I soon discovered that my age entitled me to special status. In the land of the Rising Sun, a child is a god from birth to the age he goes to nursery school. Nishio-san treated me like a divinity. My brother, my sister, and the futago had left behind this sacred stage of life. One therefore spoke to them in an ordinary way. But I was an okosama: a most honorable and excellent child, a lord child.
When I came down to the kitchen in the morning, Nishio-san bent over to my height. She gave me everything I asked for. If I wanted to eat from her plate, she let me take as much as I pleased, waiting until I had finished before eating anything herself (if by some great act of generosity I had left her anything at all).
One day at lunchtime my mother saw me do this and scolded me sharply. She pleaded with Nishio-san not to let herself be tyrannized in this way. My mother’s efforts were doomed. The minute her back was turned I went back to what I was doing. I had good reason for this, for Nishio-san’s okonomiyaki (cabbage pancake with shrimp and ginger) and tsuke-mono rice (rice with horseradish soaked in yellow saffron brine) were infinitely more appealing than pureed carrots with small bits of meat.
There were two meals: one in the dining room and one in the kitchen. I nibbled during the first to leave room for the second. Very soon I had taken sides: choosing between my parents, who treated me like the others, and my nanny, who treated me like a god, was not a real choice.
I would become Japanese.
AND SO, AT THE AGE OF TWO and a half, in the province of Kansai, in the village of Shukugawa, I became Japanese.
To be Japanese meant living among beauty and adoration. To be Japanese meant inhaling the intoxicating odor of flowers in a garden moistened from rain; sitting on the edge of a pool, gazing at distant mountains as large as the heart they contained; and feeling rapture at the mystical song of the yam seller who passed through the neighborhood at twilight.
Most of all, to be Japanese meant being Nishio-san’s chosen one. If I asked her, she would drop whatever she was doing, coddle me in her arms, and sing to me about gardens and blossoming cherry trees.
She was always ready to tell me those stories about bodies getting cut to pieces, at which I marveled, or about the witch who cooked people in a soup cauldron. I listened to these delightful tales in stunned silence.
Nishio-san sat and cradled me like a doll. I sometimes pretended to be hurt so that she would comfort me. She played along, consoling me endlessly for my nonexistent sufFering, gazing at me with consuming piteousness.
Then her delicate finger would trace my features and exalt my extreme beauty. She exulted in my mouth, forehead, cheeks. Never, she said, had she seen so beautiful a face as mine. Nishio-san was a good person.
And I never tired of being held in her arms. I would always stay there, bathed in her idolatry, proof of the tightness and excellence of my divine self.
At the age of two and a half, I would have been an idiot not to be Japanese.
Not by accident had I revealed my knowledge of Japanese first. The cult of myself involved linguistic requirements. I needed an idiom in which to communicate with my followers. These were not numerous, my followers, but because of the intensity of their reverence and the importance of their place in my universe they would do: Nishio-san, the futago, and passersby.
When I walked in the street, holding the hand of the high priestess of my adoration, I awaited with great serenity the acclamation of my servants. I could be sure they would always sing my praises.
Nonetheless, the practice of this religion was never more pleasing than within the four walls of the garden, my temple. A small yard with planted flowers and trees and surrounded by a wall—nothing better than a garden has ever been invented to reconcile humanity and universe.
It was a Japanese garden, which is a redundancy. It was Zen but its stone pool, its utter simplicity, and its variety of plants and trees spoke of the country that, more religiously than any other, has defined what a garden should be.
Belief in me achieved its greatest degree of intensity in the garden. The high walls, capped with tiles, protected me from the prying eyes of the laity. Here was my sanctuary.
When God required a place to symbolize earthly delights, He didn’t choose a desert island, or a beach with fine sand, or a field of ripened wheat, or a lush hillside; He chose a garden.
I shared His preference, for there is no better place on earth from which to reign. In my garden fiefdom, plants were my subjects. At my command they would blossom before my eyes. This was the first Spring of my existence and I couldn’t yet imagine that this veg-etal refulgence would reach a high-point, and then decline.
One evening, I said to a stalk on which there was a bud, “blossom.” And the next day it became a glorious white peony. I had powers—of that there wasn’t any doubt. When I spoke of them to Nishio-san she didn’t try to deny that this was so.
Beginning with the birth of my memory, that February, the world had not ceased from offering up its glories to me. Nature was allied to my progress. Every day the garden was more luxuriant than it was the day before. One flower would fade only to be reborn in more stunning fashion a step or two away.
And how grateful everyone was for what I had done. How drab their lives had been before me! I had brought them a profusion of marvels. What could make their adoration more apt?
THERE WAS ONE HITCH IN ALL THIS. Kashima-san, of course.
Kashima-san didn’t believe in me. She was the only Japanese woman who did not accept this new religion. She hated me. Grammarians are naive enough to believe that the exception proves the rule; I didn’t, and Kashima-san’s impiety seriously vexed me.
She wouldn’t let me eat from her plate. Stunned by this impertinence, I tried to eat from it nonetheless. She slapped me.
Sick from outrage, I found Nishio-san and told her what had happened, hoping she would punish Kashima-san for this sacrilege.
"Do you find this normal?” I asked indignantly.
"It is Kashima-san. That is how she is.”
I wondered whether that was an acceptable response. Did anyone have the right to slap me for the sole reason that “that was how she was?” I deemed it was not acceptable. Anyone who dared question my religion would have to pay.
I commanded Kashima-san’s garden not to blossom. This had no effect that I could perceive. Perhaps she did not like flowers. Then I was told that she did not have a garden.
That being the case, I decided upon a more charitable approach, and set out to charm her utterly. I stood in front of her with a magnanimous smile and extended my hand, the way God does to Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. She ignored it.
Kashima-san refused me; she denied me. She was the equivalent of the anti-Christ; she was the anti-me.
I felt deep sorrow for her. How terrible it must have been for her not to adore me. Nishio-san and my other loyal followers radiated happiness, because it did them so much good to love me.
Kashima-san did not avail herself of this sweetness and light—you could read it in her hard, handsome features, in her pinched expression and air of disdain. I circled around her, observing her, seeking out the reason for her lack of interest in me. I never imagined that it could have anything to do with me, of course; that I was divine was beyond question. If my aristocratic nanny didn’t love me, it was because she had a problem.
I found out what it was. Having studied Kashima-san carefully, I could see that she suffered from the disease of self-denial. Every time there was cause for rejoicing or celebration, the mouth of this noble lady would tighten and her lips become set. She always held back. It was as if such pleasures were beneath her, as if joy were an abdication.
I undertook several scientific experiments. I brought to Kashima-san the most fragrant camellia from the garden, informing her that I had picked it especially for her. Her mouth tightened; she thanked me curtly. I asked Nishio-san to make Kashima-san her favorite dish. Nishio-san prepared a sublime chawan mushi, which Kashima-san nibbled a
t delicately and in complete silence. When I saw a rainbow, I ran to Kashima-san so that we could admire it together; she shrugged her shoulders.
In my infinite generosity, and as a last resort, I decided to present Kashima-san with the most beautiful sight imaginable. I dressed up in a traditional Japanese outfit Nishio-san had given me: a little red silk kimono decorated with water lilies, a large red obi, lacquered geta, and a parasol made of purple paper on which was an image of storks in flight. I applied some of my mother’s red lipstick and went to look at myself in the mirror. I was, without the slightest doubt, magnificent. Who could resist such a vision?
First, I allowed myself to be admired by my most loyal followers, who cried out in ecstasy. Spinning and fluttering like a butterfly, I danced around the garden, then picked an enormous peony and perched it on my head.
I presented myself to Kashima-san. She offered no reaction.
This confirmed my suspicion: she suffered from self-denial. She was holding back. How else could she have exhibited such indifference at the sight of me? Like God before a sinner, I felt keen sorrow for her. Poor, poor Kashima-san!
Had I known that there was such a thing, I would have offered up a prayer for her. I saw no way of integrating this sad creature into my vision of the world. I mourned this deeply.
I had also discovered the limits of my power.
AMONG MY FATHER’S FRIENDS was a Vietnamese businessman who had married a French woman. Because of political turmoil of the sort easily imaginable in Vietnam in 1970, the man suddenly had to return home, taking with him his wife but leaving behind their six-year-old son Hugo, who was placed in my parents’ care for an indeterminate amount of time.
Hugo was a serious and reserved boy. He had made a good impression on me until the moment he went over to the enemy—my brother. The two boys became inseparable. To punish him, I decided not to name Hugo.
I had as yet spoken only a few words in French. This was becoming unbearable. I experienced a crippling need to express such crucial perceptions as “Hugo and Andre are made of green caca,” but I was not thought capable of such sophisticated assertions. This frustrated me, knowing that the boys were losing nothing by waiting for me to express their true nature.
Sometimes I wondered why I didn’t simply reveal the full extent of my speaking abilities. What was the point of holding back? Without knowing it, I was adhering strictly to the etymology of the word “infant"—"incapable of speech”—and somehow thought, confusedly, that by speaking I would have lost some of the respect due to prophets and to the mentally impaired.
In southern Japan April is a month of refulgent sweetness. My parents took all of us to the seashore. I already knew what the sea was, having become a little familiar with Osaka Bay, which, at the time, was a cesspool. Swimming in it was out of the question. So we crossed to the other side of the country, to Tot-tori, where I first discovered, the Sea of Japan and was captivated by it. The Japanese consider the sea to be male, whereas they deem the ocean to be female. The logic of this distinction escaped me. It still escapes me.
The beach at Tottori was as wide as a desert. Crossing it seemed to take forever. When I finally reached the water, it turned out to be as afraid of me as I was of it. Like a timid child, it approached and then ran away. I did the same.
Everybody else dove in. My mother called me to follow but I didn’t dare, despite the inflatable plastic tube around my waist. I looked at the sea with terror and desire. Mama took me by the hand and led me in.
The fluid took me and bounced me on its surface. Suddenly I had escaped the pull of the earth. I screamed in ecstasy. As majestic as a miniature Saturn and its ring, I stayed in the water for hours on end, and would only be dragged out by force.
"Sea!"
My seventh word.
I QUICKLY LEARNED to do without the tube, having discovered that by working my arms and legs I could manage to swim as well as any other idiot. Because doing this was so tiring, however, I always stayed where I could touch bottom.
Something wonderful happened one day. I went out into the sea and began to walk straight ahead, toward Korea, and found that the water wasn’t getting any deeper. I had mysteriously caused the sea floor to rise up. To each her own miracles. I decided that I would proceed all the way to the Asian continent.
I launched out into the unknown, my feet caressing the sandy bottom. I walked and walked, taking giant steps away from Japan, thinking how wonderful it was that I had such fabulous powers.
Then I fell. The seabed that had borne me aloft had fallen away and I lost my footing. The water swallowed me. I kicked and clawed my way to the surface, but each time I got my head above water a wave pushed me back down, like a torturer intent on extracting a confession.
I knew that I was drowning. When my head was above water I could see the beach, which looked very far away, and my parents, who were napping. I could also see that people were watching me drown. They did nothing to stop it. They were adhering to the ancient Japanese principle of never saving another’s life, because doing so creates a crushing debt of gratitude.
The public spectacle of my dying was even more terrifying than actually dying.
"Tasukete!” I yelled.
The people just stared.
My reticence about speaking French now seemed totally absurd. “Au secours!” I screamed.
It suddenly dawned on me that perhaps that was what the water had wanted: get me to admit that I spoke the language of my parents. The problem was they couldn’t hear me. And so committed were the Japanese onlookers to their principle of nonintervention that it even
extended to not alerting my parents. Everyone was watching me drown with close attention.
Soon I was too tired to kick, and let myself sink, my body sliding beneath the waves. These were the final moments of my life and I didn’t want to miss them, so I managed to open my eyes. What I saw was truly marvelous. The sunlight had never seemed as dazzling as it did from under the water. The movement of the waves produced silent clouds of sparkles.
I was so mesmerized by the sight that I forgot to be afraid. It felt as if I had been there for hours.
Then arms were grabbing me and hauling me up toward the light. I took a deep, gasping breath. My mother was crying. She ran back to the beach, holding me tight against her.
She wrapped me in a towel and massaged my back and chest vigorously. I threw up lots of water. Then she cradled me and, through her tears, told me how I had been saved.
"Hugo saw you. He was playing with Andre and Juliette when he saw your head disappear under the water. He came to warn me and pointed to where you were. If it hadn’t been for him, you’d be dead!"
I looked at Hugo and said, with great solemnity, “Thank you, Hugo. You’re nice.”
There followed a moment of stunned silence.
My father began to shout.
“She can talk! She can talk like an empress!"
He went from jubilation to silent, introspective shivering, then back to whoops of laughter.
"I’ve been talking for a long time,” I replied, shrugging my shoulders.
The sea had done what it had set out to do. I had confessed.
LYING ON THE BEACH next to my sister, I wondered whether I was happy not to be dead. I looked at Hugo as if he were a mathematical equation. Without him, no me. No me. Would that have pleased me? I would not be here to know if it pleased me or not, I told myself logically. Yes, I was happy not to be dead, and knowing that pleased me.
Next to me was pretty Juliette. Above me, the glorious clouds. Before me, the wondrous sea. Behind me, the infinite beach. The world was beautiful. Living was worth the effort.
WHEN WE GOT BACK TO SHUKUGAWA I decided to learn to swim. Not far from our house in the mountains was a little green lake that I had baptized Little Green Lake. It was a small paradise. The water was warm and velvety, the shores fringed by azalea bushes.
Every morning, Nishio-san took me to this lake. All by myself I le
arned how to swim underwater like a fish, my eyes open to the marvels whose existence drowning had shown me.
When my head came up, I could see the tree-covered mountains rising up around me. I was at the geometric center of an ever-widening circle of splendor.
MY BRUSH WITH DEATH had not shaken my unarticulated conviction that I was divine. After all, why would the gods be immortal? What did immortality have to do with divinity? Was a peony any less sublime simply because eventually it would wilt?
I asked Nishio-san who Jesus was. She told me she didn’t really know.
"I know that he’s a god,” she offered. “And that he has long hair.”
"Do you believe in him?"
"No.”
"Do you believe in me?"
"Yes.”
"I have long hair.”
"Yes. Besides, I know you.”
Nishio-san was a good person. She always had good reasons for things.
My brother, my sister, and Hugo went to the American school near Mount Rokko. Among Andre’s schoolbooks was one entitled My Friend Jesus. I couldn’t read it, but I looked at the pictures. Toward the end of the book there was one of Jesus, hanging on the cross, with lots of people watching him. The picture fascinated me. I asked Hugo why Jesus was on a cross.
“To kill him,” he replied.
“Being put on a cross kills people?”
"Yes, because they nailed him to it. The nails are what kill you.”
This explanation seemed acceptable, and it made the picture all the more fascinating to me. Jesus was in the process of dying in front of a whole crowd of people, and no one tried to save him.
I, too, had once been dying, watching people watch me. All anyone in the picture had to do was come forward and take the nails out, just as when I was drowning all anyone would have had to have done was take me out of the water—or at least warn my parents. In both of our cases, Jesus’ and mine, people had decided against getting involved.