I thought that this unusual reaction from two such different people might mean that the Japanese are wary about giving directions to a foreigner because they don’t want to risk your getting lost if they don’t know the address. The workshop was probably in one of Kyoto’s backstreets or in an industrial estate on the outskirts of the city.
That was the most reasonable theory I could come up with, but the taxi driver I stopped just as he was leaving Pontocho Street added a third degree of weirdness to the matter of the address. He stuck his head out of the window and took the postcard. When I pointed at the address, he put on his glasses to read the small print.
Two seconds later, I was standing there holding the postcard while the taxi driver was flapping his hand in a way that clearly said no. Before I could even ask why he didn’t want to take me, he drove off leaving me more nonplussed than ever.
I wandered back to the ryokan, pensive, with my hands in my pockets.So this isn’t an address that people don’t know. Everyone knows what this place is and what happens there. It must be a really awful place if it scares a taxi driver and a guy who listens to the Sex Pistols.
I started to feel overwhelmingly drowsy as all sorts of implausible theories ran through my head: it could be an infamous brothel, or an onsen where yakuza gangster bosses met, or even a nuclear-waste storage site of questionable security.
These extreme—or rather, absurd—possibilities, were no help at all in figuring out who had sent me the postcards. To cap it all off, just before I went back into the ryokan, a black cat shot past me. I dismissed all premonitions of bad luck by reminding myself of what Groucho Marx said: “If a black cat crosses your path, it means that the animal is going somewhere.”
As I walked past the reception desk, I was about to show the tiny woman the address on my postcard, but in the end I didn’t. If that atelier was some kind of shady place, she might call the police and then I’d have problems explaining how I’d come to receive the postcards. Yes, it was best not to ask. I’d spent just half a day in Kyoto and now the only thing I wanted to do was sleep.
I got undressed in no time and flung myself onto the futon, which no longer seemed so hard. In order to stop thinking about the wretched postcards, I went back to the first essay I’d read about wabi-sabi.
Everything that exists in the universe is in constant movement and always changing. Nothing is eternal, nothing has existed or will exist forever, and everything has a beginning and an end. Wabi-sabi art can embody or suggest the essential, obvious feature of impermanence and thus lead viewers into a state of serene contemplation which comes with understanding the fleeting nature of everything that exists. Once aware of this transience, we see life from another perspective.
A man may be moved by the sight of a simple flower in an old bamboo vase when he realizes that it reflects life and our destiny as human beings.
Experiencing with Gabriela that “everything has a beginning and an end” had been quite painful, but right at that moment, in that austere room, I was all for transience.
Visit a couple of temples in case anyone asks you about Kyoto and then get a plane home. It’s been a mistake to come here, and it would be an even bigger mistake to stay on.
That was what I told myself as my eyes were closing.
Only God Knows the Answer
When I opened my eyes again it was after nine at night. I felt my forehead to make sure I wasn’t running a temperature. I wasn’t in the habit of having afternoon naps lasting more than six hours. And I was cold—too cold.
When I got up, my bones were creaking as if I’d been beaten up. Naked in my spartan room, I dithered over whether I should go down to the onsen or have a shower to bring myself back to the waking world. Thinking that the water in the onsen would make me even dopier than I already was, I took the latter course.
After dousing myself in lukewarm water, I got dressed: beige cotton trousers and best black T-shirt. I may have looked as if I had somewhere to go to, but the truth was quite the opposite.
As I went down the wooden stairs, I wondered if I was ill. I wasn’t feeling hungry, although I’d had nothing to eat since the fish and rice at breakfast.
Was this because of heartbreak? Was I going to waste away like those lovesick young men in romantic novels?
It’s pathetic when a man of over forty-five has to suffer like this, I said to myself as I raised a hand to greet the receptionist. I’d put the postcards in my pocket—heaven knows why. The whole thing had turned into a fixation.
Maybe because I’m a creature of habit wherever I am, I took the same route as the previous night.
The little lantern of the karaoke bar for the lonely gave off its wan glow at the end of the geisha street. I had no intention of going back there, but as I walked past the door, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks. The iron plaque had been replaced by a wooden one revealing that overnight the place had acquired a name: SAMUEL’S BAR. Astounded by this, I quickly realized that it must have been that Japanese eccentric who’d suggested this name to the owner.
I pushed open the door. I wanted an explanation for what I thought was a joke in bad taste, and I was sure that the perpetrator would be inside with his bottle of sake.
Contrary to what I expected, there was no one to be seen in the little bar apart from the owner, who smiled at me conspiratorially. She was perfectly aware of who I was. The least she could do after hijacking my name for this dive, I thought, was to offer me a drink. But the way she handed me the drinks list, with its clearly marked prices, made it clear I wasn’t going to be let off the outrageous surcharge for my first drink.
I asked for an Asahi and sat at the same corner of the bar as the previous night. Like a nightmare running in a feverish loop, some Russian-sounding notes announced that the insidious “Dokonoko no Kinoko” was about to begin. The difference was that Okamura’s seat was empty. The microphone lay on the bar like a shipwreck in a sea of wood.
I was on the alert in case the woman tried to make me sing. My suspicions were reinforced when she put a piece of paper on the bar. Glancing at it, I could see it had some writing on it, and didn’t dare to pick it up in case it was a transliteration of the words of the Japanese song.
It turned out to be a translation into English of the lyrics, written with a scratchy pen that gave it a kind of wabi-sabi style, in what looked like a girl’s handwriting.
As the syncopated rhythms invaded the small space, I picked up the paper and started to read.
Hey, mushroom, where are you from?
Beautiful mushroom, where are you from, sir?
