by Kenzaburo Oe
The jet was now approaching the eastern tip of Siberia, and as the flight continued Kogito attempted to deconstruct his relationship with Goro from a different perspective. Regarding THAT, the one experience he had never been able to escape from and which he now suspected had been one of the themes that had shaped his life’s work—wasn’t it possible that Goro, too, had been burdened with the same lingering concern, all along? And could it also be true, then, that Goro was thinking about THAT on some level when he made all his films?
Kogito realized that the experience he had shared with Goro (he couldn’t recall exactly when he had taken to referring to it as “THAT,” but Goro had soon followed suit) stood with his father’s fatal “insurrection” on the day after the war ended as one of the principal incidents of his life. But THAT wasn’t terribly important for Goro—or was it? Kogito had been wondering about that from early on.
The first cause of his uncertainty was a three-volume set from Iwanami Bunko, which he still had in his library today. He had bought the books when they were first published; according to the colophon, that was the summer of the ninth year after the war ended, so it would have been two years after the incident in question. At the time Goro hadn’t shown any particular interest in the Iwanami paperback books that Kogito had lent him, but nearly forty years later Kogito learned (via Tagame) that Goro did remember something about those books, when the topic came up during one of Goro’s tapes.
Kogito was surprised, and pleased, by Goro’s animated response on that tape. When Kogito thought about it, he realized that during the two years after THAT, he and Goro had only once spoken to each other face-to-face. Goro had gone to live with his mother, who had remarried and moved to Ashiya, and when he did come back to Matsuyama it always seemed to be when Kogito was away in Tokyo, where he was attending a huge “cram school” that specialized in helping students prepare for the rigorous college entrance exams. Considering the circumstances, it’s likely that Kogito sent off the Iwanami paperbacks on a childish impulse, hoping Goro would corroborate his memory of the nightmarish event the two of them had shared. And when Goro threw cold water on Kogito’s youthful enthusiasm by making a show of his utter lack of interest in the books, that (Kogito realized now) was just a charade.
“Your reading habits always were a bit peculiar,” was how Goro raised the subject on Tagame, as if it were an ordinary reminiscence. “I remember when you were counting the days until the publication of the Iwanami paperback translation of some classic of German literature, remember? It was the year you entered Tokyo University, after a year as a ‘masterless samurai.’”
Kogito pressed Tagame’s PAUSE button and answered with a mixture of surprise and nostalgia, “The book was Grimmelshausen’s Adventures of a Simpleton.”
“As I recall,” Goro went on, “you were taking a course in the history of German literature as part of your liberal arts curriculum, and you said that you wanted to read a certain German baroque novel because the contents had some special significance. That was the year my mother became convinced that you had lots of free time, and she asked you to go to some secondhand bookstores in Tokyo and try to find copies of the prewar Iwanami paperback of The Best of Man’yo Poetry, as well as some Winnie-the-Pooh books (those were for Chikashi). You did manage to find a copy of The House at Pooh Corner, as I recall, and you sent it to Ashiya. The correspondence that ensued was the beginning of your relationship with Chikashi. But more than that, you were concerned with the story of Simplicius Simplicissimus, which was scheduled for publication in the fall. I remember one day you came to the commercial design studio where I was working as an assistant to my stepfather’s younger brother, who was an artist, and you were talking about it then. You said there was a certain episode that you wanted to read very carefully, and when the book finally came out, we talked a bit more about it, and you lent me the book. It was interesting in its own weird way, I have to say.
“If I remember correctly, the governor of Hanau and his retinue decide to make a fool of Simplicius by convincing him that he has gone to heaven, or maybe hell, and has been turned into a calf, so they dress him in calfskin and ‘asses’ ears,’ whatever that means. Trying to be a good sport, Simplicius goes along with the joke and pretends to be a calf, whereupon he ends up becoming the official court jester. But deep down inside, Simplicius was a rebel at heart.”
At that point Kogito pressed the PAUSE button again, went to the bookcase, and took down three volumes, so old that the paraffin-paper covers had begun to turn black from decay. He read a passage aloud: “I was thinking secretly, ‘Just you wait, Your Excellency! I’ll get you for this. I’m like a sword that’s been forged in the fires of hell. Let’s take our time and see who wins this bewitch-off.’”
“Mikhail Bakhtin also made a point of emphasizing the toughness and fortitude of the fool, didn’t he?” Goro said when the tape resumed. “You had already been focusing on that concept before you ever took Professor Musumi’s class on Rabelais. No doubt that’s because at the core of your character, there’s a definite jocular streak. I mean, when I saw O’Brian again in London the last time, he was saying that he’d never met an Asian with a better sense of humor than yours. But he was complaining that when he reads your novels in English translation, you’re so relentlessly serious and so bloody earnest. I really don’t think you’re ‘relentlessly serious,’ but anyway, I explained to him that when you speak English you’re freed from the repressive shackles of Japanese, and that’s why you’re able to clown around with impunity.”
After that evening’s session with Tagame, Kogito continued skimming through The Adventures of a Simpleton and was reminded of how surprised he had been, as a college student, to discover that there were significant discrepancies between what he had imagined while listening to lectures about German literary history and what he had actually read in the translation. During the university lectures that dealt with German baroque novels, Kogito’s interest had been aroused by the way in which the young man was changed into a fool, and then a jester, by the machinations of his superior officers, who conspired to deprive him of his powers of reason.
The story begins with a rite wherein the unworldly young Simplicius is marched off to “Hell” by servants of the governor who are dressed up as evil minions of Satan. There, he is plied with large quantities of Spanish wine (the implication seems to be that it’s the cheapest sort of plonk). On top of that he’s severely tortured and spews out bodily wastes from every imaginable orifice, but in the end, he is welcomed to “Heaven.” The lecture seemed to give the impression that, after these weird tribulations, Simplicius subsequently wakes up in a goose pen and finds himself inexplicably dressed in the pelts of calves. Kogito took this to mean that Simplicius’s body was shoved into a freshly harvested calfskin, still warm and drenched in fat and blood.
That inevitably reminded him of the outrage that had been perpetrated by the sadistic young disciples at the training camp, during the ordeal known as THAT. As will be related later, Kogito and Goro had been sitting on a tall, wobbly platform when a freshly skinned calf’s pelt, about the size of a tatami mat, had been thrown over them from behind. Enveloped in the thick, heavy, wet membrane, it was impossible to breathe; they were overcome by fright and deprived of the use of their arms, and all they could do was to kick out impotently with their legs. It was only after Goro (having seemingly lost the strength to struggle anymore) had collapsed onto Kogito’s chest that the loathsome calfskin was finally pulled off them. Surrounded by the drunken laughter of the young disciples, Kogito wiped away the blood, grease, and tears, then stole a glance at Goro, who was sitting next to him, so still that Kogito wondered whether he might have fainted. Then, slowly, Goro’s eyes (looking exactly like those of a sulky child) popped open.
As it turned out, the lecture had only touched on the high points, and when Kogito actually read Grimmelshausen’s text he discovered that when Simplicius opened his eyes after having been made a fool of, he was
not, in fact, wrapped up in a raw, bloody, freshly harvested calfskin. He was, rather, dressed in conventional garments made from processed cowhides: that is to say, leather. Even so, when Goro read the words “clothes of calfskin,” surely he would have been reminded of that nightmarish ordeal and the unbearable stench.
That was the kernel of the bafflement Kogito felt when Goro returned the book with a casual, noncommittal comment. “This is a fairly entertaining book,” he had said, “but I don’t see why you were waiting so eagerly to read it.” Kogito (who was then nineteen) didn’t have the courage to confront Goro and say: “You seem to have no problem remembering the mundane details of our daily life in Matsuyama, so how is it possible that you would have forgotten something as momentous as THAT?”
Having pursued his memories of himself and Goro to that point, Kogito pushed the call button over his head, even though he knew that the beverage service had already ended. He was hoping that the stewardess who answered the call wouldn’t be the same one to whom he’d said, “No, thanks,” earlier, when she offered him a drink. Kogito, who hadn’t drunk anything more potent than wine the entire time he was in Berlin, suddenly felt the need for a glass of whiskey—the stronger, the better.
3
On this day, Kogito took the airport bus from Narita and arrived at his house in Seijo Gakuen, via Shinjuku, before evening. By Berlin time, it was still early morning, so his circadian rhythms were in complete disarray. During the long hours that followed, as he alternated between trying to grab some sleep and jumping up again in insomniac frustration, Kogito found himself looking for ways to pass the time. Fortuitously, an unusual package was delivered that night, and Kogito became totally engrossed in dealing with it. The return address was a town close to his boyhood home in Shikoku, and someone had paid extra to specify the exact time of delivery. When Kogito opened the box, he understood why: it contained a live turtle.
There was a letter attached to the package, signed with a name Kogito didn’t recognize. The prose style was that of someone fairly young, but even though the characters were rendered with a fountain pen rather than a brush, it was obvious that the writer had studied calligraphy.
In the dead of winter, someone we have loved and respected for a long time—someone you know, as well—passed away. This turtle was caught by our late teacher on the last of the night-fishing expeditions that he enjoyed so much, using three sweetfish as bait. Our teacher was saying that he wanted to send this turtle to you when you returned from Berlin, and we’ve been keeping it alive in a fish tank. (Your travel schedule was posted on your fan club’s Internet site, so we knew when to send it.) Our teacher had read in the newspaper that you liked to prepare and cook your own turtles, and he was very impressed. Please honor his dying wish, which was for you to cook this turtle by yourself. The truth is, the day we sent you this turtle was also the day we disbanded the training camp where we all learned so much under our teacher’s guidance.
The letter ended with a spine-chilling sentence in the Iyo dialect Kogito had grown up with: I don’t think we’ll be bothering you again after this ...
He knew it was purely psychosomatic, but as he read those words Kogito felt a distinct sensation of discomfort, like a cold jolt of electricity, shooting through the second joint of the big toe of his left foot. It stirred him up, somehow, as if a challenge had been issued. Kogito had a pattern of exhibiting stranger-than-usual behavior whenever he returned from abroad in a state of sleep deprivation and in the unpleasant thrall of the time difference—especially on his first night home, when he was still in a state of keyed-up excitement. On this occasion, he was consciously trying to control these impulses, but as midnight (Japan time) approached he was seized by an irresistible urge to cook the turtle.
The amphibian had arrived in a box that someone had made by cutting lengths of thick plywood and nailing them firmly together. The box was about twenty-four inches long, sixteen inches wide, and eight inches tall, but while some sturdy-looking aquatic plants (the likes of which Kogito had never seen before) were peeking out through the tiny cracks between the boards, the box was soundly constructed and no water was leaking from the bottom. Judging from the weight of the box, it was immediately apparent that this was no ordinary creature.
Kogito finally managed to pry off the tightly nailed lid, and when he pushed aside the thick aquatic plants, whose leaves resembled gecko fingers, he saw the bluish-black shell of the turtle, which was hunkered down on the floor of the box. The creature was at least fourteen inches long and ten inches wide; Kogito had never seen such a large turtle outside of an aquarium, and the word that sprang to mind—rather than the genteel, recreational “cooking”—was “processing,” with its connotations of manual labor and sustained effort. Kogito had an awful premonition that turning this monster of a turtle into soup was not going to be an easy task.
The turtle was wedged into the bottom of the box, unable to stretch out its neck because of the narrowness of the space, but its short, thick, stumpy head was plainly visible. Kogito’s first task was to try to move the box to the corner of the kitchen, but when he tilted the box, the turtle planted its stout legs and began to raise a ruckus, scrabbling loudly at the boards with its claws.
Kogito realized that he needed to warn Chikashi that he was about to charge into combat against a formidable opponent, so it might be better if she didn’t come into the kitchen that night. (She was still awake, reading a book in her bedroom.) After completing that errand—Chikashi had looked a bit bewildered, but he didn’t take the time to explain what was going on—Kogito hurried back to the kitchen and hoisted the heavy box, with the gigantic turtle inside, into the sink. Then he got out the heavy artillery: a large, pointed carving knife and a Chinese knife that had some heft to it. The idea was to use these weapons to subdue the turtle but, from the beginning, things didn’t go as planned.
The wooden box was just slightly too large to fit into the bottom of the stainless-steel sink, and it kept listing uncontrollably to one side while the turtle stood with its head jammed into the suddenly shallow corner of the box. When Kogito tried to return the turtle’s body to a horizontal position, a two-handed maneuver, he couldn’t help marveling at how heavy it felt. The creature’s tough, three-pronged claws—Kogito was reminded that the Latin word for turtle, reflecting this conformation, was trionyx—were scraping frantically at the bottom of the box, and Kogito could feel the unexpectedly powerful vibrations in both his hands.
Clearly, this was not an opponent to be taken lightly. Kogito looked at the turtle, which had fallen back onto the bottom board with a loud clunk, and once again he got a sense of its youth. As nearly as he could tell, looking down from above, there wasn’t a single scar on its shell or on the pale yellow border that surrounded it.
As a boy, Kogito had once seen a turtle nearly as big as his head in a shallow pool in the valley, standing very still and blending in perfectly with the vegetal slime. He had been frustrated because there was no way to catch that prize specimen, but from what he could see by peering down from atop a rock, its body was covered with innumerable scars, and the shell itself looked quite old and worn-out. In terms of surface area, this turtle was several times the size of that one. Its whole body had a young, virile look to it, and the shell had the deep blue-gray luster of polished steel.
Kogito gazed wonderingly at the turtle, his mind overflowing with questions. How on earth had this turtle managed to live so long, and grow so large, without getting a single injury—indeed, with its body as good as new? Was it because it was secretly living in a deep, tranquil pool in the depths of the forest, where humans never ventured? And then did a flood come along and carry it off to a populated area, where it ended up being enticed one night, against its wiser instincts, by three juicy sweetfish dangling in the water?
Kogito picked up the heavy box in his arms and put it down on a more level surface, between the refrigerator and the back door. When he lifted the far side of the box, the edge of
the turtle’s shell slipped down until it reached the corner on the side closest to Kogito. A moment later it began to move forward, scrabbling the three-pronged claws of its forefeet on the board. Not wanting to let this chance slip by, Kogito summoned up all his strength and, in a flash, brought the sharp blade of the carving knife down on the neck of the slow-moving turtle. But the turtle, showing the tough resiliency concealed beneath the soft, loose skin of its neck, swiftly withdrew its head into its shell.
Almost immediately, the stumpy head emerged again and the turtle tried to move forward. On one side of its neck, a crescent-shaped wound the size of a fingernail paring was filling with jet-black blood. Now the turtle, which had hitherto been silent, began to make the sharp shu-shu sound of labored breathing. The animal was unmistakably angry, but it wasn’t being terribly cautious. Indeed, its wounded neck was still stretched out, full-length.
After making a quick visual assessment of the marginal space inside the box in relation to the size of the knife, Kogito attacked the vulnerable, exposed neck again with renewed vigor, but the turtle’s neck seemed to be equipped with a preternatural elasticity that caused the carving knife to bounce harmlessly off. With its head pulled only halfway into the shell, the turtle suddenly rushed forward to the edge of the box and then, digging its claws into one side panel, desperately tried to clamber out. Kogito was still holding the knife in one hand, and he had no choice but to hit the turtle on both sides of its neck with the blade in order to push it back to its original position. As he continued this new line of attack, the knife made deep grooves in the turtle’s neck, but that wasn’t enough to subdue the still-vital head before it retreated into the shell. Now the turtle began snorting loudly before once again poking its head out of the shell, almost as if it were throwing down the gauntlet.
The all-out war between Kogito and the turtle raged on, but for the entire first half, even though Kogito was staging a well-armed, one-sided attack against a defenseless opponent, he still felt as if he was fighting a losing battle. It’s never been like this before, he thought. Kogito had killed and cooked any number of turtles that had been sent to him by his brother-in-law (the husband of his younger sister, Asa). On those occasions, the initial step of cutting off the turtle’s head hadn’t been easy, by any means, but it had never been as difficult as this. He had always used the same method: he held the shell immobile on a large cutting board with one hand, then forced the turtle’s head out of hiding and sliced it off cleanly with a knife.