LITMIR.BIZ

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the less I understood and the more it bothered me. There was also a fear that I was the only one different from the others. I am unable to communicate with the whole world. What should I talk about with people? How? I don't know.

      And then it hit me: I should become a clown. It would be the last chance to build a bridge between people and me. Although I felt very scared around them, I couldn't end this relationship completely. As a result, clownish grimacing became the only binding thread between me and other people. A grimace was always on my face, although despair was eating my soul. Buffoonery took a lot of effort, I was always on the edge and could break down at any moment.

      From a young age, I had no idea how my relatives lived, what bothered them, what they thuoght about, and at the same time, I couldn't bear the dull existence. Maybe that's why I taught myself to play the clown so well. I don't know when and how it happened, but from childhood, I was able to say not a single word of truth.

      Here is a picture of me and my family. Everyone's face is serious and, of course, only on my face is there a crooked smile. It is a childish pretence and it's a little sad.

      I never talked back to my family, although their muttering was like a thunder blast inside me and it drove me mad. On the contrary, I became confirmed in my opinion that their talks expressed universal truths, and it was only me who wasn't able to live according to them, and most likely, I wouldn't be able to coexist together with people for the rest of my life. That's why I never argued or tried to explain myself. No sooner had someone told me off, than I readily pleaded guilty. I put up all the accusations silently. But what was the price? Sometimes I nearly lost my mind.

      Of course, nobody enjoys being told off, or to be the reason for somebody's anger. But in a deformed-by-crossness human face, I see a real animal heart, and this animal-human seems to me, worse tempered than a lion, a crocodile or a dragon. Usually, people tend to hide their animal temper very deeply, but sometimes it shows itself, like a napping cow that browses lazily, and then suddenly hits a gadfly on a barrel with its tail. I shake whenever I see a man's awaken animal; the hair stands up like a mountain. Is anger an inevitable fellow traveller of a man in his life’s journey? This thought always made me feel helpless.

      People always plunged me into horror. I even believed that I hadn't succeeded as a man, and as a result, I hid my torment in my heart of hearts.I tried hard to mask the melancholy and nervousness by wrapping myself in naive optimism and becoming an even bigger buffoon.

      I thought my main task was to make people laugh, and then they wouldn't notice my existence in what they called “life”. Anyway, I shouldn't become a thorn in the flesh. I was nothing, I was air, sky. Believing more in this idea, I isolated myself from my family by being eccentric. I desperately played the fool, even in front of servants who were more mysterious and intolerable than my family.

      I used to wear a woollen sweater under a light kimono in summer, and wander like this along the corridors to make everyone laugh. Even my oldest brother, who probably never laughed, couldn't help saying “Ye-chan,[4] who would wear this?” At that moment he obviously thought: “I am not so silly as to not figure out whether it is hot or cold, and to put on a woollen sweater in addition to a kimono, on a baking hot summer’s day”. I put my sister's leggings on to my arms so they could show from the short sleeves of my kimono, only making it look like a sweater.

      My father often had to stay for a long time in Tokyo because of his work. There in Yano, Sakuragi block, he had a small house where he lived most of the time. When my father came home, he always brought presents for everyone, even distant relatives. Once, before going to the capital city, he gathered all the children in the living room and with a happy smile asked everyone what they wanted him to bring them. He wrote down everybody's wish in his notebook. I should point out that it was very rare that he was such a kind parent.

      When I am asked what I would like, I don't want anything at all at first. “No matter what it is, it won't make me happy”, I usually think at such moments. At the same time, I could never refuse a present even if I didn't like it at all. I couldn't say “I don't need it”, and even though I liked the thing I would feel horrible in the end as if I had recieved something stolen, some inexplainable fear followed me. To make a long story short, I wasn't able to solve this dilemma. In later life, this feature of my character seemed to be the most important reason for my shameful existence.

      So while I was hesitating, without any clue how to answer, my father was growing gloomy, then he lost his temper.

      “So what will you decide? A book or something else? Once, in Asakusa, at a stall, I saw a mask of a lion, you know, for dancing. It was the right size. You can put it on your head, play with it. Would you like it?”

      When a question like this is asked, you can't get away with it. But can a buffoon give a usual answer? I felt I was failing as an actor.

      “Maybe a book would be better?”, my old brother showed seriousness in his face.

      “Ok, then, a book it will be”, my father shut his notebook gloomily, not writing down anything there.

      Dear God! What a mistake I have made,my father was angry! His anger was scary. Was it possible to change anything? That night, I fidgeted under the duvet for a long time. Then I got up silently, went to the living room, opened a drawer of the table where the father had put his notebook earlier, and took it out. Ihastily turned over the pages, found the one with the orders and wrote, with a pensil,wet from saliva “a mask of a lion”. After that, I calmly fell asleep. Truth to be told, I didn't need this mask at all. On the contrary, it would be better to receive a book as a present. But my father wanted to give me the mask as a gift, so guided by a wish to be in his favour again, I dared to sneak into the living room in the middle of the night.

      As I assumed, my extreme efforts were paid off in spades. I could hear from the children's room, when father was talking to my mother after coming back from Tokyo:

      “I am opening the notebook in a toy shop, and it's written there: “a mask of a lion”. And the handwriting is not mine. “Who’s is it?” I thought, and understood that it had to be Edzo’s. When I asked him what to bring him, he just smiled and was silent. Later, he must have decided he wanted it so he couldn't help writing it down in the notebook by himself. He is a strange boy. If he wanted it, he should have told me. I burst out laughing in the shop. Call him quickly.”

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      Notes

      1

      Hakama – a bottom part of a man's traditional costume which looks like a pleated skirt.

      2

      Hibachi – a hearth dropped into the floor; a traditional heating device in a Japanese house.

Notes

1

Hakama – a bottom part of a man's traditional costume which looks like a pleated skirt.

2

Hibachi – a hearth dropped into the floor; a traditional heating device in a

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