I Am a Cat (69 page)

“Well, not just at this exact moment. But my idea is that we should walk about for a bit and then go on to the zoo around eleven.”

“So?”

“By then, the old trees in the park will be darkly frightening like a silent forest.”

“Well, possibly. Certainly, it will be a little more deserted than by daytime.”

“We’ll follow a path as thickly wooded as possible, one where even in daytime few people pass. Then, before you know it, we’ll find ourselves thinking we’re far away from the dusty city and a feeling, I’m sure, will grow within us that we’ve somehow wandered away into far-off mountains.”

“What does one do with a feeling like that?”

“Feeling like that, we’ll just stand there, silent and motionless for a little while. Then, suddenly, the roar of a tiger will burst upon us.”

“Is the tiger trained to roar precisely at that moment?”

“I guarantee he’ll roar. Even in broad day that fearsome sound can be heard all the way over at the Science University. So, after dark, in the very dead of night, when not a soul’s about in the deep-hushed loneliness, when death can be felt in the air and one breathes the reek of evil mountain spirits. . .”

“Breathing the reek of evil mountain spirits? Whatever does that mean?”

“I understand it’s an expression used to signify a condition of extreme terror.”

“Is it indeed. Not an expression in common use. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard it before. Anyway, what then?”

“Then the tiger roars. A savage shattering roar that seems to strip each shaking leaf from the ancient cedar trees. Really, it’s terrifying.”

“I can well believe it is.”

“Well then, how about joining me for such an adventure? I’m sure we’ll enjoy it. An experience to be treasured. Everyone, sometime, that’s how I see it, really ought to hear a tiger roar from the depths of night.”

“Well,” says my master, “I don’t know. . . ” He drops on Coldmoon’s enthusiastic proposal for an expedition the same wet blanket of indifference with which he has muzzled Yore’s agonized entreaties.

Up until this moment that dim nincompoop has been listening, enviously and in silence, to the talk about the tiger, but as a hypnotist’s key phrase will bring his subject to his senses, my master’s repetition of his indifference snapped Yore smartly back into remembrance of his own dilemma. “Revered teacher,” he muttered from his broken trance, “I’m worried sick. What, what, shall I do?”

Coldmoon, puzzled, stares at that enormous head. As for me, I feel suddenly moved, for no particular reason but the feeling, to leave this trio to themselves. Accordingly, I excuse myself from their company and sidle around to the living room.

There I find Mrs. Sneaze with the giggles. She has poured tea into a cheap china cup and, placing that cup on a nasty antimony saucer, says to her niece, “Would you please take this to our guest?”

“I’d rather not.”

“Why not?” The mistress sounds surprised and her giggling stops abruptly.

“I’d just rather not,” says Yukie. She suddenly adopts a peculiarly supercilious expression and, firmly seating herself on the matting, bends forward and low to study some rag of a daily newspaper.

Mrs. Sneaze immediately resumes negotiations. “What a funny person you are. It’s only Mr. Coldmoon. There’s no reason to act up.”

“It’s simply that I really would prefer not to.” The girl’s eyes remain fixed on the newspaper, but it’s obvious that she’s too het up to be able to read a word of it. What’s more, if anyone points out that she isn’t reading, there’ll be another flood of maidenly tears.

“Why are you being so shy?” This time, laughing, Mrs. Sneaze deliberately pushes the cup and saucer right onto the newspaper as it lies there flat on the floor.

“What a nasty thing to do!” Yukie tries to yank the paper out from under the tea things, knocks them flying and the spilled tea shoots all over the paper and the living room matting.

“There, now!” says the mistress.

With a cry expressing a curious mixture of anger, shock, and embarrassment, Yukie scrambles to her feet and runs out into the kitchen. I imagine she’s gone to fetch a mop. I find this little drama rather amusing.

Mr. Coldmoon, totally unaware of the female flurry which his visit appears to have stirred up in the living room, continues, somewhat oddly, his conversation with my master.

“I notice,” he says, “that you’ve had new paper fixed on that sliding door. Who did it, if I may ask?”

“The women. Quite a good job they made of it, don’t you think?”

“Yes, very professional. You say ‘the women.’ Does that include that college girl who sometimes comes here visiting?”

“Yes, she lent a hand. In fact she was boasting that, since she can make such an obviously splendid job of papering a sliding door, she is also obviously well qualified to get married.”

“I see,” says Coldmoon still studying the door. “Down the left side, there,” he eventually continued, “the paper has been fixed on taut and smooth, but along the right-hand edge it seems to have been inadequately stretched. Hence those wrinkles.”

“That was where they started the job, before they’d really got the hang of it.”

“I see. lt’s certainly less well done. The surface forms an exponential curve irrelatable to any ordinary function.” From the abyss of his scientific training Coldmoon dredges up monstrosities.

“I dare say,” says my master, indifferent as ever.

That dispassionate comment, it would seem, at last brings home to our hooligan scribe the complete hopelessness of hoping that even the most searing of his supplications could ever melt my master’s chilly disconcern. Suddenly lowering his huge skull to the matting,Yore in total silence made his farewell salutation.

“Ah,” said my master, “you’re leaving?”

Yore’s crestfallen appearance provided his only answer. We heard him dragging his heavy cedar clogs even after he’d gone out through the gate.

A pitiable case. If someone doesn’t come to his rescue, he could well compose one of those rock-top suicide poems and then fling his stupid body over the lip of Kegon Falls. Come what may, the root-cause of all this trouble is the flibbertigibbet self-conceit of that insufferable Miss Goldfield. If Yore does do himself in, it is to be hoped that his ghost will find the time to scare that girl to death. No man need regret it if a girl like that, even a brace or more of them, were removed from this already sufficiently troubled world. It seems to me that Coldmoon would be well advised to marry some more ladylike young person.

“Was that, then, one of your pupils?”

“Yes.”

“What an enormous head. Is he good at his work?”

“Rather poor for that size of head. But every now and again he asks original questions. The other day he caught me off balance by asking for a translation of the meaning of Columbus.”

“Maybe the improbable size of his braincase leads him to pose such an improbable question. Whatever did you answer?”

“Oh, something or other off the cuff.”

“So you actually did translate it. That’s remarkable.”

“Children lose faith in a language teacher who fails to provide them, on demand, with a translation of anything they may ask.”

“You’ve become quite a politician. But to judge by that lad’s look, he must be terribly run down. He seemed ashamed to be bothering you.”

“He’s just managed to get himself into something of a mess. Silly young ass!”

“What’s it all about? The mere sight of him moves one’s sympathy.

What’s he done?”

“Rather a stupid thing. He’s sent a love letter to Goldfield’s daughter.”

“What? That great numbskull? Students nowadays seem to stop at nothing. Quite astonishing! Really, I am surprised.”

“I hope this news has not upset you?”

“Not in the very least. On the contrary, I find it most diverting. I do assure you, it’s quite all right by me, however, many love letters may come pouring in upon her.”

“If you feel that self-assured perhaps it doesn’t matter. . .”

“Of course it doesn’t matter. I really don’t mind at all. But isn’t it rather remarkable that that great muttonhead should take to writing love letters?”

“Well, actually, it all started as a kind of joke. Because that girl was so stuck-up and conceited, my precious trio got together and. . .”

“You mean that three boys sent one love letter to Miss Goldfield? This business grows more whacky by the minute. Such a joint letter sounds rather like three people settling down to share one portion of a Western-style dinner. Don’t you agree?”

“Well, they did divide the functions up between them. One wrote the letter, another posted it, and the third loaned his name for its signature. That young blockhead whom you saw just now, quite the silliest of them all, he’s the one who lent his name. Yet he actually told me that he’s never even set eyes on the girl. I simply can’t imagine how anyone could do such a ludicrous thing.”

“Well, I think it’s spectacular, a wonder of our times, a real masterpiece of the modern spirit! That that oaf should have it in him to fire off a love letter to some unknown woman. . . Really, it’s most amusing!”

“It could lead to some very awkward misunderstandings.”

“What would it matter if it did? It would be skin off nobody’s nose but the Goldfields’.”

“But this daughter of theirs is the very girl you may be marrying.”

“True, but I only may be marrying her. Don’t be so concerned.

Really, I do not mind in the least about the Goldfields.”

“You may not mind but. . .”

“Oh, I’m quite sure the Goldfields wouldn’t mind. Honest!”

“All right, then, if you say so. Anyway, after the deed was done and the letter delivered, that boy suddenly began to get qualms of conscience. More precisely, he became scared of being found out and therefore came sheepishly around here to ask me for advice.”

“Really? Was that why he looked so very down in the mouth? He must, at heart, be a very timid boy. You gave him some advice, I suppose?”

“He’s scared silly of being expelled from school. That’s his chief worry.”

“Why should he be expelled from school?”

“Because he has done such a wicked and immoral thing.”

“You can’t call sending a love letter, even in joke, either wicked or immoral. It’s just not that important. In fact, I’d expect the Goldfields to take it as an honor and to go around boasting about it.”

“Oh, surely not!”

“Anyway, even if it was wrong to do such a thing, it’s hardly fair to let that poor boy worry himself sick about it. You could be sending him to his death. Though his head is grotesque, his features are not evil. He was twitching his nose, you know. Rather sweet, really.”

“You’re becoming as irresponsible as Waverhouse in the breezy things you say.”

“Well, that’s no more than the current style. It’s a bit old-fashioned to take things quite as seriously as you do.”

“It’s hardly a question of being up-to-date or out-of-fashion. Surely, at any time, anywhere, only a complete fool could think it funny to send a love letter to an unknown person. It flies in the face of common sense.”

“Come now. The vast majority of all jokes depends on the reversal of ordinary common sense. Ease up on the lad. If only in common charity, do what you can to help him. From what I saw he was already on his way to Kegon Falls.”

“Perhaps I should.”

“Indeed you should. After all, the world is stiff with full-grown men, men with older and presumably wiser heads, who nevertheless spend all their lives in practical jokes which risk disaster for their fellow men. Would you punish an idiot schoolboy for signing a love letter when men whose jokes could wreck the world go totally unpenalized? If you expel him from school, you can do no less than banish them from civilized society.”

“Well, perhaps you’re right.”

“Good. Then that’s settled. Now, how about going out and listening to a tiger?”

“Ah, the tiger.”

“Yes. Do come out. As a matter of fact, I’ve got to leave Tokyo in a few days’ time and go back home to attend to some business. Since it will be quite a while before we’ll be able again to go out anywhere together, I called today in the express hope we could make some little expedition this evening.”

“So you’re going home. And on business?”

“Yes, something I myself must cope with. Anyway, let’s go out.”

“All right, I’ll come.”

“Splendid. Today, dinner’s on me. If, after that, we walk across to the zoo, we should arrive at exactly the right time.” Coldmoon’s enthusiasm is infectious and, by the time they bustled out together, my master himself was scarcely less excited.

Mrs. Sneaze and Yukie, ever, eternally feminine, just went on with their chit-chat and their sniggering.

 
IV

I
N FRONT OF the alcove,Waverhouse and Singleman sit facing each other with a board for playing
go
set down between them. “Damned if I’m playing for nothing,” says Waverhouse forcefully. “The loser stands a dinner. Right?”