by Mori Ogai
Regardless, by the time the school moved from Shitaya to Hongo, Suezo was no longer a groundskeeper there. However, the comings and goings of careless students to his lakeside house did not cease. When he became a groundskeeper he was over thirty years old, so while he was not financially secure, he had a wife and a child. After his success with high-interest loans and his subsequent move to the house by the lake, he came to find his wife not only ugly and obnoxious, but intolerable as well.
It was around that time that thoughts of another woman began to fill his mind. He had seen her occasionally on his commuting walk from Neribei to the university, when walking down the narrow, winding back streets. A dark house sat in an area where the gutters were always in a state of crumbling disrepair. Its windows and doors leaning halfway open all year long. There was usually a rickshaw with attached stall pulled and parked under the entrance, but even when it was not there the narrowness of the alley compelled one to tilt and slant their body to pass by.
Suezo’s interest was originally peaked by the sound of a plucked sanmisen, and upon following the meandering notes he found them performed by a lovely girl of seventeen. The house did not appear in need of money, as the girl was always prim, her kimono clean and neatly tied. She would sit in the doorway and play, but at the first sign of an approaching pedestrian would withdraw into the darkened house. But Suezo, with a disposition of attentiveness bordering on obsession, came to discover much about her. Her name was Otama. Her mother was long since passed. She lived with her father in the gloomy house. Her father ran a candy stall in Akihabara.
Soon enough, the house was thrown into upheaval. The previously mentioned cart with attached stall disappeared. The silent property had, perhaps, to use a turn of phrase from the day, opened itself to civilizing forces. The half-destroyed gutters had all been changed out, and the entrance had been renovated with new latticework. A pair of shoes sat in the entranceway. Shortly after, the name plaque was removed and replaced with a new plaque bearing the name of some police officer.
Suezo went from Matsunaga to Okachimachi, stopping in various stores to complete his shopping, but also, though perhaps not deliberately, hunting for information, which he eventually came upon: the man who ran the candy stall had a wedding to pay for. The husband-to-be was the owner of the name on the plaque. The father, who loved his daughter even more than his own person, was horrified at the thought of marrying her off to this grimace-wearing officer. He felt such distaste he spoke as though she’d been dragged into the woods by a monster. Indeed, the thought of welcoming the man into his family filled him with so much uncertainty and doubt that he ran to confidants for advice on the matter. Not one counseled refusal.
One said, “See, I told you so. I tried to find you a good match in the past, but you turned them down, didn’t you? The girl was just too important to you, wasn’t she? Well now someone you can’t turn down has shown up.”
And another, sounding terrified: “Well, if you hate it that much, I suppose you could sneak out in the night and run away. But he is police officer, after all. He’d probably just find you again.”
A quick-witted old woman apparently said: “I told you, with looks like that, and skill with the sanmisen, she should have been a geisha! She’d at least have been safe then. A policeman comes looking in the doors and takes a fancy to her and there is pretty much nothing you can do about that. Bad luck I suppose.”
Three months had passed then when Suezo again walked down their alleyway. He found the door shut and a sheet of paper plastered to it, explaining that the building was to be rented. It seemed, according to gossip gathered on his subsequent shopping excursions, that the police officer had a wife and children of his own out in the country. They had apparently come to the city to surprise him. Upon learning of his current circumstances the house was thrown into an uproar, the culmination of which involved Otama’s violent exclamation and attempt to throw herself down a well-shaft. The neighboring landlady had been eavesdropping and appeared just in time to prevent disaster. After these events the father ran to various acquaintances for advice, none of whom were able to offer any sort of expertise on the legal side of the matter, and in the end he was forced to remain ignorant of necessary paperwork and procedures. The matter was simply ignored. The officer twirled his beard, claiming that he would handle all of the necessary matters. The father did not think to doubt him.
Around that time there was a small grocer in the northern corner of Matsunaga, at which a girl with a white, rounded face worked the counter. The students of the area called her chinless. The girl said to Suezo, “I really just feel so bad for her. She’s such an honest thing, and she really had planned to start a family. Turns out the officer had thought of it all as some kind of hotel. Poor thing.”
The balding man running the shop joined in, “The father’s had a hard time of it as well. He said he was too embarrassed to show his face around town. Packed up and moved off to west Torikoe, but they can’t get any business there so he still has to work in Akihabara. Sold off the cart to a shop in Sakuma, then had to come back and buy it back off of them. That being the case, guess that moving cost him a small fortune. Must be in a really tough spot. That officer left his family out in the country and shows up all smiles, sits down with the guy and pours him drinks even though he can’t hold his liquor. The poor guy probably had visions of happily-ever-after sunsets.” He rubbed his hand over his smooth head. After all this Suezo forgot about Otama for a time, that is until he found himself in possession of some money, leading to more freedom, and suddenly he found himself thinking about her again.
Suezo utilized his ever-expanding circle of minions to search them out, and he found that the father from the candy stall was living out behind the Ryuseiza theater with Otama. Furthermore, she was still unmarried. Quickly then, Suezo sent a woman to approach them with an offer. The story was that a rather powerful businessman in the district was in want of a mistress of sorts and had set his sights on Otama. Otama was originally opposed to the idea, though the woman frequently reminded her of the good such an arrangement would do her father, and so, because she was such a humble character, the negotiations advanced to the point where both parties decided to meet at a restaurant called Matsugen. She held her reservations, but it was for the sake of her father.
Chapter Five
The moment he heard of Otama ’s predicament, Suezo, who had little experience planning things other than schedules and interest rates, and who had not even taken the time to follow the train of thought to it’s conclusion, set out searching his neighborhood for houses available for rent. He was shown a number of rooms, but in the end there were two he was impressed by. One of them was on his own street, between the writer Fukuchi’s house and the popular soba shop, Renkyokuan.
Contained within its fence was a Kouyamaki tree and two or three Hiba trees planted, through which the bamboo woven lattice window would be seen. There was a sign indicating that it was for rent, but when he went to look inside he discovered its residents still living there. A woman of approximately fifty showed him the rooms. While walking him around she began an unsolicited introduction, according to which her husband was a rather important politician on the other side of the country, but with the fall of the daimyos he found simple work in lower position at the ministry of finance. He was already well past sixty, but he liked things to be clean and proper, and so he’d walk Tokyo looking for newly constructed buildings that were renting rooms. Any time a building started to show it’s age they would move. Naturally they were a little lonely, being away from their children and all, but there was always something to be done to keep the house in order. The houses, they get older as you’re living in them, so there are always paper screens to be changed and matting to be torn up and replaced. The more the workload increased, the quicker he preferred to move and be done with it all. The old woman had grown tired of it all and had taken to complaining of her husband to even the most disinterested of strangers. She took h
im around the house, waving her hands at the fixtures and grumbling, “Just look at it! It’s still great but—can you believe it—he thinks it’s too old. Nope, gotta’ move he says!” Every cranny was sparkling clean. Suezo was impressed enough with the rooms that he quickly produced a pad of paper and took note of the security deposit, rent, and agency.
He continued looking at rooms until he came upon one in the center of Muenzaka. There was no sign declaring its status, but he’d heard it was up for rent, so he went to see it. The owner had been running a pawn shop in Yushima and using the house as a retirement enclave, that is until he died, forcing his wife to move out of the house and into the pawn shop. It stood next to a bustling seamstress, so the noise levels might have been higher than expected; however, in keeping with its intended use as respite for the retired, the property had been surrounded in well-chosen trees, quieting and setting off the property. It appeared peaceful enough. From the finely latticed door to the granite-inlaid garden, the property was composed and elegant.
Suezo returned home and sprawled out on the floor for the night, worrying, debating which room he should chose. His wife was putting the children to bed next to him, and once they were asleep she crawled under the covers next to him, and, mouth gaping, fell asleep to her own unfeminine snores. Suezo often had trouble sleeping, his mind working over lent money and profit margins. His wife had long grown used his brand of insomnia, and had ceased to be bothered by it long ago. Suezo had a rumbling inside that he could not control. Lost in thought he gazed at his wife and thought, “Of all the women in the world, the one I’m stuck with has a face like this. I haven’t seen Otama in years, and back then she was just leaving her childhood behind, but her face had a quality to it, a trembling excitability. She’s probably a real woman by now. I wonder how her face has changed? Just look at this bitch. Sleeping like a log. She might think I only think about money, but she’s wrong. Huh? Damn, there’s a mosquito. Already? That’s what I hate about Shitaya. Pretty soon I’ll have to hang up the damn mosquito net. I don’t care about her, but they’ll eat the kids alive.”
His train of thought meandered for a moment before returning to the matter of the houses. It was well after one o’ clock by the time he had worked through the circumstance’s pros and cons. An approximation of his thoughts follows: “That house by the lake has a great view, and people might think that’s something special, but this house has a view too, and I’m tired of it. The rent is cheap, but renting someone’s room is always asking for trouble. Besides, it’s set off in a clearing—I’ll never avoid the public eye there. A place that my wife and kids will see on their walks will never do, can’t have them peaking through the windows. The house in Muenzaka is sunken into the shadows, sure, but aside from the students on their way to school, no one uses the street. I’d hate to try and get all the money to buy it outright, but for all the nice woodwork it has it is relatively cheap. And if I put some insurance on it, I’m sure I could at least get back the price when it came time to sell it. That’s it, I’m going with Muenzaka—I have to. Then at evening I’ll head to the baths, get it all ready, tell off this bitch, trick her, and run off. Then I’ll slide open that latticed door and—what do we have here? Who’s there waiting for me? Otama. And she’s got a cat or something sitting in her lap. She’s been waiting for me all day. Of course she’s made dinner. Sure, I’ll get you whatever kimono you want. Wait now, no, you can’t just use all the money in the world. There are plenty of good ones at the pawn shop. Suezo, Suezo, you don’t have to be a fool like the rest of them, trying to buy women the most expensive things in the city. No need to be so stupid. Sure, that guy next door acts the part. He brings over those geishas from Sukiyamachi and makes all the students jealous, and he gloats over it, but he’s got a secret—he’s out of money. The damn scholars, they know how to make a pen sing, but do they have any practical skill? No, of course not. Otama—she could play the sanmisen, couldn’t she? It’d be nice if she could sit there, happily plucking those strings. But nah, she never played ‘cept for that officer man, so she’d be embarrassed. ‘You’ll laugh at me so I don’t wanna’—that’s what she’ll say, she’ll croon it. So I’ll beg her to play it, but she’ll still say no. I’ll say ‘come on please’ and she’ll still be too embarrassed. Bet her face turns all red and she sits there squirming. I wonder what we’ll do on my first night there?”
His fantasies ran wild in every direction, and there was nothing to stop them. He ran them again and again through his mind, and the fantasies slowly gave way. He saw a glimmer of white skin. He could hear whispers.
Suezo fell asleep in the best of moods. Next to him, his wife continued to snore.
Chapter Six
The arranged meeting at the Matsugen occupied Suezo ’s thoughts. He began to think of it as a celebration of sorts. There are different paths people take to accumulate their riches. The misers, we’re led to believe, will watch the ink in their pen, they’ll cut toilet paper in half, they’ll write small enough on postcards to necessitate a microscope. But who do we meet in the real world who behaves so? Most have special categories they feel justified loosening their purse strings for—often women. Those who have earned their keep do not often fall into this group. They are cheap as dirt, they say they have no eyes for women, and spend their money only on food.
I’ve made previous reference to it, but Suezo had made a hobby of keeping his appearance tidy, and even when he was serving as groundskeeper at the university he would, on his days off, quickly shed his uniform of burgundy and change into something approximating a merchant. It was something he looked forward to. When students ran into him around town they were nearly always surprised by his transformation.
Aside from this change of attire, Suezo processed no particular hobbies. He held no connection with geishas or prostitutes, and had never eaten or drank in a restaurant. He had, once in the past, allowed himself to splurge on a bowl of soba from Renkyokuan, but such excursions were exceedingly rare, even before he was to meet his wife, and he would certainly not take them out for a meal.
Her simple kimono clashed with his more elaborate dress. When she would press him for better articles for herself, he would snap, “Don’t be stupid. You and I are nothing alike. I have to be careful with my money. I have things I have to pay for!” Later, after their children were born and he had more freedom with his money, he would occasionally go out to restaurants, but only when accompanying a large group, and never on his own as a customer. So when he heard that Otama was to be party to his arrangement, he found himself suddenly ashamed and filled with solemnity. He bowed his head and suggested they consider Matsugen.
Well then, when the time of the meeting drew near it brought with it an unavoidable problem. Otama ’s preparations. If she had only to see to herself there would have been no problem, but she was charged with her father’s preparations as well. The woman Suezo had sent to make their arrangements was in the middle of this, and she tried to suppress Otama’s tendency to immediately agree with all her father’s suggestions. Her efforts, however, often resulted in quick termination of conversation.
Her father rattled, “You are my only daughter, the most important person in the world to me. You aren’t one of the random girls of the city. I depended on my late wife for everything, I lived a lonely life. She finally became pregnant, despite being past thirty, and died giving birth. I borrowed milk where I could and raised you the best I was able. Then, at only four months, you got the measles. Everyone had the measles then, but I took you to the doctor, and you got better. I had to put everything on hold, but you got better. That was a strange year. Ii had been dead for two years, and a group of Westerners were killed in Namugi.
“After losing my shop and everything else I thought, time after time, of ending my life. But you’d put your little hand on my chest, and you’d look at me with those big eyes and laugh, and I just couldn’t bring myself to think of taking your life with my own. I lived day to day, holding back. W
hen you was born I was already forty-five, and I’d worked so hard that I felt much older. They say that it’s hard for one person to eat, but easy for two. I’d thought of sending you off to someone who could take better care of you, but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lose you. I’d raised you all these years, but they say that destitution spoils even the greatest of us, and when I think that I let us get taken in by that lying bastard I get so upset with myself I can’t stand it. At the very least, you’ve grown into a woman that people respect and love, but however I may have wished to give you to an upstanding man, with a father like this no one came to see you. Regardless, I still never thought I’d let you be a kept woman, but then here comes a smart man, and as he says, you’re going to be twenty soon, and you’d best leave the house before you’re too old. I fold. If I’m to give away my precious Otama, at the very least I must go with you to meet with this man.”
When Suezo first heard the story he had been expecting something else, and so was filled with irritation. When Otama was brought to Matsugen, he ’d plan to send the caretaker home early to line himself up with Otama and enjoy the day. But if her father was coming then the matter was to be more complicated. Suezo was thrilled, and felt as though the approaching tête-à-tête was the first step in undoing the years he’d spent holding back his desires. He felt ready to leave on a journey. But this news of the father was enough to dash his hopes. According to the elderly mediator he’d sent, the two of them were rather stubborn people, and he father had been quick to dismiss all thoughts of “selling his daughter off.” It was not until the old woman had taken Otama aside herself and discussed the money, how simple it would make life for her father, how she could help provide for him, that the girl seemed convinced and went on to work on her father. Soon they’d both accepted the arrangements. Upon hearing the news, Suezo was thrilled at the prospect of recieving such a kind, well-behaved girl, though now the thought of meeting the two of them together weighed on him, and the meeting felt more like an approaching interview. His earlier thrilling emotions were extinguished, he felt, by the presence of this man, coming to judge him. They’d thrown cold water all over the whole thing.