CHAPTER TWO
When I regained consciousness, I was lying face up surrounded by kappa. One, kneeling beside me, was pressing a stethoscope to my chest, a pair of pince-nez on his beak. Meeting my eyes, he gestured for there to be quiet, then made a quack quack noise to someone behind him. Two kappa came up carrying a stretcher. Lifting me onto it, they bore me through the middle of a great crowd of kappa and into some kind of village. To either side of me the street could hardly be distinguished from the Ginza. There were rows of beech trees, and in their shade various stores, with vehicles passing between them.
Before long, the stretcher carrying me turned onto a narrow lane, and we entered a house. I later learned this belonged to the pince-nez wearing kappa from before, who turned out to be a doctor named Chak. He put me in a tidy bed and gave me a dose of clear medicine. I let him do whatever he wanted, for my joints hurt so much I was unable to move.
Every day Chak gave me a medical examination two or three times. Then on the third day, the very first kappa I had seen -- a fisher named Bagg -- came to ask how I was. Kappa know more about us humans than we do about them. That's because they are more likely to capture us than we are to catch one of them. Capture isn't quite the right word, but I was far from the first human to enter the land of kappa. Some even spent their whole lives there. I asked why this was. In the country of kappa, a human being is such a marvel that they don't have to work but can simply enjoy life. Actually, according to Bagg, a sailor had once come and taken a female kappa as his wife. Apparently she was not only quite good-looking for her species, but also had bewitched him.
After resting there about a week, it was decided that I would be allowed as a protected resident to live next door to Chak. My house was small in comparison, but quite elegant. There wasn't actually a great difference between this country's civilization and the land of human's civilization -- or at least Japanese civilization. In a parlor facing the main street, there was a small piano in the corner, and framed paintings hung on the wall. As all houses must have, there was a table and chairs but they were made for kappa proportions, so it was like entering a child's room and a bit awkward for me.
When dusk fell, Chak and Bagg would visit me in this room and teach me the kappa language. Not just the two of them -- every kappa who was curious about me came to call. One, named Gael, was the president of a glass making factory, and visited Chak every day to have his blood pressure checked. But the first half month, the one I came to know most intimately was Bagg.
One warm, humid day, I was sitting at the table chatting with Bagg. Suddenly he fell quiet, and he stared at me, his big eyes growing even larger.
I said to him, "Quack, Bagg, quo quel quan?" In Japanese this would be translated as, "Oi, Bagg, what's wrong?"
He was silent for a moment. Then he stood abruptly, and his tongue flicked out, exactly as a frog's does. Feeling uneasy, I also stood, and thought about fleeing from the room. Fortunately, just at that moment the doctor Chak showed up.
"Well, Bagg, what are you doing?
Chak glared at Bagg over the top of his glasses, and Bagg looked remorseful, touched his head several times while apologizing: "I am extremely sorry. I only meant to play a little prank on the master of the house. Please excuse my behavior."
Then he turned to me, and begged my pardon as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment