The Forest of Wool and Steel

by Natsu Miyashita

  ‘He would feel sick whenever he spotted a payphone when he was out in town. Overly sensitized, I suppose. He sees all kinds of things he shouldn’t – I don’t mean like ghosts or anything, but things that flood his senses. Like flashy billboards, for instance, which he also couldn’t stand. He found them completely overwhelming.’ She looked at me as if to check that I was following.

  ‘When he couldn’t handle phones and billboards and that sort of thing, what did he do?’

  ‘He’d go straight home to bed.’

  This felt a little over the top. Then again, I guess it was a fairly mild reaction to things you really couldn’t cope with.

  ‘You’d think someone like that wouldn’t survive. I was afraid he’d end up a total hermit.’

  I’m really glad he avoided such a fate. He must have fought so hard to endure in a world full of things he couldn’t deal with. What had rescued him? I wondered. Was it her?

  ‘One other thing – sometimes when he used to walk about outside, the ground would suddenly look absolutely filthy to him.’

  ‘You mean roads that hadn’t been cleaned?’ I really didn’t get it.

  ‘Whatever road he was walking down – in other words: the world. Life. He said it all just looked so utterly filthy to him.’

  She sounded as if she was joking. I was having trouble seeing any similarities between her Yanagi and the Mr Yanagi I knew.

  ‘Rude, don’t you think? It’s like he was saying that I, walking along without a care, didn’t mind being filthy.’

  ‘The Mr Yanagi I know is very kind and reliable. I don’t get the feeling that he’s over-sensitized.’ I was trying to be careful with what I said.

  ‘True enough,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t easy to get him to that point. And he was also going through adolescence, which amplified everything. Back then everything made him feel sick. He was desperately looking for a place to escape to. But there was no safe place he felt at ease in, where his nerves wouldn’t get frazzled. Going home and pulling the covers up over his head seemed the best strategy to him. When that wasn’t an option he’d crouch down on the floor, shut his eyes and stop up his ears. He wanted me to rub his back for him, and I can’t tell you how many times I did that.’

  I couldn’t picture the Mr Yanagi I knew in such a state.

  ‘The metronome saved him,’ Miss Hamano said, in a seemingly playful tone. ‘You know the old-style metronomes, don’t you? The analogue kind you wind up? He said he had discovered that listening to a metronome calmed him down. “Even if you’re not with me, Hamano,” he told me, “I’m OK as long as I have this.” He’d spend the whole day winding it and letting it tick tock, tick tock away. When I was with him it just about drove me crazy, though.’

  So a metronome was his saviour. It felt as though we’d finally arrived at the Mr Yanagi I knew.

  Clinging to something, using it as a crutch to help keep you upright. Something that brings order to the world. That elusive thing with which you can survive, and without which you can’t.

  ‘I think I’m beginning to understand,’ I ventured.

  I recalled the gym back at my school and the moment when I first heard the sounds Mr Itadori made with the piano, and how I had then thought, If only I can own this sound, then I can live.

  Miss Hamano used her straw to scoop some of the flakes of ice from her iced tea into her mouth and crunched them. ‘The next thing was—’ she started cheerfully, but as soon as she did, Mr Yanagi appeared.

  ‘Hey, Tomura!’ He sauntered briskly over to me, his face flushed. ‘How was it? Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘I thought you’d take a little longer to get out,’ Miss Hamano said lightly. She stirred her drink with the straw.

  ‘Well, I didn’t want to keep you two waiting so I came out as fast as I could.’

  ‘Your drumming was great, Mr Yanagi.’

  He seemed pleased. ‘Shall we go and grab a bite?’ He invited me as though it was a matter of course, but I declined.

  Miss Hamano looked surprised. ‘Oh, but you must come! We’d only just started talking. We haven’t reached the good part yet.’

  She seemed a little anxious, and Mr Yanagi said, ‘What were you two talking about?’

  ‘We were talking about discoveries,’ I replied.

  Miss Hamano laughed.

  I bowed to the two of them and climbed the stairs up from the basement to street level.

  Miss Hamano was there before his discovery. She’d been in Mr Yanagi’s world from the very beginning. Which is why, I thought, he was able to relax enough to find the next thing in his life.

  I could imagine the discovery that followed the metronome. Something else that would help him calm down. That would help him endure even when Miss Hamano wasn’t around to rub his back for him. A tuning fork or drums, or perhaps it was the piano. As long as he had that one thing, he could look for the path ahead, even in the dirtiest of worlds. It wasn’t a tool to help him avoid any horrors; it was the power to deal with them. Through a series of discoveries Yanagi became the Mr Yanagi I knew. The emotions he felt when tuning a piano, creating sounds, sending these out into the world – that was what allowed him to forge ahead, head held high.

  Had Mr Yanagi accepted this seemingly filthy world? Or had it accepted him?

  Emerging from below ground, the town looked dazzling. The sky was bright and clear. A very pleasant April.

  III

  Not Quite Intermediate

  Stick with the Menu

  It only snows on warm days in Hokkaido. On extremely cold days the skies are a dazzling blue and clear as can be. It was May now and the unseasonal snow seemed to have lent the town a boisterous air.

  ‘Snow! In the middle of May!’ Mr Yanagi gazed ruefully up at the sky. ‘Weather like this will really play havoc with the trees.’ The buds on the cherry trees had only just started to swell, and now they were covered with a thin layer of snow. ‘I do hope they’ll still blossom.’

  Of course, snow at this time of year was not at all unusual in the mountains. There would be snowfall after the Golden Week holidays in early May, and once that melted it marked the arrival – at long last – of spring. In March we’d be on the lookout for more snow, then we’d limp through April and at last we’d reach May. The last of the grimy slush would melt away and the cherries would finally blossom as everything started to warm up.

  ‘How it affects the spectacle of our beloved cherry blossom is one thing,’ he said, ‘but the snow also plays havoc with all the pianos we’ve gone to such infinite trouble to tune.’

  In homes where the piano is in frequent use, it’s good to get it tuned every six months, but most homes can get by with a once-a-year tuning – ideally at around the same time, to ensure the temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure and so on remain constant.

  Today Mr Yanagi and I were on our way to tune a piano. More precisely, the piano required a level of retuning. That was depressing enough, but to top it all, we now had to contend with the snow.

  ‘As ever, Mr Yanagi, your tuning is the best.’

  The client tried out the piano and seemed pleased with its smoother tone. His name was Mr Kamijo and he was the pianist in a bar. ‘You tuned it exactly as I requested. No, actually, you’ve made it even better. I’d love it if you could come over every day.’ He stroked his goatee rather theatrically.

  Mr Yanagi gave a modest bow and thanked him.

  ‘You know, I’ve been having off-days recently,’ Mr Kamijo continued. ‘Times like that, I can never decide whether it’d be better to go for a lighter, more mellow tone to cheer me up, or a darker one to match the gloom of my mood.’

  It was some weeks ago that I’d taken on this client – or rather since Mr Yanagi had handed him over to me. I didn’t know the details except that he was a professional pianist. And yet his piano didn’t seem to be played much and wasn’t looked after. He didn’t hang around while I tuned it and requested no particular sound before leaving me to it.
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br />   The previous week he had called the shop to complain that the piano’s lack of resonance must be the result of the different tuner’s work. As it had been over a month since the original tuning, however, the guarantee period for a free retune had officially passed.

  ‘Fine,’ he’d said, ‘but I just want the original tuner to do the job.’

  So there I was, watching as Mr Yanagi worked on the piano. He’d told me I didn’t need to come, but I wanted to see what he did with my own eyes. He was, as ever, wonderfully skilful. As I watched him briskly tuning, I understood why people felt in safe hands when they left things with him. And conversely, I could well understand why they were uneasy leaving their piano in my hands. Even if I produced identical results, I just lacked the same easy confidence.

  ‘You know what improvisation is?’ Mr Kamijo said, using the English word. He was addressing Mr Yanagi.

  ‘Ad libbing.’

  ‘I knew you would know, Mr Yanagi.’ Mr Kamijo gave a fake smile. ‘At the bar I often get requests to improvise. The pieces they want me to ad lib are all pretty tough but I find this type of challenge a real thrill.’

  ‘I see,’ Mr Yanagi murmured, without looking up from his work.

  ‘You know what I’m trying to say, don’t you? What’s important is the improvisation. The audience want you to read their intentions and play in tune with their own wishes and desires at the time.’

  ‘We also do our best to respond to a client’s requirements.’

  Mr Kamijo must have been put out by Mr Yanagi’s rather blunt response as the smile had vanished from his face.

  ‘I mean, this young man is an apprentice, isn’t he?’ he said. ‘Why send him? I make my living with the piano, you know, and I’ve always brought my custom to your company. Do you take me for a fool?’

  Mr Kamijo had raised his voice, and I was now staring at a small hole in the floorboards.

  ‘Tomura is not an apprentice,’ Mr Yanagi responded firmly. ‘He is an official tuner in our company.’

  ‘But he isn’t any good,’ Mr Kamijo insisted.

  ‘He’s young, admittedly, but he knows what he’s doing.’

  Mr Yanagi didn’t budge an inch, but still Mr Kamijo stood there, arms folded, shaking his head.

  The retune came over a month after I’d originally tuned it. Mr Yanagi insisted that Mr Kamijo pay the set tuning fee on this occasion, too, even though he might never ask our company to tune his piano ever again.

  Mr Yanagi and I walked back through the swirling snow to the car park.

  ‘I’m sure that a pianist would get the best sound if he had his own exclusive tuner to adjust his piano every day according to how he feels,’ I said.

  I had the vague sense I was signposting something on the road ahead with this statement.

  ‘For concert halls, perhaps,’ Mr Yanagi said curtly. He was clearly in a bad mood. ‘I don’t think changing the tone according to your mood on a particular day is the way to go at all. The piano is simply not that sort of instrument.’

  He might be right. There are limitations on how a pianist can determine the sound of his instrument. Each piano has its own individual personality. And so do pianists. The optimal sound comes through finding a balance between the two. All a tuner can ask is that a pianist trust in that collaboration between himself and his instrument.

  ‘Say, for example, there’s a really fabulous restaurant.’

  Here we go again, I thought, bracing myself. Mr Yanagi and his metaphors. Most of which had to do with food.

  ‘It’d be so wonderful if they prepared the dishes on the menu according to your physical condition and how you felt that particular day. But if you trust that the restaurant is good, you’re not going to ask them to adjust the flavour to suit how you’re feeling from one day to the next. Would you agree, Tomura?’

  ‘You’re right, I wouldn’t.’

  ‘My point exactly. You go along with what’s on offer on that menu. The customer has to be confident that he’s about to enjoy a reliably delicious combination of dishes.’

  I nodded silently – I knew exactly what he was getting at. But he was able to say this because he had such innate confidence in his own ability.

  ‘With restaurants, of course, they need you to enjoy the food from the very first bite.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘A really skilled chef must take great pains so that not only is the first bite delicious but also the dish continues to taste wonderful, right until the moment you’re scraping the plate. It’s exactly the same with the sound of the piano. You want the first note to take the listener’s breath away but you also want them to enjoy every last note, right to the very end.’

  Not an easy assignment – a taste or a sound that you love from the very first moment, that you still find appealing as it fades into your memory.

  ‘If the tuner lacks focus, though, there’s no way they’ll manage to create a sound that tugs at the listener’s heartstrings from the very first note.’

  Mr Yanagi looked over at me, biting his lip. ‘Don’t let it get to you.’ He patted me on the shoulder. ‘You didn’t do a bad job at all.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  I felt guilty about worrying him. But if my job had been up to scratch, then why did the client complain?

  ‘He was just in a bad mood. It often happens. There’s nothing to be gained by fretting about it.’

  Mr Yanagi seemed on the point of saying something else. He gazed up around the edge of his umbrella at the white sky as he walked, and avoided my eye. ‘Your hard work isn’t all wasted, Tomura.’

  ‘What do you mean? Of course not!’ I blurted out, more loudly than I had intended. Mr Yanagi seemed taken aback, letting out a little ‘What?’ of his own. We came to a halt and faced each other.

  ‘I never thought that for a moment.’

  I was being honest, and Mr Yanagi chuckled.

  ‘I envy you, Tomura. So you’ve never thought it was a wasted effort?’

  His chuckle turned into an enormous belly laugh, and by the time he’d put his hand on the door of the car he was properly roaring with laughter. He looked at me in wonder and asked, ‘You’ve never regretted or looked back on something and wondered if it might have been a wasted effort? I mean, you don’t actually feel the concept of something being wasted?’

  ‘I do understand the word “wasted”,’ I replied hastily.

  ‘Of course you do.’

  ‘But I don’t understand what it refers to.’

  It felt to me as though nothing was a waste, but at the same time everything was on some level a colossal waste. Even working with a piano, and me just being here.

  ‘Look,’ Mr Yanagi said, opening and closing his black umbrella to shake off the flakes that had settled. Hokkaido people don’t usually bother using an umbrella when it’s snowing, but we always tried to carry one to protect our precious cases of tuning tools. ‘So you don’t feel the concept of something being a waste. Take that a step further and it means you don’t truly know the word “waste”.’

  He was climbing into the car, and for some reason a look of wonder came over his face. ‘You don’t know much, Tomura. And yet I feel, conversely, as though you’ve taught me something remarkable and new.’

  ‘Well, you’re welcome,’ I said vaguely, and started the engine.

  There’s no shortcut through the forest. The only way forward is to keep honing your skills, little bit by little bit.

  There were times, however, when I wished – with the utmost fervour – that I was blessed with a miraculous pair of ears and miraculous fingers. Couldn’t those all of a sudden blossom for me one day? How wonderful it would be to actually manage to produce with these hands the kinds of sounds I imagined in my mind. The place I was heading for was so deep within the forest. If only I could get there in a single bound.

  ‘But I still don’t think anything’s a waste.’

  The car inched forwards, scrunching on the thin layer of unseasonal sn
ow as it travelled.

  ‘Sometimes I get the feeling, Tomura, that you’re only pretending to be apathetic, and that really you’re quite the greedy fellow.’ Mr Yanagi tilted his seat back and stretched out leisurely, sighing loudly.

  If piano tuning was a totally individual act, you could think of it in terms of hitting a target. It would be fine to take a taxi to your destination instead of walking – as long as tuning was your only goal.

  But a tuner’s work is not complete once he puts down his tools at the end of a job. It only comes alive when the client plays the piano, and that is why you have to walk and take the slow route. You have to listen to the wishes of whoever is performing, and you can’t expect to get there in a single leap without making any tweaks. You get closer as you check things, one step at a time. You tread that path with utmost care, which is why you leave footprints. At some point you’ll get confused and need those footprints to retrace your steps. You work out how far back you need to go, and where you made your mistake, until you’re satisfied with the adjustments. And you can take someone’s request into consideration and retune on their behalf, too. You will struggle mightily, remember with your ears and your body where and how you went wrong, but en route towards your chosen goal you can still listen to another person’s desires and make those wishes come true.

  ‘Oh.’

  I said this more or less to myself, but Mr Yanagi, who’d been resting with his eyes shut in the passenger seat beside me, sat bolt upright.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘This car doesn’t have snow tyres so drive carefully, will you? I mean, can you believe we’re getting such a snowfall at this time of year?’

  ‘A noodle place with a good reputation,’ I replied.

  ‘What?’

  I thought, They make the taste strong so the first bite is memorable because they don’t know who’ll be eating it. If they knew who was eating it, they could adjust it to suit individual preferences.

  Aloud, I said, ‘Shall we stop by at this noodle place, then?’