This ambiguous valediction excited the Japanese ('The phrase, "Boys, be ambitious!" has since embodied the life target of our young people.' – Sapporo Handbook), but the idea of a man from Mass. Aggie being remembered for telling the Japanese to be ambitious struck me as hilarious. Doctor Crack!
I gave my lecture. Over three months earlier, in Istanbul, I had spoken on the tradition of the American novel, implying that it was special and local. In India I contradicted most of this, and by the time I got to Japan I had come full circle, claiming that there was no real tradition in American writing that was not also European. The novel was of the West, and even the writers we considered most American, like Twain and Faulkner, were as affected by the British novel as by their native inspiration. It was as easy to define the American tradition as Borges did the Argentine one: all of Western culture. This thesis, which might be true, disconcerted the Japanese. They stood and bowed at the end of the lecture, saying, 'We have not read Mr Borges, but we have read Mr Leslie Fiedler. He has written as follows -'
'Why don't you stay and have a drink?' I said afterwards to the pretty Japanese girl in the hallway. It was the Shimamura in me talking. She hid her face in her fur collar and tossed her black hair.
'I can't,' she said.
'Why not?'
'Because,' she said, and started to make her getaway, 'because I am so shy!'
My offer was given impromptu, and it had to be turned down for that reason. It was the wrong time: the Japanese have a sense of occasion, which the following story may illustrate. That same night in Sapporo, an American woman, whose daughter was in a Japanese kindergarten, was invited to dinner by another mother, whose daughter was in her child's class. The dinner had two purposes – to introduce the American woman to Japanese culture, and to butter up the teacher, who had also been invited. This feeding of teachers – treating them at expensive restaurants – is a common feature of Japanese courtesy and presumably guarantees that your child will get the friendly attention he deserves. The dinner was served by two geishas; three more geishas played music, and the food came in such great quantities that after an hour the three diners abandoned the pretence of eating and spoke on subjects of mutual concern, the Japanese women revealing considerable interest in the age at which American ones begin menstruating.
The food stopped coming; more tea was brought, and the Japanese mother took out a parcel wrapped in cloth. She said it was a surprise and demurely she undid the ribbons and wrapping and took out a scroll. She said it was quite old, painted perhaps 150 years ago, and she laid it on the floor. The geishas put down their instruments and the eight women crouched on the tatami of this private restaurant cubicle while the owner of the scroll unrolled it eight inches. This was a panel showing a sturdy bald monk leering at a geisha. There was a poem beside it, which was read and translated before the next panel was shown. Here the monk was fumbling with the appalled geisha and tearing at the lower half of her kimono. The poem accompanying this picture was recited as ceremoniously as the one before, and the lady went on unrolling. This progressed, picture by picture; fully extended, the scroll showed a pornographic sequence of the lusty monk pictured in various stages of rape. Later on, I was able to examine it, and I can testify that the wounded vulva and the tumescent pistol-like penis were rendered in vivid detail, though I agree with the English critic William Empson, who (writing on Beardsley) said,.. the Japanese print-masters, too, lose their distinctive line when they turn aside and create Porners.' In the eighth panel the monk showed signs of fatigue, in contrast to the geisha who looked mightily aroused: she had redder eyes and she appeared in more predatory postures. Panel nine showed her seizing the fleeing monk's flaccid penis; panel ten had the agonized monk on his back and the geisha hunkered over him unsuccessfully stuffing his penis into her; and panel eleven, the clincher, depicted a much-aged monk being forced to fondle her: the geisha, wearing an ecstatic smile, had a firm grip on his hand, which she was directing against the bright bead of her clitoris. The Japanese mother clapped her hands and all the women laughed – the geishas loudest of all.
The sense of occasion, the formality of the dinner, the cost of the food, the presence of the geishas, the absence of men – all the rules observed – made the viewing of this antique piece of pornography possible. Any hint of the casual would have ruined it. The scroll, rolled up and wrapped, was gracefully presented to the American woman: she was told that she could show it to her husband, but she must not allow her little girl to see it. After a week it was to be returned to its owner. The American woman was baffled – and slightly embarrassed that the kindergarten teacher had witnessed it all. But the American woman (who told me the story) was flattered at being offered this glimpse of the Japanese cultural sorority, which was undoubtedly the whole intention.
'Little people in a big hurry,' said a man on the rapid train south, and he thought he'd nailed them down. But the more I thought about that ceremony in the Sapporo teahouse, the less Hokkaido looked like Wisconsin.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
THE HIKARI ('SUNBEAM') SUPER EXPRESS TO KYOTO
Back at Tokyo Central, on Platform 18, a hundred Japanese men in grey suits stood watching my train. There was a melancholy reverence in their faces. They had no luggage; they were not travellers. Grouped around one car in a respectful semicircle, they stared, their eyes fixed to one window. Inside the train, at that window, a man and woman stood next to their seats, their chins just showing below the window frame. The whistle was blown; the train started up, but before it moved an inch the man and woman began bowing at the window, again and again, and outside on the platform, the hundred men did the same – quickly, because the train was speeding. The bowing stopped: the hundred men burst into applause. The man and woman remained standing until we were out of the station and then they sat down and each opened a newspaper.
I asked the Japanese man next to me who they might be.
He shook his head. For a moment I thought he was going to say, 'No Engrish' – but he was thinking. He said, 'Offhand, I would say a company director. Or it could be a politician. I do not know him.'
'It's quite a send-off
'It is not unusual in Japan. The man is important. His employees must show some respect, even if – he smiled – 'even if they do not feel it in their hearts.'
I wanted to pursue the matter, but I was framing a question when this man beside me reached into his briefcase and took out a well-thumbed copy of the Penguin edition of The Golden Bowl. He opened it in the middle, flexed the limp spine, and began reading. I did the same with Silence, by Shusaku Endo, feeling lucky beyond belief that I had Endo and not Henry James to cheer me up. The man clicked his ballpoint pen, scribbled three characters in an already scribbled margin, and turned the page. Watching someone read the later James can be very tiring. I read until the conductor came by, and when he had finished punching everyone's ticket he walked backwards up the aisle, bowing and saying, 'Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!' until he reached the door. The Japanese have perfected good manners and made them indistinguishable from rudeness.