I Am a Cat (12 page)

Not only my master but even Waverhouse refrain from making any such hackneyed remark as “you lucky fellow.”They just listen in silence.

“They fetched a doctor who examined her. According to the doctor’s diagnosis, though the name of the disease was unknown, the high fever affecting the brain made her condition dangerous unless the administration of soporifics worked as effectively as was to be hoped for. As soon as I heard this news, a feeling of something awful grew within me. It was a heavy feeling, as though one were having a nightmare, and all the surrounding air seemed suddenly to be solidifying like a clamp upon my body. On my way home, moreover, I found I could think of nothing else, and it hurt. That beautiful, that gay, that so healthy Miss O. . .”

“Just a minute, please. You’ve mentioned Miss O about two times. If you’ve no objection, we’d like to know her name wouldn’t we?” asks Waverhouse turning to look at my master. The latter evades the question and says, “Hmm.”

“No, I won’t tell you her name since it might compromise the person in question.”

“Do you then propose to recount your entire story in such vague, ambiguous, equivocal, and noncommittal terms?”

“You mustn’t sneer. This is a serious story. Anyway, the thought of that young lady suffering from so odd an ailment filled my heart with mournful emotion, and my mind with sad reflections on the ephemerality of life. I felt suddenly depressed beyond all saying, as if every last ounce of my vitality had, just like that, evaporated from my body. I staggered on, tottering and wobbling, until I came to the Azuma Bridge. As I looked down, leaning on the parapet, the black waters—at neap or ebb, I don’t know which—seemed to be coagulating, only just barely moving. A rickshaw coming from the direction of Hanakawado ran over the bridge. I watched its lamp grow smaller and smaller until it disappeared at the Sapporo Beer factory. Again, I looked down at the water.

And at that moment I heard a voice from upstream calling my name. It is most improbable that anyone should be calling after me at this unlikely time of night, and, wondering whom it could possibly be, I peered down to the surface of the water, but I could see nothing in the darkness. Thinking it must have been my imagination, I had decided to go home, when I again heard the voice calling my name. I stood dead-still and listened. When I heard it calling me for the third time, though I was gripping the parapet firmly, my knees began to tremble uncontrollably.

The voice seemed to be coming either from far away or from the bottom of the river, but it was unmistakably the voice of Miss O. In spite of myself I answered, ‘Yes.’ My answer was so loud that it echoed back from the still water, and, surprised by my own voice, I looked around me in a startled manner. There was no one to be seen. No dog. No moon. Nothing. At this very second I experienced a sudden urge to immerse myself in that total darkness from which the voice had summoned me. And, once again, the voice of Miss O pierced my ears painfully, appealingly, as if begging for help. This time I cried,‘I’m coming now,’ and, leaning well out over the parapet, I looked down into the somber depths. For, it seemed to me that the summoning voice was surging powerfully up from beneath the waves. Thinking that the source of the pleading must lie in the water directly below me, I at last managed to clamber onto the parapet. I was determined that, next time the voice called out to me, I would dive straight in; and, as I stood watching the stream, once again the thin thread of that pitiful voice came floating up to me. This, I thought, is it; jumping high with all my strength, I came dropping down without regret like a pebble, or something.”

“So, you actually did dive in?” asks my master, blinking his eyes.

“I never thought you’d go as far as that,” says Waverhouse pinching the tip of his nose.

“After my dive I became unconscious, and for a while I seemed to be living in a dream. But eventually I woke up, and, though I felt cold, I was not at all wet and did not feel as if I had swallowed any water. Yet I was sure that I had dived. How very strange! Realizing that something peculiar must have taken place, I looked around me and received a real shock.

I’d meant to dive into the water but apparently I’d accidentally landed in the middle of the bridge itself. I felt abysmally regretful. Having, by sheer mistake, jumped backwards instead of forwards, I’d lost my chance to answer the summons of the voice.” Coldmoon smirks and fiddles with the strings of his surcoat as if they were in some way irksome.

“Ha-ha-ha, how very comical. It’s odd that your experience so much resembles mine. It, too, could be adduced in support of the theories of Professor James. If you were to write it up in an article entitled ‘The Human Response,’ it would astound the whole literary world. But what,” persisted Waverhouse, “became of the ailing Miss O?”

“When I called at her house a few days ago, I saw her just inside the gate playing battledore and shuttlecock with her maid. So I expect she has completely recovered from her illness.”

My master, who for some time has been deep in thought, finally opens his mouth, and, in a spirit of unnecessary rivalry, remarks, “I too have a strange experience to relate.”

“You’ve got what?” In Waverhouse’s view, my master counts for so little that he is scarcely entitled to have experiences.

“Mine also occurred at the end of last year.”

“It’s queer,” observed Coldmoon, “that all last year,” and he sniggers. A piece of bean-jam cake adheres to the corner of his chipped front tooth.

“And it took place, doubtless,” added Waverhouse, “at the very same time on the very same day.”

“No, I think the date is different: it was about the 20th. My wife had earlier asked me, as a year’s-end present to herself, to take her to hear Settsu Daijō. I’d replied that I wouldn’t say no, and asked her the nature of the program for that day. She consulted the newspapers and answered that it was one of Chikamatsu’s suicide dramas,
Unagidani
. ‘Let’s not go today, I don’t like
Unagidani
,’ said I. So we did not go that day. The next day my wife, bringing out the newspaper again, said, ‘Today he’s doing the
Monkey Man at Horikawa
, so, let’s go.’ I said let’s not, because
Horikawa
was so frivolous, just
samisen
-playing with no meat in it. My wife went away looking discontented. The following day, she stated almost as a demand, ‘Today’s program is
The Temple With Thirty-Three
Pillars
. You may dislike the
Temple
quite as strongly as you disliked all the others, but since the treat is intended to be for me, surely you won’t object to taking me there.’ I responded,‘If you’ve set your heart on it so firmly, then we’ll go, but since the performance has been announced as Settsu’s farewell appearance on the stage, the house is bound to be packed full, and since we haven’t booked in advance, it will obviously be impossible to get in. To start with, in order to attend such performances there’s an established procedure to be observed. You have to go to the theatre-teahouse and there negotiate for seat reservations. It would be hopeless to try going about it in the wrong way. You just can’t dodge this proper procedure. So, sorry though I am, we simply cannot go today.’

My wife’s eyes glittered fiercely. ‘Since I am a mere woman, I do not understand your complicated procedures, but both Ohare’s mother and Kimiyo of the Suzuki family managed to get in without observance of any such formalities, and they heard everything very well. I realize that you are a teacher, but surely you don’t have to go through all that troublesome rigmarole just to visit a theatre? It’s too bad. . . you are so. . .’ and her voice became tearful. I gave in. ‘All right. We’ll go to the theatre even if we can’t get into it. After an early supper we’ll take the tram.’ She suddenly became quite lively. ‘If we’re going, we must be there by four o’clock, so we mustn’t dilly-dally.’When I asked her why one had to be there by four o’clock, she explained that Kimiyo had told her that, if one arrived any later, all the seats would be taken. I asked her again, to make quite sure, if it would be fruitless to turn up later than four o’clock; and she answered briskly,‘Of course it would be no good.’

Then, d’you know, at that very moment the shivering set in.”

“Do you mean your wife?” asks Coldmoon.

“Oh, no, my wife was as fit as a fiddle. It was me. I had a sudden feeling that I was shriveling like a pricked balloon. Then I grew giddy and unable even to move.”

“You were taken ill with a most remarkable suddenness,” commented Waverhouse.

“This is terrible. What shall I do? I’d like so much to grant my wife her wish, her one and only request in the whole long year. All I ever do is scold her fiercely, or not speak to her, or nag her about household expenses, or insist that she cares more carefully for the children; yet I have never rewarded her for all her efforts in the domestic field. Today, luckily, I have the time and the money available. I could easily take her on some little outing. And she very much wants to go. Just as I very much want to take her. But much indeed as I want to take her, this icy shivering and frightful giddiness make it impossible for me even to step down from the entrance of my own house, let alone to climb up into a tram. The more I think how deeply I grieve for her, the poor thing, the worse my shivering grows and the more giddy I become. I thought if I consulted a doctor and took some medicine, I might get well before four o’clock. I discussed the matter with my wife and sent for Mr. Amaki, Bachelor of Medicine. Unfortunately, he had been on night duty at the university hospital and hadn’t yet come home. However, we received every assurance that he was expected home by about two o’clock and that he would hurry round to see me the minute he returned. What a nuisance. If only I could get some sedative, I know I could be cured before four. But when luck is running against one, nothing goes well.

Here I am, just this once in a long, long time, looking forward to seeing my wife’s happy smile, and to be sharing in that happiness. My expectations seem sadly unlikely to be fulfilled. My wife, with a most reproachful look, enquires whether it really is impossible for me to go out. ‘I’ll go; certainly I’ll go. Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be all right by four. Wash your face, get ready to go out and wait for me.’ Though I uttered all these reassurance, my mind was shaken with profound emotions. The shivering strengthens and accelerates, and my giddiness grows worse and worse. Unless I do get well by four o’clock and implement my promise, one can never tell what such a pusillanimous woman might do.

What a wretched business. What should I do? As I thought it possible that the very worst could happen, I began to consider whether perhaps it might be my duty as a husband to explain to my wife, now while I was still in possession of my faculties, the dread truths concerning mortality and the vicissitudes of life. For if the worst should happen, she would then at least be prepared and less liable to be overcome by the paroxysms of her grief. I accordingly summoned my wife to come immediately to my study. But when I began by saying,‘Though but a woman you must be aware of that Western proverb which states that there is many a slip “twixt the cup and the lip,”’ she flew into a fury.‘How should I know anything at all about such sideways-written words? You’re deliberately making a fool of me by choosing to speak English when you know perfectly well that I don’t understand a word of it. All right. So I can’t understand English. But if you’re so besotted about English, why didn’t you marry one of those girls from the mission schools? I’ve never come across anyone quite so cruel as you.’ In the face of this tirade, my kindly feelings, my husbandly anxiety to prepare her for extremities, were naturally damped down. I’d like you two to understand that it was not out of malice that I spoke in English. The words sprang solely from a sincere sentiment of love for my wife. Consequently, my wife’s malign interpretation of my motives left me feeling helpless. Besides, my brain was somewhat disturbed by reason of the cold shivering and the giddiness; on top of all that, I was understandably distraught by the effort of trying quickly to explain to her the truths of mortality and the nature of the vicissitudes of life. That was why, quite unconsciously and forgetting that my wife could not understand the tongue, I spoke in English. I immediately realized I was in the wrong. It was all entirely my fault. But as a result of my blunder, the cold shivering intensified its violence and my giddiness grew ever more viciously vertiginous. My wife, in accordance with my instructions, proceeds to the bathroom and, stripping herself to the waist, completes her make-up. Then, taking a kimono from a drawer, she puts it on. Her attitudes make it quite clear that she is now ready to go out any time, and is simply waiting for me. I begin to get nervous. Wishing that Mr. Amaki would arrive quickly, I look at my watch. It’s already three o’clock. Only one hour to go. My wife slides open the study door and putting her head in, asks, ‘Shall we go now?’ It may sound silly to praise one’s own wife, but I had never thought her quite so beautiful as she was at that moment. Her skin, thoroughly polished with soap, gleams deliciously and makes a marvelous contrast with the blackness of her silken surcoat. Her face has a kind of radiance both externally and shining from within; partly because of the soap and partly because of her intense longing to listen to Settsu Daijō. I feel I must, come what may, take her out to satisfy that yearning. All right, perhaps I will make the awful effort to go out. I was smoking and thinking along these lines when at long last Mr. Amaki arrived. Excellent. Things are turning out as one would wish. However, when I told him about my condition,Amaki examined my tongue, took my pulse, tapped my chest, stroked my back, turned my eyelids inside out, patted my skull, and thereafter sank into deep thought for quite some time. I said to him, ‘It is my impression that there may be some danger. . .’ but he replied,‘No, I don’t think there’s anything seriously wrong.’ ‘I imagine it would be perfectly all right for him to go out for a little while?’ asked my wife.