I Am a Japanese Writer

by Dany Laferriere

  She prepared our little picnic as she chatted about small things. I understood that for her, conversation is like music. There is no subject. We could imagine a world run by someone as subtle as Shônagon, but that much delicacy inevitably attracts brutality. Our balance depends on a mixture of things. Our meal progressed in orderly fashion, and she slowed time to such a point that I could feel her impact on the city’s energy. I felt as though the city were turning around a single central axis: this room. The room was full of sunlight, and the window looked onto a small inner garden. The white sheets. The colorful fruit. The white wine. A daytime feast. She rose with unbearable grace and went to lie on the bed. I joined her without haste. I didn’t want to make the first move. I waited. She brushed my forearm.

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll understand if you say no.”

  Good Lord! Is that how a Japanese woman asks a man to honor her?

  “I would like you to talk to me about François. I would like to love him, but through your voice. I want your voice to flow into my body and enter my heart. My heart can belong only to François.”

  “I see.”

  “All François talks about is you, ever since I’ve known him. Everything he does has a link to you. The other day when you were at our house, I thought his heart would burst. I’ve never seen him that way. Normally he’s so taciturn. I know he’s different with his colleagues. At the house, sometimes I think he’s following the manual for the perfect Japanese husband. He can say what he wants—my Spanish side doesn’t interest him at all. When I become passionate, it shocks him.”

  “You hardly know me.”

  Her voice nearly broke.

  “But I eat with you, I listen to music with you, I’m sad with you, I’m happy with you, I sleep with you, and when my husband makes love to me, I feel you’re there too. . . What am I saying? I know you’re there. Maybe even more than he is . . . You can’t imagine the life I live.”

  Softly, she began to cry.

  “As soon as I met François, I knew this would be a triangle.”

  “But you stayed.”

  “It was a challenge. But how can you compete with memories from the teenage years? He doesn’t have a single unhappy memory with you. Even the dark days grow bright in his mind. You are his sun. I can’t take that away from him. Memories help him survive the winters. When it’s twenty below, he climbs into a tub of hot water with his little suitcase full of memories. And that’s enough for three days’ happiness for him.”

  “You love him very much.”

  She looked me in the eye, the first time she’d done that.

  “Do I love him? As much as he loves you. I think only of him, I breathe only for him, I dream of him alone, I love only him... and to understand what he feels, I’m ready to love the man he loves.”

  She laughed, then pressed against me.

  “Talk to me about him,” she whispered. “I want to know him a little.”

  “The only thing I know is that half of what he gives me credit for belongs to him. When he talks about me, he’s talking about himself.”

  “I don’t want to hear logical things . . . I know all the stories by heart. I want to hear his name, because François never says François. He always says your name, never his. Sometimes, when I want him to listen to what I have to say, I slip your name into the conversation.”

  I glanced out the window, long enough to see a bird fly past. I turned and looked at her. She was at the end of her rope: running up against a wall for so many years.

  “I’ve forgotten it all, you know.”

  “How could you forget? No one can forget everything. Memory goes on working without our help.”

  “I’m sure you know more about me than I know myself.”

  “Just tell me one little story that’s about him, and him only. . . Do it for me. Some little detail, some insignificant thing. Something he could never remember.”

  Silence. More silence. We listened to the birds in the garden.

  “There was something... We were supposed to meet on the main square. I was late, very late. He was sleeping on a bench.

  There were four or five birds perched on his chest, as if they were watching over him. I stood there for a long time and watched him. I didn’t want to disturb him. I waited for the birds to fly away on their own before going to his side.”

  “There,” said Shônagon softly. “A story he couldn’t know. And you were watching him, instead of him studying you. Thank you, my love . . . I have to go now, but you can stay as long as you like. If you’re hungry, order something from downstairs. I’ll tell the front desk.”

  THE MAN WITH THE SNAKE TATTOOS

  JUST DOWNSTAIRS, BENEATH the hotel: the underground city. Stores crowded with old ladies in flowered hats making themselves useful by watching out for shoplifters. Restaurants where you can get something quick before going back to work. I sit down at a free table. A newspaper is lying there. A half-naked girl on page 7. That’s how you attract readers. For thirty-five cents, you get your money’s worth. The coffee costs twice as much. Since I didn’t pay for the paper, I come out all right. On page 36 is the picture of one of my old neighbors from back when I lived next to the deaf and blind school (it took me a while before I realized the girls couldn’t hear me). I read the story and learn that my neighbor has changed his address: he’s been transferred to a maximum security prison. He’s a star in the world behind the walls. It’s rare that someone looks exactly like what he is: a killer. It’s a form of honesty. His body is entirely covered in tattoos of snakes, tigers and dragons. And plenty of girls’ names inside big red hearts—tough guys are so sentimental. A few men’s names too—guys unfortunate enough to have crossed his path. What happened? His face is closed. I insist. Mute reaction. He used to spend hours just sitting there, without a word. At first that intimidated me. As time went by, I learned to tolerate his presence and not try to drag any information out of him. I did it out of curiosity, without moral judgment. As far as I was concerned, he could have killed them all. Or he might have just been a Sunday killer: what did I know? We all want to meet someone exceptional. Sometimes he would come upstairs to see me and tell me how his day went, down to the smallest detail. At times like that, he couldn’t stop talking. In the middle of a sentence, he’d get up and walk away. He’d keep his mouth shut for a month afterwards. I liked to watch him. Always on the alert. He missed nothing: not a sound, not a movement. Once in a while he’d go to the window to see what was happening in the street. He’d call me over.

  “You know him?”

  “No.”

  He couldn’t understand how someone could live this way. In his opinion, I just didn’t realize we were living in a jungle. Such insouciance impressed him in the end. We met by chance, but he distrusted chance and fled it like the plague. For mystics, God is manipulating the whole show. For him, Inspector Tremblay of the rcmp is behind it all—the one who ended up busting him. If you ask me, there’s nothing unusual about neighbors meeting each other. I had just rented an apartment in this rotting building. I had occupied room 7 on the second floor for exactly three days. I was still greeting people in the stairway, even if they ignored me. Him, most of all. I didn’t know that the word hello could embarrass people to such a point. One evening he came knocking at my door. I opened up, and there I was, face to face with a killer. Someone had paid him off to eliminate me. Suddenly he put out his hand. I backed off: I was sure he was going to stick a knife into my gut. His malevolent laughter—and total lack of humor—did nothing for the atmosphere. He stepped into my place without an invitation. Right away he began going over the apartment with a fine-toothed comb. I kept an eye on his powerful forearms. I was caught in a cage with a starving tiger. Who had paid for my death? A jealous writer? I thought the competition was content with destroying their enemies at the literary cocktail parties that infested the city. He moved through the apartment, paying no attention to me
. I was not his center of interest. He went and opened a window, looked suspiciously down on the street, then came back and sat down next to me on the couch. He finally turned and gave me a long look.

  “Who do you work for?”

  “What?”

  Suddenly his face turned crimson, as if he had sat down on a snake by accident.

  “Never answer me that way. You understand?”

  I almost said What? a second time.

  “I’m not part of any group.”

  More silence. I heard my breathing, but not his. My neighbor was noisily rehearsing Hamlet. The killer (I don’t know what else to call him) listened a while, then pointed at the wall.

  “He’s an actor,” I said, to head off any faulty interpretations.

  He went over to where my books were spread out on the table and stroked them with the palm of his hand.

  “You read all these?”

  I didn’t have very many.

  “Yes .... But I don’t keep them.”

  “What do you do with them?”

  “I give the ones I like to people I like. I throw away the rest.”

  His eyes had a strange glow as he looked my way. I had set something off in the mind of the beast. He smiled. His white fangs. For a split second, I saw a little window open inside him.

  “You wouldn’t happen to have a beer?”

  I opened two bottles. We drank slowly.

  “What about another?”

  I had filled up yesterday. Every time I took out two beers, I put two more in the fridge. Night fell without us noticing. Suddenly he got to his feet and headed for the door.

  “You’re an okay guy. I live downstairs, number 3. Anyone gives you shit, you come and tell me. The name’s Réjean.”

  We shook hands. Réjean was missing two fingers. Instead of pity, I felt mostly fear. The proof I was dealing with a real pro. We were both manual laborers. I needed my fingers to write. I hoped we wouldn’t reach such extremities: cutting off the hand of a writer.

  Now I’m looking at his photo. Surrounded by a dozen cops, chains on his feet, he’s climbing into an unmarked van. I wouldn’t have recognized him if he hadn’t looked at the photographer at the last second. That hard face, those small eyes, that vicious smile. I know another Réjean. The guy who told me how he used to go fishing with his father. His Gaspé childhood. I could see the trout flashing silver in his eyes.

  RICHARD BRAUTIGAN'S COWBOY BOOTS

  ONE EVENING THERE was a knock at the door. I opened it. He refused to come in. I understood I was to follow. Some animals communicate that way. He wanted to show me his lair.

  “No one’s ever been in here,” he said.

  I didn’t answer. He grabbed me by the neck.

  “I told you no one’s ever been in here.”

  “It certainly is an honor!”

  He smiled. He was doing his absolute best to put on a show for me. He offered me everything he owned. He brought me an object, and depending on how I looked at it, he would pull it out of my hands.

  “You probably won’t care ...”

  We had drunk a few beers, and I was heading for the door when his face lit up. He scrambled through the apartment and found me an old pair of cowboy boots. He was sure he’d got it right this time. I couldn’t refuse, even if they were old boots curled up at the toes.

  “They belonged to a friend of my father’s. I knew I’d find someone to give these to one day.”

  I thanked him and went upstairs with the boots. I was in the middle of a Lee van Cleef Western when I heard a knock on the door. He was wearing a smile like a kid about to play a trick on someone. He handed me a book covered in lime dust. I could hardly read the title. The author’s name had disappeared under the dust. He waited for my reaction. I opened the book. The pages cracked like dry bread. I found myself gazing at Richard Brautigan’s droopy mustache and worldweary eyes.

  “He was a friend of my father’s. They used to go troutfishing together, right behind the house. I spent hours watching them out the window. They were like two posts nailed into the river... My mother didn’t want me to bother them.”

  I stood there a moment, trying to picture Brautigan in these boots. They were the cowboy boots he wore all the time. He has them on in the few photos I’ve seen of him. He gave them to his Gaspé friend, who passed them on to his son, who was now giving them to me. If I had to choose between the writer’s typewriter and his boots, which would I choose? The typewriter, no doubt. Practically lying on top of the machine, he typed with his heavy fingers. His spirit lived in his fingertips. Which is false. Actually, he beat out the rhythm of his books with his feet. His feet in these boots. A real cowboy. He walked into the river in these boots. I thought of all those things as I tapped the boots one against the other. White dust fell. Réjean was waiting for me to say something, even though he’d never read a book in his life. These boots were his last connection to his father, the man who did only what he wanted to.

  “He was a very delicate but delirious writer. He wrote the way he fished. He hunkered down in the middle of a book and wouldn’t budge. Once in a while you’d feel a slight pull. A fish had just taken the bait. The problem was that we never saw the fish. He always managed to let it slip away.”

  Fishing, writing. Réjean looked at me, incredulous. He’d never understood my metaphors, but he did get the emotion. He understood I was moved.

  “I knew you would know him. My father told me he was a pretty strange guy. They died the same year.”

  I read the inscription. To my friend Réjean.

  “That’s for my father. We have the same name.”

  Réjean turned and left. He was too moved to hang around. On the table, I placed the old cowboy boots that had belonged to the author of The Tokyo-Montana Express.

  CLOSED EYELIDS

  ALL THIS, AND I’ve never been to Japan. But is that really necessary? I use only the clichés (the myths and photos) you find in women’s magazines. I keep an enormous pile of them by the window. You do your research any way you can. I’ve noticed, as I page through the magazines, that Japanese women are obsessed with their eyes. A horizontal line. They’ve been convinced their appearance isn’t chic. But I can spend hours trying to guess what’s being dreamed up behind those half-closed eyelids. A slumbering animal—or one that’s pretending to sleep. I had a crash course with Midori and her gang. They moved effortlessly in front of the camera with no thought for me. Are they real Japanese women? No doubt they’d be spotted right away in Tokyo. That old obsession with authenticity. The fake overtakes the real on the international market. Authenticity is for hicks. The rich were the first to buy cheap jewelry and act as if the originals lay quietly in a safety deposit box at the bank. It doesn’t cost much and looks almost exactly like the real thing. Since we always give the rich the benefit of the doubt, they just have to say it’s real to make it real. Their words are worth their weight in gold. The owner of a Japanese restaurant was complaining on TV recently about having to invite students to come in and eat for free, because no one would patronize his establishment if there weren’t any Japanese customers. I left right after Midori’s show was over. Anyway, the group (a bass player from Montreal who plays with underground bands passing through Les Foufounes Électriques, a black woman vocalist who adds a jazzy side to the show, and Midori herself) was heading to Toronto for two shows there. It was an interesting cultural cross-section (a Japanese woman, a black New Yorker and an Australian), but it had no influence on the style of music they played. Interesting— but no more than that. A little disappointing. Except for Midori, who has something that hasn’t completely bloomed. Afterwards, I walked through the Montreal streets and came to that store that sells women’s magazines for twenty-five cents apiece. I leafed through them, and whenever I saw an article about Japan or, better, about Japanese women, I bought it. I had to take a taxi because I had bought too many. I put the pile of magazines on the bed. I was making tea just as the landlord started banging on
the door. He wanted his rent. I gave him his money without complaint. Normally, we discuss the issue down to the smallest detail. And I never capitulate on the first day of negotiations. So he didn’t expect to be paid right away. He was disarmed, his jaw dropped to the floor. Then a doubt crossed his mind, and he gave me that suspicious look I know so well. He looks at life with distrust, as if it were a counterfeit coin. Death seems more honest to him. You pay for the funeral, you buy a spot in the cemetery: everything that involves order and money reassures him. You buy, you sell, everything has a price. He’d actually come to issue an ultimatum: “Tomorrow last day.” And now he had his money in his hand. He didn’t even count it the way he usually did (his way of humiliating me). He disappeared down the stairs. His bent neck told me he was counting. I dreamed that some juvenile delinquent hiding in the stairway would try to steal the money. He’d rather be killed than hand over the cash. Which is what will happen one day. I went back to my tea. Lying down, I leafed through the magazines and noted down scenes and names whose sound and spelling I liked. I lined them up: Eiko, Hideko, Fumi, Noriko, Tomo, Haruki and Takashi—for Takashi it took me a while to make up my mind, because I also liked Kazuo. Maybe it’s different to a Japanese ear. That’s when I started building the coterie around Midori. The dream of a novel. Everything takes place behind my eyelids as I’m taking a nap. It was going along fine until I started thinking that someone would have to die. Why? No particular reason. It was going too well. I had to intervene and shatter the rhythm to make the story truly mine. It’s always important to appropriate the story. For literature to truly exist, books would have to be anonymous. No more ego, no more personal intervention. You’ll see. That’s when I removed Noriko from the group. Now I have to face the problem of time. The novel’s fundamental issue. For a person’s life as well. When are we going to die? To the question, “Tell us about yourself, Jorge Luis Borges,” he answered, “What can I tell you? I know nothing about myself. I don’t even know the date of my death.” I know when Noriko will die, but I can’t let on. I have to obey the rules of suspense. We have to keep the reader alert. I don’t know why. It’s an insult to the art of writing. If the reader can’t stay awake to read a book he himself decided to read, then let him fall asleep. I don’t see why I should start pulling on his heartstrings, just to make him listen to me. Okay, there’ll be a death. It will be my only concession to the genre. For the rest, the reader will just have to figure it out. If not, there are other books out there. If he persists, he’ll end up with a book that has neither rhyme nor reason. I can hear my publisher. Too much information in too little time: it damages the fluidity of the sentences. The reader won’t have time to digest it all, it goes too fast, you’ll lose what’s most interesting about your style (but what’s most interesting about my style?). You can’t show the workings of the mechanism too much either, or make your voice heard above the characters’. We hear you everywhere, you do all the voices. That’s true, but it’s only a sketch. When I start writing, I’ll make sure to distribute the roles and divide up the dialogue time. I just need to respect a certain balance. I can see the story more clearly; what I’m missing is the perspective. A good reason to write a book like this. I wonder what it all means. And why all this uproar? There’s uproar in the book, and uproar about the book too. And I haven’t even gotten off the couch yet. Well, human beings always make noise. As long as they like a commotion, there will always be novels. I’ve created a universe and I have no intention of sharing it. I have a few girls’ names, a title, some voices, a city I know only too well, and another that I don’t know at all. I don’t need anything else to write a novel.