The Pure Land (38 page)

T
he young couple, Andrew and Michiko, queued at the gate to the grounds. The August heat was sweltering, muggy. Andrew bought a plastic fan from a vendor, gave it to Michiko to cool her down. She laughed, did a stylised dance, part
geisha
part
harajuku
girl, gave him an exaggerated flutter of her thick dark eyelashes.

She switched off her iPod – she’d been fastforwarding through the quirky mix she’d downloaded, Joy Division, White Stripes, Miles Davis, Megadeth – and looked at the illustrations on the fan. On one side was a cartoon version of Glover House, Ipponmatsu, with a little four-piece jazz band playing in front of it. Up above, on a yellow moon, sat a round-eyed cherub; yellow stars filled the night sky, twinkling as they fell to earth; one of them had landed in the garden, lay embedded in the ground, and on it sat a little couple, gazing into each other’s eyes, the man in a dark blue suit, the woman in a short pink dress. The musicians were Japanese, the couple western, round-eyed.

‘Ha!’ Michiko loved kitsch, was delighted.

On the other side of the fan it read, in English,
Glover Gardens
, above a cartoon-Glover, a caricature of his portrait as an old man; the figure was squat, blacksuited, standing to attention,
right hand raised in greeting. In a speech-balloon, coming from his mouth, he was saying,
Yo!!

‘Yo!!’ Michiko laughed again. ‘Guraba-san! Yo!’ And she fanned herself, took Andrew’s arm.

They’d met in Kyoto – she was a student, he was teaching English on a JET course; they’d been seeing each other for a month, and his time in Japan was almost over.

It had been his idea to come to Nagasaki, a place he’d always wanted to see.

It was sixty years since the bombing, to the day. They’d stood in silence with the crowds at the memorial, a simple black monolith. Moved, they’d held hands, walked slowly through the town, still in silence. Then they’d stopped for coffee and doughnuts, and Michiko had texted her friend Yuko in Kyoto, then she’d asked if they could come and see the Gardens.

‘Any special reason?’ he’d asked.

‘No,’ she’d said. ‘Just read about the place, is all.’

So they’d come here, and queued, and she’d listened to her music.
Same boy you’ve always known. Love will tear us apart again
.

Now they moved in through the gate and on up a moving, motorised, walkway through the gardens while piped Puccini filled the air.
Un bel di vedremo
…

In the house they wandered from room to room, not bothering with a guide. It was unlikely the furnishings were original, but they were of the period – old, heavy, dark polished wood, atmospheric. In the drawing room were mannequin figures of a young Glover plotting with two of the rebel samurai. The figures had the artificial, slightly shabby look of seaside waxworks, Glover looking startled, the samurai apprehensive. Again Michiko laughed, took a picture on her mobile phone to text to Yuko later.

Outside they walked through the garden, read the inscription on the statue of Glover, a bronze, grim-faced bust. Andrew flicked through a leaflet he’d picked up. He knew the bare bones of the
Glover story, the myth. The statue faced the house, had its back to the city below, the bay beyond. Andrew half closed his eyes, tried to imagine what the view would have looked like in the 1860s. Much the same, except for the miles of shipyards.

‘Fucking ironic,’ he said, looking out.

‘I like when you swear like that,’ she said. ‘Very sexy. Very Scottish!’

‘Fuck!’ he said.

‘Ha!’

‘But it is. Ironic.’ He indicated the shipyards opposite. ‘Fucking Mitsubishi. Glover helped found the company, set all this up. And why did the Americans drop the bomb here? To take out these fucking yards!’

‘Bad,’ she said.

‘You’re not fucking kidding.’

‘But doesn’t mean he was bad man,’ she said.

‘No?’

‘He has nice face. Strong face. Like you.’

‘It’s a statue!’

‘But still must look like him,’ she said. ‘Is something there.’

She handed him the mobile, said, ‘Take picture.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Text it to Yuko!’

She climbed up on the wall beside the statue, smoothed down her miniskirt, kicked her legs in the stripey kneesocks, the red Doc Martens; put one arm round Glover’s neck, grinned, gave the peace sign, a two-finger V.

‘Yo!!’

He got her in the frame, laughed at her sparky energy, her vibrant irreverence, the cheeky grin a total contrast to the dour bronze features of the statue with its lowering brow. She looked right at him, right into him, in that instant turned him inside out. He took the shot, caught the moment.

She jumped down from the wall, wanted to see the photo, clapped her hands, happy with it.

He kissed her, hard and intense, held her.

‘Hey!’ she said, laughing again, stroking his cheek, weighing up this new mood, the new thing that was there. She kissed him back, lightly, took his hand and led him on to the other statue, the one she had wanted to see, the figure of the woman, Cho Cho San, Madame Butterfly, with her child, the young boy.

From somewhere came the sound of women’s voices, singing, and he thought at first it was another tape, but as the music swelled he realised it was live, a choir of Japanese women. They were lined up in front of the house, all in long skirts and tartan shawls, singing
My bonny lies over the ocean
. Again it was kitsch, bizarre, sentimental, but he found himself absurdly moved by it.

Michiko took a picture of the women, skipped ahead to the statue, stopped and looked up at it. Cho Cho San was in a kimono, hair caught up in traditional style. Her left hand pointed into the distance, across the bay, her right arm was round the boy, protecting him.

Andrew was expecting Michiko to start clowning again, but she was suddenly subdued, serious.

‘Photo?’ he said, and she looked at him, distracted, from a long way off. Then she brought him into focus, handed him the mobile.

‘
Hai
,’ she said, quietly.

Again he framed her in the tiny screen, but this time there was no smile, no sassy peace sign, no in-your-face harajuku look. Instead she stood, unselfconscious, almost wistful, her head slightly tilted. When he showed her the picture, she glanced at it, looked back at the statue. He saw there were tears in her eyes.

‘Hey!’ he said. ‘What’s up?’

She waved her hands in front of her face, tried to laugh. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Is very strange.’

She fished a packet of tissues from her purse, dabbed her eyes dry, blew her nose hard.

‘
Chotto monoganashii
,’ she said.

She couldn’t translate exactly, perhaps because the words had no equivalent.

‘Little bit sad,’ she said. ‘Don’t know. I want to know what happened to her, the woman in the story. And it give me kind of
déjà vu
, you know, familiar feeling.’

And as he looked at her, he suddenly felt it too, the sense of familiarity. He touched her face, recognised her in a way he hadn’t before,
knew
her.

Chotto monoganashii
. He understood that too, intuited it. A little bit sad, bittersweet. Everything passes, is fleeting. He looked up at the statue, heard the women’s voices, the nasal singsong of it not quite in tune.
Bring back my bonny to me
.

What happened to her? The woman in the story.

A good question.

Chotto monoganashii
.

He kissed Michiko’s soft warm living mouth.

S
ometimes the fire of it came back to her, even in old age, and she remembered her previous life, who she had once been. This too, she realised, must be necessary, to see it clear then let it go. She had written a tanka poem – one of many – about the journey of her life, inscribed it on a scroll with a few deft strokes of the brush.

Even now, though her hands sometimes shook, the brushstrokes were still firm, strong. Her calligraphy had been praised by master Shinkan himself for its effortless elegance, its fluidity, tempered by a certain roughness that rendered it real, not artificial, not overrefined by intellect. Of course the master had no sooner praised her than he thought it might go to her head, make her arrogant, so he had withdrawn the praise, criticised her brushwork as clumsy and crude, clearly the work of a weak-willed woman.

This too. Let it go.

The floating world.

Her life as Maki Kaga was long past, another incarnation, a dream. And this life too, as the nun Ryonen, would soon be over. She knew it.

This too.

Guraba-san. She thought of him fondly, with compassion. He had even taken to the Japanese version of his name, had it rendered in
kanji
script. Even though the characters meant
empty
room
, or
empty store
, he liked the look of it, the sound of the words. It was endearing, and for all his fieriness, his warrior-spirit, he had something of the boy about him.

She remembered it, smiled. He had caught her in his arms, spun her round, laughing.

She bore him a child, Shinsaburo. Her son.

A dream. Let it go.

Existence is suffering. Its cause is desire
.

The night she had gone to his house to tell him she was pregnant. The other one had been there, the one he married, Tsuru. She had guessed the whole story, let her believe he was gone for good, sent her packing.

Like an ancient tale, from Kabuki or Noh. One of those moments when her whole life changed, by fate, or karma or pure brute chance. If she had gone a week earlier. If the other had told the truth. Would she still have led this life? Would she have followed the Buddha-way?

Namu Amida Butsu
.

The full moon had been red. She had stopped at the end of the garden, bent double and vomited. She had gone to the teahouse and packed her things, moved out of town that very night.

The birth was difficult.
Existence is suffering. Its cause is desire
.
She had almost died from loss of blood, had somehow survived. The village women had helped her, nursed her till she was strong enough to look after the boy.

She couldn’t return to the teahouse. That life was over. She worked when she could, sewed garments for women from the town, wrote letters for those who could not write. She managed, made do, eked out a living. Not good, not bad. Then she saw him in the street, a ghost, a figure from a dream but so real; and he saw her, and that life too was over.

She would hang the scroll with the tanka poem on the bare wall of her room, leave it as her epitaph, the way the haiku poets made their
jisei
, their death-verse, when they knew their time had come. She would make another copy of it, now, take it with her to the hillside, leave it as an offering.

She sat straightbacked in
zazen
, silent meditation, the way she did every morning, before first light. Cold, old bones aching but mind clear, heart pure, she chanted, as she always did, to Amida Buddha, the Buddha of Compassion, Buddha of the Pure Land, heard her own voice as if not her own, deep and powerful, resonant.

Namu Amida Butsu
.

Namu Amida Butsu
.

She recited a verse from the Diamond Sutra.
Shiki soku ze ku
.

Form is emptiness. She inhabited it, sat in this bare place, a stone garden of the mind.

Perhaps an hour passed, outer time. The first thin rays of watery sunlight came through the shoji screen, across the wooden floor, touched her feet with a faint promise of warmth. She bowed, picked up the small iron bell and struck it once, listened as the sound swelled and died in its own time away into silence once more.

Form is emptiness.

She unfolded her old limbs, joints stiff and cracking, gone beyond ache, become numb.

There was a faint sound on the verandah ouside, the lightest of footsteps shuffling across the boards. She smiled. A tray was set down. The screen opened and Gisho, the young nun, was bowing, had brought her tea. Ryonan nodded, welcomed her in.

She said one morning Gisho would find her like the Bodhidharma, Daruma, who sat so long in meditation his legs withered and fell off.
That
was discipline!

Gisho smiled, her eyes twinkling, said she’d had a Daruma doll at home.

Round at the bottom, said Ryonan, so he rolls. If you knock him over he bounces back up. There’s a children’s rhyme about it.
Seven times down. Eight times up. So!

A good lesson.

Gisho boiled the little kettle of water, placed the powdered green leaves in Ryonan’s favourite bowl, poured in the water, let the mix settle and brew. Then briskly, with the bamboo whisk, she whipped it to a froth, turned the bowl round one and a half times and offered it to Ryonan, who bowed and thanked her, took a first sip. It was perfect, the bitterness a sharp jolt awake.

This too we owe to Bodhidharma, she said. He once fell asleep in meditation and was so angry at himself he cut off his own eyelids, so his eyes would always stay wide open. He cast the lids to one side, and where they fell, the first tea-plant grew. So, ever after the monks could drink tea, to keep themselves awake!

Again Gisho smiled. She had heard the stories many times, but never tired of them.

Ryonan took another sip, savoured it. In the outside world Gisho had trained in
cha-
no-
yu
, the art of tea, was in preparation to be a geisha. But there had been complications. Ryonan hadn’t wanted to know the details. They probably involved a man. Most stories did.

It was hardest for the pretty ones. They had most to give up. And Gisho reminded her of herself at that age, had the same fire, the same love of life, the same spirit. That might just sustain her. The way was not for the weak. She would be broken and broken again, that spirit crushed. But she might survive, break through. Eight times up.

Ryonan’s bowl was empty. She handed it to Gisho, who wiped it, deftly, with a small cloth – this too was part of her training, the formality of the ceremony – refilled it and passed it back once more, commenting on its beauty.

This old thing, said Ryonan. It’s nothing special. The glaze is cracked, the surface is chipped and worn.

That’s why I like it, said Gisho.

It serves me well, said Ryonan, then she drank the last drops. The tea is perfect. It warms this old heart.

Gisho bowed, pleased.

Since you like this so much, said Ryonan, handing the bowl to her, I would like you to have it. Keep it.

Gisho was caught off-guard, looked genuinely surprised, moved.

Now, said Ryonan. You have other tasks. Go. 

She prepared the inkstone, unrolled the scroll of paper, pleased at the simple roughness of its texture, weighed it down with wooden blocks to hold it in place. She took up the bamboo brush, bit the tip and wet it with spittle to soften the bristles. Her teeth ached a little, but no more than the rest of her. These days life was one long ache. Existence was suffering, indeed!

But it was good to be born human, good to be here this autumn morning, good to be following the Buddha-way. Good the autumn breeze coming in through the open screen; good its
chill, not yet the stark cold of winter. That would come soon enough.

She could savour a faint aftertaste of Gisho’s tea, its bright bitterness, and this too tasted of autumn. She had lit a single incense stick, its fragrance not cloying or sweet, but mellow, resinous, like autumn woodsmoke, like the deep dark scent of the old beams in the meditation hall.

She straightened her back, loaded the brush with ink and made the first stroke.

So.

The opening of the poem was about crossing hesitation-bridge. She let her hand shake a little, imbued the characters with some of the uncertainty the words implied. Hesitation-bridge.
Shian
Bashi
.

She took in a sharp breath as the shapes of the words brought it back to her, the actual, physical bridge, her former self, the young Maki Kaga, reluctantly crossing it. So young.
So
young. She felt a stab of pity for her, her heedlessness, her beauty.

She dipped the brush in the ink once more.

On to the next line, the next bridge. Decision-bridge. Certainty. Mind made up.
Omoikiri Bashi
. She rendered it briskly, confidently. And again the very shape of the letters affected her deeply, took her back, and for a moment she was that young woman, hurrying across the second bridge, into the pleasure quarter, buoyed up and hopeful that he might visit.

That storm of the flesh, the sheer excitement, the intensity and brightness of it. Even at the time she had known it was fleeting, a dream; but how vivid, how real!

She took more ink, wrote the next line in fluid, eloquent curves. The floating world.
Ukiyo
.

The pleasure quarter as dream of heaven, all fragrance and elegance, the swishing of silks, music and laughter, sheer elegance and refinement, intoxication.

All faded, gone.

She put down her brush as a sudden pain stabbed her gut. She breathed deep, tried to go beyond it. This too would pass.

Namu Amida Butsu
.

As young Maki, she had passed through hell. The
gaki
, the hungry ghosts, had howled in her brain, driven out all thought, all hope.

He had gone and taken her son. They’d agreed it was the right thing, a better life for the boy, security, a good home. A life she couldn’t give him. It was for the best. But it left her desolate, facing the emptiness, nothing to live for. Nothing.

The voices howled and all she wanted was release, an end of it. The waters closed over her, filled her lungs and she started to move out, beyond the shock of cold, even beyond the struggle for breath, the inrush of the darkness. Then she was back in herself, back in this sack of bones as hands grabbed, dragged her clear into the other element, beat and pressed and pummelled her, back to this life that was all harshness and pain and gasping for air that seared the lungs as she retched and gagged and lay on the riverbank twitching and shivering, spent and half dead.

Then other hands were lifting, carrying her, wrapping her in blankets, keeping her warm. The women of the village, taking over from the men, bore her to the bathhouse, peeled off the wet clothes that clung to her. They soaped and washed her, eased her down into the hot tub. Again she was immersed in water, but this time the warmth of it was healing, restorative, brought her back from the other shore.

She was overwhelmed by the simple human kindness of these women, the sheer functional goodness of it. She cried and felt purged, empty.

The spasm had passed but still she didn’t pick up the brush again, sat calm and still, looking at the unfinished poem. The last line was the most important, the final statement, answer to the mystery; journey’s end. The calligraphy had to be perfect.

The women had looked out for her, brought her small amounts of food, rice gruel, vegetables in broth. She survived, got through it day by day. She couldn’t call it living; she existed, mind numb, body weak. She shook sometimes, shivered. She had half-drowned; she was still racked by coughing as if trying to expel the water that had filled her lungs to bursting. Cold mornings were the worst, and waking in the night, panicked and trying to gulp in air. Sometimes she thought perhaps she really had drowned, was dead, and this state was some grey afterlife, a realm of ghosts, and she herself one of them.

One morning, early, in the grey halflight, she dressed and set out walking, mindless, no idea where. She found herself on a bridge over the river, stared down at the water flowing past. At moments she could see her own reflection, not clear, broken over and over by the ripples on the surface, but there, definitely there, even if only glimpsed. Ghosts cast no reflection. So she was no ghost. Then came another sensation, eerie, as if what she looked down at was her old self, Maki, still struggling under the water, still drowning, looking up to her for help.

She stumbled off the bridge, onto the other side, continued walking down a narrow road out of town. The sky was beginning to lighten, the birds were starting their sharp cacophony, shrieking their need. She had not eaten, still had no idea where she was going. Then she tensed as she saw a dark figure approaching, a man, walking slowly. She thought of turning and running away, finding somewhere to hide. But she was too tired, her legs suddenly heavy, leaden. She stopped, waited, and as she
stood there she saw the man was a monk, in black robes, his head shaved.

The monk also stopped, bowed to her, held out his begging bowl.

I have nothing, she said.

Well then, he said, give me your nothing, and he turned and walked on.

She felt as if she had been struck, a sharp blow that knocked the wind out of her.

He stopped and called back to her. Well? Are you coming or going?

Without thinking, mind empty, she dragged herself, stumbled and ran to catch him up.

The whole way to the temple, the monk spoke no word to her, just walked ahead, expected her to follow. Only in the way the other monks greeted him, their deference verging on fear, did she realise he was the master, Shinkan.