Tokio Whip

by Arturo Silva

  –Must’ve drunk out of the same glass.

  –Yeah, let’s go look for a glass of whisky.

  –Hold on just a bit more, guys.

  –Ah, we’re getting closer to the porno theaters. You can see a lot there, a special perspective.

  –Front row, and you can see the world.

  –Is the Seibu here still the world’s biggest department store?

  –Why?

  –Just wondering.

  –No, I think the Sogo in Yokohama is now.

  –Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter.

  –Why would it?

  And they continue in the long curve from station to station. Kaoru was drunk that night, but he wasn’t in Ikebukuro, and he did see the light.

  –Now can we get a drink, Kaoru?

  –Yeah, how ’bout it? There are lots of places in Otsuka.

  –Yes, but you have to be careful, there are lots of gangsters around here.

  –And not only Chinese.

  –Look at that old lady with all the cats.

  –Say, here’s where that great acupuncturist has his office.

  –He’s Banana Yoshimoto’s acupuncturist, you know.

  –Really?

  –Yes, Maria’s too.

  –They say he really is a miracle worker.

  –Well, I’m in the mood for only one miracle right now.

  –Strange area out here.

  –Reminds me of Ueno – you know, lots of people in from the country for the first time, sort of shabby, but in a rough, pleasant way.

  –Peasant way.

  –Rowdy.

  –Yeah – it can be fun.

  –It can be rough, too.

  ***

  “Rich and strange,” it occurs to Hiroko, I’m certainly not rich and I don’t think I’m so strange, like van Zandt says. I’m just a downtown girl trying to get uptown. Is that so strange? I don’t think so. And I’d like to be rich. Now that’s not strange. But all those rich stars on TV are all a bit strange. Hmm.

  ***

  DEATH LETTER BLUES

  Got a death letter for ya’, baby,

  gonna mail it C.O.D.;

  a death letter with your name, baby,

  for that time you fucked with me.

  ***

  We watched her – and we watched each other watching her.

  – Anatahan, (Josef von Sternberg, 1957)

  ***

  BAKIN AND THE EIGHT DOGS

  How even to begin to describe The Biographies of Eight Dogs (Nanso Satomi Hakkenden)? And yet, except for a few pages, it remains untranslated into English. Here is a lovely paragraph.

  “Shino had gone to bed, but could not sleep in his impatience for the dawn. His head was filled with thoughts about the future. He realized that he was alone, that there was no one to stop him from leaving, but he could not help feeling unhappy that he was now to go far from the graves of his parents and the place where he was born. Hamaji, who regretted his departure no less than he, slipped out of bed and, taking care lest her parents now snoring in the back room should waken, those parents toward whom she felt a resentment she could not voice, she soundlessly stepped over the threshold of the barrier of her maiden reserve, which had hitherto kept her from going to Shino. Her knees trembled, and she could scarcely walk. How dreary, sad, bitter, and hateful the inconstant world now seemed.”

  The fall of a great house – the Ambersons comes first to mind, among other examples – is often more compelling a story than the rise, or fall, of any individual. The house’s restoration offers no less a satisfaction.

  In 15th century Japan, besieged and near defeat, the general Satomi Yoshizane shouts out that he will give his daughter Fusehime to anyone who can bring him the head of his adversary. It is done: by his watchdog, Yatsufusa! Fusehime herself keeps her father’s promise, and the new couple go away to live in a cave. A year later, Fusehime is accidentally shot by an arrow meant for her canine husband, and in her death throes a white vapor emerges from the wound and envelopes the rosary she wears around her neck. “Eight beads rise into the sky, each marked with the Chinese character for one of the Confucian virtues. The eight beads are subsequently found in the hands of the newly born sons of eight men whose surnames begin with the word inu, Dog. The eight heroes meet and separate many times, but finally they assemble and by their efforts restore the Satomi family to its former glory.” (Keene)

  ◊◊◊

  His biographer says that Bakin “interpreted an age to itself,” with the Eight Dogs being called “the grand culmination of Tokugawa culture.” Zolbrod goes on to say: “His life exemplified a social trend that led to the Meiji Restoration and the modernization of Japan. The same forces that drove Bakin to wander as a masterless samurai, struggle as a popular author, and attempt to “restore” his family caused many samurai to shift their loyalty from their overlords to the forces working for the overthrow of the Tokugawa government.”

  The “hermit of Edo” was born into a samurai family in 1767. As a young boy he waited on his lord’s idiot grandson. When his father was slandered by a fellow retainer, the family stipend was reduced by half. The lifelong themes came into being. As they are for this author too: as separation was the theme of his life; so (re)union would be the theme of his art. In Bakin’s case this especially meant restoration of the family (even his name means “restore”). The father died when Bakin was eight. At the age of thirteen, he left his service and became a ronin. Eventually, restless, resentful, he renounced his samurai status and began years of relentless wandering, working here and there as a comedian, a calligrapher, a fortune teller, until he became seriously ill and was nursed by his self-sacrificing elder brother. In 1785 his mother died; the next year, a brother. In 1798, his beloved elder brother. Bakin was all remorse, regretting the unfilial years.

  He began to write. Apprenticed himself to Kyōden; lived with the bookseller Tsutaya. Published chapbooks, averaging ten a year. From about 1796, he supported himself by selling geta and teaching calligraphy, until around 1806 when he could support himself and his family solely on his writing – the first person in Japan to do so, with the possible exception of Rokitsu in Osaka.

  In 1793 he married the uneducated, insulting, hysterical and chronically ill widow Aida O’Hyaku, of whom he would eventually write that the best years they had together were these when they lived in separate houses. In 1798 Sōhaku was born, the son upon whom Bakin placed all his hopes for the restoration of the family name.

  His writing grew ever more popular. And thus the great conflict of his life came into being. A samurai at heart, he wrote popular fiction that expressed samurai ideals; this he hoped would give him the wherewithal by which to regain his family’s samurai status and so be able to abandon this lowest class of writing; but as the decades went by, and his fame and skill increased, the prospect of restoration receded ever further.

  The work was historical, and drew upon every form of Japanese fiction, poetry and drama, as well as Chinese popular fiction. It was plainly didactic, the large themes being the reunion and restoration of a family, filial piety, courage and sacrifice. It was also prodigious: thirty novels in ten years; the 181-chapter Eight Dogs taking twenty-eight years to write, the longest novel in China or Japan and possibly the longest ever, anywhere. Scores of essays, poetry collections, literary criticism (Edo Authors, a history in which he becomes the culminating point of Tokugawa period fiction), comic poetry, plays, miscellania. His work “included material about shrines and temples, foreign songs, famous courtesans, authors such as Hachimonjiya, Jishō, Ejima Kiseki, Chikamatsu, and Ihara Saikaku, place names, interpretation of dreams, the Archetypal Hero who as an infant is abandoned to the sea, poetry on rain, Japanese gods, semi-legendary heroes, the history of Iidamachi, the Kantō dialect, children’s stories like The Monkey and the Crab, Peach Boy, and The Tongue-cut Sparrow, holiday observances, animals, plants, genealogies, astrology, travel, love-suicide, and Chinese poetry and fiction.” (Zolbrod) Th
e comparison between Proust and Lady Murasaki is often and tiresomely made. That between Bakin and – who? – yes: Balzac, rarely so, but the fit is obvious.

  He lived in an age of repression, when each and every act “had to be thought through ten times” for fear of arrest (look at Utamaro’s fate). He was ever fearful of giving the government displeasure. An 1806 portrait shows him tall and thin and sitting in an urn; the legend says, “Within an urn the universe.” Conservative, traditionalist, short-tempered, he preferred to be alone. In 1816 he attended his last public gathering for twenty years, and withdrew from “the floating world.” Cantankerous and even cruel, he criticized all his colleagues. His few “friends” he rarely met; fortunately for him – and for them too, perhaps – they lived far away and so could only correspond. He was mistrustful, careful, distant. For all the enthusiasm and affection in his fiction, there seems to have been a near-total failure of all personal relationships. He wrote this horrible sentence: “It is a pleasure to be without friends.” He seems never to have known “the pleasure of any love affair.” The son in whom he placed all his hopes died young; unfortunately he appears to have lacked any imagination; Zolbrod calls him a “self-pitying parasite.” Only in very late old age did Bakin express any affection: for his daughter-in-law O’Michi who was his amanuensis during his last decade of blindness.

  In 1836, twelve years before his death, under the pretext of celebrating his seventieth birthday, he held a “writers and artists party” for more than seven-hundred prominent guests. The actual purpose was to raise funds so as to purchase a samurai patent for his grandson, thus finally restoring the Takizawa line to its former status. In this Bakin succeeded.

  ***

  In her dream, Roberta is in Meiji-no-mori National Park in Western Tokyo, and where she mistakenly expects to find the tomb of Hirohito, the Showa Emperor. (Later, upon waking, she will wonder whatever drove her to go there.) Instead, she comes to a staircase made of white opaque glass. On either side are doors of the same material. Behind them she hears voices and can just make out the faces of a few relatives – an aunt, an uncle, a couple of cousins she liked – and the few friends of her childhood. They are all either speaking Japanese or their voices are the various instruments of the various versions of John Coltrane’s “My Favorite Things.” Despite her inability to go forward and see her family and friends, Roberta is content – content to be once again so near to these few loved ones, to her adopted language, and to a piece of music that she discovered when she was twelve.

  Curiously, at the same time that Roberta is having her musical dream, Cafferty has a dream in which he thinks to himself, “I should have been an accordion player.” In his dream too, of course, we hear ’Trane.

  ***

  City beating in your heart –

  forcing the blood to flow

  your hand to compose

  your mind to revolt –

  forcing you to kiss me.

  ***

  –Whew, this city never stops, does it?

  –Are we still inside the city proper?

  –Whatever could you mean by that?

  –You know, inside the twenty-three wards? Is Ogikubo part of one of the twenty-three wards?

  –I really don’t know, sorry.

  –I really don’t care. What is this talk of “the city proper”? What’s a “proper” city?

  –I only meant classical Tokyo.

  –What’s “classical” Tokyo then?

  –The traditional twenty-three wards. Isn’t it?

  –There is nothing traditional about them. They’ve changed boundaries, they’ve changed names, and they’ve changed number too. I think there used to be sixteen, and at one time as many as forty or so. Maybe.

  –Maybe?

  –The point is that they have not always been twenty-three.

  –Have they ever been forty-seven, that would seem to be more Japanese.

  –I don’t think so. Another point is that they can change again.

  –Change to forty-seven?

  –If necessary.

  –That’s a lot of wards.

  –But why are there twenty-three? That’s not much of a Japanese number.

  –Well, it’s almost half of forty-seven.

  –???

  –I don’t know why there are twenty-three, there just are – for now.

  –So, what about Ogikubo? Is it part of one of the twenty-three wards?

  –No, I think it’s part of one of the cities.

  –Part of one of the cities! It’s part of Tokyo.

  –Yeah.

  –Right.

  –But Tokyo is made up of twenty cities, or around twenty. I think.

  –Wait a minute, you’re saying Tokyo has twenty-three wards – for the moment, though the number can change – and that it has another twenty or so cities – even though it itself is a city? That doesn’t make sense.

  –Well, Tokyo isn’t a city!

  –What?

  –It sure feels like a whole country sometimes!

  –Technically speaking, Tokyo is not a city.

  –Oh, yes, not a proper city.

  –What’s a proper city?

  –What’s an improper one? Take me there.

  –But it’s always called a city.

  –It’s not a member of the United Nations.

  –Does it have its own army?

  –It’s certainly got its own economy!

  –Ok. The city of Tokyo has wards and cities but neither technically nor properly is it a city.

  –It’s also got islands.

  –Does it have mountain ranges too? I’d love to go hunting and hiking in Tokyo.

  –Uhm, yes, it does have mountains.

  –It what?

  –Yes, it does. Tokyo’s big.

  –No one’s denying that. We all know it’s big – just look around you – and after all, we have come this far, and we know, or I think we still know, that we’re still inside it – and as big as it may be, there have to be limits, and I’m not so sure, that by my definition of a proper city, it should include islands and mountains.

  –But it does, it really does.

  –You’re insane. What kind of a place is Tokyo anyway, by your standards?

  –Well, I’d call it a city.

  –But you just said that properly and technically –

  –I know, I know, but you said that it’s a city that contains cities, and that doesn’t sound quite right to me.

  –I know, but the fact is –

  –More like the fantasy is.

  –But what about Ogikubo?

  –What about it? Is it a city too that contains cities? Will I turn out to be a city – not technically or properly speaking of course, I beg your pardon – that contains cities?

  –No, all I wanted to say was to get back to the original question: is Ogikubo part of one of the twenty-three wards?

  –Well, no one here knows for sure, not anymore.

  –So, let’s go into that bar and ask –

  –And linger over the question.

  –Good idea, Kaoru

  ***

  Monday. It was the evening before the Emperor’s 60th anniversary, it was the same street I’d dreamed of – a gray sky like a monk’s robe, a suggestion that it had recently rained, the few pink leaves of the cherry blossoms scattered here and there – so all this wet pink and gray all like a tinted photograph – and it was my street, the street leading to my home!

  ***

  Notwithstanding?, but shouldn’t the costs be a delight? Why negativize, Cafferty, as usual, connects. I delight in not knowing where I am going – apart from those promised appointments, about which I am exact and punctual. To discover the city, to make it my own ... what does Henry James say? Oh, I’d forever rather be lost in Tokyo than found in any other city.

  ***

  –You slippery fish, I know you, van Zandt, I know you through and through, like I know … like I know .. uhm, whaddo I know? ..
like I know my mother’s backside – uhn, no, that’s not what I meant –

  –Your mother’s backside!?

  –Wait a minute. Like I know, my mother, my backside.

  –Your backside!?

  –Frontside, too, ha! But no, like I know … the way home from the station in the snow when I’m crawling dead drunk like I will be tonight if I can’t catch my last train. How d’ya’ like that?

  –You’re comparing me to a zigzag in the snow?

  –Not very complimentary, I’ll grant you. Let’s see, no, I know you like I know all 47 ronin. No, too complimentary.

  –Ouch. But do you really know them all?

  –Oh yes, they were my heroes when I was a kid. But no matter. I know you like I know my bankbook. No, I don’t, my wife knows that, I certainly don’t. I know you then like I know … oh damn, you’re a foreigner, what is there to know? No, don’t take that in the wrong way, please. It’s just that we Japanese tend to see you all alike.

  –Oh, I know that alright. Thanks very much. And so do we foreigners tend to see you all alike as well. How’s that?

  –Undeserved! But you are a foreigner, and a rather different one, I’ll grant you that. Hell, van Zandt, maybe I don’t know you at all.

  –And I’ll grant you that.

  –But I don’t even know your first name.

  –Van will do.

  –... an ancient race ...

  –Do you know him?

  –Who? You? I just said I don’t.

  –Not what I meant. But skip it.

  –Hop, jump. Two more beers?

  –By all means.

  –I take it you’re not American?

  –No, Dutch.

  –We have long relations with your people.

  –Yeah, yeah, but you do not have such a long one with me.

  –True. So, do you think you know me?

  –Can’t say that I do.

  –Then we’re off to a good start.

  –Start? I thought we were finishing. I do have a last train, you know.

  –I know alright, just as I know that it’s not for a few hours yet – and quite a few more drinks I hope.

  –That’s the spirit. Waitress! Two more, please.

  –Anyway, Kaoru, as I was saying, or trying to say, we’ve met a few times now, here and there, and I am glad we happened to run into each other tonight, and have a chance to talk alone. We’ve met at a few gatherings of mutual friends, not really met or talked together, so I was just happy that we could get together casually and by chance this way. Get to know each other a bit more, you know. Those other times we’ve never really talked, you’ve kept rather to yourself, and if we are going to keep being in the same room together now and then, I thought it might be a good idea if we got to know each other a bit better. You know, instead of, as – what’s the phrase? – nodding acquaintances.