To Live and to Write: Selections by Japanese Women Writers (1913-1938) by Yukiko Tanaka

Author:Yukiko Tanaka [ed] [Tanaka, Yukiko]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Seal Press
Published: 1987-04-12T17:00:00+00:00

September—.

Morning comes but nothing has changed.

Last night I decided to try to sell my futon bedding, and relieved, I slept well. But today is so cool, I can’t think of selling it. My life is like one of those novels by Kasai Zenzo where there is nothing but poverty. I don’t have any desire to drink saké, but I can’t go on living this way.

I’d like to eat some pickled scallions and some sweet beans. I’d also like to buy some benzine to clean the stains on my kimono. I hear a student coming home from a night on the town, his slippers flapping on the stairs. From here to the Yoshiwara Quarters is not far. I wonder how much a woman costs there.

In the morning, I have to prepare for my day. A sparrow is chirping. A clear sky. The leaves of the persimmon tree peek through the window. Someone in the kitchen is singing in a small voice. For a moment I consider taking a job as a maid in this boarding house, which would mean nothing more than moving down from a guest room to a maid’s room. I wouldn’t need a salary. Food and shelter would be enough. The student in the English Department of the Imperial University who stayed in this room before I came scratched something into the wall with a knife: “Where is the Garden of Eden?” I don’t know, either. Apparently this young snob flunked out of school and went back to his hometown. I have no hometown to return to.

Dadaist poetry is popular now; I find it boring and childish, a game with words. No blood flows in it. There is no self-abandoned honesty, only despair. When I try to compose such poetry, I close my eyes and come up with a poem about a parasol and a bird. When my eyes are closed, images fly from the darkness, one after the other. I think only of strange things. First, I remember fragrances. Then I feel my nose filling with watery tears. Then comes a soundless shriek as if a crocodile has sunk his teeth into me. My breasts feel heavy, and I topple with their weight like a sack of flour. A white star appears in my fingernail. They say there are good omens, but I don’t believe it. I sleep on a dank mattress that hasn’t been covered with a sheet for ages. This is truly the Garden of Eden. The quilt is made from an old theater banner, a stained canvas bed.

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