At this point I should perhaps offer some further clarification of the enemy’s tactics. They had in fact deduced from my master’s ferocious behavior on the previous day that he was now close to the breaking point and that it was a near certainty that today he could easily be needled into another lunatic charge. If such a sally led to the capture of some laggard senior boy, there would obviously be trouble. But they calculated that the risk of trouble would be minimized to virtually nothing if they used as ball pickers only the smallest of their first- and second-year juniors.
If my master succeeded in catching such a minnow and then kicked up a whale of a fuss, he would merely succeed in disgracing himself for childish behavior, and no reflection whatsoever would be cast upon the honor of the Hall. Such were the calculations of the enemy and such would be the calculations of any normal person; however their planning failed to take account of the fact that they were not dealing with an ordinary human being, and they should have realized from his extraordinary performance yesterday that my master lacks the common sense to see anything ludicrous in a full grown man pitting himself against some squitty little schoolboy. A rush of blood to the head will lift a normal person into flights of abnormality and transmute level headed creatures into raving loonies; so long as a victim of frenzy remains capable of distinguishing between women, children, packhorse drivers and rickshawmen, his frenzy remains a paltry possession. True frenzy, the divine afflatus, demands that its possessed possessor should, like my frenzied master, be capable of capturing alive some snotty, little schoolchild and of keeping him close as a prisoner of real war. The capture has been made.
The trembling captive had been ordered forth to pick up balls like a common soldier ordered into battle by his senior officers, only to be cornered by the inspired battlecraft of a mad opposing general. Cut off from escape home across the frontier, he is caught and held in durance vile on the garden veranda of his captor. In such circumstances, my master’s enemies cannot just sit back and watch their friend’s disgrace. One after another, they come storming back over the four-eye fence and through the garden gate until some dozen doughties are lined up in front of my master. Most of them are wearing neither jacket nor vest. One, standing with his white shirt-sleeves rolled up above his elbows, folds defiant arms. Another carries a worn-out cotton-flannel shirt slung across one shoulder. In striking contrast, yet another, a right young dandy, wears a spotless shirt of whitest linen hem-piped in black with its owner’s initials in tasteful matching black embroidered as large capital letters above his heaving chest. Every member of the detachment holds himself like a soldier, and, from the tanned darkness of their sturdy bulge of muscle, one might guess them to have arrived no later than last night from the rough, warrior-breeding uplands of the Sasayama mountains. It seems a shame to waste such splendid material on a middle school education. What an asset to the nation they could be as fishermen or boatmen. They were all barefooted with their trouser ends tucked high, as though interrupted on their way to fight some fire in the neighborhood. Lined up in front of my master, they glared at him in silence, and he, equally silent, glared belligerently back. Through what seemed hours of steadily increasing tension their eyes remained locked and the atmosphere built up toward a pressure only to be relieved by the letting of blood.
“Are you,” suddenly snarled my master with truly draconian violence, “also thieves?” His fury, like a blast of flame, vented itself from nostrils flared back from the sear of passion. The nose of the lion mask used in lion dances must have been modeled from an angered human face, for I can think of nowhere else where one could find so vicious an image of the mindless savagery of anger.
“No, we are not thieves. We are students of the Hall of the Descending Cloud.”
“Not just thieves but liars too! How could students of that school you mention break into someone else’s garden without permission?”
“But you can see the school badge on the caps we’re wearing.”
“Those could be stolen, too. If you are what you claim to be, explain how pupils at such a respectable school could be such thieves, such liars, such disgusting trespassers?”
“We only came to get our ball.”
“Why did you allow the ball to come upon my property?”
“It just did.”
“What a disgraceful lot you are.”
“We shall be more careful in future. Please forgive us this time.”
“Why on earth should I forgive a gang of young hooligans, all complete strangers, who come rampaging over fences to muck about on my property?”
“But we really are students of the Hall.”
“If you are indeed students, in what grade are you?”
“The third year.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Yes.”
My master turned his head toward the house and shouted for the maid, and almost immediately, with a questioning, “Yes?” that idiot Osan stuck her head out of the door.
“Go over to the Hall of the Descending Cloud and fetch someone.”
“Whom shall I fetch?”
“Anyone, but get him here.”
Though O-san acknowledged these instructions, the scene in the garden was so odd, the meaning of my master’s orders so insufficiently clear, and the general conduct of the matter so inherently silly that, instead of setting off for the school, she simply stood there with a half-baked grin on her face.
We must remember, however, that my master thinks he is directing a major war operation in which his inspired genius is in fullest flower. He naturally expects that his own staff should be flat out in his support and is far from pleased when some menial orderly not only seems blissfully unaware of the seriousness of warfare but, infinitely worse, reacts to action orders with a vacuous grin. Inevitably his frenzy mounts.
“I’m telling you to fetch someone from the Hall, anyone, no matter who. Can’t you understand? One of the teachers, the school secretary, the headmaster, anybody.”
“You mean the schoolmaster?” In respect of school matters that oaf O-san knows nothing of hierarchy and no school title save schoolmaster.
“Yes, any of the schoolmasters, or the secretary, or the head. Can’t you hear what I’m saying?”
“If none of those are there, how about the porter?”
“Don’t be such a fool. How could a porter cope with serious matters?”
At this point, O-san, probably thinking there was nothing more she could usefully do on the veranda, just said, “Right,” and withdrew. Quite plainly she hadn’t the foggiest idea of the purpose of her mission, and, while I was pondering the likelihood of her returning with the porter, I was surprised to see the lecturer on ethics come marching in by the front-gate. As soon as the new arrival had composedly seated himself, my master launched out upon his pettifogging impeachment.
“The clepsydera has barely dripped two shining drops since these brute fellows here broke in upon my land. . .” My master opened his indictment in such archaic phraseology as one hears at kabuki plays about the forty-seven masterless samurai who attracted so much attention by their carryings-on in the early days of the eighteenth century, and wound his wailings up with a modest touch of sarcasm: “. . .as if indeed such persons could possibly be students of your school.”
The ethics instructor evinced no obvious signs of surprise. He glanced over his shoulder at the bravos in the garden and then, returning his eyes to focus on my master, indifferently answered, “Yes, they are all students from the Hall. We have repeatedly instructed them not to behave in the manner of which you complain. I deeply regret this occurrence. . . Now, boys, for what conceivable reason do you even want to go beyond the school fence?”
Well, students are students, everywhere the same. Confronted with their lecturer on ethics, they seem to have nothing to say. Silent and huddled together in a corner of the garden, they stand as though frozen, like flock of sheep trapped by snowfall.
Self-defeatingly, my master pro
ved unable to hold his tongue. “Since this house stands next to the school, I realize it’s inevitable that balls from the playground will sometimes roll in here. But, the boys are really too rowdy. If they must come over the fence, if they only collected their balls in decent silence and left without disturbing us, then I might be content not to pursue the matter, but. . .”
“Quite so. I will most certainly caution them yet again. But you’ll appreciate there are so many of them sculling about all over the place that it’s difficult for us teachers to. . . Listen, you lot: you must take far more care to behave properly. If a ball flies into this property, you must go right around to the front door and seek the master’s permission to retrieve it. Understand?” He turned again to my master. “It is, good sir, a big school and our numbers give us endless, endless trouble. Since physical exercise is now an integral part of the educational system, we can hardly forbid them playing baseball even though we realize that the particular game can so easily prove a nuisance to your good self. We can thus only entreat you to overlook their intrusions in a benign awareness that high spirits do sometimes overflow into misconduct. For our part, we will ensure that they always present themselves at your front entrance and request your generous permission to enter upon your land and retrieve their balls.”
“That will be perfectly satisfactory. They may throw in as many balls as they wish. If in future the boys will present themselves properly at the front door and properly ask permission, everything will be fine. Perhaps I may now hand these particular miscreants back into your charge for supervised conduct back to school. I am only sorry that it has proved necessary to put you personally to the inconvenience of coming over here to cope with this business.” As always, my master, though he went up with the dash and sizzle of a rocket, came down like a dull old stick.
The teacher of ethics led off his mountain troopers through the front gate, and so this major incident drooped to its tame conclusion.
If you laugh at me for calling it a major event, well, you are free to laugh. Should it, for you, seem trivial, then so indeed it is, but I have been describing what seemed to my master, not perhaps to anyone else, events of enormous magnitude. Anyone who sneers at him as, at best, an arrow shot from a possibly once strong bow but now so far gone as to be spent and feeble, should be reminded that such spent-arrowness is the essence of the man, and, moreover, that his peculiar character has made him the star figure in a popular comic novel. Those who call him a fool for wasting his days in crazy quarrels with the younger kinds of teenage schoolboys command my immediate assent, for he is undoubtedly a fool. Which, of course, is why certain critics have said that my master has not yet grown out of his babyhood.
Having now described the minor and major events in my master’s war with the Hall, I shall close that history with an account of their aftermath. Some of my readers may choose to believe that I’m having them on with a history of pure balderdash but, I do assure you, no cat, and least of all myself, would be so irresponsible. Every single letter, every single word that I set down implies and reflects a cosmic philoso-phy and, as these letters and words cohere into sentences and paragraphs, they become a coordinated whole, clear and consistent, with beginnings and ends skillfully designed to correspond and, by that correspondence, to provide an overall world view of the condition of all creation. Thus, these close written pages, which the more superficial minds amongst you have seen as nothing better than a tiresome spate of trivial chit-chat, shall suddenly reveal themselves as containing weighty wisdom, edifying homilies, guidance for you all. I would therefore be obliged if you would have the courtesy to sit up straight, stop lolling about like so many sloppy sacks, and, instead of skimming through my text, study it with close attention. May I remind you that Liu Tsung-yüan thought it proper to actually lave his hands with rose-water before touching the paper lucky enough to carry the prose of his fellow poet and fellow scholar, Han T’ni-chih. The prose which I have written deserves a treatment no less punctiliously respectful. You should not disgrace yourselves by reading it in some old dog-eared copy of a magazine filched or borrowed from a friend. Have at least the grace to buy a copy of the magazine with your own money. As I indicated at the beginning of this well-constructed paragraph, I am about to describe an aftermath.
If you think an aftermath could not possibly be interesting and consequently propose to skip reading it, you will most bitterly regret your decision. You simply must read on to the end.
On the day following the major showdown I took myself off for a walk. I had barely set out when, on the corner across from my master’s house where a side street joins the road, whom should I see but Goldfield and his toady Suzuki engaged in earnest conversation.
Lickspittle Suzuki had in fact just left the Goldfield mansion after some obsequious visit there, when its ‘flat-faced’ owner, homebound in his rickshaw, stopped to speak with him. Though I have lately come to find old Goldfield’s household something of a bore and have therefore discontinued calling there, the sight of the old rogue himself stirred in my heart an odd warmth toward him. I even feel sufficient interest in Suzuki, whom I haven’t seen for several weeks, to sidle across for a closer look; it was thus natural that, as I drifted toward them, their conversation should fall upon my ears. It’s not my fault, but theirs, if in a public place I happen to hear their talk. Goldfield, a man whose broad concept of decency permits him to hire marks to spy upon my master, would, I feel quite sure, extend his sympathetic understanding to any chance coincidence of presence which narrower minds might consider common eaves-dropping. I’d be disappointed if he displayed such lack of balance as to cut up rough. In any event, I heard their conversation—
not, I repeat, of my own will or by my own scheming, simply because their talking was rammed into my ears.
“I’ve just been to your house. How fortunate to have met you here.”
Suzuki performs his usual series of overhumble bows.
“Fortunate indeed. As a matter of fact, I’ve been wanting to see you.”
“Have you, Sir? How lucky then. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Well, nothing serious. Quite unimportant really. But it’s something only you could do.”
“You may be assured that anything I can do, most happily I will. What have you in mind?”
“Well now. . .” grunted Goldfield as he searched for the right words.
“If you prefer, I could come back any time which happens to suit you.
Would you care to suggest a time?”
“No, no, it’s not all that important. Indeed, I might as well tell you now.”
“Please don’t hesitate.”
“That crazy fellow, that friend of yours. . . what’s his name now. . .
Sneaze I think it was. . .”
“Oh, him. What’s Sneaze been up to now?”
“Nothing really, but I’ve not entirely gotten over that last annoying business. It’s left a nasty taste in my mouth.”
“I quite understand. Vainglory such as his is positively sickening. He should see himself and his social status realistically; but no, stupid and stuck-up, he carries on like the lord of all creation.”
“That’s just it. His insolent disparagement of the business community gets my goat. All that rant about never bowing to the might of money.
So I thought I’d let him see what a businessman can do. For quite some time now I’ve been putting spokes in his wagon, modest irritations involving no more than modest expenditure, but the man’s incredibly stubborn and I find myself stumped by his sheer block-headedness. He can’t, apparently, grasp that he’s being got at.”
“The trouble is that he has no real understanding of profit and loss.
He is incapable of appreciating, let alone weighing, the balance of his own advantage and disadvantage. So he goes his own mad road, feeble but persistent in resisting redirection, totally oblivious to his own best interest. He’s always been like that. A hopeless case.”
Gold
field burst into genuine laughter at the portrait drawn by Suzuki of a character so ludicrous to them both that cachinnation was their only possible reaction. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. I’ve tried all sorts of tricks to shake him up. Knowing the level of his intelligence, I’ve even hired schoolkids to play him up with pranks.”
“That was a bright idea! Did it work?”
“I think it’s working. Certainly it’s put him under strain, and I fancy it’s now only a matter of time before he cracks under the pressure.”
“Under sheer weight of numbers! How clever you are.”
“Yes, I think that he’s beginning to feel the effects of his singularity.
Anyway, he’s pretty weakened and I want you to go along and see how he is.”
“Gladly. I’ll call on him right away and let you have a report on my way back. This should be interesting. It must be quite a sight to see that bull-headed fellow down in the dumps.”
“Very well, then. See you later. I’ll be expecting you.”
“All right, Sir.”
Well, well! So here we are again with another pretty plot. The power of a businessman is indeed formidable. By its frightening force my clink-er of a master has been set afire with frenzy; his thatch of hair is well on its agonized way to becoming a skating rink for flies, and his skull can soon expect an Aeschylean bashing. Considering how much has been achieved by the power of a single businessman, I am obliged to conclude that, though I’ll never know why the earth spins around on its axis, it’s certainly cash that motivates this world. None know better than businessmen what power money buys. It is by their nod that the sun comes up in the east and, by their decision, goes down in the west. I have been very slow to learn the divine right of businessmen, and I attribute my backwardness to the atmosphere, the cultural effluvia from a poor pigheaded schoolie, in which I have been reared. The time has clearly come when my dimwitted bigot of a master simply must wake up to the realities of this world. To persevere in his present attitudes could well prove dangerous; dangerous, even, to that dreary, dull, dyspeptic life which he so desperately treasures. How, I wonder, will my master cope with the coming visitation of Suzuki? Believing that the style in which that visitor is received will be an accurate indicator of the degree to which my master has learnt to recognize and accept the power of businessmen, I know I must not loiter. Though merely a cat, I accept the imperatives of loyalty and am worried for my master’s safety. I slink around the nauseating Suzuki and, at a scamper, got back home before him.
I Am a Cat Page 39