Something Like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa [30]
The bar rose with each round; the number of contenders dropped and those on the sidelines increased. But among those challenging that bar, I remained a participant after numerous jumps. The onlookers became strangely silent. And the impossible happened: I alone was left to face the bar. Beefsteak and my classmates all stared in disbelief.
How could this have happened? What did I look like as I ran for that bar? When I first started, every time I went over the bar I heard snickering, so I must have shown a very bizarre form. As I think about this incident now, I still can’t understand it. Was it a dream? Did the wishes of the boy who was repeatedly laughed at in physical-education class finally invent success for himself in a dream?
No, it wasn’t a dream. I really did keep jumping over that bar. And finally I alone was left and continued to do it many more times. Some angel may have felt sorry for the boy with the zero in gym and lent him her wings for a moment.
A Long Red Brick Wall
IN WRITING ABOUT my memories of middle school I can’t leave out the brick wall surrounding the armory. Every day I walked to and from school along this wall. At first I didn’t walk, though. I took a streetcar from the stop at Omagari, near my house in Koishikawa Gokencho. At Iidabashi station I transferred to the tram for Hongō Motomachi and walked from there. But I did this only a few times. Something very strange happened to me on that streetcar, and afterward I didn’t like riding it any more. Even though it was my own fault, it was frightening.
The morning tram was always full. Clumps of people always overflowed from the entrance where the conductor’s stand was and hung precariously from the side of the car. One day I too was hanging there on the way from Omagari to Iidabashi, when suddenly I decided that everything in life was stupid, boring and futile. I let go of the hand rail.
I was pinned between two university students who were also hanging on the outside of the car. If this had not been the case, I would have plunged to the ground. Even so, I had only one foot on the running board, so I did start to fall backward.
One of the university students let out a yell and freed one hand to grab me by the strap of the schoolbag on my shoulder. I rode the rest of the way to Iidabashi suspended from the hand of this student like a fish on a line. Holding very still, for this entire interval I stared into the eyes of the pale, horror-stricken young man.
When we arrived at Iidabashi and descended from the tram, the two students caught their breath. “What happened to you?” they asked. Since I myself didn’t understand what had happened, I just bowed my head quickly and headed for the stop where I had to catch my next streetcar. “Are you all right?” they persisted, and it looked as if they were going to follow me. I ran, caught up with the tram for Ochanomizu and jumped on just as it began to move. Turning and looking back over my shoulder, I saw the two students staring after me in amazement. No wonder; I can’t help being amazed at myself.
After that, I avoided taking the streetcar. And I was used to walking from my primary-school days with the long trek to the Ochiai fencing school. Moreover, if I saved my streetcar fare, I could satisfy the new craving I developed around that time: I could buy books.
I left my house in the morning and walked along the Edogawa River to the foot of the Iidabashi bridge. From there I took the street the tram followed and turned right. Proceeding a little farther, on the left side I came to the long red brick wall of the armory. The wall seemed to go on endlessly. At the point where it was interrupted stood Korakuen, the garden of Count Mito’s Tokyo mansion. Following that on the right after a while came the Suidōbashi intersection. On the far left corner stood a huge hinoki