by David Peace
PATIENT X
The Case-Book of
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
DAVID PEACE
For A;
in memory of Mark Fisher, William Miller and all the ghosts of our lives.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Author’s Preface
After the Thread, Before the Thread
Hell Screens
Repetition
Jack the Ripper’s Bedroom
A Twice-Told Tale
The Yellow Christ
After the War, Before the War
The Exorcists
After the Disaster, Before the Disaster
‘Saint Kappa’
The Spectres of Christ
After the Fact, Before the Fact
After Words
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By the Same Author
Copyright
Kappa was born out of my dégoût with many things, especially with myself.
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, 1927
Author’s Preface
These are the stories of Patient X in one of our iron castles. He will tell his tales to anyone with the ears and the time to listen.
Some days he appears younger than his years, some days older, emaciated one day, bloated the next, the pull and the pain of our three worlds, their spectres and their visions, fragmenting and splintering his features into a thousand selves as he relives the horrors of a lifetime, before he was brought to this place; how he … No, no, let us leave such details for now.
He told his stories at great length and in close detail as I listened with the physician in charge. All the time he spoke, he kept his arms tightly clasped around his knees, rocking back and forth, repeatedly glancing out beyond the iron grille of the narrow window, where hung a sky overcast and sombre, threatening an immense and endless darkness.
I have tried to set down in writing his stories – already-said, already-told and lived – with as much accuracy and fidelity as I can collect and command. But if anyone is dissatisfied or distrusts my notes, then you should seek out the source yourself. No doubt, Patient X will welcome you with a polite bow, guide you to the hard chair, and then calmly begin retelling his tales, a resigned and melancholy smile playing upon his lips as he speaks.
But be warned: when he comes to the end of his stories, the look on his face will change; he will leap to his feet, shake his fists wildly, and begin thundering away at you: ‘Quack, quack! Get out! You coward! You liar! You’re on the make, like all the rest! Quack, quack! Get out! You cannibal! You vampire! You voyeur! Quack, quack! Get out! Just save the children …’
After the Thread, Before the Thread
– Among the palm flowers, among the bamboo,
Buddha has already fallen asleep.
By the roadside, a withered fig tree,
Christ, too, seems to be dead.
Yet we need to rest,
Even before the stage set.
(If we look behind that set,
We find only a patched-up canvas) –
‘The Collected Works of Tock’, in Kappa,
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, 1927
1
And now, children, let me tell you a story about Gautama and Jesus.
It begins one day as Gautama is strolling in Paradise by the banks of the Lotus Pond. The blossoms on the pond are perfect white pearls, and from their golden centres wafts a never-ending fragrance. I think it must have been dawn in Paradise.
But as Gautama was strolling he heard the sound of weeping, a most unusual sound in Paradise. Gautama stepped down towards the edge of the pond and there, before the blossoms, amidst the fragrance, he saw Jesus kneeling beside the pond, by the water, staring down through the spreading lotus leaves to the spectacle below. For directly beneath the Lotus Pond of Paradise lie the lower depths of Hell, and as Jesus peered through the crystalline pool, he could see the River of Sins and the Mountain of Guilt as clearly as if he were viewing pictures in a peep-box.
And he was weeping at what he saw:
Down there was a man named Ryūnosuke, who was writhing in Hell with all the other sinners. This man had once been an acclaimed author but he had led a most selfish life, hurting even the people who loved him.
But now Gautama recalled how Ryūnosuke had performed at least one single act of kindness. Idling beside the Shinobazu Pond one day, Ryūnosuke had noticed a small spider creeping along the wayside. His first thought had been to stamp it to death, but as he raised his foot, he told himself, ‘No, no. Even this tiny creature is a living thing. To take its life for no reason would be too cruel.’
And so Ryūnosuke let the spider pass him by unharmed.
Hearing Jesus weeping, seeing his tear-stained face, Gautama decided to reward Ryūnosuke by delivering him from Hell, if possible. And, by happy chance, Gautama turned to see a heavenly spider spinning a beautiful thread atop a lotus leaf the colour of shimmering jade. Gently lifting the spider thread, Gautama handed it to Jesus. And now Jesus lowered the thread straight down between the white blossoms, through the crystal waters to the depths far, far below.
2
Here, with the other sinners at the lowest point of the lowest Hell, Ryūnosuke was endlessly floating up and sinking down in the River of Sins. Wherever he looked there was only pitch darkness, and when a faint shape did pierce the shadows, it was the glint of a needle on the horrible Mountain of Guilt, which only heightened his sense of doom. All was silent, and when a faint sound did break the silence, it was only the feeble sigh of a fellow sinner. As you can imagine, those who had fallen this far had been so worn down by their tortures in the seven other hells that they no longer had the strength to cry out. Great writer though he once had been, now Ryūnosuke could only thrash about like a dying frog as he choked on his sins.
And then, children, what do you think happened next? Yes, indeed: raising his head, Ryūnosuke chanced to look up towards the sky above the River of Sins and saw the gleaming silver spider thread, so slender and so delicate, slipping stealthily down through the silent darkness from the high, high heavens, coming straight for him!
Ryūnosuke clapped his hands in joy. If only he could take hold of this thread and climb up, then perhaps he could escape from Hell. And maybe, with luck, he could even enter Paradise. Then he would never again be driven up the Mountain of Guilt or plunged down into the River of Sins.
No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than Ryūnosuke grasped the spider thread and started climbing with all his might, higher and higher, hand over hand, climbing and climbing.
Hell and Heaven, though, are thousands of leagues apart, so it was not easy for Ryūnosuke to escape. He soon began to tire, to tire until he could not raise his arm for even one more pull. He had no choice but to stop to rest, and as he clung to the spider thread, he looked down, far, far down below.
Now Ryūnosuke realised that all his climbing had been worth the effort: the River of Sins was hidden in the depths of the darkness. And even the dull glint of the terrifying Mountain of Guilt was far down beneath his feet. At this rate, it might be easier than he had imagined to climb his way out of Hell. Twining his hands in the spider thread, Ryūnosuke laughed aloud. ‘I’ve almost done it! I’m almost saved.’
But then what do you think he saw? Far down on the spider thread, his selves, his legion of selves – son and father, husband and friend, lover and writer, Man of the East and Man of the West – had followed after him; his selves and his characters, too – Yoshihide, Yasukichi, Tock and all the rest – his many creations and, of course, his sins, his countless, countless sins: his pride, his greed, his lust, his anger, his gluttony, his envy and his sloth
. All had followed after him, clambering up the thread with all their might like a column of ants! This slim thread seemed likely to snap from his weight alone: how could it possibly hold so many of his selves, his characters and his sins? And if the fragile thread were to break midway, then Ryūnosuke would plunge back down into the Hell he had struggled so mightily to escape. Yet from the pitch-dark River of Sins, still the unbroken column of his selves, his characters and his sins came squirming up the gleaming silver thread in their hundreds – in their thousands – and Ryūnosuke knew he would have to do something now or the thread would break in two.
Ryūnosuke raised his head again, looking up the spider thread. He was so close to Paradise, so very near. He could see the light of the water, he could glimpse the face of Jesus, even hear His weeping, now feel His tears wet upon his own face. But no matter how hard he tried to pull himself up, no matter how far and fast he climbed, Ryūnosuke knew his selves, his characters and sins would always follow after him, always catch up with him.
Ryūnosuke let go of the spider thread.
And at that very instant, at that very moment, as Ryūnosuke fell back down into the darkest depths, the spider thread broke at the very place where he had been hanging from it.
Behind Ryūnosuke, all that remained was the dangling short end of the spider thread from Paradise, softly shining in the moonless, starless sky.
3
At the edge of the Lotus Pond in Paradise, Buddha and Christ watched everything that happened. And when, in the end, Ryūnosuke sank back into the River of Sins, Buddha resumed His stroll, His face now tinged with sorrow. But Christ remained kneeling beside the pond, before the water, staring down through the lotus leaves, watching the pictures in the peep-box, weeping, weeping and weeping into the crystalline pool –
In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni …
We go round and round in the night, the endless night, consumed by fire, by fire, in the night, by fire –
Fire consumed by fire …
But the lotuses of the Lotus Pond still swayed their perfect pearl-white blossoms, and from their golden centres still wafted a never-ending fragrance. Yet I think it must be close to twilight in Paradise now.
Hell Screens
In that suburban house, on the second floor, many times
he asked himself why those who loved each other
caused each other such pain,
as the eerie tilt of the floor filled him with foreboding …
The Life of a Foolish Man, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, 1927
Once upon a time, beneath the branches of a red pine, before a blackened gravestone, the man said to the child, These are the stories you told yourself, tell yourself, then and now, now and then, of scenes remembered, on screens erected …
1. Up and Down and Out
A voice comes to you in the dark, up the tunnel, through the waters –
‘Can you hear me in there? Do you want to be born …?’
Your father has his mouth to your mother’s vagina –
‘Please think seriously before you reply, but …’
Behind the sliding screen, crouching on the floor, his mouth level with her vagina, as though he is speaking into a telephone, asking you, ‘Is it your desire to be born into this world, or not?’
And each time, after asking his question, while awaiting your answer, he reaches up for the bottle on the table, takes a mouthful of disinfectant, gargles, rinses and spits into the metal bowl on the floor beside your mother’s arse, then resumes his position, his mouth to her vagina, asking again, ‘Come on! Come on! Do you wish to be born into this world, or not?’
Up the tunnel, in the water, you are shaking your head and saying, ‘No, no! I do not want to be born. The first act of the human tragedy starts when an individual becomes the child of certain parents. You are asking me if I want to be born, but you do not even know if you want me; you have already lost one child, and now you are both at ill-omened ages. Should I agree to be born, in order to exorcize your own bad luck you already plan to abandon me on the steps of a Christian church, and then recover me from the priest as a foundling. It makes me shudder to think of all the things I will inherit from you and my mother. Insanity alone is bad enough. Finally, and absolutely, I maintain that human existence is evil, and the human condition is hell. And so thank you for asking, but no thank you. I would rather not.’
But no one can hear you, no one is listening to you or truly cares what you say, your words drowned in the waters, your words lost in the tunnel, and so, before long, the waters are breaking, and off you go, swept along, down the tunnel, through the curtains, into the room and out, out –
‘Niihara Ryūnosuke; Ryūnosuke, dragon-son …’
In the year of the dragon, in the month of the dragon, on the day of the dragon, in the hour of the dragon, at the sinking of the moon, at the rising of the sun, you first see the light of the world, and you weep and you scream, alone, alone, you scream and you scream –
2. ‘Mother / Haha’
You are in an asylum, in an enormous, monstrous room. All the lunatics have been made to dress in the same grey kimonos. It makes the scene even more depressing, if that were possible. One of the inmates sits at an organ, playing the same hymn again and again, over and over with ever-increasing intensity, ever greater fervour, as another dances, hopping and leaping about in the centre of the room. Beside a hale and hearty doctor, the very picture of health, you are looking on. The mad have a certain particular smell and in their odour you catch the scent of your own mother –
The smell of earth, a taste of mud …
‘Shall we go,’ says the doctor.
Your mother was a madwoman. A beautiful, slender and graceful madwoman, born of samurai stock, who married a parvenu beneath herself, becoming ever quieter, ever more timid and withdrawn until the death of your eldest sister, and then your own birth when, and finally, the spectres and the twilight overtook and engulfed her –
In-trancing her, in-snaring her …
Your mother blamed herself for the death of your sister Hatsu, believing the meningitis which killed her had been brought on by a cold she had caught while on a day out together. You were born the year after Hatsu died and so you never knew her, but for the portrait of the little round-cheeked girl with dimples which still stands on the altar in your house. But you and your other sister Hisa were no balm to your mother, no defence against the spectres, the spectres and the twilight –
In-prisoning her …
In an upstairs room in the Niihara house in Shiba Ward, day after day, she would sit alone, all day long, puffing on a long, thin pipe, her hair held up in a bun by a comb, her tiny face ashen, her tiny body lifeless, as though already no longer really here, always never really there, emaciated, fading and wasting away, away –
In-shadow …
But you saw her, saw her then, see her now: your adoptive mother made a point of taking you to see her, leading you up the steep stairs to that dim room, prompting you to say, Hello, hello, Mother. Most of the time your mother would not answer, would never speak, her pipe to her lips, its mouthpiece white and barrel black, though once, just once, she suddenly grinned, leant forward, tapped you on the head with her pipe and said –
‘Conk!’
But most of the time she was a very quiet, placid madwoman. But if you or your sister would ask her to draw or paint a picture for you, then she would take a sheet of writing paper, fold it in four and begin. Sometimes in black ink, sometimes in watercolours. Pictures of plants in bloom, paintings of children on an outing. But the people in her pictures, all the people she drew, they always had the faces of foxes, all fox-faced.
‘Shall we go,’ says the doctor again.
You follow the doctor down the corridor into another room. In the corners, on the shelves, there are large jars of alcohol in which brains and other organs are soaking, pickled –
Preserved …
You remember her death more than her life; she fi
nally wasted away and died in the autumn of your eleventh year. A telegram arrived. You climbed into a rickshaw with your adoptive mother and flew through the night from Honjo to Shiba. You had a thin silk handkerchief wrapped around your neck, with a motif of a Chinese landscape, the smell of perfume: Ayame Kōsui.
Your mother lay on a futon in the parlour beneath the upstairs room in which she had lived. You knelt beside her, weeping with your older sister.
Behind you, someone whispered, ‘The end is near now …’
Suddenly, your mother opened her eyes and spoke.
You cannot remember the words, but you remember you and your sister could not help but giggle. And then your sister began to cry again.
Your own tears had stopped, and they would not flow again. But you stayed kneeling before your mother throughout the night, beside your sister in her constant floods. You believed that as long as you did not cry, your mother would not die.
A few times, your mother would open her eyes, look you and your sister in the face, and then endless streams of tears would flow down her cheeks. But she did not speak again. And on the evening of the third day, your mother finally died. And then you cried, you cried.
A distant aunt, a woman you barely knew, put her arm around you, pulled you to her and said, ‘I’m so impressed by you!’
You could not understand what she meant, why she said what she said; impressed by what, you thought, how strange.
On the day of your mother’s funeral, you and your sister climbed into a rickshaw, your sister holding the memorial tablet and you carrying the censer, for the long funeral procession from Shiba to Yanaka. But as you wound your way through the streets in the autumn sunlight, you kept dozing off and then waking suddenly just before the censer was about to fall from your hands. The journey seemed never-ending –