Mr Shintaro Ishihara was the Goethe of Japan. I was his pupil, someone in the same profession, and his escort runner. In this chapter, I have woven together more of my private recollections, spanning as long as twenty-plus years, and "my unfulfilled promise" to him. ー Shin Ushijima
Chapter 3.1: A Sense of Self
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"Writing about the women he broke up with is something that a man should not do. I believe so. It should be taboo. It's impolite, isn't it?" My friend Mr T spoke in a disappointed tone on the end of the phone. He was always almost worshipful of Shintaro Ishihara, making remarks like, "How cool he looks! He looks great in a glencheck double-breasted suit."
Mr T had read The Life of a Man Called ”I” (Gentosha, 2022)
My friend's incredibly rich father bought him a sailboat to celebrate his entrance to junior high school. It was moored at Sajima Marina, owned by Hisaya Morishige (a well-known Japanese actor) in Shonan, Kanagawa Prefecture. The 21-foot sailboat was the same model that Kenichi Horie used to cross the Pacific Ocean.
Mr T was a world-famous racing driver. He became the No 1 professional racing driver five times on Japan's top circuit and was the first Japanese driver to race in a Formula One World Championship Grand Prix.
Certainly, his views were not far from mine.
The Kept Woman
We both agreed that the part in which Mr Ishihara mentioned a woman with whom he had a relationship was inappropriate. He wrote: "Somewhere in town, she bumped into a man from childhood whom she used to be close to, and he courted her. And she chose to marry him instead of being someone else's kept woman." (Pp 7–8)
Now, of course, the word "kept woman" is a bit old-fashioned, and that someone who had kept the woman was, of course, Mr Ishihara. He goes too far in the subsequent passages, though.
"Two years after we split, she sent a message to me indirectly through an acquaintance that she wanted to see me in private" (P 8). And Ishihara agreed to meet her. He went on:
"In tears, she confessed to me that she had found her husband was having an affair with another woman and asked me to make love to her once more to relieve her distress."
Ishihara writes that he "accepted her request. I made love to her for the first time in a long time, but found that she was already past her prime and her lovemaking was nothing more than bland."
My friend was exasperated. "You know, she's probably still alive, right? That's incredible. First of all, Mr Ishihara wrote, 'She came to the room in the hotel which I had reserved.' See, he reserved the room in the hotel. This means that Mr Ishihara was hot to trot from the beginning, wasn't he?"
My friend was outraged.
A Woman from Hong Kong
Anyway, as for me, I couldn't help smiling to myself, shaking my head at the next passage. This time, Mr Ishihara was talking with a woman by the name of Y, who was "born in Hong Kong," at a café in Tokyo Station. He had had a close relationship with her despite occasional rows. He was the man to whom she gave her virginity. (P 194)
But suddenly she told him that she was returning to Hong Kong.
Mr Ishihara confronted her, asking, "You love me, don't you?" (P 188) And suddenly, she bursts into tears and replies, "Yes, I love you more than any other man in this country."
"Then, why are you leaving?"
"Because you're more self-indulgent and strong-willed than any other man in this country. There is no other man like you here."
"Then…"
"That's why I fell in love with you, because of your personality. But I hate myself for it. I've decided to say goodbye because I don't think I can ever be happy if we keep our relationship like this." (P 189)
There is also a passage recounting that the woman was pregnant but miscarried when she fell from a stepladder while clearing her shelves at home. Upon reading this passage, instantly, I recalled the scene in his first book, A Bleak Classroom, in which a heroine named Michiko had a miscarriage, too.
In the story, Michiko missed a step on the stairs and fell from the second floor, unfortunately, hitting her lower belly on the hard edge of a roll of kimono cloth related to her work. The fall caused her to have a miscarriage.
The Breakup
Having read the two similar stories, at first I doubted whether Y's miscarriage was true. However, I reconsidered, judging that it must be true. There was no reason to mix fiction into Y's story.
Ishihara recounts that in the café, "there were many customers, and noticing them scrutinizing us out of curiosity, I prodded her to follow me out to find another place to talk." (P 190)
No wonder. It could only be Shintaro Ishihara. How would you respond if you saw the Shintaro Ishihara talking with an attractive young woman as though engrossed in a secret intrigue? To make it more dramatic, the woman was shedding tears.
This exchange happened just as a yacht race was about to get underway.
"I still had feelings for her and desperately wanted to change her mind. But on the other hand, I was aware that the race was about to start."
The race was set to begin at 2:00 PM. He asked, "What time is your flight?"…
"Cathay, at six," she replied. (P 190)
My wry smile grew a bit broader at their discourse.
Shintaro Ishihara, well and widely known to the world, a man approaching his senior years, was having a breakup talk with a young woman at a crowded café in Tokyo Station. Everyone within earshot was shooting curious looks at Ishihara himself, regardless of the nature of their talk. Furthermore, seated just in front of him was a tall and hot-tempered woman, and they were deep in conversation. Anyone present would have easily understood that they were having a breakup talk.
So they moved to another café.
In that exchange, I found the young Shintaro Ishihara.
Walking Away
From my experience as a student, if a woman were seated across from me, sobbing and wiping away her tears in a café with other customers around, I would be more concerned by the curious stares than by the nature of my conversation with the woman. It must have been even more so for Shintaro Ishihara. Onlookers were pretending to cast only a few occasional glances, but they were eavesdropping with Dumbo ears.
Still, I found myself wondering if Mr Ishihara paid the bill when they left the first café. And did the clerk at the register notice him blinking his eyes as his nervous habit? Imagining how he acted, I couldn't help but break into an insolent grin.
Thinking of Mr Ishihara's concentration on himself, his immersion in the situation he found himself in, I couldn't help but be amazed. One can only say he was the master of his destiny.
In the end, the woman got up and left, and Mr Ishihara went off to participate in the yacht race. He writes:
"Having watched her leave, I checked my watch and was relieved to confirm that I would barely be able to make the start of the race. Then, I closed my eyes as if to affirm that I was alright. And I mumbled, "It can't be helped" as though consoling myself." (P 191)
Ishihara had experienced the same thing countless times since his youth. But the feelings in each case and moment were never the same.
Ghosts in the Race
Although Mr Ishihara joined the race, "his sailboat unexpectedly climbed onto a hidden reef and was forced to intensely heel because of the strong shock, as if the entire sailboat shuddered." (P 192)
At the moment of the collision, "I clearly heard a woman's high-pitched scream and thought to myself, 'Whose voice is that? No, that must be her voice.' And for no apparent reason, I hastily checked my watch. To my surprise, its hands pointed to six on the dot, which was exactly when her plane departed. 'This makes sense,' I thought to myself." (P 192)
Mr Ishihara was someone who believed such coincidences happened under the sun.
He also wrote, "I believe in the power and energy of human thought…Actually, when my father died, he visited the woman of advanced age, who had acted as the matchmaker for his marriage. She ushered him into a detached tearoom, and he took off his hat and greeted her, sitting on the edge of the veranda. Then, she went to the house to make tea, and when she returned to the tearoom, he had vanished.
"She had a premonition of my father's death and called my house. Then she came up to Tokyo and heard of his sudden death from the maid who attended to her in place of my mother, who happened to be away at that time." He states so in his book.
"So, I believe in the existence of ghosts." (Pp 330-331)
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(To read the book in Japanese, please visit the publisher's website.)
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Author: Shin Ushijima
