Of course I have a lot of memories of my father. It’s only natural, considering that we lived under the same roof of our not exactly spacious home from the time I was born until I left home at eighteen. And, as is the case with most children and parents, I imagine, some of my memories of my father are happy, some not quite so much. But the memories that remain most vividly in my mind now fall into neither category; they involve more ordinary events.
This one, for instance:
When we were living in Shukugawa (part of Nishinomiya City, in Hyogo Prefecture), one day we went to the beach to get rid of a cat. Not a kitten but an older female cat. Why we needed to get rid of it I can’t recall. The house we lived in was a single-family home with a garden and plenty of room for a cat. Maybe it was a stray we’d taken in that was now pregnant, and my parents felt they couldn’t care for it anymore. My memory isn’t clear on this point. Getting rid of cats back then was a common occurrence, not something that anyone would criticize you for. The idea of neutering cats never crossed anyone’s mind. I was in one of the lower grades in elementary school at the time, I believe, so it was probably around 1955, or a little later. Near our home were the ruins of a bank building that had been bombed by American planes—one of a few still visible scars of the war.
My father and I set off that summer afternoon to leave the cat by the shore. He pedalled his bicycle, while I sat on the back holding a box with the cat inside. We rode along the Shukugawa River, arrived at the beach at Koroen, set the box down among some trees there, and, without a backward glance, headed home. The beach must have been about two kilometres from our house.
At home, we got off the bike—discussing how we felt sorry for the cat, but what could we do?—and when we opened the front door the cat we’d just abandoned was there, greeting us with a friendly meow, its tail standing tall. It had beaten us home. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how it had done that. We’d been on a bike, after all. My father was stumped as well. The two of us stood there for a while, at a total loss for words. Slowly, my father’s look of blank amazement changed to one of admiration and, finally, to an expression of relief. And the cat went back to being our pet.
We always had cats at home, and we liked them. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, and cats and books were my best friends when I was growing up. I loved to sit on the veranda with a cat, sunning myself. So why did we have to take that cat to the beach and abandon it? Why didn’t I protest? These questions—along with that of how the cat beat us home—are still unanswered. (...)
I recall now the expression on my father’s face—surprised at first, then impressed, then relieved—when that cat we had supposedly abandoned beat us home.
I’ve never experienced anything like that. I was brought up—fairly lovingly, I’d say—as the only child in an ordinary family. So I can’t understand, on a practical or an emotional level, what kind of psychic scars may result when a child is abandoned by his parents. I can only imagine it on a superficial level.
The French director François Truffaut talked about being forced to live apart from his parents when he was young. And for the rest of his life he pursued this theme of abandonment in his films. Most people probably have some depressing experience they can’t quite put into words but also can’t forget.
My father graduated from Higashiyama Junior High School (equivalent to a high school today) in 1936 and entered the School for Seizan Studies at eighteen. Students generally received a four-year exemption from military service, but he forgot to take care of some administrative paperwork, and in 1938, when he was twenty, he was drafted. It was a procedural error, but once that kind of mistake is made you can’t just apologize your way out of it. Bureaucracies and the military are like that. Protocol has to be followed.
This one, for instance:
When we were living in Shukugawa (part of Nishinomiya City, in Hyogo Prefecture), one day we went to the beach to get rid of a cat. Not a kitten but an older female cat. Why we needed to get rid of it I can’t recall. The house we lived in was a single-family home with a garden and plenty of room for a cat. Maybe it was a stray we’d taken in that was now pregnant, and my parents felt they couldn’t care for it anymore. My memory isn’t clear on this point. Getting rid of cats back then was a common occurrence, not something that anyone would criticize you for. The idea of neutering cats never crossed anyone’s mind. I was in one of the lower grades in elementary school at the time, I believe, so it was probably around 1955, or a little later. Near our home were the ruins of a bank building that had been bombed by American planes—one of a few still visible scars of the war.
My father and I set off that summer afternoon to leave the cat by the shore. He pedalled his bicycle, while I sat on the back holding a box with the cat inside. We rode along the Shukugawa River, arrived at the beach at Koroen, set the box down among some trees there, and, without a backward glance, headed home. The beach must have been about two kilometres from our house.At home, we got off the bike—discussing how we felt sorry for the cat, but what could we do?—and when we opened the front door the cat we’d just abandoned was there, greeting us with a friendly meow, its tail standing tall. It had beaten us home. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how it had done that. We’d been on a bike, after all. My father was stumped as well. The two of us stood there for a while, at a total loss for words. Slowly, my father’s look of blank amazement changed to one of admiration and, finally, to an expression of relief. And the cat went back to being our pet.
We always had cats at home, and we liked them. I didn’t have any brothers or sisters, and cats and books were my best friends when I was growing up. I loved to sit on the veranda with a cat, sunning myself. So why did we have to take that cat to the beach and abandon it? Why didn’t I protest? These questions—along with that of how the cat beat us home—are still unanswered. (...)
I recall now the expression on my father’s face—surprised at first, then impressed, then relieved—when that cat we had supposedly abandoned beat us home.
I’ve never experienced anything like that. I was brought up—fairly lovingly, I’d say—as the only child in an ordinary family. So I can’t understand, on a practical or an emotional level, what kind of psychic scars may result when a child is abandoned by his parents. I can only imagine it on a superficial level.
The French director François Truffaut talked about being forced to live apart from his parents when he was young. And for the rest of his life he pursued this theme of abandonment in his films. Most people probably have some depressing experience they can’t quite put into words but also can’t forget.
My father graduated from Higashiyama Junior High School (equivalent to a high school today) in 1936 and entered the School for Seizan Studies at eighteen. Students generally received a four-year exemption from military service, but he forgot to take care of some administrative paperwork, and in 1938, when he was twenty, he was drafted. It was a procedural error, but once that kind of mistake is made you can’t just apologize your way out of it. Bureaucracies and the military are like that. Protocol has to be followed.
by Haruki Murakami, New Yorker | Read more:
Image: Emiliano Ponzi
