I Am a Cat (31 page)

“‘Otanchin Palaeologus.’ I have an idea that ‘Otanchin’ means bald and ‘Palaeologus’ head.”

“Possibly. I’ll pop into the master’s study a little later and look it up for you in
Webster’s Dictionary
. By the way, the master is eccentric, isn’t he? Fancy staying indoors and doing nothing on such a lovely day! No wonder his stomach-troubles never get better. Why don’t you persuade him to go and view the flowers at Ueno?”

“Please, you ask him. He never listens to what a woman says.”

“Is he still licking jam?”

“Yes, as always.”

“The other day he was complaining that you’re always telling him he overdoes it. ‘But she’s wrong,’ he said, ‘I really don’t eat all that much.’

So I told him the obvious answer was that you and the girls are also fond of jam. . .”

“Mr. Tatara, how could you say such a thing!”

“But, Mrs. Sneaze, you’ve got a jam-licker’s face.”

“How can you tell a thing like that by looking at someone’s face?”

“I can’t, of course. But, honestly, Mrs. Sneaze, don’t you ever take any?”

“Well, naturally I sometimes take a little. And why shouldn’t I? After all, it’s ours.”

Tatara laughed right out. “I thought that was the answer. But seriously,” he said, adopting a more sober tone, “that really was bad luck about the burglar. Was it only yams that he filched?”

“If it were only yams, we wouldn’t be so upset. But he’s taken all of our everyday clothing.”

“Then you really are in trouble. Will you have to borrow money again? If only this thing here were a dog, not just an idle cat. . . What a difference that might have made. Honestly, you ought to keep a dog, a big sturdy dog. Cats are practically useless. All they do is eat. This cat, for instance, has it ever even caught a rat?”

“Not a single one. It’s a very lazy and impudent cat.”

“Ah! that’s terrible. You must get rid of it at once. Shall I take it along with me? Boiled, you know, they’re really quite good eating.”

“Don’t tell me you eat cats!”

“Yes, indeed, every now and again. They taste delicious,”

“You must have a remarkably strong stomach.”

I have heard that among these degraded houseboys there are some so close to outright barbarism that they do, in fact, eat cats: but not until now had I ever dreamt that our Tatara, a person with whom I’d long been on terms of quite some coziness, could be so base a creature. Of course he’s not our houseboy any longer. Far from it. Though barely out of university, he is now not only a distinguished Bachelor of Law but also a rising executive in that well-known limited company, Mutsui Products. I was, therefore, more than surprised. The proverb says, “When you see a man, take him for a felon;” the truth of that adage has been well-demonstrated by the thieving conduct of last night’s pseudo-Coldmoon. Thanks now to Tatara, I have just invented another proverb: “When you see a man, take him for a felophage.” The longer one lives in this wicked world, the more one learns. It is always good to learn, but as one accumulates knowledge of the world’s wickedness, one grows ever the more cautious, ever the more prepared for the worst. Artfulness, uncharitableness, self-defensive wariness: these are the fruits of worldly learning. The penalty of age is this rather ugly knowingness. Which would seem to explain why one never finds among the old a single decent person. They know too much to see things straight, to feel things cleanly, to act without compromise.

Thinking that there might then be some merit in departing this world while still in my prime, I was making myself small in a corner lest such a departure should be forced upon me in the company of onions stewing in Tatara’s pot, when my master, drawn from his study by the sound of Tatara’s voice, slouched back into the living room.

“I hear, sir, you’ve been burgled. What a stupid thing to have happen.”

Tatara opens the conversation somewhat bluntly.

“That yam-purloiner was certainly stupid.” My master has no doubt whatsoever of his own profound intelligence.

“Indeed, the thief was stupid, but his victim wasn’t exactly clever.”

“Perhaps those with nothing worth stealing, people like Mr. Tatara, are the cleverest of all.” Rather surprisingly Mrs. Sneaze comes out on her husband’s side.

“Anyway, one thing’s clear. That this cat’s totally useless. Really, one can’t imagine what it thinks it’s for. It catches no rats. It sits calmly by while a burglar breaks in. It serves no purpose whatsoever. How about letting me take it?”

“Well,” says My master, “maybe I will. What would you do with it?”

“Cook it and eat it.”

On hearing that ferocious proposition, my master gave vent to a minister wail of dyspeptic laughter, but he answered neither yes nor no.

This, to my mingled surprise and glad relief, seemed to satisfy Tatara for he pressed no further with his disgusting proposal. After a brief pause, my master, changing the subject, remarks, “The cat doesn’t matter, but I do object most strongly to anyone stealing my clothes. I feel so cold.”

He looks indeed dispirited, and no wonder he feels cold. Until yesterday he was wearing two quilted kimonos: but today, wearing only a single lined-kimono and a short-sleeved shirt, he’s been sitting about since morning and has taken no exercise. What little blood he has is totally engaged in keeping his miserable stomach going, so naturally it doesn’t get round to his arms and legs.

“It’s hopeless being a teacher. Your world gets turned upside-down by a mere burglar. It’s still not too late to make a change. Why not come into the business world?”

“Since my scholarly spouse just doesn’t care for businessmen, it’s a waste of time even to suggest the idea.” Mrs. Sneaze, of course, would be delighted to see him go into business.

“How many years is it,”Tatara asks, “since you took your degree?”

“Eight years, I think,” answers Mrs. Sneaze looking toward her husband. My master neither confirms nor denies the period.

“Eight years and your pay’s the same as on the day you started.

However hard you study, no one appreciates your merits.‘All by himself the master is, and lonely.’” For Mrs. Sneaze’s benefit Tatara quotes a scrap of Chinese poetry remembered from his days in middle school.

Since she fails to understand him she makes no answer.

“Of course I don’t like teaching, but I dislike commerce even more.” My master seems to be a bit uncertain in his own mind what it is he does like.

“He dislikes everything,” says Mrs. Sneaze.

“Well, anyway I’m sure he doesn’t dislike his wife.” Tatara makes an unexpected sally.

“I dislike her most of all.” My master’s comment is extremely terse.

Mrs. Sneaze turns slightly away and her face stiffens, but she then looks back at her husband and says, as if she thought she were getting a good dig in at him, “I suppose you’ll be saying next that you dislike living.”

“True,” came his off-hand answer, taking the wind clean out of her sails, “I don’t like living much.” He’s way past praying for.

“You should go for a brisk walk every now and again. Staying indoors all day must be ruining your health. And what’s more, you really should become a businessman. Making money is simple as pie.”

“Look who’s talking. You yourself aren’t exactly rolling in it.”

“Ah, well. But I only joined the company last year. Even so, I’ve more saved up than you have.”

“How much have you saved?” Inevitably, Mrs. Sneaze rises to such bait, and puts her question with real earnestness.

“Fifty yen, already.”

“And how much is your salary?” Again it’s Mrs. Sneaze who asks the question.

“Thirty yen a month. The company retains five yen and saves it up for me. In an emergency, I can draw on the accumulated capital. Really, why don’t you buy some tramway shares with your pin-money? Their value will double within three or four months. Indeed anyone with a bit of capital could double, even triple, his money in next to no time.”

“If I had any pin-money,” Mrs. Sneaze somewhat sourly observes, “I wouldn’t now be up a gum tree all on account of some petty theft.”

“That’s why I keep saying your husband should go into business. For instance, if he’d studied law and then joined a company or a bank, he would by now be earning three or four hundred yen a month. It seems a shame he didn’t. By the way, sir, do you happen to know a man called Suzuki Tōjūrō who got his degree in engineering?”

“Yes, he called here only yesterday.”

“So you’ve seen him then. I ran into him a few days back at a party and your name cropped up. I said I’d once been a member of your household, and he replied that he and you had once shared lodgings at some temple in Koishikawa.‘Next time you see him,’ he said,‘please give him my kindest regards and say I’ll be looking him up one of these days.’”

“I gather he’s recently been transferred back to Tokyo.”

“That’s right. Until the other day he was pining away somewhere down in Kyushu, but he’s just been moved up to the head office here in Tokyo. He’s a smooth lad, that one.

Smooth as a keg of lacquer. He even takes the trouble to speak engagingly to me. . . Have you any idea how much he earns?”

“Not the foggiest.”

“Well, on top of his basic monthly pay of 250 yen, he’ll be getting bonuses twice a year, in July and December, so that his overall income can’t be less than four or five hundred yen each month. To think that a man like that can be coining the stuff while you, a teacher of the English Reader, can scarcely make ends meet. It’s a lunatic state of affairs.”

“Lunatic’s the word.” Even a man as snooty and superior as my master is no different from the herd of his fellow men when it comes to matters of money. Indeed, the very fact that he’s skint the whole year long makes him rather more keen than most to get his claws on a copper. However, having spoken at such length on the marvels of making money, Tatara has now exhausted his stock of slogans about the beatitudes of the business life: so he turns to Mrs. Sneaze on a totally different tack.

“Does a man called Coldmoon come visiting your husband?”

“Yes, often.”

“What sort of fellow is he?”

“I’m told he’s a brilliant scholar.”

“Handsome, would you say?”

Mrs. Sneaze permits herself an unbecoming titter. “I’d say that in looks he’s just about as good looking as you,”

“Is that so? About as good-looking as me. . . ”

“How do you come to be interested in Coldmoon?” enquires my master.

“The other day someone asked me to ask around about him. Is he a man worth making enquiries about?” Even before he gets an answer, Tatara shows by his condescending tone that he doesn’t think much of Coldmoon.

“As a man,” says my master,“he’s a great deal more impressive than you.”

“Is he, now? More impressive than me?” Characteristically,Tatara neither smiles nor seems offended. A sensitive man of the utmost self-control? A dense unfeeling dullard? Need one ask? He eats cats, doesn’t he?

“But tell me, will this Coldmoon fellow be getting a doctorate one of these days?”

“I’m told he’s writing a thesis now.”

“So he’s a fool after all. . . Writing a thesis for a doctorate indeed! I’d expected him to be brighter than that.”

“You don’t half fancy yourself,” says Mrs. Sneaze with a laugh. “You always did reckon yourself the bee’s knees and the cat’s whiskers. But what’s so foolish about being well educated?”

“Someone told me that once this Coldmoon gets his doctorate, then he’ll be given someone’s daughter. Something like that. So of course I said, ‘A man’s a fool who works for a doctorate just to marry a girl.

Someone should not marry someone’s daughter to anyone so foolish.

Better for,’ I said, ‘someone’s daughter to marry me.’”

My master wobbled his head. “To whom did you say all that?”

“To the Man who asked me to ask around about Coldmoon.”

“Suzuki?”

“Golly, no. I wouldn’t be bandying words with a big shot like that on such a delicate matter. At least, not yet I wouldn’t.”

“A lion at home, a wood louse in the open!” says Mrs. Sneaze. “You talk big, Mr. Tatara, when you’re here with us, but I bet you curl up small and quiet when you talk to Mr. Suzuki.”

“Of course I do. It would be foolhardy to do anything else. One wrong word and I could be out on my ear.”

“Tatara,” my master suddenly breaks in, “let’s go out for a walk.”

Sitting there in the scanty remnants of his wardrobe he’s grown to feel downright frozen, and the thought has just filtered through that the exercise of walking might warm him up a bit. There can be no other explanation for such an unprecedented suggestion.

Tatara, that unpetrine person, that seaweed in the tide-flows of the world, that reed which bends to its lightest wind, doesn’t even hesitate.

“Yes, indeed, let’s go. How about Ueno? Let’s go try some of Imozaka’s famous dumplings. Have you ever tried those dumplings? You, too, Mrs.

Sneaze, sometime you really ought, if only just once, to try them.

They’re beautifully soft and even more beautifully cheap. They serve
saké
as well.” Tatara was still babbling away about dumplings when my master, his hat on his head, was ready on the doorstone waiting to leave. . .