Frances Itani - Requiem

After a few minutes, the gravel narrows to become a dirt track that leads through more woods and then into a clearing at the top of the hill. I stop the car before an open space that appears to be—in this unlikely place—an old lodge, clearly on the edge of ruin. Steps of flaking concrete, a fence that leans inwards, the tips of the pointed boards teetering against a mound of dirt in the yard. At the right, a path leads to two side-by-side cabins. A rusting half-ton pickup has been abandoned beside the toppled fence. A small van is parked in front of one of the cabins.

I stop the Beethoven tape reluctantly, because it is in its third movement, which seems to be asking a series of spirited questions. Each, in turn, met with forceful response. The delicacy of the back-and-forth sequence that follows is a part I love because it moves towards strength. The theme never lets go. I have a sudden yearning for Okuma-san and wish he were beside me now to listen to this recording. If he were alive, he’d be ninety-eight years old. Older than Miss Carrie, who admits only to being born after the turn of the century, while Okuma-san was born one year before. Sometimes, I imagine the two of them meeting and I create conversations they might have had. Would Miss Carrie have made Okuma-san laugh? Sometimes, perhaps. My memory calls up his face but what I see is intensity, not laughter. Intensity and, yes, wisdom and caring.

I stretch my way out of the car and open the back for Basil, who immediately relieves himself against the fence and heads for the front steps like some hirsute cousin who is returning for a reunion after a long absence. It might be my imagination, but he looks shaggier than usual. Dirtier and smellier, too. I rap at the door, lean down and give warning: “Make an impression, will you? A good one. This is our one hope for a bed tonight.”

Basil is accepted, odour and all, not only in the cabin but in the tea room, too. For that’s what it is, as proclaimed by a homemade sign taped to the desk, with the inked and unexpected words: OFFICE AND TEA ROOM.

I pay cash in advance to a heavily bearded man, and an image arises: Rip Van Winkle . And then I think, No, Rip wouldn’t be wearing a Viyella shirt, nor would he have strands of shredded wheat lodged in his grey beard . Strands that are so caught up, they’re growing in the same direction. Not a good sign.

I utter a silent prayer that this specimen of manhood is not involved in food production. His mouth is closed, the sound of his nasal breathing like water rattling through pipes. He nods, grunts, has no words to spare, and I wonder if he’s verbally challenged or if shredded wheat is lodged in his vocal cords, as well. He disappears into a back room and I go out to the car, grab a flashlight and a few things I’ll need for the night, and take them to the cabin. I feed Basil a bowl of dog meal on the braided rug by the door and mix in a tin of meat to make up for the surrounds. He gobbles this in seconds, gulps half a bowl of water, lifts his hairy face and crosses the room, dripping a trail of water that I don’t bother to wipe up. I pick up the book of letters I’ve brought to read, lock the door—which doesn’t fit the jamb—and bring Basil with me to the tea room. If I leave him alone in an isolated cabin under the trees, he’ll moan and bark and fling his body at the door. Or worse, tear the rug to shreds and have us evicted.

Surprisingly, we are not the only ones in the tea room. A young woman with a single golden braid down her back is chatting with another the same age, maybe early twenties. Both, I’m relieved to see, are clean. No shredded wheat in sight. They are sitting at the table nearest the entrance and nod as we come in, more to Basil than to me. The second young woman is bony and angular, with long brown hair. One of her eyes is half-closed, which gives the odd impression of imbalance. On the wall behind the cash register, a hand-printed sign has been pinned to a corkboard with an open safety pin: ANITA WILL READ YOUR TEA LEAVES.

Rapunzel and Anita , Lena would say. Look out for the sisters Grimm. They could be in disguise .

There are only four tables in this spacious room, which must have been a dining room in grander times. The lodge windows look down over the hill I’ve just driven up. There are woods on both sides of the gravel road. Woods the thickness of the ones Henry and I used to prowl with homemade bows and arrows around the camp when we were children, pretending to stalk bear and cougar. Two of the tables here offer a view of a creek below and a walking path that approaches from another angle. The creek looks wide enough to be a small river. I’ll check the map later, maybe hike down in the morning and give Basil some exercise. I take a seat by the window and face the setting sun, only to be met by another unlikely sight. Two women are climbing the path. Given the shrinking light, they’re in silhouette but definitely heading upwards. Basil coils himself at my feet and closes his eyes as if he wants no part of the experience. Rapunzel and her friend don’t seem to be bothered by the overheated room. I sling my jacket over the back of my chair, and I’m still too warm.

The menu is handwritten and the hours of the place, which doesn’t have a name, are printed across the bottom: Your welcome—4 to 7 in the evening p.m .

Rapunzel is suddenly standing beside my table, her attitude suggesting that I’ve interrupted her conversation. From two choices on the menu, I order a large bowl of chili and a cup of coffee. She disappears behind a painted door and I hear older female laughter in the kitchen.

Uneven light is sparkling up from the creek. I wonder about the place; it must have a history, a story, many stories. If Lena were with me, she’d amuse me by inventing her own. The women who were climbing the trail now enter the room somewhat flushed, greet me—Basil raises his head momentarily and gives a low moan—and sit at the window table in front of mine. They might be in their forties or fifties—I can’t guess ages anymore, not with accuracy, though I don’t know when I lost the ability. They order small bowls of chili and a large pot of tea. The tea is wanted before the meal. It’s impossible not to hear every word, though they’re trying to keep their voices low. It’s obvious that they’re staying in the other cabin for the night and were out for exercise and fresh air. The van must belong to them. From their mutterings, it sounds as if they are not pleased with the state of their cabin.

I’d like to enjoy my own silence, but it’s difficult to focus on the page in front of me. Okuma-san used to talk about the more famous of Beethoven’s letters that he had come across when he was a young student in Europe. Many of the letters, Okuma-san read in German; some were read in translation. When a complete set was published in English in the sixties, I ordered the set for his birthday. The three volumes came back to me after his death in 1967, along with his other sparse belongings.

But I find myself reading the same lines over and over. The letter is addressed to a child and makes a case for the true artist having no pride, only a blurry sort of awareness of how far he is from reaching his goal. I can identify with the part about the goal, but I’m unable to block out the conversation at the next table, and look up.

The women are wearing bulky cardigans, obviously knit by the same person, in tones of beige and faded cocoa. Eagles have been knitted into the design, but these once regal birds are adorned with long, limp beaks that droop like useless appendages. If I were to give the sweaters a title it would be Eagles made impotent . The women now shed the cardigans because of the heat of the place. The woman facing me has iron-grey hair and a too-cheery look, as if she’s recently learned that every aspect of life is truly laughable. Her eyelids flutter so rapidly, I wonder if she has a neural problem. The fluttering intensifies when she speaks.