Death by Water

by Kenzaburo Oe

  “The emperor will wipe away my tears with his own hand / Come quickly, O death, death that is the sibling of sleep / Come quickly / The emperor himself will wipe away my tears with his own hand.

  “To tell you the truth, I really don’t care for that kind of overwrought verbiage. In fact, it really creeps me out. And when we were prepping for our first rehearsals, months ago, I asked Masao a bunch of questions. ‘Shall we perform this with a critical edge? What about the various characters: the young boy with his high, childish voice; the soldiers, singing the boisterous chorus; and the leader, who’s in the throes of terminal cancer and riding in the funky wooden chariot? Should they all project an aura of comical grotesquerie, or should we play it straight?’

  “Masao answered my questions with a question of his own: ‘Well, what about when you’re playing the boy’s mother?’ I wasn’t sure what he was getting at, so I asked, ‘Do you mean that I should just put the emphasis on her sarcastically critical words?’

  “And then Masao (who tends to be a bit volatile at times) suddenly got angry and went off on a seemingly unrelated tangent. ‘Why do I have to be the messenger boy for Choko’s infatuation with the whole concept of postwar democracy?’ he demanded. He calmed down after a moment, as he always does, and then he went out of his way to help me understand his feelings. He said, ‘For Choko, along with a kind of doctrinaire embracing of the postwar strain of anti-ultranationalism, there’s also a deeper, darker, more nuanced Japanese sensibility. That’s why I’ve taken such an interest in The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away, and I have a hunch the same duality will show up in the drowning novel as well, once it’s finished.’

  “As for me,” Unaiko went on, “when we were performing Wipe My Tears Away for you the other day, I found myself unexpectedly moved. I could tell from Asa’s response that she and I were experiencing similar feelings. If you asked me what I found most affecting I would have to say it was when you suddenly started to sing along with the German song so passionately. It’s not as if I was suddenly swept away by a wave of emperor-worshipping nationalism through the medium of Bach’s cantata. No, I’m coming from a place of fundamental aversion to that type of thinking, so my activities with the Caveman Group are actually an ongoing way of dealing with my antipathy. (You’ll understand this better in a moment, after I tell you my own little story.)

  “I was aware that you’ve taken a strong public stand against the resurgence of ultranationalism, especially through your essays and other writings. Even so, for you to undergo such an intense emotional experience as a child, and to revisit it now through the medium of a stage play … that must have had a major impact on you. I know it did on me, because it led me to an interest in you and your work that was different from the feelings I had before—and I think that’s also because Masao’s dramatization of your book has so much raw power.

  “As I mentioned earlier, there’s a relevant story I’d like to share with you today, about an experience that made a profound impression on me. It happened at Yasukuni Shrine. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not some big authority on the place. It’s just … when I was seventeen years old my aunt happened to take me along when she went to pray at that famous (and, needless to say, controversial) shrine. That was my first visit and my last. I’ve never gone back there, but that one experience turned out to be a rather momentous event in my life. I’d like to tell you what happened, if you don’t mind.”

  I gave an encouraging nod.

  “My aunt was married to a man who had spent his entire career as a civil servant in the Ministry of Education,” Unaiko began. “I don’t know whether she was influenced by her husband, or vice versa, but by early middle age they were both right-wing zealots. My aunt’s grandfather was a lieutenant colonel in the navy who died in the war, and that’s probably why she took me with her to Yasukuni Shrine, seventeen years ago. It wasn’t as if she had been invited there for a scheduled ceremony to honor the war dead, though; when we got to the gates we had to stand in a long line with all the other people who had come to pay their respects, or sightsee, or whatever, and we slowly shuffled through the precincts of the shrine like everybody else. After a while we came to the main altar, and my aunt started ringing the bell and clapping her hands to attract the attention of the gods. Then she started praying for the soul of her grandfather, the departed war hero. This ritual went on for an inordinately long time, and I stood next to her, bored out of my teenage mind, staring at the ground. I was startled by the sound of a loud voice, and when I looked up I saw that the area, which had been flooded with people, was rapidly emptying out. Even now, all these years later, the memory of the scene that unfolded before my eyes is totally vivid, as if it had happened this morning.

  “The biggest flag I had ever seen was waving wildly right before my eyes; a vast expanse of white cotton with a bloodred rising sun in the center. I recognized it immediately as the Japanese national flag, of course, but it was so abnormally large that I was frightened. The person who was manipulating the gigantic flag, holding the flagpole in front of his body with both hands, was a young man dressed in the black uniform of a student. As he waved it back and forth, the humongous rectangle of white cotton with the bright red sphere in the middle was the only thing I could see. The flag never stopped moving, and I caught a glimpse of a second man behind the flag waver. He was dressed in an old-style military uniform and soldier’s cap (the kind they wear in the desert, with hanging flaps to protect the neck from the sun), and he was brandishing a long sword above his head. Both men seemed to be reciting some sort of vow or pledge, but even though they were slowly chanting the same words, over and over, I couldn’t figure out what they were saying.

  “At that moment I suddenly began to throw up all over the place. My aunt pulled something—maybe a handkerchief—out of the folds of her kimono and tried to cover the lower half of my face, but I just went on endlessly spewing vomit in every direction, with tremendous velocity. My aunt took off the short jacket she was wearing over her kimono and draped it around my upper body, which was covered with the partially digested remains of my breakfast. And then (rather coldly, I thought) she frog-marched me toward the exit. The soldiers must have thought that I’d shown extreme irreverence by being sick on sacred ground, even involuntarily, because they followed close behind us with their long swords drawn. My aunt and I ended up running away from our pursuers at full speed, as if our very lives depended on it. And I know I didn’t imagine this melodramatic scene, because my aunt seems to remember it the same way.

  “So that’s my story about Yasukuni Shrine. We made it home safely, more or less, and I won’t go into what happened afterward, but for the past seventeen years I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that bizarre and frightening experience.

  “After graduating from high school I got an insignificant little job, and then I sort of bounced around from one entry-level position to another. It was a coworker at one of those forgettable jobs who took me to see a stage performance by the Caveman Group, and it came as a total revelation. Is it really possible to live like this? I asked myself. I knew I had to try, so I began to study drama in my spare time while continuing to work at my boring day job.

  “But even during that busy and exciting period in my life I kept on thinking about the incident at Yasukuni Shrine, which was still festering in my memory like a psychic cancer. The truth is, Mr. Choko, at the time I wasn’t very familiar with your work. However, Masao was in the ongoing process of creating plays based on your fiction, and as I began to get drawn into the productions myself, I decided it was time to read your novella The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away. And that, more than anything, was my first real encounter with the realm you’ve created in your books.

  “I think you have a pretty good idea of what’s transpired since then,” she went on. “As you know, in his late teens Masao was taken under the creative wing of your late brother-in-law, Goro Hanawa. I gather he also met your wife through that connection
. According to Masao, Goro Hanawa used to tell him he ought to familiarize himself with your novel Adventures in Everyday Life, because when Goro eventually turned that book into a screenplay, the only actor who could possibly play the part of the picaresque protagonist would be Masao. As you know, the film never got made, but the upshot was that Masao has been constantly reading and rereading your books ever since, while a more typical member of his generation might have dismissed you as an irrelevant fossil from the past. (No offense.) Masao’s immersion in your work ended up bearing fruit in the form of his award-winning production of The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away, and now he’s busy trying to create a compressed retrospective of your novels in dramatic form. He even moved our theater troupe’s base of operations from Tokyo to Matsuyama, to be closer to the area where so many of your books take place.

  “No sooner had we moved down here than Masao started visiting Asa, and he often took me along. Asa was very welcoming, and she totally got what we were doing. She let us hold workshops at the Forest House, and that was when she told us you would be coming to spend some time here. She didn’t have a lot of details, but she did say you’d be sorting through a bunch of materials your mother had left behind, as part of the research for a partially written book that might turn out to be the final chapter of your life as a fiction writer.

  “When Asa shared the news, Masao was super excited. ‘Aha!’ he said. ‘That must be the long-lost drowning novel!’ Asa hadn’t mentioned the project by name, but Masao seems to have developed a sort of sixth sense when it comes to you and your work.

  “As for me, I couldn’t help thinking how great it would be if the author of the original Wipe My Tears Away were living nearby. I had this idea that if I could talk to you and hear your thoughts about Yasukuni Shrine and ultranationalism in general, then maybe I would be able to figure out what significance that whole ideological can of worms has for me. Since I’m the type of person who likes to translate thought into action right away, I decided to plead with you directly to join us down here as soon as possible. That’s how I came to be lying in wait to ambush you the other day in Tokyo. Of course, due to totally unforeseeable circumstances, my ploy was more successful than I could ever have imagined!”

  Yes, I thought. Early one morning on the cycling path beside the canal near my house, I suddenly swooned and started to fall backward, only to be caught from behind by an unseen Good Samaritan. A moment later I found myself in a sitting position, with my entire weight supported by one of this invisible stranger’s strong, resilient thighs. I have to confess that I’ve thought more than once about how odd the tableau would have appeared to a passerby who didn’t understand the situation. I didn’t say any of this out loud, though.

  “Anyway, for me,” Unaiko continued, “putting aside what Masao said about your being totally supportive of the postwar democratic reforms to the point of being doctrinaire, I was slightly concerned about Masao’s statement that the Japanese people also have a ‘deeper, darker sensibility.’ But then when I saw you getting totally carried away and singing along with the German lyrics of the Bach song during the rehearsal of our play … well, seeing another side of you was like a revelation, and I started to think about you in a whole different light. And that’s why I wanted to share this piece of my past with you today. I’ll be grateful for any illumination you can provide.”

  I didn’t feel ready to tackle “that whole ideological can of worms” just then, so I skirted the issue by offering a compliment. “Asa has never been the type to jump into projects with people she barely knows,” I said. “Although on the rare occasions when it does happen, she tends to be rather gung ho. To be perfectly candid, I have to say that I’m intrigued by her decision to team up with you.”

  “Masao was saying that Asa had done her part to support your work by staying behind in the village and looking after your mother,” Unaiko said. “Even in our brief acquaintance, I’ve come to share his feeling that Asa is the kind of person who would go the distance for anyone she cares about.”

  “That’s very true,” I said. “But Asa seems totally committed to backing you, even though it isn’t exactly clear what direction you’re heading in, and as her brother I’m interested in seeing how everything will turn out.”

  “It’s very comforting for me to have Asa here, cheering us on,” Unaiko said. “But the thing is, even I don’t have a clear idea of where I’m headed. Masao’s the one who mentored me, of course, and I’ll continue to be involved with his theater projects for the foreseeable future at least, so I expect I’ll go on benefiting from Asa’s support and kindness as well.

  “However, I have a feeling that at some point my path will deviate from Masao’s, and I’ll strike out on my own. I mean, after all, Masao is the boss of the Caveman Group, and he’s a guy as well, right? I think Asa takes a rather sanguine view of the male dynamic. Oh, that reminds me—the other day she said, ‘Listen, Unaiko, you really shouldn’t expect my brother to do too much, even if the going gets tough. But I want you to know you can always depend on me.’ She added that you tend to help people primarily by lending your skills as a writer. (And, I gathered, as an occasional screenwriter? That sounds exciting!) She told me that I need to respect that invisible line and not ask too much of you.

  “I totally understand the need for boundaries,” Unaiko went on, “but there are some other things I still haven’t been able to get a handle on … I mean, I do talk to Asa a lot, and I have a sense of what’s going on with you just from comments she’s made in passing. Even when we first met, Asa used to talk about you all the time. One time she said, ‘My brother may come across as an easygoing sort of person, but on another level he has a tendency to brood over his mistakes. He’s constantly tormented by regrets and misgivings about the past: deeds not done, roads not taken, and so on. He’s been that way for as long as I can remember, going back to childhood. I’m the same way. However, since I’ve gotten involved with the Caveman Group, and especially as my relationship has grown with the female members of the troupe—and with you especially, Unaiko—I’ve begun to feel as if I should be able to overcome that undesirable character trait. I’ve noticed young women nowadays don’t appear to have any regrets about anything, or any awareness of the possibility that their present actions might be sowing the seeds for future regrets. That’s perfectly natural, of course, since they probably haven’t had time to do anything they regret. They seem to feel completely fine about everything: clean and true and pure of heart. Since my eyes have been opened to that approach, I’ve been trying to adjust my own attitude accordingly.’

  “I hope you don’t mind my quoting this long monologue, Mr. Choko, but your sister’s words made a huge impression on me. Asa went on to say, ‘If you can live in such a liberated way, all the more reason for someone like me to try to do the same, even at this late date. I’m not getting any younger, and I may not even have time to properly regret the foolish things I’m doing right now, so I’ll just have to follow the lead of my young female role models. Yes, I’ve made up my mind: from now on, my life will be a regret-free zone!’

  “And after that, Asa did something truly touching. She made a solemn promise to stick with me artistically, even if it meant ending up on the opposite side from you, her own brother. As you know, Asa doesn’t make a habit of touching the person she’s talking to, so the image of her reaching out and putting her little hand on my shoulder as she spoke those words—just like this—is permanently seared into my memory.”

  4

  The following day, while I was reshuffling the materials from the red leather trunk that I’d laid out around my study, pausing periodically to speed-read whatever happened to catch my eye, Masao stopped by to drop off the color copies Asa had ordered from the shop in Matsuyama.

  “It was terribly kind of you to grant Unaiko a private audience yesterday,” he said with exaggerated formality. “To tell you the truth,” he went on, lapsing back into his normal speech patterns, “I
was sweating it a little bit. Originally I thought that if Unaiko had a bee in her bonnet about our dramatization of Wipe My Tears Away—and if she was just going to criticize the play, as she’s done in the past, as an orgy of Yasukuni Shrine-worshipping ultranationalism or whatever—then it would have been a waste of time for her to talk to you about it. That’s what I was thinking in the beginning. But the other day during the rehearsal, we came to the scene where the young officers and the schoolboy are on their way to the ill-fated insurrection and they spontaneously start singing a song about the Heiland—who is on the same exalted level as our emperor—praising him as a savior. To everyone’s amazement, you were so moved that you began to sing along with the chorus, and Unaiko told me afterward that when she saw your reaction it made her curious about what you were feeling in that moment. Oh, and another thing she said, after your meeting, was that since you listened so patiently to her story, the fundamental mistrust she used to feel toward you has disappeared (even though I gather you didn’t exactly answer her questions). Apparently your attentiveness came as a pleasant surprise because Asa had told us that one thing you and Unaiko have in common is that neither of you is very good at listening to what other people have to say!

  “Speaking of listening,” Masao continued, “my dramatic method involves incorporating a variety of voices and ways of thinking into every production, and then bringing the collaborative synergy to life onstage. It may seem paradoxical to say this, since I’m supposed to be the director and the man in charge, but Unaiko’s artistic input has been increasingly valuable to our group as we develop our own trademark style.”

  “Considering she was in her late twenties when she joined your group, it’s rather remarkable that Unaiko has learned to express her own sensibilities in such a short time,” I said.