My weeks took on a new life, leading up as they now did to those Sunday visits with Sensei. I got my teaching out of the way with ease—just show up and talk—and time passed very quickly. More and more, Sensei enticed me with multiple items that were indeed of interest to me. Almost all of them, he explained, had been purchased through agents, or at auctions where his agents made bids. He took great pleasure in detailing for me the date and price of the assorted transactions, most of them at auctions in New York, London, or Paris during the 1960s or ’70s (evidently his heyday as a collector), and then he would carefully hand the item to me. Some of them I held in stunned silence, and he took obvious delight in watching me inspect his treasures: “Here’s a signed first edition of Hemingway’s In Our Time that I bought in 1961 for $800 at an auction in New York,” he would say. Or “Ooh! Here’s a set of typewritten letters (with a few autograph letters thrown in) from Hemingway to Adrian Ivancich, all circa 1950-55, around 120 pages total, which one of my agents discovered in 1968 for $12,000.” Or “Ahhhh! Look at this one, Yu-san, it’s the typed and penciled-over, original manuscript to Hemingway’s volume Death in the Afternoon, purchased at auction in 1963 for $15,575.” Ooohh. Ahhh! On and on it went. With Hemingway clearly at the center of his collection, he drew me deeper into his own obsessions.
Eventually, he returned to my own scholarly mistakes. Sensei had mentioned them weeks before, and I’d been mulling them ever since. He began by pulling from one of the nearby shelves a copy of my dissertation, evidently prepared and kept handy for my appearance that day. “See, Yu-san? Another example of what good fortune can conjure.” He smiled broadly and handed me the tome. It was bound in those cheap-looking cloth bindings used by most American universities, in this case of a bright blue (my originals were bound in a dusty greenish color, so this was one produced from the original copy that he must have gotten through interlibrary loan). The volume had dozens of bright yellow Post-it notes stuck into various pages, and I assumed he had marked the pages where he either wished to discuss something, or possibly where he discerned some error.
“Please tell me about those errors you mentioned, Sensei.”
“As you can see, I have marked most of them.” Most of them? I felt the air whoosh out of me. How many errors were there? Patiently, he showed me a few little problems, some of them proofreading mistakes, but mainly a number of historical or biographical inaccuracies. Soon he got up and left me to go through the other marks in the book and figure them out for myself. As I reviewed his notations, his craftsmanship came through in the dogged manner in which he went through my work, mechanically marking each and every error, as if it were a tremendous lapse in rationality, a decided gesture of rebellion against something sacred. I remember my hands shaking, the heat rising to my face as I turned the pages. I was embarrassed, ashamed even, to have been directed by this small Japanese man to these tiny mistakes in my own native language or national history. It struck me as a further show of force, a metaphorical suckerpunch that dropped me to my knees in the face of his superior intellectual strength. As if any more evidence was needed. Yet, I knew he had not pointed out my errors in a spirit of ridicule. His attention to every detail was, rather, more the gentle prodding of a master artisan guiding his student in a particular direction, toward a particular problem and solution. What direction, though? What problem? And, more importantly, what solution?
“Sensei, these are egregious mistakes, and I appreciate your attention to my very poor work. But there must be something else, yes? What do you think are the most significant errors in my dissertation?”
He was at that moment standing to one side of the room, leafing through a picture book. He turned a page, and, without looking my way, said, “Yu-san, some of your mistakes are no fault of your own. One can only speak of historical facts, for instance, based on the available data. As you know, I am an aficionado of a number of American authors. I have shown you some of the things I have collected regarding Hawthorne, Melville, Hemingway, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, and many other writers, yes?” I nodded, and he paused, shut the book he was scanning, placed it carefully on a shelf, and came and sat down across the table from me again.
“Well, Yu-san, I wish to concentrate now on the one author whose life and works have been my greatest fascination. In fact, it is one of the reasons I went to America in the first place, and why I decided to study literature. I am referring to the most Japanese of American writers, I think. And like you, he was born and raised in the Great American Midwest. Can you guess his name?”
I remember being struck by the comment about someone being the most Japanese of American writers. I wondered about all the things he might mean, but I immediately thought again of the book that always seemed to me to be quintessentially “Japanese”: Snow Country by Kawabata, one that Sensei had insisted I read early on in our relationship. Kawabata’s spare, romantic prose, his preoccupations with lost love, and his celebration of endless skiing in the pristine snow, followed by steaming green tea, warmed sake, a hot bath, and a nice, fluffy futon brought to mind another Midwesterner.
“It must be Hemingway, yes?”
He smiled. “Very good, Yu-san. Good! I am impressed that you would notice this about Hemingway. You impress me more every time we meet. His prose is quite stunning to us Japanese. Indeed, I often have said he writes his sentences almost like little haiku. Every word, every sound, is precious. And he was such a romantic, in those modern times in Paris, just after World War I. There is a concept in Japanese—natsukashiisa—which is hard to translate, but that captures this sentiment, something like nostalgia in English, or fondness for the old things.”
“The romantic yearnings of our youth, Sensei. And I agree about his writing. But nowadays, many critics dislike Hemingway for his arrogance and macho posturing.”
“Oh yes, I know that’s true. All so tangential to the true artist. Theoretical parlor tricks, trifles, I can assure you!” He said this with some little irony, a touch of glee in his voice. “But actually there is something charming and powerful about his masculine side, don’t you think?” His eyes were bright as he warmed to his subject. “Yes, you can admit it! I love it when he goes to the bullfights, or skis in Austria. We Japanese, yes, we are still a macho society, I suppose. And of course, he ended up killing himself. In Japan, some consider death at one’s own hand to be brave, the ultimate act of true manhood. I cannot quite agree with that view, but the heroic idea of suicide—this must sound very strange to you as an American, yes?”
“It’s very strange, yes—and disturbing.”
He stopped to think this over, nodding slightly, then proceeded. “All writers have their faults. One Japanese author said that it is the faults that produce great writing, like the fault lines that cause great earthquakes, something like that. Earthquakes reveal the fault lines and the true man underneath. It is hard to translate.
“In any event, yes, at times Hemingway was quite odd in his behavior, true enough. He was known to be conceited, even hateful at times. But always remember this: strange behavior does not change the prose, Yu-san. Hemingway is the greatest prose stylist I know, of all the Americans.” I shrugged my agreement. “For me, Yu-san, it has always been about the words themselves. The rest is mere conversation.”
Sensei got up again, walked out, and, moments later, returned with another book. He stood in the doorway, opened the book, searched for a passage, flipping through a few pages, then nodded and began to read aloud. As I listened, I noted again how well he spoke English and how slight was his accent.
“Then I went back to writing and I entered far into the story and was lost in it. I was writing it now and it was not writing itself and I did not look up nor know anything about the time nor think where I was nor order any more rum St. James. I was tired of rum St. James without thinking about it. Then the story was finished and I was very tired.”
He paused and smiled at me, and said, “I recognize this as myself, Yu-san. And for me, I also write from a hunger, and enter into the writing—when I’m lucky. At least I used to. I can tell you this much, I certainly collect from a hunger.”
He closed the book. “Now those are very fine sentences, Yu-san.” He stopped, then looked at me. “Do you know these words?”
“Yes, Sensei. It’s in a Parisian cafe, as recalled many years later, from A Moveable Feast.”
He sat back down now, placing the volume on the table between us. After the slightest hesitation, he put both of his hands on the book, and slid it all the way across the table to me. “I want you to have this, Yu-san. It is a small token of our wonderful conversations, and our times together, which have been a great comfort to me.”
I picked it up, inspected it, and by the date inside realized that it was another first edition. “I can’t accept this, Sensei. It is too valuable.” I slid it back across the table to him.
But he would not touch it. “You disrespect me unless you accept it, Yu-san.” He looked around the room, his chin held high. “In any case, I have another, so it is just a small gift. Please take it.” And so, still hesitating, I did. And then the meeting was over. It was not, apparently, the right day for Sensei to delve any deeper into my own woes as a writer, even though I could tell from his manner there was more he wanted to reveal. I now guessed that whatever revelation he was guiding me toward was directly related to Hemingway, and he said as much when he bade me goodbye at the front door.
“Yu-san, we will get to other matters about your coverage of Hemingway by and by.” And so we did.
But before we got back to Hemingway, the relationship between Sensei and I changed again. The next Sunday, he recruited me into his cohort of foot soldiers, those who might carry out his specific tasks. Of course, by now I was a willing recruit.
As I seated myself, Sensei spoke up. “As I have mentioned, Yu-san, I have been quite intrigued with your coverage of Hemingway’s letter writing and his friends in Paris. I have never told you about my own wanderings in that great city. I suppose of all the cities in the world, it is Paris that most captured my heart. Have you been there?”
“No, Sensei.”
“Well, that will not do, Yu-san. I have many loyal connections, shall I see about housing for you? With the travel allowances from the university, perhaps it is the right time in your life to see the fabled City of Lights?”
“Perhaps it is, Sensei. Paris is one of the many places I would like to see in Europe.”
“Paris is the most important of all the cities in Europe. It is the cultural center of the continent, I think. Hemingway understood as much, as did Picasso, Gertrude Stein, Pound, Eliot, all of them. Of course, there is Italy—in particular, Rome, Florence, and Venice—all very dear to my heart, but relics of a much older and distant world. Paris is of the modern world. The epicenter, I believe.”
A large fly buzzed around our little table, and he shooed it away. “I must gently insist, Yu-san, that you make a visit to Paris one of your priorities.” He paused, looked away from me, and then went on. “In fact, I have been meaning to ask you to consider going to Paris as my assistant, my agent, so to speak, for there are perhaps some things that you might do for me once you arrive there. It would be a business trip, in fact—let us put it that way, yes? And I am just getting too old for that sort of travel, I’m afraid.”
“You want me to go to Paris on your behalf?” I was intrigued and yet perplexed.
“There are a few items I am interested in that require a certain expertise. You could do me the favor of appraising them, in ways rather different from the amateurs who usually do that sort of thing for me. Perhaps during an upcoming break? Say, in spring? A wonderful season for Paris, not the regular tourist season, and not so hot and humid, as the summer. Fewer tourists, getting in each other’s way, trampling upon one another, scrambling to take photos in the Louvre, without even seeing the art itself! In spring, you can walk the avenues without obstruction. It is a bit chilly, but I always regarded cold weather as the best time for extended walking. And Paris is certainly one of the world’s great cities for walking. You will see for yourself, Yu-san. It is dazzling!” He was a good salesman. “And I can certainly arrange for a comfortable place for you to stay, near the center of the city, on either bank, as I know many people.”
It was a great opportunity, a free trip to France, all expenses covered, and the idea more than intrigued me. I thanked him for his confidence and said I would give it some thought.
“Fine, Yu-san. Please do that. And since we are discussing travel—” He hesitated and seemed to have another proposal. “I have one other possibility that has come to my attention, just yesterday. In some ways, I am rather shy to ask.” He looked up at me, somewhat forlornly, somewhat hopeful. He was quite a cagy guy, looking back. He was greasing the wheels by enticing me first with the idea of a trip to France.
“Yes, Sensei?”
“So desu-ne? I should explain that there is a particular … object, one that I have long coveted, and which may become available in the coming weeks. Perhaps, I thought, you might be willing to help me with this.”
I chewed my rice cracker and heard the cold wind whistling through the pine trees. First France, and now, what? I swallowed and looked across at him. “Thank you for thinking me trustworthy enough to even ask, Sensei.”
“You are quite welcome, Yu-san. I do trust you. In fact, I should like to ask for your help in advancing my analysis of … Moby-Dick. Together, perhaps we can venture even further into the rabbit hole of Melville’s story.”
I recalled Sensei’s earlier mention of how I might “be of assistance” to him in the future, to which I had agreed, but his frequent hesitations of speech indicated he had some trepidations in asking for that assistance. So I assured him I was glad to help. But Sensei was never in a rush. As my assurances echoed off of the shoji, he swept some crumbs off of his yukata, scratched his head, and then sipped slowly from his teacup. Almost as if he wanted to be sure of my own proposition to assist him.
“Yu-san, it is rather sad to admit this … ” Pause, sip. “But the days of my own lengthy travels are, well, shall we say, virtually over. Yes, in my youth I could be quite the … jetsetter? Is that the term?” I nodded. “So desu-ne … Yes, I did love to travel back in the early days. But now, I get headaches on airplanes, and can never sleep properly. And the jet lag.”
I remember thinking he seemed to be stalling. He straightened a few papers on the table and wiped his brow with a handkerchief. “So desu-ne,” he mumbled once more. “What I mean to say is … there is a certain item that I have been after for some time now, and it is presently being made available, if you understand. However, it is of such value that I would wish to have a … trusted friend collect the item and bring it to me. Formerly, I have had various assistants for such matters, but lately I have had some … disagreements? In any case, my former assistant is no longer someone whom I can trust in such matters. And … well, you see. I need to … train another helper. A kohai, if you will.” He looked up at me. As he spoke, I thought of words rolling around in his mouth like rough stones in a rock tumbler. He looked everywhere but at me—the ground, the window, the ceiling. This articulate and eminently cool customer was suddenly jumpy about his impetuous proposal, so I let him off the hook.
I wondered about the former subordinate and under what circumstances he had been dismissed—or had left of his own accord. And I believe I even wondered if he was referring to Miyamoto. “Are you asking if I might be willing to act as your assistant in this case?”
He smiled and understood my generosity in relieving him with this comment. “That is precisely what I am asking.”
We spoke at some length about his plans for me. The “item,” which he preferred to keep unidentified for the moment, was in the hands of the widow of a wealthy real estate mogul in the Philippines, who lived in a suburb outside of Manila. Sensei explained that this Filipino collector had been a bit of a rival over the years. They had tried to outbid one another for various objects of common interest, as he put it, and in the case of this particular item, the rival had won out. That had been back in the early ’70s, over twenty years ago. Now that his rival, one Jun Escobar, was dead, the widow was making available certain unique items through the regular channels for such transactions in East Asia. In this case, the channel was a prestigious auction house located in the “Wall Street” of Manila—Ayala Avenue—just down from the Makati Stock Exchange and Makati Avenue.
I decided to see how he would detail his proposition, so for the moment I behaved as Japanese as I could and allowed my elder to speak. I sipped some tea, rubbed my temples, and tried to be as cool a customer as he was.
“Yu-san, I would like for you to do me this favor. In these cases, as my official agent in such a transaction, I can assure you, all travels and accommodations are … quite comfortable. Everything would be provided for you, first class, of course, including the air travel. Champagne upon take off, if you like!” He smiled obliquely.
To an Indiana boy, his talk of first-class accommodations was working its intended magic. I thought of wide, soft leather seats, a tray of cheese, and a cold carafe of dry white wine, served by beautiful stewardesses with silky black hair and inviting dark eyes. Then a limo whisking me off to a luxury high-rise hotel, and me overlooking the twinkling lights of Manila from the balcony of some presidential suite. “I think I could agree to help you with that, Sensei,” I said. “But when would I need to go? I would need to make accommodations for my classes, of course.”
“Now, first of all, at present, no immediate … deal has been struck. However, I am extremely eager to gain possession of this item. And should I manage to do so, I would like to have the object hand-carried back into Japan, as soon as possible.” He hesitated again. “And so, if I manage to do this, Yu-san—would you be willing to fly to Manila on my behalf? As soon as next week, or the week after, perhaps?” And he smiled and cocked his head to the side like a curious bird.
I mimicked his shy humor. “I think I could make that sacrifice, Sensei.” But, in fact, the sudden challenge of making the trip unnerved me. The thought of visiting the Philippines had only crossed my mind once or twice. It seemed an exotic place with swaying palm trees and rumbling volcanoes. I had also heard about the Marxist guerrillas from the southern islands, the endless streets of abject poverty and filth, and the political instabilities of a nation on the brink of civil war. Still, I was sick of cold weather, and the idea of feeling the balmy sun on my face was enticing. And so I agreed to act, as Sensei had put it, as his “agent” in this matter of the mysterious item.
Within days, I received a phone call from Miyamoto. He was tense, and his voice, too hard-edged for a polite Japanese colleague, betrayed his unhappiness. “The trip to Manila is scheduled, sensei.” His message was clipped, his tone altogether unpleasant. So what else is new? “Your tickets and other necessary instructions will be delivered later today,” he said before hanging up.
So in the middle of February 1993, I made my first trip out of Japan since my arrival almost a year earlier. I flew first class and was picked up by a limousine service at the airport and delivered to one of the top hotels in the center of Makati. The streets surrounding my hotel were impressive, redolent with wealth both old and new. With a little extra time, I toured the palace where the Marcos regime reigned before they got the boot in 1986. The legends of Imelda’s thousands of shoes were true; her dictatorial excess still on full display. I remember thinking those shoes—shoes of every kind and color, all displayed on shelf after shelf, room after room—were evidence of a different kind of collector, one of an obsessive and even creepy nature. Shaking off thoughts of Imelda Marcos, I continued exploring and eventually stumbled on a club near the hotel where a New Orleans native played the piano like Jelly Roll Morton on Valium—frenzied, incisive, yet somehow just passive enough for the “cool” crowd. Drinks were twelve bucks a piece.
The business side of the trip was straightforward and required only two hours out of the seven days I spent down there. An arrangement had been made for me to meet the middleman, by the name of Aguinaldo, at his tiny, disheveled antique shop not far from the hotel. He had been able to acquire the rights to peddle the object, whatever it was, for a healthy commission. I walked into the shop early one morning, and found him in the back room, with his feet up on a cluttered desk, smoking a foul-smelling cigar. He begrudgingly came out, leaving his cigar smoldering in a half-full ashtray. I introduced myself, clasped his sweaty hand, and immediately disliked him. After a few pleasantries, we got down to business.
“The item is in my safe. Has the professor explained the procedures?”
“Yes. I think it is all in order, yes?”
Then he snapped at me. “Well, to tell the truth, not really. The payment is not yet received. I phoned the bank at the end of business yesterday, and it was nowhere to be seen!” His face was almost comically contorted in mock alarm.
“Well … I know that Professor Goto wants the item very much. And I believe he is … able to raise the amount rather easily.”
“Yes, Mr. Springs. You do not need to tell me this. Nevertheless, until we can confirm the transaction with the bank, I cannot turn over the property.”
We returned to his back office and he seated himself, smoking away at the still-lit cigar, ill-mannered and grouchy. Eventually, he pointed me to a straight-back chair, then lifted his feet back onto his desk, leaned back, and glowered at me. The wallpaper was a sickly yellow from his persistent smoking, and I wondered about the tarry effects on whatever valuable objects he stored nearby.
“Can you phone the bank again, please, Mr. Aguinaldo?”
His face took on a reddish tint, and for a long moment he scowled at me as I sat in silence, waiting for him to blow like Melville’s mighty whale. The humidity was climbing, and I found his company tiresome and unpleasant and his office even more so. So I tried a new tactic.
“Can you show me the item?”
This question made him even more ridiculously outraged by my presence. “The professor has told me that under no circumstances should I do so! Once the money has been transferred, and I have confirmation, I can release the book—it is already wrapped in several layers of protective brown paper. The transfer must be confirmed, at which time I can allow you to take possession of the volume.”
He was very insistent about these matters, and repetitive. But a tiny detail had slipped out in this last remark: it was a book of some sort. Meanwhile, a plump vein popped out on the side of his forehead. I imagined counting his pulse by its tiny palpitations. We continued fuming in silence, sweating and staring at each other in his sleazy office.
Finally, inexplicably, and without warning, he picked up the aging rotary phone, dialed it, spoke rapidly in a native Tagalog dialect. He was quiet a moment, presumably waiting for confirmation, then slammed the receiver down with gusto. A moment passed. He rubbed his ear. Then, abruptly he stood, his back to me, opened his safe, pulled out the package, then shut the heavy door quickly as if I might reach in and scoop up all his valuables. He turned, handed me the package, and waved me away like I was a noisome fly. I said a hurried goodbye and got the hell out of there.
Two days later, I left Manila, never to return. At the Osaka Airport, I had to fill out a customs form. Technically, I knew I should report bringing into Japan something of great value, but, I had no idea what was in the package or how much it was worth. This lack of knowledge was strategically a very good thing, at least from Sensei’s point of view. As I looked down at the customs form, pen in hand, I thought of the instructions he had given me before I left Kobe. “Yu-san, when you hand carry the item back through customs, it should remain wrapped, and I advise you to report that it has negligible value. The customs people will not question you on this.” That was the first real hint that something was out of whack in all of this. The thing was, I just did not know the rules at that time. To be blunt, Sensei was simply asking me to obey orders and keep my big mouth shut—which is exactly what I did.
At the airport, I had only an expensive-looking Cross briefcase—provided by Sensei, and containing the mysterious volume—and my carry-on bag, a very cheap looking canvas roll-around that I had scored at a discount store in Umeda. It was a contrast that suddenly seemed to me to be obvious and suspicious. The good news was that I was indeed an American citizen, still highly favored in the eyes of the Japanese bureaucracy, so I was basically waved through, no questions asked—except for one. “Do you have anything to declare?” I hesitated just momentarily, then shook my head. He seemed to find my response dubious, but waved me forward.
There is a grainy and subdued image in my mind, as if I am looking down on myself from a security camera. I see a man who looks nervous, ill at ease, guilty. I remember being slightly relieved that the Japanese immigration agent was a scrawny kid who looked young enough to be one of my students and that he didn’t have the foggiest notion that my briefcase contained a book valued at tens of thousands of dollars, or more. Breathing more easily because of the agent’s youth or not, I was smuggling a valuable item into his country and was the sly and willing agent of an unseen powerful engine of deception. I was flush with both excitement and shame, and the image in my memory features a tiny drop of perspiration sliding down my forehead, ready to plop onto my passport as it is being stamped for reentry. At the time, the episode took on the shading of a sinister act involving illegal motivations and mysterious acquisitions, like a scene gone stale in an old spy novel.
In retrospect, however, it was no big deal at all. Veteran travelers do it all the time; they neglect to report their acquisitions abroad to the glum agents that greet them accusingly at international airports. Still, this first instance of tacit deception made me very uncomfortable. I felt presumed upon by my sempai, my teacher, and, to be honest, slightly betrayed.
The unwrapping of the mysterious volume, and the storm of confusion it unleashed in my own mind about things I had simply never thought much about, occurred on the first Sunday after my return to Kobe.
I presented the book to Sensei, still safe in its brown paper wrappings. He hesitated a moment, handed me another pair of those fine white linen gloves that he preferred for the inspection of old relics, and began pulling on a pair himself. Properly gloved, he then slowly unwrapped his prize. Sensei removed the paper as tenderly as a nervous bridegroom would disrobe his virgin bride, eliminating each layer of clothing, quietly and deliberately, lingering in anticipation.
It was a very old volume, and it took a moment before I realized it was another copy of Moby-Dick, evidently a first edition, meaning it would be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000—or more. Again Sensei picked up the moldering volume, hesitated, then carefully handed it across the table to me, with both hands. “Please look at the inscription.”
I slowly opened the book and on the front page, I saw the following alien-looking inscription:
Beneath four blood moons,
A whale circles Nippon;
April snow camellia
—Ezra Pound, January 1916
I handed the volume back to him. “What do you make of the writing, Sensei?” A gloved thumb stroked the cover, and for a moment, he ignored my question. Finally, he spoke.
“This is something I have wished to own for many years, Yu-san. It is far more valuable than you might imagine, and, in fact, it holds the key to a mystery I have attempted to solve for many years. Of course, it is written in a first edition of the novel, which must seem amazing to the untrained eye. As with the other crucial details of Moby-Dick, however, Americans would overlook the true value of the book.”
He still gazed at the inscription, then reached for a pad of paper and a pen, and scribbled down what he saw written there. Then he showed me the copy. “Here is the real prize; not simply because it is a first edition, of which I have another. No, this one is much more marvelous. The inscription is the handwriting of the previous owner, twice removed. I attempted to purchase this volume in 1972, over twenty years ago. It was placed up for sale by the widow of another previous owner, a couple years after his death. My rival collector, Jun Escobar from Manila, a true Melville fanatic, swept in and cut me off. Now, finally, I have managed to take back this great prize!” He genuinely beamed at this sudden realization.
I listened, captivated, as he continued his explanation. “You may be surprised to learn this, perhaps, but this edition of Moby-Dick was once owned by Ezra Pound. He was in fact nearly as obsessed with Melville’s sea monster as Captain Ahab was. Pound was a devotee of Melville’s symbolic fantasy, I believe, because it is the quintessential story of inscrutability. Such is the modern, existential dilemma. In any case, like Melville and Ahab, Pound wished to penetrate the veil and stand face to face before the sublime. And like Ahab, Pound had … imperial ambitions of his own!”
And then Sensei did something that had not happened prior to this visit, and rarely happened afterwards. He slid around the table and sat beside me, his right thigh pressed against my left one. He reached for the book and held it open to the inscription, so that we could inspect it together.
“It is a unique masterpiece in my collection,” he said, with an air of reverence. And again he closed the book, delicately.
“The haiku unites the whale and the island; even before the American critics noted this duality, Pound understood Melville’s device. It is a splendid revelation, I must say.
“Not long after he etched this inscription, Pound published some of his oddest and most memorable verse, some would say his masterpieces. He attempted to compress into the most succinct form in literature, the image, an account of sublime mystery. Japan, the whale, these were also, for Pound, metaphors of this mystery, symbols of whatever the modern sensibility has let die. Pound sought an emotional intensity in a highly compressed form, a sort of fusing force. And he came to believe that it was the same burden of Moby-Dick, that this ‘fusing force,’ was really the ultimate purpose of all art and literature!” He paused, reflecting. “It is the only volume of Pound’s library that is known to contain a haiku that he wrote himself.”
Sensei now seemed satisfied with his oration, and leaned back on his left elbow, a boyish posture of relaxation that he had also never taken with me. He spied me coyly out of the corner of his eye. “And so what can you add to my analysis?”
“It is an … unorthodox account of modern poetry, Sensei—as you know.” I rubbed my temple. “And what’s with the blood moons? From Joel?”
“Joel?” he asked. I think, for one of the only times in our relationship, I may have known something Sensei did not already know.
“Sure. The blood moons—from the Book of Joel in the Old Testament.” And I could have said more, about the last days and so on—but refrained, worried about sounding like a whack job.
“Ahh! Joel, indeed!” But he actually seemed unacquainted with that section of the Bible, so I dropped it. Yet I could tell it piqued his interest. There was something behind Sensei’s obsession, for the thing for which the symbols stood, the something that remained unnamed and evasive, that was both uncanny and exhilarating. Still, I let his unfamiliarity with Joel hang fire, and never did answer it. And yet I lacked whatever self-control was needed to resist becoming possessed of its enchantments, potentially deadly or violent though they might be. In short, from that day on, I was hooked.
After our study of Pound’s volume, Sensei placed it into one of his green library boxes and carried it safely into the adjoining room, where he evidently kept his valuables. I knew it was nearby, if not right next door, because he was able to leave and return so quickly with his treasures. I sometimes heard him shuffling around just beyond the wall to my right. In fact, it was rather pleasant, to sit there and know that untold treasures were carefully indexed and stored in the room thirty or so feet away from me. Perhaps this old house contained more valuables than any storeroom at the Beinecke Library at Yale, or even the Lilly Library back in Bloomington.
When he returned, the seminar began again in earnest. “Yu-san, my gracious thanks for your help with the old book.” Suddenly, after our initial rush, the precious antique was now just another “old book.” “You have shown yourself to be a most worthy assistant, for which I am very grateful. And now, let us talk about your contribution to the study of the great authors, shall we?”
For this visit, Sensei had prepared by bringing out a number of library holding boxes and several reference volumes. These were already marked with Post-it notes. And there was my dissertation, squarely on the side table with the other materials. It looked like we were in for some serious work.
He pulled out the copy of my dissertation, marked generously with the accusatory yellow notes. “You have been a loyal helper. In fact, your loyalties inspire me to take you even deeper into the … shall we say, hidden treasures of my collection?” He even laughed at this, even if just slightly. “I think it is time to discuss some matters of history regarding young Hemingway. You see, the biographers have been quite mistaken about certain historical accounts of several matters.
“I’m afraid that you have also been tricked by these many false reports, Yu-san. This is a common occurrence in matters of biographical accounts. Surely you noticed this in your own work on Mark Twain, a well-known liar about his past adventures. Or should we say a teller of tall tales? In any case, a major difficulty with someone like Twain is learning to listen carefully enough to know when he is telling the truth, and when he is pulling your leg.” He paused for a long sip. “Yes, the great authors are often notorious liars in real life!”
Another sip. “Hemingway, of course, has much in common with Mark Twain. He once famously had one of his characters say that all American literature began with Mark Twain’s little book on Huckleberry Finn, something like that. Both of them were great tricksters, and so, it is quite easy to be led astray by the likes of Twain or Hemingway. One unfortunate result is that many errors of historical fact have been repeated by biographers of these two writers, and so most accounts are at least partially unreliable. Both authors often made up stories about themselves, or else they remembered things quite differently thirty or forty years after the fact. This is true for all of us.” When he looked at me now, I think he discerned my disagreement, or my skepticism about the misleading content of the standard literary biographies.
“Perhaps I need to illustrate this, yes?” He opened my dissertation to one of the marked passages, and read to me from my own writing:
“The great disappointment of the Paris years involved the tragic loss of many manuscripts in winter of 1922. Hemingway’s wife, Hadley, was preparing to join him in Austria, where he was on holiday for snow skiing. And so she gathered up all of his writing and put it together in an old, small valise that was useful for such a purpose. The valise contained everything—manuscripts of all of Hemingway’s stories, various sketches of Paris in the 1920s, including the famous ‘Six True Sentences,’ several poems, and possibly the beginnings of a novel set in Chicago during World War I, along with their only carbon copies.
“On December 2, 1922, Hadley took a cab to the Gare de Lyon in Paris, and had her luggage taken to the platform and placed within the train. She went off in search of some Evian water for the long trip, and when she returned, the valise with the manuscripts was gone, although the other luggage had been left behind. Hadley was left in tears and desolation, and had to report the theft to Hemingway the next morning. His response was almost cataclysmic; he immediately boarded a night train back to Paris, arriving there the next day. Hemingway searched in vain for the manuscripts in the apartment, went to the Lost and Found at the train station, put an ad in the newspapers for a reward for the return of the manuscripts, and then in near suicidal despair did something that was too horrible for him to describe in his autobiographical accounts of these events. Perhaps, as some surmise, he got drunk and visited a prostitute. Perhaps he even held a gun to his head and nearly committed suicide. In any event, the loss of the manuscripts has attained a level of mythology in the study of the Paris years of the young Hemingway.”
Sensei now closed the book, sliding it across the table towards me again. I picked it up, held it in my hands for the first time in a while. Hearing my somewhat plodding graduate school prose being read to me aloud made me cringe. “It sounds a lot like a graduate student, yes, Sensei?” I asked.
“Well, in fact, it does not. You write a crisp prose, Yu-san. I hope you will manage to keep from spoiling that. But the style is not the issue at all. Your account of those events is predictable enough. But allow me to ask a few minor questions about this story, ne?” I nodded my consent.
“Why would a thief take only a small valise, when there are other larger pieces of luggage?”
“I had wondered about that myself. I suppose due to the weight of the other pieces, and just wanting to get away less conspicuously?”
He smiled my way. “Yes, perhaps. What about the advertisement in the Paris newspapers? Have you seen this ad yourself?”
I shook my head no.
He nodded. “And what about the night train back to Paris? Can you tell me the specifics of that trip? Which train did he take? Or, why did his friends Jack Hickok and Lincoln Steffens visit the Lost and Found a few days later, if Hemingway did so himself?”
I now had a look of confusion, and said, “Sensei, I don’t know about Hickok and Steffens. As for the train, well, no, I can’t give any specifics, of course. But these are all facts from the biographies, generally speaking.”
“Not facts, Yu-san. These are simply the commonplace details of the biographies. Actually, I will say that these literary legends commonly develop over time. And surely you know who was the greatest artist of the Hemingway myth, yes?”
“Hemingway?”
“Precisely.”
Now another long break, for sipping tea and for me to turn these ideas over in my mind. After some time, Sensei continued.
“Some of the biographers have lately begun to realize what Carlos Baker had been saying for many years, namely that decades later, Hemingway himself would turn the story of the stolen manuscripts into a tragic moment in his young life in Paris, a tragedy whose pain was nearly unbearable. Poor Hemingway, the tragic hero-writer of Paris! It was a tempting opportunity for Hemingway to generate pity for himself. He could help generate the mythic elements by which the very greatest writers should be remembered by their followers.”
“And so, according to your theory, these events never actually occurred? If so, how could one go about showing this theory to be true?”
“Oh, yes, some of those events did, in fact, occur, Yu-san. The valise containing certain manuscripts was taken to the trains by Hadley, and it was promptly carried off, perhaps even stolen by one of the many petty thieves who lurk about the Paris stations. Or perhaps,” he smiled, “that valise was the object of some other person’s attention.”
I looked at him, puzzled. “Well, maybe it was. But how could we ever know if that were the case?”
“Yes, how could we know?” He was in his element, a long-time professor teasing the truth out of his curious student. He was in no hurry to divulge his secrets.
But I was getting a little tired of the game, and wanted a direct answer. So I asked for one. “You expect me to believe that all the biographers are wrong, and that you alone have discerned the truth? Sounds a bit shady to me, Sensei.” I smiled as I said this, but I meant it.
He was polite despite my cocky tone, but he managed to remain evasive. “Yu-san, you still misunderstand a little, and sound a bit naïve as well. Allow me to explain a few things, first. I must remind you again that a person with true devotion, time, and money can arrange almost any kind of acquisition, or find almost any information. Sometimes it means that one must be willing to … to make certain decisions, or request certain acts, that are not always … how can I put it? Not always acceptable under normal circumstances.” He wiped his forehead with a napkin. “If you wish to say that the ends justify the means, then by all means, do say that.”
I looked him in the eye at this. Was he making some sort of confession? I thought of my trip to Manila. Was it part of certain decisions or acts in which the ends justified the means?
“But if you must know. Yes, Yu-san. I, too, have stooped low, in order to find out things about authors that I have wished to discover. It became a kind of obsession for me at one period in my life to discover secret things that nobody knew—except me. And I have also done things, or more accurately arranged to have done on my behalf, acts that were—what shall we say?—somewhat outside the blurry lines of human ethics, not to mention the rule of law?”
He regarded me with a precocious grin and must have noticed the quizzical look in my eye. “Yes, I am admitting this to you now, because for a long time I have wished that you would know what kind of person I truly am, and have been. I have felt some guilt about many of these matters, in fact. Perhaps you feel that guilt somewhat yourself, Yu-san? There is a kind of voyeuristic thrill, isn’t there, when you find something in an archive that nobody else has ever noticed? Isn’t there a bit of a seductive pleasure, when reading the private thoughts of an author, concealed in a diary, or a notebook, thoughts never meant to be seen by another human’s eyes? Surely you know this erotic feeling, yes?”
A long pause ensued as Sensei sipped more tea, and ate more sembei. Then he delicately unwrapped a fine piece of Swiss chocolate, popping it into his mouth, and closed his eyes. I was almost stunned by his frank intimation of acts that were immoral, if not illegal, in attaining these kinds of literary treasures. But it was hard for me to think about how to broach such a topic. So instead I said, “In your wide experience, Sensei, where do we draw the line in terms of the ethics of collecting and examination? Is all fair in love and war, or something like that? Because that sounds a little naïve to me!” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew I was dangerously close to crossing some unseen line in our relationship.
He glowered at me a moment. Tensions were rising, if only slightly. He held the chocolate in one side of his mouth. “Yu-san,” he began, emotionlessly, “I had thought that you would feel flattered to be the first one to hear of all these new discoveries, besides Mika, of course. I can handle some skepticism—we are both scholars, and trained to think this way. But I would have also thought that you might have some faith in me as well.”
Now he waited, allowing some moments to settle us both down. “Please excuse me for challenging you,” I said.
“I expect to be challenged, Yu-san. But I require your respect as well, and your patience. And I must tell the story in my own way. I assure you, all my evidence is at hand, and within these walls. All your questions will be addressed, I promise.”
He brushed his hands together, and looked from side to side. Then he headed off into uncharted waters, one of his habits that often infuriated me. “Now. Do you know the story of the old Boston sea captain who retired to live out his last years in Florence? He was, of all things, a passionate devotee of Percy Shelley, whom he believed to be the greatest poet of all time, a romantic bard who delivered the dictations of the gods, as he saw it. This salty, old captain was rather obsessive in his great devotions, you see. It was in the 1870s, I believe.” He talked slowly while still working the chocolate around in his mouth as it melted, covering his mouth with his right hand in the Japanese style. Finally, he swallowed the remnants of the candy.
“Well, the story goes that this sea captain discovered that an elderly lady, once intimate with Lord Byron, was living in a villa nearby, just on the other side of a door he passed almost daily. Through the grapevine he learned that this old lady held a large cache of papers from both Shelley and Byron: letters, old drafts of poems, perhaps even unknown diaries and journals. Well, the captain made it his mission in life to bring these papers to light, and to secure for himself a place in literary history. So he disguised his purposes and approached the woman about renting rooms in her large, mostly empty villa. Do you know of this old tale?”
I shook my head no. He wiped his hands on a napkin, and sipped still more tea. “History does not tell us whether this old captain ever succeeded or not. His name was Silsbee, by the way, and he had been a proper New England man for most of his life. The woman was called Claire, an old lover of Byron’s, advanced in age, who lived in the Via Romana in the middle of Florence in a dilapidated building from the Renaissance. Captain Silsbee became excited to think that, everyday as he walked by her building, hidden behind its mossy walls was a woman whose lips had pressed the face of Lord Byron, and whose ears had listened with rapt attention to the voices of the other great British poets of Byron’s time. It was indeed a heady brew of temptation. Can you forgive old Captain Silsbee for trying to communicate with this legendary figure, Yu-san?
“Sadly, we do not know to what extremes Silsbee was willing to go. What we do know is that he was hypnotized by the idea of holding in his hands the old letters of the dead poet. He was tempted by the very same things that tempt both you and me. And sometimes, in being tempted,” he said, as he brushed some crumbs off of his robe, “we do things that other people consider improper, or not quite ethical. Yes, I would admit to that. But wouldn’t you agree that the world deserves to see any letters and diaries of Shelley that remain to be discovered? In this case, don’t the ends of literary knowledge and wisdom overcome any questionable means of producing them?”
With this Sensei got to his feet and slowly worked his way to the hallway and then toward the back of the house. Several minutes later he returned with an old book, which he handed to me. “This is for you. Perhaps it will help you to understand my own obsessions on these points.” He smiled in saying “obsessions,” in a kind of ironic joke to himself. I looked at the volume. The Complete Tales of Henry James, Volume 6: 1884-1888 was on the binding. It was musty and weathered, and from the looks of it, came from the 1950s or ’60s, or thereabouts.
I leafed through it. “James, huh? To tell you the truth, he was never one of my favorites.”
This also amused Sensei. “I felt exactly the same—that is, when I was younger, like you. But James is one of those acquired tastes, I think. Like fine wine, he improves with age. When you get to be my age, perhaps your view of Henry James will change.
“In any event, I must insist that you take this and read it. I assume you have not read The Aspern Papers, then?” He took the book back, and began looking through it. There were faded pencil markings in the margins, and evidently he had a particular passage in mind. “Ah yes. Anyway, this is the story James wrote after he had heard the tale of our Captain Silsbee from Boston. He was so intrigued that it became the germ for what I think is one of James’s most perfect fictions. He invented a dashing romantic poet, Jeffrey Aspern, to be the principal subject of admiration for the story’s nameless narrator, who would do almost anything, or even perhaps die, for the joy of discovering new manuscripts by his idol. I know of no other story that captures both the joys and the horrors of this sort of literary fascination—perhaps a kind of mania—for collecting.”
He looked at a marked passage, studying it for a moment. “James captured perfectly the feelings of grandeur about literary relics, and he knew the moral qualms that one might have about doing whatever it takes to find and secure those relics. James understood the, shall we say, narcotic effect of collecting. But perhaps you do not quite understand, Yu-san.”
Sensei closed the book, offered it to me with both hands, and regarded me intently. “You see, these writers are for me like gods. And their papers are like relics of their greatness, even those they wished to burn. Yes, it is a kind of lifelong infatuation. But as James says so truthfully, I really have no need to try and defend this position. It is for me very much like a kind of religion, you see.” He was now looking me dead in the eye, almost rapturous.
I smiled just a fraction, which Sensei must have caught. He smiled right back, in that funny, enigmatic Japanese way of his. Then after a moment his smile vanished, and he added, “Does it all sound so funny to you? If so, it only means that you have not fallen completely under the spell of the narcotic. However, one day you may very well find that you are like me and like Captain Silsbee, and even like Ahab.” He paused and then added, “Yes, just three old sea captains, drifting about on the oceans of our lengthy days, searching for the words of life by which we might be saved.” He stood, and bowed. “Please excuse me for now, Yu-san. The time has gotten away from me, and I must deal with other matters just now.” He began backing himself ceremoniously from the room.
The idea of becoming like old Silsbee, run aground in Florence in the 1870s and looking for an anchorage, was sobering, but my mind was churning away at the enigmas surrounding Hemingway’s early manuscripts. I nearly fainted when he said he had to leave. “Sensei, you must finish telling me about Hemingway.”
“Yes, well, of course. Next time. And you will read the stories by James?”
“Then perhaps we can discuss them as well—next time.” He turned his head slightly to check the large clock on one of the bookshelves behind him. “Yes, James does tend to grow in stature as time ticks away. But all that is for another day, I think.”
I now stood up as well.
“Let’s continue with that story next time. It hinges on Pound, and my rather odd conversations with him near the end of his life.”
“What?! You met Ezra Pound?”
He smiled at my outburst. “Why yes, Yu-san. I have suggested to you repeatedly, the magic that money is capable of performing. I think you should have suspected that a man of my means and passions would have arranged meetings with many of the great writers of my lifetime. In fact, besides Pound, I have visited with the likes of Robert Frost, Pearl Buck, John Steinbeck. I spoke with T.S. Eliot in London after a lecture he gave, and bought him a drink afterwards as we discussed the Marx Brothers, of all things. In fact, I attended his memorial service in Westminster Abbey. That’s where I first laid eyes on Pound, who also attended, though I did not meet him until a few years later, in Italy. Sadly, I never met Hemingway,” he said, shaking his head in disappointment. “It was not for lack of trying, I can assure you. But by the time I became truly serious about such things, he was in great decline and hard to pin down.” He paused and his gaze clouded. Then he looked up at me. “But I did manage to meet Hadley and had a very pleasant afternoon chatting with her, up in New Hampshire.”
He was momentarily inspired to continue when he detected my wide-eyed amazement at these last revelations.
“Yes, Yu-san. Hemingway’s first wife. And I also made up for my failure to shake hands with Hemingway by meeting many others. I had lunch with Dorothy Parker, whose booming voice actually scared me a little. She was a formidable figure indeed. I even met Alfred Hitchcock. He attended a reception I gave for an artist friend. I can still picture the room—one of those over-decorated ballrooms at the Bel Air Hotel, in Los Angeles. It was back when the Japanese were still not welcome in good society. I believe it was only my wealth that enabled many of the Americans I met to overlook my heritage.”
My jaw must have been hanging open because he chuckled. “Do you find all of this so hard to believe, Yu-san? These are just people, like you and me. And I must admit I was always drawn, at least in my younger days, to glamour and celebrity. I was stargazing, yes, it’s true! You see, money, to be crass, opens almost any door in life, and I was not above using it for just that purpose.” He enjoyed the moment, though it was in the form of a confession.
He checked his wristwatch once again. “Now, I must be rushing off. But believe me, my knowledge comes directly from the lips—and documents—of Ezra Pound.”
“You actually met him.” I could hear the childish awe in my voice.
“Twice, in fact. Or at least some distant part of him. I can assure you that by that time in his life, he was a rather distraught and bewildering figure. He was old, dying, and largely in another world psychologically, I would say, and had gone many years barely speaking to anyone. But it was Pound all right.”
He was finding his shoes, and putting on his coat, with me trailing behind him. Mika stood in another doorway, watching us both with great curiosity.
“It was in Venice, 1967. He’d been out of the St. Elizabeth mental asylum for about a decade by then. But forced incarceration takes its toll. He rarely spoke, as I said, and was living with an old friend, Olga Rudge, a violinist. She owned a decrepit old villa in the San Gregorio section of Venice, not far from the train station. Perhaps my remarks are unkind, for he was gracious enough in talking with me, and about certain things, his mind was clear and sharp as ever. He knew all about Paris in 1922, for example, even if he could not recall what he had for lunch that day!”
He was ready now and heading out the door. I couldn’t believe he would leave me hanging like this. But in a flash, he had vanished into the back seat of his Mercedes, with the silent Omori at the wheel, and then they were gone. I moved as if in a dream, and soon realized I was halfway down the hill heading toward the train station, and wondering how I would manage until our next meeting.
These were shocking revelations, to be sure. Regarding the biographies of famous figures, I can verify that certain legends are repeated endlessly as facts—scholars obviously depend on the work of earlier scholars, creating a sort of echo chamber of received wisdom with much of it rarely, if ever, called into question.
I put down Jack’s pages, stood to stretch my back, and looked out the window at the barren trees in the courtyard beyond my office. It was darkening, and I thought perhaps I should head home to finish the manuscript in front of a warm fireplace. The sun was disappearing and the moon rising, both suspended in the frosty air.
Like everything else, people are born and they die. Lives—even extraordinary ones—are fragile things fraught with everyday conceits and frailties. Regarding Twain and Hemingway, it is well known that they both worked diligently to establish and shape their own legends. These were obsessive personalities who cared deeply what others thought about them, and so they worried over and tended to their own legacies.
I know far less about Ezra Pound—though I do recall he is said to have rarely, if ever, spoken during and after his time at the asylum. What a sad depiction of the once great mind that in those final years of his life he was reduced to a mere shadow of his former self. And yet, I find it difficult to muster much sympathy for this forlorn character, a traitor, in fact. He is a hard person for me to like. His devotion to Mussolini, his subsequent condemnation for the United States, and his blasting of Jews, especially bankers, all well documented in his countless radio broadcasts during WW II, turned him into an enemy of the state—and a bit of a clown. After a brief stay in a military prison near Pisa, he was shipped home and then confined to a facility for the insane outside of Washington D.C. for over twelve years. Though publicly he recanted many of his hideous beliefs, privately he maintained a hateful prejudice and a gargantuan, imperial conceit.
Reading this account of Professor Goto’s supposed meetings with Pound, I admit I was deeply skeptical. And yet, like Jack, I could hardly wait to hear the rest of the tale.