Kenzaburo Oe - Death by Water

1

As the day of Chikashi’s surgery approached I headed back to my original home turf, the rustic valley deep in the forests of Shikoku, this time with Akari in tow. Asa was by my wife’s side at the hospital; both Chikashi and our daughter, Maki, acknowledged that no one was better qualified to see Chikashi through the surgery and the subsequent recovery period than my sister, who had spent more than half her life working as a nurse.

Maki, meanwhile, would be at our house in the Seijo district of Tokyo, holding down the domestic fort and dealing with incoming correspondence regarding copyrights, writing commissions, and miscellaneous business matters. Akari’s preference would naturally have been to stay home and keep Maki company. However, Chikashi (who couldn’t stop worrying about the precarious state of my relationship with Akari) believed the two of us might find it healing to spend some time together on Shikoku, and she almost seemed more concerned with advancing the plan than with her own impending surgery. Maki somehow managed to convince her brother that this was the best option, and while Akari must surely have sensed the underlying motivation, he agreed.

As for me, I didn’t feel particularly sanguine about the chances our stay on Shikoku would result in a return to familial harmony, but I did understand that it would be less stressful for Chikashi not to have a couple of depressive lumps moping around the house, or the hospital. She had said all along that since I tended to be a worrywart, I should leave dealing with her illness to the female warriors in the family. I agreed to this hands-off approach, and the only medical information I had received was that a uterine tumor, benignly dormant for many years, had somehow become malignant and needed to be removed as soon as possible.

As things stood, I wasn’t being allowed to share in Akari’s music, which had long been both the most essential element in his life and his primary mode of communication within the family. Whenever my thoughts strayed to that torturous subject, I couldn’t help feeling a sense of utter desolation and spiritual bankruptcy. As we set off for Shikoku, Akari was in an understandably sour mood; after all, I had given him every reason to carry a major chip on his shoulder. He wasn’t speaking to me, and as far as I could see there was nothing I could do about that.

Our flight had been scheduled so that we would depart from Haneda Airport not long after Asa had flown in, so Maki was able to see Akari and me off while also meeting her arriving aunt. The exceedingly strained relations between me and both my children had made the taxi ride to the airport more than a little awkward, but naturally the ever-indomitable Asa had come equipped with a plan to drag me back into the land of the living.

“Kogii,” she said after we had exchanged cursory greetings, “I’ve arranged for someone to come by and keep you company at the Forest House from time to time. You’ll never guess who it is: Daio!” She then launched into a lengthy etymological explanation about the evolution of that person’s name and history, presumably for Maki and Akari’s benefit.

“So when he was repatriated to Japan as an unidentified orphan, the immigration officials gave him a made-up name: Ichiro Daio,” Asa concluded. “Our mother felt sorry for him, and because one of the medicinal herbs she used to gather — a type of wild rhubarb called daio —was known locally as gishi-gishi, she bestowed that playful nickname on him and it stuck. Of course, nobody calls him Gishi-Gishi anymore, and his first name somehow lost the long ‘o’ over the years. Kogii, I haven’t felt the time was right to tell you about Daio’s return, what with the whole drowning-novel debacle and all. When he first resurfaced, ages ago, Mother actually forbade me to share the news with you. But since you’ve now abandoned your novel for good, I don’t think I need to worry about Mother’s wishes anymore. Really, though, isn’t it like a nostalgic blast from the past to hear Daio’s name? I saw him at the memorial service on the tenth anniversary of Mother’s death, and when we started chatting I could tell he was thinking fondly about years gone by. He specifically mentioned that he was hoping to have a chance to see you again someday.”

Apart from this announcement, which she tossed off in a casual, matter-of-fact manner, Asa spent most of our shared time at the airport chatting with Akari. The unexpected mention of Daio reminded me that whenever my mother had addressed him as Gishi-Gishi — a nickname that could be translated, loosely, as “Mr. Rhubarb”—she always pronounced those words with an oddly singsong lilt, as if she were speaking Chinese. However, my attention at the airport and during the plane trip was entirely focused on my upcoming sojourn on Shikoku with Akari, so Asa’s news didn’t really register.

On the flight to Matsuyama, Akari seemed to be feeling some degree of pain or discomfort in his knees and lower back, but he didn’t complain. I sat next to him, alternately dozing and waking, and after a while I began to think my aging ears had somehow misheard what Asa had said. It hardly seemed likely that Daio (who had been dead for several years, as far as I knew) would be coming to visit me at the Forest House.

A day or so after I returned from my first guest-teaching stint in Berlin, I had received a large wooden crate along with a letter notifying me of Daio’s death, ostensibly sent by the few remaining disciples who were still living with him at his old paramilitary training camp. After offering the customary flowery greetings, the letter explained that with the demise of their leader the training camp was being disbanded and sold off piece by piece. It then went on to explain that the crate contained a gigantic freshwater turtle, which Daio had supposedly caught, just before his death, in a mountain stream at the lower end of the camp. The turtle was a remarkable specimen: a good fourteen centimeters tall and brimming with youthful strength and vigor. I interpreted the turtle’s sudden appearance as a personal challenge and, feeling rather like a jet-lagged gladiator, I immediately charged into battle. It took me from midnight until the break of dawn to subdue that formidable foe, and by the time I finally triumphed the kitchen was completely covered with blood and I was soaked in gore from head to foot.

Akari and I hailed a taxi outside Matsuyama Airport, then sat back in silence as the driver followed the road along the Kame River all the way to the Forest House. Upon our arrival we learned that Unaiko and Ricchan, having completed the preparations for our stay, had returned to Matsuyama, where the theater group had its offices. In their stead a young female member of the drama troupe, whom I had met briefly the last time I was at the Forest House, had prepared our evening meal and was waiting to greet us. Akari and I ate dinner without exchanging a word. After the girl from the Caveman Group had shown Akari around the premises — he had been there before, but it always took some time for him to get acclimated to any change of living situation — she gave us the keys to the house and took off. Akari climbed the stairs to the room she had pointed out as his, which was next to my combination study/bedroom.

I went into the great room on the ground floor, which was clearly in the process of being converted from a rehearsal area back into a living space. After opening my luggage and making a halfhearted stab at unpacking, I poured myself a little nightcap and drank it down. As I climbed the stairs, I couldn’t hear any sounds emanating from Akari’s room. Feeling an overwhelming sense of loneliness, I crawled into my bed, which smelled of sunlight. When I got up again a moment later to check whether the night-light in the bathroom was on, I saw that Akari’s pill organizer and a used drinking glass — clear evidence he hadn’t forgotten to take his bedtime medicine — had been left out in plain sight, where I would be sure to notice them.