Seiobo There Below (40 page)

this
was not possible here, and not only regarding the Jingū Shicho, but . . . regarding himself as well, one could not conduct oneself this way toward a host, this was very unpleasant, to have such a friend to whom it clearly never once occurred, because looking at the thing from his world view, it would hardly occur to him to consider just how difficult this whole matter was for him, Kawamoto — that he was obliged on the one side to try to satisfy the requirements of his guest and in this case, those of the Jingū Shicho; on one side there was the guest, whose needs had to be met, on the other side the prescribed obligatory forms that could not be transgressed, this was impossible to fulfill, and then so what now? Kawamoto brooded on the terrace next to the Kamo River, what should he do: he brooded needlessly, however, he fretted senselessly, and it was in vain that he showed something of this brooding and this fretting, however discourteous it was, the guest noticed nothing, he couldn’t have noticed anything, and thus there was nothing else Kawamoto could do but to dial Miwa-san’s number in Ise, he did so early the next morning at his friend’s tenacious entreaty, then he dialed it again one hour later, because he got the reply that the person he was looking for was not in, he dialed, then an hour and he dialed again, and yet another and yet another, his friend sat next to him with ever-increasing resolve, and ever-growing impatience, so that, well, it was actually a relief when he finally got through to Miwa-san, because at least he was freed from this resolve and this impatience, although it was true that with Miwa-san, however, another form of torture commenced, one in which he had to explain to him that no, what the Jingū Shicho had shown them of its good intentions and magnanimousness had not been enough for them, they would like to become acquainted with the workshops of Naikū as well, they would like to see how the trees were prepared, how they sawed and planed the wood, and then on the basis of what plans did they build the shrine buildings, Miwa-san of course, showed surprise, and his voice suddenly echoed back from a distance, he would see what he could do, and they should once again submit a request, he recommended, in perceptibly strained tones, and the Jingū Shicho would decide if permission would be granted, and with that the conversation came to an end, and Kawamoto-san felt that his arm was about to fall off, it had grown so heavy while he was on the telephone, as he had suffered the entire process of continually bowing and scraping whereas his friend, when he informed him of what Miwa-san had said, became almost feverishly excited, and said, just wait, you’ll see, we’ll get into the Naikū carpenters’ workshop, and Kawamoto-san in the end did not even understand what was going on with this ever more complicated affair, because his guest turned out to be right, and already the second week after the submission of the application that immediately followed the telephone conversation, Miwa-san telephoned
him
, with the information that they should be at such a time at the main entrance to the Naikū, a certain Iida-san would accompany them to the carpenters’ workshop, they could meet with two miya-daikus, moreover, the possibility of a conversation with the toryō was extended to them, they could take photographs, but could not use recording devices during the conversations, and he apologized for that in his own name and that of the Jingū Shicho, but this was the decision, he wished them a very pleasant time in Naikū, Miwa-san said goodbye, and he had already put down the receiver and they were already on the train to Ise; no, Kawamoto Akio clearly did not understand this, he was, however, even more anxious as to what would happen now, it was two o’clock in the afternoon, there they stood at the main entrance to the Naikū, the sun was scorching, it could have been at least forty degrees celsius, and at exactly two o’clock a short, fat young person, Iida Sato, really came for them, and while the sweat was pouring down off of him in his black suit in the scorching sun, he took them to a gated entrance in the northern part of the grounds of the Naikū, this was the entrance to the Naikū carpentry workshops, but — as Iida-san expressed it a little theatrically — this was also the symbolic entrance to the Shikinen Sengū, and every such banality in relation to the Shikinen Sengū just began to pour out of him: by the time they reached the office of the workshop area, Iida-san recited nearly word for word every single sentence that was in the promotional brochure, which the Jingū Shicho had printed to popularize the Shikinen Sengū, and they grew so used to Iida-san being the kind of person who always speaks without interruption that they didn’t even pay attention to him, they just nodded politely, yet he — enthusiastically and with the serious look of an expert — just kept talking and talking, while they, in the meantime, noticed that on the left side of the road leading to the office building, numerous hinoki tree trunks were floating in a kind of canal-like body of water widening out into a lake, but of course, Iida-san didn’t know the reason for this, they would get an answer once inside, and they sat around a table in one of the rooms of the office building, where two miya-daikus were waiting for them, a middle-aged one, and a fresh-faced youth, it seemed that the older one was the teacher of the younger one, in any event somehow they belonged together, this was evident, although at the same time there was no sign of the master-apprentice relation between them, the fresh-faced youth sat just as decisively and proudly in his chair and answered the questions as did his older companion, both of them in the Jingū’s white work-overalls, and they gazed at them with a fairly suspicious yet at the same time somewhat curious look in their eyes, and in the beginning they didn’t really seem to understand what this strange pair wanted from them, this gaijin and this fidgety Japanese from Kyōto, so they didn’t even really respond to the questions put to them, instead they just warded the questions off, as if they were avoiding them, and they tried to give the most inane answers possible, particularly the older miya-daiku, he, as if he were laughing at them, was more and more aloof, and observed the two visitors with a somewhat derisive smile, he observed them, and uttered his replies from an ever-increasing distance, while incessantly looking up at the clock on the wall, so that, well, the fresh-faced youth was the one to say something occasionally, for example that the hinoki cypresses float in that canal to where the water naturally flows from the sacred river of the Jingū, from the Izusu River, because they
dry out
there for two years, that happens first, the younger carpenter continued, they bring the hinoki trunks, trimmed and stripped of their bark and branches, and these, he added, are delivered continuously every single day, already from the beginning of the Misoma-Hajime-sai, they are immediately placed in the canal, and they really float there, they are soaked for two years, but as to the visitors’ question as to how is it possible to dry wood in water, he did not betray anything, because the older one took up the thread of conversation, he announced that every single piece for the Shikinen Sengū was prepared here in this workshop, for Naikū and for Gekū, and with that he fell silent, he crossed his arms over his chest, glanced up at the clock, then looked at Iida-san, and it appeared in any event that he wished to demonstrate to the employee of the Shicho just how much he did not have time for idle chatter here, he was haughty, he was uncooperative, and he was increasingly deflecting the questions as soon as the Western friend began to formulate them, because of course he was posing the questions, Kawamoto-san, as always, only assumed the role of interpreter, he was trying with every possible means, with his body and his posture, to make his friend realize: this conversation must immediately come to an end, and then it was not drawn out for too much longer, after a while, his friend also grew weary of asking in vain, he was not getting any real answers to anything, so that at last he got up from the table, at which point all the others jumped up as well, the two carpenters accepted the gifts that had been brought but didn’t even look at them, and already they were gone, so if it was going to go like this then they had come here for nothing, the Western friend noted in subdued tones, but Iida-san heard, and in order to pacify them, he informed them that the person they were about to meet was someone, as he put it, whom worldly beings hardly ever saw, because he was the sacred person of the Shikinen Sengū, they didn’t even refer to him as the director of construction here, in his case they used the old expression, and they called him toryō, everyone addressed him like that, and he enjoyed truly great esteem, even if of course, like for everyone else here, the Jingū Shicho was the lord above him, although as for that, the current toryō was the kind of person who did not really acknowledge anyone as being above himself, only his kamis of the Heavens and Earth, and in the very first place, Amaterasu Ōmikami, the sun goddess, Iida-san explained, Amaterasu Ōmikami, the resident of the shrine in Naikū, whose grandson, he continued proficiently, Ninigi no Mikoto, descended to the Earth in order to render judgment upon the squabbling people, and to deter them from further squabbling, he struck down his trident in South Kyūshū, where he had landed, into the peak of a mountain called Takachiho, so that people would remember him, and ever since then the trident is still there, he explained and he did not continue to speak about the first Emperor, though it appeared he would have been happy to do so, the visitors however did not ask, and since it seemed he was waiting for that, he leaned back in his chair slightly offended, pursed his lips, and sank into a brief transitional silence, and that is how the time passed in the office of the Naikū carpentry workshop; Iida-san scratched his head, he went out, he came back in, he looked at the clock, right away, he kept saying to the guests, and sat down only to get up and go out again, and while these long minutes of waiting were hard for Iida-san to endure, particularly without talking, he returned again and again to describing the character of the toryō, whom, the two friends had the impression — it was not difficult to figure this out — Iida-san did not know in the least, only from hearsay, and he was relaying this to them, practically elevating this illustrious personage to the status of a demi-god, thus they were informed that this meeting was an entirely extraordinary gift — and he greatly stressed the word purezento, that is, gift — of the Jingū Shicho Public Relations Department, extraordinary, because in the first place, he babbled on, the toryō had work to do, the work had begun, and he, bearing full responsibility for all operations in his one single person, had to be everywhere at once, every work-process was concentrated in his hands, without him not a single planing-machine could be switched on, not one single cut could be chiseled by anyone, but one must realize — Iida-san lowered his voice, and here, even in this somewhat air-conditioned room, he dabbed his sweaty forehead again with a white handkerchief, after which he folded it up meticulously — one must realize that his task, of the first order, or how should he say it, said Iida-san, his immediate task is to separate the tree trunks that are worked on according to a precise order, because the mikoshi was constructed from one kind of material — this was obvious, wasn’t it — of the wondrous hinoki family, and the buildings from yet other materials, and a different material was used for constructing the walls than the columns — that too was understandable, wasn’t it? — but not only that, Iida-san gasped for air — the thoughts were rushing out one after the other from his head with such speed, and he wanted to share them with the guests with the exact same speed, so that he could hardly catch his breath — not only that, he raised his voice, and here he had to state again that the toryō’s very first task was that of drawing, apart from him no one else could draw, that was the most sacred and exclusive knowledge of a toryō, and he, the current one was particularly, extraordinarily gifted at knowing what to sketch onto the lower and upper parts of the evenly sawed-off tree trunk, how the saw should then proceed as it cut columns or planks from the hinoki-trunks, how finely the mechanical or the handheld planes should run along them, because his drawing decides how a column shall emerge from the tree trunk, moreover, it also decides what individual columns will serve which part of the building, and then in what function they will serve the higher interests of the shrine; Iida-san was so swept up that he nearly expressed himself in poetry, and who knows where this rapturous ardor for the toryō would have stopped if the person in question had not stepped in himself, true, not a demi-god, but an elderly man with snow-white hair, with a thin, tall build and enormous dark-brown eyes, himself wearing the attire of the others, that is white overalls: a dear, friendly old man, with a smiling look in his eyes, whose clothes still had sawdust on them, which he began to brush off himself; when after his entry, the customary presentation of gifts, mutual introductions, and the exchange of visiting cards — he said, laughing, he did not have any such thing on hand while working — Iida-san offered him a place to sit down, and signaling what an honor he felt it to be here and to be able to meet such prestigious interested parties sent by the Jingū Shicho, the toryō sat down cautiously so as not to begrime the chair too much, and then in time forgetting all about that, he immediately relaxed, sitting with his elbows leaning on the table, namely that he had learnt from Iida-san that these two were not visitors that had been sent by the Jingū Shicho but that they had been
permitted
, and they merely wanted him to tell them about the Shikinen Sengū, about the preparations, the trees, the work process — his eyes glittered gaily as he then began to speak, the words arose from him quickly, as one who lives in the impassioned shadow of great things, and who has stepped out of it just for a short time in order to speak of these things; but then would have to go back, go back to his passion, this aspect of him characterized the entire conversation: that he was burning now in a kind of truly great affair, and could not think of anything else, ever since he had been designated; only about this, the 71st Shikinen Sengū; and in the first place, he did everything possible to steer the conversation away from his own person, which they asked about first, because all the same, what could he say, he was a simple carpenter, a miya-daiku and that he remained so, he explained to the guests, only that the Jingū Shicho had honored him by naming him toryō, and as the toryō, he had now become a carpenter who bore a great, very great responsibility to the Jingū Shicho, to the Naikū and to the Gekū, but, most of all to Amaterasu Ōmikami; I am a simple person, stated this simple person, and he laughed at them and answered everything they asked very seriously, and gave them answers that cut straight to the heart of the matter, and if he felt that perhaps they were having a problem understanding something, or if he felt the topic immediately at hand to be of special importance, he repeated his sentences, even several times over, and at such times his brow darkened, now looking deeply into the eyes of the first, and now the second guest, and only when he was convinced that they understood what he was saying did he laugh again and wait for the next question, and the next, but after a while he digressed in order to speak of what he considered to be important, although they hadn’t asked him about it, because they had begun with why the Shikinen Sengū takes place every twenty years, to which he replied that well, because the Jingū has to be rejuvenated, and according to the elders the time for that comes exactly every twenty years, for the Jingū goes forward in time with man, and the gods too do not age, thus in the eternally youthful Jingū, there is a place for the eternally youthful gods, this is what he could say altogether as to the reason, he smiled at them, and well, how does someone become a toryō: it doesn’t matter what you say, it doesn’t matter how beautifully you speak, the only thing that matters is how you work, and of course age and practical experience play a role, not just professional, but human practical experience as well, and so it goes on from there — he gestured with his hand to show how it went on from there — but the essential thing, he raised his index finger, and looked at them very seriously with his enormous dark brown eyes, the essential thing is what is in your heart, the god looks and sees, and knows everything exactly, the god, he glanced at them with an impish look, and the Jingū Shicho too: after the latter remark those present, with the chuckling leadership of Iida-san, replied with complicit understanding laughter, and as for how someone becomes a good miya-daiku, that too, said the toryō, is very easy to understand, because here, in their native Japan, but especially here in the Jingū, the custom is such that the master does not teach, but that the disciple observes the master, and that is how he was with his master as well, he observed how his master, his oyakata, went about his work, he intensely scrutinized every movement, he watched what he was doing and how he was doing it and he imitated him, we call this, he explained, the “me de manabu” way, if someone is teaching, then it will certainly never be possible to learn anything from that person, this is what it’s like, he nodded in affirmation and his audience nodded, too, as from this point, all three had been transformed into keen auditors, the personality, the directness, the friendly nature of the toryō, his frankness and openness, had quickly swept them off their feet, even Iida-san, who at the beginning, striving to ensure that the authority of the Jingū Shicho would not remain latent for a single moment in this situation, he himself, his countenance serious, impeded the toryō with questions, dabbing away in the strain of his great task at his fat head, from his skull to his neck; but then even he forgot all this and, like the other two, really listened to the toryō’s words enthusiastically, as when, for example, he began to speak of that process of drawing, namely that it is here that everything begins and is determined, that is the essence of the entire activity of the toryō, namely that only he knows how to draw, and he only came to know this after having studied the drawing plans in the Shicho during half of a lifetime, of these, that is to say the drawing plans, there were altogether three kinds, the really old ones, the old ones, and the newer ones — for example the “kirikumu zushi,” to follow this and draw it onto the wood is a frequent solution, a person, he demonstrated something with wide gestures in the air, looks at the old drawing plans and he stores them away in his head, that’s what he did as well, as for books themselves, of which there were an innumerable quantity in the Shicho — he made a droll, wry face — well, books never help, because books are