fingernails from reaching the region demanding attention, with the same dire result as before. She looked into the mirror and to her horror her hair had turned grey. She startled herself as she started coughing and recognised the wheezes of an aged woman. She knew that she had been the victim of a spell. She was growing old at a very fast rate.
In less than a week she looked and felt a whole year older. In three months she had become middle-aged. She was always tired and soon had to stop working altogether.
All her hope of happiness in the arms of her beloved Haruke evaporated. Perhaps if she had been more forgiving … The petals had long been snatched by the heartless winds. the leaves had all dried up. Spring was dead. She would shut herself and wait for death. Every new day brought a new grey hair to her head, a fresh wrinkle to her face. In a matter of months you would have taken her for a seventy year old woman. And I do not mean Gong Li or Meryl Streep.
Although Haruke found it impossible to walk away from Akusaki_ had she made him drink the water that says yes? Nonetheless, he never forgot his first love. He knew that he ought to have tried harder to stop himself getting ensnared by the wicked seductress, but he could not generate the escape velocity to break loose of her orbit.
It was a whole year after the incident of the cursed cherry, when spring had worked its magic on the soil and the blossoms had come back, that Haruke happened to be walking on the bank of the Oi, and on inhaling a good breathful of the fragrant air, thoughts and images of Misaki invaded his inward eye. I must go back to her, throw myself at her feet, entreat her to forgive me and promise her my entire love and life, swear never to stray, and beg her to let me back in her life.
Now, at this juncture I need to tell you about Amaterasu. She was a good fairy named after the most powerful Sun Goddess. Over the last months she had watched with great sorrow the destruction of the sacred love between two good people by the forces of villainy. There were few things that she would have loved to do more than get the pair to regain their lost love. She wished that she could do something to help, she was not God. She could not wave her wand and decree, Let these lovers come back together and live happily ever after. In any case it’s only in fairy stories that fairies have wands. Nor, if you will recall, could the repellent Amaya just put a curse on Misaki, she had to use the intermediary of the accursed cherry. But Amaseratu did have a few sring to her bow. She might be able to find the means of undoing the malignancy of the witch.
She was the one who blew the fragrant air into Haruke’s lungs that morning to make him wend his way to Misaki’s cloistered home. So far so good. He knocked on her door, but when she heard who it was, she refused to open. Go away, she urged in her failing voice, and Haruke was determined not to budge until she let him in. Amaseratu willed him to stay put, and every hour that passed he banged on the door and begged admission. Although every fibre of her body was clamouring for her to give in, her pride was too strong. The thought that he would see an old woman who had lost all her looks did not encourage her. But when her clock struck midnight she finally relented. The room was dark, and they could not see each other, although she was dying to catch a last glimpse of him before locking herself in for ever.
I h-have never stopped l-loving you, Haruke managed to blurt out in a tearful voice.
You have a strange way of showing your love, she said, although she really meant, I have never stopped loving you either.
They stayed in the dark in silence for a while. All she saw was his lifeless eyes, whilst he marvelled at howher beautiful her eyes had lost none of their luminosity. Finally, unable to resist her temptation she struck a match to light a candle so she could see more of him. She saw that although he was looking haggard and careworn he was still very much the same dashing figure of yore. But the candlelight fell on her face as well. And he could not take his eyes off hers. They had not aged and had still the same tourmaline peerlessness, predominantly brown but with hints of all the other colours.
You’re so beautiful, he murmurred, and his eyes filled with tears. Which was what Amaseratu was counting on. The tears had to be his own, she knew that, and had to be genuine tears of sorrow and repentance. One drop was all that was required. He gently placed his arms round her head and pulled it towards him, allowing his tears to rub against her face. And the tears were what was required to undo Amaya’s work.
That, happily was the end of a dark chapter and the beginning of a bright happy new one.
But …
My story would not be complete if I did not reveal a crucial element: You must know the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. This will help you understand that Amaya and Amaseratu were one and the same being. After Amaya had worked her evil schemes on people and the world on any one day, she would go to the Nippara limestone cave where she lived, and next morning it was Amaseratu who woke up. Interestingly neither knew of the activities of her other half.
