Seiobo There Below (38 page)

said to himself that now the disgrace would be fully complete, that day they sent the application to the Jingū Shicho by post, then they just sat at home in Kyōto, that is in the Noh-textile workshop of Kawamoto Akio’s family, they listened to the sound, clacking as it had for centuries, of the looms, and they sat there very dejectedly, and didn’t do anything; the guest was now no longer interested in the Kinkaku-ji, nor the Ginkaku-ji, nor the Katsura Rikyu, nor the Sanjūsangen-dō, not at all; still, he explained responding to the question of the head of the family, who risked mentioning at times that it might be worthwhile for them to get out a bit, still, the architect friend decisively shook his head, what could they look for anywhere in this undoubtedly wonderful city — anything but to stand there as the tenth thousandth visitor immersed in solitary reflection in the Ryōan-ji garden, or to trudge along the corridors of the Nijō Castle, their eyes obligatorily dazzled in each room by the golden Kano paintings — when their plan, for which their Western friend had traveled here as a guest, their plan built up over the months, had suddenly and unjustly collapsed so terribly, but so terribly? . . . when one day a letter arrived from the Jingū Shicho informing them that they were granted permission to observe the Misoma-Hajime-sai ceremony, they should be there at such a time in such a place, and they could participate in the ceremony along with the journalists, all other information, it said in the letter, could be obtained from Miwa-san, who could be reached at such a number, from Miwa-san assigned by the Jingū Shicho Public Relations Division, and then they called him and already they agreed on the time and place and how to get there, in a word, they made the so-called arrangements, then they took out the relevant map and looked for Agemaku, and the forest of Akasawa, where the meeting place would be, where the minibus would come to pick them up to take them to the place, for there, Miwa-san emphasized, when the conversation turned to the details, no other kind of vehicle was permitted to enter, it was the private property of the Jingū, where the only kind of transportation possible was, solely and exclusively, those vehicles provided by the Jingū Shicho, it was not possible just to go charging around in one’s own car, this is a dense forest, Miwa-san explained, a very dense, impenetrable forest, where there are no paths, and apart from this, Akasawa belonged to the Jingū Shicho, and the trees there, several hundred years old, represent an enormous treasure, so that in a word, no, your own car exclusively and solely as far as Agemaku, and there, across a little nameless bridge on the left, then to the right up a foresters’ path to a special parking lot built solely and exclusively for the purposes of this ceremony — and there was the end, there they should entrust themselves to him, to Miwa-san, because he, Miwa-san, would be there, and he would guide them, and they would see, he said with more authority, that he would take care of everything, they should just get to the parking lot in the Akasawa forest, and the rest was up to him, with that they said goodbye, they put down the receiver, and again took up the map, but Kawamoto-san, though in one respect relieved that perhaps through somehow achieving some success at something, his position in the family would be a little less onerous, in another respect, beyond the Kohori affair, he felt in contrast to his friend, that it was not a time of rejoicing, but rather of fear, because he was decidedly frightened, as someone who knows just exactly what awaits him, that namely from this point on a series of horrifying situations would be coming one right after the other with his Western friend, completely uninformed as to the accustomed rules of conduct here, and whose faux pas would somehow be for him to smooth over, oh no, thought Kawamoto Akio, but then he didn’t even bring up the topic, he didn’t even mention a few rules pertaining to how one can . . . well . . . be more fortunate in conducting oneself according to the accustomed stipulations in Japan, but instead in his great confusion he began to speak, amid the clatter of the looms, that his guest would certainly like the region they were going to, because this, and he pointed to a splotch around Agemaku, is Kiso itself, this is the Kiso region where the postal route of olden times ran from Edo to Kyōto, between the Shōgun and the imperial court, and some of the smaller cities belonging to this route can be found to this day, ah, the postal stations of the Kiso Valley, oh that is a really beautiful place, the Western friend said to Kawamoto-san, then he quickly added: at least I think so — but the Western friend did not give any sign that he was particularly animated by the news, or that they could just conceive of the whole thing as some kind of tourist excursion, he just nodded, saying wonderful, wonderful, but from then on he was simply buried in books and notes, he only came down to the family at mealtimes and spent the rest of the day upstairs, in the room above the clattering looms, leafing through books and notes about the essence of Shintō and deities of Shintō, the ceremonies of Shintō and the hierarchies of Shintō, the history of Shintō and its origin myths, these were the themes of his research, not suspecting that there would not be any need later for this knowledge but, well, how could he have known this — from where, from what: instead, there was the fashioning of the wood and the measurement of the beams, the system of corbels and the jointing, the miya-daiku tools and the life of the hinoki cypresses and the means of crafting them, these accordingly were the subjects he should have been researching although before the Misana Hajime-sai he still could not have suspected anything, when he still wished that he could know, if only he could ferret out what was the dai-gūji, and what was the saishu: and the dai-gūji, is that the same thing as the saishu, or where are the Emperor’s Three Treasures, the Yata no Kagami, the Kusanagi no Tsurugi, and the Yasakami no Magatama, are they all in Ise today, for that is the chief shrine, the most sacred of all the shrines, and well, in every shrine there have to be the three treasures: the mirror, the sword, and the jewel, for these are kept in the shōden, no? — he pondered over such things, but he was already sitting in the car, Kawamoto was driving — the steering wheel on the right would have been hard for him — he sat next to the silent and as far as he was concerned incomprehensibly sad-looking Kawamoto; the three treasures, the Sanshu-no Shiki, ran through his head, it was midnight, they were just turning out from Kyōto into the thick traffic of the Meishin Expressway, the road was completely packed, the lanes seemed narrow, but in spite of this, the speed limit was one hundred kilometers per hour, so that they proceeded as a single mass among the innumerable buses and trucks and cars, the guest did not even dare to look anywhere, he just asked his friend a question now and then about Shintō, what is this like and what is that like, but Kawamoto was already cautious, and every answer began with the words that he didn’t know, and only if his friend forced the given topic further would he say something concerning his own knowledge with many reservations, but if he could, he instead tried to divert the other’s attention, bringing up concrete questions as, for example, when would they reach the meeting place, it was now past midnight so it would be three in the morning, which means that they would have altogether three hours to sleep, at dawn, at six a.m., Kawamoto-san reminded his friend, they had to be there by the tent, waiting for Miwa-san, so that he could register them; and if new questions popped up, he tried to dodge them with such matters, and he did this for a while until he got tired, and from then on he either gave terse answers or no answers at all, as if he had not heard the latest question, he pressed down on the accelerator in the dark night; in front of them, behind them, to the right and the left everyone was doing the same, as if all were pressing on the same pedal, one hundred kilometers an hour, that is how they headed toward Nagoya in the tight disciplined traffic on the Meishin Expressway, so that a good hour later they arrived at the turnoff point above Nagoya from the Tōmei Expressway and went onto Road No. 19 toward Kiso-Fukushima, but there only Kawamoto was determining which way to go, because his friend had suddenly fallen asleep, so he was obligated to keep holding up the map himself to get his bearings in the empty district, but he located, after Agemaku, the little nameless bridge on the route given by the Jingū Shicho without error, then to the right and up the forest path, so that when the guest opened his eyes — he started awake, as he had begun to feel strange, but what was strange was that the car had stopped — we’ve arrived, said his host, and he pointed through the windshield, they had stopped in a specially constructed parking lot, recently nailed together and surrounded with beams; all around was the forest, plunging gloomily into the sky, no one was in the parking lot, but Kawamoto-san was very certain that they had arrived at the right place, although he was only fully reassured when, after a few hours of sleep, he was awakened by his travel alarm clock, which he had brought with him; and which truly and accurately woke them up at 5:45, dawn was breaking outside and the parking lot was full, among the few trucks there were mostly cars lined up close beside each other, from Tokyo and Ōsaka, Nagasaki and Aomori, Niigata and Matsue, journalists, reporters, television and radio crews, they were already preparing in silence, even it if wasn’t clear for what, probably they had timed their arrival here for around five or half-past in the morning, and they did arrive, and they were preparing, that much was clear, but what wasn’t clear was if they knew at all what was to follow, light was breaking around them in their kind of preliminary milling around, for a long time nothing happened, then further on down, below the parking lot, on the edge of a forest path, young people with sleepy eyes suddenly hoisted up a tent, then later on they put up one more next to it, but they didn’t carry or set up anything else, didn’t pile up anything inside, and each tent only had a roof, neither had any sides to it, altogether one table appeared from somewhere, well, that they put down, not inside either of the tents but in front of one of them, another young man appeared wearing a suit: judging from the seriousness of his expression, he was sent here for more serious tasks, he was Miwa-san, it turned out, when they went over to him and asked where they could find Miwa-san, I am Miwa Kitamura, came the reply, then he looked them up and down and asked — although it appeared he knew the answer, how could he not have known? — so, you are the architect from Europe and his friend from Kyōto, yes? and his gaze revealed neither good nor ill will, yes, that is us, Kawamoto-san replied respectfully, he handed a small gift and bowed, fine, then stand here over by the side and wait, you will be picked up by a minibus, and that is what happened, they waited for a long time and patiently too, in front of the empty tents in the middle of the forest with their name-tags that Miwa-san had given them hanging on their chests, when at last one hour later the buses appeared, the reporters quickly got into line and made a dash for the seats, the two friends were continually pushed farther and farther to the back of the line that was quickly forming and surging forward to the seats, but finally they too got a place in the last bus, and the vehicle was already taking this last group, driving with great caution across the bumpy terrain on a road that appeared to be brand new, because the road was new, just as the parking lot was, it was so new that it seemed to have been constructed during the brief hour while they had to wait in front of the tents, and one couldn’t know that it hadn’t been so, in any event there could be no doubt that they were decisively heading for the Misoma-Hajime-sai among the forest’s trees, where they slowly proceeded forward, now lurching here and there, then at one point the minibus just stopped, and between them they really, but really had no idea whatsoever where they might possibly be, do you know where we are, asked the European, I have no idea, answered his companion, somewhere in the depths of the forest of the Kiso Valley, among the pines and the hinoki cypresses belonging to the Jingū Shicho; Kawamoto, smiling, only said that much, because only that much was certain, and there was a little bridge that they had to go across, to be led between the trees on a winding path strewn with wood shavings, the buses accordingly had stopped, the gathering had set off on foot, and at last, after one turn, they suddenly saw in the distance a huge wooden structure, the whole thing reaching into the sky from among the trees as if they were dreaming it, because the whole, viewed from here, decidedly created the impression of a huge stage, not only from a distance but also from close up, that is, an absurdity built out of fresh-planed beams, just what the hell was such a huge impossibility as this doing in the mysterious depths of the Kiso Valley, they looked uncomprehendingly at each other, yet it was not a dream, even if it remained an impossibility, in the mysterious depths of the enchantingly beautiful Kiso Valley that extended between the prefectures of Nagano and Gifu, a huge stage looked down upon them, they were not prepared for this, somehow they had imagined that there would be two trees in the forest surrounded by priests, visitors in the background, something like that — and instead there was this huge stage, raised several meters above the ground and sloping downward, and this surprise overcame them in their first astonishment as they drew near, because they saw, at the front of the stage, the two extraordinarily tall, broad-trunked live hinoki cypress trees, down to which the stage, as it were, sloped, extended, and they saw on the two wide tree trunks the cords signifying selection — these were the shimenawas and then the shides — the small pieces of snow-white paper cut into zigzags, and folded, below them, a protective covering from some kind of rice-based material, also fastened to the trees with cord, and one or two lathes: quite high above the level of a person’s head, this might have been a sign, that below these lathes the sacred work would later proceed, in a word they noticed all this, and they saw it, and there could be no doubt that
these were the two trees that today — in the Misoma-Hajime-sai — would be cut down, and in doing so would, as it were, inform the kami that the Shikinen Sengū had begun; still it was the stage that drew their gazes again and again, they looked to the left, they looked to the right, but they just could not familiarize themselves with it, although it also seemed obvious that in front and below, the two sides of the U-shaped stage surrounded the two chosen hinokis, so the whole thing, accordingly, was for these two trees, this stage, accordingly — enclosing a sharp angle with the rising forest floor — from the last rows to the first, from the back part of the stage timbered into the heights down to the two ceremonial tree trunks: this was a part of what was going to take place here, was closely connected with the ceremony to follow, and so on, the only problem was that they — at least the two of them — could not at all sense the import of this, because they could not come to terms with it, from whatever direction they looked at it, this stage did not belong here, in addition, what those who had made the foot-paths and those who had built this enormous stage had done escaped neither of their attention, because they had crushed, cut, and hacked down everything that had turned up in their path, they had chosen the trees, they had built the stage, they had formed the paths that led to it, but not with the proper degree of circumspection, neatly keeping things in order, but crudely, with a near-barbarous negligence, which was a little distressing, because the ceremony among other reasons was being enacted, as they had read in the written publicity materials given to them by Miwa-san, in order to beg for the trees’ forgiveness, and to reassure them that if in one sense they were going to lose their lives, in another sense life, namely a new and noble life, would be granted to them; in the midst of so much devotion and veneration and consideration, it was, however, incomprehensible that this devotion and veneration and consideration was all the same so lacking, namely that they had laid waste to, and hurled aside, all that was not needed, on both sides of the path lay scattered about in confusion, twigs, wood-splinters, shreds of bark, wood shavings, and rotting tree trunks, which could have been cleared at least from here, from the two sides of the path, thought the two guests, who now really began to feel uncertain when they experienced the same conditions arriving directly underneath the stage, and they wished to perform as well, after the others, the temizu, that is, when they rinsed their mouths and washed their hands, and here, too, even in the vicinity of the water-trough, which had been constructed rather hastily, in truly slapdash fashion, and into which the sacred water, arriving from an undisclosed location, trickled out from a rubber hose, they experienced the same disorder as on the path leading here, which really made them uncertain as to why this was not important in such a sacred Shintō ritual, but not much time remained to them to reflect upon this, because they were already above, on the back part of the stage rising into the heights, namely, despite his better judgment, Kawamoto-san too climbed up after his companion, who with not a single word, had just ran up the stairs all at once, and already he stood there by the balustrade on the stage, as if he had personally been invited; apart from him and Kawamoto-san, coming after him in the great confusion, only the organizers wearing armbands were climbing up and down, and the organizers looked at them too in the great confusion, wondering, well what are these two doing here, from where however these two could see quite well what this giant stage that didn’t belong here was good for, that is to say they could see that there was room for them, that there was room for the numerous privileged guests, for whom two hundred chairs or so had already been prepared, of course who knew exactly how many there were, in any event, a vast number of chairs arranged nicely in rows on the planks, inclining downward toward the two selected hinoki trees, that divided in two the populous camp of the privileged guests; they were already milling around, one group facing one tree, the second group facing the other, this was essentially the principle behind the arrangement, but then it already became apparent to the bustling organizers that they were not privileged guests, they could no longer, accordingly, remain here, this European and this Japanese could not remain among the occupiers of the chairs, namely they had no business whatsoever up here on the stage, and would have none, and in a split second they were cast out, and thus — to Kawamoto’s greatest relief — they were compelled, as were the other nonprivileged guests, to climb back to the ravaged ground, going around the stage, up to a clearing, where they were ordered to go, and where in a tight group Miwa-san’s people were already gathering, that is the already familiar faces of the frantic columns of television reporters, photographers, and journalists, and that meant that they could be placed together obliquely facing the stage, more precisely, facing the ever-increasing number of guests gathering there, obliquely facing the hypothesized presence of the priests, and thus obliquely facing the two sacrificial trees as well, because what else could you call them other than sacrificial, just like those other trees, eighteen in number, upon which the Akasawa forest rangers had honed their skills, as this special operation was presented only every twenty years, and for that reason required the white-garbed workers, who over time lost some of the freshness of their craft, to train again in the last few days — at least eighteen was the number given by one of the workers, who seemed to be some kind of mid-level supervisor, entrusted with the oversight of the iron cable that tautened each of the two trees from three directions, holding them in place, and who, in addition to this supervisory role, naturally had just enough time to readily answer the questions of the curious journalists, as well as those of the two friends among them, eighteen enormous hinoki trees had been felled, the cable supervisor repeated, all the same they had to practice here, he said, mistakes could not be made, and certainly all of them were fairly nervous as to whether the cutting would really succeed without error, as of course every participant knew full well that there could be no question whatsoever of any mistake, here everything had to be done perfectly, as he expressed it, which meant, as he related, that the trunks of the two trees ultimately had to cross each other at precisely five meters from the upper part of the trunk, as it were, the two trees had to lie upon each other after being felled, the one had to fall down onto the other, he explained, but this contact, this intersecting, had to take place at a precisely given height, otherwise the ceremony does not come about, and the Misoma-Hajime-sai must be repeated, so it is no wonder, sighed the cable supervisor, if — eighteen trees here, eighteen trees there — the two teams of woodcutters, specially trained, but over a period of twenty years understandably out of practice, were still fairly nervous, and that could be seen on his person, he himself was really nervous enough, sweat trickled down his brow, and he gazed flustered here and there, so that finally the journalists began reassuring him, don’t be afraid, everything will be fine, if you have practiced so much, there will be no problems, and this individual looked at them with such gratitude that they felt inclined to console him even more, but there was no time for this as something seemed to be occurring in the direction of the seats on the stage, the reporters therefore scanned the seats of the stage more and more, the two of them as well began to observe the mysteriously uniform mass of the exclusive highly ranked guests gathered on the stage, where about two hundred men in identical dark-blue, somewhat rustic-looking suits were sitting, it seemed that this attire could have been mandatory as everyone was wearing it, suits and shoes from the 1970s, they looked at these suits and shoes, then they looked at the faces, and they tried to discover a more well-known celebrity — a factory owner, a banker, a noted politician — but from here it wasn’t really possible to make out the necessary details of a face