Sneaze was similarly unaware when she put his note in the post. As for Waverhouse, I can’t make up my mind whether he, too, was unaware or whether he simply found it diverting to keep quiet.
Mrs. Sneaze, surprised and softened by this discovery, told the children to go out and play. “But please,” she bade them, “just behave yourselves.”
She then settled down, as she daily does, to get on with her sewing.
For the next half hour peace reigned throughout the house, and nothing happened worth my bother to record. Then, out of the blue, an unexpected visitor arrived: a young girl, student aged, I would guess, perhaps seventeen or eighteen. The heels of her shoes had worn crooked and her long, purple skirt trailed along the ground. Her hair was quaintly dressed in two big bulges above the ears, so that her head resembled an abacus bead. Unannounced, she walked in through the kitchen entrance. This apparition is my master’s niece. They say she is a student. She’s always liable to drop in on a Sunday, and she usually contrives to have some kind of row with her uncle. This young lady possesses the unusually beautiful name of Yukie but, far from reminding its viewers of a snowy river, her ruddy features are of that dull normality which you can see in any street if you take the trouble to walk a hundred yards.
“Hullo, Auntie!” she casually remarked as, marching straight into the living room, she plonked herself down beside the sewing box.
“My dear, how early you are. . .”
“Because today’s a national holiday. I thought I’d come and see you in the morning, so I left home in a hurry about half past eight.”
“Oh? For anything special?”
“No, but I haven’t seen you for such a long time, and I just wanted to say hullo.”
“Well then, don’t just say hullo but stay for a bit. Your uncle will soon be back.”
“Has Uncle gone out already? That’s unusual!”
“Yes, and today he’s gone to rather an unusual place. In fact, to a police station. Isn’t that odd?”
“Whatever for?”
“They’ve caught the man who burgled us last spring.”
“And Uncle’s got to give evidence? What a bore.”
“Not altogether. We’re going to get our things back. The stolen articles have turned up and we’ve been asked to go and collect them. A policeman came around yesterday especially to tell us.”
“I see. Otherwise Uncle wouldn’t have gone out as early as this.
Normally he’d still be snoring.”
“There’s no one quite such a lie-abed as your uncle, and if one wakes him up he gets extremely cross. This morning, for instance, because he’d asked me to wake him up at seven, that’s when I woke him up. And d’you know, he promptly crept inside the bed clothes and didn’t even answer.
Naturally, I was worried about his appointment with the police, but when I tried to wake him up for the second time, he said something rather unkind through a sleeve of the padded bed clothes. Really, he’s the limit.”
“I wonder why he’s always so sleepy. Perhaps,” said his niece in almost pleasured tones, “his nerves are shot to pieces.”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“He does lose his temper far too easily. It surprises me that they keep him on as a teacher at that school.”
“Well, I’m told he’s awfully gentle at the school.”
“Which only makes things worse. A blow-hard in the house and all thistledown at school.”
“What d’you mean, dear?” asks my mistress.
“Well, don’t you think it’s bad that he should act around here like the King of Hell and then appear at school like some quaking jelly?”
“And of course it’s not just that he’s so terribly bad tempered. He’s also an ornery man. When one says right, he immediately says left; if one says left, then he says right. And he never, but never, does anything that he’s been asked to do. He’s as stubborn and crank-minded as a mule.”
“Cantankerous, I call it. Being plain contrary is his whole-time hobby.
For myself if I ever want him to do something, I just ask him to do the opposite. And it always works. For instance, the other day I wanted him to buy me an umbrella. So I purposely kept on telling him that I didn’t want one. ‘Of course you want an umbrella,’ he exploded and promptly went and bought me one.”
Mrs. Sneaze broke out in a womanly series of giggles and titters. “Oh, how clever you are,” she said, “I’ll do the same in future.”
“You certainly should. You’ll never get anything out of that old skin-flint if you don’t.”
“The other day an insurance man called around and he tried hard to persuade your uncle to take out an insurance policy. He pointed out this and that advantage and did his very best for about an hour to talk your uncle around. But your obstinate, old uncle was not to be persuaded, even though we have three children and no savings. If only he would take out even the most modest insurance, we’d naturally all feel very much more secure. But a fat lot he cares for things like that.”
“Quite so. If anything should happen, you could be very awkwardly placed.” This girl doesn’t sound like a teenager at all, but more, and most unbecomingly, like an experience-hardened housewife.
“It was really rather amusing to hear your uncle arguing with that wretched salesman. Your uncle said,‘All right, perhaps I can concede the necessity of insurance. Indeed, I deduce that it is by reason of that necessity that insurance companies exist.’Nevertheless he persisted in maintaining that ‘nobody needs to get insured unless he’s going to die.’”
“Did he actually say that?”
“He did indeed. Inevitably, the salesman answered, ‘Of course, if nobody ever died, there’d be no need for insurance companies. But human life, however durable it may sometimes seem, is in fact a fragile and precarious thing. No man can ever know what hidden dangers menace his tenuous existence.’ To which your uncle retorted, ‘I’ve decided not to die, so have no worry on my account.’ Can you imagine anyone actually saying such an idiotic thing?”
“How extremely silly! One dies even if one decides not to. Why, I myself was absolutely determined to pass my exams, but, in fact, I failed.”
“The insurance man said the same thing. ‘Life,’ he said, ‘can’t be controlled. If people could prolong their lives by strength of resolution, nobody anywhere would ever leave this earth.’”
“The insurance man makes sense to me.”
“I certainly agree. But your uncle cannot see it. He swears he’ll never die. ‘I’ve made a vow,’ he told that salesman with all the pride of a nincompoop, ‘never, never to die.’”
“How very odd.”
“Of course he’s odd, very odd indeed. He looks entirely unconcerned as he announces that, rather than paying premiums for insurance, he prefers to hold his savings in a bank.”
“Has he got any savings?”
“Of course not. He just doesn’t give a damn what happens after his death.”
“That’s very worrisome for you. I wonder what makes him so peculiar. There’s no one like him among his friends who come here, is there?”
“Of course there’s not. He’s unique.”
“You should ask someone like Suzuki to give him a talking-to. If only he were as mild and manageable as Suzuki, he would be so much easier to cope with.”
“I understand what you mean, but Mr. Suzuki is not well thought of in this house.”
“Everything here seems upside-down. Well, if that’s no good, what about that other person, that person of such singular self-possession?”
“Singleman Kidd?”
“Yes, him.”
“Your uncle recognizes Singleman’s superiority, but only yesterday we had Waverhouse around here with some dreadful tales to tell of Singleman’s behavior and past history. In the circumstances, I don’t think Singleman could be much help.”
“But surely he could do it. He’s so generously self-possessed, such a winning personality. The other day
he gave a lecture at my school.”
“Singleman did?”
“Yes.”
“Does he teach at your school?”
“No, he’s not one of our teachers, but we invited him to give a lecture to our Women’s Society for the Protection of Female Virtue.”
“Was it interesting?”
“Well, not all that interesting. But he has such a long face and he sports such a spiritual goatee, so everyone who hears him is naturally much impressed.”
“What sort of things did he talk about?” Mrs. Sneaze had barely finished her sentence when the three children, presumably drawn by the sound of Yukie’s voice, came bursting noisily across the veranda and into the living room. I imagine they had been playing outside in the open space just beyond the bamboo fence.
“Hurray, it’s Yukie,” shouted the two elder girls with boisterous pleasure.
“Don’t get so excited, children,” said Mrs. Sneaze. “Come and sit down quietly. Yukie is going to tell us an interesting story.” So saying, she shoved her sewing things away into a corner of the room.
“A story from Yukie?” says the eldest. “Oh, I do love stories.”
“Will you be telling us again that tale of Click-Clack Mountain?” asks the second daughter.
“Baby-dear a story!” shouts the baby as she rams her knee forward between her squatting sisters. This does not mean that she wants to listen to a story. On the contrary, it means she wants to tell one.
“What! Baby-dear’s story yet again!” scream her laughing sisters.
“Baby-dear, you shall tell us your story afterward,” says Mrs. Sneaze cajolingly, “after Yukie has finished.”
But Baby-dear is in no mood for sops or compromises. “No,” she bellows, “now!” And to establish that she’s totally in earnest, she adds her gnomic warning of a tantrum. “Babu,” she thundered.
“All right, all right. Baby-dear shall start,” says Yukie placatingly.
“What’s your story called?”
“‘Bo-tan, Bo-tan, where you going?’”
“Very good, and what next?”
“I go rice field, I cut rice”
“Aren’t you a clever one!”
“If you tum there, rice go rotten”
“Hey, it’s not ‘tum there,’ it’s ‘if you come there.’” One of the girls butts in with a correction. The baby responds with her threatening roar of “Babu,” and her interrupting sister immediately subsides. But the interruption has broken the baby’s train of remembrance so that, stuck for words, she sits there in a glowering silence.
“Baby-dear, is that all?” asks Yukie at her sweetest.
The baby pondered for a moment and then exclaimed, “Don’t want fart-fart, that not nice.”
There was a burst of unseemly laughter. “What a dreadful thing to say! Whoever’s been teaching you that?”
“O-san,” says the treacherous brat with an undisarming smirk.
“How naughty of O-san to say such things,” says Mrs. Sneaze with a forced smile. Quickly ending the matter, she turned to her niece. “Now, it’s time for Yukie’s story. You’ll listen to her, won’t you, Baby-dear? Yes?”
Tyrant though she is, the baby now seems to be satisfied, for she remained quiet.
“Professor Singleman’s lecture went like this,” Yukie began at last.
“Once upon a time a big stone image of the guardian god of children stood smack in the middle of the place where two roads crossed.
Unfortunately, it was a very busy place with lots of carts and horses moving along the roads. So this big stone Jizō, interfering with the flow of traffic, was really an awful nuisance. The people who lived in that district therefore got together and decided that the best thing to do would be to move the big stone image to one corner of the crossroads.”
“Is this a story of something that actually happened?” asks Mrs.
Sneaze.
“I don’t know. The Professor did not mention whether the tale was real or not. Anyway, it seems that the people then began to discuss how the statue could in fact be moved. The strongest man amongst them told them not to worry, for he could easily do the job. So off he went to the crossroads, stripped himself to the waist and pushed and pulled at the big stone image until the sweat poured down his body. But the Jizō did not move.”
“It must have been made of terribly heavy stone.”
“Indeed it was. So terribly heavy that in the end that strongest man of them all was totally exhausted and trudged back home to sleep. So the people had another meeting and talked it over again. This time it was the smartest man amongst them who said, ‘Let me have a go at it,’ so they let him have a go. He filled a box with sweet dumplings and put it down on the ground a little way in front of the Jizō. ‘Jizō,’ he said, pointing to the dumpling box,‘come along here.’ For he reckoned that the big stone fellow would be greedy enough to be lured forward in order to get at the goodies. But the Jizō did not move. Though the clever man could see no flaw in his style of approach, he calculated that he must have misjudged the appetites of Jizō. So he went away and filled a gourd with saké and then came back to the crossroads with the drink-filled gourd in one hand and a saké cup in the other. For about three hours he tried to tease the Jizō into moving.‘Don’t you want this lovely saké?’ he kept shouting.
‘If you want it, come and get it! Come and drink this lovely saké. Just a step and the gourd’s all yours.’ But the Jizō did not move.”
“Yukie,” asks the eldest daughter, “doesn’t Mr. Jizō ever get hungry?”
“I’d do almost anything,” observed her younger sister, “for a boxful of sweet dumplings.”
“For the second time the clever man got nowhere. So he went away again and made hundreds and hundreds of imitation banknotes. Standing in front of the big stone god, he flashed his fancy money in and out of his pocket.‘I’ll bet you’d like a fistful of these bank notes,’ he remarked,
‘so why not come and get them?’ But even the flashing of bank notes did no good. The Jizō did not move. He must, I think, have been quite an obstinate Jizō.”
“Rather like your uncle,” said Mrs. Sneaze with a sniff.
“Indeed so, the very image of my uncle. Well, in the end the clever man also gave up in disgust. At which point along came a braggart who assured the people that their problem was the simplest thing in the world and that he would certainly settle it for them.”
“So what did the braggart do?”
“Well, it was all very amusing. First, he rigged himself out in a policeman’s uniform and a false moustache. Then he marched up to the big stone image and addressed it in a loud and pompous voice. ‘You there,’ he bellowed,‘move along now, quietly. If you don’t move on, you’ll find yourself in trouble. The authorities will certainly purpose the matter with the utmost rigor.’ This must all have happened long ago,” said Yukie by way of comment, “for I doubt whether nowadays you could impress anyone by pretending to be a policeman.”
“Quite. But did that old-time Jizō move?”
“Of course it didn’t. It was just like Uncle.”
“But your uncle stands very much in awe of the police.”
“Really? Well, if the Jizō wasn’t scared by the braggart’s threatenings, they couldn’t have been particularly frightening. Anyway, the Jizō was unimpressed and stayed where it was. The braggart then grew deucedly angry. He stormed off home, took off his copper’s uniform, pitched his false moustache into a rubbish bin and reappeared at the crossroads got up to look like an extremely wealthy man. Indeed, he contorted his face to resemble the features of Baron Iwasaki. Can you imagine anything quite so potty?”
“What sort of face is Baron Iwasaki’s?”
“Well, probably very proud. Toffee-nosed, you know. Anyway, saying nothing more, but puffing a vast cigar, the braggart took no further action but to walk around and around the Jizō.”
“Whatever for?”
“The idea was to make the Jizō diz
zy with tobacco smoke.”
“It all sounds like some storyteller’s joke! Did he succeed in dizzying the Jizō?”
“No, the idea didn’t work. After all, he was puffing against stone.
Then, instead of just abandoning his pantomimes, he next appeared disguised as a prince. What about that?”
“As a prince? Did they have princes even in those days?”
“They must have, for Professor Kidd said so. He said that, blasphemous as it was, this braggart actually appeared in the trappings of a prince. I really think such conduct most irreverent. And the man nothing but a boastful twerp!”
“You say he appeared as a prince, but as which prince?”
“I don’t know. Whichever prince it was, the act remains irreverent.”
“How right you are.”
“Well, even princely power proved useless. So, finally stumped, the braggart threw his hand in and admitted he could do nothing with the Jizō.”
“Served him right!”
“Yes indeed, and, what’s more, he ought to have been jailed for his impudence. Anyway, the people in the town were now really worried, but though they got together for a further pow-wow, no one could be persuaded to take another crack at the problem.”
“Is that how it all finished?”
“No, there’s more to come. In the end, they paid whole gangs of rickshawmen and other riff-raff to mill around the Jizō with as much hullaballoo as possible. The idea was to make things so unbearably unpleasant that the Jizō would move on. So, taking it in turns, they managed to keep up an incredible din by day and night.”
“What a painful business!”
“But even such desperate measures brought no joy, for the Jizō, too, was stubborn.”
“So what happened?” asks Tonko eagerly.
“Well, by now everyone was getting pretty fed up because, though they kept the racket going for days and nights on end, the din had no effect. Only the riff-raff and the rickshawmen enjoyed the row they made, and they of course were happy because they were getting wages for making themselves a nuisance.”
“What,” asked Sunko, “are wages?”
“Wages are money.”
“What would they do with money?”
I Am a Cat Page 49