After a nine-hour flight to Tokyo, my eyelids felt like they were lined with sandpaper. Each time I blinked, the scrape was nearly audible. Burt was to meet us at the hotel. He’d arrived weeks before to hire the art students and machinery operators necessary to get the Kamakura installation preparations in place. I later learned that whenever a Jake Bloom exhibit was scheduled anywhere in the world, artists, fans, and students lined up to volunteer to be part of the experience.
Japan, at first glance, seemed more like another planet than another country, and I was an alien species. As we walked through the airport, Jake and I drew stares; the breezy sound of whispers followed us. I felt conspicuous with my pale skin, light eyes, and curls. Jake showed no signs of self-consciousness, moving like a native among the people and even conversing in seemingly fluent Japanese. We rode in a chauffeured car through congested Tokyo. San Francisco was a quaint village by comparison. Hundreds of slate-gray towers reached skyward for the only space to be found. Clotheslines between balconies formed a multicolored spider web. The city boulevards flowed with tiny cars and an ever-flowing river of black-haired pedestrians.
Jake sketched with fury as we rode, just as he had throughout the flight. With his drawing undeterred, he talked and filled me in on the many hats Burt wore as his friend, manager, and partner. Burt was road manager and worked with administrative help in New York to take care of all things logistical: equipment, permits, promotions and PR, visas, money—in short, everything but the actual design of Jake’s pieces. More importantly, he was also the sole photographer of Jake’s work. Fluent in six languages, functional in several others, Burt was the master communicator who negotiated the way into whatever impossible opportunity Jake dreamed up.
“I can’t wait for you to meet Burt. I can’t wait for him to meet you,” Jake said when we rode the train from Tokyo to Kamakura.
When we stepped out of the car in front of the hotel, no introduction was needed. The enormous Australian was a redwood among bonsais. Among the slight, dark-haired Asians on that city sidewalk, Burt Swift was an explosion of color. His sun-bleached hair and ginger beard gave him fiery pirate look, while his beak-like nose appeared sunburned despite the season. “Jake-O!” he shouted. The two men embraced as men do, with vigor and slaps on backs, the brotherly bond they shared emanating from them.
“And this,” Jake announced. “This is the wonderful woman I haven’t been able to stop talking about.”
The Aussie’s wide smile narrowed as he looked at me. “Kat, is it?” He extended an enormous hand. I could not remember feeling so small next to anyone before.
“That’s what Jake calls me. Actually, it’s Katherine. Kate Murphy. I’m glad to meet you.”
“Isn’t she as beautiful as I said, Burty?”
“Jake, stop it. You’re making Burt feel uncomfortable.”
After the fiasco with Mary K and Jake, I so wanted Burt to welcome me. I instantly liked his big bear presence and the flat Australian pinch of every vowel he spoke.
“What do you have there?” Burt asked, grimacing toward the pad Jake carried. “What have you done to complicate my life?” Gone was the friendly tone in Burt’s voice, and despite his shining eyes, I could see his frustration with Jake. Jake seemed oblivious to the weather change in Burt.
An icy chill drifted over me. “Wait until you see,” Jake said, opening his sketchpad. “It all came to me on the flight. It’s all right here. You’ll see what Kat’s inspired. She’s my muse, Burty.”
Burt looked over at me, then took the sketchbook. “Did you get any sleep on the plane?” he asked Jake.
“I’m too excited to sleep.”
Burt looked down his aquiline nose at me, then flipped through the pages. Jake fidgeted while Burt studied the drawings.
“This is nothing like what we put in the proposal. We had wood and small stones in the garden. This is right in front of the Buddha. They’ll never allow it.”
“But this is way better than what we proposed. They hired me, right? They want my best ideas. How can they not love this?” Jake insisted. “Kat thought they were great, too,” he said, winking at me.
Deep lines formed around Burt’s eyes and he combed his fingers through his beard. “I’m afraid Kate’s endorsement won’t mean a lot to the Japanese Arts Council. She’s not the one who’s got to negotiate an entirely new contract with a bunch of tradition-bound Japanese about their holy shrine.”
“Oh come on, Burty. Don’t get so worked up. Anyone can see these are better designs. Just work your magic. They’ll love it. Don’t they always love it?”
“Do you have any idea what it would require to get these changes approved? We’re supposed to be ready for an installation in one week. You’re talking bloody cranes here, and I don’t know how many laborers and tons of stone.”
“Just do what you do,” Jake said, his voice bright. Jake bounded through the revolving door while hotel employees bowed to greet him. He bowed in return and smiled back at us through the glass.
“Bloody baby,” Burt mumbled. “Unreasonable bloody baby.”
“He’s tired,” I said, feeling the itch of discomfort standing with the gigantic stranger and his fuming anger. “He’ll be more reasonable after he’s slept.”
“You’ve known Jake for what, a few weeks?”
“Yes, but…” I hesitated. “I feel that we know each other really well.” The crack in my voice betrayed me.
“You’ll have to pardon me for saying this, Kate”—when Burt said my name, it came out like Kite—“and I’m sure you’re a very nice lady. But just because you and Jake enjoy a shag, it doesn’t mean you know him. You’ll excuse me, but I’ve got an impossible job to do.”
I stood on the sidewalk, watching Burt clomp away like a Clydesdale through the crowd that divided to clear his path. Too jetlagged and stunned to feel embarrassed, I stood there wondering who would win in a fight, Burt Swift or Mary Kowalski. The answer wasn’t so obvious.
* * *
I awoke the next morning to find Jake madly scribbling on a sketchpad at the foot of the tatami mat we’d slept on. He lay on his belly with his feet on his pillow. “Hi,” I whispered.
He didn’t respond. I spoke a little louder. Still, he didn’t turn. I crawled down to lay beside him. He held his right hand up in a stop position while his left continued to sketch. I waited, fascinated by how engrossed he was. I peeked over his shoulder at the drawing of a stately Buddha. In the foreground was a trail of boulders of gradually ascending size that led up to the statue in a curved line. Each stone was oval, but severed by a jagged break that divided it into two pieces. Each half-stone sat beside its mate with a space between the two parts, which created a thin slice of black space, a void between the halves. The darkness between the winding rows of boulders became a line of its own which curved, snake-like, and flowed directly to the serene Buddha. The boulders’ path—on an enormous scale—was so clearly reminiscent of the trail of stones Jake had formed on my body the first night we were together that I felt heat rise to my face.
Jake sketched without speaking, then strode out of our suite, his eyes glued to his drawing. He banged on the door across the hall. I stood at our door.
“Burt!” he shouted. Then he banged again. “BURT!” he yelled with more urgency.
Unflustered, Burt opened his door, shirtless, wearing pajama bottoms and holding a cup of tea that seemed too dainty for his bulky hands. He was even more powerfully built than I’d imagined, his barrel chest thick and strong, covered with a copper hair. “Don’t get your boxers in a bunch. I’m right here.”
“Look,” Jake said. “Here it is. This is what we have to do.”
Burt examined the paper. “How big are these boulders, mate?”
“The biggest has to be at least six feet across, the smallest about four feet. But we’ve also got to have lots of stones to select from. The interval of size change must be identical between one pair of stones to the next. And the color. It’s got to h
ave that green patina—like aged copper. They’ve got to look like they’ve coexisted for centuries, right along with the Kamakura. If I do this right, it’ll look like a jade river. Perfect. Minimal. Ancient.”
A smirk crossed Burt’s lips. “What about the wooden towers you planned—in the garden? This requires equipment, months of planning. And just where in bloody hell I’m I going to come up with—” Burt paused and pointed his finger at the drawing, “—nineteen giant green boulders on an island the size of my fucking forearm? Do you have any foggy idea what this would cost? Or how to crack the buggers open?”
“I don’t know. You’re the wizard. Work your magic. This is what I’m doing.”
The air had become charged with electricity; my stomach clenched.
“We’ve got PR meetings all week and the Uenu Park unveiling in Tokyo tomorrow,” Burt stormed. “I’ve already arranged everything as per original plan in Kamakura—and it didn’t include any giant sodding green rocks.”
Jake turned and walked back into our room. Burt followed him, teacup in hand. “Drop the Uenu Park thing. That’s bullshit,” Jake snapped. “It’s a goddamn photo op. I’m here to do art. I’m here to make history.”
“It’s more than a photo op, friend. That hunk of bronze is your ticket to work in this country. I’ve worked on this for two years. Cancel one, you can forget the other. This is not a country in which you insult people. Forget about the rocks. We go back to the wooden structures we had planned. That’s that.”
I watched Jake’s wiry body go rigid. His face gathered into an expression that I’d seen on junkies and psychotics I’d treated in the ER. Everything in his appearance became a brewing storm.
“That’s not THAT!” Jake picked up the telephone from the dresser top, jerked the wires from the wall, and flung it at Burt. Burt ducked and the phone hit a mirror on the wall behind him, sending glass to the floor in a glittering waterfall. I covered my head and jumped to the other side of the room. I stood, frozen, my body taut like a coil ready to spring. Jake snatched up a long shard of broken mirror and held it, sword-like, toward Burt. Blood soon dripped from the heel of his hand from under his grip.
Burt held up his hand to stop Jake from moving. “Settle down now,” he said, his voice low and level.
“I won’t settle down!” Jake shouted. He waved his sketch with his left hand. I could see a fat stream of blood spilling from the palm that still clutched the glass, a puddle forming on the rug beneath him. “This is it. This is the art I came here to do. This is what I’m doing. I don’t care about the Disneyland shit.”
“All right, Jake-O. We’ll see what we can get done. Just let go of that glass, all right?” Burt turned and glared at me. I’d hoped for a look of reassurance or kindness. Instead I felt the pierce of his gaze that said, You shouldn’t be here. This is your fault.
“Just get it done, Burt!” Jake shouted. He flung the sketch toward Burt and it went sailing and landed on the pile of silver mirror slivers; then he dropped the bloodied glass onto the pile. He pounded out of the room and disappeared.
Burt turned to me, his eyes bloodshot. “Did he sleep at all?”
“I don’t know. He’s always awake by the time I wake up.”
At nearly a run, Burt took off behind Jake.
* * *
Several hours later, I sat on the small sofa in the living room of the suite, wrapping Jake’s hand in sterile gauze. “Thank God you’re left-handed. This is deep. I need to get you to a clinic for stitches. These butterflies won’t hold on a palm.”
Jake’s head hung. “Never mind that.” He pulled me toward him. “I’m so sorry, Kat. I’m such an idiot. It’s just that—”
I was still trembling. I’d walked the streets alone the entire time Jake had been gone, thinking about what I should do. When I’d returned to the suite, Jake had been curled in a ball on the sofa.
He rested his head on my shoulder. “I’m so sorry. I get an idea and it seems like that’s the only idea I can—and I just, I just—I know I scared you.”
I pushed him away from me and looked into his eyes. “You did scare me. You really did.”
“I’d never hurt Burt. I’d never hurt you. You’ve got to know that. I—”
I got up from the couch, leaving Jake sitting there. “You need to know one thing about me,” I said. “I will never be threatened like that. If I was Burt and you’d held that glass out at me, I’d be gone. I arranged for a car to take me to the airport. I don’t belong here.”
Jake stood and reached toward me. “Please, Kat. Don’t leave. You do belong here. With me.” Jake’s face was guileless sincerity, melting my resolve.
“Never again, Jake. I swear to God.”
“I know. I know.” His face was lined with anguish.
At that moment, Burt came back into the room. His fiery eyes had cooled. “You all right, Kate?” he asked. I nodded that I was okay.
Burt slapped Jake’s chest with a folder filled with papers. “Well, I’ve worked your bully miracle,” he said. “It took a lot of bowing, a hundred phone calls, and an enormous donation from the president of Sony, whose arse you will take over kissing. I’ve got your pebbles and your permits. Here’s the whole enchilada, Jake-O.” Burt grabbed Jake’s shirt collar like a bullying older brother. “You do the unveiling at Uenu Park. No objections. And you act like you love that wanking hunk of bronze in the park. You do the press that I know you hate. You shake the hands, you kiss the babies. You change not so much as a molecule of that plan. Then, and only then, we go to Kamakura and you put in your goddamned green rocks. When we come back to Tokyo, you do every ceremony and business dinner.”
Jake burst into a smile and flung himself at Burt, then kissed both of Burt’s cheeks. “Thank you. Thank you and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Burt shrugged. His eyes stuck on mine. “Forget it, mate. Anything for art, right? Don’t get all kissy.” Burt smiled at me, but his eyes still wore worry. “Jesus Christ on a raft, I’ve had girlfriends less trouble than you. And at least with them I usually end up with a wank after they throw such a fuss.”
Jake sniffed. “I probably owe you that, too.”
“Kiss arses, Jake and you can just keep your mitts off my willie.”
Jake laughed, lifted his glasses, and wiped tears from his face. “Just wait, Burt. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”
In a quick jerk Burt locked his thick arm around Jake’s neck and rubbed his knuckles briskly on his scalp. “Oh, quit your blubbering, you ridiculous baby.”
* * *
The days that followed returned us to almost where we’d been before. Gone was the irrational, tantrum-throwing child. Gone was the feral animal that turned dangerous when thwarted. Returned was my gentle lover, my playful, good-humored companion. His wild energy when directed to his work was laser beam-focused. He moved with buoyant cheer. Among the yet unbloomed cherry blossom trees of Ueno Park, he played hacky-sack with the children who gathered to watch the unveiling of his sculpture. The sculpture that he thought so unimportant was a tower of interwoven bronze and copper bamboo stalks, green with patina. The tower reached nearly fifteen feet, but defied both its materials and its size and evoked images of lacy jungle growth.
Jake and I attended formal teas with government and corporate dignitaries and art patrons. He charmed them and caused the same easy laughter that he had with my family at the bar.
Having watched my share of concussive exchanges among doctors, it was surprisingly easy to dismiss the outburst in our suite as the momentary explosion of tension and creativity. Surgeons, the divas of the medical field, are not above bringing nurses to tears by berating them for miniscule imprecision. One surgeon at Stanford, upon being told he’d not been given approval for the surgery he recommended, became so enraged he pushed a conference room table over, causing everyone seated to jump to their feet with coffee down the front of their clothing. He ultimately got his approval, resulting in the saved life of a newborn. Medical jour
nals later lauded him. Millions in research funding for Stanford’s coffers quieted the administrators and gave carte blanche to the surgeon for future tirades.
Watching Jake’s and his crew’s execution of his vision in Kamakura provoked the same fascination for me as watching surgery. With ancient shrines and gardens around us, Jake ran his installation like a maestro with an entire orchestra responding to his slightest move. He inspired them to feats they could never have imagined. He insisted on perfection and wouldn’t stop until it was achieved. “No, no. This boulder is the wrong shade. I don’t care how much it cost to get it here, it’s not right.”
Burt spoke in soothing tones, delivering his orders in Japanese to the crew of local laborers and art students. The harmony of the team reflected the surroundings, with its tranquil, reflective ponds and sculpted gardens. Winding paths and graceful willows created an environment that seemed to invite everyone—even the hard-hatted crane operators—to speak in reverent, whispered voices. And the Great Buddha himself drew from me a feeling I’d never had in any cathedral. Looking into his serene face, climbing the steps to stand in the cool shade that he cast, was an experience of quiet power I had never known.
When the installation was finished, I stood gazing at the enormous Buddha, Kamakura, with the giant stones winding up the grassy corridor toward him. The boulders appeared as ancient as the shrine itself; as if they belonged exactly where they sat, deposited there by an ancient river. They functioned to guide the viewer’s eyes, not just to the Great Buddha but to his holy essence. Though I’d watched with my own eyes the power equipment and a giant auger that had broken each boulder into halves, their splits appeared completely organic. I’d seen the forklifts and cranes and the dozens of muscled men move the great stones, but they now rested there in what seemed like it had been their location for centuries.
Fire & Water Page 10
