One Morning Like a Bird
Page 12
‘It does not have a name. I saw it privately at General Sugiyama’s house. It was filmed by one of the general’s aides and lasts no more than a few minutes. It shows a battlefield in Shangtung Province. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of dead soldiers, ours, theirs, lying where they had fallen a few hours earlier. The beauty of it is . . . beyond my poor powers of description. Their gestures, their stillness, their wounds, their youth. I was filled with an emotion that goes far beyond patriotism or pity, or even terror. A voluptuous sensation, an ardour that no poem or novel or song could have inspired in me. I stood. I leaned towards the images on the screen. I longed to be there!’
‘And this is what the masses want to see?’
‘Oh, probably they do. In a diluted form at first, and dressed up a little. But that is not quite the point I am making.’
‘If you are arguing that cinema is the pre-eminent form, the form of the future, I suppose I must agree.’
‘But would you agree that the future is not simply the depiction of such scenes – a depiction that must indeed be cinematic – but the scenes themselves?’
‘War?’
‘Yes, war. But more than that.’
‘More?’
‘It is the imaginative aspect, the aesthetic aspect, even, dare I say, the religious aspect.’
‘A worshipping of war?’
‘Not exactly war,’ he laughs, ‘but you are getting close. Do you think you’ll remember all this? Perhaps you have a little notebook in your pocket you could use. You see, I am putting myself into your hands. I hope I have not made a mistake?’
Lunch is in the house, an upstairs room where double doors of decorative glass open onto a balcony overlooking the garden. The lunch guests are already seated by the time Yuji and Ishihara join them. The table is as formal, as cluttered, as the tables at the Snow Goose. There are vases of flowers, bouquets arranged in the Western style, and on the walls four or five large paintings, black-and-white abstracts, some kind of Japanese constructivism. Ota is pouring glasses of Monopole champagne. Major Yamazaki is sketching thrusts and dispositions on the starched linen of the tablecloth with the handle of his fork: ‘Naturally I accept the need for a showdown with the Soviets, but the country needs fuel oil – the navy’s using four hundred tons of the stuff every day – and that means pushing to the south.’
Yuji is given a seat beside Dick Amazawa who, paying no attention to the major’s lecture, is leaning heavily on his elbows in a crumpled suit of yellow and white striped linen. There is a woman with him in a short gingham dress who chain-smokes throughout the meal, the food on her plate untouched. To Yuji, Amazawa confides that he has not slept in two weeks. His doctor gives him pills to help him stay awake. He has been awake so long he’s afraid to sleep now. ‘Aren’t you some sort of writer?’ he asks.
‘Well,’ says Yuji, ‘I suppose.’
‘You’re going to work in the Unit?’
‘The unit?’
‘He hasn’t told you about the Unit?’
‘No.’
‘But you want to work in cinema?’
‘Yes, perhaps.’
‘Who do you like?’
‘Renoir, Ford. Ozu . . .’
‘Hitchcock?’
‘The Man who Knew Too Much.’
‘Murder!’
‘The Lady Vanishes.’
‘Imagine a film that’s just a woman screaming. The whole film. Just that.’
‘It’s difficult to imagine.’
‘That’s because you sleep too much. Have some of these. I’ve got more than I can use. More even than she can use.’
The woman blinks, a lizard on a stone. Amazawa takes a handful of brownish-pinkish tablets from his pocket, eats one, and drops the rest in the pocket of Yuji’s jacket. From across the table Ishihara is smiling at Yuji as though they alone understand that the afternoon is a kind of game, an elegant charade, something to divert themselves with until the serious business of welcoming the future becomes possible.
The houseboy serves the coffee. The major, face to the ceiling, is snoring in his seat, a piece of tomato from the cuttlefish ‘à la française’ dangling from a corner of his moustache. Yuji excuses himself and stands.
‘Ota will drive you,’ says Ishihara.
‘Really, there is no need,’ says Yuji.
‘What is the point in keeping a car,’ smiles Ishihara, ‘or even a personal secretary, if one doesn’t use them?’
Bowing, Yuji begins to thank him. Ishihara cuts him off with a movement of his hand. ‘Until next time,’ he says. ‘Until our next little meeting.’
Outside, the sun is dancing off the curves of the big car. Ota holds open the rear door, every gesture of servility carefully deranged to express its opposite. They drive in silence, the car rocks expensively on its springs. As they pass the Yasukuni shrine, Yuji, who certainly does not wish to arrive outside his house in such a car, to be seen by Father (to be seen by someone), asks to be dropped. He has, he says, some business in the area. Would it be convenient . . . ? Ota says nothing. The car rolls to a halt. Yuji gets out. The instant he has closed the heavy door, the car moves off. Yuji watches it, waits until it is out of sight, then unbuttons his collar and begins to walk. He wonders where the nearest tram-stop is. He wonders, too, whether, when he comes to write the article, he should mention the fact that all the men at the lunch had in their lapels the same ruby-headed pin he saw Makiyama wearing in the Don Juan.
2
Wisteria, azaleas, peonies. The first mosquitoes, the first bites . . .
On 10 May the radio announces that all stores will henceforth be prohibited from carrying non-essential merchandise. Zen monks, in recognition of the rice shortages, vow to live on nothing but fruit and vegetables. Citizens are ordered to sell their gold to the government. Soon there are stories of people hiding their gold watches and buying chrome ones to wear instead.
In China, the army suffers heavy casualties in its advance on the Nationalist capital at Chunking. The brush-maker puts up his shutters. His son is among the missing. In Europe, German tanks sweep into France. After four days the battle already looks lost, soldiers and civilians fleeing along clogged roads. (And what is Feneon doing? What is he thinking? Does this disaster not justify a visit? Does it not require it?)
The nineteenth is Yuji’s birthday. He goes with Taro and Junzo to the Ginza. They visit the Black Pearl, but not the Don Juan, the billiard parlour, but not, of course, the Snow Goose. By midnight the question is what to do with Junzo. Yuji has never seen him like this, not even on his twenty-first, when he was babbling about ‘spineless intellectuals’ until he tripped down the steps to the toilet and had to be carried home by his brother. When he hears about Yuji’s lunch with Ishihara, he immediately wants to take a taxi to the Azabu Hills. ‘At least we can break a few windows, eh? At least we can do that.’
He pulls at Taro’s arm. Taro shakes him off. ‘What,’ says Taro, ‘do you suppose would happen if we were caught? You would be thrown out of Imperial, I would be finished at the ministry, and Yuji would lose any hope of finding a respectable job.’
‘Perfect!’ cries Junzo. ‘Don’t you see that’s the best that could happen to us?’
A group their own age come into the hall, and though out of uniform it’s obvious – the shaved skulls, the sediment of fatigue in their faces – they’re all off-duty soldiers. Junzo leaps to attention, salutes them. They come over. Taro tries to calm things down while Yuji hustles Junzo through the back door into the yard. The door swings shut. Side by side they urinate against the bins, blue neon above, then stars.
‘Let me congratulate you,’ says Junzo.
‘On becoming an old man?’
‘I just hope you’re not going to be an idiot.’
‘Idiot? What about you? Those soldiers would have—’
‘Just don’t be an idiot,’ says Junzo. ‘And please take care of yourself. Please take care of—’
‘Are you getting sentimental?’
‘La gloire.’
‘La gloire . . .’
Taro comes out. ‘Their friends have arrived. Now they want to show us how things are done across the water. Let’s go.’
The door out of the yard is locked. They clamber over the wall, drop into the alley behind, then run past the shack-like backs of restaurants, past dog-fences and silent birdcages hanging from the eaves of unlit houses. They come to a railway line. Before they can cross it a bell starts clanking. They crouch, wait. The train lays down a bitter scent of coal, but when they run into the streets the other side, the air is fragrant with night flowers blooming on countless rooftop gardens. Are the soldiers after them still? There are no cries of pursuit, no hurrying feet. They hear water and walk onto a bridge over a canal. Below them, tethered boats shift in the current. They lean on the parapet. Taro lights a cigarette. Junzo seems to have sobered up, though Yuji doubts he was ever quite as drunk as he pretended to be (and what did he mean, ‘au vainqueur?’ Did he know what he was saying?). They start to laugh about the soldiers, go on laughing even when the joke’s exhausted. None of it matters now. They have had an adventure. They are unscathed. It is like old times. And suddenly it feels immensely pleasurable to be standing together on the warm stones of a bridge in the heart of the Low City, this Year of the Dragon, immensely pleasurable, immensely precious. Then Taro blows out a last lungful of smoke, flicks away his cigarette. The ember arcs over the water, an early firefly.
Then gone.
3
It is only because the front door is open that he manages it at all. If he had to ring the bell and stand there waiting, he would, he is sure, simply run away before the door was answered. He approaches slowly, creeping up behind the steadily falling rain. Hanako is in the hall wiping the tiles with a cloth. When she sees Yuji, she looks up, startled, then nods and gestures with the cloth towards the salon. Yuji shakes his umbrella, folds it, takes off his rubber boots, his raincoat.
In the salon, Feneon is alone. He is sitting on the piano stool in his shirtsleeves, his braces hanging down from the waistband buttons of his trousers. There is two or three days’ growth of stubble on his face. His feet, by the piano’s brass pedals, are bare.
‘I can’t play it,’ he says. ‘None of her talent could have come from me.’ He sounds a note with the edge of finger, smiles, then turns and squints at Yuji as if they were much further away from each other than they are. ‘I thought you two would have come together. I hope you haven’t fallen out.’
‘Fallen out?’
‘Had a row.’
‘Row?’
‘A dispute.’
‘But with whom?’
‘With Junzo. He left ten minutes ago.’
‘Junzo was here?’
‘He plays the clown but underneath he takes it all terribly seriously, don’t you think? You’re a much more carefree fellow. It’s all that German philosophy he studies. I can think of nothing more detrimental to a young man’s health. Philosophy was invented by the Greeks as a guide to good living. Then the Germans got hold of it and made it joyless. Better off spending his time in a bordello. Women there can teach you a great deal. Live with their eyes open, not just their legs.’ He chuckles to himself, shakes his head. ‘Fancy a drink? Or don’t you, in the morning?’
The urge to flee, to splutter some excuse and get out, is very strong. He has never seen Feneon like this before. He is drunk, of course, or almost drunk, but that would be tolerable – it might even be exciting – if the disarrangement of mind that made the first drink necessary was not so disturbingly plain. He clears his throat. He has a little speech prepared but when he starts (listening all the while for the opening or shutting of a door, the approach of footsteps), he finds himself quite unable to manage the language with his usual assurance.
‘I am . . . I wish, monsieur . . . I wish to say how profoundly . . . how the unfortunate events . . . the suffering, naturally. And all those who revere a great culture, and I, who have been inspired. And you, monsieur, who, with great consideration, most generously, with the Japanese people—’
‘My dear little Frenchman!’ says Feneon, standing and clapping Yuji’s shoulders. ‘My dear, dear little Frenchman. You’re going to drink wine with me! Here, I’m going to start you off at the deep end. This is a Saint Emilion, and a pretty good one. Take your time with it. Give it a good sniff. Now, roll it over your tongue. Slowly, slowly . . . It’s the last case. There won’t be any more until the Boche go home, though what they can’t drink they’ll try to carry with them. There must be cellars the length and breadth of the Reich full of good French wine from the last time they visited.’
‘France has not yet surrendered, monsieur.’
‘You’ve seen the pictures in the paper. Storm troopers on the Champs-Élysées! Another week, two at most . . .’
He sits at the piano again and stares at the keys as though their surface is a riddle staring might solve. ‘I’ve been dreaming,’ he says, ‘one I haven’t had in years. A memory as much as a dream. Woods near Noirceur. A place we advanced and retreated through a dozen times in the summer of 1917. I was on my own one evening bringing up a sack of loaves for the company. Somehow, I lost the path and wandered into a small clearing where a soldier was sitting with his back against the trunk of a tree. He must have been there for months. There was no flesh on him. His uniform was so black with rot you couldn’t even say which army he was from. What made me stop and take a closer look was his boot, just the one, standing in the grass beside him like a tombstone. My first thought was that he must have been taking off his boots when he was hit, that he had been marching all day dreaming of the moment he would sit down and let the air at his feet. It even seemed slightly amusing, the idea of him planning his little rest and suddenly starting a much longer one. Then I saw his rifle in the grass, the muzzle pointing towards him, and I realised the reason he had taken off his boot was so he could press the trigger with his toe.’
‘And you dream of him?’
‘He talks to me. Whispers things I would rather not hear.’
‘I have dreams about fire,’ says Yuji.
Feneon nods. ‘You’ll have more of those before this is over.’
In the garden, the leaves of the magnolia are trembling in the rain, the last of the white petals scattered in the grass. Is this the moment to take his leave? He has been fortunate, but how long before they are interrupted? He swallows a last large mouthful of wine (such a heavy, soporific drink) and is looking for somewhere to put the glass when Feneon begins to speak again.
‘I try to imagine,’ he says, ‘how it is for her. She’s never even been to France. It’s just a story, a few pictures. What can it mean to her, a country she’s never seen?’ He shakes his head. ‘I should have taken her, even only for a month or two. It would have helped her, I think. But somehow . . .’ Once more he sounds a single note, waits as it melts into the air. ‘I’m afraid if you were hoping to see her, you’re out of luck. She went out a few minutes before Junzo arrived.’
‘She could not have known.’
‘What?’
‘That I was coming here.’
‘You might have a daughter yourself one day.’
‘Me?’
‘Or a son.’
‘A son!’
‘Well, why not? Didn’t you tell me you almost got married once?’
‘Yes. Once.’
‘Life is full of the unexpected, Yuji. Anyone who thinks they know what’s going to happen is a bloody fool. What’s that saying you have? “When men talk of the future, devils laugh.”’
Yuji nods. ‘It is one of Grandfather’s favourite sayings.’
‘The great pickle-maker? I’d like to meet him one day. I always think you’re more impressed by him than by your father
.’
‘Perhaps Father is not so impressed by me.’
‘No? I never liked mine much either. Left France to get away. Tried to do a better job with Alissa, better than he did with me. It appears I might not have been as successful as I thought. The truth about being a parent is that it’s completely impossible. Did you know that? When they’re small they worship you. Later, secretly or openly, they judge you. The best you can hope for is that you live long enough for them to forgive you.’
‘May I ask, monsieur, if you forgave your father?’
‘To forgive someone, you need to stand in front of them. You need to look them in the eyes. You can’t do it by post. When my old man died, I had not seen him for thirteen years.’
‘He was Rimbaud’s friend.’
‘They weren’t friends, not really. Neither had any gift for friendship.’
‘Verlaine?’
‘Rimbaud shot Verlaine.’
‘Only a small wound.’
‘Is that your definition of friendship? Fine to shoot them so long as you don’t actually kill them? I shall have to warn the others.’ He rubs his hands across his face, rasps the stubble. Beneath his breath he starts to sing. ‘ “Quand Madelon vient nous servir à boire” . . . I think,’ he says. ‘I shall go to bed with the rest of the Saint-Emilion. You don’t mind, I hope?’
‘No,’ says Yuji. ‘No, of course.’ Then, speaking carefully as though stood before the examiner, he expresses again his regret over the fate of France.
‘I don’t hold you personally responsible,’ says Feneon.
‘Thank you,’ says Yuji. He bows, steps back, turns, and retreats to the hall. Hanako has gone out, the door is shut. He pulls on his boots, takes his umbrella, opens the door. From the step, as he buttons his coat, he sees that someone is sheltering behind the pillar of the verandah across the street. The brim of a hat, the hem of a raincoat, the heel of a shoe. For a moment he can go neither forwards nor back. Then he puts up his umbrella and hurries to his bicycle, his boots splashing in the yellow mud of the road.