Japanese Portraits: Pictures of Different People

by Donald Richie

  I smiled, seeing that my heavy little joke had been misunderstood. It doesn't matter, I said, as cordially as this phrase allows. The boy bowed me out, still flushed, still apologizing.

  Late that evening, listening to a Mozart quartet, I heard the screech of bike brakes and then a timid thumping on the front gate. It was Sato, still flushed from pumping up the hill. He extended a hand. In it was a small paper-wrapped package. My pumice stone.

  - You had it after all, I said and he, nodding, looked past me into the entryway. Realizing that he was curious as to how a foreigner lived, I invited him in for a cup of tea.

  He refused and I insisted, as custom demanded. Then he pulled off his boots and stepped up. He was very large. I had not realized just how large until I saw him in the house. Big feet, big hands. But not hulking, too polite for that and—curious in a modern youth—gentle.

  Over tea he asked politely: What's that you're playing?

  - That's Mozart.

  - Ah, Mozart, a composer. It's beautiful.

  - K. 590, I added.

  - Oh? He leaned forward, concerned, troubled.

  - They number Mozart, I explained: He wrote lots. They keep track of it this way.

  - Oh, he said, as though relieved, then smiled and shook his head to indicate that it was all beyond him, something from a different world: It's very pretty anyway.

  I asked him the price of the pumice stone.

  - Oh, no, that's all right.

  - No, it isn't all right.

  I looked for a price on the paper and noticed that it did not come from his nandemoya, but from somewhere in far Shibuya.

  - This isn't from your store.

  - Eh, he replied, a common answer. It means yes, or no, or both, or nothing at all.

  - After work you bicycled all the way to Shibuya to get this pumice stone.

  - But we ought to have had it, he explained, reddening: You said yourself that we're a store that's supposed to have no matter what.

  - That was a joke.

  He looked up, cheeks red, surprised. Then slowly he understood, smiled: Ah, he said, a joke. You foreigners are famous for your humor.

  He used yumoru, there being, typically, no word in Japanese for this famous quality. Then he laughed politely to show he had got the point. After we had savored my pleasantry for a while I again attempted to pay for my pumice stone.

  - It cost much less than the cup of tea you gave me, he said.

  I understood. It was not for me that he had gone and bought it, it was for the reputation of his store. They had been put to shame. He had atoned. And it was true—pumice stones were indeed very cheap.

  Mozart came to an end.

  - That was nice, he said.

  - Do you like music?

  - Yes.

  - Who's your favorite composer?

  - Hawaiian.

  - I see.

  - Do you have any Hawaiian?

  - No, only classical.

  He scratched his head, indicating that kurasiku was too difficult for him.

  - But you were enjoying the Mozart, I said.

  - But it's too difficult to understand, he answered.

  - You only discovered it was too difficult when you learned it was kurasiku. Before that you were enjoying it.

  For the first time he looked straight at me. This was a new idea. It was as if I had awakened him. He laughed with pleasure at the thought. Life was less complicated than he had been led to believe. Here he had been sitting, understanding Mozart.

  Still, he had his polite doubts: I wonder, he said. He used a feminine form—so kashira.

  And I in turn wondered. Was this Akita custom, was he mistaking Tokyo usage, or... ?

  - Is your father dead? I asked with that directness for which foreigners are also famous.

  He closed up instantly, as though my question had been a poking finger. Eyes dropped, smile stopped. Foreigners are like magicians. They deduce. They then disclose. The Japanese deduce things as well, of course, but they never let on.

  - Yes, he finally answered: When I was five. (Then, as sometimes happens, he told me something he would not easily tell another Japanese.) He killed himself.

  More questions, more answers, and his own short history emerged. Only son of a poor widow who scraped to send her son through middle school. Then, distant relative's introduction, trip to Tokyo, new job, bright lights, excitement. Weekly letter home to mother, monthly day off, vague hopes for the future. Alongside this another story. Father drank, father gambled, father ran around, father finally killed himself, leaving widow and infant behind.

  As a consequence, young Sato did not drink, knew nothing of horse-racing or women, and devoted himself to his job; and, a further consequence, he obviously missed his mother, whose feminine so kashira I had just heard.

  Silence. And a heaviness, as though we had both eaten too much. He was no doubt already regretting his confidences. Why, we had met only that afternoon. The conversation languished as it always does before a departure. Soon he was thanking me for the excellent tea, and giving me a formal bow.

  And then, unexpectedly, a warm, country smile appeared. Perhaps Sato felt that besides being indiscreet he had also begun to make a friend. I felt this too and showed it by not mentioning the pumice stone again.

  Nevertheless, I saw nothing of him for a time except in passing. Occasionally when I was leaving he would race by on his bike, basket piled with soap flakes, towels, steel wool, detergents. Konnichiwa, he would call, speeding on.

  Sometimes I also saw him at the bathhouse if I went very late. He sat there solemnly scrubbing his sturdy body. He would smile and say kombanwa, but when I got into the water, he got out.

  This I quite understood. It is common for a foreigner to be treated to unasked-for confidences. It is also common for him to be avoided because he has been their recipient. The nandemoya youth, having indulged himself, at my prodding admittedly, now wished he hadn't. He may have seen it as self-indulgence, always a bad thing in a young, hardworking male.

  Then, late one cool evening, I went to the local coffee shop. It was run by a harried, middle-aged woman who always carried a snapping Pomeranian under one arm and who often dropped hair into the cream. Its popularity was due to its being the only coffee shop in the neighborhood.

  When I entered, the one table not completely full was that half-occupied by young Sato, shining from his bath. I prepared to leave but he spoke, smiled, indicated the chair opposite. Both of us affirmed that it had been a very long time, the proper way to begin a conversation, then sat in companionable silence until he looked into his coffee.

  - There's a hair in it.

  - It's hers. She's famous for it.

  - It might be the dog's, he said, fishing it out of his cup.

  - Too long, wrong color. It's black.

  We both examined the hair, now lying on the table. We then talked about various doings in the neighborhood. And what of Mr. Sato? I asked, the third person being polite. He looked at me and touched his nose to ascertain if I was indeed referring to him. This too was polite, as was my gracious nod in reply. Yes, I said, then proceeding to a more intimate level: For example, have you any hobbies yet?

  He thought for a time before answering: Guns.

  Seeing my surprise—for violence was the last thing I expected from him—he smiled: Not to shoot with, just to collect.

  And did he have a large collection?

  No, in fact he didn't own a single one, but he was thinking about collecting. It would be a hobby. Like my Mozart. I would have my composer and he would have his guns, he said with no irony, smiling, pleased at the symmetry.

  Then, sensing a misunderstanding: Not real guns, you know, just plastic models.

  I thought of his father. But he, sitting there, smiling, did not.

  It was not until after New Year's that we met again. He appeared late one evening with a gift of fruit—apples from his home province, from far Akita. But he looked serious this time, and
when I invited him in he took off his boots at once, no hanging back. He then announced that he wanted to have a sodan—a talk, a discussion.

  He sat on his cushion and looked at his hands. A sodan does not begin immediately. It is prefaced by a silence which can go on for some time as the person needing the discussion apparently turns over in his mind the best way to start it. His bowed head was pregnant with thought but he did not open his mouth.

  I went to the kitchen, made tea, peeled several of the apples, cut them, put them in a bowl, brought everything in, and he was still sitting there, steeped in silence. Then finally ...

  - I came to have a sodan.

  - I see.

  - I don't have anyone else to talk to about this.

  - I see.

  - I wanted your advice too because you're a foreigner and know all about things like this.

  With that he began, starting so far back and adding so much information that it was some time before I finally understood. To put it simply, he was in love.

  He had never thought he would be, but now he felt, now he knew, right here—solemnly thumping his chest with his fist—that this was the real thing. He was deeply in love, would never recover. He spoke with great seriousness. This subdued any levity I might otherwise have shown. I too turned serious.

  - But what good news, I said: Being in love is wonderful. It should make you happy, surely.

  - It should? He looked at me suspiciously, rubbing his chest.

  - Of course. Love is famous for that.

  He looked doubtful: Then I wonder if I am in love. I'm not happy about it.

  More information was forthcoming. He had known the girl from grade school ... then forgotten all about her ... but this time, back in Akita for the holidays, he had found her working in the local coffee shop, and she'd been nice to him and taken him to the movies and they'd had a long walk, and she wanted more than anything to get out of Akita and come to Tokyo, and he worked in Tokyo and so they should get married, and she loved him and so he loved her too. Now, what did I think of all this and what should he do?

  A Japanese in my position would have been most unhelpful. He would have examined both sides, and just when it seemed he was in favor of one course of action, he would say: But on the other hand ... In this way all responsibility for further misfortune could be avoided.

  But I was not Japanese, which was why the besotted young man had come to me. Here was this awful thing called love, threatening his new Tokyo life. He wanted to be told what to do about it. What to do was clear. He ought to refuse to provide her with an escape route from horrid Akita. But such advice would not, I knew, fit his present mood. He was far too taken with the enormity of it all—being in love. So I mentioned the possibility of not being actually married but of living together for a time in Tokyo.

  - Oh, no, he said in alarm: What would the nandemoya people think? And besides, what about the children? They'd be illegitimate.

  - Well, you needn't have any, not right off at any rate.

  - But people in love often do have children.

  This raised a delicate matter. I wanted to ascertain just how far this love of theirs had carried them. But how to find out? Sato was still young enough to be prudish.

  - Did you have any prior experience? (Keiken was, I thought, the proper word to use.)

  - Oh, no, I've never been in love before.

  - No, I mean, did you and she have any experience? (Keiken again, since I could think of no other polite word.)

  - No, this is the first time we've ever felt this way.

  Keiken was obviously not the word I wanted. How did one say "intimate" in Japanese, with all its genteel and quasi-medical overtones?

  - Did you hug each other? I ventured, knowing that daku is something used to suggest further intimacies. Perhaps he would follow my drift.

  He seemed to. He blushed, then said: Yes. Once. And we kissed too. Once, he added scrupulously.

  Here was my opportunity.

  - Anything further?

  - Standing up in the cold on that beach? And it was snowing too.

  - I see.

  Satisfied that the love affair had not proceeded too far, I said: So, you'd been seeing her and then one day on the beach you talked and hugged and kissed.

  He shook his head: No, it was different. On Sunday she took me to the movies and then we took a walk on the beach and then we hugged and kissed and were in love.

  - All in one day.

  - In one afternoon.

  - Mr. Sato. How do you know you are in love?

  - She said so.

  - I see.

  He looked at me, eyes hopeless, then dropped his head and gazed at the table, the untasted tea. There he sat, undone, a big country boy with large hands.

  There is something feminine about boys in love—they seem to become the girls they are in love with. That coffee-shop meeting was easy to imagine. She probably sat there just as he was sitting now: still, consumed with her purpose.

  During the days that followed he did not seem to ride his bike as fast, did not scrub himself as thoroughly in the bath, did not wait on the customers with such efficient dispatch. It was as though he were continually preoccupied.

  She was writing to him often, he said, and his evenings were filled with writing letters in return. Sometimes he showed hers to me, read them to me. They were not about Sato himself. They were about how awful life in Akita was and what she was going to do in Tokyo after they were married. She had so many things to do that I wondered if he would ever see her, but I said nothing of such thoughts.

  - I wonder if she'll approve of your gun collection, was all I allowed myself to say.

  He smiled ruefully: She knows about my father. Says it was a dreadful thing to do. Hopes I'll make a better husband than he did.

  Even then, I held my tongue. I wish now that I hadn't. I now think that I ought to have told him what I thought. But I said nothing. One of my reasons was my own feelings, my distrust of my own motives for speaking out. Another was that I was beginning to realize how important being in love was to Sato. Not, perhaps, the girl, but certainly the new center this had given his life.

  In a few months he had matured. He was now a young man, responsible, no longer a youth. Even his face seemed to have changed, grown leaner. And his gaze was no longer so direct, so innocent. Now it was inward-looking.

  And since I was the only person to whom he could speak about this overwhelming event, his visits were frequent. No more listening to Mozart. Even gun talk was brushed aside. I had become the doctor with whom he discussed his ailment. It absorbed him completely.

  It did so, doctor saw, because it allowed him to be a person he had not been before. And though this troubled him, he must have welcomed it. At last he had something certain in his changeable life, the rock of his love, standing there, resisting the current.

  So, for all these reasons, I made no attempt to treat the patient, simply let him go on, become more and more feverish. Admittedly, though I wished him well, I found these evenings spent singing her praises less and less interesting. No matter how hard I tried to steer him onto other things, like Colts and Winchesters, the conversation would irresistibly settle around Akiko—her name.

  Then one night he appeared, white, agitated. He stood in the entryway, a letter in his hand. Briefly, it announced that Akiko was marrying a Mr. Watanabé of her acquaintance who was doing well in an Osaka company, and so she would not, as it turned out, be coming to Tokyo to be Mrs. Sato. She was terribly sorry, but it could not be helped. He was to take care of his health in this unseasonably cool spring weather.

  I made him come in and, since it was an unseasonably cool spring evening, gave him a hot toddy. Then, as relieved by her letter as he was upset by it, I told him, among other things, that he was lucky he had discovered her character before marriage, that he was well out of it, that another girl would be much more deserving of him.

  All of these sensible observations were rejected and I s
aw that, despite everything, Sato was still in love—now even more so. He was in love because he needed to be, and now simply listened to my comments, nodding absently. His mind was made up. He was leaving his job, telling no one. He was taking the train to Akita that very evening.

  Standing again in the entryway I looked at him—a grown, unhappy man—and wondered at the power of emotion, the strength of need. He tried to smile. He couldn't.

  I never saw him again. The rest I heard from the neighbors, all of them scandalized for a week or so. He had gone back to Akita, there'd been some girl there, and who would have thought it, a nice boy, a steady worker, like him.

  Anyway, she'd worked in this coffee shop, and he'd gone there, and then ... but here stories varied. Maybe there was an argument, maybe she'd shouted in front of the other customers. At any rate it was probably after something like that that he went to see his mother—for the last time.

  - He killed himself, I said, seeing him before me, thinking of his father: He shot himself.

  Well, that they didn't know. Oh, probably killed himself all right. It seems they found him on the beach, in the rain, dead for some time apparently. But shot? No, they didn't think so. He didn't have a gun, you see. The story was that he took a knife from his mother's kitchen and used that. At least that was what people said.

  I could learn nothing further. The master of the nandemoya refused to answer any more questions. I stood there in front of the store and thought of him: Hidetada Sato, nineteen years old, alone on that cold beach.

  Shuji Terayama

  Looking at Terayama's stage is like looking into a box. The lid has been removed and one peers down into it, as though from a height. What one sees had been hidden. Now it is disclosed.

  There sits the bad mother in her dark corner; there is the son, groping as though blind, trying to escape; there is the androgynous young girl, taunting or helping; and there is the other man—half butler, half elder brother, usually bald.

  These creatures live in the depths of the box, an unvarying cast whatever the name of the play. They are surrounded by—at times half-hidden under—the decor: Taisho-period prints, old Japanese flags, the Victor dog, school uniforms, faded photos, ball gowns, a sword or two; relics of prewar Japan.