The Decay of the Angel

  “Foreign table manners may seem a trifle stupid,” said Honda, “but when they come in an easy, natural way they give a person a sense of security. Evidence of good breeding gives a person status, and by good breeding in Japan we mean a familiarity with the Western way of doing things. We find the pure Japanese only in the slums and in the underworld, and may expect them to be more and more narrowly circumscribed as time goes by. The poison known as the pure Japanese is thinning, changing to a potion acceptable to everyone.”

  There can be little doubt that Honda was thinking of Isao as he spoke. Isao knew nothing of Western table manners. Such elegant accessories were no part of the grandeur of his world. And so Tōru, still sixteen, must be taught Western table manners.

  Food was served from the left and drink from the right. Knives and forks were taken in order from the outside. Tōru looked at his hands like one engulfed in a torrent.

  The instructions continued. “And you must make polite conversation while you eat. That puts your table companion at ease. You must be careful about timing your swallows, because there is a danger, when you talk with food in your mouth, of spitting something out. Now, then. Father”—Honda referred to himself as “Father”—“will say something to you, and you must answer. You must think of me not as your father but as a very important man who might be able to do a great deal for you if he likes you. We are acting out a play. All right, now. ‘You are studying hard, I see, and you have your three tutors all speechless with admiration; but it seems a little odd that you should have no real friends.’”

  “I don’t feel any great need for them.”

  “That’s no answer at all. If you give that sort of answer people will think you queer. Now, then. Give me a proper answer.”

  Tōru was silent.

  “It won’t do. Studying will do you no good if you don’t use common sense. This is the sort of answer you should give, as pleasantly as can be: ‘I’m studying so hard that I really don’t have time at the moment for friends, but I’m sure I’ll have some as soon as I start prep school.’”

  “I’m studying so hard that I really don’t have time at the moment for friends, but I’m sure I’ll have some as soon as I start prep school.”

  “That’s it, that’s it. That’s the style. And all of a sudden the conversation turns to art. ‘Who is your favorite Italian artist?’”

  There was no answer.

  “Who is your favorite Italian artist?”

  “Mantegna.”

  “No, no. You’re far too young for Mantegna. Probably your table companion has never heard of Mantegna, and you’ll make him uncomfortable, and give an unpleasant impression of precociousness. This is how you answer. ‘I think the Renaissance is just wonderful.’”

  “I think the Renaissance is just wonderful.”

  “That’s it, that’s it. You give your table companion a feeling of superiority and you seem all cute and charming. And he has an opening for a long lecture on things he only half understands. You must listen all aglow with curiosity and admiration even though most of what he says is wrong and the rest is old hat. What the world asks of a young person is that he be a devoted listener, nothing more. You’re the winner if you let him do the talking. You must not forget that for a moment.

  “The world does not ask brilliance of a young person, and at the same time too firm a steadiness arouses suspicions. You should have a harmless little eccentricity or two, something to interest him. You must have little addictions, not too expensive and not related to politics. Very abstract, very average. Tinkering with machinery, or baseball or a trumpet. Once he knows what they are, he feels safe. He knows where your energies can go. You can even seem a little carried away by your hobbies if you want to.

  “You should go in for sports but not let them interfere with your studies, and they should be the sports that show off your good health. It has the advantage of making you look a bit stupid. There are no virtues more highly prized in Japan than indifference to politics and devotion to the team.

  “You can graduate with the highest marks in your class, but you have to have a sort of vague stupidity that puts people at their ease. Like a kite full of wind.

  “I’ll tell you about money once you’re in prep school. You’re in the happy position for the moment of not having to worry about it.”

  As he lectured to the attentive Tōru, Honda had the feeling that these were really instructions for Kiyoaki and Isao and Ying Chan.

  Yes, he should have spoken to them. He should have armed them with the foreknowledge that would keep them from flinging themselves after their destinies, take away their wings, keep them from soaring, make them march in step with the crowd. The world does not approve of flying. Wings are dangerous weapons. They invite self-destruction before they can be used. If he had brought Isao to terms with the fools, then he could have pretended that he knew nothing of wings.

  He had only to say to people: “His wings are an accessory. You needn’t trouble yourself about them. Just keep company with him for a while, and you’ll see that he’s an ordinary, reliable boy.” Such tidings could have been remarkably effective.

  Kiyoaki and Isao and Ying Chan had had to make do without them, and had been punished for their contempt and arrogance. They had been too proud even in their sufferings.

  18

  THE THREE TUTORS were all highly gifted students from Tokyo University. One taught sociology and literature, one mathematics and science, and one English. It was known that in 1971 the prep-school entrance examinations would have more essay questions and fewer short-answer questions, and that there would be more emphasis on English dictation and Japanese composition. Tōru was suddenly set to English newscasts. He took them on tape and repeated them over and over.

  Here is a question on geography and the movements of the heavenly bodies:

  In what position is Venus present longest for morning observation? Indicate on the chart. What is the shape of Venus when viewed in this position? Please indicate which of the following you believe to be the correct answer:

  1. The east half is light.

  2. The west half is light.

  3. It is shining in a thin crescent, like the moon.

  4. It is round.

  What is the position of Mars when it is visible in the southern evening sky? Please indicate on the chart.

  What is the position of Mars when it is visible in the southern midnight sky? Please indicate on the chart.

  Tōru immediately circled “B” on the chart, and so answered the first question successfully. He chose the third possibility for the second question, circled “L” for the third question, and, finding spot “G” at which the sun, the earth, and Mars were in a line, circled it.

  “Have you been asked this question before?”

  “No.”

  “Then why were you so quick?”

  “I see Venus and Mars every day.”

  Tōru answered quite as if he were a child describing the habits of his pets. As a matter of fact Venus and Mars were like the mice that occupied the signal station. He knew all about their feeding habits.

  It was not, however, as if he felt nostalgic for nature or regretted the loss of his telescope. He did have a sense of that uncommonly simple work as his own, and the world beyond the horizon was a source of happiness for him; but he did not feel in the least deprived by the loss of them. It was his task, from now until he was twenty or so, to explore a cave with an old man.

  Honda had taken pains to choose as tutors bright, companionable, talented young men of a sort Tōru might look to as models. He made a slight miscalculation in the case of Furusawa, Tōru’s literature teacher. Much pleased with Tōru’s disposition and intelligence, Furusawa would take him to nearby coffee houses when they were tired of their lessons, and sometimes they would go on long walks together. Honda was grateful for these services and liked the cheerful Furusawa.

  Furusawa did not at all mind saying unpleasant things about Honda. Tōru enjoye
d them, though he was careful not to nod too quick an assent.

  One day the two of them walked down Masago Rise past the ward office and turned left toward Suidōbashi. The street was torn up for a new subway line, and Kōrakuen Park was hidden behind construction towers. The twilight of late November came through the framework of a roller coaster as through an empty basket.

  Passing trophy shops and sports shops and short-order restaurants, they had come to the Kōrakuen gate. Two rows of lights over the red gate flashed from left to right: “We will no longer be open in the evening after November 23.” So the shining nights would soon be over.

  “How about it?” asked Furusawa. “How about a good shaking in a teacup?”

  “Well.” Tōru thought of himself in a dirty pink teacup, now rather lonely and short of customers among its blinking little lights. He thought of himself being so shaken and twisted by it that objects became streaks of light.

  “Well, do you want to or don’t you? You only have ninety-two days left till the examinations, but I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.”

  “I’d rather have a cup of coffee.”

  “Such dissipation.”

  Furusawa led the way down the steps of a coffeehouse called the Renoir. It was across the street from the third-base side of the baseball stadium, which was like a huge trophy pouring forth darkness.

  The Renoir was larger than Tōru would have expected from the outside. The tables were generously spaced around a fountain. The lights were soft and the carpet was beige. There were few other guests.

  “I had no idea there was such a place so close to home.”

  “A cloistered maiden like you wouldn’t.”

  Furusawa ordered two cups of coffee. He offered Tōru a cigarette, upon which Tōru leaped.

  “It’s not easy to keep it out of sight.”

  “Mr. Honda’s much too strict. It’s not as if you were an ordinary middle-school boy. You’ve been out in the world. He wants to make a child of you again. But you just have to wait till you’re twenty. You can spread your wings once you’re in the university.”

  “Exactly my own idea. But I have to keep it to myself.”

  Furusawa frowned and laughed a pitying laugh. It seemed to Tōru that he was trying to be older than twenty-one.

  Furusawa wore glasses, but his good-natured face was very engaging when he smiled, and wrinkles formed around his nose. The horns were bent, and he was forever shoving the glasses back up on his nose, the gesture with his forefinger as if he were reprimanding himself. He had large hands and feet, and he was considerably taller than Tōru. He was the gifted son of a railway worker. Hidden in him was a spirit like a squirming red lobster.

  Tōru had no urgent wish to destroy the image Furusawa had of him, as another son of the poor, holding onto the windfall that had come to him. Others, all of them, painted free pictures of him, but it was their freedom. What was most certainly his own was contempt.

  “I don’t really know what Mr. Honda is up to, but I should imagine he’s making a guinea pig of you. But that’s all right. He has a big fat estate, and you don’t have to dirty your hands the way other people do clawing your way to the top of the garbage heap. But you do have to hang on to your self-respect. Even if it kills you.”

  “Yes,” answered Tōru succinctly. He refrained from saying that he had a great deal of self-respect in reserve.

  He was in the habit of tasting his answers. If they seemed sentimental he bit them back.

  Honda was off at a dinner with some legal colleagues. Tōru would have something to eat with Furusawa before they went home. He was required, whatever else might happen, to have dinner with Honda at seven every evening when Honda was at home. Sometimes there were other guests. The evenings with Keiko were the greatest trial.

  His eye was cool and clear when he had finished his coffee. But there was nothing to see. He looked at the half circle of coffee dregs. The bottom of the cup, round like the lens of a telescope, obstructed his view. The bottom of this world showed a clean white face of porcelain.

  Turned half away, Furusawa suddenly spoke as if throwing the butt of his words into the ashtray. “Have you ever thought of suicide?”

  “No.” Tōru was startled.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t thought of it all that seriously myself. I don’t like the weak and the sick sort of people that commit suicide. But there is one variety I accept. People who commit suicide to establish themselves.”

  “What sort of suicide is that?”

  “Are you interested?”

  “A little, maybe.”

  “Then I’ll tell you.

  “Take a mouse that thinks it’s a cat. I don’t know how, but it does. It’s gone through all the tests and concluded that it’s a cat. Its view of other mice changes. They are its meat, that’s all, but it tells itself it refrains from eating them just to hide the fact that it’s a cat.”

  “A rather large mouse, I suppose.”

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s not a question of size but of confidence. It’s sure that the concept ‘cat’ has taken on the guise ‘mouse,’ nothing more. It believes in the concept and not the flesh. The idea is enough, the body doesn’t matter. The happiness from the contempt is all the greater.

  “But then one day”—Furusawa shoved his glasses up and drew a persuasive line beside his nose—“but then one day the mouse meets a real cat.

  “‘I’m going to eat you,’ says the cat.

  “‘You can’t,’ replies the mouse.

  “‘And why not?’

  “‘Cats don’t eat cats. It’s impossible as a matter of instinct and as a matter of principle. I’m a cat myself, whatever else I may look like.’

  “The cat rolls over laughing. It laughs so hard it’s clawing the air and its white furry belly is heaving. Then it gets up and starts to eat the mouse. The mouse protests.

  “‘What are you eating me for?’

  “‘Because you’re a mouse.’

  “‘I’m a cat. Cats don’t eat cats.’

  “‘You’re a mouse.’

  “‘I’m a cat.’

  “‘Prove it.’

  “So the mouse jumps into the laundry tub, all white with suds, and drowns itself. The cat wets a forepaw and has a lick. The suds taste horrible. So it leaves the body floating there. We all know why the cat goes off without eating the mouse. Because it’s not something for a cat to eat.

  “That’s what I’m talking about. The mouse commits suicide to establish itself. It doesn’t of course make the cat recognize it as a cat, and it didn’t think when it killed itself that it would. But it was brave and perceptive and filled with self-respect. It saw that there are two parts to mouseness. First is that it is a mouse in every physical detail. Second is that it is, for a cat, worth eating. Those two. It has long ago given up in the first matter, but in the second there is still hope. It dies in front of the cat without being eaten, and it establishes itself as something that cats don’t eat. In those two respects it has proved it wasn’t a mouse. That much. To prove besides that it was a cat is simple. If something that had the form of a mouse wasn’t a mouse, then it can be anything else. And so the suicide is a success. The mouse has established itself. What do you think?”

  Tōru was weighing the parable. He had no doubt that Furusawa had polished it by telling and retelling it to himself. He had long been aware of the disjuncture between Furusawa’s genial appearance and his inner workings.

  If only Furusawa himself was concerned, there was nothing to worry about; but if he had detected something in Tōru to make fun of, then Tōru must be careful. Tōru sent out a probing mental hand. It came upon nothing dangerous. Furusawa had sunk deeper and deeper into himself as he talked; he could not see out from so far below the surface.

  “And did the mouse’s death shock the world?” Furusawa was no longer paying attention to his audience. Tōru saw that he had only to listen as to a soliloquy. It was a voice of slow, moss-covered
pain, such as he had not before heard from Furusawa. “Did the view the world had of the mouse change in any way? Did the true word spread that there existed something that had the form of a mouse but was not a mouse? Was there a crack in the confidence of the cats? Were the cats sufficiently concerned to obstruct the spread of the word?

  “Do not be surprised. The cat did nothing at all. It had forgotten. It was washing its face and settling down for a nap. It was full of catness, and not even aware of that fact. And in the sluggishness of its nap it became with no effort at all what the mouse had so desperately wanted to become, something other than itself. It could become anything, through inaction, through self-satisfaction, through unconsciousness. The blue sky spread over the sleeping cat, beautiful clouds drifted by. The wind carried to the world the cat fragrance, the heavy snores were music.”

  “You’re talking about authority now.” Tōru felt compelled to put in a word of recognition.

  Furusawa’s face broke into a good-natured smile. “Yes. You’re very quick.”

  Tōru was disappointed. It had ended up as the sad sort of political parable the young are so fond of.

  “You’ll understand some day yourself.” Although there was no danger of being overheard, Furusawa lowered his voice and brought his face close to Tōru’s. Tōru remembered the smell of his breath, forgotten for a time.

  Why had he forgotten? He had smelled Furusawa’s breath frequently enough in the course of their lessons. He had not been especially repelled by it; but now he was.

  There had been no touch of malice in the story, and yet it had somehow angered Tōru. He did not choose to reprove Furusawa for it, however, and feared that to do so would be only to lower himself. He needed another reason, a quite adequate one, for disliking and even being angry at Furusawa. So the smell of his breath became unendurable.