Chapter 3.2: Of Men and Women

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 3.2: Of Men and Women

Read other chapters in My Mentor, Shintaro Ishihara

"Ushijima-san, after all, you know, this world is made of only men and women," Shintaro Ishihara informed me of this more than once or twice. Sometimes, he had been drinking.

"I see. If you say so, it must be true. But in my own novels, I always try to be conscious of the entanglement between individuals and organizations. Individuals assemble, which makes an organization. Once the organization is formed, things can happen that would be impossible for an individual ー both good and bad. For the sake of the organization, individuals allow their lives to be determined and boundaries set. And those individuals are composed of men and women. That's my view."

When I said this, Mr Ishihara's reply was rather non-committal.

Despite his vague response, I figured I had made him recall the attempted plan for ShinGinko Tokyo Ltd, a regional bank.

"The failure of ShinGinko created a big problem. Had it gone bankrupt, it would have ruined the lives of more than 10,000 concerned people. I did everything in my power to get the approval of the Metropolitan Assembly for additional financing of ￥40 billion ($251 million) and broke my neck to rebuild the bank. Since becoming involved in Tokyo Metropolitan Government politics, I have never in my life felt so troubled as I was then." (The Life of a Man Called ”I” by Shintaro Ishihara, Gentosha, 2022, pp 185-186)

Involved With a Woman

Those were Mr Ishihara's words, and the passage that followed amazed me: "At that time, taking the opportunity, I spilled out my heart to a woman, muttering, 'I'm at the end of my tether. There's no choice but to pray fervently to the gods and Buddha.' Catching my murmur, she vowed to pray for the matter's favorable resolution, and offered to run 40 kilometers a day ー close to a full marathon ー for the next two months in my support." (P 186)

The woman was one of those who had submitted an essay to the TV program Mr Ishihara had started. "When I was Governor of Tokyo, I enlisted the help of the talented Terry Ito to introduce the hidden beauty and charms of Tokyo in an easy-to-understand way." (Pp 176-77)

She sent in an essay about her hobby, which featured an "abnormal interest in bizarre and ghoulish crimes." Immediately, I realized that this must have been Mr Ishihara's inspiration for writing the grotesque yet striking novel, Communion (聖餐, Gentosha Publishing Co, 2002). In it, there is a scene where someone is murdered, and all their internal organs are eviscerated.

As a result of excessive running, the woman injured her femur and eventually had to undergo major surgery. He goes on to describe this scene, too.

"Her postoperative pain was so great that the sea club friends who came to visit had to avert their eyes. During their visit, she asked them to leave and begged me to make love to her. I didn't know how much it could help relieve her suffering, but I complied." (P 186)

It was a shocking revelation. Who could imagine that Mr Ishihara, the Governor of Tokyo, had such a different private persona?

'The Rift'

When I read this passage, I was reminded of a scene in The Rift (亀裂, Shinchosha Publishing Co, Ltd, 1958). There, the young protagonist, Akira Tsuzuki, who seemed to be Mr Ishihara's alter ego, makes love to his girlfriend, who has tuberculosis. It is a story of a woman who desires the embrace of a man, even though she's spitting up blood.

In this case, however, the woman, who had continued to run 40 kilometers a day, ended up needing major surgery. Ishihara described how it left her with "A big scar on the slashed flesh of her lower back near her young left buttocks, which was most noticeable when she stripped herself naked." (Pp 186–187) Then he added, "I was compelled to harbor a strong sense of guilt for her as a result of this incident." (P 187)

Nevertheless, the woman "who had made such an extraordinary sacrifice for none other than me, became more and more infatuated. One day, she insisted that she was going to elope with me to Okinawa and have my baby. This she announced to her mother and younger sister, before running away from home and starting to live on her own." (P 187)

Mr Ishihara must have been at his wits' end. But who paid the rent for her apartment, where she lived alone?

Keeping Up

"At my age, I can hardly imagine a life of keeping up with her, and could not accept the passion of a woman who is 45 years younger than I am. However, I do hope from the bottom of my heart that she will find the right man as soon as possible and fall in love with him. As a person who will leave this world much earlier than she, I sincerely hope she will start a new life with a clean slate, leaving behind her delusions toward me." (P 187)

"Find the right man and fall in love with him?" It is interesting to know that this phrase came from Mr Ishihara, who had earlier written about a similar experience. That time, the woman begged him to make love to her, even though she was married to another man. And later, he cruelly described her as a woman "who was already past her prime."

That aside, I am curious to know how the woman who was 45 years younger than Mr Ishihara is faring now?

If she were 45 years younger, it means that she was 44 when Mr Ishihara died.

Oh, and the turmoil over the ShinGinko capital increase happened in 2008, so the woman was 30 years old at the time. Mr Ishihara was 75 then, already a senior citizen.

It just goes to show how Ishihara attracted women and was besotted with them throughout his life. It seemed he would plunge into the abyss of interpersonal entanglements from which it was difficult to escape. Yet, he could not help himself from doing so, as if he were living out his karma.

*Book cover: "Medical Records of Young Ogai"*.

A World of Men and Women

Looking back, it was Mr Ishihara and no one else who could teach me that "This world is made up only of men and women."

When he said that, his words, voice, and expression were calm and detached. It was as if someone who had come to understand the workings of the universe was simply explaining something unexceptional to a person of ignorance following from behind.

Had I been aware of what was written in Mr Ishihara's book, The Life of a Man Called ”I” (Gentosha, 2022), I would have been a better pupil…or would I?

Ishihara wrote, "For the life of me, I can't believe in the next life." But immediately thereafter, he also said: "Yes, even nihility exists." And after all, "I cannot make myself disbelieve the power of human thought." (P 340)

"I…believe in the power of the unknowable for humans. But I can hardly link this recognition to the existence of a next life after death. I have been unable to reconcile this, so I hope that someday, something will solve this irritation and anxiety in the future. But eventually the unknowables may only be resolved by death, which is the final future and last mystery reached by human beings." (P 341)

He described his present situation that way, but immediately thereafter wrote, "I feel that this long and verbose reminiscence has not brought me comfort at all," concluding: "It seems that my life has been blessed with luck despite my foolish acts, although I do not know what I did to deserve such grace. So, I agree that it's dismal, dying is, as Okinori Kaya said." (P 341)

That is the last line of this book.

Disingenuous

Wait ー Didn't you say you believed in the power of human thought? And even though you don't believe in the next life, you said you believe in the power of the unknowable? These questions popped into my mind.

Mr Ishihara, in Chapter 1 of your book, did you not write, "I don't want to be oblivious to what had happened in my life, I want to die remembering and holding all that happened to me."? (P11) If I could, I would ask him, "Isn't it you, Mr Ishihara, who often told me, 'A novel is the fruit of passion with intensity and irresistible emotions'?"

Shintaro Ishihara was "staring at the ceiling with his eyes open wide, breathing hard and heavily." (P 103 of "My Father Remained True to Himself Until the End," by Nobuhiro Ishihara, Monthly Bungeishunju, April 2022.)

Was he able to embrace his past, solve the last mystery faced by human beings, and recognize himself, leaving this world for the next?

About that, I have no clue.

Mr Ishihara's consciousness has disappeared.

"What will the vanished consciousness give shape to after death? But I cannot make myself disbelieve in the power of human thought." (The Life of a Man Called ”I” at p 340.)

Mr Ishihara is watching me tapping away at my laptop this way now. And in the next moment, he'll call me and say, "Hi, Ushijima-san, it's been a long time. It's Ishihara. Mind if I interrupt you? As usual, you've been running off your feet, staying busy. You haven't changed." He would be showing me that exceptional smile of his at the end of the line. Such a thought just popped into my mind.

Ogai Mori's Youthful Anecdotes

And one more thing.

While thinking of Mr Ishihara, I recalled another book that I had read recently.

It was the Medical Records of Young Ogai (鷗外　青春診療録控, by Mitsuo Yamazaki, Chuokoron Publishing Co Ltd, 2021).

The book was written based on Ogai Mori's short story titled Casuistica, a collection of anecdotes he recorded while helping with his father's medical practice at a clinic called Kisseido for a few months. That was after he graduated from the Tokyo University Faculty of Medicine and before he was called to serve in the army.

In the book, there is a segment called "Physiological Tumor." In a nutshell, it means a pregnancy. The patient was a childless woman who separated from her husband because she had no children. Living alone, she earned her living through needlework. It seems that she had fluid in her abdominal cavity and wanted it to be drained. But her doctor suspected that it might be cancer because it was hard, and so declined to insert a needle into her belly to remove the fluid. Therefore, she turned to Mori's father's clinic to consult with another doctor.

Just a Man and a Woman

As it turns out, she was just pregnant, but since she lived alone, no one had suspected that she was pregnant.

"…She was lucky. It was just a coincidence that she escaped being treated with a catheter to drain her abdomen." (The Complete Works of Ogai Mori, Volume 2, published by Chikama Shobo, at P 123.) It was the young Mori's diagnosis.

The story concludes with, "Later, it became known that a young elementary school teacher would frequent her house, ducking under the sign at the entrance, which offered 'Tailored Goods for the Family.' It was inscribed in Oieryu school calligraphy strokes." (P 123)

This, too, was a story about a man and a woman. I was all the more persuaded because I had already read Mr Ishihara's The Life of a Man Called ”I”.

While he was a popular man of letters, had been a member of the Upper House, and a member of the Lower House, and Governor of Tokyo, Mr Ishihara was, after all, a man. And so was the elementary school teacher.

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(To read the book in Japanese, please visit the publisher's website.)