Higanbana*

  ‘’Say what you have to- and do not give an afterthought’’, was the golden rule by which Mrs. Sato lived. Not that frankness was appreciated by anyone these days.

  Her husband had died a year ago. Since then, Mrs. Sato had devoted her time and energy, which was heretofore engaged in the care of the invalid, to finding out and sitting on judgment on her neighbours’ affairs. Had anyone taken the liberty to peer behind the exterior of formidable officiousness, then they would have seen that Mrs. Sato’s avid interest in other people’s existence was more in an attempt to forget her own lonely one. But nobody took that mighty liberty, and therefore nobody saw anything more of Mrs. Sat than her sharp grating tongue that never hesitated over the tea and toast of the hosts to pronounce their daughter getting too old for marriage or wondering aloud why their son was still without a job. Needless to say her presence was not a welcome one at gatherings, and neighbouhood pedestrians, especially the young ones, found it an ordeal to pass the street under her window at which she would inevitably be found sitting with the same sewing that she complained was getting too difficult for her old eyes.

    One evening, Mrs. Sato decided to take a walk. September in this region came with too early dying days and a fine, biting fog that accentuated the dark, cracked corners of big, unlighted houses and this insidious engulfing darkness had overwhelmed Mrs. Sato out of her house to relish the last embers of the western sky. Rambling along empty streets, she presently came to the temple compound now ablaze with the rippling, swaying heralds of autumn - the spider lilies. They sprouted around the moss-grown stone entrance, the weather-beaten wooden shrine and covered the adjoining graveyard in a sea of red, susceptible to the lightest breeze. Through the narrow winding path in the sea Mrs. Sato walked, till, through the mist, her eyes discerned another form traversing the walk which she had taken but a few minutes ago.

  She peered at the approaching figure and saw that it was the neighbourhood physician Dr. Tanaka, quiet, demure and sufficiently her junior to permit a turn of conversation suitable to her inclinations. A closer inspection would have made her notice a slight drooping of the dignified shoulders, a certain forlornness about the face usually unready at socializing, and a melancholy shadow about the eyes as is the passing years had served only to diminish the interest of whatever they fell on. But this she was not concerned about and was content to have a talking- or rather, listening partner to accompany her walk.

  As he came closer, she greeted him with a menacing smile and said, ’’I see you have found some leisure to devote to yourself, Sir.’’

  Dr. Tanaka gave a soft-voiced reply, ‘’Yes, ma’am.’’

 ‘’And at this time of the year when fevers and headaches are rampant.’’

 The doctor smiled inwardly. Mrs. Sato’s husband had been claimed by a heart-attack, and no force on earth could convince her that a delay in timing, and not the whole of medical fraternity, was responsible for it. They walked together for some time in silence. ‘’I get these headaches these evenings’’, said Mrs. Sato pressing two fingers to her forehead. The physician was too absorbed in the scenery. ‘’Take a walk, Mrs. Sato. There’s nothing that a good walk in the fresh air can’t cure.’’ Mrs. Sato was disappointed, ‘Well Sir, I have been walking every day of this one year, and it has done no good till now but to give me a sore knee.’’

  The doctor came back. ‘’Does your eyesight trouble you much?’’

 ‘’Hmm, now and then.’’

 ‘’Have you had your eyes examined lately?’’

  ‘’No, Sir. I’ve been meaning to, but never got up to it.’’

  What followed was what should follow between any doctor and patient – advice to have her eyes examined, a reference to a pain-reliever, etc. After which, they lapsed again into quietude. The invisible sun had touched the sides of the distant hills scarlet. They were looming silhouettes against the flush of the west. A carpet of bejeweled dark blue was already beginning to spread in the east. The wind that carried the mist from the woods made the red lilies tremble and rustle. ‘’Don’t hey look enchanting, ma’am, these spider lilies. Look how sentient they are. How they come alive to the slightest touch of the breeze. Standing guard on either side of this little path, it seems almost as if they will lead you into another world. Legend has it that these flowers bloom along the bank of the Sanzu river. As the deceased souls pass by in their boats, the fragrance of these flowers bring back all the memories of their past life for one last time before making them forget everything forever as they enter the underworld. I wonder – I wonder if we could be allowed to retain some of the memories… though, I see, it would bring nothing but pain’’, the doctor sighed.

  Mrs. Sato was mildly amused at the poetic muse that had taken hold of the man of science. ‘’So goes the story, Sir.’’ It may have been a mere story. But something there was today, something in the misty air, the trance-like silence, and the huge red rustling sea that conveyed an atmosphere at once wistful and magical. As Mrs. Sato continued to trouble her mind about her headache, Dr. Tanaka suddenly stopped before a grave-marker. She had not noticed before, but he was carrying a poesy of daisies and a box of incense sticks in his hand.

 As the doctor bent down to arrange the flowers in the vase and light the incenses, Mrs. Sato read the carving on the mossy stone – beside the family name was written ‘Akiko’.

  She was puzzled. ‘’Why, Doctor, whose grave is this?’’

  There was a pause before he answered, and he didn’t turn from his work as he said quietly, ‘’My little daughter, ma’am. She died at midnight, at home. She died of viral fever when I was away at the hospital treating so many of the epidemic.’’

(*Japanese for red spider lily. It blooms suddenly and is riotous red during the equinoxes. Among other beliefs,, it is held that these flowers bloom along the path of two people who would never meet again. The name ‘higanbana’ means flower of the other bank of the Sanzu river, Japanese river of the underworld. It is also called ghost flower or ‘yurei-hana’. Due to its sad connotation, it is planted in graveyards.)