I Am a Japanese Writer

THE PUBLISHER OF STOCKHOLM

I HAVEN’T BEEN sleeping well lately. It isn’t easy to sit in front of your typewriter, doing nothing, when you know that someone on the other side of the world is suffering the same pains you are. In this case, it’s my publisher. He can’t write the book for me, though he’d like to. That would spare him an ulcer. All he can do is wait. I once saw a Kurosawa film that perfectly explained the publisher’s function. It was about the shogun who must not move while the battle is taking place. The arrows whistle past his ears but he says nothing and moves not at all. He sits motionless. Impassive. And so my publisher determines the outcome of the battle of writing through his powerful immobility. I feel his presence most strongly when he doesn’t appear.

“Hello!”

“It’s your publisher.”

“I was thinking about you.”

“I’m in Stockholm for a colloquium about Andersen.”

“But he’s Danish.”

“The Danes hate Andersen because he made them look like monsters who would let a poor little girl die of cold. I don’t know how I got caught in this mess. Even when I was a kid I hated Andersen. The worst nightmares in my life came from reading “The Little Match Girl.” I ended up in this business because of that fairy tale. It ruined my life. I’m willing to bet it wasn’t written by someone who was moved by the poor little girl’s fate — oh, no, it was written by a sadist, a pervert, a bastard, a sick man.”

“Okay,” I said to slow him down, “don’t get carried away, it’s only a colloquium. Stop stewing in your room and go out and get a drink somewhere.”

“There’s not even a bar in this hotel. I got back an hour ago, completely exhausted by some wordy bitch who kept beating me over the head with her damned Andersen.”

“You won’t escape him where you are. There must be a whole tribe of Andersen specialists where you’re staying.”

“I’m afraid so… I called the front desk and asked what floor the bar was on. No bar, sir. Why not? You can drink in your room if you want to. You can drink in your room, but not in a bar. The guy probably thought I was an alcoholic. We argued back and forth for a while, then I lay down on the bed with my clothes on.”

I’d rarely heard him so wound up. Andersen, plus the fact that he couldn’t have a nightcap in a quiet corner of a bar, in the shadows, must have disturbed him deeply. People have their habits. But why go if you hate Andersen so much? Probably for the free booze, and a little convention fling.

“There must be a bar somewhere, I’m sure. Those northerners really know how to drink.”

“The nightcap is drunk at the hotel,” he said categorically.

“I’m in full agreement.”

“So I fell asleep and slept a half hour. Then I woke up and went to smoke a cigarette by the window and look at the town — otherwise I wouldn’t have seen any of it. I went back to bed with a pile of manuscripts. I put two pillows behind my back and my head, and I got ready for a sleepless night. That’s what I like to do most of all: read manuscripts in a hotel room. That’s why I say yes to these trips. Those books were written just for me — or at least it seems that way. If I don’t like them, they won’t exist.”

He was sparing me no details. His life was a regular novel.

“The television was on, and all of a sudden there was your face, a close-up, looking right at me.”

“What was I doing on tv in Stockholm? I don’t even know that town.”

“That’s modern life, old man. We’re known in places we don’t even know ourselves. . It was a piece from Japanese tv. You were walking in a park in Montreal. I thought I was hallucinating when I heard them talk about your novel I Am a Japanese Writer. I’d only been half paying attention, but now I jumped right out of the bed. It was completely crazy. . A thousand possibilities went through my head. Like that some prankster had tinkered with the hotel TV system to play a trick on me. Maybe there really is a bar in the hotel— they’re just toying with my nerves. I don’t mind telling you, my problem isn’t alcohol, but the lack of it. . I don’t know if you understand the position this puts me in. People will have seen the report on tv. Tomorrow they’re going to torture me with questions. Other publishers are going to want to buy the rights. What do I tell them?”

“If you want to sell my book to a Swedish publisher, go ahead, but on one condition: I don’t want a title like ‘I Am a Swedish Writer.’”

“Why not? That’s an excellent idea! We’ll do the same thing for every country that wants to publish it. It’ll be perfect for translation.”

“I’ll end up looking like a chameleon.”

“But what the hell is going on? I haven’t even got the book and already it’s been translated, and in Japanese. Am I the publisher or not?”

“Don’t worry, I haven’t written it yet. The Japanese wanted to do a piece on a book that isn’t written. That’s their way of getting a step up on us. We’re old-fashioned, with our books that have to be written, published, critiqued and read — maybe. Too many steps.”

“I want the manuscript in two weeks. I want to catch up with the Japanese.”

“Two weeks!”

“Look, I’m going out to get a drink at the corner bar. When I get back, I expect to have it on my bed. If you can do that, I’ll get you the Nobel.”

“A drink would be good enough for me.”