IV
Now I am staying at the residence of Willie XXIII, in much a stuffy little room in O. City resident area. If he wants me to, I am able to stay much longer, however, the time we can converse is very limited. He is a busy man. Though he is old now, eighty four, he is still engaged in his own business with his family. I am alive in his brain, mostly sleeping as I was in the Kings School groove, and only awaken when he needs me to give him advice about his writing contents. The building he lives in used to be an apartment house consisted of rooms, 101, 102, 201 and 202. When they bought this building about 30 years ago, those rooms were still occupied by the tenant families. In one year’s time, each of them, one by one, moved to other residents, and the owner, Willie XXIII’s company did not take in new tenants. Instead they started to use that building rooms for their own business office purposes. Their business mainly handled items are uniform parts, such as insignia or badges mostly hand-manufactured goods from Pakistan, and all the transactions have proceeded in English either written order specifications by letter or telephone calls to the factories for some urgent matters with them to accelerate the delivery time or change of the production mode, etc. Willie XXIII consults me only when he needs my advice for his writings about such Maugham concerned articles as this writing, and the rest of time, I am now able to use my own time moving around the building rooms and resolve my own questions about why this old man has been able to enjoy such an energetic life living of his own, and further, extending his activities to other volunteer works outside the office. The business has been run by him and his family members, only two of them, his wife and the second son. Only these three were actually working and his wife, for more than thirty years, has been commuting by car from her own residence in the other adjacent city, and the second son has been using the Room 202 for his own residence. Willie XXIII has been using the Room 201 for living, sleeping, watching television, or otherwise, mostly facing his own PC tablet to write business letters or articles for contribution to his literally concerns like the Japan Maugham Society among others else. In the main office, Room 101 facing the town street side, there are three bookshelves where many business documents are piled heavily pushing each other like commuters on the Yamanote Line trains at Shinjuku Station at 8:00 in a weekday morning. I counted the number of those thick cardboard covered loose-leaf files and there are more than fifty, each of them filled with about 150 pages of A-4 size type-written or PC printed materials. Their backs are marked with numbers and figures showing their contents, being from the beginning of their business transactions. Most of them are business letters, mainly of purchase order specifications written in English, PC writing with illustrated drawings to show how the ordered items are to be made. I remembered here about the works of my secretary, Gerald Haxton, when we were engaged in publishing those stories before they were taken to the publishers for printing. Documentation works, these are!
At the age of twenty-six, Willie XXIII, after finishing the Tsuda School of Business, about the time when I met him in the Maruzen Book Store in Nihombashi, he got a job at an expanding trading firm which was exporting general merchandise from Japan, mostly to the U.S. market. It was in 1960, and Japan was enjoying a boom of economy expansion. From these records, shown on the filed documents, I have been much interested in the fact how this man has lived for these fifty years. He still is on his way towards the writing of this article about William Somerset Maugham, and how he is known around the world. He seems to be so much obsessed with writing about me and having the young readers become acquainted with those stories I wrote long ago. He promised me that he would introduce me to the other William Somerset Maugham, XXIV, XXV, XXVI and many more of them who would appear after he finished and once his work is published and marketed all over the world. On each such occasion, I am obliged to accompany him wherever he takes me, like Gerald who did so at each time I had a plan to take up the very severe reporting journeys, like the ones we made to South Sea Island countries.
The readers may feel it a nuisance to read such trivial stories as Willie XXIII tells through my words, however, once they realized that the contents are becoming deeply concerned with the Japan Maugham Society, and some of the key persons among the society members, who will sometimes appear in this writing, vividly acting their parts in their appearances, the situation will be much different. There are many individuals who have written or talked about the episodic stories of myself on the occasions in the Society activities, so far left active on its locus since it was formed in the years around 1956 through today. These members who are deeply concerned with the succession of the Society activities are now getting on in ages, and started to disappear from the site of activities. Who, on earth, will continue this work, I mean, the Society Activities? Perhaps, only those who are, like Willie XXIII, so obsessed with pains-taking works only, they are able to do. I will be available in whatever possible ways to give service or assistance. I am quite ready to make my contribution to the works by appearing from the groove of the Kings School yard. He, by whom I mean, Willie XXIII, is such a person who intends to continue his story telling, in the form of this writing, and my existence in the numerous works now left in the world libraries rather oblivious nowadays, may remain to be among the genre classic works like some others, the “Hojoki” and its author, Chomei Kamo or “The Tale of Genji” and Lady Murasaki. He sometimes whispers in my ear that my existence due to his adjacency is the strong arms, even saying in his own language, “鬼に金棒”, (the demon with powerful sward) to which I reply I am quite pleased and always willing to be in service in his work. Furthermore, he asks me, if any of those Wm. S. Maugham Xes want to create similar works as he does, could I be of service, and I always reply to him that I will be eager to do so as far as the service will go through his uniquely franchised channel. He expects a long procession of them before him if once he reveals the possibilities to the world literary society. When saying this, he made a grinning smile with his mouth open showing his 100% false teeth which surely indicated his sentiment of hidden pleasure, perhaps because he convinced my words of acceptance, that I felt myself.