GAN

by Mori Ogai

  From then on she made a point of observing herself in her daily actions, and when Suezo came to visit she gave no voice to her secret concerns, taking care of him instead. Her true self flew from her body and watched from the side. And that true self was laughing —laughing at Suezo, and laughing at her, who had relinquished her freedom. The first time she noticed it, she was terrified. But with time she grew to accept it, thinking there was no other way for her heart to be.

  It was when Otama met with Suezo that she realized she did not like him. And with that realization any gratitude she ’d felt for him disappeared, any debt she’d felt disappeared, and she felt no pity for him at all. She knew no disciplines and performed no arts, but even then, the thought of being owned by him grew increasingly distasteful. Eventually she began to wonder, when watching the crowds of students pass by, if there was no one among them with the power to save her. And upon noticing her imagination meander, she was shocked once again.

  * * *

  It was then that she came to know a face from the crowd. It was Okada ’s. To Otama he was nothing but a student who passed by her window. But even at that, he was a fresh-faced, handsome young man, and she took notice of his affected, puppy-love mannerisms and felt a vague nostalgia upon seeing him, as if he were of a type rarely seen those days. When she went to window to watch for the students, she found herself waiting for his passing.

  While knowing nothing of his name or where he lived, their eyes would meet, and she came to naturally consider him close. Once, she smiled at him, but it was a smile born of a lapse in self-control, of a momentary paralysis that overtook her. Otama, who had always held such control over herself, wondered when she became so interested in him.

  When he first tipped his hat to her, she felt her heart pound and her face flush red. Women possess a sharp intuition. He tipped his hat without any premeditation, and she knew very well what had compelled him to do so. Their uncertain, quiet relationship, centered on the window and her gaze, had then entered a new epoch, and it brought her unbridled joy so that, after his greetings, she fell to imagining just what sort of person he really was.

  * * *

  Being a mistress, kept in a house, under the care and influence of another, is filled with more hardship than most acknowledge. One day a man around thirty came to the house, his jacket inside out, and said that he was from Shimousa and needed to go home, but his foot was injured and couldn ’t walk. He asked if they would help him out. Otama folded ten sen into a sheet of paper and gave it to Ume, who brought it to the man. He opened it, said “Ten sen?” he smiled. “There must be some kind of mistake. Go ask about it,” He said, throwing the package to the ground.

  Ume flushed red, stooped to pick it up, and went back inside. The man showed no restraint and followed her in, taking a seat near the brazier Otama was cleaning. He said a great deal of things, none of which coalesced into a story. He talked a lot about what it was like in jail, but just when he appeared to be bragging, he ’d collapse in tears. He smelled so strongly of alcohol it permeated the room.

  Otama felt like bursting into tears herself, but she exercised self control and reached for two 50 sen bills (the playing card type in use at the time), folded them into a sheet of paper and quietly passed them to the man. The man was unexpectedly and immediately satiated. Taking the package he said, “Two of ‘em shoud be plenty, I suppose. Hey now, you are one nice lady, I can tell. You’re gonna have a fine life.” He stood on uncertain, wobbly legs and left.

  Otama, distraught over these events, reached out to her neighbors. Whenever it seemed she’d made too much dinner she would send Ume to bring a portion to the seamstress living next door.

  The seamstress was named Otei, and despite being well over forty was pale and gave the general impression of youth. She had married into the Maeda family, though her husband, working so hard all his life, passed away unexpectedly at thirty. She spoke with refinement, and her handwriting was neat and composed. When Otama mentioned she ’d like to improve her own handwriting, Otei was kind enough to lend her practice manuals.

  One day Otei appeared at the backdoor to the Muenzaka house, apparently coming to thank Otama for something she had done. After talking for a moment or two Otei said, “I sure see that Okada boy a lot these days.”

  Otama did not know the name, and when she asked, Otei said she meant that student who was always stopping by. She must have seen him tipping his hat. Otama could not afford to be seen pondering and worrying over such a simple thing, so she quickly behaved as though nothing had happened and chirpped, “Yes.”

  “He’s such a good boy, very well-behaved and gentlemanly,” said Otei.

  Otama grew emboldened. “You certainly seem to know him well.”

  “The landlady at the Kamijo only speaks of him, even with all those other people living there.” She smiled and left.

  Otama felt as though she herself had been spoken well of, and she repeated the words to herself, time and again, “Kamijo, Okada.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Suezo’s visits grew more frequent. He still made nightly visits but had taken to stop by at random times throughout the day as well. The reason was the sudden change in the demeanor of his wife, who now jumped and clung to him at every opportunity begging for this and that. He escaped to Muenzaka. When he explained that nothing needed to change she would quickly begin listing all the problems of her life. She couldn't return to her village. She couldn’t leave her children. She was growing old. And so on. To which he would reply that there was nothing to be done, nothing to be done. In the course of his repetitious answers, Otsune would grow angrier and angrier. He could not touch her, as she’d jump and run from the room. To Suezo, who longed to exercise reason and mathematics in his thought, her actions were intolerably confusing. Once she’d opened a door and forgotten it, only have it block the entrance to a room where it stood open. She was there with her back to the door, and he said, “Are you going somewhere?” She looked miserable. “You’ve left the door wide open.” He could say nothing to her, other than, “Why don’t you look behind you?”

  Otsune felt much better than she had before, and she was under very little pressure or oppression. I get it. This whole Muenzaka thing is new. But men weren’t able to grow cold or cruel to their wives. Rather they seemed to grown nicer, more understanding. You’d think they had always left the door wide open.

  Naturally Suezo had realized the same. But even if his physical relationship with his wife was unchanged, even if he refused to change his treatment of her and his manner of speech, he had Otama now, and it was impossible to think the situation unchanged. The thorn in her side was Otama, was it not? Did he not have any intention of removing it to ease her pain? Otsune had never been a particularly rational or sharp woman, and therefore had yet to realize so, but the door Suezo spoke of had not always swung free. The door, through which Otsune would steal glimpses of her peace and hope for the future, that door was covered in dark, heavy shadow.

  One day Suezo flew from the house in the midst of an argument. It must have been around ten in the morning. He wanted to walk straight to Muenzaka, but the stupid maid was out with his children in Shichikenchou, so he purposefully chose a different route and, without deciding his destination, stalked busily around Tenshin and Gokenchou. He occasionally cursed under his breath. When he made to cross Shohei Bridge, a geisha was approaching from the other side. He thought she looked like Otama, but when she passed him by he stole a glance at her face to find it covered with freckles. Thinking that Otama was far more lovely, he felt flooded with joy and satisfaction. He stopped walking and watched the figure of the Geisha grow smaller in the distance. She must have been out shopping or something. The freckle-geisha disappeared down an alleyway.

  Back then the suspension wires on Megane Bridge were still a sight to behold, so he began to walk for Yanagihara. On the river bank was a large parasol, beneath which a man was directing thirteen girls to dance. A crowd had gathered ar
ound them. Suezo stopped for a minute to watch when a man in a lined jacket nearly ran into him. He moved aside to let the man pass. Suezo turned to glare at him, and their eyes met for a moment before the man turned his back and continued walking. Suezo fingered his pocket and muttered, “Look where you’re going.” Everything was safe in his pocket, so the man had not taken anything. Of course the man was not a pickpocket, but Suezo, on edge due to the fight with his wife, was paying attention to things he normally would not. His agitated nerves had grown more sensitive. Even a bumped shoulder meant that someone had tried to rob him. Suezo, who had been so proud of his self control, had lost control over himself. But most people would not notice. But if someone very keen were to observe him they would probably notice him in a higher state of agitation than usual. They would have noticed that his language when caring for someone or paying them a compliment was slightly off, slightly unnatural.

  Thinking it had been a long time since he left the house, he began to retrace his steps while looking at his pocket watch. It had just turned eleven. It had only been thirty minutes since he left.

  He continued walking without goal, though as if very hurried, through Awajichou and Jinbochou. There was an ochazuke shop just before Kawakoji at that time. For only 20 sen you could have a tray of food with pickles and tea. Suezo had known the shop and considered eating there before, but it was still a little early for lunch. He turned right at the shop, and a large town spread out before Manaita Bridge. Surugadai was not the expansive city then that it is now. Rather it was, much like Fukuromachi, a simple place that ended where Suezo stood, just a few alleyways popular with students and a shrine or two. It was like an appendix, handing from Manaita Bridge.

  He crossed Manaita Bridge. There was a pet shop there, selling birds. The birds raised a cacophony. He stopped and looked at the parrots and parakeets in their hanging cages. Beneath were caged doves and Korean birds, and far in the back were smaller cages with tiny birds in them. They were canaries from overseas, and in their flapping and chirping they were louder and more energetic than all the other birds. But just past them sat a dark red sparrow that drew Suezo ’s gaze. He thought it would make a very good pet for Otama. He asked the price of the seemingly disinterested shopkeeper, and chose a single sparrow from the group. After paying, the shopkeeper asked how he planned to take the bird, to which Suezo replied he assumed the price included a cage. After explaining that it did not the shopkeeper sold him a small cage and violently thrust his hand in among the birds and, roughly removing two, placed them in the cage. Suezo asked him which was male and which was female, to which the shopkeeper’s only response was, “Hmmm.”

  Suezo took the cage and crossed back over the bridge. Now he walked with a much lighter step, occasionally raising the cage and looking at the sparrows inside. The stress of his earlier fight had vanished now, and the kind man lurking deep inside him now finally came to the surface. The birds sat in the swinging cage, gripping their perch tightly and opening and closing their wings so as not to be rattled about. Looking at it, Suezo wanted to arrive at Muenzaka as quickly as possible so he might hang it in the window for Otama.

  He returned to Kasakoji and had lunch at the ochazuke shop. The waitress brought a lacquered tray set with food. Suezo set the cage on the table and, watching the little birds, thought of Otama’s cute face. The food was not very good, but he found it delicious.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The sparrow served as the catalyst for Otama and Okada ’s first conversation.

  Having started this story, I ’m reminded of the climate that year. My father had passed away, but before did he’d planted a number of Autumn plants in his garden in Kitasenju. One Saturday I had left the Kamijo to visit his house when I realized that it was nearly September, and the typhoons would soon be on the city. I bought a large bunch of small bamboo spires and planted them in around his flowers and plants, tying each plant to the stiff spires to fix them in place. But the first week of September came and went with problems. Then I heard that the middle of the month would be a rough time, but it too passed without trouble. However, after that point the sky was filled with clouds each day, and the sky was restless and trembling. There were days as hot as midsummer. A wind would pick up from the southeast, appear to howl and quickly die away. Father said we’d have to pay for the beginning of the month.

  One Sunday I was on my way home from Kitasenju to the Kamijo. All the other borders were out on the town, and the building was quiet. I sat in my room for a moment, doing nothing in particular, when suddenly the sound of a match being struck came through the wall. I ’d thought the room empty. I was feeling a little lonely, so I quickly spoke up.

  “Okada, I didn’t know you were there.”

  “Yup,” he answered, but his voice sounded strange, Okada and I had become rather close, and no longer treated one another as strangers, but even so, something in his response struck me as odd.

  I felt it in my gut. I had been zoned out in my room, and he had certainly been doing the same. He hadn ’t been lost in thought or anything of the sort. I had a feeling I even knew the look on his face. I spoke up again, “Hey, do you mind if I come over?”

  “Do I mind? Actually just came home and I’ve been in a slump of sorts. I heard you come back and thought of flicking on my light just to show you I was here.” Now he spoke clearly.

  I left my room and slid open his door. He was sitting at the window, his knee propped against his desk, looking out at the Iron Gate, looming in the evening gloom. Through the iron bars of the window you could see three cypress trees that had been planted in a curbside ditch. They were covered in dust.

  He turned to me. “It’s just as hot as ever today. There are three mosquitoes buzzing around the room. It’s driving me nuts.”

  I sat down by his desk. “I know. My dad calls it September interest.”

  “Heh, I like that. He’s probably right. Its been clouded and clear back and forth all day. I couldn’t decide if I should go out. I fell asleep around noon, and I’ve been reading Kinpeibai—the one you lent me. Well, I felt all bored and gloomy, so I ate some lunch and went for a long walk. Then the strangest thing happened.” He did not look at me, but stared out the window.

  “What happened?”

  “I let the cat out.” He turned to me.

  “You helped some pretty girl?”

  “Nah. I helped a little bird. But she had something to do with it.”

  “You don’t say! Tell me about it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Okada told me the following.

  In the afternoon the clouds were swirling in the sky. A violent wind came rushing down the street, twisting the dust of the town into sky-bound spirals. Okada had exhausted himself reading the Chin ese text, so he left the Kamijo with no particular destination in mind and surrendered himself to his accustomed route. His mind was clouded. While it can be said of the majority of Chinese novels, Kinpeibai would go on for ten or twenty pages quite beautifully, before, as if in adherence to an unwritten rule, the narrative would be interrupted by rather provocative scenes.

  “It’s the fault of the book, but I’m pretty sure I was walking around with a stupid look on my face,” said Okada.

  A short while later the stone walls of the Iwasaki mansion were on his right, and the street began to slope downward. He noticed a group of people standing off to the left. It was at the house he always made a point of passing, though at the time he neglected to mention that secret habit of his. The crowd consisted of about ten people, all women. Most of them were very young, and they were all chattering like birds. Okada was not particularly interested, and had little desire to learn what the commotion was about, but he altered his course down the street to take him closer past the group.

  They were all focused on a single point, so Okada followed their gaze and discovered the source of their excitement. Near the window of the house with the latticework hung a birdcage. There ’s nothing women won’t go gaga ov
er. Okada looked to the cage. The bird inside was flapping madly around the small cage and crying out. Curious about what was frightening the bird, he looked closer and saw a large rat snake, its neck slipping through the slats of the cage. It’s head was wedged in between the slats, but at first glance the cage did not appear to be broken. The snake had forced an opening between the bamboo strips just large enough for itself. Trying to see better, Okada stepped closer, now just a step behind the giggling girls. They all assumed he had arrived to save the bird. They split ranks and pushed him forward. It was then that he noticed something new. It was not a single bird in the cage. Aside from the madly flapping bird, another was being eaten by the snake. Only one of it’s wings was in the snake’s mouth, but it appeared to have died from shock. Its other wing hung slack.

  A woman, slightly older than the rest and apparently leader of the house, rushed to Okada and began speaking to him in great excitement. She begged him to do something about the snake. She quickly rushed further explanation. “The girls from next door all put their jobs aside and came running over as soon as they could, but they are all girls and can’t really do anything of much use .” One of the girls shouted from the crowd. “When she found the snake she screamed so loud that we all put down our work and came over to see what was wrong. We can’t stop the snake, and our boss is out, and there’s just an old woman here in her place today.” The seamstress only took one free day a week, but it was that day, and the girls were without her guidance.

  Okada looked to me and quietly said, “The woman that lives there sure was beautiful,” but he did not mention that he knew her face and had been greeting her.