by Yoko Tawada
Yoshiro imagined himself at Shinjuku Station, boarding a deserted Narita Express for the airport. In fact, no one was riding the Express, the train whose foreign name had once projected the very image of speed, or drinking espresso either. At the airport terminal there was no one at the checkpoint, so no need to show his passport. The Terminal sign, written in Chinese characters, had been taken down long ago, and was now propped up against a wall. Climbing the creaky steps of the frozen escalator, he found all the check-in counters abandoned, a huge spider’s web covering each one like an umbrella. Looking more closely, he saw that there was a spider about the size of the palm of his hand in each one, calmly waiting for prey. There were colorful stripes on one spider’s back; black at the top, red, then yellow. Germany was his destination — that must explain it, he thought. He took a cautious look at the counter next door and saw that its spider had red, white, and blue stripes. There were smaller red spiders here and there in the web too, with white stars on their backs.
Yoshiro didn’t know why he was able to picture the airport so clearly. With no effort on his part, these images just came to him, begging to be written into a novel. But it would be dangerous to write about an airport nobody went to anymore. What if the government was keeping it off limits to the public on purpose, because state secrets were hidden there? Sneaking into a forbidden place to dig up forbidden knowledge didn’t interest him at all. But even if what he published was only a description of what he had imagined, if his fiction happened to correspond too closely to what the airport was really like he might be arrested for leaking state secrets. Proving in a court of law that it had come from his imagination might be awfully difficult. And would they even give him a trial? Not that he found the idea of going to prison particularly frightening, but wondering how Mumei would survive without him worried him so much that he couldn’t bring himself to take many risks.
How many years had it been since the absence of animals other than rental dogs and dead cats had ceased to bother him? Though he had heard something about a “Rabbit Union” formed by people who secretly kept rabbits, since he didn’t know anyone who belonged, he couldn’t even show Mumei a living rabbit.
“Mumei, are you going to be a zoologist?” he would ask as he watched Mumei totally absorbed in drawing a zebra, copying the picture from his Illustrated Guide to Animals. In the old man’s dreams, Mumei not only became a professor of zoology, but traveled the world, observing wild animals, writing essays about his travels that would make his name as a writer as well. This dream always softened his face with a smile that never took very long to freeze into a frown.
Yoshiro sat down on the toilet, imagining the colossal rear end of a Naumann Mammoth. Letting his imagination go, he watched Mumei examine the puddle left by the mammoth’s footprint through a magnifying glass. Then, he angrily grabbed a handful of toilet paper. Yoshiro kept newspaper clippings he’d softened in his hands in a wooden frame box to use as toilet paper. Like having politics stuck up his ass, he thought, shuddering in disgust, but then again when they touched him, those articles were upside down, turned into mirror writing — a comforting notion after all. For beneath his bottom, the political trends up to now were reversed, moving backwards, in opposition.
Though he had once cut out every newspaper article he found on children’s health and carefully filed it away, he had given all that up long ago. He’d never actually reread any of the articles, and the files had just kept growing until they started to take over his bookshelves, making the walls oppressive. “Never throw anything away without a good reason,” a rule he had always strictly kept, gradually became, as weeks of living in temporary housing dragged into years, “Throw away anything you haven’t needed during the last six months.”
There was one more reason why he hadn’t hesitated to throw away those old newspaper articles. Information concerning children’s health was as capricious as autumn weather, or a man’s heart. One article recommended “Early to Rise” as the road to health, but just a few days later the headlines screamed “Kids Who Sleep Late Grow Faster.” On the heels of “Snacking Leads to Poor Appetites” would come an essay proclaiming that kids who aren’t given sweets whenever they want grow up to be gloomy. “Make Your Children Walk,” advised an expert one day, followed almost immediately by a story about a child who was forced to walk until the bones in his knees wore out. Unable to foresee what sort of fate awaited Mumei in the future, Yoshiro kept his eyes open, taking each day as it came, hoping the present wouldn’t crumble under his feet.
A cooking pot gleamed arrogantly in the kitchen. It wasn’t a particularly high-quality pot, so why did it have to put on such a shine? Glancing at it, Yoshiro took a big kitchen knife and sliced an orange in half. The knife shone, too, but humbly. He had the baker to thank for this kitchen knife that cut so well. He had told Yoshiro about a friend of his who was selling knives at a nearby bookstore the following week. When Yoshiro asked why they were selling kitchen knives at a bookstore, the baker explained that his friend, having also written a best-selling autobiography, would be selling the knives he made at his book signing. He mustn’t think the “Tosa-ken” burned into the wooden knife handles meant the dog, the baker had added with a grin. Tosa, apparently, was just the brand name. When Yoshiro arrived at the bookstore there were already about fifty people lined up. He hadn’t been this excited waiting in line for a long time. At last, his turn came. He bought a book-and-knife set, and while the baker’s friend was signing his book, asked, “Are you touring the entire country?”
“No, this time I’m only going to Hyogo Prefecture and the Far West of Tokyo.”
Oh, so people from outside now call this area “the Far West of Tokyo,” thought Yoshiro — an odd way to put it, with that same sort of faraway, exotic feel as “the Middle East” or “the Near East,” names you never heard anymore.
If the master cutler noticed Yoshiro’s reaction to “the Far West of Tokyo,” he didn’t show it. “Actually, these knives would probably sell better in Tohoku or Hokkaido,” he went on. “The economy’s booming up there. It’s awfully far away, though. Years ago when I used to go to New York to sell my knives it didn’t seem far at all — distance is odd that way.”
His voice dropped to a raspy whisper on “New York.” There was a strange new law against saying the names of foreign cities out loud, and although no one had been prosecuted for breaking it yet, all the same people were very being careful. Nothing is more frightening than a law that has never been enforced. When the authorities want to throw someone in jail, all they have to do is suddenly arrest him for breaking a law that no one has bothered to obey yet.
Though he was glad he had bought the knife, the autobiography was just a typical success story, demanding the reader’s tears as a reward for the teller’s pains; after slogging through the first half Yoshiro could go no further. Even so, there was one exceptionally vivid passage. It was the part about how the author always got up before sunrise, lit a candle and went into his workshop, still so sleepy he didn’t know who he was. Because he was basically a night person it was hard getting up so early, yet the rule that he had to rise before dawn was the only one he never broke. As to its origin — whether it was religious in nature, a tradition among cutlers, or a family custom, passed down through the generations — there was no explanation. But as if to make up for that lack of deeper background information, the dimensions of the candle were meticulously described — it was exactly two inches in diameter and four inches tall.
Wondering how the baker knew this cutler from Tosa, the island of Shikoku, the next time he went to buy bread Yoshiro casually asked, “Did you used to live in Shikoku?”
“I went there in search of the roots of Sanuki bread,” the baker replied. Yoshiro was eager to hear more about these travels, but the baker, usually so talkative, turned coldly back to his work.
The knife was a good buy. When he grasped the handle, a second heart began to beat in
Yoshiro’s hand. Some might say it’s silly to put so much energy into cutting up fruit, but Yoshiro had chosen not a fish or a piece of meat but an orange as this blade’s first and fiercest adversary. His mission — to seek out the noble drops hidden deep inside the fruit, protected by impenetrable walls of fiber, and deliver them to Mumei — had him trembling. Ah, this tough, unyielding rind, with its strong yet elegant white citrus gloves beneath, surrounding each section with its many juice sacs to hold the precious liquid, all determined not to let a single drop escape. Why must you put so many wrappings in the way, preventing my beloved great-grandson from enjoying the sweetness of your juice!
It wasn’t only fruit. Cabbage and burdock root, too, with their barricades of finely woven fiber, seemed to tease, “Just try eating us!” Plants might look placid on the surface, but they refuse to give an inch. And it was this stubbornness he resented. And so his knife headed straight for its target, never hesitating, never stopping, slicing right into it. Not aggressive or pushy, but it kept on cutting, its blade fine and sharp — it didn’t waste time on needless anxiety.
“Just wait, Mumei. Great-grandpa will cut through the jungle of vegetable fiber your teeth can’t manage, carving out the road to health and life. I will be your teeth. Mumei, absorb the sun into your body. Imagine you’re a shark, your mouth full of fine, white teeth, so huge and sharp that whoever sees them runs away in terror. Your saliva is at high tide, wave upon wave filling your mouth, your throat muscles so strong you could swallow the earth. Your gut is an indoor pool, full of gastric juices, and under its glass roof the sun soaks in your gastric pool. Unlike other planets, the earth is blessed with the sun’s light every day. Thanks to Lord Apollo, it is full of strange and wonderful forms. Even now, jellyfish, octopi, frilled lizards, crabs, rhinoceroses, human beings, and lots of other creatures live on the earth, changing all the time. Buds sprout from an embryo, which opens in the shape of a heart, tadpoles like little musical notes turn into frogs like the round wooden drums you see in temples, caterpillars become butterflies, wrinkly newborns age into wrinkled old men. In the past ten years or so, lots of species have gone extinct, but the earth is still warm, and bright.”
Silently chanting phrases he would have been embarrassed to say out loud, Yoshiro fiddled with the knife in his hand until he found just the right grip. He would slice this orange in two and squeeze the juice out for Mumei. Peeling an orange and then cutting it up into little pieces took so much time that the boy had often been late for school. But surely he’d manage to drink a glass of juice in about fifteen minutes. That said, drinking was no easy task for Mumei. His eyes circling in their sockets with the effort, he would struggle to keep his Adam’s apple pumping up and down like an elevator, trying to force the liquid down. Sometimes it would come back up, burning his throat. Or on its way down it would enter his bronchial tubes instead, bringing on a coughing fit. Once he started coughing it was hard to get him to stop.
“Mumei, are you all right? Does it hurt? Can you breathe?” Yoshiro would say, his eyes filling with tears as he patted the boy lightly on the back, or held his head in his arms, pressing it to his chest. Yet despite the appearance of suffering, Mumei himself would be strangely calm. As if resigning himself to a storm at sea, he’d simply wait for the coughing fit to pass.
When the coughing stopped, Mumei would go back to drinking his juice as if nothing had happened. Looking up at Yoshiro, he would ask in surprise, “Great-grandpa, are you all right?” He didn’t seem to know what “suffering” meant; he simply coughed when food wouldn’t go down, or vomited it back up. Of course he felt pain, but it was pure pain, unaccompanied by any “Why am I the only one who has to suffer like this?” sort of lamentations that Yoshiro knew so well. Perhaps this acceptance was a treasure given to the youngest generation. Mumei didn’t know how to feel sorry for himself.
When Yoshiro was a child, his mother babied him whenever he caught cold or ran a fever. Wallowing in self-pity had felt sweet, warm, and deliciously sad. As an adult he knew that, although he had to go to work no matter how much he hated it, illness would give him a bona fide excuse for staying at home, spending the whole day in bed reading or just thinking. It was easy to catch the flu. All he had to do was make sure he didn’t get enough sleep. And even after he recovered, he always managed to get sick again a few months later. Finally, he realized that his true purpose was not to come down with some illness, but to quit his job.
Fortunately, Mumei had never seen adults clinging to illness in this unseemly way. And if he kept on in this way, he would be free until he died, never feeling sorry for himself or using his weakness to ingratiate himself with the people around him.
For about ninety percent of children these days fever was a constant companion. Mumei was always slightly feverish. As checking the thermometer daily only made the adults nervous, a flier came from school instructing them not to. If told they had a fever, kids would start to feel dull and lethargic. And if they were kept home every time their temperature was above normal, some would hardly go to school at all. Besides, since every school had a qualified doctor on duty, it was really best for them to come to school when they were sick. “Because the purpose of fever is to kill germs, children shouldn’t be given medicine to bring down a fever” had been standard medical advice for ages, but only recently had doctors begun to tell parents “Never take your child’s temperature.”
Yoshiro and Mumei buried their thermometer at the Thingamabob Cemetery, a public graveyard where anyone could pay their last respects to something they wanted to part with. Some of the buried objects, still longing for the world above, were apparently trying to return to it; from the earth, disturbed by the rain that day, part of a white headband with a red Rising Sun in the center peeked out, fluttering in the wind. Yoshiro imagined its former owner as either a high school student who was done with his university entrance exams, or a youth who had graduated from some right-wing gang. The leg of an upside-down teddy bear stuck out of the ground. The bear probably wanted to get out, too. Mumei imagined all the various things buried here: broken garden shears, split into two tadpoles; worn-out shoes with paper-thin soles; a toy drum with a broken head; the wedding ring of a couple now divorced; a fountain pen with a bent tip; a map of the world. Yoshiro had once buried the manuscript of a novel he was working on here. He’d thought of burning it in the garden, but submitting it to the flames had seemed so cruel he couldn’t bring himself to strike a match. Everyone has reasons for burning some bits of trash but not others. Ken-to-shi, Emissary to China, he’d called it, his first and only historical novel: he was already well into it when he realized he’d included the names of far too many foreign countries. Place names spread throughout the novel like blood vessels, dividing into ever smaller branches, then setting down roots, making it impossible to eliminate them from the text. He’d had to get rid of the manuscript for his own protection, and since burning it was too painful, he had buried it.
*
As white ceramic blades work their way in, orange liquid flows out. This was how Yoshiro wanted to live: shedding not blood, not tears, but a steady stream of juice. Taking in the warmth and cheer possessed only by the orange, with its combination of tart and sweet that firms up flaccid flesh, feeling the sun in his gut.
After carefully pouring the freshly squeezed juice, he cupped the empty halves of orange peel in his right hand, putting all his strength into squeezing out the last drops.
“Why don’t you drink any, Great-grandpa?” asked Mumei.
“I could only get one orange this time,” answered Yoshiro, “and besides, you kids have to live a long time. So you always come first.”
“Grown-ups can live if children die,” Mumei replied in a singsong voice, “but if grown-ups die, children can’t live.” Yoshiro fell silent.
Whenever he tried to imagine the years Mumei would have to go on living after his own death, Yoshiro ran straight into a wall. For an
old man like Yoshiro, time after death no longer existed. The aged could not die; along with the gift of everlasting life, they were burdened with terrible task of watching their great-grandchildren die.
Mumei’s generation might create a new civilization — which they would leave to their elders. From birth Mumei had seemed to possess a mysterious kind of wisdom, a depth that Yoshiro had never seen in a child before.
When his daughter Amana had been Mumei’s age, she would eat a whole box of cookies or chocolates if the container where they were kept wasn’t locked, but any attempt to scold her always ended in a fight.
“You mustn’t eat so many sweets all at once.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s bad for you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll be too full to eat dinner and wind up undernourished.”
“So I can have all the sweets I want as long as I eat dinner, right?”
“Of course not.”
“Why?”
Exhausted from this endless barrage, Yoshiro would end up screaming, “When I say no it means no!” Not that he wanted to be an overbearing father; it was just that as soon as his daughter started talking her mouth emitted a steady stream of “I want,” “I want,” “I WANT!”
