“Don’t you like it?†asks the maid.
“No, no, I’m just about to have it,†I reply, but in fact it looks too beautiful to eat. I once read somewhere an anecdote about the artist Turner at a banquet, remarking to his neighbor as he gazed at the salad piled on the plate before him that this cool fresh color was the sort he himself used. I would love to show Turner the color of these fern shoots and prawn. Not a single Western food has a color that could be cal ed beautiful—the only exceptions I can think of are salad and radishes. I’m in no position to speak of its nutritional value, but to the artist’s eye it is a thoroughly uncivilized cuisine. On the other hand, artistical y speaking, everything on a Japanese menu, from the soups to the hors d’oeuvres to the raw fish, is beautiful y conceived. If you did no more than gaze at the banquet tray set before you at an elegant restaurant, without lifting a chopstick, and then go home again, the feast for the eyes would have been more than sufficient to make the visit worth your while.
“There’s a young lady in the household, isn’t there?†I inquire as I put down the bowl.
“Yes.â€
“Who is she?â€
“She’s the young mistress.â€
“Is there an older mistress here as wel ?â€
“She died last year.â€
“What about the master?â€
“Yes, he’s here. She’s his daughter.â€
“You mean the young lady?â€
“Yes.â€
“Are there any other guests?â€
“No one.â€
“I’m the only one?â€
“Yes.â€
“How does the young mistress spend her days?â€
“Wel , she sews . . .â€
“What else?â€
“She plays the shamisen. â€
This is a surprise. Intrigued, I continue. “And what else?â€
“She visits the temple,†replies the maid.
This is also surprising. There’s something peculiar in this visiting temples and playing the shamisen.
“She goes there to pray?â€
“No, she visits the priest.â€
“Is the priest learning the shamisen, then?â€
“No.â€
“Wel , why does she go there?â€
“She visits Mr. Daitetsu.â€
Ah yes, this must be the same Daitetsu who did the framed piece of cal igraphy above my door. To judge from its content, he’s clearly a Zen priest. That volume of Hakuin’s sermons in the cupboard, then, must be her personal property.
“Who normal y uses this room?â€
“The young mistress is normal y here.â€
“So she would have been here until I arrived last night?â€
“Yes.â€
“I’m sorry I’ve turned her out. So what does she go to Mr. Daitetsu’s place for?â€
“I don’t know.â€
“What else, then?â€
“Sorry?â€
“What else does she do?â€
“Um, various things . . .â€
“What sort of things?â€
“I don’t know.â€
The conversation comes to a halt. I finish my meal, and the maid withdraws the tray table.
When she slides open the door to leave, suddenly there beyond, on the second-floor balcony across the shrubs of the little inner garden, I see revealed the head of that same woman, under its ichogaeshi curves of hair. Her cheek rests elegantly upon a raised hand, and her gaze is directed downward like the enlightened figure of the “Wil ow Branch†Kannon bodhisattva. 4 In contrast to my earlier sight of her that morning, she now presents a deeply serene figure. Doubtless it’s because her face is lowered and her eyes do not so much as quiver in my direction that her features are transformed in this way. It used to be said that “the eye is the finest thing in the human form,â€5 and certainly its incomparably vivid expressiveness wil always shine through. Beneath the railing with its twisted patterning where she quietly leans, two butterflies flutter upward, now drawing together, now dancing apart.
Because my door has been opened suddenly, the woman swiftly raises her eyes from the butterflies toward my room. Her gaze pierces the air between us like a poisoned dart and fal s upon my brow without a flicker of recognition or greeting. Before I can recover from my astonishment, the maid has once more clapped the door shut, leaving behind her the easy-going indifference of spring.
I settle down to sprawl on the mat once more. The fol owing lines spring immediately to mind: Sadder than is the moon’s lost light,
Lost ere the kindling of dawn,
To travelers journeying on,
The shutting of thy fair face from my sight.6
Imagine that I have fal en in love with the figure I’ve just seen, and have determined to dedicate my life itself to achieving a meeting with her, only to be smitten at that very instant by such a parting glance as this, a glance that fil s my being with astonished delight or anguish. In that state I would undoubtedly have written just such sentiments in just such a poem as this. I might even have added the next two lines: Might I look on thee in death,
With bliss I would yield my breath.
Happily, I am by now wel past any susceptibility to the triteness of love and heartache, and I couldn’t become afflicted with such agonies even should I wish it. Yet these few lines are richly redolent with the poetry of the event that has just occurred. Though in fact no such painful longing binds me to the figure opposite, I find it amusing to project our relationship into the scene of this poem, and to apply the poem’s sentiments to our present situation. A thin karmic thread winds between us, linking us through something the poem holds that is true to this moment. But a karmic bond that consists of such a very tenuous thread is scarcely, after al , a burdensome matter. Nor is it any ordinary thread—it is like some rainbow arching in the sky, a mist that trails over the plain, a spider’s web glittering in the dew, a fragile thing that, though marvelously beautiful to the eye, must snap at the first touch. What if this thread were to swel before my eyes into the sturdy thickness of a rope? I wonder. But there’s no danger of this. I am an artist. And she is far from the common run of woman.
The door suddenly slides open again. I rol over to see, and there stands my karmic companion, poised on the threshold, bearing a tray that holds a green celadon bowl.
“You’re sleeping again, are you? I must have disturbed you last night. I do keep disturbing you, don’t I?†and she laughs. She shows not the least sign of shyness or concealment, let alone embarrassment. She has simply seized the initiative.
“Thank you for your help this morning,†I say again. This is the third time I’ve responded with a brief polite formula, I realize, and furthermore it has consisted each time simply of the words “thank you.â€
I am about to rise, but she swiftly seats herself on the floor beside me.
“Oh, don’t get up. We can talk as you lie there,†she says airily. That’s true enough, I think, and for the time being I content myself with rol ing over onto my stomach and lying chin in hands, elbows propped on the matting.
“I thought you must be bored, so I’ve made you some tea.â€
“Thank you.†There are those words again.
The plate of tea sweets contains some splendid slices of the firm bean jel y known as yokan Yokan happens to be my very favorite tea sweet.