Only once do I recall him hesitating. It was on the thirteenth anniversary of my mother’s death. He rested his hand on the outer post of the shoji and turned his head to stare at me sleeping. He paused for what seemed like several minutes, his gaze focused on my heavily blanketed form. He did not smile or speak. He simply nodded to himself and then turned to exit through the door.
FOURTEEN
In the performance of Saigyo-Zakura, the Ishi-O-Jo mask is almost always used. It is said that this mask best incarnates the spirit of a wizened old cherry tree. For in the play the tree magically comes to life.
It was my father’s favorite mask to carve, and what emerged mirrored his own image. The eyes are forever downcast. Half-moons slit into a wooden face. Eyes that are frozen to the floor.
It is a weary face whose skin is pulled tight to the temples yet hangs heavily beneath the eyes and hollows of the cheek. Brows arched and forehead furrowed, whiskered chin—a mask that can exude both sadness and anger, deep thought and despair. It is a face that captures the range of the spirit.
I could not control my urge to draw him, to capture his strained visage on paper, to trace the lines of his forehead onto my page. It was as if my hands and heart had united. My palms were eager to accept the challenge of his complex countenance, my heart hopeful that if I grappled with the task of reproducing his image, I might also secure the secrets of his ways, reveal the truth of his emotions, demystify the strangeness and severity of his ways.
* * *
I climb the stairs on tiptoe, leaving my slippers on the first beam. Sketch pad in hand and wedge of charcoal secured in the well of my first, I stealthily ascend to the top floor, which leads to his studio. As I anticipated, the shoji is not completely closed. A crack of light. Despite this limited view, no wider than a stick of bamboo, I am able to see my subject.
I see my father in profile. His chin resting on his chest. His graying hair combed away from his forehead. He will not see me. I am not the child of wood that nestles between his knees.
It is I who now give birth to a face.
I trace him in outline, a thin river of black snaking across the page. I render the flatness of his nose and the slope of his chin. I draw the peak of his ear and the roundness of the lobe. With the thick side of the charcoal I contour the planes of his cheek, the shadow cast by his lowered eyelids. With the sharpest edge of the lump of black, I delicately outline each hair on his scalp, the few whiskers on his chin.
I draw the profile of his spine, protruding from under the cloth of his kimono, the bending of his neck. I capture the contorted position of his body as it hovers like an overprotective mother over a molting block of wood.
I had been drawing him through the crack, my own body pushed against the wall, my knees cramped to my chest and the paper resting on top. I was forced to crane my neck to get a close look and then retreat quickly back against the wall to reproduce what my eyes have just absorbed. At all costs I wanted to remain unseen.
After nearly two hours, when I had nearly completed his face and body, and I am just about to begin working on the rendering of his hands, my charcoal slipped through my fingers and fell behind me. As I attempted to find the shard of coal, the floorboards creaked underneath me, and from the corner of my eye I caught the image of my father shooting up from his carving like a bolt of lightning.
With three quick steps, he was already at the shoji, thrusting it aside to reveal me.
But Father did not yell. His face did not reveal the rage that I had expected. Rather, the lines of his face ebbed downward. Like a painted mask bathed in a river of soft water, he melted.
For the first time outside our bedchamber, I saw him transform. His eyes shut, blocking out the vision of me crouched in the corner, paper and charcoal in hand.
It was dark where I sat, yet I swear that I saw moisture seeping from the corners of his closed eyes. I believe for that split moment I succeeded in breaking Father from the wood.
In the end, however, he retreated. He gathered himself and stuffed all sentiment back into the trunk of his body.
He did not ask to see my drawing. And I do not know to this day if he realized whom I was straining to sketch. I do not know that if he had known, it would have made a difference.
* * *
That evening as we sat down for dinner, I remember that, for the first time in my life, the miso soup that he had prepared was cold and the small grilled fish that we ate along with our bowls of rice was burned.
I consumed the meal without complaint and watched Father as he bent his head into the basin of the soup bowl, his mouth curling into the rim. He slurped unusually quietly that evening. And I could tell, by the way he approached each grain of rice with the tips of his chopsticks, that he remained greatly disturbed by today’s episode.
After I finished eating, and our bowls remained empty and neatly stacked before us, he raised his head and spoke to me in a voice that was monotone, as usual, yet seemed surprisingly sincere.
“Kiyoki, I have completed several masks, and I will be going to the theater tomorrow to meet with some of the actors. Perhaps you will join me after you return from school.”
“Yes, Father,” I stammered quietly, my voice betraying my confusion. “I will be home by three o’clock.”
“We will leave then,” he said while standing up with the empty dishes in hand. “Go now and attend to your studies.”
* * *
The next afternoon I arrived home to find him waiting for me at the gate. He was dressed somberly in a gray kimono girdled by a thin navy sash. Clutched in his arms were his treasured masks, neatly wrapped in a black furoshiki.
“Place your satchel inside and we can go,” he said calmly.
I did as I was told and went inside and dropped my bag in the genkan. I returned to the garden and approached him cautiously by the gate.
“I am ready, Father. I am sorry to have kept you waiting.” He nodded with his usual serious manner and opened the latch, and I followed him into the dirt road which led toward the path to the Kanze theater.
We walked in silence. The silence was not the same as that I had shared with Grandmother. It was the first time that I recalled walking with him to the theater, for this was the journey that I had made when I was a toddler and Grandfather lived and performed.
Father carried his tightly wrapped package of masks in the basket of his arms, much like the way I imagined Grandmother carried me when I was an infant. I pictured myself, round and plump, squirming in her embrace, extending my short arms so that I might pluck a leaf from one of the boughs.
The masks, however, did not squirm. They did not move from underneath their wrapping. Father held them tightly to his chest. Children of his, cocooned in cloth, cautiously and carefully handled with love.
I glanced at Father, jealous of the masks’ hollow faces rubbing his side.
The path that curled before us seemed unending. The smells of the forest were familiar to me; the colors glowed like precious stones.
* * *
The light of the forest is a special light. Pale green. Yellow shadows. The forest floor, damp with last night’s rain, shimmers flecks of quartz, cushions your feet like green virgin moss. Mushrooms blossom like brown gardenias under heavy trunks.
The smell of the forest is intoxicating. Like an empress’s perfume, rich and floral, it rises from the earth in thick, steamy clouds.
Swallow it with a large gaping mouth. Slide it down with a glass of mountain rain. It is yours for the taking. The forest is but an offering. A gift created in the very images of the gods.
Yes, I am a Yamamoto, born from the base of the mountain. No stranger to the forest floor.
Cypress and ginkgo. Silk oak and red maple. I have hovered by your trunks and gathered your leaves. I have been tangled in the roots of burdock and itched from the sting of nettles. I have eaten the pet
als of chrysanthemum and slept in the tall grass of pampas. Yet why is it that my legs now quake and, with every step, my ankles tremble?
Is it that structure in the distance? The hooded roof, thatched from cypress bark, whose peak pierces the sky. The Kanze theater. A place, in my father’s eyes, more sacred than a temple. An interior that, perhaps even more so than our family home, he considers his own.
We enter under the large canopy of the roof. The audience boxes stretch before us. The hibachis are empty; there are no charcoals in the braziers. The silk cushions on the seats are a faded purple. As we walk along the middle aisle, I allow my fingers to dangle into the wooden boxes so that I might graze one of the cushions, to feel the silk on my finger pads.
I barely remembered sitting on one of them. Although I remembered how vibrant the purple color had once been. The deep color of an iris. Grandmother had a spring kimono she wore to the theater that was the same shade.
Father walked a few steps before me, and I watched as he trod on the side of the gravel that separated the audience from the stage. To the far right, hidden by a curtain, was a small stairway. He removed his sandals and ascended to the stage like a frail gray dove cloaked in cloth.
The stage, constructed from thin planks of cypress wood, gleamed like polished gold, and the large jars underneath the stage resonated with each of our steps. I followed my father without uttering a word as we passed the great twisting pine painted on the backboard and walked over the hashigakari, the passageway that bridged the backstage to the main stage: the entranceway for all Noh actors.
* * *
I heard the voices of the actors complaining among themselves even before I saw their faces.
“We had only three men at Saturday’s performance!” one man grumbled.
“I am not sure we even have enough money to buy coal for the hibachis,” said another.
Father hesitated before interrupting the men. “Shitsurei-shimasu-ga,” he said quietly. Excuse me for my rudeness.
The faces of the three men reddened with embarrassment. “Yamamoto Ryusei, greetings! Please accept our apologies for our rudeness. We are sorry to have kept you waiting.”
“I have brought my son, Kiyoki. I hope it is not an inconvenience to you.”
I emerged from behind my father’s slender back and bowed reverently to the three senior actors.
“I am Iwasaki Hidemi,” said one of the actors. “I am Fukuharu Kyoun,” said another man, shorter and plumper than the others. “I call myself Hattori Keizo,” said the last man. I noticed he had a rather unsightly mole growing below his eyebrow.
“How privileged you must be, Kiyoki, to have the greatest mask carver of our time as your father!” Iwasaki, the eldest of the actors, exclaimed.
I nodded back at him nervously, my eyes darting quickly to the floor.
“Won’t you have some tea, Yamamoto-san?” Hattori asked Father while motioning to the iron kettle steaming on a brazier.
“Yes, thank you.”
Hattori poured hot tea into five ceramic cups. We walked into one of the small side rooms and sat down on the tatami. My father sat down first and the three actors formed a circle from the point at which he sat. I sat slightly behind everyone, excluded by age and title, there only to observe.
Father unveiled the masks from their silken shroud. He smoothed the dark cloth that radiated like a dark mandorla, a black halo around three pale masks. He tipped each mask to show the actors their range of expressions.
The three men gasped with delight, sighed with appreciation, and rolled their eyes to the heavens to express their awe.
“I have brought with me only the Yase-Onna, Kasshiki, and Ishi-O-Jo masks, as I am not sure what you are lacking for this year’s performances,” Father said reverently.
“Perhaps the Yase-Onna could be used for your upcoming performance of Zeami’s Kinuta, if you think my humble mask merits such a honor,” Father said modestly, while holding the mask of the female spirit between his two palms. He had painted her with several layers of white aleurone and tinted her complexion with a mixture of pale yellow and antique brown. She appeared as translucent, eerie in her ghostliness, starving in her apparent ravished state.
Father did not need to explain his carving. The mask’s pointed cheekbones, triangular nose, and open mouth were executed with a master’s perfection. The distinctive hairline was delicately painted around the top half of the mask’s perimeter, with the three sections of overlapping hair, three strands of which were finely articulated in order to help identify the mask.
“Please,” Father began, his voice sounding friendlier and more open by the minute. “I offer my masks for your inspection.” He handed one mask to each of the three actors.
Hattori held the Kasshiki mask in between his large, creased hands and could immediately imagine himself as the waki in Togan Koji. Even a god could not have carved the mask of the young boy any better. The shape of the mask was perfectly oval. The size, only a few inches longer than his outstretched palm, was meant to fit snugly around one’s face. Hattori had a special appreciation for masks, perhaps even more than the other actors. For in a mask he no longer felt ugly and self-conscious. The mask not only disguised his visage but also covered his mole.
The features of the Kasshiki mask were soft and youthful. The cheeks were round and smooth, almost like one of the female masks. But the eyebrows were painted thinner and arched more. The hairline was thicker and punctuated in the middle by a large black fan of hair.
“Iwasaki-san,” Father said, almost playfully, “won’t you try on the Ishi-O-Jo mask so that the others might see how it looks when moving.”
As Iwasaki gladly untied the silk cord knotted in the back of the mask, I remained startled by how at ease my father seemed with the actors. I had never seen him socialize with anyone, and yet while he sat there with his glorious masks floating through the room, I had never seen him seem so natural. He was actually almost charming.
Iwasaki-san placed the mask over his face and tied the silk cord behind his head. The two other actors gasped in awe, but none of them louder than I. It was my father’s face now floating on another.
“It’s perfect for Saigyo-Zakura!” Fukuhara exclaimed.
“Yes, absolutely,” agreed Hattori. “We were planning to do a performance of Saigyo-Zakura in the spring.”
Iwasaki untied the cords and carefully returned the mask to my father. He was the oldest and most revered actor of the Kanze troupe. He had ascended to patriarch earlier that year.
“As you know, Yamamoto-san,” he began, his voice suddenly sounding grave and dispelling the former ease that had floated through the air, “for several years now the attendance at our performances has dwindled. It is no longer the glorious days of the Tokugawa when almost every seat was filled. At present we consider ourselves lucky if the first box has more than three people.
“Our treasury is almost empty, and we are not even sure we can afford coal for the braziers. You know that we have bought countless masks from you in the past, often during times when we should have saved the money that our forefathers had left for the survival of the theater. But we cannot help ourselves. Your masks have the power to seduce us. They dangle before our eyes, more precious than the rarest jewels.
“And so, Yamamoto-san, although I wish we could afford all three of your masks, I am afraid we can afford none of them. But as I see how my peers have reacted so strongly to the Ishi-O-Jo mask, I am willing to offer you three gold kobans for it. I understand, as you typically charge fifteen kobans, that this might be insulting to you. But, alas, it is all we can offer.”
The heads of the other two actors bowed humbly to their chests.
Father acknowledged their humility with the nodding of his head.
“Save your money, patriarch,” he said quietly. “I offer you these three masks for the sake and renewed prosperity
of Noh.”
He wrapped the three masks back in the furoshiki and pushed them over the tatami till they rested in front of Iwasaki.
The patriarch pressed the tip of his forehead to the floor, his arms outstretched, his palms flat on the tatami. The other two actors followed, mimicking their patriarch’s motions of reverence.
“We will be indebted to you for several generations,” said Iwasaki. “I hope I will live to see the day when our sons purchase masks carved by your son, Kiyoki.”
The three actors turned and bowed their heads in my direction.
Father did not acknowledge Iwasaki’s last statement. “Kiyoki,” he said, “we must return home before it gets dark.”
We excused ourselves and returned the way we had entered, passing over the hashigakari. We slid into our sandals without speaking, and returned home through the forest without uttering a word.
Father would seem forever different to me after that afternoon. I had seen him offer his masks, his priceless treasures, for not even a single piece of gold. He offered them with outstretched hands, like a priest offering sacrifice to an ailing god.
That night I dreamed of my mother. I dreamed that she prayed to the great Buddha to give her brother back his life. I dreamed that, as she raised her eyes to the face of the great bronze deity, she could no longer see his face. Forever sealed from her gaze, the great image of Buddha, completely covered by a mask.
FIFTEEN
I do not think I ever took notice that my family’s house had begun to decay. The five-room structure, which included the kitchen and three tatami rooms, as well as the small room on the second level that Father used as his studio, had been built by Grandfather before his marriage to Grandmother. Grandfather’s family owned almost all of the land by the mountain, living by its side for nearly five hundred years. They had journeyed on the same dirt roads by which my father and I still traveled. The senior actors rested in the cushioned seats of the carrying chairs, while the younger members walked alongside the horses, saddled with the precious costumes rolled up in carrying cloth.
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