The Wild Geese (2 page)

T
HIS
STORY
happened long ago, but by chance I remember that it occurred in 1880, the thirteenth year of Emperor Meiji's reign. That date comes back to me so precisely because at the time I lodged in the Kamijo, a boarding house which was just opposite the Iron Gate of Tokyo University, and because my room was right next to that of the hero of the story. When a fire broke out inside the house in the fourteenth year of Meiji, I was one of those who lost all of their possessions when the Kamijo burned to the ground. What I'm going to put down, I remember, took place just one year before that disaster.

Almost all the boarders in the Kamijo were medical students, except for the few patients who went to the hospital attached to the university. It's been my observation that a residence of this kind is controlled by one of its members, a lodger who rises to a position of authority because of his money and shrewdness. When he passes through the corridor before the landlady's room, he always makes it a point to speak to her as she sits by the square charcoal brazier. Sometimes he'll squat opposite her and exchange a few words of gossip. Sometimes he seems to think only of himself when he throws saké parties in his room and puts the landlady out by making her prepare special dishes, yet the truth is that he takes care to see that she gets something extra for her troubles.
Usually this type of man wins respect and takes advantage of it by having his own way in the house.

The man in the room next to mine was also powerful in the Kamijo, but he was of a different breed.

This man, a student called Okada, was a year behind me, so he wasn't too far from graduating. In order to explain Okada's character, I must speak first of his striking appearance. What I really mean is that he was handsome. But not handsome in the sense of being pale and delicately thin and tall. He had a healthy color and a strong build. I have hardly ever come across a man with such a face. If you force me to make a comparison, he somewhat resembled the young Bizan Kawakami, whom I got to know later than the time of this story, and who became destitute and died in misery. Okada, a champion rower in those days, far surpassed the writer Bizan in physique.

A good-looking face may influence others, but it alone does not carry weight in a boarding house. Personal behavior must also be considered, and I doubt if many students lived as well-balanced a life as Okada did. He wasn't a bookworm who worked greedily for examination marks each term and who wanted to win a scholarship. Okada did the required amount of work and was never lower than the middle of his class. And in his free time he always relaxed. After supper he would take a walk and would return without fail before ten. On Sundays he rowed or set off on a long hike. Except for periods of living with his crew before a match or of returning to his home in the country for summer vacations, the time
never varied when he was in or out of his room. Often a boarder who had forgotten to set his watch by the signal gun at noon went to Okada's room to find out the time. And occasionally even the office clock in the Kamijo was put right by Okada. The more we observed him, the stronger became our impression that he was reliable. Even though Okada didn't flatter the landlady or spend much money above his room and board, she began to praise him. Needless to say, the fact that he paid his rent regularly was one of the reasons for her attitude.

She often said: “Look at Mr. Okada!”

But, anticipating her words, some of the students would say: “Well, we can't all be like him.”

Before anyone realized it, Okada had become a model tenant.

Okada had regular routes for his daily walks. He would go down the lonely slope called Muenzaka and travel north along Shinobazu Pond. Then he would stroll up the hill in Ueno Park. Next he went down to Hirokoji and, turning into Naka-cho—narrow, crowded, full of activity—he would go through the compound of Yushima Shrine and set out for the Kamijo after passing the gloomy Karatachi Temple. Sometimes he made a slight variation in a particular route, such as a right turn at the end of Naka-cho, so that he would come back to his room along the silence and loneliness of Muenzaka.

There was another route. He occasionally entered the university campus by the exit used by the patients of the hospital attached to the medical school because the Iron Gate was closed early. Going through the Red Gate, he
would proceed along Hongo-dori until he came to a shop where people were standing and watching the antics of some men pounding millet. Then he would continue his walk by turning into the compound of Kanda Shrine. After crossing the Megane-bashi, which was still a novelty in those days, he would wander for a short while through a street with houses on only one side along the river. And on his way back he went into one of the narrow side streets on the western side of Onarimichi and then came up to the front of the Karatachi Temple. This was an alternate route. Okada seldom took any other.

On these trips Okada did little more than browse now and then in the second-hand bookstores. Today only two or three out of many still remain. On Onarimichi, the same shops, little changed from what they formerly were, continue to run their businesses. Yet almost all the stores on Hongo-dori have changed their locations and their proprietors. On these walks Okada hardly ever turned right after leaving the Red Gate because most of the streets narrowed so much that it was annoying. Besides, only one second-hand bookshop could then be found along that way.

Okada stopped in such shops because, to use a term now in vogue, he had literary tastes. In those days the novels and plays of the new school had not yet been published; as for the lyric, neither the haiku of Shiki nor the waka of Tekkan had been created. So everyone read such magazines as the
Kagetsu Shinshi
, which printed the first translation of a Western novel. In his student days Okada read with interest the happenings of the new era
written in the style of classical Chinese literature. This was the extent of his literary tastes.

Since I've never been very affable, I didn't even speak to those students I met quite often on the campus except when I had a reason. As for the students in the boarding house, I seldom tipped my cap in greeting. But I became somewhat friendly with Okada because of the bookshops. On my walks I wasn't as rigid in my direction as Okada was, but since I had strong legs, I let them direct me through Hongo to Shitaya and Kanda, and I paused in every second-hand bookstore. On such occasions I often met Okada inside.

I don't remember who spoke first, but I do recall the first words between us: “How often we meet among old books!”

This was the start of our friendship.

In those days at the corner down the slope in front of Kanda Shrine, we came across a shop which sold books on its stalls. Once I discovered the
Kimpeibai
, and I asked the storekeeper how much it was.

“Seven yen.”

“I'll give you five,” I said.

“A while back Okada offered six.”

Since I had enough money with me, I gave the dealer what he asked.

But when I met Okada a few days later, he said: “You acted quite selfishly—you know I found the
Kimpeibai
first.”

“The man at the shop said you bargained, but that you couldn't agree. If you must have it, buy it from me.”

“Why should I? We're neighbors, so I can borrow it when you're through.”

I agreed.

In this way, Okada and I, who had not until now been acquainted even though we lived at such close quarters, often began to call on each other.

E
VEN
IN
the days I am writing about, the Iwasaki mansion was located, as it is today, on the southern side of Muenzaka, though it had not yet been fenced in with its present high wall of soil. At that time dirty stone walls had been put up, and ferns and horsetails grew among the moss-covered stones. Even now I don't know whether the land above the fence is flat or hilly, for I've never been inside the mansion. At any rate, in those days the copse grew thick and wild, and from the street we could see the roots of the trees, while the grass around them was seldom cut.

On the north side of the slope, small houses were constructed in clusters, and the best-looking among them had a clapboard fence. As for shops, there were only a kitchenware dealer's and a tobacconist's. Among the dwellings, the most attractive to the people who passed belonged to a sewing teacher, and during the day young women could be seen through the window going about their work. If the day was pleasant and the windows were open when we students passed, the girls, always talking, raised their faces and looked out into the street. And then once more they would continue their laughing and chattering.

Next to this house was a residence whose door was always wiped clean and whose granite walk I often saw sprinkled with water in the evening. During the cold
weather the sliding doors were shut, but even during the hot weather the bamboo shutters were lowered. This house always seemed conspicuously quiet, the more so because of the noise in the neighboring one.

About September of the year of this story, Okada, soon after his return from his home in the country, went out after supper for his usual stroll, and as he walked down Muenzaka, he met by accident a woman on her way home from the public bath and saw her enter the lonely place next to the sewing teacher's. It was almost autumn, so people had less occasion to seek relief from the heat by sitting outside their houses, and the slope was now empty. The woman, who had just come to the entrance of that quiet house, was trying to open the door, but hearing the sound of Okada's clogs, stopped what she was doing and turned her face. The two stared at each other.

Okada was not very much attracted by the woman in kimono with her right hand on the door and her left hand holding her bamboo basket of toilet articles. But he did notice her hair freshly dressed in the ginkgo-leaf style with her sidelocks as thin as the wings of a cicada. He saw that her face was oval and somewhat lonely, her nose sharp, her forehead to her cheeks conveying an impression of flatness, though it was difficult to say exactly what made him think so. Since these were no more than momentary impressions, he had completely forgotten about her when he came to the bottom of the slope.

But about two days later he again took the same direction, and when he came near the house with the lattice door, he glanced at it, suddenly remembering the stranger
from the public bath. He looked at the bow window with its vertically nailed bamboo canes and two thin, horizontal pieces of wood wound with vines. The window screen had been left open about a foot and revealed a potted plant. As he gave some attention to these details, he slowed down somewhat, and it took a few moments before he reached the front of the house.

Suddenly above the plant a white face appeared in the background where nothing but gray darkness had been. Furthermore, the face smiled at him.

From that time on, whenever Okada went out walking and passed this house, he seldom missed seeing the woman's face. Sometimes she broke into his imagination, and there she gradually started to take liberties. He began to wonder if she was waiting for him to pass or was simply looking outside with indifference and accidentally noticed him. He thought about the days before he had first come upon her, trying to recall if she had ever glanced out of the house or not, but all he could remember was that the house next to the noisy sewing teacher's was always swept clean and looked lonely. He told himself that he must have wondered about the kind of person who lived there, but he could not even be certain of that. It seemed to him that the screens were always shut or the bamboo blinds were drawn to reinforce the quiet behind them. He finally concluded that perhaps the woman had recently come to look outside and had opened the window to wait for his passing.

Each time he came by, they looked at each other, and all the while thinking about these events, Okada gradually felt he was on friendly terms with “the woman of the window.” One evening, two weeks later, he unconsciously took off his cap and bowed when he passed her house. Her faintly white face turned red, and her lonely smile changed into a beaming one.

From that moment on, Okada always bowed to the woman of the window when he went by.

O
KADA
'
S
admiration of old Chinese romantic tales had caused him to take an interest in military sports, but since he had no opportunities for practicing them, this desire had never been satisfied. This might, however, explain his interest in rowing, which he had taken to a few years before. He had been so enthusiastic and had made so much progress that he became a champion rower. Obviously, this activity was a manifestation of his desire to practice martial arts.

A type of woman in these romantic tales also appealed to Okada. She is the woman who makes beauty her sole aim in life so that, with perfect ease, she goes through an elaborate toilet even while the angel of death waits outside her door. Okada felt that a woman should be only a beautiful object, something lovable, a being who keeps her beauty and loveliness no matter what situation she is in. Okada probably picked up this sentiment unconsciously, partly under the influence of his habitual reading of old Chinese romantic love poetry and the sentimental and fatalistic prose works of the so-called wits of the Ming and Ch'ing dynasties.