Mandarins (27 page)

One night when a strong east wind was blowing (which I took to be a good omen), I left the hotel from the basement and went out on the street, resolved to visit an old man of my acquaintance. He lived in an attic of a building housing a Bible publisher, where he worked
as the lone caretaker. There he devoted himself to prayer and reading. Sitting under a cross, our hands stretched out toward the brazier, we conversed: Why had my mother gone insane? Why had my father failed in business? Why was I being punished? . . . He knew these secrets and would always listen to me, a strangely solemn smile on his face. Sometimes he would draw in a few short words a caricature of human life. I could not help feeling respect for this hermit in the attic. Yet as we talked, I discovered that he too was capable of being moved by human affinities.

“The daughter of the nurseryman is a beautiful girl, with a sweet disposition . . . She is very kind to me.”

“How old is she?”

“Eighteen this year.”

Perhaps for him it was a kind of paternal love. But I inevitably caught in his eyes a sign of passion. On the yellowed skin of the apple he offered me I saw the shape of a unicorn. (On occasion I would discover mythological animals in wood grains and finely fissured teacups.) The unicorn was indeed the
q
í
l
í
n
. Remembering that an unfriendly critic had once characterized me as “the
q
í
l
í
n's
offspring of the 1910s,” I realized that even here in this attic, under the cross, I had no safe haven.

“How have you been these days?”

“As ever, at the edge of my nerves.”

“For that, no medicine will help you. Have you no desire to become a believer?”

“As if the likes of me could manage that . . .”

“It's not in the least difficult. You need only to believe in God, in Christ His Son, and in the signs and wonders that He performed.”

“Well, what I
can
believe in is the devil.”

“Then why not believe in God? If you believe in shadows, you must necessarily believe in light.”

“There are shadows without light, are there not?”

“Shadows without light?”

I could only fall silent. He walked in shadows no less than did I. Yet he believed in a light beyond. It was, to be sure, the only point of difference between us, but it was, at least for me, an impassable gulf nonetheless.

“But the light necessarily exists. Evidence can be seen in the miracles, which occur again and again even in our own times . . .”

“Miracles that are the work of the devil . . .”

“Why do you dwell on the devil?”

I felt tempted to tell him everything I had experienced in the last year or two, but I was afraid that he might tell my wife and children, that I might follow my mother's footsteps into a psychiatric hospital.

“What do you have over there?” I asked.

The vigorous old man turned toward his ancient bookshelves, with something of a Pan-like look on his face.

“The complete works of Dostoyevsky. Have you read
Crime and Punishment
?”

I had, of course, avidly read four or five of Dostoyevsky's works a decade before. But I was struck by his incidental mention—or was it?—of
Crime and Punishment
. I borrowed his copy and returned to my hotel. The streets, with their electric lights and crowds of people, were as unpleasant as ever. Any chance encounters with acquaintances would be particularly unbearable, and so, like a thief, I carefully chose the darker paths.

But then a few moments later, I began to have stomach pains, for which the only remedy was a shot of whiskey. I found a bar, pushed
on the door, and started to go in. The narrow confines were enveloped in cigarette smoke. A group of young people, apparently artists, were drinking, and in the very middle was a woman, her hair covering her ears in keeping with the latest Occidental fashion. She was energetically playing the mandolin.

Feeling instantly at a loss, I turned and left. Now, however, I found that my shadow was swaying from left to right, and that, ominously enough, I was being bathed in red light. I stopped in my tracks, but my shadow went on vacillating. I hesitantly looked around and saw at last a colored glass lantern hanging from the eaves of the bar and swinging slowly in the strong wind . . .

It was to a subterranean restaurant that I next made my way. I went to the bar and ordered whiskey.

“Whiskey? I'm afraid that Black and White is all there is.”

I poured the whiskey into the soda and began sipping it in silence. Next to me sat two men in their late twenties or early thirties, journalists, I assumed. They were speaking in low voices—and in French. With my entire body, I could feel the focus of their eyes on my back, indeed as though they were sending out electric waves. They clearly seemed to know my name and were clearly talking about me.

“Bien . . . très mauvais . . . pourquoi? . . .”

“Pourquoi?. . . le diable est mort! . . .”

“Oui, oui . . . d'enfer . . .”

I put down a silver coin, my last, and fled the cavern. The night wind was gusting through the streets, soothing my nerves, as my stomach pains eased. I remembered Raskolnikov and felt the desire to confess all. And yet that could bring only tragedy, not just to me and to my family but also to others. Moreover, the sincerity of that desire was dubious. If my nerves could become as steady as that of a normal
person . . . But for that I would have to flee somewhere: Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Samarkand . . .

I was suddenly jolted by a small white advertising sign hanging down from the eaves of a shop: a winged automobile tire trademark. I remembered the story of the ancient Greek who, though able to fly by means of artificial wings, allowed them to be burned by the sun and so plunged into the sea and drowned . . . To Madrid, to Rio de Janeiro, to Samarkand . . . I had to laugh at such fantasies—and at the same time remind myself of Orestes being pursued by the Furies.

I followed the dark street along the canal. I found myself recalling the suburban house of my adopted parents. It was clear that they were spending their days waiting for me to return, as were perhaps my wife and children . . . But I feared the force that would inevitably bind me if I were, in fact, to do so.

Moored in the choppy water was a barge from whose hold a faint light was leaking. A family surely lived there, men and women hating one another out of love . . . But now, though still feeling the intoxicating effect of the whiskey, I summoned once more my combative strength and headed back to the hotel.

I sat again at the desk and continued reading M
é
rim
é
e's correspondence, which eventually revived me. When I learned that late in life he converted to Protestantism, I instantly felt that his mask had fallen away, that I was seeing his true face. Like us, he had walked in the darkness. In the darkness? Shiga's
An'ya K
ō
ro
was being transformed for me into a terrifying work. In an attempt to forget my depression, I began to read Anatole France's conversations, but this modern Pan too, I could see, had borne a cross . . .

An hour later, a bellboy brought me a bundle of mail. Among the
items was a letter from a publisher in Leipzig, asking me to write an essay on the modern Japanese woman. Why did he specifically want
me
for the project? The letter, written in English, included a handwritten postscript: “A simple black-and-white depiction, in the style of a Japanese painting, with no color, would also suit our purposes.” The words reminded me of the whiskey brand. I tore the letter to shreds. I opened another envelope, the one closest to hand, and read the enclosed missive, written on yellow stationery. It was from an unknown youth. I had not read more than two or three lines when I saw something that could only set me on edge: a reference to
Jigokuhen
.

I opened a third envelope, containing a message from a nephew. Now at last came a sigh of relief, as I read of domestic problems. But then I came to the line at the end and felt bowled over: “I am sending you a new edition of the poetry collection
Shakk
ō
.”

I heard taunting laughter in my ears—
Shakk
ō
!
—and fled the room. There was no one in the corridor. Propping myself up with a hand against the wall, I managed to get to the lobby, where I sat down in a chair and thought that I should at least light a cigarette. Oddly enough, it was an Air Ship. (Since coming to the hotel, I had made it a habit of smoking only Star.) The two artificial wings appeared again before my eyes. I called over a bellboy and sent him to purchase two packs of Star, but as luck would have it, according to his report, there were none left.

“We still have Air Ship, sir . . .”

I shook my head and looked around the spacious lobby. At the far end were four or five foreigners sitting around a table. It seemed that one of them—a woman in a red dress—was sometimes glancing in my direction, while speaking in a low voice.

“Mrs. Townshead . . .”

An unseen presence was whispering
Misesu-Taunzuheddo
in my ear, a name I had, of course, never heard before. And even if it were indeed to be the name of the woman sitting over there . . . I got up from the chair and returned to my room, terrified at the thought that I was going mad.

It had been my intention to make an immediate call to the psychiatric hospital. But to have myself admitted as a patient there would be tantamount to dying. After agonizing hesitation, I tried to distract myself from my fears by reading
Crime and Punishment
. Randomly choosing a page, I found, however, that it was a passage from
The Brothers Karamazov
. Thinking I had confused the books, I looked at the cover, but there was no doubt about the title. I could see that it was to this binding error at the publishing house and to this very page that the finger of fate was pointing. Yet even as I was driven to continue reading, I had not finished a single page before my entire body began to tremble, for here was the passage that describes Ivan being tormented by the Devil. Ivan, Strindberg, Maupassant, and now I, here in this room . . .

My only salvation was sleep. But I had not a single packet of sleeping medicine left. The thought of more miserable insomnia was unbearable, but summoning up a desperate sort of courage, I had coffee brought and resolved to go on writing as frantically as any madman.

Two, five, seven, ten pages . . . The manuscript was burgeoning before my eyes. I was filling the world of my fictional work with supernatural animals, and one of them was a self-portrait. But now fatigue was gradually clouding my mind. At last I got up from the desk and lay flat on my back in bed. I may have slept for forty or fifty minutes when I thought I heard words being whispered in my ear and immediately bolted up:

“
Le diable est mort
.”

Beyond the tuff-framed window, a pale, cold dawn was breaking. I was standing directly against the door, looking at the empty room, when I saw something in the mottled pattern of steam condensed on the window by the frigid air outside. It was an autumn-yellow pine forest facing the sea. I approached, my heart pounding. Though I realized that it was but a mirage, created by the garden's withered grass and the pond, it evoked a longing akin to
mal du pays
.

I waited until nine and then called the magazine office to settle a question of payment. Putting everything on the desk into my satchel, books and manuscripts, I resolved to return home.

I had taken a taxi from a railway station on the T
ō
kaid
ō
Line and headed for a summer resort in the western hinterlands. Despite the cold, the driver was oddly dressed in an old raincoat. To avoid thinking about the eerie coincidence, I fixed my gaze away from him and on the passing scenery. Behind the row of low-lying pines—perhaps on what had been the post-station road—I saw a funeral procession. There were neither white-paper nor dragon lanterns, but both before and behind the palanquin were artificial lotuses, gold and silver, gently swaying . . .

Having at last arrived home, I spent several rather peaceful days there, benefiting both from the company of my wife and children and from the efficacy of barbiturates. From my domain on the second floor, I could look out on the pine forest and faintly glimpse the sea beyond. I had decided to work at my desk only in the mornings, the cooing of the pigeons in my ears. There were other birds, pigeons and crows, as well as sparrows, which came flying down onto the veranda.
This too gave me pleasure.
The happy sparrow enters the temple
, I would remember the phrase each time, pen in hand.

On a warm, cloudy afternoon, I had gone to a sundries shop to buy ink, but the only color on display was sepia, a tint that invariably unsettled me more than any other. Having no alternative, I left the shop and wandered aimlessly along the mostly deserted streets. Coming toward me from the opposite direction was a foreigner, fortyish and apparently myopic, swaggering along by himself. He was the Swede who lived nearby, a man suffering from paranoia. His name was Strindberg. As we passed, I felt a physical jolt.

The street was no more than three hundred meters long, but in the time it took me to walk it, a dog, its face black on one side and white on the other, passed me four times. I turned down a side street, thinking of Black and White, and then remembered that Strindberg's tie was likewise black and white. I could not imagine this a mere coincidence. And if it were not . . . I had the feeling that only my head was moving along; I stopped for a moment in the middle of the pavement. Behind the wire fence along the street lay a discarded glass bowl faintly radiating the colors of the rainbow. There appeared to be along the sides at the bottom a winglike pattern. Sparrows now came fluttering down from the top of the pines, but when they came close to the bowl, they all took flight, as though by common accord, rising again into the sky . . .