Pearl Buck - Bridge for Passing

I slap all the dull routine of their being told to come back and do it over again because of the cameraman’s locking the camera so that he could not pan and then his thinking something was wrong with the camera and the American saying bitterly that the only thing wrong was the cameraman, and all such small talk. Let me tell only of sitting there in the rain, that slanting rain which Hokusai loved so well to portray in his prints. Surrounded by the green and terraced hills and the higher mountains swathed in clouds, and gazing out over the endless sea, I watched for the boats to return and saw them as they rounded the end of the breakwater. How beautiful they were, how superb in shape and speed and grace! Three men sat in each boat, all rowing, not the choppy rowing of western boats, but smoothly as a fish swims, these rowers never lifted their oars from the water. I studied the rhythm of those oars. It was in contrapuntal thirds, no oar moving at exactly the same instant as the other, and yet all movement flowing. Suddenly I recognized the rhythm — it was that of the fins of a fish. The boats moved through the sea as a fish moves by its fins. I felt the deep satisfaction of right conclusion. That is exactly what it was and I was slow not to know it until this late date in my life, although I have been watching such boats since I was a child, spending my summers in Japan.

The boats put out to sea again in a long row. They turned to the left as the bay turns until they were hidden by a rocky point, upon which stood by accident the figure of a man, solitary and unknown, looking toward the horizon. What beauty! It is enough for this day. I thank God, and may I see beauty all my life as clear as this!

I went back in grateful silence, I remember, and had my bath and dinner. The bathroom was big and two small windows, opaquely glazed, opened to the pool outside. I could hear the swimmers shouting and laughing while I bathed. Floor and walls of white tile, and the tub was a square of tiled cement four feet square and as deep, one end raised to make a seat and so keep my head above water. It was always full of hot mineral water, soothing to the skin. But why do I talk of the tub? I knew better than to step into it without the proper preparation, which was to fill a small wooden tub with water, sit upon a small bamboo stool in the middle of the tiled floor with the little tub before me, soap myself thoroughly, and pour water over myself. Only then was I fit for the big tub. When I stepped out of it every ache and touch of fatigue was gone. I was mended, and I was renewed.

That evening I sat by my window, I remember, dressed in a cool yukata, and heard the swimmers in the pool outside plunge and shout and laugh. I had that day been steeped in beauty, and now it was unbearable because I could not tell him about it. Perhaps he knew — but if he could not communicate his awareness to me, how was I to be comforted? I had, I thought, been doing so well and suddenly I knew I had not.

“It does not get better,” a widowed friend had warned me. “It gets worse.”

What does worse mean? How could it be worse than this? I wanted suddenly to wipe away all remembrance of beauty, and yet I am one who cannot live without beauty — and I do not allow myself to weep. I thought I had been doing well. I felt he must be proud of me, if he were watching somewhere, afar off. Now I needed help again and badly. Where to find it? Beauty had undone me, had made me weak with longing. Strangers must again be my refuge. I took off the yukata, slipped into my own dress and went to wandering on the streets again, alone.

Not far from the back door of the hotel, down a narrow cobbled street, I discovered the motion picture theater. It was the only one in town, and a very good one, the stage spacious, the seats comfortable. As a courtesy, the owner had sent word that we were to enter without tickets so long as we were in Obama, and as the days passed I grew into the habit of slipping across the street in the cool of the night, and choosing a seat beside a red-lacquered pillar. Around me were the Japanese crowd, mostly men, since there were no bars in Obama and this was perhaps their only relief from crying children and over-burdened wives. True, there were three old geisha in the city but they were more or less honorary and had become respectable members of the community now that they had retired from active business. Certainly they could not be considered sources of relaxation for tired business men.

The pictures were revelatory. The mildest and most artistic films in Japan, I fear, are those sent abroad for foreign consumption. The real stuff is kept at home and especially for the remoter areas, of which we in Obama were certainly one. Emotions on the screen were violent, primitive, repetitive and for me highly amusing. Everything was over-colored, literally as well as symbolically. The reds were the color of blood, the greens poisonous, the blues sulphurous. Equally extreme was the action. One rape was never enough for a single film. I sat through evenings when the same girl was raped two and three times by one man or by various men. Gun shooting, obviously copied from our wild-western shows, was far more wild. Everybody shot everybody until only one man remained and then he shot himself. A good evening’s entertainment seemed to be when all the women were raped and all the men killed. The audience then gave a sigh of happiness and rose in a state of dream to return to their wives and children. Yet these same men were always delicately courteous to a stranger and gently polite to one another. The Japanese nature is not so much complex as simply contradictory.

Reflecting upon the raw emotions I observed without sharing, it seemed to me that jealousy was the predominant passion, with rape and murder the inevitable result. I would laugh at this, except that I now recall an incident in my own household, known as the Affair of the Wooden Plate.

We went to Scandinavia one year, he and I, on a combined pleasure and business trip and stopped in Copenhagen to visit some friends. At dinner on our first night I admired some beautiful wooden plates and expressed a desire to purchase a dozen for our Pennsylvania home. This I did, the very next morning, and had them sent off direct. When we reached home the twelve wooden plates were already there, unpacked and waiting, and they were even more beautiful than I had remembered, and we used them at our first breakfast. The children had got up earlier that morning and had breakfasted with their nurse, since we had arrived late the night before. There were only the two of us then, he and I.

For years after that breakfast my children, my housekeeper, and other odd persons persisted in asking me why there were only eleven wooden plates and for years I was vague in my replies. Eleven plates? Were they sure there were only eleven plates? I must count them myself — et cetera.

The truth is that I knew there were only eleven wooden plates. When he and I began breakfast that morning there were twelve but when we finished there were eleven. This is how it happened — and I begin by saying that it is wonderful and by the grace of God that a fault in one’s beloved is no impediment to true love. Thus I acknowledge that this was his only fault — or nearly his only one, except that, as I have said he could not hammer a nail without banging his thumb black and blue, so that he sensibly followed my advice and gave up hammers entirely. This only fault then, was jealousy! At first it made me laugh, since I have never understood jealousy. If he, for example, had fallen in love with someone other than me, or had simply been temporarily attracted, I cannot imagine myself being jealous. If the beloved can find something better than he already possesses, how can one have the heart to deprive him of that joy? As for temporary attraction — well, one can always think about something else while it goes on and there are many enjoyable pursuits for which life provides all too little time. Music can fill twenty-four hours a day, so can sculpture and gardening, especially roses and camellias — so can reading and writing and improving the looks of one’s house and walking through the woods and motoring and flying and swimming and sailing in ships and, above all, conversation with interesting persons.