Hearing of this marvellous work, Tenji Nakamura realised that, among the other blessings he was accumulating with age, he no longer had to fear. And with fear gone, he now wished to be proud, and to share in the pride of others. Tomokawa’s letter marked in his mind the moment when he finally escaped the yoke of fear that he had lived under since that day at the Shinjuku Rashomon. Nakamura decided that, in spite of his illness, he would travel to the frigid town of Sapporo in the far north to once more meet with his old comrade.
It was midwinter when he arrived, and preparations for the city’s annual snow festival were in full swing. Nakamura had seen on television how the snow festival’s theme for 1966 was to be the monsters that had become so popular in Japanese movies and on Japanese television. As he travelled in a taxi from the Sapporo airport to the Tomokawas’ apartment, he saw soldiers from the Japanese Self-Defence Force helping make gigantic ice sculptures.
The driver insisted on naming them as they drove by: Gamera, the fire-breathing turtle, Godzilla, Giant Robo, Red Cobra with his huge forehead and protruding upper teeth, Mothra, the giant caterpillar, and Guillotine the Emperor with his huge head and tentacles. None of the names meant anything to Nakamura, but he admired the exquisite Japanese workmanship, the indomitable Japanese spirit such an endeavour represented.
Tomokawa lived in a high-rise government housing unit and Nakamura got lost in the complex. By the time he found the right unit, he was exhausted from the search and the cold. Still—Tomokawa! How good it was to see him again! He was fatter, balder and, thought Nakamura, even shorter, but the same old daikon-headed Tomokawa—even if the daikon was a little blemished from the liver spots that mottled his face, putting Nakamura in mind of something vaguely reptilian. And if he was still somewhat annoying, Tomokawa was so delighted to see his old commander, so frank and unaffected, that what Nakamura had once found irritating he was now determined to find endearing and even charming.
Tomokawa’s wife was even shorter than her husband, with an unfortunate underbite that meant she sometimes gave the impression of eating her words rather than speaking them. In spite of this, or because of it, she was a confident woman—a little too much so for Nakamura’s liking, but he chose to find her over-familiarity with him as evidence of warmth and kindness, and as such being qualities that marked Mrs Tomokawa out as a special woman.
Such a man of talents, Commander, said Mrs Tomokawa, showing him into their living room, done up in the western style, complete with two very large soft armchairs. A soldier, a businessman and our very own Hokusai!
Tenji Nakamura hid his confusion with a smile, unsure whether she had confused him with the immortal painter or just eaten half a word. But there was no confusion.
Do you still paint, Commander?
She was holding a military postcard and passed it to Nakamura. It bore a small painting of Tomokawa as he had been on the railway in 1943. It was clear Mrs Tomokawa thought Nakamura had painted it, for on the back of the card Nakamura had written a greeting and a short note saying Tomokawa was in the best of health.
Outside the day was black with snow clouds.
Forgive me, said Nakamura, but I must rest for a moment.
He asked to sit down. The western armchair he found spiritually coarse and physically unpleasant; sitting in it felt like being embraced and smothered by something monstrous. The trip had wearied him far more than he could have believed possible and the morphine medication, which he had tried to minimise for the trip so he wouldn’t appear stupefied, seemed nevertheless to be affecting him more than usual.
He felt a strange sense of drift and separation that was not entirely unpleasant and at the same time he became intensely aware of every sound in the room, every odour and even the movement of the air. The furnishings were living things, even the wretched armchairs were alive to him, and he felt he understood all things, but every time he tried to put this understanding into words it ran away from him. Suddenly he wanted to go home, and he knew that would not be possible until the formalities of his visit to the Tomokawas were ended. He kept his eyes closed, conscious that all around him the world lived as he had never known it had lived, and, just as he finally opened himself up to this joy, he also realised that he was dying.
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