I heard the scratching noise inside the tissue as the insect struggled to get out, I realized what kinship meant. I undid the paper roughly, and my brother gasped, “He’ll get away! Look! Look!” I could see it was only a stag beetle, but I put it down as “sheathed and winged,” one of my ten types, and handed it in.
I was depressed to see the vacation end. Returning all alone to my second-floor room at the dry-goods store, I opened my trunk and almost burst into tears. At such times I always sought refuge in a bookstore. There was one close by, and I hurried there now. Just to see all the books lining the shelves would lighten my mood as if by magic. This particular store had one corner containing a half dozen volumes that I couldn’t buy even though I wanted to. Now and then I would linger there and peek inside the covers. I would try to act casual, but my knees would be shaking. Of course, I didn’t go to bookstores just to read articles on anatomy. I went because any book gave me comfort and solace at the time.
My schoolwork, however, became more and more boring. Nothing was worse than coloring in the mountain ranges, harbors, and rivers on an outline map. I was a stickler about things, so I would spend three or four hours at this. In history and certain other classes the teachers told us to take notes on the main points of the lectures. Listening to a lecture was like reading a textbook, so the students merely copied sentences straight from the book. Being attached to grades, I worked away at such tasks day after day.
In the fall there were various athletic events for the high-school students in town. Out in the countryside we had never played baseball, so I only knew such terms as “center field,” “deep short,” and “bases loaded” from books. Eventually I learned how to watch a game, but I didn’t get worked up about it. Whenever my own school competed in tennis, judo, or even baseball, I had to join the cheering section. This made me dislike high school all the more.
Our head cheerleader would look purposely shabby as he climbed the knoll in the schoolyard corner and, holding a fan with the rising sun insignia, give us a pep talk. Reacting to him, the students would cry out with glee, “Slob! You slob!” When a match took place, this cheerleader leaped up during every break in the action and started waving his fan. “ALL STAND UP!” he’d shout in his funny English. And we would get up, our tiny purple banners flapping in unison, and sing the fight song: “Our Foe is Worthy, But ...” It was quite embarrassing. When I spied an opportunity, I’d slip away from the cheering section and go home.
Not that I myself never played sports. My complexion had a faint darkness, which I blamed on the massaging. I became flustered when people mentioned my face, for they seemed to be indicating this secret vice of mine. Somehow or other I felt I must improve my color. That’s why I took up sports.
I had long fretted about my complexion. As early as my fourth or fifth year of elementary school, my next older brother had already spoken to me of democratic ideas.10 Then I heard certain complaints, even from Mother. She once told visitors to our home that democracy had meant much higher taxes and that most of the family harvest now went to the government. I was quite confused by the various things I heard. At the same, I tried to be democratic toward our family’s servants. In the summer I lent a hand to the men mowing the lawn, and in the winter I helped shovel snow from the roof. Eventually I discovered that my help wasn’t welcome. It even seems the men had to redo the part of the lawn that I had tried to mow. To tell the truth, I was actually trying to improve my color. But even hard work didn’t do any good.
During high school I got into sports because of my complexion. On the way home from school in the summer, I always took a dip in the ocean. I liked to use the breast stroke, keeping my legs wide apart, just as a frog might. With my head sticking straight out of the water, I could observe various things even as I swam—the delicate shading of the waves, the fresh leaves on shore, the drifting clouds. I kept my head stretched out like a turtle. If I could bring my face even a bit closer to the sun, I’d get a tan that much quicker.
There was a large graveyard behind the house where I lived. I laid out a hundred-meter course for myself and took up sprinting in earnest. Since the graveyard was surrounded by a dense row of tall poplars, I could loiter within the grounds and examine one requiem post after another whenever I got tired. I read some unforgettable phrases— “Moonlight Penetrates the Pool Bottom,” for example, or “Three Worlds, One Purpose.”
One day, on a dark, moist gravestone covered with liverwort, I made out some writing that said, “The Deceased, Jakushō Seiryō.” Ascribed to the dead man in accord with Buddhist practice, the name evoked the solitude and quiet of the grave. Disturbed by this discovery, I made up several lines of verse and wrote them down on the white paper that had recently been folded like a lotus leaf and left before the grave. Intended to suggest a certain French poet, the lines read: I am in the ground now, together with the maggots. With my index finger I traced the words in mud as delicately as a ghost might have done.
The next evening I went to the grave before I did my sprinting. The words of the ghost had washed away in the rain that morning, so none of the bereaved kin would have been offended by seeing them on a visit to the grave. The white lotus leaves had torn in places.
Even as I fooled around like this, I got better at running. My leg muscles began to bulge too, but my complexion remained the same as ever. Beneath the deep tan on my face a pale, dirty color still lingered. It was quite unsavory.
I was very intrigued by my face. When weary of reading, I would take out a hand mirror and gaze at myself. Smiling, frowning, looking contemplative with my cheek resting on my palm, I never got bored. I mastered certain expressions guaranteed to make people laugh. Wrinkling my nose, pursing my mouth, and squinting, I would turn myself into a charming bear cub. I chose that particular look when puzzled or dissatisfied.
Around this time my next older sister was in the local hospital because of an illness. If I showed her my bear-cub face, she would roll about in bed laughing hard and holding her stomach. My sister had a middle-aged maid from home for company, but she was still lonely. That’s why my visits meant a lot to her. My slow footsteps in the hospital corridor echoed louder than those of other people, so my sister could hear me approaching her room. By the time I got there, she would be elated.
If I didn’t visit her for a week, my sister would send the maid to fetch me. With a solemn look the maid would say, You’d better come or your sister’s temperature will go up. She’ll be worse off then.
I was now fourteen or fifteen, and veins had become faintly visible on the back of my hand. I felt something strange and momentous taking place within me. I was secretly in love with a classmate, a short fellow with dark skin. We always walked home together after school, blushing when our little fingers merely grazed one another. Once, as we were heading along the back road after school, my friend noticed a lizard swimming right in a ditch where parsley and chickweed grew wild. Without a word he scooped up the lizard and gave it to me. I couldn’t stand such creatures, but I pretended to be overjoyed as I wrapped this one in my handkerchief. Back home, I released the lizard in the garden pool where it swam around, its tiny head wavering. I looked in the pool the next morning, but the lizard was gone.
Stuck on myself, I never considered telling my companion how I felt. I usually didn’t say much to him, anyway. With the skinny girl from next door, it was even worse. She was a student too, and I was quite aware of her. Even when I came toward her on the street, though, I quickly looked away as if in contempt.
One night in autumn a fire broke out near our house. Along with the others I got up to watch the flames shooting from the darkness of the neighborhood shrine and the sparks scattering all around. A grove of dark cedars loomed above the flames, and small birds darted through the air like innumerable fluttering leaves. I knew perfectly well that the girl was standing in her white pajamas by the gate next door and looking at me. I kept gazing toward the fire, though, with the side of my face toward her. I figured the glare of the flames would make my profile glitter and look splendid.
Being this way, I couldn’t initiate anything on my own, neither with this classmate nor with the girl next door. When alone, though, I would act bold. I’d close one eye and laugh at myself in the mirror, or carve a thin mouth in the desktop with a knife and press my lips to it. When I colored it with red ink afterwards,