Chapter 3.4 The Governor's Visit

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 3.4: The Governor's Visit

Read other chapters in My Mentor, Shintaro Ishihara

I wouldn't know what to say if asked, "Who the hell are you?" Nevertheless, the Governor of Tokyo himself visited such a person, a mere lawyer, and it was enough of an incident to create a sensation.

The whole hospital must have known "who the hell the lawyer is" who had made the ridiculous request. It must have come as a big surprise because Mr Shintaro Ishihara, the Governor of Tokyo, visited such a patient in the hospital.

After the surgery, I still had a catheter inserted in my urethra. Anyone who has experienced it would easily understand the uncomfortable throes of my post-surgery physical status. Although I had a strong desire to urinate, not a single drop would come out. Mentally and physically, I was still groggy from the effects of anesthesia. I was honored that Mr Ishihara kindly came to visit me in the hospital. However, our conversation seemed almost surreal to me.

Mr Ishihara probably said something like, "How are you feeling?" After all, he was always a most courteous person, so he likely spoke to me that way. But unfortunately, I cannot recall the scene.

I would have received a phone call from Toru Kenjo, who came along with Mr Ishihara, but it was not before the surgery. Most likely, it would have been on the same day that they came to see me.

Vaguely, I remember Mr Ishihara saying something like, "He still seems to be very uncomfortable, so we shouldn't outstay our welcome." It was very characteristic of Mr Ishihara to pay such attention. He was very sensitive and considerate. Mr Kenjo would have said, "I think that's a good idea, too."

Eighteen Years Earlier

I welcomed them in a daze and saw them off in a daze. Were they in my room for 15 minutes? For 30 minutes? All that I could utter was, "Please forgive me for seeing you off lying in bed."

Looking back now, I realize the significance. It was a special floor in a special place for Mr Ishihara. On July 17, 1987, his younger brother Yujiro died in another room on the same floor of the same ward at Keio University Hospital. His room was the one just next to mine. It was the very place where, 18 years earlier, a momentous event had occurred in Mr Ishihara's life.

Beginning with the car ride to Keio University Hospital, then, as he entered the hospital after getting out of the car, walking step by step to the elevator, then waiting for the door to open, was he remembering that time? It must have been a slow ride up in the elevator to reach the same floor he had frequented 18 years earlier. What was he thinking as he watched the elevator door slowly open, and as he stepped out before the door was fully open, only to walk down the same long corridor to my hospital room?

Before that, I had never considered what Mr Ishihara had gone through 18 years earlier.

'My Kid Brother'

That was where Mr Ishihara, seeing his only brother on the brink of death, said, "Doctor, his heart is still beating." (My Kid Brother, Gentosha Publishing Co, 1996, pp 416–417.) He wrote:

"I don't know why, but I sensed that I should be the one to tell them the exact moment of my brother's death." Therefore, "paying attention to the instruments in the room, I virtually pushed away his wife Makiko, edging up to his bed to watch my brother's face from so close that my face almost touched his.

"He was struggling, gasping for air, but his pained look was gradually disappearing. Instead, at a certain moment, an incredibly calm and relieved look began to cover his face, starkly different from before."

Later, Mr Ishihara confirmed that as the moment when he came to believe that the look on his brother's face "was not a sign of death or loss, but proof of something my brother had newly gained." (Pp 416–417)

Come to think of it, Mr Ishihara published My Kid Brother in July 1996. That was two years before I met him for the first time. And it was nine years before Mr Ishihara visited the hospital room of the pathetic inpatient that was me.

As Mr Ishihara fixed his eyes on me lying helplessly on my back on the narrow bed, was he recalling what had happened 18 years earlier? Lying in that bed was a small man compared to Yujiro, but it was on the same floor. Mr Ishihara himself had followed the same steps from the hospital entrance to my room, making the same moves as he had 18 years before.

Revisiting Keio Hospital

That I hadn't given his history a thought until then made me understand how foolish I was.

Having started weaving together my private memories with Mr Ishihara after his death, I looked back and recalled that he had visited me in the hospital. And only then did I realize that it was a place overflowing with memories of his brother, Yujiro. What an inconsiderate pupil I was ー I felt deeply apologetic.

But I wonder why Mr Ishihara visited me in the hospital. He was 72 at that time, the same age as I am now. Suppose a close friend told me that a mutual acquaintance was ill in the hospital. What kind of friend would make me feel I should go and visit? There is no one who comes to mind.

Was it perhaps that, hearing an acquaintance was in Keio University Hospital, Mr Ishihara recalled his younger brother Yujiro and thought of revisiting the place where he had died 18 years before?

Until then, I had assumed it was Mr Kenjo who had asked Mr Ishihara to come along to visit me. But another idea entered my head. It might have been the other way round.

Mr Ishihara might have learned from Mr Kenjo that I was in Keio University Hospital, and then suggested that they go together to visit me. Mr Kenjo is a very busy person. I don't think he had time to just visit me. It was more likely Mr Ishihara who had a reason to visit, whatever it might have been. That makes more sense to me, thinking back.

'Whimsy and Caprice'

Perhaps the visit was a whim of Mr Ishihara's. In any event, his visit was much beyond my expectations.

The phrase "whimsy and caprice" was one that Mr Ishihara repeatedly tried to teach me. He would say that literature is the product of whimsy and caprice, and you cannot write a novel without them.

I was curious to know whether Mr Ishihara himself might have acted out of whimsy and caprice by visiting a patient such as me. My hospitalization was only for the minor procedure of having my gallbladder removed. Was he trying to show me the meaning of whimsy and caprice?

Perhaps that was the case. If so, I can finally make sense of the reason for his sudden visit to the hospital. Truly, Mr Ishihara was my literary mentor.

Come to think of it, Mr Kenjo, who knew both of us well and was indisputably acknowledged as a brilliant editor, once told me: "Anyway, you and Mr Ishihara are both novelists. The reason he is obsessed with you is that he perhaps feels something instinctive in you that can only be sensed and understood by another novelist."

The great man of letters, Shintaro Ishihara, visited a younger and still inexperienced writer in a hospital room with which he had a strong connection. It must have reminded him of his traumatic past.

I should have known better. It seems that I inadvertently let time pass without seriously thinking of how to return the favor.

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