Japanese Portraits: Pictures of Different People (25 page)

- King of the beasts, I said, and he, seeing where I was looking, opened his half-coat. Under
Lion
was
Dentifrice.

- Got it from the toothpaste people. Giving them out on the street they were.

After the
nahe
we went somewhere for coffee, for which he paid.

- Got my pride, he said, smiling: And besides, I'm no bum, you know.

He laughed again, then as though remembering: Don't you get too upset about the
furosha.
It's not all that bad, you know. They get taken care of. And if those guards you saw were a little hard on them, well, I guess they probably had to be. Can't really let them get out of hand.

I sipped my coffee and looked at this sincere, intelligent man. No more a rebel, he had returned to the fold, been given a job, a chance to forget the abyss he had glimpsed.

And I was happy to forget it too. How could I understand anything of what those bums were feeling? When I saw some drunk, crazy, dying old laborer I only wondered if he knew what was happening to him.

Nowadays I look more often at the fresh-faced high-school boys up from the country for a day in the capital. From their bus windows they point at the river, point at the park, point at me sitting on a bench in the late summer sun. What, I wonder, will happen to them?

Katsu, backed up by his entourage, makes a big entrance. He strikes a Zatoichi pose, hands stretched out, eyeballs turned up until just the whites show—the blind swordsman himself. Then his eyes slide back into place, he gives his snorting laugh, and cuffs his sidekicks into the room.

All smiles tonight. Kurosawa has chosen him to play the lead in
Kagemusha.
This is a role he very much wants. He wants to be a big international star, not just a little Japanese one. He has often been to Las Vegas, so he knows. It is really a big
American
star that he wants to be.

Sitting down, his buddies around him, he keeps the table in stitches. Las Vegas girl asked him if he liked it French fashion. He had no idea. She demonstrated. It tickled. He wanted to say so. English inadequate. So he said: I no like chewing gum.

Buddies collapse, general laughter. Another funny Las Vegas story. While they were making love she or another asked if he was ready. Given typical Japanese confusion over l's and r's he heard wrong. I no lady, he said with indignation: I gentleman. Contingent howls its appreciation, several beat the table with the flat of their hands.

Katsu, small, fat, moustached, funny when he has a good director, looks around as though surprised at these reactions, then shrugs good-naturedly: boys will be boys, says the shrug. Parodying an American gang boss—Okay, okay, fellas, just cool it—he adds in Japanese: And now we're going to drink to
Kagemusha
, whatever that means (with his impish little grin, a trademark, cute little kid acting tough).

The first day of shooting on the
Kagemusha
set arrived. Katsu, veteran of dozens of pictures, was ready. So were his cohorts. He even had his own television crew to capture his performance. This Kurosawa objected to.

- But I've got to have a record of my daily performance, Katsu is supposed to have said: Otherwise I won't know how I'm doing, how good I am.

Kurosawa apparently informed him that he was the director,
he
would tell his actor how he was doing, how good he was. On further objections from Katsu, Kurosawa pointed out that he was using multiple cameras and that the TV crew would be in the scene.

- Hey, you guys, go hide behind that pillar, the actor is supposed to have yelled, before turning to the director with: There, see? Invisible.

Kurosawa said later: If he was going to be this difficult on the first day of shooting I could just imagine him on the last. Accordingly he said no, the TV crew would have to go. Katsu said no, they would have to stay. Then, depending on which side tells the story, Kurosawa said: You're fired; or Katsu said: I quit.

Another party, another entrance. This one subdued. The entourage is now composed of Toei studio toughs, since Katsu is making yet another gangster film with them. Very subdued now—no Zatoichi imitations. He takes a back table, plays with his chopsticks. The boys hover around him protectively—their wounded leader.

I look at him—fat, funny, and, I now see, lost. He is a little kid all right, but one with what his beloved Americans call authority problems. No, no, he said to the press, being big about the whole thing: He's an artist, you see. Me, I'm just an actor ... But also at the time just an unruly and disappointed little boy seeing how far he could push papa.

Or maybe it was different. Maybe being a big American star was too much for him. What if he tried as hard as he could and then didn't make it? What then? What if he was a
failure?
Then, maybe better not to try. Maybe just back out.

Or, perhaps, neither. Maybe not much thought involved. Just interested in a good time, just someone trying to do his best. A little laugh, a little drink, a little puff. And a few pals—his own "rat pack" with himself as old brown eyes.

Now Katsu is balancing one chopstick on top of the other. A few of the gang are snickering. He himself is quietly smiling, gray hair glinting handsomely in the subdued light—the kind these places call "lighting." Soon he will give his famous laugh. Maybe even do his Zatoichi imitation.

Round face, neat gray bun, hands clutching purse, she looked like any ordinary old woman. And her sighs, her wan smiles, her complaints, these too were those of an ordinary old woman left to herself.

I had noticed her at the vegetable shop, staring at the cabbages, pinching the strawberries, and remarking on the prices. I saw her too at the local variety store—which advertised itself in English, perhaps misunderstanding the term, as the Chic Commode. She was asking for a discount on washing powder because she bought so much.

- I keep a clean house, I heard her say, as though she were being accused of not doing so. And I remember thinking that here was an old lady who did not have anything to keep her occupied. Little did I realize that I was to become that occupation.

She was a neighbor, with rooms directly beneath mine in the twelve-story apartment house (it called itself a "mansion") where we both lived. It was from other neighbors, those on either side, that I learned more about her.

Children, one or two of them, but neglectful they were. This from the piano teacher on my left. Not that she blamed them. Also a husband, long since dead. Probably from having to live with her. This with a snicker from the retired postal worker on my right—at which his wife pinched him and looked disapproving.

Hisako Shiraishi, her name on door and postbox, was not popular. She didn't mean any harm, I was told, but she was a complainer and she tried to take advantage. Apparently she brought "disharmony" into the meetings of the Shuwa Mansion Residents' Association.

- She's always complaining, said the retired postal worker, encountered in the elevator, away from his wife: We just hate to see her at the meetings. The trouble is she's got nothing else to do.

So it was that I, quite innocently, volunteered. I began to say good morning to Mrs. Shiraishi. This startled her and she aimed a suspicious eye at me before returning my greetings in a guarded manner. Determined to be pleasant I smiled whenever we met, and held open the lobby door. She would scurry past, then turn to stare accusingly from the safety of the elevator.

Seeing unfriendliness, I ought to have retreated. Instead, I responded as though it were some sort of challenge. I will be nice, I will, I told myself. Whether I was actually concerned about bringing a ray of sunshine into the old woman's life is doubtful. I suppose I simply believed that everyone ought to get along with everybody else. Otherwise I can't explain my presenting myself at her door with a ripe watermelon.

The door opened a crack. A dark eye looked out.

- What do you want? she asked suspiciously.

- I happen to have this watermelon, I said: And I thought you might like it.

- Why? she asked—an instant response, like the snap of a trap.

- Well ... it's the first of the season, I said, unable to think of another reason.

The door opened a bit wider. She stood there, staring at me. Then: I hope you don't think that this makes up for it.

- Makes up for what?

- It's been terrible, she said, her voice a whine: When you shake out your rugs from your balcony, all that dirt comes right in my windows.

I, feeling absurdly guilty, apologized, promised to take care, and was backing away when a small, strong hand reached out, captured the watermelon, drew it in, and slammed the door. I stood there with that awful prescient feeling that I had done something irremediable.

Sometime afterward I left the city for a week or so, and when I returned—was just through the door—there was a telephone call from her.

- I'm calling to complain. I couldn't get a wink of sleep last week because of the noise you were making. Every night, on and on. I don't know what to do. I must have my sleep, I'm an old lady. It's too cruel.

I said I would come down. She was waiting just behind the door, and pushed it open as soon as I rang. This time she invited me in, as far at least as the entryway. I looked into her neat kitchen and she, seeing this, at once slid shut the sliding door. Then she told me at length what a horrible week she had had.

I guessed what had happened. I had given my friend Fumio the key and told him to use the place if he wanted. He had had friends in. Youngsters all, they had probably made a fair amount of noise. So I apologized to her, bowed, said that it would certainly not happen again, backed out, and decided to talk to Fumio about this.

Yes, they had had a party, until midnight maybe, and one of the girls
was
rather heavy, and, yes, they had danced a bit. But only once, only that Saturday night, certainly not
every
night. What he said, I knew, was true. I also realized that I was beginning to discern the outlines of the vast problem Mrs. Shiraishi would become.

Not for a time, however. Yet even then I noticed that I was actually trying to be quiet in my own apartment. I was trying to walk more lightly, was closing doors more quietly. This I thoroughly resented. It was as though the neurasthenic old woman had come to live with me, as though she were there, in the closet, peering out with dark and beady eye.

Then, quite late one night, a telephone call: I wonder if I could ask you to make a little less noise. It's late. People are trying to sleep—me, for instance. I've not had a wink in the past few days because of all the noise. I need my sleep. I'm an old lady. Do try, please, to walk less heavily. And could you flush your toilet less often? It makes such a noise and it always startles me.

I said I would and the next day went to see my neighbors. How did that old woman get my telephone number, I wondered. Oh, that was easy enough. The Shuwa Mansion Residents' Association would have given it to her. The real problem, continued the retired postal worker, was that she was terrible when she had a grudge. I ought to be careful—just put up with it.

When I told the piano teacher, she expressed a token interest but suggested that, since we did after all have to live here together, perhaps I should be a bit quieter. I stared at her—a woman whose pupils'
Für Elise
I had been enduring daily for some time.

After that there was quiet for a while until one evening a knock came on the door and outside stood a uniformed policeman. He inquired as to my identity and then told me that my downstairs neighbor had lodged a complaint about the racket I was making, had demanded assistance, which was why he was here and just what had I been doing?

I invited him in, showed him my quiet apartment, and told him the history of my relations with Mrs. Shiraishi. He did not seem surprised, merely nodded and said that he would remember this next time she called—if he was on duty, that is. If he wasn't, I might have to explain it to a good many patrolmen before they all understood.

- But this is unfair. I'm doing nothing and she calls the police.

- I know, he said, a young cop, a bit uncomfortable but smiling: Still, Japan's a small country. We all have to get on peacefully together somehow.

When he had left I went downstairs, bearing no gifts this time. The door opened a crack. Inside the eye lurked.

- What do you want? asked that hated, whining voice.

- I want to know why you called the police when I wasn't making any noise.

- You were. You were dancing.

- I was alone.

- I heard dancing.

- I was not dancing.

- That's what you say. But someone was. I heard it. I must have my sleep. I've had no sleep for nights. I'm an old lady. I need my sleep.

- Mrs. Shiraishi! I am going to bring this up at a meeting of the Shuwa Mansion Residents' Association.

- I already have. The meeting was yesterday.

In the morning I went to my neighbors. Neither of them had gone to the meeting, but even if a complaint had been lodged, the husband told me, no one would take it seriously.