Mandarins (23 page)

In his present state, it seemed to him that his life had been a wretched one. He had certainly enjoyed comparatively sunny days when he first obtained the rubber-seal patent, whiling away the hours playing cards and drinking. He was nonetheless in a constant state of fretfulness about the envy of his contemporaries, about opportunities for profit that might slip by him. Moreover, in making O-yoshi his mistress, he had had to contend not only with the resultant bickering within his family but also with the constant and heavy burden of finding discreet financial means for her support. Adding all the more to his misery may have been a hidden desire that he had sometimes felt in the last year or two: for all his attraction to young O-yoshi, he had wished that she and her child would simply die.

Wretched? Yet on reflection, I know that I am not the only one in this condition.

Such thoughts would run through his mind in the night, as he
remembered in minute detail his relatives, friends, and acquaintances. In the name of “safeguarding constitutional government,”
⁴
the father of his adopted son-in-law had brought to social ruin many a weaker political opponent. An aging antiquarian, his closest friend, had had intimate relations with the daughter of his first wife. A lawyer had embezzled money from a trust fund. And then there was a seal engraver . . . Yet strangely enough, their sins could not in the least alleviate his suffering. On the contrary, they cast an even darker shadow over his life.

“Ah, but this misery too will pass, once the auspicious day comes . . .”

This was Genkaku's sole source of comfort. Again to distract himself from the multiple torments that assailed him, both body and soul, he would attempt to revive happy memories. Yet again, he had had a wretched life. If there was a single part that was in the least cheerful, it was in the innocence of his early childhood. Often between waking and dreaming, he would remember the village in the mountain valley of Shinano, where his parents had lived. In particular, he could see the shingle roofs weighed down with stones and the dried mulberry twigs that smelled of silk worms. Yet even these recollections were but fleeting shadows. Sometimes between his groans he would try to chant the
Lotus Sutra
:

After that, he wanted to hum popular songs of yore, but to sing
Kappore, kappore
after having just extolled Lady Kannon struck him as strangely profane.

“Sleep is paradise! Sleep is paradise!”

Genkaku wished simply to forget everything through deep and sound sleep, and, in fact, he had K
ō
no give him not only sedatives
but also injections of heroin. Yet even in sleep he did not always find rest. Sometimes in dreams he would meet O-yoshi and Buntar
ō
, and such were for him happy encounters. He also once dreamt that he was talking to a new twenty-point Cherry Banner card; on it was O-yoshi's face of four or five years before. Awakening from such reverie only made him feel all the more miserable. Now the contemplation of sleep began to fill him with an uneasiness bordering on dread.

One afternoon, as the end of the year was approaching, Genkaku was lying on his back when he called to K
ō
no, who was sitting at his bedside:

“K
ō
no-san, it's been a long time since I've worn a loincloth. Please have one made of bleached cotton, six
shaku
long.”

There was no need to send O-matsu to the clothing shop just to buy bleached cotton.

“I'll put it on myself. Just fold it and leave it here.”

He had intended to use the loincloth to hang himself and spent a good half day thinking how he might carry out his plan. Yet being unable even to sit up without help, he could hardly expect to find the opportunity. Moreover, in the face of death, even Genkaku was fearful. Gazing in the dim electric light at a calligraphic scroll in the
Ō
baku style hanging in the alcove, he sneered at his own lingering greed for life.

“K
ō
no-san! Please help me to sit up!”

It was about ten o'clock in the evening.

“I want to take a short nap. You shouldn't refrain from taking a bit of rest yourself.”

“No, thank you,” replied K
ō
no curtly, giving him a strange look. “I shall stay awake. It is my duty.”

Genkaku sensed that she had seen through his plan. He nodded without saying anything further and pretended to sleep. K
ō
no sat at
her patient's bedside, opened the latest edition of a women's magazine, and appeared to be absorbed in it. Genkaku still had his mind on the loincloth next to his futon, as he watched K
ō
no through half-closed eyes. He felt a sudden urge to laugh.

“K
ō
no-san!”

The nurse in turn gave him a startled look. Leaning against the pile of bedclothes, he gave vent to uncontrollable mirth.

“What is it?”

“Never mind. It was nothing.”

And yet he continued to laugh, waving his bony right arm.

“A moment ago I was struck by something quite amusing, though I'm not sure what . . . Now help me lie down again.”

About an hour later, Genkaku had fallen asleep. In the night, he had a terrifying dream. He was standing in a dense wood, looking into what appeared to be a sitting room, through the gap in the papered doors, whose solid board below the latticed panels was quite tall. In the room lay a child, stark naked. Though still an infant, its face, which was turned toward him, was covered with the wrinkles of old age. Genkaku almost cried out and awoke, covered with sweat . . .

He was alone in the dark room. “Is it still night?” he wondered, but then saw from the table clock that it was nearly noon. For a moment the feeling of relief filled him with cheer, but soon he had reverted to his normal state of gloom. As he lay on his back, he counted his inhalations and exhalations. He felt a vague presence urging him on: “Now is the time!” He silently reached for the loincloth, wrapped it about his head, and pulled hard with both hands.

At that moment, Takeo, a veritable ball of thick winter clothing, stuck his head in the door and then went running as fast as his legs would carry him to the sitting room, hooting with amusement:

“Grandfather's doing something funny!”

Approximately a week later, surrounded by members of his family, Genkaku died of tuberculosis. He had a magnificent funeral. (O-tori's paralytic condition precluded her attendance.) Having expressed their condolences to J
Å«
kichi and O-suzu, the mourners burned incense in front of the coffin, which was wrapped in white damask silk. Once outside the gate of the house, most quite forgot about the deceased, but this was clearly not true of his old friends. “The old man must have achieved his life's dream, with a young mistress and a tidy sum of money.” Such was the unanimous sentiment of their talk.

The sun was hidden behind the clouds, as a horse-drawn hearse moved through the streets of late December, heading toward the crematorium. J
Å«
kichi rode behind, accompanied by a cousin, a university student, who, perturbed by the swaying of their shabby carriage, exchanged few words with him, concentrating instead on the small volume he was reading, an English translation of Wilhelm Liebknecht's
Erinnerungen eines Soldaten der Revolution
. Having been up all night for the wake, J
Å«
kichi dozed off or stared out the window at the newly constructed houses passing them by. “The entire neighborhood has changed,” he muttered listlessly, talking to himself.

Toiling their way through streets mired in mud and slush, the carriages at last reached the crematorium. Yet despite the telephone arrangements he had made, J
Å«
kichi was told that the first-class furnaces were all in use; there were still, however, second-class places available. To the two men, such would have been a matter of indifference, but for O-suzu's sake more than out of consideration for his father-in-law, J
Å«
kichi ardently negotiated with the official on the other side of the half-moon window:

“You see, to be honest, the deceased began to receive medical care
only after it was too late, and so at the very least we should like to give him a first-class cremation.”

This fabrication proved to be more effective than he had hoped.

“Well then, as the regular first-class furnaces are not available, we shall offer you the special first-class furnace—but without extra charge.”

Feeling awkward, J
Å«
kichi repeatedly offered his thanks to the kind-looking elderly man in brass-framed spectacles.

“Oh, no, there's nothing for which you have to thank me.”

Having sealed the furnace, J
Å«
kichi and his cousin returned to their shabby carriage. They were on their way through the crematorium gate, when to their surprise they saw O-yoshi standing alone in front of the brick wall. She bowed her head in their direction, and J
Å«
kichi, somewhat disconcerted, started to raise his hat to return the greeting. But already the carriage, listing from side to side, had passed her by, heading down a street lined with leafless poplar trees.

“Isn't that . . .?” asked his cousin.

“Mmm . . . I wonder whether she was already there when we arrived.”

“I think I remember only a few beggars . . . What's to become of her?”

J
Å«
kichi lit a Shikishima and replied as coolly as possible.

“Who's to know?”

His cousin, saying nothing in reply, pictured in his mind a fishing village on the coast of Kazusa and then O-yoshi and her son, who would be living there . . . His face suddenly took on a severe look, and in the sunlight that had now appeared from behind the clouds, he turned once again to his reading of Liebknecht.

I had been at a resort in the western hinterlands but now found myself in a taxi, a single satchel in hand, speeding toward a railway station along the T
ō
kaid
ō
Line, on my way to an acquaintance's wedding reception. On both sides of the road, dense, nearly unbroken rows of pine trees were sweeping by, as I pondered my doubtlessly meager chances of catching the T
ō
ky
ō
-bound train. I was sharing the taxi with the owner of a barbershop. He was cylindrically plump, like a jujube, and sported a short beard. Even as I worried about the time, I engaged in occasional conversation with him.

“Strange things do occur, do they not,” he remarked. “Why, I've heard that at the X estate, a ghost appears even during daylight hours.”

“Even in daylight hours, you say?” I gave him a perfunctory reply, as I gazed at the distant pine-covered hills bathed in the westering winter sun.

“Mind you, it apparently doesn't show itself when the weather is good. It seems to come out mostly on rainy days.”

“On rainy days it may be out for a wet wander.”

“Ah, you're joking . . . But they say the ghost wears a raincoat.”

With its horn blaring, the taxi pulled up alongside a railway station. I took my leave from the barbershop owner and rushed in, but, just as I feared, the train for T
ō
ky
ō
had left just two or three minutes before. Sitting alone on a bench in the waiting room, looking blankly outside, was a man in a raincoat. The story I had just heard about a ghost came back to me. I managed a wry smile and resigned myself to waiting for the next train in a caf
é
in front of the station.

“Caf
é
” . . . a dubious appellation. I took my place in a corner and ordered a cup of chocolate. The table was covered with a white oilcloth on which broad grids had been drawn in fine blue lines. The four corners were worn, revealing the drab canvas beneath.

The chocolate had the taste of animal glue. As I drank it, I gazed about the deserted room. Pasted on the dusty walls were paper strips, advertising such offerings as rice with chicken and egg, cutlets, local eggs, and omelettes; they reminded me that here along the T
ō
kaid
ō
Line we were not far from rural life and that it was through barley and cabbage fields that the electric locomotives were passing . . .

My train did not pull in until near nightfall. I was accustomed to traveling second-class, but this time, as it happened, I had settled for third class.

In the already crowded carriage, I was surrounded by school-girls apparently on an excursion, perhaps returning from
Ō
iso. I lit a cigarette and observed the cheerful flock of virtually ceaseless chatterers.

“Please tell us what
ravu shiin
means,” said one of them to a man sitting in front of me; he was apparently accompanying them as a photographer. He attempted an evasive answer, but a girl of fourteen
or fifteen persisted in peppering him with questions. I found myself smiling at her manner of speaking, reminding me vaguely of nasal empyema. Next to me was another pupil, aged twelve or thirteen, sitting on the knee of a young schoolmistress. With one hand curled around her neck, she stroked her cheek with the other. Babbling with fellow classmates, she would periodically pause and speak to her: