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

by Pearl S. Buck

  On a morning in the middle of the desert period of the picture I sat on the edge of a fishing boat and watched our star, Sessue Hayakawa. With grim patience he was waiting to be called to the set. The scene had to be repeated because the sound man reported a fly on the microphone which nobody had noticed. There were flies in spite of the repellent which one of the crew sprayed zealously on the just and the unjust alike, and one fly had cunningly concealed himself on the microphone and buzzed enough to outsound everything else. Our star waited and his secretary-maid fanned him under his heavy robes.

  “Why doesn’t someone fan me so strategically?” the American director demanded.

  No one answered and no one fanned him. Only the star sat patiently on. In his hand he held a tiny transistor radio. He was listening to a fight and when I smiled he explained that only thus could he find life endurable under the circumstances. Meanwhile, the make-up man ran to apply iced towels to his wrists and neck and to touch up his face and the star lit a large cigar to the infinite terror of the make-up man who feared for the beard he had so carefully applied. No one dared to suggest anything to the star, however, and he smoked in peace, his eyes closed as he listened to the fight.

  On the set the director struggled with our grandfather, who though actually old, had too young a voice. The director illustrated how an old man’s voice should sound. I held my peace. I know that old men’s voices are high and shrill, not low and husky, but I held my peace. I had learned the first day to hold my peace—“for God’s sake!”

  Somehow we struggled through the middle desert, getting up early every morning, crowding exhausted into the boats at night, assuaged only by the beauty of the sunset sky. There were nights when we worked so late that it was dark when we took ship and the sea sparkled with tiny phosphorescent fish, outdoing the stars in the heavens.

  And Sessue Hayakawa, advanced to the last day of his contract with us, was finishing his scenes as Old Gentleman and we were still in the desert. Make-up man had done rather a skillful job of aging him the ten years for which the script called, but the same wind which had made the surf too high for the boats one morning blew off his left eyebrow. Makeup man was fit to be tied, because he did not bring an extra eyebrow with him from the hotel. There was nothing to be done except to make an eyebrow from white hairs left over from the beard. … Everything continued to go wrong. The cakes the kindhearted citizens of the town left with us as a treat for the crew turned out to be of an undesirable variety and nobody would eat them. We were all morose. The rushes had been delayed that we hoped to see a week ago. A Japanese holiday had intervened, and a Sunday, and we had seen very few rushes, so that we were at least three days behind schedule. We drew apart and pondered dark thoughts. Could anybody understand the English our actors speak? We were trying the impossible—Japanese actors playing in English! Young Yukio and young Toru, our farm mother, among others, spoke little or no English, and now they spoke it, but was it good enough? How would it sound, even when our star spoke, to an American audience?

  In the midst of the desert of pessimism we had a letter from our business manager in Tokyo. She had seen the rushes of Old Gentleman and they were superb, she said, including dialogue. They made her cry, she reported. For that young sophisticate to cry means something. We had not supposed it possible, so cool and collected was she, so chary of praise. Our hopes soared. Perhaps we were almost out of the desert.

  In renewed spirits we gave a dinner for Sessue Hayakawa in honor of his leaving us. He was in a fine mood and drank a mixture of cold beer and sake, which he sustained admirably, and his stories were as good as his plays. Fifty years in theater in many countries made a lifetime of stories worth telling. We were sorry to see him go, and I think he was sorry to leave us, but there is nothing permanent in theater life. We work together closely for a few days and weeks and months, growing fond of one another, we part and forget. Nothing goes deep—it is the only way to bear it.

  The rushes arrived and we went to the theater across the street after the evening show was over. They did not make me cry but I was pleased with them. Then suddenly I saw our young star, our grown-up Toru. He was sitting in the row ahead of me, heavily asleep. My heart sank under the seat. Could he sleep? Yes, he could and did. I turned to my companion.

  “Look at that!”

  “He is drunk,” was the indignant reply.

  Yes, there was a party tonight and our young star was drunk. It was all too obvious when the rushes ended and we left the theater. He could not stand up. Nevertheless, I felt chilled. Drunk or sober, how could he sleep? No, we were still in the desert and we could only plod on.

  There was one more moment in the day. It was the last glimpse, the final close-up, of Old Gentleman’s servant. We took it in front of the hotel, and the crowd gathered, a prosperous holiday crowd with cameras and gaiety. Old Gentleman’s servant was of course the little ancient wardrobe man but he had gained a new dignity. He had achieved a lifelong dream. He was now an actor. All these years he had only been making clothes and finding costumes for others to wear upon the stage. But now he had worn a costume of his own, he had had his face made up—only a little, for it was such a perfect face for the part. That night he stood in the presence of the crowd with calm and dignity and the cameraman took the close-ups we needed for the final film. When they were finished, we bowed and shook hands, we thanked him and he bowed in return. He told us that this was the greatest year of his life. He had become an actor, he had played a part with Sessue Hayakawa, and next month he was to marry off his daughter.

  So the day ended.

  “Otsukaresama!”

  It is a word meaning, “You are tired,” a gentle Japanese way of saying, “You may quit for the day.”

  It was true. We were tired.

  We were now well past the desert. There was one big scene left for Kitsu, the coming of the tidal wave. While we had been working around this scene, our special-effects man had been creating it in the special-effects studio in Tokyo. Twice he had come to Obama to consult and to take hundreds of pictures of Kitsu and the empty beach beyond. We knew that we were in safe hands, the tidal wave would be perfect, but we could not see it until we returned to the city. Ours was the task of creating the approach to the wave, and the recovery from it.

  An air of tensity and dread crept into the village as we prepared for the scene of the tidal wave. This was cutting near the bone. Every man, woman and child feared above all else in their beautiful precarious life the ungovernable tidal wave striking with no warning except the low and ominous roar over the horizon, the muddied water of the well, the quiver of the earth. Even to imagine the horror was almost more than they could bear as they set themselves doggedly to the task of acting the dread reality. Farm and fisher families played their parts well, and we drew near to the final evening, when in the darkness the torches flamed before Old Gentleman’s house and the panic-stricken Kitsu families fled from their ancestral homes up the narrow winding mountain path to safety at the top of the cliff.

  Toru was for that evening the star, the boy Toru. Our part of the scene was to bring him to the moment when he sees the village swept away, and we see it in his face. The tidal wave was to be inserted here and after it we took over again when Toru, in agony and madness and all but swept away himself, was saved only by a strong kind hand put out to seize him as he clung to the cliff. He acted the part superbly but I remember especially the people swarming up the hillside, the dogged frightened people taking the path their ancestors had trodden so often before them, but in reality.

  That night when it was all over and we went away soberly, we gained a new understanding of the incomparable courage of the Kitsu folk, the unswerving devotion to the sea and to their way of life, a clean good way, but perilous. We said good-by with tender regret. I have memories of a crowd of kind faces in the lantern light, of the headman proudly receiving our praise and thanks, saying the only reward he wished was to know when the picture would be shown in Japan.
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  “We will put on our best clothes and go even to Tokyo,” he told us.

  At last on the mountain the flames of the torches at Old Gentleman’s gate died into final darkness. It was over, the picture was made, and never shall I forget the long beautiful days of sea, wind and sunshine, of meals shared on the beach, and the great pewter pots of tea, nor shall I ever forget the hours of rest I spent lying half asleep in an empty boat drawn up on the shore, the drowsy sound of waves in my ears, the heat of noon upon me. I had put away in those days and for the time being the waiting shadows of loss and loneliness. I lived for the day, the hour, the work, the deep organic healing of the warmth of the sun, the driving rain, and the stormy sea.

  We were so near the end of the picture now that we could plot the design of our days. After Kitsu came the empty beach of Chijiwa and here was the great shark-catching scene and the last scene with the children now grown and finding love and life, joy and sorrow. Last of all at Kitsu was the scene with Old Gentleman, Toru and Setsu. After that there remained only the volcano scene at Oshima to be shot and inserted at its proper place in the film.

  I am going too fast. Let me remember first Chijiwa itself. In a crowded country, on a matchless shore, this wide and beautiful beach is left unpopulated. It is empty and has been for centuries. Go there any day and you will see fishing nets spread out to dry but no people. Chijiwa faces the sea at a peculiar angle so that typhoons and tidal waves strike it with a devastating force, and the fisherfolk, after the often repeated experience of total destruction, have listened at last to the threatening sea and live there no more.

  It is a supremely fine beach, nevertheless, stretching two miles long and reaching deep into the land, its boundaries, east and west, huge and handsome rocks. My life in Asia and my love of Asian art has conditioned me to rocks. They add stability to the landscape, and the shapes they take from age and weather express the moods of nature. They signify strength and resistance and eternal values. At the far end of Chijiwa there were such rocks, and against them as backdrop we played the final love scene with Toru and Setsu, grown-up. It was toward the rocks Old Gentleman went when he bade them his last farewell.

  Let me not forget, either, the sharks. It is a unique scene in the picture and it was a unique experience to perform. Once a year the fisherfolk of that region go out to hunt sharks. These cruel creatures of the sea destroy the fish in any area they choose to possess and fishermen make war against them. Their coming is heralded by shoals of small fish, the bait fish, and when these appear, the fishermen prepare their strategy. They bring their boats, some two hundred, and stretch between them the biggest net in the world and the strongest. Then the boats widen into a vast circle and as the bait fish swim into its space, the sharks follow. When the net is full of the squirming monsters the boats draw together and the sharks are in a trap. On the shore hundreds of men haul in the net, and drag the sharks to the beach. There they club the sharks to death, then cart them away, their tender parts to be eaten, the rest to be made into oil and fertilizer. Sometimes the take is good, sometimes it is not. Last year the men caught only one shark, but this year we brought them luck, they said, for they caught and killed one hundred and twenty.

  I have no affection for sharks but I did not enjoy the clubbing. I did enjoy very much the fleet of fishing boats, their gay flags flying in the bright sunshine, and the lively crowd on the shore. The crowd was always with us, and long ago we had learned to accept them as part of the landscape. Why should I describe the scene further, when it is all there in the picture and better than I can tell it in words? It is an ancestral war, this, between man and shark, and on that day man won. And while the battle was being fought again, our characters carried on their own personal strife, the grown Haruko and Setsu in their memorable fight, when Haruko sought to drown Setsu, and Toru and Yukio, no longer children, faced the private dangers of being men. It is all there in the picture, even to the end when Toru sets out for sea in his boat and with his love.

  We had now only to return to Oshima, yet I had one dream to fulfill. It was a small dream, of no importance to anyone except myself, and it was to go to the little Japanese house on the mountainside near Unzen where once in a previous life, I had taken refuge during the Second Revolution in China. The attacking army proved to be Communist-led, and all Westerners had been compelled to leave the city of Nanking where we were living. To Japan I had come with my family and a few other Americans and to the mountains above Nagasaki. Thither I returned now, with a Japanese friend as guide and interpreter.

  We rented a car and driver and at the usual breackneck speed we wound our way along the abruptly curving road to Unzen. The mountain village I remembered had grown into a modern spa, but the hot springs were the same, spouting jets of steam from hundreds of small vents in the rocks, and people were boiling eggs and heating water for tea over the natural fires. I could not find my way through the new streets to the old country road I remembered, and we stopped a young woman to inquire if she had ever heard of houses where once, years ago, American refugees from China had lived. Her face lighted—yes, her grandfather knew and he had often spoken of those Americans. She produced the grandfather, a thin sprightly old man, who cheerfully led us to the road and down into a shallow valley, across a brook and up the mountain again until at last we came to the cluster of Japanese houses. They were empty now and closed, but I saw the little place of shelter where we had lived safely for a while and among friends but in great poverty, stripped by the revolution of all we had owned. My life had changed completely in the intervening years. I was no longer the rather desperate young woman who had lived under that roof and the overhanging pines. I pressed some money on the old man and went away, knowing I would never return. As we left Unzen, however, someone called us and we stopped the car. It was the young woman and she handed me a package.

  “My grandfather says he remembers that you used to buy these rice cakes for your children,” she said.

  It was true. I had forgotten, but he had not.

  Oshima had looked hellish enough on our scouring trip in May but now it was October and the volcano had been active and rebellious in the months between. Even in Tokyo the weather was ominous. We had planned to go by air and had chartered a plane that was to take us all across the channel in relays but the morning dawned somber and gray and the pilot refused to fly. We were working against time now, each of us anxious to get home or to overdue jobs, and to avoid delay we took passage on the night boat. A typhoon was in the offing and even a ship had its hazards. We had taken so many risks, however, had committed ourselves to sea and air so often, that one more risk seemed plausible.

  In driving rain and howling wind we drove to the quay that night and boarded a top-heavy, old-fashioned steamer. Fortunate the darkness, for we could not see how many people were embarking. We got ourselves on board, camera, crew, actors and all, and went at once to our cabins. In a few minutes we were under way and heading for the sea.

  I shudder as I remember that fearful night. The sea was vicious, the wind and rain contending enemies, but worst of all the ship was carrying four times its proper load of passengers and again these passengers were hundreds of school children, off on an excursion to Oshima. They were seasick by the hundreds, poor little things, and the lavatories and corridors became unusable and impassable. The real danger, however, was in the ship itself. The superstructure was far too high and the vessel rolled from side to side to a degree that imperiled our lives. I am a seasoned sailor and have crossed oceans again and again from my first voyage across the Pacific at the age of three months to my last flight across the same ocean a few months ago at an age grown indefinite, yet never have I been in fear as I was that whole night long on the way to Oshima. Somewhere, before dawn, a friend who was traveling with us came in to see how his wife, my cabin mate, was faring. His good face was green with terror.

  “We’re breaking all the laws of mathematics,” he groaned. “The ship is rolling at an impossible m
athematical degree. It can’t be done. We should by rights be flat on our side and floundering.”

  I lay on my berth and reflected upon a strange life—my own. How is it that a mild-mannered peaceable woman with no desire, ambition or even inclination for adventure manages somehow to be always in the midst of adventure? So passionately do I love the usual, the commonplace, the everyday, that I turn off the television instantly if an adventure program comes on. It is no use. I am constantly involved in some daring expedition and loathing it, and I have always particularly hated the thought of drowning at sea. I dislike drowning in any case, but if it must be my end I prefer a small swimming pool or better still, a bathtub. Yet I cannot count the seas I have traveled upon, how many times the Pacific, scarcely less often the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and all the seas curling in and around the complex shores of Asia. Now apparently I was to meet my fate between Tokyo and Oshima. The Big Wave, indeed!

  Dawn came at last, a weak wet dawn, the pale sun fringed with mists, and the ocean still growling and snarling its white-crested waves in contradictory currents. The dim outlines of Oshima appeared from nowhere and we struggled into our clothes. In fifteen minutes we were due to dock. Fifteen minutes became an hour and then two hours while we continued to roll. We could not dock, it appeared, because the sea was too rough. If it did not subside, we were told, we would be compelled to go to the other side of the island where there was an inferior dock. It did not subside and we went to the other side of the island to the inferior dock. A long procession of pale but determined school children disembarked and then we got off and went through rain to the hotel. This time I was too subdued to protest when I found myself again quartered in the Emperor’s room, a setting I had refused on my earlier visit as being too overwhelming for the modest citizen of a republic.