Fudoki Read Online Free Page A

she was both fortunate and unfortunate in the day: unfortunate, for had there been no earthquake, there would have been no fire and no deaths, no burned paws and terror to drive her from her home and fudoki; fortunate in that her own troubles were mirrored in those of others, and no one paid attention to the corpse of a small filthy cat in the middle of the path. People saw her and stepped aside. There are a thousand ownerless dogs in this city, but they were all busy elsewhere. It is true that a dun-and-black dog examined her, leaving a moist nose-print on her shoulder; but he was called away by his owner, who had lost much in the fire and feared to lose this last thing, his dog.
     
     
    It seems I have fallen asleep over my notebook. I do not recall the shift from awake to asleep. I was thinking of this small cat and all her losses, and then I was standing naked beside a cold river, in a place so far to the north that it has no name, watching blue-green fish tremble under the water’s surface. I did not seem to realize that I am old and cannot swim and have never been farther north than a visit to Funaoka hill, and that this must therefore have been a dream.
    When I nodded off I trailed one of my sleeves in the ink, leaving dust on the dried ink stone and a feathery stain across my writing desk and this page. Worse, I dropped my favorite writing brush to the floor, where the wolf’s fur bent into an awkward curve and then dried. I am forced to switch to this brush, stiff-bristled and narrow-tipped, though I do not like the flightiness of its line. I loved that wolf brush, which gave my calligraphy a soft elegance that it doesn’t really deserve.
    Shigeko woke me, entering my rooms to force the latest batch of herbs into me. Mercifully she was sidetracked into getting the ink cleaned up and replacing my outer robe with a clean and (I observe) darker one. She is no younger than I am, has been with me since I first came to court fifty? sixty? years ago; and she forgets things as much as I do. “I came to ask you”—she hovers before me, trying to think of why she came in; then guesses, incorrectly to my relief—“whether you wish to be read to?—though I see you are occupied.”
    “I am,” I tell her, and hold up my brush, this irritating scratchy new brush. I have had to make new ink, which (since I am a princess and do not always have to suffer the effects of my actions) I am doing on a new ink stone, in preference to cleaning the old one. “Kneel. Keep me company.”
    Shigeko eases herself down to her knees. I hear their cracking, like twigs in a fire. “I am so sorry, I should not have awakened you.”
    I gesture with the brush to the floor beside me, still shining with water from the cleaning. “It’s better you did. Sleeping with ink is, well, dangerous. For my surroundings, anyway.”
    “You shouldn’t have been writing at all, my lady: the healers say it is bad for your hands, and you need your sleep. More than writing, anyway.”
    “No,” I say, and then smile at her, the old joke: “I can sleep when I’m dead.”
    After all these years, she still does not find this amusing. Worse, she remembers the herbs and so I must now drink this vile tea.
    —I see that I have ruined all the pages after this one in this notebook. No matter: I have others as empty as this one once was.

2. The Plum-Colored Notebook
     
    The tortoiseshell woke in the sheep’s hour, when the afternoon sun threaded through the trees beside the walkway and warmed her fur. For a moment everything was all right; she was basking by the midden heap with her cousins and aunts around her, though she couldn’t understand why she hurt everywhere. There had been a terrible nightmare, with flames and fear, but it made no sense for her to ache from running in a dream. She heard the breeze in a tree overhead, and she snapped awake. This was not the right tree, not any of the right trees, the trees of her garden.
    She rolled upright and