Yes, I thought. Early one morning on the cycling path beside the canal near my house, I suddenly swooned and started to fall backward, only to be caught from behind by an unseen Good Samaritan. A moment later I found myself in a sitting position, with my entire weight supported by one of this invisible stranger’s strong, resilient thighs. I have to confess that I’ve thought more than once about how odd the tableau would have appeared to a passerby who didn’t understand the situation. I didn’t say any of this out loud, though.
“Anyway, for me,” Unaiko continued, “putting aside what Masao said about your being totally supportive of the postwar democratic reforms to the point of being doctrinaire, I was slightly concerned about Masao’s statement that the Japanese people also have a ‘deeper, darker sensibility.’ But then when I saw you getting totally carried away and singing along with the German lyrics of the Bach song during the rehearsal of our play … well, seeing another side of you was like a revelation, and I started to think about you in a whole different light. And that’s why I wanted to share this piece of my past with you today. I’ll be grateful for any illumination you can provide.”
I didn’t feel ready to tackle “that whole ideological can of worms” just then, so I skirted the issue by offering a compliment. “Asa has never been the type to jump into projects with people she barely knows,” I said. “Although on the rare occasions when it does happen, she tends to be rather gung ho. To be perfectly candid, I have to say that I’m intrigued by her decision to team up with you.”
“Masao was saying that Asa had done her part to support your work by staying behind in the village and looking after your mother,” Unaiko said. “Even in our brief acquaintance, I’ve come to share his feeling that Asa is the kind of person who would go the distance for anyone she cares about.”
“That’s very true,” I said. “But Asa seems totally committed to backing you, even though it isn’t exactly clear what direction you’re heading in, and as her brother I’m interested in seeing how everything will turn out.”
“It’s very comforting for me to have Asa here, cheering us on,” Unaiko said. “But the thing is, even I don’t have a clear idea of where I’m headed. Masao’s the one who mentored me, of course, and I’ll continue to be involved with his theater projects for the foreseeable future at least, so I expect I’ll go on benefiting from Asa’s support and kindness as well.
“However, I have a feeling that at some point my path will deviate from Masao’s, and I’ll strike out on my own. I mean, after all, Masao is the boss of the Caveman Group, and he’s a guy as well, right? I think Asa takes a rather sanguine view of the male dynamic. Oh, that reminds me — the other day she said, ‘Listen, Unaiko, you really shouldn’t expect my brother to do too much, even if the going gets tough. But I want you to know you can always depend on me.’ She added that you tend to help people primarily by lending your skills as a writer. (And, I gathered, as an occasional screenwriter? That sounds exciting!) She told me that I need to respect that invisible line and not ask too much of you.
“I totally understand the need for boundaries,” Unaiko went on, “but there are some other things I still haven’t been able to get a handle on … I mean, I do talk to Asa a lot, and I have a sense of what’s going on with you just from comments she’s made in passing. Even when we first met, Asa used to talk about you all the time. One time she said, ‘My brother may come across as an easygoing sort of person, but on another level he has a tendency to brood over his mistakes. He’s constantly tormented by regrets and misgivings about the past: deeds not done, roads not taken, and so on. He’s been that way for as long as I can remember, going back to childhood. I’m the same way. However, since I’ve gotten involved with the Caveman Group, and especially as my relationship has grown with the female members of the troupe — and with you especially, Unaiko — I’ve begun to feel as if I should be able to overcome that undesirable character trait. I’ve noticed young women nowadays don’t appear to have any regrets about anything, or any awareness of the possibility that their present actions might be sowing the seeds for future regrets. That’s perfectly natural, of course, since they probably haven’t had time to do anything they regret. They seem to feel completely fine about everything: clean and true and pure of heart. Since my eyes have been opened to that approach, I’ve been trying to adjust my own attitude accordingly.’
“I hope you don’t mind my quoting this long monologue, Mr. Choko, but your sister’s words made a huge impression on me. Asa went on to say, ‘If you can live in such a liberated way, all the more reason for someone like me to try to do the same, even at this late date. I’m not getting any younger, and I may not even have time to properly regret the foolish things I’m doing right now, so I’ll just have to follow the lead of my young female role models. Yes, I’ve made up my mind: from now on, my life will be a regret-free zone!’
“And after that, Asa did something truly touching. She made a solemn promise to stick with me artistically, even if it meant ending up on the opposite side from you, her own brother. As you know, Asa doesn’t make a habit of touching the person she’s talking to, so the image of her reaching out and putting her little hand on my shoulder as she spoke those words — just like this — is permanently seared into my memory.”
4
The following day, while I was reshuffling the materials from the red leather trunk that I’d laid out around my study, pausing periodically to speed-read whatever happened to catch my eye, Masao stopped by to drop off the color copies Asa had ordered from the shop in Matsuyama.
“It was terribly kind of you to grant Unaiko a private audience yesterday,” he said with exaggerated formality. “To tell you the truth,” he went on, lapsing back into his normal speech patterns, “I was sweating it a little bit. Originally I thought that if Unaiko had a bee in her bonnet about our dramatization of Wipe My Tears Away—and if she was just going to criticize the play, as she’s done in the past, as an orgy of Yasukuni Shrine-worshipping ultranationalism or whatever — then it would have been a waste of time for her to talk to you about it. That’s what I was thinking in the beginning. But the other day during the rehearsal, we came to the scene where the young officers and the schoolboy are on their way to the ill-fated insurrection and they spontaneously start singing a song about the Heiland—who is on the same exalted level as our emperor — praising him as a savior. To everyone’s amazement, you were so moved that you began to sing along with the chorus, and Unaiko told me afterward that when she saw your reaction it made her curious about what you were feeling in that moment. Oh, and another thing she said, after your meeting, was that since you listened so patiently to her story, the fundamental mistrust she used to feel toward you has disappeared (even though I gather you didn’t exactly answer her questions). Apparently your attentiveness came as a pleasant surprise because Asa had told us that one thing you and Unaiko have in common is that neither of you is very good at listening to what other people have to say!