Jesse Ball - Silence Once Begun

INT.

But why do you say that he can’t be trusted? I’m sorry, I don’t see …

MRS. ODA

That he thinks everyone should receive the same treatment, regardless of what they did or what they say? Or that it doesn’t matter what anyone does — it all ends up the same? Maybe he has changed some things about himself, but a boy is a boy. He is still the same one he was. Don’t tell him that I told you this. Or do. I guess I don’t know.

(She roots around in her bag and brings out an old soup spoon.)

MRS. ODA

This is it, I thought I would bring it to show you. For some reason, he would always have this spoon go on and on. It was like the spoon was trying the most to convince him. But it never did. I would be sitting in the next room and listening as he would play this game. I would listen to the whole game. Every time I listened, from beginning to end. The things he would have them say, you couldn’t believe. But this spoon was always the one with the most elaborate excuses, the most long-winded little speeches. Always it was the same, though. Don’t open your mouth again, or I will have you killed. I really pitied the spoon, so, so I still have it.

INT.

It is a keepsake, from Jiro’s childhood. That’s a good thing to have, and a good reason to have it.

MRS. ODA

Oh no, I don’t think of it that way. I rescued it from him. I don’t think he cared about the spoon at all.

[ Int. note . I had attempted to speak with the father on many occasions. He would agree over the telephone to meet, and then the day would come and he would simply not arrive. His wife gave many excuses: his declining health; the difficulty of travel; the day was hot, etc. When we spoke again on the telephone he would act confused. He had not known we were to meet, etc. After perhaps nine or ten such assignations, he finally arrived. He was extremely thin and small, hardly the dominating force that he had seemed to be from his family’s accounts of him. However, when he spoke, there was a certain forcefulness there. Like his son, he appeared to distrust and dislike me. He felt that I was attempting to trick Mrs. Oda into telling me things that I shouldn’t hear. He had come to set things straight. I was not to listen to the things that Mrs. Oda said. He wanted to make that clear. He was going to tell me some things, and that would be that. The things he would tell me would take the place of what Mrs. Oda had said, and certainly should take the place of whatever nonsense his son was feeding me. He was surprised to hear that Minako had spoken to me. He did not know she was in the country, and seemed confused by the news. It took a little while to get him back on track. He preferred to speak in the yard, so occasionally on the tape there is the sound of traffic in the distance. He said that when one was his age, any day with a fine afternoon sun like that had to be used. One had to use things when one had them, so he said.]

INT.

Where shall we begin?

MR. ODA

I was not surprised when I heard the news, when I was told by our neighbor that someone had seen my son taken away to the police station. I can tell you that, Mr. Ball. I was not surprised at all. If these things took others by surprise, well, they did not take me by surprise.

INT.

Why were you not surprised? How could you possibly have guessed that such a thing would happen?

MR. ODA

I have always known that something terrible was going to come. Until then our life had gone well. I was living in the shadow of this thing, this terrible thing that no one else could see. But, I knew that it was coming. Fishermen are not like other people. We can tell things; not like priests. I am not saying we are special or deserve any regard. We deserve no regard. In fact, one might say we are the lowest ones, drudging around in the water for a lifestyle that keeps one’s family poor, that never amounts to anything. But we do see things. Sometimes we see them before they happen. It is not reliable. It isn’t the same as knowing about things. One doesn’t find it useful, you see? Do you, do you see? It isn’t a useful thing. It is just a thing. I knew something grave was coming, and when it came, I recognized it. I had seen it before, you see. It was like an old friend. Or an old enemy. One saw, though, immediately, that there were no preparations that could have been made. That sort of thing is just foolishness.

INT.

So, you thought Sotatsu was doomed? That he never would have amounted to anything?

MR. ODA

He and my brother got along very well. My brother’s business was nearly ruined by that, by Sotatsu’s presence. But they got on well.

INT.

Why did you not visit your son in the jail?

MR. ODA

What do you mean? I went there. I went there first, before anyone.

INT.

I’m sorry, I know that, I meant to say, why did you not visit him after that first visit? Why did you stop going?

MR. ODA

This is not the reason I came here to talk to you.

INT.

Do you have something else you want to talk about?

MR. ODA

I do. I do.

INT.

Well, tell me what you want to tell me. I am ready to hear anything you have to say.

MR. ODA

Mr. Ball, my son was ill. He was ill his whole life. He was sick once as an infant. My wife denies it, but she is a moron. He cried once for two weeks straight and his head turned blue. He recovered, but he was never the same. He was always ill with this, whatever it was. He thought he could hear bells ringing all the time. It was part of his illness. That’s why he was always playing records. He wanted it out of his head.

INT.

No one else says anything about this.

MR. ODA

You shouldn’t listen to the others. This is what we are saying, that I am telling you the things now that you can use. We are talking about that.

INT.

I understand that. You said that already.

MR. ODA

Maybe others couldn’t see it, but I always could. I could always tell when he was about to do something stupid. He would get this blue look, this look that I recalled from his childhood. It would be like he was being strangled, but he wasn’t, and you would know, you would just know — he is going to do something now that everyone will regret. And then he would do it. Of course, he would never apologize either, afterward. He would do something like, for instance, he would forget to greet me when I came in. I would just stare at him and stare at him, waiting, and the longer I stared the more I could see it building up. Then, instead of saying anything, anything at all, he’d just up and run off out of the house. And Jiro would run off too. Anything he did, Jiro would do. Only Jiro didn’t have the sense that Oda sometimes had. Although now, it’s not easy to say which one turned out worse.

INT.

Are you angry at Jiro for something that he has done?

MR. ODA

You come here and it is like you are going to fix something, but either the thing that is broken is part of something that is gone, or you are doing no good with the thing that is still around. I don’t know why I came to talk to you.

INT.

Please, just let me ask you a few questions. You said at one point, after the accident, when you were in the hospital, you said …

MR. ODA

That is an invention of my wife’s. I was not in the hospital. I don’t know about that. She talks about it sometimes. I don’t know where she got that.

INT.

All right. Well. It is said that you forbade the family from visiting with or talking about Sotatsu. That you were very angry with Sotatsu and no longer wanted to have him be a part of your family, that you specifically told your daughter, your wife, and your son not to speak to him or visit him. Is that true?