Shika Nee-san, or, Sister Deer

七月一日2001年

July 7th, 2001

It was four months after moving to Hokkaido that I met her, the deer. She was timid at first, never venturing past the railing of conifers at the edge of the yard, but I learned what would butter her up quickly: carrots, peanuts, lettuce—food you can get at any grocery store around here, no matter how remote. I would mix the ingredients together in a big bowl and leave it in an old weathered tree stump, an ideal pedestal for my offering, wrought to steel in the wind and cold. Winters here are harsh, the harshest in the country, but no matter how much frost would paint over the carrots or snow would bury the stump, I could always find her taking polite helpings from the pile. Of course, birds and squirrels alike would partake too, but it never seemed to bother her, and she never stopped visiting. In fact, our exchange became routine; every day, after getting dressed, I would prepare her food (she always ate first), and she would let me marvel at her full eyelashes, lithe dancer’s legs, and the air of stillness that followed her. It was as if the birdsong grew robust new feathers, their colors bleeding even stronger in its melodies’ flight through the trees when I was in her presence. Like I said, she was skittish, but she couldn’t hide her feelings with her happy tail.

Our play went on for months, until I could see hills of petite wildflowers replace the thick layers of winter: irises bluer than Osaka’s beaches, western clouds of oxeye daisies, and blooms of azaleas like festival lamps arranged as if the whole world had come to rest here, in the new season. It was these flowers she loved the most, like gourmet snacks, and I always made sure to pluck some from around my porch as garnish for her meals. I named her Hana, for how she relished in them, but would always call out to her as “Nee-san.” We were close enough for that, and she seemed to like it better, prancing from the woods when she heard me bowl in hand.

Soon enough, she wasn’t alone anymore in her visits, and I noticed her midsection begin to plumpen. I could spy a spry buck, reserved and manly, watchful in the trees she once was afraid to cross. He never did join her, always a warden over his delicate charge. His horns were stately and rich with the formative nutrients of a well-earned life in the wild—thirteen-pointed—and I could imagine the poor souls ravaged by his necessary acts of mate-war. I was proud of her, for claiming such a beast for her own. I named him Takeda, after my father, but not once did I use it aloud. I laugh to myself thinking of him rolling his eyes at his lover playing nice with a human woman. He was far too proud to take my offerings, like a noble, wild god, and I would not insult his pride by calling to him with my small domestic name. We were not on those terms.

The physical relief come spring’s thaw and the turn of summer’s sun hit me like droplets from my past, windows into a life clouded by time and my illness. The house, left to me by my grandparents, was a relic of the Meiji Era, and even though it bore little of the furnishings I remember, the wind chimes and warm light certainly made the floorboards come alive. The panes danced, the paper doors were set alight with the candles of noontime, and I would have been struck by it all as with the kaleidoscope-eyes of a child if I were haler enough. But my bones would not let me; their cries were much louder than the folk songs of jays and sparrows and more distracting than the confetti of pink moss phlox. My body reminded me daily how cold the wind really was and how heavy chopsticks could be when you’re dying.

My family moved to Tokyo one generation ago, my single father choosing the opportunity of the urban world over the old Sasaki house, like old fishing boats casting off for octopus, unable to see their ink beneath the waves. Every summer we would visit Sapporo one night and stay a week at my grandparents’ after, filling ourselves with the clean air over the tatami and the wide fields so rich with hue they seemed to sparkle like lakes; it was a far cry from the two-bedroom Ueno flat we lived in with its regular shudder from the train. Those summers were breaths I couldn’t take anywhere else, and every night before departing I wished I could pack some powdery stars, plovers, and citrusy pine in my suitcase, to take home to Tokyo’s streets so crowded not even wildflowers can grow; I hoped memories would do. I grew a distaste for the convenience stores, the neon izekaya advertisements, and the endless broadcasts from streetside speakers—but by the time I finished high school, entered Waseda, and began building a life for myself, it was too late.

The money, the salary position copied across millions of offices in the city, the alarms and anchor-weights of sleep—it had trapped me. I kept telling myself,

“Next year, Hanako. Put up with it for one more year.”

But it was always one more year. What a joke. Slowly, my thirst for life itself waned, and not even the memories of light could sustain me anymore. My father passed after a grueling war with lung disease, leaving my grasp without any cord to the fortitude of brighter days. I remember how he looked—the man who left his family, his childhood peace, for the promise of modernity—completely sapped of vitality, like a parasite had overtaken him. Darkness dyed his eye-sockets and his bony hands shook beneath the hospital blanket. He told me,

”Hanako…I know you’ll be alright. You are my daughter—you’ve always known how to live.”

That was how he left me. And I remember that day, after leaving the hospital, eyes cloudy from tears and my ribs aching, watching a drunkard vomit on the sidewalk, still in his office suit; it was a Tuesday afternoon.

I had no siblings, no friends from school or work; society was a mess I found myself disqualified from. Soon, even the thought of leaving struck me as something sick. What would it make me, to abandon the place my father believed in? The restlessness of the bird I once had for a heart soured and reeked of idiot idealism, blind in the sunshine. I was responsible for carrying out the rest of my days in Tokyo and I could earn no more than that. And so I lived, wasting away. My hair began to gray before forty-five, blazers once properly tailored soon looked baggy and wrinkled on my body, and my tastebuds registered everything as the same insipid fat; sleep never came with the satisfying conclusion of rest, I became pallid from malnourishment, and my nerves grew to a fever pitch with every cramped train ride. I was in a lot of pain.

And then, the diagnosis came. It turns out my weakness wasn’t just a symptom of heady disgust or depression, but the ravages of an in-bred illness: leukemia. It was like my body was completely giving up on all fronts. I was running papers to my section manager’s desk—Wednesday’s were always the busiest—when my vision had begun to blot out in black puddles. I was always feeling faint, sore, but this was different; I began to be pulled outside of myself, like my spirit was retreating through the gauzy ceiling and LED’s. I collapsed onto the corner of his desk, throwing papers everywhere, and shattered my nose on the corner. Immediately he called an ambulance, but I don’t think he would’ve cared half as much if it hadn’t happened on his desk. They performed tests, of course, on my blood, and the news was broken to me then, but it’s funny how paltry that type of thing seems when you hadn’t the will to survive in the first place. In a way I was happy, in my hospital gown, staring down at my serving of dry rice and whitebait, the scores of little eyes staring up at me in a dead state of shock—happy for a sanctioned chance to give up, happy to be served food in bed, happy to be in a quiet room with no view of the street. The doctors were far more concerned than I was. My manager emailed me later that day to tell me that, though company policy dictated otherwise, the rest of my work week would be compensated. How generous.

What was I to do with myself, with all this new, precarious freedom? I brooded over options, but I could feel something different start to stir. Not hope per say, but an understanding that the coin of change sat on my fingers, and then I remembered: Hokkaido. The old house stayed in the Sasaki family name, and was entirely left to my discretion—no family, no connections. So I was left with a choice: spend my remaining time in Tokyo amongst the arcade machines and the delivery vans as a rotting husk, or depart from the world surrounded by the lush cold my thin heart had grown to forget. Either way, I couldn’t work, and the city reeked of vomit. I chose the latter. I refused treatment, to the dismay of those sent to consult me, and took up the sleeping chance to be in Hokkaido’s soft cradle again.

Those freezing months waiting for summer to bloom would have been spent with a lot more fear if I hadn’t met Hana; soon, I realized she was the reason I could get up in the morning. I would wake, wearily push back the warm kotatsu keeping fluid and trapped my remaining energy like melted wax, all but crawl to the kitchen, and make her meal. The crystal-sharp air would sting my nose as I took the bowl to the stump, but it filled my body with a pure charge, too. While watching her eat, underneath layers of down and knit my lungs, heart, and stomach were roused with the same fingers stroking all sorts of wild animals. My organs could taste that clean flavor of being alive again, no matter how slightly, and the routine I settled into improved my stamina. I had begun eating more than I did while in Tokyo, and despite what my haggard reflection would say I felt more awake. At times, I caught myself wondering if this was the strength rearing a child cultivates in someone.

That was how things passed, and in my state between the territories of life and death I felt I could be a witness to the world for what it was: a clear, quiet cycle ignorant to our actions and money and timetables. But last month, on an afternoon I noticed I had run out of carrots for Hana (and rice and eggs for myself), there came a sudden chink in this peaceful routine.

I had driven the usual 20 minutes to Takehara Grocer, a simple outpost down the hillside’s winding roads, recognizable with its big red awning out front, and parked in my usual spot next to the door; I try to avoid walking when I can. The bell jingled and Kyosuke greeted me. The Giants’ game was playing on the antique television behind the counter.

“Oi, Hanako-chan! Long time no see!” He smiled warmly. A single woman who buys vegetables in bulk, especially in a place where residents commonly grow their own food, is a memorable one. I smiled back and bowed lightly. I could tell the lettuce was as fresh as it could be.

“Here for your deer-food?” He was shuffling a deck of cards on the counter.

‘Yes—and some things for myself as well.” I always enjoyed how carefree he seemed while running the store, and that he used my first name. It was a quality I had greatly missed in the city; like deer in Tokyo, it's hard to find.

“Help yourself! Better be careful out there, though. Have you heard?” His tone shifted when he asked the question. He knew I kept to myself.

“Heard what?” I could feel a little pebble drop in my stomach.

“There’s a bear-watch. A real big one came down from up north, now that it's getting hot—probably wants to take a dip in the lake, baha!”

“What frequency, Kyosuke?” I said, unable to curb the rising panic in my voice. I could tell the urgency alarmed him. He took a portable radio out from beneath the counter and began playing with its knobs.

“Well, just the normal broadcast station, Hanako. It’s not that big—”

I was out of the door before he could finish. I began to heave as I drove home, swerving past locals’ kei trucks with my grandparents’ old Jeep well over the speed limit. In a place like that I was definitely making a scene, but I never cared about what they thought of me, especially not now. My Hana was in danger.

It’s funny; I had no idea where to even start. But I felt I had to. Who can say why? I just thought, if it was in my power to save her, I would do it—no matter how feeble I was. I stuck to the main road until I got closer to home, spitting up rocks as the pavement transitioned to the old residential paths, flying past rows and rows of conifers in a blur. I had never owned a car, and only carried a license because my father believed it would “come in handy.” He was right. I frantically set the radio to the staticky local broadcast, catching “caution,” “lake,” and “lookout.” Kyosuke wasn't joking. What would I do if I found the bear? Lay on the horn, run it over, roar…I was trying to think as fast as the tires were spinning. Then I remembered: my grandfather was a hunter, and an outlawish bastard at that, always keeping his shotgun in the trunk “in case of bears.” He was right, too. I just hoped there would be ammunition—and that it wouldn’t backfire before I could kill the beast.

I drove and I drove, finding nothing, until I merged onto that grassy road to Shougeki Lake. My arms shook on the steering wheel and my knuckles burned. I thought, would I even be able to hold the gun? What did it matter? Death by leukemia or a chubby brown bear—it was all the same. The northern road was bumpy like toad skin and the Jeep’s old chassis let me know, but soon the shimmering waterline twinkled into sight. I slammed the breaks and my body groaned with the jerk, but I jumped out without so much as turning off the engine. I fell to the ground, my shoulder breaking my fall. I yelped in pain. My body had gone through lifetimes since running around the shore with my father at that very lake, splashing in water so crisp it could clean the whole world. I scrambled to the trunk, using the vehicle as a crutch; there was no shotgun.

I cursed and limped as fast as I could toward the lake. My body was set alight with cold fire—my lungs screamed and my legs felt like they began blistering from the inside out. I could see the water’s silver edge on the horizon, and despite all the pain was struck with a new feeling: the mountains and their peaks dwarfed me, but not in the way the honeycombs of buildings did in Tokyo, with their crowds and cigarettes. I felt as if I was in the palm of a greater animal carrying me through space with welcome indifference, not at the bottom of a huge pit filled with all the other lost people-creatures. I was suddenly small again, breathing in the sunlight after a hard day’s play; with every step I yelled at it all, and soon felt tears wet my eyes. I had to find her, I had to do something—and then, I saw it.

The bloody pulp of a buck laid in the middle of the path. His carcass was mauled to ribbons, grisly chunks taken out of his belly, thighs, and the deep hues of a warrior’s blood stained the earth. His head, intact, rested eyes-open, looking into the wood. Its antlers bore thirteen points, each colored red.

I couldn’t breathe. I stood silent, my body too filled with adrenaline to stop shaking and freezing in the afternoon heat. Where was she? My mind rushed to the worst, of the bear swallowing her whole while her mate was left to die alone—but he didn’t die alone: I heard a little voice peep from underneath an oak afar, sheltered by the boughs and a bed of chrysanthemums, right in line with his dead gaze. And there she was: the beautiful mother. He had done his job, that gorgeous Takeda. She chose well, indeed.

I walked as close as I could and dropped to my knees, fatigue taking what was left of me. She was curled up in the shade with her fawn, who was just starting to stand. A wide breeze washed over us, filling the sky with the sounds of wave crashes from the treetops, and she looked at me, into me, and nudged her child as if to say,

“Look...look what I made.”

She was radiant—so radiant. Tears melted over everything. I sobbed and sobbed—for her, her mate, their love, myself. Her baby held himself up, and from the shade took those first steps, perfect nose shining, into the sun’s golden-lipped licks. Everything grew still and perfect. I laughed a wet laugh.

My, what a beautiful summer it was.