Something Like an Autobiography (5 page)

Whether this lack of distinctness is due to the passage of so much time, or whether it has something to do with my personality, I can’t tell. Whatever the cause, it requires a special effort for me to recall the detailed characteristics of these two boys. I have to do something equivalent to removing the wide-angle lens from the camera and replacing it with a telephoto lens, then looking once again through the viewfinder. And even this isn’t enough. I need to concentrate all my lights on these two boys and stop down the lens so as to record them clearly.

Well, then, looking at Uekusa Keinosuke through my telephoto lens, I now see that, like me, he was someone who differed from the rest of the students at Kuroda Primary School. Even his clothes were different: he wore some kind of silk-like flowing material, and his hakama trousers weren’t the usual duck cloth, but a soft fabric. The overall impression was that of a stage actor’s child. He was like a miniature player of lover-boy roles, the kind you can knock over with one punch.

Speaking of knocking him over with one punch, Uekusa the primary-school student was always falling down and crying. I remember him falling once on a stretch of bad road and ruining his fancy
clothes. I accompanied him as he cried all the way home. Another time, at a track meet, he fell in a mud puddle and turned his sparkling white athletic outfit pitch black; I had to try to comfort him while he blubbered.

The saying goes that birds of a feather flock together. Crybaby Uekusa and I felt something in common; we were drawn to each other, and soon we were playing together continually. Gradually I came to treat Uekusa the way my older brother had treated me.

Our relations are very frankly described in the passage about the track meet in Uekusa’s novel. Once Uekusa, who always came in last in any race, for some inexplicable reason was running in second place. I rushed up behind and shouted, “Good! Good! Come on, come on!” Together we ran the last stretch and leaped across the finish line into the open arms of the beaming Mr. Tachikawa.

When the meet was over, we took our prizes—colored pencils or paints or whatever—and went to see Uekusa’s mother on her sickbed. She cried tears of joy and kept thanking me on her son’s behalf. But, looking back on it all now, I am the one who should have been saying “Thank you,” because while this weakling Uekusa made me feel protective toward him, I somehow at the same time became someone the school bully could no longer push around.

Mr. Tachikawa seems to have looked favorably on our friendship. He once called me in for consultation as the class president and asked me what I thought of appointing a vice president. Thinking this meant I had been doing a poor job as president, I fell into a dark silence. Mr. Tachikawa studied my expression and asked whom I would recommend. I named one of the best students in the class. Mr. Tachikawa said that he would prefer to try putting a less impressive student in that position. I stared at him in surprise. He went on to say with a big smile that if we put someone who was not very good in the job now, that person would be sure to shape up and prove worthy. Then, addressing me as my classmates did, he said, “So, Kuro-chan, what do you say to making Uekusa vice president?” At this point I became painfully aware of the warmth of Mr. Tathikawa’s feeling toward us.

Deeply moved, I stood staring at him. “Fine,” he announced, “it’s all settled, then.” He slapped me on the shoulder and with a grin told me to go and tell Uekusa’s mother straightaway; he knew she’d be happy. As he walked away, there seemed to be a kind of halo around his head.

From this time on, Uekusa wore a silver badge with a red ribbon on his chest, and in both the classroom and the schoolyard he was always at my side. Recognition of him as vice president of the class
was instantaneous. It was as if he had been planted in the flower pot of the class vice presidency and placed in full sun. He began to bloom. Mr. Tachikawa had referred to him as “not very good” in a way that may sound disparaging, but in reality I think he had observed the talent that lay dormant within Uekusa.

IN TERMS OF
intelligence, my brother and I were about ten years apart, but in reality our ages differed by only four years. So when I suddenly began to become less of a baby and more of a little boy, as I started the third grade in primary school, my brother was just entering middle school. At this point, an event no one could have imagined took place.

As I have already mentioned, my brother was a brilliant student. When he was in the fifth grade, he placed third on the academic-ability examination given to all primary-school students in the city of Tokyo. When he was in the sixth grade, he placed first. However, when he took the entrance examination for the top-ranking state middle school, which would have sent him on to the First High School and eventually to Tokyo Imperial University, he failed.

This incident was like a nightmare for the entire household, from my father on down. I remember the strange atmosphere that took hold at home. It was as if a sudden whirlwind had passed through, tearing things apart. My father sat staring vacantly into space, my mother wandered aimlessly around the house and my older sisters spoke softly among themselves and averted their gaze from my brother. Even I experienced a feeling of irrational rage and mortification over this event.

(I still can’t understand why he failed that entrance examination. He had never had any difficulty with exam questions before, and after this test he seemed to be full of his usual confidence. There are only two explanations I can think of: One is that, in the final selection process, preference was given to the children of alumni; the other is that in the oral-interview part of the examination my conceited and
individualistic brother responded in a way that could not be measured by their testing standards.)

Oddly enough, I have no recollection of my brother’s mood or behavior at this time. Probably he assumed his usual detached air, but I’m sure this incident was a terrible shock for him too, underneath it all. The evidence for my suspicions lies in the fact that immediately afterward, his personality changed suddenly and dramatically.

At my father’s suggestion, he entered the Seijo Middle School in Wakamatsu-cho, Tokyo. This school was very much like a military academy, and I believe my brother reacted against the regimentation. In any case, he now seemed to be willing to throw his academic career to the winds, for he developed a passionate addiction to literature. Confrontations between my brother and my father became frequent.

My father had been in the first graduating class of the Imperial Army’s Toyama Academy and had subsequently become a teacher. He was so remarkable a teacher that some of his students had advanced to the rank of general; and his educational principles were terribly spartan. It was inevitable that he would come into direct conflict with my brother, who was becoming infatuated with ideas gleaned from foreign literature.

Unable to understand such a rift between father and son, all I could do was look on sadly. But just as this desolating wind overtook my home, yet another cold gust of change began to blow.

My oldest sister’s child is the same age as I am, which means that when I was born, this sister had already left home to be married. My oldest brother is also much older than I, so by the time I was becoming a mentally and physically aware human being, he had long since left home and I saw him only very rarely. My second oldest brother died of illness as a child before I was born. So the siblings I actually grew up with consisted of the older brother I have been writing about and three of my older sisters. I was the youngest member of the family.

All of my sisters have the character meaning “generation” or “representative,” pronounced “yo,” at the end of their names. Beginning with the oldest who had already left home, they are Shigeyo, Haruyo, Taneyo and Momoyo. But I always addressed my sisters at home according to their ages, so for me these three were “Big Sister,” “Middle Big Sister” and “Little Big Sister.” As I mentioned earlier, my brother would have nothing to do with me, so I always played with my sisters. (I’m still good at playing patty-cake and cat’s cradle. When I demonstrate these skills to my current acquaintances or motion-picture
crew, I invariably draw a surprised reaction. I’m sure they will be much more surprised to read about my “Konbeto-san” period.)

The sister I spent the most time with was “Little Big Sister.” I remember very clearly one time when we were playing at the school where my father taught in the Ōmori district. We were in a funnel-shaped corner and suddenly a twirling gust of wind lifted the two of us, clutching at each other, into space. We floated in the air a moment and the next second crashed to the ground. I cried all the way home, grasping her hand tightly in mine as we ran.

When I was in the fourth grade, this dear sister of mine became ill. Quite suddenly, as if touched by a swift, evil wind, she died. I can never forget the forlorn smile on her face when we went to visit her in the Juntendo Hospital.

Nor can I forget playing with her at the time of the Doll Festival on March 3. In my family we had an heirloom set of festival dolls representing the Emperor and Empress. We also had the three court ladies, five court musicians, an Urashima Taro (a kind of underwater Rip Van Winkle who took a ride on a tortoise and came home an old man) and a court lady with a Pekinese dog on a leash. There were two pairs of gold folding screens, two lanterns and five little gold lacquer trays complete with the tiny dishes and utensils for ceremonial meals. There was even a silver brazier small enough to fit in the palm of my hand.

With the lights turned out, soft gleams from the lantern candles in the darkened room fell on the dolls arranged on their five-tier stand of scarlet wool felt. In the eerie glow they seemed so lifelike as to start speaking at any moment, and this exquisite beauty was just a little bit frightening to me. Little Big Sister would call me over to sit before the doll display, put one of the trays in front of me and proffer the brazier. She would treat me to a fraction of a thimbleful of sweet white saké in one of the tiny doll-sized cups.

Little Big Sister was the prettiest of my three sisters who lived at home, and she was almost too gentle and kind. Her beauty was something of a glass-like transparency, delicate and fragile, offering no resistance. When my brother fell off the balance beams and injured his head at school, it was this sister who sobbed and said she wanted to die in his place. Even as I write about her now, my eyes burn with tears and I keep having to blow my nose.

The day her funeral was held, the whole family and all our relatives gathered at the main hall of the Buddhist temple to listen to the priests recite sutras. When the recitation became quite noisy, as they all chimed in with the wooden drum and the gong sounding, I suddenly
broke into peals of laughter. Much as my father, mother and sisters glared at me, I couldn’t stop laughing. My brother led me outside, still laughing. I was prepared for a terrific scolding. But my brother did not seem in the least angry. Nor did he leave me out in front and return to the ceremony in the main hall as I expected him to do. Instead, he turned and looked back toward the loud proceedings and said, “Akira, let’s get farther away.” He set out briskly across the paving stones toward the temple gate.

As he forged ahead, he spat out the word “Idiotic!” and I was happy. The reason I had started laughing was that I felt the same way. To me, the whole thing was absurdly funny. When I heard my brother’s opinion, I felt relieved. I wondered if my sister would be at all consoled by that ceremony in the main hall. She died at the age of sixteen. For some strange reason, I remember the Buddhist name she received after death in its entirety: To Rin Tei Kō Shin Nyo. (“Peach Forest Righteous Sunbeam Sincerity Woman”).

IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS
of the Taishō era, kendō swordsmanship was added to the regular curriculum beginning in the fifth grade. It was a two-hour-a-week class, beginning with instruction in wielding bamboo swords. Then we learned how to parry and thrust, and finally we put on the old, sweaty fencing outfits that had been in the school for generations and embarked on real contests—best two out of three.