Soon enough, the meetings with Sensei took on a new urgency. One day, after I sat for a minute or two alone, Sensei swept into the room, holding a pile of books, a few folders, and two pairs of white gloves. It was the day he commenced revealing some of his previously mentioned “items.”
“Yu-san, I am sure you of all people might find these of interest.”
“Yes, Sensei?”
“Do you mind wearing these?” He handed me a pair of the thin, linen gloves, pure white, then called for Mika, and rattled off some incomprehensible Japanese instructions. Soon enough, she returned with one of those specially-made boxes used in many libraries for the storage of valuable documents, such as letters. Deftly, she placed it on the table in front of us and backed away again. We both put on the gloves, and Sensei hurriedly untied the strings holding it closed and pulled out the contents, stored neatly in file folders. The tops of the three folders read, “Twain-Twichell 1897-1900.”
“Do these look familiar, Yu-san?”
I inspected several of the leaves from the first folder. Months spent studying the handwriting of both Mark Twain and Joe Twichell prepared me for the examination, and I deduced the letters were written on paper from the correct era, and, by all appearances, looked to be authentic. I began scanning the one on top:
Hartford. Nov. 2, 1897
Dear old Mark,
We have been reading, and re-reading, and again reading your “In Memoriam” with the accompaniment of a gray autumn sky and the falling leaves to blend with its unspeakable heartbreaking sadness; its aching, choking pathos. It sets all chords of memory and of love a tremble. It plainly speaks of the pain of Life’s inscrutable mystery, the riddles of human experience.
I looked up at Sensei. “This letter is about the poem Twain wrote a year after his daughter Susy died. It was called “In Memoriam,” after Tennyson’s famous elegy,”
He nodded at me. I leafed through and found the next letter—they appeared to be ordered chronologically.
Vienna
Dec. 21, 1897
Dear Joe,
I was touched by your last letter—touched, I say, to the very bones. I hand it to you, old reliable Joe—your words are as a balm to this tired old heart. That pathos, as you put it—it is like a dream, or rather nightmare, and I cannot ever awaken. I languish in the study, grinding away on a shipwreck of a story about a town called Hadleyburg; or I sit in the parlor and listen to Clara playing piano; or, I wander out of doors, and look up and down the tired old city streets, but never finding the one I wish to find. Meanwhile, Livy moans in the next room, enervated and inconsolable. How do men outlive such days, Joe?
I glanced again at the date, and asked, “Sensei, are these what they appear to be?”
Professor Goto sipped his tea, then nodded. “I thought you would be a person who not only could recognize them, but would also appreciate such things, Yu-san. What do they appear to be?”
“Well, they look to be actual, autograph letters. The time is about a year after Twain’s daughter Susy died, and it is still obviously very much on his mind, and remains a topic affecting his writing. But I thought I had read all of the letters from this period, about Susy, and I don’t remember these. I could write down the dates and check a few of the standard sources to see if they are listed, if you like.”
I thought I detected a slight grin from Sensei, and once more he glanced to the side, then snapped a rice cracker in half, putting it in his mouth and chewing. He then leaned over, grabbed a tome off the stack he’d carried in, and handed it to me. It was the scholarly volume listing all of Twain’s known letters of the period, and I immediately began looking through it to see if the one just read was mentioned. After a moment of searching, he said, “That will not be necessary, Yu-san. Those letters are not listed in any of the standard guides.”
That was a shock, of course, since undiscovered and unlisted letters from such a major author are a rare commodity in literary circles these days. My eyes went from Sensei back down to the letters I held in my hand. I paged through a few more, and a deeper thrill ran through me as I realized that I might be one of the only people to know about them, besides their owner. Overall, there were about ten letters from Twain and ten more from Twichell, a total of about eighty pages of autograph, original, unknown letters. Possible values at auction might be as much as $25,000, or even much more (auctions often produce much larger sums than can be anticipated).
“Are all of these letters unknown, Sensei?”
“Unknown to the standard sources. But not unknown to me—and now, to you!” He smiled in my general direction, without meeting my eye.
“Then I would like your permission to study them.” He nodded, and I began reading through them. A mere ten minutes later, my heart pounding, I had to stop myself from jumping up and running around the room! I could swear I heard the blood rushing through the veins at my temple. It was obvious these letters contained new and intriguing information not available anywhere else. These moments of gleeful discovery are what veteran scholars live for. “Perhaps we should make these letters known, Sensei. Have you considered publishing these?”
“Yu-san, these letters must remain our little secret—for now. Also, any other items that I choose to present to you, today or in the future. I am showing you only because you have already proven to me that you are one of the world’s experts in these matters. One must have … trained eyes to comprehend the beauty of such items.”
He paused for effect; he had my full attention. “In fact, I brought you here for this very reason, as I mentioned. I have so few people in my world who understand such things. I am hoping you will not betray my trust.”
The comment about how he had brought me here caught my attention. Again, it sounded almost as if he had personally selected me for the fellowship. By this point in our emerging relationship, I realized this was plausible, but I had let that notion pass before. And I did again at that moment, focusing instead on the letters before me. “Can you tell me about how you got these?”
He thought this over. “I can tell you many things, Yu-san. But for now, I will assume you recognize I have remained quite interested in collecting, even to this day. Passionate, and some might even say—obsessed? In any case, I saw myself as a collector of lovely things, whatever I found valuable. Worthy things. Something that Walter Benjamin once said has stayed with me over the years: ‘to renew the old world is the collector’s deepest desire.’”
He saw me chuckle just slightly, I believe. “Yes, Yu-san. I proposed to renew something from our past. Is that really so quaint? Best of all, I had assets with which to do it. With assets, one can do many wonderful things in life, and I wished to use mine for the preservation of certain items.” He hesitated again. “Yu-san, do you remember the Utamaro print outside in the hallway? Do you know the history of the ukiyo-e prints in Japan?”
“I’m not sure what you mean, Sensei. You’ve spoken of them before. I know they fell out of fashion for some time.”
He nodded. “Yes. But it’s even more disturbing than that. There was a time in our history when Japanese people became ashamed of those lovely pictures. They wished to become more ‘modern.’ Or what their intellectuals assured them it meant to be modern. And so they began to rid themselves of their past, and those items were sold off to foreigners. Many of the most beautiful wood block prints of Japan are no longer here because the Japanese people forgot how beautiful they are. This is a national disgrace. At least there were the wealthy Americans who saw their beauty and saved them. The Japanese lost their eye for them, but the outsider understood the beauty of the native art, once the natives had long forgotten.”
Mika entered, bringing us fresh tea and tiny chocolate biscuits. It seemed reckless, having these valuable Twain letters on a table with snacks and tea, but Sensei seemed unconcerned. He began collecting the letters, putting them back into the box, then asked Mika to return the box to whatever room was its permanent home. I wanted to keep reading them, and Professor Goto sensed that, but simply said, “There will be more time for reading those later, Yu-san. And I have other things that you might like to see as well. For now, let us speak openly.”
I ate a wafer, sipped some tea. “Yes, Sensei?”
“Yu-san, may I ask you something? I am sure you might have noticed that the people at the university have some interest in your comings and goings, yes?”
His comment seemed a bit melodramatic, but later I better understood the microscope under which I had been living since my arrival. I believe he was concerned about my loyalty, and perhaps my discretion, which I felt capable of honoring, though I wasn’t ready to cut off a finger for him, or whatever. Still, I said, “Of course, Sensei. And please don’t worry; you have my loyalties.”
“Yu-san,” he said, “I would like to ask for your assistance in the future with a few small but very special items that have come into my possession over the years. I hope that you will allow me to learn from you about such things. I would like to think of you as … a collaborator, if you are willing.”
Even though his intentions remained unclear, I nodded, expecting him to continue. Instead, he was silent for a long minute. Then suddenly he spoke again. “I am sure you must have suspected all along that I have some little interest in your scholarly work. You have produced an interesting project with your dissertation. There are a few minor errors, of course, but on the whole I think it is worthy. I hope we can talk about that—next time, perhaps.”
The bit about the errors caught my attention. What errors? “You read my dissertation?”
“Yes, Yu-san, of course. Why should this surprise you? Obviously, with the help of our library staff, I can read almost anything I want, from anywhere in the world. It is a fine piece of work, and you should be very proud. Of course, any research is only partial, and must depend on what is available. In the future, I wish to talk about these matters. And perhaps I can even provide a little information about certain aspects of your research.”
Of course, he had made it clear that we shared common academic interests—why else would he have been inviting me to tea? Or, more to the point, why else had I been selected for a Goto fellowship when one candidate had already been selected? Hadn’t I been told that my selection had been unusual? It is obvious in hindsight. But at the time, the fact that he had studied my dissertation was a huge surprise and a great honor. And hearing this after having held real letters written by Mark Twain was also quite intriguing. I was eager to discover what other “minor items” might be hidden in his storeroom, waiting to see the light of day.
“But not today. We have done enough for one afternoon, I should think.” That was the signal our meeting had come to an end. So I stood up, made my salutations, and departed. As usual, both of them accompanied me to the entrance door.
“Goodbye, Jack-san. Mika bowed. Her long gleaming black hair cascaded forward over her shoulders. I turned to walk away, and suddenly Professor Goto spoke again.
“Yu-san, would you be willing to come for longer periods of time, perhaps next Sunday? I think we might even have dinner together, if you are willing.”
His questions took me by surprise. I turned to face him. “Of course, Sensei. As I have said, I am at your service.”
He hesitated, looked to the side, and stroked his chin briefly. One of his hands was behind him. “Yes, well. I would be honored if you would agree to somewhat longer meetings, so that we can go into more detail on various … topics. Perhaps even weekly, at least during the terms. I think we have much to learn from one another. Would that be acceptable for you? You must be very busy, yes?”
I had not thought of regular weekly meetings, but those letters—and the mystery of what else was hidden away in his old house—were certainly a great incentive. Plus, there was the nagging comment about the “minor errors” in my research. “I’m sure I could make myself available, Sensei.”
“Is Sunday a poor day? Perhaps you wish to attend church services somewhere. I remember many Americans did so when I studied there in the fifties. I have asked for your audience on Sundays so far because it is the Japanese way. Would you prefer another day?”
“Sundays are fine, Sensei. I can come next Sunday again at 3:00 p.m, if that time suits you.”
“Yes, Yu-san, it does. Please do come at 3:00. I have other items to show you, and I need your input on many other matters.” He now bowed to me, said “Sayonara,” turned away, and disappeared inside the house. Mika still bowed respectfully before me, hands on thighs. In twenty minutes, I was on the train, heading for home, but mesmerized by possibilities.
Often our visits involved Sensei questioning me about various aspects of the literary life: with an old shriveled up Japanese partner my only listener—and possibly Mika, bowing forward on her knees and furtively listening to us through the sliding door. But there was one other episode that winter that accelerated things for me, and it sticks in my memory as a turning point.
It was one of those early December evenings, about a week before Christmas, when the weather is threatening to turn nasty and winter pounds loudly on the door, demanding entrance, like in an old Robert Frost poem. Winds howled down from the ridges above, and the trees bent nearly sideways as I trudged up the hill, almost late for our appointment, a dreaded no-no for a kohai like me. I shuddered off my coat, worried that I was tardy, and asked Mika, “Is he ready?”
She shook her head. “No, he is not yet ready for you. Please follow me.” She led me again down the long corridor to our meeting room, and we sat briefly facing each other across the table. She had a lovely set of beads decorating her long, ivory neck, and sat there as if a tropical bird had flown into the room. After an awkward pause—it was our first time alone in a room together—I noticed an old volume sitting at the exact center of the table. I reached out and placed my right hand on it, turning it to see what it was.
Surprisingly, it was Moby-Dick, an odd volume to discover sitting out on a table in a spartan, Japanese home. There were four or five yellow Post-it notes sticking out of the pages as well. I looked up at Mika, guffawed briefly, and smiled. “So Sensei likes Melville’s old sea stories, ne?”
I had taken on the habit of inflecting my English sentences with the Japanese-style sentence-ending ‘ne?’, meaning yes? or right? It is, for many Japanese, an habitual tick of their spoken language, just as “you know?” is for many Americans. The longer version, “so desu-ne?” had by then become similarly quite addictive.
She noted the volume and responded, “Ah yes. The Whale. My uncle is quite taken with that story. He will no doubt lecture you on Melville today.” She paused, then asked me, “You know, of course, where Ahab meets the whale, yes? He has lectured me on it more than once.”
But I didn’t remember, and as I was about to ask her for an explanation, her uncle entered the room. “Yu-san, welcome. I see you are discussing the Great American Novel, yes?”
Mika rose to her feet, bowing and backing out of the room. She seemed mildly surprised by his sudden entrance, not to say embarrassed, and immediately disappeared into the hallway without another word. Sensei was now clearly in charge. He thumped down onto his pillow, across the table from me, and immediately began interrogating me about Melville, as if I were being examined orally for another PhD.
“Does it surprise you that I find Melville’s novel so valuable?”
“Well, no, of course not, Sensei. It’s a masterpiece.”
“Yes,” he sighed. “And yet so little understood—by Americans, I mean.”
I hesitated because I had no idea where he might be going with this train of thought. Then I said, “Of course, the whale is a symbol that is meant to be misunderstood— or, perhaps we might say, a symbol of the impenetrable nature of things.”
He leaped on my phrasing, and looked me directly in the eye. “Yes, that’s true. The impenetrable nature of things. That is well put, Yu-san.” He was quiet, stroking his chin. “Let us consider this a moment. Can you tell me the other supreme symbol in Moby-Dick, for what you are calling “the impenetrable nature of things?”
I thought for a moment. “Well, there’s the doubloon, for example. The one that Ahab nails to the mast.”
“Ah yes. The mast.” I wondered immediately why he perked up to the second part of my response, dismissing my suggestion of the doubloon as being too easy, I suppose. He was pushing me to think deeper about Melville’s symbology. It was much later that I began to I realize that Sensei was revealing his mind in a new and deeper way, in this seemingly nonchalant discussion of Melville. He was ushering me into the energetic and rather quirky courtyards of his literary sensibilities that day, a side of himself that he had been holding in reserve, a layer I had not yet even imagined, including, it turned out, his obsessive side.
“Tell me about the mast, Yu-san. I recall a crucial moment in ‘Song of Myself,’ where Whitman says that the ‘kelson of creation is love.’ A kelson, as you know, is a structural support on a ship, meant to bolster it. The center mast of Ahab’s ship must be such a unifying and sublime eros. Might Melville be saying something similar?”
His mind worked at a rapid and invigorating pace. I remember thinking that while he might be old and wrinkled, it was I who had to struggle to keep up. Plus he had the advantage as he had prepared for our meeting that day. Hence, the many yellow Post-it notes.
“And so, the doubloon on the mast is missing the point?”
“The doubloon is mere money, a paltry thing. We must go much deeper.” Just then, Mika appeared, with tea and sembei. Her scent wafted casually into the room along with the ocha. It took her a moment to situate the tray, and pour some tea. Sensei was always very patient about such matters. Then he said, “Let’s forget about the doubloon for the moment, Yu-san. Tell me about the masts. Where are the ship’s masts from, in Moby-Dick?”
I had no idea, and told him so. Such a detail seemed fairly arcane, I remember thinking.
He bit into a cracker. “And where was Captain Ahab injured? Where did he lose his leg?”
I thought about this. “Sensei, it’s been several years since I’ve read the novel. I don’t remember.”
He pounced. “And yet all of this is crucial to the novel. I might also ask you, where does Ahab finally encounter the monster, and where does the captain and his crew meet their demise? But I will assume that the answer once again escapes your memory. This is what I mean, when I say that Americans have largely failed regarding one of the most important aspects of the novel’s symbolism—as have you, Yu-san.” He calmly unwrapped another sembei, and slowly bit into it. “I might add, that for me, it is of equal importance to the Whale itself!”
Then he wiped his palms together, and took up the volume resting between us on the table. “Please allow me to read a few passages to you, which might be useful to our discussion today.” Opening to the Post-it notes, one after the other, he read me these passages:
“Her masts—cut somewhere on the coast of Japan, where her original ones were lost overboard in a gale.” He flipped to the next passage:
“Now, sometimes, in that Japanese sea, the days are as freshets of effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing focus of the glassy ocean’s immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks lacquered, clouds there are none; the horizon floats, and this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of God’s throne.”
He looked up at me. “‘Freshets of effulgences’; that is a masterstroke, is it not?” And again he turned to the novel, and continued reading:
“[of] Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all between float milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown Archipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans … the Oriental Isles to the east of the continent—those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth’s primal generations.”
And with that, Sensei closed the book. “Yu-san, my idea is that … well, I believe that the crew of the ship face a dual mystery. Moby-Dick and Japan, both impenetrable mysteries, both of which evade the penetrations of science and of the modern mind. It is absolutely crucial to recognize that the Whale can only be found in the waters of Japan, yes? Do you see?” He watched for my assent, but I was still confused as to his point. “Melville says at one point something like this: the waters of Japan are the ‘almost final waters,’ and all the action at the end of the novel, and the hunt for the Whale, occurs as they penetrate further and further into the ‘heart of the Japanese cruising ground.’ The crew of the Pequod, as it turns out, must confront not only the White Whale. They must confront also Japan.”
“So are you telling me that Japan is an impenetrable mystery for the American visitor? Isn’t that just another great myth that the Japanese have about themselves? ‘Poor Japan, it is just so inscrutable to foreigners’?” I smiled at him as I said this.
He actually laughed at my sarcasm, then quickly became serious again. “But you are missing my point. Don’t you see? The crew must confront the great Other. In this sense, of course the Japanese are inscrutable—but so are the Americans, for us!” We both smiled at this. “Besides, words are inscrutable, as well as symbols. Melville’s term before— “effulgences”—it is a brightness from something that remains unidentifiable. What you Americans glibly refer to as God. Ahab’s obsession is to penetrate the very mysteries of God, or Being—this Great Other. It begins with an imperial pride—one might say, as evidently Melville believed, a very American pride. But its end is in destruction.”
I will say this: it’s funny what the mind remembers with precision, and why. Because I remember that meeting, almost twenty years ago, like it was yesterday. Sensei’s brilliant interpretation of Melville was dazzling—not unlike the inscrutable beauty of Mika, pouring the tea. Beyond the general mystery of Japan, and its impenetrable nature, there was the confusion I was increasingly feeling about Japanese women, one in particular, and this even greater and much more specific mystery keeping me up some nights. Mika was beginning to get under my skin, and what I considered to be my growing understanding of Japan (another funny idea, in retrospect) allowed me to believe that perhaps I might actually have a chance with her. But in the back of my mind, I had real doubts. I also recalled how Ahab’s mission ended.
Long-time foreign residents often comment upon their curious ambivalence toward Japan. As gaijin begin to grow more knowledgeable and confident in their understandings of their adopted home, they simultaneously become more conscious of Japan’s great shortcomings. In fact, they also begin to despair of ever comprehending the “true” Japan. As Melville’s inscrutable white whale swam along, I wondered if I could ever anatomize the Japanese.
These ambivalent feelings also characterized my longing for Mika. It was impossible for me to say whether there was any affection from her. But another Sunday, I happened to arrive a few minutes early. Sensei was away on some other visit or errand of his own, so Mika greeted me in our customary way and escorted me into the main sitting room. I sat for some time alone, until finally she served tea, as was her wont, and upon telling me that Sensei would return soon, hesitated at the doorway. “Wait, Mika,” I stammered. At first those were the only words that came out. She paused, without quite turning to face me. Finally, I blurted out, “Please sit with me until Sensei returns.”
It seemed like a very long time until I got any sort of response from her. She must have also been wondering how to respond to this foreign professor from America. Then: “Jack-san, since my uncle is elsewhere, I am uncertain if it is … proper for me to be alone with you?” It was both a statement and a kind of question. I realized that it was a gesture of opening from her, however, so I insisted. And she did, finally, sit down with me. It was a graceful act to see her fold her legs underneath herself and rest like some precious bird on the floor opposite me. She cupped her drink with both hands and sipped almost imperceptibly. The sleek long hair swayed before me like the device of a hypnotist. For the first time we were alone in the room as two individuals, a man and a woman seated across an antique table in a magical old Japanese home, drinking tea. In reality, we were not alone. I later came to understand that Omori and the cook were almost certainly elsewhere in the house, perhaps even lurking nearby.
Sitting with her, suddenly I understood that, despite all of the treasures of Sensei’s collection, here before me was his prize possession. I had certainly noticed Mika’s beauty and grace, on every visit so far, and I knew I was attracted to her—how could I not be?—but now I sensed the vague possibility of something else growing inside me. At the thought, a thin sweat broke out on my forehead. She had turned up the heater underneath the table to counteract the damp and frigid air as it was surprisingly cold that day, but that was not why I was suddenly sweating. Mika noticed and asked, “Are you uncomfortable?”
“No, I’m fine.” But in reality, I felt like an eighth-grader trying to make small talk at recess. She looked down shyly at her hands while I tried to think of something to say. We chatted briefly about the trivialities of the day. Finally I realized we had one rather obvious thing in common. “How long have you been staying here with Sensei?”
“Well, that is quite a long story. It has now been almost ten years. I came down shortly after finishing my college years in Tokyo.”
“I know your father is important up in Tokyo, so I’ve always wondered why you left to come down here to Kansai?”
She again was coy and hesitant. She thought about my question for a period of time, then smiled secretly. “That is also quite a long story, and hard to—how to say— summarize?”
She looked up to me for approval of her choice of vocabulary, which was obviously just right, so I nodded and said, “Yes, summarize.” This seemed to give her more than a little enthusiasm and joy, which in turn did the same for me. My heart ached to find her approval, and it was just in these trifling gestures that I was beginning to realize that small wonder. In fact, I think we both realized that sticky day that some sort of bewitchment had begun to overtake both of us—or at least, I began to believe it for myself, and began fantasizing that it could become a two-way street. Whatever her feelings were, I allowed myself to embrace the fullness of the spell that she could cast my way—a fullness that I can still dredge up these many years later.
Perhaps she sensed the spell as well. So she began to spin her own tale. “My father is, as you say, quite important. Yes, and in many other ways that you have never even dreamed of. For example, he has become friendly with the emperor, and has visited the Imperial Palace, on many occasions.” She now smiled shyly at me for a momentary pause. “Here in Japan we are very reserved about what we say about family to … outsiders.” This word also seemed to stifle her a bit—the use of “outsiders” was undoubtedly her rough translation of gaijin, which can be deployed in a derogatory fashion. “I’m sorry, Jack-san, I am not saying you are such an outsider as all that. You do understand, I mean outside the family, yes?” I nodded at this. “But I think you must know a little about the Goto Industries; it is common knowledge. My father, as you must imagine, is rather”—again she searched for a proper term— “shall we say insistent? Or autocratic? One must be of such a character, to succeed as he has in the world of big business and industry. And yes, he has been extremely successful.”
She paused some more, nodding slightly. I was used to this idiosyncratic feature of much Japanese storytelling— frequent and generous pauses for reflection and emphasis. “Father is a very good man in so many ways. But somehow all of his business concerns have made him forget the things that some of us Japanese value even more—things like art, tradition, the past. Our history together. I remember how much he tried to help me achieve my own success, but he had a very rigid sense of what such a success might include. Meanwhile, I tried to … reconnect?”
I nodded, and she graced me with a smile.
“Yes, to reconnect with my uncle down here in Kansai, near the old capitol, Kyoto. He was rather shunned by my father, since he was the one who had left the family business in pursuit of these other things. Literature, prints, things of beauty, the finer things in our world, I think. My uncle understood when I wanted to spend several years studying flower arrangement—ikebana. But my father considered this to be a great waste of time, and saw no practical reasons for doing it. Except, of course, that it might make me an even more attractive ‘catch.’ He was always the … pragmatist—I believe that is the American phrase, yes?”
Another nod from me.
More pauses.
“My father wished for me most of all to marry into a wealthy and prestigious Tokyo family. He had even had one chosen for me. Father had arranged for a nakodo—a go-between, or matchmaker—to find a worthy son-in-law, and I was ultimately introduced to one who had been approved by him. He was a son of the wealthy Uchida family, most famous for their factories near Nagoya and outside of Tokyo in Saitama, producing car parts and other machine products. The Uchidas did much business with the automotive companies—Toyota, General Motors, Audi, Fiat, Mercedes. They had deep roots in industry, like my own family. Their younger son’s name was Kentaro, but he liked being called Ken, and actually he was a handsome and funny boy. But we had very little in common. He had no use for the things of beauty in the world, or old things; only pleasures and the things of wealth. He loved loud music, dancing, sports cars, and surfing in Hawaii, Australia, South Africa—wherever the big waves were at the moment. Or skiing at the biggest and most elegant resorts: California, Utah, Austria, Italy— anywhere but Japan, which he considered too “dasai”— meaning, old-fashioned. He seemed to be a good man, and yet somehow he was still the product of his environment, and sometimes acted very much like a child, and I was not able to go through with it.” She looked at me and saw the astonishment in my eyes. “Yes, Jack, sometimes a Japanese woman can even turn against her elders! Does that surprise even you, an American?”
I looked at her in silence. What surprised me was she called me by my given name!
She blinked, diverting her eyes. “And so I said no, to Ken Uchida. This kind of rebellion is almost unheard of in powerful Japanese families. It was just after that when I decided to come south to Kyoto, and my uncle graciously provided a place to live temporarily and many important connections for me. That was almost ten years ago.
“I believe my father still has some hope that one day I will relent and return to Tokyo, and begin a family for him, with a carefully selected millionaire husband. Of course, I want children—but in my own timing. My silly dream of a romantic spark, of true love—I suppose it comes from all those American novels.”
As she looked up at me and grinned shyly, covering her mouth and snickering softly, the image of a dashing hero sweeping a delicate Japanese maiden into his arms flashed through my mind. As ridiculous as the image was, my pulse quickened.
“My father has often told me he would immediately begin a new search for a worthy successor, if I were to give him notice. And he wants most of all for me to give him grandchildren—in fact, I should say, a grandson. He would like to enlist my son, if I ever have one, into his army as a potential successor for the family business. It is his way of thinking about me, I would say. Until I do this, my life is not meaningful for him. But I am now into my thirties, Jack-san, and this sort of success is becoming more and more unlikely. Here in Japan, it is not common for a woman my age to marry. I believe the American term is ‘old maid,’ yes?”
Mika, an old maid? The term conjured up a vision of the Widow Douglas, or of Emily Dickinson hiding behind her bedroom door in Amherst. But before me sat an attractive, even luscious, bright, bilingual, and extremely gracious young woman, just entering her prime. I shook my head, perhaps a bit too vigorously, and said, “No. Mika, that’s not the right saying; ‘old maid’ doesn’t refer to young women like you. You are—” I hesitated before blurting out, “Well, you’re beautiful!”
This pleased her and she smiled, then covered her mouth again and bowed, slightly shrugging her soft shoulders. “But here in Japan, I am—damaged goods? Yes, and so for most men of any prestige, they would assume there is something seriously wrong with me, not being married with children at my age. I am afraid sometimes that I have missed out on all that, but I am not sad. In college I read many British and American novels about young women finding men to love, rather than simply ones to follow and obey, like house pets. Books by Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott. Anne of Green Gables. I loved them all, and still do. I am afraid I have been bewitched by these western stories of falling deeply in love. All of this is why I felt I must escape the world of my father in Tokyo, and return to the world of my past, my family traditions. And so I came back to Kansai, and entered the world of my uncle, who has been for me like a father ever since. He truly does understand the value of words and symbols and true love, as matters of the heart that are superior to the matters of the business world and what my father calls ‘the real world.’”
These last words echoed through the room just as another set of echoes emanated from the front of the house, and then, the hallway. It was the sound of footfalls, and evidently signaled the return of Sensei. Just as Mika completed her sentence about the “real world,” I heard Sensei call her name from the hallway. “Mika, Tadaima! chotto kochira ni. I’m home. Come here, please.”
She quickly got to her feet and slid open the door to receive several packages that Sensei had brought along from his outside visits. With them in her arms, she scurried off to the kitchen. Sensei spied me over her shoulder as he gave her the packages, and immediately his face betrayed a kind of irritation toward me that was subtle yet obvious, his body language questioning the propriety of a young man in a room alone with his “young” niece, though again, in this case, she was over thirty. He was indeed of the old school.
But the tone of his voice, in perfect Japanese form, did not betray any such irritation—at least, almost none, to my untrained ear. “Ah, Springs-sensei, you have come. My sincerest apologies for being late. I trust that Mika has taken good care of you, yes?” His use of the formal “Springs-sensei,” rather than the affectionate “Yu-san,” was another subtle signal of his displeasure.
“Hello Sensei, yes, we enjoyed a small conversation about art and literature. I only arrived a few moments before you did,” I lied. I still don’t know why I said that, about having just arrived. In fact, I had been there half an hour before he showed up.
He seemed to catch me in this minor canard, and hesitated just slightly in taking off his overcoat, as if to study my slip-up. Then he said, “Art and literature? It is just as if I were here, then. That is our typical subject, is it not?”
He remained standing, stretching his arms, looking each way, bending his knees. Then he sat. “Let us begin by looking at an old set of papers I have here.” He reached for a green library box, handing it to me. I opened it to discover hand-written notes that looked like a draft of an essay or lecture. The title was simply, “Friendship.”
“That’s a title of one of Emerson’s essays, yes?”
He nodded, still seeming a bit ruffled by the idea of his niece being unchaperoned with a gaijin, I suppose. Nevertheless, soon enough the enchantment of the words on the page took over, our conventional tutorial-style meeting began, and all complications due to his absence were left behind.
Not long after that day, I learned there was more gossip going around the department, though David pretended to hesitate in telling me. He was a bit overly dramatic at times, playing his news to the greatest advantage. We were down at the Munchen Café on a cool and cloudy afternoon, tipping a few ales. David had been seeing a lovely young Japanese singer who went by Ryeiko. He had noticed her in one of the local clubs, and soon became infatuated. She was flashy, pretty, and boisterous, and he loved speaking his improving Japanese to her and taking her to expensive restaurants in Umeda, on Osaka’s trendy north side. She also knew all the insider joints, the ones that stayed open all night and served twelve-year-old Scotch at reasonable prices—well, reasonable for Japan. And he loved regaling me with their drunken adventures. “She’s wearing me out, pal,” he winked.
Then he looked at me, slightly more seriously, and said, “The water’s fine, old boy, why not come on in?”
I froze. “Meaning what?”
“Word around campus is that you have a thing for a certain lovely young Japanese maiden yourself—is it true?”
“Drink up, mate, this one’s on me.” He motioned toward the waitress for two more of the same, then hunched forward toward me and lowered his voice. “Listen. Everyone knows about Goto’s niece, and about your many visits to his home. Word is, she’s quite the sorceress. Why play games? I saw her once walking around the marketplace near the station with the old man, and she is quite the doll. Why not go for it yourself?”
The two beers arrived swiftly, and David emptied almost half of his in one long draught. He looked at me, but I had no response. So he took another long drink, sighed, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Oh come on, Jack. You know by now that everyone’s business is public news around here. The university is like one big, unhappy family. You just haven’t quite learned yet whom to ask about such things. Believe me, your many visits to see Goto are common knowledge. He’s quite the legend in these parts, Jack old boy. And his luscious niece—she’s just about your age, yes? I bet if you asked your students, they would even know about the rumors.”
If true, I had once again underestimated the sinister aspects of this claustrophobic culture I had entered. And I was stunned enough to lie about my feelings toward Mika, even to one of my closest confidantes in all of Japan.
“David, the thought never crossed my mind about her. Anyway, she’d never have anything to do with a gaijin, right?”
That question was a dead giveaway, of course. He laughed, took another drink, and shook his head at me. “Jack, you never know with these girls. Some of them are fascinated with westerners. Look at me, I’m no Brad Pitt, but my girl is as lovely as a cherry blossom, yes?” Gulp. “She shows me off like I’m Prince Charles.”
David peered at me with a knowing smile. “One more small detail, sensei.” He leaned forward, voice low. “It seems our boy Miyamoto also has a bit of a crush on your Mika-san.” Another gulp. “Word on the street is, he once made a play for her. Can you imagine? That toad with a rich beauty like her?” Pause, drink. “I may be off, but it sounds like he has been threatening to break your neck, or some such nonsense, if you ever touch her. Ha!” Gulp. “And you know, they say he’s quite skilled at the martial arts—karate, kendo, that sort of thing—he’s quite the bushi, a warrior, they say, despite all appearances.” Gulp, gulp. “That’s what my sources tell me, anyway.”
Was Kilcoyne razzing me here? He had that sly humor one often finds in highly intelligent Brits, all deadpan and seemingly in earnest. Miyamoto a samurai? Whatever those “sources” might be, and assuming David wasn’t pulling my leg, it seemed plausible that Miyamoto saw me as some kind of threat—and not just to Sensei, or to his access to whatever treasures Sensei might have hidden away in his house, but also to Mika. But most serious of all, evidently, my own private and emerging crush had already been noticed—by David Kilcoyne, his “sources,” and possibly others as well. Like Miyamoto.
A few days later, I happened to run into Miyamoto—or rather, perhaps it was his strategy to make me believe it was just a coincidence. Again, I was sitting in my home away from home, the Munchen Café, having a cup of coffee and reading a newspaper, when suddenly Miyamoto appeared. I was virtually alone in the café one moment, and the next he was looming over me, holding a cup and saucer. “May I sit, Springs-sensei?”
“Yes, of course, sensei.” I had to pretend to welcome his presence, despite our edgy relationship. “Please sit down.” I even pushed out a chair for him, though my paper remained on the table, giving him little room for his own coffee.
He took his time, and presently it became clear that he had a specific agenda. “And how is Profesor Goto? Is he well?”
“Yes, he is fine.” I decided then and there to pursue my own agenda, since he had barged into my afternoon. One of my tactics was to show Miyamoto that I knew some things about him. “I have heard that you formerly worked closely with Professor Goto—is that true?” Sip. Sip.
He absolutely glared at me for a moment, signaling his intention to control the conversation. “Yes, sensei. I did some … research for him, previously.” He waited, and so did I. “And I should say, yes, I also traveled on his behalf. Many times, in fact. To Hong Kong, China, and even San Francisco, on one occasion.” Sip. Sip. “I have heard that you recently have been asked to assist Professor Goto, in this way—is that correct?”
We were quite the social pair, at that moment. It was becoming clear to me, and certainly to him, that in a perfect world, we would simply move the tables out of the center of the room, and have at it. “Why yes, sensei, I may be asked to ‘assist’ him. In the very near future.” I was lying about all this, of course—at least, I thought so, at the time.
“And what will you be … undertaking, on his behalf, if you do not mind me asking?”
Now I could twist the knife a bit. “It may be … unwise for me to say very much about the personal business of Professor Goto. I believe that you should ask Sensei for those kinds of details. Your previous intimacies with him should allow for that kind of information, ne?”
This approach clearly pissed him off. But like any good Japanese male of his age, he was calm and seemed almost unaffected. It was the stormy eye that he laid on me, just for the briefest moment, that gave away his ill mood. Then, “Springs-sensei, I wonder … How is Mika-san?” At this point, he took a moment to meet my gaze and smile in that almost imperceptibly Japanese way, in which a smile is the specter of a smile, almost not even there. I was proud of myself that day, I distinctly remember thinking, because I was starting to catch on to some of these minimal signals.
“She’s fine, sensei. And thank you for asking.” But his slight mention of her, now, made me uneasy and wary of his intentions. He was, in other words, twisting his own knife just a bit, tweaking me somehow with the reference to Mika. Since I began visiting Sensei regularly, Miyamoto had maintained a constant, though distant presence on the margins of my life, a malevolent one at that. And here he was again, irritating me, and now putting me on edge about Mika, just as I was beginning to think of her in more serious terms.
Miyamoto drained his cup. “Springs-sensei, I have had … a rather long friendship with Mika, as you may already know. I would be … very disappointed if you were to do anything that might … upset her. I hope you can understand my … concerns.” Evidently he knew something about my feelings for her, as David had intimated, and he was there to make some sort of vague warning. Perhaps it was even true that he himself had fallen under Mika’s spell, in his former life as Sensei’s assistant. That’s what I thought at the time, not understanding until much later, in fact, the month before my departure from Japan, the more sinister aspects of this “coincidental” meeting.
Before I could respond, he stood to take his leave. “Enjoy your afternoon, sensei,” he said with a slight bow. I mumbled something back to him, and he left. Just like that, the strange interview was over. But after he left, the ghost of Miyamoto burrowed deep into my consciousness. Though he had said almost nothing of consequence, there was a distinct message in his tones and gestures. And it was deeply unsettling.
I noted with some poignancy the brief quote from Walter Benjamin, which may have come to Jack through one of my lectures years ago: “to renew the old world is the collector’s deepest desire.” We collect, that is—at least, we tell ourselves so—for the purposes of renewal, first to know the Other in more precise detail, but ultimately, to make a better world for us all. To “bring or gather together,” which is the Latin root of the verb “collect.”
While there remains so much handwringing among academics due to the so-called “crisis in the humanities,” here we see reminders of why we do the things we do as teachers and as scholars. Our hope is to gather all things together, so to speak. And we hope that these dreams of unity are not to be deferred forever.
And yet, one wonders as we journey through this nether world full of outward tomfoolery and inward deceits. “The impenetrable nature of things,” as Professor Goto puts it in his ingenious reading of Melville’s white whale. His remarks bespeak a powerful yearning to penetrate both that whale, and more generally, the great Other. But alas, one can only penetrate so far. For the world is veiled, resisting collection, resisting a gathering together. A wise man once put it this way: “How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing?”