五

"Won't you come fishing?" Red Shirt asked me.

Red Shirt is the sort of man who puts on a voice so soft it's downright creepy.

You genuinely can't tell whether it's a man or a woman talking.

A man ought to make a man's voice.

Especially since he's a university graduate.

Even a fellow from physics school, like me, can manage a better voice than that — it's shameful for a bachelor of literature to sound like this.

Not much, though as a child I once caught three crucian carp at the fishing pond in Koume.

Then, at the Bishamon festival in Kagurazaka, I hooked a carp about nine and a half inches long, and just as I thought "got it," it plopped back into the water — I said even now I regret that — and Red Shirt stuck his chin out and laughed, "Ho ho ho ho."

There was no need to laugh so affectedly about it — he could have just let it be.

"Well then, you don't yet know the pleasure of fishing. If you like, I'll teach you a little," he said, looking terribly pleased with himself.

As if I'd ever accept lessons from him.

Generally speaking, everyone who fishes or hunts is a heartless sort of person.

If they weren't heartless, they couldn't take pleasure in killing living things.

Fish and birds alike would obviously rather be alive than be killed.

If a man couldn't make a living without fishing or hunting, that would be one thing, but to be unable to sleep unless he has killed something living when he already wants for nothing is simply extravagant.

I thought all this, but since the other man was a bachelor of literature and glib with words, I judged I couldn't win an argument, and kept quiet.

Then, mistaking this for my surrender, the fellow said he'd teach me on the spot.

If I was free, why not come along today?

With just himself and Yoshikawa it would be lonely, he said, and kept pressing me to come.

This Yoshikawa is the art teacher — the very Toady I mentioned before.

For whatever reason, this Toady comes and goes at Red Shirt's house morning and night, and tags along wherever he goes.

They're nothing like equals.

It's more master and servant.

Since Toady is bound to go wherever Red Shirt goes, none of that surprised me — but two of them alone would have done fine, so why bother inviting me, of all the unsociable people?

No doubt it was some conceited fishing hobby of his, and he'd invited me only to show off his fishing to me.

I'm not the sort to be impressed by that kind of showing off.

Even if he hauled in two or three tuna, it wouldn't rattle me one bit.

I'm human too — however poor a hand I am, if I just drop a line something is bound to bite; and if I refused to go, Red Shirt being the kind of man he is, would be sure to twist it into "he didn't come because he's bad at it," not "he didn't come because he doesn't care for it."

Thinking all this over, I answered that I would go.

After that I finished at school, went home once to get ready, and met Red Shirt and Toady at the station to go down to the beach.

There was one boatman, and the boat had a long, slender shape I'd never seen anywhere around Tokyo.

Looking around the boat, I hadn't spotted a single fishing rod.

I asked Toady how one could possibly fish without a rod, and what he had in mind, and he stroked his chin and said, in that show-off way of his, that out at sea you don't use rods, just line.

Better to have kept my mouth shut than get put in my place like that.

The five-storied pagoda of Kōhaku-ji poked up above the trees, sharp as a needle.

Looking the other way, Blue Island floated on the water.

They say nobody lives on it.

Looking closely, it's nothing but rock and pine.

No wonder — with nothing but rocks and pines, of course nobody could live there.

Red Shirt kept gazing at it, saying what a fine view it was.

Toady said it was a superb view.

Superb or not, I couldn't say, but it certainly felt good.

Out on that wide open sea, being blown by the salt wind — I thought it was as good as medicine.

I was awfully hungry.

"Look at that pine — the trunk dead straight, the top spread out like an umbrella, it looks like something out of a Turner," Red Shirt said to Toady, and Toady said, "Just like a Turner. That bend in it, really, nothing like it — it's the very image of a Turner," with a knowing look on his face.

I had no idea what a Turner was, but since not knowing wouldn't trouble me any, I kept quiet.

The boat circled round with the island on our right.

There wasn't a wave anywhere.

It was so flat it hardly seemed like the sea at all.

Thanks to Red Shirt, it was turning into quite a pleasant outing.

If it were possible I'd have liked to climb up onto that island, so I asked whether the boat could be brought in to that rocky spot.

Red Shirt objected, saying it could be done, but you shouldn't fish too close to shore.

I said nothing.

Then Toady put in his unnecessary suggestion: "What do you say, Vice-Principal, shall we call that island Turner Island from now on?"

Red Shirt agreed, saying that was a fine idea, that from now on they'd call it that.

If I was included in that “we,” I wanted no part of it.

Blue Island is plenty good enough a name for me.

"What do you say we put a Raphael Madonna up on that rock?"

Toady said what a fine picture that would make, and Red Shirt said, "Let's leave the Madonna out of it," laughing that creepy laugh of his — ho ho ho ho.

"No one's around, so it's quite all right," he said, glancing at me for a moment, then deliberately turning his face away and smirking.

Something about it left me with a bad feeling.

Whether it's the Madonna or the young master or whoever, it's no business of mine, so they could go on setting her up wherever they liked — but he said things nobody could understand, then acted as if it did not matter if I heard because I would not understand.

It was a low, vulgar way to carry on.

And here the man goes around calling himself an Edo boy, of all things.