Shoe Soles

Three steps

The daylight slanted in, burning the tiles the woman stood on white one by one, and the band of white ended exactly at the tips of her shoes; from that point on, the three steps of floor ahead were no longer hers. The furnace was beyond those three steps. The iron door was closed, and from the edge of the door, a thin, barely visible wisp of smoke rose like a thread, dissolving before it reached the ceiling, only to rise again. The woman was not counting them; instead of counting, she knew only that her shoe soles were hot, felt at a single point on the soles of her feet.

The tiles held heat. It was not because the sun was shining on them. The heat of the furnace crawled under the floor, reached the three-step mark, and stopped there. It was not the heat that stopped, but the woman. She had decided not to come. In the square for today's date in her planner, a single red diagonal line had been drawn. It was a line drawn with the decision not to come. She had drawn the line last night, under the kitchen fluorescent light, pressing the tip of her ballpoint pen so hard that the paper was indented on the back. She had traced that indentation with the pad of her finger this morning, tracing it again to say, 'I will not come,' and then she was standing here.

That she was standing there, the woman did not understand.

Her feet did not move forward. They did not pull back either. Three steps from the furnace, with her toes aligned at the edge of the band of white light and her heels lifted just slightly, in a posture ready to flee at any moment, yet she did not flee. In that very posture, a bead of sweat, like a thread, trickled from the back of her neck to the middle of her back, absorbed and vanished into the fabric of her shirt. It was a bead of sweat the same thickness as the smoke.

Her mother's feet were like this. Her mother, too, stood like this in the back of the alley. In front of a boiling pot, three steps away from the steam, on nights when a man's voice grew loud in the street, she would lift her heels, in a posture ready to flee, yet she did not flee. The woman had never heard from anyone that her mother's mother was the same, yet she knew it without hearing; it was folded into her blood, as the shape of the soles of her feet. If you call, they come. If you call 'Mother,' the heat of her mother's feet crawls under these floor tiles and reaches the woman's heels. There are things that come to the body of a woman who decided not to come.

From the furnace came a low, groaning sound. It was the sound of the fire sucking in air. 'Thirty-five minutes,' the man in the white clothes had said a moment ago. 'Thirty-five minutes; please call us when it is finished,' he had said, and disappeared into the back of the hallway. The number thirty-five minutes did not enter any part of the woman's head; it simply fell to the floor, wedged itself into the grout of the tiles, and was scorched by the heat. Whether thirty-five minutes was long or short, the woman did not know. Only the heat of her shoe soles, moment by moment, licked its way up the same single point on the soles of her feet.

Just beyond her toes, at the edge of the band of white light, a single hair had fallen. A hair that could have belonged to anyone lay on the white of the floor, black, arched, and curled as it dried. The woman was looking at it. Not at the iron door three steps away, not at the groaning fire, but at the single hair. If she picked it up, if she crouched down, her hand could reach it. Her hand did not move. Instead of her hand moving, the woman was clenching her back teeth. She had clenched them so hard that she had bitten the inside of her cheek without realizing it, and the taste of thin blood seeped and spread to the side of her tongue, a taste like iron. It was the same taste as the furnace.

She had decided not to come. Even though she had decided, she was here. The body that was here did not listen to the instructions of the woman who had decided not to come. The woman's body was not her own; it was her mother's, her mother's mother's, the alley's—it was something that would come if called. The old instructions were pushing back against the new instructions at her heels.

The fire sucked in air again. The wisp of smoke grew thicker.

The woman did not move. The three steps remained three steps, just as they were. The heat of her shoe soles had already reached her ankles. The woman turned, just slightly, only by the angle of her toes, toward the hair that had fallen at the edge of the white band.

Kitchen

At nine o'clock at night, Mother's hand turned down the volume on the television.

There were no words. Mother always spared her words, as all the women in the alley did; what needed to be said was turned into the taste of blood in the back of her throat before being swallowed, and for every bit she swallowed, her hand moved—Mother's hand moved, turning the knob just a little to the right. Someone on the screen was laughing, and that laughter suddenly grew distant. At the bottom of the distant laughter, the sound of water in the sink remained. Mother had already turned her back.

The woman was watching Mother's back in the kitchen. She was not yet a woman, still just a child of the alley, resting her elbows on the corner of the table, cupping a glass of barley tea beaded with sweat in both hands. There was no older brother. The brother was never there; at this hour of the night, he was somewhere in the alley, down below that slope where the smell of stones that remained scorched even after the sun had set still lingered. Mother did not call her brother's name. Knowing that he would return if called, Mother did not call the one who would return if called.

A single rice bowl was placed on the edge of the sink.

It was that sound.

The sound that the woman had kept submerged in her heels all the way until the night she would eventually be unable to move three steps from the furnace was the angle at which that rice bowl was placed. Mother did not drop the bowl, did not let it go, did not slam it down; she simply placed it. Taking a length of time too long to be called 'placing,' Mother's fingers did not let go of the weight of the bowl until the very end, and between the ceramic and the ceramic, the pads of Mother's fingers remained thinly wedged, killing the sound. It was not a 'clink.' Just before the 'clink,' Mother stopped. She stopped, and then, she pulled her fingers away.

The pads of those fingers were white.

The blood had drained from them. While supporting the weight, the blood had drained from Mother's fingers, and even after she pulled them away, they remained white for a while. The woman watched. She watched the pads of Mother's white fingers. That was not pain; the woman learned what was not pain as pain. I will not say she 'learned' it. It simply sank into her heels.

　Mother said nothing.

　Not saying anything was the instruction.

　In the alley, instructions spoken aloud are thin. They ride the wind down the slope, flow toward the sea, and vanish. Instructions that do not vanish are passed on in places where there is no sound. The angle at which a rice bowl is set down, the speed of the fingers turning the television knob, the soundless shuffle of Mother’s feet as she carries soup. These have flowed from mother to mother, and from that mother to the mother before her, transmitted through the heels of the women in the alley, without ever passing through anyone’s lips. The woman received them at the corner of the table, while cupping a glass of barley tea. The woman did not even know she had received them.

　Mother turned around.

　The woman’s eyes met hers.

　In that instant they met, the woman saw something in the depths of Mother’s eyes that she should not have seen. Mother, too, had been a young woman. Mother, too, had had a world below the slope. Mother, too, had had many, many nights where she swallowed down the person who would return if she only called. The pads of Mother’s white fingers were not hers alone.

　The woman lowered her eyes.

　Lowering them, she drank the barley tea. It was lukewarm. The ice had long since melted, and only a diluted sweetness remained at the bottom. She drank it all. Her throat clicked. That sound was the loudest thing in the kitchen.

　Mother turned her back again.

　Another rice bowl was placed on the sink. This time, the woman did not hear the sound. It was not that she couldn't hear it. Mother did not let her hear it. The pads of Mother’s fingers must have turned white again.

　On the television, laughter continued. With the volume turned down, someone was making someone else laugh. That sound stopped at the kitchen doorway and did not enter. In the kitchen, there was only the sound of water, Mother’s back, and the silence after the woman’s throat had clicked.

　The condensation from the glass at the corner of the table had formed a ring, soaking into the wood.

　The woman traced the ring with her finger.

　Tracing it, she knew it would not disappear.

　Tomorrow, too, Mother will lower the sound at nine o'clock. The day after, too. Until the woman becomes a woman, becomes a mother, and beyond that. The rice bowls will continue to be set down, set down while killing the sound. The pads of the woman’s fingers will also, someday, turn white.

　Above the alley, the summer night still held its heat. Somewhere below the slope, the sound of her brother’s laughter echoed. Mother did not turn around.

Bonfire

　It was a summer night ten years ago. Beside the sandbox in the corner of the park, the woman placed a cardboard box at her feet. Even after the sun had set, the earth was still exhaling the day’s heat, and it clung to the area around the woman’s ankles. If she crossed one slope, there was the alley, and at the back of the alley was Mother, and behind Mother was her brother. The woman did not turn around. She knew that if she turned around, she would be called. Names exist to be called. If called, one returns. And so, to ensure that no one would call her name, the woman had climbed this far up the slope.

　There were letters inside the box.

　She burned them one by one. The smell of the match’s phosphorus transferred to her fingers, and with those fingers, she pinched the edge of the paper and brought it close to the flame. Before the letters burned, they swelled up once. They were a man’s handwriting. The four characters for "I want to see you" remained white until the very end, then turned brown from the edges, curled up, and became ash. The hand that had written "I want to see you" was no longer anywhere. The woman wanted to burn the skin that remembered being touched by that hand. But skin does not burn. Only the paper burns.

A flame rose up.

The rising flame, like a living thing, twisted its neck and came to lick the woman's face. Her cheeks were hot. Her eyelashes crackled. The woman did not retreat. If she retreated, she would be like her mother. Her mother always retreated half a step and set down her tea bowl. Silencing the sound. The woman was here so that she would not retreat.

A single photograph.

She held it over the flame. It was not a picture of a man and a woman. It only showed the man's back. A back that did not turn around in front of the sea. The woman did not remember when she had taken it. Even though she did not remember, she could not throw it away. For ten years, at the bottom of a drawer, it had not been looking at the woman. Because it was a back. With his back turned, inside the paper, the man did not wait for the woman. The woman brought that back close to the flame. The emulsion made a popping sound, turned into bubbles, and the area around the man's shoulder melted first. The sea turned black. The back disappeared. In that instant, as it vanished, the pad of the woman's finger entered the fire.

It burned.

The inside of the first joint of her index finger. The skin shriveled, peeled back white, and clear water seeped from beneath it. The pain came late. It came late, and then, it stayed there forever. The woman did not put her finger in her mouth. She thought that if she did, she would forgive. If asked who, there was no answer. Just to not forgive, the woman exposed her burned finger to the night air. The heat slowly fading—that fading itself was painful.

At the bottom of the box, one small vessel remained.

A white porcelain vessel, about the size of a sake cup. This did not burn. It was not something that would burn even if thrown into a fire. The woman knew this, yet she put it in the box. She had wanted to turn it to ash along with the letter and the photograph. She could not. The vessel, covered in soot amidst the ashes, still kept its shape. The woman picked it up. She picked it up with her burned finger. The surface of the vessel, still at the temperature of the fire, stuck to the woman's wound. When she pulled it away, a thin layer of skin remained on the bottom of the vessel. The woman's skin had transferred to the vessel. The vessel cooled down while holding it.

Things that became ash. Words. A back. Emulsion. Scent.

Things that remained. A vessel. A wound. And the fact that the woman did not retreat.

The soles of her shoes were hot. Having gotten too close to the fire, the rubber had softened and was biting into the gravel. The woman stood there, feeling that heat on the soles of her feet, and did not move. If she moved, she would go down the slope. If she went down, there was the alley. In the alley, her mother. The woman stood there until the heat in her shoe soles faded.

At the bottom of the slope, her brother's laughter could be heard.

*

Ten years passed, and the woman sat with someone across from her, eating a meal.

There was a white scar on the index finger of her right hand, which held her chopsticks. No one asked about it. The woman did not speak of it either. The man set down his miso soup bowl. There was a sound. The woman's shoulder moved slightly. It moved and then stopped.

The man said, "Your knees are together."

The woman did not look at her own knees. She knew without looking. Her two kneecaps were pressed together without a gap, her hands were placed on top of them, and her back was straight. It was her mother's way of sitting. The way of sitting of the woman who had decided not to retreat had returned to the form of her mother, who had retreated and retreated, half a step at a time.

The woman did not break her knees apart. She could not break them. She did not know how to break them.

On the table, one white vessel was placed upside down. The soot had long since been washed away, and it was nowhere to be found. The woman did not reach out to that vessel. If she reached out, something would transfer again.

The man looked at the woman's knees once more. The woman felt the temperature of that gaze on her kneecaps.

Summer had come again. The heat of the day still lingered in the darkness outside the window, and the woman's shoes were drying in the entryway, soles facing up.

Shoe Soles

The attendant called to the woman. He didn't call her name; he simply gestured toward the furnace with the tip of a white-gloved finger, asking if she was ready. His voice pushed through the oil-thick air of the summer noon and reached the back of the woman's ears. Even though it reached her, the woman did not answer.

Three steps to the furnace.

Three steps, the woman did not count. She didn't need to count; the soles of her feet knew. If she took three more steps, she would stand before the iron door that her brother had entered. She could stand there, bow her head, and fulfill the role of the woman who hands a person over to the fire, just as her mother had done, and her mother's mother had done in the alleyway. She should have been able to fulfill it. She had come this far to fulfill it. The sweat beneath her mourning dress ran down the groove of her back and pooled at her waist, yet the woman's feet did not move.

Rather than not moving, it was as if the woman's feet were rejecting her.

Brother, the woman called from deep within her chest. If you call, they return. That was what she was taught in the alleyway. If you call their name, the body temperature of the deceased returns for a moment, and the scent of their sweat rises from the bottom of the summer sun. Brother, brother, the woman called twice, and both times, he did not return. What returned was not her brother's voice, but her mother's. --You are a woman, so see the fire through. Men are the ones to be burned; women are the ones to watch. All the women of the alleyway have stood like this. Do not move. Do not step back. Forward.

Forward, her mother says.

The woman's knees tried to respond to that voice, but were blocked by her unmoving ankles. An old command and a new command fought within the woman's single leg, and as they fought, neither won; the woman stood three steps before the furnace, pretending not to notice that she had stopped.

The attendant said something once more. This time, she did not hear it.

Smoke was rising. Beyond the chimney of the furnace, into the white-washed summer sky, her brother was rising as a single streak of smoke. The woman did not see that whiteness. The woman was looking at her own feet. Beneath the hem of her mourning dress, the toes of her black shoes barely caught the polished stone floor of the funeral hall, and from there, they would not go forward. She would not let them. She could not.

Shoes.

Last night, in the entryway, those shoes were drying with their soles facing up. Soaked in rain, containing soot, dried for a night, and dry by morning, the woman had worn them to come here. Those shoe soles, which should have been dry, were now hot.

The stone floor was cold. The floor of the air-conditioned funeral hall was cold everywhere. Yet, only the woman's shoe soles held heat. The heat of that day when she stepped barefoot on the asphalt of the summer alleyway. The heat of the ground at that noon when her mother took her hand and led her before the fire. That heat, separated by only a thin layer of shoe leather and rubber, was roasting the soles of the woman's feet from below.

The woman pressed down on that heat.

If she pressed down, she should have been able to move forward. The heat pushed her forward. The fire called to the woman. Her brother was waiting. Her mother was watching. The women of the alleyway were lined up beyond the smoke, looking at her. Forward. Three more steps.

The woman's feet did not move.

While keeping the heat of the hot shoe soles anchored to the ground, the woman did not take a single step forward, nor did she take a single step back. If she retreated, she would betray her mother. If she advanced, she did not know whom she would betray. For the sake of something she did not understand, the woman's legs stopped themselves, and with the weight of that stopping, the woman's heels grew damp with sweat inside her shoes.

The attendant waited. The man waited behind her. The smoke did not wait.

It continued to rise.

Toward the white summer sky, my brother ascended, but the woman did not ascend, nor did she enter the furnace, nor did she return to the alley; three steps away, she stood with only the soles of her feet burning hot. Beneath the hem of her mourning dress, the tips of her black shoes seemed to lift ever so slightly from the stone floor—as her weight shifted to her heels, and having shifted, the tips neither descended nor advanced, and all of the woman's weight gathered at that one hot point and stopped there.

Remaining stopped, the woman stood.

The soles of her shoes were hot.