An Exquisite Sense of What Is Beautiful

by J David Simons

  ‘Are you OK, Eddie?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine,’ he mumbled, shaking himself back into consciousness. ‘Must be the jet lag. Look, Jerome. I wanted to ask you a favour.’

  ‘Shoot, your lordship.’

  Edward smiled. ‘Remember how you used to take all those photographs? With that little Brownie of yours?’

  ‘Still got it. Collectors’ item.’

  ‘What about the prints? Or the negatives? Do you have them too?’

  ‘Sure do. All filed away in my office on campus. They’re collectors’ items too. Sell a few every now and then.’

  ‘What about that day we went to Kamakura?’

  ‘Hey, Eddie. You were here a million lifetimes ago. How am I supposed to remember that?’

  ‘But if there were photographs, would you still have them?

  ‘Should be there somewhere.’

  The taxi lurched forward, almost knocking down a bent-over crone who passed close to the window. It was the first elderly person Edward had seen since they set out from the station.

  The campus actually boasted some trees. Even tall ones, which was so unusual for Tokyo. The fallen leaves forming a damp mat under Edward’s feet as he struggled out of the taxi in front of the Old Library, which according to Jerome had survived not only the fire-bombing but also the Great Kanto earthquake. Not surprising given the sturdiness of the red-brick building with its turrets and eaves that would not have been out of place on an English university campus. The air smelt sweet with decomposing foliage, resounded with the conversation of students as they moved purposefully towards their lecture halls. Universities always produced the same effect on him. A sense of hope gleaned from these young faces – the hope that maybe this was the generation that could really make a difference. He suddenly no longer resented Jerome bringing him here. This was where he needed to be. In the presence of fertile minds with fresh ideas. To suck at the marrow of their potential.

  ‘Eddie. This is our dean. Professor Watanabe.’

  Where Edward expected to find some doddering relic of Japanese academia, he was confronted instead by an urbane gentleman, perhaps in his mid-fifties, immaculately fitted out in a blue mohair suit. The dean’s round face glowed with a healthy tan and bore a neatly trimmed goatee. His eyes glinted with bright intelligence, with humour. He looked like an affluent businessman at the helm of some company that would never go bankrupt. And no polite bows either. Watanabe’s hand was immediately offered in handshake.

  ‘Delighted to meet you, Sir Edward. We are so glad to have you attend our campus. Professor Fisk here said he might be able to persuade you to come, to accept our patronage, but I never dreamed it would be possible.’

  Edward made the usual humble responses and, detecting the dean’s accent, inquired politely about it.

  ‘Stanford. I did my postgraduate work there. Education and linguistics.’

  ‘We couldn’t attract you to our shores then?’

  Watanabe chuckled as he gently led him forward into the library building. Jerome had fallen a step or two behind.

  ‘Actually, Sir Edward, this university has strong connections with your Oxford. Certainly I could have conducted my research equally as well there as I did in California. But the United States presented me with a challenge. A young republic with a directness that is both frightening and exhilarating for us Japanese. I chose to take that challenge.’

  The conversation had taken them to the bottom of a wide stairway. A large stained glass window dominated the mid-landing, demanding some attention, particularly as the oblique sunlight cast itself on to their little party. The design on the panes was an abstract, weak yellows surrendering to bold blues. Watanabe tilted his head slightly in the direction of the light, his skin no doubt drawn to the memory of some recent winter skiing trip or a holiday in Saipan. Jerome had closed his eyes to the glare and was gently rocking back and forth on his heels. Edward observed the veins of his own hands as they rested on his cane and they appeared to him not gnarled and ugly, but softened by the angle of illumination into the smoothness of youth. The light had lassoed them into a silence, warming them temporarily but profoundly with its rays. He felt it as an exquisite, uplifting moment, a holy pause in the hectic flow of life. But the beam dimmed and was gone, leaving him to shiver in the shadows.

  ‘Now, Sir Edward, let me explain our little schedule.’ Watanabe touched him lightly at the elbow, guiding him forward. ‘I have made it brief as I understand you only arrived yesterday. You must be tired, although the mountain air is so refreshing. First, my own speech and presentation of the honorary doctorate. If I may be so bold as to suggest, this will then be followed by a few words from your good self?’

  ‘Jerome did warn me.’

  ‘Very good. English for these guests will be quite appropriate so there will be no need for any tedious translations. A buffet lunch. Then, I believe, Professor Fisk has arranged a short question and answer session with some of our English Literature students. After that, we must allow time for the two of you to catch up. There will be many good memories, I am sure. And the early evening entertainment, Professor Fisk has also arranged.’

  ‘All arranged,’ Jerome confirmed.

  ‘Excellent,’ Watanabe said. ‘And now I would just like to say something of a more personal nature before we continue, Sir Edward. You did a great service for this country. We were demonised and demoralised after the war. Some of that was quite deserved. But you helped restore some of our self-esteem in the international realm. I will always be grateful to you for that.’

  The guests clapped politely as Edward entered the Old Library. There must have been about fifty of them, faculty mostly, but also a generous attendance of students. The room, it appeared, had survived as a library in name only, the spacious hall being completely devoid of both shelves and books. A large table stood in the centre, on top of which rested a giant ice sculpture in the shape of a swan. Plates of sushi, sashimi and other cold dishes lay against the base of the frozen bird. As Dean Watanabe strode towards a microphone stand, Edward sat down, settled into position, careful to rest forward on his cane, to show his host the attention he deserved.

  He had taken to the dean immediately. As he listened to him speak, he could see clearly how correct this man had been in his educational choice. Watanabe possessed all the refinement and grace of a Japanese gentleman, yet without the tightness and restriction that usually went with it. America had loosened him up, made him confident rather than reticent about his qualities, created a warm and direct human being. He wanted to befriend this man. And he realised it had been a long time since he had felt this way about anyone. When had he stopped trying to recruit new friends? Was it laziness that had kept him from forming new relationships? Had he become so complacent with the creation of his social orchestra, he was prepared to let them die off one by one without replacement? Or was it mistrust that kept him aloof on his ever-depopulating island?

  Watanabe finished his speech, called Edward to the floor. There was an awkward moment after heaving himself up on his cane when he had only the one free hand to accept both the doctorate scroll and the cloisonné bowl. He turned to the microphone, managed a small joke about how old age restricted the number of prizes he could receive, added his thanks to the dean, Jerome and the university. Then he found himself saying:

  ‘The time I spent in Japan has greatly informed my life and work, not just obviously as with The Waterwheel but in more subtle ways too. My Japanese experience added a broader dimension to my perspective on life, a different way of looking at things, a diminishing of the self in favour of the collective thrust of a civilisation. Sometimes that is not always a good thing, especially in an extreme form. But balanced with the overemphasis on the individual in my own culture, I feel I have become a better person for it. Thank you.’

  He sat down, feeling quite moved by his own oration.

  After lunch, Jerome led him to the classroom where the question and answer session had been
set up. About twenty students sat around on chairs laid out in an informal horseshoe-shape. Again a light applause greeted him as he took a seat at its apex.

  ‘Mostly kikokushijo,’ Jerome whispered.

  Edward stared back at him. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Returnees. Fathers were diplomats, industrialists or just company employees sent to live and work overseas. The family went with them, and the kids studied either at an international school or the local school. Now they have returned. They’re a special breed of student, struggling to get back into Japanese society. Some of them never do. Especially the women. And by the way, their English is excellent. This is the top class.’

  Jerome gave a short introduction, then asked for questions. One brave soul put up his hand, an intense-looking youth who asked what advice Edward would give to a young writer.

  ‘Make sure your story or novel is about something,’ he replied, trotting out his well-worn response. ‘By that, I mean some underlying important theme that guides the narrative. Not some outpouring of personal angst, but something meaningful, like moral or personal conflicts. And something you feel passionate about. Really passionate. After all, unlike creating a poem or a painting, you have to live with the creation of a novel for at least a year or two if not more.’ At this point, he often felt tempted to add Aldous’ observation that while everyone has a novel in them, most are just a pile of self-indulgent, self-deluding shit. But better not discourage the young and aspiring of this world.

  ‘I don’t have any experience of great conflicts,’ the questioner complained.

  ‘Then you have two choices. Make them up or wait until you get older.’

  ‘And may I ask, Sir Edward, what choice did you make?’

  ‘I waited until I grew up. And it was coming here and seeing Japan after the war that gave me the moral conflict that created The Waterwheel.’

  There were other questions – the usual ones about his body of work or advice on being a writer. He fended them off easily, which was just as well, as he was beginning to tire. His class seemed to be running out of steam too when a young woman at the back raised her hand.

  ‘Motoko,’ Jerome said.

  Motoko stood up. Unlike the rest of her classmates who had dressed up formal for this occasion, Motoko wore a pair of ripped jeans and a loose T-shirt that fell off one shoulder.

  ‘Sir Edward,’ she said boldly, one hand on a hip, the other clutching a glossy Japanese magazine. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking this question… but there was something in this publication that intrigued me.’ The accent was Australian. Such a strange combination – that serene, moonlike face coupled with the lazy Antipodean drawl.

  ‘I didn’t realise I am still of interest to popular Japanese magazines.’

  Motoko smiled. ‘I’m sorry, Sir Edward. It is not really about you directly. It’s about the artist Macy Collingwood. She was here in Tokyo a few weeks ago and she gave an interview for this magazine. Tokyo Art Lover.’ Motoko held up the issue. She had attracted the turned heads of her classmates and was wilting under the pressure. ‘I am personally a very big fan of Macy Collingwood. I really love her work… and she did mention you, and I was wondering… I was wondering if you could tell us something more…?’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  London • 1953

  The Reading Room at the Brtish Museum was Edward’s favourite building. He had a nostalgic affection for the Gothic style of his alma mater, Glasgow University, with its cloisters and quadrangles. And a pride in the stark, rugged walls of Edinburgh Castle in its craggy dominance of Princes Street. But when it came to useful interiors, the Reading Room inspired his greatest admiration. He loved the circular design, the womb of books, the arched windows, the magnificent lantern dome trapping for eternity the risen thoughts of its many illustrious readers. He imagined himself among these ghosts, touched by their presence, in awe of their anarchy, as they sat at the spokes of tables within this great wheel of literature. Hardy, Wilde, Browning, Twain, Dickens, Kipling, Tennyson, Yeats and Bloomsbury’s very own Virginia had all held tickets. Over there was Karl Marx wriggling bad-temperedly on his boils, behind him Lenin and Trotsky, heads bowed in conspiracy. He had even composed a little ditty to these revolutionaries who had once basked in the splendour of the room’s Imperial beneficence.

  Lenin and Trotsky

  What a pair of sharks

  Used to utter Spenser

  Now they work for Marx.

  And who could blame them for searching out such a sanctuary? Who really wanted a freezing cold, dim garret to host their work when the Reading Room was there for their comfort? ‘Come in, find a quiet spot, sit down, hook your toes around the warm, heating pipe passing by your feet, and we’ll bring you what you need. What is it that you are doing? Writing the definitive novel? Penning the epic poem? Planning the great revolution?’ Edward loved this respect paid to the readers. The little details. The black leather desktop, a hat peg, hooks for his pens, a book rest that unfolded magically from the wooden panel between the rows of desks. The polished mahogany chairs.

  He only wished that all this pampering could help him with his own work. Since he had published the one short story in The Londinium, he had written nothing else. Aldous had passed on some favourable responses to The Girl on Roller Skates and one scathing criticism. ‘Clumsy, infantile twaddle’ was the phrase that had stood out.

  Aldous had laughed at the comment. ‘You have nothing to learn from someone who still uses the word “twaddle”.’

  But it was his Japanese studies that took up the bulk of his time within this sacred space, although he always kept a notebook at his elbow in case the seed of an idea came to him. He looked at the open page beside him. He had written one word. Macy.

  ‘Excuse me, sir.’ A leather-aproned attendant stood over him, face fixed in a smile of polite irritation. ‘I was asked to give you this.’ The man quickly passed over a folded-over piece of paper, grunted dismissively and was off.

  Edward unplucked the tight wad and read. ‘I’m at the White Lion. Macy.’

  How was it that six words could make such a difference to a life? Twenty letters and two full stops. Lines on a piece of paper, scratched this way and that to create such a conflict of emotion. Joy. Anger. Insecurity. Resentment. Even the great novelists who had graced this very room couldn’t inspire him with such a range and rage of feeling. He looked at her signature, then the solitary word on his own notepad. Perhaps he possessed a secret gift for conjuring up people just by writing their names. But if that had been the case, Macy would have appeared to him a hundred times by now. He re-read the note. Minimal. Not a ‘sorry’ or a ‘please’. He would let her wait.

  Within a minute, he was dragging on his coat, rushing out of the Reading Room, through the wrought iron gates of the Museum, across the road and into the pub. She was sitting at their table. Smoking, dressed in her usual sweater and jeans, her legs corkscrewed around each other in a tension. A pint glass of bitter waited for him.

  ‘Hello, Mr Serious,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette, immediately reaching for another.

  ‘Where have you been? I called you for weeks. I even tried to visit.’

  ‘I’ve been busy.’

  ‘Busy? What does that mean? Busy? You didn’t have five minutes in your precious bloody life to telephone me?’

  She shrugged. ‘Why don’t you sit down, Eddie? Relax.’

  ‘I don’t want to relax.’ But he sat down anyway. Hands shaking as he took a couple of hurried sips of beer. The fact he was so glad to see her annoyed him even more. All these weeks of nursed anger disappearing in an instant just because she was there in front of him looking so damn beautiful.

  ‘You said you wanted to see me again and then…’ Now there was a whine in his voice.

  ‘I did. And I do. So here I am.’

  ‘Why didn’t you return my calls?’

  ‘Because I want to be in control. Those are my rules. If you want to see me, th
en it will be on my terms. No telephone calls. No visits. If that doesn’t suit you, you can leave now.’

  ‘But this is my pub.’

  She smiled weakly. ‘You know what I mean. Well?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘My reasons are my own business.’ She quickly finished her drink, began to pack away her purse and cigarettes into her bag. He reached out across the table, grabbed her wrist.

  ‘No… wait.’

  She laid her hand on his, stroked it gently. She might as well have been stroking him between his legs, because under his coat he had the most powerful erection.

  ‘So another drink then?’ she suggested.

  ‘No… not just yet.’

  ‘Well, I’d like one.’

  He let her fetch it herself. Fortunately, his physical desire for her subsided quickly, but he still felt enthralled by her. He took off his coat, fumbled with her cigarette pack, wishing he smoked, just so he could do something with his hands. She was back with her gin and tonic.

  ‘I read your short story.’

  ‘Oh. Where did you see it?’

  ‘The reading room at the Anglo-American library takes a copy of The Londinium. That’s where we Yanks go when we can’t get a ticket for that wonderful place across the road.’ She played with the cocktail stick that snared the lemon slice in her drink, twirling and dipping it, until she pulled out the piece of citrus fruit from the glass, sucked the gin from the flesh, licked the juice from her lips. ‘Writers are like magpies, aren’t they? Stealing the glittering bits of people’s lives when they’re not looking.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, that whole roller skate thing. That was from the first night we met, wasn’t it? That guy who ran circles around us in the park.’

  ‘I suppose it was.’

  ‘So, what else was about me? About us?’

  He felt himself redden. ‘Nothing.’