A Wild Sheep Chase (24 page)

“‘Very well,’ said his father a second later. What else could he say? The Sheep Professor was considerate and earnest, the sort of youth who once he said something would stick by his word. His own father couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

“The following year, as per his wishes, the Sheep Professor matriculated at the Agriculture Faculty of Tokyo Imperial University. His child-wonder love of studies showed no sign of abating even there. Everyone, including his professors, was watching him. Scholastically he excelled as always, and he enjoyed tremendous popularity. He was, in a nutshell, one of your chosen few. Untainted by dissipation, reading every spare moment. If he tired of reading, he’d play his violin in the university courtyard, his gold watch ever in the pocket of his school uniform.

“He graduated at the top of his class and entered the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as one of the elite. His senior thesis was, simply stated, a unified scheme of large-scale agriculturalization for Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, which some decried as slightly too idealistic. It was, nonetheless, the talk of the time.

“After two years in the Ministry, the Sheep Professor went to the Korean peninsula to conduct research in rice cultivation. His report, published as
A Study on Rice Cropping on the Korean Peninsula
, was adopted by the government.

“In 1934, the Sheep Professor was called back to Tokyo and was introduced to a young army officer. For the big, imminent North China campaign, the Sheep Professor was asked to establish a self-sufficiency program based on sheep. This was to be the Sheep Professor’s first encounter with sheep. The Sheep Professor concentrated on developing a general framework for ovine productivity in Japan, Manchuria, and Mongolia. The following spring, he embarked on a site-observation tour.

“The spring of 1935 passed uneventfully. The events happened in July. Setting out on horseback, unaccompanied, on his observation tour, the Sheep Professor disappeared. Whereabouts unknown.

“Three days, four days passed. Still no Professor. The army search team combed the terrain desperately, but he was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he had been attacked by wolves or abducted by tribesmen. Then at dusk a week later, just as everyone had given up hope, one utterly disheveled Sheep Professor wandered back into camp. His face was haggard, with cuts in several places, but his eyes retained their gleam. His horse was gone, his watch was gone. His explanation, which everyone seemed willing to accept, was that he’d lost his way and his horse fell injured.

“Not one month later, a bizarre rumor began to spread through the government offices. Word had gotten out that he enjoyed a ‘special relationship’ with sheep. What this ‘special relationship’ meant, no one knew. Whereupon his superior summoned him to his office and conducted an interrogation to set the record straight. Rumors are not to be tolerated in colonial societies.

“‘Did you in truth experience a special relationship with sheep?’ queried his superior.

“‘I did,’ answered the Sheep Professor.

“The interrogation went something like this:

“February 1936. The Sheep Professor is ordered home to Japan. After undergoing numerous similar interrogations, he is transferred in the spring to the Ministry Reference Collection. There he catalogues reference materials and organizes bookshelves. In other words, he has been purged from the core elite of the East Asian agricultural administration.

“‘The sheep has now gone from inside me,’ the Sheep Professor told a close friend at the time. ‘But it used to be there inside.’

“1937. Sheep Professor retires from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and, availing himself of a Ministry loan under the Japan-Manchuria Sheep Scheme, which used to be in his charge, moves to Hokkaido and becomes a shepherd. 56 head of sheep.

“1939. Sheep Professor marries. 128 head of sheep.

“1942. Eldest son born (present owner-operator of the Dolphin Hotel). 181 head of sheep.

“1946. American Occupation Forces appropriate Sheep Professor’s sheep ranch as a training camp. 62 head of sheep.

“1947. Sheep Professor enters employ of Hokkaido Ovine Association.

“1949. Wife dies of bronchitis.

“1950. Sheep Professor assumes directorship of Hokkaido Ovine Association.

“1960. Eldest son loses fingers at Port of Otaru.

“1967. Hokkaido Ovine Hall closes.

“1968. Dolphin Hotel opens.

“1978. Young real estate agent inquires about sheep photograph.”

Me, in other words.

“Just great,” I said.

“By all means, I would like to meet your father,” I said.

“I have no objection to your meeting him, but since my father dislikes me, you’ll have to excuse me if I ask you to go alone,” said the son of the Sheep Professor.

“Dislikes you?”

“Because I lost two fingers and am balding.”

“I see,” I said. “An eccentric man, your father.”

“As his son, it’s not for me to say, but yes, an eccentric man indeed. A completely changed man since he encountered sheep. Extremely difficult, sometimes even cruel. Deep down in his heart he’s kind. If you heard him play his violin, you’d know that. Sheep hurt my father, and through my father, sheep have also hurt me.”

“You love your father, don’t you?” said my girlfriend.

“Yes, that I do. I love him very much,” said the Dolphin Hotel owner, “but he dislikes me. He never once held me since the day I was born. Never once had a kind word for me. And since I lost my fingers and started going bald, he’s done nothing but ridicule me.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t mean to ridicule you,” she said.

“I can’t believe that he would either,” I said.

“You’re too kind,” said the hotel man.

“Shall we go and try to see him directly, then?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” said the hotel man. “Though I’m sure he’ll see you if you’re careful about two things. One is to state clearly that you wish to inquire about sheep.”

“And the other?”

“Don’t say that I told you about him.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

We thanked the Sheep Professor’s son and headed up the stairs. The air at the top of the stairs was chilly and damp. The lights were dim, scarcely revealing the dust drifts in the corners of the hallway. The whole place smelled indistinctly of old papers and old body odors. We walked down the long hallway, as per the son’s instructions, and knocked on the ancient door at the end. An old plastic plaque affixed to the door read
DIRECTOR’S OFFICE
. No answer. I knocked again. Again, no answer. At the third knock, there was a groan, and then the response—“Don’t bother me. Go away.”

“We’ve come to ask a few things about sheep, if we might.”

“Eat shit!” yelled the Sheep Professor from inside. A mighty healthy voice for seventy-three.

“We really have to talk with you,” I shouted through the door.

“Don’t give me this you-want-to-talk-about-sheep crap,” said the Sheep Professor.

“But it’s something that probably ought to be discussed,” I coaxed. “It’s about a sheep that disappeared in 1936.”

There was a brief silence, then the door flew open. Before us stood the Sheep Professor.

The Sheep Professor had long hair, white as snow. His eyebrows were also white, hanging down over his eyes like icicles. He stood five foot ten. A self-possessed figure. Sturdy-boned. His nose thrust out from his face at a challenging angle, like a ski jump.

His body odor permeated the entire room. No, I would hesitate to call it body odor. Beyond a certain point, it ceased to be body
odor and blended into time, merged with the light. What had probably once been a large space was so packed with old books and papers you could hardly see the floor. Almost all the publications were scholarly tomes written in foreign languages. Without exception, all were covered with stains. On the right, against the wall, was a filthy bed, and before the window a huge mahogany desk and revolving chair. The desktop was in relative order, papers neatly stacked and surmounted by a paperweight in the shape of a sheep. The room was dark, the only illumination coming from a dust-covered lamp’s sixty-watt bulb.

The Sheep Professor was wearing a gray shirt, black cardigan, and herringbone trousers that had all but lost their shape. In the light of the room, his gray shirt and black cardigan could have passed for a white shirt and gray cardigan. Maybe those had been the original colors, hard to say.

The Sheep Professor sat behind his desk, motioning with his finger for us to sit down on the bed. We made our way over, straddling books as if crossing a minefield, and sat down. The bed was so palpably grimy I was afraid my Levi’s would stick to the sheets. The Sheep Professor folded his fingers on top of his desk and stared at us intently. His fingers were thick with black hair right up to his knuckles. The blackness in stark contrast to the brilliant white of his head.

Suddenly, the Sheep Professor picked up the telephone and shouted into the receiver: “Bring me my supper, quick!”

“Well now,” said the Professor. “You say you have come to discuss a sheep that disappeared in 1936?”

“That’s right,” I said.

“Hmm,” he said. Then abruptly, with great volume, he blew his nose into a wad of paper. “Is there something you wish to tell? Or something you wish to ask?”

“Both.”

“First, let me hear what you have to tell.”

“We know what became of the sheep that escaped you in the spring of 1936.”

The Sheep Professor snorted. “Are you telling me that you know I threw away everything I had for a sheep I have been trying to track down for forty-two years?”

“We are aware of that,” I said.

“You could be making this up.”

I pulled out the silver lighter from my pocket and placed it on his desk together with the Rat’s sheep photograph. He reached out a hairy hand, picked up the lighter and photograph, and examined them at length under the lamp. Particles of silence floated about the room for the longest time. The solid double-hung window shut out the city noise; only the sputter of the old lamp punctuated the silence.

The old man, having finished his examination of the lighter and photograph, turned off the lamp with a click and rubbed his eyes with stubby fingers. As if he were trying to press his eyeballs into his skull. When he removed his fingers, his eyes were murky red, like a rabbit’s.

“Forgive me,” said the Sheep Professor. “I’ve been surrounded by idiots for so long, I’ve grown distrustful of people.”

“That’s okay,” I said.

My girlfriend smiled politely.

“Can you imagine what it’s like to be left with a solitary thought when its embodiment has been pulled out from underneath you, roots and all?” asked the Professor.

“No, I can’t.”

“It’s hell. A maze of a subterranean hell. Unmitigated by even one shaft of light or a single draft of water. That’s been my life for forty-two years.”

“Because of this sheep?”

“Yes, yes, yes. All because of that sheep. That sheep left me stranded in the thick of everything. In the spring of 1936.”

“And it was to search for this sheep that you left the Ministry of Agriculture, am I correct?”

“Those paper pushers were all morons. They hadn’t the slightest idea of the true value of things. Probably’ll never catch on to the monumental significance of that sheep.”

There came a knock on the door, followed by a woman’s voice. “I’ve brought you your meal.”

“Leave it,” said the Sheep Professor.

The sound of the tray being set on the floor was followed by the echo of receding footsteps.

My girlfriend opened the door and brought the meal tray over to the Sheep Professor’s desk. On the tray were soup, salad, a roll, and meatballs for the Professor, plus two coffees for us.

“You’ve eaten already?” asked the Sheep Professor.

“Yes, thank you,” I said.

“What did you have?”

“Veal in wine sauce,” I said.

“Shrimp, grilled,” she said.

The Sheep Professor grunted. Then he ate his soup and crunched the croutons. “Excuse me if I eat while you talk. I’m hungry.”

“By all means,” we said.

The Sheep Professor ate his soup and we sipped our coffee. As he ate, the Professor stared headlong into his bowl.

“Would you know where the place in this photograph is?” I asked.

“I would indeed. I know it very well.”

“Would you tell us?”

“Just hold on,” said the Sheep Professor, setting aside his now-empty bowl. “One thing at a time. Let’s start with the events of 1936. First I’ll talk, then you talk.”

I nodded.

The Sheep Professor began. “It was the summer of 1935 when the sheep entered me. I had lost my way during a survey of open-pasture grazing near the Manchuria-Mongolia border, when I happened across a cave. I decided to spend the night there. That night I dreamed about a sheep that asked, could it go inside me? Why not? I said. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. It was a dream, after all.” The old man chortled as he moved on to his salad.