Kino no Tabi:Volume7 Chapter3

“Along a River” —Intermission—

My name is Riku. I’m a dog.

I have long, white, bushy fur. I always look happy and smiling, but it doesn’t mean that I am. I’m just born this way.

Shizu is my master. He is a young man always wearing a green sweater who lost his homeland due to some complex circumstances and is now traveling in a buggy.

—

We were in a spring forest surrounded by brilliant greenery. The morning sun was warm.

We could hear the sound of water. Right before us was a wide multi-stage waterfall. Its water formed a river that flowed through the ground covered with short grass and scattered thick trees.

In the middle of the river, a buggy was standing. More than half of its tires were submerged in the water, so it looked as if the car was floating in the river.

Master Shizu, wearing a sweater with rolled-up sleeves, was cleaning up the buggy; his jeans below the knees were soaking wet. His boots, as well as a black bag and his beloved katana were placed side by side on the riverbank. I was watching over it while keeping an eye out for unwelcome guests. There were no particularly urgent matters so I just listened to the twittering of the birds.

—

We arrived here yesterday evening and set up a camp. In the morning, Master Shizu washed himself and his clothes in the river. When it was my turn, I humbly declined, so he pushed me into the water and washed me too. My fur is almost dry now.

After that, he did something really unexpected.

“Buggy also needs to be cleaned up from time to time,” he said, and drove the car into the river to a reasonable depth. He began washing the buggy covered with dust, oil and mud. He worked as joyfully as he did a while ago while washing me. The water under the car instantly became dirty, but soon it was driven away by the clean water from the stream.

—

In the last country.

The residents didn’t actually put it into words, but judging by their faces and the atmosphere, they wanted an outsider to leave their country as soon as possible.

Master Shizu also kept it to himself, but he realized what was going on. That’s why he didn’t look for any work; he just sold all he could, bought what he needed, and in the evening we left this country.

—

The birds were twittering.

Master Shizu rinsed the cloth with the water under his feet and wrung it out, then he wiped the car body and the seats. He pondered over something for a moment, and then he climbed up the riverbank. While I looked at him, trying to figure out what he’s doing, he picked up a fallen tree branch and returned to the buggy.

Using this branch he carefully rubbed off the mud from the pipe frame.

Suddenly I decided to ask a question I never asked before. I wondered where he got this buggy.

“Didn’t I tell you?” he said, a little surprised. Then he explained to me how it happened, while continuing to clean up the buggy.

—

Once, before we met, Master Shizu was forced to travel on foot as there were no traveling merchants who needed bodyguards, and the next country wasn’t so far away. On his way there, he stumbled upon a battlefield site. Not long ago a place of fierce combat, now it was a heap of broken vehicles and frozen corpses covered with a thin layer of snow.

Master Shizu searched for something of value. He examined the arms and fingers of each and every body, but found nothing. And then he discovered this buggy. Miraculously, it was almost undamaged and the engine was in good condition. He removed the bodies from the top of the car and gathered up fuel and fuel cans—— And from that time onwards he has been using this buggy to travel.

—

“So that’s how it was,” I said.

He laughed and added: “After driving for a while I smelled a terrible stink. When I examined the buggy, I found out that the source of smell was a rotting hand stuck to the bottom of the car.”

“Well, the buggy has never been serviced properly, and it even might be the first time it has been cleaned so thoroughly,” he said.

Master Shizu bent over the far side of the car. After a while he gave a small shout of surprise. When he got up, he held something in his hands.

It appeared to be a thin steel plate — about the size of a notebook. It had the same color as the buggy and folded in two with a hinge. Master Shizu said that it was inserted in a crack in the car’s body. He threw away the branch, opened the plate, and examined it.

When the branch slowly floating downstream completely disappeared from view, a light smile appeared on his face. He was holding this plate with both hands, smiling quietly.

‘What is it?’ I asked. Master Shizu approached me, pushing his way through the water, and laid the plate in front of me.

I read the letters carved in the plate.

—

Our dear horses…

We will fight. To defend our beloved motherland. To defend our beloved families.

We are soldiers, thus we are prepared to die on the battlefield.

We will fight till death, therefore our motherland will come out victorious and the peace in our families will be preserved.

Our dear horses—— Together we will fight and together we will die.

You were born to fight. You were born to plunge deep into the enemy lines and rush through the gunfire.

It is you whom we’ll ride and fight on, and you’ll be the place of our death.

And then you shall die in obscurity, embracing our corpses.

—

In other words it was a letter from the soldiers to this buggy.

After Master Shizu finished reading, he lifted his head and looked at the buggy completely cleared of mud.

“Huh, it’s no different from me,” he said.

I didn’t grasp the meaning of it, so he looked at me and laughed slightly.

“We both didn’t die where we were supposed to.”

—

Master Shizu picked up the steel plate, folded it up and threw it away.

It flew for a while spinning around, then fell in the river and sank.

—

He sat in the driver’s seat and turned on the engine.

The engine was humming. He ran the buggy onto the riverbank, and the water flowed down on the grass.

He wiped his legs, put on his boots and loaded the luggage. I jumped onto the passenger seat. My fur and my seat were still wet, but I think it’ll dry up pretty soon.

Master Shizu raced the engine and it hummed smoothly.

“That mechanic did a great job,” he said suddenly.

I remembered dull snowy plain and completely white dreary scenery.

“Right,” I agreed.

“Well, shall we go?” he asked and looked at me.

“Where are we going?” I inquired.

“I don’t know. Some unknown place,” he answered, and the buggy started running.

Translator’s Notes

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