Modern Japanese Stories/Under Reconstruction

Fushinchū

Under Reconstruction

by Mori Ōgai

It had just stopped raining when Councillor Watanabé got off the tram in front of the Kabuki Playhouse. Carefully avoiding the puddles, he hurried through the Kobiki District in the direction of the Department of Communications. Surely that restaurant was somewhere around here, he thought as he strode along the canal; he remembered having noticed the sign-board on one of these corners.

The streets were fairly empty. He passed a group of young men in Western clothes. They were talking noisily and looked as if they had all just left their office. Then a girl in a kimono and a gaily-coloured sash hurried by almost bumping into him. She was probably a waitress from some local tea-house, he thought. A rickshaw with its hood up passed him from behind.

Finally he caught sight of a small sign-board with the inscription written horizontally in the Western style: Seiyōken Hotel. The front of the building facing the canal was covered with scaffolding. The side-entrance was on a small street. There were two oblique flights of stairs outside the restaurant forming a sort of truncated triangle. At the head of each staircase was a glass door; after hesitating a moment, Watanabé entered the one on the left on which were written the characters for Entrance.

Inside he found a wide passage. By the door was a pile of little Japanese cloths for wiping one’s shoes and next to these a large Western door-mat. Watanabé’s shoes were muddy after the rain and he carefully cleaned them with both implements. Apparently in this restaurant one was supposed to observe the Western custom and wear one’s shoes indoors.

There was no sign of life in the passage, but from the distance came a great sound of hammering and sawing. The place was under reconstruction, thought Watanabé.

He waited a while, but as no one came to receive him, he walked to the end of the passage. Here he stopped, not knowing which way to turn. Suddenly he noticed a man leaning against the wall a few yards away with a napkin under his arm. He went up to him.

“I telephoned yesterday for a reservation.”

The man sprang to attention. “Oh yes, sir. A table for two, I believe? It’s on the second floor. Would you mind coming with me, sir.”

The waiter followed him up another flight of stairs. The man had known immediately who he was, thought Watanabé. Customers must be few and far between with the repairs underway. As he mounted the stairs, the clatter and banging of the workmen became almost deafening.

“Quite a lively place,” said Watanabé, looking back at the waiter.

“Oh no, sir. The men go home at five o’clock. You won’t be disturbed while you’re dining, sir.”

When they reached the top of the stairs, the waiter hurried past Watanabé and opened a door to the left. It was a large room overlooking the canal. It seemed rather big for just two people. Round each of the three small tables in the room were squeezed as many chairs as could possibly be fitted. Under the window was a huge sofa and next to it a potted vine about three feet high and a dwarf-plant with large hot-house grapes.

The waiter walked across the room and opened another door. “This is your dining-room, sir.” Watanabé followed him. The room was small—just right, in fact, for a couple. A table was elaborately set in the middle with two covers and a large basket of azaleas and rhododendrons.

With a certain feeling of satisfaction, Watanabé returned to the large room. The waiter withdrew and Watanabé again found himself alone. Abruptly the sound of hammering stopped. He looked at his watch: yes, it was exactly five o’clock. There was still half an hour till his appointment. Watanabé took a cigar from an open box on the table, pierced the end and lit it.

Strangely enough, he did not have the slightest feeling of anticipation. It was as if it did not matter who was to join him in this room, as if he did not care in the slightest whose face it was that he would soon be seeing across that flower basket. He was surprised at his own coolness.

Puffing comfortably at his cigar, he walked over to the window and opened it. Directly below were stacked huge piles of timber. This was the main entrance. The water in the canal appeared completely stationary. On the other side he could see a row of wooden buildings. They looked like houses of assignation. Except for a woman walking slowly back and forth outside one of the houses with a child on her back there was no one in sight. At the far right, the massive red brick structure of the Naval Museum imposingly blocked his view.

Watanabé sat down on the sofa and examined the room. The walls were decorated with an ill-assorted collection of hangings: nightingales on a plum-tree, an illustration from a fairy-tale, a hawk. The scrolls were small and narrow, and on the high walls they looked strangely short as if the bottom portions had been tucked under and concealed. Over the door was a large framed Buddhist text. And this is meant to be the land of art, thought Watanabé.

For a while he sat there smoking his cigar and simply enjoying a sensation of physical well-being. Then he heard the sound of voices in the passage and the door opened. It was she.

She wore a large Anne-Marie straw-hat decorated with beads. Under her long grey coat he noticed a white embroidered batiste blouse. Her skirt was also grey. She carried a tiny umbrella with a tassel. Watanabé forced a smile to his face. Throwing his cigar in an ash-tray, he got up from the sofa.

The German woman removed her veil and glanced back at the waiter, who had followed her into the room and who was now standing by the door. Then she turned her eyes to Watanabé. They were the large, brown eyes of a brunette. They were the eyes into which he had so often gazed in the past. Yet he did not remember those mauve shadows from their days in Berlin….

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting,” she said abruptly in German.

She transferred her umbrella to her left hand and stiffly extended the gloved fingers of her right hand. No doubt all this was for the benefit of the waiter, thought Watanabé as he courteously took the fingers in his hand.

“You can let me know when dinner is ready,” he said glancing at the door. The waiter bowed and left the room.

“How delightful to see you,” he said in German.

The woman nonchalantly threw her umbrella on a chair and sat down on the sofa with a slight gasp of exhaustion. Putting her elbows on the table, she gazed silently at Watanabé. He drew up a chair next to the table and sat down.

“It’s very quiet here, isn’t it?” she said after a while.

“It’s under reconstruction,” said Watanabé. “They were making a terrible noise when I arrived.”

“Oh, that explains it. The place does give one rather an unsettled feeling. Not that I’m a particularly calm sort of person at best.”

“When did you arrive in Japan?”

“The day before yesterday. And then yesterday I happened to see you on the street.”

“And why did you come?”

“Well, you see, I’ve been in Vladivostok since the end of last year.”

“I suppose you’ve been singing in that hotel there, whatever it’s called.”

“Yes.”

“You obviously weren’t alone. Were you with a company?”

“No, I wasn’t with a company. But I wasn’t alone either … I was with a man. In fact you know him.” She hesitated a moment. “I’ve been with Kosinsky.”

“Oh, that Pole. So I suppose you’re called Kosinskaia now.”

“Don’t be silly! It’s simply that I sing and Kosinsky accompanies me.”

“Are you sure that’s all?”

“You mean, do we have a good time together? Well, I can’t say it never happens.”

“That’s hardly surprising. I suppose he’s in Tokyo with you?”

“Yes, we’re both at the Aikokusan Hotel.”

“But he lets you come out alone.”

“My dear friend, I only let him accompany me in singing, you know.” She used the word begleiten. If he accompanied her on the piano, thought Watanabé, he accompanied her in other ways too.

“I told him that I’d seen you in the Ginza,” she continued, “and he’s very anxious to meet you.”

“Allow me to deprive myself of that pleasure.”

“Don’t worry. He isn’t short of money or anything.”

“No, but he probably will be before long if he stays here,” said Watanabé with a smile. “And where do you plan to go next?”

“I’m going to America. Everyone tells me that Japan is hopeless, so I’m not going to count on getting work here.”

“You’re quite right. America is a good place to go after Russia. Japan is still backward … It’s still under reconstruction, you see.”

“Good heavens! If you aren’t careful, I’ll tell them in America that a Japanese gentleman admitted his country was backward. In fact. I’ll say it was a Japanese Government official. You are a Government official, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m in the Government.”

“And behaving yourself very correctly, no doubt?”

“Frighteningly so! I’ve become a real Fürst, you know. Tonight’s the only exception.”

“I’m very honoured!” She slowly undid the buttons of her long gloves, took them off and held out her right hand to Watanabé. It was a beautiful, dazzlingly white hand. He clasped it firmly, amazed at its coldness. Without removing her hand from Watanabé’s grasp, she looked steadily at him. Her large, brown eyes seemed with their dark shadows to have grown to twice their former size.

“Would you like me to kiss you?” she said.

Watanabé made a wry face. “We are in Japan,” he said.

Without any warning, the door was flung open and the waiter appeared. “Dinner is served, sir.”

“We are in Japan,” repeated Watanabé. He got up and led the woman into the little dining-room. The waiter suddenly turned on the glaring overhead lights.

The woman sat down opposite Watanabé and glanced round the room. “They’ve given us a chambre séparée,” she said, laughing. “How exciting!” She straightened her back and looked directly at Watanabé as if to see how he would react.

“I’m sure it’s quite by chance,” he said calmly.

Three waiters were in constant attendance on the two of them. One poured out sherry, the other served slices of melon and the third bustled about ineffectually.

“The place is alive with waiters,” said Watanabé.

“Yes, and they seem to be a clumsy lot,” she said, squaring her elbows as she started on her melon. “They’re just as bad at my hotel.”

“I expect you and Kosinsky find they get in your way. Always barging in without knocking….”

“You’re wrong about all that, you know. Well, the melon is good anyway.”

“In America you’ll be getting stacks of food to eat every morning as soon as you wake up.”

The conversation drifted along lightly. Finally the waiters brought in fruit-salad and poured champagne.

“Aren’t you jealous—even a little?” the woman suddenly asked. All the time they had been eating and chatting away, she had remembered how they used to sit facing each other like this after the theatre at the little restaurant above the Blühr Steps. Sometimes they had quarrelled, but they had always made it up in the end. She had meant to sound as if she were joking; but despite herself, her voice was serious and she felt ashamed.

Watanabé lifted his champagne glass high above the flowers and said in a clear voice, “Kosinsky soll leben!”

The woman silently raised her glass. There was a frozen smile on her face. Under the table her hand trembled uncontrollably.

It was still only half past eight when a lonely, black car drove slowly along the Ginza through an ocean of flickering lights. In the back sat a woman, her face hidden by a veil.

Mori Ōgai (1862–1922)
This story was first published in 1910
Translated by Ivan Morris