cahier lukhnos, a blog

I never knew that grandfather had learned German until today, after I had read his diary. It continues:

S often uses the expression baka [literally, horse-deer, translated as stupid, idiot, fool, or even bloody, according to the circumstance] that is therefore the subject of others’ reprimand behind his back. Among the Japanese that I know, S is surly rude. Yet, I never feel anything repulsive whenever he uses baka to me, on the contrary there is an affinity in that usage. Such way of employing language, makes me recall when I was in Kiyomitsu [Qingshui, Taichung], the town people would use familiar and vulgar words to tease others, yet without anything maleficient. The very moement that S said that I am ‘helplessly honest,’ however, his tone is full of some sadness. I still could not make it out even at the present time, keeping this diary.

So I told S, all in all, some things are determined, bestimmt. Even I have been living in Japan for these years, and I have been taken care of by many others, the honshitsu [essence] that I come from a foreign land would never change. Isn’t S always teasing my so-called Kyûshû accent?

– So it is, right. Then, Yen would one day go back to Taiwan.

People always say that. That is what my family expects. Although, sometimes, some family members also make such suggestions that it would be fine if I want to stay here longer…

– You mean what is happening in Taiwan, don’t you.

Exactly. The ba-san [here it should be Ayako, the sister of my grand-grandmother, that is, the mother of my grandfather; she settled the rest of her life in Kyôto] had brought some news from hometown.

– And what do you think?

Hijô-ni fukimi [Very disagreeable].

–But even so, Yen will eventually go back.

It’s just a matter of time. Even so. Yes.

–So one day Yen will leave. I will remember this lad who colored Tokyo’s summer with a tint of Waka poetry.

But, why would you say so.

–You always know that I’m two years of your senior. Because of my physical condition, I didn’t go to China or Manchuria with my high school friends. Those people threw me away to a poor small town in Shikoku, assigned me a job of local registrar clerk. People there are far away from Tokyo’s colorful life, seldom read newspaper, while I have to fill and copy the documents for them. One day, I saw a group of high school students, their age not being less younger than I was. I often saw them on my way back from the registrar to my dormitory on the other side of the town. Then often played like hooligans on the roadside, sometimes simply occupied the only bookstore in the town. I had also once seen them all take their clothes off and jump into a pond to swim. What should I call that? Insouciant, in French, what we Japanese call the care-free state. But, on that very day, they stepped into the registrar, where I took in their conscript calls. I didn’t understand, wasn’t the Japan Royal Army doing badly in the front? Why people were still sent away at this time? I still remember that some of them simply got excited, while some of them showed nothing on their faces. But no matter what excited them, being idiot or simply ignorant, they lost such care-free state forever. Some of them, some among them, would never come back. Do you know what it feels like, Yen? Sie kommen nie zurück. I had been an outsider when I lived in Shikoku. I had darn godforsaken nothing to do with Shikoku. But on that very day, that burning day of June, I began to feel revolt, I began to detest everything that I saw.

You are not making an analogy between those Shikoku teenagers and me. The war is over. Even if I should leave Tokyo, that would be home-coming, not answering to the mobilization call.

–Yen, I might get it wrong, and you might even think I’ve been drunk today. In fact, it is close, even though I haven’t even touched a drop today. I never know that summer in Tokyo could be as hot as this. No, it’s not that way, it’s not because of the heat, it’s because Tokyo can have such summer. Do you know what I mean? But I don’t know what exactly I want to say, it’s just… it’s because of Debussy’s music, or because of Yen’s words, anyway, I have made myself embarrassed by saying this, but I said it anyway. What I want to say is this, do you see what’s in common between you and those Shikoku lads? Although your destinations differ, but both you and the Shikoku lads are beckoned by some forces. Or I should put it this way, it’s something like a voice that is calling you and the Shikoku lads. In German there the word Einberufung, it’s from the verb rufen, or calling, calling forth. It has everything to do with that. But, that force had led the Shikoku lads to death, at least to a path towards annihilation, even if it’s not that of life or that of body. I don’t know if the force that is summoning you is of the same kind.

S has always been sure of what he says, with a authoritative tone. Yet the sentences now sound broken and tattering. Just like what he says, like a drunkard. I asked S, how did all that come to him?

–Feeling, it’s just a feeling. A kind of Gefühl that I am not able to speak out.

So S is like me, you can sometimes get appalled, wordless?

–Are you laughing at me, you idiot.

S sighed. I said, no, it’s just that you’re not like what you always are. You blurted a lot, but you seem to be saying something that I don’t understand.

–You can understand. You always understand. It’s just, it’s just that… there are something that I am not able to speak out.

S hesitated to finish that line. What’s different from minutes ago is that, S is gazing at me in a strange way. Moreover, what I don’t understand is that, being gazed that way, I feel that something is swelling and burning, like a furnance, right below the stomach, between my loins.

lukhnos :: Apr.30.2004 :: :: No Comments »