Seiobo There Below (25 page)

In front of Amoru-san there is a low table, and for several minutes now Amoru-san has been counting out an enormous pile of money while the sensei speaks, first she separates the ten-thousand yen notes from the five-thousand yen notes, then the five-thousand yen notes from the one-thousand yen notes, then she arranges them nicely, stacking the notes up into neat piles, as if she were playing but she isn’t, she counts how much is in each pile three times, then she begins to stuff the money into envelopes, she takes one note from each pile, adds one from the second, then from the third, then slips the total amount into an envelope lined up, and again she removes a ten-thousand yen note, adds a ten-thousand yen note, or two, or three — it varies, and then she adds a five-thousand or one-thousand banknote into the envelope with them, and then comes the next envelope already, she moves her lips as if silently, yet all the time she has to pronounce to herself how much and how much, and the banknotes on one part of the little table are diminishing, while at the same time the columns of envelopes on the other side of the small table keep getting taller, so that soon there isn’t enough room for the envelopes, and Amoru-san places them next to herself, beside her sitting cushion; first she counts the envelopes, then when that is done she brings out a little notebook and begins to count again the amounts that she’s placed in the envelopes, and she writes them down, very slowly, under the appropriate heading in the notebook, and that is how her work proceeds, while the sensei is speaking, and whereas the sensei is essentially grave and stern, Amoru-san essentially just smiles, from her long, thin, pimpled face an eternal serenity radiates, and she leans her head to one side at times, and holds it for a while, tilting her head now toward the left, now toward her right shoulder, but counting all the while, and arranging, and stuffing, and noting down, and at times she interrupts all of this so that she can fix her long, slightly greasy hair, so she can take out from her pink-dyed snakeskin handbag a little mirror with the name Vivienne Westwood on it, and a Dior lipstick, and she paints her mouth bright red, her wide thick mouth from which the smile never fades away, and never will.

He prays in such a way that first he enumerates the Great Cosmos, then comes the Great Spirit, then the Great Buddha, then the Spirit who watches over us in the Days, then the Protector in the Days, then — the Bodhisattvas! then the Self-Originated One, and then the Benevolence of the Higher Powers! — and following all of them he prays for the fortitude of his own heart and all this up until now, says sensei Inoue, are his own personal transformations of the prayers of Takahashi Shinji, so that somehow, according to his own sensibilities, as the prayer and the circumstances wish it to be, at the end he says: Guardian Angel within the Heart! I ask you, shed Light, O Creator, into my Heart! and then Grant Peace to my Body, O Great Spirit! and: Fill my Heart with Light! and Fill the Kanze Kaikan with Light! and Grant this Prayer to All Those who come to the performance of Seiobo! then I Call upon Those who cannot come! then I Call upon Everyone who once was here, in the Kanze Kaikan! and then he says: Raise up their souls here into the Light! and finally he asks the Great Spirit to Grant me the opportunity to be able to perform Seiobo tonight! and he asks, Grant me strength, and Grant that this strength may flow through me and from me to each individual person! and at the very end he says May the Kanze Kaikan be a torch now in Japan, in the World, in the entire Universe! and Reflect this strength in all Directions during the performance into the Universe! O God, cause this strength to permeate everything! and at the very very end he says: O God the Creator! May Your Strength be in the Performance, and when he says all of this, he concludes with the following words: I Give Over My Fate Entirely!

This is my prayer, says sensei Kazuyuki smiling, and then the stern face is once again impenetrable.

Sensei is everything, says Amoru-san, I’m not good at anything, I don’t know anything, I hate everyone, I only know sensei and I only love sensei, because sensei is everything, and my father was a very hard man, he beat me every day, every single day, once I knocked over a porcelain vase, then he shoved my head into the iron stove, and he slammed the stove door against my head until I lost consciousness; in a word every single day was painful for me, every blessed day hurt, and I wanted to die, for a long time it wasn’t possible, and then finally it was, and I was already an adult when I first saw sensei, and I knew immediately that I loved him, but nothing was possible, so that is why I jumped in front of a car, and I lay in a coma for seven weeks, the blow had struck my brain, I was between life and death, the doctors said there was nothing they could do, but sensei knew, he knew that I loved only him, so as soon as he found out, he came to the hospital and he called me back, I only know sensei and I only love sensei, don’t ask me about anything, because I don’t know anything, and I’m not good at anything, so, well, sensei is my goal, before him there was nothing and after him there will be nothing, and I hope that he, too, will love me forever.

They arrive at the stage door nearly two hours before the beginning of the performance, Amoru-san drove the car, she and the others already receive the more illustrious guests in the foyer of the theater, the tickets are distributed, now and then an older member of the audience is assisted to find a seat more easily there inside the theater; still there are nearly two hours, there is hardly anyone in the labyrinth in the back of the Kanza, but unfortunately for the sensei it feels already like a huge crowd, no one can ever truly be alone here, and that is precisely the reason — and everyone knows this, there are no secrets here — that is why sensei Inoue Kazuyuki arrives so early before the performance, because he wants to be alone, which is of course impossible, because it’s as if the dressing room didn’t even have a door, in vain does the shite have his own dressing room, the coming and going is continual, now this one, looking in, now that one, every single time he has to get up from his chair and greet the visitor, someone looking in at the door, asking if the sensei wouldn’t happen to know when he will be paid, but the sensei just shakes his head, and now there could be a little quiet in the dressing room, when someone else slips in through the door, and after the ritualized greeting that person asks the sensei for advice, because the older brother of his female cousin has leukemia, what should he do; send her to me, says the sensei, but when, he is asked, well, if next week would be good, then, next week, I’m afraid, says the other, that next week might be too late already, well then, when can she come, asks the sensei: is tomorrow afternoon all right, asks the visitor, of course, replies the sensei, and he calls Amoru-san who will arrange the meeting, or if not her, then Chiwako-san, who is very accommodating, and she too can arrange perfectly for the older brother of the female cousin to come, and then she will escort the effusively grateful person out, but when he is about to close the door, two boys run into the dressing room with a large box, they have arrived just now directly from Tokyo on the Shinkansen, they have brought, they say, each interrupting the other, the phoenix crown; fine, nods the sensei, place the box on the table, he shall open it immediately and examine it, the boys, bowing, leave him to himself, but by now the sensei already knows that from this point on he will in no way be able to be alone, and that is why he chooses the same path as always, and not just here, in the Kanze Kaikan, but in Osaka or in the Tokyo Kanze Theater as well, it is an open secret, he accordingly leaves the dressing room, brushes away this or that other person trying to approach him, finally slipping out of their hands, and goes into the toilet of the Kanze, because he has even said openly at times to the people close to him, it is there and only there, in the toilet of the Kanze that he can find tranquility, in the toilet, the sole place where he can be alone for a while; still, before a performance, particularly now, before a performance of such special significance, he has an unconditional need for solitude, to just be by himself, alone, like in his childhood, alone, as in his entire life, disturbed by no one else at all, in peace and tranquility, because this is the place where no one else sees him, where no one else hears him, because only here and now can he finally shut the door — the door to the toilet — behind himself in the Kanze Kaikan, and then he kneels down, and he places his two hands before his face, leans forward a bit, closes his eyes, and begins to pray — he always has to recite in the same way — he begins to pray, from the Great Spirit all the way to I Give Over My Fate Entirely, he kneels on the cold stone floor of the toilet in the smell of disinfectant, he is alone, there is peace, tranquility and silence, and he expresses his gratitude to the Heavens for this peace, this tranquility and this silence in the toilet of the Kanze, then he presses the flush button, as if he had finished his business, and he silently sets off to the common dressing room, so that he may be dressed in the first layers of the garb of Seiobo, so that he may put on the wondrous mask of Seiobo, and so that then within him, in the mirrored room, standing before the as yet motionless agemaku, Seiobo may truly appear.

55

IL RITORNO IN PERUGIA

For the entire day they just sorted and packed and arranged things, they just hauled and hauled things from the atelier to the cart, and then that evening he sent the Florentines home, and sat the Umbrians down around the table; four mugs and one large pitcher of wine were placed in front of them, and he told them, when the last mixing pot had been safely placed in the chests strapped down onto the carriage, we’re going home, and they all sat there with their mugs in their hands, he told them very meaningfully that well, Giannicola, well, Francesco, well, Aulista — in that way to all of them, looking at them fixedly and addressing them, so that he finally winked at Giovanni too — now it’s time to go home, but not a single one of them believed what he was saying, everything was so complicated, because there was a great
on the one hand
, that nobody could believe the words of such a maestro who for his entire life had been wandering between Umbria and Tuscany and Rome, who continually, ever since that long-ago day, when as a small boy he had left Castel della Pieve, had constantly been on the road, like someone who is hounded by an all-consuming demon, but really, as if deep inside some dark corner at the back of even that hidden soul, a merciless demon lay in wait, in the very innermost part of that soul, for such demons do not exist here outside; all four of them, when this topic came up, nodded their heads in agreement, there is no way that a demon, here outside, could be capable of affecting someone with such strength, chasing him here and there continuously for thirty years, because this is how the situation looked, the maestro just went and went and went, the horses collapsing beneath him, and Rome came along, and Florence and Venice and Pavia and Sienna and Assisi, and who could even name them all, and of course always and again Florence and Perugia and Rome, and Perugia and Rome and Florence, and so whoever knew him just even a little would not have been able to believe it when he said, “well then, now,” for the family was going to stay here in the house of Borgo Pinti — the beautiful Signora Vannucci and the countless children — and yet still this “well then, now,” as if anyone could have entered into the spirit of the idea of them really finally going home, they knew very well there was no question of that, the only certain thing was that tomorrow, they were going back, tomorrow: back to Perugia, home to Umbria, and this was enough reason for joy in all of them, even for Giovanni, for at least now, for a while, it wouldn’t be this insane city, but a little tranquility, he let out a sigh, although his true home, though he never spoke of it, was very far from Perugia; they took a swig from the mugs and you could see that everyone was thinking about that; since 1486 — how many years, fifteen or how many, and now again, the beloved landscape of Umbria, the tastes and the smells of home — there was that much, so, well, Giannicola, Francesco, Aulista, and Giovanni . . . there was that much in the maestro’s words, that much and no more, because in the depths of his words the idea of finally and forever was never enunciated, because for him, due to that consuming devil, this finally and this forever did not exist, it would never exist, so that, well, in vain was the cart already completely packed up, in vain did they tie up the last bundle with the cords with which they had fastened the canvas the previous evening for tomorrow’s journey, in vain did the guard even stand there, to watch over it until dawn, for twenty soldi, until they set out; that they were finally returning home, that this really would be a true ritorno, as they, the Umbrian apprentices, after fifteen or how many years, may have still hoped, after the maestro had brought them here to the bottega in Florence, well, not a single one of them believed it, they just sat there, they nodded to each other, they avoided the gaze of the maestro, then after the maestro left they just sipped away at the wine, in the workshop in the Via San Gilio, a cheap piquette from last year, from the hills of Chianti to the south of here, and they said to themselves, fine, just let him talk, just let him say it, but let’s forget about this ritorno, let’s forget about this
finally
or that after fifteen or how many years, that there will again at last be the landscape of home; the only thing certain was that the workshop here in the Via San Gilio was being closed down, they had canceled the lease for the premises with Signor Vittorio di Lorenzo Ghiberti, and with that they were going back, and for how long would depend on the maestro’s concealed, troubled soul, on this concealed soul, and on that consuming hellish whoreson within it, the creature that never left him in peace, and never would leave him in peace, but let’s forget it, Giannicola noted, and he took a swig from the mug, and for awhile none of them even spoke, because all of them knew that all the same, there was here an even greater
on the other hand
, for if the whole thing was so, and if despite the temporary nature of this journey home, it was still the source of a kind of joy, if not that for which they truly yearned, there was no doubt at all among the apprentices that this so-called journey home had only been incited by the bitterness of failure, as it was occurring not at all from the maestro’s free will, as — regardless of how much it was really final, and how much the four of them were really rejoicing or not at the return to Umbria — there was a great need, for some reason, for this move, to call things by their proper name; the maestro, who had become not so long ago one of the most celebrated painters in Italy, was compelled to take leave of his Florence, and the worst of it was that it wasn’t because somebody was chasing him away, or because he had had a run-in with some authority, or because the commissions were lacking to such an extent — as they were provided after a fashion by the monasteries or the more pious families — but because for the maestro, one had to say, things, for some reason . . . just weren’t going well these days, they hardly dared to speak of it among themselves, so frightened were they of this mere fact, but it was so, the maestro wanted to entrust them with more and more tasks, and he hardly even came into the workshop; when they got to the point in the preparation of a picture when they could tell him that he could come into the workshop, that everything was all ready for the painting of this or another panel, even then he didn’t come, sometimes days went by until he finally stood there in the doorway in the Via San Gilio, so silently that they didn’t even notice him when he came through the door, suddenly he was just there among them, asking why this, why that, fiddling with this or that mixing pot, addressing one of them, saying this or that was no good, or that it wouldn’t be enough, or that it was too much, there was already much too much, let’s say too much turpentine in the linseed oil; he hemmed and hawed, he muttered, and no one ever dared to mention to him the “obligations long due” to them, it was so obvious that he was in a bad mood, in a word he did everything, but he avoided the brush-rack, no, it’s not that he went over to the brushes and picked out the right one and began to work on a certain canvas, no, instead he hemmed and hawed and just kept mumbling for a while, then he tossed out the remark that he would be right back, because right now he had some business to attend to; when, however, he appeared the next time, the entire thing started all over again, the panel lay there on the painting table all ready, and everything on it had already completely dried, to find a mistake in it would have been impossible, for they themselves were not just any old assistants, it was nothing for them to prepare the most perfect gesso or imprimatura, and already no one could have even found fault with the underdrawing, only he, because it had been done by his, the maestro’s, own hand; he had already run out of ideas of how to avoid it anymore and he had to start painting, even then he tried avoiding it by saying that this or that — this cloak-hem, this eye-wrinkle, this contour of the lip in the underdrawing — is not how it should be, he could well say such things to them, because they knew very well that this was not the problem, so that on the basis of the maestro’s “instructions” one of them, without saying a word, stepped up to the panel, or someone from among the Florentines, but in most cases it was Giovanni, as he had the quickest and the cleverest hand — and he visibly repaired something on the underdrawing, of course just in such a way so that he wouldn’t ruin it, as what was there already was good, everyone knew this, including the maestro himself, as he himself had sketched out the underdrawing onto the clichés earlier, and they only had to copy it onto the prepared base in the appropriate way, and they always copied these wonderful drawings accurately and without error, in this the maestro was always amazing; that is, that they experienced the extraordinary talent of his old hand in these drawings on the fine paper, and there were really no mistakes, he outlined perfectly, with the finest of sensitivities he marked on the primed panel just what kind of wondrous Madonna, child, or saint would soon be appearing here, it was just that in recent times these figures were appearing ever less frequently, as he delayed everything; to no avail was the workshop full of the more serious disciples and assistants from both Florence and Umbria, it had nothing to do with them, but with this inexplicable impotency of the maestro, there was some spasm within him, or something, they guessed, because it decisively appeared that he
did not dare
to reach for the brush, sometimes the pigment, based on his own order, stood there, all ready, broken up and on the palette mixed in with the porphyry, just waiting for him to motion and then everybody would leave the workshop so that the maestro, as they put it, could “make the paints,” that is conjure up, according to his own secret recipe, in his own inimitable fashion, this crimson or blue pigment, such a hue that according to the assistants, and all of Italy, did not and would not ever exist on the painting of any other painter; but he brushed it all aside, he retracted everything, he told them to do what they wanted with the broken pigments, accordingly that they should do something with them so that they would not be wasted, which of course was impossible, as within a few days, no matter how they tried, the strength of the pigments was lost, and because of that they were essentially ruined, they just didn’t talk to him about it, and he already acted as if he hadn’t noticed, he never used to be like this in the old days, things like this simply did not happen, that the expensive vermiglione, moreover the prohibitively expensive ultramarine, would simply be wasted, this would simply be impossible to even imagine in such a workshop as the maestro’s, who was renowned for detesting so-called extravagance, whereas he himself these days was the cause of exactly such extravagance, just so that he wouldn’t have to reach for the brush, this is how it went, and of course it could not go on this way for long, tomorrow they were setting off at dawn, somehow things here in Florence just weren’t going well anymore; the four of them, sitting here around the table, the mugs in their hands, knew very well what it was, that the problem was not with Florence, that is, the problem was not such that tomorrow they were leaving this rich, lively, glittering, dangerous, or as Giovanni put it, this “insane” city and later on, in Perugia, in the quiet, sleepy, dusty, peaceful little town everything would proceed very nicely again — no, this journey of tomorrow, in its manner and fashion, was a retreat, or at the very least, the beginning of a retreat, from Florence, and what made them hang their heads the most around the table now was that it was a retreat from the profession, from the profession in which the maestro, it seemed, was ever more unsure, for in the past few years, but particularly in the past few months he truly looked like someone who was certain of the fact that he no longer knew what he had once known, and in vain did they get the news that in Perugia the maestro would immediately be honored by being appointed prior, this could not help the maestro, could have no effect on their wonderful maestro, because he did not dare to take the brush into his hands, only at the price of a dreadful inner torment, and so the result . . . was not at all what it used to be, and who could have seen this more clearly than they, his disciples and assistants of the past few years, from Girolamo to Marco, from Francesco to the Umbrians, but first and foremost the maestro’s most faithful disciple, Giovanni di Pietro, who had served him for years and who after his first independent works, already began to take the name Lo Spagna, referring to his place of birth, and whom the others preferred to ask when they were debating the matter of the unpaid wages with the maestro, namely, in such discussions as these, they frequently wanted him to negotiate on their behalf, just as now they expected from him more than anyone else some kind of adjustment of the situation; they watched him, Giovanni, to see what he would say to this, but it was precisely he who was the most silent, a general wordlessness fell upon them in the closed-up workshop in the Via San Gilio, and it was as if he just wanted to signal that yes, to be sure, that is how it was: the master’s luck had run out, and that is why they had to go back, that is why they could not prolong the lease on the workshop with Signor Vittorio di Lorenzo Ghiberti, and that is why they were signing another, that is to say, that they had already entered into an agreement from the first of January with the Hospital of the Brethren of Mercy on the Piazza del Sopramuro — in Perugia, so they were withdrawing from the world, because well this is what was happening, the maestro was withdrawing, and he would just withdraw more and more, Giovanni commented to the others, he would withdraw from the world, but don’t be afraid, he added, because as for work, there will be plenty of that, in particular, he winked humorously at his companions, especially if it proceeds at the accustomed pace, at which of course laughter broke out for the first time that day, they poured out the final drops from the pitcher, and raising their mugs to their “bounteous” maestro, they clinked their mugs together with a great whoop, and gave no more thought to the matter, everyone went to lie down in their lair, for the next morning they had to rise very early; and the little birds had just woken in the break of the April dawn when they were already fixing the cords onto the cart, and finding a suitable place for themselves where they would be able to bear the vicissitudes of travel, and because, well, everyone knew exactly, as it had been their experience often enough, that in the strictest sense of the word the days to come would be jolting, namely, the cart would shake the very breath out of them on the old Via Cassia, upon which they would be traveling, for they always used that route between Florence and Perugia; of course they could have gone toward Siena as well, joining in with the crowded pilgrimage route, and they could have gone that way for a while toward Rome, then turning off to the left toward Perugia, but the maestro knew the roads in Tuscany and Umbria like the palm of his hand, and he had his own reasons for not taking the crowded Siena pilgrimage route, but instead the less-traveled Via Cassia Vetus to Arezzo, and in addition to his own experiences, there were the accounts of the postal coachmen from Rome, as well as those of the Siena foot messengers, just think for a moment with the mind of a bandit, they explained to him for a few soldi, where is there bigger and better plunder to be had, on a busy road or on a less busy road, well, my lord, you can see that you have to think with their minds if you want to be well informed in the question of travel, so that this time there could be no doubt whatsoever of which way to go, the cart will set off at dawn, the maestro said to them, when he put down in front of them the large pitcher of Chianti (but no more!) and the four mugs; he himself, however, as usual, would follow after them, on horseback and with a certain retinue, perhaps on the following day, or on the third day, or on the fourth day, which meant, that there was no way they were all going to return home all at once, they should not count on that; then he began to explain the route to the coachman, that as a matter of fact they should go along the Porta alla Croce, and with this he really began to issue instructions, as they had already taken their places beneath the tightly drawn canvas, and everything was ready for departure, the maestro never entrusted anything to chance and would make sure of every single step a hundred times while he thought it over, for there could never be enough circumspection, so he himself got up at dawn’s very break and came over from the Borgo Pinti house, just to check up on everything and to see them off on their journey himself, in a word you should turn off at the Borgo de Croce here, he said — as if a coachman from Florence would not have known himself, as if they themselves had not made this journey there and back maybe twenty or how many times already in the past fifteen years — then, continued the maestro, go through the city wall at the Porta alla Croce, but be careful, he motioned toward the assistants, that there should be neither sword, nor dagger, nor knife anywhere, because of the sentry, well, Aulista, you understand, and then he gestured with a wide motion again to the coachman, straight along the road to Arezzo, straight as an arrow, and thus crossing S. Ellero and Castelfranco you should be able to reach Loro on the first day, there you should spend the night — he turned now to Giovanni, who had been entrusted with the travel expenses — but not in the Pieve, just to be made drunk by the wine of the friendly brethren of Gropina, in a word, Loro, Giovanni! and don’t spend more than two golden florins, including dinner, and go on the next morning, passing through S. Giustino, past the Castiglio Fibocchi to the Buriano, there you should cross the Arno, the bridge toll should be twelve soldi, no more, Giovanni, and that evening in Arezzo you may not give them more than three, under no circumstances whatsoever, they will ask you for four florins and forty soldi, but you give them three — food, lodgings, fodder — well, Giovanni, you understand, and then early the next morning to Passignano, and then accordingly you should stay in Passignano that evening, there once again two florins will be enough for everything, and then by the evening of the fourth day you will already be in Perugia, coachman, drive carefully, it’s not flour that you’re transporting, and don’t drive the horses too hard, feed them well and give them water, and as for you, he finally gestured toward the four assistants blinking sleepily, don’t end up getting drunk somewhere, because you will regret it if I find out and I will find out, for surely you know that nothing can remain a secret from me on that route, in other words may God’s blessing be upon you, the maestro bid farewell to them, and with that he dismissed the entire company with all of the expensive pigments and brushes and oils and turpentine and chests and frames and all of the wooden panels, half-prepared or just now begun, he turned on his heel and did not look back, he did not look back even once, but just went toward the Borgo Pinti, and then his entire bottega from Florence disappeared amidst the sleeping houses of the San Gilio; the two horses pulled at the first crack of the whip, the cart gave a great jolt, so that they nearly fell onto their backs, they turned out onto the San Gilio, then went all the way along the deserted Borgo la Croce, through the Porta alla Croce, already they had passed by the guard at the gate, and already they were outside in the open countryside; behind them was Florence, enchanting and beautiful and dangerous and insane, with its fiasco, and before them were the springtime Tuscan hills, gentle and covered in green, they were setting off on the road to Arezzo, in a word they set off, rattling greatly as they went along, tossed about here and there underneath the cart’s canvas, they watched the city slowly disappearing behind them, they watched the land slowly becoming smoother ahead, and they thought, oh, what a journey, Perugia, oh, how far away it is!