The Lady and the Monk (43 page)

And so we drifted through the night, approaching, then receding from, the other silent boats. Occasionally, an open cormorant punt came past, torches burning at its prow, scattering sparks across the dark. For a moment, in the torchlight, the aged fishermen’s faces were lit up, in a flash of Rembrandt gold, and then, as soon, their wrinkled features and medieval grass-skirt forms vanished again into the dark.

Another boat glided past, ringing with the laughs of company men lined up around a long, low table, served strange delicacies by white-faced geisha. A firework shivered off into the dark, and then came down in a shower of white and gold and pink. The torches singed the water gold. Every now and then, a bird plunged down into the water, emerging with a fish within its beak.

“This place before, I little goodbye ceremony,” said Sachiko, face whitened in the dark. Behind her, the lanterned boats were slow and soundless in the night. “I not know this. But he say he
want only friend.” Her voice trailed off into the dreamy dark. A boat bumped up against us, and the gold reflections blurred and shivered in the water.

Along the bank came the sudden sound of children laughing. A grandfather bent down to light a firework for his toddler, and it veered off into the sky, a shooting, soundless bird, then slowly came back down again. Lovers wandered off into the cicada-buzzing dark. Across the water, the lone canoeist pulled his way in from the shadowed, distant mountains.

“Summer soon finish,” she said softly. “Soon weather little cold again. Tonight last summer party.” Thoughts turn to autumn, and to separation. In the distance, the sound of ancient folk songs, and of grandmas dancing.

It was only later, after I had left Japan, that I realized that everything had been there that night: the lanterned dark, the moon above the mountains, the dreamlike maiden in kimono. There was the Heian vision I had sought since childhood. And yet, by now, it was so much a part of my life that I had not even seen it till it was gone.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material:

New Directions Publishing Corporation:
Excerpt from poem from
100 Poems from the Japanese
, translated by Kenneth Rexroth, and excerpt from poem from
Women Poets of Japan
, translated by Ikuko Atsumi and Kenneth Rexroth. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Princeton University Press:
Poem from
Kokinshu: A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern
, translated by Laurel Rasplica Rodd, copyright ©1984 by Princeton University Press. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.

Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc.:
Three poems, #7, #47, #54, from
Tangled Hair
by Akiko Yosano, translated by Sanford Goldstein and Seishi Shinoda. Reprinted by permission of Charles E. Tuttle Co., Inc., Tokyo, Japan.
Warner Chappell Music Limited:
Excerpt from “September Blue” by Chris Rea. Copyright ©1987 by Magnet Music Limited. Reprinted by permission of Warner Chappell Music Limited.

Weatherhill, Inc.:
Excerpt from poems from
One Robe, One Bowl
by Ryokan, translated by John Stevens, and five haikus from
Santoka
by Santoka, translated by John Stevens. Reprinted by permission of Weatherhill, Inc.

TROPICAL CLASSICAL
Essays from Several Directions

In
Tropical Classical
, Iyer visits a holy city in Ethiopia where hooded worshipers practice a Christianity that has remained unchanged since the Middle Ages. He follows the bewilderingly complex route of Bombay’s
dabbawallahs
, who each day ferry 100,000 different lunches to 100,000 different workers. Iyer chats with the Dalai Lama and assesses books by Salman Rushdie and Cormac McCarthy. And he brings his perceptive eye and unflappable wit to bear on the postmodern vogues for literary puffery, sexual gamesmanship, and frequent-flier miles. Overflowing with insight, and often laugh-out-loud funny, this is Pico Iyer at his globe-sprinting best.

Travel/Essays/978–0–679–77610–9

FALLING OFF THE MAP
Some Lonely Places of the World

What does the elegant nostalgia of Argentina have in common with the raffish nonchalance of Australia? And what do both these countries have in common with North Korea? They are “lonely places,” cut off from the rest of the world by geography, ideology, or sheer weirdness. And they have all attracted the attention of Pico Iyer, one of the finest travel writers ever to book a room in the Pyongyang Koryo Hotel. Whether he is documenting the cruising rites of Icelandic teenagers, being interrogated by tipsy Cuban police, or summarizing the plot of Bhutan’s first feature film (“a $6,500 spectacular film about a star-crossed couple; she dies, he throws himself on the funeral pyre, and both live happily ever after as an ox and a cow”), Iyer is always uncannily observant and acerbically funny.

Travel/Adventure/978–0–679–74612–6

ALSO AVAILABLE
Abandon
, 978–1–4000–3085–9
Cuba and the Night
, 978–0–679–76075–7
The Global Soul
, 978–0–679–77611–6
The Open Road
, 978–0–307–38755–4
Sun After Dark
, 978–1–4000–3103–0
Video Night in Kathmandu
, 978–0–679–72216–8

VINTAGE BOOKS
Available at your local bookstore, or
visit
www.randomhouse.com