A Bridge for Passing: A Meditation on Love, Loss, and Faith

  I listened with gratitude to life. It is the highest reward when a writer hears that a book, written in doubt and solitude, has reached a human heart with a deeper meaning than even the writer had been aware of, as she wrote. It is the something extra, the unexpected return. Many questions followed the speech. They related to production, where the location was, who were to be the actors, and so on. We were not ready yet to announce the actors, for we had many candidates to hear and to see. Negotiations had been going on for weeks with certain stars, and only one was decided upon. We were resolute, we tried to be good-humored in parrying all efforts to extract information about the cast. Suddenly, as we were about to disperse, word came in that negotiations had been successful in regard to one star. We could announce that the well-known Japanese actor, Sessue Hayakawa, would take the role of Old Gentleman in The Big Wave.

  Upon this the press departed, except for an English reporter, who had not understood Japanese. I spent a few minutes with her, and with one or two other ones who had some special request.

  Then everyone was gone and I was alone again. This was the changeless pattern of my days since he had ceased to be himself—a crowd of people, and then no one. I missed him now and especially because he would have enjoyed this press conference. He had presided over many press conferences for me, in many parts of the world, the first one when I came from China, shy and frightened enough to determine in my secret mind that whatever lay ahead, I would not allow my life to be changed. It was changed, of course, the moment he met me in Montreal. I had come by sea and train from Shanghai and although I knew him somewhat through his letters—he wrote the most charming and articulate letters I had ever read—I saw him for the first time, sun-browned and with eyes of a startling blue. I was speechless with my habitual shyness but he was completely at ease, which he always was, everywhere and with anyone, a happy attribute for me, when the next day I faced the formidable press in New York. He knew the reporters, however, and they knew him, for he had begun his professional life as a newspaperman, and they liked him. He set us all at ease, and I found myself answering their questions frankly. Too frankly, he told me afterward with amusement, for when I was asked my age it did not occur to me not to tell it, since in China every year was considered an added honor.

  His natural ease made him an excellent chairman, and he was the chairman of an amazing variety of organizations. How often have I not sat in such gatherings and watched him while he, seemingly without effort, allowed every dissident voice to speak, every argument to be heard, and then quietly and in a few words gathered the consensus of opinion into a lucid resolution! He had the rare gift of creating order out of disorder, an editorial gift. But beyond that he had the gift of human understanding which enabled him to select the essential from the nonessential and find points of agreement among those who disagreed.

  The little secretary was at my elbow again.

  “We have time to go to the old Meiji shrine before you must go to the office and I want you to see it, please, first,” she told me. “Tokyo is too new, because of bombing, but Meiji shrine is old and you will feel better to see it.”

  She summoned a cab and we were whisked through the city, so changed that I would not have known it, new and busy and not beautiful. The palace, however, remained as it was, untouched, and I saw its curved roofs rising, as of old, behind the moated stone walls. Then we entered the Meiji shrine and into the ancient peace. I wandered about the paths, Sumiko tactfully quiet at my side, and came to rest beside the lake. It is as it was when I was a child standing there with my Japanese nurse. The same fat carp, enormous in size, moved lazily among the water lilies, and I told Sumiko this.

  “Not the same, please,” she said in reply. “In the war many hungry people coming here by night to catch carp and eat them.”

  I maintained however that some of them were the same. Otherwise even in many years they could not have grown so big.

  “Perhaps,” she said politely. “Anyhow it is time we will be going, office waiting, doubtless.”

  We walked to the gate and entered another breakneck taxicab and were whirled to the offices of the big Japanese motion picture company.

  Here I pause for a brief interlude.

  The most astonishing aspect of new Japan is the Japanese woman. My first Japanese friend was the wife of an Englishman, who lived in a big house on the mountainside near my childhood home in China. I must have known other Japanese women in our goings to and comings from Japan, but none made as deep an impression upon my memory as the lady in the Englishman’s house, and this, I think, because I saw her only as she passed by in her sedan chair, borne by four uniformed bearers. She wore kimono always, and her hair was brushed in the high lacquered coiffeur of the ladies of ancient Japan. Her face was powdered white, and her onyx eyes gazed blankly ahead of her until she saw me standing in the dust of the road. In summer she held a small parasol, white silk painted with cherry blossoms, and in winter she wore a brocaded coat over her kimono. We exchanged looks, hers sad and incurious until she smiled at me, and mine wide with wonder and admiration because she was beautiful. A beautiful woman, a handsome man, a pretty child, are sources of joy, merely for the eyes, if for nothing else. It was as this that I remembered her, and because of the smile, somehow as my friend.

  In later years I knew more intimately as friend an occasional Japanese woman. She seemed, whoever she was, always remote, somewhat sad, overburdened with duty, and this was true whether she was the wife of a farmer, or of a man of wealth and position. One had always to cross a barrier, disappointment with life, it might be, if not a personal sorrow, before one could reach the inner woman. Perhaps she was never to be reached. Her voice soft and gentle, her demeanor modest and considerate of others, she wore silence as a garment and unless addressed directly she seemed to merge herself with the background.

  None of this is true now. The old-fashioned woman, or so it seems to me, has simply disappeared from Japan. Men are very little changed either in appearance or behavior. But women? I cannot describe in one day or one place the extraordinary differences I found in Japanese women. Let me approach the subject gradually, through the individual women I came to know while we made the picture.

  Therefore we had no sooner stepped into the offices of the big Japanese motion picture company than I was astounded by what I saw. In other years I would have been greeted by a young man, secretary and assistant to those above. The office would have been staffed by young men. Now, however, it was staffed by young women, all in smart western clothes, and several of them speaking good English. I had the impression, too, that all of them were efficient and pretty. One of them came forward when we appeared and she was certainly very pretty. Her hair was cut short and curled—and let me say here and now, and say again and again, probably, how I deplore the permanent wave in Japan. The smooth straight black hair which was once the glory of Japanese women is now usually cut short and tortured into tightly curled wiglike shapes. Worst of all, it is fashionable, especially for actresses as I was to discover, to dye the black hair a rusty brown. The natural sheen is lost and the muddy color dulls the light cream of the complexion, once so beautiful. Somehow that rusty brown makes the dark eyes ineffective, too, although the Japanese women have the latest in eye make-up and face-powders, liquid or dry or paste.

  These modern looks are nothing, however, compared to the modern behavior. Gone is the modest downcast gaze, gone the delicate reserve, gone the indirect approach to men. Instead bold looks, frank speech, a frankly sexual attack on any available man, with preference for the too susceptible American, is the rule of the day.

  I am getting ahead of my story. I did not learn all this at once when I entered the offices of the big Japanese film company. What I saw was a bevy of pretty women, neat, composed, efficient, outgoing and apparently indestructibly young, and one of them led us to the inner office. I confess that it was reassuring to see my special friend sitting behind a very modern desk, to be sure, but dressed in
a silver gray silk kimono and a pale pink obi. She rose to meet us, bowing deeply with all the old-fashioned grace. Her English is perfect, and I knew she spoke French and German and Italian as well, for part of her work is travel in European countries for Japanese films. There is really nothing old-fashioned about her except her dress. She has a full partnership with her husband and two other associates, both men, in the business. They defer to her wisdom and efficiency and judgment, although I did hear occasional subterranean grumbles from the production manager, to the effect that she was “getting very high these days.” Since he was a bachelor, however, in itself reprehensible in Japan for a man over fifty, I did not take him seriously.

  The office was a handsome one, modern to the last chair, but a fine old painting hung on the wall and some excellent calligraphy. My friend invited us to be seated, and two or three of the pretty young women brought green tea in Japanese bowls. We sipped and made small talk. She invited me to come and spend a weekend at her country home in Kamakura. I accepted, and of that I shall tell more later. We did not stay long, for it is never good manners in Japan to stay too long on a first call. In fifteen minutes or so, the pretty young woman directed us to the office of the head of the company, a handsome tall man, neither young nor old.

  He sat behind his desk and when we entered he rose, bowed and invited us to be seated around a wide long table. He did not speak much English, and his secretary, another pretty young woman, translated for him and for us. He was an intelligent man, as one could see from his fine cultivated face, and a man of the world, assured, self-confident, courteous. The room, as are most offices and business rooms in Japan, was well-designed and sparely but excellently furnished with modern furniture, calm in atmosphere. We sat down at the table in comfortable leather chairs and another pretty girl or two brought us fresh tea. While the men talked through the pretty girl interpreter, I examined the room. On the wall near us, at the end of the room, hung three impressive oil portraits, founders of the company, I was told. These were the only pictures except that, on the opposite walls, as I next observed, there hung a large calendar, whereon was imprinted in poster style the lively form of a bathing beauty in full color, an engaging object upon which the eyes of the three solemn gentlemen, though deceased, still seemed to be fixed. I wondered, laughing inwardly, if one of the neat and pretty girls had hung her counterpart there with humorous intent.

  Meanwhile the conversation was proceeding briskly. It was obvious that our host understood English perfectly, but the pretty girl interpreted for him just the same, and with a lively dignity. He obviously relied on her good sense as well as on her competence. What does the Japanese man think of this new woman? I made up my mind to find out somehow, some day. As for her, she appeared to be extremely useful as well as ornamental and, above all, she seemed to be happy. Her ancient sadness was gone. Tragedy had left her, and if what had taken its place was not exactly comedy, it was something vivacious and delightful.

  In an amazingly short time the details of our co-operation were fixed—if anything can be said to be fixed in the fluidities and exigencies of film making. The amenities, at least, over, this head of a great triangular company invited us to meet with the remaining third, the production manager. We knew then that we had reached the ultimate, the practical, the man with whom we must deal again and again. To meet him, however, would not be possible until after the weekend, for it was the end of the day, and the day the last of the working week. The weekend in Japanese society has become as important an event as in the most Western country. Nothing could be done until it was over. It was the ideal time to accept the invitation from my friend.

  Not far from the huge and modern city of Tokyo is the quiet town of Kamakura. It is famous in Japanese history but famous now because it is the home of some of Japan’s best-known writers. My friend’s husband was in Europe but she herself came for me in her comfortable and chauffeured car. We drove through the crowded city and the spreading suburbs into the country. It was a sunny afternoon in August, but we did not know it was sunny until we got out of the city because of the smog, which is the same anywhere, and in Tokyo it can be rich and thick, and was that day.

  I greatly enjoyed the drive, nevertheless, not only because it gave me the opportunity to see the general outlines of the amazing new Tokyo, at least in one direction, but also because I found that I could really talk with the equally amazing new Japanese woman at my side. She remained beautifully Japanese in her gray silk kimono, her hair smooth, her face amiable and composed, but her mind was cosmopolitan and sophisticated in the true sense of the word. She could and did remain herself anywhere in the world, at ease in any capital. I am accustomed to cosmopolitan and sophisticated women in many countries, but my friend has an unusual and individual quality. One could never mistake her for any but a Japanese, and yet this national saturation of birth and education is only the medium through which she communicates a universal experience and with wisdom and charm. A rose is a rose anywhere in the world, and yet in a Japanese room, arranged in a Japanese vase in a Japanese tokonoma, the rose becomes somehow Japanese. That is my friend.

  I asked hundreds of questions, I fear, and was delighted by her frank and informed replies. Two hours slipped past like minutes.

  “I have invited some of our writers to meet you,” she told me at last. “We will have dinner at a famous inn.”

  When we arrived at Kamakura, the sun had already set and we went directly to the inn. The car stopped at some distance away, however, and we walked along a narrow footpath, far from the main street of Kamakura. At the end of the path we entered a wooden gate and stepping stones led us from there across a garden to a wide lawn, lit by stone lanterns. The low roofs of the buildings nestled beneath great trees, climbing the abrupt slopes of a mountain behind the inn.

  We were late and the guests were waiting for us, a few of Japan’s best-loved writers. They all wore dark Japanese kimono, and they sat on a long stone bench, sipping tea. I was introduced to them, one by one, and recognized especially Mr. Kawabata and Jiro Osaragi. Mr. Kawabata is president of the P.E.N. Club of Japan, and had just returned, on the same jet with me, from a visit to North and South America. Since I had never met him, I did not know who he was. He sat just across the aisle from me and I had kept looking at him from time to time.

  “That is certainly a great man of Japan,” I murmured to my seat mate.

  He was not tall and his bones were delicately fine. The eyes, however, revealed the man. They were large, dark, and so lit with intelligence that they were indeed windows through which one looked into a sensitive and brilliant mind.

  Now I was looking through them again and with instant recognition.

  “It was you—on the jet!” I cried.

  He smiled. “I knew you but you didn’t know me.”

  “I know you now,” I declared. “I have read your books. I know you went to South America. And—forgive me—I knew when I looked at you that day that you were—somebody.”

  He laughed at my stupidity, and I admired in my heart his delicately carved features, the firm ivory skin, and the shock of gray hair. He is sixty-two years old and his heavy silk kimono completed his air of an aristocrat. Yet he is also very lively and modern. When I commended, later in the evening, the excellent service on the Japan Airlines he looked mischievous and wagged his head.

  “But,” he said, “I have a complaint. The hostesses I do not always find very pretty!”

  We laughed and my friend explained amicably that this famous writer attracts young girls and therefore is a connoisseur.

  We sat for an hour, admiring the moon and enjoying cool fruit juice. The conversation was in English or in Japanese translated for my benefit. Most of the writers did not speak English. Then we were summoned, and we sauntered into the restaurant, took off our shoes at the entrance and walked into a large room, open on two sides to the garden. There to the breeze of a big electric fan, we talked or rested now and then in peaceful silence. I sat be
side Jiro Osaragi and my friend translated for us. I had just finished reading for the second time his tender novel, Homecoming, a book almost feminine in its grace and subtlety. It was difficult to imagine it written by this tall strong handsome man in middle age. Certainly he was not in the least feminine. But the combination of delicacy and strength, of tenderness and cruelty, is usual in the work of Japanese writers, and is perhaps inherent in Japanese nature.

  While we talked, one dish after another was served. It was the season of sea trout, the first good season in a long time, I was told, for sea trout have been destroyed in recent years in some fashion not clear to me, perhaps by atomic waters. At any rate, it was evidently a delicacy now. The trout were served individually roasted on hot stones instead of on plates, each fish placed as though it were swimming on the ocean bed. A line of salt symbolized the beach, a bit of cedar twig the seaweed. It was too exquisite to eat, but we ate and found it delicious. When it was taken away, there came next a length of green bamboo, split, and steamed inside was the tender flesh of young quail. And so on until the end of the meal and we went back to the garden again. There in an open mat shed we had “genghis khan,” a Mongol dish of thin sliced beef and vegetables broiled on a charcoal brazier, the forerunner, I daresay, of modern sukiyaki. Properly it should be prepared and eaten outdoors, as we did, in memory of nomad Mongol life. But let me not go into this matter of delicacies, for there is no end to the ingenuity and imagination of the Japanese in culinary matters. The evening passed, too soon the hour of separation arrived. We said our farewells and went our way.