During this period, my growing reputation as the French equivalent of a kamikaze — those who set off knowing they were going to certain death — greatly enhanced my reputation with the municipal officials and, in more than one instance, ended up putting me in situations that I can only describe as surreal.
“Do you like oysters?” the honorable mayor, our host, asked me through the interpreter.
I was having trouble concentrating on the question because I was still trying to figure out how to sit properly at this low-slung Japanese table. That is, how could I cross my overly long legs in such a way that I could approach the table without my knees looming high above it, thus preventing any possible access to it or the food?
Oysters. The word finally penetrated, and a vague feeling of unease overwhelmed me, the still wary foreigner, as I parried one question with another.
“How do you eat them here in Japan?” I asked the interpreter.
The question was duly relayed to the mayor, who smiled — smugly, I thought — and responded, “Raw, of course, And on the half-shell. Not like the Americans with their oysters Rockefeller!”
Slightly reassured, I was able to turn my attention once again to my left leg, which was at this point fast asleep.
Christopher had been watching me wrestle with my legs and could not keep from laughing out loud. He had solved the leg problem by kneeling in front of the table, I decided I would wait till the last dinner course before taking my revenge. I would point out to him that, even though I was suffering physically from crossing my legs Japanese style, I felt it my duty to remind him that his kneeling position was one assumed only by women in Japan, which meant that throughout the evening he, suave, macho Christopher, had served as a constant source of amusement for our honorable hosts. My Machiavellian mind had already formed a picture of his pained contortions upon hearing this bit of local custom, as he frantically tried to work his legs into the proper position.
Meanwhile, I was still struggling with my own lower limbs. I had indeed gotten my left leg crossed under my right, but the aforementioned problem of soaring knees, forming a double Mount Fuji between me and the table, had still not been solved. I glanced discreetly at my Japanese colleagues. How in the world did they manage?
These biotechnical problems, however, were interrupted by the untimely arrival of the oysters. They say that for those on their way to the guillotine, all minor aches and pains magically disappear. Mine did when I saw the size of the bivalves. I had never seen anything remotely like them. Monsters is the only word that came to mind. And, it goes without saying, the mayor had honored me by serving me the largest of the lot, the oyster queen, which must have weighed a good five pounds. That’s right: five pounds. If there had been a bivalve book of records, this one would have deserved at least a full paragraph. Its shell would have made a lovely wash basin or perfect baptismal font. All I could think of when I saw it was that it had to be the expectoration of some giant creature of the ocean depths. This was no oyster! Whatever it was, it was served on the proverbial silver platter.
I played for time.
“And pray tell, your honor, where did you find such a beauty?”
“Right here, just outside the port.”
All I could think of was the thousands of gallons of sewage-laden water the creature had filtered through its giant, grayish self.
I glanced over at Christopher, seated opposite me, and it was as though I were looking in a mirror. He was green — which, I was sure, was my color as well — his eyes popping as he gazed in a combination of awe and terror at his own beast, His forehead was bathed in sweat, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down uncontrollably.
I shifted my position so as not to be directly across from him.
Warily my eyes searched around the room for some potential dumping ground. The only vague hope was a flower pot, but it was a good ten feet away. Would I have time to plant another flower in the pot? I needed some diversionary tactic but could think of none.
Meanwhile, my Japanese colleagues, having noisily ingurgitated their respective delicacies, as if to show us how it was done, were politely waiting for us to follow their good example.
In total desperation, Christopher tried to pull a fast one: he picked up the shell with both hands, brought it to his mouth, made a loud sucking noise without so much as touching the oyster itself, then put the oyster back on the table and quickly closed the shell. Then he groped for the top of the serving platter to quickly conceal his sin.
Well done, Christopher! And he would doubtless have gotten away with it, if a discreet but ultra-efficient waiter had not removed the cover of the serving platter just as Christopher took the oyster away from his mouth, I noted that Christopher’s eyes resembled those of a wild horse at the very idea that his lips had come in close contact with the creature.
To cover his embarrassment, he quickly poured himself a cup of tea.
All right, let’s get it over with. Deep inspiration. I stared at the enemy, Medusa in the depths of her pool. Clearly she knows — she stares back at me just as fixedly. If I were not mistaken, I thought I detected a tiny tremor. Who is going to swallow whom? I teased her with my chopsticks, as a way of getting to know her a trifle better. I concocted a battle plan, whereby I would attack the flanks, which might give me at least a fighting chance of ignoring the grayish-white critical mass that occupied the center of the swamp. The moment of truth: the edge of the shell was raised to my mouth, my eyes were closed, my throat constricted, my temples moist… . There it goes, on its way, let ‘er rip! My mouth was full of oyster, yet I had a sinking feeling that more than half of it was still in the shell.
Several ideas raced through my mind. Return the first half to its shell? Bite down hard on it and swallow the first half? The very idea of having to start the operation all over again dissuaded me from either course, and I did my best to relax my throat muscles. The reconnaissance patrol of the monster was already wallowing in my stomach while the rear guard was still languishing in the shell. I was suffocating, but I had no choice but to push on. There was certainly no going back!
Finally, like a cormorant swallowing a fish whole, I felt first my mouth, then my throat, slowly — very slowly — revert to its normal state. My stomach reacted with a series of violent spasms. I gulped down some hot tea, which burned me terribly but comforted me with the knowledge that I was also scalding the beast below, which, I was sure, was busily exploring its new domain. I felt one last spasm . . , then quiet. It was over.
Christopher looked at me in disbelief. I returned to this world with the comforting thought that I would now have the rare pleasure of watching Christopher perform the same ceremony.
“Would you care for another?” the mayor asked solicitously through the mouth of the interpreter, who added, with more than a touch of malice, “It’s the custom here.”
I had a vision of the gigantic internal copulation that would doubtless take place in the event that, were I to follow local custom and down a second, one turned out to be male and the other female. The idea was more than I could bear. I did my best to minimize the potential insult my refusal might provoke by replying, in a tone that brooked no further comment, pitting local custom against local custom:
“Thank you very much, your honor. But you see, in France we never eat two oysters on the same day!”
On the weather front, the days followed one another in dreary succession. A warm, steady rain fell endlessly on Choshi. The expedition sank slowly into a state of total torpor. Actually not total: it was divided into two camps. One group was up to its ears in work; the other had absolutely nothing to do. Christopher, François, and Bruno were constantly occupied on all fronts, both technical and administrative. The first two spent much of their time, and all their patience and psychic energy, in the offices and stores of Tokyo, doing battle to make sure all our needs, material and bureaucratic, were taken care of. Bruno, on the other hand, continued to administer to the slightest needs of Secto
r as if it were his only child. As for the others, once the novelty of the situation had worn off and the shopping possibilities in Choshi were exhausted — which, given the size and nature of the town, did not take long — their patience was growing thinner by the minute.
The date of my departure seemed more problematic with every passing day, and I suggested to several people who had come out to cover the event that they ought to fly home. My well-meant suggestion was greeted with a great hue and cry of protest. Having come all this way, there was no way they were going to leave until they had seen, and duly recorded on film, my actual departure. I yielded to their vehement objections, only to find a few days later that they had completely reversed themselves and felt they must leave immediately. The endless drizzle, the depressing site, and the unbearable wait had broken their spirit.
Unfortunately, Laurent was obliged to go back with them. He had come out for eight days, and he had already been here a full three weeks. He was due to get married in two days.
From time to time I had myself driven to the lighthouse, situated on top of the cliff that dominated the port, to pose for publicity pictures. There we would exchange pleasantries as I would gesture grandly out to sea, toward America .. . but my heart was no longer in it. We joked and laughed, which was meant to keep our minds off our problems, but deep down I was riddled with doubt.
The wisest thing would be to put off the crossing until next year. The only problem was that I felt like a diver who has been standing too long on the edge of the high-diving board: the longer I stayed the less I wanted to climb down the ladder. Or, to push the analogy further, I felt like the diver who keeps moving to higher and higher boards, up-ping the risk each time he does.
I never alluded to the idea that we might postpone the trip. I knew if I did, it would get me thinking that it was a real possibility. Instead, my mind was still obsessed only with the idea of departure. Without realizing it, I now understood that I had been pumping myself up, day after day; without that constant self-motivation, there was no way I could bring the project to fruition. For months, even though I was clearly and constantly aware of how hard the crossing would be, all I could think of was the final goal: my arrival at the other end, somewhere on the West Coast of the United States. For months, I had no longer really been of this world: my every thought, my every act, had been focused on that objective. There was no way out. It was not as if I were simply in the starting blocks. It was as if the race were already underway.
To be sure, if my main goal had been to make sure I would end up in some prominent position in the record books, it would have made perfect sense to postpone the trip and leave under better conditions. But I didn’t give a damn whether my exploit ended up in the Guiness Book of Records, sandwiched somewhere between the smallest man on earth and the champion hotdog-eater. My only public was myself. I was my own sole spectator and judge, for the simple reason that I was the only one who could appreciate the full price of victory.
In posing this challenge to myself, I had set out to reach a goal that I imagined was just barely possible, perhaps even beyond my own presumed limits. Why, then, should I turn my back on these profound self-imposed motivations by postponing the trip till next year on the grounds that it would be easier then and that no one but me would know the difference?
Day after day I kept pushing back my absolutely final departure day, well beyond the earlier “final” dates I had set. I couldn’t help remembering that virtually all of those earlier “final” dates had, as they came and went, struck me as dangerously late.
July 10
The sky seemed to be clearing, the weather predictions were right on the money, and to top things off, Georges had installed a brand new telex, which appeared to be working fine, it was as if I had just been handed my exit visa.
During the afternoon, Mitsuru drove me one last time to Gape Inubosaki, from which we had an excellent view to the east. The sea was calm, the winds had fallen. For a long time I gazed out to sea, where a number of ships seemed fixed on the horizon. A visit to the weather bureau confirmed that the bad weather was moving off to northern Japan. No storms were expected for the next several days. Once again, I filled out the forms officially permitting me to leave the country.
On our way back to the boat basin, I had asked Mitsuru to stop at the local barber shop. There I got a shave and a haircut. It was a symbolic gesture; before I go into combat, I need to feel that I look my best.
The barber, who recognized me, refused to accept any money. In exchange, he asked me to give him two autographs. Mitsuru calculated that at the going rate for a shave and haircut, each signature was worth 500 yen, about four dollars, and wondered aloud how much one might be worth a few months from now.
For my last night on land, I repaired to a small wooden house that the Takasses had placed at my disposal. For company I had a hardy troupe of mosquitoes and a shot of whisky. My baggage was all packed: the bag of clothes, forever impregnated with the stench of the befouled boat basin, was packed and ready for shipment back to France; my own bag, much smaller, was also zipped up and ready to be stowed on board.
Until one in the morning I wrote a number of brief letters and postcards. I found it hard to put into words what I was feeling. Then I put in a call to Cornelia. I tried to be as reassuring as possible, telling her that the good weather had finally returned, that the boat was shipshape, that the new telex had been installed and was working fine, that I would be in contact with her frequently. But she was not taken in by this. How could I lessen the impact of that brief but overwhelming phrase, “I’m leaving tomorrow”?
That calm and solitary night in the Takasses’ dollhouse reminded me of what soldiers must have felt the night before going into battle. I was fully aware of the formidable ordeal that lay ahead. I was not simply setting out to sea; I was setting forth to battle. And the enemy was the ocean itself. In the surrounding darkness, I felt as though I were recharging my batteries, refocusing my energy and attention on the upcoming combat. I knew how tough a fight it would be, and I needed to be alone tonight, to concentrate and prepare for it. My friends had felt that as well, and I knew that, as I lay here by myself awaiting sleep, they were bedded down beside the Sector, each lost in his own thoughts.
A night, too, to grapple with my own solitude, and make it mine. Before it seized me in its own invincible grip.
3
Ahead of Me, an Enormous Void …
July 11
0500: The automobile — with Christopher at the wheel (driving, I should add, with uncharacteristic restraint) — pulled up at the dock next to Sector. On the way, we had barely exchanged two words.
“It reminds me of the first day of school… .”
“That’s true. The first day of boarding school.”
À number of people were waiting for me on the dock, about thirty in all, among them Commander Blanvillain and several other Frenchmen who had come up from Tokyo to witness the departure. Thankfully, there were few photographers or cameramen in sight.
And, of course, there was Bruno, bless his heart, who had spent the previous night cleaning the hull one last time. The boat was spick-and-span. On the radio antenna waved the French flag and, following custom, the Rising Sun.
Everyone seemed to be more or less holding their emotions in check, but there was an almost palpable tension, which I preferred to cut short.
“Excuse me, gentlemen, but I have many miles to travel before the sun goes down… .”
Before setting off, I had both Christopher and Bruno sign the first page of my log. My intent was to have them both sign the last page on the other side of the ocean, if all went well. Despite all our efforts at self-control, I eouldn’t help noticing more than a few moist eyes. And we seemed to be beyond words; our glances were eloquent enough.
Oars at the ready. A wave of my hand, a smile I meant to be reassuring, and off I set, at a steady stroke. ... I stared straight into space, to make sure I didn’t see any expressions
on the faces of those I was leaving behind, then guided the craft out beyond the boat basin into the gentle waters of the Tone River. The ebb tide bore me swiftly toward the river’s mouth. And yet, even with all the help I was getting from the current, with each stroke of the oars I kept thinking, “Good God, this thing is heavy, really heavy — and to think I’m going to have to row it clear across this whole damned ocean!”
After I crossed the last breakwater, I lowered the antenna and removed the flags. Sector was assuming its sailing trim.
My friends had boarded a fishing boat and were following me at a discreet distance, knowing that I was already alone. At 1700 hours their boat came abreast the Sector, then stopped. I gazed intently at their faces one last time, as if I were filling my memory to the brim, to take with me as much of them as I possibly could, although in my heart of hearts I knew it was an illusion. We waved to each other, but as their boat came about I felt that they, and I, were already far apart.
I passed a few trawlers that were returning to Choshi, but none gave me even the slightest hint of recognition. Word had doubtless not yet reached these local fisherman of the exploit of the mad gai jin (foreigner).
The Condor, a sailboat, which like all those that sailed these waters was more than a trifle squalid, had joined me at the river’s mouth. Captain Yagi, the skipper of the Condor, had been a stalwart friend and helper throughout my stay in Choshi, and he had invited Mitsuru on board to escort me a dozen or so miles out to sea. One final glance from boat to boat, one final farewell. ... At long last, the moment of truth had arrived. Strangely, I felt relieved.
Alone Page 5