by David Peace
A servant led Ryūnosuke and Murata into a drawing room of several Western-style chairs before a rectangular table with a bowl of porcelain fruit. These humble imitations of apples, grapes and pears were the only decorations in the room, a pleasing simplicity filling the empty room. In the furthest corner, a ladder came down from above, a pair of Chinese shoes now coming down the rungs of the ladder –
A rather small man, in a grey full-length gown, with long hair and a slim face, intelligent-looking eyes, very quick nerves and an extremely serious disposition, Li Renjie made a good first impression. He sat down across the table from Ryūnosuke.
Li had studied at a university in Tokyo, his Japanese fluent, and Ryūnosuke was further impressed by his detailed reasoning:
‘What shall we do with contemporary China? The resolution of the problem lies not in a republic or a monarchical restoration. Political revolutions have been useless in improving China. This has been proven in the past and is now being proven again in the present. Thus, what we are trying to bring about is a “social revolution” …
‘And so if we are to bring about such a revolution, we have to rely on propaganda. Therefore, we write things. Enlightened Chinese scholars are not indifferent to new learning. In fact, we are starving for knowledge. But what shall we do about our lack of books and magazines to satiate our hunger? At this moment, our immediate duty is to write.’
Ryūnosuke nodded and said, ‘I have become disappointed in the Chinese arts. Neither the novels nor the paintings I have seen so far are worthy of discussion. Nonetheless, judging from the present situation in China, to expect a revival of the arts – or, perhaps I should say, to expect the revival of anything – might be a mistake …’
‘I have a seed in my hand,’ said Li. ‘But I am afraid the land is only wilderness for ten thousand miles. Nothing but a wilderness. And there is nothing we can do about it. That is the reason I have no choice but to be depressed about whether or not our body is strong enough to endure …’
Ryūnosuke nodded again and said, ‘But other than as a means of propaganda, can you afford to even worry about the arts?’
‘Virtually not at all,’ said Li. ‘What we must really pay attention to now is the power of Chinese banks. It is not a question of the power behind them, rather it is their tendency to influence the government in Beijing. But we need not be sad about this; we know our enemies – the targets of our guns – and they are only a group of banks, after all …’
Back outside the house, Murata said, ‘That guy is very smart.’
‘Very impressive, indeed,’ agreed Ryūnosuke.
Murata smiled and said, ‘And you know, when he was a student in Japan, Li was an avid reader and admirer of your own work?’
‘Every man has his flaws,’ sighed Ryūnosuke.
8
On his last night, in another café, in another corner, at another table, under a Chinese lantern, Ryūnosuke and Jones were drinking whisky and sodas, watching crowds of Americans and Russians swarming around the room, women leaning against the tables, listening to the Indian musicians of the orchestra. One particular woman, wearing a gown of celadon green, fluttered from one man to the next, her face beautiful, yet with something porcelain, almost morbid about her: Green satin, and a dance, white wine / and gleaming laughter, with two nodding earrings – these are Lotus …
‘Who is she,’ asked Ryūnosuke, ‘the girl in the green dress?’
Jones shrugged and said, ‘Her? French, I think. An actress.’
‘Do you know her? Her story …?’
Jones shrugged again. ‘People call her Ninny. But just look at him, that old guy over there. Now there is a man with a story …’
Ryūnosuke glanced at the man at the next table. He was holding a glass of red wine in both hands, warming the glass, rocking the wine, moving his head in time to the music of the band.
Jones whispered, ‘He’s Jewish, you know. He’s lived here for almost thirty years. But he’s never said what brought him here, or what makes him stay. I often wonder about him …’
‘What do you care,’ said Ryūnosuke.
Jones said, ‘I just wonder. I’m already fed up with China.’
‘Not with China,’ said Ryūnosuke. ‘With Shanghai.’
Jones nodded. ‘With China. I lived in Beijing for a while, too.’
‘Because China is gradually becoming too Western?’
Jones seemed about to answer, but then stopped.
‘Then if not China,’ asked Ryūnosuke, ‘then where would you live? How about Japan again? You could return to Tokyo …’
Jones shook his head and said, ‘You should never go back to the places you’ve lived. You can’t really …’
‘So where then?’
Jones smiled and said, ‘Russia, under the Soviets.’
‘Then you should go! You can go anywhere you want …’
Jones closed his eyes, was silent for a while, a long while, and then, in Japanese, quoted lines from the Man’yōshū, lines Ryūnosuke had long forgotten: ‘The world is full of pain / And the shame of poverty / But I am not a bird / I cannot fly away …’
Ryūnosuke smiled.
Jones opened his eyes, looked again around the room and said, ‘I don’t know about that old Jewish guy, but even Ninny seems happier than me …’
‘Ah-ha,’ laughed Ryūnosuke, ‘I knew you must know her!’
Jones shrugged and said, ‘I am not a straightforward person, Ryūnosuke. Poet, painter, critic, journalist and more. Son, brother, bachelor and Irishman. And on top of all that, a romantic in my mind, a realist in my life and a communist in my politics …’
‘And a lover of Ninny,’ laughed Ryūnosuke.
Now Jones laughed, too. ‘Yeah, yeah. And an atheist in religion and a materialist in philosophy. Now, come on. Sa-ikō …’
Outside, the city was lost in a strange yellow fog. Its false fronts, buried for now. Ryūnosuke followed Jones along the streets, towards the sound of the water, the sound of the waves …
By the water, they stopped. A customs-house spire dimly visible through the fog. A black sail, torn and tilted, creaking along, adrift and alone. The river swelled and flowed backwards. The black legs of a wharf bound in chains. Mountains of off-loaded cargo. Coolies on barrels stacked on the embankment in the damp air …
‘It’s too late’, said Jones, ‘to change anything.’
‘Then that means you’ve wasted your life.’
A group of exhausted Russian prostitutes sitting on a bench. The blue lamp of a sampan moving against the current, rotating ceaselessly, hypnotically before their silent, wasted eyes …
‘Not only me,’ said Jones, ‘but all the people of the world.’
The dull clank of copper coins, Chinamen gambling on top of barrels. The gaslights in striped patterns, through the yellow fog and the wet trees. The boats tied to the quay rocking in the waves, floating up and down in the flicker of the lamplight.
‘Hey, look at that,’ said Jones, pointing into the dark water –
At their feet, on the tide, the pale corpse of a small dog kissed the stones of the quay. A wreath around its neck –
Rising and falling, on the tide.
Ryūnosuke turned his back, lit a cigarette and watched the prostitutes stand and saunter away along an iron railing. A young woman at the end of the procession glanced back furtively with her pallid eyes, and Ryūnosuke felt overwhelmed by the sudden, crushing sadness of a dream: when that woman Shigeko had told him that her second child was his, then turned and walked away, she had glanced back at him in that very same way. Now the young woman stepped over the ropes that moored the boats, then disappeared among the barrels with the others. All they left behind was a banana peel, stepped on and splattered. Ryūnosuke stared back out across the water. Day and night, coins and goods flowed in and out from the port, and all along the river the warships of the world spread out their batteries of guns.
‘I wonder why we do that,’ said Jo
nes, quietly, still watching the dead dog bobbing up and down on the black water.
‘Do what,’ asked Ryūnosuke.
‘Make a wreath,’ said Jones. ‘For the dead.’
Ryūnosuke stared back down at the corpse, then shook his head and said, ‘I don’t know. But I’m glad we do. Or some of us do.’
‘Maybe it was Ninny,’ said Jones.
Ryūnosuke looked back up at Jones, remembering again lines from that poem by Eunice Tietjens: You too perhaps were stranded here, like these poor / homesick boys, in this great catch-all where the / white race ends, this grim Shanghai that like a / sieve hangs over filth and loneliness …
Ryūnosuke flicked his cigarette out into the night and the water and said, ‘For hope and all young wings are drowned in you …’
‘Awfully sentimental,’ said Jones.
Ryūnosuke nodded. ‘I’ll be sorry to leave you, but not Shanghai.’
‘The rest of China is no better,’ said Jones. ‘You still have too many illusions, you always do. So I’m afraid you’ll be very disappointed.’
‘Then I hope when we meet again it will be in Japan and in happier times, and you’ll be much happier, too.’
Jones was staring up the river at the shadows of the warships. In the night, with their guns. Silent and waiting. Now Jones turned to Ryūnosuke and said, ‘I’m sorry, old friend. But I very much doubt it.’
Ryūnosuke said nothing. There on that quay, here in this night, he was remembering their first meeting. A fire burning brightly in a fireplace, its flames reflecting in the mahogany tables and chairs. They had talked all night, of literature and of Ireland, until Ryūnosuke had been overcome with drowsiness. It had not been so very long ago, not even ten years, but it felt like a memory from another life, another world. The flames of that fire no longer seemed comforting and warm, but threatening and portentous, filling Ryūnosuke with a vague feeling of anxiety and dread.
On the quay, in the night, Ryūnosuke shivered in the damp air and said, ‘Do you still detest George Bernard Shaw?’
‘More than ever,’ laughed Jones.
‘And the words of Christ?’
‘Awfully sentimental.’
Ryūnosuke stared into the water again, the dog and its wreath not moving now, just floating. The face of Jesus on the water. There were tears in his eyes, on his cheeks and now his collar, as he said, ‘It’s surely better to believe in at least the possibility of forgiveness, and of redemption …’
‘You should return your ticket,’ said Jones. ‘The East and the West cannot be reconciled. They will tear you apart, Ryūnosuke.’
And now, suddenly, Jones sneezed again.
9
After the goodbyes, in the night. Ryūnosuke walked out onto the deck of the Hōyō-maru and lit a cigarette. On the pier, no souls abroad. Lights shone downstream, along the Bund. All a forged facade, all a grotesque parody. And in the night, out on the deck, Ryūnosuke closed his eyes …
Long, long ago, there was a giant peach tree, its roots in the underworld, its branches above the clouds. One fine morning, Yatagarasu, a mythical crow, landed upon one of the branches of the tree. Yatagarasu pecked off one of the fruits of the tree. The fruit fell through the clouds into a stream far down below. A childless old woman saw the peach in the stream. Inside the peach was a boy. The old woman took the boy home. And the old woman and her husband called this boy Momotarō.
Now Momotarō had the idea to conquer the Demon Island, because he hated working in the fields, the mountains and the rivers like the old man and woman who had adopted and raised him. The elderly couple, exhausted by this naughty foundling, prepared a banner, a sword and some dumplings, and off he set. Soon Momotarō was joined by a starving dog, a cowardly monkey and a dignified pheasant on his quest to the Demon Island.
But despite its name, the Demon Island was actually a beautiful natural paradise. And the demons themselves were a placid, pleasure-seeking race. They played harps, sang songs and danced dances. Their grandparents, though, would often tell cautionary tales of the horrible humans across the water: ‘If you are naughty, we’ll send you to the land of the humans. Their men and women tell lies. They are greedy, jealous and vain. They set fires, they steal things, and even kill their friends for pleasure or profit.’
With the banner of the peach in one hand, waving his sun-emblem fan, Momotarō brought terror to the demons, ordering the dog, the monkey and the pheasant: ‘Forward! Forward! Kill the demons, leave none alive!’
The dog killed one young demon with just one bite. The monkey ravaged and then throttled the demon girls. The pheasant pecked countless demon children to death. And soon a forest of corpses littered the Demon Island. And the demon chieftain surrendered to Momotarō –
‘Now in my great mercy’, declared Momotarō, ‘I will spare your life. But in return, you will bring me all your treasure and you will give me all your children as hostages …’
The demon chieftain had no choice but to agree. And in triumph, with his treasure and his hostages, Momotarō returned victorious to Japan. However, Momotarō did not live happily ever after. The demon children grew up to be most ungrateful adults. Endlessly trying to kill Momotarō, ceaselessly trying to escape from Japan, to return back home, back to the Demon Island –
Endlessly, ceaselessly …
Her engines turning, the Hōyō-maru began to move now. Ryūnosuke opened his eyes, threw his cigarette butt into the water and reached back into his pocket. But instead of the yellow box of Egyptians, Ryūnosuke felt something else in his fingers –
‘Roses, red roses …’
The petals already withered, the fragrance already gone, already spent now, but a dream now –
A nightmare …
The sudden crack of shotgun fire, the shrill whistle of a gunboat. Firefly larvae feeding on a paralysed snail. New flesh, fresh meat. Devils turning corners, evil reading maps. A great noise, all around him, grinding and screaming. Through valleys of darkness, through vales of tears –
‘Awfully sentimental …’
In the night, on the deck. Ryūnosuke tossed the wilted red rose into the churning dark waters. Then his fingers in his ears, now his fingers in his eyes, Ryūnosuke cursed Momotarō, Ryūnosuke cursed Yatagarasu. And then he cursed himself. And now Ryūnosuke prayed, his ticket in his hand; Ryūnosuke prayed and he prayed no birds would ever disturb the branches of that tree again. No babies ever be born of peaches again.
What you want, you should not want.
The Exorcists
From on the bridge
as I throw away the cucumber,
the water sounds and thus I see,
a bobbed head.
– for Owaka-san, by drunken-Gaki
Tanka on a folded screen, painted with a Kappa,
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Nagasaki, May, 1922
A man is standing in my way, blocking my path and shouting in my face, ‘An angel will bring down his sword against this city in judgement! For this is a sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a bed of evildoers! Look at the Diet and the city council. Look at the theatres and the department stores and the frivolous men and women who frequent them. Look at the intellectuals and literati they worship, and the magazines and newspapers who encourage them. They do not fear slandering the sacred, they do not fear slandering God! They are apostates, they are heretics! This is not Tokyo, this is not Japan; this is Sodom and Gomorrah! And soon you will feel the wrath of Heaven, for soon you will know the punishment of Heaven!’
I push past the madman, into Tokyo station, through the ticket gates, up the stairs, onto the platform, onto my train, and away …
*
Kyō Tsunetō, his oldest and dearest friend, and the reason he had stopped off in Kyoto, had just started in his new position in the Faculty of Economics at Kyoto Imperial University, and so, during the days, Ryūnosuke wandered across the city, meandered through its streets, dreaming and imagining the streets as they were before, the city of old.
Under its blue skies, under its cherry blossoms; the gaze of its skies, the madness of its blossoms.
That particular day in early May, in his serge kimono and his geta sandals, with his notebook in his satchel, his cigarettes and his fan, Ryūnosuke left Tsunetō’s lodgings overlooking the Shimogamo Shrine in Morimoto-chō, first heading south to the fork in the river, then turning onto Imadegawa-dōri and walking west, west all the way past the top of the park of the Imperial Palace and the lower edges of the campus of Dōshisha University, west and further west, west all the way past the Kitano Tenmangū Shrine, west until he turned south again down Nishiōji-dōri, then west again when he came to Myōshinji-dōri, west again until he reached the southern entrance to the walled enclave of the Myōshinji Temple itself.
Here, Ryūnosuke crossed over the stone bridge, went under the wooden gate and entered this other world, this other city, a city within a city – with its forty or more sub-temples, with its avenues of pine and fir trees, its narrow stone paths and raked-gravel lawns, its temples of red and temples of wood – through this labyrinth of low white stone walls with their grey kawara-tiled roofs, Ryūnosuke meandered and wandered, weaving his way towards his aim, his aim for the day; he could have stopped to see the rock garden, the karesansui of the Taizōin Temple, he could have stopped to stare up at the Unryūzu painting by Kanō Tanyū, ‘the dragon glaring in eight directions’ in the hall of the Myōshinji Temple, but Ryūnosuke had only one aim, one thing in mind today.
Between a small bush of blooming peony and a weeping tree of cherry blossom, Ryūnosuke crossed over another tiny stone bridge, went under another small wooden gate, and entered yet another world, another world within another world: the grounds of the Shunkōin Temple.
Here, Ryūnosuke was greeted by a monk. Ryūnosuke introduced himself, apologised for calling without an appointment, but asked if it might be possible to see what he had come, come so very far to see. The monk smiled and led Ryūnosuke into the main building. And here, at last, Ryūnosuke saw for himself the Bell of Nanbanji.