Uchōten Kazoku
Chapter 4 — The Friday Fellows (Part 1)
In Kyōto, there is a secret society which has existed since the Taishō period.
The purpose for which this society was founded is shrouded in mystery, though some say it is merely a gathering of like-minded persons. The membership is fixed at seven, and each of the members is called by the name of one of the Seven Gods of Fortune. These seven discommodious individuals gather once a month to hold a banquet in Gion or Pontochō, eating and drinking and making merry to their hearts’ content over the course of the night. Natural enemies of the tanuki, their name alone is enough to hush crying pups. They are the Friday Fellows.
Why are they our natural enemies? Why, because they eat tanuki stew at their year-end parties.
Tanuki society in Kyōto has long since moved past the merciless struggle for existence of the natural world. Those organisms audacious enough to take us as prey have long since vanished from the face of the earth. Furthermore, as tanuki are omnivorous and perfectly willing to guzzle down all manner of things without complaint, the hills and the fields and the streets are teeming with delicious things to eat. Countryside or city, each region has its own unique delicacies. We live comfortably without fear of being devoured by any natural enemies, eating at our leisure from the fruits that grow on the trees of paradise. Bloody struggles over food are but a distant memory for our species, and the term “struggle for existence” no longer appears in our lexicon.
Once each year, this idyllic existence is shattered by a nightmare.
Even my great father, Shimogamo Sōichirō, met an abrupt end in the pot of the Friday Fellows.
The horrid culinary custom in which the Friday Fellows take such pride is a reminder to all tanuki of the everyday terrors that their ancestors once faced as they roamed over hill and dale; it is a reminder of the law of survival of the fittest, eat-or-be-eaten, the circle of life.
And thus we all remember—it is humans who stand at the top of the food chain.
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For two months from late summer going into autumn, I led a double life between Nipponbashi, in Ōsaka, and Kyōto.
Konkobu’s secondhand camera store is located in Nipponbashi, and while living there I also helped run the shop. Occasionally I would return to Kyōto to sniff out which way the winds of the tanuki world were blowing, but owing to the presence of a certain half-tengu named Benten, who patrolled the skies like an ominous bird of prey looking to swoop down and gobble me up, I was unable to show my face openly even on my own turf. Even were I to radically transform myself beyond the pale of normal tanuki etiquette, with Benten at the apex of her tengu skills (not to mention her woman’s intuition), there was no telling when I would be found out.
Whenever I sojourned to Kyōto, I had no choice but to hole up on the second floor of antique shops or underground passageways, relying on hearsay to keep up with current events in the capital.
In mid-October, I escaped disaster only by a hair’s breadth.
Having just arrived in Kyōto on the Hankyū line, I was walking among the crowds in the tunnel beneath Shijō Avenue. The displays in the windows of the Daimaru department store were so dazzling that I couldn’t help but stop and stare, when who should descend majestically down the stairs but Benten, baring her ivory shoulders in a black dress like a star of the silver screen. Surrounding her were four men stuffed into black suits, throwing their weight around needlessly at random passersby. These were Kurama tengu, underlings of Sōjōbō of Kuramayama, and they were known as Benten’s Honor Guard.
Being preoccupied with the luxury trappings she had just bought at Daimaru, Benten failed to notice me standing petrified in front of the store windows. As soon as she had swept by me with the Kurama tengu trailing in her wake, I got right back on a Hankyu train and returned posthaste to Ōsaka.
◯
My first time living in Ōsaka was exceptionally interesting.
Konkobu, the proprietor of the secondhand camera store, had handed off leadership of the Iwayasan tengu to his successor, but with his laidback nature he had no head for businesswhatsoever; on windy days he would come in late, and on rainy days he wouldn’t come in at all. I was happy to follow the lead of such a cultivated boss, and stifling all thoughts of industry and commerce, I munched on takoyaki as I strolled through Den-Den Town, did some people-watching on Ebisu Bridge, and bought mysterious signs in curio shops. Konkobu was a fan of the Yoshimoto Shinkigeki comedy troupe, so sometimes he brought me along to visit the Namba Grand Kagetsu theater.
Mother came to Ōsaka to visit me once.
Being afflicted with a serious case of Takarazuka syndrome, she often rode the swaying train over to Takarazuka city. She had informed me that she was stopping by Umeda on her way back, so I made my way over from Nipponbashi and accompanied her into a café. She was transformed into a pale youth, her favorite form, while I transformed into an old man wearing a bolo tie, patterning myself after Konkobu.
“It’ll all blow over soon,” Mother said confidently, with her usual self-assurance. “Benten is frightening, sure, but she’ll get tired of it soon, that fickle woman.”
“I hope so, for my own sake.”
“Yaichirō went to ask Master Akadama to smooth things over, but he came back huffing and puffing, I’ll never bow my head to the Master again! And his hair was all standing on end! Goodness, that boy needs to learn to keep things from getting through his fur, doesn’t he?”
I had no idea how angry Benten really was, and sometimes I thought optimistically to myself that if I worked up the courage to seek her out, I would find that it was all water under the bridge. On the other hand, it would be no laughing matter to go meet her only to find that all was in factnotforgiven.
“Humans really are much nastier than tengu,” I blew out a sigh.
Mother nodded. “But on the whole, I think humans are quite nice.”
“That’s because one of them saved you.”
“You never would have come into this world, if not for Mr. Yodogawa,” said Mother, staring out the window. “Of course I’m thankful.”
Mother’s savior was named Yodogawa Chōtarō. Apparently he had fed her a rice ball when he had saved her life, and she still held the memory of that taste dear to her heart.
◯
All tanuki have one or two weaknesses which, when triggered, will force them to reveal their true furball identities, no matter how skilled at transformation they are. This weakness is a tremendous nuisance, because it means that tanuki must always wear their transformations with the greatest of care when living alongside humans.
My mother is terribly frightened of thunder. Whenever Lord Raijin lumbers through the sky, Mother’s disguise slides right off. She has been emboldened by the many times she has walked the razor’s edge, but just once, her life truly fell into peril. It happened before I was born, back when Yaichirō and Yajirō were were still so small that they were nigh indistinguishable from a dust bunny.
One day, Mother went to see our grandmother, who lived in Tanukidani Fudō in Sakyō Ward. Father stayed behind in the forest of Shimogamo Shrine to watch over Yaichirō and Yajirō. It had been a long time since Mother had ventured out by herself, and being a tanuki, her fool’s blood throbbed hot in her veins. An impulsive giddiness came over her, and she ran about here and there to have some fun. Suddenly the sky clouded over, and the rain came pouring down. As she ran along shrieking, there came a flash through the purple sky, accompanied by a bowel shaking crash of thunder. In an instant, a bedraggled tanuki was standing where a human had been running along just moments earlier, dazed and gaping at the low clouds hanging overhead.
While she sat there whimpering forlornly, a car came speeding along.
I mentioned previously that we tanuki have no natural predators in Kyōto. But though the savage creatures that once roamed the land have long since disappeared, these metal beasts now attack us in their stead. Caught in their dazzling headlights, a tanuki stripped of her transformation has virtually no chance of survival.
“I thought for sure that I was done for!” Mother explained.
At the time she was fairly young and managed to dodge just in time, but the bumper still grazed her, breaking her front leg. Overwhelmed by the searing pain, she was unable to walk. If she had continued to lie there on the pavement, her fate would only have been to be snatched up by some municipal employee or impoverished college student and made into stew. With immense pains she pulled herself to the drain by the side of the road and crawled in. The throbbing pain throbbing in her leg was overwhelming, and freezing water cascaded through the drain. The torrential rain made a pale mist as it hit the asphalt, and purple streaks of thunder raced through the cloud valleys above. Mother curled into a tiny dripping ball, not quite sure if she was still alive. Her thoughts turned to the husband and pups she had left behind in the forest.
When she came to, the large figure of a human was peering at her. She started, but had no energy left to flee. The deluge pounding on her head suddenly ceased, and she heard the sound of raindrops hitting an umbrella. The person, a man with a Hotei-like face, looked anxiously at her.
“You poor thing!”
Mother shut her eyes tightly in resignation. She was terrified, yet at the same time utterly detached, and she felt as if her consciousness would flicker out any moment now.
“You’re hurt, are you? There, there.” The man reached out his huge, hairy hands, and scooped up my drenched mother into his arms.
◯
The days in Ōsaka flowed into weeks and then months like the waters of the Kamo River, and soon enough it was entering November.
I arrived in Kyōto and went up to the second floor of the antique shop on Teramachi Street to have lunch.
The storeroom I was borrowing overflowed with musty old furniture, and hardly any light managed to seep inside.The shopkeeper was an acquaintance whom I trusted, and there was a fire escape in the back for emergencies, which made it the perfect hideout. In Kyōto I took on the form of a white-haired antiques collector and holed up to nibble my food in the darkness of the storeroom.
I sprinkled some dried whitebait I had bought at Nishiki Market on top of a bowl of freshly cooked rice. On the table in front of me, a brimming cup of roasted green tearested next to a dust-covered daruma. I glared back at the daruma as I blew on the piping hot rice to cool it down before stuffing my face. With the cheerless existence of a fugitive weighing heavily on me, the rice tasted much better than it normally would have.
As I patted my full belly, a muffled voice emanated from a bureau in the corner of the room. “You eat like a fatty!”
“Kaisei?” I said, looking at the bureau. “What are you doing in there?”
“Shut up! That’s none of your business!” The bureau rattled and shook.
Kaisei was my cousin, and ex-betrothed. Her brothers were the infamous idiot twins Kinkaku and Ginkaku, with whom I (being the learned, noble tanuki that I am) naturally clashed. Kaisei’s personality had been warped by the influence of her stupid brothers. She had been renowned for her foul mouth since she was young, and for some reason she refused to show herself to me, though I had no idea what there was for her to be bashful about. My former fiancée only ever expressed herself in the form of abuse hurled from the shadows, and I could hardly describe any part of her as charming.
Every time I came to Kyōto, Kaisei would brief me on the state of the tanuki world. Though her words were ill-bred, it was a relief knowing that she would never give me up to Benten. Kaisei despised Benten, and once claimed, “I’d rather die than listen to that half-baked tengu!”
According to her report, things were starting to come to a head in the tanuki world going into December, for the election of the next Trick Magister was soon approaching. The recognized frontrunner was Ebisugawa Sōun, the younger brother of my father, and the father of Kaisei. The old furball controlled the distillery that produced Faux Denki Bran, that favorite drink of tanuki. His name held a lot of clout in the tanuki world. Yet for all that, he was a shifty character, and the Ebisugawa Guard Corps that his sons Kinkaku and Ginkaku led was well known for its checkered history, so there were many that bore no love towards him. Seeing his opportunity to take advantage of those weaknesses, my brother Yaichirō entered the political arena, aiming to become the next Trick Magister himself. There was nothing Yaichirō liked quite so much as political maneuvering.
“My stupid dad and my stupid brothers are always running all over the place for their stupid campaign. It’s such a pain in the butt!”
“Isn’t my brother pretty busy there himself?”
“Yeah, but Yaichirō just doesn’t have what it takes. He thinks that’s all it’ll take to knock down my stupid dad and become Trick Magister, but I’d say he’s neck-and-neck with my stupid brothers, ability-wise.”
“Useless or not, he’s still my brother,” I said hotly, rapping the table. “Don’t compare him with your stupid brothers!”
“You dummy, don’t call my brothers stupid!”
“You called them stupid yourself!”
“No one said you could call them stupid too! Don’t get all snippy with me, you half-witted palooka!”
Kaisei kept up the barrage for a while, so I just pretended not to hear her. After the stream of insults petered out, I asked, “Yajirō still doing well?”
“Mhm. He’s just dandy down there in his well, still doing his advice sessions. I like Yajirō a lot. Sometimes I go visit him. But I hear that Benten goes to see him, too…”
I spit out my tea in disbelief. “What could Benten, the Peerless and Unrivalled, possibly have to worry about?”
“How should I know? I bet she’s wondering which tanuki to put into the stew for the next year-end party.” She lowered her voice. “I hear that you’re going into the pot this year. Is it true?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.”
“She’s been going around asking about you. Things look pretty dicey. This is what happens when tanuki get involved with a half-baked tengu like that.”
A tingle went through the fur on my bottom, and I suddenly found it hard to sit still.
“You’d better get back to Ōsaka. Stay around here too long, you’re really going to get eaten!”
“As long as there are tanuki, there will be tanuki stew. I am more than prepared to go into the pot laughing, if it should come to that.”
“Stop trying to sound brave, you ball-less wonder.”
“Take this, just in case worst comes to worst and I get caught.”
“What’s this, something to remember you by?”
“It’s a tengu cigar. Give it to Master Akadama for me.”
In the absence of someone to attend to his needs, Master Akadama would revert to ridiculing everything around him and forget even about simple affairs such as eating. Being absent from Kyōto, I had tasked my little brother to care for him, but Yashirō had his hands full keeping up with all of the Master’s unreasonable demands and complaints. The best way to shut the Master up was to stuff a tengu cigar into his mouth. Packed with the finest tobacco available, a single tengu cigar took at least two weeks to smoke. I had gone to Tenmabashi to get my hands on it so that I could shut up the Master and earn Yashirō a few weeks of respite.
“Not happening. I can’t even see it.”
“That’s because you’re inside the bureau. Just come out of there already!”
“Uh-uh, no way!”
“Oh, come on! What do you expect me to do then?”
As we argued back and forth, the shopkeeper shouted urgently from the bottom of the stairs.
“You must flee, sir, at once! Benten is coming into the shop!”
◯
I ran to the fire escape in the back, only for an ill-omened shadow to fall over me. I looked up to see the Kurama tengu swooping over the streets between the buildings, silhouetted against the clear autumn sky. Inside the shop, Benten was beginning to ascend the stairs. Caught between a rock and a hard place, there was no way for a poor little tanuki to make his escape.
I rushed back into the storeroom and transformed into the first thing that caught my eye, the daruma, before rolling onto the floor.
Benten entered the room. Eyeing me, she picked me up and turned me over in her hands before placing me next to the daruma on the table. A Kurama tengu came in and pulled out a chair with armrests, delicately wiping the dust off with a handkerchief. Benten sat down in the chair without a second thought. Her strapless dress was skimpy for a chilly autumn day like today, and a single glimpse was enough to make any man think he had died and gone to heaven.
“Is that Yasaburō fellow here?” asked the Kurama tengu.
“They don’t call him ‘Yasaburō the Fleet’ for nothing. Perhaps he’s already escaped, Teikinbō.”
“What will you do? Shall I escort you to the Friday Fellows?”
“I’m a bit tired. I think I’ll rest here for a moment.”
Benten’s gaze flicked back and forth between the two daruma on the table.
Each time I thought she had caught on to me with that smile of hers, her eyes would shift towards the other daruma. Her black hair was piled up in a bun, and the frozen strands sticking up towards the sky made her already icy smile even more chilling.
“Tell me something, Teikinbō. Don’t you think there’s something funny about these two daruma here? They both have a scorch mark in the same place, and they’re worn in the exact same way.”
“I see what you mean. That certainly is mysterious.”
“Yasaburō always was so good at transforming.”
It dawned on me that I had been too clever for myself by half.
Benten took the tengu cigar that lay on the table and put it between her lips. Teikinbō bent down and lit it for her. The cigar flared up, and Benten started puffing like a steam locomotive. Immediately the room was filled with thick smoke, so much that it almost seemed like the room was on fire. This must have been what was like for our ancestors to be smoked out of their cozy burrows, I thought, sympathizing with the pain they must have felt. I attempted to hold my breath, but before long a cough managed to escape me. Benten’s eyes immediately snapped onto me, and her lips formed into a honeyed smile.
“It’s good to see you again, Yasaburō.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Kinkaku and Ginkaku paid me a visit. They told me that their younger sister had been going out by herself lately, and that they suspected that she was being led astray by some wicked boy.”
“Those two just don’t know when to leave well enough alone.”
“They’re such thoughtful big brothers, don’t you think?”
Benten tossed the tengu cigar into her glossy black handbag, still burning. Picking me up, she walked out of the room, her footsteps clacking loudly. “Let’s go, Teikinbō. Call over Ryōsenbō and the rest.”
The frown didn’t leave my face as Benten pressed me into her bosom and carried me along. She went down the stairs and nodded ever so slightly to the shopkeeper, who was prostrate on his face, before slipping out onto Teramachi Street. Dragging along the black-suited Kurama tengu behind her, she walked north along the bustling shopping arcade, grinning wide like a cat as she looked down at me. “You’re so cute when you’re round. Just stay a daruma for a little longer.”
“Where are we going?”
“You smashed my inner parlor to pieces, and you lost my precious fan—didn’t you promise to perform for the Friday Fellows? Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“I have no words to express my sincere regret for what happened at Daimonji. However—”
“I don’t need your apologies,” Benten said pleasantly, looking up. “If we don’t like your performance, we’ll just throw you into our stew.”
◯
There is a certain sukiyaki restaurant on Teramachi Street.
It is an old establishment that dates back to the Meiji period, housed in a building of wood and concrete that blends the architecture of Japan and the West. People say that merely looking at the ostentatious lanterns adorning the building is enough to make one’s mouth water. It is dark past the entrance curtain. The dim golden light of lanterns spills over the wooden planks of the hallway, but beyond the reach of that light all is darkness. The sight of that border between light and dark holds the ineffable promise of something exquisitely delectable. Guests are shown to the upper floor. The stairway is narrow, like a hidden passage, and so steep that even a cat would be hard pressed to keep its balance. The darkness presses in ever closer as the stairs go higher and higher, while that indistinct expectancy of deliciousness only grows stronger. Soon it is impossible to tell whether the tantalizing aroma of the beef that awaits you ahead is real, or just fantasy—and once you have reached that point, even the gleaming black stairs have begun to look scrumptious.
I waited with Benten in the tatami room on the top floor of the restaurant, awaiting the arrival of the members of the Friday Fellows . Two round tables were placed in the middle of the 10-tatami space, and floor cushions were stacked in the corners of the room.
I sat stiffly on my heels in the corner, taking on the safe, tried-and-true form of the college student. Benten was lounging by the window with her arm draped over the sill, staring out at the view of the clustered buildings outside. Directly below the window was the roof of the Teramachi Street arcade, stretching out north and south. Benten, who was used to soaring the skies as she pleased, must have thought it quite dull, but for a tanuki who crawled the earth it was quite a novel sight.
The cirrocumulus clouds floating lazily over the sky were tinged with pink, while the autumn wind brought with it a deep feeling of melancholy.
“Do you like sukiyaki?” asked Benten.
“There’s nothing in the world that I don’t like to eat, aside from tanuki stew.”
“I’m rather more fond of tanuki stew than I am of sukiyaki.”
“What strange tastes you have. I couldn’t begin to describe how much more delicious beef is.”
Benten cast her gaze far off into the distance. “Your father turned into a stew. That was years ago now, wasn’t it?”
“Don’t talk like you weren’t there sitting around the pot.”
“I’d only just been inducted into the Friday Fellows. That was my first time eating tanuki.” Benten’s alabaster cheeks were rosy in the light of the setting sun. “And what a delicious stew it was.”
◯
The Friday Fellows made their appearance as the pale lights of the Teramachi Street arcade flickered on under the deep indigo sky.
Each time one of them entered the room, Benten inclined her head and said, “Tonight’s entertainment,” by way of introducing me. I was thankful that she didn’t introduce me as, “Tonight’s main course.”
The last member entered the room with a broad smile that stretched over his entire face. “Good evening!” he greeted Benten.
“I’m glad you could make it, professor.”
“Jurōjin and Fukurokuju won’t be joining us tonight. I’ve already let the restaurant staff know.”
With Five Lucky Gods and one tanuki in attendance, the banquet commenced.
Two cast iron pots were placed on the tables, and beer brought in bamboo bottle carriers. The room was filled with the fizz of beer being poured and the cracking of eggs. Serving girls coated the pots with oil, sprinkled glittering sugar crystals, and laid the beef in the pots, which sizzled merrily and wafted tantalizing aromas through the air. Next in was the soy sauce. At last the meat was simmered through. Everyone ate. More meat went in, and spring onions, and tofu. The Friday Fellows gorged on meat and guzzled down beer and unable to put such unutterable delight into words groaned with oohs and aahs of satisfaction.
Only during those moments when the party was busy downing their glasses did the room fall silent, and glass by glass the atmosphere became more animated.
“Sure, I could drink beer all night surrounded by these sounds and smells.”
“You stick to beer then, Ebisu. I’ll take your share of the pot!”
“Hands off, I say! The main course is what makes the accompaniment satisfy!”
“Meat so succulent must needs be poison to the body, no?”
“A learned man once said, cows eat straw, and so sukiyaki is really just simmered straw.1 Surely straw contains no cholesterol. Isn’t that so, professor?“
“Do cows eat straw these days, I wonder?”
“Modern cattle drink beer while listening to Mozart.”
“Then would it be accurate to say that we are eating beer while drinking beer?”
“That would be like eating rice with a side of rice!”
I sat unwillingly next to Benten, eating meat while surrounded by my mortal foes. Thoughts of Father’s tragic end, survival of the fittest, and the food chain swirled round my chest, but they all melted away and dissolved into the savory flavor of the meat dipped into raw egg. Impious. Ungracious. Delicious. The iron pot was bursting with culinary delight. As I sat there absentmindedly chewing, Benten whispered about each of the Friday Fellows into my ear.
The man pecking at the same pot as Benten and me was Hotei. He cleared out the contents of the pot with great voracity and tended his round stomach with care, the glutton; Benten had called him “professor” because he really was one. Three other men surrounded the pot next to us. The young man in traditional robes was Daikoku, the proprietor of a traditionalryōteicalled Chitoseya. The muscular formidable-looking one was Bishamon, and he was the manager of the Gyōunkaku hotel in the Okazaki neighborhood. His flushed, ruddy face and belly-shaking laughter gave off the impression of a mighty nomadic horseman. Lastly there was Ebisu, a big shot at some bank in Ōsaka, whose drooping face and hooded eyelids made him resemble a wax figure melting in the heat.
“There are two more who aren’t here today. I was so hoping to see Jurōjin.”
“What’s Jurōjin like?”
“He’s a real predator.”
“What kind of predator?”
“A shark,” Benten grinned.
“You mean a card shark?”
“More like a loan shark.”
◯
These were the people who had eaten Father. I had determined not to fraternize with them, but the cold, bubbly golden beer and the mouthwatering meats soon overwhelmed that steely resolve. Unable to repress the urging of the fool’s blood I had inherited from my ancestors, I found myself gradually starting to enjoy myself. It’s a common tendency that tanuki just can’t seem to avoid.
I waged a fierce struggle for control of the meat with the university professor sitting around my pot. We each sought to anticipate the other’s movements, dueling with our chopsticks like a miniature fencing match. Belying his appearance, the professor’s hirsute hand moved nimbly, manipulating his chopsticks to snatch up strips of meat one after another. His dexterity was truly something to behold. While Benten looked on, our naked gluttony clashed openly and our mutual passions burned unabashedly, like the meeting of two rival gang leaders on a dry riverbed.
“Lucky for us that Hotei isn’t at our pot.” “Leave a bit of meat for even a moment, cooked or no, and Hotei would gobble it right up!” “No question about that!” The three at the other pot murmured among one another with relief.
“Can you believe this? Look at those complacent sluggards over there, peaceably sharing their meat! They have no idea what victory tastes like!”
“That’s exactly right. Hot pots are war!”
“This will never do. What say you we teach them the harsh truth of reality?”
Together the professor and I raided the neighboring pot, sharing the spoils amongst ourselves amid our burgeoning friendship.
With a bit of alcohol in me, I lost my sense of fear. I even felt like performing of my own accord. Rather than cower in fear, I would walk the cocksure, blue-blooded path of the tanuki. I removed one of the sliding screens and had Benten hold it. She slid it back and forth, alternately hiding and revealing me, and each time I reappeared I showed them another one of my transformations. Not one of the Friday Fellows suspected that there was actually a tanuki in their midst putting on this revolving masquerade. “A splendid magic trick!” they shouted in admiration. There was no shortage of transformations up my sleeve—a tiger, a lucky cat, a steam locomotive—and I was quite pleased with the burst of applause that met each one.
For my finale, I decided to do something I hadn’t done in a while and take on the form of Benten.
Even a bunch of drunkards were apt to raise a fuss if they saw two Bentens with the same face, so I opted to give them only the enticement of my turned back. The professor’s gaze burned hot on the nape of my false Benten’s neck, and he let out a quavering whistle. Buoyed by my success, I started to pull down the shoulders of the dress to give them a view of my bare back, but behind the screen Benten looked at me venomously, hissing furiously, “Get carried away and you’re soup!” I quickly tamped down my more adventurous drunken impulses.
Turning back into my original form, I took a bow, to one more burst of thunderous applause. “Incredible,” breathed Bishamon, the hotelier, still looking amazed. “Nothing less than what I was expecting from a guest of Benten.”
“I couldn’t see the trick at all! You’re not a tanuki, are you?” Ebisu said, unwittingly hitting the nail on the head.
“Haha…you are correct. I am a tanuki,” I answered him directly.
“Indeed, this is one of my tanuki acquaintances,” said Benten. “Doesn’t he look scrumptious?”
“No, it would be a waste to devour such a talent. I could never!”
“I’ve taken a shine to you! You’re astounding! Simply fascinating!” the professor said with real feeling, grasping my hand. “Be sure to drop by next time!”
◯
“Eat up, eat up!” Benten scraped up the remnants of the pot and deposited them on my plate. I couldn’t tell if she was just being nice or forcing me to clean up. The professor looked at my plate jealously.
“I guess I’ll let you off the hook tonight,” said Benten.
“Does that mean you’re not putting me in the stew?”
“Who knows what tomorrow will bring?”
The banquet had reached a lull in the proceedings. The ruddy-faced Friday Fellows sat on the tatami quietly sipping beer. Benten opened the window letting the cool evening breeze inside. She took out the tengu cigar and placed it between her lips, whereupon the professor knelt and gave her a light. Benten thanked him coolly, blowing the smoke out into the air over Teramachi Street.
“We’ll be having a tanuki stew at the year-end party next month, aye?” asked Bishamon.
“And naturally we’ll have it at Chitoseya, as is the custom?” said Ebisu.
“Of course, I would be quite happy to host. After all, I doubt any otherryōteiwould prepare a tanuki stew.”
Bishamon drained his beer in one great gulp and opened his eyes wide, like a fearsomekomainustatue. “Why is it that we have tanuki stew every year, anyhow? I’d much rather have beef.”
“That kind of talk will get you expelled,” Ebisu cautioned him. “Rules are rules.”
Daikoku folded his arms and mused, “Wasn’t it Tanizaki Junichirōwho decided on the stew?”
“You sure about that?” said Bishamon.
“I heard from Jurōjin that Tanizaki Junichirō2 used to be a member.”
“A likely story!”
“Would Tanizaki have eaten tanuki? I feel he would have been a conger eel kind of guy.”
“But eels are a summer food.”
“It’s Hotei’s turn to bring the tanuki, isn’t it?” said Bishamon, looking at the professor. But the professor paid him no attention because his gaze was fixed on Benten, who was smoking alone away from the group
Benten suddenly turned to face him from her perch on the windowsill and asked, “You like tanuki, don’t you, Hotei?”
These words brought the professor back to reality, and his nostrils flared wide as he nodded fervently.
“Quite so. They’re adorable little things, just adorable.” A torrent of words began to pour forth from the professor concerning his love for tanuki, and from the smiles on the other members’ faces as they listened, I knew that he had lectured them on this subject many times before.
“First off, just take their endearing podgy little bodies. Podgy—now there’s a word I’m convinced was invented just for tanuki. The black markings around their eyes, and the way their paws get dark at the tip: absolutely adorable. And the blank look in their eyes when they stare at you, and the way their tiny little butts wiggle as they scurry around…even their poop is small and round and cute. There’s so much to love about them!”
The professor’s eyes misted over, and his voice became even more impassioned.
“It was oh, several years ago now that I fell head over heels for tanuki. It was just so cute. I was walking along Kitashirakawa when I found it hurt in a gutter at the side of the road. Female, I think it was. It was awfully stormy that day, and the poor thing was drenched, and shook like a leaf every time the thunder boomed. Maybe it was because of how her leg was hurt, but she didn’t make a fuss all the time I was carrying her back to my home. I treated the wound and gave her a rice ball. That tanuki would gobble up anything I gave her, the little glutton. Just like me. Even the way she hates thunder is like me. She’d get so scared every time she heard thunder, sniffling and running all over, poor thing. So on nights when it thundered I’d wrap her in a blanket and stay there with her the whole night. She healed up nicely, so I took her back to the mountains, but she kept looking at me when she left. She’d go a little ways and look back, go a little ways and look back, like that. Ah, you don’t believe me, Bishamon. But you weren’t there! You never saw how cute she was. She felt grateful for me saving her life, she was. They’re clever, tanuki are. Her little butt wiggling as she trotted away, and glancing back at me with those precious eyes, I tell you. I kept urging her on,get on now, and that was what real anguish is, I think. It was so adorable, and yet my heart was so heavy, it moved me to tears. And that was it, I’ve been in love with tanuki ever since…”
Here Bishamon found an opening to interject. “That’s what I find so bizarre. Everyone knows you’re infatuated with tanuki, Hotei. And yet every year you eat tanuki stew with so much relish. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“There’s nothing contradictory whatsoever about loving tanuki and eating them. I see how you make faces as you choke it down, Bishamon, but I find eating tanuki stew such a joy. I’m very well-versed with making tanuki into stew. There’s a secret technique to eliminate the gaminess from the meat. But they’re absolutely delicious, tanuki. Eating with gusto and savoring the taste is simply good manners!”
“Well, sure, but you don’t really need to eat tanuki, do you? There are plenty of other delicious things out there.”
Inwardly, I agreed wholeheartedly with Bishamon’s pointed rebuttal.
But the tipsy professor would not be dissuaded from fervently arguing his strange case. His was an argument that tanuki would find rather unsympathetic. Hearing “I love you!” as you are sliding down someone’s gullet is not an altogether reassuring thing.
“I love them so much I just want to eat them up!”
“You and I have known each other for a long time, Hotei, but I say, you still baffle me,” BIshamon chuckled ruefully, stroking his stiff moustache. “You’re stranger than fiction, my friend.”
The alcohol continued to flow and the professor’s pronouncements became increasingly cryptic, until he finally said, “Tanuki are sweet, but I think there’s someone among us who’s equally as sweet,” and approached Benten amorously.
“My dear, Hotei’s gone and drunk himself silly again!”
“Poor chap. His feelings are quite understandable, but this simply will not do!”
Turning away as the other fellows shouted and held the professor down, Benten whispered in my ear, “You know, I’ve grown rather tired of this. Why don’t we get some fresh air?”