Catch 51 Yanagishita 2020

Soseki Books
December 2020 Release Japanese and English, Kindle and Paperback Simultaneous 同時出版 Publications
柳下國興キャッチ５１ある半ジャパの旅 Kunioki Yanagishita Catch 51 A Han-Japa Odyssey
半世紀前、二人の少年が横浜にあるカトリックのインタナショナルスクールでキャッチボールをした。その学校は閉校になって久しく、彼らの記憶にしかない。二人は今、時でさえ癒されない苦い思い出を語る。	Half a century ago, two Japanese boys played baseball at a Catholic international school in Yokohama. Now they pitch each other stories about wounds old and new that time alone may never heal.

「恨むよ。すんなり、すっくと育つはずだったアオギリが、根元に近い幹のところで折られて、その折れたところに、ゴツゴツした得体の知れない樹の枝を無理やりネジリ込まれてだよ、それをワイヤで縛りつけて、有害な肥料を与え続けられたんだから。それで正体不明のグロテスクな樹になってしまった」主人公菅原君由は、五十一年ぶりに会う学友ボブ鳥海にそう言う。二人の母語は日本語だが、インタナショナルスクールへ通った彼らは英語で話す。君由は大学では「半ジャパ」とバカにされ、苦しむ。高校時代に、敬愛していた教師から性的虐待を受けたことの記憶も重くのしかかる。極度の不眠症に陥った彼は、精神科医の勧めで、トラウマの一部始終を書きしたため、それを「狂人のララバイ」と題してクロゼットの奥深くにしまう。同じ半ジャパのボブには二十五年も引きこもっている息子がいて、彼の悩みも深い。君由の話を聞くうちに、「ララバイ」を読ませて欲しいと言う。『キャッチ５１』はカトリックのインタナショナルスクールという、独特な環境での教育を受けた後、違う道を歩んだ二人の日本人が、五十一年ぶりの再会をきっかけに、こころを開く物語である。	"I was a paulownia tree that was supposed to grow straight. But they cut me near my roots when I was a sapling, and grafted a strange branch onto my soul. They tied the gnarly thing with wire and fed me toxic nourishment -- which is how I got to be this who-knows-what I am today." These are the words of Kimiyoshi Sugawara talking to Bob Toriumi, a grade-school friend he hasn't seen in 51 years. Their mother tongue is Japanese, but they went to an international school and converse in English. Kimiyoshi agonized over having been made a fool of in college, where dorm mates called him a "han-Japa". He was also heavily burdened by memories of the sexual molestation he had received from a teacher he highly respected in high school. He lapsed into severe insomnia, and on the advice of a psychiatrist, he wrote stories of his traumas, titled them "Lullaby for a Madman", and buried them in a closet. Bob, also a han-Japa, has had problems of his own, including his son Tsubasa, a sociophobe who has kept to himself mostly in his room at home for the past twenty-five years. Bob, who learns about Kimiyoshi's woes, asks him to let him read the "Lullaby". Catch 51 is a story of how two Japanese, who after receiving the same peculiar educations at a Catholic international school had walked different paths, open their hearts on the occasion of their reunion 51 years later.
柳下國興 (著者と訳者) 1944年、横浜生まれ。国際基督教大学卒業。翻訳者、文楽・歌舞伎台本の翻訳及び英語解説者。大江健三郎著『A Quiet Life』（Grove Press、邦題『静かな生活』）、同氏海外講演『Who's Afraid of the Tasmanian Wolf?』（Rainmaker、邦題「タスマニア・ウルフは恐くない？」）を含む英訳を多数手がける。邦訳にはディック・グレゴリーの『nigger』（現代書館）がある。ウェザロール　ウィリアム (共訳者) 1941年、サンフランシスコ生まれ。カリフォルニア大学バークレー校で日本の文学、社会、および歴史を専門として卒業した。研究家、作家、翻訳家。翻訳には大江健三郎、小田実、高樹のぶ子、松本清張、西野辰吉、柳下國興などがある。1975年より日本に在住し、日本国籍を持っている。	Kunioki Yanagishita (author and translator) was born in Yokohama in 1944 and graduated from International Christian University. He is a translator, and a bunraku and kabuki script translator and English commentator. His many English translations include Kenzaburo Oe's novel A Quiet Life (Grove, Japanese title Shizuka-na seikatsu) and overseas lecture Who's Afraid of the Tasmanian Wolf? (Rainmaker, Japanese title Tasumania urufu wa kowaku nai?). His Japanese translations include Dick Gregory's nigger (Gendai Shokan). William Wetherall (co-translator) was born in San Francisco in 1941 and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, specializing in Japanese literature, society, and history. A researcher, writer, and novelist, his literary translations include Oe Kenzaburo, Oda Makoto, Takagi Nobuko, Matsumoto Seicho, Nishino Tatsukichi, Yanagishita Kunioki, and others. He has lived in Japan since 1975 and has Japanese nationality.

柳下國興キャッチ５１ある半ジャパの旅目次 Joe 狂人の子守唄聖ジェームズＫＣＵ不眠症再会半ジャパ足音著者紹介	Kunioki Yanagishita Catch 51 A Han-Japa Odyssey Stories Joe Lullaby for a Madman Saint James KCU Insomnia Reunion Han-Japa Footsteps Author and Translators

柳下國興
キャッチ５１
ある半ジャパの旅

Joe
狂人の子守唄
聖ジェームズ
ＫＣＵ
不眠症
再会
半ジャパ
足音
著者紹介

Kunioki Yanagishita
Catch 51
A Han-Japa Odyssey

Stories

Joe
Lullaby for a Madman
Saint James
KCU
Insomnia
Reunion
Han-Japa
Footsteps
Author and Translators

Joe Joe と呼ばないで欲しい、友達なら。僕は君由。Joe は嘲笑いが生んだあだ名。入学したその日だった。スペイン人教師が出席簿を見ながら Kimiyoshi を「キミジョシ」と読んだ。「君、女子」に聞こえた。皆が僕を Joshi と呼びはじめた。Joshi が詰まって英語風の Joe になった。横浜にあるカトリックのインタナショナルスクールでのこと。男子校で、僕はそこに十二年間通った。卒業するまでその忌まわしいあだ名に耐えた。日本人を好む変態外国人神父やプラザーにも耐えた。僕はそんな「聖職者」に股間をまさぐられ、レイプされそうになった。大学ではまた違ったあだ名がついた。それまでの英語での教育のせいで、日本語の読み書きと日本の歴史などがお留守になっていた僕。それでいきなり「半ジャパ・ヨシ」。直ぐに「ヨシ」が取れて、「半ジャパ」に。これもきつかった。大学を出た時、高校を卒業した時と同じように、学友との関係を絶った。就職先は小さな翻訳会社。半ジャパを白眼視する社会での限られた選択肢の一つだった。仕事は性に合っていて、繁忙期以外は辛くなかったが、いつのころからか、四人が静かに働く部屋の中で時折、「ジョー」、「半ジャパ」と誰かがつぶやくのを聞いた。三十を過ぎて、そのつぶやきが酷くなり、亡霊を見るようになった。夜が怖かった。魔物は凄みを増して脅迫的だった。それは姿形を変え醜い鎌首をもたげた。蝋人形が僕をめがけて燃え盛る炎の中を疾走して溶けた。歪んだ十字架を背負ったカメレオンが追ってきた。オハグロをした薄汚い芸者が意味不明の言葉を連ねた。僕はこれらの魔物から逃れようと疲れ果てるまで夜毎、長く暗い道を走った。亡霊は現れては消え、また現れた。夢か？幻覚か？妄想か？ウィスキーをあおった。近所の内科医に出してもらう睡眠薬は効かなくなり、オフィスではボーッとしているばかりで仕事もままならなくなった。「既に依存症の気があります。このまま続けたら、肝臓にきます。記憶障害だって起きますよ」「･･････」「仕事のストレス以外の原因があるようなので、専門医の治療が必要です」医者はそう言って、精神科に紹介状を書いてくれた。予約もとってくれた。 * * * その日は雨。いつにも増して辛い夜を過ごした翌日だった。心身ともに参っていて、見るからに哀れな姿を呈していた。やっとの思いでクリニックに着いた。待合室で問診票を記入した。病歴を書きながら、なおさら落ち込んだ。ようやく名前を呼ばれて診察室へ入ると、医師が問診票に目を通していた。挨拶をすると顔を上げ、回転椅子から向き直り、挨拶を返して向かいの丸椅子に掛けるように言った。僕が座ると、彼女は、直ぐに睡眠時間や睡眠障害の度合いなどを細く訊いた。僕の答えのいちいちをカルテに書き込んだ。質問を終えると、僕の顔を覗き込むようにして訊いた、　「夕べもヒドイ夢を？」「. . . . . . 」「どんな夢だったんですか？」僕はぼそぼそと話し始めたが、途中で震えがきた。「あっ、もう結構ですよ。深呼吸をしてください。お水を･･････」医師は部屋の隅に備えてあったウォータークーラーから水を持ってきてくれた。一口飲んだ。少し落ち着いた。深呼吸を繰り返し、水を全部飲んだ。動悸が収まった。医師は脈拍を測った。「ところで菅原さんは絵を描きますか？」「･･････絵ですか？」「ひどく心を乱すものがある場合、それを絵に描くといいですよ」「絵はダメです. . .」僕はガクリと首を垂れた。「私は自分の唇が嫌いだったんです. . . 」僕は顔を上げた。「微笑むと右唇が左より少し上がって。小学校の頃、仲の良かったお友達にヘンって言われて悩みました。中学ではもうコンプレックスの塊。学校へ行くのが嫌で、電車が来るたび、飛びむのではないかと、プラットホームの柱の後ろに隠れました」医師は少し照れくさそうに微笑んだ。「そんなある日、スケッチブックに、描くともなく、不思議な顔を描いていました。右半分が提灯アンコウ、左半分はアブクを吹いている毛ガニの口元。自分とは似ても似つかない気持ちの悪い絵でしたけど、私の顔でした」僕はにっこり笑った医師の唇を見た。口のどっち側がどう上がって、どうヘンなのか分からなかった。「でも、それを見ていると不思議と落ち着きましてね。絵から目を離して、そっと鏡を見たら、いつもと違う自分がいました。唇が違って見えて。口をパクパク開けたり閉じたり、尖らせたり、あらぬ方向へ曲げてみたりしているうち、吹き出しました」医師は静かに笑って、僕のカルテに目を落とした。「その夜はよく眠れました。朝はいつも歯ぎしりのせいで顎が痛かったんですけど、それがありませんでした。やっと得られた安らかな眠りを失わないように、描き続けました。提灯アンコウと毛ガニの口をさらに誇張して。しばらくして、もうグロテスクな絵を描かなくても眠れるようになりました」「･･････」「菅原さんも描いてみては？」「絵はどうも･･････」「では書いてみては？文章にするも効果がありますよ」「文章ですか？」「お仕事は翻訳でしょ？」「ええ、でも、人の文章を訳すだけですから。日記をつけてみたことはありますが、一週間と続きませんでした」「毎日でなくてもいいんです。心にあることを、好きな時に書くんです。どうです、試してみては？」「やってみますが･･････」「どうしました？」「先生は読むんですか？」「いいえ。それは菅原さんだけのものです。薬なしで眠れるようになればいいんですから。しばらくは、今日お出しする薬を飲み続けてください。治療の効果が出るまでに二、三ヶ月はかかると思います。再来週また来てください。それでまた相談しましょう」 * * * 診察室を出た僕の心は重かった。やってみると言ったものの、何も書かないだろうと思った。そもそも書くのは苦手。作文の授業は拷問だった。皆がスラスラ書いている間、僕は白紙を眺めているばかり。三十分の制限時間で書いたのは四行か五行。稚拙極まりない文章で。それを皆の前で読まされた。一行読んだだけで、くすくす笑いが聞こえた。毎度のことだった。大学のレポートは規定のページ数を満たすのが一苦労。それも殆ど引用だった。手紙はメモに毛が生えた程度のものばかり。でも、書かなきゃだめだ。これは人に読んで聞かせるものではない。教授に提出するものでもない。このままでは電車に飛び込むか、どこぞの岬から身を投げるのがオチだ。三十半ばの男よ。書くんだ！心に刺さった何本もトゲのことを！書いて積年の苦しみを吐き出すがいい！カトリック校での洗脳と、変態教師とその餌食になった生徒や、大学での半ジャパの誹りと、それまでの英語教育で失った日本人としての自分のことを！僕はいやがおうにもワープロに向かった。自分を客観的に見ようと小説風に書き始めたが、そのうち日記になって、最後は訳の分からないものに。睡眠薬で破壊が進んだと感じる脳で、記憶の塊をいくつも拾い集めて書いた。不眠がいっそうひどくなることもあったが、書き続けた。キミズがあがる思いをしながらも。書き進むにしたがって、心の中に低く垂れこめていた黒い雲が静かに流れていくのを感じた。睡眠薬を飲まなくなった。不思議にも、姿形を変え、ゆらゆらと不気味なオーロラのように現れるいくつかの亡霊に、「あっ！僕だ！」と言っている自分に気づいた。精神科医の顔の話を半信半疑に聞いて書き始めたので、テイのいい自己暗示がそう言わせていると自嘲もしたが、その亡霊たちが本当に僕だと思ったら、どの亡霊も受け入れられるようになった。やがて亡霊は消えた。 * * * 書いたものをフロッピーディスクからプリンターに落とすと、かなりのページ数になった。手に持つと、長年、岩のように心にのしかかっていたものが、胸の中から腕に移った気がした。Lullaby for a madman （狂人の子守唄）とつぶやいて、フォルダーに綴じた。そして、大好きだった野球のグローブやボールと一緒に段ボールの箱に詰め、クロゼットの奥深くしまった。誰かが読むとは夢にも思わなかった。 * * * それから三十三年。今年の春、ある朝、電話がしつこく鳴った。仕方なく受話器を取った。「もしもし」「Hello, Joe?」	Joe DON'T CALL ME JOE if you're my friend. I'm Kimiyoshi. Joe's a nickname born of mocking laughter. It was the day I began school. The teacher taking role, a Spaniard, read my name "Kimijoshi", which sounded like "You a girl". Everybody started calling me "Joshi". Joshi then got shortened to English "Joe". This happened at a Catholic international school in Yokohama. It was a boys school, and I attended it for 12 years. I endured the abominable nickname until I graduated. I also endured the perverted foreign fathers and brothers who fancied Japanese. I was groped in the groin and nearly raped by such "men of sacred calling". I acquired a different nickname in college. Because of my education in English until then, Japanese reading and writing and Japanese history and the like had been left behind. So immediately I was "Han-Japa Yoshi" -- Yoshi the half-baked Jap if you will. The "Yoshi" was quickly dropped, and I became just a "han-Japa". And this too was heavy. When I got out of college, I cut off relations with school friends, as I did when I graduated from high school. I worked at a small translation company. It was one of the choices I was limited to in a society that looked askance at han-Japa. The work suited my disposition, and other than periods when we were busy, it was not hard. But one day, in the room where I quietly worked with four people, I heard someone whisper "Joe" and "han-Japa". When I passed 30, the whispering worsened, and I began to see specters. Nights were terrifying. The demons were increasingly intimidating and threatening. They changed forms and raised their unsightly crooked necks. A wax figure sprang at me then dashed into the blazing flames and melted. A chameleon bearing a crooked cross on its back chased me. A grimy geisha with blackened teeth uttered a string of words I didn't understand. I ran the long dark roads, every night until I was totally exhausted from trying to escape these demons. The specters that appeared vanished, and those that vanished again appeared. Nightmares? Hallucinations? Delusions? I took to whiskey. The sleeping pills provided by the neighborhood internist lost their effect, and at the company I sat in a stupor unable to work. "There are already signs of addiction. Keep taking them, and they'll affect your liver. You'll also develop memory disorders." ". . ." "The cause appears to be other than stress from work. You need treatment from a specialist," the doctor said, and wrote a referral to a psychiatrist. He also made an appointment. * * * The day was rainy. The night before had been more harsh than usual. I was defeated in spirit and body, and I presented a visibly pathetic figure. I finally arrived at the clinic. I filled out a questionnaire in the waiting room. While writing my medical history, I sank even more. When finally my name was called and I entered the examination room, the doctor was running her eyes over the questionnaire. When I greeted her she raised her eyes, swiveled her chair toward me, then returned my greeting and asked me to sit on the round stool opposite her. When I sat, she immediately asked in detail about my sleeping time and the extent of my sleeping disorder and so on. And she wrote each and all of my replies on my chart. When finished with her questions, she gazed at my face as though looking into me. "You had bad dreams last night too?" ". . ." "What kind of dreams?" I began to mumble something, but in the course of talking I began to tremble. "That's okay. Just take some deep breaths. Would you like some water?" The doctor brought me some water from the water cooler in the corner of the room. I drank some. I calmed down a bit. I continued to take deep breaths, and drank all the water. The throbbing quelled. The doctor took my pulse. "By the way, Mr. Sugawara, can you draw pictures?" ". . . Pictures?" "When there's something disturbing your heart, it's good to draw a picture of it." "I can't draw pictures . . ." I dropped my head in a slump. "I hated my lips . . ." I raised my head. "When I smiled my lips on the right turned up a bit. I was in elementary school, and I agonized over this when a good friend said it was strange. By middle school I was a bundle of complexes. I hated going to school, and whenever the train came, I thought of jumping, and hid behind a pillar on the platform. The doctor smiled a bit shyly. "Then one day, in a sketchbook, drawing aimlessly, I drew an unusual face. The left half was a lantern anglerfish, and the right side was the mouth of a horsehair crab blowing foam. It was a disgusting picture that didn't look at all like me, yet it was my face." I looked at the cheerfully smiling doctor's lips. I didn't know which side of her mouth had turned up, or what had been strange about it. "But when looking at it I felt unusually calm. When tearing my eyes from the picture, and gazing in a mirror, I saw a different self than before. My lips looked different. While mechanically opening and closing my mouth, pouting, and contorting it in unlikely directions, I burst out laughing." The doctor, quietly laughing, dropped her eyes to my chart. "I slept well that night. My jaw usually hurt in the morning on account of grinding my teeth, but there was no pain. I kept drawing so as not to lose the peaceful sleep I had finally obtained. I exaggerated the mouths of the lantern anglerfish and the horsehair crab. After a while, I was able to sleep without drawing grotesque pictures." ". . ." "Why don't you try it, Mr. Sugawara?" "I can't draw." "Then why not try writing? Putting things in sentences is also effective." "Sentences?" "Your work is translation, right?" "Yes, but I only translate sentences other people have written. I once tried keeping a diary, but I continued it only a week." "It doesn't have to be every day. Write whatever comes to mind, whenever you want. Why not give it a try?" "I'll try but . . ." "But what?" "Will you be reading it?" "No. It's just for you. Because it'll be good for you to be able to sleep without medicine. For a while, though, please continue to take the medicine I'm going to give you today. It'll take maybe two or three months for the effects of the treatment to appear. Come again in two weeks. We'll talk more then." * * * My heart was heavy as I left the examination room. I had said I'd try, but I didn't think I would write anything. To begin with, writing is a weak point. Composition class was torture. While everyone else wrote away, I just gazed at the blank paper. In the thirty-minute limit, I'd write only four or five lines. And my sentences were artless in the extreme. I was made to read them in front of everyone. After just one line, I heard giggling. It was like that every time. It was very laborious to fill the required number of pages in college reports. And they were mostly citations. As for letters, about all I could write were memos. But I had to write. It wouldn't be for someone to read or hear. Or to submit to a professor. If I kept on like this, I'd end up jumping in front of a train, or throwing myself off a cliff somewhere. You're a man in your mid thirties. So write! About the many thorns that pierce your heart! Write and disgorge the accumulated years of suffering! The brainwashing, and the perverted teachers and the students that became their prey, at the Catholic school, and the han-Japa vilification in college and the self you lost as a Japanese in your English education until then! Like it or not, I faced the word processor. I began writing in the manner of a novel, viewing myself objectively, but in time it became a diary, and the ending was something that made no sense. I gathered together bundles of memory from my brain, the destruction of which I felt had progressed from the sleeping pills. My sleeplessness sometimes got worse, but I continued writing. Thinking that the bile would rise. As the writing progressed, I felt the black clouds hanging low in my heart quietly drift away. I stopped taking the sleeping pills. Oddly, I found myself saying "Ah! You're me!" to the several specters that had changed forms and appeared like a strange aurora. I derided myself for that, because I had started writing only half-believing the psychiatrist's face story. Expedient self-suggestion must have made me say that. But when I thought that those specters were really me, all the specters became acceptable. And at length they vanished. * * * When I printed out what I had written from the floppy disk, it came to quite a few pages. When I took them in my hands, I felt that what had weighed on my heart over the long years like a boulder, had shifted from my chest to my arms. Lullaby for a madman, I murmured, and bound the pages into a folder. Then I put the folder in a corrugated cardboard box with the baseball glove I had really liked and a ball, and put the box in the deepest corner of a closet. I didn't think, even in dreams, that anyone would read it. * * * Thirty-three years later. One morning, in spring this year, the telephone insistently rang. Grudgingly, I picked it up. "Moshi moshi." "Hello, Joe?"

Joe

Joe と呼ばないで欲しい、友達なら。僕は君由。Joe は嘲笑いが生んだあだ名。入学したその日だった。スペイン人教師が出席簿を見ながら Kimiyoshi を「キミジョシ」と読んだ。「君、女子」に聞こえた。皆が僕を Joshi と呼びはじめた。Joshi が詰まって英語風の Joe になった。

横浜にあるカトリックのインタナショナルスクールでのこと。男子校で、僕はそこに十二年間通った。卒業するまでその忌まわしいあだ名に耐えた。日本人を好む変態外国人神父やプラザーにも耐えた。僕はそんな「聖職者」に股間をまさぐられ、レイプされそうになった。

大学ではまた違ったあだ名がついた。それまでの英語での教育のせいで、日本語の読み書きと日本の歴史などがお留守になっていた僕。それでいきなり「半ジャパ・ヨシ」。直ぐに「ヨシ」が取れて、「半ジャパ」に。これもきつかった。大学を出た時、高校を卒業した時と同じように、学友との関係を絶った。

就職先は小さな翻訳会社。半ジャパを白眼視する社会での限られた選択肢の一つだった。仕事は性に合っていて、繁忙期以外は辛くなかったが、いつのころからか、四人が静かに働く部屋の中で時折、「ジョー」、「半ジャパ」と誰かがつぶやくのを聞いた。三十を過ぎて、そのつぶやきが酷くなり、亡霊を見るようになった。

夜が怖かった。魔物は凄みを増して脅迫的だった。それは姿形を変え醜い鎌首をもたげた。蝋人形が僕をめがけて燃え盛る炎の中を疾走して溶けた。歪んだ十字架を背負ったカメレオンが追ってきた。オハグロをした薄汚い芸者が意味不明の言葉を連ねた。僕はこれらの魔物から逃れようと疲れ果てるまで夜毎、長く暗い道を走った。亡霊は現れては消え、また現れた。夢か？幻覚か？妄想か？ウィスキーをあおった。

近所の内科医に出してもらう睡眠薬は効かなくなり、オフィスではボーッとしているばかりで仕事もままならなくなった。

「既に依存症の気があります。このまま続けたら、肝臓にきます。記憶障害だって起きますよ」

「･･････」

「仕事のストレス以外の原因があるようなので、専門医の治療が必要です」医者はそう言って、精神科に紹介状を書いてくれた。予約もとってくれた。

* * *

その日は雨。いつにも増して辛い夜を過ごした翌日だった。心身ともに参っていて、見るからに哀れな姿を呈していた。やっとの思いでクリニックに着いた。待合室で問診票を記入した。病歴を書きながら、なおさら落ち込んだ。

ようやく名前を呼ばれて診察室へ入ると、医師が問診票に目を通していた。挨拶をすると顔を上げ、回転椅子から向き直り、挨拶を返して向かいの丸椅子に掛けるように言った。

僕が座ると、彼女は、直ぐに睡眠時間や睡眠障害の度合いなどを細く訊いた。僕の答えのいちいちをカルテに書き込んだ。質問を終えると、僕の顔を覗き込むようにして訊いた、　

「夕べもヒドイ夢を？」

「. . . . . . 」

「どんな夢だったんですか？」

僕はぼそぼそと話し始めたが、途中で震えがきた。

「あっ、もう結構ですよ。深呼吸をしてください。お水を･･････」

医師は部屋の隅に備えてあったウォータークーラーから水を持ってきてくれた。一口飲んだ。少し落ち着いた。深呼吸を繰り返し、水を全部飲んだ。動悸が収まった。医師は脈拍を測った。

「ところで菅原さんは絵を描きますか？」

「･･････絵ですか？」

「ひどく心を乱すものがある場合、それを絵に描くといいですよ」

「絵はダメです. . .」

僕はガクリと首を垂れた。

「私は自分の唇が嫌いだったんです. . . 」

僕は顔を上げた。

「微笑むと右唇が左より少し上がって。小学校の頃、仲の良かったお友達にヘンって言われて悩みました。中学ではもうコンプレックスの塊。学校へ行くのが嫌で、電車が来るたび、飛びむのではないかと、プラットホームの柱の後ろに隠れました」

医師は少し照れくさそうに微笑んだ。

「そんなある日、スケッチブックに、描くともなく、不思議な顔を描いていました。右半分が提灯アンコウ、左半分はアブクを吹いている毛ガニの口元。自分とは似ても似つかない気持ちの悪い絵でしたけど、私の顔でした」

僕はにっこり笑った医師の唇を見た。口のどっち側がどう上がって、どうヘンなのか分からなかった。

「でも、それを見ていると不思議と落ち着きましてね。絵から目を離して、そっと鏡を見たら、いつもと違う自分がいました。唇が違って見えて。口をパクパク開けたり閉じたり、尖らせたり、あらぬ方向へ曲げてみたりしているうち、吹き出しました」

医師は静かに笑って、僕のカルテに目を落とした。

「その夜はよく眠れました。朝はいつも歯ぎしりのせいで顎が痛かったんですけど、それがありませんでした。やっと得られた安らかな眠りを失わないように、描き続けました。提灯アンコウと毛ガニの口をさらに誇張して。しばらくして、もうグロテスクな絵を描かなくても眠れるようになりました」

「･･････」

「菅原さんも描いてみては？」

「絵はどうも･･････」

「では書いてみては？文章にするも効果がありますよ」

「文章ですか？」

「お仕事は翻訳でしょ？」

「ええ、でも、人の文章を訳すだけですから。日記をつけてみたことはありますが、一週間と続きませんでした」

「毎日でなくてもいいんです。心にあることを、好きな時に書くんです。どうです、試してみては？」

「やってみますが･･････」

「どうしました？」

「先生は読むんですか？」

「いいえ。それは菅原さんだけのものです。薬なしで眠れるようになればいいんですから。しばらくは、今日お出しする薬を飲み続けてください。治療の効果が出るまでに二、三ヶ月はかかると思います。再来週また来てください。それでまた相談しましょう」

* * *

診察室を出た僕の心は重かった。やってみると言ったものの、何も書かないだろうと思った。そもそも書くのは苦手。作文の授業は拷問だった。皆がスラスラ書いている間、僕は白紙を眺めているばかり。三十分の制限時間で書いたのは四行か五行。稚拙極まりない文章で。それを皆の前で読まされた。一行読んだだけで、くすくす笑いが聞こえた。毎度のことだった。大学のレポートは規定のページ数を満たすのが一苦労。それも殆ど引用だった。手紙はメモに毛が生えた程度のものばかり。

でも、書かなきゃだめだ。これは人に読んで聞かせるものではない。教授に提出するものでもない。このままでは電車に飛び込むか、どこぞの岬から身を投げるのがオチだ。三十半ばの男よ。書くんだ！心に刺さった何本もトゲのことを！書いて積年の苦しみを吐き出すがいい！カトリック校での洗脳と、変態教師とその餌食になった生徒や、大学での半ジャパの誹りと、それまでの英語教育で失った日本人としての自分のことを！

僕はいやがおうにもワープロに向かった。自分を客観的に見ようと小説風に書き始めたが、そのうち日記になって、最後は訳の分からないものに。睡眠薬で破壊が進んだと感じる脳で、記憶の塊をいくつも拾い集めて書いた。不眠がいっそうひどくなることもあったが、書き続けた。キミズがあがる思いをしながらも。

書き進むにしたがって、心の中に低く垂れこめていた黒い雲が静かに流れていくのを感じた。睡眠薬を飲まなくなった。不思議にも、姿形を変え、ゆらゆらと不気味なオーロラのように現れるいくつかの亡霊に、「あっ！僕だ！」と言っている自分に気づいた。精神科医の顔の話を半信半疑に聞いて書き始めたので、テイのいい自己暗示がそう言わせていると自嘲もしたが、その亡霊たちが本当に僕だと思ったら、どの亡霊も受け入れられるようになった。やがて亡霊は消えた。

* * *

書いたものをフロッピーディスクからプリンターに落とすと、かなりのページ数になった。手に持つと、長年、岩のように心にのしかかっていたものが、胸の中から腕に移った気がした。Lullaby for a madman （狂人の子守唄）とつぶやいて、フォルダーに綴じた。そして、大好きだった野球のグローブやボールと一緒に段ボールの箱に詰め、クロゼットの奥深くしまった。誰かが読むとは夢にも思わなかった。

* * *

それから三十三年。

今年の春、ある朝、電話がしつこく鳴った。仕方なく受話器を取った。

「もしもし」

「Hello, Joe?」

Joe

DON'T CALL ME JOE if you're my friend. I'm Kimiyoshi. Joe's a nickname born of mocking laughter. It was the day I began school. The teacher taking role, a Spaniard, read my name "Kimijoshi", which sounded like "You a girl". Everybody started calling me "Joshi". Joshi then got shortened to English "Joe".

This happened at a Catholic international school in Yokohama. It was a boys school, and I attended it for 12 years. I endured the abominable nickname until I graduated. I also endured the perverted foreign fathers and brothers who fancied Japanese. I was groped in the groin and nearly raped by such "men of sacred calling".

I acquired a different nickname in college. Because of my education in English until then, Japanese reading and writing and Japanese history and the like had been left behind. So immediately I was "Han-Japa Yoshi" -- Yoshi the half-baked Jap if you will. The "Yoshi" was quickly dropped, and I became just a "han-Japa". And this too was heavy. When I got out of college, I cut off relations with school friends, as I did when I graduated from high school.

I worked at a small translation company. It was one of the choices I was limited to in a society that looked askance at han-Japa. The work suited my disposition, and other than periods when we were busy, it was not hard. But one day, in the room where I quietly worked with four people, I heard someone whisper "Joe" and "han-Japa". When I passed 30, the whispering worsened, and I began to see specters.

Nights were terrifying. The demons were increasingly intimidating and threatening. They changed forms and raised their unsightly crooked necks. A wax figure sprang at me then dashed into the blazing flames and melted. A chameleon bearing a crooked cross on its back chased me. A grimy geisha with blackened teeth uttered a string of words I didn't understand. I ran the long dark roads, every night until I was totally exhausted from trying to escape these demons. The specters that appeared vanished, and those that vanished again appeared. Nightmares? Hallucinations? Delusions? I took to whiskey.

The sleeping pills provided by the neighborhood internist lost their effect, and at the company I sat in a stupor unable to work.

"There are already signs of addiction. Keep taking them, and they'll affect your liver. You'll also develop memory disorders."

". . ."

"The cause appears to be other than stress from work. You need treatment from a specialist," the doctor said, and wrote a referral to a psychiatrist. He also made an appointment.

* * *

The day was rainy. The night before had been more harsh than usual. I was defeated in spirit and body, and I presented a visibly pathetic figure. I finally arrived at the clinic. I filled out a questionnaire in the waiting room. While writing my medical history, I sank even more.

When finally my name was called and I entered the examination room, the doctor was running her eyes over the questionnaire. When I greeted her she raised her eyes, swiveled her chair toward me, then returned my greeting and asked me to sit on the round stool opposite her.

When I sat, she immediately asked in detail about my sleeping time and the extent of my sleeping disorder and so on. And she wrote each and all of my replies on my chart. When finished with her questions, she gazed at my face as though looking into me.

"You had bad dreams last night too?"

". . ."

"What kind of dreams?"

I began to mumble something, but in the course of talking I began to tremble.

"That's okay. Just take some deep breaths. Would you like some water?"

The doctor brought me some water from the water cooler in the corner of the room. I drank some. I calmed down a bit. I continued to take deep breaths, and drank all the water. The throbbing quelled. The doctor took my pulse.

"By the way, Mr. Sugawara, can you draw pictures?"

". . . Pictures?"

"When there's something disturbing your heart, it's good to draw a picture of it."

"I can't draw pictures . . ."

I dropped my head in a slump.

"I hated my lips . . ."

I raised my head.

"When I smiled my lips on the right turned up a bit. I was in elementary school, and I agonized over this when a good friend said it was strange. By middle school I was a bundle of complexes. I hated going to school, and whenever the train came, I thought of jumping, and hid behind a pillar on the platform.

The doctor smiled a bit shyly.

"Then one day, in a sketchbook, drawing aimlessly, I drew an unusual face. The left half was a lantern anglerfish, and the right side was the mouth of a horsehair crab blowing foam. It was a disgusting picture that didn't look at all like me, yet it was my face."

I looked at the cheerfully smiling doctor's lips. I didn't know which side of her mouth had turned up, or what had been strange about it.

"But when looking at it I felt unusually calm. When tearing my eyes from the picture, and gazing in a mirror, I saw a different self than before. My lips looked different. While mechanically opening and closing my mouth, pouting, and contorting it in unlikely directions, I burst out laughing."

The doctor, quietly laughing, dropped her eyes to my chart.

"I slept well that night. My jaw usually hurt in the morning on account of grinding my teeth, but there was no pain. I kept drawing so as not to lose the peaceful sleep I had finally obtained. I exaggerated the mouths of the lantern anglerfish and the horsehair crab. After a while, I was able to sleep without drawing grotesque pictures."

". . ."

"Why don't you try it, Mr. Sugawara?"

"I can't draw."

"Then why not try writing? Putting things in sentences is also effective."

"Sentences?"

"Your work is translation, right?"

"Yes, but I only translate sentences other people have written. I once tried keeping a diary, but I continued it only a week."

"It doesn't have to be every day. Write whatever comes to mind, whenever you want. Why not give it a try?"

"I'll try but . . ."

"But what?"

"Will you be reading it?"

"No. It's just for you. Because it'll be good for you to be able to sleep without medicine. For a while, though, please continue to take the medicine I'm going to give you today. It'll take maybe two or three months for the effects of the treatment to appear. Come again in two weeks. We'll talk more then."

* * *

My heart was heavy as I left the examination room. I had said I'd try, but I didn't think I would write anything. To begin with, writing is a weak point. Composition class was torture. While everyone else wrote away, I just gazed at the blank paper. In the thirty-minute limit, I'd write only four or five lines. And my sentences were artless in the extreme. I was made to read them in front of everyone. After just one line, I heard giggling. It was like that every time. It was very laborious to fill the required number of pages in college reports. And they were mostly citations. As for letters, about all I could write were memos.

But I had to write. It wouldn't be for someone to read or hear. Or to submit to a professor. If I kept on like this, I'd end up jumping in front of a train, or throwing myself off a cliff somewhere. You're a man in your mid thirties. So write! About the many thorns that pierce your heart! Write and disgorge the accumulated years of suffering! The brainwashing, and the perverted teachers and the students that became their prey, at the Catholic school, and the han-Japa vilification in college and the self you lost as a Japanese in your English education until then!

Like it or not, I faced the word processor. I began writing in the manner of a novel, viewing myself objectively, but in time it became a diary, and the ending was something that made no sense. I gathered together bundles of memory from my brain, the destruction of which I felt had progressed from the sleeping pills. My sleeplessness sometimes got worse, but I continued writing. Thinking that the bile would rise.

As the writing progressed, I felt the black clouds hanging low in my heart quietly drift away. I stopped taking the sleeping pills. Oddly, I found myself saying "Ah! You're me!" to the several specters that had changed forms and appeared like a strange aurora. I derided myself for that, because I had started writing only half-believing the psychiatrist's face story. Expedient self-suggestion must have made me say that. But when I thought that those specters were really me, all the specters became acceptable. And at length they vanished.

* * *

When I printed out what I had written from the floppy disk, it came to quite a few pages. When I took them in my hands, I felt that what had weighed on my heart over the long years like a boulder, had shifted from my chest to my arms. Lullaby for a madman, I murmured, and bound the pages into a folder. Then I put the folder in a corrugated cardboard box with the baseball glove I had really liked and a ball, and put the box in the deepest corner of a closet. I didn't think, even in dreams, that anyone would read it.

* * *

Thirty-three years later.

One morning, in spring this year, the telephone insistently rang. Grudgingly, I picked it up.

"Moshi moshi."

"Hello, Joe?"

January 2021 Gendai Shokan release

Dick Gregory's 1964 bestseller "nigger"

Japanese translation by Kunioki Yanagishita

nigger ／ディック・グレゴリー自伝
ディック・グレゴリー、ロバート・リプサイト (著)
柳下國興 (訳)
東京：現代書簡、2021年1月20日発行
288ページ、単行本

アメリカで100万部突破ベストセラー
パワフルでカッコわるくて美しい
敵意も憎しみもない世界を
夢見たコメディアンの物語

ママへ
ママがどこにいようと、
また「ニガー」を耳にしたら、
僕の本の宣伝だと思って下さい。

nigger / Dick Gregory, an autobiography
By Dick Gregory with Robert Lipsyte
Translated by Kunioki Yanagishita)
Tokyo: Gendai Shokan, 20 January 2021
288 pages, hardcover

Million-copy-plus bestseller in America
Powerful, ugly, and beautiful
The story of a comedian who dreamed of
a world without malice or hate

Dear Momma -- Wherever you are,
if you ever hear the word "nigger" again,
remember they are advertising my book.