With a bright spark in his narrow eyes, Craback shook Mag’s hand and dashed for the door. But by now, the whole neighbourhood had amassed outside Tock’s house, all loudly trying to push or peep their way in. Undeterred, Craback forced his way through the crowd, sending Kappa this way and that, then jumped in his motor car and swiftly made his exit, to the sound of his engine backfiring.
‘Will you stop gawping! Have some respect,’ shouted Judge Pep, slamming the door in the faces of the crowd of Kappa outside, the room now becoming suddenly quiet, suddenly still. Even the female Kappa on the sofa next to me had stopped her wailing, her shoulders still heaving and her body still shaking, her tears still falling, but silently now as her child stared down at the open palms of his tiny hands, the stench of Tock’s blood and the scent of the flowers of the alpine plants mingling, engulfing us all in this sudden quietness, this sudden stillness.
I got to my feet and walked over to Mag, who was standing, staring down at Tock’s dead body. I tapped him on the shoulder and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I’m going to leave now.’
Mag did not reply, did not take his eyes off the corpse of the poet sprawled at his feet.
I tapped him on the shoulder again. ‘Mag, I’m going now …’
‘Sorry,’ said Mag, turning to face me. ‘I was just thinking …’
His voice trailed off, so I asked, ‘Thinking what?’
‘Well,’ he said in an embarrassed, hesitant whisper, ‘you know, just thinking about this life of the Kappa …’
‘What about it, Mag?’
His eyes left mine, drifting back to the body before us, and then, barely audibly, he said, ‘Well, when all is said and done, at the end of the day … We Kappa, whatever we may say … If we want to fulfil our Kappa lives … Well, it seems to me, I have to say … We need to believe in a power other than Kappa … Above and beyond us … Some “thing” more than ourselves.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but not only you Kappa.’
*
Ten days after our evening together, and the long night I had spent reading his manuscript, Akutagawa ascended into Paradise.
Now over twenty years have passed since that night, and I am sitting again in a sweet parlour as I write these words. I have ordered two bowls of sweet-bean soup, and I give one to your soul, Sensei –
For Saint Kappa, in Paradise,
a bowl of shiruko, I offer.
*
Another author’s note:
After the war, Tokutarō Nagami went missing in Atami, a city by the sea on the Izu Peninsula. He was never seen again, his body never found. When his wife passed away, her grave was made for two, sharing its stone and the date of her death with her husband: October 23, 1950 / Shōwa 25 –
Some men go mad, some men go missing, some men do both.
The Spectres of Christ
I am living now in the most unimaginable unhappy happiness –
yet strangely, without regret.
I just feel sorry for those who had me as
a bad husband, father and son.
And so goodbye –
I have tried – at least, consciously – not to justify myself here;
… and so please, go ahead and laugh –
at the fool in this manuscript.
‘To My Friend, Masao Kume’,
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, June 20, 1927
1. ‘Black & White’
In the summer, this endless summer, in the cottage at Kugenuma, this cottage by the sea, in its study, at my desk, I gather up my Bible and my books, the sheaf of manuscript papers and my pens, put them in my bag and stand up, I stand up …
Unsteady on my feet, I come out of the house and get into the waiting taxi. I tell the driver to take me to the station on the Tōkaidō line. The driver sets off, but we are not likely to make the Tokyo-bound train for we are going so slowly. Thick pine woods line both sides of the road. The old driver says, ‘You know, so many strange things have been happening around here these days. I hear people have been seeing a ghost, even in the daytime …’
‘Really? Even in the daytime,’ I reply in a half-hearted manner, staring into the passing pine woods, searching for a trace of sunlight.
‘What I heard,’ says the driver. ‘But only when it rains.’
‘Maybe the ghost likes to get wet,’ I say.
‘That’s funny,’ says the driver. ‘But I hear he wears a raincoat.’
We pull up outside the station just as the Tokyo train pulls out. I get out of the cab and go into the waiting room. There is only one other person sat inside: a man of about my age, blankly staring into space, wearing a raincoat. I realise I am wearing a raincoat, too, and wonder if that was why the taxi driver had said what he said. I look across at the other man again and I decide to wait for the next train in the café opposite the station.
I sit down in a corner at a table covered in white oilcloth with a border of red flowers, the coating worn away in places, revealing a grubby canvas. I order a cup of cocoa, but it smells of fish, and a layer of grease floats on the surface. I push it away, light a cigarette and stare down at the flowers in the border.
A pack of cigarettes later, I board the train for Tokyo. I usually ride in second class, but I decide to sit in third class. The carriage is crowded with a group of elementary-school girls and their teachers, on their way back from some outing. They talk without a break as I smoke.
Unfortunately, at one of the last stations before Tokyo, a woman I know boards the train with a young child. The woman has a reputation as a tanka poet and is married to a well-known cartoonist. Fortunately, she does not see me until we
