Essay Tough to swallow By Kit Pancoast Nagamura	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
息をのむような信じ難い体験 ある梅雨の午後、長野県木曽の山麓を散策していた筆者のキットさん。 地元の人に勧められた民宿を探して一人歩く筆者が、生い茂る緑の向こうにその宿を見つけたのは、夕方になってからだった。 その日たった一人の客として、オーナー夫妻の歓迎を受けるが、夕食の準備が始まってから、ある奇妙なことに気が付いた。

Twenty years ago, I planned to spend the rainy season hiking in the Southern Alps of Nagano. It was a treacherous, lame-brained idea, so I downgraded to slithering around the foothills of the Kiso Valley. Back then, the valley was sparsely agricultural, and otherwise generously blanketed in bamboo groves and forests. Aside from an occasional vending machine glowing in the rain, the roads were nearly empty, and I worried about finding the minshuku a local had recommended to me.

It was late afternoon with mist closing in when I finally found the minshuku, which was secluded by hills and dense vegetation. I slid my soaked backpack off in the doorway. The house and its proprietors, a husband and wife, were all three swaybacked, but welcoming. The irori glowed with coals and I edged toward its warmth in my damp socks.

The husband motioned me to sit down. His wife wiped up the floor where I had dripped, and I worried aloud that a foreigner might cause them anxiety. "Not at all," they said. In fact, the wife allowed, "We've had foreigners here before." She promptly produced a heavy leather book and began a search. "Yes, here," she said, pointing to a pair of beautifully written German names, an entry from 1898.

We chatted about the lodging, family-run for generations, and eventually it became clear that I, too, would have to record my name. It seemed sad to spoil such a magnificent artifact with my graceless penmanship.

As I steamed my socks, the wife announced that I was tonight's only guest, and that they would serve dinner quite soon. I noticed that the husband was busy whittling sharp points on a series of small sticks. As the rain started up again, I glimpsed something — or some things — squirming in his shirt pocket.

"Hungry?" he asked me. I didn't answer for a minute. "We eat what nature provides us," he continued. Just as his words sunk in, two little heads popped out of his pocket. Swallows. I gulped. Roasted baby birds. Was it too late to claim vegetarianism, or beg for a fish instead?

The wife appeared, carrying a little jar of green paste. "For them," she said, pointing to the birds, "Swallow pesto!" I began to feel trapped in a Lafcadio Hearn ghost story. The husband reached inside his pocket, took firm hold of a bird, and loaded the skewer with a bit of green paste. "Oh, please don't," I gasped. The husband looked at me, spooked himself. "But I have to," he said, "Their mother is gone, and I have to feed them." He gently guided tiny pointfuls of mash to each hungry beak, and I, as they say, ate crow.

Shukan ST: May 9, 2008

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