Night Boat. Alan Spence

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      As the sky darkened and the lamps were lit, I looked around me, took it all in. I remembered the puppet show I had seen with my mother, how it had opened my eyes and changed my life, and I felt an anticipation overlaid with something bittersweet I couldn’t quite name, a kind of yearning for something I didn’t know.

      Everyone knew the story of the Forty-seven Ronin. It was based on real events that had happened only a year ago, but had already become a legend throughout the whole land.

      A group of forty-seven samurai had avenged the death of their lord, Asano, by murdering the man responsible, a court official named Kira. Because they had done this out of loyalty, they were allowed a noble death themselves by committing seppuku.

      The incident had inspired poetry and painting – I myself had seen a number of woodblock prints depicting the ronin – and plays based on the story drew huge audiences all over Japan. The government in Edo had banned any contemporary reference in the drama, so the play was set in the distant past, four hundred years ago, and all the names were changed. But the audience knew the real story that was being re-enacted. These heroes were men from their own time who had only recently walked the earth.

      Because I had arrived early I had a good position, next to the viewing platform. As I looked across I was momentarily distracted by a young girl seated at the front of the platform, very close to me. She caught my eye, then immediately looked away, flustered, and hid her face behind a paper fan, but just that glimpse of her beauty had unsettled me.

      The lights around the courtyard flickered, and the drama began with the thud of a drum, the shrill wail of a flute, and for the next hour reality shimmered and wavered. We were here in this courtyard, in the post-station at Ejiri, watching seven actors move through each scene, chant their scripted lines. But at the same time, at the same time, we were in Edo, looking on as the forty-seven ronin waited patiently and took their revenge on the villain Kira, walked through the snow to place his head on their lord’s grave, then sit in a half circle and fall on their own swords.

      This floating world of theatre was a thing of magic and enchantment. As the ronin fell forward they let out a collective death-cry that sent a chill down the spine. It was terrifying and magnificent, and the crowd were so caught up in the action many of them also cried out. A group of young men who had arrived late were particularly carried away, and they climbed up at the back of the little grandstand and pushed forward for a better view.

      What happened next was as strange and dreamlike as anything I had just seen on the stage. Everything seemed to slow down, as sounds and movements were heightened, intensified. I heard a cracking, straining noise and the shouts grew louder. The young girl was looking straight at me, her mouth open, confusion and alarm in her eyes. Then everything was shifting, moving, as the platform collapsed. The girl pitched forward, throwing out her arms to protect herself, and without thinking I stepped forward and caught her, cushioned her weight and broke her fall. Her head cracked against mine and I stumbled a little but managed to step back and lift her clear as the others fell around her.

      She clung to me and I held her safe. I could feel her small body shaking. I could smell her perfumed clothes, her hair, and that irrepressible little dragon reared between my legs again, roused, and I chanted the Daimoku quickly to myself, Namu Myoho Renge Kyo, trying to calm it down.

      Then an older man was at my side, speaking to me.

      I thank you for saving my daughter, he said. But now I think you can put her down.

      I set the girl down on the ground, carefully, stood back and bowed, still silently chanting the Daimoku. Now I was the one who was shaken, flustered. My face burned as the girl bowed and bowed, thanking me over and over, fluttering in front of me.

      Her father introduced himself as Mr Yotsugi. He asked my name, and said he was grateful to me, and if my superiors might give permission he would like to express his gratitude by offering me hospitality at his home.

      The ronin who had ritually disembowelled themselves just moments before had gathered round, helping people to their feet, offering sympathy. The manager was bustling among the crowd, endlessly apologising, anxiously bowing. When he stood back to let Yotsugi-san pass he bent almost double and his apologies rose to an even higher pitch as he asked if there was anything he could do to make recompense, anything at all.

      There was no harm done, said Yotsugi-san, thanks to this young man.

      Then he turned to me and told me where they lived, said he hoped I would visit them soon.

      I watched them go.

      The girl gave a last look back at me over her shoulder. She smiled and undid me completely.

      The whole of the next week, at odd moments, I found myself thinking about the girl. I remembered the way she had caught my eye and looked away, the fear as she had pitched forward, the feel and smell of her in my arms. I sat in zazen, I chanted the sutras, and the more I willed myself not to think of her, the more clearly her image arose in my mind.

      Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to save them.

      The scent of her. Jasmine and sweat.

      The deluding passions are inexhaustible. I vow to extinguish them.

      The sheen of her lacquer-black hair. The white nape of her neck.

      The Buddha Way is supreme. I vow to enter it.

      The warmth of her small thin body through the kimono.

      As I left the meditation hall after a particularly difficult session, torn between trying to picture her face and trying to banish it completely, the head priest called me to one side and instructed me to wait. He stood with his back to me until everyone else had left, then he turned and fixed the full intensity of his gaze on me, fierce and withering. He must have been observing my meditation, seen every thought, every desire. I bowed deep, kept my head bent.

      So, he said. This merchant, Yotsugi-san, he has a daughter.

      I felt myself burn, said Yes, my voice a squawk. Even that one word felt like a confession. I didn’t trust myself to say more.

      Her name is Hana.

      Hana. Her name. Hana. Flower.

      Hana.

      According to Yotsugi-san, you saved his daughter’s life, or at the very least kept her from serious injury.

      A faint hope. Perhaps I was not, after all, about to be damned.

      He has sent a letter singing your praises and inviting you to dine with the family this evening.

      I looked up. The gaze was just as fierce, unremitting – nostrils flared, an irritated twitch at the corner of the mouth. He breathed out, part snort, part sigh.

      Go, he said. But do not be distracted by this young woman or her father’s wealth. Stay in the Buddha-mind.

      With a curt nod, a grunt, I was dismissed.

      Do not be distracted. Stay in the Buddha-mind.

      Her name was Hana. I spoke it, tasted it in my mouth.

      Hana.

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