“I want some money.”
“How much?” she asked.
“A lot . . . Love flies out the window when poverty comes in the door, they say, and it’s true.”
“Don’t be silly. Such a trite expression.”
“Is it? But you don’t understand. I may run away if things go on at this rate.”
“Which of us is the poor one? And which will run away? What a silly thing to say!”
“I want to buy my drinks and cigarettes with my own money. I’m a lot better artist than Horiki.”
At such times the self-portraits I painted in high school—the ones Takeichi called “ghost pictures”—naturally came to mind. My lost masterpieces. These, my only really worthwhile pictures, had disappeared during one of my frequent changes of address. I afterwards painted pictures of every description, but they all fell far, far short of those splendid works as I remembered them. I was plagued by a heavy sense of loss, as if my heart had become empty.
The undrunk glass of absinthe.
A sense of loss which was doomed to remain eternally unmitigated stealthily began to take shape. Whenever I spoke of painting, that undrunk glass of absinthe flickered before my eyes. I was agonized by the frustrating thought: if only I could show them those paintings they would believe in my artistic talents.
“Do you really? You’re adorable when you joke that way with a serious face.”
But it was no joke. It was true. I wished I could have shown her those pictures. I felt an empty chagrin which suddenly gave way to resignation. I added, “Cartoons, I mean. I’m sure I’m better than Horiki at cartoons if nothing else.”
These clownish words of deceit were taken more seriously than the truth.
“Yes, that’s so. I’ve really been struck by those cartoons you’re always drawing for Shigeko. I’ve burst out laughing over them myself. How would you like to draw for our magazine? I can easily ask the editor.”
Her company published a monthly magazine, not an especially notable one, for children.
“Most women have only to lay eyes on you to want to be doing something for you so badly they can’t stand it . . . You’re always so timid and yet you’re funny . . . Sometimes you get terribly lonesome and depressed, but that only makes a woman’s heart itch all the more for you.”
Shizuko flattered me with these and other comments which, with the special repulsive quality of the kept man, I calmly accepted. Whenever I thought of my situation I sank all the deeper in my depression, and I lost all my energy. It kept preying on my mind that I needed money more than a woman, that anyway I wanted to escape from Shizuko and make my own living. I made plans of every sort, but my struggles only enmeshed me the more in my dependence on her. This strong-minded woman herself dealt with the complications which developed from my running away, and took care of almost everything else for me. As a result I became more timid than ever before her.
At Shizuko’s suggestion a conference took place attended by Flatfish, Horiki and herself at which it was concluded that all relations between me and my family were to be broken, and I was to live with Shizuko as man and wife. Thanks also to Shizuko’s efforts, my cartoons began to produce a surprising amount of money. I bought liquor and cigarettes, as I had planned, with the proceeds, but my gloom and depression grew only the more intense. I had sunk to the bottom: sometimes when I was drawing “The Adventures of Kinta and Ota,” the monthly comic strip for Shizuko’s magazine, I would suddenly think of home, and this
made me feel so miserable that my pen would stop moving, and I looked down, through brimming tears.
At such times the one slight relief came from little Shigeko. By now she was calling me “Daddy” with no show of hesitation.
“Daddy, is it true that God will grant you anything if you pray for it?”
I thought that I for one would like to make such a prayer:
Oh, vouchsafe unto me a will of ice. Acquaint me with the true natures of “human beings.” Is it not a sin for a man to push aside his fellow? Vouchsafe unto me a mask of anger.
“Yes. I’m sure He’ll grant Shigeko anything she wants, but I don’t suppose Daddy has a chance.”
I was frightened even by God. I could not believe in His love, only in His punishment. Faith. That, I felt, was the act of facing the tribunal of justice with one’s head bowed to receive the scourge of God. I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to believe in the existence of heaven.
“Why haven’t you a chance?”
“Because I disobeyed what my father told me.”
“Did you? But everybody says you’re so nice.”
That’s because I deceived them. I was aware that everybody in the apartment house was friendly to me, but it was extremely difficult for me to explain to Shigeko how much I feared them all, and how I was cursed by the unhappy peculiarity that the more I feared people the more I was liked, and the more I was liked the more I feared them—a process which eventually compelled me to run away from everybody.
I casually changed the subject. “Shigeko, what would you like from God?”