An Artist of the Floating World

by Kazuo Ishiguro

  KAZUO ISHIGURO

  An Artist of the Floating World

  FOR MY PARENTS

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  October, 1948

  April, 1949

  November, 1949

  June, 1950

  About the Author

  By the Same Author

  Copyright

  OCTOBER, 1948

  If on a sunny day you climb the steep path leading up from the little wooden bridge still referred to around here as ‘the Bridge of Hesitation’, you will not have to walk far before the roof of my house becomes visible between the tops of two gingko trees. Even if it did not occupy such a commanding position on the hill, the house would still stand out from all others nearby, so that as you come up the path, you may find yourself wondering what sort of wealthy man owns it.

  But then I am not, nor have I ever been, a wealthy man. The imposing air of the house will be accounted for, perhaps, if I inform you that it was built by my predecessor, and that he was none other than Akira Sugimura. Of course, you may be new to this city, in which case the name of Akira Sugimura may not be familiar to you. But mention it to anyone who lived here before the war and you will learn that for thirty years or so, Sugimura was unquestionably amongst the city’s most respected and influential men.

  If I tell you this, and when arriving at the top of the hill you stand and look at the fine cedar gateway, the large area bound by the garden wall, the roof with its elegant tiles and its stylishly carved ridgepole pointing out over the view, you may well wonder how I came to acquire such a property, being as I claim a man of only moderate means. The truth is, I bought the house for a nominal sum – a figure probably not even half the property’s true value at that time. This was made possible owing to a most curious – some may say foolish – procedure instigated by the Sugimura family during the sale.

  It is now already a thing of some fifteen years ago. In those days, when my circumstances seemed to improve with each month, my wife had begun to press me to find a new house. With her usual foresight, she had argued the importance of our having a house in keeping with our status – not out of vanity, but for the sake of our children’s marriage prospects. I saw the sense in this, but since Setsuko, our eldest, was still only fourteen or fifteen, I did not go about the matter with any urgency. Nevertheless, for a year or so, whenever I heard of a suitable house for sale, I would remember to make enquiries. It was one of my pupils who first brought it to my attention that Akira Sugimura’s house, a year after his death, was to be sold off. That I should buy such a house seemed absurd, and I put the suggestion down to the exaggerated respect my pupils always had for me. But I made enquiries all the same, and gained an unexpected response.

  I received a visit one afternoon from two haughty, grey-haired ladies, who turned out to be the daughters of Akira Sugimura. When I expressed my surprise at receiving such personal attention from a family of such distinction, the elder of the sisters told me coldly that they had not come simply out of courtesy. Over the previous months, a fair number of enquiries had been received for their late father’s house, but the family had in the end decided to refuse all but four of the applications. These four applicants had been selected carefully by family members on grounds purely of good character and achievement.

  ‘It is of the first importance to us’, she went on, ‘that the house our father built should pass to one he would have approved of and deemed worthy of it. Of course, circumstances oblige us to consider the financial aspect, but this is strictly secondary. We have therefore set a price.’

  At this point, the younger sister, who had barely spoken, presented me with an envelope, and they watched me sternly as I opened it. Inside was a single sheet of paper, blank but for a figure written elegantly with an ink brush. I was about to express my astonishment at the low price, but then saw from the faces before me that further discussion of finances would be considered distasteful. The elder sister said simply: ‘It will not be in the interests of any of you to try to outbid one another. We are not interested in receiving anything beyond the quoted price. What we mean to do from here on is to conduct an auction of prestige.’

  They had come in person, she explained, to ask formally on behalf of the Sugimura family that I submit myself – along, of course, with the other three applicants – to a closer investigation of my background and credentials. A suitable buyer could thus be chosen.

  It was an eccentric procedure, but I saw nothing objectionable about it; it was, after all, much the same as being involved in a marriage negotiation. Indeed, I fell somewhat flattered to be considered by this old and hidebound family as a worthy candidate. When I gave my consent to the investigation, and expressed my gratitude to them, the younger sister addressed me for the first time, saying: ‘Our father was a cultured man, Mr Ono. He had much respect for artists. Indeed, he knew of your work.’

  In the days which followed, I made enquiries of my own, and discovered the truth of the younger sister’s words; Akira Sugimura had indeed been something of an art enthusiast who on numerous occasions had supported exhibitions with his money. I also came across certain interesting rumours: a significant section of the Sugimura family, it seemed, had been against selling the house at all, and there had been some bitter arguments. In the end, financial pressures meant a sale was inevitable, and the odd procedures around the transaction represented the compromise reached with those who had not wished the house to pass out of the family. That there was something high-handed about these arrangements there was no denying; but for my part, I was prepared to sympathize with the sentiments of a family with such a distinguished history. My wife, however, did not take kindly to the idea of an investigation.

  ‘Who do they think they are?’ she protested. ‘We should tell them we want nothing further to do with them.’

  ‘But where’s the harm?’ I pointed out. ‘We have nothing we wouldn’t want them to discover. True, I don’t have a wealthy background, but no doubt the Sugimuras know that already, and they still think us worthy candidates. Let them investigate, they can only find things that will be to our advantage.’ And I made a point of adding: ‘In any case, they’re doing no more than they would if we were negotiating a marriage with them. We’ll have to get used to this sort of thing.’

  Besides, there was surely much to admire in the idea of ‘an auction of prestige’, as the elder daughter called it. One wonders why things are not settled more often by such means. How so much more honourable is such a contest, in which one’s moral conduct and achievement are brought as witnesses rather than the size of one’s purse. I can still recall the deep satisfaction I felt when I learnt the Sugimuras – after the most thorough investigation – had deemed me the most worthy of the house they so prized. And certainly, the house is one worth having suffered a few inconveniences for; despite its impressive and imposing exterior, it is inside a place of soft, natural woods selected for the beauty of their grains, and all of us who lived in it came to find it most conducive to relaxation and calm.

  For all that, the Sugimuras’ high-handedness was apparent everywhere during the transactions, some family members making no attempts to hide their hostility towards us, and a less understanding buyer might well have taken offence and abandoned the whole matter. Even in later years I would sometimes encounter by chance some member of the family who, instead of exchanging the usual kind of polite talk, would stand there in the street interrogating me as to the state of the house and any alterations I had made.

  These days, I hardly ever hear of the Sugimuras. I did, though, receive a visit shortly after the surrender from the younger of the two sisters
who had approached me at the time of the sale. The war years had turned her into a thin, ailing old woman. In the way characteristic of the family, she made scant effort to hide the fact that her concern lay with how the house – rather than its inhabitants – had fared during the war; she gave only the briefest of commiserations on hearing about my wife and about Kenji, before embarking on questions concerning the bomb damage. This made me bitter towards her at first; but then I began to notice how her eyes would roam involuntarily around the room, and how she would occasionally pause abruptly in the midst of one of her measured and formal sentences, and I realized she was experiencing waves of emotion at finding herself back in this house once more. Then, when I surmised that most of her family members from the time of the sale were now dead, I began to feel pity for her and offered to show her around.

  The house had received its share of the war damage. Akira Sugimura had built an eastern wing to the house, comprising three large rooms, connected to the main body of the house by a long corridor running down one side of the garden. This corridor was so extravagant in its length that some people have suggested Sugimura built it – together with the east wing – for his parents, whom he wished to keep at a distance. The corridor was, in any case, one of the most appealing features of the house; in the afternoon, its entire length would be crossed by the lights and shades of the foliage outside, so that one felt one was walking through a garden tunnel. The bulk of the bomb damage had been to this section of the house, and as we surveyed it from the garden I could see Miss Sugimura was close to tears. By this point, I had lost all my earlier sense of irritation with the old woman and I reassured her as best I could that the damage would be repaired at the first opportunity, and the house would be once more as her father had built it.

  I had no idea when I promised her this that supplies would remain so scarce. For a long time after the surrender one could wait weeks just for a particular piece of wood or a supply of nails. What work I could do under such circumstances had to be done to the main body of the house – which had by no means entirely escaped damage – and progress on the garden corridor and the east wing has been slow. I have done what I can to prevent any serious deterioration, but we are still far from being able to open that part of the house again. Besides, now with only Noriko and myself left here, there seems less urgency to be extending our living space.

  Today, if I took you to the back of the house, and moved aside the heavy screen to let you gaze down the remains of Sugimura’s garden corridor, you may still gain an impression of how picturesque it once was. But no doubt you will notice too the cobwebs and mould that I have not been able to keep out; and the large gaps in the ceiling, shielded from the sky only by sheets of tarpaulin. Sometimes, in the early morning, I have moved back that screen to find the sunlight pouring through the tarpaulin in tinted shafts, revealing clouds of dust hanging in the air as though the ceiling had only that moment crashed down.

  Aside from the corridor and the east wing, the most serious damage was to the veranda. Members of my family, and particularly my two daughters, had always been fond of passing the time sitting there, chatting and viewing the garden; and so, when Setsuko – my married daughter – first came to visit us after the surrender, I was not surprised to see how saddened she was by its condition. I had by then repaired the worst of the damage, but at one end it was still billowed and cracked where the impact of the blast had pushed up the boards from underneath. The veranda roof, too, had suffered, and on rainy days we were still having to line the floorboards with receptacles to catch the water that came dripping through.

  Over this past year, however, I was able to make a certain amount of progress, and by the time Setsuko came down to visit us again last month, the veranda was more or less entirely restored. Noriko had taken time off work for her sister’s visit, and so, with the good weather continuing, my two daughters spent a lot of their time out there as of old. I often joined them, and at times it was almost as it had been years ago, when on a sunny day the family would sit there together exchanging relaxed, often vacuous talk. At one point last month – it must have been the first morning after Setsuko’s arrival – we were sitting there on the veranda after breakfast, when Noriko said:

  ‘I’m relieved you’ve come at last, Setsuko. You’ll take Father off my hands a little.’

  ‘Noriko, really …’ Her elder sister shifted uncomfortably on her cushion.

  ‘Father takes a lot of looking after now he’s retired,’ Noriko went on, with a mischievous grin. ‘You’ve got to keep him occupied or he starts to mope.’

  ‘Really …’ Setsuko smiled nervously, then turned to the garden with a sigh. ‘The maple tree seems to have recovered completely. It’s looking splendid.’

  ‘Setsuko probably has no idea of what you’re like these days, Father. She only remembers you from when you were a tyrant and ordered us all around. You’re much more gentle these days, isn’t that so?’

  I gave a laugh to show Setsuko this was all in good humour, but my elder daughter continued to look uncomfortable. Noriko turned back to her sister and added: ‘But he does take a lot more looking after, moping around the house all day.’

  ‘She’s talking nonsense as usual,’ I put in. ‘If I spend the whole day moping, how did all these repairs get done?’

  ‘Indeed,’ Setsuko said, turning to me and smiling. ‘The house is looking marvellous now. Father must have worked very hard.’

  ‘He had men in to help with all the difficult parts,’ Noriko said. ‘You don’t seem to believe me, Setsuko. Father’s very different now. There’s no need to be afraid of him any more. He’s much more gentle and domesticated.’

  ‘Noriko, really …’

  ‘He even cooks meals from time to time. You wouldn’t have believed it, would you? But Father’s becoming a much better cook these days.’

  ‘Noriko, I think we’ve discussed this enough,’ Setsuko said, quietly.

  ‘Isn’t that so, Father? You’re making a lot of progress.’

  I gave another smile and shook my head wearily. It was at that point, as I remember, that Noriko turned towards the garden, and closing her eyes to the sunshine, said:

  ‘Well, he can’t rely on me to come back and cook when I’m married. I’ll have enough to do without Father to look after as well.’

  As Noriko said this, her elder sister – whose gaze until then had been demurely turned away – gave me a swift, enquiring look. Her eyes left me again immediately, for she was obliged to return Noriko’s smile. But a new, more profound uneasiness had entered Setsuko’s manner and she seemed grateful when her little boy, speeding past us down the veranda, gave her an opportunity to change the subject.

  ‘Ichiro, please settle!’ she called after him.

  No doubt, after the modern apartment of his parents, Ichiro was fascinated by the large amount of space in our house. In any case, he seemed not to share our fondness for sitting on the veranda, preferring instead to run at great speed up and down its length, sometimes sliding along the polished boards. More than once, he had come close to upsetting our tea tray, but his mother’s requests that he sit down had so far been to little avail. This time too, when Setsuko called to him to take a cushion with us, he remained sulking at the end of the veranda.

  ‘Come on, Ichiro,’ I called out, ‘I’m tired of talking to women all the time. You come and sit beside me and we’ll talk about men’s things.’

  This brought him straight away. He placed his cushion next to me, then seated himself in a most noble posture, hands on hips, his shoulders flung well back.

  ‘Oji,’ he said to me sternly, ‘I have a question.’

  ‘Yes, Ichiro, what is it?’

  ‘I want to know about the monster.’

  ‘The monster?’

  ‘Is it prehistoric?’

  ‘Prehistoric? You know words like that already? You must be a clever boy.’

  At this point, Ichiro’s dignity seemed to give way. Abandoning his pos
e, he rolled on to his back and began waving his feet in the air.

  ‘Ichiro!’ Setsuko called in an urgent whisper. ‘Such bad manners in front of your grandfather. Sit up!’

  Ichiro’s only response was to allow his feet to slump lifelessly on to the floorboards. He then folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.

  ‘Oji,’ he said, in a sleepy voice, ‘is the monster prehistoric?’

  ‘Which monster is this, Ichiro?’

  ‘Please excuse him,’ Setsuko said, with a nervous smile. ‘There was a film poster outside the railway station when we arrived yesterday. He inconvenienced the taxi driver with numerous questions. It’s so unfortunate I didn’t see the poster myself.’

  ‘Oji! Is the monster prehistoric or isn’t it? I want an answer!’

  ‘Ichiro!’ His mother gave him a horrified look.

  ‘I’m not sure, Ichiro. I should think we have to see the film to find out.’

  ‘When do we see the film then?’

  ‘Hmm. You’d best discuss it with your mother. You never know, it may be too frightening for young children.’

  I had not meant this remark to be provocative, but its effect on my grandson was startling. He rolled back into a sitting position and glared at me, shouting: ‘How dare you! What are you saying!’

  ‘Ichiro!’ Setsuko exclaimed in dismay. But Ichiro continued to regard me with the most fearsome look, and his mother was obliged to leave her cushion to come over to us. ‘Ichiro!’ she whispered to him, shaking his arm. ‘Don’t stare at your grandfather like that.’

  Ichiro responded by falling on to his back again and waving his feet in the air. His mother gave me another nervous smile.

  ‘So bad-mannered,’ she said. Then seemingly at a loss for further words, she smiled again.

  ‘Ichiro-san,’ Noriko said, getting to her feet, ‘why don’t you come and help me put away the breakfast things?’