Silence Once Begun

by Jesse Ball

  JIRO

  I did.

  INT.

  And they took it away. What did they do with it?

  JIRO

  I imagine some guard gave it to somebody as a present. I never saw it again.

  INT.

  And you got into trouble over it, too.

  JIRO

  They took me into a room and some guy yelled at me for about half an hour. I was very apologetic. Usually, back then, I was, well, hot-tempered. I had a short temper. But, in this case, I just wanted to make sure I could get in to see him. I had taken the bus; I had walked very far. I was there at the prison. If they had made me go home, it would have been pretty bad.

  INT.

  But they let you in?

  JIRO

  They did, and it was very lucky that they did. Because that was the last time I saw him.

  INT.

  Can you describe that visit?

  JIRO

  Well, they walked me in the same way as before, as on all the other visits. I had to sign in, had to be fingerprinted. They would sometimes check the fingerprints against the others they had made of my hands. Once, the guard made a mistake and he got the wrong fingerprints out, so they thought I was some kind of impostor. But that got solved. It was the same boss guard who fixed that situation, and who yelled at me but let me go in anyway this last time. I guess he must have felt bad about the first mix-up. He didn’t seem like a bad guy.

  [Int. note. Here, Jiro’s daughter ran up. She asked if we were working on the book. I didn’t know that the children knew what it was we were doing. I assume that Jiro’s wife must have told them. I said that we were doing some work, maybe it would go in the book. She said that she hoped it would do what it was supposed to do, in the end. I asked her what that was. She looked at her father and said that what it was supposed to do was to make a whole bunch of people feel really bad about what happened. She said they didn’t feel bad enough and now it has been a long time and they have forgotten, and that it should make them remember about how they should be still feeling bad. I said that, sure, that was part of it. Jiro laughed, a sort of half-hollow, half-full laugh. He told her to run along and she did.]

  INT.

  So, then you were brought to the cell?

  JIRO

  Yes. It was a strange thing to visit him in jail. You get the impression that you are returning to the same moment. I’m not sure how to say it. It’s as though you went away and time continued, but for the person there, it stopped. For them it has only been a moment since you left. He was there, in the same clothes, in the same position. The same light came from the bulbs. The same pallet was laid there in the same way. I had an eerie feeling about it. At the same time, I was overwhelmed, each time I saw him, with a feeling of relief, that he was still there, that nothing more had been done to him. I approached the door, the window was slid open. Sotatsu looked over, saw me, and came to the door. He had a very odd way at that time, a very odd way of holding his mouth. I think it was because he had stopped talking. Maybe if people didn’t use their mouths for talking anymore, this is the way they would all hold their mouths.

  INT.

  Was it open?

  JIRO

  A little bit open, on one side. I don’t remember which.

  INT.

  And you stood there, looking at him, the routine you two had developed?

  JIRO

  We did. But only for a short time. Then the guard came and asked me to leave. He didn’t give a reason. I think someone else was coming in, but I don’t know why. It seemed like they were clearing me away, clearing out the area. Maybe they had just gotten the news that his day was coming, and so they wanted everything straightened out. I don’t know.

  INT.

  That was the last time you saw him.

  JIRO

  I remember the haircut he had, it had been done badly, so a part of his head wasn’t completely shaved. When I see him in my head, that’s the Sotatsu I see. But he is standing in a street.

  INT.

  When you picture him, you picture him in a prison outfit, with his head shaved, but he is outdoors?

  JIRO

  He is in a street, and he has the box I was going to give him. But it isn’t open, it isn’t playing. It’s just closed there in his hand.

  Interview 20 (Brother)

  [Int. note. That night, after our return, I had gone to my room to sleep, but I was still up, looking at some notes I had taken. After a while, there came a tapping on my door. I opened it, and it was Jiro. He came in and admitted that he had not told me the truth that day, or not all of it. I asked him what it was that he had held back. He told me that on the final visit, something different had happened. I asked him what it was that was different, and why he had held it back. He said it was something he hadn’t shared with anyone, and so it wasn’t clear to him whether he would share it with me or not, up until this evening. I asked him how that visit, that last visit, how it had gone differently. He said Sotatsu had given him two letters that he had written. He said he had those, and asked if I wanted to see them. I said, yes. I said, I didn’t realize that he was allowed to write things. Jiro said that it seemed some of the prisoners were allowed that, and it seemed Sotatsu was one of them. He gave me a paper box with a little clasp on one side. I told him I would be very careful looking at them. He went to the door but stood watching me. I asked him if he wanted these documents to be kept out of the book. He didn’t say anything, but stood there. Finally he said he wanted the book to be complete. He didn’t want anything left out of it. That is why he changed his mind and brought the letters. I thanked him and he went off, leaving me to open the box.]

  [The document (sides one and two) will follow this page.]

  Document Side One: Holograph Will

  Holograph Will of Oda Sotatsu. My belongings described below should be given to my family members in the following manner.

  BOOKS, perhaps a dozen, on table by window __ to my sister.

  my CLOTHING, old pants, new pants, shirts, socks, and others __ burned.

  my FURNITURE __ given away.

  my KITCHEN contents, pots, knife, etc. _ to my mother.

  my RECORDS, RECORD PLAYER, _ to my brother.

  my DRAWINGS, JOURNAL __ burned.

  my WORM SHOVEL, FISHING POLE, TACKLE __ to my father.

  my BICYCLE __ to my brother.

  my SCARF __ to my sister.

  my BIRD STATUES _ to my mother.

  ANYTHING ELSE _ burn or give away.

  … my rent was paid when I was taken away, but now hasn’t been since then. I don’t know what that means for anything.

  Document Side Two: Letter to Father

  [Int. Note. The document has been folded and unfolded many times. It appears that it has even begun to tear along some of the folds. I imagine Jiro has opened it often to read it. When I saw him the next day, the day I was to leave his house, I returned the letters to him, and asked whether he had showed this to their father. He replied that he had not. He had never had the slightest intention of doing so, nor would he. At the time of the publication of this book, Jiro and Sotatsu’s father is dead (d. 2006), so he will never see the letter in this life.]

  Father,

  I know why you don’t come to see me. You are right that this is my fault. It is a complicated thing, but also very simple. It is so simple I can see through it like a glass window. When I do that, I see you and the others and you are waiting for something. I don’t know what it is, and I don’t think you know either. Someone writes something because someone thinks it should be written, it should be said. So, I write this, but I don’t know why it should be, just that something should be said, before this is through.

  Where the house met the back gate, I used to hide things. You never knew that. Mother, Jiro, no one ever knew it. There is a hollow spot there, and I would put a thing there now and then. This is the kind of feeling I have now. I wanted you to know that I am not worrying anymore. I am not worryin
g now.

  OS

  Interview 21 (Watanabe Garo)

  [Int. note. Watanabe Garo was extremely reluctant to disclose the details of the execution procedure. I argued with him for a long time, playing on his vanity, his ego, trying to get him to say the exact words he shared with Oda. Finally, only with a cash payment and guaranteed anonymity did he disclose the details.]

  INT.

  All right, we’re recording.

  GARO

  He was sitting there and looking at me and I was standing. I felt pity for him then. It seemed like he was affected, like what Mori said to him had changed him somehow, and I didn’t want him to have to change. He hadn’t been affected by things before. I wanted to let him be who he had been during his time in the prison. It was a good way for him, and I didn’t want this whispering to have altered him. It shouldn’t have happened, and I thought, maybe I could fix it. Maybe I could talk to him and fix it, and things would go back to being the way that they were.

  INT.

  Was there something you could see in the way he looked, something different?

  GARO

  I can just say what I said.

  INT.

  Please.

  GARO

  I said to him, I said, you don’t know when it’ll be. That much is true. The prisoner can’t ever know the day of his execution. One day it is the day and that’s that. They bring you a snack, some kind of special snack. Something nice. Then they take you out of your cell. They take you to a hall and you notice it is a hall where you haven’t been before. At first maybe you think you are being exercised, or being taken to the infirmary. But, no, it is perfectly clear, this is a different section. It is a hall that is rarely used and it feels that way. You go down the hall and there are little windows and there are no bars, no bars on the windows. Outside you can see a lawn. Then you come to a door. The guard doesn’t have a key. The door just opens. Someone stands behind the door all the time waiting and when someone comes, when the time is right, he opens the door. You go through it. Now you’re in a semi-open space. There is a desk with a guard-sergeant. He has a lamp and a book. He checks your papers against the book. You do not have your papers. In fact, you’ve never seen them. But the guard who came with you has them. A doctor comes out, along with three other guards, ones you have seen before, ones who have dealt with you in the past. You are examined and the doctor and guards sign off. They are making a written statement that you are in fact you, that it is no one else but you standing there at that moment. You sign the document as well, agreeing that you are yourself. When it is done, the sergeant unlocks a door on the far side of the area. He does this once the others have left. It is a procedure. It is all a procedure. They leave; he unlocks the door; you go through. Your two guards have been exchanged for two others. They go in with you, one on each side. You are now in the first of three rooms. The execution suite is composed of three rooms. The first is a chapel. A Buddha statue is on the altar. A priest is waiting. You may have seen him before, on his visits to these very cells. He speaks to you warmly. He might be the only one to meet your eyes. He asks you to sit. There by the altar he reads to you and what he reads you are the last rites. Now you know for sure. Even if you have been pretending that it isn’t so, now it is suddenly clear. Although you have told yourself some irrational story, that on the day of your execution some event of some kind will occur, and that from this event you will know it is the day of your execution, nonetheless, such an event is an invention. The guards do not wear different uniforms. You are not offered a cigarette. You do not go outside to be taken elsewhere in a covered van. Whatever event you have imagined, it is empty and meaningless. You are read the last rites, and that experience is fleeting. So soon it is over. So quickly you are raised onto your two legs. A door in the farther side of the room opens. You go through. The next room is smaller. Someone is waiting there, too. It is the warden. He is dressed very beautifully and appears distinguished, like a general. He waits until you are positioned properly. He waits. When you are standing where you should, he reaches into his pocket. He takes out of his pocket a piece of paper. What is he going to say? Even the guards are restless in this far room. What he reads is this: he is ordering the execution. He uses your name several times, pronouncing it with wonderful care, and it is like you have never heard your name before. You are to be killed by the order of someone or something. He leaves the room and the door locks. Another guard has come in. He has a bag and out of the bag he produces handcuffs. These are placed on your wrists and firmly tightened. Next he produces a blindfold. The guards move around you as if you are delicate. They are performing a series of operations on an object. You are secured. Your arms are secured. Your head is secured. The blindfold is applied to your head and face. Now you can no longer see. The guards guide you now. You go through a door which must have opened soundlessly, the door beyond the warden and the second Buddha statue. You realize you have looked at the last thing you may ever see. If you are wild, if you have become wild, if you become wild, it no longer matters because you have been secured. But most are not wild. Most are led into the room without complaint. Even with animals, covering the eyes produces docility. The bag the guard brought was full of docility and you feel it. The guards have been gentle with you; they are guiding you. You are positioned in the final room, the last room. You feel the space of it around you. The guards touch your shoulders and your head. They lay something over your head, down over the blindfold. They are so gentle with you, like barbers. It is a rope they have laid upon your neck. The rope is laid like a stiff collar on a new dress shirt, and made snug. Everyone is around you, very close. Then, delicately, they remove their hands from you, from off your shoulders, your neck, your arms. They step away. Now it is quiet. You can feel the rope’s upward direction. Occasionally it brushes against the back of your head. Perhaps you can guess where you entered the room. You are doing things like that, guessing with senses that are not operating. A noise comes, a trapdoor has been released and you fall through the floor as if it were not a floor, not the floor of a room such as you have known, but the floor of a room like a gallows. That is the last room, a room like a gallows tree.

  +

  Int. Note

  Something about the poem that had been written on the photograph of Jito Joo was haunting me. I woke several times in the night at the house where I was staying and the image in my mind was always the same—a still lake in a country of still lakes and a bright sun overhead. There was no sound, none at all. There was no possibility of sound. I felt in it the silence that had come over my wife—that very silence which seemed to me then to have ruined my happiness, and which began the long journey that had led me here to Japan to investigate the matter of Oda Sotatsu. I felt in it too his silence.

  And so I told myself—this is the heart of it. If this is a mystery, then the thing that is most mysterious is the involvement of Jito Joo. What exactly was her relationship with Sotatsu? Why was she there at the prison? For what reason was she repeatedly admitted, if indeed it was her—all those times?

  I told myself, you must find Jito Joo, and if you can, then you must show her that this is a thing you understand, this silence, even if it means saying things aloud to her that you have said to no one. You must draw out from her things she has told no one. Perhaps in it there will be something—a thing that makes sense from these silences, the silence of my wife, the silence of Oda Sotatsu, the stretching on seemingly pointlessly, of life, day after day with no one to call it off.

  So, I began to look for Jito Joo wherever she might be found.

  Int. Note

  First, I looked for her in public records, in phone books, listings of ownership, real estate purchases, deeds, and found nothing. One supposes she could easily have chosen to go by another name. Indeed, she had every reason to want to.

  Jiro had no idea where she might be. He felt it was unnecessary to look for her. I hired a private investigator (of a sort) to no avail. I don’t b
elieve the man ever left his office. I began to feel it would never happen.

  There is a book that I read once, a book about an Austrian huntsman. Any Trick to Finding. Some year of my childhood, I found the book in the children’s section of the library, where it had been placed, perhaps because the title was silly. I imagine a librarian must have put it there, thinking it was not an adult book. Actually, it was written in a very ornate and mannered English by a British gamekeeper who had known the book’s subject (in his youth). I might be the only one ever to have opened the book (in that library). Certainly I was the last, because I stole it and hid it under my brother’s bed behind a dulcimer and a collection of broken tambourines. Where it is now, I can’t say. I think that house was demolished soon after we left it. In any case, the book was quite marvelous. It tells the man’s story—his childhood in a poor Austrian village, his willingness to be of use, the discovery of his special talent, his rise to a position as head gamekeeper on one then another magnificent and extensive Austrian estate. But what was his special talent? Well—he could find anything, anything at all. Somehow the man, Jurgen Hollar, had invented a system for himself that enabled him to be extraordinarily efficient in several departments of being in which most humans act with extreme looseness of endeavor. Finding things was the principal expression of his gift.

  While sitting in the yard at the house of which I have spoken, the house of the butterflies (those that I had been told of, and had believed in before their appearance), the memory of Jurgen Hollar and of Any Trick to Finding came suddenly to me. It had been with great difficulty that I as a boy had read the book, and perhaps it was the doggedness of my approach that had so impressed it on my mind. In any case, there I was, in a Japanese garden, considering the life of a nineteenth-century Austrian huntsman. It was to such thoughts my desperation had led me.