I Am a Japanese Writer

THE SORROWS OF MR. TANIZAKI

EVER SINCE OUR aborted meeting, I’ve been running into Mr. Tanizaki every time I step outside. At the fish market, of course, but also at the bakery and the wine store. It’s as if he’s making sure to be in my path while pretending to avoid me — as if I were the one following him. Sometimes he waves to me discreetly. Always a smile pinned to his face. I feel like I’m in a Polanski film, Rosemary’s Baby. I come back from my errands and discover my mailbox full of Japanese underground magazines. In the evening I watch tv (the Japanese cable channels) or eat dinner — sometimes both at once, sometimes neither. I stare at the ceiling. Sometimes I read, and it’s always the same book. I open it and find myself in a Basho haiku. That’s where I’d like to live: in a line of Basho poetry. The telephone makes me jump. It always rings at the same time; it’s taken me a while to figure that out. When I pick it up, I hear Japanese voices, very young voices, often against a background of strident music. Rock, sometimes heavy metal. Judging from the kind of music and the uproar, the calls are coming from the latest hip discotheque. As soon as I say something, the voice on the other end of the line apologizes in English and immediately hangs up. Sometimes I wait more than a minute before saying anything. I listen to the music, I overhear the conversations — always in Japanese. No one ever speaks to me directly.

At noon the other day, a meal showed up that I hadn’t even ordered. When I tried to pay the bill, the young Japanese delivery boy told me it was taken care of. I ended up with dishes I’d never tried before. No challenge there — I know next to nothing about Japanese cuisine. I only know that they consume an incredible quantity of fish. Actually, I’m just repeating what I’ve heard about Japan, since I haven’t bothered to do any research. I’m a flawless mimic. My ear picks up everything. My eye sees all. And my mouth swallows it whole. For the last few weeks, they’ve been careful to deliver meals containing no fish.

Finally it got to be too much. I dressed and went to the shopping center where I immediately spotted Mr. Tanizaki, choosing a bottle of wine.

“What do you want? What’s going on? What do you want from me?”

He began stammering in a strange cocktail: half English, one quarter French and one quarter Japanese, all on ice with a twist of lemon.

“But. . but. . I don’t understand what you are talking about,” he finally said.

“This is harassment.”

He changed color three times: yellow, green, then red. A parrot — I just knew it.

“I… I… I don’t understand.”

“What you’re doing is illegal, you know.”

The word nearly made him faint dead away. “I’m being harassed,” I went on, unaffected by his embarrassment. “I feel like someone’s always spying on me. And the person I seem to see every time I go out is you.” “Me?” he asked, pretending to be surprised. “Yes, you, Mr. Tanizaki.” He was sweating abundantly. “Can we get a coffee?” he stammered, and pointed to a little restaurant a few doors away.

We went and sat down. A coffee for him, tea for me.

“I’m listening,” I announced, without giving him time to compose himself.

“Believe me, I am very sorry.”

We stared at each other for a while. This time I held out. He lowered his eyes.

“I was a literature teacher in a high school in the Tokyo suburbs. My brother-in-law is an important person in the government. I was tired of teaching. He found me this job. The problem is, the job doesn’t exist. I have worked in every section of the consulate. I have been everyone’s assistant.”

“And?”

“And when I heard that you were writing a book about Japan…”

“Listen, I’m not writing about Japan, I’m writing about myself. I’m Japan. How many times do I have to repeat it? I thought you understood.”

“I understood that you were not necessarily a Japanese writer… But the word Japan is in the title.”

“I can choose any title I want.”

“The title intrigues us very much.”

“Who’s ‘us’?”

He took a deep breath.

“I work for a cultural magazine in Tokyo. I’ve been writing about this story for some time now, adding a little bit extra, of course. . You know that the Japanese are very interested in questions of identity.”

“But you are a people with a long history…”

“Sir, all peoples have long histories. Otherwise they would not exist. There is no spontaneous generation, am I right?”

“Okay.”

A silence settled in.

“It began after the defeat. The fact that we lost the war. . the humiliation the Americans publicly subjected our Emperor to. We are very proud, you know. We had built everything upon our pride. Since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have had to build everything on our weakness. . This desire for power that refuses to leave us. . So we simulate a strength we no longer have. Do you understand?”

“What do I have to do with that?”

He began sweating again. He repeated my question before answering it.

“And now someone comes along who claims he is a Japanese writer… I know, I know, you did set the record straight. I announced that in my country. All right, it was in a small journal. Everyone was so fascinated: a foreigner who is not particularly impressed by all the objects we produce, or all the fish we pull out of the sea. I told them you don’t even like sushi, and that intrigued them. Nor are you interested in our yen, or our geishas, or anything else.”

“Now don’t put words in my mouth! I have nothing against your yen. As for the geishas, we’ll see about that.”

He laughed heartily.

“You are interested in what is most fragile and intimate: our poetry. I told my countrymen about you and Basho.”

He stopped suddenly, overwhelmed by his own monologue. “I also pointed out that you are black… which brought out one of the unpleasant aspects of my country.”

“How is that?”

I knew exactly what he was talking about, but I like to play dumb.

“They took it as a terrible insult.”

“I don’t see how that could be insulting. I don’t consider being black an insult.”

He laughed uncomfortably.

“Yes. . of course. . Let’s just say that certain people, fortunately not everyone, believe that the country has fallen pretty low if we have to pay a black man to take on the identity of a Japanese writer.”

“What is this crap? No one’s paying me anything! It has nothing to do with Japan! This is my business!”

There — I’d finally become angry. Not because of the racist color the whole business had taken on, but because of the attack on my freedom as an artist.

“Of course, but you must understand them. When they discovered I was working at the consulate…”

“Did you tell them I was being paid, yes or no? You haven’t paid me anything!”

He wallowed in endless excuses. Considering he excused himself when he was in the right. . He was practically drowning in his own sweat. I wondered if he would commit hara-kiri, right here, with the butter knife.

The waitress brought my tea. She must have been seventy years old. I felt embarrassed for her. Waitressing is a student job. Students do it to pay their tuition, unless they strip for businessmen, downtown, on Thursday nights.

“What’s with all the plotting? The phone calls late at night, the magazines, the meals that show up — you’re behind all of it, right?”

He was gripping the knife tightly in his fist. The veins in his neck were rising and falling.

“I’m doing it for my column. There are people interested in this story. They would like to know how you can become a Japanese writer if you know nothing about Japan.”

“And that’s why you’re trying to feed me a little Japanese culture.”

“I’m only trying to direct your curiosity to something besides the clichés about Japan. You’re enthusiastic about this ancient Japan they keep beating us over the head with. As if we had nothing else to offer. . We would like Western artists to get interested in today’s Japan, not just in geishas and cherry trees. Young Japanese aren’t interested in Basho, you know.”

“They’re interested in America, and I’m not interested in them.”

“What would interest you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I would like to be able to help you.”

“Anything but that… On the other hand, yes, there is one thing. I’d like to know where the phone calls are coming from. I like the atmosphere. I’d like to drop in there some evening.”

Mr. Tanizaki looked chagrined.

“I’m afraid you can’t. It’s a game my readers thought of. They’re calling you from a discotheque in Tokyo.”

“What’s the game?”

“Whoever can keep you on the line longest wins. Now, I am sorry, I came here to buy wine, there is a small reception at the consulate this evening. If you could come, it would give us great pleasure. It would, in fact, be a honor for us.”

For a moment he hovered in a position that was halfway between sitting and standing. Too much in a hurry to wait until I got up, but too polite to get up before me. In the end I stood, which allowed him to go on his way.