The Izu Dancer and Other Stories: The Counterfeiter, Obasute, The Full Moon Read Online Free

myself as "a nice person" in the everyday sense of the expression. I find no way to describe what this meant to me. The mountains grew brighter—we were getting near Shimoda and the sea.
Now and then, on the outskirts of a village, we would see a sign: "Vagrant performers keep out."
The Koshuya was a cheap inn at the northern edge of Shimoda. I went up behind the rest to an attic-like room on the second floor. There was no ceiling, and the roof sloped down so sharply that at the window overlooking the street one could not sit comfortably upright.
"Your shoulder isn't stiff?" The older woman was fussing over the girl. "Your hands aren't sore?"
The girl went through the graceful motions of beating a drum. "They're not sore. I won't have any trouble. They're not sore at all."
"Good. I was worried."
I lifted the drum. "Heavy!"
"It's heavier than you'd think," she laughed. "It's heavier than that pack of yours."
They exchanged greetings with the other guests. The hotel was full of peddlers and wandering performers— Shimoda seemed to be a migrants' nest. The dancer handed out pennies to the inn children, who darted in and out. When I started to leave she ran to arrange my sandals for me in the doorway.
"You will take me to a movie, won't you?" she whispered, almost to herself.
Eikichi and I, guided part way by a rather disreputable-looking man from the Koshuya, went on to an inn said to belong to an ex-mayor. We had a bath together and lunch, fish new from the sea.
I handed him a little money as he left. "Buy some flowers for the services tomorrow," I said. I had explained that I would have to go back to Tokyo on the morning boat. I was, as a matter of fact, out of money, but told them I had to be back in school.
"Well, we'll see you this winter in any case," the older women said. "We'll all come down to the boat to meet you. You must let us know when you're coming. You're to stay with us—we couldn't think of letting you go to a hotel. We're expecting you, remember, and we'll all be down at the boat."
When the others had left the room I asked Chiyoko and Yuriko to go to a movie with me. Chiyoko, pale and tired, lay with her hands pressed to her abdomen. "I couldn't, thank you. I'm simply not up to so much walking."
Yuriko stared stiffly at the floor.
The little dancer was downstairs playing with the inn children. When she saw me come down she ran off and began wheedling the older woman for permission to go to the movies. She came back looking distant and crestfallen.
"I don't see anything wrong. Why can't she go with him by herself?" Eikichi argued. I found it hard to understand myself, but the woman was unbending. The dancer sat out in the hall petting a dog when I left the inn. I could not bring myself to speak to her, so chilling was this new formality, and she seemed not to have the strength to look up.
I went to the movies alone. A woman read the dialogue by a small flashlight. I left almost immediately and went back to my inn. For a long time I sat looking out, my elbows on the window sill. The town was dark. I thought I could hear a drum in the distance. For no very good reason I found myself weeping.
VI
EIKICHI called up from the street while I was eating breakfast at seven the next morning. He had on a formal kimono, in my honor it seemed. The women were not with him. I was suddenly lonesome.
"They all wanted to see you off," he explained when he came up to my room, "but we were out so late last night that they couldn't get themselves out of bed. They said to apologize and tell you they'd be waiting for you this winter."
An autumn wind blew cold through the town. On the way to the ship he bought me fruit and tobacco and a bottle of a cologne called "Kaoru." "Because her name's Kaoru," he smiled. "Oranges are bad on a ship, but persimmons you can eat. They help seasickness."
"Why don't I give you this?" I put my hunting cap on his head, pulled my school cap out of my pack, and tried to smooth away a few of the wrinkles.