Blue Bamboo: Japanese Tales of Fantasy

  The masterpiece In Lies Lies the Truth was about the fascinating and comical life of a cynical young man named Master Misanthropos, who, when visiting the pleasure quarters, would pass himself off as an actor or a millionaire or a nobleman on a secret outing. So rich in versatility were Misanthropos’s deceptions that the geisha and the male entertainers never doubted for a moment that he was who he said he was. His ruses were indistinguishable from reality, and in the end even Misanthropos himself ceased to doubt that it was all true—that he had become a millionaire overnight, or had awakened one morning to find himself an actor famous throughout the world. And so he passed a life of pleasure and gaiety, and it was only when he died that he reverted to being the impoverished Master Misanthropos. The novel was, one might say, based on Saburo’s own life story. By the time he’d published it, his skill at lying was almost superhuman; whatever deception he chose to perpetrate was infused with a golden glow of truth. In the presence of Koson he was a meek young man saturated with filial piety, to the students he was someone with unbelievable knowledge about the ways of the world, and at the pleasure quarters he was none other than the great actor Danjuro or the lord of such-and-such a fief or the boss of the so-and-so gang, and in none of these roles was there the slightest hint of anything unnatural or fraudulent.

  The following year, Koson died. He left a will that said, in effect: “I’m a liar and a hypocrite. The further my heart strayed from the Great Learnings, the more I preached them. That I was able to live on in spite of this was due only to my love for my son, who never knew his dear mother. Knowing what a failure I was, I wanted somehow to make a success of this poor boy. Alas, it appears that he, too, is destined to fail. To this child of mine I leave my entire fortune—the fifty sen in change that I have accumulated over the past sixty years.” Saburo read the will and paled. Then, with a sickly smile on his lips, he ripped it in two. He ripped the two pieces into four. Then he ripped those into eight. Koson, who had spared his child the rod for fear of working up a costly appetite, who had been less concerned with his son’s renown than with his royalties, and of whom it had been whispered throughout the neighborhood that he kept a jar full of gold buried beneath the house—this Koson had passed quietly on, leaving a measly half a yen behind. This was the lie to end all lies. Saburo felt as if he could smell the unbearable stench of deception’s final, sputtering fart.

  He held his father’s funeral at a nearby Nichiren Buddhist temple. Listening intently to the priest’s frenzied beating of the drum, Saburo began to detect within its savage rhythm an uncontrollable fury and anxiety, along with a desperate sort of buffoonery that attempted to disguise those emotions. Surrounded by a dozen or more of Koson’s students, Saburo sat in his formal black kimono, fingering his prayer beads, staring at the edge of the tatami mat some three feet in front of him, and thinking. Lies are the silent farts that emanate from crime. His own lies had had as their starting point the murder he’d committed as a child. His father’s lies had been squeezed out by the guilt that weighed upon him for the great crime of preaching a religion he no longer believed in. One lies to seek a bit of relief from a ponderous, suffocating reality, but the liar, like the drinker, gradually comes to need larger and larger doses. The lies become blacker and more complex, and they mesh and rub together until in the end they shine with the luster of truth. Saburo wasn’t the only one for whom this was the case, apparently. In Lies Lies the Truth. Suddenly remembering this title and feeling the words strike home as if for the first time, he smiled bitterly to himself. It was the very pinnacle of absurdity. Once he’d seen to the proper burial of Koson’s bones, Saburo resolved that from that day on he would lead a life free of lies. Everyone had a secret crime in his past. There was nothing to fear. No reason to feel inferior.

  A life free of lies! Ah, but that, too, was, by definition, a lie. To praise good and condemn evil? Another lie. Surely a lie already dwelled in the heart of anyone who sought to make such distinctions and stand in judgment. Every way of life Saburo could think of seemed tainted, and he agonized over the problem night after sleepless night. Finally, however, he discovered an attitude that seemed to offer hope. He would learn to become an idiot, without will or emotion. To live like the wind. Saburo began to base all his daily actions on the astrological predictions in the almanac, and took pleasure only in the dreams he dreamed each night. Some were of fresh green fields in spring, others of lovely young maidens who set his heart to pounding.

  Then, one morning as he was eating breakfast alone, a thought occurred to him. He shook his head and slapped his chopsticks down on the tray. He stood up and paced three times around the room, then folded his arms and stepped outside. He’d suddenly grown suspicious of his new pose. Pretending to be without will or emotion—was this not, in fact, the deepest recess of the liar’s hell? How did making a conscious attempt to be an idiot qualify as a life free of lies? The greater his efforts, the thicker the layers of lies had become. To hell with it, then, he thought. All that was left was the world of the unconscious. Though it was well before noon, Saburo set out for a drinking spot.

  Parting the rope curtain and entering the place, he saw that, early in the day though it was, two customers were already there. And, wonder of wonders, who might they be but Taro the Wizard and Jirobei the Fighter? Taro was seated at the southeast corner of the table, his smooth, plump cheeks flushed pink from the saké he drank as he twisted and twirled his long, dangling mustache. Jirobei was encamped opposite him, in the northwest corner, and his swollen face gleamed with greasy sweat as he slowly swung his left arm in a wide, sweeping arc to take a drink, then held the cup up to eye level and gazed at it vacantly. Saburo took a seat halfway between them and started right in drinking. The three had never met before, of course. They sized one another up, each of them stealing furtive glances—Taro with his narrow eyes half closed, Jirobei taking a full minute to turn his head to either side, and Saburo with the restless, darting gaze of a hunted animal. Little by little, as the saké gradually did its work, the three of them edged closer together. When their intoxication, which each had struggled to contain, finally erupted, Saburo was the first to speak.

  “It seems to me that the fact that we happen to be drinking together like this, at this time of day, means that there’s some sort of bond between us. Especially when you consider where we are: Edo teems with so many people that it’s said if you walk half a block you’re in a different world, yet here we are in the same little shop at the same time of the same day—it’s like a miracle.”

  Taro gave a great yawn. “I drink because I like saké. Quit looking at me like that,” he drawled, and raised his neckerchief to mask the lower half of his face.

  Jirobei spoke up after slapping the table and leaving a depression four inches long and an inch deep. “You’re right,” he said. “You could call it a bond. I just got out of prison.”

  Saburo asked what he’d been in for.

  “Well, here’s what happened...” In a barely fathomable murmur, Jirobei proceeded to tell his entire life story. When he finished, a single tear rolled down his cheek and dropped into his saké cup, which he then drained at a gulp.

  Saburo pondered the tale for a while and finally said, by way of preamble, that he felt as if they were brothers, then launched into his own story, pausing after every sentence in an effort to prevent so much as a single lie from escaping his lips.

  Jirobei, after listening for some time, declared, “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” and promptly fell asleep in his chair. But Taro, who had until then done nothing but yawn in boredom, now opened his narrow eyes as wide as they would go and listened intently.

  When the story was finished, Taro languidly removed his neckerchief mask. “You said your name was Saburo? Listen, I understand exactly how you feel. My name’s Taro. I’m from Tsugaru. I came to Edo two years ago, and I’ve been loafing about in places like this ever since. You want to hear my story?”

  In his usual sl
eepy tone of voice, Taro related his own experiences, down to the smallest detail. No sooner had he finished than Saburo gave a great shout: “I know! I know just what you mean!”

  The shout awoke Jirobei. Opening his cloudy eyes, he turned to Saburo. “What’s all the racket about?” he said.

  Saburo was ashamed of his own raptures. Ecstasy is the ultimate lie. He tried to force himself to be calm, but his intoxication wouldn’t permit it. His half-hearted attempt to control himself only provoked the rebelliousness in his soul, and at last he threw all caution to the wind and spat out a lie of enormous proportions. “We three are artists!” he proclaimed, but all it did was further fuel the fire of prevarication. “We’re brothers, we three! Now that we’ve met, not even death can separate us. Our day will come, and soon—I’m certain of it! Listen, I’m a writer. I’m going to write the stories of Taro the Wizard and Jirobei the Fighter and, with your leave, my own story as well, to offer the world three models for living. Who cares what people say?” Now the flames of Saburo the Liar’s lies were burning at maximum intensity. “We’re artists, I tell you! We needn’t bow down to anyone, though he be the noblest and richest prince in the land. For men like us, money carries no more weight than a falling leaf!”

  — I —

  he members of the family of the famous painter Irie Shinnosuke, who passed away some eight years ago, all seem a bit on the eccentric side. This is not to say that the family is abnormal; it’s possible that their way of life is as it should be and that the rest of us are the abnormal ones, but, in any case, the atmosphere of the Irie home is decidedly different from most. It was this atmosphere that suggested to me the idea for “On Love and Beauty,” a short story I wrote some time ago.

  The story opened with descriptions of the five Irie sons and daughters and went on to sketch a certain insignificant little incident. It was a naive, sentimental, and trivial work, to be sure, but one that I nonetheless remain quite fond of, although I must admit that my affection is not so much for the story itself as for the family described therein. I loved that family. I cannot pretend that my depiction of their household conforms precisely to the facts, however. To put it in such overblown terms causes me more than a little embarrassment, but my account included certain elements that fell short of Goethe’s ideals of “poetry and truth.” There are even a few colossal lies mixed in. Most regrettable of all is that, although I wrote about the five brothers and sisters and their kind and sagacious mother, the structure of the story was such that I was forced to take the liberty of omitting the grandmother and grandfather. This, I now realize, was an unwarrantable measure. It would appear that, in the final analysis, one simply can’t give a complete picture of the Irie household without including this venerable couple, and I’d like to say a few words about them now.

  First, however, I must make one further disclaimer. What I am about to describe is not the Irie household as it exists today, but as it was four years ago, when I began to scribble the previous story. Things have changed for the family since that time. Marriage, and even death, have intervened. Compared to four years ago, the atmosphere of the household is somewhat gloomier. And it is no longer possible for me to drop by the house for a casual visit, as I once used to do. The five brothers and sisters, and I myself, have gradually grown more adult, more polite, more guarded—have become, in short, “members of society”—and when we do on occasion meet, it’s not the least bit fun. To speak plainly, I no longer have much interest in the Irie family. If I am to write about them, I want to write about them as they were in the past. Having made that much clear...

  The grandfather, at that time, spent each day at his leisure. If it is true that an uncommon romanticism flowed through the veins of the Irie family, it most likely originated with this elderly gentleman. In the prime of his life he had managed a rather successful trading operation in Yokohama, but far from opposing the decision of Shinnosuke, his late son and only heir, to enter the Art Academy rather than study business, the old man actually boasted about it to those around him. That’s the sort of man the grandfather was. Even now that he was advanced in years and retired from business, he refused to confine himself to sitting around the Irie house in Kojimachi. He was past eighty, and yet after dressing immaculately each morning as if he had some important affair to attend to, he would make his escape the moment no one was watching, slipping out though the back gate with astonishing speed. After walking at a brisk pace for two or three blocks, he would glance back to make sure he wasn’t being followed, then pull a hunting cap from his pocket. The cap was a gaudy checkered specimen that he’d worn lovingly for forty years. It had always been an eyesore, and was now crumpled with age, but without it a walk simply wasn’t a walk.

  With this cap set jauntily on the back of his head, then, he would set out for the Ginza. There he’d enter Shiseido and order hot chocolate, a single cup of which he’d sit over and sip at for as long as an hour or two. He’d survey the entire room, and if he happened to see one of his old business acquaintances with a young geisha or some other companion of that sort, he would immediately call the man over in a loud voice, insist that the couple join him in his booth, and proceed to hold them captive as he drawled out a series of caustic remarks. He derived unspeakable pleasure from this.

  On the way home from these excursions, the grandfather would often buy a meager gift for someone in the family. He was, apparently, plagued by a certain sense of guilt over his unorthodox behavior, and recently he’d been making a concerted effort to get on the good side of everyone else in the house. To this end he’d come up with the idea of conferring a medal of honor upon the family member who performed the most meritorious service each week. The medal was one he’d devised himself by passing a red silk cord through a hole punched in a silver Mexican coin. Unfortunately, no one wanted this prize very badly. It was a matter of consternation to all of them that the person who received the medal was obliged to wear it, whenever at home, for the entire week.

  The mother, being a model of filial piety toward her father-in-law, would express gratitude whenever she received the award and promptly attach it to her sash, albeit in as inconspicuous a location as possible. Each time she allotted the grandfather an extra bottle of beer for his nightcap she was awarded the medal then and there, like it or not. When the eldest son blundered, on occasion, into having the medal bestowed upon him for such services as accompanying the grandfather to a music hall, he accepted his fate with the good grace one would expect of a man of his staid and serious nature, and would wear it prominently around his neck for the entire week. The elder daughter and second son avoided being put into that position. The elder daughter’s clever ruse was to proclaim herself quite unworthy of the honor and positively decline to accept. The second son, for his part, had gone so far as to stuff the medal in his dresser drawer and claim to have lost it, although the grandfather had seen through this bit of subterfuge at once and sent the younger daughter to search his room. She was unfortunate enough to find the prize, as a result of which she was designated the next recipient. The grandfather was clearly partial to the younger daughter. Though she was the most self-centered member of the family and devoid of any special merit whatsoever, he was forever looking for an excuse to confer his award upon her. When this happened, she generally put the medal away in her purse and left it there the entire week. She alone was permitted such exceptional behavior.

  The youngest son was the only one who had the slightest desire to be awarded the prize. Even he felt somehow awkward and embarrassed when obliged to wear it around his neck, yet he always experienced a certain sense of loss the moment it was taken away from him and given to someone else; and occasionally, when the younger daughter was out, he would sneak into her room, open her purse, and gaze nostalgically at the medal inside. The grandmother had never once been awarded the medal, for the simple reason that from the very beginning she had emphatically refused to have anything to do with it. Being a plain-spoken woman, she had descr
ibed the entire idea as “imbecilic.”

  It would be difficult to give a clear picture of the grandmother without touching upon her affection for the youngest son, who was quite simply the apple of her eye. He once took up the study of hypnotism and attempted, without the least success, to mesmerize his grandfather, mother, and brothers and sisters. One by one they returned his gaze, peering at him curiously as he tried to put them to sleep. Everyone enjoyed a good laugh over this except the youngest son himself, who was on the verge of tears and sweating profusely by the time he turned to his last subject, the grandmother. She fell into a deep sleep almost immediately, nodding in her chair, and innocently answered the hypnotist’s solemn questions.

  “Grandmother, you can see a flower, can’t you?”

  “Yes. It’s very pretty.”

  “What sort of flower is it?”

  “It’s a lotus.”

  “Grandmother, what do you love most?”

  “You.”

  This reply gave the hypnotist pause.

  “Who is ‘you’?”

  “Why, it’s you. Kazuo [the youngest son].”

  The rest of the family burst into laughter, which snapped the grandmother out of her trance, but the hypnotist had at least managed to save face. Later, however, when the ever-serious eldest son worriedly asked the grandmother if she’d really been in a trance, she chuckled and muttered: “What do you think?”

  I could go on and on about the Irie family, but for now I’d prefer to present you with a rather long story constructed by the family members themselves. As anyone familiar with them knows, the Irie brothers and sisters all have a certain fondness for the literary arts, and from time to time they gather to tell a story by turns. This often takes place, at the urging of the eldest son, when they’ve assembled in the drawing room on a cloudy Sunday and find that boredom has begun to weigh upon them. The game begins with one of them describing whatever sort of character might pop into his or her mind, and the others take turns concocting that character’s destiny. Simpler tales they do on an impromptu basis, each delivering his or her portion orally, but when the story offers interesting possibilities they take the precaution of writing their episodes out and passing the manuscript around. They presumably have a number of these co-authored narratives stashed away somewhere. Occasionally the grandfather, grandmother, and mother help out, and this appears to have been the case with the rather long story we’re concerned with today.