I Am a Japanese Writer by Dany Laferrière Page A

missed his sweetness. Funny: the guy was violence incarnate, yet all I can remember is the softness of his skin. You can’t have skin that soft if there’s not gentleness elsewhere too. I can tell you it wasn’t always easy. . .” He sighed. “I heard a gunshot that night. That was the music of Harlem. That’s what gave life its beat—they tell me it’s changed since then. I knew right away. I said to my friend, That bullet was for Malcolm. My friend bawled me out, he told me I must have been sick if I started naming everyone who was killed in Harlem during the night. He told me to go see a psychologist, the whole thing. I burst into tears and I left. I knew where Malcolm hung out, I went there and found him in a pool of blood. He died like a dog. I cleaned him up and called his father. Then I hid and waited, and I slipped away when the father showed up. I wandered for days and nights through Harlem. I wanted to get myself killed too. I did everything I could, but death wouldn’t touch me ... Why am I telling you all this?”
    “Because you can’t see me.”
    “I can’t see a psychologist.”
    “Why not?”
    “I’m a fan of Woody Allen—that’s what my friends call me in Japanese. We have the same physique. He has a Japanese body. Try it yourself: take off his head and put a Japanese head on him, and you’ll get a Japanese filmmaker.”
    “I’d like to ask you a question.”
    “Go ahead. Otherwise I’ll just be talking to myself.”
    “Your father is black, your mother is Japanese, and only black men attract you ...”
    “But not the same way as for my mother. My mother was smell. I’m touch. Everything is concentrated in my fingertips. The story of my life is a story of electricity. If the lines don’t light up, there’s nothing I can do. But when they do, I’m a goner. Black skin in the darkness is a foretaste of hell. That skin shines brighter than any other. And some things burn harder than fire.”
    “Didn’t you ever think you were black?”
    “Never.”
    “But your father is black.”
    “YesbutI’mmymothernotmyfatherImeanI’mawomannotaman.”
    He said that as a single word, without pausing to catch his breath. I heard a sharp sob. Then he gently put down the phone.

THE PUBLISHER OF STOCKHOLM
    I HAVEN’T BEEN sleeping well lately. It isn’t easy to sit in front of your typewriter, doing nothing, when you know that someone on the other side of the world is suffering the same pains you are. In this case, it’s my publisher. He can’t write the book for me, though he’d like to. That would spare him an ulcer. All he can do is wait. I once saw a Kurosawa film that perfectly explained the publisher’s function. It was about the shogun who must not move while the battle is taking place. The arrows whistle past his ears but he says nothing and moves not at all. He sits motionless. Impassive. And so my publisher determines the outcome of the battle of writing through his powerful immobility. I feel his presence most strongly when he doesn’t appear.
    “Hello!”
    “It’s your publisher.”
    “I was thinking about you.”
    “I’m in Stockholm for a colloquium about Andersen.”
    “But he’s Danish.”
    “The Danes hate Andersen because he made them look like monsters who would let a poor little girl die of cold. I don’t know how I got caught in this mess. Even when I was a kid I hated Andersen. The worst nightmares in my life came from reading “The Little Match Girl.” I ended up in this business because of that fairy tale. It ruined my life. I’m willing to bet it wasn’t written by someone who was moved by the poor little girl’s fate—oh, no, it was written by a sadist, a pervert, a bastard, a sick man.”
    “Okay,” I said to slow him down, “don’t get carried away, it’s only a colloquium. Stop stewing in your room and go out and get a drink somewhere.”
    “There’s not even a bar in this hotel. I got back an hour ago, completely exhausted by some wordy