At the end of the fall of 1946, I decided to learn Thai. I think that was because I was lonely, and lacked friendship.
Food was still in short supply, but a kind of stability had resulted as illicit supply routes had come into being. With routes in place, it was no longer the case that food couldn't be obtained unless you knew where to look at least 10 days in advance. Rather, the time had come when it was the money to obtain food that was hard to find.
When the leaves were falling, more and more students came back from the countryside, but I rarely met friends even when I went to the university. I couldn't satisfy the sense of emptiness after eating the lunch I brought, and there was no one to talk to. I hated the wait until my afternoon class began at 1 o'clock; feeling abandoned, I went to places where some friend might be. Wherever I went, though, there were no friends in dorms or homes. I would go to book stalls in Kanda that had American paperbacks for 15 yen apiece, or I'd have some tea with poisonous-looking sweets in the black market.
On one such occasion I discovered some flyers for Thai classes. The flyers I found were pieces of newspaper with "Thai Language Classes - Asian Issues Institute" written in red brushstrokes. They were pasted to charred telephone poles and stone pillars; following the arrows, I found myself in front of a small, fire-scarred, three-story building.
The first floor of the building had the look of a black marketter's office. A narrow stairwell took me to the second floor, where the walls bore traces of pink left by the flames. Tthis floor was divided into three rooms by panels of unfinished wood. There was a signboard saying "Asian Issues Institute" at the entrance. That day I paid a month's tuition of 30 yen, which included institute membership, and left. Classes were to begin two weeks later.
I decided to learn Thai because to do so was, in every sense, senseless. English was the language of streetwalkers and houseboys, and Russian was the language studied by the progressive elite. Greek and Latin were snobbish, and French and German were materialistic, somehow. Thai, from that viewpoint, had been robbed of its utility now that the war was over, and seemed to be a language suited to study by a student like me with nowhere to go.
On the day the class was to begin, I went to the fire-scarred building and found about ten desks and benches lined up in the largest room. There were no people. The boards of the unfinished wooden desks were thin, and felt springy when hit by my elbow. After two or three minutes a young man in a dark blue overcoat entered, and sat on a bench a little apart from mine. A dark red muffler was knotted at his neck so I couldn't see what he was wearing beneath his overcoat, but I thought he was surely a college student.
About that time a man in a khaki uniform entered from the next room and stood on the teacher's platform. His hands were on his hips, but the line of his shoulders, arms and elbows was as straight as if laid out geometrically, and I felt he must be a former soldier. The man looked at me and the other youth, and spoke:
"Well, the fact is that I'm going to cancel the class; there is no way to cover the building's room fee with just two students. I will return your membership fee and tuition, of course."
I was disappointed. With the class, I would have somewhere to go at least twice a week. Without it, I didn't know where to go. The students who were studious in their college classes created a world consisting just of themselves, and had no room for someone like me to slip in. But by participating in this sort of class from the start, I thought I could form an acquaintance of some kind. It's not that I had any particular desire to learn Thai. I wanted some way to be with people.
"How about it? I hope you will understand."
The man in khaki looked back and forth between the faces of the other youth and me. Then the youth, leaning forward and turning to me, asked "What shall we do?" The man in khaki also stared at me, as though demanding my reply.
"I see-- if it just doesn't add up with two people, I don't suppose there's any choice," I said.
"May I ask why you two want to learn Thai?"
When the man on the platform spoke, the other youth sat back and said, "I'm a sophomore in the economics department at P_______ University. My name is Katayama. There is no way to rebuild Japan except to rebuild industry. And southeast Asia is the place to sell Japan's products. Since Thailand is the only country in southeast Asia without a history of colonization, it is the only place Japan can penetrate, since we have no ties like those between the Philippines and the United States. In other words . . ."
"You want to engage in trade." The man on the platform reached this conclusion himself, and turned his gaze to me. I had to give him some reasonable-sounding reason.
"One language builds one world. I am interested in these individual worlds on earth. I'm in the literature department at L________ University-- Miura."
Both of them looked in silence for a moment, thinking I had more to say. Finally the man in khaki nodded and said, "In other words, self-cultivation." Then he added, "My name is Morikawa. I was in Thailand for nearly 10 years. I'm a director of this institute. If you two really do want to learn Thai, won't you come to my home? I'll teach you without any tuition."
When Katayama said, "But that wouldn't be . . ." Morikawa added "You can pay tuition if you want, but the amount from two won't make any difference."
Once again, Katayama asked me, "What shall we do?"
"Please take us on."
Since I had come to this class to get to know a person, not to know Thai, I preferred to learn in an individual's home rather than in a room with the atmosphere of a classroom-- the tuition was unimportant.
Morikawa set the days to meet, and left the room. Then Katayama stood up and came over to me. He stuck out his chest as he stuck out his hand to shake mine, but his grip-- with his thumb sticking straight up-- had a positive warmth and a friendly feeling. That evening I ate broiled eel on rice and drank cheap liquor in the shop of a Chinese acquaintance of Katayama's, and I got along with him quite well.
"This is an elephant. Mi chang. He is a Thai. Khao pen khon Thai."
The winter of 1946 was a cold one, and there were always power outages in the evenings. At such times, as we learned Thai crowded around a small electric heater in a dim room, the red glow of the spiral of nicrome wire would quickly disappear.
"Another power outage. What a nuisance! I haven't fixed dinner yet." When Morikawa made such a comment, Katayama would reply "Chan lambak choling na" in Thai without missing a beat. Forgetting the power outage, Morikawa would say "No, in this situation . . ." and we would return to the Thai language.
Katayama seemed to be crazy about Thai. He advanced much more rapidly than I did. There were no textbooks; our only study materials were our notes, but if we were taught something one day, he had it thoroughly learned the next. And he showed no restraint. As soon as he reached the door of Morikawa's home, he would call out in Thai, "Kou a bai." Morikawa lived in a house remodeled from a shed on a large farm in Setagaya. The house was surrounded by large zelkova trees, and the smell of manure drifted in from somewhere or other. Every time I saw Morikawa's house, I thought this is surely the kind of farm Doppo wrote about in Musashino. And so it was not that I was embarrassed to call out in Thai when I stood at his door, but that such a thing didn't occur to me. Katayama, however, had no such concern. And so, although it was purely practice, the Thai language seemed to be present as an extension of daily life for Katayama.
Consequently, there came to be a great difference between Katayama and myself in our scholastic ability, but I did not want to give up. When I used Thai in such expressions as "trying to escape the tiger, he ran into an alligator" or "don't ride the boat into the middle of the whirlpool," tropical scenes automatically came into my mind. The tiger's jungle, and the alligator's swamp. The climate that is hot year-round, and the river that flows whimsically through it. People living a primative life on small boats that could hardly cross the river. Within the cold, dark room with no electricity, I could see thick jungles across bright plains, or paddies filled with golden rice that grew like weeds.
At such times I felt I could glimpse the one world I had spoken of in the fire-scarred building in Kanda.
Returning from Thai class, Kateyama and I would walk along talking of inconsequential matters. Streetcars in the suburbs were always packed, and sometimes wouldn't come at all. When we didn't feel like standing around in the cold, we would often walk along the tracks.
One day Katayama abruptly asked, "What do you think of this Morikawa?"
"A former soldier, isn't he?" I remembered my first impression of his fine posture and the line of his shoulders and arms. And for some reason I added something I had imagined. "But he said he had been in Thailand since 1935, so he must have been some sort of spy. After the war started he may have worn an uniform and worked at headquarters, but before that he must have passed as a trading agent or something."
In fact, Morikawa had shown us pictures of Thailand before the war. He said the latest ones had been left behind when he had been repatriated; these were yellowed photos he had sent to Japan long ago. They depicted streets, roads, bridges and so forth, but they also included people as an excuse. In most cases, the people were Thai children, or Japanese men in white coats; not one showed Morikawa.
"For example, he could show a railroad in a photo and indicate the gauge by means of the height of a child, by writing "my son is growing quickly here, and is already XX centimeters." There's a lot of that in wartime spy novels."
Katayama listened in silence as I chatted in that tone, then asked, "What do you suppose he does now?"
"Now he doesn't do anything. When it becomes possible to engage in trade he'll do something with the help of people he knows in Thailand, so for now he's built that institute. "
Once I passed the fire-scarred building on the way home from school. The institute signboard was there as in the past, but the Thai language classes seemed to have changed into a western typing school; the clicking of typewriters could be heard from the second floor, and there was a flyer recruiting students on the door. When I mentioned that, Katayama was surprised, and asked, "You went to that building? What for?"
"I didn't go there. I just passed. Beside it." He looked relieved and changed the subject.
Nothing like that ever happened afterwards, and I soon forgot it, I suppose. That is, I eventually came to question Katayama's identity.
I had a younger cousin-- she went to college, but couldn't handle language studies, and was looking for a tutor. I laughed that she would still need a tutor going to college, but since my mother asked me to find someone good to help her, I introduced Katayama. During our Thai studies, I had learned that his English pronunciation was very good for a Japanese. One day my cousin wanted to talk to me.
"Katayama-san says he likes me, but something makes me uncomfortable."
"Why is that?"
"What kind of person is he?"
"An economics student at P_________ University."
"I know that-- where is he from?"
"Tokyo, I suppose."
"What about his parents?"
"I think they evacuated and haven't returned to Tokyo yet."
"Did Katayama-san say so?"
"No."
When I thought about it, I had never heard Katayama say anything about his family or his home town. Because he never spoke of a home town, and had no regional accent, and knew the geography of Tokyo, I had thought he was raised in Tokyo. I had not heard that he was living with his family; he was lodging with a family named Hisahara. I knew there were many cases where a student or worker returned to Tokyo while the rest of the family remained in the village to which they had evacuated.
"But is something wrong?"
"Lots of things. For instance, a while ago Katayama-san came while I was sitting near the piano, and he asked me to play something, so I tapped out just the melody of What Little Road is This, and Katayama-san said, 'That's a pretty tune. Is it a folk song from someplace?' At first I thought he was joking. There's no way he could be raised in Tokyo and not know that song."
Being a girl, my cousin was quite sensitive about any male who approached her. She said clearly that Katayama was a man of unknown background who made her uncomfortable. While I stood silent, she continued.
"Once I asked him straight out about his family. He showed me a copy of his family registery page and his matriculation papers. If someone asks me what school I go to, I say 'J______ Women's College,' but I don't show them my matriculation papers."
Pressed by this cousin, I promised to ascertain Katayama's identity. Thinking back on it, Katayama was probably flustered because he liked my cousin. Love is blind, and so he showed his true self to a woman.
I went to find Katayama's house. The address he had given me was in Nakano, a large mansion. It was not the Hisahara family, however; the nameplate had the character 'Hayashi.' It was the only residence at that address.
When I asked someone in the neighborhood, I learned that it was the house of a Chinese general. The character was the Chinese name 'Lin' rather than the Japanese 'Hayashi.' The nameplate at the gate had two telephone numbers on it, and one of them was definitely what Katayama had given me as the number of the Hisahara family.
I returned home and telephoned that number. "Is this Hisahara-san? May I please speak to Katayama-kun?"
A moment later: "Oh, it's you. What is it?"
I stated the weak pretext that I would not be going to Thai class the next day, and hung up. It was certain that Katayama was living in the house of a Chinese general named Lin.
Returning from Morikawa's house the next time we went, I abruptly asked Katayama, "Are you a spy from somewhere?"
Katayama did not appear to be taken aback. He pulled some crumpled cigarettes from his pocket, and offered me one. I struck a match, and when I lit his cigarette, Katayama thanked me in Thai: "Khob jay."
"To tell the truth, I was asked by my cousin to think about you, and I did some checking. That's why I was talking about children's games a while ago. I knew then that when you were a child you were not in Japan. Or at least you didn't grow up with Japanese children. But you have a fine Japanese nationality. You even have a copy of your family registry. And now you live in a Chinese General's house. I suppose 'Hisahara' is the name of the caretaker or something. You must be learning Thai partly for the purpose of looking into the nature of the Asian Issues Institute, which is run by former soldiers."
Katayama carefully put out his cigarette, placed it in his pocket, and began walking.
"That's as good a story as any. As you say, I was raised in China. This Lin is an acquaintance from that period. My parents have not yet been repatriated from the continent. That's all."
"But wouldn't General Lin have been executed after the war if he were friendly with Japanese?"
"China is a complicated place," Katayama said with a sigh.
"Then, you're not a spy?"
"Aren't you the one who was looking into my situation at your cousin's request?" Katayama said with a laugh. I felt that the grounds for my doubts about him had disappeared almost entirely. It was impossible, however, to ignore my cousin's feminine intuition about this "man of unknown background." If asked a question, Katayama would give reasonable, apparently truthful explanations, but he never took the initiative to confide anything until I became curious and asked him.
However, he apparently was seriously considering marriage to my cousin, and enthusiastically informed me that after graduation he intended to make the most of his Chinese and English capability by using an introduction from General Lin to enter a company that sold trade-related information to Chinese.
"It seems to be a very well-known company in China. And the salary is good. A Japanese civil servant with a base salary of 6,000 yen has a starting salary of less than 5,000 yen. In this company they say I'd make 25,000 yen."
He seemed to be trying to impress me with what a solid job he had in mind, but, perhaps thinking that by trying too hard to look upright, he would actually made me suspicious, he asked me something as lightly as if he were asking how to get somewhere.
"General Lin asked me this, but do you know about a group of hunters called the White Deer Society?"
"I'd just as soon not know, but the deer is an ancient symbol for the government in power, and there are lots of expelled politicians in the society. Therefore . . ."
I don't know whether Katayama truly did not know of the group, but he was well-versed in many political incidents that were not published in the newspapers. A single social problem or a crime became, in his hands, the spark of a political strategy. I certainly was interested in this romantic aspect of Katayama, but beyond that I was impressed with him as a person. From the first time I saw him stick out his hand to shake, with his thumb pointed straight up, I had thought of him as a refreshing, bright-spirited youth. If you think of a spy as a skulking man in dark glasses, he certainly did not have the character of a spy. Compared with the young men of Japan at that time, with their rounded shoulders and shuffling feet, their faces turned away from the girls their age being embraced by American soldiers, he seemed to me to look the way young men should look. Japanese students in general naturally thought of nothing beyond that night's supper and boring lecture notes-- Katayama, on the other hand, had so much interest in the fate of Japan and developments in east Asia that it was quite conceivable that he was doing spy work. Under the influence of Katayama, I began to analyze and discuss Japanese politics, as though I were observing phenomena in a separate world.
The new year came, and the general strike scheduled for February 1st became the major social topic. When I went to school, my friends talked of the strike as though it were an approaching festival. This was not discussion of whether there would be a general strike, but rather happy chatter about what would happen when the streetcars and government offices, the electricity and water all stopped working. Fliers were pasted up on the wall of the school cafeteria calling for support for the general strike, and when you went to a table to eat, before your eyes were folded paper tents on which were written various crimes and anti-democratic acts committed by "the big white man." The brave ones among my friends were not the readers of these fliers, but became writers. In the classroom they would grab negative elements like me and try to embolden us by saying, "The general strike is a blow against the ruling class and the American capitalists. Yesterday we went to the Nittsu union, but they . . ."
Evn though I heard such talk at school, I could not go with them. Their zeal-- their intoxicated tone-- somehow made me think of the way Japan's leaders talked during the war. It resembled analysis of the current situation, but in fact it was no more than a jumble of wishful thinking and a pessimistic outlook. Katayama treated Prime Minister Yoshida and General MacArthur as trump cards. He did not call out with a voice full of hate like my friends at school. Consequently, I thought Katayama was smarter-- that because he was calm and objective, his analysis was more reliable. Moreover, Katayama had information that was not printed in the newspapers, and which was unknown to ordinary students; at times he shared this with me, and asked my views on it.
One evening at the end of January, 1947, Katayama came to my house. I don't know how he got it, but he brought a large cod and some sake.
"I got it as a souvenir from someone who came down from Akita. I thought we could make some tarachiri."(1)
Despite saying this, he didn't seem to like the cod much. As he sipped at the sake, he reported that, in the end, things had not worked out with my cousin. And he mumbled words to the effect of, "It's okay, though. I'm not the dangerous sort of man that you imagine. If I'm dangerous, then special correspondents for newspapers are all spies."
Eventually, though, his conversation turned to the pressing warfare between the Chinese communists and the Nationalist army on the continent. Marshall had given up on mediation between the two armies, and the communists had rejected talks with the Nationalist government in Nanking. I knew that much from the newspapers, but Katayama seemed to be trying to tie it in with the general strike. The names of unfamiliar Chinese generals like Ma Funki and P'u Ts'oi were liberally sprinkled through his comments. Listening to Katayama's stories, I didn't think of them as incidents in our present world. The images that came to me were Moslem armies waving their spears and firing their guns as they charged across the grasslands toward a red sun, and Chinese communist soldiers carrying old Japanese army rifles and wearing anorak-like uniforms, scattered across the dunes.
"In any case, if the communists lack confidence they will negotiate, and if they have confidence they will cut off talks and move their troops. Its the same as with guerrillas-- it the enemy is strong they are quiet. If he is weak they attack. Therefore, they can occupy at least down to the Yellow River. Will the U.S. military allow a general strike in Japan at a time like this?"
That day Katayama and I both got pretty drunk. We sang songs, talked about women, talked about the February 1st strike, talked about movies, or shifted the topic to the war on the continent. Finally Katayama peered at his wristwatch and said, "Well, I'd better go home. By the way, are you still going to Morikawa's?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Nothing. But I'll be busy with a part-time job for a while, so I've decided to give up Thai."
"You're quitting?"
"Yeah. Give my regards to Morikawa sensei."
Katayama stood up, with a sway. His purpose in coming to my home wasn't really clear. Did he want to be consoled over his failed romance with my cousin? Had he come to warn me not to get involved in the February 1st strike because it was sure to fail? Or had he come to inform me that he would stop studying Thai? I didn't understand his purpose, but it did seem clear that he had come to say goodbye to me.
I escorted him along the unlighted road as far as the station.
"Well, take care of yourself. The weather is still cold."
Katayama laughed, as though a little confused.
"Yeah. Thanks," he said, and stuck out his hand with the thumb straight up, as at our first meeting.
A few days later I tried telephoning his house, just to see. "Is this Hisahara-san? Is Katayama-kun there?"
"Katayama-san, he changed logings recently."
The new address for Katayama that Hisahara gave me was my house. That was not necessarily a lie on Hisahara's part-- in April a postcard to Katayama from the Administration Department at P____________ University showed up in the mailbox at my house.
The postcard remained in a drawer of my desk for a long time. I didn't know where Katayama was, but before long the fighting on the continent developed as he had predicted. There was no February 1st strike, either. I had no friends, however, with whom I discussed these matters. Before much longer, I stopped studying the Thai language. Without Katayama, Morikawa lost his aura as a former special agent, and became just another repatriate.
Several years went by without any word from Katayama, and I began to forget about him. More than that, I lost interest in events that occurred around me. The Chinese communists took control of the Chinese mainland. The Korean war began. Japan concluded a peace treaty. I had no power to discern what thread connected these events. And so I was unable to take positive action against these things or to burn with emotion like some of my friends. This was not a course I planned on the basis of some expectation or other; I felt that to act without such an expectation would be like brandishing a sword while blindfolded.
Listening to Katayama talk, all events were manipulated from behind the scenes, things which were at first glance unrelated were tied together, and things that looked alike were in fact completely different. Although Katayama's words seemed wild at first, with the passage of time they were often found to be more correct than the views of politicians published in the newspapers or the opinions of scholars found in magazines. For that reason, even though I had no evidence at all, I believed that he was engaged in special work. With Katayama gone, I was cut off from the spring from which I obtained information, and felt that I was caught in a wave that moved by forces I could not understand myself.
I decided to write stories. And then I chanced to be invited to join a certain writers' magazine. The lineup of writers was not just newcomers, but ranged from authors who could be considered established to newcomers and unknowns. And so, as the magazine steadily expanded, it came to have a membership that could do big jobs. When I tried participating, however, I got nothing but political education. Rather than education, perhaps it should be called propaganda.
In their hands, society was as simple as in a children's story, and it was possible to clearly distinguish the good people from the bad. Moreover, if I skipped a meeting, they sent me an attendence list of all members. On this was printed how many meetings I had missed.
Being in this group became painful and I stopped attending the meetings, but I did meet a number of friends through this writers' magazine. Naito was one of these.
It's not that we liked each other so much, but perhaps I sympathized with his expression as he would stare at the ceiling with a perplexed look during the political education sessions. And so, after the political education I would talk with Naito about food and women.
One day I got a phone call inviting me to a real Kansai-style okonomiyaki shop in Asakusa, where he lived. I went to Asakusa and ate okonomiyaki with him, shut up for a long time in a three-mat room. Naito never tired of stories from middle school of going to okonomiyaki shops and idling away long hours with school girls there.(2)
When we left the shop that evening and I parted from Naito, a had a slight headache, perhaps from sitting so long by the burning charcoal. The sky was overcast, and the streets had a dreary look. Things felt dusty and dry and I was irritated for some reason.
I noticed policemen at the corner, but somehow I was not interested. All the houses had their radios tuned to what must have been the 5 o'clock news. I heard words here and there: "May Day . . . casualties . . . Imperial Plaza . . . police units . . . demonstrators . . . government . . ." Was today May Day, I wondered. I couldn't say I hadn't known, since I had certainly seen the newspaper. But I had gotten to the point that I paid no attention to such matters, and only looked at the obituary column at the bottom of the social issues page. So while I was exchanging old stories of school girls with Naito, I had completely forgotten about May Day. While numerous youth were at the plaza, shouting, running and being wounded, we were droning on about girls' downy cheeks and bodies with the smell of dried grass. This seemed inexcusable to me. That doesn't mean I didn't consider them foolish, however. I thought that among the members of the writers' magazine Naito and I belonged to, there probably some in the midst of the dust and screams in the Imperial Plaza
I was uneasy. It was a feeling that the world was changing, and I didn't know where I was. I didn't know how to relate the fact that many people were injured on May Day to the fact that I had spent all day in an okonomiyaki shop. I remembered Katayama for the first time in a long time. In an era when the youth of Japan were either listless or hysterical, he stood with his back straight, confidently offering the world his hand, with his thumb sticking straight up. I had never met a friend like that other than Katayama. During the war a member of my high school class had been taken by an army unit, made a cadet, and returned to school. He had a reserved, unobtrusive smile, and there was a sense that he had seen the war straight on. I thought that since my own friends had gone into an army unit like that, I would have to stop criticizing soldiers as criminals and treating warfare with contempt.
When I got back home, I gathered up the newspapers and tried to use the method Katayama had taught me to look over the small news items and determine the general situation.
However, when I had been with Katayama, he held the key, and could show me how to put together numerous news items-- now that key was missing. I just made a useless pile of news items that could not be coordinated.
When I went to a meeting of the writers' magazine, there were indeed heroes who had attacked the plaza, and tales of distinguished service. However, these heroes were not refreshing like Katayama and the classmate who had become a cadet; I felt they were just putting pressure on those like me who had not participated in the demonstration.
After things had settled down from the May Day arrests, Katayama showed up with no warning. I was out on the veranda of my room, looking at a wisteria vine with leaves spreading all over, and thinking I would cut it at the root.
The wisteria trellis had been destroyed when an air raid bunker was dug during the final period of the war; since that time the wisteria had begun to sprawl, and had wound out to the ends of the branches of the trees nearby. The plums, the camellias and the oaks all had wisteria leaves peeking out between their own leaves. And so the sight of clusters of violet wisteria flowers dangling from the cedar branches was one that made me unduly angry. That is, the wisteria was enclosing all the trees of the garden in a net; its trunk and branches were choking them like a snake, and vines looking like sickles on thin tentacles were reaching up at the blue sky as if asking for something more.
At the bottom of all this, however, was a single wisteria trunk the diameter of my calf. Once I cut that, the tentacles would wither, the flowers would fall, and the arms choking the other trees would dry up where they were. The gloomy garden trying to put forth new leaves would surely become bright and refreshing, I thought.
"It's been a while . . ." When I raised my head, Katayama was standing at the gate. He was smiling amiably, as at our first meeting.
"It's been a while . . ." I repeated. Katayama came through the gate and sat on the veranda beside me.
"That's quite a wisteria tree, isn't it." I thought he was looking at the garden too, but he was sitting, nearly asleep, with his head stuck between his knees.
"Are you tired?"
"Yeah. I'm sorry, but can I sleep here?"
I showed him my own bed, and he fell on it, looking as if he'd never wake. I looked over at his face occasionally. He was sound asleep, as if drugged, but with deep, healthy breathing.
That night while I was reading a book, Katayama got up to go to the toilet, and then peered at my wrist watch through sleepy eyes.
"What time is it now?"
"Ten."
"I've only slept six hours. I'll take another nap."
It was 9 o'clock the following morning before Katayama was fully awake. I brought him some cold miso soup with pickles and a raw egg. His temples twitched, and he packed the food in almost automatically. He seemed to be fiercely hungry, since he had missed dinner the night before.
Finally Katayama reclined beside me, head propped on a rolled futon, and had a leisurely cigarette while looking up at the sky. He suddenly began speaking, without mentioning the nearly five years that we had been out of touch.
"Japanese often think it is due to the emperor that things were arranged without great bloodshed at the time of the defeat. If you listen to the right wing, it's because he was stingy with blood that we are not free, though. But now that's the way it is-- Japan's reconstruction and peace are thanks to the emperor."
This was not the way Katayama usually talked. His style was more like, "This hasn't shown up in the newspapers, but yesterday an office affiliated with North Korea was attacked by the South Korean Youth Corps. There will be a raid in Ameya Yokocho in retaliation. The way this all ties in is that . . ."
In other words, it was like the saying "When the wind blows, the tub-maker profits.".(3) The logical thread wasn't all that strong, but because fact was piled on fact in a systematic order, his words came to have an overwhelming aura of truth for me. This time Katayama may not have had that much confidence in his own words-- he pressed his lips together and was silent a moment.
"When we speak of a puppet regime, once it has been created, it is hard for the puppeteer to lay it aside. If he creates another puppet, the abandoned puppet is likely to reveal all the secret dealings between itself and the puppeteer. Therefore, the puppet becomes corrupt, like the Rhee regime in South Korea. If it toppled Rhee, America would endanger its own position. But not in Japan's case, because of the emperor. That creates a number of safety valves, and no chance of corruption. Even though the cabinet changes, as long as there is no change of regime in the sense of the emperor quitting, America doesn't have to worry. The emperor is like the eye of the typhoon; no matter how fast the winds swirl around it, the center is calm. And South Korea isn't the only thing that is unstable. It's the same in Taiwan, and in the Philippines . . ."
"Have you been in southeast Asia?"
Katayama stared hard at my face. He did not disguise his expression, which seemed to be criticizing me, or rebuking my rudeness.
"There was a group that entered the Imperial Plaza on May Day, but some of them penetrated to the Double Bridge. There is a barrier, painted white, at this end of the bridge. They couldn't get past it, but they were able to move it. At one point, they managed to push it down, although eventually it was erected again. It's that important, you see. That is, the group that attacked the double bridge was itself revolutionary. It's just like praying for good forturne in war at that location ten years ago. They waved the red banner in front of the Double Bridge. They couldn't create anything except a Japanese democratic monarchy. Those Japanese . . ."
Katayama's words made it sound like he wasn't Japanese himself. Besides that, I wondered just where he had watched this scene from. The only spots that command that view are inside the Imperial Palace or a rooftop near the Marunouchi Building. In any case, he couldn't have been in the middle of the angry slogans and dust of the Imperial Plaza at that time.
I got out a saw, and began to cut the trunk of the wisteria. Every plant in the garden trembled with the sound of the sawing. Katayama, still stretched out on the veranda, watched me work.
He still seemed to be tired, despite all that sleep. That's why I wasn't worried that, unlike his usual self, he only spoke in abstractions.
"How about it? Will you come join the trade research company where I work? You can go to southeast Asia, if that's what you want, and the pay is good too."
Katayama called out from the veranda. I had still sold only two or three stories, and worked as a teacher, but it was part-time work, and not enough to make a living. Still I did not find Katayama's work attractive, like five years earlier.
"But I wouldn't like not knowing whether my work would be used or not."
"I know. At least, I know the results of my own acts more clearly than one vote in an election, or participating in a demonstration.
"It must be dangerous."
"If you want to do it safely, there are safe methods too. For example, to say that there are no bridges in Japan that could support a heavy tank is a piece of military information, but there's nothing particularly secret about asking what the capacity of the big Tama River bridge is."
"Can you conduct trade with that kind of news?"
"No, no. You're just trying to change the meaning of what I said. Anyway, things that mean nothing to ordinary people are of great significance to scholars, to artists, and to merchants."
I had cut through the 20 centimeters of wisteria trunk. But because it was wrapped around the other trees, the wisteria was suspended in air, and seemed to feel no more than if one cluster of flowers had been cut off. In two or three days, though, the leaves and flowers would wither, and the ends of the vines would be hanging limp.
"I'm just not interested in your job." When I said that he half sat up, and looked at what I was doing.
"What are you doing?"
"This wisteria is winding around the other trees and choking them, so I'm cutting it off. A wisteria is a kind of parasite. It can't support itself."
Katayama blinked, and looked at the wisteria trunk as though it were the leg of an animal I had cut off.
When evening came, Katayama said, "I'm between lodgings right now. I'll let you know when I'm settled. By the way, how's your beautiful cousin?"
"She's married."
I recalled the face of my cousin, who had married an office worker three years earlier, and had recently given birth to a baby. "She's gotten plump. Just like Mr. Moon."
Katayama looked at the sky with narrowed eyes, as though doing mental calculations.
"Well, see you later."
Katayama never came to my house again. However, I did meet him, just recently. I was about to walk across the crosswalk at an intersection in Shinjuku. Just then I realized that the driver of a car waiting for the light to turn green was Katayama. He was chewing on a matchstick as if bored, and watching the pedestrians straight ahead of him. He seemed much older, and the hair at his temples had already turned white. His face was wrinkled; he had the appearance of a tight-fisted moneylender. I stood at the edge of the crosswalk, and tried to yell to him. Perhaps feeling my gaze, Katayama suddenly looked up and saw me. A smile came to his face. But at that instant the light turned green; expecting the cars behind him to honk their horns, Katayama started his car forward.
Halfway across the intersection Katayama's car pulled to the side, the speed dropped as though to indicate the driver's indecision, and the brake lights went on. But the car didn't stop; it sped up again and disappeared in the flow of traffic.
Katayama may have decided that I was someone with whom he no longer had any ties. When I thought about it, I felt the same way. That is, if I met him now, I would like to hear behind-the-scenes stories about Japan and southeast Asia even though I wouldn't know if they were true or false. But just as there was no good way to relate the bloodshed on the plaza to me in the okonomiyaki shop on May Day over ten years ago, I could now find no links between the news Katayama would give me and my life. It was, perhaps, because of my youth that immediately after we lost the war I believed society and politics and their manipulation were things within my reach. Or perhaps it was just that kind of era.
Katayama had become a mouse-like middle-aged man, not the refreshing youth of long ago, but he was probably following the same road as 20 years earlier. That is why he and I no longer had anything to talk about today.
I am not the only one that has changed, however. That is what I wanted to think. I have relatives near the place where Katayama and I went to study Thai nearly 20 years ago, and I go by there often. New roads, factories, apartment buildings and residences have been built, and I can no longer say where the rows of zelkova trees were located, much less the farm shed where Morikawa lived.
Perhaps, just as Peter Pan could not be seen by adults who had settled down, I have become unable to see Katayama, or Morikawa's house, or General Lin's house. But no, it's not just that Peter Pan has become invisible to the adult me. I have begun to think that Katayama was not a spy to start with; and that that was only a pose he took with me.
2. Three mats is about six square yards. In this case there is a charcoal brazier in the middle to heat a sheet metal grill-- not roomy, but a private dining room in a society where privacy is not that common. It's hard to find a description of okonomiyaki that doesn't use the word "pancake", but any resemblence between the two is strictly technical. I think of it as somewhere between a crepe and an omelette, really stuffed. The basics are a little batter, lots of cabbage, your choice (okonomi) of meats, seafoods etc. and various sauces. Kansai okonomiyaki is not as doughy as the Tokyo variety. Hiroshima style involves lots of yakisoba noodles and a fried egg as well.
As of 27 May 1997, okonomiyaki recipes could be found at the following sites:
Japanese cuisine - okonomiyaki
Ukyou's Okonomiyaki(an anime reference)
GUIDE TO JAPAN: Okonomiyaki Recipe
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3. The point of the saying is the frailty of the logic. Thus:
A man moved to Edo and, seeing how windy it was, decided to become a tub maker. When a friend asked him why, he explained, "With all this wind, there is lots of dust in the air, and many people must lose their eyesight. With so many blind men, there must be a high demand for samisens. [The fact that blind men work as masseurs and samisen players is too obvious to mention here.] If all the cats get skinned to make samisens, there's nothing to hold down the mouse population. Obviously people need wooden tubs to protect their belongings from all the mice."
Q.E.D. Remember this next time you're looking for work in Chicago.
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