BUKU-BUKU JEPUN

NATSUME SÕSEKI

Kokoro

Translated with an Introduction and Notes by

MEREDITH MCKINNEY

 

NATSUME SŌSEKI (1867-1916), one of Japan’s most influential modern writers, is widely considered the foremost novelist of the Meiji era (1868- 1912). Born Natsume Kinnosuke in Tokyo, he graduated from Tokyo University in 1893 and then taught high school English. He went to England on a Japanese government scholarship, and when he returned to Japan, he lectured on English literature at Tokyo University and began his writing career with the novel I Am a Cat. In 1908 he gave up teaching and became a full-time writer. He wrote fourteen novels, including Botchan and Kusamakura, as well as haiku, poems in the Chinese style, academic papers on literary theory, essays, and autobiographical sketches. His work enjoyed wide popularity in his lifetime and secured him a permanent place in Japanese literature. MEREDITH McKINNEY holds a Ph.D. in medieval Japanese literature from the Australian National University in Canberra, where she teaches at the Japan Centre. She taught in Japan for twenty years and now lives near Braidwood, New South Wales. Her other translations include Ravine and Other Stories by Furui Yoshikichi, The Tale of Saigyo, and, for Penguin Classics, The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon and Natsume Sōseki’s Kusamakura.

 

Introduction

 

Natsume Sōseki’s Kokoro was published in 1914, two years before his death at the age of forty-eight. Sōseki, even then widely acknowledged as Japan’s leading novelist, was at the peak of his writing career, and Kokoro is unquestionably his greatest work. Today it is considered one of Japan’s great modern novels, known to every schoolchild and read by anyone serious about the nation’s literature.

     The reasons for Kokoro’s importance lie not in its literary quality alone. Sōseki was a superb chronicler of his time, and Kokoro cannot be fully understood without some knowledge of the world from which it sprang.

     Japan’s Meiji period (which ended with the emperor Meiji’s death in 1912) began in 1868 with the tumultuous overthrow of the old Tokugawa shogunate, which had ruled Japan unopposed for 250 years. The shift signaled far more than a change of power. Japan under the Tokugawas had been rigidly feudal and isolationist, a Confucian society cut off from the changes that were rapidly overtaking much of the rest of the world. Pressure from Western nations eager to expand their sphere of trade finally proved irresistible in 1853, when the commander of a U.S. squadron, Matthew Perry, anchored his “black ships” threateningly offshore and sent an ultimatum to Japan’s ruling powers. The subsequent internal upheaval resulted in a new government that opened Japan’s doors to the West and embraced the introduction of Western culture and technology. In the next four decades Japan was utterly transformed. The Meiji period is synonymous with the fundamental transformation that set Japan on the road to becoming all that it is today.

     Such rapid change inevitably comes at a psychological cost, and this is what Sōseki acutely documented in his finest novels. The dilemmas that he portrayed were deeply felt. Natsume Kinnosuke (Sōseki was his nom de plume) was born in 1867, the year before the Meiji era began, in what was still known as Edo (now Tokyo). The old Japan was his inheritance in more than birth. He was educated in the Chinese and Japanese classics and in the Confucian moral code, which Western concepts of individualism and individual rights were only just beginning to undermine. Kokoro’s central character, the man referred to as Sensei, is of an age with Sōseki, and his references to the importance of his old-fashioned moral education clearly reflect Sōseki’s own experience. For both, the Meiji period’s embrace of Western individualism provoked irreconcilable inner conflicts that haunted them through life.

     Kokoro’s Sensei shares other characteristics with Sōseki as well. Family difficulties and alienation, a recurrent theme in many of Sōseki’s novels, played their part in his own early life. A late child of a large family, Sōseki as an infant was formally adopted by a childless couple; his real family took him back only grudgingly when the couple divorced nine years later. Adoption, which plays an important part in the story of Sensei’s friend K in Kokoro, was common at the time—continuing the family name was more important than maintaining blood ties. Sōseki’s own adoption was a sorry failure on every level, leaving him feeling unloved, isolated, and bitter.

     Like Kokoro’s Sensei, Sōseki, a bright student, attended the new university in Tokyo, where he specialized in English literature. Meiji-era Japan believed that foreign literature held the key to understanding the Western culture that it was then avidly embracing, and Sōseki was part of the earliest generation to be trained in this important field. His education gave him elite status, and in 1900 the Japanese government selected him to spend two years studying in London; the intention was that he would increase the nation’s cultural capital by bringing back a deeper understanding of the West. But Sōseki was miserable in England, isolated and alienated from everything around him, which seems to have brought him close to nervous collapse. After his return to Japan, he took up prestigious teaching posts at the First National College and in the English literature department at Tokyo’s Imperial University. To all appearances, he was set to rise to the top of his elite profession.

     But Sōseki could revel in neither his status nor his success. Like Kokoro’s Sensei, he was an essentially introverted and retiring person; his nervous sensibility shrank from exposure to the everyday world, and the strain of teaching told badly on his nerves. Partly to soothe and entertain himself, he decided to try his hand at a light, humorous novel (I Am a Cat, 1905). To his surprise, upon publication it achieved instant fame. A year later came two more novels: the immensely popular Botchan (1906) as wellas the beautiful haiku-style Kusamakura. At the age of forty, encouraged by the Asahi newspaper’s guarantee to serialize any future work, Sōseki took the audacious step of resigning from his teaching posts and devoting himself to his writing.

     His novels had moved from gently humorous anecdotes and observations of life to the more philosophical and experimental approach of Kusamakura, which maintains a delightful lightness of touch even as it engages thoughtfully and critically with Meiji Japan’s transformations and its fraught relationship to Japan’s past. But the mature works that now began to flow from his pen struck a new, more inward note. Sōseki became increasingly focused on his contemporaries’ quintessential experience, one that he himself felt acutely: the necessity to evolve a modern, individual sense of self and to cope with the new Meiji self’s resultant problems: isolation, alienation, egotism, and profound dislocation from its cultural and moral inheritance. Sōseki increasingly sought to portray for his readers not only the upheavals of their rapidly changing world but the dilemmas and suffering of the contemporary psyche.

     These themes achieved their ultimate statement in the late novel Kokoro. It was both written and set in the first days of the new Taishō period, which began in 1912 with Meiji’s death and the accession of the new emperor. The moment of transition registered profoundly throughout Japan. The unnamed protagonist in the novel’s long first section, “Sensei and I,” is a naive and earnest young man on the point of graduating from the Imperial University; he is one of the new generation’s elite who will inherit the coming era. The focus of this section is his difficult and intense relationship with the older man he calls Sensei, whom we see through his puzzled and intrigued young eyes.

     Sōseki himself would have known well the disconcerting role of sensei to the worshipful young. Usually translated as “teacher,” sensei is essentially a term of deep respect for one who knows; it implies a position of authority in relation to oneself that comes close to that of master and disciple. In strongly hierarchical Meiji society, Sōseki, with his established position as a leading writer, naturally attracted a flock of eager young followers (many of whom would go on to become key literary figures of the Taishō period and beyond). We may all too easily imagine Sōseki, holding court in his role as sensei, registering private misgivings at the intensity of some of his disciples’ devotion to him, and doubts about his suitability as role model for them. However, where Sōseki was a successful man, at least in public terms, Kokoro’s Sensei is essentially a failure, both in his own eyes and in those of the world. The puzzle that the first section presents is: What are the causes of this failure?

     The novel’s short middle section balances the unnamed young man’s yearning and unfulfilled relationship with the evasive Sensei against that with his own dying father. Like Sensei, the father in some ways embodies the Meiji era, which at that moment is in its own death throes. Themes of betrayal and a failure of moral nerve, which sound through much of Sōseki’s work and are fundamental to Kokoro, are also set to haunt the young man’s own future at the end of this section as he opens the long letter he has received from Sensei and begins to read.

     That letter constitutes the final section of the novel and is in many ways its real tour de force. In fact, Sōseki conceived it first and originally intended it to stand alone as a complete work. It takes us back to the world of Sensei’s youth, to his own student days. The letter’s painfully honest confession will finally reveal to the young man what he has longed to know —the mysterious secret that cast its long shadow over Sensei’s life. But it is more than a simple confession. Writing this letter as he faces his own despairing death, Sensei attempts to redeem himself, if nothing else than in the role of Sensei that he unwillingly accepted late in life, by passing on his story for the edification of his young follower and friend. Ironically, his letter becomes the unwitting cause of the young man’s own crucial act of moral failure.

     The man called K, the young Sensei’s friend, who precipitates the crisis with which the novel culminates, in many ways embodies the old world’s strict code of values and ethics, which was coming into such painful conflict with the new Western concepts of individual rights and the primacy of the ego. K’s self-elected death foreshadows the ultimate death of that old world, a world Sōseki himself had inherited and whose unattainable and rapidly vanishing certainties preoccupied him. K’s death by his own hand, shocking and pointless from the perspective of the new values, is nevertheless a crucial moral victory that haunts Sensei’s life. Another, later death also reverberates, both for the dying father and, crucially, for Sensei himself—the ritual suicide of General Nogi. This anachronistic gesture of ethical atonement and expression of desire to follow one’s master (here the Meiji emperor) to the grave stunned Japan. The news impels Sensei, the morally paralyzed inheritor of Meiji Japan’s dual worlds, finally to act. His suicide is not only an act of personal despair but is expressed half-seriously as “following to the grave . . . the spirit of the Meiji era itself,” a final gesture of loyalty to that era’s difficult dualities that, he guesses, his young friend will find incomprehensible.

     Kokoro is beautifully constructed to express Meiji Japan’s spiritual dilemmas. But it does much more: Sōseki is a masterful portrayer of human relations, and in fact the novel’s wider historical dimensions are usually little more than flickers at the edge of the reader’s consciousness. As well as being a compelling portrait of Sensei in maturity and youth, Kokoro tells the story of three young men whose hearts are “restless with love” and of their emotional entanglements not only with the opposite sex but variously with one another. Homosexuality is not, needless to say, at issue, although a young man’s intellectually erotic attraction to an older man is beautifully evoked. The novel’s women, particularly Sensei’s wife, are portrayed sympathetically, but it is the men who take center stage—another, although no doubt unwitting, expression of the Meiji ethos. Their very different relationships with and reactions to one another form the core of the story and weave its suspenseful and carefully constructed plot.

     In their dilemmas and responses, the characters of Kokoro, although in many ways specific to their time, are fundamentally immensely human. It is the human condition itself that is Sōseki’s primary interest, here and elsewhere in his work. In Kokoro he achieved his finest expression of this great theme.

 

 

PART I

SENSEI AND I

 

CHAPTER 1

 

I always called him Sensei, and so I shall do in these pages, rather than reveal his name. It is not that I wish to shield him from public scrutiny— simply that it feels more natural. “Sensei” springs to my lips whenever I summon memories of this man, and I write of him now with the same reverence and respect. It would also feel wrong to use some conventional initial to substitute for his name and thereby distance him.

     I first met Sensei in Kamakura [This former capital of Japan had recently established itself as a summer resort convenient to Tokyo, where visitors could indulge in the fashionable pastime of sea bathing.], in the days when I was still a young student. A friend had gone there during summer vacation for sea bathing and urged me to join him, so I set about organizing enough money to cover the trip. This took me two or three days. Less than three days after I arrived, my friend received a sudden telegram from home demanding that he return. His mother was ill, it seemed.

     He did not believe it. For some time his parents had been trying to force him into an unwanted marriage. By present-day standards he was far too young for marriage, and besides he did not care for the girl in question. That was why he had chosen not to return home for the vacation, as he normally would have, but to go off to a local seaside resort to enjoy himself.

     He showed me the telegram and asked what I thought he should do. I did not know what to advise. But if his mother really was ill, he clearly should go home, so in the end he decided to leave. Having come to Kamakura to be with my friend, I now found myself alone.

     I could stay or go as I pleased, since some time still remained before classes began again, so I decided to stay where I was for the moment. My friend, who was from a prosperous family in the Chūgoku region, did not lack for money. But he was a student, and young, so in fact his standard of living was actually much like my own, and I was spared the trouble of having to find a cheaper inn for myself after he left.

     The inn he had chosen was somewhere in an out-of-the-way district of Kamakura. To get to any of the fashionable spots—the billiard rooms and ice cream parlors and such things—I had to take a lengthy walk through the rice fields. A rickshaw ride would cost me a full twenty sen. Still, a number of new summer houses stood in the area, and it was right next to the beach, making it wonderfully handy for sea bathing.

     Each day I went down to the shore for a swim, making my way among soot-blackened old thatched country houses. An astonishing number of men and women always thronged the beach, city folk down from Tokyo to escape the summer heat. Sometimes the crowd was so thick that the water was a tightly packed mass of black heads, as in some public bathhouse. Knowing no one, I enjoyed my time alone amid this merry scene, lying on the sand and leaping about up to my knees in the waves.

     It was here in this throng of people that I first came upon Sensei. In those days two little stalls on the beach provided drinks and changing rooms, and for no particular reason I took to frequenting one of them. Unlike the owners of the grand summer houses in the Hasé area, we users of this beach had no private bathing huts, so communal changing rooms were essential. People drank tea and relaxed here, or left their hats and sun umbrellas in safekeeping; after they bathed, they would wash themselves down at the stall, and attendants would rinse their bathing suits for them. I owned no bathing clothes, but I left my belongings at the stall whenever I went into the water, to avoid having anything stolen.

 

CHAPTER 2

 

When I first set eyes on Sensei there, he had just taken off his clothes and was about to go in for a swim, while I had just emerged from the water and was drying off in the sea breeze. A number of black heads were moving around between us, obstructing my view of him, and under normal circumstances I probably would not have noticed him. But he instantly caught my attention, despite the crowd and my own distracted state of mind, because he was with a Westerner.

     The Westerner’s marvelously white skin had struck me as soon as I came in. He had casually tossed his kimono robe onto the nearby bench and then, clad only in a pair of drawers such as we Japanese wear, stood gazing out toward the sea, arms folded.

     This intrigued me. Two days earlier I had gone up to Yuigahama beach and spent a long time watching the Westerners bathing. I had settled myself on a low dune very close to the rear entrance of a hotel frequented by foreigners, and seen a number of men emerge to bathe. Unlike this Westerner, however, they all wore clothing that covered their torso, arms, and legs. The women were even more modest. Most wore red or blue rubber caps that bobbed prettily about among the waves.

     Because I had so recently observed all that, the sight of this Westerner standing there in front of everyone wearing only a pair of trunks struck me as quite remarkable.

     He turned and spoke a few words to the Japanese man beside him, who had bent over to pick up a small towel that had fallen on the sand. His companion then wrapped the towel about his head and set off toward the sea. This man was Sensei.

     Out of nothing more than curiosity, my eyes followed the two figures as they walked side by side down to the water. Stepping straight into the waves, they made their way through the boisterous crowd gathered in the shallows close to shore, and when they reached a relatively open stretch of water, both began to swim. They swam on out to sea until their heads looked small in the distance. Then they turned around and swam straight back to the beach. Returning to the stall, they toweled themselves down without rinsing at the well, put on their clothes, and promptly headed off together for some unknown destination.

     After they left, I sat down on the bench and smoked a cigarette. I wondered idly about Sensei. I felt sure I had seen his face before somewhere, but for the life of me I could not recall where or when.

     I was at loose ends and needing to amuse myself, so the following day I went back to the stall at the hour when I had seen Sensei. Sure enough, there he was again. This time he came along wearing a straw hat, and the Westerner was not with him. He removed his spectacles and set them on the bench, then wrapped a small towel around his head and set off briskly down the beach.

     As I watched him make his way through the crowd at the edge and start to swim, I had a sudden urge to follow him. In I strode, the water splashing high around me, and when I reached a reasonable depth, I set my sights on him and began to swim. I did not reach him, however. Rather than return the way he had come, as he did the previous day, Sensei had swum in an arc back to the beach.

     I too swam back, and as I emerged from the water and entered the stall, shaking the drops from my hands, he passed me on his way out, already neatly dressed.

 

CHAPTER 3

 

The next day I went to the beach at the same hour yet again, and again I saw Sensei there. I did the same the day after, but never found an opportunity to speak to him or even to greet him. Besides, Sensei’s demeanor was rather forbidding. He would arrive at the same time each day, with an unapproachable air, and depart just as punctually and aloofly. He seemed quite indifferent to the noisy throng that surrounded him. The Westerner who had been with him that first day never reappeared. Sensei was always alone.

     Finally my chance came. Sensei had as usual come striding back from his swim. He was about to don the kimono that lay as usual on the bench, when he found that it had somehow gotten covered in sand. As he turned away and quickly shook it out, I saw his spectacles, which had been lying on the bench beneath it, slip through a crack between the boards and fall to the ground. Sensei put on the robe and wrapped the sash around his waist. Then, evidently noticing that his spectacles were missing, he quickly began to search for them. In a moment I had ducked down, thrust my hand under the bench, and retrieved them from the ground.

     “Thank you,” he said as he took them.

     The next day I followed Sensei into the sea and swam after him. I had gone about two hundred yards when he suddenly stopped swimming and turned to speak to me. We two were the only beings afloat on that blue expanse of water for a considerable distance. As far as the eye could see, strong sunlight blazed down upon sea and mountains.

     As I danced wildly in place there in the water, I felt my muscles flood with a sensation of freedom and delight. Sensei, meanwhile, ceased to move and lay floating tranquilly on his back. I followed his example and felt the sky’s azure strike me full in the face, as if plunging its glittering shafts of color deep behind my eyes.

     “Isn’t this good!” I cried.

     After a little while Sensei righted himself in the water and suggested we go back. Being physically quite strong, I would have liked to stay longer, but I instantly and happily agreed. The two of us swam back to the beach the way we had come.

     From this point on, Sensei and I were friends. Yet I still had no idea where he was staying. On the afternoon of the third day since our swim, he suddenly turned to me when we met at the stall. “Are you planning to stay here a while longer?” he asked.

     I had not thought about it and had no ready answer. “I don’t really know,” I responded simply.

     But the grin on Sensei’s face made me suddenly awkward, and I found myself asking, “What about you, Sensei?” This was when I first began to call him by that name.

     That evening I called on him at his lodgings. I say “lodgings,” but I discovered it was no ordinary place—he was staying in a villa in the spacious grounds of a temple. Those who shared the place, I also discovered, were not related to him.

     Noticing how he grimaced wryly when I persisted in calling him “Sensei,” I excused myself with the explanation that this was a habit of mine when addressing my elders. I asked him about the Westerner he had been with. The man was quite eccentric, he said, adding that he was no longer in Kamakura. He told me a lot of other things about him, then remarked that it was odd that he, who had few social contacts even with his fellow Japanese, should have become friends with such a person.

     At the end of our conversation I told him that I felt I knew him from somewhere but could not remember where. Young as I was, I hoped that he might share my feeling and was anticipating his answer. But after a thoughtful pause, he said, “I can’t say I recall your face. Perhaps you’re remembering somebody else.” His words produced in me a strange disappointment.

 

CHAPTER 4

 

At the end of the month I returned to Tokyo. Sensei had left the summer resort long since. When we parted, I had asked him, “Would you mind if I visited you from time to time?” “Yes, do,” he replied simply. By this time I felt we were on quite familiar terms, and had expected a warmer response. This unsatisfactory reply rather wounded my self-confidence.

     Sensei frequently disappointed me in this way. He seemed at times to realize it and at other times to be quite oblivious. Despite all the fleeting shocks of disappointment, however, I felt no desire to part ways with him. On the contrary, whenever some unexpected terseness of his shook me, my impulse was to press forward with the friendship. It seemed to me that if I did so, my yearning for the possibilities of all he had to offer would someday be fulfilled. Certainly I was young. Yet the youthful candor that drew me to him was not evident in my other relationships.

     I had no idea why I should feel this way toward Sensei alone. Now, when he is dead, I understand at last. He had never disliked me, and the occasional curt greetings and aloofness were not expressions of displeasure intended to keep me at bay. I pity him now, for I realize that he was in fact sending a warning, to someone who was attempting to grow close to him, signaling that he was unworthy of such intimacy. For all his unresponsiveness to others’ affection, I now see, it was not them he despised but himself.

     Needless to say, I returned to Tokyo fully intending to visit Sensei. Classes would not resume for another two weeks, so I planned to visit him during that time. However, within two or three days of my arrival in Tokyo, my feelings began to shift and blur. The city’s vibrant atmosphere, reviving as it did all my stimulating memories, swept away thoughts of Kamakura. Seeing my fellow students in the street gave me a thrill of excited anticipation for the coming academic year. For a while I forgot about Sensei.

     Classes started, and a month or so later I slumped back into normalcy. I wandered the streets in vague discontentment, or cast my eyes around my room, aware of some indefinable lack. The thought of Sensei came into my mind once more. I wanted to see him again, I realized.

     The first time I went to his house, he was not home. The second time was the following Sunday, I remember. It was a beautiful day, with the sort of sky that feels as if it is penetrating your very soul. Once again Sensei was out. I distinctly remembered him saying in Kamakura that he was almost always at home. In fact, he had said, he quite disliked going out. Having now found him absent both times I called, I remembered these words, and somewhere inside me an inexplicable resentment registered.

     Instead of turning to go, I lingered at the front door, gazing at the maid who had delivered the message. She recognized me and remembered giving Sensei my card last time, so she left me waiting while she retreated inside.

     Then a lady whom I took to be Sensei’s wife appeared. I was struck by her beauty.

     She courteously explained where Sensei had gone. On this day every month, she told me, his habit was to visit the cemetery at Zōshigaya and offer flowers at one of the graves. “He only went out a bare ten minutes or so ago,” she added sympathetically.

     I thanked her and left. I walked a hundred yards or so toward the bustling town, then felt a sudden urge to take a detour by way of Zōshigaya myself. I might even come across Sensei there, I thought. I swung around and set off.

 

CHAPTER 5

 

I passed a field of rice seedlings on my right, then turned into the graveyard. I was walking down its broad maple-lined central avenue when I saw someone who could be Sensei emerging from the teahouse at the far end. I went on toward the figure until I could make out the sunlight flashing on the rim of his spectacles. “Sensei!” I called abruptly.

     He halted and stared at me.

     “How . . . ? How . . . ?”

     The repeated word hung strangely in the hushed midday air. I found myself suddenly unable to reply.

     “Did you follow me here? How . . . ?”

     He seemed quite calm. His voice was quiet. But a shadow seemed to cloud his face.

     I explained how I came to be there.

     “Did my wife tell you whose grave I’ve come to visit?”

     “No, she didn’t mention that.”

     “I see. Yes, she wouldn’t have any reason to, after all. She had only just met you. There’d be no need to tell you anything.”

     He seemed finally satisfied, but I was puzzled by what he had said.

     Sensei and I walked together among the graves to the exit. One of the tombstones was inscribed with a foreign name, “Isabella So-and-so.” Another, evidently belonging to a Christian, read “Rogin, Servant of God.” Next to it stood a stupa with a quotation from the sutras: “Buddhahood is innate to all beings.” Another gravestone bore the title “Minister Plenipotentiary.” I paused at one small grave whose name I could make no sense of and asked Sensei about it. “I think that’s intended to spell the name Andrei,” he replied with a wry little smile.

     I found humor and irony in this great variety of humanity displayed in the names on the tombstones, but I gathered that he did not. As I chattered on about the graves, pointing out this round tombstone or that tall thin marble pillar, he listened in silence. Finally he said, “You haven’t seriously thought about the reality of death yet, have you?”

     I fell silent. Sensei did not speak again.

     At the end of the cemetery a great ginkgo tree stood blocking the sky. “It will look lovely before long,” Sensei remarked, looking up at it. “This tree turns a beautiful color in autumn. The ground is buried deep in golden leaves when they fall.” Every month when he came here, I discovered, he made a point of passing under this tree.

     Some distance away a man had been smoothing the rough earth of a new grave; he paused on his hoe and watched us. We turned left, and soon were back on the street.

     I had nowhere in particular to go, so I continued to walk beside him. He spoke less than usual. It did not make me feel awkward, however, and I strolled along easily beside him.

     “Are you going straight home?” I asked.

     “Yes, there’s nowhere else I need to go.”

     We fell silent again and walked south down the hill.

     “Is your family grave there?” I asked a little later, breaking the silence.

     “No.”

     “Whose grave is it? Is it some relation?”

     “No.”

     Sensei said no more, and I decided not to pursue the conversation. About a hundred yards on, however, he abruptly broke the silence. “A friend of mine is buried there.”

     “You visit a friend’s grave every month?”

     “That’s right.”

     This was all he told me that day.

 

CHAPTER 6

 

I visited Sensei quite often thereafter. He was always at home when I called. And the more I saw of him, the sooner I wanted to visit him again.

     Yet Sensei’s manner toward me never really changed, from the day we first exchanged words to the time when our friendship was well established. He was always quiet, sometimes almost forlorn. From the outset he seemed to me strangely unapproachable, yet I felt compelled to find a way to get close to him.

     Perhaps no one else would have had this response—others might have dismissed it as folly, an impulse of youth. Yet I feel a certain happy pride in the insight I showed, for later events served to justify my intuition. Sensei was a man who could, indeed must love, yet he was unable to open his arms and accept into his heart another who sought to enter.

     He was, as I have said, always quiet and composed, even serene. Yet from time to time an odd shadow would cross his face, like the sudden dark passage of a bird across a window, although it was no sooner there than gone again. The first time I noticed it was when I called out to him in the graveyard at Zōshigaya. For a strange instant the warm pulse of my blood faltered a little. It was only a momentary miss of a beat, however, and in no time my heart recovered its usual resilient pulse, and I proceeded to forget what I had seen.

     One evening just at the end of autumn’s warm weather, I was unexpectedly reminded of it again.

     As I was talking to Sensei, I was for some reason suddenly reminded of the great ginkgo tree that he had pointed out to me. A mental calculation told me that his next visit to the grave was three days away. My classes would finish at noon that day, so I would have the afternoon free.

     I turned to Sensei. “I wonder if that ginkgo tree at Zōshigaya has lost its leaves by now.”

     “It won’t be quite bare yet, I should think.” He looked at me, his eyes staying on me for a long moment.

     I quickly went on. “Would you mind if I go with you next time? I’d enjoy walking around the area with you.”

     “I go to visit a grave, you know, not to take a walk.”

     “But wouldn’t it be nice to go for a walk while you’re about it?”

     Sensei did not reply at first, then said finally, “My sole purpose in going is to visit the grave.” Clearly, he wanted to impress on me the distinction between a grave visit and a mere walk. It occurred to me that he might be making an excuse not to have me along. His tone seemed oddly petulant.

     I felt an urge to press my case. “Well, let me come along anyway and visit the grave too. I’ll pay respects with you.” In truth, I couldn’t really see the distinction between visiting someone’s grave and taking a walk.

     Sensei’s brow darkened a little, and a strange light shone in his eyes. Was it annoyance, or dislike, or fear that I saw hovering there? Instantly, I had a vivid recollection of that shadow on his face when I had called out to him at Zōshigaya.

     This expression was identical. “I have,” Sensei began. “I have a particular reason that I cannot explain to you for wanting to visit that grave alone. I never even take my wife.”

 

CHAPTER 7

 

It all struck me as very odd. But my intention in visiting him was not to study or analyze Sensei, so I let it pass. In retrospect, I particularly treasure my memory of that response to Sensei. Because of it, I think, I was able to achieve the real human intimacy with him that I later did. If I had chosen to turn the cool and analytical eye of curiosity on Sensei’s heart, it would inexorably have snapped the bond of sympathy between us. At the time, of course, I was too young to be aware of any of this. Perhaps that is precisely where its true value lies. If I had made the mistake of responding less than guilelessly, who knows what might have befallen our relationship? I shudder to think of it. The scrutiny of an analytical eye was something Sensei always particularly dreaded.

     It became my established habit to call on Sensei twice or even three times a month. One day he unexpectedly turned to me and asked, “What makes you come to see someone like me so often?”

     “Well, no particular reason, really. Am I a nuisance, Sensei?”

     “I wouldn’t say that.”

     Indeed my visits didn’t seem to annoy him. I was aware that he had a very narrow range of social contacts. He had also mentioned that only two or three of his old school friends were living in Tokyo. Occasionally, a fellow student from his hometown would be there when I called, but none of them seemed to me as close to him as I.

     “I’m a lonely man,” Sensei said, “so I’m happy that you come to visit. That’s why I asked why you come so often.”

     “Why are you lonely?” I asked in return.

     Sensei did not reply. He just looked at me and said, “How old are you?”

     I could make no sense of this exchange and went home that day puzzled. Four days later, however, I was back at his house again.

     He burst out laughing as soon as he emerged and saw me. “You’re here again, eh?”

     “Yes,” I said, laughing too.

     If anyone else had said this to me, I would surely have felt offended. But coming from Sensei, the words made me positively happy.

     “I’m a lonely man,” he repeated that evening. “I’m lonely, but I’m guessing you may be a lonely man yourself. I’m older, so I can withstand loneliness without needing to take action, but for you it’s different—you’re young. I sense that you have the urge to do, to act. You want to pit yourself against something . . .”

     “I’m not at all lonely.”

     “No time is as lonely as youth. Why else should you visit me so often?”

     Here was the same question again.

     “But even when you’re with me,” he went on, “you probably still feel somehow lonely. I don’t have the strength, you see, to really take on your loneliness and eradicate it for you. In time, you’ll need to reach out toward someone else. Sooner or later your feet will no longer feel inclined to take you here.”

     Sensei smiled forlornly as he spoke.

 

CHAPTER 8

 

Fortunately Sensei’s prophecy was not fulfilled. Inexperienced as I was, I could not grasp even the most obvious significance of his words, and continued to visit as usual. Before long I found myself occasionally dining there, which naturally put me in the position of talking to his wife.

     Like other men, I was not indifferent to women. Being young, however, I had so far had little opportunity to have much to do with girls. Perhaps for this reason, my response to the opposite sex was limited to a keen interest in the unknown women I passed in the street. When I first saw Sensei’s wife at the door, she had struck me as beautiful, and every time we met thereafter I thought so again. Otherwise I found nothing really to say about her.

     That is not to say that she wasn’t special in any way. Rather, she had had no opportunity to reveal her particular qualities to me. I treated her as a kind of appendage to Sensei, and she welcomed me as the young student who visited her husband. Sensei was our sole connection. That is why her beauty is the single impression I remember of her from those early days.

     One day when I visited, I was given sake. His wife emerged to serve it to me. Sensei was more jovial than usual. “You must have a cup too,” he pressed her, offering the little sake cup from which he had drunk.

     “Oh no, I . . . ,” she began, then rather unwillingly accepted the cup. I half-filled it for her, and she lifted it to her lips, a pretty frown creasing her forehead.

     The following conversation then took place between them.

     “This is most unusual,” she remarked. “You almost never encourage me to drink.”

     “That’s because you don’t enjoy it. But it’s good to have the occasional drink, you know. It puts you in good spirits.”

     “It doesn’t at all. All it does is make me feel terrible. But a bit of sake seems to make you wonderfully cheerful.”

     “Sometimes it does, yes. But not always.”

     “What about this evening?”

     “This evening I feel fine.”

     “You should have a little every evening from now on.”

     “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

     “Go on, do. Then you won’t feel so melancholy.”

     The two of them lived there with only a maid for company, and I generally found the house hushed and silent when I arrived. I never heard loud laughter or raised voices. It sometimes felt as if Sensei and I were the only people in the house.

     “It would be nice if we had children, you know,” she said, turning to me.

     “Yes, I’m sure,” I replied. But I felt no stir of sympathy at her words. I was too young to have children of my own and regarded them as no more than noisy pests.

     “Shall I adopt one for you?” said Sensei.

     “Oh dear me, an adopted child . . . ,” she said, turning to me again.

     “We’ll never have one, you know,” Sensei said.

     She was silent, so I spoke instead. “Why not?”

     “Divine punishment,” he answered, and gave a loud laugh.

 

CHAPTER 9

 

Sensei and his wife had a good relationship, as far as I could tell. I was not really in a position to judge, of course, since I had never lived under the same roof with them. Still, if he happened to need something while we were in the living room together, it was often his wife rather than the maid whom he asked to fetch it. “Hey, Shizu!” he would call, turning toward the door and calling her by name. The words had a gentle ring, I thought. And on those occasions when I stayed for a meal and she joined us, I gained a clearer picture of their relationship.

     Sensei would sometimes take her out to a concert or the theater. I also recall two or three occasions when they went off for a week’s vacation together. I still have a postcard they sent from the hot springs resort at Hakoné, and I received a letter from their visit to Nikko, with an autumn leaf enclosed.

     Such was my general impression of them as a couple. Only one incident disturbed it. One day when I arrived at the house and was on the point of announcing myself at the door as was my custom, I overheard voices coming from the living room. As I listened, it became evident that this was no normal conversation but an argument. The living room was right next to the entrance hall, and I was close enough to get a clear sense of the general tone, if not the words. I soon understood that the male voice that rose from time to time was Sensei’s. The other one was lower, and it was unclear whose it was, but it felt like his wife’s. She seemed to be crying. I hesitated briefly in the entrance hall, unsure what to do, then made up my mind and went home again.

     Back at my lodgings, a strange anxiety gripped me. I tried reading but found I could not concentrate. About an hour later Sensei arrived below my window and called up to me. Surprised, I opened it, and he suggested I come down for a walk. I checked the watch I had tucked into my sash when I set off earlier, and saw that it was past eight. I was still dressed in my visiting clothes, so I went straight out to meet him.

     That evening we drank beer together. As a rule Sensei did not drink much. If a certain amount of alcohol failed to produce the desired effect, he was disinclined to experiment by drinking more.

     “This isn’t working today,” he remarked with a wry smile.

     “You can’t cheer up?” I asked sympathetically.

     I still felt disturbed by the argument I had heard. It produced a sharp pain in me, like a fishbone stuck in my throat. I couldn’t decide whether to confess to Sensei that I had overheard it, and my indecision made me unusually fidgety.

     Sensei was the first to speak about the matter. “You’re not yourself tonight, are you?” he said. “I’m feeling rather out of sorts too, actually. You noticed that?”

     I could not reply.

     “As a matter of fact, I had a bit of a quarrel with my wife earlier. I got stupidly upset by it.”

     “Why . . . ?” I could not bring myself to say the word “quarrel.”

     “My wife misunderstands me. I tell her so, but she won’t believe me. I’m afraid I lost my temper with her.”

     “How does she misunderstand you?”

     Sensei made no attempt to respond to this. “If I was the sort of person she thinks I am,” he said, “I wouldn’t be suffering like this.”

     But I was unable to imagine how Sensei was suffering.

 

CHAPTER 10

 

We walked back in silence. Then after quite some time, Sensei spoke.

     “I’ve done wrong. I left home angry, and my wife will be worrying about me. Women are to be pitied, you know. My wife has not a soul except me to turn to.”

     He paused, and then seeming to expect no response from me, he went on. “But putting it that way makes her husband sound like the strong one, which is rather a joke. You, now—how do you see me, I wonder. Do I strike you as strong or as weak?”

     “Somewhere in between,” I replied.

     Sensei seemed a little startled. He fell silent again, and walked on without speaking further.

     The route back to Sensei’s house passed very near my lodgings. But when we reached that point, it did not feel right to part with him. “Shall I see you to your house?” I asked.

     He raised a quick defensive hand. “It’s late. Off you go. I must be off too, for my wife’s sake.”

     “For my wife’s sake”—these words warmed my heart. Thanks to them, I slept in peace that night, and they stayed with me for a long time to come.

     They told me that the trouble between Sensei and his wife was nothing serious. And I felt it safe to conclude, from my subsequent constant comings and goings at the house, that such quarrels were actually rare.

     Indeed, Sensei once confided to me, “I have only ever known one woman in my life. No one besides my wife has really ever appealed to me as a woman. And likewise for her, I am the only man. Given this, we should be the happiest of couples.”

     I no longer remember the context in which he said this, so I cannot really explain why he should have made such a confession, and to me. But I do remember that he spoke earnestly and seemed calm. The only thing that struck me as strange was that final phrase, we should be the happiest of couples. Why did he say “should be”? Why not say simply that they were? This alone disturbed me.

     Even more puzzling was the somehow forceful tone in which he spoke the words. Sensei had every reason to be happy, but was he in fact? I wondered. I could not repress my doubt. But it lasted only a moment, then was buried.

     Sometime later I stopped by when Sensei happened to be out, and I had a chance to talk directly with his wife. Sensei had gone to Shinbashi station to see off a friend who was sailing abroad that day from Yokohama. Customarily, those taking a ship from Yokohama would set off on the boattrain from Shinbashi at eight-thirty in the morning. I had arranged with Sensei to stop by that morning at nine, as I wanted his opinion on a certain book. Once there, I learned of his last-minute decision to see off his friend, as a gesture of thanks for the trouble he had taken to pay Sensei a special farewell visit the day before. Sensei had left instructions that he would soon be back, so I was to stay there and await his return. And so it came about that, as I waited in the living room, his wife and I talked.

 

CHAPTER 11

 

By this time I was a university student, and felt myself to be far more adult than when I had first begun to visit Sensei. I was also quite friendly with his wife and now chatted easily and unself-consciously with her about this and that. This conversation was light and incidental, containing nothing remarkable, and I have forgotten what we spoke of. Just one thing struck me, but before I proceed I should explain a little.

     I had known from the beginning that Sensei was a university graduate, but only after I returned to Tokyo had I discovered that he had no occupation, that he lived what could be called an idle life. How he could do it was a puzzle to me.

     Sensei’s name was quite unknown in the world. I seemed to be the only person who was in a position to really respect him for his learning and ideas. This fact always troubled me. He would never discuss the matter, simply saying, “There’s no point in someone like me opening his mouth in public.” This struck me as ridiculously humble.

     I also sensed behind his words a contemptuous attitude to the world at large. Indeed, Sensei would occasionally make a surprisingly harsh remark, dismissing some old school friend who was now in a prominent position. I didn’t hesitate to point out how inconsistent he was being. I was not just being contrary—I genuinely regretted the way the world ignored this admirable man.

     At such times Sensei would respond leadenly, “It can’t be helped, I’m afraid. I simply don’t have any right to put myself forward.” As he spoke, an indefinable expression—whether it was despair, or bitterness, or grief I could not tell—was vividly etched on his features. Whatever it may have been, it was strong enough to dumbfound me. I lost all courage to speak further.

     As his wife and I talked that morning, the topic shifted naturally from Sensei to this question. “Why is it that Sensei always sits at home, studying and thinking, instead of finding a worthy position in the world?” I asked.

     “It’s no use—he hates that sort of thing.”

     “You mean he realizes how trivial it is?”

     “Realizes . . . well, I’m a woman, so I don’t really know about such things, but that doesn’t seem to be it to me. I think he wants to do something, but somehow he just can’t manage to. It makes me sad for him.”

     “But he’s perfectly healthy, isn’t he?”

     “He’s fine, yes. There’s nothing the matter with him.”

     “So why doesn’t he do something?”

     “I don’t understand it either. If I understood, I wouldn’t worry about him as I do. As it is, all I can do is feel sorry for him.”

     Her tone was deeply sympathetic, yet a little smile played at the corners of her mouth.

     To an observer, I would have appeared to be more concerned than she. I sat silently, my face troubled.

     Then she spoke again, as if suddenly recalling something. “He wasn’t at all like this when he was young, you know. He was very different. He’s changed completely.”

     “What do you mean by ‘when he was young’?” I asked.

     “When he was a student.”

     “Have you known him since his student days, then?”

     She blushed slightly.

 

CHAPTER 12

 

Sensei’s wife was a Tokyo woman. Both she and he had told me so. “Actually,” she added half-jokingly, “I’m not a pure-blood.” Her mother had been born in Tokyo’s Ichigaya district, back when the city was still called Edo, but her father had come from the provinces, Tottori or somewhere of the sort. Sensei, for his part, came from a very different part of Japan, Niigata Prefecture. Clearly, if she had known him in his student days it was not because they shared a hometown. But since she blushed at my question and seemed disinclined to say more, I did not press the subject further.

     Between our first meeting and his death, I came to know Sensei’s ideas and feelings on all sorts of subjects, but I learned almost nothing about the circumstances surrounding his marriage. Sometimes I interpreted this reticence charitably, choosing to believe that Sensei, as an older man, would prefer to be discreet on a private matter of the heart. At other times, however, I saw the question in a less positive light, and felt that Sensei and his wife shared the older generation’s timorous aversion to open, honest discussion of these delicate subjects. Both of my interpretations were of course mere speculations, and both were premised on the assumption that a splendid romance lay behind their marriage.

     This assumption was not far wrong, but I was able to imagine only part of the story of their love. I could not know that behind the beautiful romance lay a terrible tragedy. Moreover, Sensei’s wife had absolutely no way of understanding how devastating this tragedy had been for him. To this day she knows nothing of it. Sensei died without revealing anything to her. He chose to destroy his life before her happiness could be destroyed.

     I will say nothing of that tragedy yet. As for their romance, which was in a sense born of this dreadful thing, neither of them told me anything. In her case, it was simply discretion. Sensei had deeper reasons for his silence.

     One memory stands out for me. One spring day when the cherries were in full bloom, Sensei and I went to see the blossoms in Ueno. Amid the crowd were a lovely young couple, snuggled close together as they walked under the flowering trees. In this public place, such a sight tended to attract more attention than the blossoms.

     “I’d say they’re a newly married couple,” said Sensei.

     “They look as if they get on just fine together,” I remarked a little snidely.

     Sensei’s face remained stony, and he set off walking away from the couple. When they were hidden from our view, he spoke. “Have you ever been in love?” I had not, I replied.

     “Wouldn’t you like to be?”

     I did not answer.

     “I don’t imagine that you wouldn’t.”

     “No.”

     “You were mocking that couple just now. I think that mockery contained unhappiness at wanting love but not finding it.”

     “Is that how it sounded to you?”

     “It is. A man who knows the satisfactions of love would speak of them more warmly. But, you know . . . love is also a sin. Do you understand?”

     Astonished, I made no reply.

 

CHAPTER 13

 

People thronged all around us, and every face was happy. At last we made our way through them and arrived in a wooded area that had neither blossoms nor crowds, where we could resume the conversation.

     “Is love really a sin?” I asked abruptly.

     “Yes, most definitely,” Sensei said, as forcefully as before.

     “Why?”

     “You’ll understand soon enough. No, you must already understand it. Your heart is already restless with love, isn’t it?”

     I briefly searched within myself to see if this might be true, but all I could find was a blank. Nothing inside me seemed to answer his description.

     “There’s no object of love in my heart, Sensei. Believe me, I’m being perfectly honest with you.”

     “Ah, but you’re restless precisely because there’s no object, you see? You’re driven by the feeling that if only you could find that object, you’d be at peace.”

     “I don’t feel too restless right now.”

     “You came to me because of some lack you sensed, didn’t you?”

     “That may be so. But that isn’t love.”

     “It’s a step in the direction of love. You had the impulse to find someone of the same sex as the first step toward embracing someone of the opposite sex.”

     “I think the two things are completely different in nature.”

     “No, they’re the same. But I’m a man, so I can’t really fill your need. Besides, certain things make it impossible for me to be all you want me to be. I feel for you, actually. I accept that your restless urge will one day carry you elsewhere. Indeed I hope for your sake that that will happen. And yet . . .”

     I felt strangely sad. “If you really believe I’ll grow apart from you, Sensei, then what can I say? But I’ve never felt the slightest urge.”

     He wasn’t listening. “. . . you must be careful,” he went on, “because love is a sin. My friendship can never really satisfy you, but at least there’s no danger here. Tell me, do you know the feeling of being held fast by a woman’s long black hair?”

     I knew it well enough in my fantasies, but not from reality. But my mind was on another matter. Sensei’s use of the word sin made no sense to me. And I was feeling a little upset.

     “Sensei, please explain more carefully what you mean by sin. Otherwise, I’d prefer not to pursue this conversation until I’ve discovered for myself what you really mean.”

     “I apologize. I was trying to speak truthfully, but I’ve only succeeded in irritating you. It was wrong of me.”

     We walked on quietly past the back of the museum and headed toward Uguisudani. Through gaps in the hedge we caught glimpses of the spacious gardens, crowded thick with dwarf bamboo, secluded and mysterious.

     “Do you know why I go every month to visit my friend’s grave in Zōshigaya?”

     Sensei’s question came out of the blue. He knew perfectly well, what’s more, that I did not. I made no reply.

     There was a pause, then something seemed to dawn on him. “I’ve said something wrong again,” he said contritely. “I planned to explain, because it was wrong of me to upset you like that, but my attempt at explanation has only irritated you further. It’s no use. Let’s drop the subject. Just remember that love is a sin. And it is also sacred.”

     These words made even less sense to me. But it was the last time Sensei spoke to me of love.

 

CHAPTER 14

 

Being young, I was prone to blind enthusiasms—or so Sensei apparently saw me. But conversing with him seemed to me more beneficial than attending classes. His ideas inspired me more than the opinions of my professors. All in all Sensei, who spoke little and kept to himself, seemed a greater man than those great men who sought to guide me from behind the lectern.

     “You mustn’t be so hot-headed,” Sensei warned me.

     “On the contrary, being coolheaded is what’s led me to draw these conclusions,” I replied confidently.

     Sensei would not accept that. “You’re being carried along by passion. Once the fever passes, you’ll feel disillusioned. All this admiration is distressing enough, heaven knows, but it’s even more painful to foresee the change that will take place in you sooner or later.”

     “Do you really think me so fickle? Do you distrust me so much?”

     “It’s just that I’m sorry for you.”

     “You can have sympathy for me but not trust, is that it?”

     Sensei turned to look out at the garden, apparently annoyed. The camellia flowers that had until recently studded the garden with their dense, heavy crimson were gone. Sensei had been in the habit of sitting in his living room and gazing out at them.

     “It’s not you in particular I don’t trust. I don’t trust humanity.”

     From beyond the hedge came the cry of a passing goldfish seller. Otherwise all was silent. This winding little back lane, two blocks away from the main road, was surprisingly quiet. The house was hushed as always. I knew that his wife was in the next room, and could hear my voice as she sat sewing. But for the moment this had slipped my mind.

     “Do you mean you don’t even trust your wife?” I asked.

     Sensei looked rather uneasy, and avoided answering directly. “I don’t even trust myself. It’s because I can’t trust myself that I can’t trust others. I can only curse myself for it.”

     “Once you start to think that way, then surely no one’s entirely reliable.”

     “It’s not thinking that’s led me here. It’s doing. I once did something that shocked me, then terrified me.”

     I wanted to pursue the subject further, but just then Sensei’s wife called him gently from the next room.

     “What is it?” Sensei replied when she called again.

     “Could you come here a moment?” she said, and he went in. Before I had time to wonder why she needed him, Sensei returned.

     “In any event, you mustn’t trust me too much,” he went on. “You’ll regret it if you do. And once you feel you’ve been deceived, you will wreak a cruel revenge.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “The memory of having sat at someone’s feet will later make you want to trample him underfoot. I’m trying to fend off your admiration for me, you see, in order to save myself from your future contempt. I prefer to put up with my present state of loneliness rather than suffer more loneliness later. We who are born into this age of freedom and independence and the self must undergo this loneliness. It’s the price we pay for these times of ours.”

     Sensei’s mind was made up, I could see, and I found no words to answer his conviction.

 

CHAPTER 15

 

The conversation preyed on my mind later, every time I saw his wife. Was distrust Sensei’s prevailing attitude toward her as well? And if so, how did she feel about it?

     On the face of it, I could not tell whether she was content. I was not in close enough contact with her to judge. Besides, when we met, she always appeared perfectly normal, and I almost never saw her without Sensei.

     Another question disturbed me too. What, I wondered, lay behind Sensei’s deep distrust of humanity? Had he arrived at it simply by observing his own heart and the contemporary world around him with a cool, dispassionate eye? He was by nature inclined to sit and ponder things, and a mind such as his perhaps naturally reached such conclusions.

     But I did not think that that was all there was to it. His conviction struck me as more than just a lifeless theory, or the cold ruins from some longdead fire. Sensei was indeed a philosopher, it seemed to me, but a potent reality seemed woven into the fabric of his philosophy. Nor was his thinking grounded in anything remote from himself, observed only in others. No, behind his convictions lay some keenly felt personal experience, something great enough to heat his blood, and to halt his heart.

     All this was hardly speculation—Sensei had admitted as much to me. His confession hung in the air, heavy and obscure, oppressing me like a terrifying and nameless cloud. Why this unknown thing should so frighten me I could not tell, but it unquestionably shook me.

     I tried imagining that a passionate love affair was in some way the basis for Sensei’s mistrust of humankind. (It would, of course, have been between Sensei and his wife.) His earlier statement that love was a sin certainly fit this theory. But he had told me unequivocally that he loved his wife. In that case, their love could hardly have produced this state of near loathing of humanity. The memory of having sat at someone’s feet will later make you want to trample him underfoot, he had said—but this could refer to anyone in the modern world, except perhaps Sensei’s wife.

     The grave of the unknown friend at Zōshigaya also stirred in my memory from time to time. Sensei clearly felt some profound connection with this grave. But as close as I had drawn to him, further closeness eluded me, and in my efforts to know him I internalized in my own mind this fragment of his inner life. The grave was dead for me, however. It offered no key to open the living door that stood between us. Rather, it barred the way like some evil apparition.

     My mind was mulling all this over when I found another chance to talk to Sensei’s wife. It was during that chilly time of autumn, when you are suddenly aware of everyone hurrying against the shortening days. In the past week there had been a series of burglaries in Sensei’s neighborhood, all in the early evening. Nothing really valuable had been stolen, but something had been taken from each house, and Sensei’s wife was uneasy. One day, she was facing an evening alone in the house. Sensei was obliged to go off to a restaurant with two or three others, to attend a dinner for a friend from his hometown who had a post in a provincial hospital and had come up to Tokyo. He explained the situation to me and asked me to stay in the house with his wife until he returned. I immediately agreed.

 

CHAPTER 16

 

I arrived at dusk, about the time the lights are beginning to be lit. Sensei, ever punctilious, had already left. “He didn’t want to be late, so he set out just a moment ago,” his wife told me as she led me to the study.

     The room held a Western-style desk and a few chairs, as well as a large collection of books in glass-fronted cases; the rows of beautiful leatherbound spines glinted in the electric light. She settled me onto a cushion before the charcoal brazier. “Feel free to dip into any book you like,” she said as she left.

     I sat there stiffly, smoking, feeling awkward as a guest left to while away the time until the master of the house returns. Down the corridor in the parlor, I could hear Sensei’s wife talking to the maid. The study where I sat was at the end of the corridor, in a far quieter and more secluded part of the house than the sitting room where Sensei and I normally met. After a while her voice ceased, and a hush fell on the house. I sat still and alert, halfexpecting a burglar to appear at any moment.

     About half an hour later Sensei’s wife popped her head around the door to bring me a cup of tea. “Good heavens!” she exclaimed, startled to find me sitting bolt upright, with the formality of a guest. She regarded me with amusement. “You don’t look very comfortable sitting like that.”

     “I’m quite comfortable, thank you.”

     “But you must be bored, surely.”

     “No, I’m too tense at the thought of burglars to feel bored.”

     She laughed as she stood there, the teacup still in her hand.

     “It’s a bit pointless for me to stand guard in this remote corner of the house, you know,” I went on.

     “Well, then, do please come on into the parlor. I brought a cup of tea thinking you might be bored here, but you can have it there if you’d rather.”

     I followed her out of the study. In the parlor an iron kettle was singing on a fine big brazier. I was served Western tea and cakes, but Sensei’s wife declined to have any tea herself, saying it would make her sleepless.

     “Does Sensei often go off to gatherings like this?” I asked.

     “No, hardly ever. He seems less and less inclined to see people recently.”

     She seemed unworried, so I grew bolder. “You are the only exception, I suppose.”

     “Oh, no. He feels that way about me too.”

     “That’s not true,” I declared. “You must know perfectly well it’s not true.”

     “Why?”

     “Personally, I think he’s come to dislike the rest of the world because of his love for you.”

     “You have a fine scholar’s way with words, I must say. You’re good at empty reasoning. Surely you could equally say that because he dislikes the world, he’s come to dislike me as well. That’s using precisely the same argument.”

     “You could say both, true, but in this case I’m the one who’s right.”

     “I don’t like argumentation. You men do it a lot, don’t you? You seem to enjoy it. I’m always amazed at how men can go on and on, happily passing around the empty cup of some futile discussion.”

     Her words struck me as rather severe, although not particularly offensive. She was not one of those modern women who takes a certain pride in calling attention to the fact that she is intelligent. She seemed to value far more the heart that lies deep within us.

 

CHAPTER 17

 

There was more I wanted to say, but I held my tongue, for fear of seeming to be one of those argumentative types. Seeing me gazing silently into my empty teacup, she offered to pour me another, as if to soothe any possible hurt feelings. I passed her my cup.

     “How many?” she asked, grasping a sugar cube with a strange-looking implement and lifting it coquettishly to show me. “One? Two?” Though not exactly flirting with me, she was striving to be charming, so as to erase her earlier strong words.

     I sipped my tea in silence, and remained mute once the tea was drunk.

     “You’ve gone terribly quiet,” she remarked.

     “That’s because I feel as if whatever I might say, you’d accuse me of being argumentative,” I replied.

     “Oh, come now,” she protested.

     This remark provided us with a way back into the conversation. Once more its subject was the one interest we had in common, Sensei.

“Could I elaborate a little more on what I was saying earlier?” I asked. “You may find it empty reasoning, but I’m in earnest.”

     “Do speak then.”

     “If you were suddenly to die, could Sensei go on living as he does now?”

     “Now how could I know the answer to that? You’d have to ask the man himself, surely. That’s not a question for me to answer.”

     “But I’m serious. Please don’t be evasive. You must give me an honest answer.”

     “But I have. Honestly, I have no idea.”

     “Well, then, how much do you love Sensei? This is something to ask you rather than him, surely.”

     “Come now, why confront me with such a question?”

     “You mean there’s no point in it? The answer is obvious?”

    “Yes, I suppose that’s what I mean.”

     “Well, then, if Sensei were suddenly to lose such a loyal and loving wife, what would he do? He’s disillusioned with the world as it is—what would he do without you? I’m not asking for his opinion, I’m asking for yours. Do you feel he’d be happy?”

     “I know the answer from my own point of view, though I’m not sure whether he would see it the same way. Put simply, if Sensei and I were separated, he’d be miserable. He might well be unable to go on living. This sounds conceited of me, I know, but I do my best to make him happy. I even dare to believe no one else could make him as happy as I can. This belief comforts me.”

     “Well, I think that conviction would reveal itself in Sensei’s heart as well.”

     “That’s another matter altogether.”

     “You’re claiming that Sensei dislikes you?”

     “I don’t think he dislikes me personally. He has no reason to. But he dislikes the world in general, you see. In fact, these days perhaps he dislikes the human race. In that sense, given that I’m human, he must feel the same way about me.”

     At last I understood what she had been saying about his feelings for her.

 

CHAPTER 18

 

Her perspicacity impressed me. It also intrigued me to observe how her approach to things was unlike that of a traditional Japanese woman, although she almost never used the currently fashionable language.

     In those days I was just a foolish youth, with no real experience with the opposite sex. Instinctively I dreamed about women as objects of desire, but these were merely vague fantasies with all the substance of a yearning for the fleeting clouds of spring. When I came face-to-face with a real woman, however, my feelings sometimes veered to the opposite pole—rather than feeling attracted to her, I would be seized by a strange repulsion.

     But I had no such reaction to Sensei’s wife. I was not even much aware of the usual differences between the way men and women think. In fact, I forgot she was a woman. She was simply someone who could judge Sensei honestly and who sympathized with him.

     “Last time you said something,” I began, “when I asked why Sensei doesn’t put himself forward more in the world. You said he never used to be like that.”

     “I did. And it’s true—he was different once.”

     “So what was he like?”

     “He was the sort of strong, dependable person you and I would both like him to be.”

     “Why did he suddenly change, then?”

     “The change wasn’t sudden—it came over him gradually.”

     “And you were with him all the time it was happening?”

     “Naturally. We were married.”

     “Then surely you must have a good idea of what brought about the change.”

     “But that’s just the problem. It’s painful to hear you say this, because I’ve racked my brains, but I just don’t know. I don’t know how many times I’ve begged him to talk about it.”

     “And what does he say?”

     “He says there’s nothing to talk about, and nothing to worry about, it’s simply that this is how he’s turned out. That’s all he’ll say.”

     I did not speak. Sensei’s wife also fell silent. There was no sound from the maid’s room. All thoughts of burglars had vanished from my mind.

     Then she broke the silence. “Perhaps you think it’s my fault?”

     “Not at all.”

     “Don’t feel you have to hide anything, please. It would be like a knife in the heart to have such a thing thought of me,” she continued. “I’m doing all I can for him. I’m doing my very best.”

     “Please don’t worry. Sensei knows that. Believe me. I give you my word.”

     She took up the fire tongs and sat smoothing the ash in the brazier. Then she poured water from the jug into the iron kettle, immediately quieting its singing.

     “I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and said to him, ‘If there’s any fault in me, then please tell me honestly. If I can correct it, I will.’ And he replied, ‘You don’t have any fault. The fault is in me.’ When I heard that, it made me unbearably sad. It made me cry. And I longed more than ever to know how I might be to blame.”

     Tears brimmed in her eyes.

 

CHAPTER 19

 

At first I had thought of Sensei’s wife as a perspicacious woman. But as we talked, she gradually changed before my eyes; then my heart, rather than my mind, began to respond to her.

     Nothing, it seemed, troubled her relationship with her husband—indeed, what could?—and yet something was wrong. But try as she might to learn what the problem might be, she could find nothing. Precisely this made her suffer.

     At first she had thought that since Sensei viewed the world through jaundiced eyes, he must view her in that way too. But that answer failed to convince her. In fact, she thought the opposite must be true—that his dislike of her had set him against the world at large. Search as she might, however, she could find nothing that really confirmed this hypothesis. Sensei was in every way a model husband, kind and tender. So she lived with this kernel of doubt sown away in her, below the daily warmth that flowed between them.

     That evening she brought out her misgivings and laid them before me. “What do you think?” she asked. “Do you think he’s become like this because of me, or is it because of what you call his outlook on life or some such thing? Tell me honestly.”

     I had no intention of being dishonest with her. But I sensed that the root of her problem was something I could not know, and so no answer that I gave could possibly satisfy her. “I really don’t know,” I replied.

     Her face briefly registered the unhappiness of one whose hopes have been dashed.

     I quickly went on. “But I can guarantee that Sensei doesn’t dislike you. I’m only telling you what I heard from his own lips. He’s not a man to lie, is he?”

     She made no reply at first, then said, “Actually, I’ve thought of something . . .”

     “You mean something to do with why he’s become like this?”

     “Yes. If it really is the cause, then I can cease to feel responsible, and that in itself would be such a relief . . .”

     “What is it?”

     She hesitated, fixing her gaze on the hands in her lap. “I’ll tell you, and you must be the judge, please.”

     “I will if it’s within my power to do so, certainly.”

     “I can’t tell you everything. He’d be angry if I did. I’ll just tell you the part that wouldn’t make him angry.”

     I swallowed tensely.

     “When Sensei was a university student, he had a very close friend. This friend died just as they were about to graduate. It was very sudden.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Actually, it wasn’t from natural causes.”

     Her tone provoked me to ask how he had died.

     “This is as much as I can say. But that’s when it began. After that Sensei’s personality slowly changed. I don’t know why his friend died, and I don’t think Sensei does either. But seeing how he began to change afterward, somehow I can’t help feeling that perhaps he may have known something after all.”

     “Is it this friend’s grave in Zōshigaya?”

     “I’m not to speak of that either. But tell me, can someone change so much with the loss of a single friend? That’s what I so long to know. What do you think?”

     On the whole, I tended to think not.

 

CHAPTER 20

 

I tried to comfort Sensei’s wife as much as my understanding of the facts allowed, and she in turn seemed to try to be comforted. We continued to mull over the question of Sensei together. But I was unable to grasp the real source of the problem. Her distress grew out of vague perplexity and doubts. She didn’t know much about what had happened, and what she did know she could not reveal to me fully. Thus were comforter and comforted equally at sea, adrift on shifting waves. Lost as she was, she clung to what frail judgment I could offer.

     At around ten, when Sensei’s footsteps sounded in the entrance hall, she rose to her feet, all thoughts of me and our conversation seeming instantly forgotten. She was there to greet him as he slid open the lattice door, leaving me to follow her out. The maid, who must have been dozing in her room, failed to appear.

     Sensei was in rather a good mood, but his wife was even more vivacious. I gazed at her, astonished at the change. Her beautiful eyes had recently shone with tears, and her fine brow had been furrowed with suffering. Surely it had not been deceit, yet one could be forgiven for wondering if her earlier conversation had been a mere feminine ploy, a toying with my feelings. I was not inclined to be critical, however. My primary feeling was relief at seeing her instantaneously brighten. After all, I decided, there was no real need to worry about her.

     Sensei greeted me with a smile. “Thank you very much,” he said. “I trust no burglar appeared?” Then he added, “You must have felt the exercise was a bit pointless, if no one broke in.”

     “I do apologize,” his wife said to me as I was leaving. Her tone made me feel this was less an apology for taking up my precious time than an almost humorous regret for the fact that there had been no burglar. She wrapped the cakes she had brought out with the tea and handed them to me.

     Slipping the package into my kimono sleeve, I set off, winding hurriedly through the chilly, largely unpeopled lanes toward the bright and lively town.

     I have drawn the events of that night from deep in my memory because their details are necessary to my story now. At the time, however, as I headed for home with her cakes tucked into my sleeve, I was not inclined to think much about the conversation that had taken place that evening.

     The next day after morning classes, when I returned to my lodgings for lunch, my eyes fell on the little parcel of cakes lying on my desk. I immediately unwrapped it, picked up a piece of chocolate-coated sponge cake, and popped it into my mouth. And as my tongue registered the taste, I felt a conviction that, when all was said and done, the couple who had given me this cake was happy.

     Autumn ended uneventfully, and winter arrived. I came and went as usual from Sensei’s house, and at some point I asked his wife if she could help me take care of my clothing—around this time I began to wear rather better clothes. She kindly assured me that it would be a fine opportunity to alleviate the boredom of her childless life.

     She remarked that a garment I had given her to mend was of hand-woven cloth. “I’ve never worked with such good material before,” she said, “but it does make it hard to sew, I must say. The needle just won’t go through. I’ve broken two already.”

     For all her complaints, however, she did not seem to resent the work.

 

CHAPTER 21

 

That winter I was obliged to return home. A letter arrived from my mother, explaining that my father’s illness had taken a turn for the worse. Although there was no immediate cause for concern, she wrote, considering his age she felt I should arrange to come back if possible.

     My father had long suffered from a kidney ailment, and as is often the case with men of middle age and older, his illness was chronic. But he and the rest of the family believed that his condition would remain stable as long as he was careful—indeed, he boasted to visitors that it was entirely due to his rigorous care of his health that he had managed to live so long.

     My mother told me, however, that when he was out in the garden, he had suddenly felt dizzy and fainted. The family at first mistook it for a slight stroke and treated him accordingly. Only later had the doctor concluded that the problem was related to his kidney disease.

     The winter vacation would soon begin, and feeling that I could safely wait out the term, I let the matter slide from one day to the next. But as the days passed, images of my bedridden father and my anxious mother kept rising before my eyes, provoking such an ache in my heart that finally I decided I must go home. To avoid having to wait while the money was sent from home, I went to visit Sensei to borrow the amount for my fare. Besides, I wanted to bid him farewell.

     Sensei was suffering from a slight cold. He did not feel inclined to come to the living room, so he asked me into his study. Soft sunlight, of a kind rarely seen in winter, was shining through the study’s glass door onto the cloth draped over his desk. In this sunny room Sensei had set a metal basin containing water over the coals of a brazier, so that by inhaling the steam, he could soothe his lungs.

     “Serious illness doesn’t bother me, but I do hate these petty colds,” he remarked with a wry smile.

     Sensei had never had a real illness of any sort, so I found this amusing. “I can put up with a cold,” I said, “but I wouldn’t want anything worse. Surely you’d be the same, Sensei. Just try getting really ill, and you’ll soon see.”

     “You think so? If I were to actually get sick, I’d prefer it to be fatal.”

     I paid this remark no particular attention but instead proceeded to tell him about my mother’s letter and asked for a loan.

     “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I have enough on hand to cover the amount, I think, so you must take it here and now.” He called his wife and asked her to bring the money.

     She produced it from the drawer of some cupboard in the far room and presented it to me, placed formally on a sheet of white paper. “This must be very worrying for you,” she said.

     “Has it happened before?” Sensei inquired.

     “The letter didn’t say. Is it likely to continue?”

     “Yes.”

     This was how I first learned that his wife’s mother had died of the same illness.

     “It’s not an easy illness,” I ventured.

     “Indeed not. I wish I could offer myself in his place. Does he feel any nausea?”

     “I don’t know. The letter didn’t mention it, so I guess that’s not a real problem.”

     “If he’s not nauseous, then things are still all right,” said Sensei’s wife.

     That evening I left Tokyo by train.

 

CHAPTER 22

 

My father’s illness was not as serious as I had feared. When I arrived, he was sitting up cross-legged in bed.

     “I’m staying put here just to please everyone, since they worry about me,” he said. “I could perfectly well get up.” Nevertheless, the next day he had my mother put away his bedding and refused to listen to her protests.

     “Your father seems to have suddenly got his strength back now that you’ve come home,” she remarked to me, as she reluctantly folded the silk quilt. And from what I could observe, he was not simply putting on a brave face.

     My elder brother had a job in distant Kyushu and could not easily get away to visit his parents in any situation short of a real emergency. My sister had married someone in another part of the country, so could not be summoned home on short notice either. Of the three children, I was the one most easily called on, being still a student. The fact that I had followed my mother’s wishes and left my studies early to come home pleased my father greatly.

     “It’s a shame you’ve had to leave classes early for such a trivial illness,” he said. “Your mother shouldn’t go exaggerating things in letters like that.”

     This bravado was not confined to words, for there he was, with his sickbed folded away, behaving as if his health were back to normal.

     “Don’t be too rash, or you’ll have a relapse,” I warned him, but he treated this with happy disregard.

     “Come on now, I’m fine. All I have to do is take the usual care.”

     And he appeared to be fine. He came and went around the house without becoming breathless or feeling dizzy. True, his color was awful, but this symptom was nothing new, so we paid it little attention.

     I wrote to Sensei, thanking him for his kind loan and promising to call in and repay him when I returned to Tokyo in January. I went on to report that my father’s illness was less critical than feared, that we had no immediate cause for concern, and that he had neither dizziness nor nausea. I ended by briefly asking after Sensei’s cold—which was not something that I took very seriously.

     I wrote this letter without any expectation that Sensei would reply. Then I told my parents about him, and as I spoke, the image of Sensei’s distant study hovered before me.

     “Why not take some of our dried mushrooms to him when you go back?” my mother suggested.

     “Fine. But I’m not sure Sensei eats such things, actually.”

     “They’re not first-rate ones, but I don’t imagine anyone would dislike them.”

     It felt somehow odd to associate Sensei with dried mushrooms.

     When a reply came from him, I was quite surprised, particularly because it seemed written for no special reason. I decided that he had written back out of sheer kindness. That idea made his straightforward letter delight me. Besides, it was the first letter I had ever received from him.

     Although one might naturally have thought that we corresponded from time to time, in fact we never had. I received only two letters from Sensei before his death. The first was this simple reply. The second was an extremely long letter that he wrote for me shortly before he died.

     My father’s illness prevented him from being very active, even once he was up and about, and he seldom went outdoors. One unusually balmy day when he did venture out into the garden, I accompanied him just as a precaution. I offered my shoulder for him to lean on, but he brushed it off with a laugh.

 

CHAPTER 23

 

To keep my father from boredom, I frequently partnered him in a game of shōgi. Being lazy, we couldn’t be bothered to set up a special board but sat as usual around the warm kotatsu, placing the board between us on the low table so that between moves we could keep our hands tucked under the rug. Sometimes one of us would lose a piece, and neither would notice until the next game. Once, to great hilarity, my mother had to use the fire tongs to retrieve a lost piece from the brazier’s ashes.

     “A go board is too high,” my father remarked, “and it has those legs, so you can’t put it on the table and play in comfort around the kotatsu the way you can with shōgi. This is a fine game for the indolent. How about another round, eh?”

     He would always suggest another round whenever he had just won. Mind you, he’d say the same thing if he had just lost. In a word, he simply enjoyed sitting around the kotatsu playing shōgi regardless of the outcome.

     At first I found this rare taste of the pleasures of the retired quite beguiling, but my youthful energies soon began to fret at such bland stimulation. From time to time I would yawn and stretch up my arms, waving aloft some piece I happened to be holding.

     Whenever I thought about Tokyo, I felt the blood that pumped strongly through my heart pulsing to a rhythm that cried “Action! Action!” Strangely, through some subtle mechanism of the mind, this inner pulse seemed to be empowered by Sensei.

     In my heart I experimentally compared the two men, my father and Sensei. Both were quiet, retiring people who, as far as the world at large was concerned, could just as well be dead. Neither received the slightest recognition. Yet playing partner to my shōgi-loving father and sharing his simple enjoyments gave me no satisfaction, while Sensei, to whom I had never gone for mere amusement, had influenced my mind far more deeply than would any idle entertainment. “My mind” sounds too cool and detached—let me rather say “my breast.” It would have felt no exaggeration to say that Sensei’s strength seemed to have entered my body, and my very blood flowed with his life force. When I pondered the fact that my father was my real father, whereas Sensei was quite unrelated to me, I felt as astonished as if I had come upon a new and important truth.

     As tedium settled over me, my parents’ initial delight in me as some rare and precious creature was also fading, and they began to take my presence for granted. I suppose everyone experiences this shift when they return home for a vacation—for the first week or so you are fussed over and treated as honored guest, then the family’s enthusiasm wanes, and finally you are treated quite offhandedly, as if they don’t really care whether you are there or not. This second phase now inevitably set in.

     These days, furthermore, each time I came home from the city, I brought a new aspect of myself that was strange and incomprehensible to my parents. It was an element that was fundamentally out of harmony with both of them—rather as if, to make a historical analogy, I had introduced into a traditional Confucian household the disturbing aura of forbidden Christianity. Of course I did my best to hide it. But it was part of me, and try as I might to keep it to myself, they sooner or later noticed. Thus I grew bored and disillusioned with home life, and longed to go back to Tokyo as soon as possible.

     Fortunately, my father’s condition gave no sign of deteriorating further, although the state of his health continued to be fragile. Just to be sure, we called in a highly reputable doctor from some distance away, but his careful examination revealed no new problems.

     I decided to leave a little before the end of the winter vacation. But when I announced this decision, human feelings being the perverse things they are, both parents were against it.

     “You’re going back already? It’s very soon, isn’t it?” said my mother.

     My father joined in. “You could easily stay another four or five days, surely?”

     But I held to my original plan.

 

CHAPTER 24

 

By the time I returned to Tokyo, the New Year decorations had disappeared from house fronts. In the city no sign remained of the recent New Year festivities; the streets were given over to a chill, wintry wind.

     I took the first opportunity to visit Sensei and return the money I had borrowed. I also brought along the mushrooms that my mother had pressed on me. Laying them before Sensei’s wife, I hastened to explain that my mother had suggested the gift. The mushrooms were carefully packed inside a new cake box. Sensei’s wife thanked me politely. When she rose to leave the room, she picked up the box, then feeling its lightness asked in surprise what the cakes were. It was typical of the wonderfully childlike frankness she could display once she got to know someone well.

     Both of them questioned me at length and with great concern about my father’s illness. “Well, it seems from what you say of his condition that there’s no cause for immediate alarm,” Sensei said. “But being the illness it is, he’ll need to look after himself very carefully.”

     I could see that he knew a great deal more than I did about kidney disease.

     “It’s typical of that illness that the patient feels quite well and unaware of the disease. I knew a military officer who was killed by it—he simply died overnight, quite astonishing. His death was so sudden that his own wife hadn’t even realized he was ill. He just woke her in the night saying he felt bad, and the next morning he was dead. It happened so swiftly that she said she’d assumed he was sleeping.”

     The optimism I had been inclined to feel shifted to sudden anxiety. “I wonder if that’s what will happen to my dad. There’s no saying it won’t.”

     “What does the doctor say?”

     “He says there’s no hope of curing it, but he also assured us there’s no need to worry for the present.”

     “Well, then, that’s fine, if that’s what the doctor says. The man I just told you about wasn’t aware he was ill, and besides, he was quite a rough army fellow, not the sort to notice things.”

     I felt somewhat comforted.

     Seeing this change in me, Sensei added, “But sick or well, humans are fragile creatures, you know. There’s no anticipating how and when they might die, or for what reason.”

     “That’s how you feel yourself, is it, Sensei?”

     “I’m in fine health, but yes, even I think this from time to time.” A suggestion of a smile played on his lips. “You often hear of people keeling over and dying, don’t you? Of natural causes. And then other people die suddenly, from some unnatural act of violence.”

     “What’s an unnatural act of violence?”

     “Well, I don’t know. People who commit suicide use unnatural violence on themselves, don’t they?”

     “People who are murdered also die from unnatural violence.”

     “I wasn’t thinking of murder, but now that you mention it, that’s true, of course.”

     So the conversation ended that day.

     Even later, after I returned home, my father’s illness did not worry me unduly. Nor did Sensei’s talk of natural and unnatural deaths leave more than a passing, vague impression on my mind. I was preoccupied with another matter, for I finally had to set to and write the graduation thesis that I had tried, so many times, to come to grips with before.

 

CHAPTER 25

 

If I were to graduate this June as expected, I had to finish the thesis in the required form by the end of April. But when I counted off the remaining days on my fingers, my heart began to fail me. The other students had all been visibly busy for some time gathering material and writing notes, while I alone had done absolutely nothing toward the paper. I had put it off with the intention of throwing myself into the task after the New Year, and in this spirit I now set about it.

     But in no time I ground to a halt. The abstract idea of a grand theme was outlined in my mind, and the framework of the discussion felt more or less in place, but now I sat head in hands, despairing. So I set about reducing my theme to something more manageable. Finally I decided to bypass the trouble of systematically setting down my own ideas. Instead, I would simply present material from various books on the subject and add a suitable conclusion.

     The topic I had chosen was closely related to Sensei’s field of expertise, and when I ventured to ask his opinion about it, he had approved. In my present state of confusion, therefore, I naturally took myself straight off to visit Sensei and ask him to recommend some books.

     He willingly told me all he knew and even offered to lend me two or three books. But he made absolutely no move to take on the task of actually advising me. “I don’t read much these days, so I don’t know what’s new in the field. You should ask your professors.”

     I recalled then that his wife had said that he had once been a great reader, but for some reason his interest had waned considerably.

     My thesis momentarily forgotten, I spontaneously asked, “Why aren’t you as interested in books as you used to be, Sensei?”

     “There’s no particular reason. . . . I suppose it’s because I believe you don’t really become a finer person just by reading lots of books. And also . . .”

     “What else?”

     “Nothing else really. You see, in the old days I used to feel uncomfortable and ashamed whenever someone asked me a question I couldn’t answer, or when my ignorance was exposed in public somehow. These days, though, I’ve come to feel that there’s nothing particularly shameful about not knowing, so I don’t any longer have the urge to push myself to read. I’ve grown old, in a word.”

     Sensei spoke quite serenely. His words held no hint of the bitterness of someone who has turned his back on the world, so they failed to strike me as they might have.

     I went home feeling that, although he did not seem old to me, his philosophy was not very impressive.

     From then on I spent my days sweating over my thesis like one possessed, my eyes bloodshot with effort and fatigue. I asked friends who had graduated a year ahead of me how they had fared in this situation. One told me how on the final day of submission, he had hired a rickshaw and rushed his thesis to the university office, barely managing to get it there before the deadline. Another said he had taken it in fifteen minutes past the five o’clock cut-off time and almost been rejected, but the department head had kindly intervened and allowed it to get through.

     These tales made me feel both nervous and encouraged. Every day at my desk I pushed myself to the limits of my energy. When I wasn’t seated at the desk, I was in the gloomy library, scanning its high shelves. My eyes foraged greedily among the gold-printed titles on the books’ spines, like a collector avidly searching through antiques.

     The plum trees bloomed, and the cold winter wind shifted to the south. Sometime later came the first rumors of cherry blossoms. Still I plowed doggedly ahead, like a blinkered workhorse, flogged mercilessly on by my thesis. Not until late April, when at last I had completed the writing, did I cross the threshold of Sensei’s house once more.

 

CHAPTER 26

 

In the first days of summer, when the boughs of the late-flowering double cherries were misted with the first unfurling of green leaf, I finally achieved my freedom. Like a bird released from its cage, I spread my wings wide in delight and let my gaze roam over the world before me. I immediately went to visit Sensei. Along the way my eyes drank in the vivid sight of a citrus hedge, its white buds bursting forth from the blackened branches, and a pomegranate tree, the glistening yellowish leaves sprouting from its withered trunk and glowing softly in the sunlight. It was as if I were seeing such things for the first time.

     When he saw my happy face, Sensei said, “So you’ve finished the thesis, have you? Well done.”

     “Thanks to you,” I replied, “I’ve finally made it. There’s nothing left to do.”

     Indeed I had the delightful feeling just then that I had completed all the work I had to do in life and could proceed to enjoy myself to my heart’s content. I was well satisfied with the paper I had written and confident of its worth. I chattered happily on to Sensei about it.

     As usual, Sensei listened with the occasional interjection of “I see” or “Is that so?” but made no further response. This lack of enthusiasm left me not so much dissatisfied as somehow deflated. But I was so full of energy that day that I attempted a counterattack. I invited him to come out with me into the world that was everywhere bursting into fresh green leaf.

     “Let’s go for a walk somewhere, Sensei. It’s wonderful out there.”

     “Where to?”

     I did not care where. All I wanted was to take him out beyond the city limits.

     An hour later we had indeed left the city behind us and were walking aimlessly through a quiet neighborhood that was something between village and town. I plucked a soft young leaf from a citrus hedge, cupped it between my palms, and made it whistle as one does with a grass blade. I was good at this, having picked it up by imitating a friend of mine from Kagoshima. I gaily played as I strolled along, while Sensei walked beside me, ignoring me, face averted.

     At length the little path opened out at a point below a large house shrouded by the fresh young leaves of an overgrown garden. We quickly realized that this was no private dwelling—the sign attached to the front gate bore the name of a plant nursery. Gazing at the gently sloping path, Sensei suggested we go in for a look. “Yes,” I agreed, “it’s a nurseryman’s plantation, isn’t it?”

     Rounding a bend in the path, we came upon the house on our left. The sliding doors were all wide open, and there was no sign of life in the empty interior. The only movement was of the goldfish that swam about in a large tub that stood by the eave.

     “All’s quiet, isn’t it. Do you think anyone would mind if we went farther?”

     “I don’t think it would matter.”

     On through the garden we went, still seeing no sign of anyone. Azaleas bloomed all around us like flames.

     Sensei pointed to a tall bush of orange azaleas. “This one would be the sort they call kirishima.”

     A plantation of peonies extended a good thirty yards across, but the season was too early for flowers. Sensei stretched himself out on an old bench by the peony bed, while I sat at the end of the bench, smoking a cigarette. He lay there looking at the brilliantly clear blue sky. I was entranced by all the young leaves that surrounded me. Looking carefully, I discovered that the color of each was subtly different. Even on a single maple tree, no branch held two leaves of exactly the same hue. A passing breeze lifted Sensei’s hat from where he had hung it, on the tip of a slender little cedar sapling, and tossed it to the ground.

 

CHAPTER 27

 

I immediately retrieved the hat. “It fell off, Sensei,” I said, flicking off the red grains of earth that clung here and there.

     “Thank you.”

     He half-raised himself to take it. Then, still propped there, he asked me something odd. “Forgive the sudden question, but is your family reasonably well off?”

     “Not particularly, no.”

     “So how well off are you, if you’ll excuse my asking?”

     “Well, we own a bit of forested land and a few rice fields, but there’s very little money, I think.”

     It was the first time Sensei had directly asked me about my family’s financial situation. I, in turn, had never inquired about his circumstances. When I first met him, I had wondered how he could spend his days without having to work, and the question had remained with me ever since. I had kept it to myself, however, believing it would be discourteous to ask outright.

     As I sat here now, my weary eyes steeping in the balm of the fresh spring leaves, the question naturally occurred to me again. “What about you, Sensei? How well off are you?”

     “Do I look rich to you?”

     In fact, Sensei generally dressed quite frugally. The house was far from big, and he only had one maid. Nevertheless, even an outsider like myself could see that he led a fairly affluent life. Although his lifestyle could hardly be termed luxurious, there was no sense of pinched frugality or straitened circumstances.

     “Yes, you do,” I replied.

     “Well, I have a certain amount of money. But I’m far from wealthy. If I were, I’d build a larger house.”

     Sensei had by now sat up, and was cross-legged on the bench. He traced a circle on the ground with the tip of his bamboo cane. Once it was complete, he jabbed his cane upright into the earth.

     “I used to be wealthy, in fact.”

     He seemed to be speaking half to himself. I missed my chance to come back with another question, and was reduced to silence.

     “I used to be wealthy, you know,” he said again, now addressing me, then he looked at me and smiled.

     I continued to make no reply. In fact, I did not have the wit to know how to respond.

     Sensei then changed the subject. “How has your father been recently?”

     I had heard nothing of my father’s illness since the New Year. The simple letter that arrived each month with my allowance was written in his hand as usual, but he made almost no mention of how he was feeling. His handwriting, moreover, was firm; the brushstrokes gave no hint of the tremors that affect those with his disease.

     “No one’s said anything, so I guess he’s fine again.”

     “That would be a good thing—still, you have to remember what that illness is like.”

     “Yes, I guess he won’t really recover. But he’ll stay as he is for a while yet, I think. There’s been no word about it.”

     “Is that so?”

     I took his inquiries about my family’s wealth and my father’s illness at face value, as no more than an impulse of the moment. But behind his words loomed a large issue that connected the two topics. I had no way of realizing it, however, since I lacked the experiences that Sensei had been through.

 

CHAPTER 28

 

“It’s none of my business, of course, but in my opinion, if there’s anything to inherit you should make sure the matter’s completely attended to before it’s too late. Why not arrange things with your father now, while he’s still well? When the worst happens, you know, it’s inheritance that causes the biggest problems.”

     “Yes.”

     I paid no particular attention to his words. I believed that the others in our family, my parents included, were as little concerned about this issue as I was. Moreover, Sensei’s uncharacteristic pragmatism somewhat startled me. My natural respect for an elder, however, made me hold my tongue.

     “Please forgive me if my anticipating your father’s death like this has offended you. But it’s in the nature of things for people to die, you know. There’s no knowing when even the healthiest of us will die.” Sensei’s tone held an unusual bitterness.

     “It doesn’t upset me in the slightest,” I assured him.

     “How many brothers and sisters did you say you had?” he asked.

     He then inquired about the number of people in the family, what relatives I had, and details of my aunts and uncles. “Are they all good people?”

     “I don’t think there’s anyone you’d call bad. They’re country people, for the most part.”

     “Why shouldn’t country people be bad?”

     This interrogation was becoming disconcerting. But Sensei did not even give me time to consider my answer.

     “Country people are actually worse, if anything, than city folk,” he went on. “Another thing. You said just now that you didn’t think there was anyone among your relatives you’d call bad. But do you imagine there’s a certain type of person in the world who conforms to the idea of a ‘bad person’? You’ll never find someone who fits that mold neatly, you know. On the whole, all people are good, or at least they’re normal. The frightening thing is that they can suddenly turn bad when it comes to the crunch. That’s why you have to be careful.”

     Sensei was in full flow. I was about to interrupt him when a dog suddenly barked behind us. We both turned in surprise.

     Our bench stood at the front corner of a bed of cedar seedlings; to one side of it, a wide stand of thick dwarf bamboo stretched back, hiding the ground. In its midst we could make out the back and furiously barking head of a dog.

     As we stared, a child of about ten came running over and set about scolding the animal. He then came over to where we sat and bowed to Sensei, without removing his black school cap.

     “There was no one in the house when you came in, sir?” he asked.

     “No one.”

     “But my mom and sister were in the kitchen.”

     “Oh, were they? I see.”

     “Yeah. You should’ve said hello and come on in, sir.”

     Sensei smiled wryly. He took out his purse and put a five-sen coin into the lad’s hand. “Tell your mother, please, that we’d like to take a rest here for a little.”

     The boy nodded, his eyes twinkling with a knowing grin. “I’m leading the spy patrol in our game, see,” he explained, and ran off down the hill through the azaleas.

     The dog rushed after him, tail aloft. And sure enough, a couple more children of about the same age soon came running past in the same direction as our spy patroller.

 

CHAPTER 29

 

Owing to the interruption, my conversation with Sensei never reached its proper conclusion, so I failed to discover what he was driving at. In those days, though, I felt none of his concerns about property and inheritance and so on. Both by nature and by circumstance, I was not inclined to bother my head over profit and gain. In retrospect, I realize that the whole question of money was still distant for me—I had never had to earn my own living, let alone personally confront the situation Sensei spoke of.

     But Sensei had said one thing that I wanted to get to the bottom of—his statement that when it comes to the crunch, anyone can turn bad. I could understand the meaning of the words themselves well enough, but I wanted to find out more of what lay behind them.

     Once the boy and his dog were gone, the leafy garden returned to its earlier tranquility. We remained there unmoving a while longer, two people held fast within a silence. As we sat, the beautiful sky was slowly drained of its brightness. Over the trees around us, mostly delicate maples dripping with soft green new leaves, darkness seemed to creep slowly.

     The rumble of a cart reached our ears from the distant road. I imagined some villager setting off with his load of potted plants to sell at the market.

     At the sound Sensei broke off his meditation and rose abruptly to his feet, like one restored to life. “We ought to be off. The days have grown a good deal longer recently, it’s true, but evening’s rapidly approaching while we sit here idly.”

     His back was covered with bits of leaf and twig from the bench. I brushed them off with both hands.

     “Thank you. Is any resin stuck there?”

     “Everything’s off now.”

     “This coat was made quite recently, so my wife will be cross if I come home with it dirty. Thank you.”

     We set off down the gentle slope and emerged back in front of the house.

     A woman was sitting on the once-empty veranda. She was busy winding yarn onto a spool with the help of her daughter, a girl of fifteen or sixteen. When we arrived beside the big tub of goldfish, we bowed and apologized for our intrusion.

     “No, no, not at all,” the woman politely responded, and thanked us for the boy’s coin.

     We went out the gate and set off for home. After a short distance I turned to Sensei.

     “That thing you said earlier,” I said, “about how people can suddenly turn bad when it comes to the crunch—what did you mean by that?”

     “Well, nothing deep, really. I mean, it’s a fact. I’m not just theorizing.”

     “Yes, that’s all very well. But what do you mean by ‘when it comes to the crunch’? What sort of situation are you talking about?”

     Sensei burst into laughter. Now that his original impulse had flagged, he seemed to have no interest in providing me with a serious explanation.

     “Money, my friend. The most moral of men will turn bad when they see money.”

     This reply struck me as tiresomely obvious. If Sensei was unwilling to take the conversation seriously, I too lost interest.

     I strode coolly onward, feigning indifference. The result was that Sensei dropped somewhat behind.

     “Hey there!” he called. Then: “There you are, you see?”

     “What?” I turned and waited for him.

     “All I had to do was say what I just said, and your mood changed.” He was looking me in the eye.

 

CHAPTER 30

 

I disliked Sensei just then. Even when we resumed walking on together, I chose not to ask the questions I wanted. Whether he sensed that or not, however, he showed no signs of being disturbed by my sulk. He strode casually on in silence, as serene as always. I resented this, and found myself now wanting to say something to humiliate him.

     “Sensei.”

     “What is it?”

     “You got a little excited earlier, didn’t you? When we were sitting in the nursery garden back there. I’ve almost never seen you excited before.”

     He did not reply immediately, which I interpreted to mean that I had hit my mark. But the intended barb also seemed to have somehow gone wide. I gave up and reverted to silence.

     Then, without warning, Sensei moved to the side of the road, and there under the carefully clipped hedge, he drew his kimono aside and relieved himself. I waited blankly until he was finished.

     “Pardon me,” he said, and set off walking again.

     I had lost all hope of getting the better of him. The road slowly grew more populous; houses now lined both sides, and we encountered no further signs of the earlier occasional sloping fields or patches of vacant land. Nevertheless, here and there on the corner of some block we saw a patch of garden with tendrils of bean vines twining up bamboo stakes, or chickens in a wire coop, which lent a certain serenity to the scene. Packhorses constantly passed us, heading home from town.

     Always interested in such things, I set aside the problem that had been concerning me. By the time Sensei returned to our earlier conversation, I had forgotten about it.

     “Did I really seem so very excited back there?”

     “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘very,’ but yes, a little.”

     “I don’t mind you seeing me in a bad light. I do get excited, it’s true. I get excited whenever I talk about the question of property. I don’t know how I seem to you, but let me tell you, I’m a most vindictive man. When someone insults or harms me, I’ll bear the grudge for ten years, twenty years.”

     Sensei seemed still more agitated now. It was not his tone that startled me, however, but the meaning of his words. For all my longing to know him better, I could never have dreamed that I would hear such a confession from his lips. I had not had the slightest inkling that tenacious rancor was a part of his nature. I had believed him a weaker man; my affection for him, indeed, was rooted in what I saw as his delicate, lofty nature. I had sought on a passing impulse to pierce his armor a little, but what I was now hearing made me shrink.

     “I’ve been deceived by people, you see,” he continued. “By people, what’s more, who were blood relatives. I’ll never forget it. They had seemed good folk in my father’s presence, but the moment he died, they changed into unscrupulous rogues. I’ve borne the humiliation and harm they did to me all my life, and I imagine I’ll go on nursing it until the day I die. For I won’t ever be able to forget, you see. And I’ve still not taken my revenge. But I guess I’m doing something far more powerful than taking personal revenge—I not only hate them, I’ve come to hate the whole human race they typify. This is sufficient revenge for me, I think.”

     I was silent, unable to produce so much as a word of comfort.

 

CHAPTER 31

 

Our conversation that day went no further. Indeed, I had no desire to pursue the subject. I quailed to hear Sensei speak like that.

     At the edge of town we caught an electric tramcar, but while riding along together we exchanged scarcely a word. Once we got off, our ways parted.

     By now Sensei’s mood had changed again. “You’ll be living free and easy until you graduate in June, won’t you?” he remarked in an unusually jolly tone. “It may actually be the freest time in your life, I shouldn’t wonder. Make sure you really enjoy it, won’t you?”

     I laughed and raised my hat. Sensei’s face just then made me wonder where in his heart he could be nursing a hatred of the human race. I detected not the least trace of misanthropy in that smile or those warm eyes.

     I freely acknowledge that Sensei taught me much about intellectual questions, but I admit there were also times when I failed to gain what I sought from him in matters of the mind. Conversations with him could be frustratingly inconclusive. Our talk that day would haunt me as such an instance.

     One day I frankly confessed as much to Sensei’s face. He was smiling as he listened.

     “It wouldn’t bother me,” I continued, “if I thought you didn’t really know the answer, but the problem is, you know it—you just won’t say it in so many words.”

     “I don’t hide anything.”

     “Yes, you do.”

     “You’re mixing up my ideas with my past. I’m hardly a good thinker, but I assure you I wouldn’t purposely conceal any ideas I’d arrived at. What would be the point? But if you’re asking me to tell you everything about my past, well, that’s a different matter.”

     “It doesn’t seem different to me. Your ideas are important to me precisely because they’re a product of your past. If the two things are separated, they become virtually worthless as far as I can see. I can’t be satisfied with being offered some lifeless doll that has no breath of soul in it.”

     Sensei stared at me in astonishment. The hand that held his cigarette trembled a little. “You’re certainly bold, aren’t you?”

     “I’m in earnest, that’s all. I’m earnestly searching for lessons from life.”

     “Even if it means disclosing my past?”

     The word disclose had a frightening ring. Suddenly the man seated before me was not the Sensei I loved and respected but a criminal. His face was pale.

     “Are you truly in earnest?” Sensei asked. “My past experiences have made me suspicious of people, so I must admit I mistrust you too. But you are the sole exception; I have no desire to suspect you. You seem too straightforward and open for that. I want to have trusted even just one person before I die, you know. Can you be that person? Would you do that for me? Are you sincerely in earnest, from your heart?”

     “If what I’ve just said is not in earnest, then my life is a lie.” My voice shook.

     “Good,” said Sensei. “I shall speak, then. I’ll tell you the story of my past and leave nothing out. And in return . . . But no, that doesn’t matter. But my past may not actually be as useful for you as you expect, you know. You may be better off not hearing about it. Besides, I can’t tell you right now— please wait until I can. It requires a suitable moment.”

     Even after I returned to my lodgings that evening, my memory of this conversation continued to oppress me.

 

CHAPTER 32

 

Apparently my teachers did not find my thesis quite as good as I thought it was. Nevertheless, I managed to pass. On the day of graduation I retrieved from the trunk my musty old formal winter wear and put it on. Up and down the rows of graduating students in the ceremony hall, every face looked heat-oppressed, and my own body, sealed tightly in thick wool impenetrable to any breeze, sweltered uncomfortably. I had been standing only a short time when the handkerchief I held was sodden with sweat.

     As soon as the ceremony was over, I went back to my room, stripped off, and opened my second-floor window. Holding the tightly rolled diploma up to my eye like a telescope, I gazed through it, out over the world. Then I tossed it onto my desk and flung myself down spread-eagle in the middle of the floor. Lying there, I reviewed my past and imagined my future. This diploma stood like a boundary marker between the one and the other. It was a strange document indeed, I decided, both significant and meaningless.

     That evening I was to dine at Sensei’s house. We had agreed beforehand that if I managed to graduate, I would keep the evening free for a celebratory dinner at his home.

     As promised, the dining table had been moved into the living room, close to the veranda. The patterned tablecloth, thick and crisply starched, glowed with a fine white purity beneath the electric light. Whenever I dined at Sensei’s, the chopsticks and bowls were placed on this white linen that seemed to have come straight from some Western restaurant; the cloth was always freshly laundered.

     “It’s just as with collar and cuffs,” Sensei remarked. “If you’re going to have dirty ones, you might as well go for color in the first place. If it’s white, it must be purest white.”

     Sensei was, in fact, a fastidious man—his study too was always meticulously tidy. Being rather careless myself, this aspect of him occasionally struck me quite forcibly.

     Once I mentioned to his wife how finicky he seemed, and she replied, “But he doesn’t pay much attention to the clothes he wears.” Sensei, who had been sitting nearby at the time, laughed, “It’s true, I’m psychologically finicky. It’s a constant problem for me. What a ridiculous way to be, eh?”

     I was not sure whether he meant that he was what we would call highly strung or intellectually fastidious. His wife didn’t seem to grasp his meaning either.

     This evening I was again seated across the table from Sensei with the white tablecloth between us. His wife sat at the end of the table, facing the garden.

     “Congratulations,” Sensei said to me, raising his sake cup. The gesture did not make me particularly happy, however. This was partly due to my own rather somber mood, but I also felt that Sensei’s tone was not of the cheerful kind calculated to excite joy. Certainly he raised his cup and smiled, and I detected no irony in his expression, but I felt a distinct lack of any genuine pleasure at my success. His smile said, I guess this is the kind of situation in which people usually congratulate someone.

     “Well done,” his wife said to me. “Your father and mother must be very happy.”

     Suddenly the image of my sick father rose in my mind. I had to hurry home and show him my diploma, I decided.

     “What did you do with your certificate, Sensei?” I asked.

     “I wonder. Would it still be tucked away somewhere?” he asked his wife.

     “Yes, I would have put it away somewhere,” she replied.

     Neither of them knew what had become of it, it seemed.

 

CHAPTER 33

 

In Sensei’s house, when a meal with informal guests had progressed to the point where the rice was served, his wife dismissed the maid and served us herself. This was the custom. The first few times I dined there, it made me feel rather awkward, but once I grew more used to it, I had no difficulty handing her my empty bowl for refilling.

     “More tea? More rice? You certainly eat, don’t you?” she would say teasingly, completely unabashed at her own directness.

     But that day, with the summer heat beginning, my normally large appetite deserted me.

     “So that’s all? You’ve begun eating like a bird lately.”

     “No, it’s just that I can’t eat a lot when it’s hot like this.”

     She called the maid and had her clear the table, then ordered ice cream and fruit to be served.

     “I made it myself,” she explained. Sensei’s wife was at such loose ends, it seemed, that she could take the time to make her own ice cream for guests. I had several helpings.

     “So now that you’ve graduated,” said Sensei, “what do you plan to do next?” He had half-turned his cushion toward the garden and was leaning back against the sliding doors at the edge of the veranda.

     I was only conscious that I had graduated; I had not yet decided on any next step. Seeing me hesitate, Sensei’s wife intervened. “Teaching?” she asked. When I did not reply, she tried again: “The civil service, then?”

     Sensei and I both burst out laughing. “To be honest,” I said, “I haven’t any plan at all yet. I haven’t even so much as thought about what profession to enter, actually. I can’t see how I can choose, really, since I don’t know what’s a good profession and what’s not until I try them out.”

     “That’s true enough,” she responded. “But after all, you’ll inherit property, so it’s natural that you’d feel relaxed about the question. Just take a look at others who aren’t so fortunate. They’re far from able to be so blithe.”

     Some of my friends had been searching for positions as middle-school teachers since well before graduation, so her words were true. I privately acknowledged that but what I said was “I may have been a bit infected by Sensei.”

     “Oh dear, he’s not a good influence, I’m afraid.”

     Sensei grimaced. “I don’t mind if you’re influenced by me. What I’d like is for you to make sure, while your father is still alive, that you get a decent inheritance, as I said the other day. You mustn’t relax until that’s sorted out.”

     I recalled our conversation back in early May in the spacious grounds of the nursery garden among the flowering azaleas. Those forceful words, spoken with emotion as we were walking back, echoed in my mind. They were not only forceful, those words, they were terrible. Ignorant of his past as I was, I could not fully make sense of them.

     “Are you very well off?” I asked Sensei’s wife.

     “Now why should you ask such a question?”

     “Because Sensei won’t tell me the answer.”

     She smiled and looked at Sensei. “That would be because we’re not well off enough to make it worth mentioning.”

     “I’d like to know, so that when I go home and talk to my father, I’ll have some idea of how much I’d need to live as Sensei does.” Sensei was facing the garden, calmly puffing on his cigarette, so I naturally addressed his wife.

     “Well, it’s not really a question of how much, you know . . . I mean, we get by, one way and another . . . Anyway, that’s beside the point. The point is, you really must find something to do in life. You can’t just laze around like Sensei does . . .”

     Sensei turned slightly. “I don’t just laze around,” he protested.

 

CHAPTER 34

 

That night it was after ten when I left Sensei’s house. I was due to go back to my family home in two or three days, so I said my farewells as I left.

     “I won’t be seeing you for a while,” I explained.

     “You’ll be back in September, won’t you?” Sensei’s wife asked.

     Having graduated, I had in fact no reason to come back to Tokyo in September. Nor did I fancy the idea of returning to the city in August, at the height of the hot summer. In fact, since I felt no urgency to search for work, I could come back or not as I wished.

     “Yes, I guess it’ll be around September.”

     “Well, then, take good care, won’t you? We may end up going somewhere ourselves over the summer. It promises to be very hot. If we do, we’ll send you a postcard.”

     “Where do you have in mind, if you were to go somewhere?”

     Sensei was grinning as he listened to this conversation. “Actually, we haven’t even decided whether we’re going or not.”

     As I rose to leave, Sensei held me back. “How is your father’s illness, by the way?” he asked.

     I had had very little news on the subject, I replied, so I could only assume that he was not seriously ill.

     “You can’t make such easy assumptions about an illness like his, you know,” he reminded me. “If he develops uremia, it’s all up with him.”

     I had never heard the term uremia and did not know what it meant. Such technical terms had not come up in my discussion with the local doctor back during the winter vacation.

     “Do look after him well,” Sensei’s wife added. “If the poison goes to his brain, he’s finished, you know. It’s no laughing matter.”

     This unnerved me, but I managed to grin. “Well, there’s no point in worrying, I guess, since they say it’s not an illness you recover from.”

     “If you can approach it so matter-of-factly, no more need be said, I suppose,” she replied, and looked down, subdued. I guessed she was recalling her mother, who had died of the same illness many years ago. Now I felt genuinely sad at the thought of my father’s fate.

     Sensei suddenly turned to her. “Do you think you’ll die before me, Shizu?”

     “Why?”

     “No particular reason, I’m just asking. Or will I move on before you do? The general rule is that the husband goes first, and the wife is left behind.”

     “That’s not always so, by any means. But the husband is generally the older one, isn’t he?”

      “You mean therefore he dies first? Well, then, I’ll have to die before you do, won’t I?”

     “You’re a special case.”

     “You think so?”

     “Well, look at you. You’re just fine. You’ve almost never had a day’s illness. No, it’s certainly going to be me first.”

     “You first, you think?”

     “Definitely.”

     Sensei looked at me. I smiled.

     “But just say it turns out to be me who goes first. What would you do then?”

     “What would I do . . .” Sensei’s wife faltered, seeming stricken by a sudden apprehension of the grief she would feel. But then she raised her face again, her mood brighter.

     “Well, there’d be nothing I could do, would there? Death comes when it will, as the saying goes.” She spoke jokingly, but her eyes were fixed on me.

 

CHAPTER 35

 

I had been about to leave, but once this conversation was under way, I settled back into my seat again.

     Sensei turned to me. “What do you think?”

     I was in no position to judge whether Sensei or his wife would be first to die, so I simply smiled and remarked, “Who can foretell allotted life spans?”

     “Yes, that’s what it amounts to, isn’t it,” Sensei’s wife responded. “We each receive a given span of years, and there’s nothing we can do about it. That’s exactly what happened with Sensei’s mother and father, you know.”

     “They died on the same day?”

     “Oh no, not quite the same day, of course, but just about the same—one died soon after the other.”

     I was struck by this new piece of information. “Why did they die so close together?”

     She was about to answer when Sensei broke in. “That’s enough of this subject. It’s pointless.” He gave his fan a few boisterous flaps, then turned to his wife. “I’ll give you this house when I die, Shizu.”

     She laughed. “And the earth under it too, if you don’t mind.”

     “The earth belongs to someone else, so we can’t do much about that. But I’ll give you everything I own.”

     “Thank you. But I couldn’t do much with those foreign books of yours, you know.”

     “Sell them to a secondhand dealer.”

     “How much would they come to?”

     Instead of replying, Sensei continued to talk hypothetically about his own death. He was firmly assuming he would die before his wife.

     Although she had initially treated the conversation lightly, it finally began to oppress her sensitive woman’s heart. “You keep saying ‘When I die, when I die.’ That’s enough talk about the next world, please. It’s inauspicious. If you die, I’ll do everything as you’d have wanted, rest assured. What more could you ask?”

     Sensei looked out at the garden and smiled. But to avoid upsetting her further, he said no more on the subject.

     I was overstaying my visit, so I hastily rose again to leave. Sensei and his wife saw me to the entrance hall.

     “Take good care of your father,” she said.

     “See you in September,” said Sensei.

     I said my farewells and stepped out past the lattice gate. The bushy osmanthus between the entrance and the front gate spread its branches wide in the darkness as if to block my way. As I pushed the few steps past it, I imagined the scented flowers of the autumn to come, on those twigs where dark leaves now flourished. My mental image of Sensei’s house had always been inseparable from this osmanthus bush.

     As I paused there and turned back to look at the house, imagining the autumn day when I would cross that threshold again, the hall light that had been shining through the lattice front was suddenly extinguished. Sensei and his wife had evidently gone back inside. I made my way on alone through the darkness.

     I did not go straight back to my lodgings. There were things I needed to buy before my journey, and besides, I had to ease my belly, which was crammed with fine food, so I set off to walk toward the bustling town. It was still full of the activity of early evening. Men and women were casually thronging the streets.

     I ran into a friend who had just graduated with me, and he pulled me off to a bar, where I listened to his high-spirited chatter, frothy as the beer we drank. It was past midnight when I finally got home.

 

CHAPTER 36

 

The following day I went out again, braving the heat to buy the various things I had been asked to get. It had not seemed much when I received the letter with the list of purchases, but when it came to the point, it proved extremely tiresome. Wiping my sweat as I sat in the streetcar, I cursed these country folk who never spared a sympathetic thought for the time and effort to which they were putting someone else.

     I did not intend to spend my summer back at home idly. I had worked out a daily program to follow and set out to gather the books I needed to pursue my plan. I had decided to spend a good half day on the second floor of Maruzen bookshop, looking through the foreign books. I located the shelves particularly relevant to my field and went through them methodically, investigating every book.

     The most troublesome item on the shopping list was some ladies’ kimono collars. The shop assistant produced quite a few of them for me to look at, but when the time came for me to decide which ones to purchase, I could not. Another problem was that the prices seemed quite arbitrary. A collar that looked cheap turned out to be highly expensive, while others that I had passed over as expensive-looking actually cost very little. For the life of me I could not tell what made one more valuable than another. The whole mission defeated me, and I regretted not having troubled Sensei’s wife to come along and help me.

     I bought a travel bag. It was, of course, only an inferior, locally made one, but its shiny metal fittings would look impressive enough to dazzle country folk. My mother had asked me in a letter to buy a travel bag, to carry all the gifts home, and she had specifically said a new bag. I’d laughed aloud when I read that. I appreciated her kindly intention, but the words somehow struck me as funny.

     Three days later I set off on the train for home, as I had told Sensei and his wife I would on the night when I said my farewells. Sensei had been warning me about my father’s illness since winter, and I had every reason to be concerned about it, but for some reason the question did not much bother me. I was more disturbed by the problem of how my poor mother would fare after his death.

     Clearly, something in me had already accepted the fact that he must die. In a letter to my elder brother in Kyushu I had admitted as much, writing that our father could not possibly recover his health. Although no doubt he was tied up with work, I added, perhaps my brother should try to get back and see him over the summer. I rounded it off with an emotional plea that our two aged parents living together alone in the country must surely be lonely, which should lie heavily on the consciences of us children. I wrote those words simply as they occurred to me, but once they were out, I found myself feeling rather different.

     In the train I pondered these contradictions, and I soon began to see myself as superficial and emotionally irresponsible. Gloomily, I thought again of Sensei and his wife and recalled our conversation of a few evenings earlier, when I had gone there for dinner.

     I pondered the question that had arisen between them then: Which will die first? Who could give a confident answer to that question? I thought. And suppose the answer were clear. What would Sensei do? What would his wife do? Surely the only thing either could do was continue just as they were—just as I too was helpless in the face of my father’s approaching death back at home. A sense of human fragility swept over me, of the hopeless frailty of our innately superficial nature.

 

 

PART II

MY PARENTS AND I

 

CHAPTER 37

 

When I arrived home, I was surprised to see that my father’s health seemed remarkably unchanged.

     “So you’re home, eh?” he greeted me. “Well, well. Still, it’s a fine thing you’ve graduated. Wait a moment, I’ll just go and wash my face.”

     He had been engaged in some task out in the garden, and now he went around to the well at the back of the house. As he walked, the grubby handkerchief he had fixed to the back of his old straw hat to keep off the sun flapped behind him.

     I considered graduation a perfectly normal achievement, and my father’s unexpected degree of pleasure in it was gratifying.

     “A fine thing you’ve graduated”—he repeated these words again and again. In my heart, I compared my father’s joy with Sensei’s reaction at the dinner table after the graduation ceremony. He had said “Congratulations,” but his private disdain was evident in his face. Sensei, I thought, was more cultured and admirable than my father, with his unashamed delight. In the final analysis, what I felt was displeasure at the reek of country boorishness in my father’s innocence.

     “There’s nothing particularly fine in graduating from the university,” I found myself responding testily. “Hundreds of people do it every year, you know.”

     My father’s expression changed. “I’m not just talking about the graduation. That’s a fine thing, to be sure, but what I’m saying has a bit more to it. If only you’d understand what I’m getting at . . .”

     I asked him what he meant. He seemed disinclined to talk about it at first but finally said, “What I mean is, it’s fine for me personally. You know about this illness of mine. When I saw you in the winter, at the end of last year, I had a feeling I might not last more than three or four more months. And here I am, still doing so well. It’s wonderful. I can still get around without any trouble. And now you’ve graduated as well. That’s why I’m happy, see?

     “You must realize how it pleases me that this son of mine, whom I raised with such love and care, should graduate while I’m still alive and well to witness it. Having someone make such a fuss about a mere graduation must seem boring to you, with all your aspirations—I can see that. But stand in my shoes, and you’ll see it a bit differently. What I’m saying is, it’s a fine thing for me, if not for you, don’t you see?”

     Speechless, I hung my head, overwhelmed by shame that no apology could express. I saw that my father had calmly been preparing to die and had decided it would probably happen before my graduation. I had been a complete fool not to think of how my graduation would make him feel.

     I took the diploma from my bag and spread it out carefully for my parents to see. Something had crushed it, and it was no longer quite the shape it had been.

     My father smoothed it tenderly. “You should have carried such a precious thing home by hand, rolled up,” he said.

     “You’d have done better to wrap it around something solid,” my mother chipped in from beside him.

     After gazing at it for a while, my father rose to his feet and carried it over to the alcove, where he arranged it so that anyone who entered would immediately catch sight of it. Normally I would have made some remonstrance, but just now I was a very different person than usual. I felt not the slightest inclination to contradict my parents. I sat silently and let my father do as he would.

     The warp in the thick, elegant paper refused to respond to his attempts to straighten it. No sooner had he managed to smooth it flat and stand it where he wanted than it would spring back of its own accord and threaten to tip over.

 

CHAPTER 38

 

I called my mother aside and asked about his health. “Is it really all right for him to be going out in the garden like this and being so active?”

     “There’s nothing wrong with him. He seems on the whole to have recovered.”

     She seemed oddly calm. Typically for a woman who had spent her life among fields and woods far from the city, she was completely innocent in such matters. Yet her calmness struck me as peculiar, considering how disconcerted and worried she had been earlier, when my father had fainted. “But back then the doctor’s diagnosis was that it was a very problematic illness, wasn’t it?”

     “Well, it seems to me there’s no knowing what the human body’s capable of. The doctor sounded very grim, and yet look at your father today, still so hale and hearty. I was worried for a while and tried all I could to stop him from doing things. But that’s just who he is, isn’t it? He takes care of himself, but he’s stubborn. Once he gets it into his head that he’s well, he’ll ignore me if I try to tell him otherwise.”

     I recalled the way my father had looked and acted on my previous visit, when he had made such an effort to be out of bed and shaved. Your mother shouldn’t go exaggerating things, he had said, but I couldn’t entirely blame her. I was about to suggest that she should at least keep an eye on him but thought better of it. I just told her everything I knew about his disease, although most of it was only what I had learned from Sensei and his wife.

     My mother did not seem particularly affected as she listened. She merely remarked, “Well, well, the same illness, eh? Poor thing. What age was she when she died?”

     I gave up pursuing the matter with her any further and went directly to my father.

     He listened to my warnings with more attention. “Absolutely. Just as you say,” he responded. “But after all, my body’s my own, you know, and naturally I know best how to look after it, with all my years of experience.”

     When I repeated this remark to my mother, she smiled grimly. “There you are, I told you so.”

     “But he’s thoroughly aware of the problem. That’s exactly why he was so overjoyed to see me after I graduated. He told me so. He said he’d thought before that he might not be alive, so he was happy he’d survived in good health till I could bring back the diploma for him to see.”

     “Well, he’s just saying that, you know. In his heart of hearts he’s convinced he’s still fine.”

     “You really think so?”

     “He plans to live another ten or twenty years. Mind you, he does talk rather mournfully sometimes. ‘I may not have much longer to go,’ he’ll say. ‘What will you do when I die? Will you stay on here alone?’ ”

     I found myself imagining this big old country house with my mother left alone here after my father’s death. Would she be able to keep it going on her own? What would my brother do? What would she say? And in the face of this knowledge, could I turn my back on the situation and go back to my carefree life in Tokyo? Now, with my mother before me, Sensei’s warning sprang into my mind—that I must make sure the property division was seen to while my father was still well.

     “But there you are,” she continued. “People can carry on about dying and never show any sign of actually doing it, you know. That’s how your father is; he’ll talk of death like this, but who knows how long he’ll go on living? So don’t worry. There’s actually more cause to worry with someone who seems healthy and never talks like that.”

     I listened in silence to these trite sentiments, unsure whether they sprang from mere speculation or hard facts.

 

CHAPTER 39

 

My parents discussed together the idea of inviting guests over for a special celebratory meal in my honor. I had had a gloomy premonition that this might happen ever since I arrived.

     I was quick to reject the idea, begging them not to go making an unnecessary fuss.

     I disliked the kind of guests you got in the provinces. They came over with the sole intention of eating and drinking, happy for any excuse to get together. Since childhood I had suffered at having to be present at the table with these people—I could well imagine how much more painful it would be if I was the cause of the gathering. But I couldn’t very well tell my parents not to invite such vulgar people over for a noisy get-together, so I contented myself with stressing that I didn’t want all this fuss about nothing.

     “But it’s far from nothing,” my mother responded. “It’s a once-in-alifetime event. It’s only natural that we should have a party to celebrate. Don’t be so modest.” She seemed to be taking my graduation as seriously as she would a marriage.

     “We don’t have to invite them,” my father put in, “but if we don’t, there’ll be talk.” He was concerned about what would be said behind his back. And true enough, these people were inclined to gossip and criticize at the slightest provocation if things weren’t done as they believed they should be in such situations.

     “It’s not like Tokyo, you know,” he went on. “Here in the country people make demands.”

     “Your father’s reputation is at stake too,” my mother added.

     I couldn’t press my own position. I decided simply to go along with whatever suited them.

     “I was just asking you not to do it for my sake. If you feel there’d be unpleasant talk behind your back, that’s a different matter. There’s no point in insisting on having my way if it’s going to cause problems for you.”

     “You’re making things difficult with that argument,” my father said unhappily.

     “Your father wasn’t saying he’s doing it for your sake,” my mother broke in. “But surely you must be aware yourself of your social obligations.” Woman that she was, my mother’s reasoning grew rather incoherent at such times, though when it came to talking, she could easily outdo my father and me combined.

     All my father said was “It’s a shame that an education just gives people the means to chop logic.” But in this simple comment I read all my father’s dissatisfaction with me. Unaware of my own stiff and chilly tone, I thought only of how unfairly he was seeing me.

     His mood improved that evening, and he asked me when it would suit me to invite the guests. No time was more suitable than any other for me, since I was just hanging around the old house doing nothing but sleeping and waking, so I took this as an indication that my father was being conciliatory. Seeing him so mild and gentle, I could only bow my head in acquiescence. We discussed the question and came up with a date for the invitations.

     But before the day arrived, something important occurred: it was announced that Emperor Meiji was ill. The word spread quickly around Japan via the newspapers.

     The plans for the celebratory party had already upset our provincial household. Now, just when the matter seemed settled, this news came to scatter those plans like so much dust upon the wind.

     “Under the circumstances I think we’d better call it off.” So said my father as he sat, bespectacled, reading the newspaper. He seemed to be silently thinking also of his own illness.

     For my part, I recalled the sight of the emperor when he had so recently come to the university, as was the custom, for our graduation ceremony.

 

CHAPTER 40

 

A hush fell over our big old echoing house and its few inhabitants. I unpacked my wicker trunk and tried to read, but for some reason I felt restless. I had been far more happily focused and able to study back in my second-floor room in hectic Tokyo, turning the pages as the distant streetcars rattled in my ears.

     Now as I read, I was inclined to drop my head onto the desk and nap; sometimes I brought out a pillow and indulged in a real sleep. I would awaken to the pounding song of cicadas. That sound, which seemed like a continuation of my dreams, suddenly tormented my ears with painful intensity. As I lay motionless, listening, sad thoughts would sometimes settle over me.

     Abandoning reading for my writing brush, I wrote brief post-cards or long letters to various friends. Some had stayed on in Tokyo, while others had returned to distant homes. Some replied; from others I heard nothing. Needless to say, I did not neglect Sensei—I sent him three closely written pages describing all that had happened since my return. As I sealed the envelope, I wondered whether he was still in Tokyo.

     Customarily, whenever Sensei and his wife went away, a woman in her fifties with a plain widow’s haircut came and looked after the house. I once asked him what relation she was to them, to which he replied, “What do you think?” I had had the mistaken impression that she was a relative of his. “I have no relatives,” he responded, when I told him this. He had absolutely no communication with anyone related to him back in his hometown. The woman who looked after the house turned out to be someone from his wife’s family.

     As I slipped my letter into the post, an image of this woman, her narrow obi informally knotted at her back, rose unbidden in my mind. If this letter arrived after Sensei and his wife had left for their summer retreat, would she have the good sense and kindness to send it straight on to him? I wondered. I was well aware that the letter did not contain anything of real importance; it was just that I was lonely and anticipating his reply. But nothing came.

     My father was not as keen on playing shōgi as he had been the previous winter. The dust-covered shōgi board had been set aside in a corner of the alcove. Since the news of the emperor’s illness reached us, he had grown thoughtful and preoccupied. He waited each day for the newspaper to be delivered and was the first to read it. Once done he would bring its pages over for me, wherever I happened to be.

     “Here, look at this. More details on His Majesty’s condition.” This was how he always referred to the emperor. “It’s a presumptuous thing to say, but His Majesty’s illness is a little like my own.”

     My father’s expression was clouded with apprehension. At his words, I felt a sudden flicker of anxiety that he might die at any time.

     “But I’m sure it will be all right,” he went on. “Mere nobody that I am, I’m still doing fine, after all.” Even as he was congratulating himself on his state of health, he seemed to anticipate the danger that threatened to descend at any moment.

     “Father is actually afraid of his illness, you know,” I told my mother. “He’s not really determined to live another ten or twenty years as you say he is.”

     Bewilderment and distress appeared on her face. “Try to interest him a bit in playing shōgi again, will you?” she said.

     I retrieved the shōgi board from the alcove and wiped off the dust.

 

CHAPTER 41

 

Slowly my father’s health and spirits declined. His big straw hat with its handkerchief, the one that had taken me by surprise when I first arrived, now lay neglected. Whenever I caught sight of it on the soot-blackened shelf I was filled with pity for him. While he still managed to be up and about with ease, I anxiously cautioned him to take things more carefully. Now, seeing him sitting pensive and silent, I realized he had indeed been relatively well before.

     My mother and I had many discussions about it.

     “It’s his state of mind that’s doing it,” she maintained, connecting his illness with that of the emperor.

     But I felt it was not so simple. “I don’t think it’s just his state of mind; I think he’s actually gone downhill physically. It’s his health that’s the problem, not his mood.”

     As I spoke, I began to feel it would be wise to call in a good doctor from somewhere else to have a look at him.

     “You’re having a very boring summer, aren’t you?” my mother remarked. “We can’t celebrate this fine graduation of yours, and your father so unwell. And then there’s His Majesty’s illness—we really should have had that party as soon as you got home.”

     I had returned on the fifth or sixth of July, and my parents had begun to talk about the celebration a week later. The date that had finally been chosen was over a week after this. This leisurely country approach, free of any sense of urgency, had spared me the social occasion I so disliked. But my uncomprehending mother seemed unaware of my relief.

     The day word of the emperor’s death arrived, my father groaned aloud, newspaper in hand. “His Majesty has passed away! And I too . . .” He said no more.

     I went into the town to buy some black mourning cloth. We wrapped it around the shiny metal ball on the tip of our flag-pole, hung a long threeinch-wide strip from the top of the pole, and propped it at our front gate, pointing at an angle into the street. The flag and the black mourning strip hung listlessly in the windless air. The little roof over our old gate was thatch; long exposure to rain and wind had discolored it to a pale gray, and the surface was visibly pitted. I stepped out into the street to examine the effect, taking in the combination of black strip of cloth and white muslin flag with its red rising sun symbol dyed in the center, and the look of this flag against the dingy thatch of the roof. Sensei had once asked me what sort of street front our house had. “I imagine it looks very different from the gate at the house where I grew up,” he’d said. I would have liked to show Sensei this old house I was born in, but the idea also made me embarrassed.

      Back inside, I sat alone at my desk, reading the newspaper and imagining the scenes in distant Tokyo. The images in my mind coalesced into a scene of the vast city stirring everywhere with movement in the midst of a great darkness; I saw Sensei’s house, a single point of light in the seething, anxious throng that struggled blindly through the blackness.

     I could not know that even then the little light was being drawn irresistibly into the great soundless whirl of darkness, and that I was watching a light that was destined soon to blink out and disappear.

     I reached for my writing brush, thinking I would write to Sensei about the emperor’s death, but having written about ten lines, I stopped. I tore the page into shreds and threw it in the bin—it seemed pointless to write these things to Sensei, and besides, judging from previous experience, I would receive no reply. I was lonely. This was why I wrote letters: I hoped for a response.

 

CHAPTER 42

 

In mid-August I received a letter from one of my friends, saying that a certain middle school in the provinces had an opening for a teacher and asking me if I would like to take it. This friend was himself actively searching for such a position, from financial necessity. The offer had originally been directed to him, but he had found a position in a better part of the country, so he’d kindly offered it to me. I quickly sent back a refusal, saying that a number of other people we knew were doing their best to find teaching positions, and he should offer it to one of them.

     After I sent the letter, I told my parents about it. Neither seemed to object to the fact that I had declined the offer. “There’ll be other good jobs. You don’t need to go off to a place like that,” they both said.

     Behind these words I read their exaggerated expectations for my future. Unthinkingly, they seemed to assume I would be able to find a position and salary far above what I could hope for as someone freshly graduated.

     “It’s actually very difficult to find a decent position these days, you know. I’m in a different field from my brother, remember, and we’re different generations. Please don’t go assuming it will be the same for me as for him.”

     “But you must at least get yourself some independent means now that you’re graduated, or it makes things awkward for us too,” my father said. “How do you think I’d feel if people asked, ‘What’s your son doing now that he’s through university? ’ and I couldn’t reply?” He frowned unhappily.

     His view of life was firmly confined to the little world where he’d spent his life. Inquisitive locals had been asking him how much salary a graduate could expect to earn, guessing at princely sums of around a hundred yen a month. That made him uncomfortable, and he very much wanted to get me settled into a position that would save his face.

     My own point of view, based as it was on the great cosmopolitan world of Tokyo, made me seem to my parents as bizarre as someone who walked upside down. Even I found myself on occasion considering myself this way. My parents were so many light-years from my own position that I couldn’t begin to confess what I really thought, so I held my tongue.

     “Why don’t you go to this Sensei you keep talking about and ask for his assistance?” my mother suggested. “This is surely the very moment he could help.”

     These were the only terms in which she could comprehend Sensei. But this was the man who had urged me, when I got home, to ensure that I got my share of the property before my father’s death. He was hardly likely to try to find me a position.

     “What does your Sensei do for a living?” my father inquired.

     “He doesn’t do anything.” I thought I had told them this long ago. Surely my father remembered.

     “So why doesn’t he do anything, eh? I’d have thought someone you respect so much would be in a profession.” My father was gently taunting me. To his way of thinking, useful people must be out in the world, engaged in something suitably impressive. There you are, he was insinuating, the fellow’s worthless, that’s why he’s lazing about doing nothing. “Look at me, now. I don’t get a salary, but I’m far from idle, you know.”

     I remained silent.

     “If he’s as fine a person as you say, he’ll surely find you a position,” my mother said. “Have you tried asking?”

     “No,” I replied.

     “Well, what’s the good of that? Why won’t you ask? Go on, just write a letter at least.”

     “Mmm,” I replied vaguely, and stood up.

 

CHAPTER 43

 

My father was clearly afraid of his illness, yet he wasn’t the type to plague the doctor with difficult questions when he came to visit. For his part, the doctor kept his opinions to himself and made no pronouncements.

     My father was apparently giving some thought to what would happen once he died, or at any rate he was imagining the posthumous household.

     “Giving your children an education has its good and bad points, I must say. You go to the trouble of training them, and then they don’t come home again. It seems to me an education is the easy way to split up a family.”

     Thanks to my brother’s education, he was living far away, and my own education had resulted in my decision to live in Tokyo. My father’s grumblings were perfectly understandable. He must certainly have been feeling forlorn at the thought of my mother left all alone in this big old country house they’d lived in so long together.

     My father was of the firm belief that there could be no change in the house, and that my mother would remain there until the day she died. The thought of leaving her to live out her lonely existence in this echoing shell of a place filled him with anxiety, and yet he was insisting I find a job in Tokyo. I found this contradiction rather funny, but it also pleased me, since it meant I could go back to live in the city.

     In their company I was forced to pretend that I was doing my very best to look for a job. I wrote to Sensei, explaining the situation at home in great detail. I asked if he could recommend me for any position, and I assured him that I’d be happy to do whatever was in my power. As I wrote, I was aware that he was unlikely to take any notice of my request, and that even if he wished to help me, he lacked the contacts to be able to do so. But I did think that the letter would at least elicit a response from him.

     Before I sealed it, I said to my mother, “I’ve written to Sensei, just as you wanted. Here, have a look.”

     As I’d anticipated, she didn’t read it. “Have you? Well, then, be quick and send it off. You should have done this long ago, without having to be told.”

     She still thought of me as a child, and indeed I still felt like one. “But a letter by itself isn’t enough,” I said. “Nothing will happen unless I’m there in person. I really ought to go back to Tokyo around September.”

     “That may well be true, but you never know what fine offer may come up in the meantime, so it’s best to put in an early request.”

     “Yes,” I replied. “Anyway, I’ll tell you more when Sensei’s answer comes. He’ll certainly reply.” I was in no doubt that he would. Sensei was a meticulous man.

     I waited expectantly for a letter from him. But I had assumed wrongly. A week passed, and still nothing arrived.

     “He must have gone off somewhere to escape the summer heat,” I told my mother, forced to defend him with some explanation. This justification was intended not only for her but for myself. I needed a hypothesis that would somehow justify Sensei’s silence, to spare myself a growing unease.

     From time to time I forgot my father’s illness and felt inclined to escape back to Tokyo early. My father himself forgot that he was ill, in fact. Anxious though he was about the future, he made no moves to deal with the problem. Time passed, and I found no opportunity to bring up the matter of the division of property with him as Sensei had advised.

 

CHAPTER 44

 

When September arrived, I was impatient to return to Tokyo. I asked my father if he would continue to send money for a while, as he had for my studies.

     “While I’m here, you see, I can’t find myself the position you say I should,” I said. This was my explanation to him for returning to Tokyo. Of course, I added, he need only send the money until I found myself a job.

     Privately, I felt that such a thing was unlikely to actually come my way. My father, on the other hand, knew nothing of actual circumstances and firmly believed the opposite.

     “Well, then, it’s only for a short while, so I’ll see what I can do. But not for long, you understand. You have to get yourself some good work and become independent, you know. You really should not have to rely on anyone from the day you graduate. Young people these days seem just to know how to spend money and never think of how to make it.”

     He had various other things to say on the subject as well, including, “In the old days children fed their parents, but these days they devour them.”

     I heard him out in silence. When his lecturing seemed to have run its course, I stood quietly to leave.

     He asked me when I was planning to go. The sooner the better, as far as I was concerned.

     “Ask your mother to find an auspicious day in her almanac,” he said.

     “I will.”

     I was extraordinarily meek with him. I hoped to be able to leave without having to stand up to him, but he held me back.

     “We’ll be lonely when you’re gone, with just the two of us here. It would be fine if I were well, but as things stand, there’s no knowing what might happen when.”

     I did my best to console him and returned to my desk. Sitting among my jumble of books, I thoughtfully turned over in my mind my father’s unhappy words and what lay behind them. As I did so, I heard again the cicada’s song. This time it wasn’t a continuous shrill but the intermittent call of the cicada known as tsutsukubōshi, which sings toward the end of summer. In past summers when I had been home, I had often tasted a strange sadness as I sat quietly in the midst of the seething cicada song. This sorrow seemed to pierce deep into my heart along with the piercing insect cry. Always at such times I would sit alone and still, gazing into myself.

     Since returning home this time the sadness had undergone a gradual change. As the summer cicada’s strident song gradually gave way to the more hesitant call of the tsutsukubōshi, the fates of those around me also seemed to be slowly turning through the great karmic wheel. As I pondered my father’s lonely words and feelings, I thought of Sensei, from whom I had received no reply. Since Sensei and my father seemed exactly opposite types, they easily came to mind as a pair, through both association and comparison.

     I knew almost everything about my father. When we parted, the emotional bond between parent and child would be all that remained. Of Sensei, on the other hand, I still knew very little. I had had no chance to hear from him the promised story of his past. Sensei was, in a word, still opaque to me. I could not rest until I had moved beyond this state and entered a place of clarity. Any break in relations with him would cause me anguish.

     I asked my mother to consult the almanac and fixed on a date for my return to Tokyo.

 

CHAPTER 45

 

It was almost time for me to leave—it must have been my second-to-last evening at home—when my father had another fall. I was tying up the wicker trunk packed with my books and clothes. My father had just gone into the bathroom. My mother went in to wash his back, then cried out to me. When I rushed in, my naked father was slumped over, supported from behind by my mother. By the time we brought him back into his room, however, he was declaring that he was all right. Nevertheless, I sat by his pillow cooling his forehead with a damp towel until nine o’clock, when I finally got up to eat a light supper.

     The next day my father was in better shape than expected and insisted on getting up to go to the toilet himself, despite our protests.

     “I’m fine again,” he announced, repeating the words he had spoken to me the previous winter, after he had had the first fall. At that time he had indeed been more or less fine, and I hoped that the same would prove to be the case this time. But the doctor just cautioned us to be careful, and even when we pressed him, he would say nothing more definite.

     Because of this fresh anxiety, when the day of my departure arrived, I no longer felt inclined to go. “Should I stay a bit longer, just to see how it goes?” I said to my mother.

     “Yes, please do,” she begged me.

     My mother, who had been unconcerned as long as my father could still go out into the garden or the backyard, now overreacted in the opposite direction and was consumed with worry.

     “Wasn’t this the day you were going back to Tokyo?” my father inquired.

     “Yes, but I’ve put it off for a while,” I told him.

     “Is it because of me?” he asked.

     I hesitated. If I said it was, it would only confirm that he was seriously ill. I didn’t want to unnerve him.

     But he must have read what was in my heart, for he said, “That’s a shame for you,” and turned away to face the garden.

     I went back to my room and looked at the wicker trunk abandoned there. It was securely fastened, ready to leave at a moment’s notice. I stood vacantly before it, wondering whether to untie the straps.

     I spent three or four days in a state of awkward suspension, like one halfrisen from his seat to leave. Then my father had another fall. The doctor ordered absolute rest.

     “What will we do?” my mother murmured to me, in a voice hushed so that my father would not hear. She looked miserable.

     I got ready to send telegrams to my brother and sister. But my father was experiencing almost no pain. The way he talked, he might have been in bed with no more than a cold. And he had an even better appetite than usual. He was disinclined to listen to warnings from those around him.

     “Since I’m going to die, I intend to die eating tasty food.”

     These words struck me as both comic and tragic. After all, he was not in the city, where really tasty food was actually to be had. In the evening he asked for strips of persimmon-flavored rice cake, which he munched on with relish.

     “Why should he hanker so? He must surely still have quite a strong spirit,” said my mother, groping in her despair for anything positive. Interestingly, to refer to his desire for food, she was using an old expression that was once specifically associated with illness.

     My uncle paid my father a visit, and as he rose to leave, my father held him back, loath to let him go home. He said it was because he was lonely, but he also seemed to want to complain to someone about how my mother and I weren’t giving him enough to eat.

 

CHAPTER 46

 

My father’s condition remained unchanged for over a week. During that time I sent a long letter to my brother in Kyushu and asked my mother to write to my sister. I had a strong feeling that these would probably be the last letters detailing to them my father’s state of health. Our letters included the information that we would telegram when the time came, so they should stand ready to come at short notice.

     My brother was in a busy line of work. My sister was pregnant. Neither was in a position to be called until my father was in evident danger. On the other hand, it would be awful if they were asked to make the journey only to arrive too late. I felt a private weight of responsibility about exactly when the telegrams should be sent.

     “I couldn’t give you a precise answer on that, but you must understand that the danger can arise at any time,” said the doctor, who had come from the nearby railway station. I talked it over with my mother, and we asked him to arrange for a nurse from the hospital to be hired. When my father laid eyes on this woman, who arrived at his bedside in a white uniform to greet him, he had a peculiar expression on his face.

     My father had long known that he was mortally ill. Nevertheless, he was unaware that death was now fast approaching.

     “When I’m well again, I might take another trip to Tokyo,” he remarked. “Who knows when you’ll die? You have to do all the things you want while you’re alive to do them.”

     My mother could only respond with “I hope you’ll take me along when you go.”

     But sometimes he grew deeply dejected. “Do make sure to take good care of your mother when I die,” he said to me.

     His “when I die” evoked a certain memory. That evening after my graduation, when I was preparing to leave Tokyo, Sensei had used this same phrase several times in the conversation with his wife. I remembered Sensei’s smiling face as he spoke, and his wife blocking her ears against the inauspicious words. The words had been merely hypothetical then, but now they rang with the certainty that sometime soon they would be fulfilled.

     I could not emulate Sensei’s wife’s response, but I did need to find a way of distracting my father from his thoughts.

     “Let’s hear you talking a bit more optimistically. Didn’t you say you’d take a trip to Tokyo when you were well again?” I asked. “With Mother. You’ll be amazed when you see it next, at how it’s changed. The streetcars, for instance—there are all sorts of new routes now. And once streetcars go into a neighborhood, of course, the whole look of the area changes. And the city divisions were recently revised—there’s not a moment day or night when Tokyo stands still.” My tongue went prattling on out of control, while he listened contentedly.

     The presence of an invalid meant that there were a lot more comings and goings at the house. Every few days one or another of the relatives called to visit my father. Among them were some who lived farther away and were normally not in close contact. One remarked as he left, “I was wondering how he’d be, but he seems quite well. He talks without effort, and I must say, to look at his face, he hasn’t lost a bit of weight.” The household, almost too quiet for comfort when I first arrived, was now filled with increasing bustle and activity.

     My father’s illness was the one thing that stood still in the midst of all this coming and going, and it was slowly growing worse. After consulting with my mother and uncle, I finally sent off the telegrams I had prepared. My brother replied that he would soon be there, and my sister’s husband replied similarly—her previous pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage, and her husband had already intimated that they were taking particular care that it wouldn’t become the pattern, so he would probably come in her place.

 

CHAPTER 47

 

Amid all this unrest, I nevertheless found time to sit quietly. Occasionally I even managed to open a book and read ten pages or so before I was distracted. The trunk I had packed and closed had been reopened, and I retrieved things from it as the need arose. I reviewed the schedule of study I had set up for myself back in Tokyo. I had not achieved even a third of what I’d hoped to do. The same depressing thing had happened numerous times before, it’s true, but rarely had my study gone less according to plan than this summer. I tried telling myself that this was probably simply the way it goes, but nevertheless my sense of failure oppressed me.

     Huddled unhappily in self-castigations, I also thought of my father’s illness. I tried to imagine how things would be after his death. And this thought brought another, the thought of Sensei. At both ends of the spectrum of my misery were poised the images of these two men, so opposite in social standing, education, and character.

     Once when I left my father’s bedside and went back to my room, my mother looked in and found me sitting alone, arms folded, amid my jumble of books.

     “Why not take a nap?” she suggested. “You must be a bit exhausted.”

     She had no comprehension of how I felt. Nor was I childish enough to really expect her to. I simply thanked her. However, she continued standing in the doorway.

     “How’s Father?” I asked.

     “He’s having a good sleep,” she replied.

     Suddenly she stepped into the room and came and sat beside me.

     “Has anything come from Sensei yet?”

     She had believed me when I assured her there would be a reply. But even when I was writing to him, I had had no expectation that he would send the kind of reply they were hoping for. In effect, I had knowingly deceived her.

     “Write to him again, will you?” she urged.

     I was not inclined to begrudge the effort of writing any number of useless letters if it would comfort my mother, but having to press Sensei on this matter was painful. I dreaded earning his scorn far more than being scolded by my father or hurting my mother. I already suspected that his lack of response to my previous letter bespoke precisely that reaction from him.

     “It’s easy enough to write a letter,” I said, “but this isn’t the sort of matter that gets solved through the mail. I have to go to Tokyo and present myself in person.”

     “But with your father the way he is, there’s no knowing when you can go to Tokyo.”

     “Exactly. And I’ll be staying here till we know what the story is, whether he gets better or not.”

     “That goes without saying. Who on earth would leave someone as ill as he is and take off to Tokyo, after all?”

     My first reaction was pity for my innocent mother. But I couldn’t understand why she would choose this hectic moment to bring up the problem. Was there something in her makeup that was equivalent to the oddly casual way I could forget my father’s illness and sit calmly reading, something that allowed her to temporarily forget the invalid in her care and concern herself like this with other matters?

     As this thought was crossing my mind, my mother spoke. “Actually,” she said, “actually, it’s my belief it would be a great comfort to your father if you could find yourself a position before he died. The way things are going, it may be too late, but really, the way he talks shows he’s still quite aware of things. You should be a good son and make him happy while you still can.”

     Alas, the situation prevented me from being a good son, and I wrote no more to Sensei.

 

CHAPTER 48

 

When my brother arrived, my father was lying in bed reading the newspaper. My father had always made a special point of looking through the newspaper every day, and since he had taken to his bed, boredom had exacerbated this urge. My mother and I held our tongues, determined to indulge him in any way he wanted.

     “It’s wonderful to find you looking so well,” said my brother cheerfully as he sat talking with him. “I came expecting you to be in a pretty bad way, but you seem absolutely fine.” His boisterous high spirits struck me as rather out of keeping with the situation.

     When he left my father’s side and came to talk to me, however, he was much more somber. “Isn’t it a bad idea to let him read the newspaper?”

     “I think so too, but he won’t take no for an answer, so what can we do?”

     My brother listened in silence to my justifications, then asked, “How well does he understand it, I wonder?” He had apparently concluded that my father’s illness had affected his grasp of things.

     “He understands just fine,” chimed in my sister’s husband, who had arrived at about the same time. “I spent twenty minutes or so at his bedside talking about this and that, and there was no sign of a problem. He may well last a while yet, to judge from how he seems.” He was far more optimistic than we were.

     My father had asked him a number of questions about my sister. “You mustn’t let her rock about in trains, in her condition,” he had told him. “It would only be a worry for me if she endangered herself by coming to see me.” And he added, “Don’t worry, I’ll be better in no time, and then I’ll take the trip up there myself for a change and meet the baby.”

     When General Nogi committed ritual suicide soon after the emperor’s funeral, stating that he was following his lord into death, my father was the first to learn of it from the newspaper.

     “Oh no, this is dreadful!” he exclaimed.

     We, of course, knew nothing of what had prompted these words, and they gave us quite a shock. “I really thought he’d turned a bit odd,” my brother said later to me. “It sent a cold shiver down my spine.” My sister’s husband agreed that he’d been alarmed as well.

     Just then the paper was filled daily with news that made us country folk eager to read every issue. I would sit beside my father going carefully through its pages, and if I didn’t have enough time, I quietly carried it off to my room, where I read it cover to cover. The photograph of General Nogi in his military uniform, and his wife, who had died with him, dressed in what looked like the clothing of an imperial lady-in-waiting, stayed with me vividly for a long time.

     These tragic winds were penetrating even our distant corner of the land, shaking summer’s sleepy trees and grasses, when suddenly I received a telegram from Sensei. In this backwater, where the mere sight of someone dressed in the Western style would set the dogs barking, even a telegram was a major event.

     My startled mother was the one to accept its delivery at the door, and she called me over to hand it to me in private.

     “What is it?” she said, standing expectantly beside me as I opened the envelope.

     The telegram simply stated that he wanted to see me and asked if I could come. I cocked my head in puzzlement.

     “It’s bound to be about a position he’s found for you,” declared my mother, leaping to conclusions.

     Perhaps she was right, but if so, it seemed a bit strange. At any rate, having called my brother and brother-in-law to come because the end was near, I certainly couldn’t turn my back on my father’s illness and run off to Tokyo.

     I talked it over with my mother and decided to send a telegram replying that I was unable to go. I appended a very brief explanation that my father’s illness was becoming critical, but that was not enough to satisfy me. “Letter follows,” I added, and the same day I sent off a letter detailing the situation.

     “It’s such a shame it’s come at such a bad time,” my mother said ruefully, still convinced the summons had to do with some position he had found for me.

 

CHAPTER 49

 

The letter I wrote to Sensei was a fairly long one, and both my mother and I assumed that this time he would answer. Then two days later another telegram arrived for me. All it said was that I need not come. I showed it to my mother.

     “He must plan on sending a letter about it,” she said, still insisting on interpreting things in terms of the position that Sensei was helping me procure. I wondered if she might be right, though it did not fit the Sensei I knew. The proposition that “Sensei would find a position for me” struck me as out of the question.

     “Anyway, my letter won’t have reached him yet,” I said firmly. “He clearly sent this telegram before he read it.”

     “That’s true,” said my mother solemnly, appearing to ponder the matter, although the mere fact that he had sent the telegram before he read the letter could have given her no fresh information.

     That day the doctor was coming with the hospital’s head physician, so we had no more opportunity to discuss the subject. The two talked about my father and gave him an enema, then left.

     Ever since the doctor had ordered total rest, my father had needed help to urinate and defecate. Fastidious man that he was, at first he loathed the process, but his physical incapacity meant he had no option but to resort to a bedpan. Then perhaps his illness slowly dulled his reactions, for he gradually ceased to be concerned by excretion difficulties. Occasionally he would soil the bedclothes, but although this distressed those around him, he seemed unperturbed by it. The nature of his illness, of course, meant that the amount of urine lessened dramatically. This worried the doctor. His appetite too was gradually fading. If he occasionally wanted to eat something, it was only to taste it—he actually ate very little. He even lost the strength to take up his accustomed newspaper. The glasses by his bedside lay untouched in their black case.

     When he received a visit from Saku-san, a friend since childhood who now lived about two miles distant, my father merely turned glazed eyes in his direction. “Ah, Saku-san, is it?” he said. “Thanks for coming. I wish I was well like you. It’s all over for me.”

     “You’re the lucky one,” Saku-san responded. “Here you are with two sons graduated—a little illness is nothing to complain about. Look at me, now. Wife dead, and no children. The best you can say for me is I’m alive. What pleasure’s mere good health, eh?”

     A few days after Saku-san’s visit, my father was given the enema. He was delighted and grateful at how much better the doctor had made him feel, and his mood improved. He seemed to regain some of his will to live.

     Perhaps swayed by this improvement, or hoping to boost him further, my mother proceeded to tell him about Sensei’s telegram, quite as if a position had already been found for me in Tokyo as my father wished. It made me cringe to sit there listening to her, but I couldn’t contradict her, so I held my peace.

     My father looked happy.

     “That’s excellent,” my brother-in-law remarked.

     “Do you know yet what the position is?” asked my brother.

     Now things had gone so far, I lost the courage to deny the story. I prevaricated with some vague reply, incomprehensible even to myself, and left the room.

 

CHAPTER 50

 

My father’s condition deteriorated to the point where the fatal blow seemed imminent, only to hover there precariously. Each night the family would go to sleep feeling that tomorrow might well be the day of reckoning.

     He was completely free of the kind of pain that is a torture for others to witness—in this way at least, he was easy to nurse. We took care to ensure that someone was always taking his turn by the bedside, but the rest of us could usually settle down to sleep at a reasonable hour.

     Once when I couldn’t get to sleep for some reason, I mistakenly thought I heard my father faintly groaning. I slipped out of bed in the middle of the night and went to check on him. That evening it was my mother’s turn to stay up with him. I found her asleep beside him, her head resting on her crooked arm. My father lay peacefully at her side, like one laid gently down inside a deep sleep. I tiptoed back to bed again.

     I shared a bed under a mosquito net with my brother, while my sister’s husband, who was treated more as a guest, slept alone in a separate room.

     “Poor Seki,” my brother said. Seki was our brother-in-law’s family name. “He’s caught here day after day, when he ought to be getting back.”

     “But he can’t really be so busy, if he can stay on like this,” I said. “You’re the one who must be finding it difficult to stay so long.”

     “There’s no help for it, is there? This isn’t an everyday matter, after all.”

     So our conversation went as we lay there side by side. My brother believed, as did I, that our father was doomed, and this being so, we longed for it all to be over. Essentially we were awaiting our father’s death, but we were reluctant to express it that way. Yet each of us was well aware of what the other was thinking.

     “He seems to be still hoping he’ll recover, doesn’t he?” my brother remarked.

     This idea was not entirely unjustified. When neighbors came to visit him, my father always insisted on seeing them. He would then proceed to apologize that he hadn’t been able to invite them to my graduation celebration, sometimes adding that he’d make amends once he was better.

     “It’s a good thing your celebration party was canceled, you know,” my brother remarked to me. “Mine was dreadful, remember?” His words prodded my memory, and I smiled wryly, thinking of that event’s alcoholinflamed disorder. I had painful memories of the way my father had gone around forcing food and drink on everyone.

     We two brothers were not terribly close. When we were little, we had fought a lot, and being the younger, I was constantly reduced to tears. In school our different choices of field of study clearly reflected our different characters. While I was at the university, and especially once I had come in contact with Sensei, I came to look on my distant brother as rather an animal. We had not met for a long time and lived very far apart, so both time and distance separated us.

     But circumstances had at last brought us together again, and a brotherly affection sprang up naturally between us. The nature of the situation played a large part. There at the bedside of our dying father, my brother and I were reconciled.

     “What do you plan to do now?” my brother asked me.

     I responded with a question of a completely different order. “What’s the situation with the household property?”

     “I’ve no idea. Father hasn’t said a thing about it yet. But as far as actual money goes, it won’t amount to much, I’m sure.”

     As for my mother, she continued to fret over the awaited letter from Sensei, badgering me with reminders about it.

 

CHAPTER 51

 

“Who is this Sensei you keep talking about?” my brother asked.

     “I told you about him the other day, remember?” I replied crossly, annoyed that he could so easily forget the answer to a question he himself had asked.

     “Yes, I know what you said then.” He was implying that what I’d said didn’t explain it.

     Personally, I felt no need to bother trying to explain Sensei to my brother. But I was angry. That’s just like him, I thought.

     My brother was assuming that since I so evidently respected this man I honored with the name Sensei, he must be someone of distinction in the world, at the very least a professor at the university. What could be impressive about someone who had made no name for himself and did nothing?

     This instinct of my brother was in complete accord with my father’s. But while my father had jumped to the conclusion that Sensei was living an idle life because he was incapable of doing anything, my brother spoke in terms that dismissed him as hopelessly lazing about despite his abilities.

     “Egoists are worthless types. It’s sheer brazen laziness to spend your life doing nothing. A man’s talent amounts to nothing if he won’t set it to work and do all he can with it.”

     I felt like retorting that my brother didn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word egoist, which he was bandying about.

     “Still,” he added as an afterthought, “if this fellow can find you a position, it’s a fine thing. Father’s delighted at the prospect as well, you know.”

     As for me, I couldn’t believe Sensei could do such a thing until he gave me a clear answer; nor did I have the courage to claim otherwise. But thanks to my mother’s announcement of her hasty conclusions, I could not suddenly turn around and deny it. My longing for a letter from Sensei needed no urging from her, and I prayed that when it came, it might somehow fulfill everyone’s hopes with word of a position that would make me a living. Faced with the expectations of my father, so close to death, my mother with her urgent desire that he should be somehow reassured, and my brother and his statements that a man wasn’t fully human unless he worked, and indeed all the other relatives, I found myself tormented by an issue that I privately cared nothing about.

     Not long afterward my father vomited a strange yellow substance, and I recalled the danger that Sensei and his wife had spoken of.

     “His stomach must be upset from being bedridden for so long,” my mother concluded. Tears came to my eyes to see how little she understood.

     When my brother and I met in the sitting room, he said, “Did you hear?” He was referring to something the doctor had said to him as he was leaving.

     I needed no explanation to understand its import.

     My brother looked at me over his shoulder. “Would you like to come back home and manage the place?”

     I could make no reply.

     “Mother won’t be able to cope with it on her own,” he went on. Apparently he was perfectly happy to let me rot here in the dank and dreary countryside. “You can do all the reading you like in the country, and you wouldn’t have to work. It’d suit you down to the ground.”

     “The elder son’s the one who ought to come back,” I said.

     “How could I do that?” he said, curtly dismissing the suggestion. He was driven by the powerful urge to work in the wider world. “If you don’t want to do it, I suppose we could ask our uncle to help out, but someone will have to take Mother in.”

     “The first big question is whether she’d be willing to leave here or not.”

     Even while our father still lived, we were talking at cross-purposes about what would happen after his death.

 

CHAPTER 52

 

In his delirium my father sometimes spoke aloud.

     “General Nogi fills me with shame,” he mumbled from time to time. “Mortified to think of it—no, I’ll be following His Majesty very soon too.”

     These words disturbed my mother. She did her best to gather everyone at his bedside. That seemed to be what my father wanted, as whenever he was fully conscious, he constantly complained of loneliness.

     He was particularly upset if he looked around and found no sign of my mother. “Where’s Omitsu?” he would ask, and even when he did not speak the question, it was evident in his eyes. I would often stand and go to call her. She would leave what she had begun to do and come to the sickroom, saying, “Is there anything I can do?” but sometimes he would simply gaze wordlessly at her. At other times he would talk about something quite irrelevant. Or he would surprise her by saying gently, “You’ve been very good to me, Omitsu.” At this my mother’s eyes would always fill with tears. Then, however, she would remember his earlier, healthy self and remark, “He sounds so tender now, but he was quite a tyrant in the old days, you know.”

     She told the tale of how he had beaten her on the back with a broomstick. My brother and I had heard the story many times before, but now we listened with very different feelings, hearing in her words a precious recollection of one, as it were, already dead.

     Though the dark shadow of death hovered before his eyes, my father still did not speak of how he wished his estate to be managed after death.

     “Don’t you think we should ask while there’s still time?” my brother said, looking anxiously at me.

     “Yes, I guess so,” I replied. I could see arguments both for and against bringing up the subject when he was so ill.

     We decided in the end to take the question to our uncle before making a final decision, but he too scratched his head over the problem. “It would be a great pity if he died leaving things he wanted to say unsaid, but on the other hand, it doesn’t seem right to press things from our side.”

     The question ended up bogged down in indecision. And then my father slipped into unconsciousness. My mother, as innocent as ever, mistook it for sleep, and was quite pleased. “It’s a relief for everyone around if he can sleep as well as this,” she said.

     Occasionally my father would suddenly open his eyes and ask after one or another of us, always someone who had only just left his bedside. He seemed to have dark and light areas of consciousness, and the light part wove its way through the darkness like a discontinuous white thread, now there, now gone again. It was natural enough that my mother should confuse his comatose state for sleep.

     Then his words grew tangled. Sentences he began would end in confusion, so that often his speech made no sense. Yet when he first began to speak, it was in a voice so strong it seemed incredible that it emerged from one on his deathbed. Meanwhile whenever we spoke to him, we had to raise our voices and bring our lips close to his ear.

     “Does that feel good, when I cool your head?”

     “Mm.”

     The nurse and I changed his water pillow, then laid a fresh ice pack on his head, pressing it gently to the bald area above his forehead, until the sharp little fragments of chopped ice inside the bag settled with a harsh rustle.

     Just then my brother came in from the corridor and silently handed me a postal item. My right hand on the ice pack, I took it with my left, and as my hand received the weight, I registered puzzled surprise.

     It was considerably heavier than the usual letter. It wasn’t in a normalsize envelope; indeed, it was too bulky to fit in one. The package was wrapped in a piece of white writing paper, carefully pasted down. As soon as I took it from my brother, I realized it had been sent by registered mail. Turning it over, I saw Sensei’s name, written in a careful hand. Busy as I was just then, I couldn’t open the letter right away, so I slipped it into the breast of my kimono.

 

CHAPTER 53

 

That day my father’s condition seemed particularly bad. At one point, when I left the room to go to the toilet, I ran into my brother in the corridor.

     “Where are you off to?” he asked sharply, challenging me almost like a watch guard. “We must try to be constantly with him. He seems in bad shape.”

     I thought so too and returned to the sickroom without touching the letter I had tucked away.

     My father opened his eyes and asked my mother to tell him who was present. She carefully named us one by one, and at each name he nodded. If he failed to nod, she raised her voice and repeated the name, asking if he understood.

     “Thank you all very much,” my father said with careful formality, then sank back into unconsciousness. Everyone gathered around his bed watched him in silence for a while. Finally someone got up and went into the next room. Then another left. I was the third to leave at last and go off to my room. I intended to open the letter I had earlier slipped into my breast. I could, of course, easily have done this at the bedside, but the letter was evidently so long that I couldn’t have read it all then and there, so I stole some special time to myself to devote to the task.

     I tore roughly at the strong, fibrous paper that wrapped it. When I got it open, what emerged was a document written in a clear hand on ruled manuscript paper that had been folded in quarters to post. I bent back the kinks of the folds to straighten the pages for ease of reading.

     My astonished heart wondered what this great bulk of pages and its inked writing might tell me. Simultaneously, I was anxious about what was happening in the sickroom. I was in no state of mind to settle down calmly and read Sensei’s letter—I had a strong foreboding that if I began it, something would have happened to my father before I finished, or at the least someone would call me to his bedside. Nervously, I ran my eye over the first page. This is what it said:

     “When you asked me that day about my past, I had not the courage to reply, but I believe I have now achieved the freedom to lay the story clearly before you. This freedom, however, is merely circumstantial and will be lost if I wait until your return to Tokyo, and if I do not make use of it while I may, I will have forever missed the chance to present you with the story of my past, which will then become indirectly your own experience. If this opportunity is missed, that firm promise I made to you will have come to naught. Therefore, I must relate with my pen the words I should be speaking to you.”

     Only when I had read this far did I fully understand why he had written this long missive. I had believed all along that he would not bother sending a letter on the trivial question of my future employment. But why should Sensei, who disliked writing, have felt the urge to write about the past at such length? Why had it been impossible for him to wait until I returned?

     I am telling you because I am now free to. But that freedom will soon be lost forever. I turned the words over and over in my head, struggling to understand. Then a sudden anxiety flooded me. I returned to the letter, determined to read on, but at this moment there came a shout from my brother, calling to me from the sickroom. Startled, I jumped to my feet and ran down the corridor to join the others. I was prepared for this to be my father’s end.

 

CHAPTER 54

 

The doctor had appeared in the sickroom and was giving my father another enema in an attempt to ease his discomfort. The nurse, who had stayed up with him all night, was asleep in another room. Unused to such scenes, my brother was standing there looking unnerved. “Lend us a hand here,” he said when he saw me, and sat down again. I took his place by the bedside, helping out by holding the piece of oiled paper under my father’s buttocks.

     My father began to look a little more comfortable. The doctor stayed with him for about half an hour and checked the results of the enema, then left, saying he’d be back. As he was on his way out, he made a point of telling us we should call him at any time if something untoward occurred.

     Even though something seemed likely to happen at any moment, I left the fraught atmosphere of the sickroom to make another attempt to read Sensei’s letter. But I was quite unable to compose myself and give the words my attention. As soon as I was settled at my desk, I fully expected my brother to call out for me again, and my hand holding the letter shook with fear that this time it really would be the end.

     I flipped abstractedly through the pages, my eyes taking in the careful script that filled the little squares of the manuscript paper but completely unable to concentrate enough to read it. I could barely even skim it for a general sense of what was written.

     I went through page after page until I reached the last, then began to fold them up to leave on the desk. As I did so, a couple of lines near the close of the letter caught my eye.

     “When this letter reaches your hands, I will no longer be in this world. I will be long dead.”

     I caught my breath. My heart, until that moment agitated and distracted, instantly froze. I ran my eyes hastily back through the letter from the end, picking up a sentence here or there on each page. My eyes attempted to pierce the flickering words passing in front of them, in a desperate attempt to gain an understanding. All I wanted was reassurance that Sensei was safe. His past, that vague past that he had promised to explain, was completely beside the point in my present state of urgent need.

     At length, having run through the letter backward, I gave up and folded the pages, infuriated by this long letter that refused to give me the information I sought.

     I returned to the doorway of the sickroom, to check on my father’s condition. All was unusually quiet around him. I beckoned to my mother, who was sitting there looking faint from weariness, and asked how he was. “He seems unchanged for the moment,” she replied.

     I lowered my head to his face and asked, “How are you? Was the enema any help?”

     My father nodded. “Thanks,” he said in a clear voice. His mind seemed surprisingly lucid.

     Retreating to my room once more, I checked the clock against the train timetable. Suddenly I stood, tightened my kimono belt, and thrust Sensei’s letter into my sleeve. I went out through the backdoor. Frantically, I ran to the doctor’s house—I had to ask him to tell me plainly whether my father would survive a few more days, to beg him to use injections or some means to keep him alive a little longer.

     Unfortunately, the doctor was out. I had neither the time nor the patience to await his return. I climbed into a rickshaw and hurried on to the station.

     Once there, I penciled a letter to my mother and brother, holding the page against the station wall. It was very brief, but I judged it was better than simply running off without apology or explanation, so I gave it to the rickshaw man and asked him to hurry and deliver it. Then, with the vigor of decision, I leaped onto the Tokyo-bound train.

     Seated in the thundering third-class carriage, I retrieved Sensei’s letter from my sleeve and at last read it from beginning to end.

 

 

PART III

SENSEI’S TESTAMENT

 

CHAPTER 55

 

I have had two or three letters from you this summer. I seem to remember that in the second or third you asked my aid in securing a suitable position. When I read this, I had the impulse to help in some way. At the very least I should have replied, and I felt bad that I did not. But I must confess that I made absolutely no effort in response to your request. Living, as you know, not so much in a confined social milieu as entirely cut off from the social world, I simply had no means of doing so.

     But this was not my real problem. Truth to tell, I was just then struggling with the question of what to do about myself. Should I continue as I was, like a walking mummy doomed to remain in the human world, or . . . but whenever I whispered in my heart this or, a horror overcame me. I was like a man who rushes to the edge of a cliff and suddenly finds himself gazing down into a bottomless chasm. I was a coward, suffering precisely the agony that all cowards suffer. Sorry as I am to admit it, the simple truth is that your existence was the last thing on my mind. Indeed, to put it bluntly, the question of your work, of how you should earn a living, was utterly meaningless to me. I didn’t care. It was the least of my problems. I left your letter in the letter rack, folded my arms, and returned to my thoughts. Far from feeling sympathetic, I did no more than cast a bitter glance your way —a fellow from a family with a decent amount of property, only just graduated, and already making a fuss about a job! I confess this to you now by way of explanation for my unforgivable failure to respond. I am not being intentionally rude to stir your anger. I believe that as you read on, you will fully understand. At all events, I neglected to reply as I should have done, and I now apologize for my remissness.

     Afterward I sent you a telegram. In truth I rather wanted to see you just then. I wanted to tell you the story of my past, as you had asked. When you replied that you could not come to Tokyo, I sat for a long time gazing at the telegram in disappointment. You must have felt that your brief response was not enough, for you then wrote me that long letter, from which I understood the circumstances that held you at home. I have no cause to consider you rude. How could you have left your dear sick father back at home and come? Indeed, it was wrong of me to have summoned you so highhandedly, ignoring the problem of your father’s health—I had forgotten about him when I sent that telegram, I must admit. This despite the fact that I was the one who so earnestly advised you to take good care of him and emphasized how dangerous his illness was. I am an inconsistent creature. Perhaps it is the pressure of my past, and not my own perverse mind, that has made me into this contradictory being. I am all too well aware of this fault in myself. You must forgive me.

     When I read your letter—the last letter you wrote—I realized I had done wrong. I thought of writing to that effect, but I took up my pen, then laid it down again without writing a line. If I were to write to you, it must be this letter, you see, and the time for that had not yet quite come. That is why I sent the simple telegram saying you need not come.

 

CHAPTER 56

 

I then began to write this letter. Being unaccustomed to writing, I have agonized over the difficulty of describing my thoughts and experiences precisely as I wanted. Time and again I almost reached the point of giving up and abandoning the effort to fulfill my promise to you. But it was useless to put down the pen and decide to stop. Within an hour, the urge to write would return. You may well attribute this simply to my nature, as someone who is meticulous about promises and obligations. I don’t deny it. Being, as you know, quite isolated from human intercourse, I have not a single truly binding obligation in my life. Whether intentionally or by nature, I have lived so as to keep such ties to an absolute minimum. Not that I am indifferent to obligation. No, I spend my days so passively because of my very sensitivity to such things—I lack the energy to withstand the toll they take on my nerves. And so once I make a promise, it distresses me deeply if I do not fulfill it. It is partly in order to avoid being distressed on account of you that I must keep taking up the pen.

     Besides, I want to write. I want to write about my past, quite aside from the obligation involved. My past is my own experience—one might call it my personal property. And perhaps, being property, it could be thought a pity not to pass it on to someone else before I die. This is certainly more or less how I feel about it. But I would rather that my experience be buried with me than be passed to someone incapable of receiving it. In truth, if you did not exist, my past would have remained just that and would not become someone else’s knowledge even at second hand. Among the many millions of Japanese, it is to you alone that I want to tell the story of my past. Because you are sincere. You are serious in your desire to learn real lessons from life.

     I will not hesitate to cast upon you the shadow thrown by the darkness of human life. But do not be afraid. Gaze steadfastly into this darkness, and find there the things that will be of use to you. The darkness of which I speak is a moral darkness. I was born a moral man and raised as one. My morality is probably very different from that of young people today. But different though it may be, it is my own. It is not some rented clothing I have borrowed to suit the moment. This is why I believe it will be of some use to you, a young man just starting out in life.

     You and I have often argued over questions of modern thought, as I’m sure you remember. You well understand my own position on such things, I’m sure. I never felt outright contempt for your opinions, yet I could not bring myself to actually respect them. Nothing lay behind your ideas. You were too young to have had your own experience. Sometimes I smiled. At times I glimpsed dissatisfaction on your face. Meanwhile you were also pressing me to unroll my past before you like some painted scroll. This was the first time I actually privately respected you. You revealed a shameless determination to seize something really alive from within my very being. You were prepared to rip open my heart and drink at its warm fountain of blood. I was still alive then. I did not want to die. And so I evaded your urgings and promised to do as you asked another day. Now I will wrench open my heart and pour its blood over you. I will be satisfied if, when my own heart has ceased to beat, your breast houses new life.

 

CHAPTER 57

 

I was not yet twenty when I lost both my parents. My wife told you, I remember, that they died of the same illness. You were astonished when she said they died at virtually the same time. The fact is that my father contracted the dreaded typhoid fever, and my mother became infected through nursing him.

     I was their only son. The family was quite wealthy, so I was brought up in considerable comfort. Looking back, I now think that if my parents had not died when they did—if one of them, it does not matter which, had continued to be there to support me—I would have remained as generous and easygoing as I was in those days.

     Their deaths left me stunned and helpless. I had no knowledge, no experience, no wisdom. My mother had been too ill to be with my father when he died. She did not even learn of his death before she died herself. I have no idea whether she intuited it, or whether she believed what those around her told her, that he was on the road to recovery. She left everything in the hands of my uncle. I was at her bedside with him when she indicated me and begged him to look after me. I had already gained my parents’ permission to go up to Tokyo, and she evidently intended to tell him so, but she had only got as far as saying “He’ll go to . . .” when my uncle broke in with “Very good, you have no need to worry.” He turned to me and said, “Your mother’s a fine, strong woman.”

     Perhaps he was referring to how well she was coping with the throes of fever. Looking back on it now, though, it is hard to say whether those words of hers in fact constituted a kind of last will. She was of course aware of the identity of the terrible illness my father had contracted and knew she had also been infected by it. But did she understand that she too was dying? It is impossible to say. And no matter how lucidly and sensibly she spoke in her fevered states, she often would have no memory of it later. So perhaps . . . but I must stick to the point.

     The fact is that I had already developed the habit of taking nothing at face value but analyzing and turning things over obsessively in my mind. I should explain this to you before I proceed. The following anecdote, though not particularly relevant to my story, serves as a good example of this trait, so please read it in that light. For I feel my impulse to doubt the honorable nature of others’ actions and behavior probably grew from this time. This has unquestionably much exacerbated my suffering and misery, and I want you to keep that in mind.

     But I must not confuse you by such digressions; let me return to my tale. It’s possible I am writing this long letter to you with a calmer heart than someone else in my position might. The rumble of streetcars, which disturbs the night once the world is sleeping, has now ceased. Beyond the doors the faint, touching song of a little cricket has begun, subtly evoking the transient dews of autumn. My innocent wife is sleeping soundly and unaware in the next room. My pen moves over the page, the sound of its tip registering each word and stroke. It is with a tranquil heart that I sit here before the page. My hand may slip from lack of practice, but I do not believe my clumsy writing derives from an agitated mind.

 

CHAPTER 58

 

Left alone in the world as I was, I could only do as my mother said and throw myself on my uncle’s mercy. For his part he took over all responsibilities and saw to my needs. He also arranged for me to go to Tokyo as I wished.

     I came to Tokyo and entered the college here. College students in those days were far wilder and rougher than they are today. One boy I knew, for instance, got into an argument with a working man one night and struck him with his wooden clog, leaving a gash in his head. He had been drinking. As they fought, the man seized the boy’s school cap and made off with it. His name, of course, was clearly printed on a white cloth patch inside the cap. This all produced such a ruckus that the police threatened to report the matter to the school, but luckily the boy’s friends stepped in and managed to keep it out of the public eye. No doubt tales of this sort of wild behavior must sound utterly foolish to someone of your generation, brought up in more refined times. I find it foolish myself. But students in those days did at least have a touching simplicity that present-day students lack.

     The monthly allowance my uncle sent me was far smaller than the amount you now receive from your father. Of course things were cheaper then, I suppose, yet I never felt the slightest lack. Furthermore, I was never in the unfortunate position of having to envy the financial good fortune of any other classmate. More likely they envied me, I realize now. Besides my fixed monthly allowance, I also applied to my uncle quite often for money for books (even as a student I enjoyed buying books) and other incidental expenses, and I was able to use this money just as I liked.

     Innocent that I was, I trusted my uncle completely, indeed I felt grateful respect for him. He was an entrepreneur and had been a member of the prefectural government—no doubt this was behind the connection with one of the political parties that I also recall. He was my father’s full brother, but they seem to have developed very different characters.

     My father was a true gentleman and managed his inheritance with great diligence. He enjoyed elegant traditional pursuits such as flower arranging and ceremonial tea-making, and reading books of poetry. I believe he had quite an interest in antique books and such things as well. Our house was in the country, about five miles from town, where my uncle lived. The antiques dealer in town would sometimes come all the way out to show my father scrolls, incense holders, and so on. The English expression “a man of means” probably sums up my father; he was a country gentleman of somewhat cultivated tastes.

     He and my bustling, worldly uncle were thus of very different temperaments. Yet they were oddly close. My father would often praise him as a professional man, much more capable and reliable than himself. People in his own position, who inherit their wealth, often find, he told me, that their native abilities lose their edge. His problem was, he had had no need to fight his way in the world. My father said this both to my mother and to me, but his words seemed specifically for my benefit. He fixed his gaze on me and said, “You’d better remember that.” I did as I was told, and remember his words to this day. How could I have doubted my uncle’s integrity, then, when my father had praised him so highly and trusted him so thoroughly? I would have been proud of him even had my parents lived. Now that they were dead and I was left entirely in his care, it was no longer simple pride I felt. My uncle had become essential for my survival.

 

CHAPTER 59

 

The first time I returned from Tokyo for the summer holidays, my uncle and aunt had moved into the house where I had suffered through the death of my parents, and were now ensconced there. This had been decided on before I left for Tokyo. It was the only thing to be done, since I was the only remaining person in our family, and no longer living there myself.

     My uncle, I recall, was involved with a number of companies in the town at the time. When we were discussing how to arrange things so that I would be free to go to Tokyo, he had remarked half-jokingly that it would actually be more convenient for him to stay in his home in town to attend to his work, rather than move out to this house five miles away. My family home was an old and important one in the area, fairly well known to the local people. As you probably know, to demolish or sell an old house with a history when there is an heir who could live there is a serious matter. Nowadays I would not let such things bother me, but I was still essentially a child. The problem of leaving the house empty while I was living in Tokyo was a great worry for me.

     My uncle grudgingly agreed to move into the empty house that now belonged to me. But he insisted he would need to keep his house in town and move to and fro between the two as the need arose. I was, of course, in no position to object. I was happy to accept any conditions as long as I could get to Tokyo.

     Child that I still was, I looked back with a warm nostalgia on the house I had now left. I felt about it as a traveler feels about the home to which he will one day return. For all that I had longed to leave it for Tokyo, I had a strong compulsion to go back there when the summer holidays came, and I often had dreams of the house I would return to after the hard study and fun of the term were over.

     I do not know just how my uncle divided his time between the two places while I was away, but when I arrived in the summer, the whole family was gathered there under a single roof. I imagine that the children were there for the holidays, although they would have lived in town for most of the year to attend school.

     Everyone was delighted to see me, and I was happy to find the house so much livelier and more cheerful than it had been in my parents’ day. My uncle moved his eldest son out of the room that had been mine so that I could occupy it again. There were quite enough rooms to go around, and at first I demurred, saying I didn’t mind where I slept. But he would not hear of it. “It’s your house,” he told me.

     Recollections of my dead mother and father were all that disturbed the pleasure of the summer I spent with my uncle’s family before returning to Tokyo. But one event did cast a faint shadow across my heart. Although I had barely begun my college life, my uncle and aunt both urged me to consider marrying. They must have repeated it three or four times. The first time they brought up the subject, it was so unexpected that I was no more than taken aback. The second time I made my refusal clear. When they brought it up a third time, I was forced to ask their reasons for pressing marriage on me in this way. Their answer was brief and straightforward. They simply wanted me to make an early marriage so that I could come back to live in the house and become my father’s heir.

     Personally, all I wanted to do was to come back during vacations. I was familiar enough with country ways to understand this talk of succeeding my father and the consequent need for a wife, of course, and I was not even really against the idea. But I had only just gone to Tokyo to pursue my studies, and to me it was all in some distant future landscape, seen as it were through a telescope. I left the house without consenting to my uncle’s wish.

 

CHAPTER 60

 

I forgot all about this talk of marriage. None of the young fellows around me, after all, had the air of responsible householders—all seemed their own men, individual and free of constraints. If I had penetrated below the apparent happiness, I might have found some whom family circumstance had already forced to marry, but I was too young and innocent to be aware of such things then. Besides, anyone who found himself in that kind of situation would have kept it to himself as far as possible, considering it private and quite irrelevant to a student’s life. I now realize that I was already in this category myself, but in my innocence I continued to pursue my studies contentedly.

     At the end of the school year I once more packed my trunk and returned to the home that held my parents’ graves. Once again I found my uncle and aunt and their children in the house where my parents used to live. Nothing had changed. I breathed again the familiar scent of my home, a scent still filled with nostalgic memories. Needless to say, I also welcomed being back there as a relief from the monotony of the year’s studies.

     But even as I breathed this scent, so redolent of the air I had grown up in, my uncle suddenly thrust the question of marriage under my nose again. He repeated his line from my previous visit, giving the same reason as before. But while the summer before he had had no particular woman in mind, this time I was disconcerted to learn that a prospective wife had been selected for me. She was my uncle’s daughter—in other words, my own cousin. Marrying her would suit both of us, he maintained, and furthermore my father had actually spoken of it before he died. Put this way, I supposed it was a suitable enough arrangement, and I easily accepted that my father could have had that conversation with my uncle. I was certainly rather surprised, since this was the first time I had heard of it. My uncle’s request seemed perfectly reasonable and comprehensible, however.

     No doubt I should not have taken his words on faith. But what primarily concerned me was that I felt quite indifferent to this younger daughter of my uncle. We’d been close ever since childhood, when I had been a constant visitor at my uncle’s house in town, not only on day visits but also as an overnight guest. As you will know, romantic love never develops between siblings. I may be stretching the interpretation of this well-known fact, but it seems to me that between any male and female who have been close and in continual contact, such great intimacy rules out the fresh response necessary to stimulate feelings of romantic love. Just as you can only really smell incense in the first moments after it is lit, or taste wine in that instant of the first sip, the impulse of love springs from a single, perilous moment in time, I feel. If this moment slips casually by unnoticed, intimacy may grow as the two become accustomed to each other, but the impulse to romantic love will be numbed. And so, consider it as I might, I could not find it in me to marry my cousin.

     My uncle said that if I wanted, I could put off the marriage until after my graduation. “But,” he went on, “we should ‘seize the day,’ as the saying goes, and perform the basic exchange of marriage cups as soon as possible.” [the basic exchange of marriage cups: Marriage formally took place with a simple ceremony involving drinking sake from the same cup.] The question of when it should happen was of no concern to me, since I felt no interest in the bride. I reiterated my refusal. My uncle looked unsatisfied, and my cousin wept. Hers were not tears of regret that she could not take her place beside me; they were the tears of a humiliated woman who has sought marriage and been rejected. I knew perfectly well that she loved me as little as I loved her. I went back to Tokyo.

 

CHAPTER 61

 

A year later, at the beginning of the following summer, I went back home for the third time. As always, I couldn’t wait to finish final exams and get out of Tokyo, which indicates how much I longed for my home. I am sure you know this well too—the very color of the air in the place I was born was different, the smell of the earth was special, redolent with memories of my parents. To spend July and August nestled back inside that world, motionless as a snake in its hole, filled me with warm pleasure.

     My innocent and uncomplicated mind felt no need to bother itself much over the problem of the proposed marriage to my cousin. If you didn’t want to do something, you simply said no, I believed, and there would be no further repercussions. So although I had not submitted to my uncle’s will, I remained unperturbed. I returned home in my usual high spirits, after a year spent unworried by the question.

     But when I got home, I discovered that my uncle’s attitude had changed. He did not embrace me with a welcoming smile as he had before. For the first four or five days I remained unaware of the change—my loving upbringing had not prepared me even to recognize coldness. Finally, however, some chance event finally brought it to my notice. I then realized in bewilderment that it was not only my uncle who had changed, but also my aunt. My cousin was also odd, and so was my uncle’s son, who had earlier written a friendly letter asking me to investigate the Industrial College he intended to enter in Tokyo once he had graduated from middle school.

     Being who I am, I puzzled over this development. Why had my feelings changed? Or rather, why had theirs changed? Then it occurred to me that perhaps my dead parents had suddenly cleansed my dulled eyes and given me a clear vision of the world. Deep inside, you see, I felt that my parents continued to love me as in life. Even though I was already well acquainted with the real world by then, the strong superstitious beliefs of my ancestors coursed deep in my blood. No doubt they still do.

     I climbed the nearby hill alone and knelt before my parents’ graves, half in mourning and half in gratitude. I prayed to them to watch over me, feeling as I prayed that my future happiness lay in those hands buried beneath the cold stone. You may laugh, and no doubt I deserve it. But that is who I was.

     In a flash, my whole world changed. This was not, mind you, my first such experience. When I was sixteen or seventeen, my sudden discovery of beauty in the world had stunned me. Many times I rubbed my eyes in sheer disbelief, and doubted my own eyes, while my heart exclaimed, “Ah, how beautiful!” At that age boys and girls alike attain what is commonly called sensuality. In this new state, I was for the first time able to see women as representative of the beauty that the world contains. My eyes, until then quite blind to this beauty in the opposite sex, sprang open, and from that moment my universe was transformed.

     It was with precisely the same sort of shock that I became conscious of the change in my uncle’s attitude to me. I was stunned by the realization, which came upon me abruptly, without any premonition. Suddenly, my uncle and his family seemed to me completely different creatures. I was haunted by the feeling that I must make some move, or who knew what might befall me?

 

CHAPTER 62

 

I decided that I owed it to my dead parents to obtain a detailed understanding of the house and property that I had until then left for my uncle to look after. My uncle presented himself as living a hectic life. He bustled endlessly between the town house and the country estate, spending perhaps one in three nights in town. Forever on the move, he made a great fuss about how busy he was. I had always taken him at his word, although I sometimes cynically suspected that he was following the modern fashion to appear busy. But now, with my newfound desire to find a time to talk through the question of property, I could only interpret this endless rush as an excuse to avoid me. I never had a chance to pin him down.

     A friend from my middle-school days told me that my uncle kept a mistress in town. Knowing the sort of man he was, I had no reason to doubt that he might have a mistress, but I had no memory of such talk while my father was alive, so the rumor startled me. The friend also passed on to me various other rumors that were circulating about my uncle. Among them was the story that his business had been generally thought to be going under, but in the last two or three years it had suddenly revived and prospered. This tale heightened my own suspicions.

     I finally managed to open negotiations with my uncle. Perhaps the word negotiations is a little harsh, but as we talked, the tenor of our relations sank to such a low level that only this word can express what took place. My uncle persisted in treating me as a child, while I viewed him through the jaundiced eyes of suspicion. Under these circumstances, the chances of a peaceful resolution were nil.

     Unfortunately, my need to press on with my story prevents me from describing the details of those negotiations for you. To tell the truth, there is another, more important matter I have yet to speak of, one that I have with difficulty restrained my pen from writing all this time. I have lost forever the chance to talk quietly with you, and now I am also forced to omit some of what I would like to write—not only because I lack the skill to express myself on the page but also because time is precious to me.

     You may remember I once said to you that no one is inherently bad by nature, and I warned you to be careful because most honest folk will suddenly turn bad when circumstances prompt it. You warned me I was becoming excited and upset, and you asked me what kind of circumstances provoked good people to become wicked. When I answered with the single word money, you looked dissatisfied. I well remember that look. I can reveal to you now that I was thinking at that moment of my uncle. I was thinking of him with hatred, as an example of an ordinary, decent person who will suddenly turn bad when he sees money, and I was thinking of the fact that no one in this world is to be trusted.

     Probably my reply dissatisfied you because you were bent on seeing things in terms of philosophical questions, and you found my answer trite. But I spoke from experience. I was upset at the time, I agree. But I believe that a commonplace idea stated with passionate conviction carries more living truth than some novel observation expressed with cool indifference. It is the force of blood that drives the body, after all. Words are not just vibrations in the air, they work more powerfully than that, and on more powerful objects.

 

CHAPTER 63

 

To put it simply, my uncle cheated me out of my inheritance. He did it with ease, during the three years that I spent in Tokyo. From a worldly perspective, I was an absolute fool to have left everything in my uncle’s hands without a thought. From some more elevated viewpoint, perhaps I could be admired as pure and innocent. But when I look back on that self now, I wonder why I should have been born so innocent, and that foolish credulity makes me grind my teeth. And yet I also long to be once again that person who still retained his first innate purity. Bear in mind that the Sensei you know is a man who has been sullied by the world. If we define our betters as those who have spent more years being tarnished by the dirt of the world, then I can certainly claim to be your better.

     Would I have been materially better off if I had married my cousin as my uncle wanted? The answer is clear, I think. But the fact is, my uncle was scheming to force his daughter on me. He wasn’t offering me this marriage out of some kindly intended idea of how well it would suit both sides of the family; no, what drove him was the baser motive of personal profit. I did not love my cousin, but nor did I dislike her. Still, thinking back on it now, I can see it gave me a certain degree of pleasure to refuse her. Of course my refusal did not alter the basic fact that he was cheating me, but at least as the victim I had the satisfaction of standing up for myself a little. I wasn’t letting him entirely have his way. This point is so trivial, however, that it is hardly worth bothering over. To your outsider’s point of view, it must seem like nothing more than foolishly stubborn pride.

     Other relatives stepped in to mediate between us. They were people I did not trust at all—indeed, I felt quite hostile toward them. Having discovered my uncle’s treachery, I was convinced that others must be equally treacherous. After all, my reasoning went, if the man my father had praised so highly could behave like this, what could one expect of others?

     Nevertheless, these relatives sorted out for me everything that pertained to my inheritance. Its cash value came to a great deal less than I had anticipated. I had only two options: to accept this accounting without complaint, or to take my uncle to court. I was angry, and I was confused. If I sued him, I feared the case might continue for a long time before it was settled. It also seemed to me that it would cause me added difficulties by taking precious time away from the studies I was still pursuing. After thinking it all through, I went to an old school friend in the town and arranged to have everything I had received converted to cash. My friend advised me against the plan, but I refused to listen to him. I had decided to leave my native home forever. I vowed that I would never lay eyes on my uncle again.

     Before I left, I paid a final visit to my parents’ graves. I have not seen it since, and now I never will.

     My friend disposed of everything as I had asked. Naturally, it took some time after my return to Tokyo to finalize it all. Selling farm land in the country is no easy matter, and I had to be careful lest others take advantage of me, so in the end I settled for a lot less than the market price. To be honest, my assets amounted to the few government bonds I had in my pocket when I left home, and the money my friend subsequently sent. Sadly, the inheritance my parents had left me was greatly diminished. And it felt all the worse because it was not profligacy on my part that had reduced it. Still, the proceeds were more than enough for me to survive on as a student—indeed, I used less than half the interest from it. And it was this financial security that subsequently propelled me into an utterly unforeseen situation.

 

CHAPTER 64

 

With my new financial freedom, I began to play with the idea of quitting my noisy boardinghouse and finding myself a house to live in. I soon realized, however, that this would entail the bother of buying the necessary furniture, and employing a servant to run the household, one who was honest, so that I could leave the house unattended without worrying. One way or another, I could see that it would be no easy matter to achieve my plan.

     At any rate I should look around for a suitable house, I thought, and with this aim at the back of my mind one day I happened to go west down the slope of Hongō Hill, and climb Koishikawa toward Denzūin Temple. [Hongō Hill . . . Denzūin Temple: An area of present-day Tokyo’s Bunkyō ward, where Tokyo University is located. Denzūin Temple is a Pure Land Buddhist temple.] That area has changed completely since the streetcar line went in; back then the earthen wall of the Arsenal was on the left, and on the right was a large expanse of grassy vacant land, something between a hillside and an open field. I stood in the grass and gazed absentmindedly at the bluff before me. The scenery there is still quite good, but in those days that western side was far lovelier. Just to see the deep, rich green of all that foliage soothed the heart.

     It suddenly occurred to me to wonder if there might not be a suitable house somewhere nearby. I immediately crossed the grassy expanse and set off north along a narrow lane. Today it is not a particularly good area, and even back then the houses were fairly ramshackle and run-down. I wandered around, ducking down lanes and into side alleys. Finally I asked a cake-seller if she knew of any little house for rent in the area.

     “Hmm,” she said, and cocked her head for a moment or two. “I can’t think of anything offhand . . .” Seeing that she apparently had nothing to suggest, I gave up hope and was just turning for home when she asked, “Would you lodge with a family?”

     That set me thinking. Taking private lodgings in someone’s home would save me a lot of the trouble involved in owning my own house. I sat down at her stall and asked her to tell me the details.

     It was the house of a military man, or rather of his surviving family. The cake-seller thought he had probably died in the Sino-Japanese War. [the Sino-Japanese War: 1894-95.] Until about a year before, the family had been living near the Officers’ Academy in Ichigaya, but the place was too grand, with stables and outbuildings, and too big for the family, so they had sold it and moved to this area. Apparently, however, they felt lonely here, just the two of them, and had asked her if she knew of a suitable lodger. She told me the household consisted solely of the widow, her daughter, and a maid.

     It sounded perfect for me, being so quiet and secluded, but I feared that if I were to turn up suddenly and offer myself, an unknown student, the widow might turn me down. Perhaps I should give up the idea then and there, I thought. But I was dressed quite respectably for a student and besides, I was wearing my school cap. You will probably scoff at the idea that this was important. But in those days, unlike today, students had quite a good reputation, and my square cap invested me with a certain confidence. And so I followed the cake-seller’s directions and called in at the house unannounced.

     Introducing myself to the widow, I explained the purpose of my visit. She asked me numerous questions about my background, my school, and my studies. Something in my answers must have reassured her, for she said right away that I could move in whenever I wanted. I admired her thoroughly upright, plainspoken air—a typical officer’s wife, I decided. On the other hand, she also rather surprised me. Why should a woman of such apparent strength of character feel lonely?

 

CHAPTER 65

 

I moved in immediately and was given the room where our initial interview had taken place. It was the best room in the house. At that time a few betterquality student boardinghouses were springing up in the Hongō area, and I had a fair idea of the top of the range in student accommodation. The room I was now master of was far finer than anything else available. When I moved in, it seemed almost too good for a simple student like me.

     It was a large room of eight tatami mats. The alcove had a pair of staggered shelves set into one side, and the wall opposite the veranda contained a long built-in cupboard. There were no windows, but the sun streamed in from the south-facing veranda.

     On the day I arrived, I noted the flowers arranged in the alcove, and a koto propped beside them. [koto: A traditional zitherlike Japanese instrument with thirteen strings.] I did not care for either. I had been brought up by a father who appreciated the Chinese style of poetry, calligraphy, and tea-making, and since childhood my own tastes had also tended toward the Chinese. Perhaps for this reason I despised this sort of merely charming decorativeness.

     My uncle had squandered the collection of objects that my father had accumulated during his lifetime, but some at least had survived. Before I left home, I had asked my school friend to care for most of them and carried four or five of the best scrolls away with me in my trunk. I intended to take them out as soon as I arrived and hang one in the alcove to enjoy it. But when I saw the flower arrangement and the koto, I lost my courage. Later I learned that these flowers had been put there especially to welcome me, and I smiled drily to myself. The koto had been there all along, for want of somewhere else to store it.

     From this description you will no doubt have sensed the presence of a young girl somewhere in the story. I must admit, I myself had been curious about the daughter ever since I first heard of her. Perhaps because these guilty thoughts had robbed me of a natural response, or perhaps because I was still awkward with people, when I first met her I managed only a flustered greeting. She, in turn, blushed.

     My imaginary idea of Ojōsan [Ojōsan: The daughter is referred to throughout by this polite title for an unmarried girl.] had been built on hints gained from her mother’s appearance and manner. This fantasized image of her, however, was far from flattering. Having decided that the mother conformed to the type of the military wife, I proceeded to assume that Ojōsan would be much the same. But one look at the girl’s face overturned all my preconceptions. In their place a new and utterly unanticipated breath of Woman pervaded me. From that moment the flower arrangement in the alcove ceased to displease me; the koto propped beside it was no longer an annoyance.

     When the flowers in the alcove inevitably began to wilt, they were replaced with a new arrangement. From time to time the koto was carried off to the L-shaped room diagonally opposite mine. I would sit at the desk in my room, chin propped on hands, listening to its plangent tone. I had no idea whether the playing was good or bad, but the fact that the pieces were fairly simple suggested that the player was not very skilled. No doubt her playing was of a piece with her flower-arranging skills. I knew something of flower arranging and could see that she was far from good at it.

     Yet day after day flowers were unashamedly arrayed in my alcove, although the arrangement always took the same form, and the receptacle never changed. As for the music, it was odder than the flowers. She simply plucked dully away at the instrument. I never heard her really sing the accompanying songs. She did murmur the words, it’s true, but in such a tiny voice that she might have been whispering secrets. And whenever the teacher scolded her, the voice ceased altogether.

     But I gazed in delight at those clumsy flower arrangements, and I listened with pleasure to the koto’s awkward twang.

 

CHAPTER 66

 

By the time I left home, I was already thoroughly disenchanted with the world. My conviction that others could not be trusted had, you might say, penetrated me to the marrow. My despised uncle and aunt and relatives seemed representative of the whole of humanity. Even on the train I found myself glancing warily at my neighbors, and when someone occasionally spoke to me, my mistrust only deepened. I was sunk in depression. At times I felt a suffocating pressure, as if I had swallowed lead. Yet at the same time every nerve was on edge.

     This state of mind was largely what had prompted my decision to leave the noisy boardinghouse, I think. True, my financial security meant I could consider living in a place of my own, but my earlier self would never have thought of going to such bother, no matter how much money might be in my pocket.

     For some time after my move to Koishikawa, I continued in a highly strung state. I kept glancing furtively about, so much so that I unnerved even myself. Although my mind and eyes were abnormally active, however, my tongue grew less and less inclined to speak. I sat silently at my desk, observing those around me like a cat. Sometimes my keen awareness of them was so intense it shamed me to think of it. All that distinguished me from a thief was that I was stealing nothing, I thought in self-disgust.

     You must find all this most peculiar—how on earth did I have energy to spare to feel attracted to Ojōsan, to delight in gazing at her clumsy flower arrangements or listen with joy to her inept playing? I can only answer that these were the facts, and as such I must lay them before you. I will leave it up to your clever mind to analyze them, and simply add one thing. I distrusted the human race where money was concerned, but not yet in the realm of love. So despite the obvious contradiction, both states of mind happily coexisted inside me.

     I always called the widow by the polite title of Okusan, so I shall do the same here. Okusan apparently considered me a quiet, well-behaved person, and she was full of praise for my studious habits. She made no mention of the uneasy glances or the troubled, suspicious air. Perhaps she simply did not notice it, or maybe she was too polite to speak of it; at any event, it never seemed to bother her. Once she even admiringly told me I had a generous heart. I was honest enough to blushingly deny this, but she insisted. “You only say that because you’re not aware of it yourself,” she said earnestly.

     The fact is, she had not originally planned on having a student as a boarder. When she had asked around the neighborhood if anyone knew of a lodger, she had thought in terms of a government official or the like. I imagine she was envisaging some underpaid fellow who couldn’t afford a place of his own. Compared with her impoverished imaginary lodger, I struck her as far more generous in my ways. I guess I was in fact more liberal with my money than someone in more straitened circumstances would have been. But this was a product of circumstance rather than any natural generosity, so it was hardly an indication of what kind of person I was. In her woman’s way, however, Okusan did her best to view my liberality with money as an expression of my general character.

 

CHAPTER 67

 

Okusan’s warm perception of me inevitably started to influence my state of mind. After a while my glances became less mistrustful, and my heart felt more tranquil and settled within me. This new happiness I owed, in effect, to the way Okusan and the rest of the household turned a blind eye on all my wariness and shifty glances. No one reacted nervously to me, and so my own nerves grew steadily calmer.

     Perhaps she did indeed find me generous and open-hearted, as she claimed, but Okusan was a wise woman, and her treatment of me may well have been intentional. Or she may simply not have noticed anything odd, since all my nervous activity was largely in my mind and may not have been evident to others.

     Gradually, as my inner turmoil subsided, I grew closer to the family. I could now joke with Okusan and her daughter. Sometimes they invited me to have tea with them, and on other evenings I would bring cakes and invite them to join me in my room. My social world had suddenly expanded, I felt. I constantly found my precious study time frittered away on conversation, but oddly, this disruption never bothered me. Okusan was, of course, a lady of leisure. Ojōsan not only went to school but had her flower arranging and koto study, so she should by rights have been extremely busy. But to my surprise she seemed to have all the time in the world. Whenever the three of us came across one another, we would settle down for a long chat.

     It was generally Ojōsan who arrived to fetch me. She would come via the veranda to stand in front of my room, or else approach through the sitting room and appear at the sliding doors that led to the room next to mine. She would always pause in front of my room. Then she would call my name and say, “Are you studying?”

     I was usually sitting staring at some difficult book lying open on the desk in front of me, so no doubt I looked impressively studious. But to tell the truth, I wasn’t devoting myself to my books as much as it might seem. Though my eyes were fixed on the page, I was really just waiting for her to come for me. If she failed to appear, I would have to make a move. I would rise to my feet, make my way to her room, and ask the same question —“Are you studying?”

     Ojōsan occupied a six-mat room beyond the sitting room. Okusan was sometimes in the sitting room, sometimes in her daughter’s. Neither had a room she considered exclusively her own. Despite the partition between them, the two rooms formed a single space, with mother and daughter moving freely between them. When I stood outside and called, it was always Okusan who answered, “Come on in.” Even if Ojōsan happened to be there as well, she rarely responded herself.

     In time Ojōsan developed the occasional habit of coming to my room on some errand and then settling down to talk. Whenever this happened, a strange uneasiness beset my heart. It wasn’t simply a nervous response to finding myself alone face-to-face with a young woman. Her presence made me oddly fidgety and ill at ease, and this unnatural behavior distressed me as a self-betrayal. She, however, was entirely at her ease. It was difficult to believe that this unabashed girl and the girl who managed to produce only a timid whisper when practicing her koto singing could be the same person. On occasion she stayed so long that her mother called her from the sitting room. “Coming,” she would answer, but she continued to sit there. Yet she was far from a mere child—this much my eyes told me clearly. And I could see too that she was behaving in a way that let me know as much.

 

CHAPTER 68

 

I would sigh with relief after Ojōsan left my room, but I also felt a certain dissatisfaction and regret. Perhaps there was something girlish in me. I imagine a modern youth such as you would certainly think so. But in those days this was the way most of us were.

     Okusan rarely left the house, and on the few occasions when she did, she never left me alone with her daughter. I can’t judge whether this was intentional. It may be out of place for me to say this, but after careful observation I could only conclude that Okusan wanted to bring us closer, yet at other times she seemed secretly guarded. I had never been in such a situation, and it often made me uncomfortable.

     I needed Okusan to make her position clear. Rationally speaking, her attitudes were clearly contradictory. But with the memory of my uncle’s deceitfulness still so fresh, I could not repress another suspicion—that one of her two conflicting attitudes must be fake. I was at a loss to decide which was the real one, and I could make no sense of why she behaved so strangely. At times I chose simply to lay the fault entirely at the door of womanhood itself. When it comes down to it, I told myself, she’s acting this way because she’s a woman, and women are stupid. Whenever my cogitations arrived at a dead end, this answer was the one I reached for.

     Yet although I despised women, I could not find it in me to despise Ojōsan. Faced with her, my theorizing lost its power. I felt for her a love that was close to pious faith. You may find it odd that I use a specifically religious word to describe my feelings for a young woman, but real love, I firmly believe, is not so different from the religious impulse. Whenever I saw her face, I felt that I myself had become beautiful. At the mere thought of her, I felt elevated by contact with her nobility. If this strange phenomenon we call Love can be said to have two poles, the higher of which is a sense of holiness and the baser the impulse of sexual desire, this love of mine was undoubtedly in the grip of Love’s higher realm. Being human, of course, I could not leave my fleshly self behind, yet the eyes that beheld her, the heart that treasured thoughts of her, knew nothing of the reek of the physical.

     My love for the daughter grew as my antipathy toward the mother increased, and so the relationship among the three of us ceased to be the simple thing it had once been. This change was largely internal, mind you. On the surface all was the same.

     Then some little thing made me begin to wonder if I had misunderstood Okusan. I now revised my idea that one of her two contradictory attitudes toward me and her daughter must be false. They did not inhabit her heart by turns, I decided—they were both there together. Despite the apparent contradiction, I realized, her careful watchfulness did not mean she had forgotten or reconsidered her urge to bring us closer. Her wariness surely sprang from the worrying possibility that we might become more intimate than she considered proper. Her anxiety seemed to me quite unnecessary, since I felt not the slightest physical urge toward her daughter, but I now ceased to think badly of Okusan’s motives.

 

CHAPTER 69

 

Piecing together the various bits of evidence, it became clear to me, in a word, that the people of this household trusted me. In fact, I even found proof enough to convince me that this trust had existed from the very beginning. Having come to suspect others, I was oddly moved by this discovery. Were women so much more intuitive than men? I wondered. And did this account for women’s tendency to be so easily deceived? In retrospect, these thoughts seem ironic, since I was responding just as irrationally and intuitively to Ojōsan. While swearing to myself that I would trust no one, my trust in her was absolute. And yet I found her mother’s trust in me peculiar.

     I did not talk much about my home and was careful to make no mention of recent events. Just recalling them filled me with distress. I spent as much of our conversations as possible listening to Okusan. But she had other ideas. She was always curious about my home and the situation there, so in the end I revealed everything. When I told her that I had decided never to return, that there was nothing left for me there except the graves of my parents, she seemed deeply moved, and her daughter actually wept. I thought then that it was good to have spoken. It made me happy.

     Now that I had told her all, it was abundantly clear that Okusan felt her intuitions confirmed. She began to treat me like some young relative. This did not anger me; indeed, I was pleased by it. But in time my paranoid doubts returned.

     It was a tiny thing that sparked my suspicion, but as one insignificant incident was added to another, distrust gradually took root. I began to suspect that Okusan was trying to bring her daughter and me together from the same motives as my uncle. And with this thought what had appeared to be kindness suddenly seemed the actions of a cunning strategist. I brooded on this bitter conviction.

     Okusan had always stated that she had wanted a lodger to look after because the house was forlornly unpeopled. This did not seem a lie to me. Having grown close enough to become her confidant, I was now quite sure it was true. On the other hand, she was not particularly wealthy. From the point of view of her own interests, she certainly had nothing to lose by cultivating the relationship.

     And so I grew wary again. Still, at times I scoffed at my own foolishness. What use was all my caution about her mother, when I still loved Ojōsan as deeply as ever? But no matter how foolish I recognized myself to be, this contradiction was hardly a source of much pain. My real anguish began when it occurred to me that Ojōsan might be as devious as her mother. The instant it occurred to me that everything was a result of plotting behind my back, I was racked with agony. This was not mere unhappiness—I was in the grip of utter despair. And yet, at the same time I continued to have unwavering faith in Ojōsan. Thus I found myself paralyzed, suspended between conviction and doubt. Both seemed to me at once the product of my imagination and the truth.

 

CHAPTER 70

 

I kept up my attendance at college, but the professors’ lectures sounded distant in my ears. It was the same with my own study. My eyes took in the print on the page, yet its meaning vanished like a wisp of smoke before it really penetrated. I grew taciturn. Several friends, misinterpreting this, reported to others that I seemed as if deep in meditation. I made no attempt to correct them; in fact, I was delighted to be provided with this convenient mask. But at times some inner dissatisfaction would produce an outburst of high-spirited romping, astonishing my friends.

     Not many visitors came to the house. The family seemed to have few relatives. Once in a while Ojōsan’s friends stopped by, but generally they would spend the time talking in such low voices that one could scarcely tell they were in the house. For all my heightened sensitivity, I did not realize that they spoke quietly out of deference to my presence. My own friends who came calling, though hardly rowdy, were not inclined to feel constrained by the presence of others. Thus, where guests were concerned, our roles were essentially reversed—I seemed the master of the house, while Ojōsan behaved like a timorous guest.

     I write this simply because it is something I recall, not because it bothered me. One thing did bother me, though: one day I heard the startling sound of a male voice coming from somewhere in the house, either the sitting room or Ojōsan’s room. It was a very quiet voice, unlike that of my own visitors. I had no idea what he was saying, and the more I tried and failed to catch the words, the more it provoked my straining nerves. A strange sense of mounting frustration seized me as I sat in my room. I began by wondering whether he was a relative or only some acquaintance. Then I tried to guess if he was a young man or someone older. I had no way to tell from where I sat. Yet I could not get up and open the door to look. My nerves were not so much trembling as afflicting me with strong waves of painful tension.

     Once the man left, I carefully inquired his name. They gave a simple and straightforward answer. Though I made it clear I was still not satisfied, I lacked the courage to ask further. Nor, of course, did I have the right to do so. I had been taught to maintain dignified self-respect, but a blatant greed for information undermined it; both were evident on my face. They laughed. So perturbed was my state that I was unable to judge whether their laughter was scornful or well intentioned. Even once the incident had passed, I continued to mull over the thought that they might have been jeering at me.

     I was quite free—I could leave college at any time if I chose, go or live anywhere I liked, or marry any girl I wished, without having to consult anyone. Many times I had reached the decision to come right out and ask Okusan if I could marry her daughter. But each time I hesitated, and in the end said nothing. It wasn’t that I was afraid of a refusal—I could not imagine how life might change for me if she turned me down, but I could at least steel myself with the thought that a refusal might give me the advantage of a new perspective on the world. No, what irked me was the suspicion that they were luring me on. The thought that I could be innocently playing into their hands filled me with resentful rage. Ever since my uncle’s deception, I was determined that come what may I would never again become such easy prey.

 

CHAPTER 71

 

I spent my money on nothing but books. Okusan told me I should get some clothes, and it was true, all I had were the country-woven cotton robes that had been made for me back home. Students in those days never wore anything with silk in it. One of my friends, who came from a wealthy family of Yokohama merchants who did things extravagantly, was once sent an underrobe of fine silk. We all laughed at it. He produced all sorts of shamefaced excuses and tossed it unworn into his trunk, till we gathered around one day and bullied him into wearing it. Unfortunately, the thing became infested with lice. This was a lucky break for my friend, who bundled it up and carried it off on one of his walks, where he threw it into the large ditch in Nezu. I was with him, and I remember standing on the bridge laughing as I watched him. It never crossed my mind that this was a wasteful thing to do.

     I must have been quite grown-up by then, but I still had not come to understand the need for a set of good clothes. I had the odd idea that I had no need to bother about clothes until I graduated and grew an adult mustache. So my response to Okusan was that I only needed books. Knowing just how many I bought, she asked whether I read them all. I was stuck for an answer; some were dictionaries, but there were quite a few others that I should have read but whose pages were not even cut. Books or clothing, I realized then—it made no difference if the thing went unused. Besides, I wanted to buy Ojōsan an obi or some fabric that took her fancy, on the pretext of repaying them for all the kindness I had received. I therefore relented and asked Okusan to purchase the necessary things for me.

     She was not prepared to go alone. I must accompany her, she told me, and furthermore her daughter must come too. We students were brought up in a different world from today, remember, and it was not the custom in those days to go around in a girl’s company. Being still very much a slave to convention, I was hesitant, but I finally gathered up my courage and we all set off together.

     Ojōsan was dressed up for the occasion. She had whitened her naturally pale face with copious amounts of powder, and the effect was striking. Passersby stared at her. Then their eyes would stray to my face as I walked beside her, which I found disconcerting.

     We went to Nihonbashi and bought all we wanted. The process involved a lot of dithering over choices, so it took longer than anticipated. Okusan made a point of constantly calling me over to ask my opinion. From time to time she hung a piece of fabric over Ojōsan’s shoulder and asked me to step back a few paces and see what I thought. I always managed to respond convincingly, declaring that this worked or that did not.

     It was dinnertime when we were finally through. Okusan offered to treat me to a meal by way of thanks, and she led us down a narrow side street where I remember there was a vaudeville theater called Kiharadana. Our restaurant was as tiny as the lane. I knew nothing of the local geography, and Okusan’s familiarity with it quite surprised me.

     We didn’t get home until after dark. The next day was a Sunday, and I spent it shut away in my room. On Monday no sooner did I arrive at the university than a classmate asked me teasingly when I’d gotten myself a wife, and congratulated me on marrying such a beauty. He had evidently caught sight of the three of us on our Nihonbashi excursion.

 

CHAPTER 72

 

When I got home, I told this story to Okusan and Ojōsan. Okusan laughed, then looked me in the eye and added, “That must have been awkward for you.” I wondered then whether this was how a woman induces a man to talk. Her look certainly gave me reason to think so. Perhaps I should have asked for Ojōsan’s hand then and there. But my heart was by now deeply ingrained with distrust. I opened my mouth to speak, then stopped and deliberately shifted the direction of the conversation elsewhere.

     Carefully avoiding the crucial subject of my own feelings, I probed Okusan on her intentions for her daughter’s marriage. She told me frankly that there had already been two or three proposals, but as her daughter was still a young schoolgirl, there was no hurry. Though she did not say as much, she clearly set great store by her daughter’s good looks. She even remarked in passing that a suitable husband could be found anytime they wished. But as her daughter was an only child, she said, she was not inclined to send her off with just anyone. I got the impression that she was of two minds about whether to adopt a son-in-law as a member of their own household, or let her daughter marry out as a bride. [adopt a son-in-law . . . marry out as a bride: Although the wife traditionally joined her husband’s family register, formal adoption of a husband into the wife’s family was not uncommon in cases where the family had no son to receive an inheritance.]

     I felt I was gaining quite a lot of information as I listened. Effectively, however, I had forfeited my own chance to speak. I couldn’t say a word on my own behalf now. At an appropriate point I broke off the conversation and returned to my room.

     Ojōsan, who had been sitting with us laughing and protesting at my tale, by this time had retreated to a corner with her back turned. As I stood to leave, I turned and saw her there. It is impossible to read the heart of someone who is looking away, and I couldn’t guess what she might have been thinking as she listened. She was sitting beside the half-open closet and had taken something from it and laid it on her lap. She now appeared to be gazing intently down at it. In a corner of the open closet, I caught sight of the fabric I had bought her two days before. My own new robe, I saw, lay folded there with hers.

     As I was standing wordlessly to leave, Okusan suddenly grew serious. “What’s your opinion?” she asked. Confused by the unexpected question, I had to ask what she meant. She wanted to know, she explained, whether I thought an early marriage was a good idea. I said I thought it wise to take things slowly. “I think so too,” she replied.

     It was at this point in the relationship among the three of us that another man entered the picture, one whose arrival in the household crucially affected my fate. If he had not crossed my path, I doubt that I would need to write this long letter to you now. It was as if I stood there oblivious as the devil brushed by me, unaware that he cast a shadow upon me that would darken my whole life. It was I who brought this man into the house, I must confess. Naturally, I needed Okusan’s consent, so I told her his story and asked if he could move in with me. She advised against it but had no convincing argument to offer. For my part, I could see every reason why I must bring him into the household, and so I persisted in following my own judgment and did what I believed was right.

 

CHAPTER 73

 

I will call this friend of mine K. We had been friends since childhood. As you will no doubt realize from this, our native place was a bond between us. K was the son of a Pure Land Buddhist priest—but not the eldest son and heir, I should add, which is how he came to be adopted by a doctor’s family. The Hongan subsect had a very powerful presence in my home district, and its priests were better off than others. If the priest had a daughter of marriageable age, for instance, one of his parishioners would help to find her a suitable match, and the wedding expenses would of course not come out of his own pocket. Pure Land temple families were thus generally quite wealthy.

     K’s home temple was a prosperous one. Even so, the family may not have had the funds to send him to Tokyo for his education. Did they decide to have him adopted into the other family because the other family had the means to educate him? I have no way of knowing. I only know that the doctor’s family adopted him while we were still middle-school students. I still remember the surprise I felt when the teacher called the roll one day and I realized K’s name had suddenly changed.

     His new family was also fairly wealthy, and they paid for him to go to Tokyo for his studies. I left before he did, but he moved into the same dormitory when he arrived. K and I shared a room—in those days it was common for two or three students to study and sleep together in the one room. We lived huddled together like wild animals trapped in a cage, hugging each other and glaring out at the world. Tokyo and its inhabitants frightened us both. There in our little room, however, we spoke with contempt of the world at large.

     But we were in earnest, and determined one day to become great. K’s willpower was particularly strong. Son of a temple family that he was, he was in the habit of talking in terms of the Buddhist concept of dedicated self-discipline, and his behavior certainly seemed to me to epitomize this ideal. In my heart, I stood in awe of him.

     Ever since our middle-school days, K had bewildered me with difficult discussions on religion and philosophy. I do not know whether his father had inspired this interest, or whether the atmosphere peculiar to temple buildings had infected him as a child. In any event, K seemed to me far more monkish than the average monk. His adoptive family had sent him to Tokyo to study medicine. In his stubborn way, however, he had decided before he arrived that he would not become a doctor. I reproached him, pointing out that he was in effect deceiving his adoptive parents, and he brashly agreed that he was. Such deception did not bother him, he said, since it was in the cause of his “chosen path.” I doubt if even he understood precisely what he meant by this phrase. I certainly had no idea. But we were young, and this vague abstraction had for us a hallowed ring. Comprehension was beside the point. I could not but admire these lofty sentiments that governed and impelled him. I accepted his argument. I do not know how important my agreement may have been for K, but he would surely have gone his way, stubbornly, regardless of any protest I made.

     Child though I still was, however, I was prepared to accept that by going along with him, I would bear some responsibility if problems ever arose. Even if I could not quite summon such resolve at the time, nevertheless I spoke my words of encouragement to him firm in the belief that if in later life I ever had cause to look back on this moment, I would properly acknowledge the degree of responsibility I bore.

 

CHAPTER 74

 

K and I entered the same faculty. He proceeded to pursue his chosen course of study, using the money sent to him, quite unconcerned. I could only interpret this as a mixture of complacent faith that the family would not find out, and a defiant resolve that if they did, he would not care. I was far more concerned than he over the question.

     During the first summer vacation he did not go home, choosing instead to rent a room in a temple in the Komagome area [the Komagome area: part of Tokyo’s present-day Bunkyō ward.] and study during the break. When I came back in early September, he was holed up in a shabby little temple beside the Great Kannon. He had a small room tucked in beside the main temple building, and he seemed delighted that he had been able to get on with his studies there as planned. I think it was then I realized that he was becoming more and more monastic in lifestyle. A circlet of Buddhist rosary beads adorned his wrist. I asked the reason, and in response he told off a couple of beads with his thumb. I gathered that he counted through them a number of times each day. The meaning of this escaped me. If you count off a circle of beads, you never reach an end. At what point, and with what feelings, would his fingers cease to move those beads? This may be a silly question, but it haunts me.

     I also saw a Bible in his room, which rather startled me. On numerous occasions in the past he had referred to Buddhist sutras, but we had never discussed the subject of Christianity. I could not resist asking about it. There was no real reason, he replied. He thought it natural to want to read a book that brought such comfort to others. If he had the chance, he added, he would like to read the Koran as well. He seemed particularly interested in the idea of Muhammad spreading the Word “with book or sword.”

     In the second year he finally gave in to family pressure and went home for the summer. He apparently told them nothing about what he was studying even then, and they did not guess. Having been a student yourself, you will of course be well aware of such things, but the world at large is surprisingly ignorant about student life, school regulations, and so forth. Things that are quite routine for students mean absolutely nothing to outsiders. On the other hand, locked away in our own little world, we are far too inclined to assume that the world is thoroughly acquainted with everything great and small to do with school. K no doubt understood this ignorance better than I. He returned to college with a nonchalant air. We set off for Tokyo together, and as soon as we were in the train, I asked him how it had gone. Nothing had happened, he told me.

     Our third summer vacation was the time when I decided to leave forever the land that held my parents’ graves. I urged K to go home that summer, but he resisted. He said he saw no point in going back every year. He clearly planned to spend the summer in Tokyo studying again, so I resignedly set off for home without him. I have already written of the deep turmoil into which my life was thrown by those two months at home. When I met K again in September, I was in the grip of anger, misery, and loneliness.

     In fact, his life had undergone an upheaval rather like my own. Unknown to me, he had written a letter to his adoptive parents confessing his deceit. He had intended all along to do so, he said. Perhaps he was hoping that they would react by grudgingly accepting the change, and decide it was too late to argue, so he could have his way. At any rate, it seemed he was not prepared to continue deceiving them once he entered university; no doubt he realized that he would not get away with it much longer.

 

CHAPTER 75

 

His adoptive father was enraged when he read K’s letter and immediately sent off a forceful reply to the effect that he could not finance the education of a scoundrel who had so deceived his parents. K showed me the letter. He then showed me the one he had received from his own family, which condemned him in equally strong terms. No doubt an added sense of failed obligation to the other family reinforced their decision to refuse to support him. K was faced with the dilemma of whether to return to his own family or consent to compromise with his adoptive parents to stay on their family register. His immediate problem, however, was how to come up with the money he needed to stay at college.

     I asked if he had found a solution, and he replied that he was thinking of taking work teaching at an evening school. Times were far easier back then; it was not as difficult as you might think to find part-time work of this sort. I thought it would see him through very well. But I also bore responsibility in the matter. I had been the one to agree with his decision to ignore his adoptive family’s plans for him and tread a path of his own choosing, and I could not now stand idly by. I immediately offered K financial assistance. He rejected it absolutely. Given who he was, no doubt financial independence gave him far greater satisfaction than the prospect of living under a friend’s protection. Now that he was a university student, he declared, he must be man enough to stand on his own two feet. I was not prepared to hurt K’s feelings for the sake of satisfying my own sense of responsibility, so I let him have his way and withdrew my offer of a helping hand.

     K soon found the kind of job he hoped for, but as you can well imagine for someone with his temperament, he chafed at the amount of precious time it consumed. Still, he pushed fiercely on with his studies, never slackening under the added burden. I worried about his health; iron-willed, he laughed me off and paid no heed to my warnings.

     Meanwhile his relations with his adoptive family were growing increasingly difficult. His lack of time meant that he no longer had a chance to talk with me as he used to, so I never learned the details, but I was aware that more and more stood in the way of a resolution. I also knew that someone had stepped in and attempted to mediate. This person wrote to K encouraging him to return, but he refused, having made up his mind that it was absolutely out of the question. This obstinacy—or so it would have struck the other party, although he claimed that it was impossible for him to leave during the school term—seemed to exacerbate the situation. Not only was K hurting the feelings of his adoptive family, he was fueling the ire of his real family as well. Worried, I wrote a letter that attempted to soothe the situation, but it was too late by now for it to have any effect. My letter sank without a word of response. I too grew angry. The situation had always encouraged my sympathy with K, but now I was inclined to take his side regardless of the rights and wrongs of the matter.

     Finally, K decided to officially return to his original family’s register, which meant that they would have to repay the school fees paid by the other party. His own family, however, responded by washing their hands of him. To use an outmoded expression, they, as it were, disowned him. Perhaps it was not quite so radical as that, but that was how he understood it. K had no mother, and certain aspects of his character were perhaps the result of his being brought up by a stepmother. If his mother had not died, I feel, this distance between him and his family might never have arisen. His father, of course, was a priest, but his sternness in matters of Confucian moral obligation suggests that there was a lot of the samurai in him.

 

CHAPTER 76

 

K’s crisis had begun to resolve itself a little when I received a long letter from his elder sister’s husband. This man was related to the adoptive family, K told me, so his opinion had carried a lot of weight both during the attempted mediation and in the decision that K return to his original family register.

     The letter asked me to let him know what had happened to K since relations were severed. I should reply as soon as possible, he added, as K’s sister was worrying. K was fonder of this sister, who had married out, than he was of the elder brother who had inherited the family temple. K and his sister shared the same mother, but there was a large age gap between them, and when he was little, she must have seemed to him more of a mother than his adoptive mother.

     I showed the letter to K. He said nothing in direct response, but he did tell me that he had received two or three such letters from his sister herself, and that he had replied that she need not be concerned for him. She had married into a household that did not have much money, so unfortunately she was not in a position to offer financial help, much as she sympathized with him.

     I replied to her husband along similar lines and assured him firmly that if problems arose, I would help in any way I could. This was something I had long since decided. My words were intended partly as a friendly reassurance to the sister who was so worried about him, but also as a gesture of defiance toward the two families whom I felt had snubbed me.

     K’s adoption was annulled in his first year of university studies. From then until the middle of his second year, he supported himself. But it was apparent that the prodigious effort this required was slowly telling on his health and nerves. No doubt the stress of his indecision over whether to leave his adoptive family had also played its part. He grew overly emotional. At times he spoke as if he alone bore the weight of the world’s woes on his shoulders, and he grew agitated if I contradicted him. Or he would fret that the light of future hope was receding before his eyes. Everyone, of course, at the beginning of their studies is full of fine aspirations and dreams, but one year passes and then another, and as graduation draws near, you realize you are plodding. At this point the majority inevitably lose heart, and K was no exception. His feverish anxiety was excessive, however. My sole concern became to somehow calm him.

     I advised him to give up all unnecessary work, and added that for the sake of that great future of his, he would be wise to relax and enjoy himself more. I knew it would be difficult to get this message through to my stubborn friend, but when the time came for me to say my piece, it took even more persuasion than I had anticipated, and I struggled to hold my ground. He countered me by asserting that scholarship was not his primary aim; his goal was to develop a toughness of will that would make him strong, and to this end his circumstances must remain as straitened as possible. From any normal point of view, this determination was wildly eccentric. Furthermore, the situation to which he chose to cling was doing nothing to strengthen his will—indeed, it was rapidly driving him to nervous collapse. All I could do was present myself as deeply sympathetic. I declared that I too intended to pursue a similar course in life. (In fact, these were no empty words—K’s power was such that I felt myself increasingly drawn by his views.) Finally, I proposed that he and I should live together and work to improve ourselves. In effect, I chose to give in to him in order to be able to bend his will. And with this, at last, I brought him to the house.

 

CHAPTER 77

 

From the entrance hall the only access to my room was through a little fourmat room that lay between. This anteroom, in effect a passageway, was virtually useless for practical purposes. This is where I put K. At first I recreated our previous arrangement, placing two desks side by side in my own larger room, with the idea that we would also share the small one. But K chose to make the small room exclusively his, declaring that he was happier alone no matter how cramped the space.

     As I mentioned, Okusan initially opposed my plan to bring K in at all. In an ordinary lodging house, she agreed, it made sense for two to share, and still better three, but she wasn’t doing this as a business, she said, and urged me to reconsider. I told her K would be no trouble. Even so, she replied, she did not like the idea of housing someone she didn’t know. In that case, I pointed out, she should have objected to me as well. But she countered with the statement that she had known and trusted me from the beginning. I smiled wryly. At this point she changed her tactics. Bringing in someone like K, she said, would be bad for me. When I asked why, it was her turn to smile.

     To tell the truth, there was no real necessity for me to live with K. But if I had tried to give him a monthly cash allowance, I felt sure, he would have been very reluctant to accept it. He was a fiercely independent man. Better to let him live with me, while I secretly gave Okusan money enough to feed us both. Nevertheless, I had no desire to reveal K’s dire financial situation to her. I did, however, talk about his precarious state of health. If left to himself, I told her, he would only grow more perverse and eccentric. I went on to describe his strained relations with his adoptive parents and his severance from his original family. By attempting to help him, I said, I was grasping a drowning man, desperate to infuse in him my own living heat. I begged Okusan and Ojōsan to help by warmly accepting him. Okusan finally relented.

     K knew nothing of this discussion, and I was satisfied that he remain ignorant. When he came stolidly into the house with his bags, I greeted him with an innocent air.

     Okusan and Ojōsan kindly helped him unpack and settle in. I was delighted, interpreting each generous gesture as an expression of their friendship for me. K, however, remained his usual dour self.

     When I asked what he thought of his new home, he replied with a simple “Not bad.” This brief response was a wild understatement, I felt. Until then he had been living in a dank, grimy little north-facing room, where the food was of a piece with the lodging. The move to my place was, as the old saying goes, “from deep ravine to treetop high.” It was partly sheer obstinacy that caused him to make light of the new place, but partly principle as well. His Buddhist upbringing had led him to think that paying attention to comfort in the basic needs of life was immoral. Brought up on tales of worthy monks and saints, he tended to consider flesh and spirit as separate entities; in fact, he may well have felt that to mortify the flesh was to exalt the soul.

     I decided to do my best not to argue, however. My aim was to apply a sunny warmth that would thaw his ice. Once the melted water began to trickle, I thought, he would sooner or later come to his senses.

 

CHAPTER 78

 

Aware that under Okusan’s kind treatment I myself had grown cheerful, I set about applying the same process to K. From my long acquaintance with him I was all too aware of how different we were. But just as my own nerves had relaxed considerably since I’d moved into this household, I felt surely K’s heart too would eventually grow calmer here.

     K’s will was far steelier than mine. He studied twice as hard, and his mind was a good deal finer. I cannot speak for the later years, when we chose different areas of study, but in the middle and high school years, while we were classmates, he was consistently ahead of me. I used to feel, in fact, that K would best me in everything. But in convincing the stubborn K to move in with me, I was sure I was showing more good sense than he. He failed to understand the difference between patience and endurance, I felt.

     Please listen carefully now, I am saying this for your benefit. All our capacities, both physical and mental, require external stimuli for both their development and their destruction, and in either case these stimuli must be increased by slow degrees in order to be effective. But this gradual increase creates a very real danger that not only you yourself but those around you may fail to notice any problems that might develop. Doctors tell us that a man’s stomach is a thoroughly rebellious creature, inclined to misbehave. If you feed it nothing but soft gruel, it will lose the power to digest anything heavier. So they instruct us to train it by feeding it all manner of foods. I don’t think this is just a matter of getting it used to the variety, however. I interpret it to mean that the stomach’s resilience gradually increases as the stimuli build up over time. Now imagine what would happen if the stomach instead grew steadily weaker under this regimen. K was in just such a situation.

     Now K was a greater man than I, but he failed to comprehend what was happening to him. He had decided that if he accustomed himself to hardship, then pain would sooner or later cease to register. The simple virtue of repetition of pain, he was sure, would bring him to a point where pain no longer affected him.

     In order to bring about a change of heart in K, it was this above all that I would have to clarify to him. But if I spelled it out, he would doubtless resist; he would bring up the example of those stoics and saints of old in his defense, I knew, and I would then have to point out the difference between them and him. That would be worthwhile if he were of a mind to listen to me, but by nature, once an argument reached that point, he would stick to his guns. He would simply assert his own position more vehemently, and having once spoken he would feel obliged to follow through with action. In this respect he was quite intimidating. He was grand in his convictions. He would stride forward to meet his own destruction. In retrospect, the only thing that had any kind of grandeur was the resultant ruin of any hope of success. But there was certainly nothing run-of-the-mill about the process, at any rate.

     Knowing his temperament as I did, therefore, I couldn’t utter a word. My sense that he was close to a nervous breakdown also made me hesitate. Even if I did manage to convince him, it would only agitate him further. I didn’t mind quarreling, but I remembered how poorly I had withstood my own sense of isolation, and I couldn’t bear to think of placing my friend in a similar situation, let alone exacerbating it. And so, even after bringing him into the house, I held back from voicing any real criticism. I decided simply to wait calmly to see what effect his new environment would have on him.

 

CHAPTER 79

 

Behind his back, I asked Okusan and Ojōsan to talk to K as much as possible, convinced that the silence of his previous life had been the cause of his ruin. It seemed clear to me that his heart had rusted like iron from disuse.

     Okusan laughed, remarking that he was rather curt and unapproachable, and Ojōsan supported this by describing an encounter she had had with him. She’d asked him if his brazier was lit, and he had told her it wasn’t. She offered to bring some charcoal, but he said he didn’t need any. Wasn’t he cold? she asked. He replied curtly that he was but didn’t want a fire, and he refused to discuss the matter further. I couldn’t simply dismiss her story with a rueful smile; I felt sorry for her, and that I must somehow make up for his rudeness. It was spring, of course, so he had had no real need for a warm fire in the brazier, but I could see that they had good reason to feel that he was difficult.

     I then did my best to use myself as a catalyst to bring them together. At every opportunity I encouraged K to spend time in the company of all three of us. When I was talking with him, I would call them in, or when I met up with them in one of the rooms, I’d invite him to join us. Naturally, K did not much care for this. Sometimes he would abruptly rise to his feet and walk out. At other times he ignored my calls. “What’s the point of all that idle chatter?” he asked me. I just laughed, but I was well aware that he despised me for indulging in such frivolities.

     In some ways I doubtless deserved his scorn. His sights were fixed on far higher things than mine, I’ll not deny it. But it is surely crippling to limp along, so out of step with the lofty gaze you insist on maintaining. My most important task, I felt, was somehow to make him more human. Filling his own head with the examples of impressive men was pointless, I decided, if it did not make him impressive himself. As a first step in the task of humanizing him, I would introduce him to the company of the opposite sex. Letting the fair winds of that gentle realm blow upon him would cleanse his blood of the rust that clogged it, I hoped.

     This approach gradually succeeded. The two elements, which had seemed at first so unlikely to merge, slowly came together until they were one. K apparently grew to realize that there were others in the world besides himself. One day he remarked to me that women were not after all such despicable creatures. He had at first assumed, he told me, that women had the same level of knowledge and academic ability as I had, and when he discovered that they didn’t, he had been quick to despise them. He had always viewed men and women without any distinction, he said, without understanding that one could see the sexes differently. I pointed out that if we two men were to go on talking exclusively to each other forever, we would simply continue in the same straight line. Naturally, he replied.

     I spoke as I did because I was by then quite in love with Ojōsan. But I did not breathe a word to him of my inner state.

     This man who had constructed a defensive fortress of books to hide behind was now slowly opening up to the world, and the change in his heart delighted me. Opening him up had been my plan all along, and its success sent an irrepressible wave of joy through me. Though I said nothing of it to him, I shared my joy with Okusan and Ojōsan. They too seemed gratified.

 

CHAPTER 80

 

Although K and I were in the same faculty, our fields of study were different, which meant that we came and went at different times. If I returned home early, I could simply pass through his empty room to reach my own. If he got home before I did, I always acknowledged him briefly before going on into my room. As I came through the door, K would glance up from his book and invariably say: “Just back, are you?” Sometimes I’d nod, and sometimes I’d simply give a grunt of assent.

     One day on my way home I had reason to stop in at Kanda, so I returned much later than usual. I hurried to the front gate and the lattice door clattered as I thrust it open. At that moment I heard Ojōsan’s voice. I was sure it came from K’s room. The sitting room and Ojōsan’s room lay straight ahead through the entrance hall, while our two rooms were off to the left, and by now I had become attuned to deciphering the location of voices. Just as I hastened to close the lattice door, her voice ceased. While I was removing my shoes—I now wore fashionable Western lace-ups—not a sound emerged from K’s room. This struck me as odd. Had I been mistaken?

     But when I opened the sliding doors as usual to pass through K’s room, I found the two of them sitting there. “Just back, are you?” said K, as always.

     “Welcome home,” Ojōsan said, remaining seated. For some reason, her straightforward greeting struck me as slightly stiff and formal. The tone had a somehow unnatural ring to my ears.

     “Where’s Okusan?” I asked her. The question had no real significance— it was just that the house seemed unusually hushed.

     Okusan was out, and the maid had gone with her. K and Ojōsan therefore were alone in the house. This puzzled me. I had lived there a long time by now, but Okusan had never left me alone in the house with Ojōsan. Had she had urgent business to attend to? I inquired.

     Ojōsan simply laughed. I disliked women who laugh in response that way. All young ladies do it, of course, but Ojōsan had a tendency to laugh at silly things. When she saw my face, however, her usual expression quickly returned. There had been nothing urgent, she replied. Okusan had just gone out on a small errand.

     As a lodger, I had no right to press the matter further. I held my tongue.

     No sooner had I changed my clothes and settled down than Okusan and the maid returned. At length, the time came for us all to face one another over the evening meal. When I had first moved in as a lodger, they had treated me much like a guest, the maid serving dinner in my room, but this formality had broken down, and these days I was invited in to eat with the family. When K arrived, I insisted that he too be brought in for meals. In return I donated to the household a light and elegant dining table of thin wood, with foldable legs. These days one can find tables like this in any household, but back then there were almost no homes where everyone sat around such a thing to eat. I had gone especially to a furniture shop in Ochanomizu and ordered it made to my specifications.

     As we sat at the table that day, Okusan explained that the fish seller had failed to call at the usual hour, so she had had to go into town to buy our evening’s food. Yes, I thought, that seems quite reasonable, given that she has guests to feed. Seeing my expression, Ojōsan burst out laughing, but her mother’s scolding quickly put an end to it.

 

CHAPTER 81

 

A week later I again passed through the room when Ojōsan and K were talking there together. This time she laughed as soon as she caught sight of me. I should have asked then and there what she found so humorous. But I simply went past them to my own room without speaking. K thus missed his chance to come out with his usual greeting. Soon I heard Ojōsan open the sliding doors and go back to the sitting room.

     That evening at dinner she remarked that I was an odd person. Once again I failed to ask the reason. I did notice, however, that Okusan sent a hard stare in Ojōsan’s direction.

     After dinner K and I went for a walk. We went behind Denzūin Temple and around the botanical gardens, emerging below Tomizaka. It was a long walk, but we spoke very little. K was temperamentally a man of even fewer words than I. I was not a great talker, but as we walked, I did my best to engage him in conversation. My main focus of concern was the family in whose house we were lodging. I asked him what he thought of Okusan and Ojōsan. He was quite impossible to pin down on the subject, however. He not only avoided the point, but his responses were extremely brief. He seemed far more interested in the topic of his studies than in the two ladies. Our second-year exams were almost upon us, I admit, so from any normal point of view he was behaving much more typically than I. He launched into a disquisition on Swedenborg [Swedenborg: Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), Swedish philosopher and mystic.] that made my uneducated mind reel.

     We both passed our exams successfully, and Okusan congratulated us on entering our final year. Her own daughter, her sole pride and joy, was soon to graduate as well. K remarked to me that girls emerged from their schooling knowing nothing. Clearly he chose to completely overlook Ojōsan’s extracurricular study of sewing, koto playing, and flower arranging. Laughing, I countered with my old argument that a woman’s value did not lie in scholarly accomplishment. While he did not refute this statement outright, he did not seem willing to accept it either. That pleased me—I interpreted this casual dismissal of my ideas as an indication that his former scorn of women had not changed. Ojōsan, whom I thought the embodiment of womanly excellence, was evidently still beneath his notice. In retrospect, I see that my jealousy of K was already showing its horns.

     I suggested that the two of us go away together somewhere during the summer vacation. He responded with apparent reluctance. It’s true that he could not afford to go wherever he wanted, but on the other hand nothing prevented him from accepting an invitation to travel with me. I asked why he didn’t want to come. He replied that there was no real reason; he simply preferred to stay at home and read. When I contended that it would be healthier to spend the summer studying in some cooler place out of the city, he suggested I go on my own.

     I wasn’t inclined to leave K there in the house alone, however—his growing intimacy with the two ladies was disturbing enough already. Needless to say, it was ridiculous for me to be so upset over a situation that I had gone out of my way to engineer in the first place. I was clearly being foolish.

     Okusan, tired of seeing us endlessly at cross-purposes, stepped in to mediate. The result was that we decided the two of us would go off to the Bōshū Peninsula [the Bōshū Peninsula: In present-day southern Chiba Prefecture.] together.

 

CHAPTER 82

 

K seldom took trips, and I had never been to Bōshū, so we both disembarked at the boat’s first port of call in complete ignorance of the place. Its name was Hota, I remember. I don’t know what it might be like today, but in those days it was a dreadful little fishing village. For one thing, the whole place stank of fish. For another, when we tried sea bathing the waves knocked us off our feet, and our arms and legs were soon covered in scratches and grazes from the fist-size rocks that were forever tumbling around in the water with us.

     I soon had enough of the place. K, however, said not a word either for or against it. Judging from his expression at least, he seemed quite unperturbed, although he never emerged from a swim without a bruise or a cut.

     I finally persuaded him to leave Hota and move on to Tomiura. From there we went to Nako. All that part of the coast was a popular vacation place for students in those days, and we found beaches to our liking wherever we went. K and I often sat on a rock gazing out at the sea’s colors, or at the underwater world at our feet. The water below us was beautifully crystal clear. In the transparent waves we could point out to each other the brilliant flashes of little fish, whose vivid reds and blues were more spectacular than anything to be seen in the fish markets.

     I frequently read while sitting on the rocks, while K spent most of his time sitting silently. Was he lost in thought, or gazing at the scene before him, or intent on some happy fantasy? I had no idea. Occasionally I glanced up and asked what he was doing. Nothing, he replied simply. I often thought how pleasant it would be if Ojōsan, rather than K, were sitting there beside me. This was all very well, but I sometimes felt a stab of suspicion that K might be thinking the same thing. Whenever this occurred to me, I found I could no longer sit calmly reading. I rose abruptly to my feet and let out a great unrestrained yell. I couldn’t dispel my pent-up feelings in a civilized manner, such as blandly declaiming some poem or song. All I could do was howl like a savage. Once, I grabbed K by the scruff of the neck and demanded to know what he would do if I tossed him into the sea. K remained motionless. “Good idea. Go right ahead,” he replied without turning. I quickly let go.

     The state of his nerves by now seemed to have considerably improved, while my own peace of mind had disintegrated. I observed his calm demeanor with envy, and with loathing, interpreting it as indifference to me. His serenity smacked of self-confidence, and not of a kind that it pleased me to see in him. My growing suspicions now demanded clarification of just what lay behind his self-assurance. Had his optimism about his chosen goals in life suddenly revived? If so, then we had no collision of interests— indeed, it would have pleased me to think I had helped him on his way. But if his calm originated in his feelings for Ojōsan, this I could not countenance. Strangely, he seemed oblivious to the signs that I myself loved her—though needless to say, I was anything but eager to alert him to my feelings. Quite simply, he was constitutionally insensitive to such things; indeed, it had been in the faith that no such problems would arise that I had brought him into the house in the first place.

 

CHAPTER 83

 

Summoning up my courage, I decided to confess to K what was in my heart. It was not the first time I had reached this decision. It had been my plan since before our trip together, in fact, but so far I had had the skill neither to seize an appropriate moment nor to create one. It strikes me now that the people I knew back then were all a bit peculiar—no one around me ever spoke about private matters of the heart. No doubt quite a few had nothing to confide, but even those who did kept silent. This must seem most peculiar to you, in the relative freedom of your present age. I will leave it to you to judge whether it was a lingering effect from the Confucianism of an earlier time or simply a form of shyness.

     On the face of it, K and I could say anything to each other. Questions of love and romance did occasionally come up, but our discussions around them always descended into abstract theory, and were in any case rare. For the most part, our conversations were confined to the subject of books and study, our future work, our aspirations, and self-improvement. As close as we were, it was difficult to break into these rigid, impersonal discussions with a personal confession. High-minded gravity was integral to our intimacy. I do not know how often I squirmed with impotent frustration at my inability to speak my heart as I had resolved to do. I longed to crack open some part of K’s mind and soften him with a breath of gentler air.

     To your generation, this will seem quite absurd, but for me at the time it constituted a huge difficulty. I was the same coward on vacation as I had been back home. Though constantly alert for a chance to make my confession, I could find no way to break through K’s determined aloofness. His heart might as well have been sealed off with a thick coating of hard black lacquer, it seemed to me, repelling every drop of the warm-blooded feeling that I was intent on pouring upon it.

     Sometimes, though, I found K’s fiercely principled stance toward the world reassuring. Then I would regret ever doubting him and silently apologize for my suspicions. In this state of mind, I seemed a deeply inferior person and suddenly despised myself. But then the same old doubts would sweep back in and reassert themselves with renewed force. Since I deduced everything on the basis of suspicion, all my conclusions cast me in a disadvantageous light. It seemed to me that K was handsomer and more attractive to women than I, and that my fussiness made my personality less appealing to the opposite sex. His combination of firm manliness with something a little absurd, also struck me as superior. Nor did I feel myself a match for him in scholarly ability, although of course our fields differed. With all his advantages so constantly before my eyes, any momentary relief from my fears soon reverted to the old anxieties.

     Observing my restlessness, K suggested that if I didn’t like it here, we might as well go back to Tokyo, but as soon as he said this, I wanted to stay after all. What I actually wanted was to prevent him from going back himself, I think. We plodded on around the tip of the peninsula, miserably roasting in the painful rays of the hot sun and plagued by the notorious local habit of understating distances when we asked our way. I could no longer see any point in going on walking like this and said as much half-jokingly to K. “We’re walking because we have legs,” he replied. Whenever the heat grew too much for us, we took a dip in the sea wherever we happened to be. But when we set off again, the sun was just as fierce, and we grew limp with fatigue.

 

CHAPTER 84

 

With all this walking, the heat and weariness inevitably took their toll on us. It’s not that we were actually ill; rather it was the disturbing feeling that one’s soul had suddenly moved on to inhabit someone else. Though I continued to talk to K as normal, I felt anything but normal. Both our intimacy and the antagonism I felt toward him took on a special quality that was peculiar to this journey. I suppose what I am saying is that, what with the heat, the sea, and the walking, we entered a different kind of relationship. We became for the moment like nothing so much as a couple of wandering peddlers who had fallen in with each other on the road. For all our talk, we never once broached the complex intellectual topics that we usually discussed.

     Eventually we arrived at Chōshi. [Chōshi: A fishing-port town in present-day Chiba Prefecture.] One extraordinary event on our journey I will never forget. Before leaving the peninsula, we paused at Kominato to take a look at the famous Sea Bream Inlet. It was many years ago, and besides, I was not particularly interested, so the memory is vague, but I seem to remember that this village was supposed to be the place where the famous Buddhist priest Nichiren [the famous Buddhist priest Nichiren: Nichiren (1222-82) founded the Nichiren sect, which places ultimate faith in the Lotus Sutra.] was born. On the day of his birth, two sea bream were said to have been washed up on the beach there, and the local fishermen have avoided catching bream ever since, so the sea there is thronged with them. We hired a boat and went out to see.

     I was intent on the water, gazing entranced at the remarkable sight of all the purple-tinted sea bream milling below the surface. K, however, did not appear as interested. He seemed preoccupied with thoughts of Nichiren rather than fish. There was an impressive temple in the area called Tanjōji, or “Birth Temple,” no doubt referring to the saint’s birth, and K suddenly announced that he was going to go to this temple and talk to its head priest.

     We were, I may say, very oddly dressed. K’s appearance was particularly strange, since his hat had blown into the sea, and he was instead wearing a peasant’s sedge hat that he had bought along the way. Both of us wore filthy robes that reeked of sweat. I urged K to give up the idea of meeting the priest, but he stubbornly persisted, declaring that if I didn’t like it, I could wait outside. Since there was no arguing with him, I reluctantly went along as far as the temple’s entrance hall. I was privately convinced we would be turned away, but priests are surprisingly civil people, and we were immediately shown into a fine large room to meet him.

     I was far from sharing K’s religious interests back then, so I didn’t pay much attention to what they said to each other, but I gathered that K was asking a great deal about Nichiren. I do remember the dismissive look on his face when the priest remarked that Nichiren was renowned for his excellent cursive writing style—K’s own writing was far from good. He was after more profound information. I don’t know that the priest was able to satisfy him, but once we left the temple grounds, K began to talk fervently to me about Nichiren. I was hot and exhausted and in no mood to listen to all this, so my responses were minimal. After a while even this became too much of an effort, so I simply remained silent and let him talk.

     It must have been the following evening, when we had arrived at our night’s lodging, eaten, and were on the point of turning in, that things suddenly grew difficult between us. K was unhappy with the fact that I had not really listened to what he’d said to me about Nichiren the previous day. Anyone without spiritual aspirations is a fool, he declared, and he attacked me for what he obviously saw as my frivolity. For my part, the question of Ojōsan of course complicated my feelings, and I couldn’t simply laugh off his contemptuous accusations. I set about defending myself.

 

CHAPTER 85

 

In those days I was in the habit of using the adjective human. K maintained that this favorite expression of mine was actually a cover for all my personal weaknesses. Thinking back on it now, I can see his point. But I had originally begun to use the word out of resistance to K, in order to convince him of his lack of human feelings, so I was not in a position to consider the question objectively. I stuck to my guns and reiterated my argument.

     K then demanded to know just what it was in him that I believed lacked this quality. “You’re perfectly human, indeed you’re even too human” was my response. “It’s just that when you talk, the things you say lack humanity. And the same goes for your behavior.” K offered no refutation, except to say that if he appeared that way, it was because he had not yet attained a sufficient level of spiritual discipline.

     This did not so much take the wind out of my sails as arouse my pity. I immediately stopped arguing, and he too soon grew calmer.

     If only I shared his knowledge of the lives of the ancients, he remarked mournfully, I wouldn’t be attacking him in this way. When K spoke of “the ancients,” of course, he was not referring to men of legendary daring and courage. His heroes were the fierce ascetics of old, those mortifiers of the flesh who lashed themselves for the sake of spiritual attainment. He was sorry, K declared, that I had no understanding of what anguish he suffered from his own shortcomings.

     With this, we both went to sleep. The following morning we returned to business as usual and set off again to plod on our sweaty way. But my mind kept going back over the previous night’s events. I burned with regret— why had I passed up the perfect opportunity to say at last what was on my mind? Rather than employ an abstraction such as human, I should have made a clean and direct confession to K.

     And truly it was my feelings for Ojōsan that had prompted me to start using this word in the first place, so it would have been more to the point to reveal to K the facts that lay behind my argument rather than belabor him with its theoretical distillation. Our relationship was so firmly defined by lofty scholarly exchange, I must admit, that I lacked the courage to break through it. I could explain this failing as that of affectation, or as the result of vanity, although what I mean by these words is not quite their normal interpretation. I only hope you will understand what I am saying here.

     We arrived back in Tokyo burned black by the sun. By this time I was in yet another frame of mind. Concepts such as “human” and other futile abstractions had all but vanished from my head. K, for his part, showed no more traces of the religious ascetic; he too, I am sure, was no longer troubling himself with the question of the spirit and the flesh.

     We gaped about us at the swirling life of Tokyo, like two visitors from another world. Then we set off for the Ryōkoku district [the Ryōkoku district: A busy district centered around the Ryōkoku Bridge in Tokyo.], where we had a chicken dinner. So fortified, K suggested we walk back home to Koishikawa. I was physically the stronger, so I readily agreed.

     Okusan was taken aback at our appearance when we arrived. Not only were we black from the sun, we were gaunt from the long, exhausting walk. She nevertheless congratulated us on looking so much stronger, and Ojōsan laughed at her inconsistency. No doubt it was the combination of the circumstance and the pleasure of hearing her laughter again, but in that moment I was happy, freed of the anger that had plagued me before the trip.

 

CHAPTER 86

 

But there was more. Something had changed in Ojōsan’s attitude, I noticed. Both Okusan and Ojōsan set about providing us with the female care and attention that we needed to regain normalcy after our journey, but it seemed to me that Ojōsan was far more attentive to me than to K. If it had been blatant, it might have made me uncomfortable, even irritated. But I was delighted at how decorously she behaved. She devoted the greater part of her innate kindness to me in a way that only I would notice. K therefore remained oblivious and unconcerned. A gleeful song of victory sang in my heart.

     Summer ended at last, and mid-September arrived, the time when lectures would resume. Our schedules meant that once more we came and went from the house at different hours. Three times a week I returned later than K, but I never detected any sign of Ojōsan’s presence in his room. K went back to turning as I entered and remarking, “Just back, are you?” and I answered with my usual mechanical and meaningless response.

     It would have been the middle of October. I had overslept and rushed off to classes without changing out of the Japanese clothing I wore around the house; rather than waste time with laced shoes, I hastily slipped on a pair of straw sandals. Our schedules meant that I would get back home before K did.

     When I arrived, I flung open the lattice door, assuming he wouldn’t be there—and caught the sound of his voice within. I also heard Ojōsan’s laughter. Not needing to spend time unlacing my shoes at the door as usual, I stepped straight out of my sandals and into the house and opened the sliding doors to our rooms. My eyes took in the sight of K, seated as usual at his desk. Ojōsan, however, was no longer in the room. All I caught was a glimpse of her retreating form, obviously making a hasty exit.

     I asked K why he had returned early. He had stayed home that day because he felt unwell, he replied.

     No sooner was I back in my room and seated than Ojōsan appeared with tea, and now at last she greeted me. I was not the sort of person who could ask with an easy laugh why she had run away just then; instead, the matter nagged at my mind. She stood up and went off down the veranda, but she paused a moment before K’s room and exchanged a few words with him. They seemed to be a continuation of their previous talk, but as I had not heard what had gone before, I could make no sense of them.

     Over time Ojōsan grew increasingly nonchalant. Even when we were both at home, she would go to K’s room via the veranda and call his name. Then she would go in and make herself at home. Sometimes, of course, she was bringing him mail or delivering his washing, the kind of interaction that could only be considered normal for those living under the same roof, but my fierce and single-minded desire to have her all to myself drove me to read more into it. At times I felt she was going out of her way to avoid my room and visit only his.

     So why, you may ask, did I not ask K to leave the house? But that would have defeated the very purpose for bringing him there in the first place. It was beyond me to do it.

 

CHAPTER 87

 

It was a cold, rainy day in November. Sodden in my overcoat, I made my way as usual past the fierce Enma image that stands in Genkaku Temple [the fierce Enma image that stands in Genkaku Temple: Genkaku Temple is in the Tokyo district of Koishikawa, close to where Sōseki imagines Okusan’s house to stand. Enma is the ruler of the realms of the dead.] and up the hill to the house. K’s room was deserted, but his charcoal brazier was newly lit. I hurriedly opened the doors through to my room, eager to warm my chilled hands at my own glowing charcoal. But my brazier held only the cold white ash of its earlier fire; even the embers were dead. My mood quickly shifted to one of displeasure.

     Okusan had heard me arrive and came to greet me. Seeing me standing silent in the middle of the room, she sympathetically helped me out of my coat and into my casual household kimono. I complained of the cold, and she obligingly carried in K’s brazier from next door. Was K home yet? I asked. He had returned and then gone out again, she told me. This puzzled me, as it was a day when his class schedule meant he came home later than I. He probably had some business to attend to, Okusan said.

     I sat for a while reading. The house was still and hushed, there was no sound of any voice, and after a while the early winter chill, combined with the desolate silence, began to penetrate me. Seized by a sudden urge to be among a bustling throng of people, I put my book down and rose to my feet. The rain seemed to have lifted at last, but the sky still hung heavily chill and leaden, so to be on the safe side, as I went out I slung an oil-paper umbrella over my shoulder. I set off east down the hill, following the earthen wall that ran along the rear of the Arsenal.

     In those days the roads were not yet improved, and the slope was a lot steeper than it is today. The street was narrower and not straight as now. As you descended into the valley, high buildings blocked the sun, and because drainage was poor, it was damp and muddy underfoot. The worst section was between the narrow stone bridge and the street of Yanagi-chō. Even in high rain clogs or rubber boots, you had to tread carefully to avoid the mud. Everyone was forced to pick their way gingerly along the long thin rut that had formed in the middle of the road. It was a mere foot or two wide, so it was a bit like walking along a kimono sash that had been casually unrolled down the center of the road. People made their way cautiously, in single file.

     I was negotiating this narrow strip when I ran abruptly into K. Concentrating on where I was putting my feet, I was unaware of him until we were face-to-face. Only when I raised my eyes on impulse to see what was suddenly blocking my way did I discover him there.

     Where had he been? I asked. He had just stepped out for a bit, he said. His reply was typically brief and unresponsive. We maneuvered past each other on the narrow strip of navigable road, and as we did, I saw that a young woman was behind him. Short-sighted as I was, I had not seen her until now, but once K had passed me, my eyes fell on her face, and I was astonished to discover that it was Ojōsan.

     She greeted me, her cheeks slightly flushed. In those days, fashionable girls wore their hair swept straight back from the forehead and coiled on top of the head. For a long moment I stared blankly at this twist of hair. Then I became conscious of the fact that one of us would have to make way for the other. Resolutely, I stepped aside, putting one foot into the mud and so leaving a space for her to pass me with relative ease.

     When I arrived at Yanagi-chō, I could not think where to go. All possibilities now felt equally bleak. For a while I tramped despairingly along through the sludge, oblivious to the splashes, then went home again.

 

CHAPTER 88

 

I asked K if he and Ojōsan had left the house together. No, he replied. They had come across each other in Masago-chō [Masago-chō: An area in present-day Bunkyō ward, near Tokyo University.], he explained, so they came home together. I could not really question him further, but over dinner I felt an urge to ask Ojōsan the same question. Her response was to laugh in that way I so disliked, then to challenge me to guess where she’d been. In those days I had a quick temper, and I felt a sudden surge of anger at being treated so flippantly. Okusan was the only person at the table to notice, however. K remained oblivious.

     I was uncertain whether Ojōsan was being intentionally teasing or only innocently playful. As young women went, she was very astute, but I had to admit that certain aspects of her were typical of the things about other girls that annoyed me. It was since K’s arrival in the house that I had begun to notice these irritating traits. I was unsure whether to put this down to my own jealousy of K or to her artfulness in relation to me. I am not inclined even now to dismiss my jealousy. As I have said many times, I was well aware that jealousy was at work below my love for Ojōsan. The smallest trifle, something that would be quite insignificant to anyone else, could set it off.

     To digress for a moment, it seems to me that this kind of jealousy is perhaps a necessary part of love. Since my marriage, I have been aware that my jealous impulses have slowly faded; at the same time, I no longer feel that early fierce passion of love.

     Hesitant as my heart had been, I now knew I had to gather my courage and fling it down before her. By her I mean Okusan, not Ojōsan. My plan was to set marriage discussions in motion by coming straight out and asking for Ojōsan’s hand. Yet though my decision was made, I still held back from day to day. I know this makes me seem terribly irresolute—I don’t mind that it does. But my inability to act did not stem from lack of willpower. Before K had appeared on the scene, any move I felt the urge to make was blocked by my abhorrence of falling into a trap as I had done once before; after K’s arrival, my suspicion that she might be more attracted to him held me back. If she did indeed favor him, I had decided, then there was no value in declaring my own love.

     It was not so much that the thought of the shame was painful to me; it was rather that, no matter how I loved her, I hated the thought of marrying a woman who secretly longed for another. Many men are perfectly happy to marry the girl they love whether she returns the feelings or not, but in those days I considered such men to be more worldly and cynical than we were, or else more obtuse to the workings of love. I was much too ardent to have any truck with the notion that once you marry you somehow simply settle down. In a word, I had a romantic faith in the nobility of love, while simultaneously practicing a devious form of it.

     Naturally, during all our long time together there had been occasions when I could have confessed myself directly to Ojōsan and asked for her hand, but I had purposely chosen not to. I was very conscious of the fact that Japanese convention forbade such things, but it was not really this alone that restrained me. I assumed that in such a situation Japanese, and particularly Japanese girls, lacked the courage to be frank and honest, so I could not hope for a candid response from her.

 

CHAPTER 89

 

Thus I found myself at a standstill, unable to move in either direction. Maybe you know the feeling of lying there snoozing, perhaps when you are ill, and suddenly you find that your limbs are paralyzed, although you are perfectly aware of everything around you. This was how it sometimes felt to me then, unknown to those around me.

     The year ended, and spring came. One day Okusan suggested to K that he invite some friends over so we could play the New Year game of poem cards [the New Year game of poem cards: A traditional game in which cards containing the second half of famous poems are turned faceup, and the participants must match each to the appropriate card containing the poem’s first half. The poems are those in the anthology Hyakunin isshū, “One Hundred Poems of One Hundred Poets,” a title usually referring to the collection made by Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241).]. She was astonished when K responded that he had no friends. Indeed it was true, no one in K’s life really fit the description. He had a number of acquaintances who would pass the time of day with him when they came across each other, but they were hardly the kind of people to ask over for a game of cards. Okusan then turned to me and asked if I knew of anyone to invite, but I was not in the mood for such jolly games, so I gave a noncommittal reply.

     When evening came, however, Ojōsan dragged us both off to play. With just the four of us, it was a very subdued game. Unused to such frivolities as he was, moreover, K remained reserved and standoffish. I demanded to know whether he even knew the Hyakunin isshū poems. “Not really,” he replied. Ojōsan apparently took my words to be contemptuous, for she then began to lend him her obvious support, and in the end the two of them were more or less aligned against me. With any encouragement the situation could easily have escalated into a quarrel as far as I was concerned, but luckily K steadfastly maintained his earlier aloof indifference. I could detect not the slightest hint of triumph in him, so I managed to finish the game without incident.

     It would have been two or three days later that Okusan and Ojōsan set off in the morning to visit some relatives in Ichigaya. Classes had not yet started, so K and I were in effect left to look after the house for the day. I felt no urge either to read or to take a walk and instead settled beside the brazier, chin propped on elbow, daydreaming. Next door K was equally quiet. Such silence reigned that for each of us, the other could as well not have been there. There was nothing unusual in this silence, of course, and I paid it no particular attention.

     Around ten o’clock K suddenly opened the doors between our rooms and stood in the doorway. What was I thinking? he asked. I had not really been thinking anything, or if I had, then I was probably mulling over the usual problem of Ojōsan. Okusan was a necessary part of my conundrum, of course, but lately K’s inseparable involvement had complicated it further. He had been vaguely present in my mind as a kind of obstacle, but now that I was face-to-face with him, I couldn’t come out and say so. I simply looked at him silently. K then strode into my room and sat down in front of my brazier. I took my elbows off the edge and pushed the brazier slightly toward him.

     K began to talk in a way that was quite out of character. To which part of Ichigaya had Okusan and Ojōsan gone? he asked. I said I believed they went to the aunt’s house. Who is she? he asked. I told him she was the wife of a military officer. Why had they gone out so early in the year, when the round of New Year visits traditionally did not begin for women until after the fifteenth of January? I could only reply that I did not know.

 

CHAPTER 90

 

K persisted with his questions about Okusan and Ojōsan. Eventually he began to ask the kind of personal question that I had no way of answering. I was not so much annoyed as astonished. There was a glaring contrast between his indifference whenever I had brought up the subject of these two on previous occasions, and his very different attitude now. Finally I asked why he was suddenly so obsessed with the subject today. He instantly fell silent, but his closed mouth twitched tremulously. He never spoke much, and when he did, he had the habit of first working his mouth around. The weight of his utterances was no doubt evidenced in the way the lips resisted his will and opened only reluctantly. The voice that finally broke through was twice as strong as that of an average man.

     Seeing his mouth working now, I knew that something was coming, but I had no clue what was in store. You can imagine my amazement when K launched into a ponderous confession of his agonized love for Ojōsan. I froze, as if his words were a magic wand that turned me instantly to stone. My mouth failed to so much as twitch in an effort to respond.

     My whole being was reduced to a single concentrated point—of terror, of pain. I stiffened instantaneously from head to foot, like stone or steel. So rigid was I that I almost lost the power of breath. Luckily, however, this state quickly passed. A moment later I had returned to human feelings. And now a bitter regret swept over me. He had beaten me to it.

     I had no idea what my next move should be, however. I was too distressed, I suppose, to think coherently. I simply remained frozen, uncomfortably aware of the nasty sweat that was soaking the armpits of my shirt. K, meanwhile, was continuing the faltering confession of his love, pausing from time to time to grope for words. I was in agony. My distress must have been written on my face as blatantly as some advertising poster, I thought. Even K must surely notice it. But it seemed in fact that his attention was too deeply focused on himself to register my expression. His confession never varied in tone. There was a heavy dullness to it, it seemed to me, and a kind of unyielding inertia. While part of me listened to this faltering declaration, my heart was seething with the question What shall I do, oh, what shall I do? so that I scarcely comprehended the details of what K was saying. The overall tone of his words, however, struck me to the core. So my pain was now mixed with a kind of terror—the beginnings of a horrified recognition that he was stronger than I.

     When K finished, I could say nothing. I was not struck dumb by any internal debate about whether it would be wiser to make the same confession to him or to keep my secret to myself. It was simply that I could not speak. Nor did I wish to.

     At lunch K and I faced each other across the table. Served by the maid, we ate what seemed to me an unusually tasteless meal. We spoke barely a word during the meal. We had no idea when Okusan and Ojōsan would return.

 

CHAPTER 91

 

We returned to our separate rooms and did not see each other again. K was as silent as he’d been that morning. I too sat quietly, deep in thought.

     It seemed clear to me that I should reveal my heart to K, but I also felt that my chance had already passed. My silence had been a terrible mistake, it seemed to me now; I should have cut across his words with a counteroffensive; at the very least, I would have been wiser to follow his confession by frankly telling him my own feelings. At this stage, no matter how I looked at it, with K’s confession over and done with it would be awkward to come back to the subject and express my own feelings. I could see no way to bring it up naturally. I felt dizzy with remorse.

     If only he would open the sliding doors that separated us and charge into the room again, I thought. Earlier, he had caught me off guard, quite unprepared to cope with him. My underlying impulse now was to somehow regain the advantage I had lost that morning. From time to time I raised my eyes expectantly to the sliding doors. But the doors stayed closed. And beyond them K remained quiet.

     After a while this hush started to unnerve me. What would he be thinking in there? No sooner had the question entered my head than it began to obsess me. It was perfectly normal for us to maintain separate silences on either side of the doors, and usually the quieter K was, the more likely I was to forget he was there. In my present state, however, I was clearly a bit mad. Yet despite my urgent need to confront him, I could not take the offensive and open the doors myself. Having missed my chance to speak, I now could only wait for his next move.

     At length I could stay still no more. The longer I forced myself to remain motionless, the more urgently I longed to leap up and burst into K’s room. There was nothing for it but to get up and go out onto the veranda. From there I moved on into the sitting room, where I absently poured myself a cup of hot water from the kettle and drank it. Then I went out to the entrance hall, and from there, having carefully avoided K’s room, I found myself out in the road. Needless to say, I had no destination in mind. I simply needed to keep moving. I wandered aimlessly through streets that were bright with New Year decorations. Walk as I might, K continued to fill my mind. In fact, I was not even attempting to rid myself of such thoughts by walking. As I prowled the streets, my mind was intent on chewing over and digesting the image of him that hung before me.

     Above all, he puzzled me. Why should he have unburdened himself to me out of the blue like that? Why had his passion reached such a pitch that he felt he must confess it to me? And where had his normal self disappeared to? I could find no answers. I knew how strong he was, and how intensely earnest. I was convinced that there was a lot more I needed to know before I could decide on my own attitude. On the other hand, the thought of having anything more to do with him was strangely repugnant. As I strode about the town in a daze, K’s face, as he sat quietly in his room, was constantly before my eyes, while a voice seemed to be telling me that no matter how I walked, he would remain impervious to me. In short, I had begun to feel an almost magical power in him. Perhaps, I even found myself thinking, he had cast an evil spell that would last the rest of my life.

     When at length I came home, exhausted, there was still no sound of life from K’s room.

 

CHAPTER 92

 

Soon after I returned, I heard a rickshaw approaching. In those days the wheels were not yet lined with rubber, and you could hear the noisy clatter from quite a distance. The vehicle eventually pulled up in front of the gate.

     About thirty minutes later I was summoned for the evening meal. The room next door was still scattered with the bright disorder of the formal visiting kimonos that the two ladies had just taken off. They apologized to us for being late. They had hurried home, Okusan said, to be in time to prepare supper. This thoughtfulness, however, was quite lost on both K and me. At the table my responses were brief and curt, as if begrudging each word. K was even more taciturn. The two ladies were still in fine high spirits from their rare excursion together, so our black mood was starkly evident in contrast.

     Okusan asked me what had happened. I said I wasn’t feeling very well. This was no more than the truth. Then Ojōsan addressed the same question to K. He gave a different reply. He simply said he didn’t feel like talking. Why not? she demanded. On a sudden impulse, I raised my reluctant eyes to his face, curious to know how he would respond. K’s lips were trembling in that way he had. Anyone who did not know him would judge that he was lost for an answer. Ojōsan laughed and said he must be thinking those difficult thoughts of his again. He reddened slightly.

     That evening I went to bed earlier than usual. Concerned at my statement that I was feeling unwell, Okusan arrived around ten with some buckwheat soup. My room was already dark, however. She slid the door open a fraction and peered in, in consternation. As she did so, the lamplight from K’s desk cast a soft diagonal beam into my room. It seemed he was still up. Okusan came in and sat at my pillow, setting the bowl down beside me. “Do have this,” she said. “It will warm you up. You must have caught cold.” Grudgingly I drank the glutinous liquid, while she sat watching.

     I lay in the dark thinking until late in the night. What this amounted to, of course, was fruitlessly going over and over the same problem without arriving at any conclusion. At one point I suddenly wondered what K was doing right then in the room next door. “Hey,” I called out, only half aware of what I was doing. “Hey,” he immediately responded. He was still up. “Haven’t you gone to bed yet?” I asked through the doors. He was just about to, he replied. “What are you doing?” I asked. This time there was no reply. Instead, five or six minutes later, I heard as clearly as if it were happening beside me the rasp of a cupboard being opened and the dull thump of bedding being laid on the floor. “What time is it?” I asked. “Twenty past one,” he replied. Then I heard him softly blow out the flame of his lamp, and blackness and silence fell upon the house.

     As I lay in the dark, my staring eyes only grew clearer. Again without really thinking, I called to K once more. Once more he responded. At length, I brought myself to say I wanted to talk more about what he had told me that morning. “Is it okay to talk now?” I asked. I did not, of course, intend to have this conversation through closed doors. I was just hoping for a simple answer. But although K had responded willingly enough to my earlier calls, he now resisted. “Mm, well,” he muttered softly. Another shock of fear ran through me.

 

CHAPTER 93

 

K’s evasive response was unmistakably echoed in his attitude the next day and the day after. He showed not the least inclination to broach the subject at issue between us. Granted, he had no opportunity to do so. We could not take our time and discuss things calmly unless both Okusan and Ojōsan had left the house for the day. I knew this perfectly well. Yet it still riled me. I had prepared myself in wait for K to make the next move, but now I changed my mind and decided that I would be the one to speak first if a chance presented itself.

     I was also silently watchful of Okusan and Ojōsan. However, I detected nothing in either of them that was in the least different from usual. If their behavior had not visibly changed since K’s confession, I felt, then he’d clearly confessed himself to me alone. He had yet to broach it with either Ojōsan or her guardian. This thought brought me some small comfort. In that case, I decided, it was better to lie in wait for a moment when I could naturally bring up the subject rather than make it obvious that I was purposely creating one. I would lay the topic aside for the moment and let things be.

     Put this way, the decision sounds terribly simple. But the process I went through to reach it involved surges of thought and emotion, high and low, that swept through my heart like tides. I observed K’s stolid immobility, and imputed various meanings to it. I kept a close watch on all that Okusan and Ojōsan did and spoke, and questioned whether what I saw truly reflected what was in their hearts. Could that delicate and complex instrument that lies in the human breast ever really produce a reading that was absolutely clear and truthful, like a clock’s hands pointing to numbers on its dial? I wondered. In other words, only after a convoluted process of interpreting everything now one way and now another did I finally settle on my decision —although strictly speaking the word settle is singularly inappropriate for my state of mind at the time.

     Lectures began again. On days when our schedule coincided, we set off together, and if it was convenient for us both, we came home together. To an outsider, we would have appeared just as friendly as before. Yet each of us within his heart was most certainly thinking his separate thoughts. One day as we were walking along together, I chose my moment and suddenly took the offensive. I began by asking whether he had made his recent confession only to me or whether he had spoken also to Okusan and Ojōsan. His reply would indicate the approach I should take, I’d decided. He declared that he had not yet spoken of it to anyone else. This privately delighted me, as it confirmed my assumption. I was well aware that he was more daring than I, and that I was no match for his courage. Yet I also had a strange faith that he was telling the truth. Despite his three-year deception of his adoptive family over the matter of school fees, he had never been in the least deceitful with me. I was in fact all the more inclined to trust him on this evidence. Thus, suspicious though I was by nature, I had no reason to doubt his unhesitating answer.

     What did he plan to do about this love? I then asked. Was it simply something he had confessed to me in private, or did he intend to take practical steps to get what he wanted? But now he did not reply. Head down, he strode along in silence. “Don’t hide anything from me,” I said. “Tell me all that’s on your mind.” He declared that he had no need to hide anything—but he made absolutely no attempt to answer my question. I could hardly pause in the street and have the matter out with him then and there. I left it at that.

 

CHAPTER 94

 

One day I paid a rare visit to the university library. My supervisor had instructed me to check on something related to my field of study for the following week. Settling myself at a corner of one of the large desks, where the sunlight from the nearby window fell across me, I flipped through recently arrived foreign journals. I could not find what I wanted, however, so I had to keep going back to the shelves. Finally I came across the article I was after and set about avidly reading. At this point someone on the other side of the desk softly called my name. Raising my eyes, I discovered K standing there. He leaned forward over the desk toward me, his face close to mine. It is library etiquette not to disturb nearby readers, so K’s action was perfectly reasonable, but on this occasion it strangely unnerved me.

     “Are you studying?” he asked in a low voice.

     “I have to look something up,” I replied.

     His face still hovered close to mine. In the same low voice he asked if I would come out for a walk.

     Yes, I replied, if he would wait just a little.

     “I’ll wait,” he said, and sank down on the chair directly in front of me.

     This had the effect of distracting me so much that I found it impossible to concentrate anymore. The conviction seized me that he had something up his sleeve and had come to discuss things with me. I was driven to lay down my journal and rise.

     “Finished?” K serenely inquired, seeing me begin to get to my feet.

     “It’s not important,” I answered. I returned the journal, and we left the library together.

     We had no particular destination in mind, so we walked through Tatsuoka-chō to Ikenohata and on into Ueno Park. There K suddenly broached the subject that lay between us. All things considered, it seemed obvious that he had invited me out for a walk for this purpose. But he still showed no evidence of moving toward a plan of action. “What do you think?” he asked. What he wanted to know was how I saw him, knowing the depths of love to which he had succumbed. He was, in other words, seeking a critical evaluation of his present state.

     I could tell from this how unlike his usual self he was. Let me remind you that he had none of that weakness of character that makes most people concerned with what others are thinking. He had the kind of daring and courage that would simply press ahead once he’d decided something. I had all too vivid memories of this characteristic from the time of his family troubles, so the difference in his present behavior was quite clear to me.

     Why was my opinion so important now? I asked him. The fact was, he was ashamed of his weakness, he replied in an unusually dejected voice. He was at a loss, no longer had a clear sense of things, so all he could do was seek a fair assessment from me. I cut in with a question—what did he mean by “at a loss”? He didn’t know whether to proceed or retreat, he explained. I pressed in another step, and asked whether he thought himself capable of retreat, if that was what he decided. Words now failed him. “It’s agony” was all he managed. And indeed he looked racked. If the person at issue had not been Ojōsan, I could have poured such a balm of soothing reassurances upon those poor tortured features. I flatter myself that I was born with a compassionate sympathy for others. Just then, however, I was a different person.

 

CHAPTER 95

 

I watched K’s every move, vigilant as a man pitting himself against someone trained in a different school of combat. My eyes, my heart, my body, every atom of my being, was focused on him with unwavering intent. In his innocence, K was completely unwary. He was not so much poorly defended as utterly vulnerable. It was as if I could lift from his very hands the map of a fortress that was in his charge and take all the time I wanted to examine it as he watched.

     Now I understood that he had lost his way in a labyrinth between his ideals and reality, I felt with conviction that I could knock him down with a single blow. My eyes fixed on this purpose, I stepped straight into the breach. I grew instantly solemn. It was part of my strategy, but in fact I was tense enough for it to feel perfectly natural, so I was in no position to notice that I was behaving shamefully, even comically.

     I began by tossing back at him the statement “anyone without spiritual aspirations is a fool,” the words he had used against me on our journey around Bōshū I threw them at him in precisely the tone he had used to me then. I didn’t do it vindictively, however. I confess that I had a crueler aim than mere revenge. I wanted with these words to block K’s way to love.

     K had been born into the Pure Land sect, which encourages its priests to marry, but once he reached his teenage years, he developed beliefs that were somewhat different. I am poorly qualified to speak on this, I know, as I lack much understanding of sectarian differences, but I was certainly aware of how he felt about relations between the sexes. K had always loved the expression “spiritual austerity,” which I understood to contain the idea of control over the passions.

     Later I had discovered that those words held a still more rigorous meaning for him. His prime article of faith was the necessity to sacrifice everything in pursuit of “the true Way.” Following the path was not only a question of self-denial and abstinence—even selfless love, beyond the realms of desire, was conceived as a stumbling block. I had often heard him declaim about this in the days when he was self-supporting. I was already in love with Ojōsan back then, so naturally I threw myself into defending the realms of desire. He had looked at me pityingly, with much more contempt than sympathy in his eyes.

     Now, with all that lay between us, the words I had just thrown back at K would certainly have struck home painfully. But as I have said, I was not using them to strike at the philosophy he had so rigorously cultivated. I wanted instead for him to stay true to his old convictions. Whether he attained his spiritual aspirations was beside the point—he could reach enlightenment itself, for all I cared. My single fear was that he would change the direction he had chosen for his life and thereby come into conflict with my own interests. In other words, blatant self-interest lay behind my words.

     “Anyone without spiritual aspirations is a fool,” I repeated, watching to see what effect these words would have on K.

     “A fool,” K responded at length. “I’m a fool.”

     He came to an instantaneous halt and stood rooted to the spot, staring at the ground. This startled me. He seemed to me like a cornered thief who will suddenly turn threatening. Then I realized that he presented no danger; all the power had left his voice. I longed to read his eyes, but they remained averted. Then, slowly, he set off walking once more.

 

CHAPTER 96

 

I walked along beside him, ready, or perhaps better to say lying in wait, for what he would say next. I felt quite prepared to spring an underhanded attack on him if need be. But I also had the conscience that education had instilled in me. If someone had appeared at my side and whispered “Coward!” I would surely have come to myself with a start. And if that man had been K, I would have blushed before him. But K was far too honest to reproach me, far too pure-hearted, too good. In the blind urgency of the moment, however, I failed to honor this in him. Instead I struck home. I used his own virtue to defeat him.

     After a while K spoke my name and turned to look at me. This time it was I who stopped in my tracks. K halted too. At last I was able to I look him directly in the eye. His superior height forced me to look up at him, but I did so with the heart of a wolf crouching before an innocent lamb.

     “Let’s not talk about it anymore,” he said. There was a strange grief both in his voice and in the expression in his eyes. I could say nothing in reply. “Please stop,” he said again, pleading now.

     My answer was cruel. I leaped like a wolf upon the lamb’s throat. “I wasn’t the one who brought it up, you know. You began it. If you want to stop, that’s fine by me. But there’s no point in just shutting up. You have to resolve to put a stop to it in your heart as well. What about all those fine principles of yours? Where’s your moral fiber?”

     At these words, his tall frame seemed to shrink and dwindle before my eyes. He was, as I have said, incredibly obstinate and headstrong, yet he was also far too honest to be able to shrug it off if his own inconsistency was forcefully brought home to him. Seeing him cowed, I at last breathed a sigh of relief. Then he said suddenly, “Resolve?” Before I could respond, he went on, “Resolve—well, I’m not without resolve.” He spoke as if to himself, or as if in a trance.

     Our conversation came to a halt, and we turned toward home. It was a fairly warm and windless day, but nevertheless it was winter, and the leafless park felt desolate. I turned once to look back at the russet shapes of the frost-burned cedars, their tips neatly aligned against the gloomy sky, and felt the cold sink its teeth into my back. We hurried on in the dusk over Hongō Hill and dipped into the valley below Koishikawa. Only now did I at last feel the beginnings of a glow of warmth inside my overcoat.

     We barely spoke on our way home, though our haste might explain this silence. When we were back and seated at the dinner table, Okusan asked why we had been late. I replied that K had invited me out, and we had gone to Ueno. On such a cold day? said Okusan in surprise. Ojōsan wondered what had taken us there. Nothing, I replied simply, we had just gone for a walk. Always taciturn, K now spoke even less than usual. He failed to make the slightest response to Okusan’s cajolings and Ojōsan’s smiles. He gulped down his food, and retired to his room while I was still at the table.

 

CHAPTER 97

 

These were the days before “the new awakening” or “the new way of life,” as modern slogans have it. But if K failed to toss away his old self and throw himself into becoming a new man, it was not for want of such concepts. Rather, it was because he could not bear to reject a self and a past that had been so noble and exalted. One might even say that it had been his reason for living. So his failure to rush headlong in pursuit of love must not be read as proof that his love was lukewarm. No matter how fierce was the passion that gripped him, the fact is he was paralyzed, transfixed by the contemplation of his own past. Only something so momentous as to drive from his consciousness all thoughts of before and after could have propelled him forward. And with his eyes fixed on the past, he had no choice but to continue along its trajectory. Also, there was in K a kind of obduracy and power of endurance lacking in modern men. In this respect I was confident that I knew him well.

     For me, that evening was relatively peaceful. I followed K to his room, settled myself beside his desk, and deliberately chattered on for a while about nothing in particular. He looked annoyed. No doubt a light of victory glinted in my eye, and my voice held a note of triumph. After I’d spent some time warming my hands over his brazier, I returned to my room. Just for that moment I felt that, though K was in every way superior to me, for once I had nothing to fear from him.

     Soon I drifted into a calm sleep. But I was awakened by the sudden sound of my name. Turning to look, I saw that the sliding doors were partly open, and K’s dark shape was standing there. The desk lamp still glowed in the room beyond. Stunned by the sudden change in my world, for a long moment I could only lie there, speechless and staring.

     “Are you in bed already?” K asked. He always stayed up late.

     “What is it?” I said, addressing K’s shadowy phantom shape.

     “Nothing really,” he replied. “I just dropped in on my way back from the bathroom to check if you were asleep yet.” With the lamplight behind him, I could make out nothing of his expression. His voice, however, was if anything calmer than usual.

     After a moment he slid the doors carefully closed. Darkness instantly returned to my room. I closed my eyes again, to shut out the blackness and dream in peace. I remember nothing more. But the next morning when I recalled the incident, it struck me as somehow strange. Had I perhaps dreamed it? I wondered.

     Over breakfast I asked him about it. Yes, he said, he had opened the doors and called my name.

     “Why did you do that?” I asked, but he gave only a vague reply.

     We lapsed into silence. Then he abruptly asked if I was sleeping well lately. The question struck me as rather odd.

     That day our lectures would begin at the same time, so we set off together. The previous night’s incident had been bothering me all morning, and I brought up the subject again as we walked. He still gave no satisfactory answer, however. “Did you want to continue our earlier conversation?” I asked.

     He vehemently denied it. This firm response seemed like a curt reminder that he had said he wouldn’t talk about it anymore. He always had a fierce pride in his own consistency, I reminded myself. Then I found myself recalling how he had spoken of “resolve.” Suddenly this simple word, until that moment quite insignificant, began strangely to oppress me.

 

CHAPTER 98

 

I was well aware that K usually acted decisively, but I could also see perfectly well why he was being so astonishingly irresolute now. I proudly believed, in other words, that my knowledge of the norm gave me a clear grasp of the present exception. But as I slowly digested this word resolve, my confident pride teetered and finally began to crumble. Perhaps he was not behaving so out of character after all. Perhaps, in fact, he held carefully tucked away within his breast the means by which to solve at a stroke all his doubts, anguish, and torment. When I considered the word resolve in this fresh light, a shock ran through me. I would probably have been wiser to turn this astonishment to good account and coolly reconsider just what this resolve might constitute. Sadly, however, I was blinded by my own singleminded preoccupation. The only interpretation I could imagine was that he was resolved to act in relation to Ojōsan. I leaped to the conclusion that his decisiveness would be exercised in the pursuit of love.

     A voice whispered in my ear that it was time for me too to be decisive, and I unhesitatingly complied. I gathered my courage for a final resolve. I must act before K did, and without his knowledge, I decided. Silently I awaited my chance. Two or three days passed, however, and no opportunity presented itself. I was waiting for a time when K was out and Ojōsan had also left the house, when I could approach Okusan in private. But day after day either he or she was always there to stymie my plan. The longed-for moment never arrived. I seethed with impatience.

     A week later I could finally wait no longer, and I faked illness to attain my end. I lay in bed until around ten, grunting a vague response when Okusan, Ojōsan, and K himself told me it was time to get up. When K and Ojōsan had both left and a hush had fallen on the house, I finally left my bed. “What’s the matter?” Okusan asked when she saw me appear. She urged me to go back to bed and said she would bring me something to eat. But I was in no mood to sleep further, being in fact perfectly well. I washed my face and ate in the sitting room as usual, while Okusan served me from the other side of the brazier. As I sat there, bowl in hand, eating what could be either breakfast or lunch, I was agonizing over how to broach the subject of Ojōsan, so no doubt I looked every bit the part of a suffering invalid.

     I finished the meal and lit a cigarette. Okusan could not leave until I rose, so she sat on beside the brazier. The maid was called in to remove the dishes, while Okusan kept me company, busying herself with topping up the kettle or wiping the rim of the brazier as she sat there.

     “Is there something you ought to be doing?” I asked.

     “No,” she said, then inquired why I wanted to know.

     “Actually,” I replied, “I have something I’d like to discuss.”

     “What is it?” she said casually, her eyes on my face. She was treating the moment lightly, apparently unreceptive to my mood, and I faltered over how to proceed. After beating about the bush for a while, I finally asked whether K had recently said anything to her.

     “What about?” she asked, startled. Then, before I could answer, she said, “Did he say something to you?”

 

CHAPTER 99

 

“No,” I replied, having no intention of telling Okusan what K had confessed to me. But the lie immediately made me unhappy. I awkwardly backed away from it by saying that K hadn’t asked me to say anything on his behalf that I could recall, and my present business had nothing to do with him.

     “I see,” she said, and waited for more.

     There was nothing for it but to broach the subject at last. “Okusan,” I said abruptly, “I wish to marry Ojōsan.”

     She took this more calmly than I had anticipated, although she stared at me in silence, apparently at a loss how to respond.

     But I had gone too far now to let her gaze disconcert me. “Please, Okusan. Please let me marry her,” I said. “Let me make her my wife.”

     Okusan’s mature years lent her far greater calm than I could muster. “That’s all very well,” she replied, “but isn’t this rather hasty?”

     “It’s now I want to marry her,” I said, which made her laugh.

     “Have you thought this through properly?” she went on.

     I earnestly assured her that although the request was sudden, the impulse behind it was anything but.

     A few more questions followed, which I have forgotten. Okusan had quite a masculine clarity and directness that made her far easier to talk to than the usual woman in this kind of situation.

     “Very good,” she finally said. “You may have her. Or rather,” she corrected herself, “since I’m not in a position to speak so patronizingly, let me say, ‘Please take her for your wife.’ As you know, the poor girl has no father to give her away.”

     And so the question was settled, straightforwardly and without fuss. It would have taken no more than fifteen minutes from beginning to end. Okusan demanded no conditions. It would not be necessary to consult the relatives, she maintained. All she had to do was inform them of the decision. She even stated that there was no need to consult the wishes of Ojōsan herself.

     Here I balked—educated man though I was, I was apparently the more conventional in such matters. As for the relatives, I said, I would leave that up to her, but surely the right thing to do next was to gain the girl’s consent.

     “Please don’t worry,” Okusan replied. “I wouldn’t make her marry anyone she didn’t want to.”

     Once back in my room, I felt somewhat unnerved at how remarkably smoothly the discussion had gone. I even found myself almost doubting that it could all really be as safely settled as it seemed. At the same time, however, my whole being was swept with a sense of renewal at the thought that the future was now decided.

     Around noon I went into the living room and asked Okusan when she planned to tell Ojōsan the news of our conversation. Since she had already agreed, she said, it didn’t matter when she told her daughter. I turned to go back to my room with the uncomfortable feeling that she was playing the male far better than I was in all this, but Okusan held me back. If I wished, she said, she would tell her daughter right away, as soon as she came back from her lessons that day.

     That would be best, I agreed, and returned to my room. But the idea of sitting mutely at my desk listening as the two of them murmured together in the distance made me jittery. At length I put on my hat and went out.

     And now once again, on the road below the house, I crossed paths with Ojōsan coming up. Quite innocent of all that had happened, she looked surprised to see me.

     “You’re back, are you?” I said politely, raising my hat.

     “Are you better now?” she asked in a rather puzzled tone.

     “Yes, yes, much better, thanks,” I replied, and stepped briskly around the corner toward Suidō Bridge.

 

CHAPTER 100

 

I walked through Sarugaku-chō, out onto the main street of Shinbōchō, and turned toward Ogawamachi. This was the route I usually took when I wanted to browse among the secondhand bookshops, but today I could not summon any interest in tattered old volumes. As I strode along, it was the house I had left that filled my thoughts. I thought of what Okusan had said that morning, and I imagined what would follow once Ojōsan arrived back. My legs seemed propelled forward by these two thoughts. From time to time, I found myself halting in the middle of the road at the thought that Okusan would at this moment be talking to Ojōsan. Then my feet would pause again when it struck me that by now the conversation would probably be over.

     At length I crossed the Mansei Bridge, climbed the hill to Kanda Myōjin Shrine, then from Hongō Hill made my way down Kikusaka to the foot of the road leading up to Koishikawa. Throughout this long walk, in essence a kind of elliptical course through three city wards [elliptical course . . . three city wards: Koishikawa, Kanda, and Hongō wards.], I had scarcely thought once of K. Looking back now, I ask myself why, but there are no answers. I can only marvel that it was so. I could simply say that my heart was so intensely focused on the scene at home that it drove him from my mind, but it astonishes me to think that my conscience could let that happen.

     My conscience sprang to life again the moment I opened the lattice door at the entrance and stepped into the house, to follow my usual course through K’s room into mine. He was, as always, seated at his desk reading. As always, he raised his eyes from the book and looked at me. But he did not say the habitual words, “Just back, are you?” Instead he said, “Are you better now? Have you been to the doctor?”

     In that instant I had the urge to kneel before him and ask his pardon. Nor was this some mere feeble impulse. I believe that if K and I had been standing in the wilderness together just then, I would have followed the dictates of my conscience and begged his forgiveness. But there were others in the house. My natural instinct was quickly curbed. And to my sorrow, it never returned.

     We saw each other again over the evening meal. Innocent of what had happened, K was merely subdued. He cast no suspicious glance my way. Okusan, of course, understood nothing of how things stood and was markedly cheerful. Only I knew everything. The food was lead in my mouth.

     Ojōsan did not join us at the table as she usually did. “I won’t be long,” she called from the next room when Okusan urged her to join us.

     K looked surprised and finally asked Okusan what was wrong.

     “She’s probably feeling shy,” replied Okusan, sending a glance in my direction.

     “Why should she?” K persisted, increasingly puzzled.

     Okusan looked at me again, with a little smile.

     As soon as I came to the table, I had been able to guess from Okusan’s face more or less what had transpired. But the thought of sitting there while everything was explained to K was intolerable. Okusan was the kind of person who could all too easily do this without a second thought, and I was cold with trepidation. Luckily, however, K sank back into silence, and Okusan, though more jovial than usual, did not after all move the conversation in the direction I dreaded. With a sigh of relief, I returned to my room.

     But I was haunted with worry over how to deal with K. I prepared an arsenal of justifications for my defense, but none would hold up when I was face-to-face with him. Coward that I was, I had no stomach for the explanation I would have to give.

 

CHAPTER 101

 

Two or three days passed, and still I said nothing. All that time, needless to say, constant anxiety about K weighed me down. I must at least make some sort of move just to ease my conscience, I told myself. Okusan’s high spirits and Ojōsan’s manner with me were a further painful goad to action. In her forthright and unreserved way, Okusan might all too easily let something slip at the dinner table at any moment. I could never be sure, either, that K’s heart would not find cause for suspicion in the way Ojōsan had begun to behave toward me, which seemed to me worryingly obvious. All told, it was imperative to let K know how matters now stood between me and the family. Yet making such a move felt next to impossible—I was all too aware what shaky moral ground I stood on.

     Perhaps there was nothing for it, I thought, but to ask Okusan to reveal the situation to K, needless to say at a time when I was out. But simply having the facts told to him indirectly would do nothing to alter my shame. On the other hand, if I asked her to tell him some made-up story, she would certainly demand an explanation. And if I were to confess the whole thing to her, I would be choosing to reveal my failings to the girl I loved and her mother. I was an earnest young man, and it seemed to me that such a confession would compromise the trust that marriage depended on. I could not bear the thought of losing so much as a particle of my beloved’s belief in me before we had even married.

     In short, I was a fool whose foot had slipped from the straight and narrow path of honesty that I had set myself to walk. Or perhaps I was really just cunning. For now, only heaven and my own heart understood the truth. But I was cornered; in the very act of regaining my integrity, I would have to reveal to those around me that I had lost it. I was desperate to cover my deceitfulness, yet it was imperative that I act. I was paralyzed, transfixed by my dilemma.

     Five or six days later, Okusan suddenly inquired whether I had told K about it. Not yet, I replied. Why not? she asked reproachfully. I froze. The shock of her next words has seared them into my memory.

     “So that’s why he looked so odd when I mentioned it. Don’t you think it was wrong of you to keep quiet and pretend nothing had happened, to such a close friend?”

     I asked if K had said anything in response. Not really, she replied. But I could not resist pressing her for more detailed information. Okusan, of course, had no reason to hide anything.

     “There really is nothing worth telling,” she said, then launched into a thorough description of how he had taken the news. All in all, I saw that K had taken this final blow extremely calmly. His first reaction to the news of my new relationship with Ojōsan had been simply to say “Is that so?” “I hope you’ll rejoice with us,” Okusan had said, and at this he looked her in the eye for the first time. “Congratulations,” he said with a little smile, and stood up. Before he opened the door to leave the sitting room, he turned to her again and asked when the wedding would be. “I wish I could give them a wedding gift,” he apparently said, “but I’m afraid I haven’t the money.”

     As I sat before her hearing these words, my heart clenched tight with pain.

 

CHAPTER 102

 

I realized that two days or more had passed since Okusan had told K about our engagement. Nothing in K’s manner toward me had hinted that he knew anything, so I had remained unaware of it. I was now filled with respect for his composure, even though it was no doubt only superficial. By any standard, he was by far the better man. Though I’ve won through cunning, the real victory is his was the thought that spun in my head. How he must despise me! I said to myself, and I blushed with shame. Yet it mortified me to imagine going to K after all this and submitting to the inevitable humiliation.

     Floundering in indecision, I finally put off the question of what to do until the next day. This was Saturday evening.

     That night, however, K killed himself.

     I still shudder at the memory of finding him there. I usually slept with my head facing east, but for some reason—fate, perhaps—that evening I had laid out my bedding to face the opposite direction [I had laid out my bedding . . . opposite direction: It is considered unlucky to lie facing west, which is the realm of the dead.]. I was awakened in the night by a chill draft blowing in on my face. Opening my eyes, I saw that the sliding doors between our two rooms, which were normally closed, stood slightly ajar, just as they had when he appeared there some nights earlier.

     This time, however, K’s dark figure was not standing in the doorway. As if with a sudden presentiment, I propped myself on one elbow and peered tensely into his room. The lamp had burned low. The bedding was laid out. But the edge of the quilt was thrown back. And there was K, slumped forward with his back to me.

     I called out to him. There was no response. “Is something wrong?” I called again. But his body remained motionless. I leaped up and went to the doorway. Standing there, I surveyed his room by the lamp’s faint light.

     My first feeling was almost the same as the initial shock his sudden confession of love had given me. I took in the room with a single sweeping glance, and then my gaze froze—my eyeballs stared in their sockets as if made of glass. I stood rooted to the spot. When this first gale of shock had blown through me, my next thought was Oh god, it’s all over. The knowledge that this was irredeemable shot its black blaze through my future and for an instant lit with terrifying clarity all the life that lay before me. Then I began to tremble.

     But even in this extremity I could not forget about myself. My eyes fell on a letter lying on the desk. It was addressed to me, as I had guessed. Frantically, I tore open the seal. But I was not prepared for what I read there. I had assumed that this letter would say things deeply painful for me to read, and I was terrified at how Okusan and Ojōsan would despise me if they saw it. A quick glance instantly relieved me, however. Saved! I thought. (In fact, of course, it was only my reputation that was saved, but how others saw me was a matter of immense importance just then.)

     The letter was simple and contained nothing specific. He was committing suicide, he wrote, because he was weak and infirm of purpose, and because the future held nothing for him. With a few brief words he thanked me for all I had done for him. As a final request, he asked me to see to his affairs after his death. He also asked me to apologize to Okusan for the trouble he was causing her and to inform his family. The letter was a series of simple statements of essential matters; the only thing missing was any mention of Ojōsan. I read it to the end and understood that K had deliberately avoided mentioning her.

     But it was the letter’s final words that pierced my heart most keenly. With the last of the brush’s ink, he had added that he should have died sooner and did not know why he had lived so long.

     I folded the letter with trembling hands and slid it back into its envelope. I replaced it carefully on the desk so that it would be clearly visible to the others. Then I turned and at last I saw the blood that had spurted over the sliding doors.

 

CHAPTER 103

 

Impulsively I lifted K’s head a little, cradling it in both hands. I wanted to take in for a moment the sight of his dead face. But when I peered up at the face that hung there, I instantly released him. It was not simply horror at the sight. His head felt appallingly heavy. I stared down for a while at the cold ears I had touched, and at the closely cropped head of thick hair, so normal and familiar. I had not the least urge to cry. My only feeling was fear. This was not simply a commonplace fright stimulated by the scene before my eyes. What I felt was a deep terror of my fate, a fate that spoke to me from the abrupt chill of my friend’s body.

     I returned to my room in a stupor and began to pace. Pointless though it is, my brain instructed me, for now you must just keep moving. I had to do something, I thought, and simultaneously I was thinking, There’s nothing I can do. I could only turn and turn in the room, like a caged bear.

     A few times I had the impulse to go in and wake Okusan. But this was quickly checked by the thought that it would be wrong to show a woman such a horrifying sight. I was paralyzed by a fierce resolve that I must not shock either her or, above all, her daughter. And so I would return to my pacing and circling.

     At some point I lit my lamp, and from time to time I glanced at the clock. Nothing was more tediously slow than that clock. I had no idea exactly when I had woken, but it was definitely sometime close to daybreak. As I turned and turned in the room, waiting desperately for dawn to come, I was tortured by the sensation that this black night might never end.

     We were in the habit of rising before seven, since many of our lectures began at eight. This meant that the maid got up around six. It was not yet six when I went to wake her that day. My footsteps woke Okusan, who pointed out to me that it was Sunday. “If you’re awake,” I said to Okusan, “perhaps you could come to my room a moment.” She followed me, a kimono coat draped over her nightdress. I quickly closed the far doors to K’s room. Then I said in a low voice, “Something dreadful has happened.”

     “What is it?” she asked.

     “Don’t be shocked,” I said, indicating the next-door room with my chin. She turned pale. “K has committed suicide.”

     Okusan stood as though paralyzed, staring mutely at me. I suddenly found myself sinking to my knees before her, head lowered in contrition. “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault,” I said. “Now this unforgivable thing has happened to you and Ojōsan.”

     I had had no thought of saying any such thing before I faced her—only when I saw her expression did the words spring to my lips, unbidden. Consider it an apology directed to the two ladies, but it was really meant for K, whom it could no longer reach. Those impulsive words of remorse were spoken beyond my will, directly from my natural being.

     Fortunately for me, Okusan did not read my words so deeply. Though ashen, she said comfortingly, “What could you possibly have done about something so unforeseen?” But her face was carved deep with shock and dread, the muscles rigid.

 

CHAPTER 104

 

Though I pitied Okusan, I now stood again and opened the sliding doors that I had so recently closed. K’s lamp had burned out, and the room was sunk in almost total darkness. I went back and picked up my own lamp, then turned at the doorway to look at her. Cowering behind me, she peered into the little room beyond. But she made no move to enter. “Leave things as they are,” she said, “and open the shutters.”

     And now Okusan became the levelheaded, practical officer’s wife. She sent me to the doctor’s home, then to the police. She gave all the orders, and allowed no one into the room until the correct procedure was completed.

     K had slit his carotid artery with a small knife and died immediately. It was his only wound. The blood on the paper doors, which I had glimpsed by the dreamlike half-light of his lamp, had spurted from his neck. Now I gazed at it again, in the clarity of daylight. I was stunned at the violent force that pulses the blood through us.

     The two of us set to work and cleaned up his room with all the skill and efficiency we could muster. Luckily, most of his blood had been absorbed by the bedding and the floor matting was not much harmed, so our task was relatively easy. Together we carried his corpse into my room and laid it out on its side in a natural sleeping position. I then went off and sent a telegram to his family.

     When I returned, incense was burning beside the pillow. As I entered the room, that funereal scent assailed my nose, and I discovered mother and daughter sitting there wreathed in its smoke. This was the first time I had seen Ojōsan since the night before. She was weeping. Okusan’s eyes too were red. I had had no thought of tears until that moment, but now at last I was able to let a sensation of sorrow pervade me. Words cannot express what a comfort that was. Thanks to this grief, a touch of balm momentarily soothed my poor heart, which had been clenched tight around its fear and pain.

     Wordlessly, I seated myself beside them. Okusan urged me to offer incense before the corpse. I did so, then returned to sit quietly again. Ojōsan did not speak to me. Occasionally she exchanged a few words with her mother, but they concerned only the immediate situation. She did not yet have the where-withal to speak of K as he had been in life. I was glad at least that she had been spared the horrible scene of the night before. I trembled to imagine how such a terrible sight could destroy the loveliness of one so young and beautiful. This thought haunted me, even when my own fear raised the very hairs on my head. It brought the kind of shudder one would feel in setting mercilessly upon a beautiful, innocent flower with a whip.

     When K’s father and brother arrived, I told them my own views on where I thought he should be buried. K and I had often walked around the Zōshigaya cemetery together, and he was extremely fond of the place. I had once promised him half-jokingly that if he died, I would bury him there. I did ask myself what good it would do me to fulfill this pledge to him now. But I wanted him buried close by, for I was determined to return to his grave every month for the rest of my life and kneel before it in renewed penitence and shame. They let me have my way, no doubt acknowledging the important role I had played in the care of their estranged brother and son.

 

CHAPTER 105

 

On the way back from K’s funeral, one of his friends asked me why I thought he had killed himself. This question had been dogging me ever since his suicide. Okusan, Ojōsan, K’s father and brother, acquaintances whom I had informed, even unknown newspaper reporters—all had asked me the same thing. Every time someone asked, my conscience smarted painfully, and I heard behind the words a voice say, Quick, confess that it was you who killed him.

     My answer to everyone was the same. I simply repeated the words of his final letter to me and made no further statement. The fellow who had asked me on our way back from the funeral, and received the same answer, now took from his pocket a newspaper cutting and handed it to me. I read the piece he indicated as we walked on. It said that K had killed himself from despair at being disinherited. I folded the page and returned it to him without comment. He told me that another paper had reported that K had gone mad and killed himself. I had been too preoccupied to look at newspapers and so was quite ignorant of all this, although I had all along been concerned about what they might write. Above all, I feared that something unpleasant or disturbing for Okusan and Ojōsan might appear there. It particularly tortured me to think that Ojōsan might be so much as mentioned in passing. I asked this friend if anything else had been written in the papers. These two references were all he had seen, he told me.

     Soon after this I moved into the house where I still live. Both Okusan and Ojōsan disliked the thought of staying in their old house, while every evening I found myself reliving the memory of that night. After some discussion, therefore, we decided to find somewhere else.

     After two months I graduated from the university. Six months later Ojōsan and I finally married. On the face of things I could congratulate myself on all having gone according to plan. Both Okusan and Ojōsan seemed wonderfully happy, and so indeed was I. But a black shadow hovered behind my happiness. This very happiness, it seemed to me, could well be a fuse that drew the flame of my life toward a bitter fate.

     Once married, Ojōsan—but I should now begin to call her “my wife”— my wife for some reason suggested that we visit K’s grave together. This jolted me. Why had she suddenly come up with such an idea? I inquired. She replied that it would surely please K if we visited him together. I stared hard at her guileless face, until she asked why I was looking at her like that.

     I agreed to her request, and together we went to Zōshigaya. I poured water over K’s fresh grave and washed it. My wife placed incense and flowers before it. We both bowed our heads and placed our hands together in prayer. No doubt she wished to receive K’s blessing from beyond the grave by conveying to him the news of our marriage. As for me, the words I was to blame, I was to blame were going around and around in my head.

     My wife stroked K’s headstone and declared it a fine one. It was not particularly impressive, but she probably felt the need to praise it because I had personally gone to the stonemason and chosen it. Privately, I balanced in my mind the images of this new grave, my new wife, and K’s new white bones lying buried at my feet, and a sense of the cold mockery of fate crept over me. I vowed then that I would never come here with her again.

 

CHAPTER 106

 

My feelings toward my dead friend remained unchanged. I had feared all along that this would be so. Even my wedding, that longed-for event, was not without a secret disquiet. We humans cannot know what lies ahead, however, and I hoped that our marriage might perhaps be the key to a change in my state of mind that would lead to a new life. But as I faced my wife day after day, my fragile hope crumbled in the face of cold reality. When I was with her, K would suddenly loom threateningly in my mind. She stood between us, in effect, and her very presence bound K and me indissolubly together. She was everything I could have wanted, yet because of this unwitting role she played, I found myself withdrawing from her. She, of course, immediately registered this. She felt it but could not understand it. From time to time she would demand to know why I was so morose, or whether I was somehow displeased with her. As a rule, I managed to reassure her by dismissing her doubts with a laugh, but occasionally it led to some outburst. “You hate me, don’t you?” she would cry, or I would have to suffer reproachful accusations of hiding something from her. This was always torture for me.

     Again and again I would decide to summon my courage and confess everything to her. But at the last minute some power not my own would always press me back. You know me well enough to need no explanation, I believe, but I will write here what must be said. I had not the slightest urge in those days to present myself to her in a false light. If I had confessed to her with the same sincerity and humility of heart with which I confessed to my dead friend, I know she would have wept tears of joy and forgiven all. So it was not sheer self-interest that kept me mute. No, I failed to confess for the simple reason that I could not bring myself to contaminate her memory of the past with the tiniest hint of darkness. It was agony for me to contemplate this pure creature sullied in any way, you understand.

     A year passed, and still I could not forget. My heart was in a constant state of agitation. To escape it, I plunged into my books. I began to study with ferocious energy. One day, I thought hopefully, I would produce the fruits of this learning for the world to see. But it was no use—I could take no pleasure in deceiving myself like this, in creating some artificial goal and forcing myself to anticipate its achievement. After a while, I could no longer bury my heart in books. Once more I found myself surveying the world from a distance, arms folded.

     My wife apparently interpreted my state of mind as a kind of ennui, a slackness of spirit that came from not having to worry about day-to-day survival. This was understandable. Her mother had enough money to allow them both to make do, and my own financial situation meant I had no need to work. I had always taken money for granted, I admit. But the main reason for my immobility lay quite elsewhere. True enough, my uncle’s betrayal had made me fiercely determined never to be beholden to anyone again—but back then my distrust of others had only reinforced my sense of self. The world might be rotten, I felt, but I at least am a man of integrity. But this faith in myself had been shattered on account of K. I suddenly understood that I was no different from my uncle, and the knowledge made me reel. What could I do? Others were already repulsive to me, and now I was repulsive even to myself.

 

CHAPTER 107

 

No longer able to forget myself in a living tomb of books, I tried instead to drown my soul in drink. I cannot say I like alcohol, but I am someone who can drink if I choose to, and I set about obliterating my heart by drinking all I could. This was a puerile way out, of course, and it very quickly led to an even greater despair with the world. In the midst of a drunken stupor, I would come to my senses and realize what an idiot I was to try to fool myself like this. Then my vision and understanding grew clear, and I sat shivering and sober. There were desolate times when even the poor disguise of drunkenness failed to work, no matter how I drank. And each time I sought pleasure in drink, I emerged more depressed than ever. My darling wife and her mother were unavoidably witness to all this and naturally did their best to make sense of it as they could.

     I gathered that my wife’s mother sometimes said some rather unpleasant things about me to her, although she never passed them on to me. My wife could not resist being critical herself, however. She never spoke strongly, of course, and I very rarely became provoked to the point where I lost my temper. She would simply ask me from time to time to tell her honestly if there was something about her that bothered me. “Stop drinking,” she would say, “you’ll ruin yourself.” Sometimes she wept and declared, “You’ve become a changed person.” But worst of all was when she added, “You wouldn’t have changed like this if K were still alive.” I agreed that that might well be true, but I was filled with sorrow at the gulf that lay between our separate understandings of this remark. And yet I still felt no urge to explain everything to her.

     Sometimes I apologized to her, the morning after I had come home late and drunk. She would laugh, or else fall silent, and occasionally she wept. Whatever her reaction, I hated myself. In apologizing to her, I was actually apologizing to myself. Finally I gave up drinking, less because of my wife’s admonishments than because of self-disgust.

     I gave up drink, but I remained disinclined to do anything else. I resorted to books again, to pass the time. But my reading was aimless—I simply read each book and tossed it aside. Whenever my wife asked what the point of my study was, I responded with a bitter smile. In my heart, though, I was saddened that the person I loved and trusted most in the world could not understand me. But it’s within your power to help her understand, I thought, and yet you’re too cowardly to do so, and I grew still sadder. Desolation filled me. There were many times when I felt I lived utterly alone, remote and cut off from the world around me.

     All this time the cause of K’s death continued to obsess me. At the time it happened, the single thought of love had engrossed me, and no doubt this preoccupation influenced my simplistic understanding of the event. I had immediately concluded that K killed himself because of a broken heart. But once I could look back on it in a calmer frame of mind, it struck me that his motive was surely not so simple and straightforward. Had it resulted from a fatal collision between reality and ideals? Perhaps—but this was still not quite it. Eventually, I began to wonder whether it was not the same unbearable loneliness that I now felt that had brought K to his decision. I shuddered. Like a chill wind, the presentiment that I might be treading the same path as K had walked began from time to time to send shivers through me.

 

CHAPTER 108

 

Time passed, and my wife’s mother became ill. The doctor who examined her told us it was incurable. I nursed her devotedly, both for her own sake and for the sake of the wife I loved. In larger terms, however, I did so also for the sake of humanity itself. I had long felt an urgent need to act in some way, but I remained at an impasse, sitting idle as the years passed. Isolated as I was from the human world, I felt for the first time that I was doing something of real worth. I was sustained by what I can only describe as a sense of atonement for past sin.

      In due course my wife’s mother died, leaving my wife and me alone together. I was all she had left in life to trust and depend on, she said to me. At these words, tears filled my eyes to think that she had to trust someone who had forfeited all trust in himself. Poor thing, I thought, and I even said as much to her. “Why?” she asked, uncomprehending. But I could not explain. She cried then. “You’re always so cynical and watchful of me,” she said bitterly. “That’s why you say such things.”

      After her mother’s death, I did my best to be kind and gentle to her, and not simply because I loved her. No, behind my solicitous attention lay something larger, something that transcended the individual. My heart was stirring, just as it had when I nursed her mother. This change seemed to make her happy. Yet behind her happiness I sensed a vague uneasiness that sprang from puzzlement. Even if she had understood, however, she would hardly have felt reassured. It seems to me that women are more inclined than men to respond to the sort of kindness that focuses exclusively on themselves, even if it is morally questionable from a stricter perspective, and that they are less able to fully appreciate the kind of love that derives from the larger claims of humanity.

     Once she wondered aloud to me whether a man’s heart and a woman’s could ever really become one. I replied evasively that they probably can when you are young. She seemed then to be gazing back at her own past, and at length she gave a tiny sigh.

     From around this time, a horrible darkness would occasionally grip me. At first the force that would suddenly overwhelm me seemed external, but as time went by, my heart began to stir of its own accord in response to this fearful shadow. In the end I came to feel that it was no external thing but something secretly nurtured all along deep within my own breast. Whenever the sensation came upon me, I questioned my own sanity. But I had no inclination to consult a doctor, or anybody else for that matter.

     What this feeling produced was, quite simply, a keen awareness of the nature of human sin. That is what sent me back each month to K’s grave. It is also what lay behind the nursing of my dying mother-in-law, and what bade me treat my wife so tenderly. There were even times when I longed for some stranger to come along and flog me as I deserved. At some stage this feeling transformed into a conviction that it should be I who hurt myself. And then the thought struck me that I should not just hurt myself but kill myself. At all events, I resolved that I must live my life as if I were already dead.

     How many years has it been since I made that decision? My wife and I have lived in peace together all that time. We have in no way been unhappy, quite the opposite. But this one thing in me, this thing that for me is so vital, has always been for my wife a place of incomprehensible darkness. The thought fills me with pity for her.

 

CHAPTER 109

 

Though I had resolved to live as if I were dead, some external stimulus would occasionally set my heart dancing. But the moment I felt the urge to break through my deathly impasse and act, a terrible force would rise up out of nowhere and press me fiercely back into immobility. A voice would bear down on me with the words You have no right, and I would instantly wilt and go limp. When a little later I tried to rise again, again this force would press me back. I ground my teeth in impotent rage. “Why do you stand in my way like this?” I would cry. The strange force would laugh coldly back at me and reply, You know very well why. And again my will would collapse.

     You must understand that during all these long years of seemingly uneventful and monotonous peace, this grueling battle has been raging endlessly inside me. If my wife was vexed by my state, I was far, far more mortified by it myself. Eventually, when I could no longer bear to be immobilized inside this prison, and all my desperate attempts to break its bars proved futile, I began to feel that my easiest option really was suicide. “But why?” I hear you ask in astonished disbelief. The fact is, this strange and terrifying force within me had paralyzed my heart with its iron grip, blocking every exit route bar one—the way to death alone lay open and free for the taking. If I were to break this deadlock and move in any way, my steps could only carry me down that path.

     Two or three times before now I have been poised to set off along the road to death that my destiny has laid before me so beguilingly. But each time my wife held my heart back. Needless to say, I have not had the courage to take her with me—I have been too cowardly even to confess my story to her, heaven knows, and the merest thought of inflicting double suicide on her and making her a cruel sacrifice to my own fate filled me with horror. My karma is my own, after all, and hers is hers. To cast our two lives into the flames together would not only be against nature, it would break the heart.

     And yet it filled me with pity to think of her alone after I was gone. Those words she had spoken after her mother’s death—that I was all she had left in life to trust and depend on—were seared into my breast. I hung in a constant state of indecision. Sometimes, seeing her face, I felt glad that I had not acted. Then I would quail and cower again. From time to time she would turn on me a look that bespoke sorrowing disappointment.

     Remember, this is how my life has been lived. My state of mind was much the same the day we first met at Kamakura and that day we walked together beyond the town. A black shadow was constantly at my back. I was dragging out my life on this earth for the sake of my wife. That evening after you graduated was no different. I meant it when I promised to meet you again come September. I fully intended to see you once more. Autumn ended, winter came, and even as spring drew in, I was still looking forward to our next meeting.

     And then, at the height of the summer, Emperor Meiji passed away. I felt then that as the spirit of the Meiji era had begun with him, so it had ended with his death. I was struck with an overwhelming sense that my generation, we who had felt Meiji’s influence most deeply, were doomed to linger on simply as anachronisms as long as we remained alive. When I said this in so many words to my wife, she laughed it off. But then for some reason she added teasingly, “Well, then, you could follow the old style and die with your lord, couldn’t you.”

 

CHAPTER 110

 

I had almost forgotten the expression “to die with your lord.” It’s not a phrase that is used in normal life these days. It must have lain there deep in my memory all these years, decaying slowly. Reminded of it by my wife’s jest, I replied that if I were to die a loyal follower’s death, the lord I was following to the grave would be the spirit of the Meiji era itself. I was joking too, of course, but as I spoke it seemed to me that this old, disused expression had somehow gained a new meaning.

     About a month passed. On the night of the cremation, I sat as usual in my study. As the imperial coffin emerged from the palace, I heard the boom of the funeral cannon. To me it sounded the Meiji era’s end. Later I read in the newspaper that it also signaled the end of General Nogi. When my eyes fell on this news, I seized the paper and waved it at my wife. “He died with his lord!” I found myself exclaiming.

     There I read the letter that the general had written before he died. He had been longing all this time, he wrote, to die in expiation for his failure in the Satsuma Rebellion [his failure in the Satsuma Rebellion: In the civil war of 1877, forces loyal to the emperor clashed with those of the rebellious Satsuma province. The imperial forces won, but as regimental commander, General Nogi felt responsible for the enemy’s capture of the symbolic regimental colors.]. I paused to count on my fingers the years he must have lived with this resolution in his heart. Thirty-five years had passed since the Satsuma Rebellion. By his own account, General Nogi had spent those thirty-five long years yearning to die without finding the moment to do so. Which had been more excruciating for him, I wondered—those thirty-five years of life, or the moment when he thrust the sword into his belly?

     Two or three days later I finally decided to kill myself. I would guess that my reasons will be as hard for you to fully grasp as I found General Nogi’s reasons to be. If so, it must simply be put down to the different eras we belong to, I think. Or perhaps, after all, our differences spring from the individual natures we were born with. At any rate, I have done my best in these pages to explain to you my own strange nature.

     I will be leaving my wife behind, but fortunately she will not want for the necessities of life. I do not want her to witness any horror. I intend to die in such a way that she will not have to see blood. I will leave the world quietly, without her knowing. I would like to have her believe that I died instantaneously. I would be content if she decided I had gone mad.

     It is now ten days since I decided to die. You should know that I have spent most of that time writing this long memoir to leave for you. I was planning to see you again and tell you all this in person, but having written it, I am now glad I chose this method, since it has allowed me to describe myself more clearly to you. I have not written from mere personal whim. My past, which made me what I am, is an aspect of human experience that only I can describe. My effort to write as honestly as possible will not be in vain, I feel, since it will help both you and others who read it to understand humanity better. Just recently, I heard that Watanabe Kazan chose to postpone his suicide for a week while he painted Kantan [Watanabe Kazan . . . while he painted Kantan: Watanabe Kazan (1793- 1841), artist and scholar, painted the famous Kantan. It depicts the Chinese legend of a young man in the village of that name, who gains enlightenment when a dream reveals to him the transience of fame and glory. Kazan committed ritual suicide.]. Some will find this decision ridiculous, but no doubt his heart had its own reasons that made it imperative for him. This labor of mine is not simply a way of fulfilling my promise to you. It is for the greater part the result of a need I have felt within myself.

     But now I have answered that need. There is nothing left for me to do. When this letter reaches your hands, I will no longer be in this world. I will be long dead. Ten days ago my wife went to her aunt’s place over in Ichigaya. Her aunt was ill and help was short, so I urged her to go. I wrote most of this long letter while she was absent. I hastily hid it whenever she returned to the house.

     My aim has been to present both the good and bad in my life, for others to learn from. I must make clear to you, however, that my wife is the sole exception. I want her told nothing. My one request is that her memory of my life be preserved as untarnished as possible. While she remains alive, I therefore ask that you keep all this to yourself, a secret intended for your eyes alone.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

A MEMOIR

HARUKI MURAKAMI

 

 

Foreword

Suffering Is Optional

There’s a wise saying that goes like this: A real gentleman never discusses women he’s broken up with or how much tax he’s paid. Actually, this is a total lie. I just made it up. Sorry! But if there really were such a saying, I think that one more condition for being a gentleman would be keeping quiet about what you do to stay healthy. A gentleman shouldn’t go on and on about what he does to stay fit. At least that’s how I see it.

     As everybody knows, I’m no gentleman, so maybe I shouldn’t be worrying about this to begin with, but still, I’m a little hesitant about writing this book. This might come off sounding like a dodge, but this is a book about running, not a treatise on how to be healthy. I’m not trying here to give advice like, “Okay everybody—let’s run every day to stay healthy!” Instead, this is a book in which I’ve gathered my thoughts about what running has meant to me as a person. Just a book in which I ponder various things and think out loud.

     Somerset Maugham once wrote that in each shave lies a philosophy. I couldn’t agree more. No matter how mundane some action might appear, keep at it long enough and it becomes a contemplative, even meditative act. As a writer, then, and as a runner, I don’t find that writing and publishing a book of my own personal thoughts about running makes me stray too far off my usual path. Perhaps I’m just too painstaking a type of person, but I can’t grasp much of anything without putting down my thoughts in writing, so I had to actually get my hands working and write these words. Otherwise, I’d never know what running means to me.

     Once, I was lying around a hotel room in Paris reading the International Herald Tribune when I came across a special article on the marathon. There were interviews with several famous marathon runners, and they were asked what special mantra goes through their head to keep themselves pumped during a race. An interesting question, I thought. I was impressed by all the different things these runners think about as they run 26.2 miles. It just goes to show how grueling an event a marathon really is. If you don’t keep repeating a mantra of some sort to yourself, you’ll never survive.

     One runner told of a mantra his older brother, also a runner, had taught him which he’s pondered ever since he began running. Here it is: Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Say you’re running and you start to think, Man this hurts, I can’t take it anymore. The hurt part is an unavoidable reality, but whether or not you can stand any more is up to the runner himself. This pretty much sums up the most important aspect of marathon running.

     It’s been some ten years since I first had the idea of a book about running, but the years went by with me trying out one approach after another, never actually settling down to write it. Running is sort of a vague theme to begin with, and I found it hard to figure out exactly what I should say about it.

     At a certain point, though, I decided that I should just write honestly about what I think and feel about running, and stick to my own style. I figured that was the only way to get going, and I started writing the book, bit by bit, in the summer of 2005, finishing it in the fall of 2006. Other than a few places where I quote from previous writings I’ve done, the bulk of this book records my thoughts and feelings in real time. One thing I noticed was that writing honestly about running and writing honestly about myself are nearly the same thing. So I suppose it’s all right to read this as a kind of memoir centered on the act of running.

     Though I wouldn’t call any of this philosophy per se, this book does contain a certain amount of what might be dubbed life lessons. They might not amount to much, but they are personal lessons I’ve learned through actually putting my own body in motion, and thereby discovering that suffering is optional. They may not be lessons you can generalize, but that’s because what’s presented here is me, the kind of person I am.

                                                                                                                                          AUGUST 2007

 

 

One

AUGUST 5, 2005 • KAUAI, HAWAII

Who’s Going to Laugh at Mick Jagger?

I’m on Kauai, in Hawaii, today, Friday, August 5, 2005. It’s unbelievably clear and sunny, not a cloud in the sky. As if the concept clouds doesn’t even exist. I came here at the end of July and, as always, we rented a condo. During the mornings, when it’s cool, I sit at my desk, writing all sorts of things. Like now: I’m writing this, a piece on running that I can pretty much compose as I wish. It’s summer, so naturally it’s hot. Hawaii’s been called the island of eternal summer, but since it’s in the Northern Hemisphere there are, arguably, four seasons of a sort. Summer is somewhat hotter than winter. I spend a lot of time in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and compared to Cambridge—so muggy and hot with all its bricks and concrete it’s like a form of torture—summer in Hawaii is a veritable paradise. No need for an air conditioner here—just leave the window open, and a refreshing breeze blows in. People in Cambridge are always surprised when they hear I’m spending August in Hawaii. “Why would you want to spend summer in a hot place like that?” they invariably ask. But they don’t know what it’s like. How the constant trade winds from the northeast make summers cool. How happy life is here, where we can enjoy lounging around, reading a book in the shade of trees, or, if the notion strikes us, go down, just as we are, for a dip in the inlet.

     Since I arrived in Hawaii I’ve run about an hour every day, six days a week. It’s two and a half months now since I resumed my old lifestyle in which, unless it’s totally unavoidable, I run every single day. Today I ran for an hour and ten minutes, listening on my Walkman to two albums by the Lovin’ Spoonful—Daydream and Hums of the Lovin’ Spoonful—which I’d recorded on an MD disc.

     Right now I’m aiming at increasing the distance I run, so speed is less of an issue. As long as I can run a certain distance, that’s all I care about. Sometimes I run fast when I feel like it, but if I increase the pace I shorten the amount of time I run, the point being to let the exhilaration I feel at the end of each run carry over to the next day. This is the same sort of tack I find necessary when writing a novel. I stop every day right at the point where I feel I can write more. Do that, and the next day’s work goes surprisingly smoothly. I think Ernest Hemingway did something like that. To keep on going, you have to keep up the rhythm. This is the important thing for long-term projects. Once you set the pace, the rest will follow. The problem is getting the flywheel to spin at a set speed—and to get to that point takes as much concentration and effort as you can manage.

     It rained for a short time while I was running, but it was a cooling rain that felt good. A thick cloud blew in from the ocean right over me, and a gentle rain fell for a while, but then, as if it had remembered, “Oh, I’ve got to do some errands!,” it whisked itself away without so much as a glance back. And then the merciless sun was back, scorching the ground. It’s a very easy-to-understand weather pattern. Nothing abstruse or ambivalent about it, not a speck of the metaphoric or the symbolic. On the way I passed a few other joggers, about an equal number of men and women. The energetic ones were zipping down the road, slicing through the air like they had robbers at their heels. Others, overweight, huffed and puffed, their eyes half closed, their shoulders slumped like this was the last thing in the world they wanted to be doing. They looked like maybe a week ago their doctors had told them they have diabetes and warned them they had to start exercising. I’m somewhere in the middle.

     I love listening to the Lovin’ Spoonful. Their music is sort of laid-back and never pretentious. Listening to this soothing music brings back a lot of memories of the 1960s. Nothing really special, though. If they were to make a movie about my life (just the thought of which scares me), these would be the scenes they’d leave on the cutting-room floor. “We can leave this episode out,” the editor would explain. “It’s not bad, but it’s sort of ordinary and doesn’t amount to much.” Those kinds of memories—unpretentious, commonplace. But for me, they’re all meaningful and valuable. As each of these memories flits across my mind, I’m sure I unconsciously smile, or give a slight frown. Commonplace they might be, but the accumulation of these memories has led to one result: me. Me here and now, on the north shore of Kauai. Sometimes when I think of life, I feel like a piece of driftwood washed up on shore.

     As I run, the trade winds blowing in from the direction of the lighthouse rustle the leaves of the eucalyptus over my head.

 

I began living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the end of May of this year, and running has once again been the mainstay of my daily routine ever since. I’m seriously running now. By seriously I mean thirty-six miles a week. In other words, six miles a day, six days a week. It would be better if I ran seven days, but I have to factor in rainy days, and days when work keeps me too busy. There are some days, too, when frankly I just feel too tired to run. Taking all this into account, I leave one day a week as a day off. So, at thirty-six miles per week, I cover 156 miles every month, which for me is my standard for serious running.

     In June I followed this plan exactly, running 156 miles on the nose. In July I increased the distance and covered 186 miles. I averaged six miles every day, without taking a single day off. I don’t mean I covered precisely six miles every day. If I ran nine miles one day, the next day I’d do only three. (At a jogging pace I generally can cover six miles in an hour.) For me this is most definitely running at a serious level. And since I came toHawaii I’ve kept up this pace. It had been far too long since I’d been able to run these distances and keep up this kind of fixed schedule. 

     There are several reasons why, at a certain point in my life, I stopped running seriously. First of all, my life has been getting busier, and free time is increasingly at a premium. When I was younger it wasn’t as if I had as much free time as I wanted, but at least I didn’t have as many miscellaneous chores as I do now. I don’t know why, but the older you get, the busier you become. Another reason is that I’ve gotten more interested in triathlons, rather than marathons. Triathlons, of course, involve swimming and cycling in addition to running. The running part isn’t a problem for me, but in order to master the other two legs of the event I had to devote a great deal of time to training in swimming and biking. I had to start over from scratch with swimming, relearning the correct form, learning the right biking techniques, and training the necessary muscles. All of this took time and effort, and as a result I had less time to devote to running. 

     Probably the main reason, though, was that at a certain point I’d simply grown tired of it. I started running in the fall of 1982 and have been running since then for nearly twenty-three years. Over this period I’ve jogged almost every day, run in at least one marathon every year—twenty-three up till now—and participated in more long-distance races all around the world than I care to count. Long-distance running suits my personality, though, and of all the habits I’ve acquired over my lifetime I’d have to say this one has been the most helpful, the most meaningful. Running without a break for more than two decades has also made me stronger, both physically and emotionally.

     The thing is, I’m not much for team sports. That’s just the way I am. Whenever I play soccer or baseball—actually, since becoming an adult this is hardly ever—I never feel comfortable. Maybe it’s because I don’t have any brothers, but I could never get into the kind of games you play with others. I’m also not very good at one-on-one sports like tennis. I enjoy squash, but generally when it comes to a game against someone, the competitive aspect makes me uncomfortable. And when it comes to martial arts, too, you can count me out.

     Don’t misunderstand me—I’m not totally uncompetitive. It’s just that for some reason I never cared all that much whether I beat others or lost to them. This sentiment remained pretty much unchanged after I grew up. It doesn’t matter what field you’re talking about—beating somebody else just doesn’t do it for me. I’m much more interested in whether I reach the goals that I set for myself, so in this sense long-distance running is the perfect fit for a mindset like mine.

     Marathon runners will understand what I mean. We don’t really care whether we beat any other particular runner. World-class runners, of course, want to outdo their closest rivals, but for your average, everyday runner, individual rivalry isn’t a major issue. I’m sure there are garden-variety runners whose desire to beat a particular rival spurs them on to train harder. But what happens if their rival, for whatever reason, drops out of the competition? Their motivation for running would disappear or at least diminish, and it’d be hard for them to remain runners for long. 

     Most ordinary runners are motivated by an individual goal, more than anything: namely, a time they want to beat. As long as he can beat that time, a runner will feel he’s accomplished what he set out to do, and if he can’t, then he’ll feel he hasn’t. Even if he doesn’t break the time he’d hoped for, as long as he has the sense of satisfaction at having done his very best— and, possibly, having made some significant discovery about himself in the process—then that in itself is an accomplishment, a positive feeling he can carry over to the next race.

     The same can be said about my profession. In the novelist’s profession, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no such thing as winning or losing. Maybe numbers of copies sold, awards won, and critics’ praise serve as outward standards for accomplishment in literature, but none of them really matter. What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away. When it comes to other people, you can always come up with a reasonable explanation, but you can’t fool yourself. In this sense, writing novels and running full marathons are very much alike. Basically a writer has a quiet, inner motivation, and doesn’t seek validation in the outwardly visible.

     For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner, by any means. I’m at an ordinary —or perhaps more like mediocre—level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be.

     Since my forties, though, this system of self-assessment has gradually changed. Simply put, I am no longer able to improve my time. I guess it’s inevitable, considering my age. At a certain age everybody reaches their physical peak. There are individual differences, but for the most part swimmers hit that watershed in their early twenties, boxers in their late twenties, and baseball players in their mid-thirties. It’s something everyone has to go through. Once I asked an ophthalmologist if anyone’s ever avoided getting farsighted when they got older. He laughed and said, “I’ve never met one yet.” It’s the same thing. (Fortunately, the peak for artists varies considerably. Dostoyevsky, for instance, wrote two of his most profound novels, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov, in the last few years of his life before his death at age sixty. Domenico Scarlatti wrote 555 piano sonatas during his lifetime, most of them when he was between the ages of fifty-seven and sixty-two.)

     My peak as a runner came in my late forties. Before then I’d aimed at running a full marathon in three and a half hours, a pace of exactly one kilometer in five minutes, or one mile in eight. Sometimes I broke three and a half hours, sometimes not (more often not). Either way, I was able to steadily run a marathon in more or less that amount of time. Even when I thought I’d totally blown it, I’d still be in under three hours and forty minutes. Even if I hadn’t trained so much or wasn’t in the best of shape, exceeding four hours was inconceivable. Things continued at that stable plateau for a while, but before long they started to change. I’d train as much as before but found it increasingly hard to break three hours and forty minutes. It was taking me five and a half minutes to run one kilometer, and I was inching closer to the four-hour mark to finish a marathon. Frankly, this was a bit of a shock. What was going on here? I didn’t think it was because I was aging. In everyday life I never felt like I was getting physically weaker. But no matter how much I might deny it or try to ignore it, the numbers were retreating, step by step.

     Besides, as I said earlier, I’d become more interested in other sports such as triathlons and squash. Just running all the time couldn’t be good for me, I’d figured, deciding it would be better to add variety to my routine and develop a more all-around physical regimen. I hired a private swimming coach who started me off with the basics, and I learned how to swim faster and more smoothly than before. My muscles reacted to the new environment, and my physique began noticeably changing. Meanwhile, like the tide going out, my marathon times slowly but surely continued to slow. And I found I didn’t enjoy running as much as I used to. A steady fatigue opened up between me and the very notion of running. A sense of disappointment set in that all my hard work wasn’t paying off, that there was something obstructing me, like a door that was usually open suddenly slammed in my face. I named this condition runner’s blues. I’ll go into more detail later on about what sort of blues this was.

 

It’s been ten years since I last lived in Cambridge (which was from 1993 to 1995, back when Bill Clinton was president). When I saw the Charles River again, a desire to run swept over me. Generally, unless some great change takes place, rivers always look about the same, and the Charles River in particular looked totally unchanged. Time had passed, students had come and gone, I’d aged ten years, and there’d literally been a lot of water under the bridge. But the river has remained unaltered. The water still flows swiftly, and silently, toward Boston Harbor. The water soaks the shoreline, making the summer grasses grow thick, which help feed the waterfowl, and it flows languidly, ceaselessly, under the old bridges, reflecting clouds in summer and bobbing with floes in winter—and silently heads toward the ocean.

     After I had unpacked everything, gone through the red tape involved in moving here, and settled into life in Cambridge, I got down to some serious running again. Breathing in the crisp, bracing, early-morning air, I felt once again the joy of running on familiar ground. The sounds of my footsteps, my breathing and heartbeats, all blended together in a unique polyrhythm. The Charles River is a holy spot for regatta racing, and there is always someone rowing on the river. I like to race them. Most of the time, of course, the boats are faster. But when a single scull is leisurely rowing I can give it a good run for its money.

     Maybe because it’s the home of the Boston Marathon, Cambridge is full of runners. The jogging path along the Charles goes on forever, and if you wanted to, you could run for hours. The problem is, it’s also used by cyclists, so you have to watch out for speeding bikes whizzing past from behind. At various places, too, there are cracks in the pavement you have to make sure you don’t trip over, and a couple of long traffic signals you can get stuck at, which can put a kink in your run. Otherwise, it’s a wonderful jogging path.

     Sometimes when I run, I listen to jazz, but usually it’s rock, since its beat is the best accompaniment to the rhythm of running. I prefer the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gorillaz, and Beck, and oldies like Creedence Clearwater Revival and the Beach Boys. Music with as simple a rhythm as possible. A lot of runners now use iPods, but I prefer the MD player I’m used to. It’s a little bigger than an iPod and can’t hold nearly as much data, but it works for me. At this point I don’t want to mix music and computers. Just like it’s not good to mix friends and work, and sex.

 

As I mentioned, in July I ran 186 miles. It rained two days that month, and I spent two days on the road. And there were quite a few days when the weather was too muggy and hot to run. So all in all, running 186 miles wasn’t so bad. Not bad at all. If running 136 miles in a month amounts to serious running, then 186 miles must be rigorous running. The farther I ran, the more weight I lost, too. In two and a half months I dropped about seven pounds, and the bit of flab I was starting to see around my stomach disappeared. Picture going to the butcher shop, buying seven pounds of meat, and carrying it home. You get the idea. I had mixed emotions about carrying around that extra weight with me every day. If you live in Boston, Samuel Adams draft beer (Summer Ale) and Dunkin’ Donuts are essentials of life. But I discovered to my delight that even these indulgences can be offset by persistent exercise.

     It might be a little silly for someone getting to be my age to put this into words, but I just want to make sure I get the facts down clearly: I’m the kind of person who likes to be by himself. To put a finer point on it, I’m the type of person who doesn’t find it painful to be alone. I find spending an hour or two every day running alone, not speaking to anyone, as well as four or five hours alone at my desk, to be neither difficult nor boring. I’ve had this tendency ever since I was young, when, given a choice, I much preferred reading books on my own or concentrating on listening to music over being with someone else. I could always think of things to do by myself.

     Even so, after I got married at an early age (I was twenty-two) I gradually got used to living with someone else. After I left college I ran a bar, so I learned the importance of being with others and the obvious point that we can’t survive on our own. Gradually, then, though perhaps with my own spin on it, through personal experience I discovered how to be sociable. Looking back on that time now, I can see that during my twenties my worldview changed, and I matured. By sticking my nose into all sorts of places, I acquired the practical skills I needed to live. Without those ten tough years I don’t think I would have written novels, and even if I’d tried, I wouldn’t have been able to. Not that people’s personalities change that dramatically. The desire in me to be alone hasn’t changed. Which is why the hour or so I spend running, maintaining my own silent, private time, is important to help me keep my mental well-being. When I’m running I don’t have to talk to anybody and don’t have to listen to anybody. All I need to do is gaze at the scenery passing by. This is a part of my day I can’t do without.

     I’m often asked what I think about as I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I’m running? I don’t have a clue.

     On cold days I guess I think a little about how cold it is. And about the heat on hot days. When I’m sad I think a little about sadness. When I’m happy I think a little about happiness. As I mentioned before, random memories come to me too. And occasionally, hardly ever, really, I get an idea to use in a novel. But really as I run, I don’t think much of anything worth mentioning.

     I just run. I run in a void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void. But as you might expect, an occasional thought will slip into this void. People’s minds can’t be a complete blank. Human beings’ emotions are not strong or consistent enough to sustain a vacuum. What I mean is, the kinds of thoughts and ideas that invade my emotions as I run remain subordinate to that void. Lacking content, they are just random thoughts that gather around that central void.

     The thoughts that occur to me while I’m running are like clouds in the sky. Clouds of all different sizes. They come and they go, while the sky remains the same sky as always. The clouds are mere guests in the sky that pass away and vanish, leaving behind the sky. The sky both exists and doesn’t exist. It has substance and at the same time doesn’t. And we merely accept that vast expanse and drink it in.

     I’m in my late fifties now. When I was young, I never imagined the twenty-first century would actually come and that, all joking aside, I’d turn fifty. In theory, of course, it was self-evident that someday, if nothing else happened, the twenty-first century would roll around and I’d turn fifty. When I was young, being asked to imagine myself at fifty was as difficult as being asked to imagine, concretely, the world after death. Mick Jagger once boasted that “I’d rather be dead than still singing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m forty-five.” But now he’s over sixty and still singing “Satisfaction.” Some people might find this funny, but not me. When he was young, Mick Jagger couldn’t imagine himself at forty-five. When I was young, I was the same. Can I laugh at Mick Jagger? No way. I just happen not to be a young rock singer. Nobody remembers what stupid things I might have said back then, so they’re not about to quote them back at me. That’s the only difference.

     And now here I am living in this unimaginable world. It feels really strange, and I can’t tell if I’m fortunate or not. Maybe it doesn’t matter. For me—and for everybody else, probably—this is my first experience growing old, and the emotions I’m having, too, are all first-time feelings. If it were something I’d experienced before, then I’d be able to understand it more clearly, but this is the first time, so I can’t. For now all I can do is put off making any detailed judgments and accept things as they are. Just like I accept the sky, the clouds, and the river. And there’s also something kind of comical about it all, something you don’t want to discard completely.

 

As I mentioned before, competing against other people, whether in daily life or in my field of work, is just not the sort of lifestyle I’m after. Forgive me for stating the obvious, but the world is made up of all kinds of people. Other people have their own values to live by, and the same holds true with me. These differences give rise to disagreements, and the combination of these disagreements can give rise to even greater misunderstandings. As a result, sometimes people are unfairly criticized. This goes without saying. It’s not much fun to be misunderstood or criticized, but rather a painful experience that hurts people deeply.

     As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve gradually come to the realization that this kind of pain and hurt is a necessary part of life. If you think about it, it’s precisely because people are different from others that they’re able to create their own independent selves. Take me as an example. It’s precisely my ability to detect some aspects of a scene that other people can’t, to feel differently than others and choose words that differ from theirs, that’s allowed me to write stories that are mine alone. And because of this we have the extraordinary situation in which quite a few people read what I’ve written. So the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets. Emotional hurt is the price a person has to pay in order to be independent.

     That’s what I basically believe, and I’ve lived my life accordingly. In certain areas of my life, I actively seek out solitude. Especially for someone in my line of work, solitude is, more or less, an inevitable circumstance. Sometimes, however, this sense of isolation, like acid spilling out of a bottle, can unconsciously eat away at a person’s heart and dissolve it. You could see it, too, as a kind of double-edged sword. It protects me, but at the same time steadily cuts away at me from the inside. I think in my own way I’m aware of this danger—probably through experience—and that’s why I’ve had to constantly keep my body in motion, in some cases pushing myself to the limit, in order to heal the loneliness I feel inside and to put it in perspective. Not so much as an intentional act, but as an instinctive reaction.

     Let me be more specific.

     When I’m criticized unjustly (from my viewpoint, at least), or when someone I’m sure will understand me doesn’t, I go running for a little longer than usual. By running longer it’s like I can physically exhaust that portion of my discontent. It also makes me realize again how weak I am, how limited my abilities are. I become aware, physically, of these low points. And one of the results of running a little farther than usual is that I become that much stronger. If I’m angry, I direct that anger toward myself. If I have a frustrating experience, I use that to improve myself. That’s the way I’ve always lived. I quietly absorb the things I’m able to, releasing them later, and in as changed a form as possible, as part of the story line in a novel.

     I don’t think most people would like my personality. There might be a few—very few, I would imagine—who are impressed by it, but only rarely would anyone like it. Who in the world could possibly have warm feelings, or something like them, for a person who doesn’t compromise, who instead, whenever a problem crops up, locks himself away alone in a closet? But is it ever possible for a professional writer to be liked by people? I have no idea. Maybe somewhere in the world it is. It’s hard to generalize. For me, at least, as I’ve written novels over many years, I just can’t picture someone liking me on a personal level. Being disliked by someone, hated and despised, somehow seems more natural. Not that I’m relieved when that happens. Even I’m not happy when someone dislikes me.

     But that’s another story. Let’s get back to running. I’ve gotten back into a running lifestyle again. I started seriously running and am now rigorously running. What this might mean for me, now that I’m in my late fifties, I don’t know yet. But I think it’s got to mean something. Maybe not anything profound, but there must be significance to it. Anyway, right now I’m running hard. I’ll wait till later to think about what it all means. (Putting off thinking about something is one of my specialties, a skill I’ve honed as I’ve grown older.) I shine my running shoes, rub some sunscreen on my face and neck, set my watch, and hit the road. With the trade winds wafting against my face, a white heron up above, its legs dutifully aligned as it crosses the sky, and me listening to my old favorite, the Lovin’ Spoonful.

     As I was running I was struck by a thought: Even if my time in races doesn’t improve, there’s not much I can do about it. I’ve gotten older, and time has taken its toll. It’s nobody’s fault. Those are the rules of the game. Just as a river flows to the sea, growing older and slowing down are just part of the natural scenery, and I’ve got to accept it. It might not be a very enjoyable process, and what I discover as a result might not be all that pleasant. But what choice do I have, anyway? In my own way, I’ve enjoyed my life so far, even if I can’t say I’ve fully enjoyed it.

     I’m not trying to brag or anything—who in the world would brag about something like this?—but I’m not the brightest person. I’m the kind of person who has to experience something physically, actually touch something, before I have a clear sense of it. No matter what it is, unless I see it with my own eyes I’m not convinced. I’m a physical, not intellectual, type of person. Of course I have a certain amount of intelligence—at least I think I do. If I totally lacked that there’d be no way I could write novels. But I’m not the type who operates through pure theory or logic, not the type whose energy source is intellectual speculation. Only when I’m given an actual physical burden and my muscles start to groan (and sometimes scream) does my comprehension meter shoot upward and I’m finally able to grasp something. Needless to say, it takes quite a bit of time, plus effort, to go through each stage, step by step, and arrive at a conclusion. Sometimes it takes too long, and by the time I’m convinced, it’s already too late. But what’re you going to do? That’s the kind of person I am.

     As I run I tell myself to think of a river. And clouds. But essentially I’m not thinking of a thing. All I do is keep on running in my own cozy, homemade void, my own nostalgic silence. And this is a pretty wonderful thing. No matter what anybody else says.

 

 

Two

AUGUST 14, 2005 • KAUAI, HAWAII

Tips on Becoming a Running Novelist

 

It’s August 14th, a Sunday. This morning I ran an hour and fifteen minutes, listening to Carla Thomas and Otis Redding on my MD player. In the afternoon I swam 1,400 yards at the pool and in the evening swam at the beach. And after that I had dinner—beer and fish—at the Hanalea Dolphin Restaurant just outside the town of Hanalea. The dish I have is walu, a kind of white fish. They grill it for me over charcoal, and I eat it with soy sauce. The side dish is vegetable kebabs, plus a large salad.

So far in August I’ve racked up ninety-three miles.

000

It was a long time ago that I first started running on an everyday basis. Specifically, it was the fall of 1982. I was thirty-three then.

     Not long before, I’d been running a sort of jazz club near Sendagaya Station. Soon after college—actually I’d been so busy with side jobs I was still a few credits short of graduating and was still officially a student—I opened a small club at the south entrance to Kokubunji Station and ran it for about three years; when they started to rebuild the building I was in, I moved to a new location closer to the center of Tokyo. This new venue wasn’t so big, or so small, either. We had a grand piano and just barely enough space to squeeze in a quintet. During the day we served coffee, at night it was a bar. We served pretty decent food, too, and on the weekends featured live performances. This kind of live jazz club was still pretty rare back then, so we gained a steady clientele and the place did all right financially.

     Most people I knew had predicted that the bar wouldn’t do well. They figured that an establishment run as a kind of hobby wouldn’t work out, that somebody like me, who was pretty naive and most likely didn’t have the slightest aptitude for running a business, wouldn’t be able to make a go of it. Well, their predictions were totally off. To tell the truth, I didn’t think I had much aptitude for business either. I just figured, though, that since failure was not an option, I’d have to give it everything I had. My only strength has always been the fact that I work hard and can take a lot physically. I’m more a workhorse than a racehorse. I was raised in a whitecollar household, so I didn’t know much about entrepreneurship, but fortunately my wife’s family ran a business, so her natural intuition was a great help. No matter how great a workhorse I might have been, I never would have been able to make it on my own.

     The work itself was hard. I worked from morning till late at night, until I was exhausted. I had all kinds of painful experiences, things I had to rack my brains about, and plenty of disappointments. But I worked like crazy, and I finally began to make enough profit to hire other people to help out. And as I neared the end of my twenties, I was finally able to take a breather. To start the bar I’d borrowed as much as I could from every place that would lend me money, and I’d almost repaid it all. Things were settling down. Up till then, it had been a question of sheer survival, of keeping my head above water, and I didn’t have room to think of anything else. I felt like I’d reached the top of some steep staircase and come out to a fairly open place and was confident that because I’d reached it safely, I could handle any future problems that might crop up and I’d survive. I took a deep breath, slowly gazed around me, glanced back at the steps I’d taken here, and began to contemplate the next stage. Turning thirty was just around the corner. I was reaching the age when I couldn’t be considered young anymore. And pretty much out of the blue I got the idea to write a novel.

     I can pinpoint the exact moment when I first thought I could write a novel. It was around one thirty in the afternoon of April 1, 1978. I was at Jingu Stadium that day, alone in the outfield drinking beer and watching the game. Jingu Stadium was within walking distance of my apartment at the time, and I was a fairly big Yakult Swallows fan. It was a perfectly beautiful spring day, not a cloud in the sky, with a warm breeze blowing. There weren’t any benches in the outfield seating back then, just a grassy slope. I was lying on the grass, sipping cold beer, gazing up occasionally at the sky, and leisurely enjoying the game. As usual for the Swallows, the stadium wasn’t very crowded. It was the season opener, and they were taking on the Hiroshima Carp at home. I remember that Yasuda was pitching for the Swallows. He was a short, stocky sort of pitcher with a wicked curve. He easily retired the side in the top of the first inning, and in the bottom of the inning the leadoff batter for the Swallows was Dave Hilton, a young American player new to the team. Hilton got a hit down the left field line. The crack of bat meeting ball right on the sweet spot echoed through the stadium. Hilton easily rounded first and pulled up to second. And it was at that exact moment that a thought struck me: You know what? I could try writing a novel. I still can remember the wide open sky, the feel of the new grass, the satisfying crack of the bat. Something flew down from the sky at that instant, and whatever it was, I accepted it.

     I never had any ambitions to be a novelist. I just had this strong desire to write a novel. No concrete image of what I wanted to write about, just the conviction that if I wrote it now I could come up with something that I’d find convincing. When I thought about sitting down at my desk at home and setting out to write I realized I didn’t even own a decent fountain pen. So I went to the Kinokuniya store in Shinjuku and bought a sheaf of manuscript paper and a five-dollar Sailor fountain pen. A small capital investment on my part.

     This was in the spring of 1978, and by fall I’d finished a two-hundredpage work handwritten on Japanese manuscript paper. After I finished it I felt great. I had no idea what to do with the novel once I finished it, but I just sort of let the momentum carry me and sent it in to be considered for a literary magazine’s new-writers prize. I shipped it off without making a copy, so it seems I didn’t much care if it wasn’t selected and vanished forever. This is the work that’s published under the title Hear the Wind Sing. I was more interested in having finished it than in whether or not it would ever see the light of day.

   That fall the perennial underdog Yakult Swallows won the pennant and went on to defeat the Hankyu Braves in the Japan Series. I was really excited and attended several games at Korakuen Stadium. (Nobody ever thought that Yakult would win, so they had already arranged for their home venue, Jingu Stadium, to be used for college baseball.) So I remember that time very clearly. It was a particularly gorgeous autumn, with wonderful sunny weather. The sky was perfectly clear, and the ginkgo trees in front of the Meiji Memorial Gallery were more golden than I’d ever seen them. This was the last fall of my twenties.

     By the next spring, when I got a phone call from an editor at Gunzo telling me my novel had made the short list, I’d completely forgotten that I’d entered the contest. I’d been so busy with other things. At first I had no idea what he was talking about. But the novel won the prize and was published in the summer. The book was fairly well received. I was thirty, and without really knowing what was going on I suddenly found myself labeled a new, up-and-coming writer. I was pretty surprised, but people who knew me were even more surprised.

     After this, while still running my business, I wrote a medium-length second novel, Pinball, 1973, and while working on this I wrote a few short stories and translated some short fiction by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Both Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973 were nominated for the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, for which they were said to be strong contenders, but in the end neither won. To tell the truth, though, I didn’t care one way or the other. If I did win it I’d become busy with interviews and writing assignments, and I was afraid this would interfere with running the club.

     Every day for three years I ran my jazz club—keeping accounts, checking inventory, scheduling my staff, standing behind the counter myself mixing up cocktails and cooking, closing up in the wee hours of the morning—and only then writing at home at the kitchen table until I got sleepy. I felt like I was living enough for two people’s lives. Physically, every day was tough, and writing novels and running a business at the same time made for all sorts of other problems. Running a service-oriented business means you have to accept whoever comes through the door. No matter who comes in, unless they’re really awful, you have to greet them with a friendly smile on your face. Thanks to this, though, I met all kinds of offbeat people and had some unusual encounters. Before I began writing, I dutifully, even enthusiastically, absorbed a variety of experiences. For the most part I think I enjoyed these and all the stimuli that they brought.

     Gradually, though, I found myself wanting to write a more substantial kind of novel. With the first two, Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973, I basically enjoyed the process of writing, but there were parts I wasn’t too pleased with. With these first two novels I was only able to write in spurts, snatching bits of time here and there—a half hour here, an hour there—and because I was always tired and felt like I was competing against the clock as I wrote, I was never able to concentrate. With this kind of scattered approach I was able to write some interesting, fresh things, but the result was far from a complex or profound novel. I felt I’d been given a wonderful opportunity to be a novelist—a chance you just don’t get every day—and a natural desire sprang up to take it as far as I possibly could and write the kind of novel I’d feel satisfied with. I knew I could write something more large-scale. And after giving it a lot of thought, I decided to close the business for a while and concentrate solely on writing. At this point my income from the jazz club was more than my income as a novelist, a reality I had to resign myself to.

     Most people I knew were flat out against my decision, or else had grave doubts about it. “Your business is doing fine now,” they said. “Why not just let someone else run it for a time while you go and write your novels?” From the world’s viewpoint this makes perfect sense. And most people probably didn’t think I’d make it as a professional writer. But I couldn’t follow their advice. I’m the kind of person who has to totally commit to whatever I do. I just couldn’t do something clever like writing a novel while someone else ran the business. I had to give it everything I had. If I failed, I could accept that. But I knew that if I did things halfheartedly and they didn’t work out, I’d always have regrets.

     Despite the objections of everybody else, I sold the business and, though a bit embarrassed about it, hung out my sign as a novelist and set out to make a living writing. “I’d just like to be free for two years to write,” I explained to my wife. “If it doesn’t work out we can always open up another little bar somewhere. I’m still young and we can always start over.” “All right,” she said. This was in 1981 and we still had a considerable amount of debt, but I figured I’d just do my best and see what happened.

     I settled down to write my novel and that fall traveled to Hokkaido for a week to research it. By the following April I’d completed A Wild Sheep Chase. I figured it was do or die, so I’d put everything I had into it. This novel was much longer than either of my previous two, larger in scope, and much more story-driven.

     When I finished the novel I had a good feeling that I’d created my own writing style. My whole body thrilled at the thought of how wonderful— and how difficult—it is to be able to sit at my desk, not worrying about time, and concentrate on writing. There were untouched veins still dormant within me, I felt, and now I could actually picture myself making a living as a novelist. So in the end the fallback idea of opening a small bar again never materialized. Sometimes, though, even now, I think how nice it would be to run a little bar somewhere.

     The editors at Gunzo, who were looking for something more mainstream, didn’t like A Wild Sheep Chase at all, and I recall how unenthusiastic their reception was. It seems like back then (what about now, I wonder) my notion of the novel was pretty unorthodox. Readers, though, seemed to love this new book, and that’s what made me happiest. This was the real starting point for me as a novelist. I think if I’d continued writing the kind of instinctual novels I’d completed while running the bar—Hear the Wind Sing and Pinball, 1973—I would have soon hit a dead end.

     A problem arose, though, with my decision to become a professional writer: the question of how to keep physically fit. I tend to gain weight if I don’t do anything. Running the bar required hard physical labor every day, and I could keep my weight down, but once I started sitting at my desk all day writing, my energy level gradually declined and I started putting on the pounds. I was smoking too much, too, as I concentrated on my work. Back then I was smoking sixty cigarettes a day. All my fingers were yellow, and my whole body reeked of smoke. This can’t be good for me, I decided. If I wanted to have a long life as a novelist, I needed to find a way to keep fit and maintain a healthy weight.

     Running has a lot of advantages. First of all, you don’t need anybody else to do it, and no need for special equipment. You don’t have to go to any special place to do it. As long as you have running shoes and a good road you can run to your heart’s content. Tennis isn’t like that. You have to travel to a tennis court, and you need somebody to play with. Swimming you can do alone, but you still have to go to a pool.

     After I closed my bar, I thought I’d change my lifestyle entirely, so we moved out to Narashino, in Chiba Prefecture. At the time it was pretty rural, and there weren’t any decent sports facilities around. But they did have roads. There was a Self-Defense Force base nearby, so they kept the roads well maintained for their vehicles. And luckily there was also a training ground in the neighborhood owned by Nihon University, and if I went early in the morning I could freely use—or perhaps I should say borrow without permission—their track. So I didn’t have to think too much about which sport to choose—not that I had much of a choice—when I decided to go running.

     Not long after that I also gave up smoking. Giving up smoking was a kind of natural result of running every day. It wasn’t easy to quit, but I couldn’t very well keep on smoking and continue running. This natural desire to run even more became a powerful motivation for me to not go back to smoking, and a great help in overcoming the withdrawal symptoms. Quitting smoking was like a symbolic gesture of farewell to the life I used to lead.

     I never disliked long-distance running. When I was at school I never much cared for gym class, and always hated Sports Day. This was because these were forced on me from above. I never could stand being forced to do something I didn’t want to do at a time I didn’t want to do it. Whenever I was able to do something I liked to do, though, when I wanted to do it, and the way I wanted to do it, I’d give it everything I had. Since I wasn’t that athletic or coordinated, I wasn’t good at the kind of sports where things are decided in a flash. Long-distance running and swimming suit my personality better. I was always kind of aware of this, which might explain why I was able to smoothly incorporate running into my daily life.

     If you’ll allow me to take a slight detour from running, I think I can say the same thing about me and studying. From elementary school up to college I was never interested in things I was forced to study. I told myself it was something that had to be done, so I wasn’t a total slacker and was able to go on to college, but never once did I find studying exciting. As a result, though my grades weren’t the kind you have to hide from people, I don’t have any memory of being praised for getting a good grade or being the best in anything. I only began to enjoy studying after I got through the educational system and became a so-called member of society. If something interested me, and I could study it at my own pace and approach it the way I liked, I was pretty efficient at acquiring knowledge and skills. The art of translation is a good example. I learned it on my own, the pay-as-you-go method. It takes a lot of time to acquire a skill this way, and you go through a lot of trial and error, but what you learn sticks with you.

 

The happiest thing about becoming a professional writer was that I could go to bed early and get up early. When I was running the bar I often didn’t get to sleep until nearly dawn. The bar closed at twelve, but then I had to clean up, go over the receipts, sit and talk, have a drink to relax. Do all that and before you know it, it’s three a.m. and sunrise is just around the corner. Often I’d be sitting at my kitchen table, writing, when it would start to get light outside. Naturally, when I finally woke up the sun was already high in the sky.

     After I closed the bar and began my life as a novelist, the first thing we— and by we I mean my wife and I—did was completely revamp our lifestyle. We decided we’d go to bed soon after it got dark, and wake up with the sun. To our minds this was natural, the kind of life respectable people lived. We’d closed the club, so we also decided that from now on we’d meet with only the people we wanted to see and, as much as possible, get by not seeing those we didn’t. We felt that, for a time at least, we could allow ourselves this modest indulgence.

     It was a major directional change—from the kind of open life we’d led for seven years, to a more closed life. I think having this sort of open existence for a period was a good thing. I learned a lot of important lessons during that time. It was my real schooling. But you can’t keep up that kind of life forever. Just as with school, you enter it, learn something, and then it’s time to leave.

     So my new, simple, and regular life began. I got up before five a.m. and went to bed before ten p.m. People are at their best at different times of day, but I’m definitely a morning person. That’s when I can focus and finish up important work I have to do. Afterward I work out or do other errands that don’t take much concentration. At the end of the day I relax and don’t do any more work. I read, listen to music, take it easy, and try to go to bed early. This is the pattern I’ve mostly followed up till today. Thanks to this, I’ve been able to work efficiently these past twenty-four years. It’s a lifestyle, though, that doesn’t allow for much nightlife, and sometimes your relationships with other people become problematic. Some people even get mad at you, because they invite you to go somewhere or do something with them and you keep turning them down.

     I’m struck by how, except when you’re young, you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don’t get that sort of system set by a certain age, you’ll lack focus and your life will be out of balance. I placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing, not associating with all the people around me. I felt that the indispensable relationship I should build in my life was not with a specific person, but with an unspecified number of readers. As long as I got my day-to-day life set so that each work was an improvement over the last, then many of my readers would welcome whatever life I chose for myself. Shouldn’t this be my duty as a novelist, and my top priority? My opinion hasn’t changed over the years. I can’t see my readers’ faces, so in a sense it’s a conceptual type of human relationship, but I’ve consistently considered this invisible, conceptual relationship to be the most important thing in my life.

     In other words, you can’t please everybody.

     Even when I ran my bar I followed the same policy. A lot of customers came to the bar. If one out of ten enjoyed the place and said he’d come again, that was enough. If one out of ten was a repeat customer, then the business would survive. To put it the other way, it didn’t matter if nine out of ten didn’t like my bar. This realization lifted a weight off my shoulders. Still, I had to make sure that the one person who did like the place really liked it. In order to make sure he did, I had to make my philosophy and stance clear-cut, and patiently maintain that stance no matter what. This is what I learned through running a business.

     After A Wild Sheep Chase, I continued to write with the same attitude I’d developed as a business owner. And with each work the number of my readers increased. What made me happiest was the fact that I had a lot of devoted readers, the one-in-ten repeaters, most of whom were young. They would wait patiently for my next book to appear and grab it and read it as soon as it hit the bookstores. This sort of pattern gradually taking shape was, for me, the ideal, or at least a very comfortable, situation. There’s no need to be literature’s top runner. I went on writing the kind of things I wanted to write, exactly the way I wanted to write them, and if that allowed me to make a normal living, then I couldn’t ask for more. When Norwegian Wood sold way more than anticipated, the comfortable position I had was forced to change a bit, but this was quite a bit later.

 

When I first started running I couldn’t run long distances. I could only run for about twenty minutes, or thirty. That much left me panting, my heart pounding, my legs shaky. It was to be expected, though, since I hadn’t really exercised for a long time. At first, I was also a little embarrassed to have people in the neighborhood see me running—the same feeling I had upon first seeing the title novelist put in parentheses after my name. But as I continued to run, my body started to accept the fact that it was running, and I could gradually increase the distance. I was starting to acquire a runner’s form, my breathing became more regular, and my pulse settled down. The main thing was not the speed or distance so much as running every day, without taking a break.

     So, like my three meals a day—along with sleeping, housework, and work—running was incorporated into my daily routine. As it became a natural habit, I felt less embarrassed about it. I went to a sports store and purchased running gear and some decent shoes that suited my purpose. I bought a stopwatch, too, and read a beginners’ book on running. This is how you become a runner.

     Looking back now, I think the most fortunate thing is that I was born with a strong, healthy body. This has made it possible for me to run on a daily basis for almost a quarter century, competing in a number of races along the way. I’ve never had a time when my legs hurt so much I couldn’t run. I don’t really stretch much before running, but I’ve never been injured, never been hurt, and haven’t been sick once. I’m no great runner, but I’m definitely a strong runner. That’s one of the very few gifts I can be proud of.

     The year 1983 rolled around, and I participated for the first time in my life in a road race. It wasn’t very long—a 5K—but for the first time I had a number pinned to me, was in a large group of other runners, and heard the official shout out, “On your mark, get set, go!” Afterward I thought, Hey, that wasn’t so bad! In May I was in a 15K race around Lake Yamanaka, and in June, wanting to test how far I could run, I did laps around the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. I went around seven times, for a total of 22.4 miles, at a fairly decent pace, and didn’t feel it was that hard. My legs didn’t hurt at all. Maybe I could actually run a marathon, I concluded. It was only later that I found out the hard way that the toughest part of a marathon comes after twenty-two miles.

     When I look at photos of me taken back then, it’s obvious I didn’t yet have a runner’s physique. I hadn’t run enough, hadn’t built up the requisite muscles, and my arms were too thin, my legs too skinny. I’m impressed I could run a marathon with a body like that. When you compare me in these photos to the way I am now, they make me look like a completely different person. After years of running, my musculature has changed completely. But even then I could feel physical changes happening every day, which made me really happy. I felt like even though I was past thirty, there were still some possibilities left for me and my body. The more I ran, the more my physical potential was revealed.

     I used to tend to gain weight, but around that time my weight stabilized at where it should be. Exercising every day, I naturally reached my ideal weight, and I discovered this helped my performance. Along with this, my diet started to gradually change as well. I began to eat mostly vegetables, with fish as my main source of protein. I never liked meat much anyway, and this aversion became even more pronounced. I cut back on rice and alcohol and began using all natural ingredients. Sweets weren’t a problem since I never much cared for them.

     As I said, if I don’t do anything I tend to put on the pounds. My wife’s the opposite, since she can eat as much as she likes (she doesn’t eat a lot of them, but can never turn down anything sweet), never exercise, and still not put on any weight. She has no extra fat at all. Life just isn’t fair, is how it used to strike me. Some people can work their butts off and never get what they’re aiming for, while others can get it without any effort at all.

     But when I think about it, having the kind of body that easily puts on weight was perhaps a blessing in disguise. In other words, if I don’t want to gain weight I have to work out hard every day, watch what I eat, and cut down on indulgences. Life can be tough, but as long as you don’t stint on the effort, your metabolism will greatly improve with these habits, and you’ll end up much healthier, not to mention stronger. To a certain extent, you can even slow down the effects of aging. But people who naturally keep the weight off no matter what don’t need to exercise or watch their diet in order to stay trim. There can’t be many of them who would go out of their way to take these troublesome measures when they don’t need to. Which is why, in many cases, their physical strength deteriorates as they age. If you don’t exercise, your muscles will naturally weaken, as will your bones. Some of my readers may be the kind of people who easily gain weight, but the only way to understand what’s really fair is to take a longrange view of things. For the reasons I give above, I think this physical nuisance should be viewed in a positive way, as a blessing. We should consider ourselves lucky that the red light is so clearly visible. Of course, it’s not always easy to see things this way.

     I think this viewpoint applies as well to the job of the novelist. Writers who are blessed with inborn talent can freely write novels no matter what they do—or don’t do. Like water from a natural spring, the sentences just well up, and with little or no effort these writers can complete a work. Occasionally you’ll find someone like that, but, unfortunately, that category wouldn’t include me. I haven’t spotted any springs nearby. I have to pound the rock with a chisel and dig out a deep hole before I can locate the source of creativity. To write a novel I have to drive myself hard physically and use a lot of time and effort. Every time I begin a new novel, I have to dredge out another new, deep hole. But as I’ve sustained this kind of life over many years, I’ve become quite efficient, both technically and physically, at opening a hole in the hard rock and locating a new water vein. So as soon as I notice one water source drying up, I can move on right away to another. If people who rely on a natural spring of talent suddenly find they’ve exhausted their only source, they’re in trouble.

     In other words, let’s face it: Life is basically unfair. But even in a situation that’s unfair, I think it’s possible to seek out a kind of fairness. Of course, that might take time and effort. And maybe it won’t seem to be worth all that. It’s up to each individual to decide whether or not it is.

 

When I tell people I run every day, some are quite impressed. “You really must have a strong will,” they sometimes tell me. Of course, it’s nice to be praised like this. A lot better than being disparaged, that’s for sure. But I don’t think it’s merely willpower that makes you able to do something. The world isn’t that simple. To tell the truth, I don’t even think there’s that much correlation between my running every day and whether or not I have a strong will. I think I’ve been able to run for more than twenty years for a simple reason: It suits me. Or at least because I don’t find it all that painful. Human beings naturally continue doing things they like, and they don’t continue what they don’t like. Admittedly, something close to will does play a small part in that. But no matter how strong a will a person has, no matter how much he may hate to lose, if it’s an activity he doesn’t really care for, he won’t keep it up for long. Even if he did, it wouldn’t be good for him.

     That’s why I’ve never recommended running to others. I’ve tried my best never to say something like, Running is great. Everybody should try it. If some people have an interest in long-distance running, just leave them be, and they’ll start running on their own. If they’re not interested in it, no amount of persuasion will make any difference. Marathon running is not a sport for everyone, just as being a novelist isn’t a job for everyone. Nobody ever recommended or even desired that I be a novelist—in fact, some tried to stop me. I had the idea to be one, and that’s what I did. Likewise, a person doesn’t become a runner because someone recommends it. People basically become runners because they’re meant to.

     Still, some might read this book and say, “Hey, I’m going to give running a try,” and then discover they enjoy it. And of course that would be a beautiful thing. As the author of this book I’d be very pleased if that happened. But people have their own individual likes and dislikes. Some people are suited more for marathon running, some for golf, others for gambling. Whenever I see students in gym class all made to run a long distance, I feel sorry for them. Forcing people who have no desire to run, or who aren’t physically fit enough, is a kind of pointless torture. I always want to advise teachers not to force all junior and senior high school students to run the same course, but I doubt anybody’s going to listen to me. That’s what schools are like. The most important thing we ever learn at school is the fact that the most important things can’t be learned at school.

 

No matter how much long-distance running might suit me, of course there are days when I feel kind of lethargic and don’t want to run. Actually, it happens a lot. On days like that, I try to think of all kinds of plausible excuses to slough it off. Once, I interviewed the Olympic runner Toshihiko Seko, just after he retired from running and became manager of the S&B company team. I asked him, “Does a runner at your level ever feel like you’d rather not run today, like you don’t want to run and would rather just sleep in?” He stared at me and then, in a voice that made it abundantly clear how stupid he thought the question was, replied, “Of course. All the time!”

     Now that I look back on it I can see what a dumb question that was. I guess even back then I knew how dumb it was, but I suppose I wanted to hear the answer directly from someone of Seko’s caliber. I wanted to know whether, despite being worlds apart in terms of strength, the amount we can exercise, and motivation, when we lace up our running shoes early in the morning we feel exactly the same way. Seko’s reply at the time came as a great relief. In the final analysis we’re all the same, I thought.

     Whenever I feel like I don’t want to run, I always ask myself the same thing: You’re able to make a living as a novelist, working at home, setting your own hours, so you don’t have to commute on a packed train or sit through boring meetings. Don’t you realize how fortunate you are? (Believe me, I do.) Compared to that, running an hour around the neighborhood is nothing, right? Whenever I picture packed trains and endless meetings, this gets me motivated all over again and I lace up my running shoes and set off without any qualms. If I can’t manage this much, I think, it’ll serve me right. I say this knowing full well that there are lots of people who’d pick riding a crowded train and attending meetings any day over running every day for an hour.

000

At any rate, that’s how I started running. Thirty-three—that’s how old I was then. Still young enough, though no longer a young man. The age that Jesus Christ died. The age that Scott Fitzgerald started to go downhill. That age may be a kind of crossroads in life. That was the age when I began my life as a runner, and it was my belated, but real, starting point as a novelist.

 

 

Three

SEPTEMBER 1, 2005 • KAUAI, HAWAII

Athens in Midsummer—Running 26.2 Miles for the First Time

 

Yesterday was the last day of August. During this month (thirty-one days), I ran a total of 217 miles.

     June 156 miles (36 miles per week)

     July 186 miles (43 miles per week)

     August 217 miles (50 miles per week)

     My goal is the New York City Marathon on November 6. I’ve had to make some adjustments to prepare for it; so far, so good. I started a set running schedule five months ahead of time, increasing, in stages, the distance I run.

     The weather in Kauai in August is wonderful, and I wasn’t rained out even once. When it did rain, it was a pleasant shower that cooled down my overheated body. Weather on the north shore of Kauai is generally good in the summer, but it’s rare to have such nice weather continue for so long. Thanks to this, I was able to run as much as I wanted. I feel in good shape, so even though I’m gradually increasing the distance I run, my body hasn’t complained. These three months I’ve been able to run pain-free, with no injuries, and without feeling overly tired.

     The summer heat didn’t wear me down, either. I don’t do anything in particular to keep my energy level up during the summer. I guess the only thing I do specifically is try not to drink so many cold drinks. And eat more fruits and vegetables. When it comes to food, Hawaii is the ideal place for me to live in the summer because I can easily get lots of fresh fruits— mangoes, papayas, avocados—literally right across the street. I’m not eating these, though, simply to stave off the summer blahs, but because my body just naturally craves them. Being active every day makes it easier to hear that inner voice.

     One other way I keep healthy is by taking a nap. I really nap a lot. Usually I get sleepy right after lunch, plop down on the sofa, and doze off. Thirty minutes later I come wide awake. As soon as I wake up, my body isn’t sluggish and my mind is totally clear. This is what they call in southern Europe a siesta. I think I learned this custom when I lived in Italy, but maybe I’m misremembering, since I’ve always loved taking naps. Anyway, I’m the type of person who, once he gets sleepy, can fall sound asleep anywhere. Definitely a good talent to have if you want to stay healthy, but the problem is I sometimes fall fast asleep in situations where I shouldn’t.

     I’ve shed a few pounds, too, and my face looks more toned. It’s a nice feeling to see your body going through these changes, though they certainly don’t happen as quickly as when I was young. Changes that used to take a month and a half now take three. The amount I can exercise is going downhill, as is the efficiency of the whole process, but what’re you going to do? I just have to accept it, and make do with what I can get. One of the realities of life. Plus, I don’t think we should judge the value of our lives by how efficient they are. The gym where I work out in Tokyo has a poster that says, “Muscles are hard to get and easy to lose. Fat is easy to get and hard to lose.” A painful reality, but a reality all the same.

 

In this way August waved good-bye (it really did seem like it waved), September rolled around, and my style of training has undergone another transformation. In the three months up till now I was basically trying to rack up the distance, not worrying about anything, but steadily increasing my pace and running as hard as I could. And this helped me build up my overall strength: I got more stamina, built up my muscles, spurred myself on both physically and mentally. The most important task here was to let my body know in no uncertain terms that running this hard is just par for the course. When I say letting it know in no uncertain terms I’m speaking figuratively, of course. No matter how much you might command your body to perform, don’t count on it to immediately obey. The body is an extremely practical system. You have to let it experience intermittent pain over time, and then the body will get the point. As a result, it will willingly accept (or maybe not) the increased amount of exercise it’s made to do. After this, you very gradually increase the upper limit of the amount of exercise you do. Doing it gradually is important so you don’t burn out.

     Now that it’s September and the race is two months away, my training is entering a period of fine-tuning. Through modulated exercise—sometimes long, sometimes short, sometimes soft, sometimes hard—I’m transitioning from quantity of exercise to quality. The point is to reach the peak of exhaustion about a month before the race, so this is a critical period. In order to make any progress, I have to listen very carefully to feedback from my body.

     In August I was able to settle down in one place, Kauai, and train, but in September I’ll be taking some long trips, back to Japan and then from Japan to Boston. In Japan I’ll be too busy to focus on running the way I have been. I should be able to make up for not running as much, though, by establishing a more efficient training program.

    

I’d really rather not talk about this—I’d much prefer to hide it away in the back of the closet—but the last time I ran a full marathon it was awful. I’ve run a lot of races, but never one that ended up so badly.

     This race took place in Chiba Prefecture. Up to around the eighteenth mile I was going along at a good enough clip, and I was sure I’d run a decent time. I had plenty of stamina left, so I was positive I could finish the rest of the race with no problem. But just as I was thinking this, my legs suddenly stopped following orders. They began to cramp up, and it got so bad I couldn’t run anymore. I tried stretching, but the back of my thighs wouldn’t stop trembling, and finally cramped up into this weird knot. I couldn’t even stand up, and before I knew it I was squatting down beside the road. I’d had cramps in other races, but as long as I stretched for a while, about five minutes was all it took for my muscles to get back to normal and me to get back in the race. But now no matter how much time passed, the cramps wouldn’t go away. At one point I thought it’d gotten better and I began to run again, but sure enough the cramps returned. So the last three miles or so I had to walk. This was the first time I’d ever walked a marathon instead of running. Up till then I’d made it a point of pride that no matter how hard things might get, I never walked. A marathon is a running event, after all, not a walking event. But in that one race, even walking was a problem. The thought crossed my mind a few times that maybe I should give up and hitch a ride on one of the event shuttle buses. My time was going to be awful anyway, I thought, so why not just throw in the towel? But dropping out was the last thing I wanted to do. I might be reduced to crawling, but I was going to make it to the finish line on my own steam.

     Other runners kept passing me, but I limped on, grimacing in pain. The numbers on my digital watch kept mercilessly ticking away. Wind blew in from the ocean, and the sweat on my shirt got cold and felt freezing. This was a winter race, after all. You’d better believe it’s cold hobbling down a road with the wind whipping by while you’re dressed only in a tank top and shorts. Your body warms up considerably as you run, and you don’t feel the cold; I was shocked by how cold it was once I stopped running. But what I felt much more than the cold was wounded pride, and how pitiful I looked tottering down a marathon course. About a mile from the finish line my cramps finally let up and I was able to run again. I slowly jogged for a while until I got back in form, then sped down the home stretch as hard as I could. My time, though, was indeed awful, as predicted.

     There are three reasons I failed. Not enough training. Not enough training. And not enough training. That’s it in a word. Not enough overall exercise, plus not getting my weight down. Without knowing it, I’d developed a sort of arrogant attitude, convinced that just a fair-to-middling amount of training was enough for me to do a good job. It’s pretty thin, the wall separating healthy confidence and unhealthy pride. When I was young, maybe just a fair-to-middling amount of training would have been enough for me to run a marathon. Without driving myself too hard in training, I could have banked on the strength I’d already built up to see me through and run a good time. Sadly, though, I’m no longer young. I’m getting to the age where you really do get only what you pay for.

     As I ran this race I felt I never, ever wanted to go through that again. Freeze my butt off and feel miserable? I’ll pass. Right then and there I decided that before my next marathon I was going to go back to the basics, start from scratch, and do the very best I could. Train meticulously and rediscover what I was physically capable of. Tighten up all the loose screws, one by one. Do all that and see what happens. These were my thoughts as I dragged my cramped legs through the freezing wind, one runner after another passing me by.

     As I’ve said, I’m not a very competitive type of person. To a certain extent, I figured, it’s sometimes hard to avoid losing. Nobody’s going to win all the time. On the highway of life you can’t always be in the fast lane. Still, I certainly don’t want to keep making the same mistakes over and over. Best to learn from my mistakes and put that lesson into practice the next time around. While I still have the ability to do that.

 

This may be the reason why, while I’m training for my next marathon—the New York City Marathon—I’m also writing this. Bit by bit I’m remembering things that took place when I was a beginning runner more than twenty years ago. Retracing my memories, rereading the simple journal I kept (I’m never able to keep a regular diary for very long, but I’ve faithfully kept up my runner’s journal) and reworking them into essay form, helps me consider the path I’ve taken and rediscover the feelings I had back then. I do this to both admonish and encourage myself. It’s also intended as a wake-up call for the motivation that, somewhere along the line, went dormant. I’m writing, in other words, to put my thoughts in some kind of order. And in hindsight—in the final analysis it’s always in hindsight—this may very well end up a kind of memoir that centers on the act of running.

     This doesn’t mean that what’s occupying me at this moment is writing a personal history. I’m much more concerned with the practical question of how I can finish the New York City Marathon two months from now, with a halfway-decent time. The main task before me right now is how I can train in order to accomplish that.

     On August 25 the U.S. magazine Runner’s World came to do a photo shoot on me. A young cameraman named Greg flew in from California and spent the day photographing me. An enthusiastic guy, he’d brought a truckload of equipment by plane all the way to Kauai. The magazine had interviewed me earlier, and the photos were to accompany the interview. There apparently aren’t too many novelists who run marathons (there are some, of course, but not many), and the magazine was interested in my life as a “Running Novelist.” Runner’s World is a very popular magazine among American runners, so I imagine a lot of runners will say hi to me when I’m in New York. This made me even more tense, thinking how I’d better not do a lousy job in the marathon.

 

Let’s go back to 1983. A nostalgic era now, back when Duran Duran and Hall and Oates were cranking out the hits.

     In July of that year I traveled to Greece and ran by myself from Athens to the town of Marathon. This was the opposite direction of the original battle messenger’s course, which started in Marathon and went to Athens. I decided to run it backward because I figured I could start early in the morning from Athens, before rush hour (and before the air grew too polluted), leave the city, and head straight for Marathon, which would help me avoid traffic. This wasn’t an official race and I was running all alone, so naturally I couldn’t count on anyone to reroute vehicles just for me.

     Why did I go all the way to Greece and run twenty-six miles by myself? I’d been asked by a men’s magazine to travel to Greece and write a travelogue about the trip. This was an officially organized media tour, sponsored by the Greek government’s Board of Tourism. A lot of other magazines also sponsored this tour, which included the typical touristy visits to see ruins, a cruise on the Aegean Sea, etc., but once that was over I’d have an open ticket and could stay as long as I wanted and do as I pleased. This kind of package tour didn’t interest me, but I did like the idea of being on my own afterward. Greece is the home of the original marathon course, and I was dying to see it with my own eyes. I figured I should be able to run at least part of it myself. For a beginning runner like me, this would definitely be an exciting experience.

     Wait a sec, I thought. Why just one part? Why not run the entire distance?

     When I suggested this to the editors of the magazine, they liked the idea. So I ended up running my first full marathon (or something close to it) quietly, all by myself. No crowds, no tape at the finish line, no hearty cheers from people along the way. None of that. But that was okay, since this was the original marathon course. What more could I ask for?

     Actually, if you run straight from Athens to Marathon, it’s not quite the length of an official marathon, which is set at 26.2 miles. It’s about a mile short. I found out about this years later when I ran in an official race that followed the original course, starting in Marathon and ending in Athens. As those who watched the TV broadcast of the marathon at the Athens Olympics are aware, after the runners leave Marathon, at one point they go off on a side road to the left, run past some less-than-distinguished ruins, and then return to the main road. That’s how they make up for the extra distance. At the time, though, I wasn’t aware of this, and was under the impression that running straight from Athens to Marathon would be the full 26.2 miles. Actually, it was only twenty-five. But within Athens itself I took a few detours, and since the odometer in the van that accompanied me showed it had driven twenty-six miles, I suppose I ran something pretty close to a full marathon. Not that it matters much at this late date.

 

It was midsummer in Athens when I ran. As those who’ve been there know, the heat can be unbelievable. The locals, unless they can’t help it, avoid going out in the afternoon. They don’t do anything, just keep cool in the shade to conserve their strength. Only once the sun sets do they take to the streets. Just about the only people you see walking outside on a summer afternoon in Greece are tourists. Even dogs just lie down in the shade and don’t move a muscle. You have to watch them for a long time before you can figure out whether they’re still alive. That’s how hot it is. Running twenty-six miles in heat like that is nothing short of an act of madness.

     When I told Greeks my plan to run alone from Athens to Marathon, they all said the same thing: “That’s insane. No one in their right mind would ever think of it.” Before I came, I had no idea how hot the summer is in Athens, so I was pretty easygoing about it. All I had to do was run twentysix miles, I figured, only worrying about the distance. The temperature never crossed my mind. Once I got to Athens, though, it was so blazing hot I did start to get the jitters. They’re right, I thought. You have to be crazy to want to do this. Still, I’d made this flamboyant gesture, promising I’d run the original marathon course and write an article about it, and I’d flown all the way to Greece to accomplish it. No way could I back out now. I racked my brain to come up with ideas on how to keep from getting exhausted by the heat, and finally got the idea of leaving Athens in the early morning, while it was still dark, and reaching Marathon before the sun was high. The later it got, the hotter it would be. It was turning out to be exactly like the story “Run, Melos!,” about a competition to outrun the sun.

     The photographer from the magazine, Masao Kageyama, would ride along in the van that accompanied me. He’d take pictures as they drove along. It wasn’t a real race, and there weren’t any water stations, so I’d occasionally stop to get water from the van. The Greek summer is truly brutal, and I knew I’d have to be careful not to get dehydrated.

     “Mr. Murakami,” Mr. Kageyama said, surprised as he saw me getting ready to run, “you’re not really thinking of running the whole route, are you?”

     “Of course I am. That’s why I came here.”

     “Really? But when we do these kinds of projects most people don’t go all the way. We just take some photos, and most of them don’t finish the whole route. So you really are going to run the entire thing?”

     Sometimes the world baffles me. I can’t believe that people would really do things like that.

     At any rate, I started off my run at five thirty a.m. at the stadium later used in the 2004 Athens Olympics, and set off down the road to Marathon. There’s just the one main highway. Once you run roads in Greece you’ll understand, but they’re paved differently. Instead of gravel, they mix in powdered marble, which makes the road shiny in the sunlight and quite slippery. When it rains you have to be very careful. Even when it isn’t raining the soles of your shoes make a squeaky sound, and your legs can feel how smooth the road surface is.

     The following is a shortened form of the article I wrote for the magazine covering my Athens–Marathon run.

000

The sun’s climbing higher and higher. The road within the Athens city limits is very hard to run on. It’s about three miles from the stadium to the highway entrance, and there are way too many stoplights along the way, which messes up my pace. There are also a lot of places where construction and double-parked cars block the road, and I have to step out into the middle of the street. What with the cars zooming around early in the morning, running here can be dangerous.

     The sun starts to come up just as I enter Marathon Avenue, and the streetlights all go out at once. The time when the summer sun rules over the earth is swiftly approaching. People have started to appear at bus stops. Greeks take a siesta at noon, so they tend to commute to work pretty early. They all look at me curiously. Can’t imagine many of them have ever seen an Oriental man running down the pre-dawn streets of Athens before. Athens isn’t the kind of town with many joggers to begin with.

     Four miles into the run I strip off my running shirt and am naked from the waist up. I always run without a shirt, so it feels great to take it off (though later I’ll wind up with a terrible sunburn). Until the eighth mile I’m running up a gradual slope. Hardly a breath of air. When I get to the top of the slope it feels like I’ve finally left the city. I’m relieved, but at the same time this is where the sidewalk disappears, replaced only by a white line painted along the road, marking off a narrow lane. Rush hour has begun, and the number of cars has increased. Large buses and trucks whiz right by me, at about fifty miles per hour. You do get a vague sense of history with a road named Marathon Avenue, but it’s basically just an ordinary commuter highway.

     It’s at this point that I encounter my first dead dog. A large, brown dog. I don’t see any external injuries. It’s just laid out in the middle of the road. I figured it’s a stray that got hit by a speeding car in the middle of the night. The body still looks warm, so it doesn’t seem dead. It looks more like it’s just sleeping. The truck drivers zooming past don’t give it a glance.

     A little further on I run across a cat that’s been flattened by a car. The cat is totally flat, like some misshapen pizza, and dried up. It must have been run over quite a while ago.

     That’s the kind of road I’m talking about.

     At this point I really start to wonder why, having flown all the way from Tokyo to this beautiful country, I have to run down this dreary commuter road. There must have been other things I could be doing. The body count for all these poor animals who lost their lives on Marathon Avenue is, on this day, three dogs and eleven cats. I count them all, which is kind of depressing.

     I run on and on. The sun reveals all of itself, and with unbelievable speed rises in the sky. I’m dying of thirst. I don’t have time to get sweaty, since the air is so dry that perspiration immediately evaporates, leaving behind a layer of white salt. There’s the expression beads of sweat, but here the sweat disappears before it can even form beads. My whole body starts to sting from the salty residue. When I lick my lips they taste like anchovy paste. I start to dream about an ice-cold beer, one so cold it burns. No beers around, though, so I make do with getting a drink from the editors’ van about every three miles or so. I’ve never drunk so much water while running.

     I feel pretty good, though. Lots of energy left. I’m only going at about 70 percent of capacity, but am managing a decent pace. By turns the road goes uphill, then down. Since I’m heading from inland toward the sea, the road is, overall, slightly downhill. I leave behind the city, then the suburbs, and gradually enter a more rural area. As I pass through the small village of Nea Makri, old people sitting at an outdoor café sipping morning coffee from tiny cups silently watch me as I run by. Like they’re witnessing a scene from the backwaters of history.

     At around seventeen miles there’s a slope, and once over that I catch a glimpse of the Marathon hills. I figure I’m about two-thirds finished with the run. I calculate the split times in my head and figure that at this rate I should be able to finish in three and a half hours. But things don’t go that well. After I pass nineteen miles the headwind from the sea starts blowing, and the closer I get to Marathon the harder it blows. The wind is so strong it stings my skin. It feel like if I were to relax at all I’d be blown backward. The faint scent of the sea comes to me as the road gently slopes upward. There is just the one road to Marathon, and it’s straight as a ruler. This is the point when I start to feel real exhaustion. No matter how much water I drink, a few minutes later I’m thirsty again. A nice cold beer would be fantastic.

     No—forget about beer. And forget about the sun. Forget about the wind. Forget about the article I have to write. Just focus on moving my feet forward, one after the other. That’s the only thing that matters.

     I pass twenty-two miles. I’ve never run more than twenty-two miles, so this is terra incognita. On the left is a line of rugged, barren mountains. Who could ever have made them? On the right, an endless row of olive orchards. Everything looks covered in a layer of white dust. And the strong wind from the sea never lets up. What is up with this wind? Why does it have to be this strong?

     At around twenty-three miles I start to hate everything. Enough already! My energy has scraped bottom, and I don’t want to run anymore. I feel like I’m driving a car on empty. I need a drink, but if I stopped here to drink some water I don’t think I could get running again. I’m dying of thirst but lack the strength to even drink water anymore. As these thoughts flit through my mind I gradually start to get angry. Angry at the sheep happily munching grass in an empty lot next to the road, angry at the photographer snapping photos from inside the van. The sound of the shutter grates on my nerves. Who needs this many sheep, anyway? But snapping the shutter is the photographer’s job, just as chewing grass is the sheep’s, so I don’t have any right to complain. Still, the whole thing really bugs me to no end. My skin’s starting to rise up in little white heat blisters. This is getting ridiculous. What’s with this heat, anyway?

     I pass the twenty-five-mile mark.

     “Just one more mile. Hang in there!” the editor calls out cheerfully from the van. Easy for you to say, I want to yell back, but don’t. The naked sun is blazing hot. It’s only just past nine a.m., but I feel like I’m in an oven. The sweat’s getting in my eyes. The salt makes my eyes sting, and for a while I can’t see a thing. I wipe away the sweat with my hand, but my hand and face are salty too, and that makes my eyes sting even more.

     Beyond the tall summer grasses I can just make out the goal line, the Marathon monument at the entrance to the village of the same name. It appears so abruptly that at first I’m not sure if that’s really the goal. I’m happy to see the finish line, no question about it, but the abruptness of it makes me mad for some reason. Since this is the last leg of the run, I want to make a last, desperate effort to run as fast as I can, but my legs have a mind of their own. I’ve totally forgotten how to move my body. All my muscles feel like they’ve been shaved away with a rusty plane.

     The finish line.

     I finally reach the end. Strangely, I have no feeling of accomplishment. The only thing I feel is utter relief that I don’t have to run anymore. I use a spigot at a gas station to cool off my overheated body and wash away the salt stuck to me. I’m covered with salt, a veritable human salt field. When the old man at the gas station hears what I’ve done, he snips off some flowers from a potted plant and presents me with a bouquet. You did a good job, he smiles. Congratulations. I feel so thankful for these small gestures of kindness from foreigners. Marathon is a small, friendly village, quiet and peaceful. I can’t imagine how this was where, several thousand years ago, the Greeks defeated the invading Persian army at the shore in a ghastly battle. I sit at a café in the village and gulp down cold Amstel beer. It tastes fantastic, but not nearly as great as the beer I’d been imagining as I ran. Nothing in the real world is as beautiful as the illusions of a person about to lose consciousness.

     The run from Athens to Marathon took me three hours and fifty-one minutes. Not exactly a great time, but at least I was able to run the whole course by myself, my only companions the awful traffic, the unimaginable heat, and my terrible thirst. I guess I should be proud of what I did, but right now I don’t care. What makes me happy right now is knowing that I don’t have to run another step.

     Whew!—I don’t have to run anymore.

000

This was my first-ever experience running (nearly) twenty-six miles. And, happily, it was the last time I ever had to run twenty-six miles in such grueling conditions. In December of the same year I ran the Honolulu Marathon in a fairly decent time. Hawaii was hot, but nothing compared to Athens. So Honolulu was my first official full marathon. Ever since then it’s been my practice to run one full marathon a year.

     Rereading the article I wrote at the time of this run in Greece, I’ve discovered that after twenty-some years, and as many marathons later, the feelings I have when I run twenty-six miles are the same as back then. Even now, whenever I run a marathon my mind goes through the same exact process. Up to nineteen miles I’m sure I can run a good time, but past twenty-two miles I run out of fuel and start to get upset at everything. And at the end I feel like a car that’s run out of gas. But after I finish and some time has passed, I forget all the pain and misery and am already planning how I can run an even better time in the next race. The funny thing is, no matter how much experience I have under my belt, no matter how old I get, it’s all just a repeat of what came before.

     I think certain types of processes don’t allow for any variation. If you have to be part of that process, all you can do is transform—or perhaps distort—yourself through that persistent repetition, and make that process a part of your own personality.

     Whew!

 

 

Four

SEPTEMBER 19, 2005 • TOKYO

Most of What I Know About Writing Fiction I Learned by Running Every Day

On September 10 I bid farewell to Kauai and returned to Japan for a two-week stay. Now I’m commuting by car between my office studio in Tokyo and my home in Kanagawa Prefecture. I still keep up my running, but since I haven’t been back in Japan for a while there’s lots of work waiting to keep me busy, and people to meet. And I have to take care of each and every job. I can’t run as freely as I did in August. Instead, when I can grab some free time, I’m trying to run long distances. Since I’ve been back, I’ve run thirteen miles twice, and nineteen miles once. So I’ve been able, barely, to keep up my quota of averaging six miles per day.

     I’ve also been intentionally training on hills. Near my house is a nice series of slopes with an elevation change equivalent to about a five- or sixstory building, and on one run I rounded this loop twenty-one times. This took me an hour and forty-five minutes. It was a terribly muggy day, and it wore me out. The New York City Marathon is a generally flat course, but it goes over seven bridges, most of which are suspension bridges, so the middle sections slope up. I’ve run the NYC Marathon three times now, and those gradual ups and downs always get my legs more than I expect.

     The final leg of this marathon is in Central Park, and right after the park entrance there are some sharp changes in elevation that always slow me down. When I’m out for a morning jog in Central Park, they’re just gentle slopes that never give me any trouble, but in the final leg of the marathon, they’re like a wall standing there in front of the runner. They mercilessly wrest away from you the last drop of energy you’ve been saving up. The finish line’s close, I always tell myself, but by this time I’m running on sheer willpower, and the finish line doesn’t seem to get any closer. I’m thirsty, but my stomach doesn’t want any more water. This is the point where my legs start to scream.

     I’m pretty good at running up slopes, and usually I like a course that has slopes since that’s where I can pass other runners. But when it comes to the slopes in Central Park, I’m totally beat. This time I want to enjoy, relatively, the last couple of miles, give them all I’ve got, and break the tape with a smile on my face. That’s one of my goals this time around.

     The total amount of running I’m doing might be going down, but at least I’m following one of my basic rules for training: I never take two days off in a row. Muscles are like work animals that are quick on the uptake. If you carefully increase the load, step by step, they learn to take it. As long as you explain your expectations to them by actually showing them examples of the amount of work they have to endure, your muscles will comply and gradually get stronger. It doesn’t happen overnight, of course. But as long as you take your time and do it in stages, they won’t complain—aside from the occasional long face—and they’ll very patiently and obediently grow stronger. Through repetition you input into your muscles the message that this is how much work they have to perform. Our muscles are very conscientious. As long as we observe the correct procedure, they won’t complain.

     If, however, the load halts for a few days, the muscles automatically assume they don’t have to work that hard anymore, and they lower their limits. Muscles really are like animals, and they want to take it as easy as possible; if pressure isn’t applied to them, they relax and cancel out the memory of all that work. Input this canceled memory once again, and you have to repeat the whole journey from the very beginning. Naturally it’s important to take a break sometimes, but in a critical time like this, when I’m training for a race, I have to show my muscles who’s boss. I have to make it clear to them what’s expected. I have to maintain a certain tension by being unsparing, but not to the point where I burn out. These are tactics that all experienced runners learn over time.

 

While I’ve been in Japan a new short-story collection of mine, Strange Tales from Tokyo, has come out, and I have to do several interviews about the book. I also have to check the galleys for a book of music criticism that’s coming out in November and meet with people to discuss the cover. Then I have to go over my old translations of Raymond Carver’s complete works. With new paperback editions of these coming out, I want to revise all the translations, which is time consuming. On top of this, I have to write a long introduction to the short-story collection Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, which will be published next year in the U.S. Plus I’m steadily working on these essays on running, though nobody in particular has asked me to. Just like a silent village blacksmith, tinkering away.

     There are also a few business details I have to take care of. While we were living in the States, the woman who works in our Tokyo office as our assistant all of a sudden announced that she’s getting married at the beginning of next year and wants to quit, so we have to look for a replacement. Can’t have the office shut down over the summer. And soon after I return to Cambridge I have to give a few lectures at the university, so I’ve got to prepare for them as well.

     So I try, in the short amount of time I have, to take care of all these things as best I can. And I have to keep up my running to prepare for the NYC Marathon. Even if there were two of me, I still couldn’t do all that has to be done. No matter what, though, I keep up my running. Running every day is a kind of lifeline for me, so I’m not going to lay off or quit just because I’m busy. If I used being busy as an excuse not to run, I’d never run again. I have only a few reasons to keep on running, and a truckload of them to quit. All I can do is keep those few reasons nicely polished.

     Usually when I’m in Tokyo I run around the Jingu Gaien, the outer gardens of the Meiji Shrine, a course that passes Jingu Stadium. It doesn’t compare with Central Park in New York City, but it’s one of the few places in Tokyo with any greenery. I’ve run this course for years and have a clear sense of the distance. I’ve memorized all the holes and bumps along the way, so it’s the perfect place to practice and get a sense of how fast I’m going. Unfortunately there’s a lot of traffic in the area, not to mention pedestrians, and depending on the time of day the air isn’t so clean—but it’s in the middle of Tokyo, so that’s to be expected. It’s the best I can ask for. I consider myself fortunate to have a place to run so close to my apartment.

     One lap around Jingu Gaien is a little more than three-quarters of a mile, and I like the fact that they have distance markers in the ground. Whenever I want to run a set speed—a nine-minute-mile pace, or eight-minute, or seven-and-a-half—I run this course. When I first started to run the Jingu Gaien course, Toshihiko Seko was still an active runner and he used this course too. He was training hard in preparation for the Los Angeles Olympics. A shiny gold medal was the only thing on his mind. He’d lost the chance to go to the Moscow Olympics because of the boycott, so Los Angeles was perhaps his last chance to win a medal. There was a kind of heroic air about him, something you could see clearly in his eyes. Nakamura, the manager of the S&B team, was still alive and well back then, and the team had a string of top-notch runners and was at the height of its power. The S&B team used this course every day for training, and over time we naturally grew to know each other by sight. Once I even traveled to Okinawa to write an article on them while they were training there.

     Each of these runners would jog individually early in the morning before going to work, and then in the afternoon the team would work out together. Back then I used to jog there before seven a.m.—when the traffic wasn’t bad, there weren’t as many pedestrians, and the air was relatively clean— and the S&B team members and I would often pass each other and nod a greeting. On rainy days we’d exchange a smile, a guess-we’re-both-having- it-tough kind of smile. I remember two young runners in particular, Taniguchi and Kanei. They were both in their late twenties, both former members of the Waseda University track team, where they’d been standouts in the Hakone relay race. After Seko was named manager of the S&B team, they were expected to be the two young stars of the team. They were the caliber of runner expected to win medals at the Olympics someday, and hard training didn’t faze them. Sadly, though, they were killed in a car accident when the team was training together in Hokkaido in the summer. I’d seen with my own eyes the tough regimen they’d put themselves through, and it was a real shock when I heard the news of their deaths. It hurt me to hear this, and I felt it was a terrible waste.

     We’d hardly ever spoken, and I didn’t know them personally that well. I only learned after their deaths that they had both just gotten married. Still, as a fellow long-distance runner who’d encountered them day after day, I felt like we somehow understood each other. Even if the skill level varies, there are things that only runners understand and share. I truly believe that.

     Even now, when I run along Jingu Gaien or Asakasa Gosho, sometimes I remember these other runners. I’ll round a corner and feel like I should see them coming toward me, silently running, their breath white in the morning air. And I always think this: They put up with such strenuous training, and where did their thoughts, their hopes and dreams, disappear to? When people pass away, do their thoughts just vanish?

 

Around my home in Kanagawa I can do a completely different type of training. As I mentioned before, near my house is a running course with lots of steep slopes. There’s also another course nearby that takes about three hours to complete—perfect for a long run. Most of it is a flat road that parallels a river and the sea, and there aren’t many cars and hardly any traffic lights to slow me up. The air is clean, too, unlike in Tokyo. It can get a little boring to run by yourself for three hours, but I listen to music, and since I know what I’m up against I can enjoy the run. The only problem is that it’s a course where you loop back halfway, so you can’t just quit in the middle if you get tired. I have to make it back on my own steam even if it means crawling. Overall, though, it’s a nice environment to train in.

 

Back to novels for a moment.

     In every interview I’m asked what’s the most important quality a novelist has to have. It’s pretty obvious: talent. No matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist. This is more of a prerequisite than a necessary quality. If you don’t have any fuel, even the best car won’t run.

     The problem with talent, though, is that in most cases the person involved can’t control its amount or quality. You might find the amount isn’t enough and you want to increase it, or you might try to be frugal to make it last longer, but in neither case do things work out that easily. Talent has a mind of its own and wells up when it wants to, and once it dries up, that’s it. Of course certain poets and rock singers whose genius went out in a blaze of glory—people like Schubert and Mozart, whose dramatic early deaths turned them into legends—have a certain appeal, but for the vast majority of us this isn’t the model we follow.

     If I’m asked what the next most important quality is for a novelist, that’s easy too: focus—the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever’s critical at the moment. Without that you can’t accomplish anything of value, while, if you can focus effectively, you’ll be able to compensate for an erratic talent or even a shortage of it. I generally concentrate on work for three or four hours every morning. I sit at my desk and focus totally on what I’m writing. I don’t see anything else, I don’t think about anything else. Even a novelist who has a lot of talent and a mind full of great new ideas probably can’t write a thing if, for instance, he’s suffering a lot of pain from a cavity. The pain blocks concentration. That’s what I mean when I say that without focus you can’t accomplish anything.

     After focus, the next most important thing for a novelist is, hands down, endurance. If you concentrate on writing three or four hours a day and feel tired after a week of this, you’re not going to be able to write a long work. What’s needed for a writer of fiction—at least one who hopes to write a novel—is the energy to focus every day for half a year, or a year, two years. You can compare it to breathing. If concentration is the process of just holding your breath, endurance is the art of slowly, quietly breathing at the same time you’re storing air in your lungs. Unless you can find a balance between both, it’ll be difficult to write novels professionally over a long time. Continuing to breathe while you hold your breath.

     Fortunately, these two disciplines—focus and endurance—are different from talent, since they can be acquired and sharpened through training. You’ll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point. This is a lot like the training of muscles I wrote of a moment ago. You have to continually transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you to write every single day and concentrate on the work at hand. And gradually you’ll expand the limits of what you’re able to do. Almost imperceptibly you’ll make the bar rise. This involves the same process as jogging every day to strengthen your muscles and develop a runner’s physique. Add a stimulus and keep it up. And repeat. Patience is a must in this process, but I guarantee the results will come.

     In private correspondence the great mystery writer Raymond Chandler once confessed that even if he didn’t write anything, he made sure he sat down at his desk every single day and concentrated. I understand the purpose behind his doing this. This is the way Chandler gave himself the physical stamina a professional writer needs, quietly strengthening his willpower. This sort of daily training was indispensable to him.

     Writing novels, to me, is basically a kind of manual labor. Writing itself is mental labor, but finishing an entire book is closer to manual labor. It doesn’t involve heavy lifting, running fast, or leaping high. Most people, though, only see the surface reality of writing and think of writers as involved in quiet, intellectual work done in their study. If you have the strength to lift a coffee cup, they figure, you can write a novel. But once you try your hand at it, you soon find that it isn’t as peaceful a job as it seems. The whole process—sitting at your desk, focusing your mind like a laser beam, imagining something out of a blank horizon, creating a story, selecting the right words, one by one, keeping the whole flow of the story on track—requires far more energy, over a long period, than most people ever imagine. You might not move your body around, but there’s grueling, dynamic labor going on inside you. Everybody uses their mind when they think. But a writer puts on an outfit called narrative and thinks with his entire being; and for the novelist that process requires putting into play all your physical reserve, often to the point of overexertion.

     Writers blessed with talent to spare go through this process unconsciously, in some cases oblivious to it. Especially when they’re young, as long as they have a certain level of talent it’s not so difficult for them to write a novel. They easily clear all kinds of hurdles. Being young means your whole body is filled with a natural vitality. Focus and endurance appear as needed, and you never need to seek them on your own. If you’re young and talented, it’s like you have wings.

     In most cases, though, as youth fades, that sort of freeform vigor loses its natural vitality and brilliance. After you pass a certain age, things you were able to do easily aren’t so easy anymore—just as a fastball pitcher’s speed starts to slip away with time. Of course, it’s possible for people as they mature to make up for a decline in natural talent. Like when a fastball pitcher transforms himself into a cleverer pitcher who relies on changeups. But there is a limit. And there definitely is a sense of loss.

     On the other hand, writers who aren’t blessed with much talent—those who barely make the grade—need to build up their strength at their own expense. They have to train themselves to improve their focus, to increase their endurance. To a certain extent they’re forced to make these qualities stand in for talent. And while they’re getting by on these, they may actually discover real, hidden talent within them. They’re sweating, digging out a hole at their feet with a shovel, when they run across a deep, secret water vein. It’s a lucky thing, but what made this good fortune possible was all the training they did that gave them the strength to keep on digging. I imagine that late-blooming writers have all gone through a similar process.

     Naturally there are people in the world (only a handful, for sure) blessed with enormous talent that, from beginning to end, doesn’t fade, and whose works are always of the highest quality. These fortunate few have a water vein that never dries up, no matter how much they tap into it. For literature, this is something to be thankful for. It’s hard to imagine the history of literature without such figures as Shakespeare, Balzac, and Dickens. But the giants are, in the end, giants—exceptional, legendary figures. The remaining majority of writers who can’t reach such heights (including me, of course) have to supplement what’s missing from their store of talent through whatever means they can. Otherwise it’s impossible for them to keep on writing novels of any value. The methods and directions a writer takes in order to supplement himself becomes part of that writer’s individuality, what makes him special.

     Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day. These are practical, physical lessons. How much can I push myself? How much rest is appropriate—and how much is too much? How far can I take something and still keep it decent and consistent? When does it become narrow-minded and inflexible? How much should I be aware of the world outside, and how much should I focus on my inner world? To what extent should I be confident in my abilities, and when should I start doubting myself? I know that if I hadn’t become a long-distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different. How different? Hard to say. But something would have definitely been different.

     In any event, I’m happy I haven’t stopped running all these years. The reason is, I like the novels I’ve written. And I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of novel I’ll produce next. Since I’m a writer with limits —an imperfect person living an imperfect, limited life—the fact that I can still feel this way is a real accomplishment. Calling it a miracle might be an exaggeration, but I really do feel this way. And if running every day helps me accomplish this, then I’m very grateful to running.

     People sometimes sneer at those who run every day, claiming they’ll go to any length to live longer. But I don’t think that’s the reason most people run. Most runners run not because they want to live longer, but because they want to live life to the fullest. If you’re going to while away the years, it’s far better to live them with clear goals and fully alive than in a fog, and I believe running helps you do that. Exerting yourself to the fullest within your individual limits: that’s the essence of running, and a metaphor for life —and for me, for writing as well. I believe many runners would agree.

 

I’m going to a gym near my place in Tokyo to get a massage. What the trainer does is less a massage than a routine to help me stretch muscles I can’t stretch well alone. All my hard training has made them stiff, and if I don’t get this kind of massage my body might fall apart right before the race. It’s important to push your body to its limits, but exceed those and the whole thing’s a waste.

     The trainer who massages me is a young woman, but she’s strong. Her massage is very—or maybe I should say extremely—painful. After a halfhour massage, my clothes, down to my underwear, are soaked. The trainer is always amazed at my condition. “You really let your muscles get too tight,” she says. “They’re ready to cramp up. Most people would have had cramps long ago. I’m really surprised you can live like this.”

     If I continue to overwork my muscles, she warns, sooner or later something’s going to give. She might be right. But I also have a feeling—a hope—that she isn’t, because I’ve been pushing my muscles to the limits like this for a long time. Whenever I focus on training, my muscles get tight. When I put on my jogging shoes in the morning and set out, my feet are so heavy it feels like I’ll never get them moving. I start running down the road, slowly, almost dragging my feet. An old lady from the neighborhood is walking quickly down the street, and I can’t even pass her. But as I keep on running, my muscles gradually loosen up, and after about twenty minutes I’m able to run normally. I start to speed up. After this I can run mechanically, without any problem.

     In other words, my muscles are the type that need a long time to warm up. They’re slow to get started. But once they’re warmed up they can keep working well for a long time with no strain. They’re the kind of muscles you need for long distances, but aren’t at all suited for short distances. In a short-distance event, by the time my engine started to rev up the race would already be over. I don’t know any technical details about the characteristics of this type of muscle, but I imagine it’s mostly innate. And I feel that this type of muscle is connected to the way my mind works. What I mean is, a person’s mind is controlled by his body, right? Or is it the opposite—the way your mind works influences the structure of the body? Or do the body and mind closely influence each other and act on each other? What I do know is that people have certain inborn tendencies, and whether a person likes them or not, they’re inescapable. Tendencies can be adjusted, to a degree, but their essence can never be changed.

     The same goes for the heart. My pulse is generally around fifty beats per minute, which I think is pretty slow. (By the way, I heard that the gold medalist at the Sydney Olympics, Naoko Takahashi, has a pulse of thirtyfive.) But if I run for about thirty minutes it rises to about seventy. After I run as hard as I can it gets near one hundred. So it’s only after running that my pulse gets up to the level of most people’s resting rate. This is also a facet of a long-distance type of constitution. After I started running, my resting pulse rate went down noticeably. My heart had adjusted its rate to suit the function of long-distance running. If it were high at rest and got higher as I ran, my body would break down. In America whenever a nurse takes my pulse, she invariably says, “Ah, you must be a runner.” I imagine most long-distance runners who have run a long time have had a similar experience. When you see runners in town it’s easy to distinguish beginners from veterans. The ones panting are beginners; the ones with quiet, measured breathing are the veterans. Their hearts, lost in thought, slowly tick away time. When we pass each other on the road, we listen to the rhythm of each other’s breathing, and sense the way the other person is ticking away the moments. Much like two writers perceive each other’s diction and style.

     So anyway, my muscles right now are really tight, and stretching doesn’t loosen them up. I’m peaking in terms of training, but even so they’re tighter than usual. Sometimes I have to hit my legs with a fist when they get tight to loosen them up. (Yes, it hurts.) My muscles can be as stubborn as—or more stubborn than—I am. They remember things and endure, and to some extent they improve. But they never compromise. They don’t give up. This is my body, with all its limits and quirks. Just as with my face, even if I don’t like it it’s the only one I get, so I’ve got to make do. As I’ve grown older, I’ve naturally come to terms with this. You open the fridge and can make a nice—actually even a pretty smart—meal with the leftovers. All that’s left is an apple, an onion, cheese, and eggs, but you don’t complain. You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have. That’s one of the few good points of growing older.

 

It’s been a while since I’ve run the streets of Tokyo, which in September is still sweltering. The lingering heat of the summer in the city is something else. I silently run, my whole body sweaty. I can feel even my cap steadily getting soaked. The sweat is part of my clear shadow as it drips onto the ground. The drops of sweat hit the pavement and immediately evaporate.

     No matter where you go, the expressions on the faces of long-distance runners are all the same. They all look like they’re thinking about something as they run. They might not be thinking about anything at all, but they look like they’re intently thinking. It’s amazing that they’re all running in heat like this. But, come to think of it, so am I.

     As I run the Jingu Gaien course a woman I pass calls out to me. One of my readers, it turns out. This doesn’t happen very often, but sometimes it does. I stop and we talk for a minute. “I’ve been reading your novels for over twenty years,” she tells me. She began in her late teens and is now in her late thirties. “Thank you,” I tell her. We both smile, shake hands, and say good-bye. I’m afraid my hand must have been pretty sweaty. I continue running, and she walks off to her destination, wherever that is. And I continue running toward my destination. And where is that? New York, of course.

 

 

Five

OCTOBER 3, 2005 • CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

Even If I Had a Long Ponytail Back Then

 

In the Boston area every summer there are a few days so unpleasant you feel like cursing everything in sight. If you can get through those, though, it’s not bad the rest of the time. The rich escape the heat by going to Vermont or Cape Cod, which leaves the city nice and empty. The trees that line the walking path along the river provide plenty of cool shade, and Harvard and Boston University students are always out on the glittering river practicing for a regatta. Young girls in revealing bikinis are sunbathing on beach towels, listening to their Walkmen or iPods. An ice cream van stops and sets up shop. Someone’s playing a guitar, an old Neil Young tune, and a long-haired dog is single-mindedly chasing a Frisbee. A Democrat psychiatrist (at least that’s who I imagine he is) drives along the river road in a russet-colored Saab convertible.

     The special New England fall—short and lovely—fades in and out, and finally settles in. Little by little the deep, overwhelming green that surrounds us gives way to a faint yellow. By the time I need to wear sweatpants over my running shorts, dead leaves are swirling in the wind and acorns are hitting the asphalt with a hard, dry crack. Industrious squirrels are running around like crazy trying to gather up enough provisions to last them through the winter.

     Once Halloween is over, winter, like some capable tax collector, sets in, concisely and silently. Before I realize it the river is covered in thick ice and the boats have disappeared. If you wanted to, you could walk across the river to the other side. The trees are barren of leaves, and the thin branches scrape against each other in the wind, rattling like dried-up bones. Way up in the trees you can catch a glimpse of squirrels’ nests. The squirrels must be fast asleep inside, dreaming. Flocks of geese fly down from Canada, reminding me that it’s even colder north of here. The wind blowing across the river is as cold and sharp as a newly honed hatchet. The days get shorter and shorter, the clouds thicker.

     We runners wear gloves, wool caps pulled down to our ears, and face masks. Still, our fingertips freeze and our earlobes sting. If it’s just the cold wind, that’s all right. If we think we can put up with it, somehow we can. The fatal blow comes when there’s a snowstorm. During the night the snow freezes into giant slippery mounds of ice, making the roads impassable. So we give up on running and instead try to keep in shape by swimming in indoor pools, pedaling away on those worthless bicycling machines, waiting for spring to come.

     The river I’m talking about is the Charles River. People enjoy being around the river. Some take leisurely walks, walk their dogs, or bicycle or jog, while others enjoy rollerblading. (How such a dangerous pastime can be enjoyable, I frankly can’t fathom.) As if pulled in by a magnet, people gather on the banks of the river.

     Seeing a lot of water like that every day is probably an important thing for human beings. For human beings might be a bit of a generalization— but I do know it’s important for one person: me. If I go for a time without seeing water, I feel like something’s slowly draining out of me. It’s probably like the feeling a music lover has when, for whatever reason, he’s separated from music for a long time. The fact that I was raised near the sea might have something to do with it.

     The surface of the water changes from day to day: the color, the shape of the waves, the speed of the current. Each season brings distinct changes to the plants and animals that surround the river. Clouds of all sizes show up and move on, and the surface of the river, lit by the sun, reflects these white shapes as they come and go, sometimes faithfully, sometimes distortedly. Whenever the seasons change, the direction of the wind fluctuates like someone threw a switch. And runners can detect each notch in the seasonal shift in the feel of the wind against our skin, its smell and direction. In the midst of this flow, I’m aware of myself as one tiny piece in the gigantic mosaic of nature. I’m just a replaceable natural phenomenon, like the water in the river that flows under the bridge toward the sea.

     In March the hard snow finally melts, and after the uncomfortable slush following the thaw has dried—around the time people start to remove their heavy coats and head out to the Charles River, where the cherry blossoms along the riverside will soon appear—I begin to feel like the stage is set, finally, because the Boston Marathon is just around the corner.

 

Right now, though, it’s just the beginning of October. It’s starting to feel a bit too cold to run in a tank top, but still too early to wear a long-sleeved shirt. It’s just over a month until the New York City Marathon. About time I cut back on the mileage and get rid of the exhaustion I’ve built up. Time to start tapering off. No matter how far I run from now on, it won’t help me in the race. In fact, it might actually hurt my chances.

     Looking back at my running log, I think I’ve been able to prepare for the race at a decent pace:

     June 156 miles

     July 186 miles

     August 217 miles

     September 186 miles

     The log forms a nice pyramid. The weekly distance averages out in June to thirty-six miles, then forty-three miles, then fifty, then back to fortythree. I expect that October will be about the same as June, roughly thirtysix miles per week.

     I also bought some new Mizuno running shoes. At City Sports in Cambridge I tried on all kinds of models, but ended up buying the same Mizunos I’ve been practicing in. They’re light, and the cushioning of the sole is a little hard. As always, they take a while to get used to. I like the fact that this brand of shoes doesn’t have any extra bells and whistles. This is just my personal preference, nothing more. Each person has his own likes. Once when I had a chance to talk with a sales rep from Mizuno, he admitted, “Our shoes are kind of plain and don’t stand out. We stand by our quality, but they aren’t that attractive.” I know what he’s trying to say. They have no gimmicks, no sense of style, no catchy slogan. So to the average consumer, they have little appeal. (The Subaru of the shoe world, in other words.) Yet the soles of these shoes have a solid, reliable feel as you run. In my experience they’re excellent partners to accompany you through twentysix miles. The quality of shoes has gone way up in recent years, so shoes of a certain price, no matter what the maker, won’t be all that much different. Still, runners sense small details that set one shoe off from another, and are always looking for this psychological edge.

     I’m going to break these new shoes in, now that I have only a month left before the race.

 

Fatigue has built up after all this training, and I can’t seem to run very fast. As I’m leisurely jogging along the Charles River, girls who look to be new Harvard freshmen keep on passing me. Most of these girls are small, slim, have on maroon Harvard-logo outfits, blond hair in a ponytail, and brandnew iPods, and they run like the wind. You can definitely feel a sort of aggressive challenge emanating from them. They seem to be used to passing people, and probably not used to being passed. They all look so bright, so healthy, attractive, and serious, brimming with self-confidence. With their long strides and strong, sharp kicks, it’s easy to see that they’re typical mid-distance runners, unsuited for long-distance running. They’re more mentally cut out for brief runs at high speed.

     Compared to them I’m pretty used to losing. There are plenty of things in this world that are way beyond me, plenty of opponents I can never beat. Not to brag, but these girls probably don’t know as much as I do about pain. And, quite naturally, there might not be a need for them to know it. These random thoughts come to me as I watch their proud ponytails swinging back and forth, their aggressive strides. Keeping to my own leisurely pace, I continue my run down along the Charles.

     Have I ever had such luminous days in my own life? Perhaps a few. But even if I had a long ponytail back then, I doubt if it would have swung so proudly as these girls’ ponytails do. And my legs wouldn’t have kicked the ground as cleanly and as powerfully as theirs. Maybe that’s only to be expected. These girls are, after all, brand-new students at the one and only Harvard University.

     Still, it’s pretty wonderful to watch these pretty girls run. As I do, I’m struck by an obvious thought: One generation takes over from the next. This is how things are handed over in this world, so I don’t feel so bad if they pass me. These girls have their own pace, their own sense of time. And I have my own pace, my own sense of time. The two are completely different, but that’s the way it should be.

     As I run in the morning along the river I often see the same people at the same time. One is a short Indian woman out for a stroll. She’s in her sixties, I imagine, has elegant features, and is always impeccably dressed. Strangely —though maybe it’s not so strange after all—she wears a different outfit every day. One time she had on an elegant sari, another time an oversize sweatshirt with a university’s name on it. If memory serves, I’ve never seen her wearing the same outfit twice. Waiting to see what clothes she has on is one of the small pleasures of each early-morning run.

     Another person I see every day is a large old Caucasian man who walks briskly with a big black brace attached to his right leg. Perhaps this was the result of some serious injury. That black brace, as far as I know, has been on for four months. What in the world happened to his leg? Whatever it is, it doesn’t slow him down, and he walks at a good clip. He listens to music with some oversized headphones and silently and quickly walks down the riverside path.

     Yesterday I listened to the Rolling Stones’ Beggars Banquet as I ran. That funky “Hoo hoo” chorus in “Sympathy for the Devil” is the perfect accompaniment to running. The day before that I listened to Eric Clapton’s Reptile. I love these albums. There’s something about them that gets to me, and I never get tired of listening to them—Reptile, especially. Nothing beats listening to Reptile on a brisk morning run. It’s not too brash or contrived. It has this steady rhythm and entirely natural melody. My mind gets quietly swept into the music, and my feet run in time to the beat. Sometimes, mixed in with the music coming through my headphones, I hear someone calling out, “On your left!” And a racing bike whips by, passing me on the left.

000

While I was running, some other thoughts on writing novels came to me. Sometimes people will ask me this: “You live such a healthy life every day, Mr. Murakami, so don’t you think you’ll one day find yourself unable to write novels anymore?” People don’t say this much when I’m abroad, but a lot of people in Japan seem to hold the view that writing novels is an unhealthy activity, that novelists are somewhat degenerate and have to live hazardous lives in order to write. There’s a widely held view that by living an unhealthy lifestyle a writer can remove himself from the profane world and attain a kind of purity that has artistic value. This idea has taken shape over a long period of time. Movies and TV dramas perpetuate this stereotypical—or, to put a positive spin on it, legendary—figure of the artist.

   Basically I agree with the view that writing novels is an unhealthy type of work. When we set off to write a novel, when we use writing to create a story, like it or not a kind of toxin that lies deep down in all humanity rises to the surface. All writers have to come face-to-face with this toxin and, aware of the danger involved, discover a way to deal with it, because otherwise no creative activity in the real sense can take place. (Please excuse the strange analogy: with a fugu fish, the tastiest part is the portion near the poison—this might be something similar to what I’m getting at.) No matter how you spin it, this isn’t a healthy activity.

     So from the start, artistic activity contains elements that are unhealthy and antisocial. I’ll admit this. This is why among writers and other artists there are quite a few whose real lives are decadent or who pretend to be antisocial. I can understand this. Or, rather, I don’t necessarily deny this phenomenon.

     But those of us hoping to have long careers as professional writers have to develop an autoimmune system of our own that can resist the dangerous (in some cases lethal) toxin that resides within. Do this, and we can more efficiently dispose of even stronger toxins. In other words, we can create even more powerful narratives to deal with these. But you need a great deal of energy to create an immune system and maintain it over a long period. You have to find that energy somewhere, and where else to find it but in our own basic physical being?

     Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not arguing that this is the only correct path that writers should take. Just as there are lots of types of literature, there are many types of writers, each with his own worldview. What they deal with is different, as are their goals. So there’s no such thing as one right way for novelists. This goes without saying. But, frankly, if I want to write a large-scale work, increasing my strength and stamina is a must, and I believe this is something worth doing, or at least that doing it is much better than not. This is a trite observation, but as they say: If something’s worth doing, it’s worth giving it your best—or in some cases beyond your best.

     To deal with something unhealthy, a person needs to be as healthy as possible. That’s my motto. In other words, an unhealthy soul requires a healthy body. This might sound paradoxical, but it’s something I’ve felt very keenly ever since I became a professional writer. The healthy and the unhealthy are not necessarily at opposite ends of the spectrum. They don’t stand in opposition to each other, but rather complement each other, and in some cases even band together. Sure, many people who are on a healthy track in life think only of good health, while those who are getting unhealthy think only of that. But if you follow this sort of one-sided view, your life won’t be fruitful.

     Some writers who in their youth wrote wonderful, beautiful, powerful works find that when they reach a certain age exhaustion suddenly takes over. The term literary burnout is quite apt here. Their later works may still be beautiful, and their exhaustion might impart its own special meaning, but it’s obvious these writers’ creative energy is in decline. This results, I believe, from their physical energy not being able to overcome the toxin they’re dealing with. The physical vitality that up till now was naturally able to overcome the toxin has passed its peak, and its effectiveness in their immune systems is gradually wearing off. When this happens it’s difficult for a writer to remain intuitively creative. The balance between imaginative power and the physical abilities that sustain it has crumbled. The writer is left employing the techniques and methods he has cultivated, using a kind of residual heat to mold something into what looks like a literary work—a restrained method that can’t be a very pleasant journey. Some writers take their own lives at this point, while others just give up writing and choose another path.

     If possible, I’d like to avoid that kind of literary burnout. My idea of literature is something more spontaneous, more cohesive, something with a kind of natural, positive vitality. For me, writing a novel is like climbing a steep mountain, struggling up the face of the cliff, reaching the summit after a long and arduous ordeal. You overcome your limitations, or you don’t, one or the other. I always keep that inner image with me as I write.

     Needless to say, someday you’re going to lose. Over time the body inevitably deteriorates. Sooner or later, it’s defeated and disappears. When the body disintegrates, the spirit also (most likely) is gone too. I’m well aware of that. However, I’d like to postpone, for as long as I possibly can, the point where my vitality is defeated and surpassed by the toxin. That’s my aim as a novelist. And besides, at this point I don’t have the leisure to be burned out. Which is exactly why even though people say, “He’s no artist,” I keep on running.

 

On October 6 I’m giving a reading at MIT, and since I’ll have to speak in front of people, today as I ran I practiced the speech (not out loud, of course). When I do this, I don’t listen to music. I just whisper the English in my head.

     When I’m in Japan I rarely have to speak in front of people. I don’t give any talks. In English, though, I’ve given a number of talks, and I expect that, if the opportunity arises, I’ll give more in the future. It’s strange, but when I have to speak in front of an audience, I find it more comfortable to use my far-from-perfect English than Japanese. I think this is because when I have to speak seriously about something in Japanese I’m overcome with the feeling of being swallowed up in a sea of words. There’s an infinite number of choices for me, infinite possibilities. As a writer, Japanese and I have a tight relationship. So if I’m going to speak in front of an undefined large group of people, I grow confused and frustrated when faced by that teeming ocean of words.

     With Japanese, I want to cling, as much as I can, to the act of sitting alone at my desk and writing. On this home ground of writing I can catch hold of words and context effectively, just the way I want to, and turn them into something concrete. That’s my job, after all. But once I try to actually speak about things I was sure I’d pinned down, I feel very keenly that something—something very important—has spilled out and escaped. And I just can’t accept that sort of disorienting estrangement.

     Once I try to put together a talk in a foreign language, though, inevitably my linguistic choices and possibilities are limited: much as I love reading books in English, speaking in English is definitely not my forte. But that makes me feel all the more comfortable giving a speech. I just think, It’s a foreign language, so what’re you going to do? This was a fascinating discovery for me. Naturally it takes a lot of time to prepare. Before I get up on stage I have to memorize a thirty- or forty-minute talk in English. If you just read a written speech as is, the whole thing will feel lifeless to the audience. I have to choose words that are easy to pronounce so people can understand me, and remember to get the audience to laugh to put them at ease. I have to convey to those listening a sense of who I am. Even if it’s just for a short time, I have to get the audience on my side if I want them to listen to me. And in order to do that, I have to practice the speech over and over, which takes a lot of effort. But there’s also the payoff that comes with a new challenge.

     Running is a great activity to do while memorizing a speech. As, almost unconsciously, I move my legs, I line the words up in order in my mind. I measure the rhythm of the sentences, the way they’ll sound. With my mind elsewhere I’m able to run for a long while, keeping up a natural speed that doesn’t tire me out. Sometimes when I’m practicing a speech in my head, I catch myself making all kinds of gestures and facial expressions, and the people passing me from the opposite direction give me a weird look.

000

Today as I was running I saw a plump Canada goose lying dead by the shore of the Charles. A dead squirrel, too, lying next to a tree. They both looked like they were fast asleep, but they were dead. Their expressions were calm, as if they’d accepted the end of life, as if they were finally liberated. Next to the boathouse by the river was a homeless man wearing layers of filthy clothes. He was pushing a shopping cart and belting out “America the Beautiful.” Whether he really meant it or was being deeply ironic, I couldn’t tell.

     At any rate, the calendar has changed to October. Before I know it another month will be over. And a very harsh season is just around the corner.

 

 

Six

JUNE 23, 1996 • LAKE SAROMA, HOKKAIDO

Nobody Pounded the Table Anymore, Nobody Threw Their Cups

Have you ever run sixty-two miles in a single day? The vast majority of people in the world (those who are sane, I should say) have never had that experience. No normal person would ever do something so foolhardy. But I did, once. I completed a race that went from morning till evening, and covered sixty-two miles. It was draining physically, as you can imagine, and for a while afterward I swore I’d never run again. I doubt I’ll try it again, but who knows what the future may hold. Maybe someday, having forgotten my lesson, I’ll take up the challenge of an ultramarathon again. You have to wait until tomorrow to find out what tomorrow will bring.

     Either way, when I look back on that race now I can see that it had a lot of meaning for me as a runner. I don’t know what sort of general significance running sixty-two miles by yourself has, but as an action that deviates from the ordinary yet doesn’t violate basic values, you’d expect it to afford you a special sort of self-awareness. It should add a few new elements to your inventory in understanding who you are. And as a result, your view of your life, its colors and shape, should be transformed. More or less, for better or for worse, this happened to me, and I was transformed.

     What follows is based on a sketch I wrote a few days after the race, before I forgot the details. As I read these notes ten years later, all the thoughts and feelings I had that day come back in quite sharp focus. I think when you read this you’ll get a general idea of what this harsh race left me with, both the happy and not-so-happy things. But maybe you’ll tell me you just don’t get it.

 

This sixty-two-mile ultramarathon takes place every year at Lake Saroma, in June, in Hokkaido. The rest of Japan is in the rainy season then, but Hokkaido is too far north. Early summer in Hokkaido is a very pleasant time of year, though in its northernmost part, where Lake Saroma is, summer warmth is still a ways off. In the early morning, when the race starts, it’s still freezing, and you have to wear heavy clothes. As the sun gets higher in the sky, you gradually warm up, and the runners, like bugs going through metamorphosis, shed one layer of clothes after another. By the end of the race, though I kept my gloves on, I’d stripped down to a tank top, which left me feeling chilly. If it rained, I’d really have frozen, but fortunately, despite the lingering cloud cover, we didn’t get a drop of rain.

     The runners run around the shores of Lake Saroma, which faces the Sea of Okhotsk. Only once you actually run the course do you realize how ridiculously huge Lake Saroma is. Yuubetsu, a town on the west side of the lake, is the starting point, and the finish line is at Tokoro-cho (now renamed Kitami City), on the east side. The last part of the race winds through Wakka Natural Flower Garden, an extensive, long, and narrow natural arboretum that faces the sea. As courses go—assuming you can afford to take in the view—it’s gorgeous. They don’t control the traffic along the course, but since there aren’t many cars and people to begin with, there really isn’t a need to. Beside the road cows are lazily chewing grass. They show zero interest in the runners. They’re too busy eating grass to care about all these whimsical people and their nonsensical activities. And for their part, the runners don’t have the leisure to pay attention to what the cows are up to, either. After twenty-six miles there’s a checkpoint about every six miles, and if you exceed the time limit when you pass, you’re automatically disqualified. They’re very strict about it, and every year a lot of runners are disqualified. After traveling all the way to the northernmost reaches of Japan to run here, I certainly don’t want to get disqualified halfway through. No matter what, I’m determined to beat the posted maximum times.

     This race is one of the pioneering ultramarathons in Japan, and the whole event is smoothly and efficiently run by people who live in the area. It’s a pleasant event to be in.

 

I don’t have much to say about the first part of the race, to the rest station at the thirty-fourth mile. I just ran on and on, silently. It didn’t feel much different from a long Sunday-morning run. I calculated that if I could keep up a jogging pace of nine and a half minutes per mile, I’d be able to finish in ten hours. Adding in time to rest and eat, I expected to finish in under eleven hours. (Later I found out how overly optimistic I was.)

     At 26.2 miles there’s a sign that says, “This is the distance of a marathon.” There’s a white line painted on the concrete indicating the exact spot. I exaggerate only a bit when I say that the moment I straddled that line a slight shiver went through me, for this was the first time I’d ever run more than a marathon. For me this was the Strait of Gibraltar, beyond which lay an unknown sea. What lay in wait beyond this, what unknown creatures were living there, I didn’t have a clue. In my own small way I felt the same fear that sailors of old must have felt.

     After I passed that point, and as I was coming up on thirty-one miles, I felt a slight change physically, as if the muscles of my legs were starting to tighten up. I was hungry and thirsty, too. I’d made a mental note to remember to drink some water at every station, whether or not I felt thirsty, but even so, like an unfortunate destiny, like the dark-hearted queen of the night, thirst kept pursuing me. I felt slightly uneasy. I’d only finished half the race, and if I felt like this now, would I really be able to complete sixty-two miles?

     At the rest stop at thirty-four miles I changed into fresh clothes and ate the snack my wife had prepared. Now that the sun was getting higher the temperature had risen, so I took off my half tights and changed into a clean shirt and shorts. I changed my New Balance ultramarathon shoes (there really are such things in the world) from a size eight to an eight and a half. My feet had started to swell up, so I needed to wear shoes a half size larger. It was cloudy the whole time, with no sun getting through, so I decided to take off my hat, which I had on to keep the sun off me. I’d worn the hat to keep my head warm, too, in case it rained, but at this point it didn’t look like it was going to. It was neither too hot nor too cold, ideal conditions for long-distance running. I washed down two nutrition-gel packs, took in some water, and ate some bread and butter and a cookie. I carefully did some stretching on the grass and sprayed my calves with an anti-inflammatory. I washed my face, got rid of the sweat and dirt, and used the restroom.

     I must have rested about ten minutes or so, but never sat down once. If I sat down, I felt, I’d never be able to get up and start running again.

     “Are you okay?” I was asked.

     “I’m okay,” I answered simply. That’s all I could say.

     After drinking water and stretching, I set out on the road again. Now it was just run and run until the finish line. As soon as I set off again, though, I realized something was wrong. My leg muscles had tightened up like a piece of old, hard rubber. I still had lots of stamina, and my breathing was regular, but my legs had a mind of their own. I had plenty of desire to run, but my legs had their own opinion about this.

     I gave up on my disobedient legs and started focusing on my upper body. I swung my arms wide as I ran, making my upper body swing, transmitting the momentum to my lower body. Using that momentum, I was able to push my legs forward (after the race, though, my wrists were swollen). Naturally, you can only go at a snail’s pace running like this, in a form not much different from a fast walk. But ever so slowly, as if it dawned on them again what their job was, or perhaps as if they’d resigned themselves to fate, my leg muscles began to perform normally and I was able to run pretty much the way I usually run. Thankfully.

     Even though my legs were working now, the thirteen miles from the thirty-four-mile rest stop to the forty-seventh mile were excruciating. I felt like a piece of beef being run, slowly, through a meat grinder. I had the will to go ahead, but now my whole body was rebelling. It felt like a car trying to go up a slope with the parking brake on. My body felt like it was falling apart and would soon come completely undone. Out of oil, the bolts coming loose, the wrong cogs in gear, I was rapidly slowing down as one runner after another passed me. A tiny old lady around seventy or so passed me and shouted out, “Hang in there!” Man alive. What was going to happen the rest of the way? There were still twenty-five miles to go.

     As I ran, different parts of my body, one after another, began to hurt. First my right thigh hurt like crazy, then that pain migrated over to my right knee, then to my left thigh, and on and on. All the parts of my body had their chance to take center stage and scream out their complaints. They screamed, complained, yelled in distress, and warned me that they weren’t going to take it anymore. For them, running sixty miles was an unknown experience, and each body part had its own excuse. I understood completely, but all I wanted them to do was be quiet and keep on running. Like Danton or Robespierre eloquently attempting to persuade the dissatisfied and rebellious Revolutionary Tribunal, I tried to talk each body part into showing a little cooperation. Encouraged them, clung to them, flattered them, scolded them, tried to buck them up. It’s just a little farther, guys. You can’t give up on me now. But if you think about it—and I did think about it—Danton and Robespierre wound up with their heads cut off.

     Ultimately, using every trick in the book, I managed to grit my teeth and make it through thirteen miles of sheer torment.

     I’m not a human. I’m a piece of machinery. I don’t need to feel a thing. Just forge on ahead.

     That’s what I told myself. That’s about all I thought about, and that’s what got me through. If I were a living person of blood and flesh I would have collapsed from the pain. There definitely was a being called me right there. And accompanying that is a consciousness that is the self. But at that point, I had to force myself to think that those were convenient forms and nothing more. It’s a strange way of thinking and definitely a very strange feeling—consciousness trying to deny consciousness. You have to force yourself into an inorganic place. Instinctively I realized that this was the only way to survive.

     I’m not a human. I’m a piece of machinery. I don’t need to feel a thing. Just forge on ahead.

     I repeat this like a mantra. A literal, mechanical repetition. And I try hard to reduce the perceptible world to the narrowest parameters. All I can see is the ground three yards ahead, nothing beyond. My whole world consists of the ground three yards ahead. No need to think beyond that. The sky and wind, the grass, the cows munching the grass, the spectators, cheers, lake, novels, reality, the past, memory—these mean nothing to me. Just getting me past the next three yards—this was my tiny reason for living as a human. No, I’m sorry—as a machine.

     Every three miles I stop and drink water at a water station. Every time I stop I briskly do some stretching. My muscles are as hard as week-old cafeteria bread. I can’t believe these are really my muscles. At one rest stop they have pickled plums, and I eat one. I never knew a pickled plum could taste so good. The salt and sour taste spreads through my mouth and steadily permeates my entire body.

     Instead of forcing myself to run, perhaps it would have been smarter if I’d walked. A lot of other runners were doing just that. Giving their legs a rest as they walked. But I didn’t walk a single step. I stopped a lot to stretch, but I never walked. I didn’t come here to walk. I came to run. That’s the reason—the only reason—I flew all the way to the northern tip of Japan. No matter how slow I might run, I wasn’t about to walk. That was the rule. Break one of my rules once, and I’m bound to break many more. And if I’d done that, it would have been next to impossible to finish this race.

 

While I was enduring all this, around the forty-seventh mile I felt like I’d passed through something. That’s what it felt like. Passed through is the only way I can express it. Like my body had passed clean through a stone wall. At what exact point I felt like I’d made it through, I can’t recall, but suddenly I noticed I was already on the other side. I was convinced I’d made it through. I don’t know about the logic or the process or the method involved—I was simply convinced of the reality that I’d passed through.

     After that, I didn’t have to think anymore. Or, more precisely, there wasn’t the need to try to consciously think about not thinking. All I had to do was go with the flow and I’d get there automatically. If I gave myself up to it, some sort of power would naturally push me forward.

     Run this long, and of course it’s going to be exhausting. But at this point being tired wasn’t a big issue. By this time exhaustion was the status quo. My muscles were no longer a seething Revolutionary Tribunal and seemed to have given up on complaining. Nobody pounded the table anymore, nobody threw their cups. My muscles silently accepted this exhaustion now as a historical inevitability, an ineluctable outcome of the revolution. I had been transformed into a being on autopilot, whose sole purpose was to rhythmically swing his arms back and forth, move his legs forward one step at a time. I didn’t think about anything. I didn’t feel anything. I realized all of a sudden that even physical pain had all but vanished. Or maybe it was shoved into some unseen corner, like some ugly furniture you can’t get rid of.

     In this state, after I’d passed through this unseen barrier, I started passing a lot of other runners. Just after I crossed the checkpoint near forty-seven miles, which you had to reach in under eight hours and forty-five minutes or be disqualified, many other runners, unlike me, began to slow down, some even giving up running and starting to walk. From that point to the finish line I must have passed about two hundred. At least I counted up to two hundred. Only once or twice did somebody else pass me from behind. I could count the number of runners I’d passed, because I didn’t have anything else to do. I was in the midst of deep exhaustion that I’d totally accepted, and the reality was that I was still able to continue running, and for me there was nothing more I could ask of the world.

     Since I was on autopilot, if someone had told me to keep on running I might well have run beyond sixty-two miles. It’s weird, but at the end I hardly knew who I was or what I was doing. This should have been a very alarming feeling, but it didn’t feel that way. By then running had entered the realm of the metaphysical. First there came the action of running, and accompanying it there was this entity known as me. I run; therefore I am.

     And this feeling grew particularly strong as I entered the last part of the course, the Natural Flower Garden on the long, long peninsula. It’s a kind of meditative, contemplative stretch. The scenery along the coast is beautiful, and the scent of the Sea of Okhotsk wafted over me. Evening had come on (we’d started early in the morning), and the air had a special clarity to it. I could also smell the deep grass of the beginning of summer. I saw a few foxes, too, gathered in a field. They looked at us runners curiously. Thick, meaningful clouds, like something out of a nineteenthcentury British landscape painting, covered the sky. There was no wind at all. Many of the other runners around me were just silently trudging toward the finish line. Being among them gave me a quiet sense of happiness. Breathe in, breathe out. My breath didn’t seem ragged at all. The air calmly went inside me and then went out. My silent heart expanded and contracted, over and over, at a fixed rate. Like the bellows of a worker, my lungs faithfully brought fresh oxygen into my body. I could sense all these organs working, and distinguish each and every sound they made. Everything was working just fine. People lining the road cheered us on, saying, “Hang in there! You’re almost there!” Like the crystalline air, their shouts went right through me. Their voices passed clean through me to the other side.

     I’m me, and at the same time not me. That’s what it felt like. A very still, quiet feeling. The mind wasn’t so important. Of course, as a novelist I know that my mind is critical to doing my job. Take away the mind, and I’ll never write an original story again. Still, at this point it didn’t feel like my mind was important. The mind just wasn’t that big a deal.

     Usually when I approach the end of a marathon, all I want to do is get it over with, and finish the race as soon as possible. That’s all I can think of. But as I drew near the end of this ultramarathon, I wasn’t really thinking about this. The end of the race is just a temporary marker without much significance. It’s the same with our lives. Just because there’s an end doesn’t mean existence has meaning. An end point is simply set up as a temporary marker, or perhaps as an indirect metaphor for the fleeting nature of existence. It’s very philosophical—not that at this point I’m thinking how philosophical it is. I just vaguely experience this idea, not with words, but as a physical sensation.

     Even so, when I reached the finish line in Tokoro-cho, I felt very happy. I’m always happy when I reach the finish line of a long-distance race, but this time it really struck me hard. I pumped my right fist into the air. The time was 4:42 p.m. Eleven hours and forty-two minutes since the start of the race.

     For the first time in half a day I sat down and wiped off my sweat, drank some water, tugged off my shoes, and, as the sun went down, carefully stretched my ankles. At this point a new feeling started to well up in me— nothing as profound as a feeling of pride, but at least a certain sense of completion. A personal feeling of happiness and relief that I had accepted something risky and still had the strength to endure it. In this instance, relief outweighed happiness. It was like a tight knot inside me was gradually loosening, a knot I’d never even realized, until then, was there.

 

Right after this race at Lake Saroma I found it hard to walk downstairs. My legs were wobbly and I couldn’t support my body well, as if my knees were about to give out. I had to hold on to the railing to walk down the stairs. After a few days, though, my legs recovered, and I could walk up and down the stairs as usual. It’s clear that over many years my legs have grown used to long-distance running. The real problem, as I mentioned before, turned out to be my hands. In order to make up for my tired leg muscles, I’d vigorously pumped my hands back and forth. The day after the race my right wrist started to hurt and turned red and swollen. I’d run a lot of marathons, but this was the first time it was my arms, not my legs, that paid the greatest price.

     Still, the most significant fallout from running the ultramarathon wasn’t physical but mental. What I ended up with was a sense of lethargy, and before I knew it, I felt covered by a thin film, something I’ve sinced dubbed runner’s blues. (Though the actual feeling of it was closer to a milky white.) After this ultramarathon I lost the enthusiasm I’d always had for the act of running itself. Fatigue was a factor, but that wasn’t the only reason. The desire to run wasn’t as clear as before. I don’t know why, but it was undeniable: something had happened to me. Afterward, the amount of running I did, not to mention the distances I ran, noticeably declined.

     After this, I still followed my usual schedule of running one full marathon per year. You can’t finish a marathon if you’re halfhearted about it, so I did a decent enough job of training, and did a decent enough job of finishing the races. But this never went beyond the level of decent enough job. It’s as if loosening that knot I’d never noticed before had slackened my interest along with it. It wasn’t just that my desire to run had decreased. At the same time that I’d lost something, something new had also taken root deep within me as a runner. And most likely this process of one thing exiting while another comes in had produced this unfamiliar runner’s blues.

     And what about this new thing within me? I can’t find the exact words to describe it, but it might be something close to resignation. To exaggerate a bit, it was as if by completing the over-sixty-mile race I’d stepped into a different place. After my fatigue disappeared somewhere after the forty-seventh mile, my mind went into a blank state you might even call philosophical or religious. Something urged me to become more introspective, and this newfound introspection transformed my attitude toward the act of running. Maybe I no longer have the simple, positive stance I used to have, of wanting to run no matter what.

     I don’t know, maybe I’m making too much of it. Perhaps I’d just run too much and gotten tired. Plus I was in my late forties and was coming up against some physical barriers unavoidable for a person my age. Perhaps I was just coming to terms with the fact that I’d passed my physical peak. Or maybe I was going through a depression brought on by a sort of general male equivalent of menopause. Perhaps all these various factors had combined into a mysterious cocktail inside me. As the person involved in this, it’s hard for me to analyze it objectively. Whatever it was, runner’s blues was my name for it.

     Mind you, completing the ultramarathon did make me extremely happy and gave me a certain amount of confidence. Even now I’m glad I ran the race. Still, I had to deal with these aftereffects somehow. For a long time after this I was in this slump—not to I imply that I had such a tremendous record to begin with, but still. Each time I ran a full marathon, my time went steadily down. Practice and racing became nothing more than formalities I went through, and they didn’t move me the way they used to. The amount of adrenaline I secreted on the day of a race, too, was ratcheted back a notch. Because of this I eventually turned my focus from full marathons to triathlons and grew more enthusiastic about playing squash at the gym. My lifestyle gradually changed, and I no longer considered running the point of life. In other words, a mental gap began to develop between me and running. Just like when you lose the initial crazy feeling you have when you fall in love.

 

Now I feel like I’m finally getting away from the runner’s-blues fog that’s surrounded me for so long. Not that I’ve completely rid myself of it, but I can sense something beginning to stir. In the morning as I lace up my running shoes, I can catch a faint sign of something in the air, and within me. I want to take good care of this sprout that’s sprung up. Just as, when I don’t want to go in the wrong direction—or miss hearing a sound, miss seeing the scenery—I’m going to focus on what’s going on with my body.

     For the first time in a long while, I feel content running every day in preparation for the next marathon. I’ve opened a new notebook, unscrewed the cap on a new bottle of ink, and am writing something new. Why I feel so generous about running now, I can’t really explain systematically. Maybe coming back to Cambridge and the banks of the Charles River has revived old feelings. Perhaps the warm feelings I have for this place have stirred up memories of those days when running was so central to my life. Or maybe this is simply a matter of time passing. Maybe I just had to undergo an inevitable internal adjustment, and the period needed for this to happen is finally drawing to a close.

     As I suspect is true of many who write for a living, as I write I think about all sorts of things. I don’t necessarily write down what I’m thinking; it’s just that as I write I think about things. As I write, I arrange my thoughts. And rewriting and revising takes my thinking down even deeper paths. No matter how much I write, though, I never reach a conclusion. And no matter how much I rewrite, I never reach the destination. Even after decades of writing, the same still holds true. All I do is present a few hypotheses or paraphrase the issue. Or find an analogy between the structure of the problem and something else.

     To tell the truth, I don’t really understand the causes behind my runner’s blues. Or why now it’s beginning to fade. It’s too early to explain it well. Maybe the only thing I can definitely say about it is this: That’s life. Maybe the only thing we can do is accept it, without really knowing what’s going on. Like taxes, the tide rising and falling, John Lennon’s death, and miscalls by referees at the World Cup.

     At any rate, I have the distinct feeling that time has come full circle, that a cycle has been completed. The act of running has returned as a happy, necessary part of my daily life. And recently I’ve been running steadily, day by day. Not as some mechanical repetition anymore, or some prescribed ceremony. My body feels a natural desire now to get out on the road and run, just like when I’m dehydrated and crave the juice from a fresh piece of fruit. I’m looking forward now to the NYC Marathon on November 6, to seeing how much I can enjoy the race, how satisfied I’ll be with the run, and how I’ll do.

     I don’t care about the time I run. I can try all I want, but I doubt I’ll ever be able to run the way I used to. I’m ready to accept that. It’s not one of your happier realities, but that’s what happens when you get older. Just as I have my own role to play, so does time. And time does its job much more faithfully, much more accurately, than I ever do. Ever since time began (when was that, I wonder?), it’s been moving ever forward without a moment’s rest. And one of the privileges given to those who’ve avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old. The honor of physical decline is waiting, and you have to get used to that reality.

     Competing against time isn’t important. What’s going to be much more meaningful to me now is how much I can enjoy myself, whether I can finish twenty-six miles with a feeling of contentment. I’ll enjoy and value things that can’t be expressed in numbers, and I’ll grope for a feeling of pride that comes from a slightly different place.

     I’m not a young person who’s focused totally on breaking records, nor an inorganic machine that goes through the motions. I’m nothing more or less than a (most likely honest) professional writer who knows his limits, who wants to hold on to his abilities and vitality for as long as possible.

     One more month until the New York City Marathon.

 

 

Seven

OCTOBER 30, 2005 • CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

Autumn in New York

 

As if to lament the defeat of the Boston Red Sox in the playoffs (they lost every game in a Sox vs. Sox series with Chicago), for ten days afterward a cold rain fell on New England. A long autumn rain. Sometimes it rained hard, sometimes softly; sometimes, it would let up for a time like an afterthought, but not once did it clear up. From beginning to end the sky was completely covered with the thick gray clouds particular to this region. Like a dawdling person, the rain lingered for a long time, then finally made up its mind to turn into a downpour. Towns from New Hampshire to Massachusetts suffered damage from the rain, and the main highway was cut off in places. (Please understand I’m not blaming the Red Sox for all this.) I had some work to do at a college in Maine, and all I recall from the trip was driving in this gloomy rain. Except for the middle of winter, traveling in this region is usually fun, but unfortunately my trip this time wasn’t very enjoyable. Too late for summer, too early for the fall colors. It was raining cats and dogs, plus the windshield wiper on my rental car was acting up, and by the time I returned to Cambridge late at night I was exhausted.

     On Sunday, October 9, I ran an early-morning race, and it was still raining. This was a half marathon held every year at this time by the Boston Athletic Association, the same organization that holds the Boston Marathon in the spring. The course starts at Roberto Clemente Field, near Fenway Park, goes past Jamaica Pond, then winds back inside the Franklin Park Zoo and ends up right where it started. This year some 4,500 people participated.

     I ran this race as a kind of warm-up for the New York City Marathon, so I only gave it about 80 percent, really getting fired up only in the final two miles. It’s pretty hard, though, to not give it your all in a race, to try to hold back. Being surrounded by other runners is bound to have an influence on you. It’s a lot of fun, after all, to be with so many fellow runners when the starters shout Go!, and before you know it the old competitive instinct raises its head. This time, though, I tried my best to suppress it and keep my cool: I’ve got to save my energy, so I can bring it as a carry-on when I board the plane for New York.

     My time was one hour and fifty-five minutes. Not too bad, and about what I expected. The last couple of miles I floored it, passing about a hundred runners and making it to the finish line with energy to spare. The other runners around me were mainly Caucasians, especially a lot of women. For whatever reason, there weren’t many minority runners. It was a cold Sunday morning, with a mistlike rain falling the entire time. But pinning a number on my back, hearing the other runners’ breathing as we ran down the road, I was struck by a thought: The racing season is upon us. Adrenaline coursed through me. I usually run alone, so this race was a good stimulus. I got a pretty good feeling for the pace I should maintain in the marathon next month. For what will happen in the second half of that race, I’ll just have to wait and see.

     When I’m training I regularly run the length of a half marathon, and often much farther, so this Boston race seemed over before it began. Is that all? I asked myself. This was a good thing, though, since if a half marathon left me exhausted, a full marathon would be hellish.

     The rain continued off and on for quite a while, and during this time I had to take a work-related trip, so I wasn’t able to run as much as I’d have liked. But with the New York City Marathon fast approaching, it really isn’t such a problem if I can’t run. Actually, it’s to my advantage to rest. The problem is, I know I should take a break and rest up, but with a race coming up I get excited and end up running anyway. If it’s raining, though, I give up easily enough. I suppose that’s one good side of having it rain so much.

     Even though I’m not doing much running, my knee has started to hurt. Like most of the troubles in life it came on all of a sudden, without any warning. On the morning of October 17, I started to walk down the stairs in our building and my right knee suddenly buckled. When I twisted it in a certain direction the kneecap hurt in a peculiar way, a little different from an everyday ache. At a certain point it started to feel unsteady and I couldn’t put any weight on it. That’s what they mean by wobbly knees. I had to hold on to the railing to get downstairs.

     I was exhausted from all the hard training, and most likely the sudden dip in temperature was bringing this to the surface. The summer heat still lingered in the beginning of October, but the weeklong period of rain had quickly ushered in the fall to New England. Until a short while ago I’d been using my air conditioner, but now a chilly breeze blew through the town, and you could see the signs of late autumn everywhere. I had to hurriedly drag some sweaters out of the dresser. Even the faces of the squirrels looked different as they scurried around collecting food. My body tends to have problems during these transitions from one season to another, something that never happened when I was young. The main problem is when it gets cold and damp.

     If you’re a long-distance runner who trains hard every day, your knees are your weak point. Every time your feet hit the ground when you run, it’s a shock equivalent to three times your weight, and this repeats itself perhaps over ten thousand times a day. With the hard concrete surface of the road meeting this ridiculous amount of weight (granted, there’s the cushioning of the shoes between them), your knees silently endure all this endless pounding. If you think of this (and I admit it’s something I don’t usually think about), it would seem strange if you didn’t have a problem with your knees. You have to expect the knees to want to complain sometimes, to come up with a comment like, “Huffing and puffing down the road’s all well and good, but how about paying attention to me every once in a while? Remember, if we go out on you, we can’t be replaced.”

     When was the last time I gave my knees any serious thought? As I was pondering this, I started to feel a little remorseful. They’re absolutely right. You can replace your breath any number of times, but not your knees. These are the only knees I’ll ever have, so I’d better take good care of them.

     As I said before, I’ve been fortunate as a runner not to have had any major injuries. And I’ve never had to cancel a race or drop out because of illness. Several times in the past, my right knee has felt strange (it’s always the right knee), but I’ve always been able to soothe it and keep it going. So my knee should be okay now too, right? That’s what I’d like to think. But even in bed I still feel uneasy. What’ll I do if after all this I can’t run in the race? Was there something wrong with my training schedule? Maybe I didn’t stretch enough? (Maybe I really didn’t.) Or maybe in the half marathon I ran too hard at the end? With all these thoughts running through my head I couldn’t sleep well. Outside the wind was cold and noisy.

 

The next morning, after I woke up, washed my face, and drank a cup of coffee, I tried walking down the stairs in our apartment building. I gingerly descended the stairs, holding on to the railing and paying close attention to my right knee. The inner part of the right knee still felt strange. That’s the spot where I could detect a hint of pain, though it wasn’t the startling, sharp pain of the day before. I tried going up and down the stairs one more time, and this time I went down the four flights and back up again at close to normal speed. I tried all sorts of ways of walking, testing my knee by twisting it at various angles, and felt a little relieved.

     This isn’t connected to running, but my daily life in Cambridge isn’t going that smoothly. The building we’re living in is undergoing some major remodeling, and during the day all you hear is drills and grinders. Every day is an endless procession of workmen passing by outside our fourth-story window. The construction work starts at seven thirty in the morning, when it’s still a little dark outside, and continues until three thirty. They made some mistake in the drainage work on the veranda above us, and our apartment got totally wet from the rain leaking in. Rain even got our bed wet. We mobilized every pot and pan we had, but still it wasn’t enough to catch all the water dripping down, so we covered the floor with newspapers. And as if this weren’t enough, the boiler suddenly gave out, and we had to do without hot water and heating. But that wasn’t all. Something was wrong with the smoke detector in the hall, and the alarm blared all the time. So altogether, every day was pretty noisy.

     Our apartment was near Harvard Square, close enough that I could walk to the office, so it was convenient, but moving in right when they were doing major remodeling was a bit of bad luck. Still, I can’t spend all my time complaining. I’ve got work to do, and the marathon’s fast approaching.

     Long story short: my knee seems to have settled down, which is definitely good news. I’m going to try to be optimistic about things.

000

There’s one more piece of good news. My public reading at MIT on October 6 went very well. Maybe even too well. The university had prepared a classroom that had a 450-person capacity, but about 1,700 people poured in, which meant that most had to be turned away. The campus police were called in to straighten things out. Due to the confusion the reading started late, and on top of that the air conditioner wasn’t working. It was as hot as midsummer, and everyone in the room was dripping with sweat.

     “Thank you all very much for taking the time to attend my reading,” I began. “If I’d known there would be this many attending I would have booked Fenway Park.” Everyone was hot and irritated by the confusion, and I thought it best to try to get them to laugh. I took off my jacket and gave my reading wearing a T-shirt. The audience’s reaction was great—most of them were students—and from start to finish I could enjoy myself. It made me really happy to see so many young people interested in my novels.

     One other project I’m involved in now is translating Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, and things are going well. I’ve finished the first draft and am revising the second. I’m taking my time, going over each line carefully, and as I do so the translation gets smoother and I’m better able to render Fitzgerald’s prose into more natural Japanese. It’s a little strange, perhaps, to make this claim at such a late date, but Gatsby really is an outstanding novel. I never get tired of it, no matter how many times I read it. It’s the kind of literature that nourishes you as you read, and every time I do I’m struck by something new, and experience a fresh reaction to it. I find it amazing how such a young writer, only twenty-nine at the time, could grasp —so insightfully, so equitably, and so warmly—the realities of life. How was this possible? The more I think about it, and the more I read the novel, the more mysterious it all is.

 

On October 20, after resting and not running for four days because of the rain and that weird sensation in my knee, I ran again. In the afternoon, after the temperature had risen a bit, I put on warm clothes and slowly jogged for about forty minutes. Thankfully, my knee felt all right. I jogged slowly at first, but then gradually sped up when I saw things were going okay. Everything was okay, and my leg, knee, and heel were working fine. This was a great relief, because the most important thing for me right now is running in the New York City Marathon and finishing it. Reaching the finish line, never walking, and enjoying the race. These three, in this order, are my goals.

     The sunny weather continued for three days straight, and the workers were finally able to finish the drainage work on the roof. As David, the tall young construction foreman from Switzerland, had told me—a dark look on his face as he glanced up at the sky—they could finish the work only if it was sunny for three days in a row, and finally it was. No more worrying about leaks anymore. And the boiler’s been fixed and we have hot water again, so I can finally take a hot shower. The basement had been off-limits during the repairs, but now we can go down there and use the washer and dryer again. They tell me that tomorrow the central heating will come on. So, after all these disasters, things—including my knee—are finally taking a turn for the better.

 

October 27. Today I was finally able to run at about 80 percent without any strange sensations in my knee. Yesterday I still felt something weird, but this morning I can run normally. I ran for fifty minutes, and for the last ten minutes picked up the pace to the speed I’ll have to have when I actually run the NYC Marathon. I pictured entering Central Park and getting near the finish line, and it was no problem at all. My feet hit the pavement hard, and my knees didn’t buckle. The danger is over. Probably.

     It’s become really cold, and the town is full of Halloween pumpkins. In the morning the path along the river is lined with wet, colorful fallen leaves. If you want to run in the morning, gloves are a must.

 

October 29, the marathon a week away. In the morning it started snowing off and on, and by the afternoon it was a full-scale snowfall. Summer wasn’t all that long ago, I thought, impressed. This was typical New England weather. Out the window of my campus office I watched the wet snowflakes falling. My physical condition isn’t too bad. When I get too tired from training, my legs tend to get heavy and my running is unsteady, but these days I feel light as I start off. My legs aren’t so tired anymore, and I feel like I want to run even more.

     Still, I feel a bit uneasy. Has the dark shadow really disappeared? Or is it inside me, concealed, waiting for its chance to reappear? Like a clever thief hidden inside a house, breathing quietly, waiting until everyone’s asleep. I have looked deep inside myself, trying to detect something that might be there. But just as our consciousness is a maze, so too is our body. Everywhere you turn there’s darkness, and a blind spot. Everywhere you find silent hints, everywhere a surprise is waiting for you.

     All I have to go on are experience and instinct. Experience has taught me this: You’ve done everything you needed to do, and there’s no sense in rehashing it. All you can do now is wait for the race. And what instinct has taught me is one thing only: Use your imagination. So I close my eyes and see it all. I imagine myself, along with thousands of other runners, going through Brooklyn, through Harlem, through the streets of New York. I see myself crossing several steel suspension bridges, and experience the emotions I’ll have as I run along bustling Central Park South, close to the finish line. I see the old steakhouse near our hotel where we’ll eat after the race. These scenes give my body a quiet vitality. I no longer fix my gaze on the shades of darkness. I no longer listen to the echoes of silence.

     Liz, who looks after my books at Knopf, sends me an e-mail. She’s also going to run the New York City Marathon, in what will be her first full marathon. “Have a good time!” I e-mail back. And that’s right: for a marathon to mean anything, it should be fun. Otherwise, why would thousands of people run 26.2 miles?

 

I check on the reservation at our hotel on Central Park South and buy our plane tickets from Boston to New York. I pack my running outfit and shoes, which I’ve broken in pretty well, in a gym bag. Now all that’s left is to rest and wait for the day of the race. All I can do is pray that we have good weather, that it’s a gorgeous autumn day.

     Every time I visit New York to run the marathon (this will be the fourth time) I remember the beautiful, smart ballad by Vernon Duke, “Autumn in New York.”

It’s autumn in New York

It’s good to live it again.

     New York in November really does have a special charm to it. The air is clear and crisp, and the leaves on the trees in Central Park are just beginning to turn golden. The sky is so clear you can see forever, and the skyscrapers lavishly reflect the sun’s rays. You feel you can keep on walking one block after another without end. Expensive cashmere coats fill the windows at Bergdorf Goodman, and the streets are filled with the delicious smell of roasted pretzels.

     On the day of the race, as I run those very streets, will I be able to fully enjoy this autumn in New York? Or will I be too preoccupied? I won’t know until I actually start running. If there’s one hard and fast rule about marathons, it’s that.

 

 

Eight

AUGUST 26, 2006 • IN A SEASIDE TOWN IN KANAGAWA PREFECTURE

18 Til I Die

 

Right now I’m training for a triathlon. Recently I’ve been focusing on bicycle training, pedaling hard one or two hours a day down a bicycle path along the seaside at Oiso called the Pacific Oceanside Bicycle Path, the wind whipping at me from the side. (Belying its wonderful name, the path is narrow and even cut off at various points, and not easy to ride on.) Thanks to all this perilous training, my muscles from my thighs to my lower back are tight and strong.

     The bike I use in races is the kind with toe straps that let you push down on the pedals and lift. Doing both increases your speed. In order to keep the motion of your legs smooth, it’s important to focus on the lifting part, especially when you’re going up a long slope. The problem is, the muscles you use for lifting those pedals are hardly ever used in daily life, so when I really get into bike training these muscles inevitably get stiff and exhausted. But if I train on the bike in the morning, I can run in the evening, even though my leg muscles are stiff. I wouldn’t call this kind of practice fun, but I’m not complaining. This is exactly what I’ll be facing in the triathlon.

     Running and swimming I like to do anyway, even if I’m not training for a race. They’re a natural part of my daily routine, but bicycling isn’t. One reason I’m reluctant when it comes to bicycling is that a bike’s a kind of tool. You need a helmet, bike shoes, and all sorts of other accoutrements, and you have to maintain all the parts and equipment. I’m just not very good at taking care of tools. Plus, you have to find a safe course where you can pedal as fast as you want. It always seems like too much of a hassle.

     The other factor is fear. To get to a decent bike path I have to ride through town, and the fear I feel when I weave in and out of traffic on my sports bike with its skinny tires and my bike shoes strapped tight in the straps is something you can’t understand unless you’ve gone through it. As I’ve gotten more experienced I’ve gotten used to it, or at least learned how to survive, but there have been many moments startling enough to put me in a cold sweat.

     Even when I’m practicing, whenever I go into a tight curve fast my heart starts pounding. Unless I keep the right trajectory and lean my body at exactly the correct angle as I go into the curve, I’ll fall over or crash into a fence. Experientially I’ve had to find the limits I can take my speed to. It’s pretty scary, too, to be going down a slope at a good clip when the road’s wet from the rain. In a race one little mistake is all it takes to cause a massive pileup.

     I’m basically not a very nimble person and don’t like sports that rely on speed combined with agility, so bicycling is definitely not my forte. That’s why, among the three parts of a triathlon—swimming, bicycling, and running—I always put off practicing bicycling till last. It’s my weakest link. Even if I excel in the running part of the triathlon, the 6.2 miles, that final segment is never long enough to make up the time. This is exactly why I decided I had to take the plunge and put in some quality time on the bike. Today is August 1 and the race is on October 1, so I have exactly two months. I’m not sure I’ll be able to build up my biking muscles in time, but at least I’ll get used to the bike again.

     The one I’m using now is a light-as-a-feather Panasonic titanium sports bike, which I’ve been using for the last seven years. Changing the gears is like one of my own bodily functions. It’s a wonderful machine. At least the machine is superior to the person riding it. I’ve ridden it pretty hard in four triathlons but never had any major problem. On the body of the bike is written “18 Til I Die,” the name of a Bryan Adams hit. It’s a joke, of course. Being eighteen until you die means you die when you’re eighteen.

     The weather’s been strange in Japan this summer. The rainy season, which usually winds down in the beginning of July, continued until the end of the month. It rained so much I got sick of it. There were torrential rains in parts of the country, and a lot of people died. They say it’s all because of global warming. Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. Some experts claim it is, some claim it isn’t. There’s some proof that it is, some that it isn’t. But still people say that most of the problems the earth is facing are, more or less, due to global warming. When sales of apparel go down, when tons of driftwood wash up on the shore, when there are floods and droughts, when consumer prices go up, most of the fault is ascribed to global warming. What the world needs is a set villain that people can point at and say, “It’s all your fault!”

     At any rate, due to this villain that can’t be dealt with, it went on raining, and I could hardly practice biking at all during July. It’s not my fault—it’s that villain’s. Finally, though, these last few days have been sunny and I’ve been able to take my bike outdoors. I strap on my streamlined helmet, put on my sports sunglasses, fill my bottle with water, set my speedometer, and take off.

     The first thing to remember when you ride a competitive bike is to lean forward as much as possible to be more aerodynamic—especially to keep your face forward and up. No matter what, you have to learn this pose. Until you’re used to it, holding in this position for over an hour—like a praying mantis with a raised head—is next to impossible. Very quickly your back and neck start to scream. When you get exhausted your head tends to drop and you look down, and once that happens all the dangers lurking out there strike.

     When I was training for my first triathlon and rode nearly sixty-two miles at a stretch, I ran right into a metal post—one of those stakes set up to prevent cars and motorcycles from using the recreational lane along a river. I was tired, my mind elsewhere, and I neglected to keep my face forward. The front wheel of the bike got all bent out of shape, and I was flung head first to the ground. I suddenly found myself literally flying through the air. Fortunately, my helmet protected my head; otherwise I would have been badly injured. My arms were scraped pretty badly against the concrete, but I was lucky to get away with just that. I know a few other cyclists who’ve suffered injuries much worse.

     Once you have a scary incident like that, you really take it to heart. In most cases learning something essential in life requires physical pain. Since that incident on the bike, no matter how tired I might be I always keep my head up and my eyes on the road ahead.

     Naturally all this attention taxes my overworked muscles, but even in this August heat I’m not sweating. Actually, I probably am, but the strong headwind makes it evaporate. Instead, I’m thirsty. If I leave it too long I’ll get dehydrated, and if that happens my mind will get all blurry. I never go cycling without a water bottle. As I’m cycling along, I take the bottle from its rack, gulp down some water, and return it. I’ve trained myself to do this series of actions smoothly, automatically, always making sure to face forward.

     When I first began I had no idea what I was doing, so I asked a person who knows a lot about bike racing to coach me. On holidays the two of us would load our bikes in a station wagon and set out for Oi Pier. Delivery trucks don’t come to the pier on holidays, and the wide road that goes past all the warehouses makes a fantastic cycling course. A lot of cyclists gather there. The two of us would decide how many circuits we’d make, in how long, and set off. He accompanied me on long-distance rides—the kind I got into an accident on—as well.

     Cycling training alone is, truthfully, pretty tough. Long runs done to prepare for marathons are definitely lonely, but hanging on to the handlebars of a bike all by yourself and pedaling on and on is a much more solitary undertaking. It’s the same movements repeated over and over. You go up slopes, on level ground, and down slopes. Sometimes the wind’s with you, sometimes against you. You switch gears as needed, change your position, check your speed, pedal harder, let up a bit, check your speed, drink water, change gears, change your position…Sometimes it strikes me as an intricate form of torture. In his book the triathlete Dave Scott wrote that of all the sports man has invented, cycling has got to be the most unpleasant of all. I totally agree.

     Still, in the few months before the triathlon, no matter how illogical it may be, this is what I must do. Desperately humming the riff from “18 Til I Die,” sometimes cursing the world, I push down on the pedals, pull up on them, forcing my legs to remember the right rhythm. A hot wind from the Pacific rushes past, grazing my cheeks and making them sting.

 

My time at Harvard was over at the end of June, which meant the end of my stay in Cambridge. (Farewell, Sam Adams draft beer! Good-bye, Dunkin’ Donuts!) I gathered all my luggage together and returned to Japan at the beginning of July. What were the main things I did while in Cambridge? Basically, I confess, I bought a ton of LPs. In the Boston area there are still a lot of high-quality used record stores. When I had the time I also checked out record stores in New York and Maine. Seventy percent of the records I bought were jazz, the rest classical, plus a few rock records. I’m a very (or perhaps I should say extremely) enthusiastic record collector. Shipping all these records back to Japan was no mean feat.

     I’m not really sure how many records I have in my home right now. I’ve never counted them, and it’s too scary to try. Ever since I was fifteen I’ve bought a huge number of records, and gotten rid of a huge number. The turnover is so fast I can’t keep track of the total. They come, they go. But the total number of records is most definitely increasing. The number, though, is not the issue. If somebody asks me how many records I have, all I can say is, “Seems like I have a whole lot. But still not enough.”

     In Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, one of the characters, Tom Buchanan, a rich man who’s also a well-known polo player, says, “I’ve heard of making a garage out of a stable, but I’m the first man who ever made a stable out of a garage.” Not to brag, but I’m doing the same thing. Whenever I find a quality LP recording of a piece I have on CD, I don’t hesitate to sell the CD and buy the LP. And when I find a better-quality recording, something closer to the original, I don’t hesitate to trade in the old LP for a new one. It takes a lot of time to pursue this, not to mention a considerable investment of cash. Most people would, I am pretty sure, label me obsessed.

     As planned, in November 2005 I ran the New York City Marathon. It was a beautiful, sunny autumn day, the kind of wonderful day when you expect to see the late Mel Tormé appear out of nowhere, leaning against a grand piano as he croons out a verse from “Autumn in New York.” That morning, along with tens of thousands of other runners, I started the race at the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on Staten Island; moved through Brooklyn, where the writer Mary Morris is always waiting to cheer me on; then, through Queens; through Harlem and the Bronx; and several hours and bridges later arrived at the finish line, near the Tavern on the Green in Central Park.

     And how was my time? Truth be told, not so great. At least, not as good as I’d been secretly hoping for. If possible, I was hoping to be able to wind up this book with a powerful statement like, “Thanks to all the hard training I did, I was able to post a great time at the New York City Marathon. When I finished I was really moved,” and casually stroll off into the sunset with the theme song from Rocky blaring in the background. Until I actually ran the race I still clung to the hope that things would turn out that way, and was looking forward to this dramatic finale. That was my Plan A. A really great plan, I figured.

     But in real life things don’t go so smoothly. At certain points in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. It isn’t always the case, but from experience I’d say the gloomy reports far outnumber the others. The messenger touches his hand to his cap and looks apologetic, but that does nothing to improve the contents of the message. It isn’t the messenger’s fault. No good to blame him, no good to grab him by the collar and shake him. The messenger is just conscientiously doing the job his boss assigned him. And this boss? That would be none other than our old friend Reality.

 

Before the race I was in great shape, I thought, and well rested. The strange sensation I’d had on the inside of my knee had vanished. My legs, especially around my calves, still felt a bit tired, but it wasn’t something I needed to worry about (or so I thought). My training schedule had gone smoothly, better than for any other race before. So I had this hope (or moderate conviction) that I’d post the best time I’d run in recent years. All I needed to do now was cash in my chips.

     At the start line I followed the pace leader with the 3 hours 45 minutes placard. I was sure I could definitely make that time. That might have been a mistake. Looking back on it, I should have followed the three-hour-andfifty-five-minute pace leader, and picked up the pace later, and only if I was sure I could handle it. That sort of sensible approach was probably what I needed. But something else was pushing me on: You practiced as hard as you could in all that heat, didn’t you? If you can’t make this time, then what’s the point? You’re a man, aren’t you? Start acting like one! This voice whispered in my ear, just like the voices of the cunning cat and fox that tempted Pinocchio on his way to school. Up until not too long ago a time of three hours and forty-five minutes had been, for me, just business as usual.

     Up to mile sixteen I was able to keep up with the pace leader, but after that it was impossible. It was hard to admit this to myself, but gradually my legs wouldn’t move, so my speed started to fall off. The 3 hours 50 minutes banner passed me by. This was the worst possible scenario. No matter what, I couldn’t let the four-hour pace leader pass me. After I crossed the Madison Avenue Bridge and started down the wide, straight path from Uptown to Central Park, I began to feel a little better and had a faint hope that I was getting back on track, but this was short lived, for right when I entered Central Park and was facing the infamous gradual slope, I started getting a cramp in my right calf. It wasn’t so awful that I had to stop, but the pain forced me to run at nearly a walking pace. The crowd around me kept urging me on, shouting, “Go! Go!,” and I wanted nothing more than to keep on running, but I couldn’t control my legs anymore.

     So in the end I missed the four-hour mark by just a little. I did complete the run, after a fashion, which means I maintained my record of completing every marathon I’ve been in (a total of twenty-four now). I was able to do the bare minimum, but it was a frustrating result after all my hard training and meticulous planning. It felt like a remnant of a dark cloud had wormed its way into my stomach. No matter what, I couldn’t accept this. I’d trained so hard, so why did I get cramps? I’m not trying to argue that all effort is fairly rewarded, but if there is a God in heaven, was it asking too much to let me glimpse a sign? Was it too much to expect a little kindness?

     About a half year later, in April 2006, I ran the Boston Marathon. As a rule I run only one marathon a year, but since the New York City Marathon left such a bad taste in my mouth I decided to give it another try. This time, though, I intentionally, and drastically, reduced the amount of training I did. Training hard for New York hadn’t helped much. Maybe I’d done too much training. This time I didn’t set a schedule, but instead just ran a bit more than usual every day, keeping my mind clear of abstruse thoughts, doing only what I felt like. I tried to have a casual attitude. It’s only a marathon, I told myself. I decided to just go with this and see what happened.

     This was my seventh time running the Boston Marathon, so I knew the course well—how many slopes there were, what all the curves were like— not that this guaranteed I’d do a good job.

     So, you’re asking, what was the result?

     My time wasn’t much different from New York. Having learned my lesson there, I’d tried my best to keep things under control during the first half of the Boston race, maintaining my pace, holding some energy in reserve. I enjoyed running, watching the scenery go by, waiting for the point where I felt I could pick it up a notch. But that point never came. From mile twenty to mile twenty-two, the point where you pass Heartbreak Hill, I felt fine. No problem at all. My friends who were waiting at Heartbreak Hill to cheer me on later on said, “Haruki looks really good.” I ran up the hill smiling and waving. I was sure that at this rate I could pick up the pace and run a decent time. But after I passed Cleveland Circle and entered downtown Boston, my legs started to get heavy. Very quickly exhaustion overtook me. I didn’t get cramps, but in the last few miles of the race, after passing over Boston University Bridge, it was all I could do not to get left behind. Picking up the pace like I’d planned was impossible.

     I was able to finish, of course. Under the partly cloudy sky I ran the full 26.2 miles without stopping and slipped past the finish line, which was set up in front of the Prudential Center. I wrapped myself in a silver thermal sheet to ward off the cold, and received a medal from one of the volunteers. A wave of relief washed over me—relief that I didn’t have to run anymore. It always feels wonderful to finish a marathon—it’s a beautiful achievement —but I wasn’t satisfied with the time. Usually I look forward to a cold Sam Adams draft beer after a race, but now I didn’t even feel like having one. Exhaustion had seeped into each and every organ.

     “What in the world happened?” My wife, who had been waiting for me at the finish line, was baffled. “You’re still pretty strong, and I know you train enough.”

     What indeed? I wondered, not having a clue. Maybe I’m simply getting older. Or perhaps the reason lies elsewhere, maybe something critical I’ve overlooked. At this point, anyway, any speculation has to remain just that: speculation. Like a small channel of water silently being sucked up into the desert.

     There’s one thing, though, I can state with confidence: until the feeling that I’ve done a good job in a race returns, I’m going to keep running marathons, and not let it get me down. Even when I grow old and feeble, when people warn me it’s about time to throw in the towel, I won’t care. As long as my body allows, I’ll keep on running. Even if my time gets worse, I’ll keep on putting in as much effort—perhaps even more effort—toward my goal of finishing a marathon. I don’t care what others say—that’s just my nature, the way I am. Like scorpions sting, cicadas cling to trees, salmon swim upstream to where they were born, and wild ducks mate for life.

     I may not hear the Rocky theme song, or see the sunset anywhere, but for me, and for this book, this may be a sort of conclusion. An understated, rainy-day-sneakers sort of conclusion. An anticlimax, if you will. Turn it into a screenplay, and the Hollywood producer would just glance at the last page and toss it back. But the long and the short of it is that this kind of conclusion fits who I am.

     What I mean is, I didn’t start running because somebody asked me to become a runner. Just like I didn’t become a novelist because someone asked me to. One day, out of the blue, I wanted to write a novel. And one day, out of the blue, I started to run—simply because I wanted to. I’ve always done whatever I felt like doing in life. People may try to stop me, and convince me I’m wrong, but I won’t change.

     I look up at the sky, wondering if I’ll catch a glimpse of kindness there, but I don’t. All I see are indifferent summer clouds drifting over the Pacific. And they have nothing to say to me. Clouds are always taciturn. I probably shouldn’t be looking up at them. What I should be looking at is inside of me. Like staring down into a deep well. Can I see kindness there? No, all I see is my own nature. My own individual, stubborn, uncooperative, often self-centered nature that still doubts itself—that, when troubles occur, tries to find something funny, or something nearly funny, about the situation. I’ve carried this character around like an old suitcase, down a long, dusty path. I’m not carrying it because I like it. The contents are too heavy, and it looks crummy, fraying in spots. I’ve carried it with me because there was nothing else I was supposed to carry. Still, I guess I have grown attached to it. As you might expect.

000

So here I am training every day for the Murakami City Triathlon in Niigata Prefecture. In other words, I’m still lugging around that old suitcase, most likely headed toward another anticlimax. Toward a taciturn, unadorned maturity—or, to put it more modestly, toward an evolving dead end.

 

 

Nine

OCTOBER 1, 2006 • MURAKAMI CITY, NIIGATA PREFECTURE

At Least He Never Walked

 

Once when I was around sixteen and nobody else was home, I stripped naked, stood in front of a large mirror in our house, and checked out my body from top to bottom. As I did this I made a mental list of all the deficiencies—or what, to me at least, appeared to be deficiencies. For instance (and these are just instances), my eyebrows were too thick, or my fingernails were shaped funny—that sort of thing. As I recall, when I got to twenty-seven items, I got sick of it and gave up. And this is what I thought: If there are this many visible parts of my body that are worse than normal people’s, then if I start considering other aspects—personality, brains, athleticism, things of this sort—the list will be endless.

     Sixteen is an intensely troublesome age. You worry about little things, can’t pinpoint where you are in any objective way, become really proficient at strange, pointless skills, and are held in thrall by inexplicable complexes. As you get older, though, through trial and error you learn to get what you need, and throw out what should be discarded. And you start to recognize (or be resigned to the fact) that since your faults and deficiencies are well nigh infinite, you’d best figure out your good points and learn to get by with what you have.

     But this wretched sort of feeling I had as I stood in front of the mirror at sixteen, listing all my physical shortcomings, is still a sort of touchstone for me even now. The sad spreadsheet of my life that reveals how much my debts far outweigh my assets.

 

Now, some forty years later, as I stand at the seashore in a black swimsuit, goggles on top of my head, waiting for the start of the triathlon, this memory of so long ago suddenly comes back to me. And once more I’m struck by how pitiful and pointless this little container called me is, what a lame, shabby being I am. I feel like everything I’ve ever done in life has been a total waste. In a few minutes I’m going to swim .93 miles, ride a bike 24.8 miles, then run a final 6.2 miles. And what’s all that supposed to prove? How is this any different from pouring water in an old pan with a tiny hole in the bottom?

     Well, at least it’s a beautiful, perfect day—perfect weather for a triathlon. No wind, not a wave in the sea. The sun’s bathing the ground in warmth, the temperature at about 73 degrees. The water is ideal. This is the fourth time I’ve taken part in the triathlon in Murakami City in Niigata Prefecture, and all the previous years the conditions have been atrocious. Once the sea was too rough, as the Japan Sea in the fall is apt to be, so we had to substitute a beach run for the swimming portion. Even when conditions weren’t so drastic, I’d have all kinds of awful experiences: it would rain, or the waves would be so high I couldn’t breathe well when I did the crawl, or else it’d be so cold I’d freeze on the bike. In fact, whenever I drive the 217 miles to Niigata for this triathlon I’m always expecting the worst in terms of weather, convinced that something terrible’s going to happen. It might as well be a sort of image training for me. Even this time, when I first saw the placid, warm sea, I felt like someone was trying to pull a fast one. Don’t fall for it, I warned myself. This was just make-believe; there had to be a trap lying in wait. Maybe a school of vicious, poisonous jellyfish. Or a prehibernation, ravenous bear would charge at my bike. Or an unfortunate bolt of lightning would zap me right in the head. Or maybe I’d be attacked by a swarm of angry bees. Maybe my wife, waiting for me at the finish line, was going to have discovered some awful secrets about me (I suddenly felt like there might actually be some). Needless to say, I always view this meet, the Murakami International Triathlon, with a bit of trepidation. I never have any idea what will happen.

     No doubt about it now, though, today the weather’s great. As I stand here in my rubber suit, I’m actually starting to get warm.

     Around me are people dressed the same way, all fidgeting as they wait for the race to start. A weird scene, if you think about it. We’re like a bunch of pitiful dolphins washed up on the shore, waiting for the tide to come in. Everyone else looks more upbeat about the race than I am. Or maybe it just looks that way. Anyway, I’ve decided to keep my mind clear of the extraneous. I’ve traveled all this way, and now I have to do my best to get through the race. For three hours all I need to do is keep my mind blank and just swim, ride a bike, and run.

     When are we going to start? I check my watch. But it’s only a short time after the last time I checked it. Once the race begins I won’t, ideally, have any time to think…

 

Up to this point I’ve been in six triathlons of various lengths, though for four years, from 2001 to 2004, I didn’t participate in any. The blank in my record exists because during the 2000 Murakami Triathlon I suddenly found myself unable to swim and was disqualified. It’s taken some time to get over the shock and regain my composure. It wasn’t at all clear to me why I couldn’t swim. I mulled over various possibilities in my mind, and as I did so my confidence took a nosedive. I’d been in many races, but this was the first time I’d ever been on the Disqualified roster.

     Truthfully, this wasn’t the first time I’d stumbled during the swimming portion of a triathlon. In the pool or in the ocean I’m able to do the crawl over a long distance without pushing it. Usually I can swim 1,500 meters (a swimmer’s mile) in about thirty-three minutes—not especially fast, but good enough for a triathlon. I grew up near the sea and am used to ocean swimming. Some people who practice only in pools find it hard, and frightening, to swim in the ocean, but not me. I actually find it easier because there’s so much space and you’re more buoyant.

     For some reason, though, whenever it comes down to an actual race, I blow the swimming portion. Even when I entered the relatively shortdistance Tinman competition, in Oahu, Hawaii, I couldn’t do the crawl very well. I got into the water, got ready to swim, and suddenly had trouble breathing. I’d lift my head to breathe, same as always, but the timing was off. And when I’m not breathing right, fear takes over and my muscles tense up. My chest starts pounding, and my arms and legs won’t move the way I want them to. I get scared to put my face in the water and start to panic.

     In the Tinman competition, the swimming portion is shorter than usual, at only half a mile, so I was able to give up on the crawl and switch to the breaststroke. But in a regular 1,500-meter race you can’t get by swimming the breaststroke. It’s slower than the crawl, and at the end your legs are exhausted. So in the Murakami Triathlon in 2000 the only thing left for me was to tearfully be disqualified.

     I got out and went up on shore, but felt so mad at myself that I got back in the water and tried swimming the course over again. The other participants had long since finished the swimming portion and had set off on their bikes, so I was swimming all alone. And this time I was able to do the crawl with no problem. I could breathe easily and move my body smoothly. So why couldn’t I swim like this during the race?

     At the first triathlon I’d ever participated in there was a floating start, where all the participants lined up in the water. As we were waiting, the person next to me kicked me hard in the side several times. It’s a competition, so it’s to be expected—everybody’s trying to get ahead of others and take the shortest route. Getting hit in the elbow while you’re swimming, getting kicked, swallowing water, having your goggles fall off —it’s all par for the course. But for me, getting kicked hard like that in my first race was a shock, and that may have thrown my swimming off. Perhaps subconsciously that memory was coming back to me every time I started a race. I don’t want to think that way, but the mental side of a race is critical, so it’s very possible.

     Another problem was that there was something wrong with the way I was swimming. My crawl was self-taught, and I’ve never had a coach. I could swim as long as I cared to, but nobody would ever have said I have an economical or beautiful form. Basically it was the kind of swimming where I just gave it all I had. For a long time I’d been thinking that if I was going to get serious about triathlons I’d have to do something to improve my swimming. Along with searching for what went wrong on the mental side, I figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to work on my form. If I could improve the technical side of my swimming, other issues might come into sharper focus as well.

     So I put my triathlon challenge on hold for four years. During that time I kept up my usual long-distance running and ran in one marathon per year. But somehow I just wasn’t happy. My failure in the triathlon accounted for part of this. Some day, I thought, I’m going to get revenge. When it comes to things like this, I’m pretty tenacious. If there’s something I can’t do but want to, I won’t relax until I’m able to do it.

 

I hired a few swimming coaches to help me improve my form, but none of them were what I was looking for. Lots of people know how to swim, but those who can efficiently teach how to swim are few and far between. That’s the feeling I get. It’s difficult to teach how to write novels (at least I know I couldn’t), but teaching swimming is just as hard. And this isn’t just confined to swimming and novels. Of course there are teachers who can teach a set subject, in a set order, using predetermined phrases, but there aren’t many who can adjust their teaching to the abilities and tendencies of their pupils and explain things in their own individual way. Maybe hardly any at all.

     I wasted the first two years trying to find a good coach. Each new coach tinkered with my form just enough to mess up my swimming, sometimes to the point where I could hardly swim at all. Naturally, my confidence went down the drain. At this rate there was no way I could enter a triathlon.

     Things started to improve around the time I realized that revolutionizing my form was probably impossible. My wife was the one who found me a good coach. She’d never been able to swim her whole life, but she happened to meet a young woman coach at the gym she’s a member of, and you wouldn’t believe how well she swims now. She recommended that I try this young woman as my coach too.

     The first thing this coach did was check my overall swimming and ask what my goals were. “I want to participate in a triathlon,” I told her. “So you want to be able to do the crawl in the ocean and swim long distances?” she asked. “That’s right,” I replied. “I don’t need to sprint over short distances.” “Good,” she said. “I’m glad you have clear-cut goals. That makes it easier for me.”

     So we began one-on-one lessons to reshape my form. Her approach wasn’t a slash-and-burn policy, totally dismissing the way I’ve been swimming up till now and rebuilding from the ground up. I imagine that for an instructor it’s much more difficult to reshape someone’s form who’s already able, after a fashion, to swim, than to start with a nonswimmer, a blank sheet. It isn’t easy to get rid of bad swimming habits, so my new coach didn’t try to forcefully do a total makeover. Instead, she revised very small movements I made, one by one, over an extended period of time.

     What’s special about this woman’s teaching style is that she doesn’t teach you the textbook form at the beginning. Take body rotation, for instance. To get her pupil to learn the correct way, she starts out by teaching how to swim without any rotation. In other words, people who are self-taught in the crawl have a tendency to be overconscious of rotation. Because of this there’s too much resistance in the water and their speed goes down—plus, they waste energy. So in the beginning, she teaches you to swim like a flat board without any body rotation—in other words, completely the opposite of what the textbook says. Needless to say, when I swam that way I felt like an awful, awkward swimmer. As I practiced persistently, I could swim the way she told me to, in this awkward way, but I wasn’t convinced it was doing any good.

     And then, ever so slowly, my coach started to add some rotation. Not emphasizing that we were practicing rotation, but just teaching a separate way of moving. The pupil has no idea what the real point of this sort of practice is. He merely does as he’s told, and keeps on moving that one part of his body. For example, if it’s how to turn your shoulders, you just repeat that endlessly. Sometimes you spend an entire session just turning your shoulders. You end up exhausted and spent, but later, in retrospect, you realize what it all was for. The parts fall into place, and you can see the whole picture and finally understand the role each individual part plays. The dawn comes, the sky grows light, and the colors and shapes of the roofs of houses, which you could only glimpse vaguely before, come into focus.

       This might be similar to practicing drumming. You’re made to practice bass drum patterns only, day after day. Then you spend days on just the cymbals. Then just the tom tom…Monotonous and boring for sure, but once it all falls together you get a solid rhythm. In order to get there you have to stubbornly, rigorously, and very patiently tighten all the screws of each individual part. This takes time, of course, but sometimes taking time is actually a shortcut. This is the path I followed in swimming, and after a year and a half I was able to swim long distances far more gracefully and efficiently than ever before.

     And while I was training for swimming, I made an important discovery. I had trouble breathing during a race because I’d been hyperventilating. The same exact thing happened when I was swimming in the pool with my coach, and it dawned on me: just before the start of the race I was breathing too deeply and quickly. Probably because I was tense before a race, I got too much oxygen all at once. This led to me breathing too fast when I started to swim, which in turn threw off the timing of my breathing.

     It was a tremendous relief when I finally pinpointed the real problem. All I had to do now was make sure not to hyperventilate. Now before a race starts I get into the sea, swim a bit, and get my body and mind used to swimming in the ocean. I breathe moderately in order not to hyperventilate, and breathe with my hand over my mouth in order not to get too much oxygen. “I’m all set now,” I tell myself. “I’ve changed my form, and am no longer the swimmer I used to be.”

     And so, in 2004, for the first time in four years, I again entered the Murakami Triathlon. A siren marked the start, everyone began swimming, and somebody kicked me in the side. Startled, I was afraid that once again I was going to mess up. I swallowed some water, and the thought crossed my mind that I should switch to the breaststroke for a while. But my courage returned, and I told myself that there was no need for that, that things would work out. My breathing calmed down, and I started the crawl again. I concentrated not on breathing in, but on breathing out in the water. And I heard that nice old sound of my exhalations bubbling underwater. I’m okay now, I told myself as I neatly rode the waves.

     Happily, I was able to conquer my panic and finish the triathlon. I hadn’t been in one for so long, and hadn’t had time to do bicycle training, so my overall time wasn’t much to speak of. But I was able to achieve my first goal: wiping away the shame of being disqualified. As usual, my main feeling was one of relief.

     I’d always thought I was sort of a brazen person, but this issue with hyperventilating made me realize a part of me was, unexpectedly, high strung. I had no idea how nervous I got at the start of a race. But it turns out I really was tense, just like everybody else. It doesn’t matter how old I get, but as long as I continue to live I’ll always discover something new about myself. No matter how long you stand there examining yourself naked before a mirror, you’ll never see reflected what’s inside.

    

And here I am again, at nine thirty a.m. on October 1, 2006, a sunny fall Sunday, standing once more on the shores of Murakami City in Niigata Prefecture, waiting for the triathlon to begin. A little nervous, but making sure not to hyperventilate. I go over my mental checklist one more time, just to be certain I haven’t forgotten anything. Computerized ankle bracelet —check. I’ve rubbed Vaseline all over my body so when I finish swimming I can easily get my wetsuit off. I’ve carefully done my stretching. I’ve drunk enough water. And used the toilet. Nothing left to do. I hope.

     I’ve been in this race a few times, so I recognize a few of the other participants. As we wait for the race to start, we shake hands and chat. I’m not the type who gets along easily with others, but for some reason with other triathletes I have no problem. Those of us who participate in triathlons are unusual people. Think about it for a minute. Most all the participants have jobs and families, and on top of taking care of these, they swim and bike and run, training very hard, as part of their ordinary routine. Naturally this takes a lot of time and effort. The world, with its commonsensical viewpoint, thinks their lifestyle is peculiar. And it would be hard to argue with anyone who labeled them eccentrics and oddballs. But there’s something we share, not something as exaggerated as solidarity, perhaps, but at least a sort of warm emotion, like a vague, faintly colored mist over a late-spring peak. Of course, competition is part of the mix—it’s a race, after all—but for most of the people participating in a triathlon the competitive aspect is less important than the sense of a triathlon as a sort of ceremony by which we can affirm this shared bond.

     In this sense, the Murakami Triathlon is a convenient race. There aren’t so many competitors (somewhere between three hundred and four hundred), and the race is run in a very low-key way. It’s a small, local, homemade type of triathlon. The people in the town warmly support us. There’s nothing gaudy or overdone about the race, and that quiet kind of atmosphere appeals to me. Apart from the race itself, there are wonderful hot springs nearby, the food is great, and the local sake (especially Shimehari Tsuru) is outstanding. Over the years that I’ve participated in the race, I’ve made some acquaintances in the area. There are even people who come all the way from Tokyo to cheer me on.

 

At 9:56 the start siren goes off, and everyone immediately begins the crawl. This is it—the most nerve-racking moment of all.

     I plunge in and start kicking and plowing through the water with my arms. I try to clear my mind of everything extraneous and concentrate not on inhaling, but on exhaling. My heart’s pounding, and I can’t get the rhythm right. My body’s a bit stiff. And as you might expect, somebody kicks me in the shoulder again. Somebody else is leaning over me, getting on top of my back, like one turtle getting on top of another. I swallow some water, but not very much. Nothing to worry about, I tell myself. Don’t panic. I breathe in and out at a steady rhythm, and that’s the most critical thing right now. As I do, the tension drains away. Things are going to be okay. Just keep swimming like this. Once I get the rhythm down, all I have to do is maintain it.

     But then—and with triathlons you almost expect this—some unforeseen trouble leaps out at me. As I’m doing the crawl I raise my head to check my direction and think What the…? My goggles are all fogged up, and I can’t see a thing…It’s like the whole world is cloudy and opaque. I stop swimming, tread water, and rub the goggles with my fingers to try to clear them up. But still I can’t see. What is going on? The goggles are a pair I use all the time, and I’ve done a lot of training with them so I can see where I’m going as I swim. So what in the world is happening? Then it hits me. After I rubbed my skin with Vaseline I didn’t wash my hands, so I wiped the goggles with oily fingers. What an asinine thing to do! At the start line I always wipe my goggles with saliva, which keeps the inside from fogging up. And this time I had to go and forget to do that.

     During the whole 1,500-meter swim my foggy goggles bothered me. I was constantly off course, swimming in the wrong direction, and wasted a lot of time. Sometimes I had to stop, remove my goggles, tread water, and figure out where I should go. Imagine a blindfolded child trying to hit a piñata, and you get the idea.

     If I’d thought about it, I could have swum without my goggles. I should have just taken them off. When I was swimming, however, I was kind of confused and didn’t have the presence of mind to figure that out. Thanks to this, the swimming part of the race was pretty disorderly, and my time wasn’t nearly as good as what I’d been hoping for. In terms of my ability— remember how hard I’d trained for this—I should have been able to swim much faster. I consoled myself with the thought that at least I wasn’t disqualified, didn’t get left behind that much, and was able to finish the swim. And whenever I managed to swim in a straight line, I did a decent job of it, I think.

     I got up on the beach and made straight for where the bikes were parked (which seems easy but actually isn’t), peeled off my snug wetsuit, tugged on my bike shoes and helmet and wraparound sunglasses, gulped down some water, and, finally, headed out onto the road. I was able to do all that so mechanically that by the time I was thinking again, I realized I’d been splashing around in the water until just a minute before and now was whizzing by at twenty miles an hour on a bike. No matter how many times I experience this, the sudden transition feels odd. It’s a different feeling of weight, speed, and motor reflexes, and you use completely different muscles. You feel like a salamander that’s evolved overnight into an ostrich. My brain wasn’t able to make the switch very quickly, and neither could my body. I couldn’t keep the pace up, and before I knew it seven other racers had passed me. This isn’t good, I thought, and up to the turning point I didn’t pass anyone.

     The bike segment follows a well-known stretch of seacoast called Sasagawa Nagare. It’s a very scenic spot, with unusual rock formations jutting out of the water, though of course I didn’t have the time to enjoy the scenery. We raced from Murakami City northward along the sea, with the turn near the border with Yamagata Prefecture that would send us back along the same road. There were slopes in several places, but nothing steep enough to make me blank out. Before reaching the turn, I didn’t worry about passing others or being passed, but focused instead on pedaling at a steady pace, using an easy gear. At regular intervals I’d reach down for my water bottle and grab a quick drink. As I did all this I gradually started to feel comfortable on the bike again. Feeling I could handle it now, when we reached the turn I downshifted, sped up, and in the second half of the race passed seven people. The wind wasn’t blowing hard, so I could pedal for all I was worth. When the wind’s strong, amateur bicyclists like me get pretty dejected. Making the wind work for you takes years of experience and a great deal of skill. When there’s no wind, though, it all comes down to a question of leg strength. I wound up finishing the 24.8 miles at a faster clip than I’d expected, then tugged on my good old running shoes for the final leg of the race.

     When I switched to running, though, things got pretty rough. Normally I would have held back a little in the bike portion to save up energy for the run, but this time, for whatever reason, it just didn’t cross my mind. I just let ’er rip, then plunged right into running. As you can imagine, my legs didn’t work right. My mind ordered them, “Run!,” but my leg muscles were on strike. I could see myself running but had no sensation of running.

     Each race is a little different, but the same basic thing happens every triathlon. The muscles I’ve pushed hard for over an hour while biking, the ones I still want to be open for business when I start running, just won’t move smoothly. It takes time for the muscles to change from one rail to another. For the first two miles both my legs always seem locked up, and only after that am I finally able to run. This time, though, it took a lot longer to get to this point. Of the three events in a triathlon, running is obviously my specialty, and usually I’m able to easily pass at least thirty other runners. But this time I could only pass ten or fifteen. Still, I was glad to be able to even out my performance a bit. In my last triathlon I’d been passed by a lot of people in the bike portion, but this time it was my run time that wasn’t so great. Even so, the difference between the events I was good at and those I wasn’t had decreased, meaning that perhaps I was getting the hang of being a true triathlete. This was definitely something to cheer about.

     As I ran through the beautiful old part of Murakami City, the cheers of the spectators—ordinary residents, I’m assuming—spurred me on, and I wrung out my last ounce of energy as I raced for the finish line. It was an exultant moment. It had been a tough race, for sure, what with my Vaseline adventure, but once I reached the finish that all vanished. After I caught my breath, I exchanged a smile and a handshake with the man wearing race number 329. “Good job,” we told each other. He and I had battled it out in the bike race, where he passed me many times. Right when we started running, my shoelaces came untied and twice I had to stop to retie them. If only that hadn’t happened, I know I would have passed him—or so goes my optimistic hypothesis. When I picked up the pace at the end of the run, I almost passed him, but wound up three yards short. Naturally the responsibility for not checking my shoelaces before the race lies entirely with yours truly.

 

At any rate, I’d happily made it to the finish line set up in front of the Murakami City Hall. The race was over. I didn’t drown, didn’t get a flat, didn’t get stung by a vicious jellyfish. No ferocious bear hurled himself at me, and I wasn’t stung by wasps, or hit by lightning. And my wife, waiting at the finish line, didn’t discover some unpleasant truth about me. Instead, she greeted me with a smile. Thank goodness.

     The happiest thing for me about this day’s race was that I was able, on a personal level, to truly enjoy the event. The overall time I posted wasn’t anything to brag about, and I made a lot of little mistakes along the way. But I did give it my best, and I felt a nice, tangible afterglow. I also think I’ve improved in a lot of areas since the previous race, which is an important point to consider. In a triathlon the transition from one event to the next is difficult, and experience counts for everything. Through experience you learn how to compensate for your physical shortcomings. To put it another way, learning from experience is what makes the triathlon so much fun.

     Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren’t involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It’s precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive—or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself. If things go well, that is.

     On the way back to Tokyo from Niigata I saw quite a few cars with bicycles strapped to their roofs on their way back from the race. The people inside were all tanned and strong looking—the typical triathlon physique. After our unpretentious race on a fall Sunday, we were all on our way back to our own homes, back to our own mundane lives. And with the next race in mind, each of us, in our place, will most likely silently go about our usual training. Even if, seen from the outside, or from some higher vantage point, this sort of life looks pointless or futile, or even extremely inefficient, it doesn’t bother me. Maybe it’s some pointless act like, as I’ve said before, pouring water into an old pan that has a hole in the bottom, but at least the effort you put into it remains. Whether it’s good for anything or not, cool or totally uncool, in the final analysis what’s most important is what you can’t see but can feel in your heart. To be able to grasp something of value, sometimes you have to perform seemingly inefficient acts. But even activities that appear fruitless don’t necessarily end up so. That’s the feeling I have, as someone who’s felt this, who’s experienced it.

     I have no idea whether I can actually keep this cycle of inefficient activities going forever. But I’ve done it so persistently over such a long time, and without getting terribly sick of it, that I think I’ll try to keep going as long as I can. Long-distance running (more or less, for better or worse) has molded me into the person I am today, and I’m hoping it will remain a part of my life for as long as possible. I’ll be happy if running and I can grow old together. There may not seem to be much logic to it, but it’s the life I’ve chosen for myself. Not that, at this late date, I have other options.

     These thoughts went through my head as I drove along after the triathlon, headed for home.

 

I expect that this winter I’ll run another marathon somewhere in the world. And I’m sure come next summer I’ll be out in another triathlon somewhere, giving it my best shot. Thus the seasons come and go, and the years pass by. I’ll age one more year, and probably finish another novel. One by one, I’ll face the tasks before me and complete them as best I can. Focusing on each stride forward, but at the same time taking a long-range view, scanning the scenery as far ahead as I can. I am, after all, a long-distance runner.

     My time, the rank I attain, my outward appearance—all of these are secondary. For a runner like me, what’s really important is reaching the goal I set myself, under my own power. I give it everything I have, endure what needs enduring, and am able, in my own way, to be satisfied. From out of the failures and joys I always try to come away having grasped a concrete lesson. (It’s got to be concrete, no matter how small it is.) And I hope that, over time, as one race follows another, in the end I’ll reach a place I’m content with. Or maybe just catch a glimpse of it. (Yes, that’s a more appropriate way of putting it.)

     Some day, if I have a gravestone and I’m able to pick out what’s carved on it, I’d like it to say this:

 

Haruki Murakami

1949–20**

Writer (and Runner)

At Least He Never Walked

 

At this point, that’s what I’d like it to say.

 

 

Afterword

On Roads All Round the World

As the headings of each chapter of this book indicate, the bulk of the writings collected here were composed between the summer of 2005 and the fall of 2006. I didn’t write them at one stretch, but rather a little at a time, whenever I could find free time in between other work. Each time I wrote more I’d ask myself, So—what’s on my mind right now? Though this isn’t a long book, it took quite some time from beginning to end, and even more after I’d finished, to carefully polish and rework it.

     Over the years, I’ve published a number of essay collections and travel writings, but I haven’t had much opportunity like this to focus on one theme and write directly about myself, so I was scrupulous about making sure it was exactly the way I wanted it. I didn’t want to write too much about myself, but if I didn’t honestly talk about what needed to be said, writing this book would have been pointless. I needed to revisit the manuscript many times over a period of time; otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to explore these delicate layers.

     I see this book as a kind of memoir. Not something as grand as a personal history, but calling it an essay collection is a bit forced. This is repeating what I said in the foreword, but through the act of writing I wanted to sort out what kind of life I’ve led, both as a novelist and as an ordinary person, over these past twenty-five years. When it comes to the question of how much a novelist should stick to the novel, and how much he should reveal his real voice, everyone will have his own standard, so it’s impossible to generalize. But for me, there was the hope that writing this book would allow me to discover my own personal standard. I’m not very confident that I’ve done a good job in this area. Still, when I finished, I had the feeling that a weight had been lifted. (I think it may have been just the right moment to write this book when I did.)

 

After I finished, I took part in several races. I’d been planning to participate in a marathon in Japan at the beginning of 2007, but just before the race, unusually for me, I caught a cold and couldn’t run. If I had run, it would have been my twenty-sixth marathon. As a result, I reached the end of the season—which ran from the fall of 2006 through the spring of 2007— without running a single marathon. I feel a little regretful, but will try my best next season.

     Instead of a marathon, in May I participated in the Honolulu Triathlon, an Olympic-length event. I could finish it easily and really enjoy myself, and ended with a better time than the last. And at the end of July I was in the Tinman Triathlon, also held in Honolulu. Because I was living there for about a year, I also took part in a kind of triathlon training camp, practicing with other Honolulu residents three times a week for three months. This kind of training program really helped, and I was able to make some “Triath buddies” in the group.

     Running a marathon during the cold months and taking part in a triathlon during the summer has become the cycle of my life. There’s no off-season, so I always seem to be busy, but I’m not about to complain. It’s brought me a lot of happiness. Truthfully, I am sort of interested in trying a full-scale triathlon like the Iron-man competition, but if I went that far I’m afraid the training would (most definitely) take so much time out of my schedule it would interfere with my real job. I didn’t pursue more ultramarathons for the same reason. For me, the main goal of exercising is to maintain, and improve, my physical condition in order to keep on writing novels, so if races and training cut into the time I need to write, this would be putting the cart before the horse. Which is why I’ve tried to maintain a decent balance. Meanwhile, running for a quarter century makes for a lot of good memories.

     One I remember in particular was running, in Central Park in 1983, with the writer John Irving. I was translating his novel Setting Free the Bears at the time, and while I was in New York I asked to interview him. He told me he was busy but if I’d come in the morning while he jogged in Central Park we could talk while we ran together. We talked about all kinds of things as we jogged around the park early one morning. Naturally I didn’t tape our conversation and couldn’t take any notes, so all that I recall now is the happy memory of the two of us jogging together in the brisk morning air.

     In the 1980s I used to jog every morning in Tokyo and often passed a very attractive young woman. We passed each other jogging for several years and got to recognize each other by sight and smile a greeting each time we passed. I never spoke to her (I’m too shy), and of course don’t even know her name. But seeing her face every morning as I ran was one of life’s small pleasures. Without pleasures like that, it’s pretty hard to get up and go jogging every morning.

     One other memory I hold dear is running high up in Boulder, Colorado, with Yuko Arimori, the Japanese silver medalist in the marathon at the Barcelona Olympics. This was just some light jogging, but still, coming from Japan and running all of a sudden at a height of ten thousand feet was very tough—my lungs screamed, and I felt dizzy and terribly thirsty. Miss Arimori gave me a cool look and just said, “Is something the matter, Mr. Murakami?” I learned how rigorous the world of professional runners is (though I should add that she’s a very kind person). By the third day, though, my body had gotten used to the thin atmosphere, and I could enjoy the crisp air of the Rockies.

 

I’ve met many people through running, which has been one of its real pleasures. And many people have helped me, and encouraged me. At this point what I should do—like in an Academy Awards acceptance speech—is express my thanks to many people, but there are too many to thank, and the names would probably mean nothing to most readers. I’ll confine myself to the following.

     The title of this book is taken from the title of a short-story collection by a writer beloved to me, Raymond Carver, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. I’m thankful to his widow, Tess Gallagher, who was kind enough to give me permission to use the title in this way. I am also deeply thankful to the editor of this book, Midori Oka, who has patiently waited for ten years.

     Finally, I dedicate this book to all the runners I’ve encountered on the road—those I’ve passed, and those who’ve passed me. Without all of you, I never would have kept on running.

HARUKI MURAKAMI

AUGUST 2007