by David Peace
I open my eyes, the room flooded with a bright early-morning, early-summer light. I leap from the bed, go to the desk and begin to write, my pen sailing over the paper with a speed that startles even me, just writing and writing with a savage joy, then smoking and smoking, getting up from the desk to pace the room, on top of the world, then back to the desk and back to my pen, writing and writing, no parents, no wife, no children, just the life that flows from my pen across these papers, these pages; two pages, four pages, seven pages, ten pages more, more and more: under my pen, before my eyes, the manuscript grows and grows, just keeps on growing, as I write and I write with a frantic intensity, filling the decaying world of this supernatural story with horrific beasts, one of whom is my own self-portrait –
The telephone by the bed rings.
I stand up, go over to the bed, pick up the phone and say, ‘Who is it?’
‘Quack, quack,’ whispers a voice. ‘I’m the ghost of Tock …’
‘What? What,’ I scream. ‘What, what did you say?’
‘Are you ready to go yet, ready to go now …?’
‘What? Who are you, who is it?’
‘It’s Uno’s wife,’ says the voice now. ‘I’m sorry to disturb you …’
‘What is it,’ I ask. ‘Has something happened to Uno?’
‘I called your house,’ she says, ‘and your aunt said you were here, and I hate to disturb you, but Uno’s condition is really deteriorating …’
‘Don’t worry,’ I tell her, ‘I’ ll come as soon as I can …’
‘Thank you,’ she says, then cuts the connection.
I put the receiver back in its cradle. I go back to the desk, stuff my books and the manuscript into my bag, pick up my hat and my coat from the corner and leave the room. The corridor is as depressing as an asylum now. I walk down the stairs to the lobby. A man in a raincoat is arguing with a bellboy again. I check out at the front desk, then go out through the hotel doors to get a taxi. I walk towards the young cab dispatcher in his green uniform, but, before I can say anything, he asks, ‘You are Mr A, are you not?’
‘I am,’ I say, not knowing what else to say.
‘I thought so,’ he says. ‘I knew it. I’m your most devoted reader, Sensei. I’ve read everything you’ve written. It is an honour to meet you, Sensei.’
I touch the tip of my hat, bow and thank him, but feel sick inside; I have committed every sin known to man, yet still I receive such praise and respect, as though someone or something was mocking me. I don’t even have a conscience any more; all I have is nerves.
‘Would you like a cab, Sensei?’
I nod, then say, ‘But a green one, please. Only a green one.’
The young cab dispatcher smiles. ‘Of course, Sensei.’
I thank him again and get into the back of the lucky green cab; for some reason, every time I take a yellow one I’m always involved in an accident. I tell the driver the address, then slump back in the seat and stare out at the buildings, feeling anything and everything is a lie. Politics, business, science, art; it’s all just a mottled layer of enamel covering over this life in all its horror. I begin to feel as if I am suffocating in the back of this cab. I open the window as wide as possible, but the constriction around my heart will not give way, just tightening, tightening, tighter and tighter …
Eventually, we reach the main intersection at Jingūmae. We should be able to turn down a side street here, but today, for some reason, I cannot find it. I have the taxi go back and forth along the streetcar line, but finally I can’t stand it any longer; I give up and get out of the cab.
Somehow I have ended up at the Aoyama Funeral Hall; I’ve never even passed the front gate of this building in the ten long years since the memorial service for Sōseki-sensei. I had not been happy back then, either, but at least I had been at peace. I peer in at the gravelled courtyard and, recalling the delicate bashō plants at the Sōseki Retreat, I cannot help feeling my own life has now come to an end. Yet I also feel ‘something’ must have drawn me back to this crematorium today, after all these years; a shiver runs down my spine, shaking my whole body, shaking the place where my soul should be.
I turn and walk away, heading towards the mental hospital, unable to suppress the prayer now rising on my lips –
‘Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. For thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand presseth me sore, sore, sore …’
How can any of us escape, except through faith, madness or death?
2. The Houses of the Mad
At his desk in his office at the Aoyama Mental Hospital in Akasaka-ku, Mokichi Saitō, head of the hospital, and renowned tanka poet, closed his eyes again. He was exhausted and he was depressed: exhausted by his workload, the responsibilities and burdens of his position; depressed by this place, not only the asylum, the hospital, but the city, the country, Tokyo and Japan.
Once, Mokichi had escaped; escaped from Nagasaki, escaped from Japan, and gone to Europe, first to Vienna, appointed by the Ministry of Education as a researcher abroad. He had studied at the Neurologischen Institut of Vienna University under Heinrich Obersteiner, had submitted his research as his doctoral thesis in Vienna, and it had been accepted and published. This work had also earned Mokichi a doctorate in medicine from Tokyo Imperial University. But Mokichi had refused to return home to Japan; Mokichi had left Vienna and gone on to study under Emil Kraepelin at his institute in Munich. Nothing would make Mokichi return to Japan, not the inflation and privations of post-war Austria and Germany, not the death of his own father, not even the news of the Great Kantō Earthquake; nothing had made him return until that telegram on the last day of 1924.
Ironically, the Aoyama Mental Hospital had survived the earthquake and fires of 1923, only to be destroyed by a fire on New Year’s Eve, 1924. The fire had apparently begun in the kitchen during the preparation of mochi for the New Year, and then rapidly spread through the main building. Twenty-three patients, a doctor and a staff member had perished. The fire also claimed the many books Mokichi had been sending home from Europe. The situation had been further complicated because his father-in-law and mentor, Kiichi, had neglected to renew the fire insurance. The hospital had been the life’s work of Kiichi Saitō, the culmination of his long medical career, and its destruction had devastated the old man.
On his reluctant return to Japan, the burden of the lack of insurance and the resulting financial problems, the opposition of the authorities and neighbours to reconstruction on the original site in Akasaka-ku, the raising of funds and the search for a new site, all had fallen entirely on Mokichi. The process of rebuilding the Aoyama Hospital as an annexe, along with the construction of a larger new main hospital out at Matsuzawa, had been slow and painful. Two and a half years later, the smoke of that fire enshrouded him still; once again, Mokichi was trapped and imprisoned –
‘Beyond the boundaries / of bitter shock / and deep grieving / words failed me / before the bright sun …’
There was a knock on the door. Mokichi opened his eyes, rubbed his face, looked at his watch and sighed; he had forgotten, forgotten he had agreed to a request from Ryūnosuke Akutagawa to visit the writer Kōji Uno.
There was a second knock on the door now. Mokichi stood up behind his desk and called out, ‘Yes, yes. Please come in …’
Akutagawa opened the door, bowing and excusing the interruption, thanking Mokichi for his time and for agreeing to visit Uno –
‘Since the spring, Uno’s been displaying the symptoms of an increasingly severe nervous breakdown,’ began Akutagawa, at speed, ‘one minute up, one minute down, high and then low, manic then moribund. But his wife says Uno’s been out on the streets this morning, bellowing and shouting wildly at passers-by, stopping the traffic. The woman’s at her wits’ end, desperate for help, so I promised to call you …’
‘Let’s go then,’ said Mokichi, coming out from behind his desk, picking up his bag, but conscious Akutagawa himself did no
t seem so well.
Since their first meeting in Nagasaki, almost ten years ago now, and then more frequently following his return from Europe, Mokichi had met Akutagawa quite often, had come to like him, but be concerned for him, too. Akutagawa had always been thin, but now he was painfully gaunt, his skin grey, his hair and nails both long and dirty, and today, perhaps stimulated by the condition of his friend Uno, he seemed manic, almost possessed –
‘It’s so shocking, so frightening. Terrifying … Any one of us, at any moment, could end up like Uno … I feel as though what’s happening to him is happening to me,’ ranted Akutagawa, yet grinning broadly, opening his eyes wider, and then shivering in mock fear.
Mokichi knew Akutagawa feared he had inherited his mother’s insanity, that he was also plagued by insomnia, and so, for the last year or so, Mokichi had been prescribing draughts to help him sleep. But as he led him out of the office, past the temporary buildings, towards the waiting car, Mokichi wondered if Akutagawa was sleeping, had slept at all.
Suddenly, Akutagawa veered off from Mokichi, over to a patch of grass, close to the burnt-out ruins of the old hospital, and standing there, staring at the treetops of the Aoyama Cemetery, he smiled and said, ‘I hadn’t noticed, but it’s actually a nice day, this breeze most refreshing …’
‘It is,’ said Mokichi. ‘Let’s go to see Uno …’
In the car from Aoyama to Ueno Sakuragichō, Akutagawa was again most animated, speaking as though delivering a lecture on insanity, citing statistics on the rapid rise in the numbers of people being institutionalised, quoting the popular phrases of the day, such as ‘civilisation disease’, ‘city disease’, ‘modern disease’, ‘the sickness of our age’ and even ‘American disease’, while constantly saying, over and over, again and again, ‘It’s all so shocking, it’s all so frightening; it could happen to any one of us at any moment, happen to me, especially me,’ then shivering in mock fear again. Yet had he not known of their long friendship, and his own maladies and fears, Mokichi might have thought Akutagawa was even being flippant, almost relishing and enjoying the adventure of Uno’s breakdown.
Fortunately, when they finally arrived at the house, Uno seemed much calmer than he had been earlier, sitting quietly in the dim room under the staircase with the light from the shabby passageway falling on the right side of his body, not even the least bit suspicious of Mokichi, a stranger.
‘You seem to be suffering from a slight nervous breakdown,’ Akutagawa told Uno in a calmer tone now. ‘So I thought Dr Saitō here should check your condition.’
Uno smiled, gently nodded, and then cheerfully, almost proudly announced to Mokichi, ‘I have never, ever had such clarity of thought as I’ve had these past few days. Two hours’ sleep a night is more than enough.’
‘That’s very good,’ said Mokichi, opening up his doctor’s bag. He took out a brush, asked Uno to open up his yukata, and then, while lightly stroking his skinny chest, he softly said, ‘That tickles, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ giggled Uno, squirming, ‘it tickles.’
Mokichi poked out his tongue in jest, smiled and said, ‘Well, it seems your nerves are just a little bit too stimulated, and so it might be better to take a tranquilliser for now, don’t you think?’
Uno giggled again and nodded.
‘And you should rest and sleep as much as you can, shouldn’t you? You’ll feel much better then, won’t you? And so let’s take a tranquilliser now, shall we? Then I’ll leave you some more for later, if you would like?’
‘Actually, I have a very good tranquilliser with me,’ said Akutagawa suddenly, putting his hand inside his pocket and taking out a package.
‘It’s okay, thank you. I’ll give him mine instead,’ said Mokichi, taking out a sachet from his bag, dividing the powder into two. He then reached back inside his bag, took out a needle and syringe, and said, ‘And just as a precaution, I think we should take a little blood. Just to check …’
Uno still remained very calm, smiling and agreeing to the blood test, still smiling and giggling as Mokichi gently took the blood, then smiling and nodding, swallowing the tranquilliser, washing it down, still smiling and promising to rest and sleep as much as he could, then cheerfully saying goodbye to Mokichi and Akutagawa, happily showing them out, hoping they would call again soon, urging them to take care on their way home –
‘For who knows when and who disaster will strike down next …’
Outside on the street, Akutagawa was relieved the visit had gone so well, most grateful to Mokichi for his help and for his time. ‘The day is almost done, and so if you’re not too busy now, and it’s not an inconvenient place, will you join me for dinner at Jishōken, so I can thank you properly?’
‘You really don’t need to thank me,’ said Mokichi. ‘However, as always, I would be delighted to dine with you, so thank you.’
Mokichi had been to Jishōken with Akutagawa a few times before; the restaurant seemed to be Akutagawa’s favourite, his regular choice, very close to his house in Tabata. Mokichi had hoped the prospect of dining at a familiar place, one so close to home, together with the apparent success of their afternoon visit, might have helped to soothe Akutagawa, but, in the back of the taxicab, the writer still appeared most anxious and agitated –
‘Uno’s breakdown has spooked our fellow writers. People are terrified they will be next. Just the other evening, Murō Saisei told me if the same thing were to befall him, then he would surely turn into a nymphomaniac! He made me promise to be sure he always kept his trousers on and his belt fastened … But you don’t think that by going there so often, Uno’s family feel I am interfering and meddling? And then what about Seiji? You don’t think I am making Seiji look bad …?’
Seiji Tanizaki, the translator of Poe and younger brother of Jun’ichirō, was one of Uno’s oldest and closest friends. Yet he’d called just once.
‘I’m sure you don’t need to worry about Seiji,’ said Mokichi. ‘He’s so highly strung and weak, it’s probably more upsetting for Uno if he does visit …’
‘But I’m such a very weak person, too,’ said Akutagawa.
‘But you’ve been very helpful to Uno and his wife.’
‘You really think so? You really do …?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘You’re certain,’ asked Akutagawa again. ‘I’m sure Seiji must resent me calling on Uno, intruding every day …’
‘I’m sure Seiji is very grateful to you, given his own reluctance to visit. It really does seem to be beyond him …’
‘You’re right,’ said Akutagawa. ‘The one time he did call, Seiji simply sat there in tears. That night, he told me he couldn’t sleep for thinking about Uno’s situation, despairing for his future. He was distraught, claimed if he were to visit again, then he feared he, too, would become infected by Uno’s disease … But in that case, I must also be at risk …’
‘No,’ said Mokichi, calmly but firmly. ‘Insanity itself is not infectious. However, you do need to take care. Your anxiety and concern for your friend and his condition are taking their toll on you, affecting your own health.’
In the back of the cab, Akutagawa nodded. ‘You’re right.’
Mokichi gently put his hand on Akutagawa’s arm and asked, ‘How have you been sleeping these days? Are you sleeping?’
‘Not much,’ said Akutagawa, ‘and only with the Veronal you prescribed. Calmotin no longer has any effect at all.’
‘It’s still much better to use Veronal than not to sleep at all.’
‘You’re right,’ said Akutagawa again. ‘It’s terrible if I can’t sleep, simply unbearable, too unbearable. But even with Veronal, even then it never lasts more than thirty minutes or so, an hour at most. But it’s so dangerous not to sleep, almost an act of violence, I’d say. An act of violence …’
In the back of the cab, Mokichi nodded and said, ‘I’ll have someone deliver you another ounce of Veronal, but Veronal imported from Germany; it’s much better than the Japane
se-made product. I’ll also send you some Numal, because if you can alternate Veronal and Numal, then I think you can avoid addiction. And please don’t worry about the cost; although the Japanese drugs are cheaper, the imported ones are still less than a taxi home. It’s important not to worry about the price, so please don’t.’
‘Thank you,’ said Akutagawa. ‘I’m still having to contend with all the debts my brother-in-law left my sister; the interest alone is thirty per cent! Sincerely, I appreciate your kindness, thank you.’
‘You don’t need to thank me,’ said Mokichi. ‘It’s nothing.’
‘It’s not nothing,’ said Akutagawa, in a low and sad voice, turning to stare out of the cab window, out into the twilight.
The taxi had come down through Yanaka into Nezu, then gone along Shinobazu-dōri onto Dōzaka, and now stopped.
Mokichi and Akutagawa got out of the cab, walked up an unlit, narrow side road, passed through the gate and the garden and entered Jishōken, warmly greeted by the owner, led down the wooden corridor and shown to their usual table overlooking the garden, the only customers.
The clear day had become a clouded night, the lanterns and stones in the garden of the restaurant already draped in shadows.
Mokichi turned from the window, looked across the table at Akutagawa, smiled and then said, ‘As I wrote in my last letter, I was so greatly impressed by Kappa, and so I hope, despite all you are having to contend with, you are still managing to write, and the writing is bringing you some respite?’
‘Thank you,’ said Akutagawa, ‘but you are too generous and kind in your praise. And to be honest, if I had had more time, and if I had taken more care, I could have written more of Kappa. Now I regret finishing it so prematurely, but I wanted to go on to Mirage …’
‘An exceptional work,’ said Mokichi.
‘Thank you,’ said Akutagawa again. ‘It might be the only work of which I feel confident. But even this is so far from what I had hoped to achieve. I just feel I am getting more and more tired …’
‘But at least you are still writing,’ said Mokichi.
