At the Water’s Edge
I
…The rain still continued to fall. After finished lunch, we gossiped of our friends in Tōkyō as we smoked countless Shikishima cigarettes.
Where we were was a detached space of two large rooms, shaded from the empty garden by a reed shutter. Though I called it empty, in the garden there was just a sparse scattering of sand sedge—‘missionaries’ wheat,’ it was called—with their ears drooping over the sand. By the time we had come the head of the wheat was no longer all there. What was there was freshly grown, bright green. However, before long each ear of wheat would change to the same brown and grow plump with seeds.
“Well, I wonder if I should get to working.”
M—, totally stretched out on the ground, was wiping his glasses on the thickly-starched bathrobe provided by the inn. His work was that he had to write something each month for our magazine, and it pointed to that creation of something.
After M— had retired to the next room, I took the cushion for use as a pillow and began to read Eight Dogs. Yesterday I had started to read the section where Shino, Genpachi, Kobungo, and the rest set out to save Sōsuke. “And at that time Amazaki Terufumi withdrew from his purse five parcels of gold dust. First, as the third parcel was enough to be carried on a fan… Sankenshi collected thirty ryō. Though it be a trifling land, this was only for traveling expenses. Without it becoming a parting gift, in its becoming a boon of Satomidono, I command, as my parting words, for this to be the last.”
While reading, I recalled the forty sen payment for my manuscript which had arrived the day before last. Both of us had graduated from the university’s English department this July. Therefore, we were in imminent danger of having to create a plan to support ourselves. I had gradually forgotten about Eight Dogs, and come to think about becoming an instructor. However, it seemed that I soon fell asleep, and had this short dream:
It appeared to be late some night. I was lying alone in a room, the shutters closed. Then, someone knocked on the door, calling out, “Hello?” I was aware that on the other side of the door there was a pond. However, I knew not at all who could be calling out to me.
“Hello? I have something to ask of you, I’m afraid…” the voice outside the door said. When I heard those words, I thought, “Aha, so it’s K—!” K— was in the philosophy department, one year my senior. A man who failed at everything he tried. Still prone, I replied in a rather loud voice:
“Don’t give me that pathetic voice. You asking about money again?”
“No, it’s not about money. There’s just a girl I wanted my friend to meet…”
That voice was altogether unlike K—. Furthermore, it was altogether unlike a person who was worried about me. Quickly getting excited, I jumped up to thrust open the door. In reality the pond expanded out wide from the edge of the porch. However, of course I could not see any sign of K—.
I gazed out for a little while at the moon reflected on the pond. It seemed that the tide was coming in from the flowing seaweed. Soon I noticed the ripples glimmering right before my eyes. As the ripples came to my feet, there came to be a single carp. It was leisurely wiggling its fins in the area where the water was clear.
“Oh, it was the carp that said hello,” I thought, relieved—then I awoke. By that time gentle light was already peeping in through the reed shutter. I took a washbasin to the garden and went to the back well to wash my face. However, once I had washed my face the memory of the dream still clung strangely to me. “So that carp must be one of those things from my unconscious mind,” was what I thought, more or less.
II
…After about an hour, we slipped on borrowed sandals, and, towels wrapped around our heads, we went to go swimming in the sea near Hanjō. The path wound down through the garden and then continued directly to the shore.
“Will we be able to swim?”
“It might be a bit cold.”
We talked as such as we detoured around a thicket of missionaries’ wheat (you would be amazed at how itchy your calves can get after carelessly treading through wet missionaries’ wheat). The weather as we got to the beach was definitely too cool. However, I held some lingering affection for the sea in Kazusa—or rather for a Kazusa summer sunset.
Even when we had arrived yesterday, there were of course seven or eight men and women in the sea, testing the waters. However, today there was only no sign of people, even the red flags marking off the area for bathing were not flying. There was just the waves breaking on the expansive shoreline. And in the screens set up for changing clothes—there a dog was chasing a cloud of insects. And even then, when it saw us, it immediately fled in the opposite direction.
Though I had already removed my sandals, I could not work up enough interest to go swimming. However, before I realized it M— had stowed his robe and glasses in the changing area, and putting on his swim cap, rushed into the surging shoals.
“Hey, you really wanna go in?”
“That’s what we came here for, isn’t it?” M—, about knee-deep in water, stooped over, and turned to show me his sunburned smile.
“Get in already!”
“No thanks.”
“You’ll come in if I give you my ‘Winning Smile.’”
“You’re talking nonsense!”
‘Winning Smile’ was a student of fifteen or sixteen whom I had exchanged greetings with once when I was here. I was not an exceptionally attractive youth. However I was a vibrant youth who looked something like a young tree. One long ago day, the tenth of something, we emerged from the sea and flopped out bodies on the hot sand. There, splashed by the salt water, we dragged around a plank of wood. But, when he saw us tumble at his feet, he laughed, showing off his bright teeth. After he had gone by, M— sent me a sarcastic smile and said:
“He gave you his winning smile!” Since then we had had the name Winning Smile between us.
“No way you’re coming in?”
“No way.”
“God damn egotist!” Body dripping, M— began to swim steadily further out. Unconcerned for M—, I climbed atop a small sand dune a little ways distant from the changing area. Then, I placed my borrowed sandals beneath me and tried to smoke a Shikishima. However, in the wind, which was stronger than I expected, I could not get my match to the cigarette.
“Hey!”
M— had returned at some point and, lingering in the shallows, was calling out to me. Unfortunately, the unceasing waves made it so I could not hear him clearly.
“What’s wrong?” By the time I called out M— had already thrown on his robe and sat down beside me.
“Goddamn jellyfish got me.”
In the past few days, apparently the jellyfish population had exploded. In truth, the morning of the day before last, I too had had needle tracks running up my left arm from elbow to shoulder.
“Where?”
“All round my neck. I thought it’d got me and so I looked behind me, and there were a bunch of them just floating there.”
“That’s why I didn’t go in.”
“Shut up! Though, they did shut down the bath.”
Along the shore there was, besides the beached seaweed, glittered sunlight as far as I could see. There was just the occasional shadow of a passing cloud. For a while we gazed in silence at the waves which crashed on this shore, cigarettes in mouths.
“You decided to go into teaching?” M— asked suddenly.
“Not yet. You?”
“Me? I…” M— started to say something, but then we were suddenly surprised by laughter and loud footsteps. There were two women, about our age, clad in swimsuits and swim caps. Passing by us as if they owned the beach, they ran right for the water. We saw them from behind: one was wearing a bathing suit of deep crimson, and the other was like a tiger, yellow and black stripes. At some point we grinned in unison, looking at their retreating figures.
“They haven’t returned yet.” M— entrusted even his jokes with some strong feelings.
“Well, should we go in one more time?”
“You’ll go in alone. Anyway, you’ll have ‘Singesicht’ to keep you company.”
Like ‘Winning Smile’ before, one of us had given the woman wearing the black-and-yellow swimsuit the nickname ‘Singesicht.’ It came from the sensuality (sinnlich) of her facial features (gesicht). Both of us found it difficult to extend any feelings of good will towards this woman. And the other woman, well, M— had a comparative interest in the other woman. He also insisted that the conditions were right for, “You to take her, and so I’ll get her.”
“Get in there, for the women’s’ sake!”
“Hmm, to display a sacrificial disposition? But you’re aware of exactly what we saw, too.”
“Is ‘being aware of’ the right thing to say?”
“No! It’s a little offensive.”
Holding hands, the two women had already entered the shallows. The waves did not stop at their feet; the spray splashed up. It was then that they jumped back, as if they were afraid of getting wet. Their frolicking was so showy that I felt it incongruous with the lonely, lingering heat of the summer, here at the water’s edge. Truly, their beauty was more like that of butterflies than women. Listening to their laughing voices, carried by the wind, we stared at them for a while longer.
“Oh, how brave!”
“I can still touch the bottom.”
“Not anym—oh, there it is.”
Long ago having let go of each other’s hand, the women proceeded separately further into the water. One of them—the one in the crimson swimsuit, moved particularly quickly. At that instant, standing in water up to her breasts, while beckoning to the other woman, she called out in a shrill voice. Even from afar that swim cap-covered face laughed lively.
“A jellyfish?”
“Maybe.”
However, in a line, they headed out further into the ocean.
Eventually we could only see their swim caps, and we finally got up from the sand. After that we didn’t talk much (we were undoubtedly hungry) and leisurely headed back to the inn.
III
The dusk was cool like autumn. Upon finishing dinner, we headed to the beach once again, in the company of a friend, H—, who was on his way home, and Mr. N—, son of the innkeeper. This is not at all to say that we were all going for a walk. H— was looking for his uncle from the village of S—, and Mr. N— had come to order a basket for trapping chickens from a basket-maker in that same village.
The path along the beach to S— Village circled the foot of a tall sand dune and then headed in the exact opposite direction from the area marked off for bathing. The sea, of course, was hidden by the dunes, and all that you could hear was the faint sound of the waves. However, as the black ears of the sparsely grown tall grass appeared, they were incessantly buffeted by the salt breeze.
“This isn’t missionaries’ grass growing over here. What is it called, Mr. N—?”
I picked one stalk at my feet and passed it to N—, who was dressed in casual clothes.
“Hmm, it’s not knotweed. What is it called? I bet Mr. H— knows. I’m not from around here.”
We had heard that Mr. N— had become the son-in-law of a Tōkyō family. And we had also heard that his wife had met another man and eloped with him.
“Mr. H— knows a lot more about fish than me, too.”
“Well, H— is quite the scholar! And here I am thinking all I knew about was kendo.” H— just grinned at this, dragging along his beaten walking stick.
“Mr. M—, you must have something to do as well?”
“Me? I’m just here to swim.”
After Mr. N— had lit his Golden Bat cigarette, he told a story about the Tōkyō stockbroker who was stung by a scorpion fish while swimming. No matter who said what, the stockbroker said no, it’s not as though I’ve been stung by a scorpion fish. He persisted in saying that it was definitely a snake eel.
“Are you telling me there’s really snake eels?” However, the one to answer that question was the tall, swim-capped H—.
“Really? There are snake eels in this ocean, you know.”
“Even now?”
“Well, not often.”
All four of us laughed. Away from us were two people nagarami picking (Nagarami is a species of snail), walking with fishing baskets. Both of them were men in red loincloths, all muscles. However, their figures, painted with water and sun, evoked feelings not of the ephemeral but of the shabby. When Mr. N— passed them by, he exchanged a brief greeting with them, and then called out, “Why don’t you take a bath?”
“What an intolerable job!”
I, too, felt that I could not go nagarami picking.
“Yes, absolutely unbearable. Anyway, if you go swimming out far enough, you sink to the bottom a lot.”
“And to make matters worse, if you get swept up in a current, nine times out of ten nobody can save you!”
H—, shaking his beaten walking stick, talked all about currents. He also mixed in things like that currents can go on for something like three miles from the shore.
“Say, Mr. H—, when was that? When was it you said that the ghosts of the nagarami pickers appeared?”
“Last year—no, autumn, the year before last.”
“There were really ghosts?” Before Mr. H— could answer, M— let slip his laughter.
“They were not ghosts. But, what they said was ghosts appearing was a cemetery in the shadow of the mountain, stinking of fish. And to make matters worse, the corpse of the nagarami picker were covered in shrimp, and so even though nobody took it seriously at first, it was definitely unsettling. Before long a naval officer is hanging around the cemetery all night, and at last he sees the ghosts with his own two eyes. Catching them is easy. It was just some prostitute from the town who was engaged to the nagarami picker. And still, for a little while there was some clamor that you could hear the voice of a fiery man!”
“Didn’t it even get to the point that that woman was startling people?”
“Yes, every night around twelve she would go to the nagarami picker’s grave and just stand there in a stupor.”
Mr. N—‘s comedy seemed an appropriate tale for this beach. But nobody was laughing. Everybody just continued on walking in silence.
“Well, maybe it’s time to head back.”
When M— said this, we were walking along the deserted shore. At some point the wind had begun to blow. The surroundings were bright enough that we could still see the tracks of birds on the wide expanse of sand. However, as far out into the ocean as we could see, it was all blackening in the dusk. Each time the arcing waves impacted they left behind a line of froth.
“Well, excuse me.”
“Good-bye.”
Once H— and Mr. N— had departed, we walked back along the cold water’s edge, in no particular hurry. Occasionally in addition to the waves breaking we could hear the clear chirping of cicadas. They must have been the cicadas in a forest at least three towns away from here.
“Hey, M—!” At some point I had fallen five paces behind M—.
“What?”
“You want to head back to Tōkyō?”
“Sure, why not?”
And then M— began to whistle jauntily, “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.”
(7th August, 1925)