With a melancholy expression on his face, Shikayama leaves the dining area through a separate door so that Kusano and Kiriko will not notice. He passes radios, electric heaters, electric furnaces, and other such items. A man giving a demonstration of the finer points of a gas steam cooker stands perspiring in his shirt before a gathering of men and women. There are alcohol lamps, mountaineering goods, and tents for use by campers. There are varieties upon varieties of portable cooking stoves that run on oil. Shikayama climbs the narrow staircase at the end of the floor. From the staircase, he steps into an area filled with glass cases. These contain flowering plants, garden plants, and all sorts of other plants, each labeled with its name. What is that strong aroma? As he looks around, he sees a potted clove tree on his left. A large camellia directly in front of him is blooming. A red camellia. It’s trying to remind me of something. . . . That’s it. Of Haruko. Of my uncle’s garden. It was in a green forest on the southern tip of the peninsula. I spent my entire youth there. That’s where all my dreams were born. The camellia blossom could only be trying to remind me of Haruko. Ah, Haruko. Those cheeks of hers. . . . Those eyes, as clear as the eyes of an Italian maiden. . . . There is no reason I should still be alive today, but for whatever reason, I came to in that white hospital bed. That experience with first love was so intense. And now the same thing has happened with Kiriko, just like when my first love fell apart. Such disasters are all too much a part of my fate.
Shikayama walks in front of a row of potted flowers and sits feebly on a bench. Without thinking, he runs his eyes over the plants and their names. Agrostemma. Antirrhinum. . . . Antirrhinum semidwarf. . . . Anchusa italica. Asters. Bellis perennis. Carnation. Paris daisy. Shikayama’s eyes come to rest on the red and white corolla of a dianthus labeled “Dionysus.” It looks like a camellia. That’s what I told Haruko that time. I was lying down on the grass to the south side of the greenhouse. I wrote poetry in those days. “A single maiden is like a camellia blossom.” What a childish simile, so saccharine. Yet I compressed all my feelings into that single line. I was probably unconsciously swayed by the fact that she writes her name with the character meaning spring. And here is a dianthus. So it’s called “Dionysus,” eh? I picked one and gave it to Haruko. They were blooming all over the cliffs of the promontory. Early summer, I seem to remember. After failing my university exams, I was about ready to have a nervous breakdown. Thanks to my cousin Haruko, I wanted to stay in my uncle’s garden forever. The apple trees were blooming. The moon was out that night, and everything was as white as a big, white cloud. Somewhere—in the pond, maybe—a frog was croaking. Flowers were blooming. Big bunches of evening primroses—or were they horseweed?—were blooming along the narrow path at the end of the apple orchard. My uncle said it wasn’t a good idea to walk around on really misty nights, so Haruko and I escaped from the house through the balcony. We crept down the balcony steps as quietly as we could so that no one would hear our wooden clogs clacking against the steps. Haruko smiled as if she were pleased. I smiled, too. I was never really able to pursue my love for her. What was it I told her as we walked around the apple orchard through all those flowering primroses? Ah, yes. In the middle of such a fantastic, dreamy landscape, one couldn’t help but be overcome by fantastic, dreamy love. That’s my problem. I’ve got a habit of thinking about reality as though it were a fantasy. Even on stage, my successes have been in plays colored by fantasy. It was in that dreamy garden, however, that l received the wound that ended it all. I even had vague thoughts about killing myself. Guys who see reality in all its unadorned starkness are really much more competent in dealing with life. I cherished the illusion that Haruko was waiting for me to become a first-rate actor, and I lost her. I was drunk on the thought that the world believed Kiriko was mine, and I lost her, too. Her relationship with Narumi was the blow that rang the death knell for my entire way of life.
A housewife leading her child by the hand passes in front of Shikayama. She is looking at the potted plants. Shikayama wearily draws a cigarette from his pocket and lights it. He sucks in a mouthful of smoke and closes his eyes. I wonder whether Kiriko and Kusano have left yet. Or might they come up here? No, probably not. I’ll stay here a bit longer. The music . . . “Turkish March.” When Kiriko would leap from the bud of the flower, she would chase me, and I would run away. She’d throw handfuls of pollen, made of gold and silver confetti, at me. She’d shower me in it. At some point in those scenes when she was chasing me, I developed serious feelings for her. I ran into her dressing room, embraced her by her bare shoulders, and yelled, “Ha! I’ve got you!” Embarrassment. Laughter. “Cut it out!” Kiriko thumped me with a giant stamen filled with pollen. I jumped back. But Kiriko never did become mine. There’s no one else even worth considering at the Parnasse. There’s Kikuko, who seems to be the manager’s mistress. Then there’s. . . . No, that’d be awful. Iida from F——Film Company said the next time a good opportunity presented itself, he’d be sure to hire me. But he didn’t commit to anything. He just said that he would do what he could to get me in the door. I’ve just got to wait. J——newspaper wrote that with Miwa Kiriko gone from the Parnasse, Shikayama Hikaru would be alone on stage. Well, anyway, time for me to go home.
Shikayama lights a new cigarette. Setting his lighter to the side, he reties his shoelace then walks away, forgetting the lighter there where it lies.
IV. Miwa Kiriko
As Miwa Kiriko descends from the second floor to the first of M Department Store with Kusano Hitoshi at her side, she spies Shikayama Hikaru walking through the elevator doors on the first floor. He walks toward the exit of the store.
Hey, that’s Shikayama. Kusano hasn’t seen him. Kusano continues to chatter. “That’s why I was arguing with Narumi the other day. People think that novels are probably going to evolve to look more and more like stage plays. But I think that the fine arts overall are going to wither, since most people don’t show as much interest in them as they do toward other things.” Kiriko nods. “Goodness.” Dear me, I can’t see him any more through the exit. If he went to the dining area or the play area in the roof garden, he certainly would have seen the two of us. He got out of the elevator, so he must have been up on one of the top floors. He’s not the kind to spread false rumors, but still, just the thought that he might have caught a look at us makes me feel strange. Ugh, it leaves a strange taste in my mouth. I never found him unpleasant, but still . . .
“So it doesn’t really matter what you say about talkies. They have potential, provided they are given sufficient opportunity to develop. If you connect the people with what interests them, you’ll get great art. That’s because images and music are the best at capturing people’s senses. I doubt that the novel will become extinct in our generation or, for that matter, even in the generation to come. But I do think that the novel is inevitably going to grow further and further away from the interests of the people. People who take pleasure in the novel are going to occupy an increasingly esoteric spot in society, kind of like people who enjoy the nō theater nowadays. Of course, no matter what kind of art you’re talking about, you’ll always have things that are meant just for lowbrow entertainment. Kiriko, plays are a thing of the past. Your voice is so nice. You should think about doing talkies.” I don’t have the volume it’d take. A beautiful voice alone isn’t going to do me much good. “I still haven’t given up on the novel. I haven’t yet turned to writing scripts for pictures, but I am resigned to the fact that a serious novel can’t possibly attract a hundred thousand readers anymore.” I wonder how many fans I have. Bet I could figure it out from my fan mail. Kusano is a real coward when it comes to talking to people, but once he gets started, he sure doesn’t stop, especially when he gets to talking about literature. “Before our time, both poetry and the novel were closely related to the interests of ordinary people, Nowadays though, people don’t want the kind of poetry and novels that people like us think about. It’s a real pity.” With this, Kusano gives an ironic laugh
, having revealed how serious he sounds. Thank goodness he’s done.
The two of them stand on the sidewalk in front of M Department Store. There are mobs of people. People preparing to set up outdoor stalls and do business. A traffic policeman with an official armband. A line of taxis. The two of them walk out in the middle of them. I’m sure Shikayama saw us, but he left without saying a word to me. Imagine, just now I find out that he still is thinking of me. How am I supposed to feel? What if Narumi hadn’t talked me into this, and Shikayama had been the first to tell me about his feelings? Wouldn’t I have felt much more attracted to Shikayama as a man? As a man. . . . Did I love him or not? I don’t know, The stage of the Parnasse, the audience, the theater manager, Narumi, and Shikayama—so many things to think about. I don’t know at all. But I suppose there’s nothing I can do now.
Kusano says, “I guess I’ll be leaving now.” She looks around. They are at a bus stop. “Give my best to Narumi. I’ll go see him in two or three days. We can have some fun then.” Kiriko responds, “We’ll look forward to it. Do be sure to make it.” Kusano gets on the bus waiting there. The bus pulls away. Written in big, red letters on the back of it are the words “NUTRIENT TONIC” followed by the name of a brand of lotion ending with the character for “water.” Ah, could that be what the advertisement on the balloon was for?
KAJII MOTOJIRŌ
Kajii Motojirō (1901–1932), who died as a young man from a protracted illness, wrote only a few stories, but they are unique in their mixture of autobiography, fantasy, and the use of language that moves toward the aesthetics of the prose poem. His most enduring work may well be his brief “The Lemon” (Remon), written in 1925.
THE LEMON (REMON)
Translated by William J. Tyler
I could no longer suppress the inexplicable, ominous lump in my throat. Was it impatience? Was it disgust? Like the hangover that follows a night’s drinking, so at last comes one hell of a climax to having gotten drunk every day. It had come, and it wasn’t good. Not because of the lung inflammation or the nervous prostration that followed. Nor because of the debts that would take the hide off my back. What was no good was the ominous lump in my throat.
No matter how beautiful the poetry or music that had once delighted me, I could bear them no more. Not even a line or a bar. Though I would go to the trouble of finding a friend to let me listen to his gramophone, I would stand up and leave at the sound of the first few notes. Something would not let me be still. As ever, I wandered from one part of town to the next.
I do not know why, but at the time I was terribly drawn to the sight of shabbily beautiful things. This applied even to my taste in landscapes so that in the city, it was to the somehow more intimate back alleys—alleys hung with dingy laundry, littered with trash, opening onto stuffy rooms—that I was drawn. They had the aura of places that, through the fouling of the elements—the stagnation of the wind and the steaming heat of the rains—are destined to return to the earth. All the houses were leaning, the adobe peeling from the garden walls. Only the plants were in their prime. One chanced upon a startling sunflower. The cannas were in bloom.
While walking down these alleys, at times I was no longer in Kyoto but hundreds of miles away in Sendai or Nagasaki. I was transported to back streets in those cities . . . or at least that was the illusion I sought to create. More than anything I wanted to escape Kyoto and go where no one knew me. First of all, rest. An empty room at an inn. A set of clean sheets. The smell of mosquito netting. The feel of a well-starched cotton kimono. Only to lie there for a month without thinking a thing! Oh, would that somehow this place could become that one. As my hallucination started to succeed, I’d bring the pigments of the palette of my imagination to bear on every detail. It amounted to nothing more than the superimposition of my fantasy on the run-down alleys. Yet I enjoyed losing sight of myself in that illusion.
I became crazy about firecrackers, too. The fireworks themselves were of secondary importance. What my imagination required were strings of firecrackers all striped in red and purple and yellow and blue. “Shooting Star of Nakayama Temple.” “War of the Flowers.” “Withering Pampas.” There was even a variety called “Rat Tails” that came packed in boxes in rings. That sort of thing excited me in a most peculiar way.
And then I became crazy about the colored-glass marbles called “vidro beads” that had flowers and fishes inside. I was enamored of Nanjing glass beads, too. The pleasure of licking one with the tip of my tongue was a delight almost too good for words. Was there ever a flavor more cool, more delicate than the taste of vidro beads? Often as a child I was scolded by my parents for putting one in my mouth. I do not know whether it is the result of this sweet childhood memory having come back to me in my present state of decline, but the incredibly delicate, refreshing—indeed poetic—taste still lingers.
You have probably guessed: I had hardly a cent to my name. Nonetheless, I needed “luxury,” the ability to console my ego when it was smitten, ever so slightly, by the sight of such things as vidro beads. The more enervated I became, the greater was the appeal of these pretty things. I was like an insect, powerless before the seductive messages they sent out to my antennae. Pretty things became my natural consolation.
Take, for example, Maruzen, the famous importer of haberdashery and foreign books. That was the type of store I had once liked to patronize. Bottles of yellow eau de cologne and red eau de quinine. Amber- and jade-color perfume atomizers with elegant rococo labels and stylish cut glass. Pipes . . . pocketknives . . . soaps . . . cigarettes. I have been known to spend the better part of an hour looking at such things and, in the end, to indulge in the extravagance of a topgrade lead pencil. Given my state of mind, however, Maruzen had become stiflingly oppressive: the books, the students, the cash register. I could see them only as the specter of the bill collector come to haunt me.
One morning I had been moving about, staying at one friend’s place, then another’s—I found myself sitting alone in the empty air of my friend’s room after he had gone to school. I could not bear to sit still. Something was driving me on. Taking to the back alleys that I described and wandering from one part of town to another, I spent my time loitering in front of shops selling inexpensive sweets or studying the dried shrimp, salted cod, and yuba tofu in the specialty stores. Finally, I headed down Teramachi Street toward Nijō, where my feet ground to a halt in front of a fruit store.
Of all the stores I know, there is none I like more, and it is my wish to introduce it to you. To be sure, there was nothing grand about the place, but it provided a superb example of the beauty to be found only in fruit stores.
The fruit was stacked on a fairly steep incline. The stands—if one may call them that—were, as I remember, worn, black lacquer boards. It was as though a brilliant musical flow—an allegro—had been exposed to the face of the Gorgon Medusa and solidified into the color and mass of the fruit piled there. Likewise, the farther into the store one went, the higher the fresh greens were piled to the rear. The beauty of the carrot leaves was truly amazing! And the beans soaking in buckets of water, and the arrowroot, and the . . .
Night brought a new beauty to the place. The whole of Teramachi Street bustled—although it was quiet in comparison with similar thoroughfares in Tokyo and Osaka—and the storefronts shone brightly in the street. I do not know why, but the area surrounding the fruit store was strangely dark. Perhaps this was to be expected, since one comer of the shop faced Nijō Street which was not electrified. But it is unclear to me why the neighbor on Teramachi Street was not lit. Had it not been dark, however, I doubt that the fruit store should have attracted me as it did.
There was one more thing. That was the way the eaves hung over the lower story. I would be going too far, and creating too specific a metaphor, to say that the roof covered the building like a hat, especially one worn rakishly to conceal the wearer’s eyes. Yet when passing the shop, one could not help noticing the size of the overhang. “Boy, but doesn’t
that shop have its ‘brims’ pulled a helluva way down”—was the sort of comment it seemed to elicit. Above the eaves, too, the building was shrouded in darkness.
Thus, on account of the dark, the many lights strung at the entrance seemed to stream over the facade like the driving rain of a summer shower. They possessed a special, wanton brilliance, yielding to no other establishment in the voluptuousness of their display. Even on Teramachi Street it would have been difficult to find another shop that excited me as much as the view of this fruit store, whether one stood in the street and allowed the light of the naked bulbs suspended from their long, thin cords to sear into one’s eyes, or chose to spy at them through the glass window on the second story of the locksmith’s shop across the way.
That day I made one of my rare purchases at the store. That’s because some “unusual” lemons were on sale. Now lemons are ordinary fare. But while one might not go so far as to call the shop shabby, it was no more than a corner grocery, and I had never known it to sell lemons.
How I do like lemons! Lemons! The simple color of a hardened glob of oil paint squeezed from a tube of “Citron Yellow.” Lemons! Shaped like the blunt end of a weaver’s spindle. I made up my mind to buy one.
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series) Page 66
