with requests from the neighbors.
“Well, that’s good to hear. What kind of jobs is he doing?”
“Oh, he gets rid of the dead stray cats people find, looks after places while the residents are away, waters plants: that land of thing.”
“Well, so long as your grandfather doesn’t fool with bonsai I have no complaint. He doesn’t know a thing about bonsai and has no business 3 3
N A T S U O K I R I NO
pretending he does. He stole pots from others, you know, and then sold them as his own. Some he bought cheap at the night market and then turned around and sold them for exorbitant prices. He stirred up a lot of trouble and bilked a lot of people out of well over fifty million yen.”
I rather suspected that those bilked out of their money were somehow connected to the probation officer. He was most likely a bonsai cultivator himself, or at least an employee at this estate. And it was probably from here that my grandfather had stolen the bonsai. Maybe he started out negotiating with the estate to broker their bonsai and then ended up bilking them of their money. This old man had probably been assigned to keep an eye on my grandfather, to be sure he didn’t get involved with bonsai again. It was likely that he was going to keep watching him for a long time to come. I felt sorry for Grandfather.
Hundreds of bonsai were lined up with careful precision along thick wooden planks throughout the estate grounds. Among them was a large pine that resembled the tree my grandfather prized so dearly. In my estimation, it was much too impressive and expensive even to begin to compare to the one my grandfather had.
“I’m sorry to ask, but does my grandfather really know nothing of bonsai?”
“He’s a rogue amateur.” The probation officer snorted with contempt, his genial expression suddenly darkening.
“But if my grandfather tricked people, they must have been extremely wealthy.”
I was thinking that if there were people who were so rich they were susceptible to my grandfather’s scheme, their lack of appreciation for the bonsai he adored must have made him blind with anger. I could hardly imagine that people would actually be willing to spend so much on a single bonsai; it seemed to me that the swindled were worse than the swindler. Of course, the probation officer didn’t see it that way. He was furiously poking his hand though the air around him.
“Plenty of people in this area got rich off the compensation money paid when they lost their fishing grounds. This whole area used to be under the ocean, you know.”
“Under the ocean?” I gasped in spite of myself, completely forgetting the bonsai. I suddenly realized that the love that had been ignited between my mother and father, and the energy it had generated, dissipated the moment conception took place. The new life-form that was 3 4
G R O T E S Q U E
to become me ought to have been released then and there into the sea that opened up between them. I’d thought that for a long time. And now at last I had found my release in this new life that I shared with my grandfather, a life that was the sea itself. My decision to live with my grandfather in his tiny pomade-permeated apartment, the fact that I had to listen to his ceaseless chatter and live in a room surrounded by bonsai, was for me the sea, the very sea itself. This coincidental congruence made me happy, and that’s what led me to decide to stay in the area.
When I got home, I told Grandfather about meeting the probation officer at the Garden of Longevity. Surprised, my grandfather began to question me.
“What did he say about me?”
“That you were a bonsai amateur.”
“Shit!” my grandfather growled. “That bastard doesn’t know shit! That ‘true oak’ of his that won the Ward Prize was a joke. Ha! Just thinking of it makes me want to bust a gut! Anybody can throw money around and buy a good tree. Let him boast about his five million yen. You just look, he doesn’t know about
“Well, that’s good to hear. What kind of jobs is he doing?”
“Oh, he gets rid of the dead stray cats people find, looks after places while the residents are away, waters plants: that land of thing.”
“Well, so long as your grandfather doesn’t fool with bonsai I have no complaint. He doesn’t know a thing about bonsai and has no business 3 3
N A T S U O K I R I NO
pretending he does. He stole pots from others, you know, and then sold them as his own. Some he bought cheap at the night market and then turned around and sold them for exorbitant prices. He stirred up a lot of trouble and bilked a lot of people out of well over fifty million yen.”
I rather suspected that those bilked out of their money were somehow connected to the probation officer. He was most likely a bonsai cultivator himself, or at least an employee at this estate. And it was probably from here that my grandfather had stolen the bonsai. Maybe he started out negotiating with the estate to broker their bonsai and then ended up bilking them of their money. This old man had probably been assigned to keep an eye on my grandfather, to be sure he didn’t get involved with bonsai again. It was likely that he was going to keep watching him for a long time to come. I felt sorry for Grandfather.
Hundreds of bonsai were lined up with careful precision along thick wooden planks throughout the estate grounds. Among them was a large pine that resembled the tree my grandfather prized so dearly. In my estimation, it was much too impressive and expensive even to begin to compare to the one my grandfather had.
“I’m sorry to ask, but does my grandfather really know nothing of bonsai?”
“He’s a rogue amateur.” The probation officer snorted with contempt, his genial expression suddenly darkening.
“But if my grandfather tricked people, they must have been extremely wealthy.”
I was thinking that if there were people who were so rich they were susceptible to my grandfather’s scheme, their lack of appreciation for the bonsai he adored must have made him blind with anger. I could hardly imagine that people would actually be willing to spend so much on a single bonsai; it seemed to me that the swindled were worse than the swindler. Of course, the probation officer didn’t see it that way. He was furiously poking his hand though the air around him.
“Plenty of people in this area got rich off the compensation money paid when they lost their fishing grounds. This whole area used to be under the ocean, you know.”
“Under the ocean?” I gasped in spite of myself, completely forgetting the bonsai. I suddenly realized that the love that had been ignited between my mother and father, and the energy it had generated, dissipated the moment conception took place. The new life-form that was 3 4
G R O T E S Q U E
to become me ought to have been released then and there into the sea that opened up between them. I’d thought that for a long time. And now at last I had found my release in this new life that I shared with my grandfather, a life that was the sea itself. My decision to live with my grandfather in his tiny pomade-permeated apartment, the fact that I had to listen to his ceaseless chatter and live in a room surrounded by bonsai, was for me the sea, the very sea itself. This coincidental congruence made me happy, and that’s what led me to decide to stay in the area.
When I got home, I told Grandfather about meeting the probation officer at the Garden of Longevity. Surprised, my grandfather began to question me.
“What did he say about me?”
“That you were a bonsai amateur.”
“Shit!” my grandfather growled. “That bastard doesn’t know shit! That ‘true oak’ of his that won the Ward Prize was a joke. Ha! Just thinking of it makes me want to bust a gut! Anybody can throw money around and buy a good tree. Let him boast about his five million yen. You just look, he doesn’t know about
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