by David Peace
‘Perhaps,’ said K. ‘Then again, we all know they seem to let you teach whatever you want. But only you, of course.’
*
In his room in the lodging house in Shioiri, Yokosuka, Ryūnosuke threw down his pen and cursed. He had planned to write a story in a single sitting that night; ‘planned’ because he had no choice if he was to meet the deadline. But it was already gone midnight and all he had scribbled was a dismal, ramshackle chain of words with neither beauty nor point. He lit another cigarette. His mind wandered, searching for targets to blame for his inability to write the story; if only he did not have to teach in the morning, then he could write through the night. But not only had he lessons to teach, there were always so many other demands and requests between the classes: a funeral oration for some captain or other, a revision of a lecture in English for a colleague, a translation of an article from a foreign newspaper, and how could he forget the textbook he was supposed to be putting together. There was also an ever-rising pile of letters from friends and editors which he needed to answer. And then there was his wedding; the endless appointments, discussions and formalities! He cursed again. Then cursed himself; blaming others would solve nothing. He put out his cigarette. He picked up his pen, tried to get it moving again. But still he could not write a single line of worth. He put down his pen again. He needed help, he needed inspiration. And not another cigarette. He picked up a book from the desk. He got up from the desk. He walked over to the bedding already laid out on the floor. He stretched out on the futon to read the book. The book was a collection of stories by Edgar Allan Poe. He began to reread one of the stories, attentive more than ever to the inspiration behind the work, the way in which Poe had adapted his original source. This particular story was based on a brief article by Washington Irving. Ryūnosuke was familiar with that article. He recalled the protagonist was a young man who finds himself followed and thwarted at every turn by a masked figure. Finally, the young man stabs the figure with his sword. But when the young man looks behind the mask, he finds only ‘his own image – the spectre of himself’. Ryūnosuke had even copied out that line by Irving into one of his own notebooks, along with so many other lines and passages from Poe. But now as he reread Poe’s retelling, he began to feel ill. In all of Poe’s tales, Ryūnosuke felt the fragility of the mind, so easily, easily fragmented and torn, shattered and ripped into so many, many pieces. And yet Poe wrote with such craftsmanship, with such clarity and with such realism, yet with such lyricism; the alchemy of his analytical intellect and his poetic temperament, harnessing and sculpting the truth, the verisimilitude of his dreams, his dreams within dreams, real and yet unreal, in words, in writing, in poetry and prose, tales and stories, so beautiful and so terrifying, and so much greater, so much, much greater than Ryūnosuke could ever, ever hope to even, even attempt. He hurled the book into the corner of the room –
‘You have conquered, and I yield!’
Ryūnosuke collapsed back onto the bedding. He stared up at the ceiling, his Night Thoughts reading patterns and signs in the shadows and the stains. And he closed his eyes –
Ryūnosuke was sitting in a box seat at the theatre, a woman by his side, a woman he did not recognise. In the darkness, she was squeezing his arm, resting her cheek on his shoulder. On the screen, an old man in a top hat tore up a sheet of paper, scattered the pieces over the body of a young man lying dead on the floor. The scene then changed, the double of the young man sitting on his grave under a willow tree. Beside Ryūnosuke, the woman was squeezing his arm tighter and tighter, the warmth of her blood burning through her clothes and into his, her mouth to his ear whispering, ‘Where you go, I’ll always be, even to the last of your days. Look, look …’
Now Ryūnosuke saw himself up on the screen, in a garden. A garden which looked like the garden of his family home in Tabata. Ryūnosuke was sitting on the steps to the veranda. He was wearing a large-brimmed sunhat, smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke directly into the camera. He seemed much older, his face gaunt, his hair long beneath the hat. Two children, two boys were playing around him in the garden. They seemed to be his children, his sons. Suddenly, this Ryūnosuke sprang up and started to climb the large crepe myrtle tree beside the veranda. Higher and higher he climbed, his underwear visible, swinging from branch to branch until he reached the eaves of the house. He climbed out onto a limb and perched there, staring out at the audience. A caption flashed up on the screen: ‘Quack, quack! Pleased to meet you. I am a Kappa. My name is Tock.’
The children ran screaming into the house, this house which looked like his family house. Ryūnosuke followed them inside the house. The children disappeared down a corridor. Ryūnosuke followed after them, but lost them. Still searching for them, he turned into a room. A man in a Chinese-patterned yukata was lying on a futon on the floor. His eyes closed, a Holy Bible open on his chest, the man looked like Ryūnosuke, his exact double. Now the eldest child came into the room. He shook the man, he woke the man. The man sat up, and the man said, ‘I have been having such an odd dream. I dreamt we were playing in the garden. But you and your brother ran into the house. I followed you, but I lost you. And when I came into this room, I saw myself lying senseless, lifeless on the floor, like an old discarded raincoat.’
Ryūnosuke could not contain himself. He cried out to the man on the bed, ‘I came searching for you, and here you are!’
The man rose from the futon, came towards Ryūnosuke and embraced him. ‘So you are Ryūnosuke, too. It was not a dream …’
‘No,’ cried Ryūnosuke. ‘It was more true than truth itself.’
But hardly had Ryūnosuke finished speaking when the younger child came to the door, looked inside, then turned and ran, crying, ‘Ma-ma, Ma-ma! Please come to Ryū-chan’s room at once …’
Now the man rushed from the room as Ryūnosuke called after him, ‘Please don’t go, Ryūnosuke! Please don’t leave me …’
The older boy looked at Ryūnosuke, stared at him and laughed. ‘Where is this Ryūnosuke you are calling to, Ryū-chan?’
Ryūnosuke pointed at the door. ‘He has just gone out.’
‘Why, you are still dreaming,’ said the boy. ‘Don’t you know who you are talking to? It is your own reflection in the mirror.’
Suddenly, the film jumped, appeared to snap in two. The lights in the theatre went up. The woman beside Ryūnosuke dug her nails into his arm, bit his ear and said, ‘So that is how it ends.’
*
Yasukichi Horikawa was in the Paulista café in Ginza, chatting with the editor of another literary magazine to which he sometimes contributed articles and stories. No sooner had he met one deadline for one story for one editor than Yasukichi would agree to another deadline for another story for another editor. This editor was eating a second baked apple and talking about the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Yasukichi interrupted him: ‘Actually, I feel I am becoming trapped inside a tale by Poe. Just the other day, at an end-of-year party, I bumped into that one-legged German translator. He said he had seen me in a tobacco shop near here and was offended when I ignored him. But I was in Yokosuka at the time, teaching as usual. But when he described what had occurred, I realised this “second-self” of mine had been wearing exactly what I had been wearing that day: a raincoat. And this is the second time this has happened to me recently.’
‘So you are a believer in what the Germans call a doppelgänger,’ asked the editor. ‘They do say we live in the Age of the Double.’
Yasukichi sighed. He squeezed the bridge of his nose between two of his fingers and said, ‘I don’t know. But if it’s not my so-called “second-self”, then what if someone is deliberately impersonating me, and with some ill intention? I am afraid neither explanation is very welcome.’
‘Then you also believe the doppelgänger to be a harbinger of bad luck,’ asked the editor. ‘Even death?’
Yasukichi sighed again. ‘I don’t know. But either way, I do feel as though I am being stalked by something or somebody.’
>
‘If that is what you truly believe,’ said the editor, ‘then you should see someone. Someone who might be able to help you.’
Yasukichi smiled and said, ‘Like who? A doctor?’
‘A private detective,’ said the editor.
Yasukichi shook his head. ‘I detest detectives, I hate detectives. Detectives cannot even pass for human beings. They are machines.’
‘But detectives and writers surely have much in common,’ said the editor, smiling. ‘In different ways, both search for the truth …’
Yasukichi snorted. ‘Nonsense. It is extremely rude to compare a writer and a detective. Theirs is a profession whose essence is to search for the truth in the most vulgar of senses. And if there are writers who only profess truth and do not care what happens to other ideals such as beauty and morality, then such writers must be people with a defect. Perhaps not as individuals, but certainly as writers. And I would say they are unhealthy. Akin to pickpockets and thieves.’
‘On what unfortunate personal experience are you basing such a rant,’ laughed the editor. ‘Have you had trouble with a detective?’
Yasukichi shook his head and said, ‘No. Luckily, I have never had the misfortune to ever meet a detective.’
‘So these are simply your observations, then?’
Yasukichi smiled and said, ‘Not simply my observations, no. Simply my observations would make me no better than a detective, too. These are my opinions; my opinions based on my knowledge, my knowledge formed by my observations.’
‘But you have had no personal experience with detectives,’ said the editor. ‘You have never even met one.’
Yasukichi shook his head again. ‘As far as I know. But more than likely, I have been tailed. In fact, I am certain I have been followed by a detective. And that probably explains my feeling of being stalked. As have you, no doubt. Such is modern life in the modern city.’
‘But then perhaps you should meet a detective,’ said the editor with a grin. He took out his wallet, then a name-card from the wallet. He placed the name-card on the table before Yasukichi –
‘Know-your-enemy, so-to-speak,’ he laughed.
Yasukichi looked down at the name-card on the table, then back up at the room. The mirrors set in the café walls reflected him in endless doubles. Coldly, menacingly mocking him.
‘At the very least, you’ll surely get a story out of it,’ said the editor.
Yasukichi sighed. ‘You mean, you will.’
*
Ryūnosuke put down his pen again. He picked up the packet of Golden Bat cigarettes. He put them straight back down on the desk. He picked up the packet of Shikishima instead. He took out a cigarette. He put it to his lips. He picked up the box of matches, shook it twice, then took out a match and lit his cigarette. He looked down at the manuscript paper and sighed, blowing smoke across the desk. He reached for the pile of envelopes. He flicked through them, turning them over one by one, reading the name and address of the sender on the back. He came to an envelope with no name or address on the back. He put the cigarette in the ashtray. He picked up the letter knife. He opened the envelope. He took out the letter and he read:
Dear Sir,
You are being watched.
Your behaviour at the Mikado restaurant in Manseibashi the other evening was unpardonable. The woman is married with a young son, and you yourself are engaged. If you do not immediately break off relations with the woman in question, then I will inform her husband and your fiancée.
Please do not doubt my resolve or sincerity.
Remember, you are being watched.
Ryūnosuke let the letter fall from his hand onto the desk. He stared down at the letter, the letter lying on top of the manuscript paper. He reached for the cigarette, but it was now just a fallen column of ash. He picked up the packet of Shikishima, put it straight back down again. He picked up the packet of Golden Bat instead, lit one and smoked it. Then he smoked a Shikishima, then another Golden Bat, then another Shikishima, another Golden Bat, alternating the brands, staring down at the letter lying on the blank sheet of manuscript paper.
*
Thick layers of cloud and smoke hung over the Sumida River. Yasukichi watched the Mukōjima bank drawing closer. The trunks of the cherry trees looked like burnt corpses standing in a row.
Yasukichi disembarked from the small steamer. It was now twilight, it was still raining. Yasukichi began to walk towards the Tamanoi district. He could smell his own rubberised coat. An overhead trolley line was sending purple sparks up into the air. Yasukichi followed the cable and its sparks until he came to a junction. To his left was the river with its banks of trees, to his right was Tamanoi with its houses of lights.
Yasukichi walked straight on, into the darkness. And here, just as his editor had described, among numerous old graves, standing in the middle of a bamboo grove, Yasukichi found a small, Western-style house. And there, on its narrow porch, with its peeling paint, was a porcelain nameplate –
A, Detective.
Yasukichi rang the bell below the nameplate and waited. Presently, the door opened and a little old woman appeared.
‘Is Mr A home?’
‘He is, sir. And he is expecting you.’
The old woman led Yasukichi into a room directly opposite the front door. The room was only partially illuminated by the weak light from the hallway, and when the woman closed the door behind her, momentarily Yasukichi was left in complete and utter darkness until, gradually, the flame of an oil lamp began to grow, to reveal the stark, white face of a man –
‘Well, here you are,’ said the man. The man was standing in the centre of the room, holding the oil lamp in one hand, gesturing at a chair with the other. ‘Please, sit down, sit down –’
Yasukichi sat down in one of the two chairs at a table in the middle of the room. Yasukichi looked around the gloomy room. In the shadows, there were piles of books and papers. On the walls, crucifixes and paintings. A large desk in front of a small window. All the furniture worn and shabby. And even the gaudy tablecloth, with its woven border of red flowers, was threadbare and looked as if it might disintegrate at any moment.
The man placed the oil lamp on the table. He looked across the cloth at Yasukichi. He smiled but said nothing, and Yasukichi found himself listening to the sound of the rain falling in the bamboo grove outside. The wind in the trees and the waves on the river.
Presently, the old woman returned with the tea things. She set them down on the table and then retreated again. The man opened a box of cigarettes on the cloth. He turned the box towards Yasukichi, smiled again and said, ‘Please. Will you have one?’
‘Thank you,’ said Yasukichi.
The man leant forward across the table. He held out a flame towards Yasukichi. Yasukichi bent forward to light the cigarette from the flame. He felt the man’s eyes upon him. Yasukichi looked up from the flame at the man and now, for the first time, he could clearly see the face of the man. He appeared to be of a similar age to Yasukichi. Possibly slightly older, maybe even thirty. But the man was completely bald. Or perhaps his head had been shaved, like a priest. It was hard to tell in the dimly lit room. Yasukichi looked away, staring down at his cigarette.
‘You are a bundle of nerves,’ said the man. ‘Your whole being is wrapped in an aura of darkness and shadow.’
Yasukichi looked up from his cigarette and said, ‘Everywhere I look, behind me or before me, I see only shadows. Only darkness.’
‘But wherever there is darkness,’ said the man, ‘then light will surely follow. If you are not impatient …’
Yasukichi smiled sadly, and then said, ‘But there is such a thing as darkness without light.’
‘Momentarily, yes,’ said the man. ‘But light always follows darkness. Just as day always follows night. Miraculously.’
Yasukichi shook his head. ‘I do not believe in miracles.’
The man smiled. He raised his hand. He held it over the oil lamp. Then he placed his hand on the
table. And he plucked one of the red flowers from the pattern woven into the border of the cloth. The man held the red flower out towards Yasukichi. His eyes blinking, his hands shaking, Yasukichi took the flower from the man. Yasukichi brought the flower up to his face. He felt its petals against his skin, he smelt its scent. His eyes still blinking, his hands still shaking, Yasukichi dropped the flower onto the table. Immediately, the flower resumed its place in the woven border of the tablecloth. And try as he might, Yasukichi could not pick it up again. He shook his head again. ‘I do not understand …’
‘It is not a question of understanding,’ said the man. ‘It is a matter of believing. You stopped believing and so the flower died.’
Yasukichi looked across the table at the man. And Yasukichi said, ‘Can you help me? Can you save me?’
‘Only if you want to be helped,’ said the man. ‘Only if you want to be saved.’
*
A new year, a new start. A new life, married life. After the ceremony, the portraits and the parties. A new house, a married house. In Kamakura, by the sea, by the sea, by the sea. The wind in the pines, the sand in your shoes. A large house, with a garden. A lotus pond and bashō plants. The rain on the pond, the drops on the leaves. On the pond and on the leaves. A quiet life, a quiet life. It’s what you want, that’s what you say: a quiet life for you, the quiet life for me. By the sea, by the sea. To become another man, a new and better man. What you want, so you say. To live quietly, composing haiku. The rain on the pond, the drops on the leaves. The wind in the pines, the sand in your shoes. In your socks, between your toes. The grains which rub, the grains that cut. In the bathroom, at the sink. The blood on your feet and the blood on the floor. The wind round your house, the waves at your door. The world lapping at your feet, the world banging at your door. The price of rice, the cost of living. The riots in the streets, the smoke in the sky. A world at war, always at war. Turning fields into trenches, trenches into graves, making soldiers of us all, corpses of us all. The blood on your hands, the blood in your sink. In the bathroom, in the mirror. You stare at your face, your skin and your skull. You stick out your tongue, you pull down your lower eyelids. Turning on the light, turning off the light. Here and then gone, gone and then here. The man you were, the man you are. Off and then on, on and then off. The man you want to be, will never be. Gone and then here, here and then gone. Want to be, don’t want to be; will and won’t be, can and can’t be, can never be, never be. How many men, how many men. In the bathroom, in the mirror. No quiet life for you, no quiet life for me. For me, for you; for us, for us, for all of us. The quiet life, a half-life. Torn in half, torn in two.
