by Kenzaburo Oe
It soon emerged that the matter Goro wanted to discuss with Kogito had to do with the video release of his controversial satirical film about the violent world of yakuza protection rackets, which presented a comically unflattering portrait of the modus operandi of Japanese gangsters. The release date was fast approaching, and it looked as if that event might stir up trouble with the yakuza involved in the case that was presently in court—members of the same group as the men who had been sitting at the Hotel Okura’s sushi counter. Although the video situation didn’t involve the same syndicate that had sent assassins to attack Goro, there was no question but that Japanese-mobster groups, large and small, were working behind the scenes to try to stop the video of Goro’s hit film from going on sale. It had gotten to the point where the police department was talking about possibly reinstituting police protection for Goro and Umeko.
Meanwhile, Goro was dealing with a separate lawsuit, which also had something to do with a video release. Kogito remembered having heard about this before, and he was also acquainted with Goro’s selfless habit of mentoring, so he knew that Goro had once hired a talented young director and had gone on to produce a film directed by that protégé. This truly was a self-lessly altruistic undertaking, especially when Japan’s economic slump seemed to be here to stay; independent production companies led by well-known directors were posting red ink across the board, and even the major film studios, with very few exceptions, were finding it difficult to break even.
Goro knew going in that he wouldn’t make a profit from showing this small film in theaters, and he counted on the revenue from video sales to repay his production company’s investment. Umeko made a special appearance in the film and Goro was in constant attendance on the young director, guiding him through every step of the filmmaking process ... perhaps more closely than he might have wished. (Kogito suspected that Goro’s hands-on participation might have contributed to the litigious young director’s complicated mental state, but that type of collaboration was different from the literary student-teacher relationships that he himself was familiar with, so this was just amateur speculation.) In any event, during a discussion of potential earnings from video sales, Taruto had told Goro’s apprentice up front that the director’s fees would not be shared, but the communication on that point had been purely verbal.
When the video went on sale, the young director filed a lawsuit, claiming that he hadn’t received his rightful share of the profits, and the directors’ guild threw its weight behind his cause. The court seemed to be leaning toward ruling in favor of Goro’s production company, and as a result, Goro found himself isolated from the rest of the movie world.
“And the people who rallied behind that young director when he was suing me, gathering signatures to support him and taking a stand in the media—now they’ve turned around and are gathering signatures to support me in my case against the yakuza who are trying to prevent the video’s release,” Goro said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I heard this from that journalist, Arimatsu. It’s all the exact same people (directors, actors, actresses, film critics) who were united against me before, only now they’re signing petitions on my behalf. Doesn’t that seem a trifle inconsistent? But if the logic behind their activism dictates supporting whatever stance they think is right, I see no reason to refuse their support.”
As Kogito listened, he understood immediately that Goro, in spite of having become rather cynical with the passage of years, still retained an essential childlike goodness, and because of this he was misinterpreting the information.
“If the heavy hitters in the directors’ association are at the center of a movement to prepare a new statement, and if they’re collecting signatures, then that has the opposite meaning of the way you’re interpreting it,” Kogito said. “Arimatsu must have deliberately misled you with the way he relayed the news. From where I stand, it looks as if the petition signers from the directors’ association are expecting that one of the many organized crime syndicates who can send out yakuza hit men anytime, anywhere, will threaten you, and cause the video release to be canceled—that is, if you lose your nerve and knuckle under. They’re certain that you’ll end up canceling the video production, and when that happens they’re planning to claim that your self-censorship is jeopardizing the future freedom of expression of the entire film world. It’s the same manipulative scenario as Arimatsu’s denunciation of me.”
Kogito paused and took a sip of coffee. “After all, when you were stabbed by those yakuza, the directors’ association didn’t lift a finger to organize a protest demonstration. (Even young Oliver, here, along with his colleagues, was trying to put together a sympathy protest on both sides of the Pacific.) And it’s just the same, now, too. Those directors and their cohorts aren’t thinking even for a moment of staging a direct confrontation with the yakuza for your sake, believe me! You should just go ahead and release the video, as planned. But of course, you and Umeko will need to make sure you have police protection.”
Goro nodded. “Is it really true that during all the turmoil surrounding your controversial book The Death of a Right-Wing Youth, the literary association and the Pen Club—to say nothing of the police—didn’t actually do anything in the way of backup?” he asked. “When that newspaper article came out saying that you talked a good game about telling truth to power, but when push came to shove you were protected by that same power, Chikashi was really indignant. But I gather you said that on the contrary it was actually just as well, since that sort of article could have the effect of calming down the so-called rogue elements of the right wing, if it made them see you as a craven hypocrite rather than as a threat.”
“But in your case,” Kogito responded, “you were actually stabbed by the yakuza minions, and now you’re taking on the puppet masters themselves in court. There’s a very concrete and specific danger there, and part of the reason they’re so angry is because the cultural impact of a hit movie is so much greater than that of, say, a work of pure literature.”
By and by, Oliver, who had been listening intently to what Goro and Kogito were saying but was clearly feeling ill at ease about something, finally jumped into the conversation with an air of determination. (He may have been encouraged by the favorable things Kogito had said earlier about him and his colleagues at the University of Chicago.)
“On my way here, following Kogito’s instructions, I took the subway to Hibiya Station, and when I climbed the stairs to the street I noticed a right-wing propaganda truck parked a little ways away,” he said. “Even if they had some other reason for sitting in the front seat and watching the hotel’s entrance, isn’t it possible that they recognized either or both of you when you arrived? And then, even if it wasn’t their original purpose for being here, maybe they decided to use this serendipitous opportunity to send Kogito some kind of intimidating message? I have a feeling some of them are in the lobby right now, looking this way. Please don’t turn around right now, but there are some men dressed in khaki slacks and colorful sports shirts. They look totally out of place in this high-class hotel, right? I think they just took off their uniform jackets and marched in here in their casual clothes.”
“I haven’t noticed anyone who looks like a right-winger ...” Just as Kogito was saying this, four bandy-legged men decked out in zooty black suits appeared in his field of vision. They were descending the stairs from the mezzanine floor in a leisurely yet menacing fashion, and they had an unobstructed view of Goro’s table. “I’m actually more concerned about a different type of gentleman—and I use that term loosely.”
From the time Oliver began talking, and even after Kogito picked up the conversational thread, Goro was silent, his mind obviously elsewhere. Still without saying a word, he abruptly stood up and turned his imposingly large body to face the crowd of people milling about in the lobby, then made a conspicuous show of removing the long coat he was wearing. After that he just stood there, nattily dressed in a suit worn over a silk shirt and a vest of diag
onally woven silk, and beamed a neutral smile around the lobby, directed at nobody in particular. He looked for all the world like an actor taking a curtain call, and his actions seemed designed to attract the attention of every eye in the room.
On the side of the lobby that was screened from the coffee lounge by nothing more than a row of leafy potted plants, a crowd of celebrity spotters immediately began to gather. Whereupon Goro casually leaned across the table, holding his coat under his arm, and said to Kogito and Oliver in a tone that brooked no argument, “Let’s go somewhere else where we can have a proper conversation. I still have an hour till my next appointment.”
As Goro strode across the lobby toward the exit that led to the Imperial Palace Plaza, nearly everyone in the vast room was staring in his direction, and the atmosphere was not conducive for anyone to step boldly forward and try to block his way—not even the black-suited yakuza bruisers or the young zealots from the right-wing propaganda truck.
Young Oliver from the University of Chicago, obviously thrilled to be sharing an adventure with the famous director, bounded after Goro while Kogito stayed behind to pay the bill. As he was standing at the cash register, a young woman’s voice called out from a table where a group of three or four people was sitting. Their backs were turned to the table that Kogito’s group had occupied, but they were close enough to have overheard the entire conversation.
“Hey, Choko!” the woman said loudly. “Leaving so soon?”
Sitting right next to her was a big, curly-haired man. Kogito instantly identified him, based on Goro’s typically vivid description, as the infamous Arimatsu.
5
When Goro was slashed by the Kansai-based yakuza who had come up to Tokyo on their terrorist errand, Kogito (as has already been mentioned) was in Chicago for the university’s centennial celebration, at the invitation of the Asian Studies Department. His lecture ended before noon, and the plan was for a panel discussion, featuring Kogito and the American scholars who had issued the invitation, to begin in the early afternoon.
During the lunch break, Kogito went to the University of Chicago’s library to research a point of contention that had come up during the question period following his lecture. While he was there, Oliver and a group of his fellow film students came to tell him that they had just seen a television news report about the attack on Goro. There was something beautiful about the way they were obviously struggling to disguise their alarm and concern, to spare Kogito’s feelings, but they still radiated an aura of irrepressible youthful energy.
Kogito asked a few questions, then lapsed into silence, and the students, too, fell silent and formed a protective circle around him. It was as if they wanted to give him time to digest the shocking news. When Kogito left the library stacks and headed into the lobby, the students all began to talk at once, saying that they thought people from the film business and university students in Tokyo must already be planning a protest demonstration, and they wanted to join in (taking into account the substantial time difference), if Kogito could just find out the day and time when it was going to take place. They wanted to organize an intrauniversity meeting right away and hoped to be able to announce a firm plan of action before the day was over.
Kogito respectfully declined to participate, and he tried to explain his position to the disappointed students—noting that he had arrived at this conclusion while he was in a place far from Tokyo, and he hoped very much that he was wrong.
“The Japanese film world is currently dominated by directors of a certain age, who are a generation or so older than Goro, and they probably won’t view this incident as a terrorist act against the Japanese film industry,” he said. “I suspect that they’ll just see it as Goro’s personal misfortune. In other words, there isn’t likely to be any demonstration of protest or solidarity by film people. As for Japan’s university students, at this point I honestly don’t think they have the gumption to mount an organized protest against this incident, even if they do see it as a threat to culture and society.”
Kogito left Chicago the following day, and while he was on his way back to Japan—stopping on the way to give readings at UCLA and at two universities in the Hawaiian Islands—he happened to get hold of a Japanese newspaper. As he read the coverage of the attack on Goro, he realized that his brutally frank (some might say cynical) prediction had been right on the mark. Whenever he was at his hotel, Kogito kept a careful eye on the news broadcasts, and he got to see a number of reports about the attack on Goro, with video sent from Japan via overseas feed.
One of those videos showed Goro arriving at the hospital on a stretcher, with his injured head wrapped in gauze that looked rather like a swimming cap—no doubt a temporary measure to cover up the wounds. That way of bandaging is probably common in hospitals today, but on Goro, the trendsetter, the bathing-cap bandage somehow gave the impression of being a chic new Western style that he was introducing to Japan. The entire scene came across as positive, even festive, with Goro going so far as to flash a triumphal V sign at the waiting throng of reporters.
He managed to transform the dynamics of the situation so that it seemed as if this wasn’t a passive or defensive mishap but was, rather, brought on by Goro’s own expressionistic action. The subliminal suggestion seemed to be that he might conceivably end up taking on the yakuza again, both in art and in life, with his entire being. Kogito understood that right away. The American television-network people seemed to pick up on that message, too—they had made the incident the lead story on this evening’s broadcast—but Kogito couldn’t help wondering whether the Japanese media would be doing the same. Probably not, he thought sadly. Rather, he suspected, Goro’s upbeat reaction would be viewed as a gratuitously over-the-top performance by his colleagues in the worlds of movies and television.
In the following scene, the news camera had captured an exhausted-looking Umeko, lagging slightly behind the media mob that was chasing after Goro’s stretcher and accompanied by Chikashi, in the role of her sister-in-law’s protector. Kogito could tell that Chikashi was in an extremely dark mood, but her always-serene face showed only grief and gravitas. Watching his wife on the TV screen, Kogito sensed that she was trying to protect her injured brother, and at the same time she obviously felt that there was something unseemly about the overexcited way he was talking and behaving. She looked, too, as if she might be thinking about the fact that the video now being filmed would eventually be broadcast with voiceover reaction by the newscasters, and the emotional tenor of those comments probably wouldn’t be supportive of Goro.
Kogito never forgot a talk he’d had with his younger brother, on one of Chu’s infrequent visits to Tokyo. This was after Goro’s death, and Kogito’s brother expressed his deep sympathy about that loss and the yakuza disaster that preceded it. Especially toward Chikashi, the bereaved sister, he demonstrated a fond regard that was close to adoration.
The same Chu who had stared suspiciously at Goro from behind his sister’s skirts so many years ago, when Kogito brought his school friend home for a visit, had joined the police force right out of high school and had for many years been the officer in charge of the violent crimes unit in Matsuyama. Chu evidently had no intention of taking the requisite tests for advancing in the police hierarchy (the fact is, Kogito felt that Chu resented his older brother for having graduated from the Tokyo University Department of Literature, which was regarded by the outside world as the virtual equivalent of law school), and his life plan seemed to be to remain a rank-and-file policeman until he retired.
Uncle Chu, as he was called, was loved and respected by everyone in the family. He was a tough, hard-bitten policeman through and through, but while he was talking about the yakuza attack on Goro, his face wore an expression of undisguised horror and anguish.
“The people who utilize yakuza ... well, that’s already a bit of an oversimplification, because the problem is far more complicated than that,” he began. “But anyway, the politicians and other people who ma
ke use of the yakuza do so through underlings, of course, but sometimes the tables get turned and the higher-ups who were trying to make discreet use of gangsters end up being directly threatened or blackmailed by their own yakuza ‘tools.’ It’s a bit like the old story about the would-be thief who went into some Egyptian tomb to steal a mummy and ended up getting trapped and turned into a mummy himself, you know? Now, this kind of sophisticated terminology may sound strange coming from me, but in any case, there’s no need for me to tell you about the sheer rottenness of some of the people at the top of the ‘organizational structure’ that has yakuza at its base. I know you’ve met your share of famous politicians!
“This is a separate matter entirely, but the people who are on the periphery of the organizational structure that includes the yakuza—you might call them yakuza subcontractors—but anyway, they’re really a motley crew! I’m talking about pimps, touts, drug dealers, leg breakers, that sort of thing. They aren’t officially considered yakuza, but they might as well be. As for Goro’s world of show business, I really think the people who make movies that glorify and idealize gangsters, or who use organized crime as financial backers for their entertainment projects, are even lower than the lowest yakuza slime. Since Goro staged a direct frontal attack on the yakuza in his own films, I think it would be great to make a movie about him, with Ken Takakura in the leading role. If there were a young director whose talent and courage met with Chikashi’s approval, and if she weren’t opposed to having Takakura play the part of Goro ...”