“And this record?” I asked, indicating the gift.
“It was played in Tokyo, premiere in April, second day, 1958, after working about a year.”
“Are you interested in religion? The title suggests Buddhism.”
“The Japanese Buddhist temple bell,” he said. “It is a typical mixture of sounds. I am very fond of it, since I am interested in concrete music and electronic music, that is, creating musical structures out of sound energy, as Edward Varese suggests. In other words, the method of composition is by giving musical life to the energy inherent in the sound itself. So I bring new timbres into my compositions — for example, mixed tones. Combinations of several dozen pure tones have become dominant in my works.”
The calm face had suddenly become animated and beautiful.
“I am attracted by the voices of Buddhist priests chanting sutras — no melody, of course, but habitual intonation and rhythm, and when any priests take part together, the group produces a sort of musical noise through the mixing of the voices of varying pitches. I added to a full orchestra treble woodwind instruments and bass brass instruments, placed in different corners of the hall to achieve a directional sense by means of the crisscross of sounds over the heads of the audience—”
No silence now — the words poured from him in a flow of creating thought!
“Nirvana, the ideal state of being for the Buddhist, is symbolized by the toll of the bell. So perhaps I am religious. I composed this symphony with the idea of creating my own musical Nirvana. It is not religious music, I suppose, in the purest sense of the word. It is a sort of Buddhistic cantata. I hope you like it.” He smiled suddenly. “I talk too much.”
I broke the next silence. “What do you do next, after our picture?”
“I go to New York, to write music for the New York City Ballet. It will be played next season.”
“Quite different from a Buddhist cantata?”
“I like difference, but before I go to New York I will finish the music for The Big Wave. This picture is unusual, too, and altogether different. I have the music in my mind clearly, really romantic, not Wagnerian romantic, strong and delicate together, with contemporary Oriental philosophy. How is it you write like this? The emotion is Oriental.”
It was my turn not to know what to say. How can a writer say how she writes? But he had forgotten his question.
“I want a song in it,” he was saying. “I want a song that is like the sunrise, young and fresh and full of hope. Your young people, beginning their life again in their own time, at this moment, never before lived, I want that song.”
He leaned toward me, all demand and pleading. “If I write the music, will you write the words?”
“I cannot,” I told him.
There was nothing more to be said. We shook hands and he was gone. And the song was written by someone else.
He stopped at the office the next day at noon and looked in. Something was always going on there, and that moment was no exception. Hundreds of costumes were heaped on the floor, and several persons — men, boys and a girl or two — were pawing them over to a running accompaniment of Japanese at various tonal levels. They were looking for some garment demanded by the model for various parts in the picture. The model was a microscopic human being, male, of vague age but certainly not young. He stood something under five feet and if he weighed ninety pounds, it would surprise me. He was skin and bone, and if the skeleton was a child’s, the face was fascinating. Wrinkled, lively, full of fun and mischief, it was the face of an old faun. The top of the head was bald, but hair surrounded the large bald spot and stood straight out from the skull, as though the old faun were undergoing electric shock. He was certainly full of some sort of electricity for he was issuing orders without let, as he modeled a fisherman’s outfit made for a man four times his size. He was a good model, nevertheless. He clutched the trousers in at his waist, gave a twist to the belt, arranged the Japanese coat and became a fisherman. Everybody laughed and I sat down to watch.
He knew all the characters in The Big Wave, it appeared, and he modeled them all. When he modeled a man he faced us. When he modeled a woman, he turned his back. I recognized each character, even the young girl Setsu. How an old man could pose so that he suggested a gay young girl, even from the back, is something I cannot explain. I wished for the millionth time that I understood Japanese, for whatever the old faun was saying the audience was convulsed. Every now and again he was dissatisfied and threw off a costume, or rejected what was offered and pawed among the confusion of the piled garments with all the fierce intensity of a monkey looking for fleas.
At this moment someone had an inspiration. “He’s what we’ve been looking for — a wonderful attendant for Old Gentleman. Does he speak English?”
The old faun smiled with all his teeth, none of them in good repair, and shook his head to the English.
To the rest he replied that he would think it over and let us know tomorrow. The next day, the old faun, modeling more costumes, and dancing about on his spindly legs, brightened as I entered the room. A stream of Japanese flowed from him, which, interpreted, was that he would join the cast, but only if we promised not to cut his hair. He said he would not come with us if we cut his hair.
I regarded the circle of electrified black wire surrounding the bony bald skull. “Tell him,” I said, “that I would not think of cutting that hair. I promise it will not be cut.”
We all stared gravely at the valuable hair.
“Hai,” the cheerful faun said with a smile that reached across the room. Suddenly the smile disappeared. Japanese chatter poured from where the smile was.
The patient interpreter explained. “He says, does he have to speak English? If so, he can’t.”
“He has only two lines and we will teach him every day,” we promised.
More Japanese and the interpreter reported. “He says he must have a good teacher. He must speak English perfectly.”
“He will have a good teacher,” we promised.
Later we found that no amount of teaching could prevail over his invincible Japanese accent. We cut his lines to two essential words, “yes,” and “no.” These he says in the picture, impressively and with pride. He had, he said, waited his whole life to become an actor, but the nearest approach had been to work with costumes. I shall never forget his beatific face when he knew he was to have the part. So far as he was concerned, he was a star. He gave us a great smile and the faun became monkey again, pawing among the clothes, but now he was searching feverishly for his own costume.
That night for the first time since he left, I felt a release, slight though it was, from the dull oppression of — what shall I call it? Shock, desolation, loneliness, whatever its compound, it had laid a burden upon me from which I could not escape. I did not wander the streets that night. Instead I decided upon a Japanese massage, dinner alone in my room, a long letter to the children at home, and a book. This is a program ordinary enough, but I had not achieved it since being alone. Laughter had provided the possibility now. I laugh easily, since the world is full of funny people and incidents, but I had not laughed often in the past months and never without the self-forgetfulness that somehow the little faun had inspired that afternoon. It is the peculiar talent of the artist that he is able to enter the being of another person and this is particularly true of the novelist. We had discussed it often, he and I, and he had forgiven me always when, temporarily, I was absorbed in someone other than himself. It is a strange absorption this, and I do not know how to describe it except to liken it to the focus of total interest essential to the scientist theoretician. Such a scientist is by temperament an artist too and none of us can escape what we ourselves are.