Something Strange Across the River

by Kafū Nagai

  “Hey, psst!” someone whispered frantically and rapped on the window. Assuming it was one of Oyuki’s customers, no doubt a hulking man, I quickly considered leaving, then hesitated, considered remaining, and was lost in the back and forth of my indecision when the man thrust the window open, flipped the latch with his thumb, and pressed his way into the room. He wore a white robe tied with a stiff belt and his coarse, unrefined, round face was covered by the creeping growth of a scraggly beard. He looked around 50. He held something bundled in a handkerchief. From the look of his stance and his face I quickly assumed he was Oyuki’s boss. I didn’t wait for him to speak. “Miss Oyuki had some kind of problem, she said she was going to the doctor. I just met her out front.”

  The boss-looking man acted as though he already knew. “She’ll be back soon, I’m sure. Just wait for her.” He did not appear to be concerned by my presence, and simply went about unwrapping his towel. Inside was a small aluminum pot, which he proceeded to place in the tea cabinet. It seemed he had brought her meal, which fixed it: he must have been her boss.

  I wasn’t sure what to say, so I opted for a roundabout compliment over a simple greeting. “Miss Oyuki sure is busy. She must be very popular.”

  “You think? Thanks,” he gave a meaningless response as if he, too, was not sure how best to respond. He busied himself with attending to the coals and boiling water. He never faced me, or looked me in the eye. He seemed rather intent on avoiding conversation as much as possible. He turned away from me, and so, taking the cue, I remained silent.

  The management of certain ‘disreputable’ businesses seems to have a very awkward time meeting the customers. Naturally it is awkward for the customer as well. Such meetings were likely nearly always unpleasant, and nearly always identical; they revolved around horrible disagreements over women.

  Oyuki typically burned a mosquito coil by the door, but that day it appeared as though the coil had never been lit, as the room was filled with a thick cloud of mosquitos that were no longer satisfied with simply biting at my face, no—they took to batting at my mouth as well. The boss, whom I would have expected to be used to the area, sat still and tried to bear it for a moment or two before his patience wore thin and he dashed for the fan sitting in the corner of the room and twisted the knob. It must have been broken, because it did not move. He fished in a drawer for a moment, and when he triumphantly produced a large chip of mosquito coil from within we both let out contented sighs and finally he met my gaze. I took the opportunity to speak.

  “The mosquitos are horrible this year—doesn’t matter where you go. No doubt due to the heat. It’s wretched.”

  He looked at me and drawled, “That so? Around here they don’t build up the lots like they need to. Used to be a riverbank you know.”

  “But they sure built some nice roads. It certainly is more convenient than before.”

  “Sure, but ’cause of all that attention they are cracking down on the rules.”

  “Right, two or three years ago they’d snatch the hat off your head in broad daylight from what I hear.”

  “Bad times those were. Even if people had business out here they wouldn’t come by. We warned the women, but of course we couldn’t keep watch over them 24 hours a day. So we had to start fining them. So you run out in the street and try to lure in a man? Forty-two yen for that. We made a rule against using guys in the park too, lure in the customers, you know.”

  “There a fine for that too?”

  He nodded.

  “How much?”

  I was planning on using these roundabout questions to learn a little more about the area when a man passed by the window and said, “Miss Ando,” and dropped a scrap of paper into the room before continuing on his way. Oyuki came into the room at nearly the same time, picked up the paper, and set it on a board by the brazier. I stole a glance. It was a printed circular; the police were looking for a man on breaking and entering charges.

  Oyuki did not even look at it. “Pops,” she said, turning to the man. “They say I have to have it taken out tomorrow.” She opened her mouth and showed the tooth to the man.

  “Guess you didn’t need dinner tonight then, huh?” He said as he stood. He then purposefully turned, just so that I could see him, before producing a quantity of money, handing it to Oyuki, and walking up the stairs to the second floor.

  The second floor consisted of a very small room with a window and a tea table, one average bedroom, and one other very small nook. The house was so small, I assumed that it must have been larger in the past, but was split vertically down the center. The first floor was simply a tea room and a kitchen. There was no back door. Up the stairs to the second floor and not only do the rooms grow uncomfortably small, but the back wall consisted of little more than a thin board covered in paper. Sounds came through from the other side clear as crystal, their fights and conversations so close you could hold them in your hands. I often clamped my palms over my ears and found myself breaking into laughter.

  “Again? But it’s so hot.” Oyuki quickly made for the small room with the window, and pulled back the fading, pattern-dyed curtain. “Come on over here. There’s a nice breeze. Oh, look,” she said. “It’s flashing again.”

  “It’s cooled off a lot,” I said. “Nice breeze.”

  The view just under the window was blocked by the shade curtain, but across the embankment I could see the buildings lined up, and I could see the face of a woman sitting at the window on the second floor, the shadows of people coming and going, the movement in the street and the town. I could see much further than I had expected. The sky was the color of lead, and it hung heavy over the roofs of the town. There were no stars in the sky, but its underbelly was dyed pink by the neon signs lining the road. It made the hot, steaming night feel even hotter. Oyuki took a cushion, set it on the windowsill, and calmly perched on it to gaze at the sky. Suddenly she reached for my hand and cradled it in hers. “Hey, can I ask you a favor, my darling? When I’ve paid off my debts. Won’t you… won’t you take me in?”

  “Look at me. How could I do that?”

  “You’re saying you don’t have the right?”

  “If I can’t feed you, I don’t have the right, do I?”

  Oyuki said nothing, but started to hum along with the violin song that was playing somewhere off down the street. I tried to lean over and look her in the eye, but she shot to her feet in an effort to avoid my gaze. She wrapped her arms around one of the pillars and leaned her torso outside.

  I sat at the tea table and lit a cigarette. “If only I was ten years younger.”

  “Just how old are you anyway?” She asked.

  She had turned to look at me. I raised my eyes to hers and she was smiling, her cheeks dimpled. I relaxed and sighed. “Almost 60.”

  “Papa? Only 60? You’re still kicking.” Her eyes flit over my face a few times. “Darling, you’re not even 40. Maybe 37?”

  “I’m the son of a mistress, so I don’t know how old I am exactly.”

  “You look young even for 40. Your hair’s not graying at all.”

  “If I was 40, I’dve been born in 1898.”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  “You look 22 or so, but I bet you’re closer to 24.”

  “There you go again—empty compliments. I’m 26.”

  “Oyuki-chan, you, you said you were a geisha back in Utsunomiya, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And then you came here? You sure must know a lot about the area.”

  “Well, I’d been in Tokyo for a while at that point.”

  “Was there someone with money?”

  “Not exactly… I had a patron, but he was sick and passed away. And then…”

  “It must have been tough for you. This is a lot different than what a geisha does.”

  “Not really, besides, I knew what I was doing from the start. A geisha has to spend so much on things, she’ll never get out of debt. Besides… If I’m going to ruin myself anywa
y, I might as well be able to support myself too.”

  “You really thought it all out. Did you think through all that on your own?”

  “One of the other geisha knew someone that was conducting a business out here. I heard it all from her.”

  “Regardless, you’re really something. Doing all of this on your own—saving up money and all.”

  “They say my age is perfect for this work. Still, I don’t know what the future holds.”

  She stared deep into my eyes, and I was suddenly uncomfortable again. Could it have been that—there was the feeling, regardless, like something stuck in one of my back teeth. Then it was my turn to look away, turn to the window, and focus my gaze on the sky, or anywhere but on her.

  The sky reflected the red neon lights, and was occasionally illuminated by flashes of lightening off in the distance. Suddenly there was a very bright flash, very close by—yet no thunder came. The breeze died off, and the steaming heat of midday threatened to take over the town again.

  “Feels like a downpour is coming.”

  “You know,” Oyuki said. “It’s already been three months since we met in the street.”

  There was something about this already of hers, drawn out and elongated, that carried a vague but pronounced appeal, as if it were reaching back to the distant past and fumbling for something. Had it been a simple, “It’s already been three months,” without any special emphasis then it would have felt like a statement. But this protracted already was not a statement, but a device that reached out and begged for comment, for response. I could feel the answer, Yes, balling up in my throat, but I answered only with my eyes.

  Who could hope to count the number of men that sneak down this alley to meet with her each night? And yet, she remembered the day we met? There was something profoundly unbelievable about that to me. She felt a pleasure when reflecting on our meeting. And yet, not even in my dreams, could I have hoped that a girl of this town could hold feelings for an old man like myself; even if she had imagined me 40, I couldn’t imagine that she was capable of not only taking a liking to me, but caring deeply for me as well.

  As I have already stated many times over, I had various reasons for making the trek out to Oyuki’s each night. It was research for Disappearance. It was an escape from the radios. It was a reaction to Ginza and Marunouchi, those wretched inner-city towns that drew my scorn. I’m sure there were other reasons as well, but none of them included this woman as a conversation partner. Her house had never been anything but a place to relax for me, and in order to facilitate its use as such, I had told a few lies. They had only been simple ones that came to me nearly at the moment they left my lips, and I had not set out to deceive her. But I had not corrected them since, and with time her misunderstanding of my character had deepened. With words and acts I had hidden my identity, and for that much I suppose I must bear responsibility

  Whether it be Tokyo, or overseas, it could easily be said that I know essentially nothing of society other than prostitutes and their world. I would rather not speak of the reason, nor do I suppose I need to. The interested reader may find his interest sated by certain inferior works from my middle years, among them “Early Afternoon,” the essay “House for a Mistress,” and the story Unfinished Dream. All of them are poorly composed and overwrought, and I could not, in good conscience, ask the reader to search them out. Therefore allow me to quote here a passage from Unfinished Dream:

  He made his visits to the pleasure quarters with such fervor that ten years passed as if they were a day. He knew very well that the quarter was home to darkness and unrighteousness. Had the city come to praise the profligate, to call him a just and pious son, he would have refused their praise even to the extent of selling all of his property. Indeed, it was his outright indignation at the hypocrisy of the world and its proper customs that had sent him to the quarters in the first place, in search of unrighteousness itself, the darkness that had never affected any other air than what it was. There was far more joy in discovering a beautifully patterned cloth cast out among the rags than, by analogy, finding stains on a wall that had been declared immaculate. Even in the halls and mansions of the righteous once can find the droppings of crows and rats. So too, in the depths of corruption, one may find the blossoms of human sympathy and perfumed tears. Gather them up.

  Those who have read this passage will no doubt understand why I felt no revulsion at the dirty ditch and the women who lived among the mosquitos—why, indeed, I felt a certain closeness to them.

  To facilitate a friendly relationship, and so that they would not draw away from me in awe upon learning of my person, I thought it best to hide my identity. The last thing I would want is for them to turn me away, or for them to think I was condescending to their lives, as if observing a play. To have an honest relationship with them, I had to lie about who I was.

  Once I had actually been told that I was not the sort of person who had any buisness visiting the quarter.

  One night, near the bus garage on the “redone street,” I was stopped and questioned by a policeman. I genuinely despise announcing myself as a writer and a man of letters, and it stands to reason that I also despise being perceived as such. Being the case, I told him that I was an unemployed vagrant. He quickly took my coat and began to rummage through the pockets. In case of just such an event, I always made a point of carrying my seal and its registration, along with a copy of my family register. Aside from those things I had also been carrying four hundred yen in cash, as I needed to pay the carpenter, gardener, and bookseller for certain services they had rendered me. Upon his discovery of said items the policeman labeled me a landowner, and proceeded to tell me that “a landowner had no business in a place like this. Go on home before you meet with trouble. If you need to be here, come some other time.”

  I hesitated and he noticed. He quickly took it upon himself to hail me a taxi, open the door, and put me inside. I had the driver continue down the new street and drive a circuit around the entire district before dropping me off and the Fushimi Inari Shrine. Later, I bought a map and studied the layout of the streets so that I might avoid passing a police box in the future.

  Just now, when Oyuki mentioned the day we met in that singsong voice of hers, I’d made to answer her but couldn’t find the words, and the overwhelming desire to hide my face behind a wall of smoke overtook me. I took out a cigarette. Oyuki, her black, black eyes staring at me, said, “You really look just like him. When I saw you from behind that day I had to catch my breath.”

  “You don’t say. Lots of people look alike from the back,” I said, trying to fight the feeling that was overtaking me. Then, “Who? Your old patron? The one who passed away?”

  “No… It was when I’d just become a geisha. I thought I’d kill myself if we couldn’t be together.”

  “A rush of blood to the head. I imagine it’s happened to everyone.”

  “And you? You never feel that way do you?”

  “Cold as ice, am I? You might be surprised, appearances often deceive, you know. Don’t act like you’re better than me.”

  Oyuki just smiled and flashed her dimple. She said nothing. The dimple, deep seated to the right of her pouting lower lip, lent a freshness to her face, like that of a young girl. But it was filled with sadness, it was a dimple she’d forced there by will alone. I quickly tried to change the subject.

  “Is your tooth bothering you again?”

  “No. They gave me a shot so it’s fine now.”

  Just then, luckily, as our conversation was running out of steam, a customer knocked on the door. Oyuki jumped to her feet and leaned out the window. She pulled aside the blinds and looked down.

  “Oh! Mr. Take! Come on up!”

  I followed her down the stairs and hid in the bathroom while the customer followed her back up. After I was sure the passage was empty I crept from the house, careful not to make a sound.

  Chapter Eight

  The expected rain never came. I’d left the
room to escape the steaming heat and the clouds of mosquitos, but after a time I realized it was still too early to return. I walked along the embankment and through the alleyways until I came to a small street crossing a little plank bridge. It was lined on both sides by small shops of temple merchants, their businesses further narrowing the passage—already so tight that no vehicle could hope to pass through it. The walk degraded into an endless series of apologies as I brushed passed people coming from the other direction. Just over the little bridge was a small intersection, at which sat a shop selling horsemeat, a stone pillar indicating the entrance to a Zen temple, a torii for the Tamanoi Inari Shrine, and a pay phone. I recalled hearing from Oyuki that the temple held festivals on the second and twentieth of the month, and on those days the streets were filled with stalls and games and throngs of people who rarely ventured back into the alleys. The women working the area called it a shrine for the paupers. I made my way there, as I’d yet to pay my respects.

  I’ve forgotten to mention something critical, so allow me to correct my oversight. Ever since I’d gotten accustomed, both physically and mentally, to making these nightly trips, I’d made a point to take note of the manner of the customers that ply the streets at night, and in doing so have altered the clothes I wear when I come to this town. It is not much trouble. Take the colored dress shirt with its stripes and leave the top button open. Do not wear a necktie. Carry your jacket instead of wearing it. Do not wear a hat. Tussle your hair as if it has never seen a comb. Change into slacks that are worn through at the knee and seat. Don’t wear shoes, find a pair of wooden geta that are worn down to the heel. Bring a lot of cigarettes. Et cetera, et cetera. It doesn’t require much thought. I simply change out of the clothes I wear in my study, the clothes I wear when I have guests, and I change into my spring-cleaning clothes. As for the geta, I can get them from the servant girl.