No Longer Human

Introduction

There are three photos of him. He is ten years old in one of them. A boy, wearing a striped hakama[1] made from coarse material, is depicted in a garden next to a pond, surrounded by numerous sisters (perhaps, his siblings and cousins). He is bowing his head hard on the left and making an ugly smile. I used the word “ugly” just now, but there are people who cannot tell the difference between ugliness and beauty, and they would probably say, after looking at the picture, “What a nice boy!” And it is not because they want to be kind: there was something in his smile that could be usually characterised as nice. On the contrary, people who know at least something about beauty would grumble, “What an unpleasant child” and probably throw away the picture as if they were holding a worm.

Indeed, the longer you look at this smiling boy the more unpleasant it feels. It is not even a smile. The boy is not smiling at all. Let's look more closely. His fists are clenched. A smiling person does not clench his fists. A monkey. It is a monkey's face with a grimaced smile. Disgusting wrinkles are making an illusion of a smile. You want to call him “a child with wrinkles”. The picture makes a strange impression that there is something very obscene in this boy, something that makes you feel sick. Never in my life have I seen a child with such a weird face.

The second picture impresses as well. Is it possible to change so much? He is a student here, probably a high-school student. You cannot be certain, but it is evident that he looks nicer. However, no matter how strange it may sound, he looks as if he is not alive at this picture. He is wearing a student (or high-school) uniform, a white handkerchief is showing from a pocket on his chest. He is sitting in a wattled arm-chair with his legs crossed, smiling. Only this time, it is not a monkey's grimace, I would say that his smile is exquisite. Still, it is different from a usual smile. You can't feel any sanguinity, the young man does not have taste for life and there is no sense of reality. However you can feel that his smile is as light as not even a bird, but as a feather, a piece of paper. He is kind of artificial. A great character? It doesn't seem so. He is not a hypocrite. Not a soft creature. And, of course, he is not a fopling. Something unpleasant, something from a werewolf or a ghost, can be seen in his face if you look closely. I have never seen any young man with such a weird but beautiful face.

Finally, the third picture is the most fascinating. It is completely impossible to tell his age. His head is grey. He is sitting in a corner of a dirty room (wallpaper, torn in three places is noticeable in the picture) and warming his hands over a small hibachi[2]. He is not smiling any more in this picture. There is no expression on his face. It seems that the young man, who is warming his hands over a hearth, is slowly dying away. Something ominous, calamity-like breezes from this picture. But there is also something mysterious that impressed me. It was a close-up picture of his face so I could study it in detail-a very usual forehead, nothing stunning about the wrinkles, eyebrows, eyes, a common nose, a mouth, a chin. That's where it is, this face is not only lifeless but also not noticeable, it does not leave any imprint in memory. Just now I glanced at the picture, I close my eyes-and I can't remember anything. I recollect the walls, the hearth, but I can't see the man within these walls. It is impossible to make a portrait or cartoon of such a face. I open my eyes, look again-no, there is nothing in my head, I can't remember the face. It makes you feel very uncomfortable, you become irritated and want to withdraw your eyes.

It was either a seal of death or something else, which replaced his facial expression and hung over the impression it made (imagine a saddled horse's muzzle fixed to a human body). Anyway, there was something in this man that made everyone, who was looking at his picture, startle unintentionally, it was disgusting.

Part One

Generally, my whole life consisted of embarrassment. I have never managed to understand what human life is. I was born in a village in the north-east of the country. I saw a train for the first time in my life when I was an adult. I considered railway overpasses to be an amusement built in a foreign style at some ingenious whim; although I used them a lot of times I still couldn't get used to the idea that their purpose was just for a safe crossing over the railway tracks. On more than one occasion, when I was going up or down the overpass, I felt as if I was on a fancy amusement. I considered it to be the most pleasant service delivered by the railway and when later I realised that the overpass was just a bridge over tracks, in other words, a construction of very practical use, I stopped being interested in them.

I remember once when I was a child, I saw a metro in a book, and also for a long time I considered it to be not a transport created for practical use, but an exciting amusement. How fabulous is that to have a ride on a train underground!

I used to be a sickly child. While being, ill I would examine in bed a sheet, a pillow-case, and a duvet cover and would think about their dull design. I only realised the practical side of such things when I was about twenty, and it shocked me, I was afflicted by human mere prudence.

I had no idea about starvation. It was not because I grew up in a family with no needs. I mean something completely different-I have never known a feeling of hunger. Strangely I paid no attention to food, even if there had not been a single crumb in my mouth for a long time. I remember when I was at school-primary and then secondary-I came home and everyone was running around me saying “You must be hungry! Oh, we remember how much we wanted to eat after coming back from school. Would you like sweet natto?[3] Or maybe a biscuit? There is some bread.” Being a toady from when I was born, I babbled that I was hungry and automatically threw a dozen beans into my mouth, not feeling hungry at all.

I usually eat quite a lot, but I don't remember eating because I am hungry. I ate what I considered to be rare, or delicacies of the table. When I am entertained, I eat more than I need. But from childhood, it's been a heavy duty for me to have meals at home with my family.

Memories about meals in our country house break me into a sweat. Here's how it looked: there were two rows of low tray tables and all of us (our family consisted of ten people) were sitting in front of each other at our tables, and being the youngest one, I was at the last one. The room was gloomy and everyone was eating without saying a word. On top of everything, old rules were followed in our house so the food was always the same and nobody dreamed about any treats or posh food. Thus it's clear why home meals horrified me more and more. When I was sitting in a poorly lit room at my table, shivering with cold, and pushing a handful of rice into my mouth, I was thinking why people needed to eat three times per day. Why their faces are so joyless? Maybe a meal is a ceremony for which all members of a family should always gather at the same time three times (!) per day in a dim room, arrange the tables and eat gloomily even if they don't want. I imagined our meals as praying to spirits that lived in our house.

“You will die if you don't eat”, I was told. Although I believed it was just a threat, this phrase made me feel anxious and scared. “A man dies without food, a man works to eat. It is necessary to eat.” I have never heard anything more inaccessible to understand.

Consequently, I didn't understand anything about the destiny of a person. My understanding of happiness was completely different from how other people saw it, and it started bothering me. I couldn't sleep at night, it drove me crazy. So how did I feel? Was I happy or not? Since childhood, people often called me a happy man, but knowing that my life was a hell, theirs seemed much better.

Sometimes, I thought that if someone had to deal with just one of my troubles, this single one would kill them.

It was always very hard for me to imagine what makes people suffer, and to what extent. Maybe it's true, that the only real suffering is the one that can be solved by a simple stomach-filling. Maybe it is the most horrible hellish agony. Is it the same as those ten hells that are burning my soul to ashes? In that case, why doesn't anyone end his life with his own hands, or go crazy? People talk about politics, chat without despair, and are capable of dealing firmly with various misfortunes. So maybe it's not so hard for them. Or are they completely selfish, believing in their impeccability, never doubting anything? In that case, it's easy for them to live life. But is it possible that all people are like this? And are all of them pleased with themselves? I don't understand. Do they sleep soundly at night and wake up fresh in the morning? What do they dream about? What are they thinking about when they are walking down the street? About money? I doubt it's only the money. I heard that people devote their life to food, but I have never heard anyone devoting his life just to money. Although you never know. No, I can't understand any of this. The more I thought about those things, 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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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.

3

Natto – food made from fermented soybeans.

4

Ye-chan – a short version of the name Edzo.