Something Strange Across the River

by Kafū Nagai

  Something Strange Across the River

  Copyright © One Peace Books, Inc.

  ISBN 13: 978-1-935548-37-9

  No part of this may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact One Peace Books.

  Every effort has been made to accurately present the work presented herein. The publisher and authors regret any unintentional inaccuracies or omissions, and do not assume responsibility for the accuracy of the translation in this book. Neither the publisher not the artists and authors of the information presented herein shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages.

  Corrections to this work should be forwarded to the publisher for consideration upon the next printing.

  First published paperback edition by One Peace Books, Inc. in 2013

  Author Kafu Nagai

  Translated by Glenn Anderson

  Cover Design Shimpachi Inoue

  One Peace Books 43-32 22nd Street #204 Long Island City, NY 11101 USA http://www.onepeacebooks.com

  Printed in Canada

  Chapter One

  I had essentially never been to see a motion picture.

  It’s a vague memory now, but it must have been sometime around 1897. There was a theater in the back of a department store in Kanda. They had filmed the streets and scenes of San Francisco. I think it was around that time that the term “motion picture” first came into use. It’s been forty years or so since then, and apparently they don’t say “motion picture” anymore, but it’s what I grew up with and it rolls off the tongue, so I’ll keep on calling them “motion pictures.”

  After the earthquake a young author came to visit me at my home and quickly picked up on my antiquated speech habits, at which point he told me the world would leave me behind if I didn’t make an effort to catch up. He brought me, against my will mind you, to a small theater in Asakusa. It had apparently received excellent reviews at the time. When we sat down to watch it I discovered that it was an adaptation of a Maupassant short story, at which point I lost all interest in the film. Why not simply read the original? It was sure to be superior anyway, I thought, and I made a point of expressing my opinion at the time.

  However, I realize that nowadays young and old alike watch motion pictures and apparently enjoy them enough to turn them into an everyday topic of conversation, and if I wanted to have the slightest grasp of their bantering it would not be unwise of me to cultivate the most basic of knowledge regarding them—a disposition of mine which manifests itself the moment I pass a theater on the street. I make a point to stop and read the names of the motion pictures they are exhibiting. A glance at the posters and one can easily imagine the contents and mood of the thing without actually viewing the picture, and it is typically enough to get an idea of what others enjoy about them should they become a topic of conversation.

  There is perhaps no better place to steal glances at theater posters than Asakusa Park. A walk around the park and one may glimpse advertisements for all manner of motion pictures, which is an opportunity to decide for oneself the quality of their workmanship. Without fail, whenever I leave the park for Asakusa, I drag the tip of a stick across the surface of the lake and recall the names of the pictures from the posters.

  It happened one day, around the time when the evening breezes had begun to grow ever cooler. I’d seen my share of the motion picture posters that sat at the entrances of the excess of shops, and satisfied, left from the far end of the park, heading for Senzoku. Kototoi Bridge was on my right and Iriya sprawled out to the left. I had paused for a moment in consideration of the land and what path I might wish to take through it, when a man of approximately forty appeared at my elbow. He was dressed in a tattered western-styled suit.

  “Good sir, feeling lonely? Allow me to introduce you to someone?”

  “No, thank you.” I hurried my pace to put distance between us.

  He matched my pace and kept at my side. “This is a rare chance, man. Sir. She’s wild.”

  “I’m just fine. I’m on my way to Yoshiwara.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was a pimp or if he just worked for a geisha house, but he appeared untrustworthy to say the least, and as I do not enjoy being wrangled by suspicious strangers I had quickly—and without much thought— declared that I was headed for Yoshiwara. It was an attempt to shake him off, but it served to decide the destination of my previously aimless wandering, and in the course of traveling there I recalled a little secondhand bookshop I liked to patronize. It was hidden in an alleyway off the banks of the river.

  There is a large gate that sits where the Iriya River meets up with the underground culverts, and it conceals a darkened backstreet, tucked in its shadows. Buildings lined one side of the street, while on the other side of the embankment the backside of walls, delineating private property, continued in rows visible just over the lip of the embankment. Houses lined the near side, interspersed with the wider storefronts of dealers of pipes and bricks and wood and clays and so forth. The houses grew smaller to fit alongside the narrowing canal. The street was lit only by lanterns dangling from nearby bridges. Once I’d left the canal and bridges behind I discovered that pedestrian traffic had all but disappeared. By that time of night, the only lights to be seen were from the tobacco shop and the secondhand bookshop.

  I couldn’t recall the name of the store, though the shop distinguished itself by the products they had put up for display. They had copies of Literary Club from the time of its founding up with old Yamato newspapers (interview supplements attached). Not to say that their interesting finds were not sequestered in heaps of junk. However, I did not go so far out of my way, I didn’t make a special trip there, for the books, no—I made the trip for the overwhelming sense of humanity effused by both the owner and the little town surrounding the shop.

  The owner was an older man with perfectly cropped hair capping his small frame. He was well over sixty from what I could tell. Everything from his face, his demeanor, his language, his kimono, even the way he wore his clothes contained a quintessential element of small-town Tokyo— persisting despite the times, persisting without fear of alteration or degradation—and appeared, to my eyes, more nostalgic and respectable than even the most rare tomes that adorned his shelves. Before the earthquake I would meet one or two of these smart older Edo types anytime I would go to the theater or visit a hall. I’d often see Tame or Kikugoro or Ichizo, who worked for Sandanji. I’m sure they have all passed on by now.

  When I slid open the glass door of the shop, the owner was sitting, as he always was, near the edge of a paper screen with his rounded back slanting slightly to the outside, his glasses perched at the end of his nose, head buried in reading material. Granted, I was always sure to visit around seven or eight in the evening, but he was always sure to be seated in precisely the same manner: At the sound of the sliding door, without altering the stoop of his back, he would roll his neck slightly in the direction of the entrance and drawl, “Come on in now,” before slipping his glasses off, lurching slowly to his feet, patting the dust from his cushion, and smoothing himself down, finally turning and giving a proper greeting. Neither his greeting nor his demeanor varied from the conventional.

  “As you can see, not much has changed. Not much that you can see anyway. Well, we did get some old Hotan magazines in—not that we have the whole collection though.”

  “The Tamenagashi Shunko magazine?”

  “Sure, well, we have the first printing. Care t
o see it?” Now muttering to himself, “Where did I put that thing?”, he pulled five or six books from a stack that was leaning against the wall, brushing the dust from them and politely passing one of them in my direction.

  “Says 1879. God, these old things make me feel like a kid again. If you had a full set of the Roh Literature Report, I’d love to take it off your hands.”

  “We get them in here sometimes, but never a full set. They’re all over the place.” “You don’t happen to have any Gekka magazines, do you?”

  “Of course.”

  The glass door rattled open and the owner and I turned to look—another one well over sixty ducked in. He was bald, and his cheeks were sunken deep. He gave off a hint of destitution; perhaps it was the dirty, striped bathrobe he flung onto a stack of old books by the door.

  “I hate those automobiles. Those things almost killed me today.”

  “Well, they’re cheap and convenient—or that’s what they say anyway. But—hey now, you didn’t get hurt or nothing?”

  “My amulet broke—I think that’s what saved me. There was a big crash, with a bus and a taxi. Get goose bumps just remembering it. Anyway, I went out to the Hatogaya market today and bought the strangest thing—I love these old things, and they don’t make ’em like they used to. I don’t really know who would buy it, but when I saw it I just couldn’t keep myself from picking it up.

  Baldy quickly began to undo his package of cloth, and produced from it a simple woman’s kimono and a singlet, its sleeves of a different fabric than its body. The kimono was gray and printed with a simple, delicate pattern. The sleeves of the singlet were a bit odd as well. Neither of them appeared very old, I would have dated them near the Restoration. I was struck by the singlet, and realized it would work well for mounting woodblock prints or lining book slipcases, or even covering up Edo picture serials. I asked the bookseller to wrap it up with the old magazines.

  I wanted to catch a ride up the riverside so I spent a little while waiting by the large gate. The incessant shouting of the taxis quickly grew tiresome however, so I soon ducked back into the small, dark alleyway where the trains and taxis didn’t run. Skulking off down the street it wasn’t long before I caught sight of the lights from Kototoi Bridge in between the towering trees. I had heard the park at the end of the river was boisterous and loud, so instead of heading out to the mouth of the river I followed a little street lined with electric lights to an area where a heavy chain was suspended between posts, and I took a seat on it.

  Actually on the way I had stopped to purchase some bread and a can of food, which I had wrapped in a handkerchief. I undid the bundle and tried to wrap the old magazine inside as well but the combination of soft objects and hard objects, as well as their size, proved to complicate the task. Realizing that it would be easiest if I moved the can into my overcoat pocket I spread the handkerchief out on the lawn and was fully invested in shuffling the arrangement of the objects when, without warning, someone stepped from the shadow of a tree behind me and barked, “You there, what do you think you’re doing?” I heard the sound of a saber scraping from its sheath. The policeman stepped into view and grabbed me roughly by the shoulder.

  I did not immediately answer. Instead I tended to the knot of my parcel, ensuring it was tight and proper, before standing and facing him. He was apparently unable to tolerate the silence and quickly grabbed my elbow, pushing me and growling, “Go over there.”

  He led me down a small street in the park and out to the lip of Kototoi Bridge, where there was a small police box situated near the main street. He dragged me there before handing me roughly to the officer on duty and storming off, no doubt to fulfill his much more pressing duties.

  The officer on duty did not leave his place at the entrance to the small building when he spoke to me. “Where did you come from at this time of night?”

  “From just over there,” I answered.

  “And where, exactly, is ‘over there’?”

  “From over by the moat.”

  “What moat?”

  “There’s a river called Yamaya, it runs by Matsuchiyama.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Tadasu Oe,” I answered, to which the policemen responded by flipping open a notepad. I quickly explained the spelling of my name.

  He glared at me throughout my explanation as if to say “shut up,” and when he was finished noting my name he quickly unbuttoned my jacket and started turning it over in his hands.

  “There’s nothing here,” he grunted, looking in the collar.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked, leaning to show him the collar of my vest as well.

  “What’s your address?”

  “Otan, 1-6 Azabu.”

  “What do you do for work?”

  “Nothing in particular.”

  “Unemployed then. How old are you?”

  “Year of the Rabbit in Yin.”

  “I said, how old are you?”

  “Year of the Rabbit, 1879,” I said with the intention of remaining silent, but I quickly worried over his reaction and, recanting, stated: “58.”

  “Still young aren’t you?”

  “Ahaha.”

  “And what did you say your name was?”

  “I believe I just told you. Tadasu Oe.”

  “You have a family?”

  “Three of us,” I answered. It was a lie, I had no family, but in my experience people trusted you more if you said you had one. I’d adopted a custom of answering the question with “three.”

  “You say ‘three,’ so you have a wife and who else?” He asked, interpreting my answer in the nicest way he could have.

  “Wife and Ma.”

  “How old’s your wife?”

  The question gave me pause for a moment, but I quickly remembered a woman I’d once had a relationship with and answered, “31. Born in 1906, July 14th. Year of the horse.”

  Had he asked for her name I was ready to answer with the name of a character in the novel I was working on, but he said nothing. He patted down my overcoat and, finding a lump in the pocket asked, “What do you have in here?”

  “A pipe and my glasses.”

  “Fine. What about down here?”

  “Can of food.”

  “What about this? This a wallet? Why don’t you pull it out and give me a look at it.”

  “There’s money in there.”

  “How much?”

  “Probably around 20 or 30 yen.”

  He took out the wallet but did not open it. He set it on the small table used to hold the phone and continued,

  “What’s that package you’ve got there? Come on in and show me what’s in it.”

  I untied the towel and he looked inside. There were no problems with the clump of bread or the old magazine, but the policeman altered his demeanor the moment he saw the long, seductive singlet sleeve.

  He snorted. “What the hell is this? You’re carrying some strange stuff, old man.”

  “Oh, that, ahahaha…” I laughed.

  “What are ya carrying this for? It’s awfully… womanly,” he sneered, pinching the singlet with revulsion between his fingers and holding it up to the light. He snapped his eyes back on me, and snorted, “Where’d you get this?”

  “At a secondhand shop.”

  “Why do you have it?”

  “I bought it with the money from my wallet. Opened the wallet up and bought it.”

  “And where was this?”

  “By the large gate in Yoshiwara.”

  “How much did you pay for it?”

  “Three yen and seventy sen.”

  He threw the singlet on the table and glared at me in silence. It seemed as though he was deciding whether or not to throw me in the pen with the other criminals, and in the face of such consideration the courage necessary for my previous lighthearted jesting quickly abandoned me. I watched him in silence, just as he watched me. His eyes moved down to my wallet, which he flipped open and started perusin
g. Inside he discovered a long-forgotten temporary certificate for fire insurance, a certificate from city hall for the registration of my seal, which of course was accompanied by the seal itself. He went through the papers one by one, unfolding them, flattening out the creases and laying them neatly on top of one another, proceeding to inspect my seal by the light. He peered, brow furrowed, at the relief of my name carved into the end. One could not accuse him of a lack of professional rigor. I passed the time by standing in the doorway and gazing out into the street.

  The road split diagonally in two directions just in front of the police box; one led off towards South Senju, the other towards Shirahige Bridge. Before it split the road stretched out from the backside of Asakusa Park and crossed the major traffic artery that lead to Kototoi Bridge. Even at night the area was usually filled with a fairly constant traffic flow, though perhaps due to the odd and unsettling look of my doorway questioning, no pedestrians opted to linger within earshot. There was a shirt shop across the street, and the woman running it, shopboy at her side, was starting over in my direction, disinterested, as she closed up the shop.

  “Hey, that’s enough, put all this stuff away already.”

  “None of these things are really very important anyway,” I whispered as I collected my wallet and carefully retied the handkerchief around my things. “Do you need anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Have a nice night then,” I said, pulling out a gold-tipped Westminster cigarette and bringing a match to the tip. At the very least, the policeman deserved a good sniff of the scent, so before I turned and strode toward Kototoi Bridge, I turned back and exhaled a heavy lungful of smoke into the police box.

  In hindsight, I am struck by the revelation that, had my seal and its certification not been tucked into my wallet, he most certainly would have thrown me into the pen. Good lord, secondhand clothes are unsettling things. That worn-out scrap of cloth was a curse.

  Chapter Two

  I have outlined a new idea for a novel I intend to call Disappearance. If I were to actually write it—and do afford me this small indulgence—I have a fair amount of confidence that it would not be intolerably terrible.