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Authors: Kenzaburō Ōe
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to tell me about it.”
Takashi, despite his embarrassment as he listened to this, had a certain childlike expression of satisfaction.
“They’re a useless crowd,” he said. “Never use their heads.”
“Give me some more practical details about this new life in Shikoku,” I said. “I don’t suppose you intend to set to work in the fields as our ancestors did?”
“Taka acted as interpreter for a group of Japanese tourists when they went round a supermarket in America,” Momoko said. “One of them was interested when he heard Taka’s surname. They got to talking and it seems he owns a chain of supermarkets in Shikoku. He’s terribly rich, by now he controls all your part of the country, and it turns out he’s set his heart on buying the storehouse at the place where you were born. He plans to have the whole building transported to Tokyo and make it into a restaurant serving country cooking.”
“In short,” my brother went on, “a local nouveau riche has turned up to take that dilapidated old wooden monstrosity off our hands. So if you agree to selling it, I think we ought to go and supervise the dismantling. Besides, I’d like a chance to ask around in the village about the true facts of the affair of great-grandfather and his younger brother. That’s another reason why I came back from America.”
I was not to be convinced in a hurry of the practicability of his plan. Even supposing he’d suddenly found in himself hidden talents as a businessman, he seemed unlikely to succeed in selling a run-down building to a man who, as proprietor of a supermarket chain, was presumably as up-to-date as anyone in his ideas. A restaurant serving country food? But the place didn’t have the kind of charm required; it was a storehouse dating back a good hundred years. What impressed me more than such talk was the interest with which Takashi still pursued the truth about our great-grandfather and his younger brother. One day, at a time when the family, though still living in the village in the valley, was on the verge of breaking up, my brother had caught wind of the scandal involving our family a century or so earlier.
“Great-grandfather killed his younger brother to settle the trouble in the village,” Takashi had said, repeating what he’d heard in a horrified voice. “And he ate a piece of the flesh from his brother’s thigh. He did it to prove to the clan officials that he had no connection with the trouble his brother had stirred up.”
I myself had no accurate information about the incident. Particularly during the war, the village adults gave the impression of shunning all mention of the affair, and our family too had tried to pretend the ugly rumor didn’t in fact exist. Even so, in order to counter his horror I’d told Takashi another, different rumor that I remembered having once been told in private.
“That isn’t true,” I’d said. “After the trouble, great-grandfather helped his brother get away through the forest and escape to Kochi. He went by sea to Tokyo, where he changed his name and did rather well for himself. A number of letters from him came for great-grandfather around the time of the Meiji Restoration. Great-grandfather kept quiet about it to the end, so people had to make up the kind of lies you heard. The reason he kept quiet was that a lot of people from the village had been killed through his brother’s fault, and he wanted to avoid arousing their families’ anger. . . .”
“Anyway, let’s go back to my place,” I proposed, recalling with nostalgia the enormous influence I’d wielded over my younger brother for a period of several years just after the war. “We can consider the plans for a new life when we get there.”
“All right. Since it means that the family storehouse will disappear from the village in the valley where it’s stood for a hundred years, it won’t do any harm to talk it over in a leisurely way.”
“If you two go by taxi, I’ll follow
Takashi, despite his embarrassment as he listened to this, had a certain childlike expression of satisfaction.
“They’re a useless crowd,” he said. “Never use their heads.”
“Give me some more practical details about this new life in Shikoku,” I said. “I don’t suppose you intend to set to work in the fields as our ancestors did?”
“Taka acted as interpreter for a group of Japanese tourists when they went round a supermarket in America,” Momoko said. “One of them was interested when he heard Taka’s surname. They got to talking and it seems he owns a chain of supermarkets in Shikoku. He’s terribly rich, by now he controls all your part of the country, and it turns out he’s set his heart on buying the storehouse at the place where you were born. He plans to have the whole building transported to Tokyo and make it into a restaurant serving country cooking.”
“In short,” my brother went on, “a local nouveau riche has turned up to take that dilapidated old wooden monstrosity off our hands. So if you agree to selling it, I think we ought to go and supervise the dismantling. Besides, I’d like a chance to ask around in the village about the true facts of the affair of great-grandfather and his younger brother. That’s another reason why I came back from America.”
I was not to be convinced in a hurry of the practicability of his plan. Even supposing he’d suddenly found in himself hidden talents as a businessman, he seemed unlikely to succeed in selling a run-down building to a man who, as proprietor of a supermarket chain, was presumably as up-to-date as anyone in his ideas. A restaurant serving country food? But the place didn’t have the kind of charm required; it was a storehouse dating back a good hundred years. What impressed me more than such talk was the interest with which Takashi still pursued the truth about our great-grandfather and his younger brother. One day, at a time when the family, though still living in the village in the valley, was on the verge of breaking up, my brother had caught wind of the scandal involving our family a century or so earlier.
“Great-grandfather killed his younger brother to settle the trouble in the village,” Takashi had said, repeating what he’d heard in a horrified voice. “And he ate a piece of the flesh from his brother’s thigh. He did it to prove to the clan officials that he had no connection with the trouble his brother had stirred up.”
I myself had no accurate information about the incident. Particularly during the war, the village adults gave the impression of shunning all mention of the affair, and our family too had tried to pretend the ugly rumor didn’t in fact exist. Even so, in order to counter his horror I’d told Takashi another, different rumor that I remembered having once been told in private.
“That isn’t true,” I’d said. “After the trouble, great-grandfather helped his brother get away through the forest and escape to Kochi. He went by sea to Tokyo, where he changed his name and did rather well for himself. A number of letters from him came for great-grandfather around the time of the Meiji Restoration. Great-grandfather kept quiet about it to the end, so people had to make up the kind of lies you heard. The reason he kept quiet was that a lot of people from the village had been killed through his brother’s fault, and he wanted to avoid arousing their families’ anger. . . .”
“Anyway, let’s go back to my place,” I proposed, recalling with nostalgia the enormous influence I’d wielded over my younger brother for a period of several years just after the war. “We can consider the plans for a new life when we get there.”
“All right. Since it means that the family storehouse will disappear from the village in the valley where it’s stood for a hundred years, it won’t do any harm to talk it over in a leisurely way.”
“If you two go by taxi, I’ll follow
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