Otogizoshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu

someone’s house, thinking all the while that we don’t want to go, that we’re sure to end up bored to distraction, it’s often the case that the people we’re going to visit are genuinely delighted to have us. But suppose we’re thinking: Ah, that house is my home away from home. In fact, it’s more like home than my own place. It’s my only shelter from the storm! What then? We set out for the visit in high spirits, but in this case, my friends, we’re very likely to be considered a nuisance, an excrescence, and a hound from hell and to find our hosts repeatedly checking their watches. Thinking of someone else’s house as our shelter from the storm is, perhaps, evidence of a certain imbecility, but the fact remains that we often labor under astonishing misconceptions when calling on others. Unless we have a particular mission in mind, it’s probably best to refrain from visiting even our most intimate friends at home.

Anyone who doubts this advice of the author’s need only look at our poor tanuki. Right now he’s committing this very gaffe, in spades. The rabbit says, “My!” and makes a sour face, but the tanuki is utterly oblivious to her displeasure. To him, that “My!” is an innocent cry of joyful surprise at his unexpected visit. He experiences a thrill at the sound of it and interprets the rabbit’s furrowed brow as evidence of empathy and concern for his misfortune on Crackle-Burn Mountain.

“Thanks,” he says, though no kind words have been offered. “No need to worry. I’m fine now. The gods are on my side, y’know. I was born with good luck. That old Crackle-Burn Mountain means no more to me than a river monkey’s fart, which, by the way, they say river monkey meat is delicious-one of these days I’m gonna get me a taste of that. Well, I digress, but that was some shock the other day, wasn’t it? I mean, what a conflagration! Were you all right? You look fine. Thank goodness you escaped unharmed.”

“I wasn’t unharmed,” the rabbit says with a pointed display of petulance. “You’re a fine person-running away and leaving me there trapped in that fire! I inhaled so much smoke I almost died, and I don’t mind saying I thought some awfully hard thoughts about you. It’s in times of great peril that a person’s true character shows itself. Now I know exactly where your heart is.”

“I’m so sorry! Forgive me! The truth is, I got badly burned myself. Maybe I don’t have any gods on my side after all-I mean, I went through a living hell! It’s not that I forgot you were there, but it all happened so fast-my back was on fire, and I didn’t have time to look for you because, I mean, my back was on fire! Please try to understand. I’m not an unfeeling person. Burns are no joke, I’ll tell you. And then that Wizard’s Gold or Winter’s Cold or whatever it was-terrible stuff. That is one nasty medicine. And it doesn’t have any effect at all on a dark complexion.”

“Dark complexion?”

“No. What? Dark, syrupy medicine, really potent stuff. I got it from this strange little fellow who looked a lot like you. He said it was free, so I thought, you know, you never know till you try something. So I had him plaster the stuff on me, but, oh man, I’ll tell you what, you’ve got to be careful with free medicine. Take my advice. I felt like I had a million little whirlwinds shooting out of my head, and then I dropped like a sack of beans.”

“Hmph,” the rabbit snorts scornfully. “You deserve it. That’s what you get for being such a cheapskate. ‘The medicine was free, so I tried it.’ How low can you sink! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

“Don’t be mean,” the tanuki murmurs, but his feelings don’t seem particularly hurt. He’s basking in the warm, euphoric sensation of being near the one he loves. He stands at ease, surveying his surroundings with those cloudy, dead-fish eyes, snatching the occasional bug from the ground and inhaling it as he makes his case. “I’m a lucky man, though, I’ll tell you. No matter what happens, I always come out alive. So who knows? Maybe I do have a god or two on my side. I’m glad you were all right, though, and now I’m completely recovered from my burns, and here we are relaxing together and having a nice conversation. It’s like a dream come true!”

The rabbit wants only for the tanuki to leave. His mere presence makes her feel as if she’s suffocating. Eager to get him away from her hut, she quickly devises her next fiendish plot.

“By the way,” she says, “did you know that Lake Kawaguchi is full of tasty, tasty carp?”

“No. Is that true?” The tanuki’s eyes light up. “When I was just three years old, my mother brought home a carp and let me try some, and it was dee-licious! But carp live in the water, and, well, see, it’s not that I’m not good with my hands, because I am, but I can’t catch ’em. They’re just too fast. So even though I know how delicious carp are, I haven’t had a chance to eat any these thirty-odd-I mean, hahahaha-that’s my brother talking again. My brother likes carp too, see, so-”

“Is that so?” the rabbit says, her thoughts elsewhere. “Well, I have no desire to eat carp myself, but if you’re so fond of them, I don’t mind going with you to catch some.”

“Really?” The tanuki beams. “But carp, they’re fast, I tell you. I nearly drowned once trying to catch one,” he says, inadvertently confessing to a past humiliation. “You know a good way to snag ’em?”

“You just scoop them up with a net. It’s easy. These days all the big ones are swarming off the shore of Ugashima Island. Let’s go. Can you row a boat?”

“Hmm.” The tanuki sighs thoughtfully. “It’s not that I can’t row. I mean, if I wanted to, hell, nothing to it, but-”

“Great,” the rabbit says, pretending to believe his tenuous boast. “That’s perfect. I have a little boat of my own, but it’s too small for both of us. Besides, it’s just a flimsy thing made with thin wooden planks, and it leaks. Very dangerous. I don’t care about me, but the last thing I want to do is put your life in danger, so let’s work together to build a boat just for you. You’ll need a sturdy one, made of mud.”

“That’s so kind of you! You know what? I think I’m going to cry. Allow me to weep. I don’t know why I’m like this, so easily moved to tears,” he says and adds, with a theatrical sob in his voice, a brazen request. “But would you mind making that good, sturdy boat for me by yourself? Please? I’d really appreciate it. While you’re doing that, I’ll throw a lunch together. I bet I’d make a first-rate galley cook.”

“No doubt.” The rabbit nods quickly, pretending to see the logic of his self-centered assessment. The tanuki smiles contentedly: life is sweet. And with that smile, his fate is sealed. What the tanuki doesn’t realize is that people who affect to believe all our nonsense often harbor evil and insidious plots in their hearts. But ignorance is bliss, as they say, and right now he’s very pleased with himself indeed.

Together they walk to the lakeshore. Lake Kawaguchi is a pale, glassy expanse today, unmarred by a single ripple. The rabbit begins shaping clay from the shore into boat form, and the tanuki thanks her repeatedly as he scuttles this way and that, focused exclusively on gathering the contents of his lunch. By the time an evening breeze has awakened wavelets over the entire surface of the lake, the small clay boat, gleaming like burnished steel, is ready for launching.

“Not bad, not bad!” The tanuki prances up to the boat and first places his oilcan-size lunch box carefully inside. “You’re a resourceful little thing, aren’t you? I mean, you made this beautiful boat in the blink of an eye! It’s like a miracle!” Even as he spews this transparently self-serving flattery, inwardly his lust is being augmented by a burgeoning greed. He reflects that with a skilled and hard-working wife like this he might be able to live in ease and luxury, and he firmly resolves to stick to this woman for the rest of his life. “Oof!” he says as he boards the craft. “I bet you’re good at rowing too. It’s certainly not that I don’t know how to row-I mean, come on. But today I’d like to admire the skill of my woman.” Insufferably presumptuous. “Back in the day, they used to call me a master oarsman, a genius with the oar and so forth, but today I think I’d rather lie back and watch. Why don’t you just tie the front of my boat to the back of yours? That way the boats too, like us, will be bound as one, to the end. If we die, we’ll die together. Baby, say you’ll never leave me.” He continues to ramble on in this crude and self-deluded manner as he stretches out on the bottom of his mud boat.

Told to tie the boats together, the rabbit freezes for a moment, wondering if the fool is on to her, but a glance at his face assures her that all is well. He’s already on the path to dreamland with a lecherous smirk on his face, still babbling idiotically as he drops off. “Wake me if you catch any carp. Dee-licious… Me, I’m thirty-seven…” The rabbit laughs through her nose, ties the tanuki’s boat to hers, and spears the water with her oar. The two boats glide away from shore.

The pine forest of Ugashima looks as if it’s on fire in the setting sun. And here’s where the author pauses to display his knowledge. Did you know that the design adorning packs of Shikishima cigarettes was based on a sketch of this very skyline, the pine forest of Ugashima Island? I have this on the word of a gentleman who should know and pass it on to the reader as reliable information. Of course, Shikishima cigarettes have disappeared now, which means that this digression isn’t likely to be of any interest to younger readers whatsoever. Pretty useless knowledge I’ve unveiled here, now that I think about it. I guess the best I can hope for is that those readers who are thirty-odd years or older will sigh and think, Ah, yes-those pines, idly recalling the scenic old cigarette packets along with their memories of geisha encounters or whatever.