Kenzaburo Oe - Death by Water

But what, exactly, was I going to tell my unnamed literary executor to dispose of? I couldn’t think of a thing, and it wasn’t because the seizure had scrambled my brain; on the contrary, I felt as though my mind was functioning with complete clarity. The reason nothing came to mind was that I really didn’t have any work in progress to speak of.

A complex wave of emotions — a kind of wretched, self-mocking contempt for my current state of being, coupled with a feeling of relief that I wouldn’t be leaving any important assignments uncompleted — washed over me. The existential bottom line seemed to be that the I who was here right now was already as good as dead. And if I was already dead, it was only natural that I wouldn’t experience the slightest fear of dying.

A moment later, though, I was hit by an avalanche of a different kind of apprehension: the concern that, as my mother had pointed out, I hadn’t done anything to prepare Akari for his own journey to the Other Side. If I had dared to look down at the poetry stone in the back garden I would surely have been plunged into depression by the realization that on the cusp of old age I had neglected my parental duties, my work was in shambles, and my life was essentially devoid of meaning.

Even so, against my better judgment, I opened my eyes. And before the diabolical disk came crashing down around me again, I imagined myself reading the first lines of the poem carved into the big round stone:

You didn’t get Kogii ready to go up into the forest

And like the river current, you won’t return home.

5

Three days after the terrifying dizzy spell, I was back at home in Seijo. As it happened, there was an excellent physician nearby (he had become a family friend and had helped us countless times), and he was optimistic about my prognosis. After listening carefully to my description of the extreme vertigo I had experienced just before leaving Shikoku, he said it would most likely be a transitory thing, and that cheered me up considerably. The doctor recommended waiting awhile before going to the hospital for a complete examination, and in the meantime I was dutifully taking the medications he’d prescribed.

I spent a week or so lounging around the house in recovery mode. One morning when I was asleep in my second-floor bedroom I was awakened by the sound of the telephone ringing downstairs in the living room. I had heard from Chikashi that a side effect of Akari’s continuing depression was that he had stopped answering the phone. Since returning from Shikoku I’d been having trouble falling asleep at night, so I had been getting up after the rest of the family had already finished lunch, but when I glanced at the clock on the wall it showed half past nine. I got out of bed, and as I was making my groggy way down the stairs the phone stopped ringing.

Akari was perched on the edge of a dining-room chair, leaning backward with both feet propped on a second chair while he stared at the five-line composition paper he was holding on his knees. He was the very picture of a middle-aged man in the throes of deep depression. Even so, he appeared to be engrossed in erasing one section of his composition, and he didn’t look up when I entered the room.

Just then the phone began to ring again. As I had expected, it was Chikashi calling from the post office. Apparently a special delivery package had arrived very late the previous night, and the postman, assuming we would all be asleep, had thoughtfully decided to leave a note rather than disturb us with the doorbell. The next morning when Chikashi called the local post office, a clerk had read the sender’s name and address to her and had suggested that if the package was important the quickest option would be to pick it up in person. She was at the post office now, waiting in line, but the place was mobbed and the queue was longer than usual.

Also, Chikashi went on, Akari had an appointment for a routine physical, but she wasn’t feeling well enough to take him to the university hospital herself and hoped I wouldn’t mind going in her stead. By the time I had managed to make myself somewhat presentable (Akari was already dressed and was still working on his composition), Chikashi was back. She handed me my package as she got out of the cab, and then Akari and I piled in and headed for the hospital.

We made it there barely in time for our eleven o’clock appointment, but as it turned out there was a notice posted near the receptionist’s window saying that the doctor we needed to see was running at least an hour behind schedule. The delay didn’t bother me at all. Chikashi had chosen this particular specialist because he was well known for his expertise in treating patients who had been born with brain damage, and we understood that he would sometimes be called away on unforeseen emergencies. When I presented Akari’s patient ID card to the nurse on duty, she told me to go ahead and get his blood work done.

As I was looking through the file containing our insurance information and other documents, I saw that an appointment for blood tests was scheduled for two days later, so I suspected that the nurse had thoughtfully found a way to make use of the fallow time we were going to spend waiting for the doctor. The blood tests took only a few moments to complete, but they left Akari in a foul mood. He had a phobia about having blood drawn and hadn’t been expecting to undergo that ordeal on this visit.

After securing a couple of seats in the waiting area, I finally set about opening my exotic-looking package. The sender was a cherished friend, a distinguished American woman whom I had known for decades (I’ll call her Jean S.). The enclosed note explained that she had finally gotten around to sorting through the mementos left behind by a mutual friend of ours, the late university professor, author, and comparative culture scholar Edward W. Said. During the process, Jean wrote, she had come across something she thought I might like to see, so she was sending it along. The item in question was still in its original, stiff paper file folder, and Jean had simply wrapped up the folder and popped it in the mail. The folder contained a trio of custom-bound booklets: the musical scores for three of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, printed on the finest grade of thick cotton paper.

Jean S. was the person who had first brought Edward W. Said and me together, many years ago. The two of them were old friends, and her posh apartment on a high floor in one of the most desirable neighborhoods in Manhattan even boasted an “Edward W. Said Room” decorated with motifs inspired by antique Islamic books. By chance, I was in New York City at the time of Said’s discharge from the hospital after a stay there (the first of many) to treat the leukemia that would eventually kill him; Jean threw a party to celebrate, and I was invited. Every year since we had met, Said and Jean had made a custom of telephoning me late at night on New Year’s Eve (which was already New Year’s Day, postmeridian, in Japan) from wherever they happened to be enjoying dinner together along with their respective families.

Shortly after my brother-in-law, the film director Goro Hanawa, committed suicide, Jean S. happened to be throwing another of her famous parties. Edward W. Said was there, and he entertained the guests by playing the piano — something he did exceedingly well. When Jean shared the news about Goro, Said apparently sat down and wrote a condolence note on the back of the score of the Beethoven piece he had just finished playing. Later, Jean made a clean copy of the draft on plain paper, carefully transcribing Said’s longhand scrawl for added legibility, and faxed it to me in Tokyo (I’ve never made the transition to email). After Said died, Jean told me that if the original note ever turned up again, she would send it to me.