At first, as before, he could find no meaning in it, but as he read it over and over again, he began to think that if he concentrated patiently on the words, an object with these queer properties might turn up. What was more, he remembered the old diviner's advice that since the thing was in his possession, he should not forget to use it when the occasion arose. He began to think that if only he could hit on something, anything, no matter what, something having these properties within the narrow range of his own surroundings, he might be able to solve the question—and in a shorter time than he had thought it would take. He decided to make good use of the two hours before him by solving the riddle.
He began with objects around him—his desk, books, towels, cushions-—and then proceeded in turn to his wicker trunk, suitcase, and socks, but already an hour had elapsed without his lighting upon anything even closely resembling the puzzle. He became irritated, confused. His thoughts rushed around the room restlessly until disregarding all restraint, they forced themselves out the door and ran wildly in every direction.
Presently appearing distinctly before him with all the authority of the person Keitaro was in search of was a tall, lean gentleman in a salt-and-pepper cloak and a black fedora. And all at once the face was transformed into Morimoto's in Dairen. The instant Keitaro visualized in his imagination the visage of Morimoto with its loosely hanging moustache, he uttered a cry like that of someone who has just been jolted by an electric shock.
The name Morimoto had long been a medium through which strange sounds came to Keitaro's ears. And lately it had grown into a kind of perfect signal. Although the man's name had inevitably associated itself with the walking stick from the beginning (whether the stick was interpreted as a connection between Morimoto and Keitaro or whether it was regarded as something standing between them), there had been a certain gulf between Morimoto and the stick itself which had prevented Keitaro from going from one to the other at a leap. But of late the two had become so closely joined that the name Morimoto instantly called up to Keitaro's mind the walking stick, and vice versa.
As Keitaro's thoughts were carried away by the warm flow of blood under the stimulus that Morimoto's name had given him, he hit on the idea that the walking stick was something whose ownership was not settled as being Morimoto's or his own. The moment this occurred to him he exclaimed, "That's it!" and laid firm hold of the cane among the dark and disordered phantoms scurrying away from him.
He was pleased with himself, believing the first part of the old woman's riddle, "something which seems your own and another's," was solved. But he had not yet considered the remaining parts, "something long and short, something which goes out and comes in." And so he began with renewed endeavor to try to find these two remaining properties in the same stick.
At first he thought the angle at which one looked at the stick might make it seem sometimes short and sometimes long, and he followed that line of reasoning. But he felt this was too commonplace an interpretation. So he retraced his way and started anew, repeating any number of times the phrase "long and short." It seemed unlikely, however, that he could reach a solution in so brief an interval. His watch showed he had only thirty minutes left of the two hours he had started with.
He began to doubt his reading of the riddle—wondering if he were not struggling hopelessly in a cul-de-sac he had mistaken for a through street. If he couldn't get past, he thought it best to return to the point at which he had started and try to find a new path. But the time remaining was too limited for that.
Since he had partially succeeded, it would be more reasonable to take his success as a good omen and to follow the original line of reasoning as far as he could. In the course of the confused, meandering search, in which he grasped at anything that offered even a faint hope, his image of the stick was suddenly transferred from its entirety to only the head of the snake carved at the handle. In that instant, almost unawares, he compared a snake's short, spoon-bowl head to its long, thin torso covered with glittering scales and realized that because the head of the snake on the cane had been cut short at the neck from the long torso to which it ought to have been connected, the thing was something both long and short at the same time. This answer, flashing through his mind like lightning, made him leap for joy.
The rest of the riddle, "something which goes out and comes in," did not require much thought, only about five minutes' worth. It occurred to him that what was half-hidden in the snake's mouth and half out of it— whether intended as an egg or a frog he couldn't be certain—and neither swallowed nor escaping, could be determined as going out or coming in. At once he concluded that was it.
Keitaro, thinking he had solved the entire riddle perfectly, sprang from his desk. He secured his watch by twisting its chain around his kimono band. With hat in hand, he was about to leave without even putting on his hakama when the question of how to take out the walking stick made him pause for a moment.
A long time had elapsed since Morimoto had left it in the umbrella stand. Keitaro might touch it or even remove it without any fear of reproach or suspicion from the landlord, even if nothing were told to the man beforehand. But it would take some planning to make off with it at a time when the landlord's family were not nearby, or, if they were, to do so without their noticing it. Having been raised in a superstitious family, he had often heard his mother tell him that if someone wanted to acquire something to be used right away in a spell, that object would lose its efficacy unless it were stolen without being seen by others.
He went halfway down the stairs from the second floor and peered below, pretending to look at the board-inghouse clock in the front hall.
As usual, the landlord was sitting by the big round porcelain brazier in his six-mat room. His wife was not present. While Keitaro was leaning over from the middle of the stairway to look into the room through the glass panes in the sliding doors, the bell above the landlord's head suddenly began its noisy ring. The landlord glanced up at the number of the room asking for service and called into the adjoining room, "Hey, anyone there?" Keitaro crept back to his quarters on the third floor.
He opened the closet door and took out his serge hakama, which he had thrown over the wicker trunk. As he walked about the room putting the hakama on, its backstay dragged behind him along the tatami. He then pulled off his tabi and changed into a pair of socks. With that much done, he again went downstairs.
Glancing into the parlor, he did not see the landlord's wife or the maid. Nor did the bell ring this time. All was quiet throughout the house. But the landlord, as earlier, was still leaning against the big round brazier, his eyes toward the entrance. Keitaro, from the angle at which he was looking before reaching the foot of the stairs, could see the landlord's bent back. He knew that the time was not yet ripe. Nevertheless, he ventured down. As he feared, the landlord asked him if he was going out and at once called the maid to take his footgear out of the box in which the shoes and clogs were kept. Keitaro, with troubles enough dodging one man's notice, did not want to add to the problem by having the maid present. "Don't worry about me," he said and raising the wooden lid promptly lifted out his shoes. Fortunately the maid failed to appear by the time Keitaro was standing on the earthen floor at the entrance. But the landlord was still observing him.
"Would you do me a small favor?" Keitaro said. "This month's issue of the Law Society Journal is on my desk. Could you get it for me? I've already put my shoes on and, well, I don't want to have to take them off again." Keitaro knew the man had a smattering knowledge of law, so the request had been deliberate.
"Certainly," the landlord replied. Seeing that only he could carry out Keitaro's request, he rose promptly and started up the stairs.
In that spare moment Keitaro pulled the walking stick from the umbrella stand and held it tight against his arm under his haori. He stole out of the house before the landlord returned.
He hurried to Hongo Street with a feeling of pressure under his right armpit caused by the curving angle
of the snakehead. On reaching the street, he removed the stick from under his cloak and gazed at the head of the snake. He took a handkerchief from his kimono sleeve and wiped the dust off the cane from top to bottom. This done, he held the stick in his right hand as if it were any ordinary cane and walked on wielding it vigorously.
On the streetcar he sat with hands folded over the snakehead, his chin resting on them. He sighed with relief as he looked back over the great pains he had been taking but which had now come to a brief halt. At the same time, his misgivings began again about the undertaking at the carstop he was now heading for. On reflection it was totally beyond his reasoning power how a walking stick he had exerted so much effort to carry off— almost as if committing a theft—could be useful in identifying a mole between a pair of eyebrows. He had merely followed the old woman's words and had sought as best he could something that was at once his own and another's, was long and short, and apparently went out and came in, and he was now carrying it with him as she had advised.
This mysterious-looking, yet actually quite commonplace and exceedingly light bamboo cane, whether set down, held in the hand, or hidden under a sleeve— what use, he wondered, could it ever be in locating that strange person? In this moment of doubt he glanced around the car, his face as blank as that of a person who has just shaken off an attack of ague. He felt ashamed of the efforts he had exerted a short while back with an ardor so impatient that it seemed as if steam had been rising from the very pores of his head. To distract himself from these thoughts, he laid firmer hold of the stick and lightly tapped the streetcar floor with it.
Soon he reached his destination. He hurriedly went back toward Ogawamachi from the carstop near the YMCA building. It was still only about a quarter to four. He crossed to the other side of the street, which was filled with the noise of pedestrians and streetcars, and there found a police box. He stood beside a red mailbox in a pose similar to a policeman's before his station and looked at the thoroughfare running straight south and at another broad street into which the former turned, curving gently left and right at the juncture.
Having thus surveyed the stage on which he was to soon play an active role, Keitaro now began to verify the whereabouts of the streetcar stop.
A dozen yards east of the mailbox he saw a red iron pole with characters in white paint that read "Ogawamachi." If only he stood there and waited, he could at least say on his own behalf that despite the possibility of missing the man in question among these jostling crowds, he had been at his post on time. Having gained this much assurance, he left the marked pole to look at his surroundings.
A porcelain dealer's shop built in the warehouse style was directly behind him. Under the eaves a box in the shape of a framed tablet and containing many small sake cups arranged in rows had been put up. Hanging there was a metal birdcage to the outside of which were tied innumerable porcelain cups for birdseed. Next to this shop was one dealing in leather goods. Its most conspicuous decoration was a large tiger fur with lifelike eyes and genuine claws and a border of red woolen cloth. Keitaro stood gazing at the animal's amber eyes. At the end of a long narrow muffler of snow-white fur was what looked to Keitaro like a small badger's humorous face.
Keitaro pulled out his watch, calculated the time remaining, and then moved on to the next shop, a jeweler's. He peered into the show window where in addition to gold rings and various cuff links he found a brilliant display of such items as a translucent rabbit carved from agate, some square-shaped personal seals made of amethyst, negake hair ornaments of green jade, and malachite fasteners.
Glancing into these shops one after another, Keitaro walked along until he had passed the Tenkado department store and came to a cabinetmaker's. At that moment he saw a streetcar which had come from behind him stop short, just opposite the pavement he was walking along.
Thinking there might possibly be another streetcar stop with the same name, he cut across the street and approached a foreign goods store at the corner of a narrow side street. There, written in white on another iron pole were the characters "Ogawamachi," the same as on the previous pole he had seen.
To double-check, he waited at this corner for a few streetcars to pass. The first was for Aoyama, the second for Shinjuku via Kudan. All these cars came straight from Mansei Bridge, so he was reassured that he need not worry the man in the fedora would get off at this stop. But just as Keitaro was retracing his steps to return to his former position on the other side of the street, a streetcar from the south swerved at the corner of Mitoshirocho and stopped near the spot Keitaro was standing at. It was only when he read the word "Sugamo" written in black characters above the motorman's head that he realized for the first time how careless he had been.
A passenger taking a streetcar from Mita through Marunouchi to get off at Ogawamachi would, after passing over Kanda Bridge, find the car turning either to the left and would therefore get off at the stop Keitaro was now standing at, or would find the car turning right and would get off in front of the porcelain shop Keitaro had checked a short while ago. And since each spot with its white sign indicated that the stop was Ogawamachi, Keitaro could not be certain at which of the two his man in the black fedora would alight.
With his eyes he measured the distance between the two red streetcar poles. Not more than a hundred yards. Doubtful of his powers of observation in checking even one place, Keitaro felt that no matter how highly he would have liked to estimate his own resourcefulness, it was absolutely impossible to demand the skill in himself to cover two areas thoroughly even though the distance between them was not great.
The streetcar line that Keitaro usually took from the area in which he lived was the one connecting Hongo to Mita. Not having known until that moment that there was another line that ran from Sugamo through Suidobashi to Mita, he couldn't help regretting his heedlessness. Totally at a loss, he suddenly thought as a last resort of asking Sunaga for help. But already it was seven minutes to four. Although Sunaga's house was on a side street not too far away, Keitaro knew he would not have sufficient time to rush there and make his friend comprehend the situation. Even if he had the time, should the gentleman get off at the stop Sunaga was guarding, Sunaga would then have to inform Keitaro about it somehow or other. A hand raised or the wave of a handkerchief would not be easily recognizable among a dense crowd of people. To make it absolutely certain that Keitaro would get the message, his friend would have to cry out so vehemently that it might startle all the pedestrians along the street. Yet Keitaro couldn't expect the straight-laced Sunaga to do such an eccentric thing even in an extraordinary situation. And even if Sunaga did agree to do it, perhaps the man in the black fedora would have disappeared before Keitaro had run across to Sunaga's station.
Having so reasoned, Keitaro was driven to take his own chances; consequently, he made up his mind to guard only one of the two stops.
Keitaro had made his decision but not without feeling a certain uneasiness, for actually it amounted to no more than remaining lazily where he was while knowingly doing his job without regard to its success. He craned his neck to look again at the stop toward the east. Whether because of its location or the direction it was in or possibly out of his own habit of getting on and off at that stop, it seemed to him much livelier. He felt that the man he was searching for was more likely to get off at that spot.
He considered changing his lookout, but for some time he wavered, hesitant about what to do. Suddenly a streetcar bound for Edogawa dragged to a halt. Having ascertained that no passengers were getting off, the conductor was about to signal the motorman that he should start in less than a minute. Keitaro, who was standing with his back to the alley that runs into Nishikicho, was so lost in thought vacillating between staying where he was or moving to the other stop that he was paying little attention to the car before him.
Just at that moment a man suddenly ran out from the alley, brushed Keitaro aside as he rushed past him, and jumped on the platform the moment the motorman was pu
tting his hand to the handle to start up the car. Before Keitaro had a chance to recover from his surprise, the car had already jerked forward. The man, his body only half through the door, called out, "Sorry!" As the two exchanged glances, Keitaro noticed that the man's final stare was cast toward Keitaro's feet. The moment the other had run against him, he had kicked the walking stick from his hand onto the ground. As Keitaro quickly stooped to pick it up, he noticed that it had fallen with the snakehead toward the east. The shape of the head made him feel that it was a fingerpost.
"So it's better to be at the eastern stop after all."
He hurried back to the porcelain dealer's. He remained there determined to single out the face of every passenger that got off any streetcar marked "Hongo 3-Chome." He scrutinized the first few cars with a glance so fierce that he might have been stalking a parent's murderer. Then, as he regained his composure, he gradually came to feel more confident.
He regarded the plaza within his field of vision as a wide stage and discovered on it three men whose attitude was more or less similar to his own. One of these, a policeman at the police box, was on watch as Keitaro was and was looking in the same direction. Another was a switchman in front of the Tenkado store. The last was a middle-aged man who, in the center of the square, was alternately waving a red flag and a green one as if they were some sort of sacred symbols. Keitaro felt that of all these men, it was he and the policeman, apparently standing in boredom from the point of view of any passer-by, who were actually expecting something to happen at any moment.
Streetcars came one after another and ground to a halt before him. Passengers getting on shoved their way into the congested passageway inside the car, and those getting off bore down imperiously from above. Keitaro saw many a scene of rude struggle enacted by nameless men and women in their gathering and dispersing. But in spite of his long wait, the object of his surveillance, the man in the black fedora, failed to appear. Perhaps he had long since descended at the western stop.
To the Spring Equinox and Beyond Page 9