Death by Water

by Kenzaburo Oe

  3

  Dear Kogii,

  Until now I’ve mostly been writing to you about artistic projects and practical matters, but this letter is going to be much more personal. Of course, you probably have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about. As you can imagine, the news I’ve just heard from Chikashi came as a tremendous shock, especially since it doesn’t involve one family crisis, but two.

  Not only is your relationship with Akari at its lowest point ever, but Chikashi has recently been diagnosed with a serious illness. Fortunately, it sounds as though the doctors are optimistic about her prospects for recovery, which seems like a welcome ray of hope. As someone who worked as a nurse for many years, I know that while doctors sometimes withhold information and say only what they think a patient wants to hear, they wouldn’t resort to that type of sugarcoated subterfuge for someone as strong-minded as Chikashi.

  Needless to say, you’re already fully aware of these very grave situations, and I must say I was surprised that you didn’t tell me what was going on with Akari. Instead, Chikashi, who is probably tired of watching you mope around, took the initiative and sent me a calm, rational account, which struck me as a perfectly appropriate thing to do. I can’t help remembering that you agreed to keep me abreast of any new developments after your return to Tokyo, and the deal was that instead of writing letters you would write things down on cards and someone would send me copies. You’ve been quite good about reporting on your recuperation from the Big Vertigo, but you didn’t say a single word about what happened between you and Akari.

  Look, I know you’re upset because your relationship with Akari seems to be in an unprecedentedly precarious state, and it’s only natural for you to feel ashamed since it was your own behavior that created this mess. But we had a deal, and I was disappointed when Chikashi told me you’ve been writing detailed entries about this situation on the index cards you use instead of a diary, but you apparently instructed Maki (who has been transcribing selected notes on a computer and sending them via email) not to share them with me.

  Speaking of Chikashi, how do you propose to deal with her illness? Because of the way you’ve been behaving recently, I don’t feel I can rely on you. I gather that Maki will be going over to your house and attending to the household chores, but Chikashi wrote that she would like to ask me, as an experienced nurse, to come up to Tokyo and lend a hand during her stay at the hospital as well as later, when she is recuperating at home. It goes without saying that I’ll be more than willing to do anything I can to help.

  However, your strained relations with Akari are almost as concerning to me as Chikashi’s battle against cancer. To begin with, I gather you’re expecting Maki to handle the household matters and the administrative aspects of your professional work, and she can’t very well attend to Akari’s needs, too, while Chikashi is sidelined. Also, if Maki starts to feel stressed about having too many things to deal with, her chronic depression could flare up again.

  As I was trying to figure out the best way to address the troubling issues raised in Chikashi’s letter, I received a typically thoughtful call about those very matters from Chikashi herself. She waited until I had finished mumbling my greetings and expressions of sympathy, and then she got right down to business. She didn’t sound like a patient at all; her way of speaking about her illness was completely pragmatic and unemotional. I know your family doctor has already briefed you on Chikashi’s medical situation, so I won’t repeat those details here.

  Because Chikashi is the kind of person she is, before she called me she already knew exactly what she wanted. She confirmed that she wanted me to come to Tokyo and lend a hand in my capacity as a nurse, and she also said she’d like to send you and Akari down to Shikoku to spend some time in the forest. She had thought through all the details—that’s just her style—and I was happy that she felt she could depend on me. I was immediately on board with both facets of the plan, and I’ve already spoken with Unaiko and Ricchan about looking after you and Akari while you’re at the Forest House, once I’ve moved up to Tokyo to act as Chikashi’s private nurse. (That’s just my style.)

  Here’s the thing, Kogii: Chikashi mentioned that Akari hasn’t been listening to music for the past six months or so. That news was almost as shocking to me as her cancer diagnosis, because music has been the most important thing in Akari’s life for as long as I can remember. Really, I haven’t felt so blindsided by anything since Goro committed suicide.

  I think anyone who knows you could have predicted that you would be monumentally depressed after deciding to scrap your drowning novel, and the Big Vertigo may have affected your behavior as well. Even so, there’s no excuse for treating Akari the way you did. If Mother were still around, I can almost hear her saying something like “That’s downright disgraceful!” Medical explanations aside, you are a hundred percent responsible for everything you said to Akari and for the effect those horrible words have had on him. But I also know that apart from Akari, you’re the one who has been hurt the most by this, and I can’t help feeling very sad for you both. To be honest, though, I can’t get over what you did. I mean, how could you have behaved so heartlessly?

  Chikashi talked about that situation, too, in her trademark cool, calm, and collected manner. She only got emotional about one thing, when she confided in me that she was very worried about what might happen from now on between you and Akari. When I heard that, I just kind of blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

  “Chikashi,” I said, “in a situation like this, all you can do is bide your time. I mean, um, it’s like the period a while back when Akari stopped working on his compositions …” (Now every time I think about my glib, meaningless words, I get so mad at myself that I have to get up and pace around like a caged animal. And again, I just feel so terribly sad about everything that’s going on.)

  I could tell Chikashi was disturbed by my comment, but she replied coolly and calmly as usual: “In that situation, Akari stopped composing of his own free will, and when he started again it was also by his own choice. In both cases, he was in control of his own destiny. I’ll admit that when I thought he might never write another composition I felt utterly devastated, but the decision was Akari’s and I had no choice but to accept it. Also, during that time Akari was still listening to music, both on CDs and on the radio.

  “But the way things are at present, some truly terrible words have been spoken, and they can never be forgotten or unsaid. It seems as though Akari has decided that he no longer wants anything to do with this family and with Papa in particular. We’ve never experienced a crisis even remotely like this, and the strangest thing of all, for me, is to be living in a house that isn’t constantly filled with music.”

  Since I don’t always learn from my mistakes, this was my ill-considered response: “How would it be if you tried playing CDs of Mozart and Bach and so on at low volume, when my brother is away from the house?”

  “But why should Akari need to behave in such a furtive manner? Or are you saying that I should just put on some random CDs and force the issue?” Chikashi asked sternly. I pictured her normally serene face with the brow furrowed in an expression of disapproval, and it gave me a chill. To my relief, she continued in a neutral, reflective tone, almost as if she was talking to herself. “I appreciate the suggestion, but music has always been Akari’s domain, and I’m afraid having me fill our silent house with my own choices could make the situation even more uncomfortable than it already is.”

  Unfortunately, after having had my clumsy faux pas redeemed by Chikashi’s generosity of spirit—she is always so extraordinarily gracious, even in the midst of her own travails—I ended up saying something that I fear was even more irritating.

  “You mentioned that there’s never before been such a serious rift between Akari and my brother, but hasn’t Kogii tried to repair the damage?” I asked. “In the past, if things had ever gotten to this point, it seems to me that everyone would have gone all out to get
the situation back to normal. I mean, if you read Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! …” I trailed off.

  Chikashi responded to my question in a tone I’d never heard from her before. Until then she had been referring to you as “Papa,” and hearing her suddenly switch to calling you “that man” made my blood run cold. The things she said were so rigorous and unforgiving that I must have somehow rearranged the words in my mind afterward as a defense mechanism. However, I haven’t been able to forget the underlying message.

  In essence, this is what she said: “That man’s way of extending a conciliatory hand to Akari is shallow and superficial; I won’t go so far as to say it’s disingenuous, but even if such an approach has occasionally been effective in the past, hasn’t that man’s oppression of Akari been part of the problem all along? True, that man has some little tricks that have been useful for patching up minor rifts in the past, but if he tries to deploy them now, when his relationship with Akari has reached a complete impasse—well, the truth is it won’t work, and I don’t even want him to try. He sits around drinking and stewing about the situation, and does impulsive things like rushing out to buy new CDs he thinks might interest Akari and bringing them home as a peace offering. I really wish he would refrain from doing that sort of thing as well. As you know, music has been the single most important element in Akari’s life practically forever. The basic principle of listening to music of his own free will must be preserved no matter what. And in order to make sure his freedom to listen to music is protected, his freedom not to listen to music must be respected as well. To borrow one of that man’s favorite phrases—doesn’t it come down to fundamental human rights? If he somehow decided to force Akari to listen to music against his will, as yet another form of oppression, it could do irrevocable damage to Akari, psychologically. It’s even possible that Akari might express his opposition by violently lashing out at that man in an unprecedented way.

  “By the way, what I said just now? I actually borrowed some of the phrasing from Maki, but the things she said echoed what I had been thinking on my own. If things go on like this Maki might end up taking Akari away to live at her house, and I’m not sure I could oppose such a plan, in good conscience.”

  At this point Chikashi seemed to sense that my hands were trembling uncontrollably on the other end of the line, and she stopped referring to you as “that man,” which I had found extremely distressing.

  “I’ve been going around saying that our house in Seijo is inhabited by two giant lumps of depression, and when I think of those two being alone together in their current state, it really frightens me,” she went on. “So before I check in to the hospital, I’d like to send them away to a place where they might have a better chance of figuring out how to live together with at least a modicum of peace and harmony. And for Papa, being on Shikoku surrounded by his beloved forest would be very restorative, don’t you agree? I’m afraid setting things up would involve imposing on you even more—I mean, I’m already asking you to come to Tokyo and nurse me through my recovery—’but if you don’t mind, that’s how I’d like to handle it.”

  Chikashi’s courteous words at the end of our conversation made me feel better about the critical things she had said about you, but after I hung up the phone the sound of her fierce soliloquy was still ringing in my ears. I couldn’t bear to stay at home alone so I headed over to the Forest House, hoping to talk to Unaiko. However, she wasn’t there—apparently she and Ricchan were both taking care of some business matters—and the house was closed up tight. Since I hadn’t brought my key, I went around to the back garden, sat down in front of the poetry stone, and looked at the lines Mother wrote: You didn’t get Kogii ready to go up into the forest / And like the river current, you won’t return home.

  Kogii, what you’re doing now is even worse than that, isn’t it? There’s no point in raking you over the coals, but we both know you’re in a far more dire situation now than when you wrote your part of that poem: In Tokyo during the dry season / I’m remembering everything backward, / From old age to earliest childhood.

  I hope you’ll listen carefully to whatever Chikashi and Maki have to say, and please, please don’t even think about doing anything rash. When I mention the need for caution, I’m talking about two aspects of your current situation. First, now that the ill-fated drowning novel has come to naught, I’m afraid the resulting disappointment may have severed the only work-related bond connecting you to this world. Then, on the personal side of the equation, there’s the deplorable situation with Akari. The two of you have been practically joined at the hip for all these years, and that link seems to have been sundered as well. At this point, I’m worried that you may be asking yourself whether you have any ties to this life anymore. So I just want to ask you to be very careful not to fall into the kind of tediously nihilistic, self-destructive state of mind old people are especially vulnerable to, because we both know where it can lead.

  Needless to say, I won’t be expecting an actual letter in reply to this. However, I will be looking forward to receiving Maki’s copies of any notes you might scribble on your ubiquitous index cards.

  4

  Some notes from my index cards:

  Basically, I think the way Akari has made it through life until now—it’s hard for me to believe, but he is already forty-five years old—is by creating a world where the interconnected activities of listening to classical music and creating his own brief yet beguiling compositions have formed a stable foundation for his daily existence … that is, until the recent catastrophic turn of events.

  Akari has four successful CDs of original music to his credit, and his uncle Goro even made a film based on my novels about our home life, both of which (the life and the books) revolved around Akari. When Akari was taking music lessons from an expert in the field, he never shirked his studies. This process was interrupted when he took an extended break from composing, but after a couple of years he resumed his study of music theory with the same diligence. Every day the communal living area of our house was filled with the sound of recorded music, played at low volume: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, and even some Messiaen and Piazzolla thrown into the mix from time to time. For years, the music Akari played was the sound track of our lives.

  And now all that sublime classical music has completely vanished from our home. Oh, Akari still checks the program listings in the weekly FM radio guide, and he hasn’t abandoned his daily self-set task of correcting any misprints in the composers’ names or titles of works in the programming details at the back of the monthly music magazines. There has been no change in his customary routine of constantly reorganizing his shelves of CDs in accordance with the complex taxonomic principles he seems to keep in his head. However, during the past six months there hasn’t been a single moment when Akari enlivened the space we share with the sounds of classical music. As Chikashi put it, with her usual succinctness, our son has turned into a musical recluse. He listens to music only late at night when he is alone in his room, using headphones connected to his radio, as if he wants to keep it all to himself.

  So what is at the root of this sadness and silence and turmoil? The words I rashly spoke to Akari in an unpardonable fit of anger: “You’re an idiot.” That short, simple declarative sentence … the epitome of unreflective cruelty.

  Many years ago, in a grove of Erman’s birches in North Karuizawa, I was carrying Akari piggyback when he uttered the first words of his young life in response to hearing the call of a bird on a nearby lake. “It’s a water rail,” he said clearly. (He had already learned to recognize and mimic the songs of a variety of wild birds from a recording we had at home.)

  From that point on Akari’s vocabulary grew at a rapid rate, and within three or four years he was able to understand the discriminatory slurs and insults the outside world flung his way. I remember one time when Maki came home from middle school and immediately ran into the kitchen to tell Chikashi about how she had gone to pick Akari up a
fter his special education class and had found him being taunted by a menacing group of older male students. Akari, meanwhile, was in the living room listening to music, and when I peeked in I saw him with both hands clamped over his ears and his elbows sticking out at right angles, obviously trying to filter the unpleasant “noise pollution” of what his sister was saying while still continuing to listen to his beloved music.

  And now Akari has evidently reclassified his own father from trusted protector to source of discordant noise and pain: someone who would hurl the most hurtful word imaginable at his own son more than once. This situation has already been festering for half a year, and it could easily continue for another six months—perhaps even a year or two. The truth is, at times even those rather bleak estimates seem wildly optimistic. There is a distinct possibility that Akari and I could go on sharing a living space in which the sound of music is never heard for the next ten or fifteen years, or more.

  5

  Dear Kogii,

  Maki is always very accommodating and easy to deal with, and she kindly took your reflections on the rift between you and Akari, transcribed their index cards on her computer, and emailed them to me. I don’t know whether she was trying to balance the mournful tone of your contributions, but she also included some letters Chikashi wrote to you. I’m sure you read them at the time and wrote proper replies, but because Maki sent me the originals of those letters (rather than photocopies) you no longer have them at hand, so I’ll fax them back to you just in case you might want to take another look. Here’s the first one, which I found very interesting: