GAN

by Mori Ogai

  He began to visit the theater for shows and talks. He imagined Otama visiting his empty house. During the show he remembered that Otama herself had yet to visit a theater. The young women in the theater stood out from the crowd. Once, just after intermission, he saw man wearing a Panama hat, quite rare for the time, and on his arm was a woman with an elaborate chignon, standing at the railing of the second floor and surveying the theater. For a moment, he thought she was Otama, though she was shorter and rounder. The man in the Panama hat had three other women in elaborate costume behind him. They were all geisha, there to fill his cup. A student near the candy seller sighed, “There’s Mr. Goso.” After the performance a woman appeared carrying a large lantern, scrawled with the name of the theater in italics, to see off Panama-hat man and his geishas. Until their paths parted, and for most of the way home, the candy seller followed them, a few steps ahead or lagging behind.

  Chapter Nine

  Otama wanted very much to go see the kind of life her beloved father was living. But Suezo came every day, and the thought of him coming and finding the house empty worried her sufficiently to prevent a visit to her father. Suezo never stayed until morning. Occasionally he left as early as eleven o ’ clock. Other times he would say he had something he needed to do that day, but he wanted to stop by. He would sit in front of the brazier and smoke a cigarette on those days. That being the case, there was never a day when she could be sure he wouldn’t come, and so she did not feel comfortable leaving the house. If she were to leave around noon then there should have been little fear of Suezo’s sudden arrival, but her servant was only a child, and she could not leave the house in her care. To make matters worse, she began to feel the attention of her neighbors, which further encouraged her to remain indoors throughout the day. Finally, wanting to enter the baths at the bottom of the hill, she would send the girl ahead of time to check if they were clear.

  It was in this manner that Otama hid in the house, intimidated by her surroundings. Three days had passed since her move to Muenzaka. She had brought her bank book and requested deliveries from the grocers and fish mongers, but on that particular day the fish monger never came. She sent little Ume down the hill to pick up some fish. Otama did not want to eat fish everyday. Her father was not a drinker, so she was fine with any sort of snack they had around. She was accustomed to preparing something random with what was on hand. However, she had heard that the neighboring house was in poor financial straits, always forced to eat food on the verge of rotting. If Ume was dissatisfied, Otama would have considered it rude to Suezo, who had always been so generous. It was to that end that she sent Ume to the fish monger, but she came back in tears. Apparently the fishmonger was not there. Instead the landlady was in his place and, mistakenly, thought that the girl had come in with an order. It seemed the owner had been to the shore and had brought back the best items he could find. The shop was filled with fresh fish. Ume spotted a pile of Aji and asked the price.

  The landlady replied, “I see that you are a servant, but what house are you coming from?” Ume explained, and the landlady quickly grew cold and snapped, “Is that so? Well, I’m sorry, but you’d better just head on back. We don’t have any fish for the mistresses of loan sharks here.” She quickly turned away and drew on a cigarette, apparently no concern for the girl at all. Ume was so upset that she lost any desire to try another shop, ran home, and in broken sobs proceeded to tell Otama all that the landlady had said.

  The color drained from Otama ’s face as she listened to Ume recount the story. She remained silent for a time. Naive emotions rushed into her chest and jumbled into chaos. She was unable to pick the threads apart and organize them, so her emotions overtook her. She was a virgin sold off under pressure! Her heart pounded, her face flushed white, and cold sweat beaded on her back. Out of the chaos the first clear thought that presented itself was this: after hearing such things, Ume would not be able to stay in the house.

  Ume gazed at Otama ’s suddenly pale face, realizing only that she was suddenly very disturbed, though not understanding exactly why. Then she realized that she’d rushed home in a perturbed huff, and had forgotten to buy any of the groceries necessary for lunch. Things could not be left that way. Even the money that she had received for the shopping remained just where it had been, folded tightly into her belt.

  “What a wretched woman! Who in their right mind would buy their stupid fish? There’s another, better shop just down the road, so I’ll just go pick something up, alright?” said Ume, trying to catch Otama’s eye. Otama, relieved that Ume was on her side, smiled and nodded reflexively, and Ume flew out the door.

  Otama stood there for a moment, alone. The shock had begun to subside, but in its place came an outpouring of tears. She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped at her eyes. All she was conscious of was the screaming of regret coming from her chest. It was the voice of confusion emanating from a lump inside of her. That the fish monger would not sell to them, that she was a person to whom people would not sell their wears —such things were pitiable and saddened her, though perhaps an even greater source of pain was the sudden knowledge of Suezo and his lending practices. It was a knowledge that filled her with loathing and regret. She belonged to such a man. She had heard that loan sharks were mean, frightening , and despised by the public. She’d heard it from others, but her father had only ever borrowed money from a pawn shop, and even then the lender, merciless thing, would not give them the amount they needed, even at which he would only ponder his situation alone, never blaming the lender himself. And so she knew that children thought the loan sharks scary, much as they thought of monsters and policemen, though she had never thought them so herself. What then, caused her so much pain?

  The source of her pain may have been that such men were universally despised, but no—that was flimsy. If there was anyone deserving of hatred it was herself and her fate, wasn’t it? Even though she had done nothing wrong, the persecution would come at her from the outside. That was the torture, that was the source of her pain. Her first experience of pain was when she had been tricked and abandoned. The second time was when she realized that she would have to become a mistress. And now she was not only a mistress, but the mistress of a despised loan shark, and, suddenly aware of her true situation, that garment dyed with pain, now chewed and gnawed to grit by the teeth of time and washed in the water of surrender, appeared to her new and fresh. Its outline and colors bright and bold. The knot and pressure in her chest was, upon inspection, none other than this garment itself.

  Eventually she rose, opened the closet, and from her elephant skin bag produced a white apron she herself had sewn. She wrapped it around her waist and, after a long and heavy sigh, entered the kitchen. There was a silk apron as well, but she’d always considered it an object for special occasions, and had made a point of not using it in her typical kitchen chores. Suezo was so particular about his own dress that he often covered his collar with a handkerchief to prevent his hair from soiling it unnecessarily.

  She had relaxed a fair bit. Resignation was her most practiced skill, and if this was his will then, like a freshly oiled machine, she would work at it with polished precision.

  Chapter Ten

  It happened one night. Suezo was there, sitting before the brazier. Since the first night in the house, Otama had watched for his approach, and, upon seeing him on the path, set out cushions by the brazier. He sat cross-legged and smoked a cigarette while making small talk about his day. Otama sat, quietly answering his questions while fiddling with the coals with the tongs, fingering the edges of the brazier as if she had been away from the house for a very long time. Had she been further from the brazier she would have appeared out of place, but it’s glowing coals separated them and she felt, ironically, protected by them. After they had spoken for a time Otama grew more comfortable and began to speak more freely. It was an approximation of how she had sat with her father for so many years. Suezo, more so than actually listening to the c
ontent of her story, was involuntarily smiling at her, much as a child would at the chirp of a cricket they’d caught and kept in a jar. At his doped gaze she realized she was speaking, her face flushed red, and she returned to her nearly silent banter. Her sudden changes of mood, so innocent, were quickly interpreted by Suezo, who was accustomed to sharp and penetrating observation, as if the water in a barrel had grown clear so he could see straight to the bottom. It felt nice. It was like soaking in a warm bath after he had worn his muscles out. It was a feeling he tried to savor, though for Suezo it belonged to a new realm of experience altogether. From the first day he came to the house he was as a beast growing accustomed to human contact. He was unconsciously absorbing a new culture.

  When three or four days had passed, and he was sitting crossed-legged before the brazier, Otama seemed unable to relax, standing and sitting for no apparent reason. Suezo, however, had finally begun to relax. At the start of their relationship she had been much the same, avoiding his gaze and taking a moment too long to respond to inquiry—though that night some particular aspect of her restlessness struck him as special.

  He stuffed tobacco into his pipe. “What’s on your mind?”

  Otama had pulled open the drawer of the brazier and, though not looking for anything in particular, was nosing about inside. “Nothing,” she answered, looking up to meet his gaze, eyes large and friendly. They were not the sort of eyes that could keep secrets. They didn’t comprehend the mysteries of legends.

  Suezo was unable to hide his indignation, his face scrunched in frustration. “What do you mean ‘nothing’? That’s not an answer. ‘What should I do? What should I do?’ It’s written all over your face!”

  Otama ’s face flushed red again. She fell into silence, mind racing to produce an answer. Suezo watched her closely. She was transparent to him, the movement of the gears visible. “I’d been thinking to visit my father as soon as I’d moved. I’ve been thinking it for a while now, but I haven’t been. It’s been so long.”

  Though one might see the spinning gears, who knows what they will produce? Insects in constant fear of the predation of larger animals than themselves are able to mimic other creatures. Women can lie.

  Suezo laughed and, as if lecturing, continued, “What do you mean? He’s right over there by the lake. You mean to say you haven’t gone to see him yet? The Iwasaki house across the street isn’t any further, if you think about it. You could even go right now, if you needed. But you should probably go in the morning.”

  Otama tended to the coals and stole a glance at his face. “But I worry about so many little things.”

  “Ha! Don’t be silly. There’s nothing worth worrying about. How long are you going to worry about it?” This time his voice was kind.

  That was the end of the conversation that night. At the conclusion Suezo even went so far as to offer to come in the morning and take her there himself, if she was so afraid of the town for whatever reason.

  Otama thought many things. Suezo, so dependable, so caring, so kind there before her —why was he involved in such an awful trade? She found it odd. She found herself wondering if she could discuss it with him, convince him to use his brains for a different business. She thought over many things, but she still did not find him disagreeable.

  Suezo was sure that Otama was hiding something down in the depths of her, but at his attempt to fish it out she had turned away, child-like, and said it was nothing. Yet at eleven, when he left the house and was walking down Muenzaka, he came to realize that she still had something unseen, hidden inside. And Suezo, his honed perception keen, eventually speculated that perhaps someone said something to her, something to make her feel uncomfortable. In the end though, who it was and what they ’d said eluded him.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning, when Otama paid a visit to her father ’s house, he was in the middle of eating breakfast. While Otama paid little attention to her make-up, even fearing that she had come too early, her father woke early, elderly man that he was, and had already swept the gate, splashed water over the yard, washed his hands and feet, and proceeded to sit on his new mats and finish his breakfast.

  Two or three houses down sat a house that occasionally grew lively with evening parties, though the houses on either side of the candy seller liked to keep their doors shut, and so the mornings were calm and quiet. From his seat at the window, the old man could see the branches of the willows rustling in the breeze, and through them the expanse of the lake, blanketed with lotus blossoms. Amongst the green were places of a light red, as if the flowers had only just opened that morning. He ’d wondered if a northern-facing house would be cold, but in the summer it was a wonderful place to live.

  Otama had, since starting life on her own, thought that if she somehow were to accumulate a measure of wealth she would like to do many different things for her father, and had spent time thinking over possibilities until, coming to see him then, she realized that in a house like that he could live a long and peaceful life, and she felt a wellspring of happiness bubbling over, as though all her prayers had been answered. But in the joy was mixed a single, veritable drop of bitters. Had it not been so, oh—how happy she would be to see him! But the world is ambivalent to our desires, and it frustrated her.

  The candy seller put down his chopsticks at the sound of the gate. He ’d been drinking his tea, but he moved the cup to the side and, wondering if perhaps she’d really come, turned to look to the door. A figure was obscured behind the screen, but at the sound of her voice calling, “Father,” he made to run and meet her, an instinct he fought momentarily, remaining fixed in his place. His mind was filled with rushing thoughts. He thought of saying, “You never forgot me,” or something to that effect, but she rushed into the room and came to his side, and he was filled with nostalgia and joy and, despite not being satisfied with his reaction, he was unable to say anything. He sat in silence and looked into her face.

  And oh, what a lovely face it was. Throughout their poverty-stricken life he ’d held her beauty as pride, never making her do hard work, always keeping her clean and proper, but in the span of a mere ten days she appeared as though reborn. Even throughout their busy life he’d tried to give her a life to keep her unblemished, though now that she was spending time on herself the girl in his memory stood, in comparison, like a diamond in the rough. Even to a father gazing on his child, even to the elderly gazing on the young, beauty is beauty. And to beauty’s power to calm the heart, even parents and the elderly could not rebel.

  The candy seller, intentionally silent, and perhaps due to his composed face and demeanor, despite not intending to, dampened the mood of their reunion. Otama, through the necessity of acclimation to her new life, despite wanting desperately to see her father, from whom she had never been apart from, had let ten days go by without visiting him, and even though she was filled with things she wanted to say she was unable to give them voice, overcome with joy as she was at the sight of him.

  The servant stuck her head in the room and in a rushed and rising tone asked if it was alright if she removed the breakfast tray. Having never met her, Otama found her difficult to understand. He hair was combed neat over her small head, and under it sat her plump face, poorly proportioned. Her reserved face was watching Otama with apprehension.

  “Take it quickly and bring us some fresh tea. The green one from the shelf,” said the old man, sliding the tray across the table. The girl took it and hurried from the room.

  “Come on now, you don’t need to use the good tea.”

  “Don’t be stupid. I’ve got snacks too.” He stood and pulled a tin from the closet. It was filled with egg rice crackers. “They make these in a place behind the Tamabune. This area is so convenient. Just over there they make Kutsudani.”

  “Well then. When we went to see the theatre at Yanagihara, they talked about some kind of feast they’d had, and they said it was just like the Kutsudani they made, and everyone laughed. Remember that? The man w
as such a jolly fellow, and so round. When he climbed up on his stool he’d have to roll his bottom up onto it. Oh, it was so funny! If only you would plump up a bit yourself.”

  He pushed the crackers over to her. “Like I’d ever be as fat as Joen.”

  The tea came soon, and soon they were speaking without pause, as if they ’d never parted. The old man suddenly appeared to have difficulty enunciating a thought. The following came out:

  “How is it? How are things? Does he come over sometimes?”

  “Yes,” She clipped, troubled for a proper response. Suezo did not come over sometimes. Not a day went by without a visit. Had she been his wife there would have been no issue in saying so, and it would have put his mind at ease. She could have said so with a beaming smile. But as her situation was, if she were to say Suezo came each and every day then it was barbed, and difficult to say. She thought for a moment before continuing. “Yes, well, things are fine, Father. You don’t need to worry, all right?”

  “Well, that’s good,” He said, though in truth he’d felt something missing from her answer. Both the question and the answer were composed to give the other what they wanted. The two of them, who had never had an unspoken word between them and who had never harbored a secret from the other, now made conversation with regard to politeness, not wanting to offend the secrets of the other. In the past, when they had been deceived by the police officer, when things were at their worst, when they felt the judgemental eyes of their neighbors on them—even then they spoke with frank honesty. Never did they feel the need to disguise their true feelings from one another. In comparison they sat now, fully aware of what they wished to say, both free and without want, engaged in a friendly conversation that happened to lay in the shadow which indicated a sadness that separated them. A moment passed, and he felt the need to hear something concrete from her. “Just what kind of guy is he?” he asked, moving the conversation in a new direction.