Mr Shintaro Ishihara was the Goethe of Japan. I was his pupil, a person in the same profession, and his escort runner. In this chapter, I have woven together my private recollections, which span as long as twenty-plus years, and "my unfulfilled promise" to him. ー Shin Ushijima
Chapter 2.2: 師 The Mystery Writer
Read other chapters in My Mentor, Shintaro Ishihara
Gen Hirose, President of Nippon Life Insurance Company, astonished Tokyo's arts world when he asked Shintaro Ishihara to lead a project to build the Nissay Theatre. Ishihara was only 30 years old, and Noboru Goto, President of Tokyu Corporation, had intervened to arrange the deal. The project itself was worth ￥4.5 billion JPY ($12.5 million in 1963 USD).
Located in Hibiya, the theatre was designed by architect Togo Murano. I have often visited the building because of my work for Nippon Life Insurance Company, a client. Through hearsay, I learned that the building was heavily demanding to maintain, requiring the approval of the architect for even small repairs.
I often talked with Ikuo Uno there, one-to-one as lawyer and client when he was president of Nippon Life. They are memories which even now remain an unforgettable treasure of life.
This time, I did some research on Togo Murano and learned that he also designed the Memorial Cathedral of World Peace in Hiroshima. It is a Catholic church situated just in front of Noboricho Elementary School, where I spent two years in the fifth and sixth grades. I would often make sketches of the church in manual arts class.
Mr Ishihara published The Rift (亀裂, Shinchosha Publishing Co, Ltd) in 1958. Everyone said it was going to be a great flop. I read the book on July 7, 1971, when I was 21 years old. Taking advantage of the customary practice of not taking attendance in the classes at Komaba Campus (except for the athletics class), I seldom appeared in classes. Instead, in a six-tatami-mat room of an old wooden apartment, I lived the nightlife of a vampire while immersing myself in books. I must have read The Rift at that time.
The Sick Widow
There is a scene in the book in which a female secondary protagonist infected with tuberculosis makes love with the protagonist, Akira Tsuzuki. She was spitting up blood, even as they engaged in sex, which was impressive enough to clearly remain in my memory. The incident was set in a room at the Hilltop Hotel in Ochanomizu, a regular haunt of Mr Ishihara's.
A woman, a widow with children, was having an affair with her husband's big brother, Akira Tsuzuki. He was the protagonist, who appeared very much like Mr Ishihara himself.
Considering the widow's circumstances, in the book, the protagonist says to himself:
"That's no concern of mine. It doesn't matter.
"More importantly, there is me, myself. Tonight, I've been just hanging around doing nothing, hopping from bar to bar, drinking here and there. And now I'm lying on the bed with my shoes on. The bath will be ready soon ー I'll take a bath and then sleep until noon tomorrow. Then I'll attend a seminar tomorrow afternoon, come back here, and somehow write three stories in the next ten days. Including short stories and a serialized installment of a novel, which I have vaguely promised to write" (pp 71-72).
Then, Akira Tsuzuki, or Mr Ishihara if you will, asks himself: "Leading such a life…, Hey, Akira, spending your life this way, can you say you're doing anything significant?"
He repeats to himself, "Hey, Akira, does what you're doing matter?"
Something Significant
This monologue has been reverberating in my head over and over since I was 21: "You really think what you're doing is significant?"
Just as an aside, there is a restaurant with a counter in the Hilltop Hotel which serves delicious tempura. I also frequented the restaurant once I was able to afford it on my own.
Time has rolled on, and now I find myself 73. Yet, even at this age, I sometimes confront myself, "Hey, by doing this, do you really think you're doing something of significance?"
I remember clearly how Mr Ishihara called me to talk about Sei Ito's Transformation. But to my surprise, Ishihara made the following statement in the first edition of the magazine, en-taxi (p 70, March 27, 2003):
"Let me tell you an interesting story. There's an intriguing mystery writer by the name of Shin Ushijima. He's the most sought-after lawyer in Tokyo, so he has inexhaustible materials for stories."
Thus, he lightly touches on me and immediately adds, "The other day, I talked with him on the phone. 'Have you read any work of Sei Ito?' I asked, and he replied, 'Oh, yes, I'm a big fan of his.' Then, I asked, 'Which books are your favorites?' And he said, 'I'm very fond of The Flood, and I love Transformation.'' So, I told him, 'You have so much interesting material in your daily life, but it's just a matter of changing the folds of your consciousness, isn't it?' And he said, 'Well, well, that's eye-opening. No one has ever said that to me before.'"
Puzzling Digressions
But in reality, Mr Ishihara was referring to Transformation from the beginning, when he said that it was so funny that he often laughed while reading. It was absolutely not The Flood. He told me how pleasant it was to read the book as though light-heartedly teaching the pleasure of reading to younger people. It was I who started talking about The Flood.
The statement in the magazine was originally made in a round-table discussion. When Sei Ito was brought up as a topic before he mentioned me, he said, criticizing [author and literary critic] Saiichi Maruya, saying: "I cannot find any single passage in his books that makes me laugh in spite of myself, or tap my knee and cry out, 'You're telling me! We see eye to eye.'"
When Mr Ishihara was on the telephone to talk about Transformation, I could sense in his breath that there were some passages in Transformation that "made him tap his knee and laugh despite himself, crying out, 'You're telling me. We see eye to eye!'"
But in the magazine, he states, "I haven't read Sei Ito's Transformation. I read The Flood back then and found it very interesting. But having tried reading it at this age, I've found it's more interesting than before. Is it because I'm getting old?"
Mr Ishihara kindly called to recommend me to read Transformation. In terms of the chronology, it was before this round-table discussion. I am pretty sure of that, judging from what he said about me.
Yet he said that he had not read Transformation.
It really puzzled me. Whatever it may have been, I clearly remember Mr Ishihara's tone of voice when he told me that the book was so hilarious that he couldn't help laughing.
Gratitude
Thinking back, I believe that he was trying to lift up my spirits that way.
I felt it in my bones that Ishihara was determined to do for me what Sei Ito had done for him.
Mr Fukashi Asami, an editor for the monthly literary magazine, Bungakukai, read Ishihara's A Bleak Classroom and discovered his talent. And as this novel was carried in the coterie magazine, Hitotsubashi Literature, he might have brought up this brilliant, talented young student to Sei Ito when the opportunity arose. Ito would have told him that he was the likable young man who had come to borrow money. Asami thereafter mustered the courage to contact Ishihara and encouraged him to write his next novel ー Season of the Sun.
Maybe Sei Ito put in a word with Bungeishunju Co, Ltd to pave the way for Ishihara to win the Akutagawa Prize. It is just my thought, though.
But it was all thanks to Sei Ito that Ishihara was able to become a successful novelist, whereby he saved his family from financial ruin and became an icon of the postwar Showa era. I can easily imagine how grateful Ishihara had been to Sei Ito for his assistance because he was a conscientious and dutiful person.
Mr Ishihara would have thought that a part of what Sei Ito had done for him could be recreated for this unusual lawyer and writer. Just my two cents, again.
There can be no answers from Mr Ishihara, who has faded into nothingness and is no longer in this world. I can do nothing but cry out into the void. But Mr Ishihara remains alive in me ー he lives on.
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(To read the book in Japanese, please visit the publisher's website.)
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Author: Shin Ushijima
