六 2

“Why?” said Mr. Kanzuki, somewhat taken aback. “Circles and straight lines, as they are called, are geometrical constructs; ideal circles and straight lines that match those definitions do not exist in the real world.” “If they don’t exist, then abolish them,” put in Meitei. “So I thought I would try to make a sphere that would be good enough for experimental purposes. I started the other day.” “Did it work out?” the master asked, as if it were no matter. “How could it?” said Kanzuki—but seeming to realize this was a bit contradictory, he added, “It’s really difficult. I keep polishing, and thinking the radius on this side is too long, I ease off there—then, good Lord, the other side gets too long. I labor to grind that down, and just when I think I’ve got it, the whole shape goes lopsided. I finally manage to fix the lopsidedness, and then the diameter is off. What started as big as an apple keeps shrinking till it’s the size of a strawberry. Even so, if you keep at it patiently, it gets down to the size of a soybean. Even at soybean size, a perfect circle still won’t come. I polished quite enthusiastically myself—why, since New Year I’ve ground away six glass balls, large and small,” he chattered on, whether truth or lie one could not tell. “Where do you polish like that?” “At the school lab, of course. Start in the morning, rest a bit at lunch, then polish till dark. It’s no easy job.” “So when you said you were busy, busy, and went to school even on Sundays, it was to polish your sphere?” “Exactly. These days from morning to night it’s nothing but sphere polishing.” “You’ll go down as the Sphere-Making Doctor—that’s the line for you. But hear your devotion and even a nose like yours might think it worthy. The other day I had errands at the library, and as I was leaving the gate I ran into old Ume. That a man would set foot in a library after graduating struck me as strange, so I said, ‘My, studying hard?’ He made a queer face and said, ‘I didn’t come to read. I was just passing the gate and felt a little need, so I dropped in to borrow the facilities.’ I laughed fit to burst. Ume and you are opposite good examples; they ought to go in a new ‘Mongaku.’” Meitei attached his usual long-winded footnote. The master grew a little serious. “Polishing nothing but spheres every day is all well and good, but when do you expect to finish one?” “At this rate, it looks like ten years or so,” Kanzuki replied, seeming more easygoing than the master. “Ten years—you’d better polish faster.” “Ten years is on the early side. Depending, it may take twenty.” “That’s awful. Then you won’t easily become a doctor.” “Yes, I’d like to become one and set her mind at ease as soon as possible, but until the sphere is polished the crucial experiment can’t be done…”

Kanzuki paused, then said with a satisfied air, “Oh, no need for such worry. Kaneda knows well enough I’m only polishing spheres. Why, when I called the other day or so, I explained the whole situation.” The mistress, who till then had been listening without grasping the talk, asked suspiciously, “But hasn’t the whole Kaneda family been at Oiso since last month?” Kanzuki seemed a bit nonplussed but played dumb: “That is strange. What could have happened?” Useful at such moments is Meitei, who always leaps in from the side—when talk lags, when it gets awkward, when one grows sleepy, when stuck, whatever the case. “Meeting in Tokyo two or three days ago one who went to Oiso last month—that’s mystical, fine. A so-called exchange of spirits. When longing runs deep such phenomena occur. Sounds like a dream, yet a dream surer than reality. To you, madam, who settled here with no thought nor being thought of, and will pass life never learning what love is—your doubt is natural, but…” “Why, what proof have you for such talk? You do despise one,” the mistress cut in suddenly. “You yourself never pined, I suppose?” the master came to her aid head-on. “My romances, however many, are all past seventy-five days, so may have slipped your memory—but in fact it is the result of heartbreak that I live a bachelor to this age,” Meitei said, looking fairly round the seated faces. “Ho ho ho, how funny,” said the mistress; “Idiot,” muttered the master, facing the garden. Only Kanzuki, unchanged, grinned: “Do tell that tale of old for our instruction.”

“Mine is rather mystical; I told the late Mr. Koizumi Yakumo and he was much taken, but he’s passed, so there’s little point—still, since you’re here, I’ll open up. But you must listen to the end.” He pressed, and began. “Looking back, some—let’s say fifteen or sixteen years ago, to save trouble.” “Come off it,” the master snorted through his nose. “Terrible memory, isn’t he,” the mistress teased. Kanzuki kept his promise, said nothing, eager for more. “One winter, I was crossing Takenokodani in Echigo’s Kanbara, nearing Takotsubo Pass, about to enter Aizu.” “Queer place,” the master butted in. “Hush and listen, it’s good,” the mistress checked him. “But night falls, road unknown, belly empty; no help, I knock at a lone house mid-pass, explain, beg lodging. ‘Easy,’ says she, and a girl holds a naked candle to my face—I shivered. There I knew love’s devilish spell.” “Ugh, how dreadful. Such a beauty in the mountains?” “Mountain or sea, madam, I’d show her to you—a high Shimada coif.” “Heh,” the mistress gaped.

“Inside, an eight-mat room, big hearth; girl, old man, old woman, me. ‘Surely hungry,’ she said; I demanded food. The old man said, ‘Honored guest—shall we cook snake rice?’ Now begins the heartbreak—listen tight.” “I’ll listen, sir, but even Echigo has no snakes in winter.” “Fair point. But in poetic tale one can’t stick to reason. In Kyouka’s novels crabs come from snow,” said Meitei; Kanzuki murmured “Indeed,” and resumed attention.

“I was a captain of strange eats—locusts, slugs, red frogs bored me—so snake rice pleased. The old man hung a pot, put rice, simmered. Strange: the lid had ten holes; steam puffed—clever, I thought. The old man left, returned with a basket; inside, long ones coiled against cold. “Enough, stop, how vile,” the mistress frowned. “But this is the root of heartbreak, can’t stop. The old man lifted the lid, grabbed the coil, flung it in, clapped the lid; even I held breath.” “Please stop, eerie,” she shrank. “Almost heartbroken, bear a bit. Within a minute a hood rose from a hole—surprise! Then another, another—soon the pot was all snake faces.” “Why raise heads?” “Hot, they struggled out. The old man said, ‘Enough, pull,’ the women answered, each took a head and pulled; flesh stayed, bones slipped clean.” “Snake boning,” Kanzuki laughed. “Exactly. Lid off, stir, ‘Eat.’” “You ate?” the master asked coldly. The mistress made a bitter face: “Stop, I’m sick, can’t eat.” “You didn’t eat, so you say so—but taste it, unforgettable.” “Ugh, who’d eat.” “Fed, forgot cold, eyed the girl freely, thought all well—then ‘Rest,’ and I slept deep.”

“Then?” the mistress urged. “Next morn, waking, the heartbreak. “What happened?” “Nothing much. I smoked, looked from the back window; by the trough a kettle-head washed its face.” “Old man or woman?” “Hard to tell; when it turned, I saw—it was last night’s girl.” “But you said she wore Shimada.” “Night, a fine Shimada; morn, a round kettle.” “Mocking me,” the master looked to the ceiling. “I feared, watched; the kettle finished, set a Shimada wig on, calmly went in—I understood. Yet from then I was a man lamenting heartbreak’s fate.” “What a fool’s heartbreak. See, Kanzuki, that’s why even heartbroken he’s merry,” the master said; Kanzuki said, “Had she not been bald and come to Tokyo, sir might be merrier; a bald bride, eternal regret. But why so young and bald?” “I thought—too much snake rice, it heats the head.” “Yet you’re fine.” “I kept my hair, but from then became near-sighted,” he took off gold-rimmed glasses, wiped. The master recalled: “Where’s the mystery?” “Where the wig came from—bought, found—still unknown; that’s the mystery,” Meitei reset glasses. “Sounds like a storyteller,” said the mistress.

Meitei’s ramble ended, but he couldn’t stay silent; he went on: “My heartbreak was bitter, but not knowing the kettle, had I taken her, lifelong eyesore. Marriage hides wounds till the brink. Kanzuki, don’t brood alone—polish calmly.” Kanzuki feigned weary: “I’d polish, but they won’t let me.” “They fuss; some are comic. Ume at the library—queer.” “What’d he do?” the master asked. “He once stayed at Tozakan in Shizuoka—one night—and proposed to the maid that night. I’m easy, but not that evolved. There was a famed beauty, O-Natsu, who served him—no wonder.” “No wonder? Same as your pass tale.” “A bit. We’re not so different. He proposed, then craved melon. ‘O-Natsu, melon in Shizuoka?’ ‘Even Shizuoka has melon,’ she brought a mound. He ate all, awaited answer, but belly ached, groaned, called her: ‘Doctor in Shizuoka?’ ‘Even Shizuoka has doctor,’ she brought one named like stolen ‘Thousand Character Classic.’ Next morn, pain gone, fifteen minutes before leave, he asked the proposal’s yes; she laughed: ‘Shizuoka has melon, doctor, but no one-night bride,’ and vanished. Thus Ume, like me, heartbroken, comes only to relieve himself. Women are sinful.” The master took up: “True. I read Musset; a character quotes a Roman poet: ‘Lighter than feather is dust; lighter than dust, wind; lighter than wind, woman; lighter than woman, nothing.’ Well put. Women—helpless.” The mistress objected: “You blame light women, but heavy men are no good either.” “Heavy? How?” “Heavy, I say—like you.” “Me heavy?” “Aren’t you?” Strange debate began. Meitei, amused, said, “Red-faced sparring—the truth of marriage. Old couples were meaningless.” He then rambled on:

“They say no wife talked back; that’s like a mute wife—no thank you. I’d want a wife to say ‘You’re heavy.’ With a wife, a quarrel or two saves boredom. My mother before father was all ‘yes, sir’—twenty years, out only to temples, pitiful. Yet she knew all ancestral names. Courting too—none like Kanzuki’s music, spirit exchange. “How sorry,” Kanzuki bowed. “Sorry indeed. And those women not better behaved. Madam, you cry ‘girls decline’—nonsense, worse before.” “Really?” she said serious. “Yes, proof: till we were five or six, girls were put in baskets like melons, carried on poles and sold. Eh, Kanzuki?” “I don’t recall.” “Maybe not your country, but Shizuoka did.” “No,” the mistress murmured; Kanzuki doubted, “Really?”

“Really. My father priced one. I was six. We walked from Aburamachi to Toorimachi; a man cried, ‘Girls, fine girls!’ At Isegen’s corner we met him. Isegen, ten-ken front, five storehouses, Shizuoka’s top kimono house—see it still. The head clerk Jinbei, ever a face like ‘mother died three days ago’; beside him Hatsu, twenty-four, a face pale from twenty-one days of buckwheat broth for the priest; beside him Chodo, like fire victim, at the abacus. Chodo and—” “Kimono house or child-seller?” “Right, child-seller. Isegen has tales, but cut today. This bears on women’s morals then vs now—can’t drop. The seller told father, ‘Girls, cheap, buy.’ In baskets, front and back, two-year girls. Father asked, ‘Last ones?’ ‘All sold but two; take either,’ he held one like a melon to father’s nose; father tapped heads, ‘Good sound.’ Bargained, father asked, ‘Sound goods?’ ‘Front one I’ve watched, sure; the back one, eyeless, may have cracks—I’ll cut price.’ I recall thinking, women are not to be trusted. Yet in Meiji 38 none sells girls so, none fears eyeless backs. Western civilization bettered women’s morals. What say, Kanzuki?”

Kanzuki coughed grandly, then calmly: “Today’s women sell themselves at school, concerts, charities—‘Buy me, oh stop’—no need for such vendors. Independence brings this. Old men fret needlessly; it’s civilization’s tide, I hail it. No buyer taps heads asking ‘sound?’ And in complex times such fuss is endless; at fifty, sixty, still marry. As a twentieth-century youth, he blew Shikishima smoke at Meitei, who was not one to mind. “True, today’s students and ladies, self-respecting to bone and skin, equal men—admirable. My neighbor’s girls wear tubular sleeves, hang from bars—fine. From my window I see their gymnastics and think of ancient Greece

“Stories of the world, in your language.”