Pearl Buck - Bridge for Passing

Arriving at the farmhouse, an appreciative audience awaiting us, we entered the gate every morning and found everything ready for us. The family had got up, put away their beds, made breakfast and departed for the day. From time to time some of them would come and see what we were doing, but courtesy forbade comment, whatever they thought. The surrounding villagers, however, frankly came to stare and they came in relays.

The first crowd, the early one, was always school children. Obviously they had risen early and were stopping on their way to school. They were mannerly and silent, their eyes unblinking. Precisely at a quarter past eight they left us in a body to begin school at half past. The next contingent were mothers, who by this time had put their houses in order and planned lunch. They arrived with babies strapped to their backs, and were not quite so mannerly. They could not refrain from whispered exclamations and laughter smothered behind their hands. They left, also promptly, at half past eleven in order to see that their working husbands were fed. About three o’clock grandparents and village elders arrived, after food and naps, to spend the rest of the afternoon with us. They were joined at five by the working fathers, whose day was done. These stayed with us faithfully until we left about seven.

On our part, we began filming as soon as the cameras were set up, moving from room to room as the story required. The make-up man and his assistant kept a zealous watch on the actors, lest the heat cause cream and rouge to run in rivulets down their faces and spot their costumes — a true artist and a charming man, our make-up man, with his secret formulas and brushes made by his own hands. I found one of those fine brushes on the beach after the work was over, and he had gone back to Tokyo, and I kept it for memory’s sake. It is made of bamboo, splinter fine, and set with a narrow line of the best bristles.

Sound effects, throughout the day, were our bane. The ox lowed at the wrong time, the goat baa-ed too often, though merely to be friendly. As for the chickens, we gave up on them. Nothing could restrain them and consequently they will cackle happily throughout the farmhouse scenes wherever the film is shown.

The day’s work went on until luncheon arrived from the hotel and we broke for an hour. The heat was frightening in August and we sat under the big persimmon tree in the front yard, a small space between the massive gate and the house, but there we all sat, some on the rise of the house, some on stones and stumps and sides of the cart. Each lunch was served separately and self-contained in a handsome lacquered box, the top layer containing fish and bits of browned meat, vegetable and pickle, and the bottom layer steamed white rice. Great pots of tea, with handles wrapped against the heat in thin strips of bamboo, completed our more than adequate meal. We ate with Japanese chopsticks, bamboo, sealed in waxed paper and thrown away after each use, surely the most sanitary eating utensils in the world.

In twenty minutes the meal was over and for the rest of the noon hour the farmhouse was quiet. Crew and actors were stretched out on the tatami, like sardines, asleep. I found a quiet ledge behind a little table, close by the back room, and lay looking out at the mountains lifted against the sky. White clouds floated against the blue and cast their floating shadows. It seemed a dream that I was here, that I was seeing my little book come to life in the country where it was conceived, my people now living Japanese people playing out my story.

That August heat! How restless the wild creatures were! Across the human voices the loud and ardent screech of a cicada shocked our sound man again and again. For me, it was a cry that summoned nostalgic memory of the hot summers of my childhood on the banks of the Yangtze River. Whenever the cicadas gave their screeching, seesawing cries, one knew that the summer was at its height. From then on we could only hope some day for a cool wind, even for a typhoon. The sound man, however, was furious with the cicada in the farmhouse yard. He shouted and half a dozen of the crew leaped at the big persimmon tree and knocked its branches with bamboo poles. For five minutes the lusty insect was quiet and then we heard its screech begin to saw the air. This time the men climbed the persimmon tree and shook it until leaves began to fall and the green fruit trembled. For at least half an hour the cicada was prudent and then it began all over again its endless song. But we were beset with other creatures. A proud cock announced the birth of every egg his harem laid. Chicks quarreled and squawked. Among the ever-watching crowd, a baby cried and had to be removed.

One day we had a bit of luck. As our little Setsu came flying out of the farmhouse gate, her kimono sleeves her wings, the oldest woman in the world chanced to come by, bent under a load of sticks of firewood. She had a beautiful old face, wrinkled and brown, but her eyes were as young as life itself. We invited her to be in our picture, she accepted graciously and posed, straightening herself for the occasion and clinging to her tall staff while her gay old face assumed nobility. Our assistant make-up man in mistaken zeal rushed to arrange the folds of her kimono, which had fallen open to show a glimpse of ancient breasts, but we shouted at him to put it as it was before, and so we have her picture. She is walking along the road, bent under her load while the child Setsu runs past. We wanted to pay her, but were assured that it would hurt her feelings. The most that could be done with dignity was to give her some packages of cigarettes, which we did, and she went her way.

Rain and sun alternated through the days. Our actors worked well and they became a working group. We began to express the characters and we lived in the story. I remember one day that ended with the bringing home of Toru, after the tidal wave, when the young lad waked from his stupor, and inquired where his father was and where his mother. A sudden comprehending emotion swept the actors together. They knew, they understood all too well. Tears fell from the actress mother’s eyes, and I felt a catch in my own throat for suddenly they had portrayed a moment of utter reality.

The last scene of that burning day was outside in the barnyard. It was nearly twilight, the crowd was now several hundred people of all ages. They ringed us around, always quiet and respectful, while the actors prepared the set, complete with cart, ox, produce and farm family. This time our family included Setsu’s pet duck and her dog. The duck, which in the script is a little duck, in reality turned out to be a huge duck, the great-grandfather of all living ducks, and when our Setsu struggled to hold him under her arms I was reminded of Alice in Wonderland and the flamingo in the croquet game with the Duchess. The dog, a gay fox terrier type — although the tail was wrong, so I did not know quite what it was — would not gambol about harmlessly as it was supposed to do, but insisted upon chasing chickens madly, thereby upsetting a mother hen with a large family of chicks, not to mention an unknown number of white pullets, who apparently had never seen a dog before. The duck was carried off stage by Setsu, and the dog controlled and chastened and the scene proceeded.

At this moment I heard human cackles behind me as Father unloaded the cart. The cackles were hoots of laughter from two dirt farmers in the crowd who were overcome with amusement at Father’s unrealistic handling of the pole and two baskets. They obviously did not believe in him as a fanner. As for Mother, when she appeared it was the women’s turn to laugh. Not one of them was pretty, and Mother was pretty. So how could she be a farmer’s wife? It was a question. Perhaps Mother was too pretty. But can a woman be too pretty in a movie?