What, so I was strung along after all? Because the writing was so earnest, I ended up reading it in all seriousness right to the end. The master laughed and said, "That Meitei would play such a trick right at the start of the new year—he must be terribly idle."
Then four or five days passed without incident. Thinking it dull merely to sit gazing at the white porcelain narcissus gradually withering and the plum in the blue vase slowly beginning to bloom, I paid a visit or two to Mikeko, but she was not to be found. At first I thought her out, but on the second call I learned she was ill abed. Hiding behind the spider plant by the stone basin, I overheard the usual music teacher and the maid speaking within the sliding doors, and this is what they said.
"Has Mike eaten anything?" "No, she hasn't touched a thing since this morning. We've warmed her and tucked her into the kotatsu." It hardly sounds like a cat—she is being treated exactly as a human would be.
On the one hand, comparing her lot with my own, I envy her; on the other, thinking that the cat I love is thus favored fills me with pleasure.
"This is a worry, you know. If she won't eat, she'll only grow weaker." "Indeed, even we cannot work the next day if we miss a meal."
The maid answers as though the cat were the finer creature of the two. In truth, in this house the cat may be valued above the maid.
"Did you take her to the doctor?" "Oh, that doctor is a strange one. When I carried Mike to the examination room, he tried to take my pulse, thinking I had caught a cold. I told him the patient was not me, but this one, and set Mike on my knee, whereupon he grinned and said he couldn't tell a cat's ailment either, and that left alone it would soon heal. Wasn't that dreadfully unkind? I was so cross I said we'd manage without his care, that she was a precious cat, and tucked her in my bosom and came straight home." "Indeed."
"Indeed" is a word one would never hear in my own household. I was impressed that it was a most elegant phrase, fit only for some retainer of Her Highness Tenshōin.
"She seems to be wheezing a little..." "Yes, surely she has caught a cold and her throat pains her. For anyone with a cold, a cough comes, you see..."
As befits the maid of some retainer of Tenshōin, she uses absurdly polite language.
"And lately this illness called consumption has appeared." "Truly, in these times when new diseases like consumption and plague multiply, one cannot be too careful." "Those who did not exist in the old shogunate days are good for nothing, so you too must take heed." "Is that so?"
The maid is deeply moved.
"Though she scarce went out, to think she caught a cold..." "Well, you see, of late she has made a bad friend."
The maid is vastly pleased, as though divulging a state secret.
"A bad friend?" "Yes, a rather grubby tomcat from the teacher's house on the main street." "The teacher—you mean the man who makes such rude noises every morning?" "Yes, the one who screeches like a goose being strangled each time he washes his face."
"Like a goose being strangled" is a fine description. My master has a habit, each morning in the bath, of gargling and then thrusting a toothpick into his throat to produce an unreservedly odd sound. When ill-tempered he hawks and croaks without cease; when cheerful he is invigorated and croaks all the more. In short, whether in spirits good or ill, he croaks vigorously and without rest. According to the mistress, before they moved here he had no such habit, but one day he suddenly began, and has not missed a day since. A troublesome habit, yet why he persists with such doggedness is beyond the imagining of us cats. That aside, "rather grubby tomcat" is a harsh critique indeed, and I pricked up my ears to hear more.
"What curse such a voice portends I know not. Before the Restoration, even grooms and sandal-bearers knew proper conduct; in the mansion quarters not a soul washed his face in such a manner." "Indeed so."
The maid professes admiration at every turn and deploys "indeed" without restraint.
"A cat with such a master is surely a stray; next time he comes, give him a cuff." "I shall cuff him, for Mike's illness is surely his doing. I shall have my revenge."
A baseless accusation, this. Deeming the fellow not to be approached lightly, I returned without meeting Mikeko.
Upon returning, I found the master in his study, pen in hand, wearing an air of deep contemplation. Had I told him the gossip from the koto teacher's, he would surely have raged, but ignorance is bliss; he merely murmured, posing as a sacred poet.
Then, though he had sent word of being too busy to call, Meitei arrived unannounced, saying he had specially mailed New Year's greetings. "Composing some new-style verse? Show me if anything good's come of it," said he. "Hm, I thought the prose rather fine, so I'm translating it just now," the master replied heavily. "Prose? Whose?" "I don't know whose." "Anonymous? Some anonymous works are quite good, not to be scoffed at. Where was it found?" "The Second Reader," answered the master, composed. "The Second Reader? What of it?" "Only that the fine prose I translate is within the Second Reader." "Nonsense. You mean to avenge the peacock's tongue at the very brink, don't you?" "I am no braggart like you," said the master, twisting his mustache—quite unperturbed. "They say a man once asked San'yō if he had any fine prose of late, and San'yō showed him a debt-collector's letter written by a horse-handler, saying this is perhaps the finest of recent works. Your aesthetic eye may be sounder than expected. Read it, then; I shall critique." Meitei spoke as though the true authority on taste. The master began to read in a voice like a Zen monk reciting Daichi Kokushi's last admonitions.
"The Giant, Gravity."
"What's this 'Giant, Gravity'?" "The title." "Odd title. Means nothing to me." "A giant named Gravity, that's the idea." "A bit forced, but as a title I'll yield. Now read the body; your voice is good, it'll be entertaining." "No interpolating," warned the master, and began again.
"Kate looks out the window. Children are playing with a ball. They toss it high into the air. The ball rises higher and higher. After a while it falls. They toss it high again. Again, a third time. Each time it falls. 'Why does it fall? Why does it not rise ever higher?' asks Kate. 'Because a giant lives underground,' answers her mother. 'He is the Giant Gravity. He is strong. He pulls all things toward himself. He pulls the houses to the ground. Without his pull they would fly away. The children would fly away. You have seen the leaves fall. That is the Giant Gravity calling. You may drop a book. That is because the Giant Gravity says come. The ball goes up. The Giant Gravity calls. When he calls, it falls.'"
"That's all?" "Hm, sweet, isn't it?" "I'm beaten. To think I'd be served such a return for the peacock's tongue." "No return at all; it was simply fine, so I translated it. Don't you think so?" The master peered through his gold-rimmed glasses. "I'm astonished. That you possess such skill—truly, this time I'm had. I yield, I yield," he said to himself and chattered on alone. The master understood not a whit. "I've no intent to make you yield. I only translated it as I found the prose interesting." "No, truly fine. It must be so, to be genuine. Terrifying. I'm abashed." "No need for such abashment. I've given up watercolors of late, and thought to turn to prose instead." "Not to be compared with those perspective-blind, black-white-equal watercolors. I'm full of admiration." "Your praise emboldens me," said the master, mistaken to the last.
Then Kangetsu entered, apologizing for his earlier discourtesy. "Ah, pardon. I was just now privileged to hear a fine prose and exorcise the ghost of the peacock's tongue," hinted Meitei obscurely. "Oh, is that so," replied Kangetsu, no less obscurely. Only the master showed no such levity. "The other day, through your introduction, a man named Ochi Tōfū came." "Ah, he called? That Ochi Tōfū is an honest fellow, if a bit odd; I feared he might trouble you, but he insisted on an introduction..." "No particular trouble..." "When he visits, does he discourse on his own name?" "No, I don't recall such talk." "Is that so? Wherever he goes, it's his habit to explain his name to new acquaintances." "What explanation?" asked Meitei, eager for drama. "He takes great offense if his 'Tōfū' is read by sound..." "Strange," said Meitei, pinching tobacco from his gilt-leather pouch. "He always corrects: 'I am not Ochi Tōfū, but Ochi Kochi.'" "Odd," muttered Meitei, drawing the smoke deep into his belly. "It stems from literary zeal: read 'Kochi,' it forms the idiom 'kokin' (far and near); moreover, he prides that his name scans in rhyme. Thus if one reads 'Tōfū' by sound, he complains none appreciate his painstaking." "Indeed peculiar," said Meitei, emboldened, exhaling from belly to nostrils—midway the smoke lost its way and caught in his throat. Grasping his pipe, he coughed. "The other day he said at a recital he played a boatman and was laughed at by schoolgirls," said the master, laughing. "Ah, yes," Meitei tapped his knee with the pipe. I moved aside, finding it precarious. "That recital—when we feasted on peacock's tongue, the talk arose. They mean to invite famous writers for a grand second session, and begged your attendance. Asked if I'd again do Chikamatsu's sewamono, I said no, this time something new—'Golden Demon.' They asked your role; I said I am Miyako." "Miyako by Tōfū should amuse. I'll attend and applaud." "Should be fun," Kangetsu smiled oddly. "But that man is sincere to the core, no frivolity—fine, unlike Meitei," said the master, avenging Andrea del Sarto, the peacock's tongue, and the peacock's tongue's revenge at once. Meitei, unconcerned, laughed: "I am but a cutting board of Gyōtoku." "Likely so," said the master—though he knew not the phrase, years of teaching let him bluff; he applied classroom experience to society. "What is a cutting board of Gyōtoku?" asked Kangetsu innocently. The master looked to the alcove: "That narcissus I bought on the way from the bath at year's end—holds well, doesn't it?" thus forcibly suppressing the phrase. "Speaking of year's end," said Meitei, spinning his pipe like a kagura dance, "I had a wondrous experience last year's end." "What experience? Tell us," said the master, abandoning the cutting board with relief. Meitei's tale ran thus:
"I recall it was the twenty-seventh. Tōfū had forewarned: 'Be in residence, I would hear your literary discourse.' I awaited all morning; he came not. After lunch, by the stove reading Barry Payne's humor, a letter from my mother in Shizuoka arrived. As elders do, she treats me still a child: warnings not to go out nights in cold, that cold baths need a warmed room lest I catch cold. I thought, parents are precious; none else so cares—even I, easygoing, was moved. Thus spurred, I felt I must author some great work to honor the house, and let the Meiji literary world know of Master Meitei while mother lives. Further she wrote: 'You are fortunate; while young men suffer in the Russian war, you idle like New Year though it be December.'—I do not idle as she thinks—then listed schoolmates dead or wounded in that war. Reading those names, the world seemed vain, man trifling. At the last: 'As I age, perhaps this New Year's rice cake is my last...' Such lonely words deepened my gloom. I wished Tōfū would come, but he did not. Dinner came; thinking to reply to mother, I wrote some dozen lines. Her letter spanned six feet, but I keep to ten lines—can't match that. Having sat all day, my stomach ached. I told the maid to keep Tōfū waiting, and went out posting the letter. Unusually, my feet shunned Fujimichō and wandered to Dote Sanbanchō. That evening was cloudy, a dry wind blew from the moat, bitter cold. A train whistled from Kagurazaka beneath the embankment—desolate. Year's end, war deaths, old age, impermanence whirled in my head. I recalled how men hang themselves, and thought such a mood might tempt one. I looked up: I stood beneath that pine.
"That pine—what?" interjected the master.
"The hanging pine," Meitei shrank his neck.
"The hanging pine is at Kōno-dai," said Kangetsu, rippling.
"Kōno-dai's is the bell-hanging pine; Dote Sanbanchō's is the neck-hanging pine. Tradition says whoever comes beneath feels the urge to hang. Many pines line the bank, but those who hang choose this one—two or three a year. No other will do. Its branch juts nicely toward the road. 'Fine form,' I thought, 'waste not to use.' I wished to hang a man there; none came. I thought to hang myself—no, that kills; better not. Yet Greeks at feasts mimed hanging for sport: one mounts a stool, noose at neck, another kicks it away; the noosed leaps free as it falls. If true, no fear; I tried the branch—it bent beautifully, aesthetically. Imagining my neck there, swaying, I was delighted. I resolved to do it, but then thought Tōfū might wait. I'd meet him, talk, then return. So I went home."
"And the city prospered?" asked the master.
"Amusing," Kangetsu smirked.
"Home, Tōfū had not come, but a postcard: 'Urgent, cannot come; await a long meeting.' Relieved, I thought, 'Now I may hang at ease.' I slipped on clogs and hurried back..." He looked innocently at master and Kangetsu.
"And there?" the master grew impatient.
"Now the climax," Kangetsu twisted his sash.
"There—someone had come and hung before me. A step too late! A pity. I was possessed by a death-spirit, surely. James would say my subconscious underworld resonated with real world by causality. Strange, isn't it?" Meitei looked innocent.
The master, thinking himself fooled again, said nothing, chewing a sweet, mumbling.
Kangetsu, smoothing the brazier's ash, bent smiling, then spoke quietly:
"Hearing you, it seems impossible, yet I had a like experience lately, so I doubt not."
"You too felt like hanging?"
"Not hanging. Also last year's end, same day and hour as you—more strange."
"Interesting," Meitei chewed a sweet.
"That day a year-end party with ensemble at a Mukōjima friend's. I brought violin. Some fifteen ladies gathered; a success, a recent delight. After dinner and music, talk flowed; late, I thought to leave. Then Dr. X's wife whispered: 'Do you know Miss ○○ko is ill?' I had seen her days before, well; startled, I asked. Fever since that night, delirious, crying your name among ravings."
Master and Meitei listened solemnly, no platitudes.
"Doctor said unknown fever, brain peril, sleep-drug failing means danger. I felt unease, as in nightmare, air solid pressing me. Walking home, only that weighed. That pretty, cheerful, healthy ○○ko..."
"Pardon, but I hear '○○ko' twice—may we know?" The master nodded.
"Better not, for her sake."
"All vague and murky, then?"
"No sneering; serious. Thinking her stricken thus, I felt falling flowers, drifting leaves; my vigor struck like a strike, sank. I reeled to Azuma Bridge, leaned the rail; black water, tide unknown, moved as mass. A rickshaw passed, its lantern shrank and died at Sapporo Beer. I looked again; from upstream, a voice called my name. No one should call; I peered, saw naught. 'Illusion,' I stepped, but faint voice called again. I stopped, listened; third call, I clutched rail, knees shook. Far or river-bottom, surely ○○ko's. I answered 'Yes!'—loud, it rang on still water; I started, looked: none, no moon. Then I wished drawn into that 'night' to the voice. Her voice, in pain, pleading, pierced; I answered 'I come now,' leaned over black water. It seemed from beneath waves; I climbed the rail. Resolved to leap at next call, I watched; the pitiful voice floated like thread. 'Here,' I sprang up and fell like a pebble, unreluctant."
"You leapt?" the master blinked.
"I thought not to go so far," Meitei pinched his nose.
"After, I swooned; waking, cold but dry, no water tasted. Surely I leapt—strange. I looked: I had jumped not into water but onto the bridge's mid-deck. A pity—front and back reversed, I missed the voice's source." Kangetsu smiled, fiddling his sash.
