The Story of Tsukiko Anesa - 悠久城風の間　blog語り部のささやき

What you see when you look into a mirror is your face. When you look into the mirror of someone next to you, what you see in the mirror is also your face. After all, what we always see whenever we look into a mirror is our own face, isn’t it?

The people who read “A Trial by a Nun” from Niigata’s Folk Tales Vol. 2 shared their comments.

One of them stated, “Because Annyasa, the husband, looked exactly like his father, he thought the face he saw in the mirror was his father’s.”

Another commented, “Because Anesa, the wife, thought there was something suspicious about her husband, she thought the woman she saw in the mirror was her husband’s secret mistress.”

One more said, “Does this mean that whoever looks into a mirror sees whatever they are thinking about? Even though the young nun said, ‘Because the woman in the mirror shaved her head and apologized, there is no problem,’ Anesa would probably say, ‘There is still a young woman in the mirror,’ and make a big fuss.”

I was wondering what happened after that, so I went to interview the wife, Tsukiko Anesa.

My name is Tsukiko. My mother died when I was little. I’m sure my father went through great difficulties. When I started crying, he would cradle me in his arms and say, “Oh, sweet Tsukiko. The moon is watching you. Your mom’s face was a perfect circle just like the moon.” Then, I would stop crying, safe in my father’s arms.

Now, I am grown, but I don’t know my mother’s face. Since my father always said, “Your mom’s face was round like the moon,” I thought the moon was my mother’s face whenever I looked at it.

I was happy whenever I could see the moon clearly. I looked up at the moon and talked to my mother. My mother listened to everything I had to tell her. Even though the moon changes, sometimes a full moon, sometimes a crescent moon, I knew my mother was always in the moon.

One autumn, I reached a marriageable age and was promised to a man in a neighboring village. Annyasa, my future husband, was living with his father. Annyasa and his father looked exactly alike and worked happily together. Even though the family was not well off, Annyasa was a hard-working and good-natured man, so I thought I was lucky to marry him and become part of this family. I also worked very hard.

A while later, his father caught a bad cold and suddenly passed away. His father’s death was so sudden that Annyasa and I could not do anything for a while because we were both stricken with sadness.

However, Annyasa said, “We can’t be sad forever,” and one day he went fishing in the pond where he used to go fishing with his father. When he got back home, he was smiling.

I asked him, “Did you catch a lot of fish?”

“Nope. I didn’t catch a single one,” he said and hurriedly ran upstairs, holding something tightly to his chest.

I wondered if he had found something precious and thought he was acting kind of weird.

The next day, Annyasa went out to work in the fields for the first time in a long while. What a relief! I was happy to see Annyasa back to his hard-working self. This gave me my energy back, too.

One day, he returned from the fields earlier than usual and rushed upstairs without even saying, “I’m home.”

I wondered what was going on, so I also went upstairs to take a look and check on him. That’s when I saw Annyasa take something wrapped in a furoshiki wrapping cloth out of a nagamochi, a rectangular wooden storage box. He opened up the furoshiki and was mumbling something. I wondered what he was saying.

When I thought about it, I realized that Annyasa often went upstairs alone these days. I wondered what he was doing up there all alone.

One day, I went upstairs while he was out. I thought to myself, “This must be the storage box.” I opened the lid, took out the furoshiki, and opened it. I found something that looked like a shiny round tray. This must be it. This must be what Annyasa was mumbling to. I slowly looked into the round object. There, I saw a young woman with a surprised face.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The woman retorted, “Who are you?” at the same time. What an audacious woman!

I yelled at her, “What are you doing here?”

Once again, she refused to back down, shouting back haughtily, “What are you doing here?”

I am the wife of the man of this house. When I said, “This is my house,” the woman unflinchingly threw my words back at me. What is this? I wondered if this woman had already been in this house before I came to live here.

I cried out, “Ah, this is so frustrating!”

The woman copied me. “Ah, this is so frustrating!”

I heard the sound of feet slapping the floorboards. Having heard our shouts, Annyasa rushed upstairs.

“Anesa, what are you screaming about?”

“How can I not scream and shout? Even though you already have such a pretty mistress, you have made me your wife.”

“What are you saying? Where is this woman you’re talking about?”

“I know you kept her hidden in this storage box. Don’t pretend you don’t know anything. Look at this. She’s right here!”

I threw the shiny round object at him. Annyasa picked it up, peered into it, and said, “Take a closer look. This is my deceased father.”

“What on earth are you talking about? You can’t tell me it’s your deceased father. I didn’t think you were such a vicious man.”

Filled with anger, I ran out of the house.

I was so frustrated that I burst into tears.

As I was walking down the road, I looked up at the moon. The moon is always watching over me. My mother is in the moon. When I look up at the moon, I talk to my mother.

“I thought I had come to marry a good husband, but he had a mistress hidden in a storage box. I can’t believe it!”

My mother would always comfort me when I was bullied by the neighborhood kids. I thought she would comfort me again.

“Mom, I’m so frustrated! I can’t stand it, Mom!”

Today, there is something weird about my mother.

The moon was full and white, but it began to get darker and darker. As I watched it for a while, it started to turn reddish-black. A big reddish-black moon. What is going on? It must be mad at something. I wondered if my mother, who was always kind, was angry after I told her my story.

“Mom, what happened to you?”

My mother’s face stayed that reddish-black.

After a while, Annyasa came and found me. I returned home with him.

In the light of a lamp, he brought out the shiny round object and said, “Now, let’s look into it together.”

Side by side, we looked into the shiny round object. There, I saw a man and a woman.

Pointing to the man, Annyasa said, “Look, this is my deceased father.”

“Then, who is that woman?” I asked.

“That must be your mother.”

“Really? My mother? Well, my mother died when she was young, so I guess that’s why she is still a young woman.”

Well, I understand now. That woman is my mother. My mother came to see me because she was worried about me.

Whenever I had a problem, I talked to my mother on the moon, but sometimes the moon was covered by clouds and I couldn't see it. Now, I can always look into this shiny round object whenever I want, even if the weather is bad. This is such a wonderful thing.

“Annyasa, I’m sorry I was mad at you. Now I know that this woman is not your secret mistress. It’s my mother. Can I borrow this shiny round object to look at Mom’s face?”

“Sure. You can look into it whenever you want.”

Annyasa’s father and my mother smiled back at us from the shiny round object. Since that time, Annyasa hasn’t kept the shiny round object in the storage box.

The End

May, 2021

On the night of the total lunar eclipse

Written by Yoko Tate

Translated and Recited by Masako Hayakawa