The Pure Land

by Spence, Alan

  He was on his way home to Ipponmatsu where they were all waiting for him, were throwing a party in his honour. But every step was effort, hurt, and he moved so slow so painfully slow. Someone gave him a white hanky and he wiped his brow with it, so hot, atsuka, then the pain racked again and he coughed and hacked, spat into it, saw the spatter of bright red blood, opened it out and it was the Japanese flag and he didn’t dare to drop it on the ground. Another step on and up, another, in pain. Just to rest was all. He stopped and leaned against the tree. They were waiting for him, were all inside. Then someone was striding straight towards him, a dark hostile figure he knew, a threat, and he couldn’t move, couldn’t get out of the way. And Takashi had drawn his sword, was coming at him, blade raised, and all he could do was bend his head, and the blade cut and cut, stuck in the overhanging branch so the blow never fell. This had happened before. And so had this, Takashi kneeling and falling forward onto the blade. Glover was the witness and Ito was the kaishaku, the friend ready to behead him. It was swift, a single stroke and the head rolled on the ground, face grimacing. But then the face was Glover’s own, looking up at him, resting on the flag now placed there. He couldn’t move, he had to, he gathered all his strength and dragged himself up out of sleep, a dream, all of it.

  This was real. This. The constant pain deeper, the gaps between the sharp jabs less. This. His bare feet on the floor, sweat-damp nightshirt clinging to him. This. Bedside candle lit, its flicker. The porcelain pisspot under the bed. The effort to bend and pick it up. Fuck. Leave it on the floor stand over it, piss a red trickle, sear of the pain, the gaps between would close altogether be one long pain. He needed laudanum. The bottle was in the cabinet across the room, a distance. His feet swollen and hot. On impulse open the curtains and look out. Frost on the ground. The faintest suggestion of grey light in the sky. Bare forms of the trees and through them the stars, high far and cold. He opened the drawer took out the bottle of tincture, the little glass dropper with the rubber bulb, filled it, squeezed the drops into his mouth. Got back to the bed, shoved the chamberpot under again with his foot, felt it slop. Lay down, head back on the pillow. This.

  That last poem of Ito’s. Nothing changes in the universe. Past and present are as one. But it did change, everything did, nothing stayed the same. Then something about swimming in deep waters. Water under the bridge. Time passed. Everything aged and died.

  He’d arrived in autumn, felt the warmth, breathed the air. The hillside opposite the harbour had been a swathe of bright red, maple. He’d come off the boat down the gangplank, unsteady. He’d seen the young girl, keeping the paper butterfly in the air with the updraft from a fan, he’d been enchanted.

  He closed his eyes, saw water and dived in, it was cold and dark, he surfaced, went under again and the water closed over him.

  *

  Yuko found him in the morning, already stiff and cold, face clenched in a last grimace. She stood a moment in silence, bowed, pulled up the sheet to cover him.

  15

  FORM IS EMPTINESS

  Nagasaki, 1945

  The sergeant flicked his Zippo lighter, the flame flared in the darkening room. He lit his cigarette, shook another from the pack for the corporal, who took it, put it behind his ear for later. As an afterthought, the sergeant offered one to Tomisaburo. The old man shook his head, said, ‘No. Thank you. I don’t.’

  The sergeant blew out smoke; its sweet acrid haze filled the room. He said they should be going, and Tomisaburo would be hearing from them.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said, and made no effort to fill the silence.

  When he’d smoked the cigarette down to the tip, the sergeant stood up, dropped the butt on the floor, ground it with his heel.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I guess you won’t be going anywhere in the meantime.’

  ‘There is nowhere to go,’ said Tomisaburo.

  ‘Right,’ said the sergeant.

  The two GIs fastened the chinstraps on their helmets, shouldered their guns. Tomisaburo showed them to the door, splintered now where they’d kicked it in. It didn’t matter. Nothing did.

  He went back to the drawing room and sat in his armchair, trying to think. Cigarette smoke still hung in the air, clung.

  He was tired.

  At length he came to some kind of decision, got to his feet and lit a stub of candle, made his way to the bathroom, set down the candle on the edge of the tub. He knew the water was almost gone; at best there would be enough in the tank to fill the bucket he used to rinse himself. He placed it under the spout, cranked; a gobbet of dirty brown-black water coughed out, spurted into the bucket, enough to fill it a few inches.

  Fine. It was better than nothing.

  He took off the clothes he had worn for days, ever since the blast, the black jacket and trousers, the waistcoat, the shirt and tie, the socks and underwear; he left them in a heap on the floor, stood naked; and suddenly he saw his mother’s face.

  Not Tsuru. His real mother, turning away, letting him go.

  She had called him Shinsaburo.

  Her face, now, so clear.

  Tsuru had peeled off his clothes, burned them; she’d cut his hair, scrubbed him clean, dressed him in a new white sailor suit, harsh cotton that chafed.

  He climbed into the cold tub, hunkered down, wet a clean cloth and washed himself as best he could, poured the last of the grimy water over his head, stood up, shivering, towelled himself dry.

  Now.

  The candle guttered as he walked through, still naked, to his bedroom.

  He opened his wardrobe, pushed aside the sober black business suits, the wing-collared shirts, took out instead his Japanese robes. With a solemn formality he put them on, the white tunic and wide trousers, the wide-sleeved grey robe tied with a sash, the white cotton socks. He saw his reflection in the mirror, wavering in the candlelight. He bowed to it, as if to someone else.

  In the drawing room he set the candle down again, on his desk. It was burning down, but would last long enough.

  His gramophone was covered in dust; he had no idea if it would still function. He lifted the lid, cranked the handle. The turntable rotated. The mechanism seemed unharmed. His records were stacked in a wooden box. He sifted through, found what he was looking for, the aria from Butterfly, eased it from its brown paper sleeve. The Bakelite disc was scratched from much use, but not cracked, in spite of the upheaval. Miraculous. He wiped it with his cuff, placed it on the turntable, cranked the handle again, turned the brass horn so it was facing into the room. He lifted the arm, swung it over, placed the needle in the groove. The familiar introduction crackled into life, filled the room.

  He took his father’s sword, the wakizashi, kneeled on the floor and placed it in front of him. Then he touched it to his forehead, slid it out of its sheath, the candlelight glinting on the steel blade. There were Hindu texts that described the soul leaving the body as akin to a sword being drawn from its sheath, the sheath cast aside, the soul shining, free. Others talked of casting off an old worn-out garment.

  That old suit of clothes he’d left on the floor.

  He glanced up at the portrait of his father, the face stern, admonishing. But strangely he felt something like compassion. His father too had lived and striven and suffered. His life too had been a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying what?

  Nothing.

  Form is emptiness.

  Now his own time was ending. The barbarians at the gate; the Americans or the kenpeitai, it didn’t matter which. A rock and a hard place. Devil and the deep. He was in no-man’s-land. Nowhere to go.

  He put the sword down again, untied the sash round his waist, removed his robe. Then he opened the tunic, felt the old slack skin of his belly; picked up the sword and placed the tip of the blade there, below the navel, a little to the left. Even this, the slightest pressure, pierced the skin, made him flinch, breathe deep. The music built to its glorious climax, heartbreaking. Un bel di … Then the needle stuck and stuck an
d stuck. He took one sharp intake of breath, leaned forward with his whole weight onto the blade.

  16

  ONE FINE DAY

  Nagasaki, 2005

  The 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.

  17

  THE PURE LAND

  Nagasaki, 1912

  Sometimes 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.

  Crossed hesitation-bridge

  and decision-bridge,

  passed through

  the floating world

  to the pure land.

  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.

  *