The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series)

by J. Thomas Rimer

  On October 2, 1941, a telegram arrived. “Father died. Funeral will be on the sixth. Sŏl family.” As I took the telegram from my brother-in-law and read it, my hands trembled.

  “How excitable,” my brother-in-law laughed, “to send a telegram on the second about a funeral on the sixth.” Ignoring him, I opened the curtain of my window. It was raining. Summer had ended; the city of Seoul was at rest. The big, purple grapes in the garden looked cool in the rain.

  “Maybe he has been ill,” I said to myself, shaking off black thoughts. A man as stubborn as Sŏl Chin-yŏng could not have committed suicide. If he had, why would his daughter send a telegram to me? I was part of the cause.

  I walked to the office in the rain. The chief appeared in the office about ten o’clock with a hangover. In the afternoon I was supposed to go to Kaesŏng to attend a lecture on propagating the Japanese language. I put my seal on a paper authorizing my trip and took it to the chief to get my travel expenses. While he brushed his seal to clean it, he smiled and said, “Mr. Tani, you’re working hard, aren’t you?” And putting his seal on my voucher, he answered himself. “Oh yes.”

  He leaned back in his chair, his favorite pose when telling section members about his successes.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “You know the one who gave you so much trouble—the one who made the rice donation?”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could he already know about Sŏl Chin-yŏng?

  “You mean Mr. Sŏl Chin-yŏng?”

  “Yes, that Sŏl Chin-yŏng. He finally changed his name on September 30.

  He gave us so much trouble, but at last we have achieved 100 percent in name conversion!”

  “Mr. Sŏl Chin-yŏng has changed his name?” I swallowed and thought to myself, “How could it be possible?”

  “So you, too, are surprised, Mr. Tani? This is what I accomplished by asking the governor’s assistance. You thought I couldn’t do it, right?” Narrowing his eyes, he sipped the tea that had been brought to him.

  Again I felt dizzy. I gripped his desk to steady myself and insisted, “Chief, it can’t be possible. Sŏl Chin-yŏng is dead.”

  “What? He’s dead?” He started half out of his chair. “Are you sure? What was the cause? Suicide?”

  Seeing his confusion, I thought that I understood everything. The chief clerk came over and asked in a low voice, “Sŏl Chin-yŏng? Really?” And to himself he muttered, “I’m amazed.”

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “It is true that he is dead but I do not know the cause, accident or illness.” But instinctively I knew. “These men have killed him. They hatched one more plot against him.”

  The accusation was written on my face. The chief sneered and stared back. Again he leaned back in his chair, looked at the ceiling, and said arrogantly, “So, the traitor is dead. We cannot offer him even a stick of incense, can we, chief clerk?”

  I was furious. I trembled with anger. White heat struck me like lightning. My fists shook. I could stand no more.

  “Chief, take that back! Sŏl Chin-yŏng was a finer man than many Japanese. At least, finer than us . . .” I couldn’t control my voice. It grew louder as my feelings overcame me.

  “Mr. Tani, when you say ‘us,’ do you include me?”

  “Don’t criticize the dead! He was not a traitor.”

  The fury in my voice appalled the people around us. They seemed about to stand. The chief, too, half raised himself from his chair but then got a grip on himself and sat down with a thud. He smiled, trying to appear calm, but the blue veins in his forehead swelled and his lips quivered.

  “I see. If he was such a fine man, why did he give us so much trouble over changing his name? Should a fine man act like that?”

  I resented his evading the issue. A voice inside me said, “Don’t lose your temper; don’t say something you’ll regret!” I knew that what I was doing could get me into serious trouble. But it was obvious that an underhanded plot had brought down Sŏl Chin-yŏng. I wanted to say so, but I couldn’t find the words.

  The chief looked hard at all the staff. Taking out his handkerchief, he began to polish his eyeglasses as if to ignore me. Again I was attacked by disgusting dizziness. My vision darkened and the blood throbbed at the back of my head.

  “Chief, you talk about him like that because your only concern is name conversion and you have never seen his clan records. How can you call him a traitor? Would a traitor donate to the army a year’s supply of rice without being asked? To me, a traitor is a man who keeps a mistress on Meiji Street at a critical time like this and who cares for nothing but his own success. Compared with such a shameful man, Sŏl Chin-yŏng was a far better person. That’s what I mean.”

  The dismayed chief clerk put a restraining hand on my shoulder, trying to stop me. “What are you saying, Mr. Tani?” He looked anxiously at the chief.

  “So, I’ve said it,” I thought. And as suddenly as I realized that I was finished in this office, my dizziness disappeared and I was clearheaded. I calmly shook off the chief clerk’s hand. The chief was pale, trying to find words to defend himself.

  “Chief Clerk,” I said, “you misunderstand. Was I speaking about our chief ? Do you mean to say that he is the traitor who keeps a mistress on Meiji Street? I’m sure our chief is not that kind of man. He must be an honorable man, or he couldn’t defame as a traitor a man who gives a hundred thousand bushels of rice to our army.” My fluency surprised me.

  It seemed that in our office only the chief clerk and I had known the chief’s secret. Now it was out. I couldn’t see the chief’s face, but his clenched hands were shaking and the veins in his forehead stood out.

  “In any case, I am going to the Sŏls’ house now. I will take leave from my work today.” I bowed slightly, returned to my desk, and began to clear it. The chief clerk stared at me blankly, at a toss. Everyone else in the room was very quiet.

  “Mr. Tani,” the chief called harshly.

  I smiled. “I know, Chief. I don’t think I’ll be coming back here. You’re going to call me a traitor because I spoke ill of you. You want me to leave because I am a traitor, right?”

  The chief clerk rushed toward me. “Apologize at once!”

  I shook my head. I felt tears coming to my eyes. “I have cleaned out my desk. You can send Mr. Ninomiya to the lecture in Kaesŏng.” I took my briefcase, pushed open the door, and quietly left the room. Carefully, step by step, I descended the stairs.

  “I’ve done something stupid,” I thought, and began to feel uneasy. I had cut the ropes with which I had been trying to control my gnawing frustration. I tried to console myself, thinking that those ropes would sooner or later have burst and that I was better off to cut them.

  I looked back at the red brick building. Everybody in the section must be talking about me, calling me a fool. “Yes, I am a fool,” I said, but I felt well and relaxed. It was not as though I had lost everything but as though a heavy burden had been lifted from my back. I walked leisurely in the quiet rain.

  I recalled that Ok-sun had burst into tears when she had had to choose between her father and her fiancé. Now the father she had chosen was dead. As I thought of her grief, the rain became depressing.

  Just as I had feared, Sŏl Chin-yŏng had committed suicide. The conversion of names had killed him. As I listened to Ok-sun tell of her father’s death, I was truly ashamed to be a Japanese.

  The third plot against Sŏl Chin-yŏng had involved his five grandchildren, all in elementary school. To hurt them, the authorities had used their teachers, who told their students, “Some in this class are not yet Japanese. Those who have not changed their names are not Japanese. They need not come to school after tomorrow.” They shamed Sŏl Chin-yŏng’s grandchildren. Their classmates had never before dared to tease them, but now they were taunted unmercifully.

  The grandchildren had rushed to Sŏl Chin-yŏng as soon as they returned from school, asking why he had not changed their names. He told them it wasn’t nece
ssary, but the next day the children came home in tears, saying they couldn’t go to school any more because their teachers had told them not to come unless their names were changed. For a day or two, their parents soothed them and sent them to school, but then they all refused to go, saying that the other children were terribly mean to them.

  They were too young to understand their grandfather’s pride or to appreciate their clan records. All they knew was that their grandfather was wrong because their teachers had told them so. Daily they pressed him, wearing him down. He loved them and knew from their begging and crying how badly they were being treated. When he found that they had not gone to school for three straight days, he stayed up all night, busy in his room. In the morning he gathered his grandchildren to him. “I am going now to do what you want me to,” he told them, “so now you can go to school.”

  The happy children set off for school, and Sŏl Chin-yŏng went to the district office and presented his application for change of name. When the official examined the application, he found that every member of the family had been given a Japanese name, Kusakabe (Grass wall), except the head of the family, Sŏl Chin-yŏng. He asked, “What is your Japanese name, Mr. Sŏn?”

  Sŏl Chin-yŏng smiled and gestured apologetically. “I haven’t thought of it yet. I’ll do it tonight. Please accept the change for the members of my family today.”

  He went home forlorn. He stayed in his room until dinnertime. After dinner he talked happily with his family and played with his grandchildren. He went to bed at his usual time. At midnight he rose, dressed in clean clothing, went outside, and, weighted by a rock, plunged into an old well behind the main building.

  His body was discovered the next morning when a dog barked unceasingly, circling the well. Telegrams were sent to Ok-sun and to his sons. At home, Oksun cradled his cold body and wept bitterly. When his testament addressed to me was found, they telegraphed me.

  At their home I opened the letter in the presence of Ok-sun and the other members of the family. I trembled, certain that I faced judgment. But the letter was not at all what I expected. He began by expressing his gratitude for our relationship and asked me to laugh at his foolish behavior in following his ancestors. He continued: “It would be most regrettable to put an end to the Sŏl clan records in my generation. Destroying them would be a shameful waste. I would like to leave them in your hands since you have so well understood and appreciated them. I would be most grateful if you could arrange to donate them to Keijō Imperial University.”

  The entire letter was written in classical Chinese. As his intent became clear, my eyes filled with tears. The letter concluded: “On the twenty-ninth of September, 1941, because the Japanese government has enforced the conversion of names, the clan records of the Sŏl are herewith discontinued. The head of the clan, Chin-yŏng, to express his shame and to apologize to his descendants, now terminates his life along with the clan records.”

  His body was formally dressed and laid before the family altar. The elaborate rites of the Korean tradition continued for three days. More than six thousand people gathered for the funeral. The casket was carried on a flower-covered ox cart. Dancers performed to console his spirit. Professional mourners, women whose heads were bound with hemp cords, performed their lamentations over the sobbing of family members in funeral robes of hemp walking close beside the casket. The long line slowly advanced to the graveyard. The elderly of the neighborhood said there had never been a funeral like it, but the newspapers gave only a few lines to Sŏl Chin-yŏng’s passing. As if on cue from the authorities, the cause of death was reported as “neurotic exhaustion.”

  I stayed with the family that night to help with the after-burdens of the funeral. I did not sleep well, brooding that my chief had made no appearance and that the wreath sent by the governor seemed somehow insincere.

  During the night I heard footsteps in the courtyard. Getting up, I saw Oksun bent in exhaustion. When she noticed me, she said with a slight smile, “I can’t sleep for grieving over my father.”

  I joined her and slowly began to tell her how I had quit my government job. I didn’t mean it as self-defense, but in reply her voice was harsh and loud. “It’s too late. Everything is too late!”

  Her anger at having lost both her father and her fiancé was so intense that I could find no words in reply. I could only whisper, “Yes, everything is too late now.” She said there was no word from Kaneda Hokuman and that she was not permitted to see him. I murmured, “You must find me detestable. Please don’t hate me.”

  Three months passed. I was drafted. The Pacific War had begun. I asked my sister’s family and my artist friends not to see me off at the station. I boarded the train and sat alone in a third-class seat, waiting for the train to start. The platform was crowded with people saying good-bye to draftees. All alone, I said to myself, “This is as I wish it to be.” I was not lonely. I felt that I was atoning for my mistakes.

  NAKAJIMA ATSUSHI

  Nakajima Atsushi (1909–1942) is best known for his stories based on Chinese classical tales, an enthusiasm passed on to him by his father and three uncles who were scholars of Chinese literature. Nakajima was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize for a fictional work, Light, Wind, and Dreams (Hikari to kaze to yume, 1942), based on the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. Hired by the Japanese government in 1941 to teach Japanese to the people of the occupied Palau Islands, Nakajima’s chronic asthma worsened in the South Seas, and he contracted a fatal case of pneumonia after returning to Japan.

  His story presented here, “The Ox Man” (Gyūjin), was published in 1942 and demonstrates the ways in which Nakajima was able to rework an ancient Chinese tale into a story about his own contemporary perceptions.

  THE OX MAN (GYŪJIN)

  Translated by Robert Tierney

  While Shusun Pao of Lu1 was still a young man, he once had to flee to the neighboring state of Qi to escape from civil strife. As he was passing through the region of Gengzong near the northern border of Lu, he saw a beautiful woman. They became intimate without delay and spent the night together, but on the following morning they parted and Shusun arrived in the state of Qi. He settled down there and married the daughter of an official of the Guo clan and she bore him two children. In the end, he completely forgot about the vows he had exchanged with the beautiful woman that night long ago on the road to Qi.

  One night he had a dream. All around him the air in his quiet room grew oppressive and heavy as though he were in the power of some dread omen. Suddenly, the ceiling of the room began to fall on him without making a sound. Its descent was all but imperceptible, yet there was no mistaking it. With each passing moment, the atmosphere thickened, becoming so dense that he had trouble breathing. He struggled to escape but was unable to move and lay faceup on the bed. He could not see beyond the ceiling, yet he clearly sensed that the pitch black sky beyond was bearing down on him with the weight of a huge boulder. Little by little the ceiling grew nearer, pressing down with an unbearable force on his chest.

  Then he happened to turn to one side and noticed a man standing there. He was a hunchback of a frightfully dark complexion, with deep sunken eyes and a mouth that protruded in a bestial manner. The man’s overall appearance closely resembled a black ox. In spite of himself, Shusun cried out for help: “Ox, save me!” The dark man raised one hand to lift the limitless weight that was pressing down from above while with his other hand he gently massaged Shusun’s chest so that the pressure he had been feeling suddenly dissipated. Heaving a sigh of relief, Shusun awakened from his dream.

  The following morning, Shusun assembled his servants and retainers and closely examined all of them, but none resembled the ox man he had seen in his dream. Even long afterward, whenever he saw people passing through the capital of Qi, Shusun was always half consciously on the lookout, but he never discovered anyone with a countenance like that man’s.

  Several years later, there again was a change of regime in his state, and Shusun Pao rushed b
ack to his homeland, leaving his family in the safety of Qi. In time, he rose to occupy the position of minister in the state of Lu, and only then did he summon his wife and children. But his wife had already begun an affair with a certain minister in Qi, and she did not have the slightest desire to go back to her husband. In the end, only his two sons, Mengbing and Zhongren, returned to their father’s home.

  One morning, a woman bearing a pheasant as a gift called on him. At first he failed to recognize her, but while they were speaking together, he realized who she was: the woman he had encountered near Gengzong during his flight to Qi more than ten years ago, the woman with whom he had once exchanged vows. He asked her if she was alone and she replied that she had brought her son. Furthermore, she also informed him that this son was Shusun’s child from that single encounter.

  Shusun had her bring the boy in; when he saw him, he cried out in surprise. Here stood a hunchback with sunken eyes and a dark complexion, the very image of the black ox man who had rescued him in his dream. In spite of himself, the word “ox” escaped from his lips, whereupon the dark youth reacted with an expression of surprise. Ever more astonished, Shusun asked the boy his name and he answered, “My name is Ox.”

  Shusun immediately had both mother and child taken into his charge, and the boy was included among his pages (they were called Xu). For that reason, when he grew up, this boy who resembled an ox later came to be called Xu Ox. Belying his appearance, he proved to be a clever boy and an extremely able worker, but he always wore a gloomy expression on his face and never joined in the games of other boys his age. In fact, he never showed a smiling face toward anyone but his father. Treated with great affection by Shusun, the boy eventually was entrusted with managing all the affairs of the household.

  On the rare occasions when he did laugh, his dark face, with its sunken eyes and protruding mouth, exuded an oddly comical charm. The droll figure he cut then was reassuring: such a person could not possibly harbor any sinister design. This was the face he presented to his superiors. But the sullen expression he displayed when deep in thought suggested an uncanny streak of cruelty, scarcely human in nature. This face struck fear into the hearts of all his playmates. Xu Ox seemed to know instinctively which face to wear, depending on whom he was with.