To the Spring Equinox and Beyond (5 page)

My sudden disappearance must have surprised you, I dare say. If not you, certainly the Marten and the Owl. [Morimoto had been in the habit of calling the landlord and his wife by these nicknames.] Frankly, I was somewhat in arrears with my rent. I thought if I told them my intentions, they would make things difficult, so I said nothing and acted on my own. The things I left in my room—clothing and other items all packed in a wicker trunk—will, I hope, bring them a considerable sum when they are disposed of. Please tell them they can sell these things or use them in whatever way they wish. But the Marten—you know what an old fox he is—may have already done whatever he wished without my permission. Furthermore, made bold by peaceful attitude, he may, I fear, get you into trouble by asking you, quite preposterously, to make up for the loss of my rent. In that case, take no heed of what he says. Beware of fellows such as the Marten who attempt to prey on persons like you who have emerged into the world fresh from seats of learning. Uneducated though I am, I know how bad it is to bolt without paying one's debts. I really intend to pay up this coming spring. I'll feel very sad if my odd career has led you to doubt my honesty, for it would mean to me the loss of a dear friend. Therefore, let there be no misunderstanding because of what fellows like the Marten say about me.

Morimoto next stated that he was employed as caretaker of the amusement grounds of the Electric Park in Dairen and that he would be in Tokyo next spring to buy some motion pictures, so he was looking forward to seeing Keitaro after this long absence. After that bit of news he cheerfully added a brief description of the various places in Manchuria he had visited. What surprised Keitaro most among these was the scene of a gambling den in Changchun. It was run by a Japanese who had once been captain of a band of bandits on horseback. Hundreds of begrimed Chinese were bustling and jostling there, all with frantic eyes, all emitting some sort of stench. The place was often secretly resorted to by wealthy townspeople deliberately clad in dirty garb. Keitaro thought that Morimoto as well had done heaven knows what there.

Near the end of the letter Morimoto wrote about a bonsai:

That potted plum in my room is one I bought from a gardener at Dozaka. Though the tree is not very old yet, it's perfectly suitable for being looked at morning and evening on a boardinghouse windowsill. I want to present it to you as a gift, so please take it to your room. But the tree may have perished in my alcove, untended by people deficient in artistic taste. My cane at least must be in the umbrella stand on the dirt floor at the entrance. It isn't a very good cane in terms of value, but as it was one I habitually used, it's my wish that you accept it as a token from me. Even the Marten and Owl won't object to your taking it. Don't be shy. Just take it and use it.

Manchuria is an agreeable spot to live in, especially Dairen. At least for the present, there's hardly any area better where a promising youth like yourself can realize some great expectation. Why not come and live here? If you are so disposed, I think I can take care of you, for since my arrival I've become acquainted with many persons in the Manchurian Railway Company. If you do come, please don't forget to write before you start out. Sayonara.

Keitaro folded the papers and put them into his desk drawer. But neither to the landlord nor his wife did he say anything about Morimoto's letter. The cane remained in the umbrella stand. Each time Keitaro left the house and returned, he saw it and had a queer sort of feeling about it.

  At the Streetcar Stop

Keitaro's friend Sunaga was a soldier's son who nevertheless detested the military. He had majored in law, yet had no interest in civil service or business. He was a rather backward type, at least he seemed so to Keitaro. The father, Keitaro had heard, had been dead these many years, leaving Sunaga and his mother to live an apparently lonely yet tasteful life together. His father had not only reached the high position of army paymaster, but was clever at accumulating funds, so that even now his wife and son were well-off and had none of those discomforts that come with making a living. Sunaga's tendency to lead a retired life was probably half due to the security in which he had been raised, and perhaps it resulted in depriving him of the stimulus of self-exertion. This was shown by the fact that when some of his respectable and helpful relatives were ready, out of respect for the elevated position of his deceased father, to offer help in placing Sunaga in a position that promised a successful career, he remained willful, indulging himself by finding fault with the posts offered and remaining undecided about the course of his life.

"You're too particular. And you're wasting some good opportunities. If you don't like the jobs, at least hand one over to me," Keitaro occasionally importuned Sunaga, half in jest. Sunaga would refuse with a slight smile of sorrow and pity, saying, "Well, unfortunately, they're not being offered to you." Even while knowing he had asked in jest, Keitaro was not pleased by the rejection. His pride flared up, and he told himself he would do everything alone. Still, his temperament was not one that adhered that much to a triviality to maintain any lasting antagonism toward his friend. Furthermore, with his own position still undecided and with no real connections to fall back on, Keitaro could not bear the dreariness of sitting in his boardinghouse room from morning till night. Even when he had nothing to do, he went out for at least half the day and often visited Sunaga. For one thing, Keitaro found it worth going because his friend was seldom out no matter what the hour.

"A job," Keitaro once said to Sunaga, "is of course important, but what I want, even before that, is to come across some event worthy of wonder. Yet no matter how often I ride the streetcars around the city, nothing turns up. I haven't even had my pocket picked yet!" On another occasion he sighed in regret, "I first thought education was a right, but actually I've found it a kind of yoke. Where's the right when after graduating from a university, you can't even find the means of making a living? On the other hand, can we disregard our university status and do as we wish? Definitely not! It restricts us horribly, this education of ours."

Sunaga seemed unsympathetic to both of Keitaro's complaints. In the first place, Keitaro's way of speaking made it difficult for him to know whether his friend was being serious or merely jesting. After one such vehement speech on these fantastic ideas, Sunaga asked in reply, "Well, aside from the question of making a living, what is it you want most?"

Keitaro replied that he wished to do what detectives in the Metropolitan Police do.

"Well, why not do it then? It's quite simple."

"It's not that simple."

And Keitaro offered a serious explanation on why detective work was impossible for him. By the very nature of his profession a detective is a diver who plunges from the surface of society to its depths. Almost no other profession is so suitable for grabbing hold of human mysteries. Moreover, a detective has the undoubted advantage of being able to observe the darker side of mankind without any of the dangers of degrading himself. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that his original purpose lies in disclosing the sins and crimes of others, that his profession is based on the malignant intention of trapping his subjects. Keitaro could not bring himself to do such inhuman actions. All he wanted was to study human beings—no, rather, to look with wonder and admiration at the incredible machinery of humanity operating in the darkness of night. Such was the drift of Keitaro's contention.

Sunaga had been listening without offering a word, neither of contradiction nor of comment. To Keitaro, such behavior appeared mature, but he actually took it as mediocre. He left hating the calm way in which the other listened, seemingly unconcerned about his aspirations. Yet before five days had elapsed, he wanted to see his friend again, and as soon as he left his boardinghouse, he caught a streetcar for Kanda.

A stranger would have found Sunaga's house extremely difficult to locate. To reach it one had to turn two or three times along a twisting side street sloping upward and branching off to the right from Sudacho, where a tall building, formerly the Ogawatei but now the Tenkado, stood at the corner. Since Sunaga's house was on a back street crowded with many small residences, the lots were not as wide as those in the uptown area. Nevertheless, it was a fine house. Leading from the gate to the bell by the lattice door at the entrance was a path of some yards paved with granite flagstones.

Sunaga's father had owned the house and had rented it for many years to a relative. But after his death his wife thought that this house would be more convenient for her small family, especially in terms of location and size, so their residence on Surugadai was sold and they moved. When Keitaro once heard from Sunaga that the house was considerably repaired, almost rebuilt, he looked with renewed interest at the upstairs alcove post and the boards lining the ceiling. This second-floor room had been added later as a study for Sunaga. Except for some slight reverberations on very windy days, it was a perfect room of its kind, clean and bright and divided into two parts, one of four
tatami,
the other six. Sitting in this room, Keitaro could see the branches of a pine tree in the garden, as well as the upper part of a wooden fence that had traces left by the carpenter's adze and a protective line of spikes at the very top. Looking down through the railing of the balcony outside the study, Keitaro noticed some white flowers at the foot of the pine and, asking Sunaga their name, was told they were snowy herons.

Each time Keitaro visited Sunaga and was shown into this room, he could not help being reminded of the clear difference between his friend and himself, one the young master, the other not much better than a university student. And while he felt contemptuous of Sunaga for living so settled and cozy a life, he envied the comfortable though too quiet pattern of his friend's existence. He thought it bad for a youth to live in this way, yet at the same time he wanted to become what Sunaga was. This time too, with that divided interest of these two contradictory thoughts within him, Keitaro proceeded to his friend's house.

When, after following the twisting side street, he came to the corner where it crossed the street Sunaga's house was on, he saw before him a young woman just entering the gate of the house. He had caught only a glimpse of her back, but that curiosity common to young men, combined with his own peculiar romantic strain, made him hurry to the gate as if he were being pulled there by some invisible string. He cast a glance inside, yet even the woman's shadow had vanished. He saw only that the
shoji
—those familiar doors whose handles were adorned with maple leaves inserted between transparent paper—were quietly closed as usual. He stood looking wistfully at the closed
shoji
for some time. But presently he noticed a pair of clogs, a woman's, on the stepping-stone. They had been placed neatly together, the front of them facing the inside of the house, indicating that the maid had not turned them in the proper direction. Keitaro, combining in his mind the direction of the clogs and the unexpected promptness with which the woman had gone inside, concluded she was a frequent guest, someone who had no need to announce herself and who could easily slide open the
shoji.
Or perhaps she was part of the household—but this latter thought seemed a little odd to him, for he knew quite well that only four persons were living there: Sunaga, his mother, a maid, and a kitchen servant.

For a while Keitaro remained standing in front of Sunaga's gate. He wanted not so much to watch secretly from outside the wooden fence the behavior of the woman who had gone into the house as to imagine the pattern of romance being woven by her and Sunaga. But all the same he found himself listening attentively. Yet it was, as usual, quiet inside. He heard not so much as a cough and certainly no woman's amorous voice.

His fiancee?
Such was Keitaro's first thought, but his imagination had not been disciplined enough to remain content with that.
I bet his mother is out with the maid visiting a relative. The kitchen servant has retired to her room. And right now Sunaga and the girl must be whispering tete-a-tete.
If this were true, it would be out of place to clatter open the lattice door as he usually did and in a loud voice ask for admittance.
Or perhaps Sunaga, his mother, and the maid have all gone out together, and the kitchen servant is taking a nap. At just such a moment, the woman entered the house. If so, she must be a thief. It would be unpardonable for me to go away and leave things as they are.

Keitaro stood there in a daze as though he had been bewitched by a demon.

Presently the
shoji
of the upstairs room opened, and Keitaro was awakened from his reverie by the sudden surprise of seeing Sunaga along the passageway, a green glass bottle in his hand.

"What are you doing down there? Did you lose something?" Sunaga asked, as though he found it odd to see Keitaro just standing there. Around Sunaga's throat was a white flannel cloth. The bottle in his hand seemed to be for gargling. Keitaro looked up and exchanged a few words about whether Sunaga had caught cold, but continued to stand where he was. Finally Sunaga told him to come up. Keitaro cautiously asked if it was all right to. As if not understanding, Sunaga nodded and withdrew behind the
shoji.

As Keitaro walked upstairs, he thought he heard a slight rustle of clothing in the inner room below. On the second floor he noticed nothing unusual except for a padded dressing gown with a black collar which his friend seemed to have been wearing and had discarded on the mats. From Keitaro's temperament and from his intimacy with Sunaga, it might have been expected he would ask straight out about the woman who had given him such concern, but owing to his sense of having wronged his friend in giving too free a rein to thoughts not altogether innocent, and because of his awareness that his imagination had settled on a conjecture too cynical to mention directly, Keitaro was deprived of the courage to ask freely who the girl was who had just entered the house. Instead, as if trying to hold back a thought that wanted to rush forward, he said, "For the time being I'm abandoning my dreams. I've come to the realization that earning a living is more important."