Play

by James Comins

Jo no Ha San

  Act II, Scene Three

  Whee-oo-wheeet!

  A whistle.

  Both you and Punch look up. Standing on top of the wood-framed paper screen, balancing, his red cloth slippers bowed around the narrow wood, flapping his arms to keep steady, is Pierrot. Good timing! In his hands is a mop. The mop flops down into your lap.

  Then the wood frame of the paper screen cracks, and the screen rips in half. Pierrot falls, tumbling through his clown pajamas like a magnificently ungraceful white swan into the audience. Rolling to his feet, he plods away, giving you one last wink.

  The saber swings down at your head. Swish! You hold up the mop handle, and the blade gets stuck.

  You slap a million strands of gray yarn into Punch’s face. His nose flops back and forth, boinggg.

  He slashes. You block, clunk.

  Go ahead and take a trick out of Pierrot’s book—roll backward to your feet and hop down off the backstage platform into the night.

  Fade into the darkness. That’s better. Unless Punchinoni can somehow see in the dark, you’ve got a fighting chance. The nearly-white mop head is the only really bright thing, so you unscrew it and toss it into the wooden crawlspace scaffolding that holds the stage up.

  Actually . . .

  Getting down on all fours, you find you can squirm into the woodwork. Bathed in dark, with only the light squeezing down between the two-by-fours for illumination, the narrow space under the stage is an inviting hiding place. You only worry about making noise, and maybe Punch’s giant sense of smell.

  “Fool!”

  shouts Punch somewhere behind you.

  “Each of us can hide from danger forever,

  But until we face up to the world

  We’ll always be running away.”

  Maybe that’s true. Maybe people who run away from danger are just procrastinating. But—and you realize that it’s true as soon as you think it—you aren’t going to run away forever.

  Just long enough to come up with a plan.

  That’s exactly it. You need a plan to defeat Punch. How will you do it?

  Are you going to kill him after all?

  You crawl through the crawlspace, thinking this out. Can you somehow convince the demon to stop killing people? Can you get the police here? Can you scare him away? Can you—

  That last one wasn’t too bad of an idea. Can you scare Punch? What scares an Italian-English-Japanese demon, anyways?

  Ahead of you under the stage, the darkness comes into focus. Beneath every Noh stage is a set of huge clay drums. They're called a nightingale floor, and they amplify every footstep on the stage, so the audience can hear people sneaking around. It makes for good theater.

  It also might make for a good scare.

  Disguising your voice, counting on the resonant nightingale floor to amplify the sound, you say:

  “Wooooo. I’m the phantom of the Noh stage.

  Terrifying and mean, I like to eat demons!

  If there are any demons around here, they better watch out.

  I’ll bite them all in half!”

  The footsteps behind you cease. For a moment you figure it didn’t work at all. But then, quick pattering footsteps run away offstage. It worked!

  “Oh no. Whatever will I do?”

  Punch says, his voice growing fainter.

  “The phantom of the stage! Oh my evil little heart!

  It will surely come and get me! How fearful!

  I had better leave at once!”

  You hear his footsteps fading farther away, like a passing train. You smile to yourself and—

  THUNK.

  The bottom six inches of the saber stabs into the grass an inch from your nose. Scrabbling backwards, your leg gets caught around a wood beam. Desperately you push off, going in the other direction, swimming over the damp grass, and you hear Punch whispering to himself that he missed.

  He must’ve been faking the sound of his feet running away. Throwing his voice. Using the nightingale floor against you. Being a clever liar. He is the Punch, after all.

  THUNK.

  The sword tip pins your shirt. You can’t tug it free without giving away the fact that you’re right below Punchinoni. Through the beams of the stage above you, you see a pair of clawed feet.

  You stay silent, motionless, as still as if you were dead.

  The blade vanishes with a scrape up through the stage.

  This time you don’t run. You just sliiiide backward. Any sound will give you away. You know that now. It'll be amplified. Any sound . . .

  THUNK.

  And you figure maybe you can trick Punch after all.

  “Ouch!”

  you say, softly and distantly, trying to throw your voice.

  “You—you stabbed me!

  It hurts so much!

  Oh no—I died!”

  Gurgles bubble out of your throat, growing quieter as you edge away from the blade. You’ve got this wrapped up. He’s fooled. You can feel it. He thinks he’s won, but you’re almost at the edge of the crawlspace, feeling a brisk night breeze through the new rip in your shirt . . .

  The blade rises through the stage once again.

  “Strange things I’ve heard recently,”

  muses Punch.

  “A little bird told me I just killed someone.

  How peculiar that there’s no blood on my blade.

  Perhaps I’ve been lied to!”

  Drat.

  And:

  Trying to run away? hisses in your ear. With a mind full of thoughts and plans? Where will you take them, where I can't find you?

  No matter. You’re at the edge of the stage. Wiggle out into the wild field beneath the mountain. If you’re really quiet, you can sneak away from here forever, outrun Punch, and trust the Understudy to call the police. Leave the stage behind. Leave the audience behind. Punch can stab the stage to ribbons or read your mind or juggle, for all you care. You’ll be far away from here. Just don't think about where you're going or what you're doing and you'll be safe . . .

  “What ho, young person! Gladly met!

  A fine night for a stroll. Tell me,

  How did you fare at the top of the mountain?

  And have you seen the Emperor lately?”

  That stupid El Daishou. Now Punch knows exactly where you are. Over your shoulder there’s no sound or motion from the other side of the backdrop. Just a silence like listening.

  Should you tell El Daishou the situation, you wonder? Could he help out?

  Frankly, you need all the help you can get. There’s no reason to be proud, not when Pierrot saved your life already. Better to ask for help when you need it than to wait for good luck to return.

  “I didn’t do so well at the top of the mountain

  (Listen, I need your help)

  It’s a lovely evening, El Daishou

  (Somebody’s trying to kill me)

  No, I haven’t seen the Emperor

  (Punch is on the other side of this backdrop)

  What does the Emperor look like?

  (Let’s get out of here),”

  you say.

  The elderly samurai lowers his eyebrows to you and looks you in the eye. His pile of hats are gone, leaving only a red babushka scarf wrapped under his chin. Did he successfully deliver the hats to the Emperor?

  “(I understand)

  Ten feet tall! A thousand men at arms!

  (Do exactly as I do)

  A fleet of ships flying upon the high seas!

  (We need certain supplies)

  Banners! Ribbons! Flags! Bannerets!

  (Just follow beside me and stay close)

  And a noble nose!”

  In his babushka shawl, he leans down and picks up a handful of gravel. Stepping lively, adjusting his scarf under his chin, El Daishou leads you back to the stage. It seems like a dumb thing to do, going to face Punch instead of running far away from him, but the samurai has it all figured out. Every step you take feels like you’re one st
ep closer to getting stabbed by a sword sharp enough to cut a blade of grass in two top-to-bottom.

  From a distance, the audience seems like a faded diorama, like a clumsily-built art project. The solitude is immense, broken only by the jovial El Daishou, who mutters and points out various sights visible from the rim of the backstage platform. There is the Tree of Life. Here is the Sacred Mountain. The stage boards are cut from hinoki wood that had been torn by rain; all of them are prayed for by Buddhist priests, and they've since been replanted. Leaping, you are beside him, following to the shadowy corner of backstage.

  Along the hashigakari.

  Onstage.

  El Daishou spreads sandy pebbles over the center of the stage.

  Where is Punch? He isn’t here. Has he vanished into the audience, or crept behind the crushed paper screens of stage left?

  El Daishou gives you a hand gesture. You look at him, then at the samurai’s hidden thumbs-up. Ohhh. Glancing nightward, you see a dark shape standing on the arches above. El Daishou shakes his head just a little, and you look away.

  "The end of the show. The last hurrah.

  We must prepare for the finale!

  Collect for me a rope, a bucket, a mop-end

  And the largest piece of paper you can find.

  That should be enough for a dazzling display.

  The Grand High Hat-Bearer shuffles downstage toward the audience. Center stage, he shoos you away with his fingers and begins dancing on the pebbles, a foot-sliding softshoe dance. It sounds like maracas. You figure he means for you to go off by yourself again, to go on a treasure hunt for the things he mentioned, although you don't really want to, not with deadly Punch balancing above your head. Those items shouldn't be too hard to find, however. Rope, bucket, mop-end, and a large piece of paper.

  Jogging offstage, you wonder where a rope could be. The Noh theater doesn't have a curtain to drop, so there's no rope for curtains. Likewise the backdrop of the leafy tree doesn't move from its spot, so there aren't any ropes for flying scenery.

  As you wander the backstage area, picking up the red bucket as you pass it, your eyes keep flicking up to the arches above the stage. You're positive you're being followed. A certain orange jester demon is probably swinging from the beams to the peaked roof of the hashigakari, landing softly, crawling over the shingles, descending from that huge hook—

  Of course! That's where the rope is. Every Noh stage is kept ready for "Dōjōji," the play of the haunted temple bell. They use a rope to hang the temple bell from the hook.

  So where's the temple bell?

  It isn't in this backstage area, that's for sure, so you circle around behind the backdrop. Could it have been sitting around this whole time, unnoticed?

  But the more you think about it, the more it seems like something else is missing, too. The Noh play you were performing, of the bumbling farmer Shanne, seemed so solitary. What is it that was missing?

  From the screens above you, a creak croaks.

  Distant El Daishou's soft-shoe dance makes a rhythmic swishing broom sound.

  Coughs come regularly from the cardboard audience, like a slow-motion drummer.

  Across the soaring black sky, night birds begin to call.

  That's what it is.

  Music. You've been performing without music.

  There must be a cabinet around the far side of the stage where the nohkan flute and the shime-daiko drums are stored. It'll be, hmm, like a wooden toybox, probably the same yellow wood as the stage, but there'll be a hinge or maybe a door handle, or even just a big drawer. . . .

  Here's the far side of the stage. You've never seen the audience from this side before. They all look different from the other direction, as if they all had another side they'd kept hidden because you never went looking for it.

  Then:

  "What are you doing here?

  Don't you know this is my private secret thinking spot?

  Why don't you go back to your own side,

  Invader, sullier, nasty nuisance?"

  Columbia's back is pressed to the criscrossed frame under the stage. Her arms are wrapped around her knees. She doesn't seem sensational or magnificent here. She looks lonely. She looks like she needs a friend, or maybe a hug. Her tropical bird hat sits unattended beside her.

  But there isn't time for pleasantries. El Daishou can only distract Punch for so long, if he's distracting him at all. Instead of trying to show off for Columbia, instead of giving her a hug, you say:

  "Do you know where the temple bell is stored?

  And the rope for it, and all the musical instruments?

  I wouldn't ask if it wasn't important.

  I bet you prefer your privacy."

  Columbia casts a baleful eye up at you. Maybe she doesn't care. Maybe she hates you. Maybe there's no hope.

  "I know where they are. There's a big cabinet under the stage.

  Why do you need them? What's wrong?

  Do you need help? I like people who need help.

  Tell me. Just make sure it's the truth."

  Lightly she leaps and lands on her feet. Expectantly she looks to see what you'll say.

  The truth is, you swore you'd kill her best friend. Even if you aren't actually going to kill Punch, you're definitely going to have him taken to the police as soon as the Understudy gets back. She won't like the idea that her best friend is going to be arrested, will she? Lying might be the safer answer. You could say you're planning a surprise parade and need the instruments. Or that you want to know how the bell sounds when it tolls. You could say . . .

  Wait.

  This could be your last chance before the finale to be her new best friend. You know what she likes. She likes people who need her help. She said so. And you do need her help. Maybe she didn't like Punch's stories after all. Maybe she just liked having a friend. And now she has a better one.

  "I'm here to capture Punch. El Daishou's with me.

  Punch attacked my friends, so I had to help.

  Will you help, too? You don't have to.

  But Punch will kill me for standing up to him."

  Columbia seems to draw in all the breath in the world, and the universe seems to shrink around her. You've shocked her. Is she angry at you? Does she hate you? She takes a step back.

  "How do I know?"

  she says, crossing her arms.

  "How do I know he's out to get you?

  What if Punch is the hero, the good guy, the protagonist

  And you're the real villain?"

  So you say:

  "Come with me. Watch him. See his villainy.

  Help me find the things I need.

  I'm not lying. But if I am, you'll see.

  And if I'm right, you'll know I'm a good friend."

  Columbia smooshes up her lips, thinking. Then she nods and says she'll come with you.

  On this side of the stage the soft earth forms a bit of a valley. The underneath of the stage is deeper here, with more criscrosses and room for a large cabinet. As you help her pull open the heavy black cabinet door, you could swear you hear creaks from the beams above you, as if someone were standing on top of them.

  When you look up, there's nothing.

  Inside the cabinet you find a coil of very thick rope, as thick as your wrist, thick enough to hold up a giant bronze bell. Columbia helps you lift the rope up and coil it around your shoulder. The only things you have left to find now are the mop head and a sheet of paper. You can't imagine what El Daishou needs them for.

  You tell this to Columbia, adding that maybe the bell and instruments could come in handy. She could distract Punch with the drums. And the bell is easily big enough to hide under if you needed to. She leaves the bell and the nohkan flute behind. The wind makes sad music as it blows across the mouthpiece. In her free hand she grabs the braided straps of the two big drums, and drumsticks for good measure, and swings them over her shoulder. She's strong.

  The mop head should be where you left it, under the stag
e, you tell her. Together you make your way around the back.

  Here it is. Almost done.

  But a shadow crosses your path as you stoop to put the handful of white yarn into the bucket.

  Clawed feet, a black jester's motley, and a grinning orange face.

  But Punch doesn't speak in his slivery, slinky voice. The voice that comes out is yours—almost. It sounds like your voice if you were trying hard to sound like a really tough boy, then forced through a big tin can on a string.

  "What's going on? Why are you picking up trash?

  Are you going to recycle those? Can I help?

  I like helping. It's my favorite thing.

  Why, looky there—are you going to be playing music?"

  Punch's wheedling real voice hisses in your mind's ear: Look what I can do. I sound as nice as you. She'll believe everything I tell her. I'll never give myself away.

  Columbia gives you a look like she's starting to doubt you. She thinks you're a liar, and it makes you angry. You want to prove you were telling the truth. But you can't, because Punchinoni clearly overheard you and figured out how to trick her. He's playing games.

  If you call him a liar, Columbia will get mad at you again. Maybe it would be better to pretend he's telling the truth. That'll buy you some time, anyways.

  "Why yes, my friend Punch. It's the finale!

  There's going to be lights! Music!

  Why don't you come join Columbia and I?

  It'll be a lot of fun."

  Actually, that's perfect. If Punch goes along with you, then he won't be a threat. He won't risk shocking his friend. And if he doesn't agree to come, he'll look like a bad guy.

  Punch rolls off the stage and lands beside you two.

  "Why, I'd be delighted to!

  Let's go."

  Punch gives those last two words a nasty extra kick, although Columbia doesn't seem to notice. The two follow you backstage. In your hand is the red bucket, in the bucket is the mop head, and around your shoulder is the coil of rope.

  Since both you and Columbia have your hands full, you ask Punch to help out and tear out the paper from one of the paper screens. Blazing orange eyes twist to look at the audience just around the corner, then at the flower-patterned paper between you and them.

  "Tear the paper?"

  Punch whispers.

  "Let the audience see me?

  Here, backstage, where I need not be an actor?

  I couldn't!"

  Is Punch scared? Bashful? Does he need his privacy? Is he self-conscious? Is this Punch's weakness—all the watching people?

  Can you use Punch's weakness against him?

  "Don't be silly, my friend Punch!

  They like to see you.

  Why, the more they see you,

  The happier they'll be!"

  Tentatively a claw touches the paper screen. Gently it scratches down, and in four rectangle slices the flower-printed paper tilts and comes away. Punch's expression changes as multitudes of cardboard audience members peer through at him. He hides from them, wrapping himself up in the paper like a shy birthday present. Were those whimpers of fear?

  Through the open paper screen a white shape flies. Punch lets out a screech, which turns to a snarl as the red pom-poms of Pierrot appear. The clown has somersaulted through the new paper window. The demon seems nervous, having to pretend to be a friend. The clown unfolds and bows to Columbia, then to the demon. His long nightcap flaps like droopy antennae.

  He says:

  "How strange. Our ennemis become amis

  And dreams of tomorrow fade into plain real life.

  Once, we were each all alone. Now we are together.

  What a story our days can be."

  Unexpectedly, big wet tears fall from the stars in Pierrot's painted eyes. You can't seem to bring yourself to ask him why he weeps. Perhaps there's no answer. Perhaps tears are their own answer, sometimes. The clown's makeup streaks, revealing the human skin beneath. With a shiver Pierrot pulls himself together and begins to play his mother-of-pearl concertina.

  "There is no time for tears,"

  Pierrot tells you as the music moans.

  "There is no time for hiding.

  There is only now. The last act. The last hurrah.

  The finale of our show."