The Pine Islands

by Marion Poschmann

  He finally settled on saying something appreciative: he had watched him, the way he had tenderly handled his bag. He must be very conscientious. He certainly serves the state and society to the best of his abilities. He, Gilbert, wanted to express his thanks in the name of all foreigners, because this country, Japan, was in excellent condition. Clean, odourless, attractive to tourists.

  Gilbert had read somewhere that it was beneficial to start a conversation with a suicidal person to distract them from their thoughts. It seemed to work especially well in Japan, where it was simply out of the question for a young man not to reply to an enquiry by an older man, even if he didn’t understand a word of it.

  The goatee quivered as the young man picked up his bag and followed Gilbert to the exit.

  高島平

  Takashimadaira

  Yosa Tamagotchi had been poised to throw himself in front of the train because he was afraid he wasn’t going to pass his exams. The bag contained a suicide note, carefully calligraphed and dated. He studied petrochemistry, and his marks were good, but maybe not good enough. Fearful of social exclusion, he grew a beard, he knew no company would hire him in this state. If he were to be unsuccessful he could just say that it was down to the beard, or should luck smile down on him and a firm took him on anyway, there would be nothing more straightforward than shaving it off. But his exam fear grew, paralysing him to such a degree that he was no longer capable of thinking, let alone committing anything to memory. Therefore, the exams couldn’t possibly have gone well. His parents owned a small tea shop, they worked day and night to enable him to study. He was an only child and on the cusp of deeply disappointing them.

  Yosa sipped carefully at a small beer. Gilbert had taken him to the same sushi bar he had been to that afternoon, had bought him something to eat and tactfully asked him some not too personal questions. They made Yosa squirm like an officer at a tourist office that had been closed for half an hour already, but whose last visitor just wouldn’t leave.

  He had to get back, he finally said quietly. The last train for the day would be arriving soon.

  Nonsense, Gilbert improvised. The station was a bad choice. Unfavourably lit, he had said so himself. Wasn’t it conceivable that there was a better place for his intentions?

  Yosa Tamagotchi slumped down even further. Of course, he explained, the site wasn’t particularly good. There were good and bad places for his purposes. To be more precise, these places in Japan were subject to a strict hierarchy. The cliffs at Nishikigaura Beach on the Pacific Coast were good, the volcanic crater of Mount Mihara was highly suitable, the train stations in Tokyo were bad, they were vulgar, whereas the cliffs, just as an example, transfer their grandeur to those people using them for such an end. He, as a lowly student, had thought the station fitting, but of course he dreamt, as would anyone in his position, of a preordained cliff on the Pacific. This cliff, covered in pine trees, was of a gnawing beauty, and you had to catch the perfect moment when the sun fell on a pinpointed corner of the rocks.

  Yosa spoke with great enthusiasm. Then he calmed down and found his way back to the resigned tone of voice that he had evidently reconciled himself to.

  We’ll find a better place, Gilbert promised grandiosely, and because he said it in an authoritative manner, Yosa nodded compliantly.

  They finished their beers, and Gilbert Silvester accommodated the young Japanese man in his hotel room. He had a futon brought up and rolled out against the opposite wall, as far away from his bed as possible. Yosa Tamagotchi, caught out, sussed out, seemed to have come to terms with submitting to Gilbert’s additional measures without complaint. The whole evening he had been trembling with anticipation, now that he was seized by a certain apathy, he felt humiliated and exhausted and fell straight to sleep.

  We’ll find a better place, Gilbert murmured to himself, but not today. He had missed the chance to call Mathilda again. He didn’t want to wake Yosa. He looked at the display anyway. It notified him of forty-three missed calls, but from the previous day, all of them from his wife. She was prone to overdoing it once she set her mind on something. He put on his pyjamas and took the books he had bought at the airport out of his leather satchel. The reading lamp at the head of the bed afforded a sharply defined spotlight while the rest of the room breathed glowering night-time. Gilbert Silvester read a little of Bashō’s travelogue. Then he turned off the lamp and lay unsettled for a long time in the dark.

  Matsuo Bashō, the great innovator of the haiku, had travelled in the wild, dangerous north of Japan. He walked 2,400 kilometres in total and conceived of his wanderings – full of hardship, anguish and perils – as a pilgrimage. For one, it led him to notable places around the country, to its sacred sites and monuments, while he followed his revered predecessors, namely the trail of the poet Saigyō, who had walked this path five hundred years before him, visiting the temples and shrines, admiring nature and composing poems at his various stops.

  Saigyō came from an ancient, prosperous family. He served at the imperial court and was set to have a glittering career. He was a masterful horseman and brilliant swordfighter, and he possessed a great physical beauty. At a poetry contest he wrote the finest poem, and as his prize he received a valuable weapon and an elegant silk robe. It could have all been so glorious for him – he was still young, supple and full of promise – but then unexpectedly and abruptly he left Kyoto. The transience of all earthly things tormented him, and courtly vanity repulsed him. He left the revered ruler, left his darling wife and child, without further explanation. He took his vows, left his home, the capital, and underwent a long, solitary trek. He yearned for insight, salvation and enlightenment. He longed for the moon, for moonlight on cherry blossom.

  When Bashō set forth he was forty-five years old, and had five years to live. He was already renowned at this point, and saw himself idolised by students, friends and patrons, but his fame had become a burden to him. All these people were distracting him, taking him away from poetry.

  Like his inspiration, Saigyō, Bashō travelled through the north in order to leave everything worldly behind him. It required him to turn away from society, just as it had for Saigyō, in order to follow his poetic vision, to cultivate a fresh look at the world, a radical innovation of his poetry.

  Bashō sold his hut, his possessions, took leave of his friends and headed into the pathless heartland. It would be a physical journey as much as a spiritual one. Bashō had a vision. Like Saigyō, centuries before him, he longed for the moon. He longed for the moon over Matsushima.

  Matsushima, the most beautiful place in Japan, the bay of pine islands. Gilbert liked that idea immensely. His own situation was similar after all, he had left everything behind, had abruptly turned his back on everything, got as far away from worldly existence as he possibly could. Just like Saigyō, he had left his wife in the dark about his plans, even cancelled the conference.

  The travellers to Matsushima were lunatics, moonstruck, eccentric. They composed their own sacred legends, everything was worthless to them apart from poetry, and for them poetry stood for the spirit’s path to nothingness. They were extremists, ascetics, mad for a certain kind of beauty, the fleeting beauty of blossom, the ambiguous beauty of moonlight, the hazy beauty of the secluded landscape.

  Gilbert imagined the full moon over black pines. A silvery light, diffused over bristly silhouettes, the fuzzy physiognomies of old vagrants. Wandering monks. Artists with knee-length beards. He grinned excitedly into the depths of his room, into the depths of the universe, and boxed his unduly yielding pillow into shape. He had a purpose.

  At some point he fumbled around in the complete darkness for his mobile phone and the display lit up blue. 25,000 missed calls had been received, and he hadn’t noticed a single one of them. Maybe there was something wrong with the phone. There was no point listening to the answering machine, he would be occupied for days, nights, to get through this plethora of messages. If someone really wanted something from him they cou
ld call again.

  25,000 phone calls, 25,000 pine needles, shimmering in the moonlight. The pine needles wavered in the wind, then they fell from their branches and formed into field lines, like iron filings drawn by a magnet. A wispily dashed-out sketch, roving hatchings that turned in on themselves. Grey asphalt everywhere, oppressive void. A train platform, a fence. An abundance of eddying pine needles. The train pulled in.

  Gilbert Silvester was awoken by sounds coming from the bathroom. The young Japanese man had neatly rolled up the futon and had stowed it away behind the white cube furniture so that it took up practically no space at all. The door to the bathroom ended about ten centimetres above the floor. White steam rolled out from the gap. Against the wall to the bathroom was Yosa’s unzipped sports bag. Without touching anything, Gilbert allowed himself a peek inside. Some laundry, paper and writing materials. On top of everything was a book whose cover showed an amateurish drawing of two coffins and whose Japanese title was – a trendy touch – also printed in English. The Complete Manual of Suicide. A typically underground book for a typical clientele, the sophisticated but uptight student with a late-adolescent demeanour and an ill-defined, foolish self-image. Yosa acted reticent but was secretly megalomaniacal. Gilbert’s students behaved quite similarly. Precarious existences who already knew that they would always be precarious existences – perhaps this was why they favoured gathering in his seminars: he was a good role model in that respect.

  In the hope that Yosa Tamagotchi would be in the bathroom a while longer, Gilbert called Mathilda.

  It took a long time before she picked up. He was already regretting having taken the initiative. In the present situation he had assumed she would indeed be waiting for his call. Yet she sounded displeased.

  – It’s the middle of the night!

  Furious at himself, he suddenly realised that he’d not taken the time difference into account, and apologised.

  – Sorry, I didn’t take into account the time difference.

  – Right, because you’re in Tokyo.

  She spoke with a sarcastic undertone.

  – I admit it’s a peculiar feeling finding myself in a different time zone to you.

  This was supposed to have been a gesture of reconciliation, if not a declaration of love.

  She hesitated a moment.

  – And when are you coming back?

  He was stunned into silence because he hadn’t even asked himself this question.

  – As of yesterday evening the situation has become more complicated, he finally said, looking towards the bathroom door, which Mathilda wasn’t able to see.

  – Then I’ll assume you’re going to be a while. Maybe you can get back in touch when the situation has been clarified, she said snappily. The conversation was over.

  Water had been running for quite some time in the bathroom. Gilbert knocked gently on the door. One couldn’t be too careful, the young man could possibly be preparing, against all of Gilbert’s advice, to drown himself in the bath. But Yosa answered without delay that he would be right out.

  He had to send Mathilda a comprehensive text message. Otherwise she might get the idea of going to the police and registering him missing, or as non compos mentis, or both. They’d locate his smartphone and verify the position as Tokyo, thereby confirming Mathilda’s assessment. He had always been irritated by her inflexible worldview and had found her a bit too much of a neurotic perfectionist. A great number of people fly to New York for a shopping weekend or spontaneously travel to Australia to go surfing – why should he of all people be declared insane for a short trip to Tokyo? He was an adult, legally competent, he’d paid with a credit card, he wasn’t accountable to anyone. Saying that, he thought it would be best for now if he told his wife it was a research trip. Pioneering insights into the beards of the Japanese. Mathilda was predisposed to accept without hesitation anything that served the purpose of professional advancement. With this in mind, he began to type a long letter on the miniscule type pad.

  While Gilbert was still writing, Yosa vacated the bathroom wearing a white towelled bathrobe, rooted around in his bag, sat down cross-legged in front of one of the all-purpose cubes with a piece of paper and began calligraphing a new suicide letter. He decorated it with an ink drawing of Mount Fuji, which was hardly recognisable because it was swimming in a cloud of fog. Gilbert sighed. On the one hand the young man had accepted his authority, was already emulating him (he wrote when the time for writing had been declared), knew how to use the furniture and was behaving in an overall calm manner. On the other hand, he was indulging too much in the theatrics of youth. One suicide note after the other, Fuji not clearly defined but rather as if seen through tears, he was soft, and a test of one’s patience, mummy issues personified.

  They went to the breakfast room together and sat at a table by the window. Yosa ate a bowl of nondescript rice porridge and drank green tea. He had put on a fresh white shirt, and his hair gleamed. Gilbert noticed that he was very slim, sat up very straight and moved his hands exceptionally elegantly. He himself had assembled a continental breakfast from the buffet. Coffee, toast, scrambled eggs, orange juice. While he ate, he endeavoured not to look at the bowl of porridge. Grey and slimy. It was beyond comprehension that Japan was considered a highly civilised country.

  They ate in silence. Yosa waited with his head bowed until Gilbert put down his knife and fork. Then he humbly thanked him for his help, compassion and accommodation. Gilbert had given him courage. He would forever be indebted to Gilbert, and if he couldn’t pay back his debt in this lifetime he should contact his parents who would be only too glad to give him their finest tea. He carefully handed Gilbert a small note bearing an address with both hands, bowed deeply and informed him that today he would be travelling to a better place.

  Gilbert raised his eyebrows disbelievingly and immediately saw Yosa give himself away. A tiny sign of doubt on his part, it instantly flew like the shadow of a flock of crows across Yosa’s face. With his hands in his lap, back straight, and with his head bowed Yosa explained that he owned a handbook. In this handbook there were descriptions of good, bad, average and excellent places. He had made his choice and found a place in a much better category.

  Gilbert attempted a neutral face.

  Wonderful, he said. He’d come along.

  On the way to the underground, Yosa carried the gym bag with the handbook inside. Gilbert had his leather satchel and had taken Bashō’s travelogues with him. He hadn’t got very far with it, but its approach had already won him over. Asceticism, restraint and humility, a poverty of spirit. His own project of abandonment also entailed making a clean break. A break between himself and society, himself and social conventions, himself and the bizarre pressures of omnipresent turbocapitalism. A pilgrimage in maximum seclusion, in order to find a way back to autonomy, which differed greatly from the kind of freedom that dutiful citizens got out of their money. He himself was not overly wealthy, but it had been enough to take an unexpected long flight. A trip that, as it had already turned out, by no means presented the solution to his problems. A trip that his wife didn’t even believe in.

  They took the Mita Line to Takashimadaira. Yosa bought them both tickets, steered Gilbert through the subterranean labyrinth of escalators and tiled walkways and swiped two seats for them on the train. The journey would be long, he explained, they were travelling almost to the final station. He lifted the gym bag onto his knees, took out the handbook and immersed himself in his reading without another word. Gilbert did the same but was unable to concentrate. He closed his eyes and for a long time listened to the rumble of the carriage, to the sound of the doors opening and closing over and over again. After some time had passed he woke with a start when Yosa gently tapped him. It was time to get off. Yosa passed him his book, which must have slipped out of his hands. Matsushima, the Japanese man said appreciatively. Ah, Matsushima! he said, clearly moved, and Gilbert watched the goatee tremble pathetically.

  They left th
e station and found themselves once more in a faceless suburb. Yosa followed the directions printed in his handbook. Gilbert trotted along beside him. He felt awfully exhausted all of a sudden.

  Prefabricated buildings. All built the same, all ten storeys high. Run down, squalid. A cut-rate neighbourhood, a deprived area. It looked like Berlin-Hellersdorf. Like the outskirts of Moscow. Like Siberia. If there was a propitious place more suitable than a station in Tokyo in the immediate vicinity, it didn’t reveal itself to Gilbert.

  Yosa led him through a shopping centre where a couple of children were skateboarding. No one was shopping. They walked past the housing blocks until Yosa approached one of the front doors. It wasn’t locked. A bare entrance area, no parked-up pushchairs, no rubbish, only a newly painted white wall that seemed as sterile as a sanitary facility. No cosy abode. The lift was out of service, and they climbed the stairs up to the tenth floor, and from there up onto the roof using the fire ladder. No one stopped them. The whole undertaking was utterly banal.

  There was a clear view from the roof, but chiefly of the other rooftops on the estate at an equal height. As if you were standing on a vast, grey expanse disrupted in some places by deep trenches. On the furthest edges of this expanse, far in the distance, the mountains seemed to begin, enveloped in heavy cloud, just like in Yosa’s letter. Was one of them Fuji? Gilbert couldn’t make it out. He instinctively looked around for an information board, like the ones installed at Swiss vantage points to bring tourists closer to mountain vistas. A panorama that reproduced the contours of the summits in fine lines, and gave their names and heights.

  The roof, however, was empty. Gilbert didn’t want to ask Yosa whether his handbook had more detailed information. Naturally a view of Mount Fuji would be an obvious plus point for this location. On the other hand, it could be just as likely that the handbook laid out completely different criteria and had recommended this spot because it featured absolutely nothing of interest. A place so depressing and dismal that it would optimally support a world-weary young man to carry out his resolve.