The Mask Carver's Son (17 page)

F
or several weeks I waited for a response from Father, and I began to think of him with increasing frequency. At night he would often appear in my dreams. I no longer felt the beneficent presence of my mother. Now I felt the heavy face of Father gazing down on me, his spirit stretching out to reach into the corners of my mind. I wondered how he responded when he received my letter.

I pictured him as gaunt and frail, as Iwasaki had described him. I envisioned him unshaven and unbathed, the skeleton of a man more dead than living, wrapped in a thinning cloak of gray silk.

When I imagined him reading my letter, I saw him illuminated by the light of a rapeseed lantern, his tired, lined face straining as he read my words. Had he read what I had written? Or had he instead read what he believed I should say? Did he wish that I had said that I was sorry? Or, even more simply, “Father, I know I have done wrong”?

I wondered if he spoke now to my mother. Whether her spirit was the only thing that kept him warm. Or perhaps he cursed her for leaving him. Silently, of course, because words between them were never necessary for communication. Had he closed the
butsudan
so that he could forget Grandfather and Grandmother, the family who had taken him as their own? Had he sworn at their memory because his son had abandoned him?

At night I see him again sitting by the lantern, the taper thirsty for fuel. He lights my letter with its burning wick and sets it aflame so that my words—my inadequate words—evaporate into thin air, trailing behind him in a thin wand of smoke.

*   *   *

Nearly two months passed before I heard from Father. A letter did not arrive, as I had hoped. Something far larger came in the form of a small, neatly bundled package. I opened it as soon as I arrived home from class that day. Yet nothing could have prepared me for the surprise.

I placed the pine box wrapped in cloth down on the tatami and cut the twine with a small knife. There, under several layers of tissue and swatches of silk, I unveiled a mask. Father had enclosed no letter. No simple note. No message except one that could be inferred from the mask.

What did it mean? I wondered as I revealed the pale white face, translucent as a robin’s eggshell, and placed it on my lap. It was not the Ishi-O-Jo mask, the mask of the old man trapped in the form of a cherry tree, by which I had always imagined him. Rather, the delicate, youthful features, downswept eyes, gently curving brows, and slightly parted lips led me to believe that it was the Semimaru mask, used in the saddest of Noh plays,
The Story of Semimaru
.

I recalled the character of Semimaru, the fourth child of Emperor Daigo, who is born blind but talented. His melodies on the lute were said to be unrivaled. Yet Emperor Daigo, unable to accept that his son has been born imperfect, orders him exiled and left abandoned on Mount Osaka. Grandfather had once chanted several lines from this play while making his way to the old Kanze theater.

In jeweled pavilions and golden halls

You walked on polished floors and wore bright robes.

In less time than it takes to wave your sleeve,

Today a hovel is your sleeping-place,

Bamboo posts and bamboo fence, crudely fashioned

Eaves and door; straw your window, straw the roof,

And over your bed, the quilts are mats of straw.

Pretend they are your silken sheets of old.

Those words could also have applied to Father, a long time ago, when he was just a boy, when he lived and whittled his masks squatting alone on the forest floor.

Now Father had sent me this mask, and I wondered about its meaning.

I raised the mask closer to eye level. When I held it upright it appeared sad, almost weeping. Its lids weighed heavily, veiling blank eyes. Its mouth quivered, as if withholding a cry. I remembered how, once he is alone, the actor who plays Semimaru takes his lute, his only possession, clutches it to his breast, and falls to the stage weeping. And the mask suddenly came alive to me. Its pain reminiscent of my father. The memory of him all alone except for his masks.

And I recalled how the last scene on the stage is of Semimaru, his blind gaze searching for the vision of his sister who visited and then departed. His tears falling through the mask. And for the first time, I began to understand my father.

I needed no words to realize that he was calling me, asking me to visit him once more. I knew that I had to return to him at once. I decided to return at
Shogatsu
, the Japanese New Year, which would fall in nearly three weeks’ time. I told myself that I could check on his health and could confront him about the meaning of this mask. I told myself it would be an opportune time to visit him. That, this year, we could start our relationship anew.

I sat down on the tatami and began a second letter to Father.

Dear Father,

In these months of cold and frost, I write to you. Your mask arrived today, and I wish to thank you in person for sending it. Is it the Semimaru mask, as I suspect? I hope to discuss its meaning with you when I return home. I am planning to visit Daigo at Shogatsu time. We have two weeks’ vacation from classes, and I believe I can manage the journey.

I remain your only son,

Yamamoto Kiyoki

I sent the letter the following day and began to look forward to seeing him again. I hoped that we might communicate for the first time our feelings toward each other. But fate, it seems, had other plans.

N
oboru was with me when I received the letter from Iwasaki that informed me my father had passed away. Only minutes earlier, he had discovered the Semimaru mask wrapped in silk and carefully placed in the corner.

“What’s this?”

“I believe it is a message from my father.”

He picked it up between his palms and studied its face intently.

“Such a beautiful face,” he remarked as he continued to stare, transfixed by the intensity of the mask.

“Do you see anything else?” I asked, eager to hear him confirm my suspicion of its meaning.

“Sadness,” he said as he looked up at me and then back at the mask. “It is almost as if I can feel its spirit shaking in my hands. It’s weeping from underneath its skin.”

“Tilt it,” I told him anxiously. “Don’t you see anything else when you rotate it back and forth?”

He continued to sit on the floor, his feet tucked under him, his palms outstretched, when suddenly there was a violent knock on my door.

“Yamamoto Kiyoki, Yamamoto Kiyoki!” It was Ariyoshi, and he was out of breath from climbing the stairs to my room.

“Yes?” I asked the old man as I slid open my door.

“There is a messenger downstairs who will not leave until he has delivered a letter to you!” Ariyoshi’s face was flushed and his words were difficult to make out, each one merging into the other, like a string of beads.

“All right, then,” I said, not giving much thought to it. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

I went downstairs and discovered the messenger breathing clouds of steam into the frosty air. When he saw that I had come to accept the delivery, his shoulders tensed and his posture suddenly stiffened. He could not have been more than fifteen years of age.

“Yes, I am Yamamoto Kiyoki,” I told him, and extended my hand to receive the letter.

With his two hands clasping each side of the envelope, the young boy handed me the letter. “It has come from Kyoto.”

I handed him two yen and turned to read the letter in private.

The letter was dated December 14, 1895. I closed the shoji to my room and went past Noboru, who had wrapped the mask from my father and returned it to the corner. I sat down on the floor beside him.

Dear Yamamoto Kiyoki,

The year, it seems, has ended badly. The frost has come early to Kyoto, and, sadly, I must be the one to write you the devastating news. Your father passed away last night. Our colleague Isao-san discovered him early this morning after deciding to visit on him on his way to the theater.

We in the theater recognize that you will want to take responsibility for your father’s funeral. We thus urge you to return as soon as possible.

With grave sadness,

Kanze Iwasaki Keizo

I received the news of my father’s death without any immediate signs of grief. It was almost as if I could not believe that he had left me before I had a chance to return.

I remained on the floor with my knees curled beneath my chin, my kimono smoothed out underneath me. “I must return to Kyoto,” I told Noboru after minutes of silence passed between us. “You see, my father has died. I must return at once.”

I had missed seeing my father one last time by only three weeks, I thought to myself, as I began to pack for the long journey home. I was stunned by his passing. How could he have left me before I had a chance to say good-bye? I thought to myself. I felt weak and despondent. I had not had a chance to reconcile with him, and I knew that, once the initial shock wore off, this would weigh heavily on my conscience.

Out of respect, I chose to wear my black kimono with the family crest that Grandmother had embroidered. A few years back, I had had the crest removed and sewn to a newer kimono, as I had outgrown the original several years before.

It was difficult to think what I should bring. I rolled up my
yukata
and wrapped an extra pair of sandals in cloth. I bundled the mask my father had last sent me and slid the shard of plum wood into my sash. With each additional movement, I began to feel increasingly nauseated and faint.

“Are you all right?” Noboru asked, concerned.

“Yes, yes,” I muttered and tried to show I was fine.

“I should travel with you to ensure that you are all right. The journey will be long and the funeral difficult.”

“It is very kind of you, but unnecessary. After all, I will need you to keep abreast of our classes so that you can assist me when I return.”

“Are you sure?” he asked, and I knew that he was sincere by the way he lightly touched my shoulder and went to lift my bag.

“Of course,” I told him. “Don’t be foolish. Both of us can’t fall behind in our work.”

He smiled faintly. “Let me at least accompany you to the station,” he insisted as he went to pick up another of my satchels and my small
furoshiki.

Once outside Ariyoshi’s gate, we piled into a rickshaw and made our way to the station.

“Will you inform the administration that I had a personal affair to attend to?” I asked him as we rode through the bustling streets.

“Of course, my dear friend,” he assured me. “I will speak to our professors the first thing tomorrow.”

He looked at me with great affection that afternoon. I know he found my father’s death difficult to grasp, as he knew that the relationship between my father and me had been strained. Still, he tried to be comforting and had the decency to approach the subject delicately.

“I’ve never experienced a death in the family, Kiyoki, but I suppose there is little I can say to help you at this time.”

I looked at him and tried to smile.

“But the fact that your father sent you that mask,” he said, pointing to my
furoshiki
, “must mean something.”

“It is too late,” I said, looking away from him and into the direction of the approaching station. “I didn’t return early enough to reconcile with him. I’m sure he died angry with me.”

“You mustn’t feel guilty, my friend,” he tried to assure me. “You are not to blame.”

I looked at him and tried again to smile faintly. He knew my story, yet how could he know the intensity of my pain? For so many years I had struggled to understand my father. He had left me with our relationship remaining a puzzle still waiting to be solved.

So much was my fault, and I would be foolish and self-deluding to deny it. My mother had died because of me, and perhaps my father’s grief at my latest decision had caused his early demise. Just as my father had felt responsible for his parents’ death, I now felt responsible for my own.

“Let me get your ticket while you go wait on the platform,” he begged of me. I did not want to be among the crowds, so I agreed only after insisting that I pay my own passage.

The train rolled into the station, the locomotive expelled its wind tunnel of steam, and Noboru handed me the ticket.

“Take care of yourself, dear friend, and I will see you when you return,” he shouted over the noise. He gave me a small push to encourage me to board.

I found a seat next to the glass, so that I could see him as the train pulled out of the station. I arranged my carrying case underneath the seat, placed the
furoshiki
with my father’s mask and my
o-bento
close to my side, and tried to maintain a brave front as I waved good-bye to him. It seems, as I look back on it now, that I had taken greater pains to appease my worried friend than I had with my own tragic father.

*   *   *

The journey home went quickly. I slept deeply, and when I awakened, I thought briefly that perhaps my father’s death had only been a dream.

The slowing of the train’s engines had stirred me. I sat up in my seat and removed the condensation from the interior window with a sweep of my sleeve. Outside, the locomotive was just beginning to pass into the valley. The mountains that surrounded Kyoto were covered in snow, and the pine trees were heavy with frost. I had not realized how much I missed the landscape of my youth.

The train began its descent into the station and the other passengers and I began to assemble our bags. There would be no one to greet me on the platform and, once again, I was struck with an aching sense of loneliness and regret.

I discovered an abundance of rickshaws and drivers waiting outside the station gates and thus had not the least bit of trouble finding someone to take me home to Daigo.

Once inside the rickshaw, I was immediately struck by the crispness of the air. It was a remarkable contrast to the foul smells of Tokyo. The delectable scent of sweet potato roasting was familiar and comforting. I turned my head from side to side as we rushed through the streets and small markets and reveled at the sight of the tiled roofs covered with drifts of snow.

“Where in Daigo are you going, exactly?” the rickshaw driver called back through panted breaths. Steam seemed to be rising from his back and billowing from his mouth.

“Before Sanpo-in, the second left after the grave of the poet Ono-no Komachi.”

“Near the mountain?” he asked as he climbed the first of many steep hills.

“Exactly,” I answered, impressed. And at the mere mention of the mountain, I found myself anxious to get back home.

*   *   *

As we approached Daigo, I could see my house in the distance. The carved pigeons perched on our roof gables were encased in ice and the thatched roof sagged from the weight of the snow. Smoke was noticeably missing from the chimney, a sure sign that no life stirred within. As we finally pulled up to the door, it struck me with great force, that he—my father, my last living link with my family—had truly gone.

I paid the rickshaw driver and made my way to the house. The gate had been left unlatched, and the garden had become an overgrown mass of dried tumbleweed covered in ice. Father never had much interest in gardening, I thought to myself, and nearly smiled, remembering how it was I, the only child, who took on the responsibility of the familial chores.

I pushed open the door and entered the
genkan.
The dirt floor had recently been swept clean, and a pair of Father’s slippers rested neatly at the door.

I set down my satchels and clutched my arms to keep warm. I knew that I had to start a fire in the braziers and warm the
kotatsu
, for evening would come early.

Around me, things appeared superficially the same as when I left. The lower tatami rooms had been kept just as I remembered; the kitchen still smelled of rice gruel and vinegar. But how cold it was! I went to the barrel by the stove, shoveled some charcoal, and refilled the braziers. Once I lit the braziers, the whole house crackled and warmed in the glow of their bright red light.

Where was Father? I thought to myself as I turned around in a small circle, the bottom of my kimono swelling like a small bell. Where now did he lie?

*   *   *

I discovered my father’s body in the tatami room where our family altar remained. But the room had changed. It no longer glowed crimson from the warm halo of the hibachis. It no longer smelled of incense. It had been transformed.

The cold greeted me first. An icy gust blew my sleeves backward as I slid open the first interior doors. Inside, I could see clear into the garden. The thin shoji that led to the
engawa
had been thrust open, and Father lay in the center of the tatami, perfectly preserved. Frost had encased his limbs in a shiny glaze of crystal. Icicles hung from the house’s outside beams.

He lay there like a column, his kimono draping his stiffened form. His bluish pallor, his sharp, ax-cut chin. Like a warrior from a glaciered land, he slept oblivious to the cold. I stood there, frightened and weak. The prodigal son whose guilt and pride mingled so deep that he stood paralyzed, unable to bow down to his knees.

I must be honest when I tell you that part of me wanted to rush up and kneel by Father’s side and beg for forgiveness. And part of me wanted to scream so loud that the heat of my breath would melt him back from death. But in the end, I did neither. Only when the priest arrived the following morning would I have enough courage to go to him. Then I would finally be able to gaze upon his masklike face and hold him tightly to my side.

*   *   *

That night I slept in my father’s old room for the first time since I was five. The room was on the second floor, adjacent to his studio. I entered cautiously, as I felt his presence hovering over me from behind.

Immediately I found myself looking for things that were familiar, hoping they might comfort me in my loneliness, hoping they might give me some inner peace. The mirror and low table where he dressed himself each day still remained, as did his futon, which was still stretched out on the tatami floor. I opened the inner closet and removed my childhood futon and unrolled it next to his. Where was Mother’s wedding coverlet? I wondered as I shivered for a blanket.

I walked downstairs to the old
tansu
chest in the hall and discovered it there. The coverlet lay carefully folded, most probably by Grandmother after Mother’s death. Beside it were the few mementos of my mother’s brief life: a box of her combs, her wedding kimono, and her
tsuno-kakushi
, the ceremonial horn hider she wore at her wedding. How it must have pained Grandmother occasionally to come across these precious articles. They appeared still and lifeless in the old chest, but I imagined how they must have appeared to Grandmother, who had seen Mother wear them.

How Father too must have felt to know they were there. Those tokens of his wife. His beloved. How empty they must have felt in his hands when he brought them close to his face to inhale their faint fragrance when he closed his eyes and envisioned her dressed in splendor on their wedding day.

I shook the wedding coverlet loose and inhaled its stale perfume. The wooden chest had left it smelling like the forest. How heavy the silk was! I thought as I dragged it upstairs. And that evening I slept wrapped in the memory of both my parents. Warm in a way I had never felt, even though I had lived here for years. That night I slept under the blanket of silken cranes. Cocooned in red silk and protected by white birds, I dreamed that I was loved by them both.