The Age of Dreaming

by Nina Revoyr

  One Saturday afternoon in May, we drove up to Santa Barbara to shoot a short promotional film at the behest of our respective employers. We arrived in time to have dinner with the director—a young newcomer from Perennial—and then retired early to our rooms. By 5:00 a.m. we were up again, in order to start shooting at 7:00. The whole process was very short, not even three hours, and by 10:00 the filming was done. At that point, I had not yet spent much time in Santa Barbara—which was still, in 1917, a provincial little town—and it seemed a pity to leave that beautiful area without doing a bit of exploring. So as we checked out of the hotel the studio had arranged, I asked Hanako if she was anxious to return to Los Angeles.

  “No,” she said. “Are you? I’d much rather stay here. Our lives will still be there when we get back.”

  And so we spent the rest of the day there in Santa Barbara, as giddy as children skipping school. Hanako, who loved the ocean, wanted to stroll along the beach, and we walked for two hours up and down that lovely coast, which was wilder than the coastline of Los Angeles. Dark bluffs jutted out over the surface of the sand, and the Santa Ynez mountains stood directly behind us, as green and gentle as the mountains of Japan. It was a gorgeous day, the sun tempered by a cool ocean breeze, and I was glad I had brought a change of casual clothes—linen slacks and a button-down shirt. Hanako wore a fiowered blue short-sleeve dress and a wide-rimmed summer hat, which made her look charmingly young. When we ventured down to the edge of the water and the surf splashed her toes, she laughed with surprise and delight.

  Although the air did not feel especially warm, the sun must have been quite strong, for Hanako noticed that my cheeks were getting red. And so we wandered down State Street until we found a gentlemen’s clothing store, where I tried on several pieces of headwear before choosing a cream-colored hat with a brown cloth strip along the base.

  “He looks quite handsome, doesn’t he?” remarked the middle-aged salesman, who did not appear to know who I was.

  Hanako considered me out of the corner of her eye and replied, “I suppose he looks acceptable.”

  For lunch, we found a café by the edge of the water, where we watched the seagulls and pelicans fighting for space along the railings of the pier. Although our waiter was polite and attentive, it was clear he didn’t realize that he was serving two Hollywood actors. Instead of being offended, we both felt freed, enjoying the novelty of not being watched, of not having to worry that our actions might later haunt us in a gossip column or a studio scolding.

  “And our special of the day is a salmon,” our young waiter recited, “served with a dill sauce as well as locally grown rice and greens.”

  “I’ll have the salmon,” I decided.

  “Wonderful. And what would you like to drink with your meal, Mr.—”

  “Tanaka,” I said, which drew a smile from Hanako, before I told him I preferred white wine.

  “Perfect. The salmon and a glass of Chardonnay.” Then, turning to Hanako: “And what about Mrs. Tanaka?”

  We lingered over our meals, each of us drinking two glasses of wine, watching the boats move slowly across the bay. Neither of us was ready yet to make the trip back home, and when the waiter told us about a cultural event taking place that afternoon, we decided on the spur of the moment to go. The Santa Barbara Community Arts Association, comprised of writers, artists, musicians, and patrons, was having its inaugural celebration at a place called Book Haven, which he assured us was a worthy destination in itself.

  And so we followed his directions away from the beach, driving until we’d passed beyond the outskirts of town, so far I thought he’d somehow been mistaken. But then finally we came upon a large wooden sign with the words Book Haven carved into it. We turned down a gravel driveway through a thicket of oaks, driving into an old, dense forest. At the end of the driveway we saw a sprawling one-story house whose outward-facing walls were lined with book-shelves. The area in front of the house was filled with haphazardly parked cars, and we squeezed into a space about halfway up the drive.

  “Where’s the store?” I asked, confused.

  “I believe we just found it,” said Hanako.

  I felt uncertain, as if we’d come not to a place of business but to a forest home of sprites and talking creatures. Hanako must have felt it too, for she slipped her hand through my arm, and that is how we entered. But once we were inside, our nervousness evaporated. There were books everywhere—against every wall, in every nook and cranny. Indeed, the house had been completely overrun by books, as if by a particularly lush and fast-growing ivy. The structure itself was fragmented, single rooms joined by open patios and a stone-covered courtyard, with book-shelves lining even the outside connecting walls. These walls were covered—as were the exterior walls—with a narrow shingled roof just wide enough to keep the books dry. The courtyard was filled with potted plants, and the light that filtered through the mingling branches of the oaks gave one the feeling of being inside and outside at once.

  “Welcome to Book Haven,” said a young fiaxen-haired woman as we entered, and she smiled at us like everyone had smiled that day, genuine and friendly and unknowing.

  The central courtyard was crowded with dozens of people, all listening to a stern, mustachioed man who was giving a formal speech. We sat there for perhaps five minutes as he expounded on the importance of philanthropic support for cultural institutions, and although Hanako was too polite to complain, I could feel her impatience as undeniably as I felt my own. We did not wish to be listening to anyone’s speeches on this stolen and beautiful day. And so I got her attention and nodded toward a side door, and we slipped into one of the rooms.

  “This is such a wonderful place,” she whispered. “It’s unfortunate we didn’t come on a different day.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I replied, keeping my voice down as well. “Look, we’re in the Drama section. Aren’t you searching for a new play?”

  “I’m appearing in one now,” she said in a scolding tone, “which Nakayama-san doesn’t seem to remember.”

  “I do remember!” I turned a corner and found that the room opened unexpectedly into another, larger room; over the door there was a sign that read, Literature. “It’s just that I’ve been so absorbed in novels of late. Look—here’s Tolstoy. May I read you War and Peace?”

  “Not if you expect to return to Los Angeles this month.”

  “I didn’t mean the whole thing. A passage.” I slipped behind a bookcase and Hanako followed; we might have been the only people in the store. I read her the opening pages of War and Peace, which I had loved so much as a young man, and which—along with so many other books I’d admired—I had not so much as looked at in years. As I read I leaned closer to her, self-conscious about my enthusiasm, and when I looked up I was surprised to see Hanako’s face just inches from my own.

  “Too many characters and battle scenes,” she said, fiushing a little. Then she slipped around the corner and entered yet another room, where she found a row of the Brontë sisters in new leather-bound editions. “This is more to my taste,” she said, pulling Jane Eyre off the shelf and reading me the opening passage.

  “Too many tortured souls and dusty old houses,” I teased.

  “You’re quite hopeless,” she said, shaking her head at me.

  We kept turning corners and stumbling into new rooms, which themselves were divided by ceiling-high bookshelves behind which we lost one another. It was a honeycomb of a building, segmented and layered, and every time we found each other again I felt both surprise and relief. Twice we ran into other people looking at books— people who, like us, had left the event, or who had come to the bookstore just to browse—and both times we were so startled that we burst into laughter as the shoppers glared at us like unruly children.

  After we had each read several passages from favorite books, only to have the other reject them, we finally found some works that we admired in common, by Dickens and Flaubert. Off the side of one of the catacomb rooms we found
a small patio; we sat in its two wrought iron chairs and read from Great Expectations. I hadn’t read a novel in many months, let alone out loud, but we easily got lost in the story. We stayed there in the shade of the oak trees for an hour or more, easing into a peace I never felt in the course of my everyday life. But then the event broke up and people started wandering through, interrupting our perfection. And so we left our chairs regretfully and put the books back and then slowly made our way to the car.

  As we drove back to Los Angeles in the fading light, I said, “Thank you for the afternoon, Minatoya-san. My earlier claims aside, it has been a long time since I’ve read anything but a shooting script.”

  Hanako turned to me, the ribbon of her hat now tied beneath her chin, her hands folded together on her lap. “It wouldn’t hurt you to vary your forms of entertainment. There is more to the world than pictures.”

  “I know,” I said. “There are just so many demands on my time.”

  “When is the last time you went to the theater?”

  I sighed. “Far too long. And as you know, I’m particular about the theater. Having started there, like you, I am hard to please.”

  “You have not seen one of my own productions in years, Nakayama-san.” Although her voice was lighthearted, the admonishment was clear. I remembered what she had said earlier, about my not knowing she was currently appearing in a play, and I was surprised by the realization that my attendance mattered to her. I wanted to respond that I doubted she’d seen all of my films, but I knew that the two were not equal. Hanako wanted me to attend—she cared what I thought—and the more I pondered it, the more I was baffled myself as to why I hadn’t seen her perform in so long.

  And that is how I found myself, a few weeks later, attending one of Hanako’s plays. She had written an original work called The Bottomless Well, and she was appearing in the leading role. It was no small matter that this production was at the Pasadena Playhouse, which was already one of the theater’s most respectable venues. But Hanako’s reputation had grown to such an extent that even theaters which didn’t normally feature Japanese topics were clamoring to present her latest work.

  It was a beautiful night in early June. The air was cool and the San Gabriel Mountains hovered so close that you could see their dark shapes against the sky. I was almost reluctant to go inside, but I slipped into the theater—as I always did on such occasions—just as the lights went down, in order to avoid the stares of curious fans. At Hanako’s request, the management had reserved a seat for me in the exact center of the theater, close enough to discern the expressions on all the players’ faces, high enough to take in the entire stage. I had not seen Hanako perform in a play for almost a decade, since I was a student in Wisconsin. So much had changed for both of us in the intervening years that it was as if we’d both become different people.

  And yet we hadn’t. For when Hanako stepped out onto the stage and the spotlight focused on her, it was as if time had collapsed and I was a college boy again, watching the work of an accomplished professional. And for the next ninety minutes I was utterly transported, completely captured by this woman and her story.

  The play was set in a small fictional town in rural Japan. Hanako’s character, Reiko, was a young woman of eighteen, living with her parents and younger brother on a small and struggling farm. Then her father is killed by a member of the yakuza in a dispute over land, and the yakuza, played convincingly by Kenji Takizawa, sets his eyes on the young girl’s mother. It is clear that if drastic measures aren’t taken, the women will lose the farm. But Reiko, who is a talented artist, begins teaching calligraphy to the children of the wealthy citizens in the nearby town. After many months of tireless work, she begins instructing not just the children, but also their parents; and then starts selling some of her own work to wealthy families in Kyoto. In this way she is able to support her family and save the farm. When a young nobleman comes along and finally scares off the yakuza, it seems inevitable that he will ask for her hand in marriage. He does—but in the play’s most unusual development, Reiko declines his proposal. She does not wish to desert her mother or brother, and refuses to put her fate—or that of her hard-won farm—into the hands of a total stranger. In the end the family stays just as it was—mother, daughter, and son—still working diligently to keep their small farm, and remaining independent.

  As the play unfolded before me, I grew more and more impressed—by Hanako’s writing, by the actors who brought the other characters to life, by the simple but effective sets that evoked a farmhouse in the country, even by the subtle, effective lighting. I was surprised by the plot she’d constructed, and realized that the content of the play—and not just Pasadena’s interest—affected Hanako’s decision not to present it in Little Tokyo. It was a risk both personally and theatrically, and I greatly admired her courage.

  And her acting! Because I had only seen her in pictures for so long, I’d forgotten about her sheer presence on stage. She played the part of the grieving but determined Reiko with such love and conviction that the audience—even I— forgot she was acting. Indeed, the scene where she comforts her mother after learning of her father’s death, only weeping when she is finally alone; and the scene where she walks the three miles to town, determined to find employment to save the farm, were both played with such sincere and believable emotion that I wondered inevitably how much of them were drawn from life, were created out of her own losses. But Reiko showed more emotion about the events that befell her family than Hanako had ever displayed. There was an openness and vulnerability in the character on stage that was never evident in the actress who portrayed her.

  I was, quite simply, in awe—of Hanako’s acting, of the courage and grace of the story, of the fact that she had written it at all. There was something so stripped down and pure about her work, a quality not present in the gloss and artifice of her films. This, I thought, almost trembling, is a true work of art. And Hanako, a genuine artist.

  After the play was over—after a standing ovation and three drawn-out curtain calls—I was ushered into a hallway backstage. I waited patiently for perhaps twenty minutes or so, signing autographs for the Playhouse staff and congratulating Kenji Takizawa and the other actors as they left to go home for the evening. Then, finally, Hanako emerged.

  She had totally changed in my eyes—not just from the part she had played on stage, but from the person I had known even hours before. She looked the same, and yet everything about her—her eyes, her expression, even her posture—was infused with a different meaning. As she approached me, she looked cautious, as if bracing herself for what I might say. She needn’t have worried. It was all I could do to keep myself from kneeling down before her.

  “Minatoya-san,” I said, bowing deeply and hiding my suddenly crimson face. Our ease of a few weeks earlier was gone; I felt awkward and entirely humbled. “You have out-done yourself. Words cannot express.”

  “Thank you, Nakayama-san,” she responded, bowing in return. “It really is not very significant.”

  “On the contrary. Your characterization, the story, are both admirable.”

  “Really, it is the other players who are worthy of notice.”

  We continued along with this somewhat stilted conversation, and I found myself unable to say what I was thinking, or to even fully grasp what that was. But I was struck now by the difference between this Hanako in front of me and the one I’d just observed on stage. For she possessed herself again. The curtain was drawn. All signs of passion and vulnerability had been taken in, like a bright, rippling fiag that’s been lowered, folded, and neatly stored away for the night. And this controlled, contained person bore little resemblance to the pained and open character on stage. I knew that what I’d watched was simply a depiction; that her seemingly open persona invited viewers to think they were truly seeing her. I also knew that Hanako intended that confusion, that complete identification with the character. Yet there was something in the extreme guardedness she exhibited now that
immediately shut off that invitation. She so discouraged any suggestion that her play was related to life that I wondered which Hanako—the one on stage or the one in front of me now—was real; which one wore the true face and which the mask.

  I wanted to say something, to tell her something, to express what I thought and felt. I wanted to ask her a million questions, but did not know where to begin. I wanted to say how much I admired her, still; how her work both shamed and inspired me. But I could not even bring myself to look at her directly, let alone speak in such rash and indulgent terms. So I said nothing. I simply congratulated her again, and after one final bow, excused myself and exited the theater.

  But as I walked down the steps of the Playhouse and back into the beautiful night, I found, to my surprise, that I was whistling. And instead of returning directly to my car, I walked and walked under the star-filled sky through the streets of Pasadena, while dozens of mockingbirds filled the night with their exuberant songs.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I suppose I should take a moment to discuss more fully the state of Hanako’s career. It had been, by 1917, five years since we’d met; five years since we had appeared together in those early films for William Moran. Since then, however, our trajectories had been markedly different. While the relative size of her roles and the significance of her films remained essentially the same, my own films grew bigger and bigger. Part of the difference may have been attributable to her being a woman. The most common parts available to lead actresses at the time were charming comic figures, or plucky heroines, or romantic leading ladies—roles for which Hanako, being Japanese, could of course not be considered. In addition, Hanako seemed reluctant to make strategic decisions that would have advanced her career. Rather than move to one of the large new studios, for example, she re-signed with Moran, whose pictures had been decreasing in both frequency and profit as they competed with Perennial and Goldwyn. Thus, while Hanako continued to receive positive notices, she appeared too infrequently—and in films too insignificant—to remain in the top tier of actresses.