The Hemingway Files

by H. K. Bush

  “Well … of course, here in Japan, we have a specific location for venerating the war dead. It is Yasukuni Shrine, in Tokyo. But it is a … a controversial location.” He paused, then changed the subject back to the USA. “Tell me more about this aspect of the race—the American Memorial Day—do Americans consider the fact that some of your own war dead might include criminals?”

  This sudden twist put me back on the defensive. But his pointed observations revealed immediately what a penetrating mind I was encountering. Americans are not prone to thinking of their military adventures in terms of war crimes. Frankly, in all the years of visiting the Speedway, these thoughts had never crossed my mind, and I told him so. My admission seemed to satisfy him, and he nodded.

  “And how about here, sensei? Do you like any Japanese sports?”

  His question caught me off guard, and my mind raced to think about a sport I could mention. The pause grew, and he filled the silence. “Do you like sumo?”

  At the time, I wasn’t the fan of sumo that I am now; it seemed nothing more than a trivial sport involving morbidly obese counterfeit “athletes.” In my unschooled mind, I associated sumo with the absurd pro wrestlers that popped up on late night TV back home. How poorly I had initially discerned the delicate beauty of the struggle, the deeply meaningful ritual of muscle and sweat that for many Japanese is the quintessential sporting entertainment. So I lied to my host. “Yes, it’s a fascinating sport.”

  Professor Goto seemed to recognize my tiny white lie. He sipped at his tea, rubbed his hands together. “When I was a youngster, my father and brother were huge fans of the old fighters, and, of course, I liked sumo myself. Azumafuji was a champion in my youth, and we all shared a great admiration for him. He hailed from Tokyo, which is unusual for the sekitori—the wrestlers. My father often took us to Osaka in the springtime to see the tournament. A few times we went on the train up to Tokyo, where the traditional sumo stadium was, to watch the matches for a few days. Those are some of the great memories of my youth. Azumafuji went on to become yokozuna—the fortieth grand champion. I even had a picture of him, signed, on my bookshelf. My father knew his management team, they are called “stables” in English. We often visited the practice sessions and ate chanko-nabe, the famous meat and vegetable stew-soup prepared by the sumo wrestlers themselves. A privilege of knowing the right people.” He paused to reflect. “Since those days, regretfully, I have not watched sumo very much.”

  I waited for him to continue, but he was done speaking. At least on that topic. An awkward pause ensued. An insect buzzed along the window, and a gust of wind caught a banner and shook it. Goto-sensei continued his studied gaze, peering into me.

  “You have a beautiful house here, Sensei,” I said finally, unable to stand the silence any longer.

  “Ah, yes, thank you. It is our ancestral home. It was built long before the war. Mostly wood, I’m afraid. I have tried to maintain it in a proper fashion.”

  “Did you grow up here?”

  “Yes. My father built it not long after he began to have some success in his industrial concerns.”

  “What kind of business was he in?” This was a bit risky, but I wanted to hear some details from the old professor.

  He grinned at this comment. “Do you truly not know about my father, Springs-sensei? He is rather well known here in Japan.” He looked me in the eye once more, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. In truth, I had not thought to research my benefactor’s personal past, and had no knowledge of his family. Not yet.

  Goto-sensei lowered his gaze to the table, gently brought his tea to his lips, blew on it, sipped, then returned it to the table. He looked off to one side for a moment. Then back. “I am rather shy about speaking of things from my past. All of that can wait, I should think. In Japan, we do not often wish to speak about our families to … outsiders.”

  Here he looked at me in the eye briefly. I think he wanted to be certain I understood that I was very much an outsider. His glance insinuated I had much to learn, that I had somehow already violated some set of codes, even if just slightly. Now the word that he used for me, which was surely his translation of the term gaijin in Japanese, does not have quite the ring of negativity in English as it does in Japanese, but still it sounded a bit harsh to my ears. He’d said “outsider” in English, but I heard it from a Japanese perspective, a good example of the inscrutability of words, from one language to another. Several months in Japan had already made me rather wary about all of this—the problems of words. Even single words can hold so much cultural significance, a reality I was grasping inch by inch.

  We sat there just like that for a moment, with that word “outsider” hanging in the air between us. I had no idea what to say next, and since he continued to sip his tea in silence, I ventured ahead, and changed the subject like any good American might.

  “May I ask you about some of these lovely artworks? The prints in the hallway, for instance—they look like some by Utamaro and Hiroshige that I’ve seen in books.”

  He waited a moment, and a smile almost appeared. “You have a good eye, Springs-sensei. They are, in fact, original prints. I have found them to be some of the more legitimate Japanese artworks of the past few centuries. Utamaro’s women are particularly stunning, I think. Do you like Japanese art?”

  “Yes, especially wood block prints.”

  As I said this, Mika glided effortlessly into the room with another hot pot of tea. She kneeled before us gracefully, and brought the teapot to each of our cups, mine first, filling it with steaming, rich, deep green Japanese tea. As she filled it, a mysterious expression played on her lips. She did not look me in the eye, but she was fully there, fragrant as cut flowers in her splendid garment. She bowed, raised herself once again to her feet, and backed away. Kneeling at the door once more, she said in the slightest whisper, “Shitsure-itashimasu” (excuse me), backed out, and gently slid the door closed. Each moment of her presence was mesmerizing to me, though in pseudo-Japanese style, I was trying very hard to conceal my wonder.

  Professor Goto picked up the newly freshened cup of tea, and brushed away a fly from his forehead. “Then I would like to show you some interesting items that I have in other rooms, if you have the time to come and visit me again in the future. Perhaps you have heard of the views of Mt. Fuji?”

  That statement carried with it two dramatic pieces of information—one was that he possibly owned some prints by Hokusai, who was not only one of the most famous artists in all of Japanese history but who had already become my personal favorite. The other was even more intriguing: the suggestion that he might invite me back in the future. I had assumed that this was just a one-time deal, as so many social invitations are in Japan. Meet and greets, Kilcoyne called them, pure protocol. But he seemed to be saying that a return visit might be in order—if I played my cards right. I nodded and said simply, “Yes, of course, by Hokusai. Fugaku Sanju Rokkei. The “36 Views of Mt. Fuji.” I’m a big fan of Hokusai. And I would be honored to see them. You sound like an art collector, yes?”

  This last question he found somewhat amusing. He looked down and smiled, then allowed the slightest chuckle to play over his mouth, just for an instant. “Actually, yes, I have a few minor objects. Since my youth, I have enjoyed the wood block prints, what we call the ukiyo-e, the ‘pictures of the floating world.’ I also admire certain ceramic items from the past. I have a few minor scrolls, and other things— some katana, some other old weapons.” He sat very erect, looking at me, with both hands resting on the table before him. “These are mere trifles, however.” He grasped the tea again, gave a sip.

  Who calls art treasures “mere trifles,” I wondered?

  “By the way,” he continued, “I am impressed with your knowledge of my country. Fugaku Sanju Rokkei. Your pronunciation is good. It is a title that most Japanese no longer remember. Is it not sad that we lose so much of our histories, our past?”

  Here he looked up again from the table, to peer at me. I was l
earning the give and take of eye contact among older Japanese gentlemen such as Goto-sensei. I also intuited that his was a rhetorical question needing no real answer, so I gave what I had learned to be the quintessential Japanese response to such inquiries: “So desu-ne!”

  We talked further about matters of weather, Japanese food, even returning to the subject of baseball. I discovered he followed the perennial local losers, the Hanshin Tigers, one of Japan’s older franchises, and we spent long minutes of silence together, studying the rather thin lines of dialogue we exchanged. It takes some getting used to, but I’d already come to understood these moments of silence to be a crucial aspect of interpersonal relations among Japanese men, very much foreign to most Americans, who can barely take ten seconds without someone trying to fill the empty space with inane chatter. While Americans need to be talking almost constantly, here with Professor Goto, silence was a mark of manliness and respect.

  As we sat, a banner flapped in the wind and branches brushed against the outside shutters. In the distance, a dog barked and children’s laughter rose and fell as they passed by on the road a hundred feet away. Professor Goto’s tiny dog slept on a mat in the corner of the room, his rhythmic breathing soft as whispers. By and by, Mika no longer returned to refill my tea cup, and I knew it was time to leave.

  I stood and bowed, and bowed again, even as my host tried to match me. Behind him was Mika, bowing as well. My heart fluttered as I said, “Professor Goto, if I can ever be of any assistance to you, I hope you will let me know.”

  This gesture seemed to capture his attention. “Yes, Springs-sensei, I appreciate that. Perhaps in the future there is some small assistance that you can provide.”

  “Of course, sensei. Anything.” But even as I said it, I recognized that in Japan, it might actually mean something, unlike in America, where these kinds of empty promises are made all the time. The Japanese do not dare to make vain statements unless they truly mean them.

  I had no idea what kind of assistance I could possibly provide to this wise, secretive, and evidently very wealthy old man. The wood block prints alone would be priceless, if authentic, not to mention the estate itself. I needed more information on the Goto clan, I thought, even as I was bowing my sayonaras.

  Once outside, I lingered for a moment and watched as Mika bowed and smiled ever so slightly in my general direction. Traditionally, the host waits for the guest to leave their view, so I turned to head toward the train station. They had offered to call a taxi, but the rain had let up and the sun peeked through the clouds now and then, and I thought that after all the Japanese-style sitting, it would do me good to stretch my legs and hike down the mountain. And so I did, through a neighborhood of great wealth full of large, concrete-walled complexes protected by automated fences behind which expensive German automobiles sat in driveways shaded by fruit trees and well-groomed gardens, which gave way to panoramic views of the sea several miles below me.

  As I snaked my way back down the hill, I realized that the blank, concrete walls surrounding each little empire were often topped with broken glass, further dangers designed to keep out peasants like me. Those walls seemed an apt metaphor of my first impressions of Professor Goto and his niece.

  I sat quite a long time thinking through this account of Jack’s first meeting with Professor Goto. There were so many clues hinting at what would come next—the description of a masterpiece painting as a “trifle”; the fascination of many Japanese scholars for American literary figures; Goto’s surprise that Jack knew nothing of the Goto family; and, perhaps most tantalizing, Jack’s obvious interest for the exotic Mika.

  Jack states that even in this early meeting he found Mika’s presence “mesmerizing,” but I always wonder about such autobiographical claims. He is remembering it that way, certainly. But in the many years since the actual event, we should recognize that his evocation of the scene is as much a fiction as is Walden. In this instance, phrases such as, “She moved slowly, every gesture elegant and precise, sleeves sweeping behind her arms like wings” demonstrate that the powerful impression Mika made on that first day is purely a reflection of the author’s craft and powers as an artist. I must say, however, that it was here that I recognized how very important these two characters would become, or had become for Jack, through the passage of time and retrospect.

  Such are the immediate impressions of a lifelong literature professor, I’m afraid, a man whose passions include a desire to deconstruct, to question, and to divine the motivations of human creatures. With someone famous such as Thoreau, it can become addictive. But this was my former student and now deceased friend, Jack Springs. It was as if he had entered some sort of mythical realm, and who could say where that might lead him? Or where it might lead me as well?

  CHAPTER 3

  Besides teaching English conversation, I had been taking Japanese conversation lessons since my arrival. It was pretty difficult at first, but the immersion experience of simply being in Japan helped, and my basic abilities in the language were improving. I sat in a class with tiny tables and chairs evidently designed for students roughly half my size, six hours a week, paid for by the university (another perk). The class was peopled with other foreigners who, like myself, had come to Japan as professional workers. My little class, held each Tuesday and Thursday evening in a cluttered classroom in an office tower near Sannomiya station in downtown Kobe, was made up of two other American men working for Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical giant from Indianapolis, my old hometown; two giggly Australian women who taught in local high schools; and a British banker with a dry and subtle humor.

  The Americans, Frank Banner and Tom Scholes, were decent enough guys, former chemical engineers who now worked together in managing a brand new Lilly office a few blocks away. Like me, they were basketball fanatics from Indiana, hayseeds who understood the true Hoosier nature of the game. Geneva Schrick and Belle Latimore were the girls from Perth, teaching in the JET Program, a government initiative for conversational English instruction in the Japanese public schools, where all students take a mandatory six years of English. Richard Yeats (no relation to the Irish poet extraordinaire, he assured us) was a vice president of the Royal Bank of Scotland, with its Kobe headquarters nearby. He had a long waxed moustache, and strolled about with a cane (though he had no discernible need for it), and he knew all the pubs with Guinness within walking distance of his office, his apartment, and our classroom. He seemed much older than the thirty or so that he probably was, yet he still had quite an adventurous streak, and for that reason we became fast friends. I soon discovered that despite being a staid banker during the day, he was quite the free spender after a shot or two of good whiskey.

  Richard’s generosity ended up having an impact in my life long after he went back to the UK. Though we were around the same age, Richard was very well off, and he owned a nice car, large by Japanese standards, a maroon Nissan Skyline with leather seats and a fine stereo. Occasionally he would invite me to go for long weekend drives in the mountains where we would roll down the windows, turn up the volume, and whisk along twisting roads listening to his mix tapes of old albums by Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, The Kinks, Fairport Convention, The Hollies, and The Who (Richard’s favorites). We liked to stop at designated trailheads and wander off into Mother Nature for long hikes, with only water and snacks in tow. A few times it got dark, and, having no desire to drive back, we would find a ryokan—a family-owned, traditional inn—to stay the night, soaking our tired bodies in mountain hot springs, sipping sake till all hours of the night. Richard would rub his eyes and say, “What do you say we find some shelter and stay out here tonight, hey?”

  Richard had a funny habit of ending sentences with the syllabic “hey.” It was an endearing routine, not unlike its Japanese counterpart, the sentence-ending “ne?,”and I usually agreed to his spontaneous whims. The “hey” was Richard’s code for, “It’s OK, do it!” He was a funny and decent guy, who quickly became my closest gaijin friend. After tedious mo
nths of study, we both quit the classes, confident we could carry on basic conversations anywhere we went—although I always traveled with my small, trusty, red-covered Japanese-English dictionary.

  Once we quit, we did not see each other as regularly. But we did keep venturing out together on back roads, over mountains, and along coastlines. He’d call, often late on a Thursday or Friday, and say, “Let’s drive out to Kanazawa, hey?” Great memories of those trips and my connection with his Skyline, and his whimsies, would eventually pay off in more ways than one.

  Soon it was O-bon, the festival celebrating the returning of the spirits of the dead, and a time of entertaining the ghosts of the past, remembering their lives and demonstrating respect and appreciation for them. The school year in Japan has a generous break in August for the festival, and the government and all businesses shut down as well. All good Japanese make a pilgrimage home to pay respect to their parents and other ancestors.

  With time off, I was determined to find out more about the Goto family, so I turned to the most convenient place for such learning: the vast array of books and other news sources available at Kinokuniya, the huge local bookstore in downtown Kobe, featuring works in English. This much I already knew: the 1980s had been the heyday of reporting on the “Japanese miracle,” and dozens of books told the story in detail. The height of Japan’s economic emergence had coincided with the two terms of Ronald Reagan, the boom years. But by the early 1990s, Japan’s economy had gone into a sustained recession, mainly due to enormous overpricing in the real estate markets, a bubble that had finally burst. What were, by American standards, modest homes in Tokyo that had been valued at well over two- to four-million dollars at the height of the boom, had seen their values drop by over half or more almost overnight.

  Despite these recent economic speed bumps, Japan still appeared “miraculous” to most westerners arriving in the early nineties, including me. So I took the train down to Sannomiya, the central shopping district in Kobe, and hoofed it over to the bookstore. Browsing, I picked up a book titled Japan’s Master Builders: Architects of the Post-War Boom, and thumbing through one chapter almost by accident, it suddenly dawned on me that it was describing Professor Goto’s family!