Burned down and reconstructed? The musicians react with wonder at the fate of a temple that looks so calm and serene, as if nothing had befallen it since the day it was built.
The group’s guide is petite and bespectacled, and speaks Dutch with an accent that Noga has difficulty understanding, but she is drawn to her nonetheless, for she seems to be well educated. Unlike the many tour guides who mechanically recite names and dates, she tries to widen the scope and compare Japan with other nations.
To better understand the Dutch, which is native to neither her ears nor the speaker’s lips, Noga moves closer to the slender woman, who looks like a student who skipped several grades at once. At a quiet moment, as the group walks around the lake to the temple, Noga asks her a question that arose in her mind at the sight of the temple: What is the religion of the Japanese people?
“The religion?” The guide smiles and pauses to evaluate the questioner. “Here is a surprising answer for you. According to a recent poll, seventy-five percent of Japanese people do not define themselves as having a religion, and until the middle of the nineteenth century there was no word in Japanese for the concept of religion.”
“Seventy-five percent?” The Israeli is stunned. “That many?”
“Yes, because when a Japanese defines himself as religious, it means he is a member of a religious sect, and that can also be a Christian sect. So when seventy-five percent define themselves as not religious, it means first of all they are not members of any sect, yet eighty-five percent identify themselves as Buddhist.”
“Eighty-five percent Buddhist!”
“And ninety-five percent believe in Shinto.”
“How can that be?” Noga protests. “These are two different religions!”
“Of course they are different. The Shinto ceremonies connect the person to the ancient gods, the Kami spirits that must be appeased, especially when a child is born or at a wedding, whereas Buddhism, which is universal and not only Japanese, is also connected with death, and a person who dies is given a Buddhist name.”
“The dead have a Buddhist name?” asks the harpist uneasily.
“Yes, the death rituals are done in the Buddhist way.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that a Japanese can honor and perform, even in the same temple, ceremonies of two religions, and add a ritual from a third faith, without perceiving it as a fault or contradiction. We are polytheists,” stresses the tiny tour guide, “believers in many faiths, and therefore here in Japan a person is not asked what his religion is. It is entirely a personal matter. After the Second World War, the victors forced us to completely separate religion from the state — that way all the religious fanaticism is uprooted. The Japanese are loyal only to their emperor. That is enough for them.”
“Enough for you too?” asks Noga.
A mysterious smile crosses the lips of the guide. “For me too,” she says softly. “Why not.”
“That’s good,” concludes Noga.
The rest of the musicians in the group have long since left the two behind. The air is sweet and the light soft, and the scene is one of silent dignity. Other tourists, not orchestra members, walk quietly beside them. The pair walk side by side, and Noga wonders about the age of this intelligent guide, who seems ageless.
“I’m not Dutch, but Israeli,” she discloses. “So what you told me about the religious chaos in Japan is very appealing.”
“It is not chaos,” the guide says, rejecting the definition with mild annoyance. “It is tolerance. It is freedom.”
“Of course, tolerance, freedom,” Noga hastens to correct herself, but adds with a sly smile, “if not with regard to your emperor.”
The guide shakes her head with suppressed anger, but does not respond.
“Because with us,” Noga persists, suddenly switching to English, “in other words in Israel, there is one religion, but everyone bends it his own way.”
The guide smiles politely, clearly eager to get free of Noga. But Noga for some reason feels the need to tell her about herself.
“I am a harpist,” she says, “but I didn’t find work in Israel, so I play with this orchestra.”
They approach the pavilion, where the entire orchestra has gathered. They may not enter, for the inside of the temple is off limits to tourists and visitors, open only to a select few. On a low hill nearby stand the managers of the orchestra with their local escorts, and it occurs to Noga that they are waiting for her. Indeed, with a brusque wave of his hand the maestro signals her to come, his face beaming with the promise of good news.
Along with them, slightly hidden, stands a short old Japanese man, his white hair in a braid, wearing a long gray robe and wooden clogs. On his back is a blue pack that resembles the traditional pillow of Japanese women.
“And so,” says Dennis van Zwol, pointing to the old man, who bows deeply before the harpist, “we told you not to worry, and we were right. Tomorrow at the concert you will have a partner whose reputation precedes him. A harpist of the highest caliber, who served as a soldier in the world war, and since then, for many years, was a harpist with the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra and also a teacher at the conservatory in Tokyo. A few years ago he went back to live in the area where he was born, to be near his family. This is an area that was damaged in the last tsunami…”
The conductor turns to the cultural attaché for help with the name.
“Fukushima,” says the attaché.
And when the old man hears the name of his area, he bows to the conductor.
“Yes,” the conductor goes on, “Fukushima, which is where he was found. He speaks only Japanese, but neither you nor I will have any problem with him, since he has played La Mer by Debussy a number of times as first harpist, and he no doubt knows the part by heart.”
The little old man bows again at the sound of the French composer’s name.
“So he’ll be playing the first harp part?” Noga asks anxiously, her eyes fixed on the old man, who now and again bows his head.
“No, no, you are the first harpist, and he is the second,” the conductor says. “He has not come here seeking fame, only to help. He has come from far away, two days of travel, and he is a simple and modest man, as you see, and also adorable.”
Everyone smiles at the word “adorable,” and the cultural attaché translates the adjective for the old man, who erupts with laughter, his mouth nearly toothless. Again he presses his palms together and distributes bows in a semicircle to the entire group.
“And what is his name?” asks Noga. “I should at least know his name.”
“Ichiro Matsudaira,” says the attaché, and the old man who hears his name spoken bows once again.
He just might bow to us while playing, thinks Noga, wondering if she should extend her hand to him, but thinks better of it and instead bows deeply and recites her name: “Noga, which means Venus.”
And the old man whispers reverentially, “Venus,” and bows heartily in return.
At the conclusion of the bowing a monk emerges from the temple and admits only the maestro and the Japanese harpist, and the rest of the group heads into the garden.