This was the permanent grave, a tall, grey tombstone, made of granite, completed for the first anniversary of the passing of Sensei, grand and imposing, a monument to the man. But somehow, in some way, Yasukichi felt the design of the grave was out of character with the man, the writer he had been honoured, privileged to have known. Still, Yasukichi divided the flowers into two. He placed them in the two metal vases on the low altar shelf before the tomb. He took a box of incense sticks and his matches from the pocket of his raincoat. He removed nine sticks of incense, put the box back inside his coat, struck a match, lit the sticks and laid them in the granite tray between the two metal vases of flowers. He stepped back, he bowed his head before the grave and he closed his eyes …
‘Approach everything rationally, and you become harsh. Pole along in the stream of emotions, and you will be swept away by the current. Give free rein to your desires, and you become uncomfortably confined. It is not a very agreeable place to live, this world of ours …’
Yasukichi put his palms together. He bowed once more, then opened his eyes. He said goodbye to Sensei, then turned to walk away from the grave –
A man was standing in his way, blocking his path, the man his exact, ink-stained double.
‘How in the world’, said Yasukichi, ‘did you follow me?’
‘Ce grand malheur,’ said the man, ‘de ne pouvoir être seul.’
‘Is that all you have to say for yourself,’ asked Yasukichi. ‘After all this time? Your only words are still but borrowed words?’
‘No,’ said the man. ‘I have come to say goodbye. And to give you one last chance: leave me alone, leave my world! Be gone, be gone! Take refuge somewhere else, with someone else …’
‘How dare you! How dare you say such things to me,’ said Yasukichi. ‘It’s you who should leave me alone, leave my world! You who should become a new and better man. For I have seen you, seen you as you really are, as you are now and as you will be. And a great disaster is on its way.’
And with these words Yasukichi left Ryūnosuke standing before the grave, in the green grove, at the dark frontier, in his raincoat, his Western umbrella propped up against the granite fence which enclosed the grave of Natsume Sōseki, Kanzan and Jittoku cawing and fighting with each other, screaming over his head, the tenant of the grave whispering to him –
‘How can we escape, except through faith, madness or death …’
*
A new year, a new start. A new life, the writer’s life. You have resigned from the Naval Academy, you have signed an exclusive contract with the Osaka Mainichi newspaper. You will move back with your wife to live in Tabata with your adoptive parents and Aunt Fuki, and leave this house behind. In Kamakura, by the sea, with its lotus pond, with its bashō plants. The rain on the pond, the drops on the leaves. On the pond and on the leaves. The quiet life, that quiet life. No more, no more. In the bathroom, in the mirror. You stare at your face, your skin and your skull. You stick out your tongue, you pull down your lower eyelid. Turning on the light, turning off the light. Here and then gone, gone and then here. You are the magician, you are the sorcerer. In your tuxedo, in your top hat. On the stage, before the box. The lights in your face, the saw in your hand. You flex the blade, you test its teeth. You set about your work, the saw through the wood. You saw and you saw, you saw and you saw. You drop the saw, you part the box. The box in half, the man in half, the man inside, sawn in two. On the edge of their seats, the audience gasp. You push the box back together again, and you stare down at the wound in the wood. The drum roll, the audience waiting. Rolling again, still waiting. On the stage, before the box. You stare down at the wound, you search for the spells. To make the box whole, to make the man whole. On the stage, before the box. The man sawn in two, the man in two halves. The man you are, this man is you. The man who smokes Golden Bat, the man who smokes Shikishima, the man who abstains, the man who drinks, the man who is faithful, the man who cheats, the man who is a good father, the man who is a bad father, the man who is a good son, the man who is a bad son, the man from the East, the man of the West, the man who believes, the man who does not, the man who lies, the man who lies; this man, these men, these men are you, these men are me, these men are us. But we lack the spells, for we lack the will. So we cannot put ourselves together again, you can never put me together again.
The Yellow Christ
About ten years ago, for the sake of
