Death by Water

by Kenzaburo Oe

  Ricchan was peering over his shoulder, and as I entered the room she said, “Wait, what’s this? Akari dear, you’ve made a little mistake in calculating the note values. You did everything else perfectly, though.”

  “I know,” Akari acknowledged. “I’m not so good at figuring out things like that.”

  I approached the table, and when I asked Ricchan a question about her musical training she replied with complete candor, saying she had graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts (popularly known as Geidai) with a major in piano, but had dropped out of grad school and started working part time for the Caveman Group. (That was when she had become friends with Unaiko.) Now that she mentioned it, I remembered having seen Ricchan’s name listed on the group’s performance calendar as “music director.” In addition, one of Asa’s recent letters had referred to Ricchan as a music specialist, or something similar.

  In that case, I asked, was there any chance she might be willing to take Akari on as a pupil? (His regular teacher was in Tokyo, of course, but he had let the lessons lapse long before we came to stay at the Forest House.) Ricchan readily agreed, and in short order she went to talk to a schoolteacher she’d gotten to know during the production of the Kokoro play and wangled permission to use the piano in the junior high’s music room for Akari’s lessons. (Ricchan, by nature, was the furthest thing from pushy or overaggressive, but she also knew how to make things happen quickly when she needed to.) As a felicitous bonus, it turned out that some of Akari’s CDs were already being used as part of the junior high’s music curriculum.

  One day after Ricchan and I had been looking over one of Akari’s resuscitated compositions together, she said to me, “All Akari needs is some five-line paper, a pencil, and an eraser. This is something he dashed off in ten minutes before a lesson, and while there’s nothing objectively wrong with it, when I tried playing it something seemed to be a tiny bit off—it sounded awkward somehow—so I simply suggested that a slightly different approach might work better. Akari did a quick rewrite on the spot and when I played the revised version I thought, Wow, this time he totally nailed it! In a few days, Akari will be trying his hand at performing another composition he just finished—it’s one he started working on in Tokyo. Would you like to come to the school with us and hear it?”

  I accepted Ricchan’s invitation with alacrity, and on the appointed day I tagged along with a spring in my step. Apparently this was another case where Akari had completed the composition in his own style, and then Ricchan had demonstrated some alternatives, which Akari incorporated into the next draft. Ricchan said she was worried about how Akari’s teacher in Tokyo might react to these modifications, so she carefully documented every step in the process. Akari, on the other hand, took a scorched-earth approach to rewriting. When he had occasion to make a change, he would completely erase the existing marks and then write in the revisions, leaving no trace of the original composition.

  My grasp of music theory was rudimentary at best, but it was clear even to me that the revised versions were greatly improved, while still managing to retain the distinctive flavor that immediately made me think, Ah, this is one of Akari’s compositions, without a doubt. When I gave voice to that thought, Ricchan (who, unlike Unaiko, didn’t often show her emotions) looked extremely pleased.

  I glanced at the sheet music propped up on the piano in the music room and noticed that the title, which was usually the first thing Akari jotted down when he got an idea for a new composition, was missing. I asked Ricchan whether there had been a title on the original, before Akari copied it over to incorporate the latest changes.

  “I wasn’t aware that Akari was in the habit of titling his work, so I didn’t notice one way or the other,” Ricchan replied.

  I remembered how Akari and I used to banter back and forth in a stylized way, mimicking a long-ago TV commercial, so I decided to give that tactic a try.

  “Akari, where did the title of your composition go?” I asked playfully.

  Akari ignored my attempt at levity. “I erased it,” he said flatly.

  “Well then, shall we give it a new one?”

  “No, it’s called ‘Big Water,’” Akari replied.

  “‘Big Water’ is what they call a flood around these parts,” I explained, turning to Ricchan. “Come to think of it, when Akari and I were having our, uh, differences, he stopped listening to music and gave up composing as well. That whole debacle happened not long after I’d given up on the drowning novel, but even after I returned to Tokyo I was still talking quite a bit about my father, who died in a ‘big water’ flood. While Akari was laying the groundwork for what would eventually become this composition, he must have somehow internalized the phrase ‘big water’ without fully understanding the meaning. However, he says he erased the original title he was using for this composition when he started work on it back in Tokyo, so …”

  “The section that Akari wrote in Tokyo definitely has a dark sensibility,” Ricchan mused. “But apparently he decided that he wanted to do a rewrite and brighten it up a bit, so maybe ‘After the Flood’ would be a good title for the new composition. The way I picture the scene, it’s the day after a big storm; the sun is shining, the sky is clear and blue, and the water level is slowly returning to normal. That’s the kind of ambience the phrase ‘after the flood’ evokes, don’t you think? Oh, and isn’t there a famous Rimbaud poem with the same title?”

  “The name of my composition is ‘Big Water,’” Akari said firmly.

  2

  “Instead of heading straight back to the house, how would it be if we took a scenic detour through the forest? There’s something I’d like to talk to you about,” Ricchan said as we drove away from the Saya. (Akari was in the back of the van, listening to music on headphones.) When I agreed, Ricchan made a perceptible shift from casual conversation to serious-discussion mode.

  “Unaiko was saying all along that she really hoped we’d be able to persuade you to be a part of our new drama project,” she began. “As you know, I wrote about it in my journal. We’re very grateful to you for agreeing to work with us, but now that we’ve reached this stage, I feel the time has come for me to share some of my concerns.

  “I know Masao thinks I’m just some kind of robot who runs around mindlessly doing Unaiko’s bidding. Admittedly, that’s been our basic dynamic during the past ten years or so, and it’s certainly true that now, as always, my energies are focused on trying to make Unaiko’s vision a reality. But this time there’s more to it. I should probably begin by saying that since our current project is a stage adaptation that more or less follows the plot of a movie, and since you wrote the screenplay for the film in question, your cooperation will be invaluable. I think Masao and the other members of the Caveman Group decided to participate in the project mainly because they heard you would be involved. The thing is, there’s another, hidden aspect to this undertaking—something that has a very personal significance for Unaiko—and I’m concerned because she hasn’t yet talked to you about it. When I asked her when she was going to get around to doing that, she said, ‘Well, the tragic aspect of the Meisuke’s mother story is implicitly present in Mr. Choko’s original screenplay, so what’s the problem?’ But the thing is, I know she’s going to put her own stamp on this, using her patented ‘Unaiko method’ with the dog-tossing and all. And I suspect that, just as she did with her previous productions, she’ll probably plow ahead in a completely oblivious, egocentric way. Because of the controversial nature of the subject matter, and the forthright way she’s planning to approach it, I’m afraid you might find yourself mixed up in something more complicated than you bargained for.

  “So basically, I wanted to make sure you’d been properly warned that the upcoming performance has the potential to blow up in our faces. There’s also the question of how Akari will react. He isn’t only meticulous about the way he listens to his music; he also pays close attention to anything having to do with his father. I’m worried that something very
distressing for him might happen as a direct result of your involvement in this project.

  “To be honest, at this early stage I can’t predict what sort of outrageous thing Unaiko might toss out during the actual performance. (You know how she loves to improvise and shock the audience!) I wouldn’t dream of betraying her confidence, and in any case she’ll probably tell you about the matter in question herself before too long. This might sound like an exaggeration, but I suspect the thing she hasn’t yet told you about, which was an exceedingly traumatic experience, had a profound effect on Unaiko—not only on her art, but on her entire life.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to be cryptic, but as I said it isn’t my place to tell you the details. What I would like to talk about right now, in a completely objective way, is the current state of affairs surrounding this play. You’ve probably heard about this from Daio, but after the show at the junior high (you know, the dog-tossing version of Kokoro) a lot of people were angry about certain aspects of Unaiko’s way of thinking. Those people are mostly from the right-wing faction that has been very influential in this prefecture’s educational circles for many years. (We learned about this from Daio, so I’m assuming you’ve heard about it as well.) Anyway, some of their representatives are going to be present in the audience at our next performance as spies. Apparently those people have already bought tickets and reserved their seats. The question is, where will they be focusing their animosity? Right now I know they’re gathering information about the scene depicting the rape of Meisuke’s mother, the way you described it in your original draft of the screenplay. (As we all know, that hit very close to home for Sakura Ogi Magarshack because of what happened to her as a young girl.) Those people have also been in contact with the women I’ve been interviewing as part of my background research. It isn’t entirely clear what happened, but apparently the scene that was initially filmed ended up being completely scrubbed from the final print, either by order of the NHK network here in Japan (which was coproducing the film) or the distribution company in America.

  “Recently those local right-wingers have started publicly flexing their muscles, saying things like ‘We’re the ones who got the scene taken out of the movie, you know,’ so they were predictably upset when they heard that Unaiko is trying to include the deleted scene in the play. The part where Meisuke’s mother—who is injured, exhausted, and probably in shock—is being carried on a stretcher made from an old wooden shutter is important, but Unaiko wants to restore the narrative’s original integrity by resurrecting the previous scene, in which Meisuke’s mother is raped and her reborn son, the supposed reincarnation of the original Meisuke, is stoned to death. Unaiko and I (and Masao, too) are certain there’s at least one spy from the other side skulking around the project, and we’re doing our best to smoke them out. We’ve also heard that they are up in arms about your supposed rewriting of modern history through the lens of your contempt for your native province. (Needless to say, those are their words, not mine.)

  “The other day when I was at the supermarket in Honmachi I happened to run into Daio, and he had just come from scouting a meeting of the right-wing group. As for Unaiko, she said that even if she told you there was a battle brewing, she didn’t think you would ever turn tail and run away at this advanced stage of the proceedings. Of course Unaiko is absolutely determined to stand her ground and deal directly with the neonationalists’ catcalls and objections and so on, during the performance and afterward as well. To that end, she added a couple of lines to the battle-cry recitative and tweaked the last line a bit. So now it will be: Men commit rape—that’s nothing new / But countries can be rapists, too. / Women warriors, here we go / Off to vanquish every foe!

  “And during the chant, dolls representing the spirit of the reincarnation of Meisuke II will be flying through the air. (Naturally, we’ll need to get your approval for those additions, since you are the original author of the chant we’ll be using.) Even so—and this is something we’ve experienced with other dog-tossing performances—no matter how forceful the hard-liners’ arguments might be, I think it’s going to be difficult for them to push the entire audience into an emotional meltdown. But never fear, Unaiko is preparing for that eventuality, and she’s going to have an ace up her sleeve. I’m not in a position to reveal the details to you right now, Mr. Choko; I’ll only say that this is the thing I alluded to earlier. You really need to hear about it directly from Unaiko, and I’m sure she’s planning to tell you before too long.”

  I had no intention of trying to force Ricchan to disclose any details about the mysterious “thing,” but I did venture a question regarding another matter that had been bothering me.

  “The other day Unaiko turned up with a man she introduced as her boyfriend,” I said. “He and I hit it off quite well, and we had an unusually candid conversation. However, toward the end of our visit Unaiko seemed to have an emotional meltdown, to use your term, and she even started to cry. I was wondering whether you might have any idea what could have caused her to react that way?”

  “Oh, yes, I heard about that,” Ricchan said. “Unaiko told me she was very moved when you quoted the translation of one of your favorite lines from Eliot, These fragments I have shored against my ruins. She said it made her realize that even for an older author who has had a great deal of success, the struggle never ends; on the contrary, it goes on forever, until you die. As I’ve said before, while Unaiko is undeniably egocentric, she is also a very sensitive soul who can be saddened to the point of tears by something as small as suddenly becoming aware of the burdens an old person has to bear.”

  3

  When Asa finally returned to her house by the river after having stayed in Tokyo considerably longer than expected, she brought with her a packet that had been put together by Akari’s music teacher in Tokyo. It contained a summary of Akari’s overall progress; copies of all the handwritten sheet music for his original compositions—both in progress and completed; and an evaluation of his most recent work. (I had shared Akari’s latest efforts with our family in Tokyo, and Asa had passed those pages along to the music teacher.)

  When Asa and I got together to talk about Akari’s musical situation, she told me about a new development we both feared would be upsetting for Akari if he knew. It appeared likely that his music teacher, who was married to the associate conductor of an orchestra patterned after the West German model, would soon be accompanying her husband on a posting abroad, where she would pursue her own education as an advanced student of music.

  After we had finished a communal lunch and Ricchan had set off with Akari for his daily round of rehab exercises, Asa gave me a full report on the state of affairs at my house in Seijo. This included an account of a soul-baring talk she’d had with Maki, who had been left in charge of the household while Chikashi was in the hospital. Asa began by reassuring me that I didn’t need to worry about Chikashi’s medical bills, since they would be covered by our health insurance. As for taxes, she said Maki was already planning for the following year. In an ordinary year, I would have published a new book, which would have yielded some income. This year, however, my work on the drowning novel had screeched to a halt, and I didn’t have any other book projects in mind. There was enough money in the bank to cover everyone’s living expenses through the next year, but what, Asa asked, was I planning to do when the big tax payments came due next March?

  “Don’t worry, Kogii,” she said briskly before I could reply, “I may have come up with a possible solution. It’s been confirmed that we have copyrights on all versions of the screenplay for the Meisuke’s Mother Marches Off to War movie. According to Ricchan, they’ve begun work on a draft of their stage-play version of the story, which will be presented using Unaiko’s trademark dog-tossing method. As remuneration for your work and for the use of your screenplay, what if you combined those two versions of the story in a single volume, as a set? There’s no reason to expect a novelist’s screenplay and a playscript to be a bestseller, but it
’s worth a try, don’t you agree? I’m acquainted with the editor who would have been handling your current novel, if it had ever come to fruition, so I went ahead and sent an email to sound him out about this idea.”

  “Oh, that’s right,” I said, remembering. “If you’re wondering what became of his reply, the editor and I just corresponded directly. As you’re aware, his publishing house puts out a literary magazine, and as it happens, the editor in chief has a long-standing interest in both film and the theater. He’s already said that he would like to publish both scripts in his magazine, as a new work, and they’re willing to pay for it, too. I really have to hand it to you, sis—you’re as much of a go-getter as any professional literary agent out there!”

  Asa knew I was historically ambivalent about her aggressively proactive tendencies, and she clearly heard the undertone of resentment beneath my compliment. However, that didn’t stop her from forging ahead.

  “Once it’s been decided that your scripts will appear in a literary magazine, you won’t be able to bail on the project the way you did on your last novel,” she said pointedly. “In that spirit, I think you need to take the time to walk the insurrection route and check things out for yourself. You’ve never actually made the trek along the river, have you? Unaiko mentioned she wanted to get a sense of where the uprising took place to help her imagine the frightful ordeal that Meisuke’s mother endured afterward, so I told her we’d be glad to provide a hands-on guided tour. We’re planning to go next Sunday, and I trust I can count on you to come along?”