Kenzaburo Oe - Death by Water

By and by another thought drifted across my mind. In a few minutes Unaiko and Tamakichi (who was, of course, doing whatever he could to be of use to her as a stand-in for his absent mother) would be returning from their tour of the Saya, chummier than ever. At some point those two would probably induct Akari into their inner circle as well. And then wasn’t it conceivable that the three of them would somehow get together and conspire to do whatever was necessary to get me (yes, me) ready for my own final journey up into the forest? In that case, perhaps they would help me find a way to conduct myself appropriately during the transition and to move on to the next stage with a measure of ease.

Then I was struck by an even more radical thought: maybe what I had been perceiving as reality all along was nothing but a dream, or an illusion! I thought about everything I had labored so hard to accomplish after moving to Tokyo: all the endless striving, studying, thinking, and writing. Putting aside the question of whether I had accomplished anything worthwhile, what if those eventful years and those supposed achievements were nothing more than figments of my imagination? Suppose that in reality I never even left this village and had been living here all along, from birth until now: my seventy-fourth year. If that were true, I would no doubt be casually getting ready to die a perfectly ordinary death, in the traditional way the old people in this mountain valley surely know by heart, or in their bones. Indeed (I mused, half dreaming) at this very moment Unaiko and Tamakichi could be standing in the shadow of the great meteoric boulder at the top of the slope, talking about how they could help to facilitate my preparations for moving on to the next great adventure …

“Mr. Choko?” My eyes snapped open and I saw Unaiko hovering over me, looking down with a solicitous expression. “If you go on snoozing out here in the open air, you’re going to catch a cold! I mean, I certainly understand how you could be so worn out that you’d need a big nap, after the stress I put you through with the hysterical phone call and all.”

The newly returned twosome soon shifted their attention from me to Akari. Being very careful not to hurt Akari’s back, Tamakichi pulled his cousin to his feet and lifted him into a piggyback position. Tamakichi was a bit shorter than I was, but he was exceptionally strong and muscular from the physical labor of forestry work, and after getting Akari’s considerably larger body snugly ensconced on his back, he loped easily off toward the parking area where Unaiko had left the van. She and I followed a moment later, each carrying some components of the Caveman Group’s professional-quality (but still portable, barely) sound system.

“Tamakichi was telling me about the women Asa brought together at the Saya and how excited they were about being a part of the movie,” Unaiko said as we tramped along. Her weariness appeared to have abated and she sounded even more energized than usual. “When I remarked that supervising such a large group must have been a challenging task, Tamakichi said his mother had told him that the women around here seemed to feel as if they, too, were taking part in an insurrection of sorts, and she was able to coax them into letting those feelings out for the first time in a long while. I’m sure there was probably more to it, but Meisuke’s Mother Marches Off to War seems to have been an unforgettable experience for everyone who took part in the project.”

By the time we got to Unaiko’s van, Tamakichi had already set Akari down and was about to head up to the place above the Saya where he had left his truck. Unaiko thanked my nephew again and again for his help, and then we said our good-byes.

2

That afternoon there was a phone call from Maki. Apparently Asa (who was spending all her time at the hospital with Chikashi) was concerned about Akari’s recent episode and had asked Maki to call and find out how things were going. I suggested that Maki ask Akari directly, and I carried the cordless handset into his room. After what seemed to be a long, leisurely conversation, Akari brought the phone back to me. Maki was still on the other line, and she proceeded to tell me about her chat with her brother.

First, she had told Akari how worried she had been when she heard that he’d had a major seizure deep in the forest, when Papa wasn’t on hand to help. Akari’s response was to paraphrase a quotation from the My Own Words booklet. (He, too, had received a copy from Maki, and since he wasn’t currently engaged in reading musical scores he was probably applying his customary concentration to perusing the little book instead.)

“‘Cause I’m gonna die! Ahhh! I can’t hear my heart beating, even a little bit! I really think I’m dying! My heart isn’t making any sound at all!”

Maki knew that those mock histrionics were Akari’s idea of a joke, but even so, she responded to his concerns point by point in complete seriousness.

“No, Akari, you aren’t going to die,” she said. “The seizure is over now, isn’t it? I guess when you collapsed in the forest, you could probably hear your heart pounding very loudly, right? But don’t worry, it doesn’t mean you’re going to die. And there isn’t any danger when your heart is beating so quietly that you can’t hear it, either.”

Akari had responded with a calmer and more positive remark, which was also an echo of something from My Own Words : “The seizure really hurt a lot, but I hung in there!”

Although Akari was ostensibly talking about his seizure, Maki thought there was a distinct undertone of apprehension about his mother’s illness as well. After assuring Akari that there was no need to worry since his seizure was safely in the past, she added that Mama had come through her surgery very well and was already on the road to recovery.

But when Maki said that, Akari suddenly began to shout something that sounded like a parody or at least a paraphrase of some of the quotations in My Own Words : “No, no, Mama is already dead! Oh, wait, you say she’ll be coming home in two or three weeks? Okay, that’s good, but even if she comes home then, right now she’s dead! Mama is really dead!”

Maki thought that was Akari’s oblique way of showing his true feelings. “Before Mama went into the hospital, she asked you to write down Akari’s quotes from your novels, including the parts where he was somehow conflating his father’s long absence with the idea of death, right?” she said. “It seemed kind of weird that Mama would make such a request at a time when she was dealing with a health crisis of her own, but I think she was just trying to imagine how Akari might respond to the death of one of his parents. Mama knows most of Akari’s quotes by heart, so I’d like to hear her play a game with Akari sometime when they talk on the phone. It could be a sort of call and response. Maybe Akari could say, ‘Mama was in a very bad way, but she pulled through!’ and Mama could respond by saying, ‘Thank you very much — with your support I’ll keep hanging in there and doing my best!’”

Late that night, I got a call from Asa. She had finished her duties at the hospital and was about to take an Odakyu Line train back to my house in Tokyo, where she was staying.

“Today I asked Chikashi whether she might want me to arrange for Unaiko and Ricchan to look after Akari while you made a trip up here to visit her in the hospital,” she began. “But Chikashi said that after all your years together, and all the joy and sadness you’ve shared, she was afraid it would be too hard on you to see your aged wife in such a weakened state, and rather than being able to comfort her, she was worried you might fall into depression or even start blubbering — we laughed at that — and she would need to prop you up instead! (By the way, I was very impressed by her efforts to be sprightly and humorous, making a literary allusion to the famous parable about a devoted old Chinese couple and so on.)