It’s clear to me though that Shintoho is nothing more than another unenthusiastic Sakura himself. It’s just talk when he says he drops in on the Imperial Way people. If he were a member, he wouldn’t be so timid and quiet.
When we sit down one look around tells me that the twenty-odd men sitting in front of us, just like the model Sakura who’s in the middle clapping and cheering, were all hired by the Imperial Way. They all look and act like day-laborers, sitting there not knowing what to do with their hands. It looks like they’re expecting somebody to dump a cat in their laps. As the man in the middle of the circle claps more and more fanatically they stir, ill at ease and with a tense, sad expression.
I glance at Shintoho to see whether he’s going to start clapping. That confuses him. He hurries to explain that the men are all hired Sakura, like us. “Today the weather’s good, but Sakakibara likes to hold meetings on rainy days, since it’s easier to mobilize the out-of-work day-laborers. Then he can say things like, ‘When Sakakibara speaks, even the heavens are moved by his loyalty. The raindrops are tears lamenting the end of the world.’ Or ‘Sakakibara is the rain man of devotion.’ People who are sheltering themselves from the rain don’t get mad about that. Sometimes they even appreciate it.”
That sounds believable. Rain makes people susceptible. Me especially. When it rains, or on humid days or when the atmospheric pressure is low, my body feels fit, and I want to do things for people.
“Besides,” Shintoho goes on, “the day-laborers who’re out of work because of the rain are happy. It’s not hard work. All they have to do is keep quiet and listen, and clap once in a while.”
He adds this in a defensive tone, like he thinks I doubt him. I know I’m putting him under pressure. I’m not depressed now. At least for this brief moment I feel like I’m free from the shameful memory of what happened on the sports field. When night comes, I’ll tremble with shame, so much that I’ll want to kill myself, but for now at least I have a stay of execution.
The day-laborers who’re sitting on the bench staring at the hands in their laps also look like they’ve had a stay of execution from something. The looks of passersby pierce their heads, their backs and shoulders, like a thousand arrows. The afternoon sunlight of late spring is receding like an ebb tide, and a feeling of despair, chilly as a winter night, mingles with the sunlight. Tokyo the metropolis abandons all hope and is crushed by exhaustion. Only the one workaholic Sakura, with his manic applause and cheers, doesn’t forsake the cause.
On stage Kunihiko Sakakibara is still ranting and raving. His hoarse voice, defying gravity, flees into the sky above us. Men with too much time on their hands have collected around the fringes of the square. Their cold hawk-like mockery takes aim on him. I slowly sink into a kind of daydream. My ears perceive the deafening noise of the city as an enormous medley, not as separate voices and sounds. This din, like the warm, heavy sea on a summer night, cuts my tired body off from reality and lets it float. I forget the idle people behind me, forget Shintoho, forget the day-laborers, forget the screaming Sakakibara. I am like a single grain of sand in the desert of the city. With a gentleness filled with a serenity I’ve never experienced before, I forgive my petty and worn-out self. My hostility and hate I turn solely on the real world, solely on the Others. Always I’ve been blaming myself, always attacking my weaknesses and covering them with the mud of self-loathing, always thinking there was no one more deserving of hate.
But the critic inside me has suddenly disappeared from my heart. I am pampering my injured self by licking and nursing my plentiful wounds. I am a puppy, and at the same time, I’m the mother dog, blinded by affection. Unconditionally I forgive myself. I nurse myself, the puppy. And equally unconditionally, I bark and bite at the others who treat me, the puppy, with cruelty. I’m doing this in a sleepy, dazed state of mind. Before long, like it’s a dream, my ears start to pick up the words of malice and hate which I myself am slinging at the others of the real world. In fact, it is Sakakibara who’s speaking these words, but his expressions of malice and hate are exactly the same as those in my own heart. Sakakibara is my soul screaming. The sensation makes me shiver. Then, with all the strength in my body, I start to listen and take in his cries.
“Those damned shit heads. Those petty officials. Infamous pimps selling their own country, that’s what they are. Isn’t it unbelievable that they dare to build houses and have wives and children on Japan’s sacred soil? They don’t deserve the name Japanese. They belong in some beastly country like the Soviet Union or Communist China. I won’t stop them from going there, I’ll kick their asses. Those bastards are so busy having their buttholes cleaned out by that faggot Khrushchev, they don’t even have time to fart. They plan to use the dirty money they’ve collected through strikes and demagoguery to bribe that barbarian Mao Tse Tung. And then in less than two years they themselves will be purged for right-wing deviations. They’ll be forced into self-criticism, and their heads will roll. That’s what they deserve. They call us a violent mob, but ladies and gentlemen, think about it: They’re the ones who earn their living with mob violence, with demonstrations and strikes and sit-ins. Who’s been responsible for more terrorism in modern times? The Right, or the Left? I ask you. Those Red pigs carry out a massacre and nobody says a word. The concentration camps weren’t just a Nazi thing. The Russians have them too, and even worse!
“Their people go to China, and they’re treated to banquets with money extracted from the people’s blood, sweat, and tears. And then they apologize. In the name of the Imperial people of Japan, they apologize! Forgive us, they say, for the genocide caused by Japanese militarism, for the so-called Sanko Strategy, with its killing and burning and even more horrible crimes. Our friends, the veterans from Manchuria, were crying with fury. They wanted to see those bastards’ wives raped and murdered. Those traitors, shameless bootlickers, fork-tongued and irresponsible, murderers, imposters, adulterers. It’s nauseating. I hereby vow to you: I’ll kill them, I’ll slaughter them, I’ll rape their wives and daughters, I’ll feed their sons to the pigs. Such is Justice. Such is my duty. Extermination, that’s the divine will laid upon my shoulders at birth. I’ll throw them into hell. There’s no other way for us to survive, but to burn them at the stake. We throw THEM into hell so WE can live!
“We’re weak, and only by exterminating them will we survive. Those are the words their pal, their god Lenin pro-claimed. Ladies and gentlemen, we will kill them to the last man to protect our own weak lives. Such is Justice!” The cruel symphony of malice and hate is resounding throughout the world loud enough to destroy the amplifier. “We will kill them to the last man to protect our own weak lives. Such is Justice!”
I stand and clap. I cheer. The leader on stage is reflected in my hysterical eyes as a radiant golden being appearing from the darkness. I keep on clapping and cheering. Such is Justice! For the cruelly treated, for the wounded weak soul. Such is Justice!
“That one, he’s a Rightist, and he’s still so young. Look. He’s a real pro.”
I turn around suddenly to face the group of three office girls who’re lambasting me. This gives them a fright. That’s it, I think. I am a Rightist. I’m seized by a sudden, intense joy. It makes me shiver. I’ve touched the essence of myself. I am a Rightist!
I move a step closer to the girls. They hold each other and raise faint, frightened cries of protest. I place myself in front of the girls and the men standing nearby.
Without speaking a word, I face the whole lot, my eyes filled with hostility and hate. They all stare at me. I am a Rightist! Even though they’re staring at me, I’m not flustered. I don’t blush. I feel a new me. These others no longer see the wretched me who wets his penis in masturbation, giving it the moist look of a green stem of grass that’s just been snapped off. They no longer see the lonely, miserable, timid Seventeen. They don’t look at me with the threatening eyes of those others who, after just one glance, say, “We can see right through you.”
Ad
ults now look at me the way they look at other adults who possess an independent personality. I feel like I’ve wrapped my weak, petty self inside strong armor, forever to be hidden from the eyes of others. It’s the armor of the Right. When I move another step closer to the girls, they scream. But they don’t manage to escape. It’s like their legs are paralyzed. Hot blood is visibly pulsing in the girls’ chests. Their fear arouses in me an intense spiritual joy akin to sexual desire. I scream out at them.
“What about the Rightists, then? What about us Rightists, you bitches?”
Instead of screaming, they at last decide to run away into the crowded twilight streets. The remaining men grumble out their discontent, trying at the same time to hide the fact that they’re afraid of me. So. The Others are afraid of me.
The men are finally determined to take care of the scandal I showered them with, like so much confetti, by using the word bitches. But just then people wearing armbands that say Imperial Way gather around me. Together we are the Right.
A strong hand, a friendly, passionate, sinewy hand plants itself firmly on my shoulder. I turn to see an elderly man in an exaltation of intense passion. I’m fascinated by his big, bloodshot, burning eyes. Like a child filled with admiration, I smile at this preacher of malice and hate.
“Thank you,” he says. “I’ve been waiting for a pure and brave patriotic youngster like you. You are the son of Japan who can fulfill the Heart of His Majesty the Emperor. It is you, the chosen boy with the true Japanese soul.”
The voice of revelation gains ascendancy over the din and bustle, over the trains, the speakers, and all the howling of the metropolis. It reaches out to me, beautiful and gentle as a rose. Again I’m captured by a hysterical hallucination. The city at dusk sinks away into the darkness. It carries a glitter within, like ink mingled with dark gold paint. Brilliantly, the rising sun appears from it. It is a golden being, it is a god, I feel it. It is the Emperor.
“You are the son of Japan who can fulfill the Heart of His Majesty the Emperor. It is you, the Chosen Boy with the true Japanese soul!”
4
At the Headquarters of the Imperial Way, I’m sworn in as a member of the Party. Later, Kunihiko Sakakibara announces that I’m the youngest member in the history of the group. This leads me to believe that I won’t find any other teenagers at the Headquarters when I move in, but actually I discover three nineteen-year-old members. These guys, however, couldn’t be further from my image of teenagers. These teens of the Right are proud and solemn. They never drop their stern, grave expressions. When I mention something like movies, jazz, or popular music, they lash out in contempt. They accuse me of being a frivolous brat. Whenever they use that kind of language, I line up small round lumps of mud, one by one, at the edge of my anthole of the Right, as tokens of my despair.
These young Rightists are the spitting image of the caricature I’d formed in my irresponsible daydreams, before I joined the party. Even in their deadly seriousness they resemble that image to the tee. I remember once seeing an ad for a film called The Emperor Meiji and the Great Russo-Japanese War. I thought that was probably the kind of movie young right-wingers would go to see. When I ask them about it, for the first time they get really wrapped up in the subject of the film. They tell me they adore it, and have seen it several times. Then they get into an animated discussion among themselves, like the film had broken every record in cinema history. In the process, they completely confuse the actors and the historical people, making solemn statements like “His Majesty the Emperor Meiji gazed at His troops with a sorrowful look,” or “General Nogi’s horse was tremendous. Admiral Togo didn’t show a hint of exhaustion on his face, not even on the battlefield—the true warrior spirit. A warrior has to take care of his health and be in perfect condition in time of need.” Apparently they also go to the theater occasionally if there’s a war movie on, or some historical sword-fighting movie. In the war movies, some of the scenes that show Japanese soldiers in action are enough to make their hearts leap. And the sword-play movies show the techniques for killing with the sword. They treat Westerns and modern gangster movies with contempt and disdain, since pistols are used in movies like that. They can’t get their hands on pistols, and anyway, the boss wouldn’t allow it. After all, it’s only natural that the technique for committing the perfect murder with a Japanese sword is more valuable to them, and more real. One of the teenagers in particular has a cherished picture of the naked human body, to which he’s added red spots, as if they were the points for applying acupuncture needles. One morning, when somebody is stabbed to death in an incident in Shinjuku, I understand what those red marks really mean. I notice how the teenager explores the newspaper, and then adds new red marks to certain parts of the body. With a still-fresh curiosity about my new companions, I ask him, “Are you planning to stab somebody too?”
He sternly closes his eyes, as if offering a silent prayer, and in a fierce, solitary voice that doesn’t seem to be directed at me, he says, “If those bastards don’t cut out the funny business, if the Leftists keep on with their funny business, I will.”
My companion frets over the words funny business. He knits his brow as he racks his brains for some more appropriate expression. But I think I understand his feelings. That’s right: “If those bastards don’t cut out their funny business.” That’s all that needs to be said between members of the Imperial Way. There’s no need for further elaboration. For sure, young members of the Imperial Way don’t have glib tongues. The boss is an eloquent orator, and some of the executives are just as good, but the young faction members are definitely not talkers. They aren’t even talkative in everyday life. Mostly they tend to hold their tongues. When the time comes for speeches, we scream and shout like the enemy is standing there in front of our very eyes with his weapon drawn. We glare and shake our fists. “We have to stop those Reds from doing any funny business!”
Occasionally we members of the Imperial Way get together with nonmembers like the youth department of the Conservative party. We keep our mouths shut tight and put up with the gabble of their young men, who, unlike us, devote all their energy to talk. Deep down, the young members of the Imperial Way despise the young men of the Conservative party. At members-only meetings of the Imperial Way, we accuse them of being time-servers. “Those bastards don’t think about anything but their careers. Just talk and more talk, trying to get themselves ahead. They’re no different from the careerists of the Left. They ought to stop their funny business too . . .”
I recall a postcard I got once from some provincial member of the youth department of the Conservative party. Although he only knew me by sight, the dirty red-cheeked yakker confided every detail of his future plans to me.
“I’ve put 200,000 in the stock market,” he wrote, “and my stocks are growing steadily. At this moment I’m twenty-four. My ambition is to be in the City Assembly at twenty-five, to be a Dietman at thirty, and a Cabinet member at thirty-five. I’m aiming at financial power through stocks on the one hand, and on the other, at participation in a Party faction as Head of the Publicity Department of the Party Youth Section of the Bunkyo Ward Office. I believe in the principle of promotion through personal merit, so whenever I go to the Party Headquarters I challenge the Party executive to discussions on equal terms. The other day, at a certain restaurant in town, I debated for two hours with the Secretary-General of the Party about global and national situations. I really threw the dust in his eyes. When I’m named to the Cabinet, I suppose that you, brother, will have grown into a man of influence in the nonparliamentary groups. This thought fills me with joy, and so I have decided to begin this correspondence. Let us exchange opinions extensively. Please allow me also to introduce you to the President of Matsukawa Securities for stock matters, and for political matters, to Mr. Kikuyama, Head of the Information and Publicity Department.”
I was shocked and astonished by this. Guys like him are really jaundiced country bumpkins, wanting only to cling to their o
wn careers. Sometimes, young members of the Imperial Way clash with people like him. They thrash us with words, but we answer by glaring back at them in threatening silence, and it soon becomes obvious that we’re in the right. It never does us any good to associate with these garrulous creatures. We learn only from our boss. We only read things he recommends to us. That’s how we gather the wisdom that sustains us. It’s not a lot of wisdom, mind you, it’s only a tiny bit of golden wisdom which, as a solid belief, is hammered deep into our heads like a hard, hot nail. And it turns us into hard, hot nails as well. This applies to me in particular. Since the evening in late spring when I had that decisive change of heart, I learn only from the voice of the boss, and read only the things he provides to me. Pure and simple, only that. Everything else I reject with hatred and hostility.
I’m convinced that Kunihiko Sakakibara gives me preferential treatment. And I think I respond sufficiently to the passion he pours into me. This is how he puts it: “The way we pound our ideology into you is like pouring sake into a ready bottle. Your bottle doesn’t break as we pour. This pure, beautiful wine doesn’t spill. You are the chosen young man, and the Right is a chosen existence. By now this must be as clear as the sun, even to the blind of this world. Such is Justice.”
A few weeks pass since that night, and Kunihiko Sakakibara visits our house to receive my parents’ blessing for his intention to have me move into the Imperial Way Headquarters. Father, with his typical American liberal attitude, says he doesn’t intend to interfere with me in finding my own way, as long as I don’t cause any trouble for the family. He adds some flattering remarks to Sakakibara, saying that if I have to get involved in a political movement, at least one based on patriotism is sounder than the Red Student Coalition. I recall how my father once said, contrary to his American liberalism, that his position as a teacher would be compromised if his son got involved in the student movement. So I think I’m on safe ground with the old man.