Silence Once Begun

by Jesse Ball

  In the first part of my life with Sotatsu, he lived in a cell in a jail where the sun came south through the window on an avenue all its own where it was forced to stoop and stoop again until when it arrived at its little house it was hardly the sun at all, just a shabby old woman. Yet we were always looking for her, this sun, when she would come, always eager to have her meager presents, her thin delineations. I would say, oh, Sotatsu, oh my Sotatsu, today you are like a long-legged cat of the first kind. He would smile and laugh, meaning, Joo, I have nothing to do with such a cat as you describe.

  In the first part of my life with Sotatsu, he lived in a basket on the back of a wolf that was running westward. I was a flea in the wolf’s coat, and had all the privileges of my grand station. I could visit the prisoner. I could speak to the prisoner. I made the wolf aware of his important profession. I said to the wolf one day, actually, I said, you are carrying a most important prisoner, you know, away beyond the frontier. He said, flea of my coat, it is your work to tell me such things, and mine not to listen.

  In the first part of my life, I told Sotatsu everything about myself. I told him I was the youngest of fourteen children (a lie). I told him I had a dress that I wore as a child with a fourteen-foot train and the other children would carry it, so becoming I was. I told him I had a course in fishing where seven would stand in a stream using fourteen hands to weave a rope and the fish would leap up and into the canvas bags we wore on our waists. Every lie was a lie of fourteen. I wanted him to know about me. I said what was true also. I said, I have seen nothing that was worthy of me until you were lying in this cell. I said, I am not my surroundings or my fate and you are not who anyone says. I said, I will say things and you can stop me, but no one else can. I will be a speaker and I will speak on all subjects like a tinny radio rustling in a shop window. I will make up all the world’s smallest objects and doings. I will confuse them, muddle them like a jar, and produce them at odd times. This will be the tiniest edge, the tiniest corner of our love: so much you have yet to expect from me.

  In the first part of my life, I knelt by the bars of a cell where my love lay and I called as a woman calls to pigeons when she is old and cannot see them. I made shooing noises with my mouth, for I was sure someone said once, someone said such noises would make birds come to you.

  I draped myself on the bars like a blanket. I cried for him. I smiled and laughed. I was a playhouse of a hundred plays where there are no actors to do any but the one play, that first play, made when the theater, unbuilt, is first considered. If we should have a theater, this is the play we would do, and all we would need is one actor and a cloth for her to place before her face. I placed so many cloths, and taught my Sotatsu all manner of things that no one knew, not me or anyone. These were true things in our life, but empty in the common air.

  In the first part of my life, I was stopped on the steps of the jail by a woman, my mother, who said she had heard about where I was going, heard about who I was seeing, heard strange things that she would learn the truth of. This woman, my mother, when she stopped me on the steps of the jail, I felt I was in a history of classical Greece, and she was my deceiver. Good mother, I told her. A person visits a friend and is unchanged.

  In the first part of my life, I was asked to appear in an old film by an early director. This was filmed many years ago, he told me. You are just right for the part. There will be many scenes that are nighttime scenes, but we film those during the day, for we need all the light that can be mustered. We need as much light as possible to see, because we must be clear. We can afford for nothing to be hidden.

  The first part of my life came to an end when Sotatsu was moved to the jail where they would starve him.

  ++

  In the second part of my life, as you know, dear friend, my Sotatsu was starved almost absolutely to death by the guards who would give him no food. They said to him, you must ask us for your food. He told me, they say I must ask them for the food. I said, you? You? Ask them for food? He agreed that he would never do so. I am not in charge of my life that way, he said. He said all this by smiling. I said all this by winking. I stood at the cage in my coat and held the bars with both hands. I could see he was very hungry, and thinner.

  In the second part of my life, my Sotatsu was thin almost to breaking. He had become like the edge of a hand. I wanted to tell him to eat, but I did not. Instead, I began also not to eat. I said, I will also not eat, but I was not as strong as he. When the dizziness started, and it became hard for me to rise, I knew: I would fail him. Even if I was with him in not-eating, I would be failing in my visits. I could no longer visit him, with such strength as would be remaining. So, I took to eating again, just enough, and visiting.

  They would drag him off to a trial. The trial had begun and they wanted him to say things, so they were starving him and speaking to him, examining him, telling him things, asking for his signature. His hands were trembling even when they lay still. His eyes were open—they had stopped closing, I suppose this happens when one doesn’t eat. Finally, it was enough. They brought him food and he began to eat. Even once they were bringing it, though, he could not eat it. His throat had forgotten its purpose. The food just wouldn’t go in. So, it had to be retaught and this took a few days.

  In the second part of my life, my love was rescued from starvation by a series of bowls of food. I did not ever see him eat. Such things were not allowed. But, I saw him standing one day. I arrived in the morning, quite early, and he was standing when he could not stand for weeks.

  My dear, I called, my standing dear. How well you stand.

  He looked at me and explained it, that he had begun to eat once more. That he had broken them. The trial was over, too. I knew that, and I was glad of it. I had the newspapers in stacks. I read them over and over. I had found the place where he would be on the map, and looked up the route.

  My dear, I told him that last time, I will join you in the new place.

  That was the end of the second part of my life.

  ++

  In the third part of my life, I traveled to a prison that was built underground in order to avoid the moon. Jito Joo was the name I would give, and they would allow me to climb through a narrow aperture. They would show me into a hallway and down a hallway. They would show me to a roped-off area, where little rooms knelt like parishioners, each one bending its head. When the guards pulled a lever, the rooms would open, as many as they liked, or as few. I was allowed to go in, suddenly. I who had never been allowed in, I was suddenly allowed in. Sotatsu was sitting on a pallet. He was staring at his hands. He did not look at me. This was the first time I had seen him, I think, in my entire life, such was my feeling. I said, I am looking at him and he is here. He looked up, hearing my voice, and I sat there by him, my arm brushing against his side and shoulder.

  Where will we go?

  In the third part of my life, I practically lived in the cell with Sotatsu. Properly speaking, I, of course, was far away, mostly. I was mostly on the bus, going to the prison, on the bus leaving the prison, in the house with Kakuzo, sitting, eating, walking on the streets of our village, muttering greetings. I was mostly carrying on that way. But still, as I say, I practically lived in the cell. Every chance I got, I snuck away there. I was like a child with a hiding place. Where is Joo? Where has Joo gone? Joo may be found in the death cell of a prison with her beloved.

  I believed then that the third part of my life was my whole life. I had forgotten about the two previous parts. I did not expect a fourth. I believed we would continue that way. Everyone on death row had been there always. They were very old. They expected to die of natural causes and be given neat Buddhist ceremonies attended by whatever gentle family members remained. In this we encouraged them, the guards encouraged them, the guards encouraged us. We were all sternly encouraged in the belief: the world would last forever.

  Sotatsu, I would say, some speak of the great cities of the world where anything can be bought. These are the sorts of
things I would say, and he would laugh. We would sit, laughing, like old campaigners. (I have known a few, and we are not like old campaigners, he would say by smiling, and I would say, you have known no old campaigners but we are old campaigners of a certainty.)

  The third part of my life was where I was told the meaning of my life. One knows the weight of a thing when it is strong enough to bear its own meaning, to hear its own truth told to it, and yet to remain.

  Sotatsu, I said, I am your Joo. I will come here forever and visit you. All I need is a small profession, just enough money for the bus and for food. I need no children, I need no objects. I need no books, no music. I am a great traveler like Marco Polo, who visits an interior land. I travel deep into the heart of a place between walls, built between the walls of our common house. I am an ambassador, an embassy sent to a single king. You are that king, my king, my Sotatsu.

  Then, he would hold up his hand as if to say, such wild notions do very well, but we must be careful.

  Or—let us throw even such caution as this to the winds. Let us be like all the cavalry of ten armies.

  These expressions of his, they made me wild! I would leap to my feet and sit again. The guard would come running, thinking he was wanted for some small thing, a glass of water or a query.

  No, I would say, it’s only that Sotatsu made a joke.

  Then Sotatsu would look at his feet, which, predictably, were doing the things that feet do.

  In the third part of my life, I came to a far place. I decided that I would move into a room near the prison. I decided that I had enough put away, that I could do that. I was planning it. I did not tell Sotatsu. I came the night I decided it, and I was allowed in very late. I have told you there were no obstacles and it was always true. No obstacles. I appeared and was admitted. I was taken to his cell, and the guard shut the door. He pulled a shade. I didn’t know the shade was there, but he pulled it, and the cell was closed off. It could no longer be seen from without.

  Hello, my Sotatsu, I said, and I went to him. It was the last of all my visits, and the longest. When I left the sun was halfway up in the sky. The bus had come and gone. There were no more buses that day, but one came. An empty road stretching in both directions. Then, the friendly nose of a bus drifting along. The bus driver said, you are lucky, young lady. There are no buses in this direction, not until tomorrow. I just happen to have gotten lost. Then he took me back in the direction of Sakai.

  I felt when I left that day that I would return immediately. I would wait for the sun to set and then I would set out. I would be back again and pressing the buzzer, being admitted through the steel doors. I would be called upon to empty my bags, to leave my things and go past a thousand tiny windows with their attendant eyes. I had grown so used to these things that they calmed me. I looked forward to them as a series of gestures. I felt surely that nothing could take them from me. That any of it could or would end. It seems silly, but I did not believe it. Neither I nor my Sotatsu: we did not believe it.

  This is a letter about Sotatsu who was my love; this is a letter about my one true life, which consisted of three parts. I am now in the fourth part of my life, and it has been false. It has been a false portion. In my estimation, they give you the false portion last.

  Int. Note

  Kakuzo, Kakuzo. Sato Kakuzo. In all my research, I had come upon him again and again only to hit upon one impasse or another. I felt that I must find him if I was to have the full story. As luck would have it, I managed to, but last of all, and only after a long search, culminating in a great piece of luck.

  Here is how it happened:

  A person like Sato Kakuzo—I imagined he could not be found unless he wanted to be found. The question then was: how does one make him want to be found? Or how does one make him reveal himself? I had a sense of Kakuzo’s vanity. I felt he was not a nihilist—and that he did truly believe in history, in a parade of history. I felt surely that he would not like the idea of a faulty account, of any faulty account. And if there was to appear somewhere a faulty account of him most particularly—or of something he had had to do with …

  I was sure that Kakuzo would want the story to be correct; after all, there was every indication that he was the original architect; it was he who wrote the confession.

  So, this is what I did: I arranged with a newspaper friend to print a remembrance article about the Narito Disappearances in a Sakai paper. I purposefully left him completely out of it. A long article about the most important event of his life—and no mention of Sato Kakuzo. My friend was understandably hesitant to print such a thing, but finally he did.

  For a week we waited. One day, then another. I grew afraid that he had died, or that he had been living abroad for decades. Or perhaps he simply hadn’t seen that newspaper? Perhaps he hated newspapers. When a week had passed, I felt sure he would never be found.

  Yet the ruse worked. A week and a half after the first article, the office of the newspaper received an indignant letter. What fools they were, the letter said, to print absolute fallacies without any reference to the truth. Were they journalists or not? Once upon a time newspapers had had a relationship to truth. Had this commitment been completely effaced? And on and on in this fashion. The letter was signed, Sato Kakuzo, and on the envelope was written a return address.

  I contacted him then, and he agreed to meet.

  The place of our meeting was a sort of boathouse and cafe at the shore. He showed up very late, more than an hour. I was preparing to leave when a car pulled into the lot. Indeed, it was he. Kakuzo wore an old fisherman’s hat, a tweed jacket, and corduroy trousers. He appeared a perfectly innocuous older man. His English was clear and unaccented. He had brought things with him, things for me. If I were to do the story, he would have me know the whole of it.

  This interview was the only time I was able to meet him. However, the materials that he gave me provided many hours of study, so I felt that I had spent a great deal more time with him than I actually ever did. One thing that must be stressed is the immense force of personality possessed by Sato Kakuzo. I left the interview unsurprised that he had made Oda Sotatsu sign the confession. Indeed, he might have managed to convince anyone to do the same.

  Interview (Sato Kakuzo)

  [Int. note. At first we sat at a table by the window, but the position of the sun shifted, and it became too bright, so we were forced partway through to move to another table. Both times Kakuzo chose the chair he wanted and sat in it, without seeing whether I had an opinion on the matter. I suppose, as he was being interviewed, there is a certain justice to that. It was interesting to see that he always chose the seat from which one might observe the door. When I asked him whether I could use my device to record the conversation, he refused. Only after we had spoken for a little while did he relent.]

  INT.

  So, you had been inspired by the French Situationists? You were inspired by the ’68 riots? That’s what got you into trouble at first in Sakai and led you to return home?

  KAKUZO

  Do you know the fable of the stonecutter?

  INT.

  No.

  KAKUZO

  It is an old fable, Persian, I think. I had read it around that time, and it made me feel, somehow—as though certain things might be possible. I felt that things I had thought should be classed impossible were truly possible, with the very greatest effort.

  INT.

  What is the fable?

  KAKUZO

  A king is out riding with his nobles, all ahorse the very best steeds that can be had. They are riding out beyond the city where the king lives. They pass through fields and down road after road. The horse the king is riding is a fine new horse, such a horse as he has never possessed, and so he gives it its head, and the horse carries him farther than he has ever gone. The king and his nobles ride so far and so fast that they become bewildered, but their blood is in their faces and their hearts are beating so tremendously that they want only to course on and on. A win
d is blowing and the weather is spinning in the air, clouds turning like looms. The horses trail to a stop, and the company is on a road before a lowly dwelling. It is a stonecutter’s hut. The king dismounts, and goes to the door. He knocks and the door is answered by an old man with pale cruel hands of sinew and bone. The old man welcomes the company and receives them into his hut. Strangely enough, there is a place for everyone. The table is large enough for all. Each lord sits at table, shoulder to shoulder, and the king sits at one end. The stonecutter sits at the other. I will feed you, said the stonecutter, but it will not be anything like what you eat. The nobles groused, saying they would like this or that, saying is there this or that, but the stonecutter looked at them and they looked at his hands, and they fell silent. The king spoke, saying, they were come like beggars, and were glad to be received at all. Such a thing a king had never said. So, the stonecutter went into his larder and brought out a goose that resembled a girl. He brought out a deer that resembled a boy. He brought out bread like the hair of a hundred court ladies, threaded into rope. He brought out honey like the blood of goats. Do not eat this food, the lords said, but the king laughed. The stonecutter watched them speaking, and the king laughed, saying, where you are brought by a swift steed is a place for courage. But the lords said beneath their breath, some steeds are too swift. Then the plates were filled, heaped nearly to the ceiling and passed around, and always the king chose first, and he filled his plate and ate of it, and filled it and ate of it and filled it and ate of it. Never had he tasted such food. And soon they were all fast asleep, and the stonecutter rose from the table. That is the end of the first part.