by Shion Miura
While Majime was tied down at the office, Kaguya paid the professor occasional visits. From the time she had worked at Umenomi, he had always appreciated her cooking and sometimes used to visit her restaurant on his own, so it was only natural that she, too, should worry about him. She began making his favorite dishes and taking them with her. When Majime asked whether he ate them or how he seemed during her visits, however, she was vague. “He always sounds apologetic for making you shoulder the main burden,” she would say. “We can’t have that,” he would reply. “Be sure to tell him the dictionary’s coming along fine, so he can just relax and concentrate on getting well.” Countless variations on this dialogue took place.
Heavy gray clouds hung low in the sky, as if it were midwinter. The Great Passage crawled toward completion, and the professor’s health showed no sign of improving as January drew to an end.
As long as progress continues, eventually the end comes in sight. Xuanzang, the seventh-century Chinese monk and scholar, accomplished the amazing feat of journeying to India, bringing back sacred Buddhist texts, and translating them into Chinese. The priest Zenkai devoted the final thirty years of his life to chiseling through rock to create a cliff-side tunnel for worshipers. A dictionary is a repository of human wisdom not because it contains an accumulation of words but because it embodies true hope, wrought over time by indomitable spirits.
Finally the printing press began turning out pages of The Great Passage, with Majime standing by alongside Araki and Kishibe. Majime picked up a packet of freshly printed pages and held it reverently.
The pages were on giant uncut sheets of thin paper. They came in signatures of sixteen, with text printed on both sides, so thirty-two pages in all. The pages as seen on the sheets seemed to be out of order. But when the sheets were folded in half four times, the thirty-two pages lay sorted out in the proper size and order. Each such batch was called a “gathering.” Each group of thirty-two pages equaled one gathering. The Great Passage would have nearly three thousand pages, enough for over ninety gatherings bound together.
The large, still-uncut sheets of paper gave off a faint warmth. Majime knew this was because they had just come through the printer, yet he couldn’t help believing that the heat was the condensed passion of all those who had worked on this dictionary—Araki and Professor Matsumoto, Miss Kishibe and Mrs. Sasaki, the scholars and students, the staffs at the paper company and printing press, and himself.
Against the slightly golden tinge of the paper, the lettering stood out clearly with the darkness of a summer’s night. Realizing that the page he was looking at included the word akari—light—Majime had to blink back sudden tears. The word referred not only to sunlight and lamplight, but also to testimony or evidence. Here before him was clear evidence that the past fifteen years of struggles had not been in vain.
“It’s so beautiful.” Kishibe looked at the printed page as if it were a precious gem and wiped her eyes with a handkerchief.
Beside her, Miyamoto was nodding with emotion.
Araki reached out and touched a page in trembling awe. Having apparently reassured himself that this was no dream, he said, “Majime, we have to deliver this right away.”
“Yes,” Majime agreed. “Let’s take it to the professor.”
The staff was still checking the fifth proofs for the final section of the dictionary, containing words starting with the series ya-yu-yo. They left Kishibe in charge and set out for the hospital in Tsukiji with a gathering rolled in a tube.
Professor Matsumoto was hooked up to an IV and had an oxygen tube in his nose to assist his breathing. The bed was raised and he was sitting up, leaning against pillows and writing something on a file card. When he caught sight of them, he smiled and laid his pencil on the bedside stand. “Well, well, Mr. Majime! It’s been a long time.”
Mrs. Matsumoto had temporarily gone home. Encouraged by the professor, whose voice sounded a bit raspy, Majime and Araki sat down in folding chairs by the bed.
He was no fatter or thinner than a year ago. His color looked slightly better, Majime thought as he studied the professor discreetly, looking for hopeful signs. Nudged by Araki once again, he caught himself. Mustn’t linger, mustn’t tire the professor out.
“We’re here because there’s something we couldn’t wait to show you.” He spread out the paper and laid it on the professor’s lap.
“Oh!” the professor murmured. It was an expression of delight, wrung from his innermost depths. “Finally, finally, The Great Passage has come this far!” His frail finger traced the characters.
Yes, finally a part of our dictionary is here before us, in print. Impulsively, Majime wanted to reach out and grasp the professor’s hand and say these words. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to do anything so improper.
“Professor Matsumoto,” said Araki, “The Great Passage will be published on schedule in March. As soon as a sample copy is available, we’ll bring it to you. Or better yet, let’s have a celebration in the office.”
“I’ll look forward to that.” The professor wore a look of pure joy, like the expression on the face of a boy who has captured a beautiful butterfly. “Thank you both so much.”
Professor Matsumoto died in mid-February, without waiting for the completion of The Great Passage.
After Araki called from the hospital to tell him the sad news, Majime opened his locker at work in a daze. He was checking to make sure he had a black tie. He knew it was strange to be checking for such a thing at such a time. His emotions and actions were at odds in a way he couldn’t control.
The Dictionary Editorial Department handled the wake and funeral arrangements, while helping Mrs. Matsumoto as well. Majime learned that the professor had been seventy-eight years old. He had left his post at the university well before retirement age and devoted himself from then on to lexicography. He had no students who kept in touch with him and distanced himself from the academic world, giving his life solely to words.
Araki had worked with the professor on dictionaries for many years, going back to when the professor still taught at the university. Araki had been a faithful partner, supporting him, encouraging him, and bringing various dictionaries into existence by the professor’s side. Now Araki was ushering mourners to their seats, dry-eyed. Perhaps silent wails were echoing inside him; his cheeks were sunken, the color of chalk.
That evening after the funeral Majime went home. He had brought purifying salt with him to scatter at the doorstep, following custom, but inwardly he cursed the idea. If the professor should choose to come back and watch over them, he would be only too glad.
Kaguya had arrived home just before him and was no longer wearing her mourning clothes. Apparently worried about him, she would be opening her restaurant a little later than usual that evening. They went up silently to the living room and drank hot tea that she’d prepared.
“I was too late,” Majime murmured. He hadn’t been able to show The Great Passage to Professor Matsumoto. If someone else had been assigned as editor, it might have been finished sooner. Because of my fecklessness, he died without ever seeing the realization of his lifelong dream.
Before he knew it, Majime was sobbing. In front of Kaguya, no less. Despite himself, tears and groans that sounded like animal cries kept coming and coming without end.
Kaguya came around the kotatsu and sat down beside him. Without saying a word, she gently caressed his shaking shoulders.
The launch party for The Great Passage took place in the banquet hall of a venerable hotel in Kudanshita just at the end of March, when the cherry buds were just about to bloom.
Scholars who had contributed to the dictionary were invited, along with representatives of the paper and printing companies. There were over one hundred guests in all. The festivities began with a welcome speech by the CEO of Gembu Books.
In the rear of the hall was a waist-high table bearing a copy of The Great Passage and a photograph of Professor Matsumoto, surrounded by flowers, with a large
carafe of sake and a cup. The arrangement looked like a small altar. Mrs. Matsumoto paused in front of the table and looked at the display with moist eyes.
Too bad they couldn’t have invited all the student workers, thought Majime as he made the rounds of the buffet-style party, greeting guests. Management had feared that if the fifty-odd students came, they would descend on the food like a swarm of locusts and devour every scrap. Gembu’s budget couldn’t accommodate such extravagance, so they decided to take them all out to a bar on another day.
This evening, representatives of major bookstores and university libraries were also in attendance. Reviews of The Great Passage, which had been published two weeks earlier, were favorable, and sales were exceeding expectations. The party was an excellent chance to get even more orders, and the marketing department had gone all-out. The sales, promotion, and advertising staffs were on hand, too, busily pouring drinks, chatting, and otherwise attending to guests.
“Majime!”
Hearing his name, Majime turned to see Nishioka separate himself from a group and come toward him. He was wearing a narrowly cut suit with a red handkerchief poking out of the breast pocket. Majime couldn’t help staring at the handkerchief.
“My name is listed in the acknowledgments!” Nishioka sounded excited and deeply moved.
“Yep.”
“I bet that was your doing.”
“Professor Matsumoto was in the hospital, so I wrote it for him. Of course, I talked it over with him first.”
Since Nishioka used to work in the Dictionary Editorial Department and had exerted himself on behalf of The Great Passage, it was only natural that his name should be included. Majime couldn’t understand why he would bring it up. “Don’t tell me we got your name wrong or something.”
“No, that’s not it. It’s just that I wasn’t—I never—” He broke off, smiled wryly, and clapped Majime on the shoulder. “You son of a gun.” Then he disappeared back into the crowd.
Majime thought he had caught a faint “Thank you,” but he wasn’t sure.
Nishioka’s eagle eyes spotted someone from an advertising agency, and he greeted him with a smooth, “Hey, Mr. Ogiwara! Thanks so much for coming! We owe you big-time.” Mr. Ogiwara, or whatever his name was, smiled benignly.
After he, too, had made the rounds and greeted people, Majime went over to the little table in the back of the room, where Mrs. Matsumoto had picked up the copy of The Great Passage and was examining it lovingly.
“You know,” she said quietly to Majime, “I think my husband was prepared for the worst from the day he first went into the hospital. He was never one to give up, but to the very end, even when he was delirious, all he talked about was this dictionary.”
“I’m so sorry I couldn’t show it to him while he was alive.” Majime bowed his head in contrition.
“Good heavens!” said Mrs. Matsumoto, shaking her head. “He died happy—I know he did. I’m happy, too. The Great Passage meant the world to him, and you made his dream a reality. I can never thank you enough.”
Gently, she laid the dictionary back on the table in front of her husband’s photograph. Then, with a faint smile, she walked away.
Majime watched her go and then turned toward the photograph and placed his palms together in reverence.
“Well done.”
Thinking the professor had said the words, he looked up in surprise. Araki had come up beside him without his realizing it. He’s gotten old, too, Majime realized. Well, of course he has. Fifteen years slipped away while we all worked on this dictionary.
“You’re a bit down, aren’t you?” said Araki. “I went to Back of the Moon the other day. Kaguya was worried.”
“I feel so bad for the professor. It’s all my fault, my second-rate skills got in the way.” Feeling it was immature of him, Majime still couldn’t stop the words from pouring out.
“I was afraid you might be brooding over something like that. I brought something that should help.” He took out a white envelope from an inner pocket. “This is a letter the professor sent to me.”
His eyes urged Majime to take it. Majime drew out a sheet of stationery and unfolded it. The letter was in the professor’s handwriting, so familiar from all those file cards.
I apologize for not being able to fulfill my responsibility as editor-in-chief to the very end. On the occasion of The Great Passage’s launching, I most likely will no longer be on this earth. But I feel neither anxiety nor regret. That’s because, as clear as day, I can visualize The Great Passage setting out on the sea, its hold filled with the treasure of words.
Araki, allow me to correct one thing I said. I told you I would never encounter another dictionary editor like you. I was wrong. Thanks to Mr. Majime, whom you brought into the department, I was able to press forward on the path of lexicography. I cannot tell you how fortunate I’ve been to encounter editors like you and him. Thanks to the two of you, my life has been extraordinarily fulfilled. In the next world I will keep on collecting word samples in search of words surpassing the only ones I know to say now: Thank you.
Editing The Great Passage has been a great pleasure. I wish everyone a long and happy voyage aboard her.
Majime carefully refolded the letter and inserted it in the envelope.
He looked around in turn at the professor’s photograph, the copy of The Great Passage inscribed with the professor’s name, and the many faces of the attendees.
Sometimes words were useless. No matter how they called out to him, Araki and Mrs. Matsumoto had been unable to tether the professor’s life to this earth. And yet the professor wasn’t completely gone, either. Because of words, the most important part of him was lodged in their hearts.
The memories of the professor were proof that even after life functions cease and the body turns to ash, beyond physical death, the soul lives on. In order to speak of the professor’s aura, his speech and behavior, in order to share their memories and pass them on, words were indispensable.
All at once, in the palm of his hand, Majime felt the professor’s touch—a touch he had never felt before. That last day in the hospital room, he had failed to take the professor’s hand in his, but he knew this was how it would have felt, cool and dry and smooth.
Human beings had created words to communicate with the dead, and with those yet unborn.
Miss Kishibe was eating cake with Miyamoto. The other staff members were busy attending to guests, joining them in eating and drinking although they had explicit orders not to do so. The two lovebirds were jabbing at each other’s pieces of cake with evident pleasure. Mrs. Sasaki was over by the wall, drinking a glass of white wine, and Nishioka was going around tossing off his usual stock of pleasantries. Everyone was all smiles, rejoicing at the completion of The Great Passage.
They had made a ship. A ship bearing the souls of people traveling from ancient times toward the future, across the ocean rich with words.
“Majime,” said Araki, drawing Majime back to the center of the room, “tomorrow we start work on the revised edition.”
Majime thought that the intensity of his emotions overflowed in a streak down his cheek, but it might have been his imagination. On this jubilant evening, Araki’s thoughts were of the future of The Great Passage, the evolving dictionary still to come. How like him that was! He was Professor Matsumoto’s true soul mate and fellow traveler.
Dictionary making knew no end. The voyage of the ship bearing hope as it crossed the bosom of the deep was everlasting.
Majime laughed and nodded. “Tonight, then, let’s drink!”
Taking care not to let the foam spill over, he poured beer in Araki’s glass.
A Love Letter from Majime to Kaguya (The Complete Edition)
Greetings
Cold winds are blowing, a reminder of the swift approach of winter’s frosty skies. I trust that you are well.
I am writing because I have a confession to make. My emotions are at full tide, and I know with certainty that this tide
, unlike those of the ocean, will never ebb. The suddenness of this letter may surprise you, but I beg you to read it to the end.
Until now I have lived immersed in the world of books. My closest friends, therefore, are to be found not in the real world but in the pages of books.
Snow envelops the mountain house, tree shadows darken.
Eave-bells are still, night deepens.
Quietly arrange scattered books, ponder difficult things.
In the lamp’s blue flame, ten thousand ancient minds.1
Nishioka: Okay, let’s check out Majime’s love letter.
Kishibe: This is exciting! But it starts off in an awfully roundabout way. Doesn’t make much of an impression.
Nishioka: Yikes! A Chinese poem, right off the bat!1
Kishibe: I brought some notes by Professor Matsumoto. He says this is a seven-character quatrain by the Edo-period Confucian scholar Kan Chazan called “Reading a Book on a Winter’s Night.” Here’s his paraphrase: “Falling snow piles on the mountain cabin, tree shadows turn black./Bells hang silent from the eaves as the night quietly deepens./I put away my scattered books, think back on passages that bothered me./Blue lamplight in my room sways as I see into the minds of the ancients.”
This poem expresses exactly how I have lived. And yet now I understand.
My eyes discern writing of East and West,
My mind embraces regrets old and new.2
All this time I have merely been amusing myself with books while understanding nothing of the anguished truth, the deep emotions, that lie behind the lines penned by the ancients. Finally, even my books, which I have counted as my only friends, have lost patience and ceased speaking to me.
