The Tale of Emma

I was freelancing for a weekly Tokyo paper back in 2005. We covered largely Japan national news with a regular sprinkling of human interest topics. The editor, Ms. Yumiko Sugiyama, was an agreeable boss but she didn’t often assign me to memorable or challenging stories––she seemed to feel that men should cover “male subjects.” And in her world these amounted to not much more than baseball player trades, political bribes, and corporate income trends. One day near Golden Week of that year, however, Editor Sugiyama gave me an unusual assignment geographically much further afield. One I enjoyed immensely.

“Travel out to a small farming town called Chikura,” she said. “It’s on the southern tip of Chiba peninsula, and there meet a woman named Kimiko Katsuwara. She’ll tell you an intriguing story about a young, formerly incarcerated woman out there and the small, but profitable goat business she developed.” No more information was forthcoming.

Okay, I thought. This is definitely not a story about a new Yomiuri Giants pitcher. “I’m going to bet you will be glad to work on this one,” Editor Sugiyama said. “Be back no later than day after tomorrow, and I’d like a draft story filed by Friday.”

The next morning I took a highway bus and a local train to Chikura Station. It was about two and a half hours outside Tokyo––a welcome break from the concrete city.

Katsuwara-san was easy to find. She is one of the only real estate agents in modest Chikura. If you know anything about how Japan works, outside of a police chief there’s no one more connected in a village than a real estate agent. Not only do they know just about everyone, they thrive on details. Land brokers here also don’t shy from conjecture and gossip. You want the nuts and bolts of a good story? Talk to the best-informed cataloguers in town.

Katsuwara-san asked me to meet her at FlowerLand Coffee, an old and tobacco-stained kissaten near the town’s one bus terminal. She was in her early sixties, conservatively dressed in a light wool blazer, skirt, and low black leather heels…the comfortable walking kind. With the exception of crimson lipstick, which was applied a bit too liberally, she used very little other makeup. Katsuwara-san had a get-down-to-business demeanor––her hair was pulled tight into a bun, and thin gold-frame reading glasses dangled from an over-the-neck chain.

We ordered two ice coffees and following a quick exchange of business cards here is what she told me.

“There’s a generations-long family in these parts named Mori. Everyone knows them. If you were from here, you too would know the Moris, and your grandparents and great grandparents would have known their forebears. The Moris are not rich or special or famous. Well, I should clarify that. One of the Mr. Mori’s from several generations ago was indeed rich––made his money before and during the Russo Japanese War in a number of side-line schemes and in running gunpowder, people say. Unfortunately, he also had a well-known weakness for prostitutes and gambling. The word is he lost all of the family money in geisha houses in Kyoto. Anyway, after that ignominy the Moris found themselves destitute. They somehow re-settled into these poor parts, and like many of us, built small, but sustainable farming businesses. In their case, cut flowers.”

Katsuwara-san then scooted a bit forward in her seat toward me and took on a more hushed tone. She took a long pull on her ice coffee, leaving a bright red smudge on the straw. “Fast forward to now. The current Moris have one daughter and no sons. The daughter is named Rei––probably short for Reiko but not sure. Rei’s a smart, behaved girl, but like that great granddad of hers, she struggled early on with a weakness for get-rich-quick schemes. She also had a tendency to play a bit fast with the law.

“She’s a good looker, Rei. And after high school she eschewed college and instead moved down to Osaka where it seems she got caught up with the wrong crowds. Rei became involved heavily with a betting scheme down there and soon the police discovered a wider fraud ring aimed at ‘liberating’ older men from their savings. Rei ended up doing two years in the Hyogo Penitentiary for fraud.

“Rei was a first-time offender and by all accounts truly sorry for what she had done. She left prison a changed young woman, and she moved back here to her family roots to get her life back on track.”

Katsuwara-san looked quickly around the coffee shop, and then let out a friendly laugh. “Actually I’m not sure why I’m whispering all this! Everyone here knows this story.”

“Chikura is a small town…as you can see. So when she arrived back everyone was well aware of Rei’s background and prison sentence. But we’re not heartless. We also know temptations and especially how it feels to be poor. Nobody forgave Rei for what she had done, but we as a community were fine taking her back and giving her solid ground from which she could start anew.

“Let me tell you, she never let the town down. Rei had indeed changed. She worked hard for a few seed companies here and she helped harvest flowers in various families’ greenhouses. She took work where she could find it, and frankly was an appreciated presence in Chikura. We were all glad to have her back.

“One day a man in his thirties, a new face around here, arrived in Chikura with nothing more than a small suitcase and a young white nanny goat named Emma. Rei took an immediate liking to the goat and asked the man, who was warm and personable, how he came into possession of the goat. The man explained that he had Emma since she was a kid. The man was a traveling seed salesman who had business for a few days in Chikura. He then asked Emma if she would be so kind as to help him find a place to stay, hopefully a family run minshuku that would also not mind Emma staying outside.

“Rei made an introduction to the Morimotos––they run a reasonable place just a few doors down from here––and the man and the goat soon had a place to stay. On his third day in town, the man stopped by Rei’s house and said he was leaving after a successful trip. ‘You were so kind to Emma and I when we first arrived,’ he said. ‘I want to pay you back.’ He then said, ‘Don’t be surprised but in addition to being a salesman I’m also a magician, and I’ve spelled Emma here to be the world’s most ravenous goat. I want to lend her to you for three years.’ Rei laughed, thinking he was putting her on. It all sounded ridiculous. But the man held up his hand and said hear me out. ‘I noticed that Chikura is chest high in weeds. What this town needs is a goat so hungry that half of the weeds here would be just a snack. You can take Emma and I’m sure make quite a tidy business renting her out. I ask nothing, and all the revenues will be yours.’ Rei continued to laugh, but slowly it was dawning on her that the man was being earnest.

“The man said there is only one thing Rei needed to know in taking on Emma. ‘Just say Gotemba to get her started and Fujiyama when you want her to stop.’

“He was indeed being earnest, and he asked Rei to give Emma a try right then and there on her property. The two brought Emma around to the back of the house. The space was tall with wild weeds, almost impassable with spring and summer growth. Rei said ‘Gotemba’ and the nanny got right to work. After 10 minutes, the dense thatch was gone. Emma had consumed it right down to the nubs!

“Now, we all know goats love weeds. But this wasn’t a normal amount of food or span of time! The man smiled and reiterated his offer to leave Emma for three years. ‘Start a small business. Nothing will clear fields like Emma and I’ve even put a spell on her to work only within property lines and to never damage flowers, trees, shrubs, or anything planted or wanted. She only targets weeds.’ Rei thanked him, took the goat, and the man then left town.

“Word spread. One man seeing Emma’s work called her Emma the Magnificent Mower. Another cleverly said she is Emma the Mower and Grower, owing to the wheelbarrow load of vitamin and mineral rich manure she left behind.

“Soon everyone from farmers to firefighters to even real estate agents like me wanted a bit of Emma’s handiwork. Rei built that small business and began renting the nanny out to the town. There was a waiting list!

“I had for instance numerous long-vacated ‘akiya’ properties that had been three-quarters or more reclaimed by the sasa grasses and jungles here. To pare that mess back before a showing was a boon. I rented Emma quite a bit, let me tell you!

“I once had a gem of a home, sea view and everything, but it had stood empty for seven years. Sasa had grown not only through the floorboards of the ground floor but all the way through the upper floors into the second story. Using a jerry-built crane, we hoisted Emma up to an open second story bedroom window, gently dumped her in, and Rei called out ‘Gotemba!’ We had a bento lunch under some shade trees next to the house, while all we heard was furious crunching coming from inside. That goat cleared the second story of all vegetation by the end of our meal, and was soon back onto the ground floor finishing up the job! Not a floorboard or a banister or a window frame was touched. She was gold, that girl.

“Emma cleared parking lots. She prepped rice paddies and strawberry farms. She opened up fire roads. She once even cleared two entire high school grounds before 10AM.

“Now, Rei remembered that she only had three years with Emma. After that, the magician would come back to collect her. She concentrated her efforts and ran full schedules for little Emma. I wouldn’t say Rei got rich, but she built a humming little company with a solid profit stream. I think she had enough to even put some savings away––that’s not something many can do in these parts. But just as the third year was about to arrive, disaster struck.

“Everything that could have gone wrong, every freak occurrence that could have occurred, did for poor Rei. All on one fateful night.”

As if for dramatic effect, Katsuwara-san paused, picked up the shop’s menu, and asked the waiter for a shrimp doria and another ice coffee. “You should get some lunch too,” she said. “They’re known here for their curry as well as a mean BLT.” I demurred. I was engrossed in this story and determined to concentrate on notes.

“Now where was I? Oh, the night of the storm,” she said. “You should know that goats are fine in storms. They just huddle up and ride out the weather. Hell, these animals live on ninety-degree mountain faces! So on one night a pretty big storm worked its way across much of Japan west to east and was due to hit these parts. We all had good warning––we buckled down that evening, taped up window panes, checked flashlight batteries, and double-checked latches. The storm was indeed strong, but it came and went.

“The next morning the sky was blue and the wind behind the storm blew strong. Rei could hear something out back going clack, clack, clack. She looked out her back window and saw the pen’s gate door had blown open during the storm.

“She rushed out back to find that Emma was gone. Rei put the word out, and the townspeople––myself included!––searched high and low for that magic nanny. It turns out that the storm had hit on a Saturday night and since farms close on Sundays it wasn’t until early Monday that Emma was discovered about 2 kilometers away at old Hasegawa’s farm.

“She was fine. But Emma had by Monday morning consumed five full greenhouses of sunflowers at the Hasegawa stead. Whoever it was that found her first knew to yell ‘Fujiyama! Fujiyama!’ and as expected Emma finally halted her munching.

“She had spent not only the night of the storm eating through his annual crop but all of Sunday and much of Monday morning as well. All that was left of old Hasegawa’s work was 426 rows of root stalks and piles of Emma droppings everywhere.

“Since greenhouses here are opened down the sides in preparation for rain and wind storms, Emma had simply sauntered in and out of the five huge greenhouses before being ordered to stop. She was on an autopilot spree, and if no one had found her, I believe she would have finished off the hills surrounding the greenhouses as well.

“Now, nobody blamed Emma. She was under a whammy and was doing her goat job the best she knew how. Nobody blamed Rei either––this was a freak occurrence that temporarily freed an unstoppable mowing machine on the one night of the week that ensured that terrible damage would be done.

“Yet old man Hasegawa’s finances were devastated. The five greenhouses weren’t his only income for the year but some here think that on those two nights Emma ate through well more than three quarters of what he and his family needed for the year.

“Rei dug deep and made restitution with all she had. She as well as her company were bankrupt.

“Rei never put Emma back to work. She was stunned by the setback, and instead went back to working at seed companies and at pick-up jobs as they became available. She waited two more months for the magician to return to collect Emma.

“That day came one August morning. The magician salesman came walking down the main road to Rei’s house. When he saw Rei standing out front, he pointed to all the weeds growing chest high in her yard and in all the other yards up and down the street. He let out a deep belly laugh. ‘I see Emma is no longer at work,’ he said still laughing heartily. Rei couldn’t understand his mirth.

“He said, ‘Let me properly introduce myself, Mori-san. My name is Maruo Kaneko, and my father, now deceased, was Haruhito Kaneko. You may remember him because you bilked him out of all he had back in Osaka eleven years ago.’

“Kaneko told Rei that her scam had ruined his family, and that only three years after her conviction his father died of a stroke. Then 19, Maruo Kaneko left home and moved high into the hills of Hyogo Prefecture to study sorcery for a decade under an old priest. Once he had perfected his magic, he planned revenge against Rei.

“‘I located you. Then I brought to you a goat with a promise of easy money,’ he said to Rei. ‘I wanted you to make a tidy sum and then eventually experience total financial loss. I unlatched Emma’s pen late on the night of the storm, brought her to Hasegawa’s place, and whispered Gotemba. Then I left.’

“Rei was stunned. She felt great remorse at what had transpired, as well as mortification at the pain she had brought the Kaneko family so many years ago.”

I asked Katsuwara-san what happened to Rei Mori after that. “I heard that at some point she felt she could no longer live in Chikura. She joined a Zen monastery near Nagoya named Niso-do Shoboji,” she said. “Rei has been a nun there ever since.”

It was the end of a fascinating story. I returned to Tokyo the next morning excited, with a pile of notes on events that touched so many themes––wrong doing, regret, revenge, and even redemption.

I banged out a draft report, but I struggled with how to treat the main thread running through the story…a magic goat. Should I just state the magic qualities head on? I went to Editor Sugiyama for advice.

She listened to my concerns and then lowered her glasses down the bridge of her nose. She looked in my eyes for a few seconds and then threw her head back and laughed loudly. “Do not tell me that you actually believed this tale!” She laughed again, her face flushing with amusement. She took a long drink of a bottled herb tea on her desk and then asked, “Did you get Katsuwara-san’s card by any chance?” I said of course yes, as part of introductions. “And did you actually read it?”

I had not. I had assumed that the card listed her name and real estate agent as profession. But when I pulled the card back out of my reporter’s notebook for a second look, it said:

KIMIKO KATSUWARA

Screenwriter, Film Producer

“Oh Jack-san. You were actually treated to the first public reading of Katsuwara-san’s new idea for a movie. She and I have known each other since high school, we go way back. She recently told me she needed to have a fresh pair of ears for a script treatment she’s working on. And ‘The Tale of Emma’ is it. I thought you’d get a kick out of running down a story outside Tokyo, however ridiculous and unbelievable it turned out to be.”

Editor Sugiyama said, “Lesson one for your career in journalism. Business cards in Japan are not just paper, they aren’t decoration. They are forms of ID. Vet your sources, Jack-san.”

She smiled and put down her herbal tea bottle. She folded her hands together and placed them on the desk before her. “Tell me though. Did you like the story, would you choose it on Netflix?”