ALL SOUNDS
A Mononoke-Hime Short Story
Disclaimer: Mononoke-Hime belongs to Miyazaki Hayao & his affiliates at Studio Ghibli
Rating: T
For L.M
"All sounds have been as music to my listening:
Pacific lamentations of slow bells,
The crunch of boots on blue snow rosy-glistening,
Shuffle of autumn leaves; and all farewells:"
- Wilfred Owen
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1.
We are out by the muddy little stream near the ridge. Here the forest has been stripped by farmers from the town. Overlapping hills peek over the ridge like bald foreheads. The morning is hazy with water insects shooting in and out of the shade. A herd of deer graze upstream.
I lower, and then withdraw the leather pouches from the stream; they are fat with tea-coloured water which tastes like leaves and twigs and mossy rocks. Nearby San dips her lips into the water. The sediment swirls like cream around her bloodshot lips. She laps at the stream with deep, dog-like pants, her tongue extending out to skim the surface. Droplets flicker like diamonds on her cheek.
Later she ventures waist-deep into the current. Fish scatter. Dead leaves get caught in her armpits. Her face is half-turned back to the shore when she says:
"I would have named him after you if it had been a boy."
2.
The winter is one of the most intense, according to the sentries. Snow gathers on the shoulders of buildings. And farmers burn the hill opposite the town clean of trees. From the porch of watch tower, the blackened stumps of trees crowd the pale slopes, like dust on a window ledge. Small fires lick the edges of the hills even during snowfall. Sometimes these fires get out of control, staining the night sky a sour crimson, like the shade of salmon blooding out in shallow water.
It is a strange thing: fires burning so strongly in such foul weather.
The man I relieve for duty has only one eye on his face; the other is sewn shut by a wad of dried skin. An accident in the furnace, he says. He cannot say my name correctly, and smokes a pipe whenever he is not talking. He calls my Lady a tramp to be respected, and looks with longing at the ruins of the furnace, as if it belongs to the pure state of loving memories.
He stays with me through the blizzard-prone nights even though he has been relieved. Most of the time we don't talk. When it gets too cold, he takes the pipe out of his mouth and spits salivary tobacco twenty metres down the ramparts. When he does talk, it is about women. I listen to his stories, which always seem to include him feeling up one of the womenfolk of the town in the outer wall of the fort during curfew.
Sometimes a wolf cries out: a solitary echo bouncing off the hills and the rivers beyond the town. The man with one eye wants to reach for the cannon, but he doesn't. Instead, he says: "You should leave it. You shouldn't go back."
He passes the pipe along. And I suck air from its shaft as if I have been immersed underwater for days. Smoke filters out of my nose and mouth.
"What?"
"Leave her," he tells me. His teeth, like mine now, are as black as storm clouds.
"You know what I mean," he adds. "She's not your wife."
But the wolf's calling dies down soon after. The heaving of the pipe is the only sound that dares to challenge the wind. He spits a plume of acrid, heavy smoke out into the night and passes the pipe over to me.
From the watch tower I can see miles and miles hillside, swathed with quivering, snow-smothered forest. Some parts have chunks of grey ground. The muddy little stream, now probably frozen, twirls through the hills like a lizard's tail. Clouds crowd out an incomplete moon. I wait for the wolf to howl again, to tell me that, really, everything's going to be all right. But it doesn't. I take the pipe and swallow the deepest breath I can muster.
3.
She had begun to show when the tree's shaggy plumage was thinning and the days started to get colder. Soon the wolves had become more protective of her. No human, except me, could be allowed to see her. During those months of receding days and dying sunlight, she would walk through the flood of dead leaves, near the southern ridge, the kodama screaming all around her like a pronouncement. She would walk ahead of me.
I remember, then, when her belly began to blossom like the stretching pod of a jasmine flower in springtime. She had become so big that her parka of leather and fur hung loose from her chest, the oval curve of her belly showing through the gaps. I could imagine the life swimming inside her – like a tadpole with a face – reaching out from there to examine the walls of its fleshy container. Within that life, strummed a heart – a heart that the two of us, together, had created.
She had held my hand as she danced over fallen logs and traversed the obstacle-strewn forest floor. Sometimes, I remember, her face would bloom like an early sunset filtered through the autumn clouds – a red so intense it could only be a mixture of two separate bloods nourishing her and the child.
"So what do they call those in the town who are with cub?" she had asked.
She had insisted being with child would not inhibit her from hunting, or gathering, or protecting the boundary of her ancestors' land with her brothers. The famers' incursions had started to escalate, but San knew dealing with humans was something she should not interfere in. The other creatures of the forest paid her respect, many of them dutifully retreating into solemn obeisance whenever she neared them. Sometimes, we could walk through strips of forest filled with creatures, all with their eyes shielded, their tusks and antlers lowered, all sounds stopped at the sight of moving among the raining foliage of teal-coloured leaves.
I had told her: "Mothers."
"Mothers." She let the word toss about on her tongue. Then compressed her face into a frown, her forehead descending into curves where her eyes were. Her eyes had drifted to where I waited, and all I can remember was the smudge of dried blood like a tongue at the far edge of her lip when she asked:
"Do I look like them?"
Despite the weight that tugged at her, she would stride when out on the hunt, her shoulders flexed, her spear whipping out from her left hand. She would tear the meat, bloody pulp and all, from the carcasses, from deer still kicking and screaming. And as she ate, the mass of life clustered at her waist, would move like a pendulum, her clothes crumpling. One hand delivering a signal of death; the other cupping the fragile piece of life waiting beneath her, waiting to be expressed.
"No." I say.
A rumour goes around the town: the devil girl is with child – she and her brothers are attacking farmers again – she looks even more fearsome with the demon child within her –
As fall creeps into winter, the people of the town already know. They share the news, the sightings, every detail of every fragment of a word, as if they are packed around a fireplace and these things keep them alive. None of them actually approach me on my rounds. The men elbow me on the shoulders, clap the back of my head – are they offering me best wishes for my child, or are they scolding me for bringing more demons into the world?
The women mouth things –things I have never thought human tongues can actually piece together. They look me in the eye. They stare me down, their faces polished into a straight, invisible stone. They only speak when they think I cannot hear them: demonwoman – demonchild – sleeping with the witch – unholy spawn – death is brought into the world – monsters mating with humans –
Abominations- -
And then all noises stop.
4.
The man I relieve for duty is smoking his pipe. He smiles as I ask him his name, his lips charred, his teeth an intense charcoal black. He nurses the tobacco into the pipe and takes a hit so hard he seems to drag the entire atmosphere into his lungs. He hacks like a wild dog and spits. I watch his spittle plummet into the snow below. And he pushes the pipe to me before I have the opportunity to say something else.
"You never listen to me, do you?"
The pipe flounders in my hands like a sword. I twirl it once, its bushy scent infusing the air around us. When I finally take in a full breath, I open my eyes to see smoke sweep away from my nose.
I ask: "And you believe what people are saying?"
He collects the pipe back from me, as if religiously handling a sacrament. The snow piles on his matted eyebrows.
"I don't believe them." And he takes a fistful of my hair with a bear-like seizure. His grip is sharp, but momentary. He sucks on the pipe again, and says:
"But I smell her all over you."
So he says. But he is not around when I get a visitor during the shift:
While I watch the ramparts, two armed guards stride across the narrow floor and stand at attention just beyond my position. In response, I place my knees into the snow, and lower myself until my forehead forms a groove in the ice-crust on the floor.
"You don't need to bow. Not here" she says. "Get up"
"My lady."
My Lady is dressed with a parka and with robes the colour cypress wood in the spring. It pushes out the colour of her lips – they are unnecessarily red. Her face glows, like the glare of embers from a hidden fire – pale against the backdrop of snow-stained scaffoldings and the storm-clouds amassing over the hills beyond the town. She helps me to my feet.
"I heard, Ashitaka –"
Her solitary arm retreats to her body, resting on the point just above her waist, where a blade snuggles, sheathed.
"And I congratulate you. I will personally organize the ceremonies to commemorate the occasion."
I catch her breath spiraling up into the air. And I remember: San, in warmer days, fitting her fingers into the gaps between mine – her rough hands like another layer of skin, her hands leading my palm to her naked navel swelling with warmth –
I laugh. I say my thanks, but: "I'll have to ask her."
"Of course."
San's hands pressing down into mine, in turn forcing my hands onto her belly – and her own sweaty palms releasing warmth into my flattened knuckles –
"I don't think she may be ready to return."
"I understand," My Lady nods, "I send my regards and pray for a blessed delivery and a healthy child. And a bright, strong family."
"Thank you, My Lady."
My Lady stiffens; she always worries that she has outstayed her welcome. And now, especially on this dirty perch, she turns to leave, her ponytail trailing behind her. I catch the flush of cold on her cheeks. Flecks of dried skin flake glossy on the curl of her lips, in spite of the slippery redness of them. She says:
"I have told the townspeople to stop the rumour-mongering."
"Thank you, My Lady."
"But they will only really stop until they see the truth with their own eyes." She pauses. "She is after all, your wi –"
"Thank you, My Lady."
She nods. My Lady has her habit of pushing advice to the lofty tip of the philosophical. As she retreats across the floor, and out across the ramparts decked out gracefully with overflowing snow, I catch a vision of her on her knees, San and I standing; a warm bundle – a frail, feisty infant, resting glowing in our arms – and the town peering curiously over their leader's shoulder to see the truth.
But I breathe deeply, the cold smashing against the sides of my lungs like wind twisting against the walls of a cave. And I reach for the pipe.
5.
"They were there again today."
I remember this moment clearly: she turns away from me, nestling the brooding load in her belly. Her bare back is flecked with wounds and scars, like the grooves of bark on an aged tree. I rest my arms on the lofty peaks of her shoulders – sharp edges like the solemn faced cliffs to the north – but she curls away from me. She lies on the floor of dried and dead leaves, her back a fleshy wall of silence, crowding me out in her cave.
The cold nips at me, so I get dressed. I make more noise than usual, make putting on my parka and cloak an elaborate ceremony, but she does not stir. For a moment, there is nothing to let me know she is alive – save the pressing swell of her back, a valley of tanned skin molded into shape by her spine. She says:
"They were there again today."
And: "Will you do anything about them?"
Wind booms through the cave, but never has enough strength to snuff out the burning totems of wax in this corner. In here, everything is San: writing on the wall, fur-lined curtains, the stuffy sweaty stench –
"They think that because I am with cub they can burn my forest to plant their miserable trees."
She rises to her feet, and faces me. Her hair pours over her face, into the wet triangle at the top of her chest. Sweat or saliva or both, has smeared the red marks on her face into clouds of crimson. She steps up to me and pulls at my cloak, but I catch her fingers. The dirt under her nails makes them look they are coloured with soot. When I can bring myself to stare into her eyes, they are washed with light, but I cannot see myself in them.
"What would you have me do?" I ask her.
But she has already turned away. She sits in lotus position and faces the wall of her cave where an overhang juts out like a deformed tooth. The shadow cast by the light eats into her back, the only thing alive amongst the rock –
Outside her cave, for the first time in months, the snow has stopped. In the fresh snow I trek back to the town. Farmers eye me as I emerge from the forest, spreading ashes of burned trees all over the ruined land.
6.
And at the ramparts, the man I relieve for duty is smoking his pipe. He has a lady in his arms.
"So here's the warrior of the woods," he greets. "Allow me to introduce you to my company tonight."
The lady is not from the working women at the foundry, or at the laundries. She is too young, her skin is too pale, almost flawless, too perfect. A dense brown nipple shows through her partially opened yukata. She smiles at me; she extends her hand.
"Nice for a night, don't you think?" he says.
But her hand is as cold as stones along the frozen lakeshore.
7.
On the night it happened, the wolves had begun to howl well into the fourth watch of the night: deep, long cries which made the sentries anxious. I crawled to my feet, stepped out into the dense darkness – and at once I knew.
Without Yakkul, I rushed out into the woods – there was a gentle snowfall that night – past the newly burned forest trails and trees marked for the fire the farmers. But as I neared the cave, everything else had stilled. The trees flanking the cave had been, for a moment, tossed by winds, their crowns laid low, the snow and wind blasting everything down in a torrent.
And then a scream – one straining voice.
The wolves had not allowed me anywhere near the cave. They had said I was responsible for what was happening to their sister, and that she needed to overcome this herself. They bared their fangs, and when I had decided to fight they beat, clawed and bit me into my place. All around the wind mixed their growls and San's screams into a symphony, flooding through the empty forest.
When, finally they had been fought off, I sprinted into the cave. Blood fogging my own vision, the cave swallowed me like a body, thrashing me about in a crimson throat of rock and stones. But, I followed the only voice, the screeching, like an animal getting eaten alive – the echoing chorus of agony, the female voice leaping away into my senses –
But as I neared, the screeching had become a rapid succession of shrill cries. There – there – in the very heart of the cave, spread-eagled on a floor of dead leaves, splashed with blood – her arms extended down below her waist – one arm curled around a clean blade – still howling, still weeping, still breathing –
And, there – drowning in its own lake of blood, was the life which she had brought forth.
"Take it!" she yelled. "Away! Get it away!"
And carrying the motionless mound of flesh away, out of the cave, till the sound of crying dropped away like a descending horizon – out into the cold, the barking of wolves – and into the murderous whisper of the wind, away until there seemed to be nowhere else to go – until the forest was full of silence yet crowded with life at the same time – until my own legs gave way –
Until I, too, started to weep –
Until all sounds stopped –
8.
"How has she been?"
"She won't see me."
Not even My Lady has an answer for all the things that have happened. She has been kind enough to host me as her patron, provide me victuals and offer me a few weeks relief from duty at the fort. She has even summoned the most experienced midwives and most notable physicians, seeking answers on my behalf. But their repeated words are like the chatter of crows, the background noise against the bright blur of snow and blood.
We face each other: My lady on her throne, the emblems of war rising in ceremonial decoration from behind her – and I on the floor. She has dismissed all the attendants, and an absolute silence soaks the entire room. Tapers flicker. Shadows play in this distance that separates us.
"She hunts alone now," I tell her. "And she blames the farmers –"
My Lady sighs. But unlike before, she does not move, or rise. Instead she slouches, her hand picking out a strand of stray hair over her forehead. When she stares at me, I take my gaze to the floor.
"You know that isn't true," she says. "But if that's what she wants, I will give in to her, for now."
"My Lady –"
"But, there is something more important here." She rises, and pulls me to my feet by the shoulders. "Are you sane enough after all that has happened?"
She continues: "You need your own rest."
This close, the perfumed aroma of jasmine and magnolia fills the space between us. She tilts my head, till she can stare into my eyes. But I choose to stare at her lips instead: red, blooded, with its white porcelain sheen like a piece of china –
"Ashitaka," she says. "Go to her."
9.
But the man I relieve for duty still stays on the perch to talk. He blows from his pipe, and the wind carries the smell of fried, crisp tobacco around us while he speaks. The night is clear: no wailing snow, no breaking winds – just a moon smothered by clouds, and the thick, swarming darkness beyond the burning torches of the fort.
"I have heard things," the man begins. "Strange things."
He takes a shot at the pipe, and when he is done his mouth erupts into an artistic helix of rising smoke. The moonlight has burnished his clump of hair into makeshift overhang across his forehead.
Tonight, when addressing me, he attaches a smile to his words:
"I heard from some of the farmers that the devil princess has given birth." He pauses, spits, continues in the same breath. "Heard her screaming all night – that night."
He looks at me: "You heard anything about this?"
He sucks at the saliva-hardened mouth of the pipe when I don't answer, and a halo of smoke rises to stroke his hair. As he nosily adjusts his pipe, fellow sentries shout orders over the ramparts, their movements reverberating on the wooden scaffoldings that shake and tremble –
Then a solitary call – a wolf's melancholic howl – bursts through the still, expectant night.
"They're still at it?" the man with the pipe says, to no one in particular.
The call of the wolf continues - a second round of its low tone bounding through the rivers and blitzed hills – up towards the ramparts, up at me. The guards below talk louder to drown out the noise that makes them uncomfortable. But I imagine the throaty cry of this wolf – definitely one of San's brothers – as a message, a request.
The howl ascends into a crescendo: another wolf replies, from even nearer. The echo of the howl sweeps across the ramparts like a midwinter gale, calling, calling –
Reducing all sounds to background noise.
"Who are they calling for?" the man wonders aloud, his lips fitting into a mould around his pipe as he prepares another shot. "You can understand them, I'm sure."
"I can," I say.
And: "They're calling for me."
10.
Down the ramparts, past the duty officer for the night, out the gate, through the watery little stream beside the fort, and into the burned scrub surrounding the farmers' land like an ashy beard – melting snow compresses beneath my feet, and a gentle wind massages the exposed skin at the back of my neck. When I hit the forest, blackness scrubs out whatever moonlight available. There is nothing in here, but the whispering, the hushed advice of animals and trees and ferns and mosses and everything alive.
Pushing through the forest, the howls persist, and from their volume and intensity, I believe I am getting nearer to my goal. I splash through the half-frozen waters of the muddy little river; ice nicks at my ankles. Snags grab at my legs. The terrain rises, and my lungs begin to weigh. Rocks force me to skirt along shattered scree and debris. Lonely trees cloister around me, as if to block my way.
Then, I break out from the forest – I am at the ridge which gives a view of the hills to the north of the town. The town and its ruined foundry lie below, and its scab-coloured patches of farms like parasites on all its sides. But beyond the town are thousands and thousands of lonely mountains, fringed with trees, their faces turned upwards to the sky. The moon dominates the background: full, silent, aglow.
And as the howls escalate, she waits on a ledge, a horizontal finger of rock on the ridge. She has a spear mounted into the ground beside her.
"San?" I say.
When she turns, her eyes are like a half-eclipse, so dark and shadowy that they snuff out all light – all light except of an upright, wavy figure reflected in them. She takes the spear and aims it straight at my face. Her tear-shaped tattoos shine, a bold red slash, floating like knives above her flushed cheeks.
I wait until she accepts my presence. But instead she closes the distance, as our shadows merging on the ground beneath us. The stone spear-point enlarges till it drifts below my own throat. Bu I have not been this close to her for a long time – too long. Far, far beyond, the howls call out in repeated succession, more wolves joining the duo in a chorus fitting for a wind-less night with a full moon. This close, San stares at me. Our shadows reflect just one person, angled by the flooded moonlight. And I tell myself, this is San – my queen, my love, my wife –
"San," I say again.
She does not lower the spread. And yet with her hands, she leaves a memory of warmth on my own cheeks. And then it is my turn to trace the landscape of her face – the swell of her cheeks, the curvature where he mouth lies – and then the basin of her chest, the plains of knotted muscle at her waist, up to the curtain of her fingers – where her hands have plunged me into darkness again – I feel her palms as they sculpt my face into who I am, who I should be – the tip of the spear burrowing gently into my throat – her own sandy tongue above the sharp pain –
And then all sounds stop -
Save the lush echo of her breathing.
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END
(13.02.2010)
NOTES: If you're confused, please note that the story is not in chronological order. I used a damaged narrator (Ashitaka's 1st POV) & his thoughts to write the story. So sections 2-8 came first, the rest later. Mixing past & present tense was tough. I don't know if it worked.
It has been a long time since I've written Mononoke-Hime, and I wanted to write this to get some strong feelings off my chest.