二

When I caught sight of the gentleman at that beach teahouse, he was just slipping out of his kimono and about to go into the sea. I, on the contrary, had just come up out of the water, my wet body exposed to the wind. Between us moved any number of dark heads, blocking the view. Had there been nothing out of the ordinary, I might well have missed him entirely. Crowded as the beach was, and careless as my own mind was, the reason I spotted him at once was that he was accompanied by a Westerner.

The Westerner’s strikingly white skin caught my eye the moment he stepped into the teahouse. He was wearing a pure Japanese yukata, which he had plopped down on a stool, and stood there with his arms folded, facing the sea. He had on nothing but the short loincloth we all wear. To me this was first of all a strange thing. Two days before, I had gone to Yuigahama and squatted on the sand, watching Westerners go into the sea for a long while. The spot where I sat was a slight rise, with a hotel’s back entrance right beside it, and while I was absorbed in watching, quite a number of men came out to bathe in the salt water, but not one of them left his torso, arms, or thighs bare. The women in particular seemed eager to hide their flesh. Most wore rubber caps on their heads, and the colors of tea-brown, navy, and indigo floated among the waves. To eyes that had just witnessed such a sight, this Westerner standing before everyone in nothing but a loincloth seemed exceedingly curious.

Presently he glanced down at his side and said a word or two to the Japanese crouching there. The Japanese had been picking up a towel that had dropped on the sand; the moment he grasped it, he wrapped it around his head and started walking toward the sea. That person was the gentleman.

Purely out of curiosity, I watched the retreating figures of the two as they descended the beach side by side. They stepped straight into the waves, passed through the noisy crowd splashing about in the shallow near the rocks, and when they reached a relatively open stretch, both began to swim. Their heads grew small as they headed out to sea, then turned back and came in a straight line to the shore. Returning to the teahouse, they did not even pour well water over themselves, but at once wiped off and dressed, and hurried off somewhere.

After they had gone, I sat back on the same stool and smoked. Then, vacant-minded, I thought of the gentleman. His face seemed unmistakably one I had seen somewhere before. But I could not at all recall when or where I had met him.

At that time I was not so much free of care as simply suffering from boredom. So the next day, reckoning the hour when I might again meet the gentleman, I made a point of going to the teahouse. The Westerner did not come; the gentleman came alone, wearing a straw hat. He took off his glasses and set them on the bench, at once wrapped his head in a towel, and strode down the beach. When the gentleman passed through the noisy bathers as on the previous day and struck out swimming alone, I was suddenly seized with the urge to follow him. I splashed through the shallow water up to my head and came to a fair depth, then cut through the water aiming at the gentleman. But unlike yesterday, he traced a kind of arc and began returning to shore from an odd direction. Thus my purpose went unfulfilled. When I climbed out and, shaking the dripping water from my hands, entered the teahouse, the gentleman was already neatly dressed and, crossing paths with me, went out.

“Stories of the world, in your language.”