As I made my rounds, I followed a twenty-point checklist. I’d make a check mark next to each one—staff office, check, science lab, check… I suppose I could have just stayed in bed in the janitor’s room, where I slept, and checked these off without going to the trouble of actually walking around. But I wasn’t such a haphazard sort of guy. It didn’t take much time to make the rounds, and besides, if someone broke in while I was sleeping, I’d be the one who’d get attacked.
Anyway, there I was each night at nine and three, making my rounds, a flashlight in my left hand, a wooden kendo sword in my right. I’d practiced kendo in high school and felt pretty confident in my ability to fend off anyone. If an attacker was an amateur, and even if he had a real sword with him, that wouldn’t have scared me. I was young, remember. If it happened now, I’d run like hell.
Anyhow, this took place on a windy night in the beginning of October. It was actually kind of steamy for the time of year. A swarm of mosquitoes buzzed around in the evening, and I remember burning a couple of mosquito-repellent coils to keep them away. The wind was noisy. The gate to the swimming pool was broken and the wind made the gate slap open and shut. I thought of fixing it, but it was too dark out, so it kept banging all night.
My nine p.m. round went by fine, all twenty items on my list neatly checked off. All the doors were locked, everything in its proper place. Nothing out of the ordinary. I went back to the janitor’s room, set my alarm for three, and fell fast asleep.
When the alarm went off at three, though, I woke up feeling weird. I can’t explain it, but I just felt different. I didn’t feel like getting up—it was like something was suppressing my will to get out of bed. I’m the type who usually leaps right out of bed, so I couldn’t understand it. I had to force myself to get out of bed and get ready to make my rounds. The gate to the pool was still making its rhythmic banging, but it sounded different from before. Something’s definitely weird, I thought, reluctant to get going. But I made up my mind I had to do my job, no matter what. If you skip out on doing your duty once, you’ll skip out again and again, and I didn’t want to fall into that. So I grabbed my flashlight and wooden sword and off I went.
It was an altogether odd night. The wind grew stronger as the night went on, the air more humid. My skin started itching and I couldn’t focus. I decided to go around the gym, auditorium, and pool first. Everything checked out OK. The gate to the pool banged away in the wind like some crazy person who alternately shakes his head and nods. There was no order to it. First a couple of nods—yes, yes—then no, no, no…It’s a weird thing to compare it to, I know, but that’s what it felt like.
Inside the school building it was situation normal. I looked around and checked off the points on my list. Nothing out of the usual had happened, despite the weird feeling I’d had. Relieved, I started back to the janitor’s room. The last place on my checklist was the boiler room next to the cafeteria on the east side of the building, the opposite side from the janitor’s room. This meant I had to walk down the long hallway on the first floor on my way back. It was pitch black. On nights when the moon was out, there was a little light in the hallway, but when there wasn’t, you couldn’t see a thing. I had to shine my flashlight ahead of me to see where I was going. This particular night, a typhoon was not too far off, so there was no moon at all. Occasionally there’d be a break in the clouds, but then it plunged into darkness again.
I walked faster than usual down the hallway, the rubber soles of my basketball shoes squeaking against the linoleum floor. It was a green linoleum floor, the color of a hazy bed of moss. I can picture it even now.
The entrance to the school was midway down the hallway, and as I passed it I thought, What the—? I thought I’d seen something in the dark. I broke out in a sweat. Regripping the wooden sword, I turned toward what I saw. I shined my flashlight at the wall next to the shelf for storing shoes.
And there I was. A mirror, in other words. It was just my reflection in a mirror. There wasn’t a mirror there the night before, so they must have put in one between then and now. Man, was I startled. It was a long, full-length mirror. Relieved that it was just me in a mirror, I felt a bit stupid for having been so surprised. So that’s all it is, I told myself. How dumb. I put my flashlight down, took a cigarette from my pocket, and lit it. As I took a puff, I glanced at myself in the mirror. A faint streetlight from outside shone in through the window, reaching the mirror. From behind me, the swimming pool gate was banging in the wind.
After a couple of puffs, I suddenly noticed something odd. My reflection in the mirror wasn’t me. It looked exactly like me on the outside, but it definitely wasn’t me. No, that’s not it. It was me, of course, but another me. Another me that never should have been. I don’t know how to put it. It’s hard to explain what it felt like.
The one thing I did understand was that this other figure loathed me. Inside it was a hatred like an iceberg floating in a dark sea. The kind of hatred that no one could ever diminish.
I stood there for a while, dumbfounded. My cigarette slipped from between my fingers and fell to the floor. The cigarette in the mirror fell to the floor, too. We stood there, staring at each other. I felt like I was bound hand and foot, and couldn’t move.
Finally his hand moved, the fingertips of his right hand touching his chin, and then slowly, like a bug, crept up his face. I suddenly realized I was doing the same thing. Like I was the reflection of what was in the mirror and he was trying to take control of me.
Wrenching out my last ounce of strength I roared out a growl, and the bonds that held me rooted to the spot broke. I raised my kendo sword and smashed it down on the mirror as hard as I could. I heard glass shattering but didn’t look back as I raced back to my room. Once inside, I hurriedly locked the door and leapt under the covers. I was worried about the cigarette I’d dropped on the floor, but there was no way I was going back. The wind was howling the whole time, and the gate to the pool continued to make a racket until dawn. Yes, yes, no, yes, no, no, no…
I’m sure you’ve already guessed the ending to my story. There never was any mirror.
When the sun came up, the typhoon had already passed. The wind had died down and it was a sunny day. I went over to the entrance. The cigarette butt I’d tossed away was there, as was my wooden sword. But no mirror. There never had been any mirror there.
What I saw wasn’t a ghost. It was simply—myself. I can never forget how terrified I was that night, and whenever I remember it, this thought always springs to mind: that the most frightening thing in the world is our own self. What do you think?
You may have noticed that I don’t have a single mirror here in my house. Learning to shave without one was no easy feat, believe me.
—TRANSLATED BY PHILIP GABRIEL
A FOLKLORE FOR MY GENERATION: A PRE-HISTORY OF LATE-STAGE CAPITALISM
I was born in 1949, entered junior high in 1961, and college in 1967. And reached my long-awaited twentieth birthday—my intro into adulthood—during the height of the boisterous slapstick that was the student movement. Which I suppose qualifies me as a typical child of the sixties. So there I was, during the most vulnerable, most immature, and yet most precious period of life, breathing in everything about this live-for-the-moment decade, high on the wildness of it all. There were doors we had to kick in, right in front of us, and you better believe we kicked them in! With Jim Morrison, the Beatles, and Dylan blasting out the sound track to our lives.
There was something special about the sixties. That seems true now, in retrospect, but even when I was caught up in the whirlwind of it happening I was convinced of it. But if you asked me to be more specific, to pinpoint what it was about the sixties that was so special, I don’t think I could do more than stammer out some trite reply. We were merely observers, getting totally absorbed in some exciting movie, our palms all sweaty, only to find that, after the houselights came on and we exited the theater, the thrilling afterglow that coursed through us ultimately meant no
thing whatsoever. Maybe something prevented us from learning a valuable lesson from all this? I don’t know. I’m way too close to the period to say.
I’m not bragging about the times I lived through. I’m simply trying to convey what it felt like to live through that age, and the fact that there really was something special about it. Yet if I were to try to unpack those times and point out something in particular that was extraordinary, I don’t know if I could. What I’d find if I did such a dissection would be these: the momentum and energy of the times, the tremendous spark of promise. More than anything else, the feeling of inevitable irritation like when you look through the wrong end of a telescope. Heroism and villainy, ecstasy and disillusionment, martyrdom and betrayal, outlines and specialized studies, silence and eloquence, people marking time in the most boring way—they were all there, for sure. Any age has all these. The present does, and so will the future. But in Our Age (to use an exaggerated term) these were more colorful, and you could actually grasp them. They were literally lined up on a shelf, right before our very eyes.
Nowadays, if you try to grasp the reality of anything, there’s always a whole slew of convoluted extras that come with it: hidden advertising, dubious discount coupons, point cards stores hand out that you know you should throw out but still hold on to, options that are forced on you before you know what’s happening. Back in Our Age, nobody plunked down indecipherable three-volume owner’s manuals in front of you. Whatever it was, we just clutched it in our hands and took it straight home—like taking a baby chick home from one of those little nighttime stands. Everything was simple, and direct. Cause and effect were good buddies back then; thesis and reality hugged each other like it was the most natural thing in the world. And my guess is that the sixties were the last time that’ll ever happen.
A Pre-History of Late-Stage Capitalism—that’s my own personal name for that age.
Let me tell you a little bit about the young girls back then. And us guys with our nearly brand-new genitals and the wild, joyous, sad sex we had. That’s one of my themes here.
Take virginity, for instance—a word that, for some unfathomable reason, always reminds me of a field on a beautiful sunny spring afternoon. In the sixties, virginity was a much bigger deal than it is today. I’m generalizing, of course—I haven’t taken a survey or anything—but my sense of it is that about fifty percent of the girls in my generation had lost their virginity by the time they reached twenty. At least among the girls I knew, that seemed to be the case. Which means that about half of the girls, whether they’d made a conscious choice or not, were still virgins.
It strikes me now that most of the girls in my generation—the moderates, you might dub them—whether virgins or not, agonized over the whole issue of sex. They didn’t insist that virginity was such a precious thing, nor did they denounce it as some stupid relic of the past. So what actually happened—sorry, but I’m generalizing again—was that they went with the flow. It all depended on the circumstances and the partner. Makes sense to me.
So on either side of this silent majority, you had your liberals and your conservatives—the entire spectrum, from girls who practiced sex as a kind of indoor sport, to those who were firm believers in remaining pure till they got married. There were guys, too, who were adamant that whoever they married had to be a virgin.
Like every generation, there were all kinds of people, with all kinds of values. But the big difference between the sixties and the decades before and after was that we were convinced that someday all those differences could be overcome.
Peace!
What follows is the story of a guy I know, a high school classmate in Kobe. He was one of those guys who was an all-round star: good grades, good at sports, a natural leader. He was more clean-cut than handsome, I suppose. He had a nice clear voice, and was a good public speaker, even a decent singer. He was always elected as class representative, and when our class met as a group he was the one who did the final wrap-up. He wasn’t full of original opinions, but in class discussion who expects any originality? There’re tons of situations when originality is not what’s called for. Most situations, in fact. All we wanted was to get out of there as quick as we could, and we could count on him to wind up the discussion in the time allotted. In that sense, he was a handy sort of guy to have around.
With him, everything was by the book. If somebody was making a racket in study hall he’d quietly tell them to simmer down. The guy was basically perfect, but it bothered me that I couldn’t figure out what was going through his head. Sometimes I felt like yanking his head off his neck and giving it a good shake to see what was rattling around inside. He was very popular with the girls, too. Whenever he popped to his feet in class to say something every girl would gaze at him with a dreamy look of admiration. He was also your go-to guy if you were stuck with a math problem you couldn’t solve. We’re talking about a guy who was twenty-seven times more popular than me.
If you’ve ever gone to public high school, you know the type I mean. There’s somebody like him in every class, the kind that keeps things running smoothly. Years spent in school absorbing training manuals for life have taught me many things, and one of the lessons I came away with was this: like it or not, every group has somebody like him.
Personally, I’m not too fond of the type. For whatever reason, we just don’t click. I much prefer imperfect, more memorable types of people. So with this particular guy, even though we were in the same class for a year, we never hung out. The first time we ever had a semi-decent conversation was after we graduated, during summer vacation when we were freshmen in college. We happened to be taking driving lessons at the same driving school and talked a few times there. We’d have a cup of tea together while we were waiting. Driving school has got to be one of the most boring places on earth, and if you see a familiar face you jump at it. I don’t remember what we talked about, but I know I wasn’t left with much of an impression one way or the other.
One other thing I did remember about him is his girlfriend. She was in a different class and was one of a handful of girls who were drop-dead gorgeous. Besides her stunning looks, she got good grades, was good at sports, was kind and a natural leader, and was the one who always summed up class discussions. Every class has a girl like her.
To make a long story short, they were perfect for each other. Mister Clean and Miss Clean. Like right out of a toothpaste commercial.
They were inseparable. During lunch break they sat side by side in a corner of the school yard, talking. They went home together, too, riding the same train but getting off at different stops. He was on the soccer club, she was in the English conversation club, and whoever finished earlier than the other would study in the library, waiting so they could go home together. It seemed like they were together every free moment they had. And they were always talking. I don’t know how they could keep from running out of things to say, but somehow they managed it.
We—and by “we” I mean the guys I hung out with—didn’t dislike this couple. We never made fun of them or said bad things about them. In fact, we hardly thought about them at all. They were like the weather, something that was just out there, that barely registered on our attention meter. We were too much into our own pursuits, the vital thrilling things the times had to offer. For instance? For instance sex, rock and roll, Jean-Luc Godard films, political movements, KenzaburÅ ÅŒe’s novels.
But especially sex.
Of course we were ignorant, conceited kids. We had no idea what life was all about. In the real world there was no such thing as Mister Clean and Miss Clean. They only exist on TV. The kind of illusions we had, then, and the kind of illusions this guy and his girlfriend had, weren’t all that different.
This is their story. It’s not a very happy one, and looking back on it now it’s hard to locate any lesson in it. But anyway, this is their story, and at the same time our story. So it’s a kind of folklore that I’ve collected and now, as a sort of bumbling narrator, will
pass on to you.
The story he told me came out after we had batted around other topics over some wine, so strictly speaking it might not be entirely true. There are parts I didn’t catch, and details I’ve kind of imagined woven in. And to protect the real people in it, I’ve changed some of the facts, though this doesn’t impact the overall story. Still, I think things took place pretty much as said. I say this because though I might have forgotten some of the details, I distinctly recall the overall tone. When you listen to somebody’s story and then try to reproduce it in writing, the tone’s the main thing. Get the tone right and you have a true story on your hands. Maybe some of the facts aren’t quite correct, but that doesn’t matter—it actually might elevate the truth factor of the story. Turn this around, and you could say there’re stories that are factually accurate yet aren’t true at all. Those are the kind of stories you can count on to be boring, and even, in some instances, dangerous. You can smell those a mile away.
One other thing I need to make clear here is that this former classmate was a lousy storyteller. God might have generously doled out other attributes to the guy, but the ability to relate a story wasn’t one of them. (Not that the storyteller’s romantic art serves any real purpose in life.) So as he related his story, I could barely stifle a yawn. He’d get off track, go around in circles, take forever to remember some of the facts. He’d take a fragment of his story in his hand, frown at it for a while, and once he was convinced he had it right he’d line his facts up one by one on the table. But often this order was wrong. So as a novelist—a story specialist, if you will—I’ve rearranged these fragments, carefully gluing them together to form what I hope is a coherent narrative.