83 - Twelfth Tale of the Japanese Cemetery - The Last Plum

Miu found the furthest candle, and brought it back. She carried with her a thin grey stick.

"When the first settlers came, they brought with them a Chinese plum tree, all the way from Japan. In a strange and often hostile world, it was a symbol of hope and endurance, a piece of home. From its fruits came seeds, and other trees throughout the town. Yet that first tree, which was planted here among the first graves, at last, began to die...and this is a story of

THE LAST PLUM

It was a night in the late August when the lovers crept over the wall of the cemetery. Riko and Rina walked hand in hand along the northern wall. It was the only place where they could walk like that. Where they could hold each other in a way that marked them as more than just friends.

Rina stood on Riko's shoulders as she plucked the last blue-purple fruit from the dying tree. She held it in her mouth, as Riko pressed her lips against the firm, sweet fruit. The juices ran down their chins as they shared the final fruit. Bodies pressed together in a perfect moment.

The swing of the scythe blade caught the starlight. It pierced Riko's body, and tore Rina's heart in two. The half-eaten plum fell from their mouths as the lovers collapsed. Rina's final breath came out as a strangled gasp. She whispered it into Riko's mouth, as their blood ran into the earth.

A double funeral. The families did not formally acknowledge the bond the women had shared; the family graves were on opposite sides of the cemetery.

After Rina's ****, her younger sister Chidori was courted by Riko's older brother Hiro. It was a match of opposites; Chidori was young and slight, a sickly youth that had bloomed into a frail flower of womanhood, barely eighteen when Hiro pressed his suit. Hiro was older, already twenty-eight, with a dark beard and tanned skin, strong and tall. His dark eyes flashed dangerously when riled, like summer lightning.

The only place Chidori could go to escape his attentions was the cemetery. He would not follow her past the gate, would not go among the graves. There were days when she would run to the shadow of the dead plum tree, where Rina and Riko had been found together. She was not sure how long this final asylum would last. Already, Hiro had been talking to her father, urging the marriage. Chidori had no brothers, and Hiro wanted to join their farms. That was where Rina and Riko had met, sharing kisses across a split-rail fence when they thought she wasn't looking.

Chidori allowed herself a single tear. The wind picked up, and a dead leaf from the plum tree wiped it away.

The bride did not smile at the wedding. Her face was a mask of pain as he pushed her down that night. Hiro's cock split her to the core, and he rutted like a beast, striking the crying woman with his fist. In the house next door, her parents lay awake on their futon, hearing her cries of pain.

"I hope," Chidori and Rina's mother said. "It is a strong boy."

A happy marriage is not measured in the bruises concealed by homespun shirts, or broken teeth, or the blood that drips down from a wound never allowed to heal. Six months of pain, and the silence of her parents, and life quickened within her.

"Do not go to the cemetery," Hiro ordered her. It was the anniversary of Rina and Riko's ****. She left in the night, after he had fallen into a drunken stupor. Left with all the money in the house, and a determination to go anywhere, far from here. Yet not without first paying respect to her sister, and her sister's lover.

The dead plum tree had been torn out. A new sapling was ready to be planted in the hole. Chidori was crossing the cemetery from Rina's grave to Riko's when she saw her husband, the long, cruel knife in his hand. She had seen him butcher hogs when drunk, growing hard as he stabbed and stabbed, as if to maximize the pain. There were nights when he had staggered toward her, blood-drunk, his hard cock stained with sticky redness as he drove it into her so hard she screamed.

Now he lurched among the graves towards her, swearing, loud, angry. Yet the names he swore at were not hers. The figures he swung his blade at were not Chidori. He cursed Rina, he cursed Riko, he called them terrible names.

How came the plum-pit beneath his foot? Chidori was not sure. She saw him fall into the deep hole. Saw the tip of the blade protrude from between his shoulder blades. There was a spade on the ground. Even five months pregnant, she was a farmwife, and managed to drag the sapling into the hole. To cover the gap in soil with the spade. The body was buried deep, and far from view.

Sweaty, tired, and with a light heart, Chidori said a prayer. In her house, she made sure that the pictures of Rina and Riko were together at the small shrine. There was no picture of Hiro. In time, when her son was old enough, he would ask about her father. Chidori would tell him the same thing she told everyone else. One night, he had left in a terrible temper, and not come home. Then she fould send him to fetch a plum from the tree in the cemetery, and tell him to pray for his father's spirit, wherever it was.

Miu set the stick down, and pinched out the flame.