To the Spring Equinox and Beyond Read online

  To Keitaro, these words sounded like those of a man in exultation as well as adversity. He thought a life so removed from the beaten track might, as Morimoto had asserted, be impossible for an ordinary university graduate. But not content to admit it, he said in a deliberately contradictory tone, "Yes, I am a university graduate. Yet I haven't yet found any of those positions you make so much of. In fact, I'm tired of looking around for one."

  When Keitaro spoke as if he were abandoning his efforts, Morimoto put on a rather more solemn look than usual. "You don't have a position and yet you do. I have a position and yet I don't. That's the difference between us," he said as if expostulating to an inexperienced youth.

  This oracular sentence did not make much sense to Keitaro. For a while they smoked on silently.

  "I too—-I too," Morimoto said, beginning again, "am tired of the railway job I've been at now for nearly three years, and soon I'm going to quit. If I don't, I'm sure they'll fire me. Three years at one job is a long time for me."

  Keitaro offered no opinion as to whether it was better for Morimoto to give up his job or not. As he had no experience of resigning from a post or even of being forced to, he was indifferent to the other man's problem about keeping his job or leaving it. He was conscious only of becoming weary by talk that had taken a practical turn.

  Morimoto seemed to have noticed that he was boring Keitaro; he suddenly changed the tone and subject of his talk to some cheerful, gossipy topics and after ten minutes or so rose to leave. "Thanks a lot. And Tagawa-san, whatever you have to do, you should do it while you're young." With these words, which might have been expected from the mouth of someone over fifty, he left Keitaro's room.

  For a week or so Keitaro had no opportunity to have any long chats with Morimoto. But living in the same boardinghouse, they seldom missed seeing each other in the morning or evening. When they met at the wash-stand, Keitaro invariably noticed Morimoto's padded robe with its neckband of black cloth. And when Morimoto returned from work, Keitaro often noticed that he changed into a new suit with an open jacket and went out again carrying a queer-looking stick. In Keitaro's own departures and returns, he knew upon seeing this cane in the porcelain umbrella-stand on the dirt floor of the boardinghouse entrance that Morimoto was in the house. And then it happened that even though the cane was where it usually was, its owner had suddenly disappeared.

  A few days passed without Keitaro's being aware of anything amiss with Morimoto, but when Keitaro had seen nothing of him for about five days, he began to wonder. From the maid who waited on him at breakfast, he learned that Morimoto had gone on a business trip. Since he was a government clerk, it was possible he had been sent somewhere on official duty. Yet to Keitaro, who had appraised the man as a functionary whose job was no more important than forwarding baggage, this information was somewhat unexpected. But when the maid further explained that Morimoto had said upon departing that he would be traveling for five or six days and that his return was to be on this day or the next, Keitaro was satisfied with her account. However, the days Morimoto was due back passed, and his figure in the padded dressing gown was not seen at the washstand. Only his queer cane remained in the umbrella holder.

  At last the landlady came to ask Keitaro if he had received a letter from Morimoto. Keitaro replied that he himself had been thinking of going down to ask her the same thing. She left the room with an anxious look flickering in her round, owl-like eyes. Another week elapsed without bringing Morimoto back. Keitaro began having suspicions too. Passing the boardinghouse office, he deliberately stopped to inquire about Morimoto. But after that, he thought it better to start searching for a job again, so he was too occupied to inquire further. The truth was that he had, as Morimoto had predicted, given up the right to be an adventurer in order to seek a livelihood.

  One night, the landlord went up to Keitaro's room and asked if he could come in. After he had opened the shoji and entered, he brought out from between his sash and kimono an oldish pipe case and a tobacco pouch, pulling open the case with a loud popping sound. He filled the silver bowl of his pipe with tobacco and deftly blew two thick columns of smoke through his nostrils. Keitaro was wondering why the landlord was taking his time about informing him of the purpose behind this visit until the man at last spoke up plainly.

  "I've come to ask a favor," he began. Then lowering his voice, he added abruptly, "Would you please tell me where Morimoto-san is? I promise you won't get into any trouble by telling me."

  The question was one that Keitaro least expected, and for a while he did not know what to say. "What on earth's wrong?" was all he could finally come out with as he looked into the landlord's face. He tried to read in it the man's intention. The landlord, his pipe apparently blocked, was using a metal charcoal stick from Keitaro's brazier to pick at tar in the bowl of the pipe. This task done, he puffed several times at the mouthpiece to see if the bamboo stem drew well. It was only after he had done these things that he set about to explain.

  According to the landlord, Morimoto's rent was about six months in arrears. Because he had been a lodger in the house for nearly three years and had not idled about, the landlord had not pestered him for payment, relying on his word that he would find some means to clear everything up by the end of the year. And now he had gone on a trip. Everyone in the house believed, as Morimoto had told each of them, that he was away on business, but since he had not returned even some days after the appointed time and had not written a letter of any sort, they had begun to have doubts. So they had examined his room, and at the same time the landlord inquired at Shimbashi Station as to where he had been sent. All his things were in the room as before, but the information received at the station was surprising: Supposedly on a business trip, Morimoto had actually been dismissed at the end of the previous month.

  "Such being the case," the landlord said, "I thought you might let me know where he is, since you were so friendly with him. That's why I've come. I don't intend to ask you to do anything about his rent. Could you please just let me have his address?"

  Keitaro was rather annoyed by the landlord's treating him as if he were a crony of the missing man and had something to do with his dishonorable conduct. True, Keitaro had recently been approaching Morimoto with a kind of secret admiration, but to be regarded as his confidant in such a vulgar affair was, he felt, a disgrace to a youth on the threshold of life.

  The honest Keitaro was angry with the landlord for the mistaken accusation. But even before anger, he had received an impression of something uncanny, as if his hand had grasped unawares the cold body of a snake. The misunderstanding by this fellow who, with a peculiar sort of composure, filled his pipe with tobacco scooped from an old-fashioned pouch, gave Keitaro as much uneasiness as if the misconjecture had been correct. The landlord handled his pipe as deftly as if it were a part of the art of negotiating. Keitaro observed this behavior for some time; at the same time he felt regret at finding no means to dispel suspicion save by emphasizing his own ignorance. As he expected, the landlord did not soon stow away his smoking equipment, but put his pipe in and out of the case, inevitably repeating that popping sound each time until Keitaro began to feel he had to silence it by any means.

  "I am, as you know, a poor student fresh from school with no definite position yet, but I think I'm a man of some education. It's an insult to my pride to be lumped together with a vagabond like Morimoto, still more to be suspected of having a connection with him in some underhanded scheme. It's impertinent of you to be so insistent in your suspicions when I've said I know nothing of his whereabouts. If that's your way of treating a lodger who's lived here for two years, so be it. I have my own thoughts on the matter. During the two years that I've lived here, have I ever been in arrears for even a month?"

  The landlord affirmed repeatedly that he had no doubts whatsoever about Keitaro's integrity and, asking once more not to forget to let him know Morimoto's address if Keitaro should receive a letter from him, said he would apologiz
e as much as Keitaro wished if what he had said had given offense.

  Keitaro replied simply, "Good," desiring only to have that pouch put rapidly away, and at last the tools of negotiation were stowed behind the sash. When the man left the room, there was no indication of his doubting Keitaro, so he thought he had done well to show his annoyance.

  Some days later, a new lodger was occupying Morimoto's room. Keitaro was curious to know what had been done with Morimoto's possessions, but ever since the landlord had brought in those smoking utensils for that parley, Keitaro was determined not to ask again about Morimoto's affairs, so at least outwardly he behaved as if he were quite indifferent. He continued indefatigably but with less impatience to hunt for a position even though he remained dubious of success, thinking it his immediate obligation to make the effort.

  One evening his search took him to Uchisaiwaicho, but he found that the man he was calling on was away from home. Returning by streetcar, he was attracted to a woman seated just opposite him. On her back under a short coat of yellowish silk she carried a baby. She was a rather smart-looking woman of the geisha type, her eyebrows dark and slender, her neck graceful, and by no means looking like someone who should be carrying on her back an infant under a short coat, though Keitaro thought it had to be her own child. He was even more puzzled when he further observed that she wore under her short apron a rich checkered kimono of silk crepe. It had been a rainy day, and each of the five or six passengers held a closed umbrella in one hand like a cane. Hers was a black janome, which she propped beside her seat, apparently averse to touching the cold and wet lacquered ribs. Near the top of the closed umbrella, Keitaro noticed three Chinese characters, Ka-ru-ta, written in red lacquer.

  The woman, whose background was difficult to ascertain, whether as a professional geisha or an ordinary housewife; the baby whose legitimacy seemed dubious; the white complexion and downcast eyes under slightly slanted dark eyebrows; the kimono of silk crepe and the distinct characters on the janome denoting the woman's geisha-like name—these alternately came to excite Keitaro's imagination and to remind him suddenly of the woman Morimoto had spoken of—the woman who had once been married to him and who had borne their child. Bit by bit Keitaro recalled Morimoto's own words: "You'll laugh at my lingering attachment to her after this length of time, but she was rather good-looking with those dark eyebrows of hers that often slanted when she spoke." Keitaro gave renewed attention to the owner of the umbrella with the name written on it. Presently the woman got off the streetcar and disappeared in the rain, leaving him recalling Morimoto's face and bearing and thinking of the destiny that had taken him to he knew not where. When Keitaro returned to his boardinghouse, he found on his desk a letter, the sender's name missing from the envelope.

  His curiosity aroused, Keitaro tore open the anonymous envelope. His eyes were drawn first to the "My dear Tagawa" on the first line of the ruled foreign-style paper and then to the end of the same line, where "from Morimoto" was written. Keitaro immediately picked up the envelope again and tried reading the postmark, scrutinizing it from various angles, but it was so thinly inked he could not make it out. Giving up, he returned to the contents of the letter, which ran as follows:

  My sudden disappearance must have surprised you, I dare say. If not you, certainly the Marten and the Owl. [Morimoto had been in the habit of calling the landlord and his wife by these nicknames.] Frankly, I was somewhat in arrears with my rent. I thought if I told them my intentions, they would make things difficult, so I said nothing and acted on my own. The things I left in my room—clothing and other items all packed in a wicker trunk—will, I hope, bring them a considerable sum when they are disposed of. Please tell them they can sell these things or use them in whatever way they wish. But the Marten—you know what an old fox he is—may have already done whatever he wished without my permission. Furthermore, made bold by peaceful attitude, he may, I fear, get you into trouble by asking you, quite preposterously, to make up for the loss of my rent. In that case, take no heed of what he says. Beware of fellows such as the Marten who attempt to prey on persons like you who have emerged into the world fresh from seats of learning. Uneducated though I am, I know how bad it is to bolt without paying one's debts. I really intend to pay up this coming spring. I'll feel very sad if my odd career has led you to doubt my honesty, for it would mean to me the loss of a dear friend. Therefore, let there be no misunderstanding because of what fellows like the Marten say about me.

  Morimoto next stated that he was employed as caretaker of the amusement grounds of the Electric Park in Dairen and that he would be in Tokyo next spring to buy some motion pictures, so he was looking forward to seeing Keitaro after this long absence. After that bit of news he cheerfully added a brief description of the various places in Manchuria he had visited. What surprised Keitaro most among these was the scene of a gambling den in Changchun. It was run by a Japanese who had once been captain of a band of bandits on horseback. Hundreds of begrimed Chinese were bustling and jostling there, all with frantic eyes, all emitting some sort of stench. The place was often secretly resorted to by wealthy townspeople deliberately clad in dirty garb. Keitaro thought that Morimoto as well had done heaven knows what there.

  Near the end of the letter Morimoto wrote about a bonsai:

  That potted plum in my room is one I bought from a gardener at Dozaka. Though the tree is not very old yet, it's perfectly suitable for being looked at morning and evening on a boardinghouse windowsill. I want to present it to you as a gift, so please take it to your room. But the tree may have perished in my alcove, untended by people deficient in artistic taste. My cane at least must be in the umbrella stand on the dirt floor at the entrance. It isn't a very good cane in terms of value, but as it was one I habitually used, it's my wish that you accept it as a token from me. Even the Marten and Owl won't object to your taking it. Don't be shy. Just take it and use it.

  Manchuria is an agreeable spot to live in, especially Dairen. At least for the present, there's hardly any area better where a promising youth like yourself can realize some great expectation. Why not come and live here? If you are so disposed, I think I can take care of you, for since my arrival I've become acquainted with many persons in the Manchurian Railway Company. If you do come, please don't forget to write before you start out. Sayonara.

  Keitaro folded the papers and put them into his desk drawer. But neither to the landlord nor his wife did he say anything about Morimoto's letter. The cane remained in the umbrella stand. Each time Keitaro left the house and returned, he saw it and had a queer sort of feeling about it.

  At the Streetcar Stop

  Keitaro's friend Sunaga was a soldier's son who nevertheless detested the military. He had majored in law, yet had no interest in civil service or business. He was a rather backward type, at least he seemed so to Keitaro. The father, Keitaro had heard, had been dead these many years, leaving Sunaga and his mother to live an apparently lonely yet tasteful life together. His father had not only reached the high position of army paymaster, but was clever at accumulating funds, so that even now his wife and son were well-off and had none of those discomforts that come with making a living. Sunaga's tendency to lead a retired life was probably half due to the security in which he had been raised, and perhaps it resulted in depriving him of the stimulus of self-exertion. This was shown by the fact that when some of his respectable and helpful relatives were ready, out of respect for the elevated position of his deceased father, to offer help in placing Sunaga in a position that promised a successful career, he remained willful, indulging himself by finding fault with the posts offered and remaining undecided about the course of his life.

  "You're too particular. And you're wasting some good opportunities. If you don't like the jobs, at least hand one over to me," Keitaro occasionally importuned Sunaga, half in jest. Sunaga would refuse with a slight smile of sorrow and pity, saying, "Well, unfortunately, they're not being offered to you." Even while knowing he had asked in jest, Kei
taro was not pleased by the rejection. His pride flared up, and he told himself he would do everything alone. Still, his temperament was not one that adhered that much to a triviality to maintain any lasting antagonism toward his friend. Furthermore, with his own position still undecided and with no real connections to fall back on, Keitaro could not bear the dreariness of sitting in his boardinghouse room from morning till night. Even when he had nothing to do, he went out for at least half the day and often visited Sunaga. For one thing, Keitaro found it worth going because his friend was seldom out no matter what the hour.

  "A job," Keitaro once said to Sunaga, "is of course important, but what I want, even before that, is to come across some event worthy of wonder. Yet no matter how often I ride the streetcars around the city, nothing turns up. I haven't even had my pocket picked yet!" On another occasion he sighed in regret, "I first thought education was a right, but actually I've found it a kind of yoke. Where's the right when after graduating from a university, you can't even find the means of making a living? On the other hand, can we disregard our university status and do as we wish? Definitely not! It restricts us horribly, this education of ours."