Something Like an Autobiography - Akira Kurosawa [9]
Imagine someone like me suddenly appearing among a group that lives by purely Japanese customs: a haircut like a sheltered little sissy’s, a belted, double-breasted coat over short pants, red socks and low, buckled shoes. What’s more, I was still in a wide-eyed daze and had a face as white as a girl’s. I immediately became a laughingstock.
They pulled my long hair, poked at my knapsack, rubbed snot on my clothes and made me cry a lot. I had always been a crybaby, but at this new school I immediately got a new nickname on account of it. They called me Konbeto-san (“Mr. Gumdrop”) after a popular song that had a verse something like this:
Konbeto-san at our house,
He’s so much trouble, so much trouble.
He’s always in tears, in tears.
Blubber blubber, blubber blubber.
The idea was that the crybaby’s tears were as big as gumdrops. Even today I can’t recall that name, “Konbeto-san,” without a feeling of severe humiliation.
But at the same time I entered the Kuroda Primary School, my older brother also arrived. He conquered them all straightaway with his genius, and there is no doubt in my mind that this “Konbeto-san” cried all the more because his brother did not lend his dignity to back him up. It took a full year for me to find a place for myself. At the end of that year I no longer cried in front of people, and no one called me “Konbeto-san” any more. I was now very respectably known as “Kurochan.” The changes that occurred during that year were in part natural. My intelligence began to bud and blossom, growing with such speed that I caught up with my peers. Spurring my remarkable progress there were three hidden forces.
One of these hidden forces was my older brother. We lived near Omagari, which was the center of the Koishikawa district, and every morning I would walk along the banks of the Edogawa River with my brother on the way to school. Since I was in a lower grade, school ended earlier for me and I would have to make my way back home alone in the afternoon. But every morning I went side by side with him. Every morning my brother would deride me thoroughly. The vast number of different expressions he found to abuse me with was in itself amazing. He did this not in a loud or conspicuous way, but in a very soft voice that was barely audible even to me. None of the passers-by could hear him. If he had been loud, I could have shouted back, or cried and run away, or covered my ears with my hands. But he spoke in a subdued patter so that I could never retaliate while he was continually showering me with scathing insults.
I thought of complaining to my mother and older sister about the way my brother was treating me, but I couldn’t do it. As soon as we got close to the school, my brother would say, “I know you’re a dirty little rotten sissy coward, so I know you’ll go straight to Mother and our sisters and tell them about me. Well, just you try it. I’ll despise you even more.” I found myself unable to lift a finger to stop his needling me like this.
Nevertheless, this very same mean and nasty brother of mine always turned up at recess time when I needed him. Whenever I was being teased by the other children, he would appear from somewhere—I don’t know how he happened to be watching. He was the center of attention for the entire school, and those pestering me were younger than he, so without exception they would shrink back when he arrived on the scene. Not even bothering to look at them, he would command, “Akira, come here a minute.” Relieved, I would happily run up to him and say, “What is it?” but he’d only reply, “Nothing” and walk briskly away.
As this same sequence of events occurred over and over again, my fogged brain began to think a little: My brother’s behavior on the way to school was different from his behavior in the schoolyard. Gradually his abuse