Kutze, the Wheat Treader
(Mugifumi Kuutze)

ENGLISH / David Karashima

FRENCH / Gérard Siary

GERMAN / Thomas Jordi 

Rironsha (2002)

Shinchosha (2005)(pb)

My grand father was possessed by music, and my father, who was a mathematics teacher, was obsessed with the prime number. I was nicknamed "Neko (Cat)" because I was good at imitating the call of creatures including cats. I was just a baby when the three of us, my grand father, my father and myself, moved to that port town. In the year I entered elementary school I found myself all alone at home on a sultry midsummer night. Trembling in the dark I heard… tap, rat-a-tap, tap, rat-a-tap, tap… There, I saw a man in strange clothing--- only the shoes were black, and the rest was very yellow. The man was stamping on the ground. He gave his name as Kutze and said he was treading wheat. On that night, I made a decision to tread wheat side-by-side with Kutze when I grew up, to get far, far away on the yellow ground.

Ten years passed after I had met Kutze, and various things had happened before I grew up. The music played by the wind orchestra, to which my grand father belonged as a timpanist, was brilliant and brought me joy and inspiration. Then a rain of rats fell on the town. When the town was in calamity because of the damage caused by the surviving rats, I got rid of them by imitating cats, but the rats hid themselves in the darkness and became"dark rats (yami-nezumi)"

Later, I went to a highland city to become a musician. While I was away from the port town, a quack salesman came to the town. The salesman was very good at making false sales pitches and foisted fake products on the people. My father sank to the depth of despair because he had lost in the mathematics competition and later committed suicide.

Although I had experienced so much tragedy in my youth, through music I was transported to paradise.