“I see,” Masao said. He sounded more peeved than sympathetic. “I suppose this is also the end of my current project as well. Oh well — easy come, easy go. After all, until your recent attempt to resurrect this book it had been lying dormant for nearly forty years, right?”
“Yes, that’s true,” I said. “But when I gave another listen to the tape Unaiko brought over last night, I realized what a fool I had been to think my mother would blithely help me write a novel about something that would have hit so close to home for her. Really, I must have been delusional, or at least absurdly optimistic, to assume she would eventually give her approval and hand over the red leather trunk so I could get back to work. Asa knew the truth all along, but until now I guess she didn’t see any reason to destroy my illusions about our father’s heroism. In the end, I was no match for my mother and sister. When those two females pooled their resources, they were really a force to be reckoned with.”
“That reminds me of something I said to Asa and Unaiko,” Masao said. “This was before you came to stay at the Forest House, and I was only reacting to what I’d heard about the various complications. Anyway, I remember saying, ‘I can’t help wondering whether it was Mr. Choko’s desire to write a revisionist version of history — creating an alternative reality in which his father was some sort of fallen hero — that doomed the project to failure from the start.’
“Of course, it’s water under the bridge now — no pun intended, and I don’t want you to think I’m taking this lightly at all. What I mean is, even though your drowning novel is never going to be finished I still think your younger self’s idea of telling your father’s story through the prism of T. S. Eliot’s ‘Death by Water’ poem is a beautiful thing. For me, it would have been very illuminating to see how you went about transmuting that into prose. Just in terms of methodology — a term you often used when you were in your forties, much to the amusement (or horror) of some of your lit-crit colleagues — I think it could have been quite a tour de force.”
“It’s true that when I was younger a lot of critics used to make fun of me for daring to discuss my writing in terms of methodology — and they were already down on me for my chosen method of transmuting my private life into fiction,” I said. “But the ‘I novel’ method was the reason I was staking my hopes on the red leather trunk, then and now. The year I started college in Tokyo also happened to be the tenth anniversary of my father’s death, and when I came home to attend the traditional Buddhist service my mother jokingly predicted that I might someday become a novelist and write a book based on the materials in the red leather trunk. But now it’s looking as though the joke was on me, in more ways than one.
“Of course, my sister seems to have known that all along. Speaking of Asa, there are still a few drops left in the bottle she sent over last night. How about it, Masao — won’t you join me in a little hair of the dog?”
Chapter 5. The Big Vertigo
1
There was no word from Asa for several days, so we hadn’t yet talked about our mother’s cassette-tape bombshell. Unaiko (who was staying at Asa’s house) had informed me that she would be bringing over my meals while my sister tended to her own affairs, which she had apparently been neglecting since my arrival. As for me, I had definitely made up my mind to decamp from the Forest House. I thought this might be the last time I ever came down here for an extended stay, so I needed to spend a large chunk of time tidying up my own effects and getting ready to vacate the premises.
One day I asked Unaiko to tell Asa I was planning to leave for Tokyo at the beginning of the following week. Upon hearing that news, Asa called to ask whether she could stop by to discuss some practical matters.
“I phoned Chikashi a while ago,” Asa declared with her trademark directness as she strode through the front door of the Forest House not long afterward. “She was perfectly calm, as usual, and she said that when she heard about the failure of your quest to find the materials you needed to complete your drowning novel — which was, of course, your primary purpose in coming to Shikoku — she figured you would probably pack up and return home. I’m only mentioning how cool she sounded because I’d been concerned that your decision to abandon a major literary project might create some cash-flow problems for your family, but Chikashi put my mind at ease by addressing the issue on her own.
“She told me that while the income from both foreign-rights and paperback sales of your books had definitely tapered off, you were continuing to write a series of essays for one of the big newspapers, and whenever you went to deliver lectures at small venues outside of Tokyo there was a magazine that paid to publish your lecture texts after you’d polished them a bit. She said this is how it’s always been for writers of pure, noncommercial literature, especially in the latter phases of their careers. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but you really hit the jackpot when you persuaded Chikashi to become your wife. She truly is a magnificent human being.
“On another topic, I wanted to talk about the tape recording I sent over for you to listen to. Since I already knew what was on Mother’s tape I naturally felt a bit guilty (or at least conflicted) about passing it on to you. That’s why I included some strong liquor to dull the pain. I thought it would be all right, just this once, even though you haven’t been drinking much lately. I was worried about the impact the tape might have on your emotional state, but when I quizzed Masao after he’d seen you the next morning he said you appeared to be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and none the worse for wear. Even so, I couldn’t stop thinking that maybe I shouldn’t have given you a bottle, especially after you’ve made such a valiant — and successful — effort to overcome your fondness for the hard stuff. When I walked in today I was afraid I might find the kitchen strewn with empty bottles of the cheap Scotch you can buy everywhere these days, even at our local supermarket here in the boonies, but when I peeked in there just now the only bottle in sight was the one I sent you the other night, so that was a relief.
“Anyhow, for your supper tonight I’ll be sending Unaiko over with some dishes I prepared, along with some more of the shochu from the other night — properly chilled this time. I was thinking it might be nice for you and Unaiko to share the bottle and keep each other company. Since your writing project has fizzled out, I imagine the work you’ve been doing till now with the Caveman Group will probably be a lost cause as well. It’s natural that Unaiko would want to talk to you about various things and also, in terms of improving your mood, I figured hanging out with her would probably be a lot more fun than sitting around with your sister — am I right?”
2
When Unaiko showed up for our farewell dinner, she was wearing a stylish summer outfit: a pale blouse in a floral print and a full, flouncy skirt. During the recent rehearsal, Unaiko’s rather drab, functional attire had made her look more like a stagehand than an actress, but seeing her now in a casual situation, she seemed much more youthful than usual — girlish, even. Asa had prepared several tasty dishes using ham, sausage, and various types of edible wild plants she’d picked herself in the nearby mountains and then stir-fried. Unaiko dug into the meal with gusto and matched me drink for drink as well. Perhaps to reassure me, she mentioned that she had a tendency to become intoxicated rather quickly, so she had sensibly arranged for Masao to drive her home at the end of the evening.