An Artist of the Floating World

  But then it would not be accurate to suggest I only socialized with the best of my pupils. Indeed, the first time I ever stepped into Mrs Kawakami’s, I believe I did so because I wished to spend the evening talking something over with Shintaro. Today, when I try to recall that evening, I find my memory of it merging with the sounds and images from all those other evenings; the lanterns hung above doorways, the laughter of people congregated outside the Migi-Hidari, the smell of deep-fried food, a bar hostess persuading someone to return to his wife – and echoing from every direction, the clicking of numerous wooden sandals on the concrete. I remember it being a warm summer’s night, and not finding Shintaro in his usual haunts, I wandered around those tiny bars for some time. For all the competition there must have existed between those establishments, a neighbourly spirit reigned, and it was quite natural that on asking after Shintaro at one such bar that night, I should be advised by the hostess, without a trace of resentment, to try for him at the ‘new place’.

  No doubt, Mrs Kawakami could point out numerous changes – her little ‘improvements’ – that she has made over the years. But my impression is that her little place looked much the same that first night as it does today. On entering, one tends to be struck by the contrast between the bar counter, lit up by warm, low-hung lights, and the rest of the room, which is in shadow. Most of her customers prefer to sit up at the bar within that pool of light, and this gives a cosy, intimate feel to the place. I remember looking around me with approval that first night, and today, for all the changes which have transformed the world around it, Mrs Kawakami’s remains as pleasing as ever.

  But little else has remained unchanged. Coming out of Mrs Kawakami’s now, you could stand at her doorway and believe you have just been drinking at some outpost of civilization. All around, there is nothing but a desert of demolished rubble. Only the backs of several buildings far in the distance will remind you that you are not so far from the city centre. ‘War damage,’ Mrs Kawakami calls it. But I remember walking around the district shortly after the surrender and many of those buildings were still standing. The Migi-Hidari was still there, the windows all blown out, part of the roof fallen in. And I remember wondering to myself as I walked past those shattered buildings, if they would ever again come back to life. Then I came by one morning and the bulldozers had pulled down everything.

  So now that side of the street is nothing but rubble. No doubt the authorities have their plans, but it has been that way for three years. The rain collects in small puddles and grows stagnant amidst the broken brick. As a consequence, Mrs Kawakami has been obliged to put up mosquito wiring on her windows – not an effect she thinks will attract customers.

  The buildings on Mrs Kawakami’s own side of the street have remained standing, but many are unoccupied; the properties on either side of her, for instance, have been vacant for some time, a situation which makes her uncomfortable. If she became suddenly rich, she often tells us, she would buy up those properties and expand. In the meantime, she waits for someone to move into them; she would not mind if they became bars just like hers, anything provided she no longer had to live in the midst of a graveyard.

  If you were to come out of Mrs Kawakami’s as the darkness was setting in, you might feel compelled to pause a moment and gaze at that wasted expanse before you. You might still be able to make out through the gloom those heaps of broken brick and timber, and perhaps here and there, pieces of piping protruding from the ground like weeds. Then as you walked on past more heaps of rubble, numerous small puddles would gleam a moment as they caught in the lamplight.

  And if on reaching the foot of the hill which climbs up to my house, you pause at the Bridge of Hesitation and look back towards the remains of our old pleasure district, if the sun has not yet set completely, you may see the line of old telegraph poles – still without wires to connect them – disappearing into the gloom down the route you have just come, And you may be able to make out the dark clusters of birds perched uncomfortably on the tops of the poles, as though awaiting the wires along which they once lined the sky.

  One evening not so long ago, I was standing on that little wooden bridge and saw away in the distance two columns of smoke rising from the rubble. Perhaps it was government workers continuing some interminably slow programme; or perhaps children indulging in some delinquent game. But the sight of those columns against the sky put me in a melancholy mood. They were like pyres at some abandoned funeral. A graveyard, Mrs Kawakami says, and when one remembers all those people who once frequented the area, one cannot help seeing it that way.

  But I am digressing. I was trying to recall here details of Setsuko’s stay with us last month.

  As I may have said, Setsuko spent much of the first day of her visit sitting out on the veranda, talking with her sister. At one point towards the latter part of the afternoon when my daughters were particularly deep in women’s talk, I recall I left them to go in search of my grandson, who a few minutes earlier had gone running off into the house.

  It was as I was coming down the corridor that a heavy thump made the whole house shake. Alarmed, I hurried on into the dining room. At that time of day, our dining room is largely in shadow, and after the brightness of the veranda, it took my eyes a moment or two to ascertain that Ichiro was not in the room at all. Then came another thump, followed by several more, together with my grandson’s voice shouting: ‘Yah! Yah!’ The noise was coming from the adjoining piano room. I went to the doorway, listened for a moment, then quietly slid back the partition.

  In contrast to the dining room, the piano room catches the sun throughout the day. It fills with a sharp, clear light, and had it been any larger, would have been an ideal place in which to take our meals. At one time, I had used it to store paintings and materials, but nowadays, apart from the upright German piano, the room is practically bare. No doubt this lack of clutter had inspired my grandson in much the same way as the veranda had earlier; for I found him progressing across the floor with a curious stamping movement, which I took to be an impersonation of someone galloping on horseback across open land. Because his back was turned to the doorway, it was some moments before he realized he was being observed.

  ‘Oji!’ he said, turning angrily. ‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Ichiro, I didn’t realize.’

  ‘I can’t play with you just now!’

  ‘I’m very sorry. But it sounded so exciting from out here I wondered if I could come in and watch.’

  For a moment, my grandson went on staring at me crossly. Then he said moodily: ‘All right. But you have to sit and be quiet. I’m busy.’

  ‘Very well,’ I said, with a laugh. ‘Thank you very much, Ichiro.’

  My grandson continued to glare at me as I crossed the room and seated myself by the window. When Ichiro had arrived with his mother the previous evening, I had made him a gift of a sketchpad and a set of coloured crayons. I now noticed the sketchpad lying on the tatami nearby, three or four of the crayons scattered around it. I could see the first few leaves of the pad had been drawn on and was about to reach over to investigate, when Ichiro suddenly recommenced the drama I had interrupted.

  ‘Yah! Yah!’

  I watched him for a while, but could make little sense of the scenes he was enacting. At intervals, he would repeat his horse movement; at other times, he appeared to be in combat with numerous invisible enemies. All the while, he continued to mutter lines of dialogue under his breath. I tried hard to make these out, but as far as I could tell he was not using actual words, simply making sounds with his tongue.

  Clearly, though he did his best to ignore me, my presence was having an inhibiting effect. Several times he froze in mid-movement as though inspiration had suddenly deserted him, before throwing himself into action again. Then before long he gave up and slumped on to the floor. I wondered if I should applaud, but thought better of it.

  ‘Very impressive, Ichiro. But tell me, who were you pretending to be
?’

  ‘You guess, Oji.’

  ‘Hmm. Lord Yoshitsune perhaps? No? A samurai warrior, then? Hmm. Or a ninja perhaps? The Ninja of the Wind.’

  ‘Oji’s completely on the wrong scent.’

  ‘Then tell me. Who were you?’

  ‘Lone Ranger!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lone Ranger! Hi yo Silver!’

  ‘Lone Ranger? Is that a cowboy?’

  ‘Hi yo Silver!’ Ichiro began to gallop again, and this time made a neighing noise.

  I watched my grandson for a moment. ‘How did you learn to play cowboys, Ichiro?’ I asked eventually, but he just continued to gallop and neigh.

  ‘Ichiro,’ I said, more firmly, ‘wait a moment and listen. It’s more interesting, more interesting by far, to pretend to be someone like Lord Yoshitsune. Shall I tell you why? Ichiro, listen, Oji will explain it to you. Ichiro, listen to your Oji-san. Ichiro!’

  Possibly I raised my voice more than I had intended, for he stopped and looked at me with a startled expression. I continued to look at him for a moment, then gave a sigh.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ichiro, I shouldn’t have interrupted. Of course you can be anyone you like. Even a cowboy. You must forgive your Oji-san. He was forgetting for a moment.’

  My grandson continued to stare at me, and it occurred to me he was about to burst into tears or else run out of the room.

  ‘Please, Ichiro, you just carry on with what you were doing.’

  For a moment longer, Ichiro went on staring at me. Then he suddenly yelled out: ‘Lone Ranger! Hi yo Silver!’ and began to gallop again. He stamped more violently than ever, causing the whole room to shake around us. I went on watching him for a moment, then reached over and picked up his sketchpad.

  Ichiro had used up the first four or five sheets somewhat wastefully. His technique was not at all bad, but the sketches – of trams and trains – had each been abandoned at a very early stage. Ichiro noticed me examining the sketchpad and came hurrying over.

  ‘Oji! Who said you could look at those?’ He tried to snatch the pad away from me, but I held it out of his reach.

  ‘Now, Ichiro, don’t be unkind. Oji wants to see what you’ve been doing with the crayons he gave you. That’s only fair.’ I lowered the sketchpad and opened it at the first drawing. ‘Very impressive, Ichiro. Hmm. But you know, you could be even better if you wanted.’

  ‘Oji can’t see those!’

  My grandson made another attempt to snatch away the pad, obliging me to hold off his hands with my arm.

  ‘Oji! Give me back my book!’

  ‘Now, Ichiro, stop that. Let your Oji see. Look, Ichiro, bring me those crayons over there. Bring them over and we’ll draw something together. Oji will show you.’

  These words had a surprising effect. My grandson immediately stopped struggling, then went to gather up the crayons scattered on the floor. When he came back, something new – a kind of fascination – had entered his manner. He seated himself beside me and held out the crayons, watching carefully, but saying nothing.

  I turned the sketchpad to a new sheet and placed it on the floor in front of him. ‘Let me see you do something first, Ichiro. Then Oji will see if he can help to make it better at all. What do you want to draw?’

  My grandson had become very quiet. He looked down at the blank sheet thoughtfully, but made no move to start drawing.

  ‘Why don’t you try and draw something you saw yesterday?’ I suggested. ‘Something you saw when you first arrived in the city.’

  Ichiro went on looking at the sketchpad. Then he looked up and asked: ‘Was Oji a famous artist once?’

  ‘A famous artist?’ I gave a laugh. ‘I suppose you might say that. Is that what your mother says?’

  ‘Father says you used to be a famous artist. But you had to finish.’

  ‘I’ve retired, Ichiro. Everyone retires when they get to a certain age. It’s only right, they deserve a rest.’

  ‘Father says you had to finish. Because Japan lost the war.’

  I gave another laugh, then reached forward and took the sketchpad. I turned back the leaves, looking through my grandson’s sketches of trams, and held one up at arm’s length for a better view. ‘You reach a certain age, Ichiro, and you want a rest from things. Your father too will stop working when he gets to my age. And one day, you’ll be my age and you’ll want a rest too. Now’ – I returned to the blank sheet and placed the pad before him again – ‘what will you draw for me, Ichiro?’

  ‘Did Oji do the picture in the dining room?’

  ‘No, that’s by an artist called Urayama. Why, do you like it?’

  ‘Did Oji paint the one in the corridor?’

  ‘That’s by another fine artist, an old friend of Oji’s.’

  ‘Where are Oji’s pictures then?’

  ‘They’re tidied away for the moment. Now, Ichiro, let’s get back to important things. What will you draw for me? What do you remember from yesterday? What’s the matter, Ichiro? Suddenly so quiet.’

  ‘I want to see Oji’s pictures.’

  ‘I’m sure a bright boy like you can remember all sorts of things. What about the film poster you saw? The one with the prehistoric monster. I’m sure someone like you could do it very well. Even better than the real poster perhaps.’

  Ichiro seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he rolled over on to his front, and with his face close to the paper, began to draw.

  Using a dark brown crayon, he drew on the lower part of the sheet a row of boxes – which soon became a skyline of city buildings. And then there emerged, looming above the city, a huge lizard-like creature up on its hind legs. At this point my grandson exchanged his brown crayon for a red one and began to make bright streaks all around the lizard.

  ‘What is this, Ichiro? Fire?’

  Ichiro continued with his red streaks, not answering.

  ‘Why is there fire, Ichiro? Is it to do with the monster appearing?’

  ‘Electric cables,’ Ichiro said, with an impatient sigh.

  ‘Electric cables? Now that’s interesting. I wonder why electric cables cause fire. Do you know?’

  Ichiro gave another sigh and continued to draw. He picked up his dark crayon again and began to draw at the foot of the sheet panic-stricken people fleeing in all directions.

  ‘You’re doing this very well, Ichiro,’ I remarked. ‘Perhaps as a reward, Oji might take you to see the movie tomorrow. Would you like that?’

  My grandson paused and looked up. ‘It might be too scary for Oji,’ he said.

  ‘I doubt that,’ I said, with a laugh. ‘But it may well frighten your mother and your aunt.’

  At this, Ichiro burst into loud laughter. He rolled over on to his back and laughed some more. ‘Mother and Aunt Noriko will be really scared!’ he shouted at the ceiling.

  ‘But we men will enjoy it, won’t we, Ichiro? We’ll go tomorrow. Would you like that? We’ll take the women with us and watch them get frightened.’

  Ichiro continued to laugh loudly. ‘Aunt Noriko will get scared straightaway!’

  ‘She probably will,’ I said, laughing again myself. ‘Very well, we’ll all go tomorrow. Now, Ichiro, you’d better go on with your picture.’

  ‘Aunt Noriko will get scared! She’ll want to leave!’

  ‘Now, Ichiro, let’s carry on. You were doing very well.’

  Ichiro rolled back over and returned to his picture. His earlier concentration, though, seemed to have deserted him; he began to add more and more fleeing figures at the bottom of his sketch until the shapes merged and became meaningless. Eventually abandoning any sense of care, he started to scribble wildly all over the lower section of the sheet.

  ‘Ichiro, what are you doing? We won’t go to the movie if you’re going to do that. Ichiro, stop that!’

  My grandson sprang to his feet and yelled out: ‘Hi yo Silver!’

  ‘Ichiro, sit down. You haven’t finished yet.’

  ‘Where’s Aunt Noriko?’


  ‘She’s talking with your mother. Now, Ichiro, you haven’t finished your picture yet. Ichiro!’

  But my grandson went running out of the room, shouting: ‘Lone Ranger! Hi yo Silver!’

  I cannot recall precisely what I did with myself for the next several minutes. Quite possibly I remained sitting there in the piano room, gazing at Ichiro’s drawings, thinking about nothing in particular as I am increasingly prone to do these days. Eventually, though, I rose to my feet and went in search of my family.

  I found Setsuko sitting alone on the veranda, looking out at the garden. The sun was still bright, but the day had grown much cooler, and as I appeared Setsuko turned and moved a cushion into a patch of sunlight for me.

  ‘We made fresh tea,’ she said. ‘Would you care for some, Father?’

  I thanked her, and as she poured for me, I cast my gaze out to the garden.

  For all it suffered during the war, our garden has recovered well, and is still recognizably the one Akira Sugimura built some forty years ago. Down at the far end, near the back wall, I could see Noriko and Ichiro examining a bamboo bush. That bush, like almost all the other shrubs and trees in the garden, had been transplanted fully grown by Sugimura from elsewhere in the city. In fact, one rumour has it that Sugimura personally walked around the city, peering over garden fences, offering large sums of money to the owner of any shrub or tree he wished to uproot for himself. If this is true, then he made his choice with admirable skill; the result was – and remains today – splendidly harmonious. There is a natural, rambling feeling about the garden, with barely a hint of artificial design.

  ‘Noriko was always so good with children,’ Setsuko remarked, her eyes on them. ‘Ichiro’s taken a great liking to her.’

  ‘Ichiro’s a fine boy,’ I said. ‘Not at all shy like a lot of children that age.’

  ‘I hope he wasn’t giving you trouble just now. He can be quite headstrong at times. Please don’t hesitate to scold him if he becomes a nuisance.’