The Goddess Chronicle
Natsuo Kirino is a leading figure in Japanese crime fiction. A prolific writer, she is most famous for her 1998 novel Out, which received the Grand Prix for Crime Fiction, Japan’s top mystery award, and was a finalist (in translation) for the 2004 Edgar Best Novel Award.
Rebecca Copeland is a professor of Japanese literature at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, where her research and teaching focuses on women, gender and translation studies. She also translated Kirino’s 2003 novel Grotesque.
Also by Natsuo Kirino
Out
Grotesque
Real World
What Remains
In
The Canons edition published in Great Britain in 2021 by Canongate Books
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Canongate Books Ltd,
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
canongate.co.uk
This digital edition first published in 2021 by Canongate Books
Copyright © Natsuo Kirino, 2008
Translation copyright © Rebecca Copeland, 2013
The right of Natsuo Kirino to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
The moral right of the translator has been asserted
First published as Joshinki in Japanese in 2008 by Kadokawa Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd.
This book has been selected to receive financial assistance from English PEN’s ‘PEN Translates!’ programme, supported by Arts Council England. English PEN exists to promote literature and our understanding of it, to uphold writers’ freedoms around the world, to campaign against the persecution and imprisonment of writers for stating their views, and to promote the friendly co-operation of writers and the free exchange of ideas. www.englishpen.org
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on
request from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 78689 917 0
eISBN 978 0 85786 552 6
Myths are universal and timeless stories that reflect and shape our lives – they explore our desires, our fears, our longings, and provide narratives that remind us what it means to be human. The Myths series brings together some of the world’s finest writers, each of whom has retold a myth in a contemporary and memorable way. Authors in the series include: Alai, Niccolò Ammaniti, Karen Armstrong, Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Michel Faber, David Grossman, Milton Hatoum, Natsuo Kirino, Alexander McCall Smith, Klas Östergren, Victor Pelevin, Ali Smith, Su Tong, Dubravka Ugrešić, Salley Vickers and Jeanette Winterson.
CONTENTS
TODAY, THIS VERY DAY
1
2
3
INTO THE REALM OF THE DEAD
1
2
3
4
5
6
WITH ALL I DO IN THIS WORLD
1
2
3
HOW COMELY NOW THE WOMAN
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
HOW COMELY NOW THE MAN
1
2
TODAY, THIS VERY DAY
1
My name is Namima – ‘Woman-Amid-the-Waves’. I am a miko. Born on an island far, far to the south, I was barely sixteen when I died. Now I make my home among the dead, here in this realm of darkness. How did this come to pass? And how am I now able to utter words such as these? It is all because of the goddess: it is her will, nothing less. How strange it must seem, but the emotions I have now are much sharper than they ever were when I was alive. The words I speak, the phrases I weave together, are born from the very emotions I embody.
This tale may be spun from my words but I speak for the goddess, the one who governs the Realm of the Dead. My words may be dyed red with anger; they may tremble in yearning after the living; but they are all, each and every one, spoken to express the sentiments of the goddess. As will become clear later, I am a priestess – a miko – and like the famous reciter of old, Hieda no Are, who entertains the goddess with ancient tales from the age of the gods, I too serve her with all my heart.
The goddess I serve is named Izanami. I’ve been told that iza means ‘well, then’ and suggests an invitation; mi is ‘woman’. She is ‘the woman who invites’. Her husband’s name is Izanaki: ki translates as ‘man’. Izanami is the woman among women; she is all women. It would not be an overstatement to say that the fate she suffered is the fate that all the women of this land must bear.
Let me begin this tale of Izanami. But before I can speak of her, I must tell you my own story. I will start with my strange little life, brief as it was, and relate how I came to serve in Izanami’s realm.
I was born on a tiny island in the easternmost reach of an archipelago, far to the south of the great land of Yamato. My island was so far south, it took one of our little boats almost half a year to row there from Yamato. And it was so far to the east, it was closer than all the rest to the rising of the sun in the morning, and by the same token to its setting in the evening. For that reason, it was believed that it was upon our island that the gods first set foot on land. It was small but sacred, and revered from ancient times.
Yamato is the large island to the north, and in time the other islands in the surrounding seas fell under its control. But when I was alive the islands were still ruled by the ancient gods. Those we revered were our great ancestors. They sustained our lives; the waves and wind, the sand and stones. We respected the grandeur of nature. Our gods did not come to us in any specific form, but we held them in our hearts and understood them in our own way.
When I was a little girl, the god I usually pictured in my imagination was a graceful woman. Occasionally she would grow angry and cause terrible storms, but for the most part she provided for us with the fruits of the sea and the land. She was a compassionate goddess, protecting our men when they set out for the distant seas to fish. Perhaps my image of this goddess was influenced by the austere dignity of my grandmother, Mikura-sama. I will speak more of Mikura-sama in good time.
The shape of our island is unusual, resembling a teardrop. The northern cape is pointed and sharp, like the end of a spear, with dangerous crags jutting into the sea. Closer to the coast the terrain is gentle, sloping to a flat shoreline that wraps softly round the island. Along the southern end the land is nearly level with the sea. Whenever a tsunami blows ashore, that area swells with water. The island is so small that a woman or even a young child could walk its entirety in less than half a day.
Countless pretty beaches grace the south. Over time the pounding waves beat the coral reefs into fine pure white sand, which glitters when the sun strikes it. The seas are blue, the sand white, and all along the coast yellow hibiscus grow rampant. The fragrance of the midnight peach scents the sea breezes. I cannot imagine anywhere else on earth as beautiful as the beaches of my island. The men would set sail from these beaches to fish and trade and would not return for close to half a year. In times when the fishing was not good, they’d press on to more distant islands to trade and would be gone for more than a year.
Our men caught sea serpents off our shores, gathered the shells from our beaches, and carried them to islands further south where they traded them for woven goods, strange fruits and, on rare occasions, rice. Their trading done, they would turn their boats and sail home. As a child I enjoyed those homecomings. My elder sister and I would run to the beach every day and eagerly look out to sea, hoping to be the first to catch sight of our father and older brothers returning.
The southern side of our island was thick with tropical tre
es and flowers, the life there so abundant the wonder of it could take your breath away. The roots of the banyan trees twisted and coiled across the sandy soil. Large camellias and the fronds of the fan palm blocked the rays of the sun. And broadleaf plantains grew in clusters where natural spring water bubbled up in pools. Life on the island was poor – food was scarce – but the flowers bloomed in such profusion that our surroundings were exquisite. White trumpet lilies grew along the steep cliffs, along with the hibiscus – which changed hue as the sun set – and purple morning glories.
The northern side of the island, with its cape, was quite different. Blessed with a rich loamy soil in which almost anything could grow, every inch of ground was covered with pandan thickets. The thorny spines on the leaves were so sharp it was impossible to walk through them. There wasn’t a single road through the region, and passage to the cape from the beach was impossible. The sea on the northern side was not like that of the south, with its beautiful beaches: it was treacherous – deep, with swift-flowing currents. The waves that beat against the cliffs were rough. Only a god could land on the island in the north, of that there was no doubt.
But there was one way in. There was a sliver of path between the pandan trees just wide enough for an adult to pass. If more than one should travel there, they had to walk in single file. The path was thought to link the south to the northern cape. But none of us was allowed to test it. Only one person was meant to walk that path, and that was the high priestess, the Oracle. The northern cape was sacred ground: it was where the gods came, on their visits to our island, and where they left.
A huge black boulder marked the entrance to the path and stood as a reminder to those of us who lived clustered together on the southern shores that we were forbidden to enter the sacred ground to the north. We called the boulder ‘The Warning’. Other stone slabs had been erected beneath the boulder and formed a small altar where we held our sacred rites. The path that opened behind the boulder was dark, even at midday, and during the rituals that were performed there, we children would be so shaken with fear if we caught sight of the yawning darkness that we’d turn on our heels and race home. We’d been told that the harshest punishment awaited any who dared go beyond The Warning. But more than the horrors we knew awaited us, it was the imagined ones that filled us most with fear.
There were other places on our island that were taboo, one to the east, the other to the west. They were sacred and only women who had come of age were allowed to set foot inside them.The Kyoido was on the eastern side of the island, the Amiido to the west. The Oracle lived just beneath the entrance to the small cape that jutted over the sea, and the Kyoido abutted her cottage. The Amiido was in the precinct of the dead. Whenever anyone died, they were carried there.
As children we had heard that the Kyoido and the Amiido were tucked away in secret groves of pandans and banyans, where the growth fell back to form a circle. No one cut so much as a blade of grass there; the thickets naturally gave way to those circular openings. And within each sacred area a natural spring welled up into a pool – Kyoido means ‘Pure Well’ and Amiido ‘Well of Darkness’. That is what I had been told, anyway, but I knew no more than that, except that they were forbidden to all but adult women. Only during funerals were men and small children allowed to enter.
I knew that when I came of age I would be allowed to enter. Part of me wanted to grow up quickly so that I could know what was hidden there, while another part felt an undertow of dread. I would stealthily peer through the brambles along the small dark paths that led to those secret spots, wondering. But I never tried to draw near the Amiido, where the dead were left. I found it far too frightening.
Our island has no particular name. We always referred to it simply as ‘the island’. But when our menfolk were out on the seas, fishing, occasionally they’d come across men in other vessels who would ask them where they came from. It was their custom to respond, ‘From Umihebi, the island of sea snakes.’ I heard that as soon as they said as much the men on the other boats would lower their heads in a gesture of respect. Our island was known far and wide in the southern seas as the island where the gods came and went. Even the few people who lived on small, remote islands had heard of Umihebi.
The seas surrounding our island were abundant with snakes, hence our island’s name. We called the snakes ‘naganawa-sama’. In our dialect ‘naganawa’ means ‘long rope’. They were lovely little creatures with yellow stripes running the length of their lithe black bodies. In the spring the naganawa-sama would gather in the caves beneath the seas to the south of our island to lay their eggs. The island girls would turn out in force, grab them, toss them into baskets and cart them back to special storehouses. But the naganawa-sama had a fierce will to live. Even after they’d been plucked from the seas and taken ashore, they would survive for close to two months. Once we were certain they were dead we would stretch them out along the beaches to dry. We used them to barter with those from other islands in exchange for precious foodstuffs. They were an excellent source of nutrition, and delicious, or so we heard. We never had a chance so much as to taste the delicacy ourselves.
Once when I was a little girl I crept into one of the storehouses to look at the naganawa-sama. Their eyes glittered brightly within the dark baskets. My mother told me that as they began slowly to dry out, the oil would ooze from their bodies and they would hiss horribly from the torment. It didn’t occur to me at the time that we treated the snakes cruelly. Innocent of their suffering, I wanted to collect as many as I could to make my mother’s life a little easier – she worked from sunrise to sunset – and I also wanted to offer up the snakes to my pious grandmother.
Collecting sea snakes was primarily woman’s work. But that was not all the women of our island did. They tended the mountain goats and collected shellfish or seaweed from the shores. But the most important task that the women performed was prayer. They prayed for the safe return of the men fishing on the high seas. They prayed for the prosperity of the island. They prayed. And the great miko, the high priestess, the one known as the Oracle, was responsible for all the prayer rites.
The Oracle, Mikura-sama, was my grandmother. That meant I was born into the most prestigious family on the island. Mikura-sama was the only person on the whole island allowed to go beyond The Warning, the boulder, and enter the precincts of the northern cape. That was why my family was known as the Umihebi, the Clan of the Sea Snake. There was an island chief, who was charged with settling disputes and making laws, but my family had the privilege of producing the Oracle, generation after generation.
I might have been born into the household of the great miko, but I still enjoyed a carefree childhood. As a little girl, before I reached an age of understanding, my older sister, Kamikuu, and I played together, day in and day out. There were four children in my family. Besides Kamikuu, I had two brothers, but they were much older than we were. And because they were always fishing, I saw them so infrequently that at times I couldn’t even remember what they looked like. On top of that, their father was not mine and Kamikuu’s. I never felt close to my older brothers.
But Kamikuu and I were only a year apart and the best of friends. Once the men had taken to the seas, we were inseparable, as if bound to one another with rope. We’d run off to the cape beyond the Kyoido. Or we’d climb down to the lovely beaches where we’d trap crabs in the tide pools and play until the sun went down.
Kamikuu – her name meant Child of Gods – was a sturdy girl and the cleverest child on the island. Her skin was creamy white, her eyes round, and her features perfectly formed. She impressed all who saw her with her beauty. Quick-witted, compassionate and intelligent, she even had a lovely singing voice. She was just a year ahead of me, but no matter what we did, she was always better at it than I. I loved her more than anyone else in the world. I relied on her and followed her wherever she went.
I can’t explain it well but gradually I sensed we were destined for different things. No, I really did.
You see, the gaze others turned on Kamikuu was not quite the same as the one they turned on me. And when the men came back to the island after their fishing trips, they interacted with us differently. Everyone was particularly courteous with Kamikuu, treating her with great deference. When did I begin to notice this?
It was on her sixth birthday that the difference became crystal clear. All the men in the family – my father, uncles and brothers – made a special effort to return from fishing in time to join in with the celebration. The island chief, who had been bedridden for some time, took up his cane and came to our house. The celebration was wonderfully lively and lavish. Everyone on the island had been invited. Of course, not everyone could fit into our reception room so the overflow spilt into the garden. The guests brought dishes filled with treats I’d never seen before and set them on the woven mats my mother had spread out earlier. She and the other women in our family had worked ceaselessly for several days preparing food. They had butchered plenty of goats; there was sea-serpent egg soup, salted fish, and sashimi prepared from the kind of shellfish that can be found only on the deepest regions of the ocean floor. Star-fruit, mango, an alcoholic drink that smelt like fermented goat’s milk, sake made from taro root, and rice cakes steamed with sun-dried cycad were squeezed on to the mats.
I was not allowed to attend the party, but Kamikuu sat in the seat of honour next to Mikura-sama, enjoying all kinds of treats. They were dressed in matching white ceremonial robes, their necks adorned with strands of pure white pearls. Normally Kamikuu and I ate together, and seeing her go had made me miserable. I felt as if she were being taken away from me, which made me terribly anxious. At long last the banqueting subsided and Kamikuu stepped out of the main house. I ran to her side. But Mikura-sama pushed me back.
‘Namima, you are not supposed to be here. You are not to look at Kamikuu.’
‘Why, Mikura-sama?’