The Early Autumn of O—
Knees tucked against my chest, I was talking with O—, a painter in the Western style. He was in a red shirt, lying on his stomach on the tatami, chain-smoking Bats. And beside O—, there was a strangely imposing artificial leg, facing upwards so its white sock was pointed towards the ceiling.
“Can’t you just feel the last of the summer heat?”
Before he replied, O—, raising his eyebrows, gave a look to the flowers on the edge of the veranda. Countless small shoots of aster were in a tangle, basking in the sun without a sound.
“Hey, they’re blooming! These…whatchamacallits, they’re the ones you see on decorated fans!”
X
It was sunset. The air was clear and the ocean could not be heard. As expected, I was walking with O— along a wide sandy path. Then from the other direction came a young woman walking along the hedges. A fairly tall thing, her simple patterned clothes tied with a red belt.
“Oh, I feel so sorry for her. Having to deal with those long legs.”
In truth, the woman’s attitude was just as O— had said.
X
Cane tucked into his armpit, O— was taking a piss on a concrete wall behind some large villa. Then came along a bespectacled policeman. It appeared, naturally, that he wanted to find offense with this, and so he pointed at O— with his white fan.
“It’s this. This,” O— managed in more or less of a stammer, rapping on his right leg a couple times with his cane. The right leg was the artificial one, and so the knocking sound was unmistakable.
“My house is just over there, so…”
Grinning, the policeman walked on without a word.
X
It was night, the western sun just lingering on the roofs of the houses and the tops of the pines. I happened to run into O— in front of a candy store. Uncommonly for his, O— had changed into Western clothes and he had resorted to his crutches.
“So it’s crutches today.”
O— smiled, showing his white teeth.
“Yeah, went with the oars today.”
X
I had gone over to O—’s house, and in a small room beneath the lamp we talked of many things. But mainly of sensitivity and telepathy and the like. This is what we talked about. There was another story, too: one night or other, a friend of mine, U—, poured himself a cup of water and placed it at his bedside, and when he looked a short while later at some point half the water was gone. When he was dozing, the water all of a sudden splashed on his face. And yet, when he jumped up in surprise, the cup was perfectly fine.
And then when we were out walking, we decided to go into town to go shopping. Then O— uncharacteristically, started to shut the bay window. And he said to me, laughing, “When the light hits the window, you know, when I came in from outside there was somebody sitting here. Seemed like he was drinking just some hot water.”
O—, you see, had been cooking for himself in this house.
X
O—, wearing a black vest over a red shirt as usual, was stoking a fire in a pit under the rear eaves of the house around eleven in the morning. The kindling was of dried pine needles and pinecones. Coming to the back door, I said, “What’s up? You gonna boil something?” But when O— turned around, he ignored my questioned and gestured to the nearby pines with his chin.
“You’re gonna boil something like this, you’ll need ALL the trees!”
X
O—, wearing a panama hat, was sitting on a squat sand dune, diligently working a broom. There was a bungalow, only its supports white, in the middle of some pine trees, its shutters lowered in silence. That is my impression of it. The pine trees rose to about twenty feet, the same as the ones around our place, and the young pinecones were buffeted by the typical autumn-like breeze.
“So you get pinecones on these sort of pine trees too, you see.”
O replied, still sweeping, without turning towards me.
“I feel like a girl’s gotten pregnant.”
X
O—, in between his main work, seriously composed poetry. To this occasion to paint a portrait of O— I will add some of those poems:
I wonder if clouds / Are interposed with bamboo / Grown among orchids
You should not well dry / Your bedding on the same shelf / Where you keep loofahs
Early fallen leaves / Oh! shall lead to butterflies / Thread-thin silver-grass
Gently fading light / Peels the sponge gourd skin at / The side of the well
Lo, these hearty trees / On the edge of seasons are / Pine forests of grass
Speaking of chestnuts / In the first harvest there are / Large ones to be found!
Break a balsam seed / When the seed has broken wide / You hear a bird’s cry
(1915, October 11, Kugenuma)