The Master of Go

by Yusanari Kawabata

  He deliberated sixteen minutes longer. White 80 took forty-four minutes.

  22

  On July 31 play was moved to yet another suite, called the "new upper rooms," a row of three rooms once more, two of eight mats and one of six. The framed inscriptions on the walls were in the hands of Rai Sanyo, Yamaoka Tesshu, and Yoda Gakkai.{19} The suite was above the Master's room.

  The clump of hydrangeas at the veranda of the Master's room was like a great, distended balloon. Today again a black swallowtail was playing among them, its reflection clean on the pond. The wisteria bower under the eaves was heavy with foliage.

  Seated by the board, I heard a splashing. The Master's wife was at the stone bridge, throwing bread into the pond. The splashing was of carp come to feed.

  She had said to me that morning: "I had to be back in Tokyo because we had company from Kyoto. It was fairly cool, not at all uncomfortable; and so I started worrying in the other direction. I've been afraid he might catch cold."

  There was a light sprinkle of rain, and soon it was falling in large drops. Otaké did not notice until someone called his attention to it.

  "The sky seems to have a kidney condition too," he said.

  It had been a rainy summer. We had not had one really cloudless session since we had come to Hakoné. And the rains were capricious. Today, for instance, there was sunlight on the hydrangeas while Otaké was planning Black 83, and the mountain was shining a freshly washed green, and then immediately the sky clouded over again.

  Black 83 took even longer, an hour and forty-eight minutes, than White 70. Gazing intently at the right side of the board, Otaké pushed himself a shin's length away, cushion and all. Then he put his hands inside his kimono and, shoulders back, seemed to brace himself. It was his signal that a long period of deliberation had begun.

  The match was entering its middle phases. Every play was a difficult one. It was fairly clear which territories White and Black had staked out, and the time was approaching when a calculation of the final score might be possible. Proceed immediately into a final showdown, invade enemy ground, challenge to close-in fighting somewhere on the board? - the time had come for a summing up, and for projecting the phases to come.

  Dr. Felix Dueball, who had learned Go in Japan and gone back to Germany, and who was known at "the German Honnimbō," sent the Master a congratulatory telegram on the occasion of his retirement match. A picture of the two players reading the telegram had been in the morning's Nichinichi.

  White 88 was the sealed play of the session.

  Yawata of the Association promptly found significance in the fact. "You are being congratulated, sir, on your lucky number,"{20} he said.

  The Master's face and neck, which one would have thought could be no thinner, seemed thinner by the day. Yet he seemed in better health than on that hot July 16, and in the best of spirits. Might one say that with a falling away of the flesh the bones beneath are stronger?

  None of us foresaw his near collapse a scant five days later.

  But he stood up abruptly, as if he could wait no longer, when Otaké had played Black 83. All his exhaustion came suddenly to the surface. It was twenty-seven minutes after twelve, and of course time for the noon recess; but the Master had not before left the board as if kicking it away from him.

  23

  "I have prayed and prayed that this would not happen," the Master's wife said to me on the morning of August 5. "I have been of too little faith, I suppose."

  And again: "I was afraid this might happen, and maybe it happened because I worried too much. There is nothing to do now but pray."

  The curious and attentive combat reporter, I had had the whole of my attention on the Master as hero in battle; and now the words of the wife who had been with him through the long years came to me as if striking a blind spot. I could think of no answer.

  The long, strenuous match had aggravated the heart condition from which he had long suffered, and apparently the pain in his chest had for some days been intense. He had let slip not a word about it.

  From early in August his face began to swell and the chest pains were worse.

  A session was scheduled for August 5. It was decided that play be limited to two hours in the morning. The Master was to be examined before it began.

  "The doctor ?" he asked.

  The doctor had gone to Sengokuhara on an emergency case.

  "Well, suppose we begin, then."

  Seated at the board, the Master quietly took up a tea bowl in both hands and sipped at the strong brew. Then he folded his hands lightly on his knees and brought himself upright. The expression on his face was like that of a child about to weep. The tightly closed lips were thrust forward, there was a dropsical swelling in the cheeks, and the eyelids too were swollen.

  The session began almost on schedule, at seven minutes past ten. Today again a mist turned to heavy rain. Then, presently, the sky was brighter from downstream.

  White 88, the sealed play, was opened. Otaké played Black 89 at forty-eight minutes past the hour. Noon came, an hour and a half passed, and still the Master had not decided on White 90. In great physical discomfort, he took an extraordinary two hours and seven minutes for the play. The whole time he sat bolt upright. The swelling seemed to leave his face. Finally it was decided to recess for lunch.

  The usual one-hour recess was extended to two hours, in the course of which the Master was examined.

  Otaké reported that he too was indisposed. His digestion was troubling him. He was taking three stomach medicines and a medicine to prevent fainting as well. He had been known to faint during a match.

  "It usually happens when I'm playing badly, when I'm running out of time, and when I'm not feeling well," he said. "He insists on playing. I would as soon not, myself."

  The Master's sealed White 90 had been decided upon when they returned to the board.

  "You must be exhausted," said Otaké.

  "I'm sorry. I've been very demanding." It was not usual for the Master to apologize.

  So the day's session ended.

  "The swelling doesn't worry me a great deal," he explained to Kumé, literary editor of the Nichinichi. "It's all the things that are going on in here." He drew a circle over his chest. "I have trouble breathing, and I have palpitations, and sometimes it feels as though a huge weight were pressing down on me. I like to think of myself as young. But I've been very conscious of the years since I turned fifty."

  "It would be good if a fighter could fight off the years," said Kumé.

  "I'm feeling the years already, sir," said Otaké, "and I'm only thirty."

  "That's a bit soon," said the Master.

  For a time the Master sat in the anteroom with Kumé and several others. He talked of old times, of how as a boy he had gone to Kobé and at a naval review seen electric lights for the first time.

  "I've been forbidden to play billiards." He got up laughing. "But a little chess is permitted. Let's be at it."

  The Master's "little" was not likely to be very little.

  "Maybe we should make it mahjong," said Kumé, challenged to yet another battle. "You don't have to use your head so much."

  The Master had only porridge and a salted plum for lunch.

  24

  No doubt Kumé had come because word of the Master's illness had reached Tokyo. Maeda Nobuaki of the Sixth Rank, a disciple of the Master's, was also present. The judges, Onoda and Iwamoto, both of the Sixth Rank, were in attendance that August 5. Takagi, Master of Renju, stopped by on his way through Hakoné, and Doi, chess player of the Eighth Rank, who was staying at Miyanoshita, came calling too. There were games all through the inn.

  The Master took Kumé's advice and settled for mahjong, the others in the foursome being Kumé himself, Iwamoto, and Sunada, reporter for the Nichinichi. The others played as gingerly as if they were cleaning a wound, but the Master, as always, quite lost himself in the game. Alone among the four, he spent long periods in meditation.

  "Pleas
e," said his wife uneasily. "If you overdo it your face will swell up again." He did not seem to hear.

  I was learning Mobile Renju{21} from Takagi Rakuzan, Master of Renju. Skillful at all manner of games and adept at inventing new games as well, Takagi enlivened any gathering. I learned of his ideas for a puzzle to be called "cloistered maiden."{22}

  After dinner and far into the night, the Master played Ninuki Renju{23} with Yawata of the Go Association and Goi of the Nichinichi.

  Maeda left in the afternoon, after a brief conversation with the Master's wife. Since the Master was his teacher and Otaké his brother-in-law, he feared misunderstanding and rumours, and so avoided the two players. And perhaps he remembered rumours that he had devised the remarkable White 160 in the Master's game with Wu.

  On the morning of the sixth, through the good offices of the Nichinichi, Dr. Kawashima came from Tokyo to examine the Master. The valve at the aorta was not closing properly.

  No sooner was the examination over than the Master, sitting up in bed, was at chess again. Onoda was his partner, and he was using the "unpromoted-silver" offensive.{24} Afterwards Onoda and Takagi, Master of Renju, had a game by the Korean rules.{25} The Master, propped against an armrest, looked on.

  "Now we'll have a game of mahjong," he said, as if scarcely able to await the outcome. Since I did not know mahjong, however, they were one man short.

  "Mr. Kumé?" said the Master.

  "Mr. Kumé is seeing the doctor back to Tokyo."

  "Mr. Iwamoto ?"

  "He's gone back too."

  "Gone back," echoed the Master weakly. I found his disappointment most touching.

  I myself was going back to Karuizawa.

  25

  Upon consultation with concerned persons on the newspaper and in the Go Association, it was decided that Dr. Kawashima of Tokyo and Dr. Okajima of Miyanoshita would follow the Master's wishes and permit the match to continue. Their conditions were that, to ease the strain on the Master, the five-hour sessions every fifth day be replaced by sessions half as long every third or fourth day. The Master was to be examined before and after every session.

  It was no doubt a last resort, this plan to have the match over in fewer days and leave the Master to convalesce. Accommodations at a hot-spring resort all through a match lasting two or three months may seem like a great luxury. For the players, however, the system of "sealing in cans" was exactly that: they were sealed in tightly with the game of Go. Had they been allowed to return home during the four-day recesses, they might have left the Go board behind and taken their minds from it, and so been able to rest; imprisoned on the site, they had few diversions. There would have been no problem had the "canning" been a matter of a few days or a week, but keeping the sixty-four-year-old Master imprisoned for two and three months must be described as torture. Canning is the usual practice today. Little thought was given to the evils compounded by the Master's age and the length of the match. To the Master himself the somewhat pompous rules may have seemed the equivalent of a laurel crown.

  The Master collapsed in less than a month.

  At this late date the rules were to be changed. For Otaké the matter was of grave import. If the Master could not respect the original contract, then the honourable thing would be to forfeit.

  Otaké could not say exactly that, but he did lodge a complaint. "I can't get enough rest in three days, and I can't get into my stride in only two and a half hours."

  He conceded the point, but the contest with an ailing old man put him in a difficult position. "I don't want it to be said that I forced a sick man to play. I would as soon not play myself, and he insists on it; but I can't expect people to understand. It's as sure as anything can be that they'll take the other view. If we go on with the match and his heart condition is worse, then everyone will blame me. A fine thing, really. I'll be remembered as someone who left a smear on the history of the game. And out of ordinary humanity, shouldn't we let him take all the time he needs to recover and then have our game?"

  He seemed to mean, in sum, that it was not easy to play with a man who obviously was very ill. He would not want it thought that he had taken advantage of the illness to win, and his position would be even worse if he lost. The outcome was still not clear. The Master was able to forget his own illness when he sat down at the board, and Otaké, struggling himself to forget, was at a disadvantage. The Master had become a tragic figure. The newspaper had quoted him to the effect that the Go player's ultimate desire was to collapse over the board. He had become a martyr, sacrificing himself to his art. The nervous, sensitive Otaké had to struggle on as if indifferent to his opponent's trials.

  Even the Nichinichi reporters said the issue had become one of ordinary humanity. Yet it was the Nichinichi, sponsor of this retirement match, that wanted it at all costs to go on. The match was being serialized and had become enormously popular. My reports were doing well too, followed even by persons who knew nothing of Go. There were those who suggested to me that the Master hated the thought of losing that enormous fee. I thought them somewhat too imaginative.

  On the night before the next session, scheduled for August 10, an effort was mounted to overcome Otaké's objections. A certain childish perverseness in Otaké made him say no when others said yes, and a certain obduracy kept him from assenting when assent seemed the obvious thing; and then the newspaper reporters and the functionaries of the Go Association were not good persuaders. No solution was at hand. Yasunaga Hajimé of the Fourth Rank was a friend who knew the workings of Otaké's mind, and he had had much experience at mediating disputes. He stepped forward to make Otaké see reason; but this dispute proved too much for him.

  Late in the night Mrs. Otaké came with her baby from Hiratsuka. She wept as she argued with her husband. Her speech was warm and gentle and without a trace of disorder even as she wept; nor was there a suggestion in her manner of the virtuous wife seeking to edify and reform. Her tearful plea was quite sincere. I looked on with admiration.

  Her father kept a hot-spring inn at Jigokudani in Shinshū. The story of how Otaké and Wu shut themselves up at Jigokudani to study new openings is famous in the Go world. I myself had long known of Mrs. Otaké's beauty, indeed since she was a girl. A young poet coming down from Shiga Heights had taken note of the beautiful sisters at Jigokudani and passed on his impressions to me.

  I was caught a little off balance by the dutiful, somewhat drab housewife I saw at Hakoné; and yet in the figure of the mother quite given over to domestic duties, which allowed little time to worry about her own appearance, I could still see the pastoral beauty of her mountain girlhood. The gentle sagacity was immediately apparent. And I thought I had never seen so splendid a baby. In that boy of eight months was such strength and vigour that I thought I could see a certain epic quality in Otaké himself. The boy had clear, delicate skin.

  Even now, twelve and thirteen years later, she speaks each time I see her of "the boy you were so kind as to praise." And I understand that she says to the boy himself: "Do you remember the nice things Mr. Uragami said about you in his newspaper articles?"

  Otaké was persuaded by his wife's remarks. His family was important to him.

  He agreed to play, but he lay awake all night. He went on worrying. At five or six in the morning he was pacing the halls. I saw him early in the morning, already in formal clothes, lying on a sofa by the entranceway.

  26

  There was no radical change in the Master's condition on the tenth, and the doctors allowed the session to proceed. Yet his cheeks were swollen, and it was clear to all of us that he was weaker. Asked whether the session should be in the main building or one of the outbuildings, he said that he could no longer walk. Since Otaké had earlier complained about the waterfall by the main building, however, he would defer to Otaké's wishes. The waterfall was artificial, and so the decision was that it should be turned off and the session held in the main building. At the Master's words I felt a surge of sadness that was akin to an
ger.

  Lost in the game, the Master seemed to give over custody of his physical self. He left everything to the managers, and made no demands. Even during the great debate over the effects of his illness upon the game, the Master himself had sat absently apart, as if it did not concern him.

  The moon had been bright on the night of the ninth, and in the morning the sunlight was strong, the shadows were clean, the white clouds bright. It was the first true midsummer weather since the beginning of the match. The leaves of the nemu were open their fullest. The pure white of Otaké's cloak-string caught the eye.

  "Isn't it nice that the weather has settled," remarked the Master's wife. But a change had come over her face.

  Mrs. Otaké too was pale from lack of sleep. The two wives hovered near their husbands, the eyes in the worn faces alive with open disquiet. They looked too like women who no longer sought to hide their egoism.

  The midsummer light was powerful. Against it the Master's figure took on a darkened grandeur. The spectators sat with heads bowed, not really looking at the Master. Otaké, so given to jesting, was silent today. Must play go on even in this extremity I asked myself, grieving for the Master. What was this something called Go? As death was approaching, the novelist Naoki Sanjūgo wrote what was for him a curiosity, an autobiographical story called "I." He said that he envied the Go player. "If one chooses to look upon Go as valueless," he said, "then absolutely valueless it is; and if one chooses to look upon it as a thing of value, then a thing of absolute value it is."

  "Are you ever lonely?" he asked the owl on the table before him. The owl turned to destroying a newspaper which carried an account of the Master's game with Wu, recessed because of the Master's illness. Naoki sought to examine the worth of his own popular writings in the light of the strong fascination Go had for him, and its world of pure competition.

  "I am very tired. I must write thirty pages by nine this evening and it is now past four. I do not really care. I think I may be allowed to waste a day on an owl. How little I have worked for myself, how much for journalism and other encumbering forces. And how coldly they have-treated me!"