Tokio Whip (26 page)

–
So, there's a map, Roberta, what's the big deal.

–
I forget.

–
I don't – it has to do with how one goes from Shinjuku to Nakano.

–
Right, and all I'm saying is that most people imagine a straight line from one to the other because they have this Chuo Line map-image fixed.

–
I don't.

–
Me either.

–
Not me, I drive, so I think of the roads.

–
Not me either, I take a bus.

–
I have my scooter.

–
I don't think I've ever gone from one to the other – or at least walked it like we are now. I just go by whatever means are available. So what are you getting at, Roberta?

–
Yeah, it sounds like you're the only one who imagines this Chuo Line straight line.

–
Ok, ok, I give. It's no big deal. We'll just keep walking – away from Shinjuku –

–
You can still glimpse it a bit –

–
And past Nakano, Sun Palace and all, and –

–
Into the sun!

–
The real Sun King's palace!

–
Right, well, due east at least.

–
Right, due east.

–
Anyone got a compass?

–
Not me.

–
Not me.

–
How are we gonna know we're going the right way?

–
Think we should try to keep it straight?

–
Like – I hate to say it –

–
Go ahead.

–
Like along the Chuo Line?

***

I saw that van Zandt guy the other day in Roppongi with Hiroko and Hiromi, Hiro considers. Very late, and all three very drunk. A girl on each arm. Lucky guy. I'd certainly like to have either one of them make me happy. And I saw Arlene the other day too, in a coffee shop. She was talking with a Japanese woman. They each had a stack of books and papers with them. Were they working? Arlene. Very pretty. But too quiet for me.

***

Okoi

The most famous of modern geishas was destined for heartbreak; after all she was born into it: her parents had married for love!

All we know are her stage names. First there was Teru, and then Okoi, Carp, known as her biographers tell us for its “voluptuous grace.” The careful reader could do no better than to view her life in light of Saikaku's
A Woman who Loved Love
and Mizoguchi's version with our beloved Kinuyo Tanaka, respecting the differences between all three of course.

We know nothing more of the parents, unfortunately, other than the fact that their livelihood (lacquer) soon came to a stop and they were forced to give up the four-year old product of their love to a ‘tea' house. In turn, her foster parents too lost their small fortune and once again, now aged seven, the little girl entered another house where the foster parents became servants to an aging geisha. (In time, they would become Okoi's servants.) The little girl's charms eventually lead to her becoming a geisha. She made her debut in 1893 at age thirteen in the Shimbashi house Omuja.

Waley tells us that “She possessed an unusually striking form of beauty: full lips, a pronounced chin, a slender nose; hers was an intelligent mature face, quite different from the other faces – childish, demure or featureless – that peer out of the photographs of the geisha of her day.” We can't help but noting that things have not changed very much in the decades since Okoi's prime.

Within five years she was so well known for her many skills that her first patron, HeizoYajima, a stock-broker, set her up in her own teahouse. Soon enough, her fame grew and the great rake and Kabuki actor Ichimura Uzaemon became infatuated with her. And she was starstruck. So too was Yajima. He was so taken by being so near the center of attention that he voluntarily acted as Okoi's go-between for her marriage to Ichimura, who, having won his prize, soon forgot her. Though she remained starstruck: she eventually spent her fortune covering the debts accrued by his profligacies. In time (Waley says two years, the Longstreets say four) a divorce was worked out. Heartbroken, Okoi had had it with men: she opened a new house and this time was hell-bent on
her own pleasures
. She was soon enough back in demand: this time by two sumo wrestlers, whose names should be recorded, Araiwa and Hitachiyama. The two behomeths dueled in their fashion, the former won, but was refused marriage. Of poor Araiwa, it has been said, “He was a simple simon of a fellow – all lard including his brains.”

In 1903, our heroine was introduced to Taro Katsura, who three times would be Prime Minister of Japan. His was no temporary infatuation. He first redeemed Okoi for two thousand yen, and in 1906 married her (Waley), and she was now a respectable and settled woman. None of this will be found in the history books, of course. But still, hers was not a happy lot. In 1905, for example, the Russo-Japanese war was concluded with an unfair-to-Japan Katsura-negotiated treaty which incensed the nation. Okoi was reviled by the public as “the mistress of the betrayer of the Sun God.” Katsura died in 1913, and Okoi mourned him for five years. And then her past life beckoned once again: she opened the National Bar in Ginza, and then another house in Akasaka. And then in 1934, her patron's “crooked political dealings,” brought on another scandal, and again she became the victim of the mob. But, we are told, her “innate pliability ... shrugged off suicide.”

In 1938 Okoi took the tonsure. For the last ten years of her life she either lived in a temple in Meguro Ward or did charitable work. For example, she traveled through China during wartime, praying for both the Chinese and Japanese victims. She also played a part in preserving what remains of the Temple of Five Hundred Arhats in Meguro. At the temple where she lived we can find a statue of the great Goddess of Mercy Kannon – it is known as the Okoi Kannon.

Perhaps there is something to contemplate here, some moral lesson to learn – something about this
karyãkai
, this “flower and willow world,” something perhaps especially Buddhistic and Tokyoish about the heights and depths of great passions, about the waywardness of both poverty and wealth, and that one's only refuge is renunciation. Perhaps.

***

She made love like he imagined a lesbian to. Clinging, sucking, wanting to get “under his skin,” as Arlene had told van Zandt once in a rare drunken state. Needing so much to penetrate.

***

suddenly went mad

suddenly blank

suddenly – saw you

***

ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER

(To the memory of Thomas Bernhard)

Marianne is tall and thin, with full, (
artistic
) breasts, large eyes, a round face and a “young” American-sounding voice; pretty, but not beautiful, she speaks fast and is also a bit confused as to why she is in Tokyo, but
excitement
at being in Tokyo and even and perhaps especially
excitement
at being confused as to why she is in Tokyo predominates, for she is one whom
excitement
naturally
attracts
, and who reciprocally is naturally
attracted to excitement
, the costs of confusion notwithstanding, posing no barrier to the
great resonance
that resides inside her delicate breast – physically, spiritually, intellectually, indeed, even and perhaps especially emotionally – a resonance resident in that breast that is all
excitement
. She is pretty – in an odd way; this is really to say that she is very attractive. After all, who is wholly or simply “pretty” or would even want to be considered so? – there after all lies dullness, resignation, death even, death of the face and of the spirit, and what deaths could possibly be worse? (For the face is the spirit's window and too the reverse, the spirit draws us
excitedly
to this face and not to that, the one leading to the other.) No, it is far better to be pretty, or handsome in the case of a man, in an odd and not a conventional way, as Marianne is, in an
opposite way
. And so too, appropriately, Marianne
walks
in an odd way: she walks
in the opposite direction
. In an odder confluence (or is it coincidence?, no, confluence is wholly appropriate), she speaks much the same way as she walks, that is to say, she
walks and talks in the opposite direction, excitedly
. She speaks against the grain as she strides forth boldly, assuredly, enthusiastically,
excitedly
, when suddenly she comes to a stop, appears momentarily confused, but the costs notwithstanding, she is
excited
, struggles to drag her way forward again, until, suddenly,
excitedly
, she again breaks into her confidence-filled and forthright stride until, again, she half stops and seems to drag herself forward –
excitedly
. It is very difficult for almost anyone – I do not include myself here – to walk with Marianne, but it can be exciting – and here I most emphatically include myself. As one converses while walking with Marianne both participants' words seem to go in and out of a perfectly melodious synchrony and a cacophony, the one leading to the other. However, the important point here is that the “misunderstandings” that arise are not half as exhilarating, and not a tenth, not even one percent as
exciting
as the poetry that results, for it is a poetry that results, an
exciting and essential poetry
that results when one walks and talks with Marianne. But who will or ever could know this about her unless I say it here and now? There is much more, pages, volumes more that I could say about Marianne were I so inclined at the moment, and I am very much inclined, that is freely admitted, but were I not so preoccupied, so very much preoccupied that my pen cannot maintain enough speed to keep up with my thoughts so that I must write furiously and stop momentarily to arrange my thoughts, so much so that I wonder if writing what I am so
excitedly
composing
now
is not unlike my beloved Marianne's walk, my most dear Marianne's talk; were I not so preoccupied with saying even more
essential things
about this
opposite direction
, about
truths and lies
, and other no less important matters, I would say more, much more about Marianne, the most beloved Marianne of so many of my thoughts and dreams, real dreams of for me a very real Marianne. But that will have to wait for the moment, that will have to be momentarily halted, postponed, put “on the back burner” as they say, and perhaps someday when I have or am given more leisure, though I have serious doubts of that day ever occurring in a life that is filled with preoccupations of such a pressing and demanding nature to say what is
essential
, then I will say all the more that I want to say about my dear and beloved Marianne. For example, I will write how she, even she, the very guardian of our dreams, Marianne, the bearer of that most mysterious, magnetic, exhilarating name, is not even sure – what an enormity! – not even she its bearer is sure how to properly spell it, there being so many variations. Marianne; Mary Anne; Marie-Anne; Maryanne; Mary Ann, and so on and so forth. I could also talk about her voice, her letters to me and the photographs of her that I possess. But all of that will have to wait – for, whether they be truths (in Marianne's case) or lies (in all but a few other person's cases), one thing always and naturally leads to another. If I were to describe my “real-life” (village Switzerland, outside the book) friend Marianne, and the description (sex, voice, dress, breasts, walk, talk, gestures, that whole lyrical angularity of the woman; recurring phrases, reading and listening habits; passions spiritual and erotic, joys and sorrows; artistic and intellectual tastes; and more, not forgetting that splendid, ringing
laugh
that would raise the saints from their meditations, or that
stare
that overtakes her at moments as she looks into your soul), and if this description corresponded exactly with my “character-in-a-book” friend Marianne (the capitols of Europe, inside the book), if I were to undertake such a description in that thoroughly fanciful moment of leisure that will probably never occur in a life obsessed with saying what is
essential and true
and naming all the hundreds and thousands and millions of lies that I have listened to and endured to the point where my actual physical constitution is at stake for the sake of holding on to a very few but wholly indispensable truths, truths without which I cannot live, truths upon which this very fragile constitution depends (and, it goes without saying, truths upon which the constitution of this description depends), if, as I say, I could and were to undertake this description of my (outside) friend Marianne, and what I said corresponded note for note and word for word with my (inside) Marianne (or however it is you spell her name), if I were free (!) to describe the one, the real, outside, village Swiss Marianne, who also, by the way, is not sure how to spell her name, this most gentle and
artistic
and pained of all life's creatures, and this description corresponded to that of my (inside) Marianne, this equally artistic and least consciously literary Marianne – though Marianne has read a great deal, is in fact a better-read person than even myself, and has written some few, not many but a very few, extremely valuable pages that she has allowed me to see and some to even copy and that are far worthier than these I am writing now – this Marianne whose breast – heart, soul, sensibility – seeks as it also expresses something higher than the literature of the marketplace where the ridiculous novel-whores – not to mention the art and film whores and dance and music whores – no, this Marianne, my Marianne, whose artistic sensibility came about as a result of years on the gallery circuit and even more years on the treadmill of the conservatory, followed by many more years, punishing years, years demanding to the highest
artistic
and human degrees possible, years spent in the cabarets and worse places, worse even than the worst imaginable song-and-dance dives of her native state, and all of these years spent in pursuit of the
most essential artistic truths, truths that could only be pursued and found by choosing to go in the opposite direction– and to go until she finally succeeded
; if, as I say, the description of my equally gentle and pained, well-read and artistic village Swiss friend Marianne (outside) and my (metropolitan, remember) Marianne (inside) fit one to one, exactly and without the slightest degree of slippage, though I could forever (as most readers would no doubt prefer) claim the former a fact, the village Swiss (outside) Marianne a fact and the latter a fiction, the cosmopolitan (inside) Marianne a fiction; or better, if pushed to it, I could proclaim them both fictions – or both facts! – simply because Marianne (country or city, outside or inside) by the nature of her being, of her embodying truth, is not and never could be a lie, can only and ever be
essentially true
. But, as our good, dear and departed friend T. has written, “it is not possible to communicate and hence to demonstrate the truth,” and, as he has also said, “to write about a period of one's life, no matter how remote or how recent, no matter how long or how short, means accumulating hundreds and thousands and millions of falsehoods and falsifications, all of which are familiar to the writer describing the period as truths and nothing but truths.” I see her (and Lang, and Roberta)
here
(in the ‘mentis acie'); I hear them
now
(mental ear), talking as palpably as I am walking with them, now, here, at this very moment and place as I write in this state of complete and entire
excitement
and lucidity. And as T. has also said, all attempts at saying the truth become simply lies to anyone who reads them, because after all, when one realizes that to try to write and to tell the truth that one will never succeed, that the truth will always be taken as a tissue of lies, that “the description makes something clear which accords with the describer's
aspiration
for truth but not with the truth itself,” then fatefully and
excitedly
one goes in the
opposite direction
, in that direction where one thing leads to another. Come now, you ask me, you certainly do not believe in these characters of yours, in this preposterous idea of a city (these “styles of walking and styles of talking”) you are proposing? But isn't that it? It is, it must be preposterous to maintain any parcel, or segment of truth, of something
essential
and
essentially true
. To acknowledge the impossibility of communicating any truth just as one ridiculously, absurdly, flies against all the facts in attempting it. (And perhaps too to be smashed down and crushed like a gnat in the attempt – yes, one also accepts – indeed, even welcomes – that very distinct possibility.) To talk and to walk with “facts” and “fictions” (the one leading to the other) hand in hand all the while going in the essentially true and opposite direction: to be with Marianne (Swiss, outside) and with Marianne (European, inside), fiction or most decidedly otherwise; to talk with Lang and with Lang; to walk with both Robertas. But few will ever understand this, could ever be expected to comprehend this, this which is
most essentially and excitingly true
. A phrase, a woman, a word,
one leading to the other
, and suddenly one is caught, wrapped up, enthralled, and
excited, one thing leading to another
, and one is forever off in that
opposite direction
. Lord, how when one was younger one was content simply – joyously perhaps but not
excitedly
– to talk and walk with one's friends. But now they are gone – into their
excitements
, their fictions, their
essential truths
, and one must make do alone, in memory, a phone call, an occasional letter, a more rare visit. I speak of my Marianne of the artistic breasts, speak of the
essential excitement
I found once in just being in her presence, her truth, her conversation, her
essential
and unending
excitement
without cease,
one excitement leading to another
; found once in a conversation at midnight in a bar in Tokyo with Lang, a conversation punctuated mostly by our deepening silences, silences deepening as an awareness of what we were saying to one another grew upon us, an awareness of how
exciting and of how essential
the truths we were expressing were (there were many other such conversations, all ended now); found once too when silently walking across the city with Roberta (and never revealing to her the great love I bear her); and having been within that real knowledge, real truth, within those most
exciting and essential
truths each leading to another – having gone, that is, in the
opposite direction
and seen how one thing most assuredly leads to another when one is in the midst of such exciting and essential truths as these my friends, I am free to write and speak now as I please, and to reject and condemn forever whatever lies, falsehoods and accusations the rest of the world may try and defile me with, even if their source may be you, Reader, no matter how dear you may be or might become to me, because after all – I know whom I am addressing in this two-way street where one thing leads to another.