I could not tell to whom he spoke.
I did not know the answer then. But I thought about it when my father died; and when my golden-eyed lover returned to the east, betraying us all; and when Shirakawa died; and now, as I feel my lungs fight this losing war to breathe. At last, perhaps I find an answer.
To show grace in tragedy? All those irritatingly stupid women in monogatari tales exhibit this, with their elegant little death-poems, their lovely corpses floating on willow-clogged waters. And they are stupid. What man, what lost love or deceased kinsman is worth death? The space in my life that my half-brother once filled is now an aching icy pain, like the hole left after a tooth is pulled, and I am dying in weeks or months—and yet I still fight for life, as every mouse does, until the final beak-blow. The grace in tragedy is not to succumb, but to fight on.
I knew none of this back then, of course: certain lessons come late. I was eight when I received my first mouse. What did I know? I made a cage of silk gauze and wood, but it ran away, as did the next and the next. For a time, I made up little stories about the mice, as dramatic and full of event as any tale from Ise. As I learned to keep them for more than a day or two (pottery stopped them, as did wire mesh), I told fewer stories involving thrilling adventures. The more I learned of them, the less convincing the stories were, even to me. I’ve found that’s often the way with stories. Perhaps the only reason I tell the tale of the tortoiseshell cat is that, even after decades of living with cats, I still understand them not at all.
After a time I didn’t keep the mice caged, but still they stayed. Mostly it was food that kept them, though I liked to imagine it was love. They slept in my sleeves, so that I learned physical grace because I did not want to crush them. They hid in my hair and startled my tutors and nurses, if I didn’t have time to return them to their box. They allowed me to touch them, to feel their ribs fine as grass stems, the shapes of their delicate skulls. Their hearts beat fast in the palm of my hand.
I no longer kept mice when I came to court, nor did I engage in any of my less-acceptable hobbies. I wrote my notebooks strictly for my own satisfaction, though my woman Shigeko was forever asking to read them. I read the Chinese classics, because, while irregular, it was not unheard of for a woman to do so. I built water-clocks only when my monthly courses or illness kept me away from court and I returned to the cinnamon-tree courtyard at my uncle’s house.
When I came to court, I studied the first cat I met there with the same interest I had reserved for mice and other vermin. Our cat was small and gray, with blue-gray eyes. We tied bright-colored cords around her neck, choosing colors that were appropriate to the seasons, but she tore them off and played with them, tiny gaudy snakes. After a time we took to calling her Shisutko, the little nun, because of her dislike of finery and her soft gray color.
Shisutko was not exceptional in any way. She did not grow up to be arrogant, as so many cats do, and she did not grow loving, as so many of us hoped she would. She remained a creature of teeth and claws, and the only way we could show affection in an acceptable fashion was to fold paper into shapes and thread them onto string for her to chase. She slept near us, but she spent the rest of her time elsewhere. Sometimes, we heard her screaming in the garden; several months later she would vanish, and return with kittens.
We offered her bits from our food, but she was as picky as a pregnant empress. She was uninterested in sweet rice candies, but she liked fish and the hot-tasting pickled vegetables. She also begged from the kitchen house, but mostly she found her own meals, sometimes bringing them to us. I was less squeamish than the others, so it often fell to me to remove the mice and voles. I examined one once, its tiny broken bones like
I did not know the answer then. But I thought about it when my father died; and when my golden-eyed lover returned to the east, betraying us all; and when Shirakawa died; and now, as I feel my lungs fight this losing war to breathe. At last, perhaps I find an answer.
To show grace in tragedy? All those irritatingly stupid women in monogatari tales exhibit this, with their elegant little death-poems, their lovely corpses floating on willow-clogged waters. And they are stupid. What man, what lost love or deceased kinsman is worth death? The space in my life that my half-brother once filled is now an aching icy pain, like the hole left after a tooth is pulled, and I am dying in weeks or months—and yet I still fight for life, as every mouse does, until the final beak-blow. The grace in tragedy is not to succumb, but to fight on.
I knew none of this back then, of course: certain lessons come late. I was eight when I received my first mouse. What did I know? I made a cage of silk gauze and wood, but it ran away, as did the next and the next. For a time, I made up little stories about the mice, as dramatic and full of event as any tale from Ise. As I learned to keep them for more than a day or two (pottery stopped them, as did wire mesh), I told fewer stories involving thrilling adventures. The more I learned of them, the less convincing the stories were, even to me. I’ve found that’s often the way with stories. Perhaps the only reason I tell the tale of the tortoiseshell cat is that, even after decades of living with cats, I still understand them not at all.
After a time I didn’t keep the mice caged, but still they stayed. Mostly it was food that kept them, though I liked to imagine it was love. They slept in my sleeves, so that I learned physical grace because I did not want to crush them. They hid in my hair and startled my tutors and nurses, if I didn’t have time to return them to their box. They allowed me to touch them, to feel their ribs fine as grass stems, the shapes of their delicate skulls. Their hearts beat fast in the palm of my hand.
I no longer kept mice when I came to court, nor did I engage in any of my less-acceptable hobbies. I wrote my notebooks strictly for my own satisfaction, though my woman Shigeko was forever asking to read them. I read the Chinese classics, because, while irregular, it was not unheard of for a woman to do so. I built water-clocks only when my monthly courses or illness kept me away from court and I returned to the cinnamon-tree courtyard at my uncle’s house.
When I came to court, I studied the first cat I met there with the same interest I had reserved for mice and other vermin. Our cat was small and gray, with blue-gray eyes. We tied bright-colored cords around her neck, choosing colors that were appropriate to the seasons, but she tore them off and played with them, tiny gaudy snakes. After a time we took to calling her Shisutko, the little nun, because of her dislike of finery and her soft gray color.
Shisutko was not exceptional in any way. She did not grow up to be arrogant, as so many cats do, and she did not grow loving, as so many of us hoped she would. She remained a creature of teeth and claws, and the only way we could show affection in an acceptable fashion was to fold paper into shapes and thread them onto string for her to chase. She slept near us, but she spent the rest of her time elsewhere. Sometimes, we heard her screaming in the garden; several months later she would vanish, and return with kittens.
We offered her bits from our food, but she was as picky as a pregnant empress. She was uninterested in sweet rice candies, but she liked fish and the hot-tasting pickled vegetables. She also begged from the kitchen house, but mostly she found her own meals, sometimes bringing them to us. I was less squeamish than the others, so it often fell to me to remove the mice and voles. I examined one once, its tiny broken bones like
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