by Kenzaburo Oe
“That reminds me, when you were in tech for your dog-tossing play at the theater in the round, Asa mentioned something about wanting to hang this in the auditorium lobby,” I said.
“Yes, she was saying that the only complaint she had about the production was that there were some people in the audience who thought the stuffed dogs were cute,” Unaiko said, wrinkling her nose. “She wanted to hang this fierce picture in the lobby to dispel that impression. Next time we do a show, would you please let us borrow it? And, if you didn’t mind, it would be great if we could photograph this print and put the image on T-shirts for our entire crew to wear, like a uniform.”
“Please put me on the list for one of those shirts, too!” Daio said brightly. I had noticed earlier that he was rather stylishly dressed (especially for someone his age) in a beige corduroy jacket worn over a shirt of heavy brown cotton, and it occurred to me that his fashion sense appeared to have evolved considerably during the years since I’d seen him last.
We all trooped into the dining room, where Unaiko had laid out a meal of eggs, toast, and coffee. Daio had eaten breakfast before he came, so he only wanted coffee. Holding his cup, he stood behind Akari’s chair. “Akari, your back’s hurting, isn’t it?” he asked. “Especially here at the very base, on this side?”
“Yes, it hurts a lot,” Akari replied in a voice unusually full of emotion. “It’s been hurting all the time, for a while now.”
“Please just go on eating,” Daio said. “I’m going to try touching your back in a few places but it won’t hurt, I promise.”
As he spoke those reassuring words Daio knelt next to Akari’s chair and began to apply light pressure in the vicinity of Akari’s lower back, using his right hand. (Since he didn’t have a left arm, Daio had to lean his upper body against the back of the chair for leverage.)
“How about here, Akari? It probably felt sore when you were lying in bed, am I right?”
“Yes, very sore,” Akari said.
“I’m not actually going to touch this spot, but I want to ask you about the bottom of your spine—your backbone,” Daio said. “Did you by any chance fall and land on your backside?”
“Once when I was having a seizure I fell down in the entryway at home,” Akari replied. “It started feeling bad after that.”
“Akari, I know your back hurts, so I haven’t been touching the area around that bone. But now Uncle Daio is going to touch the sore place, just for a second. All right?” As Daio continued poking around, Akari’s torso, which was rigid with tension, gave an involuntary start.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Daio said. “You’re a very stoic person, aren’t you, Akari? I mean, you’re very patient and brave. You have had some discomfort when you were in bed at night, but you never mentioned it to anyone?”
“No, I didn’t tell anybody,” Akari replied, looking up at Daio.
Daio turned to me. “Kogito, after my training camp closed, one of my former disciples got some medical training and then came back and opened an osteopathy office in Honmachi. Some years later, the man’s son-in-law went to a university med school, and when he returned after graduation he converted the osteopathy offices into a regular medical clinic. We ought to take Akari there and get some X-rays, for starters. I think we’ll find that one side of the lowest thoracic vertebra in his spinal column has somehow gotten crushed. I have to say it again: Akari is being exceptionally patient and brave about this.”
Akari had gone back to staring down at his plate, but it was apparent that he had already come to trust the much older man (slightly built but with perfectly erect, military-style posture) who was kneeling beside his chair. Daio appeared extremely flushed: his entire face was suffused with blood, from his shriveled, walnut-colored cheeks all the way to the base of his neck, evidently from pride about his amateur diagnosis.
Perhaps because I didn’t immediately concur with Daio’s suggestion, Unaiko shot me a critical look, then said, “The X-rays should probably be done as soon as possible. Ricchan is using our car this morning, so could you please take Akari to the clinic you mentioned in your car, Daio? I’ll ride along, if that’s okay.”
2
After their visit to the local clinic, Akari and Daio returned to the Forest House. The X-rays had confirmed Daio’s intuitive diagnosis: Akari’s lowermost thoracic vertebra had been crushed and he had muscular damage in his back as well. When I called to tell Asa, she gave me the name of a specialist at the Red Cross Hospital in Matsuyama who would be able to make a plaster cast. (At the time I was still feeling flustered by this new development and I mistakenly said that it was the thirteenth vertebra, but Asa was quick to inform me that the human anatomy contains no such bone.)
After lunch Akari and Daio headed out again, this time to Matsuyama. I saw them off (noting again that my son had placed his entire trust in the older man), then went upstairs and lay motionless on my bed, unable to summon enough energy even to read a book. I couldn’t stop thinking about Akari’s back trouble, which was unlike anything we’d dealt with before. I had felt uneasy about his evident discomfort while we were seated on the airplane, but why hadn’t I followed up right away? I thought, too, about the state of mind that had caused Akari to choose suffering in silence over sharing his pain with his father.
I heard the sound of someone loitering at the bottom of the stairs, and when I went down to check I found Unaiko standing in the entry hall.
“Ricchan’s back, and when I told her I was concerned about how dejected you seemed to be, she reminded me that Asa had told us about a place out in the boonies called the Saya,” she said. “We’ve been meaning to go there for some recon, since the location will have some bearing on our next public performance, and she suggested you might be willing to give us a guided tour.”
I returned to my room to change into the proper gear for traipsing through a forest, and when I went downstairs again I found Unaiko waiting for me in the elevated driver’s seat of the Caveman Group’s van, looking fresh and crisp after her own change of clothes. I climbed into the passenger seat.
“Even though Ricchan and I haven’t talked to Akari very much so far, he’s been very good about doing whatever we ask,” she said. “But he seems so sad and disheartened, and he doesn’t appear to do anything on his own initiative. Is that just the way he is these days? Asa told us that Akari always used to listen to music and study scores, while also working on his own compositions, so I guess we were expecting something different.”
I knew I would eventually have to explain what had transpired between Akari and me, but that prospect made me feel even gloomier than before. I suspected Unaiko wasn’t the type of person who would wait patiently for me to share the full story on my own timetable, but as it turned out she had already heard most of the details from my sister.
“I hope you don’t mind, but Asa told me pretty much everything she heard from Chikashi,” Unaiko said. “She mentioned that nowadays when you and Akari are together in the same place, he doesn’t listen to music at all. Apparently after the Big Vertigo struck you didn’t go out, aside from visits to the hospital for tests and so on, and you just puttered around the house day and night. As a result, there was never a time when Akari could relax by himself and enjoy listening to music, especially since the doctor had advised against prolonged use of headphones. I don’t know whether you expressly forbade Akari to listen to music, but apparently that was the impression he got.”
“Yes, Chikashi said I was probably sending that message unconsciously. There was just a little misunderstanding about the volume on the CD player,” I said, radically understating the problem.
“Well, it seems as if Akari has been feeling as though he did something bad and made you angry, and he hasn’t been able to forgive himself.”
“No, as I understand it, he simply decided not to share music with his father anymore, in any form.”
“Akari has a lot of pride, doesn’t he?” Unaiko asked.
“When families have
offspring with cognitive disabilities, it’s very common to go on treating them like children long after they’ve reached maturity, and that has certainly been true in my own household at times,” I admitted. “Akari is a full-fledged adult now—he’s forty-five years old—but you’re definitely right about my son’s having an inordinate amount of pride.”
“Well, here’s an idea,” Unaiko offered. “You might not even be willing to consider something like this but I wanted to ask, at least. Actually, it’s about the van. In order to get the best use out of it, we converted it into a sort of studio on wheels. It’s furnished with high-end recording equipment, and we’ve already used it to record some radio dramas.
“So I was thinking that from time to time either Ricchan or I could take Akari out for a drive, maybe up into the mountains. We could park the van somewhere and then we could stay in the front seat doing paperwork or whatever while he would be in the back, listening to music with complete freedom. Does that sound like a workable plan?”
“If you’re able to persuade Akari to go for a drive, more power to you,” I said. “I would have no objections at all.”
“Well, as you know, Akari didn’t hesitate to go up to Matsuyama today with Daio at the wheel,” Unaiko pointed out. She sounded relieved. “That’s what made us think the system I just outlined might work. So I’ll wait for an opportune moment, and then I’ll try inviting Akari for a musical drive.”
We continued heading east on the national highway that runs along the Kame River, and then we took a secondary road through the bamboo grove where the farmers who took part in the famous insurrection cut bamboo stalks to make into spears. We emerged from the grove onto a smooth, well-maintained byway that led to a number of hamlets, then forked again. This time we headed north, following a serpentine lane into the wooded slope above the valley. Finally a meadow shaped like the sheath of a sword—the area’s local nickname, “Saya,” carries that meaning, among others—came into sight. At that point the road narrowed considerably, becoming no wider than a walking trail through the forest, so the only way to get to the Saya was on foot.
We left the van in a clearing and I led the way, since I had been there many times in the past. Scrambling down the slope, Unaiko and I entered a grove of broadleaf trees with dark, lush foliage and then climbed back up, following a slender path to a clearing drenched in sunlight. This was the lower end of the Saya. We were standing in a long, grassy, open space that had been carved out of the forest by a renegade meteor, with a little follow-up assistance from local residents. (It was perfectly suited for flower-viewing parties during cherry blossom season, but as yet there was no sign the buds had begun to swell.) We gazed at the gentle slope stretching above us to the north.
“Do you see the black rock just above the midway point?” I asked. “It’s part of a meteor that fell to earth, creating a clearing and this scabbard-shaped depression. I think what actually happened is that the meteor landed right in the middle of the virgin forest and the area below it, the Saya, was collateral damage—or should I say collateral construction? In feudal times, the young samurai supposedly turned this place into a makeshift racetrack or riding course, and used it to train for the tumultuous period of internecine strife that began during the last days of the Tokugawa Era. That’s another tidbit of the rich lore about this place.”
“I’ve heard that they leveled the flat area beyond the big black rock and then moved the timberline so it would seem to begin naturally right above there,” Unaiko said. “Asa told me about the time she and her colleagues put on a play here, as part of the film project; apparently they turned the whole lower part into audience seating, with as many as five hundred local women crowded in, going crazy over what was happening onstage—and then the scene was filmed. Asa was saying it was a once-in-a-lifetime event, bringing those local people together to participate in something so glorious and so inspiring.”
“Yes,” I said. “Asa was responsible for the cinematography aspect of the film, and her part of the project went perfectly. The problems began after primary shooting had wrapped. When the film reached the final editing stage, both in Japan and America, the NHK faction of the production team raised some objections, claiming the subject matter of the film had deviated from what was agreed upon in the contract. Meanwhile, on the American side, the woman who had been pouring her own money into the project—an internationally known actress and family friend whom Asa had managed to turn into an enthusiastic participant—anyway, she took the opposite position and refused to budge. As a result of the impasse, the production ground to a halt and everyone involved found themselves in limbo. The project ultimately ended up going broke, and it wasn’t clear who owned the rights. Asa ran around trying to create a nonprofit organization down here to keep the project alive, and that was how she started networking with the local theater community, including you and your colleagues at the Caveman Group. So for Asa, at least, I guess that abortive enterprise wasn’t completely meaningless.”
“But didn’t the movie win a prize at some Czech and Canadian film festivals, even though it never went wide?” Unaiko inquired. “Asa mentioned something about a whole slew of difficulties, but she was reluctant to go into detail because several issues are still being contested in court. What I’m getting at is that Ricchan and I have been thinking about what to do for our next big drama project, and we’ve become very interested in the movie and the local history it was based on. However, we haven’t even been able to get our hands on a copy of the screenplay because everything related to the film is tied up in litigation. And since the project was an international collaboration, trying to make sense of the contract is a huge hassle. Asa told us she gave her only copy of the script to the attorney, and he still has it today. We’ve been wanting to talk to you about this for ages, Mr. Choko, but Asa kept telling us to bide our time and wait for the right moment.”
I had been sent a final version of the screenplay, with certain portions translated into English alongside the Japanese, but I kept that information to myself. Unaiko didn’t pursue the matter any further; she just stood there with her perfect posture, gazing up at the trees. But her face wore an expression of renewed determination, and as I looked at her slim profile I felt certain I hadn’t heard the last about her desire to get her hands on a copy of the script.
3
Ever since the Caveman Group had turned the Forest House into a rural outpost of its headquarters in Matsuyama, one large room on the west end of the ground floor was used by Unaiko and Ricchan as a combination studio and sleeping space. After Akari and I moved in the two women had continued to work and sleep in that room, but their style seemed to be somewhat cramped by our presence. Perhaps that was why they sometimes drove over to Asa’s empty house by the river and spent the night there.
When the troupe members were in rehearsal mode, whether they were running lines or choosing musical cues, I could sense that everyone was being careful not to let any extraneous sounds drift upstairs where they might disturb Akari and me. Sometimes I would even hear the voices of the young actors wafting in on the breeze from the forest road above the house, where they apparently felt they could practice their art with fewer inhibitions.
Daio turned up every other day or so, and it soon became clear that he had taken it upon himself to do most of the yard work and whatever else might be needed in the way of general maintenance. On the evenings when I fixed dinner myself, he would run me down to the supermarket in Honmachi in his vintage Mercedes-Benz sedan to buy the necessary groceries. If I happened to be downstairs in the great room while Akari was out on a music-appreciation outing, Daio would often engage me in conversation, although I could sense he was trying to keep our exchanges relatively short out of consideration for me. Before long, I began paying Daio the going rate for hourly labor around those parts. (Admittedly, it hadn’t occurred to me to do so until Asa made the suggestion in one of her responses to the informal “Forest House reports” Unaiko emailed to her ev
ery week.)
Starting with the first trip to Matsuyama, when Daio took Akari to get fitted for a plaster cast, the number of tasks I was able to delegate to Daio seemed to be increasing on a daily basis, which was a great weight off my mind. He even took on the duty of bringing us our own mail from the post office, along with any packages the postman left at Asa’s unoccupied house.
From what I gathered, one of Unaiko’s weekly reports to Asa mentioned her concerns about the fact that I didn’t appear to be living a very dynamic life at the Forest House, to put it mildly. Not long afterward, I received a worried-sounding fax from Asa. Unaiko had apparently written that while she knew I was taking a break from writing after the disastrous demise of the drowning novel, I didn’t even seem to be reading with my usual concentration (at least not when I was downstairs, where she could observe my behavior). Unaiko added that I was evidently in extremely low spirits and basically seemed to be sitting around in a daze, passively watching the hours slip by. In her fax, Asa asked whether the doctor had told me to cut back on my reading in the aftermath of the Big Vertigo. Or, she speculated, maybe I was trying to keep my intellectual endeavors to a minimum, in the hopes of reducing the frequency of those chronic dizzy spells.
I wrote back that shortly before Akari and I moved down here I had pulled a number of books I might want to read off some bookshelves in our house in Tokyo and had left them on the floor, but I hadn’t had time to pack them up and send them to Shikoku. Asa responded by promising that the next time she was able to get away from the hospital she would go to our house in Seijo and complete the task. After a few days, three large cardboard boxes full of books were delivered to the door by courier.