Cutting Back

by Leslie Buck

  I wasn’t the only creature to be discovered at Shugakuin. The emperor’s garden came alive the week I worked there as we crawled, climbed, and sliced through it. During the week, I spotted a salamander, a fox, and a tiny green frog. The little frog stared at me meditatively, as though he couldn’t care less that I looked like a giant. His bright green skin glistened, even in the shade. Animals, including birds and insects, ran wild, disobeying path protocol. To notice the living nature of a garden, one must either work or sit among the trees quietly. This type of intimate interaction with a garden reminded me of getting to know someone. When icy dew permeated my thin cloth boots, the imperial garden challenged me by asking, “Do you care enough about me to continue?” As I came upon the old wooden boathouse, the garden recited a poem of age, decay, and beauty. And as I stared at the black, brown, and ochre leaves covering the moss, the garden nurtured me, diverting my troubled thoughts with a palette of visual treats. Mere photographs cannot capture the intimacy of a garden.

  Nakaji bellowed his commands across the gardens of Shugakuin. Colors, like moods, altered daily with the coming season. His voice, or perhaps other seasonal influences, finally shocked the maple leaves into great swaths of bright red and orange en masse. The maples sighed one last, great, colorful breath before their syrupy sugars made their way down into the roots for winter. Nakaji reached my area and walked over to closely examine a tall hedge, which I thought I’d mauled, near the front entrance of the garden. I held my breath but continued to work at an increased pace when he came into view. He looked the hedge up and down, and, without a word, walked off. Wow, progress! Or complete failure.

  Nakaji asked me, after I had been coughing for several days, “Are you feeling sick?” I replied, “Daijōbu” (I’m fine). I refused to admit defeat to the men; it would be like letting down the entire female human race. Nakaji commanded me to switch from using the scythe to raking leaves. Suspicious that I was receiving special treatment, yet feeling weak, I obeyed. I raked a mass of fallen rust and gold leaves atop a damp, emerald moss carpet, feeling guilty about clearing away the beautiful scene, but grateful to take it easy.

  Masahiro ran over and explained in broken English that when I’d gathered enough leaves, I was to come get him so he could carry my tarp to the truck, literally a five-minute jog away. Typically the men don’t just carry debris to the truck. They fill the tarps with as many leaves as humanly possible, swing a load over either shoulder, and sprint to the truck. I realized at that moment that Bossman indeed had gone easy on me, so I resisted, “Oh, no, I’ll carry it,” I insisted. I didn’t want the men feeling they had to work harder because of my sickness. “Yes, yes,” he insisted. “No, no,” I responded, planning to ignore him. Nevertheless, the very moment my large tarp was full, Masahiro would pop out of the trees, swipe my load, and run it to the truck. I glared at him and wanted to hug him the next moment.

  One afternoon I brought a special snack for the men to thank them for their continued support of the American woman in their midst. I’d hidden in a paper bag a large bowl of homemade popcorn—without butter or salt, so the men wouldn’t get their hands dirty. I wasn’t quite sure how the hierarchical group would handle eating the popped snacks from one large bowl, but that was the only way I could think to serve it. At first they acted hesitant, just looking the bowl over as though the idea of popcorn mystified them. Then, after a few men reached for a kernel or two, they dove all at once, like animals. Someone threw a piece of popcorn into the lake to tempt an imperial koi. Nakaji yelled at him and made him try to retrieve it with a rake! But it floated further away while all the men teased the worker. One koi actually did swim nearby, but it glided right past the soggy white thing floating on its rooftop. I worried that a koi might choke on a kernel, but Nakaji and the men just laughed. It did not surprise me that the trees reflecting upside-down green snow cones across the lake put the men in a good mood, as the purpose of this whole landscape was to encourage serenity and light-heartedness for the emperor and his friends.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted an imperial guard approaching us with haste down the long path surrounding the huge lake. I’d never seen a guard without a tour group. Uh oh, I thought, my tranquility shattering. Who do you suppose will be blamed for a piece of popcorn spoiling the emperor’s pristine lake? Sure enough, the guard headed straight toward us with a serious look on his face. As he neared, everyone huddled near Nakaji, trying to act innocent and well connected, avoiding eye contact with the guard. I wondered what Nakaji would do. Just as the guard reached us, he hesitated, and Nakaji stared at him with a blank look, in an aristocratic sort of way that only Nakaji, the he-man gardener of all gardeners, could carry off. The guard looked back, said “Konnichiwa” (Good afternoon), and continued on his way.

  The next day, as I sharpened my tools beside a path, I thought I heard a female voice, so I looked up. Sure enough, walking by was a young woman wearing a traditional khaki gardening uniform with a white towel wrapped around her black hair. She was the second Japanese woman gardener I’d ever seen. She looked to be in her twenties and stood unusually tall. She had a slim but healthy build and beautiful broad cheekbones. She was chatting to my coworkers, with her back mostly turned to me. No one attempted to introduce us. I decided to play it cool and not go over to say hello, as I might have done in California. Maybe it would embarrass her. I went back to concentrating on sharpening my tool. I felt it more important to show the men that there were two serious women working in the imperial garden, and that we had more important things to do than chit-chat. I suspected that she worked more seriously than I could ever imagine. I looked up one more time to get a glimpse of her and then focused on sharpening my hard blade against the wet stone. We’re working together, I reasoned; that’s enough.

  My last afternoon at Shugakuin, I worked way above the lake, behind an ancient stone building. As I focused on raking fast enough so that I could ignore my tired legs and arms, I heard an alarming cry. I whisked around, searching the dark brush for the source of the tortured moan. On a low wall ten feet away, watching me with inquisitive eyes, sat a foot-long mound of white fur. The cat stared at me confidently, displaying her refinement and beauty. Normally I can befriend even the most skittish of street cats. But for some reason not a single cat in Japan would let me get near it. Do American gardeners give off a strange smell?

  I looked around, listening. No footsteps or bellowing of Nakaji could be heard. I debated my options and then put down my rake. I’d never seen anyone stop work or slow down outside of breaks. If Bossman discovered me petting a cat, all the remaining leaves at Shugakuin might drop at once with Nakaji’s rage. The cat persisted with her tantalizing meows. Slowly, with anxious glances at the garden entry, I moved toward her as she stared back at me boldly. I stopped about five feet away and used my most clever cat-enticement method. I waited for her to come to me, calling her softly. She took a few steps forward. I tried to halt all but slight breathing. I relaxed my muscles. “Come here,” I said softly. As if she understands English, my inner supervisor corrected. I risked moving in a bit closer. She moved again, and then I. Finally, I put out my hand and touched her soft, warm head. Silky fur pressed against my fingers.

  When I first visited the imperial gardens two years earlier, to help me remember the garden’s name I imagined a queen made of sugar standing on the water. I’d say to myself, “Sugar Queen, Shugakuin.” I often associated Japanese words with visual images to help me memorize them. I looked down at the beautiful, pure white, fearless creature and thought, Certainly, this must be the real Sugar Queen of Shugakuin. After a bit more reckless petting, I resumed raking. Sugar Queen watched me with incredible concentration, like a spectator at a tennis match. When my rake moved left, her head followed left, and when it moved right, her head turned right. A friend joined her on the wall, and they watched together. Real fans!

  I wondered again if there might be spirits in this three-century-old estate, and, if so, how they
would appear. How would they feel about the noisy leaf blowers compared to the quiet garden rake? What would they think about this American woman working in their midst, struggling to match the fierce pace of Japanese craftsmen? Throughout the day, gray clouds grew and darkened. The temperature dropped, a sure sign of rain. But it never happened. For the first time in a week and a half, while I stood in the hidden garden with my new friends, the skies cleared and my head cold lightened. Just before we ended our final day in the emperor’s garden, the craftsmen and I took a moment to watch a blazing gold sphere melt into a burnt tangerine horizon and descend into the rice fields.

  Mother Makes a Secret Offering

  It was still dark when I saw Nakaji’s car approach our predetermined anonymous street corner. I hopped in. The vehicle jerked back and forth as I struggled to wake up from my groggy state. We then picked up Nishizawa, who would join our team until the end of my apprenticeship, just before New Year. Nishizawa was a senior worker in the company who had been landscaping in Kyoto with the company’s landscaping crew before he joined us. He looked like he could have been anywhere between his twenties and early forties. The gardeners in Japan I met looked so healthy, it was often hard to guess their age. Nishizawa’s demeanor was easier to predict. He always gave me a big smile when I greeted him, and, while very skilled at pruning, he completely lacked any sign of arrogance. He would fit in very well with the California Japanese woodworkers I’ve met, who are laid-back and friendly but highly disciplined. It seemed as though the other men looked to him for advice.

  We stopped to pick up Masahiro, and the four of us—minus Kei, who refused to work on his day off—drove across Kyoto until the truck pulled up to a middle-class house in a neat, compact neighborhood. I was curious about this home. In the front yard, a low fence revealed to passersby a garden that looked like a small forest. I observed that every tree and shrub had been attentively styled, including a detailed black pine silhouetted against a starlit dawn sky. Many of my California clients ignored their gardens in late fall, letting dead leaves pile up around half-used barbecues and old plastic chairs. This garden enthralled me. Nishizawa noticed my curiosity and said, “Nakaji-san home.” Without a single flower, it felt captivating and atmospheric. It embodied winter’s approach.

  Distinct elements in a garden, such as the bare branches of deciduous trees, stylized evergreens, or a lack of flowers, can give the viewer the feeling of winter even without snow or freezing temperatures. To get ideas for winter gardens, I encourage my pruning students to take hikes in nature in the wintertime. In California’s winter, the red twig dogwood, with its bright red bark, or the Douglas firs, with their small, handsome cones, would be fine plants to use in a California naturalized garden. In the little Kyoto garden, we stepped like cat burglars down a stone path in our silent dark blue jikatabi buttoned up to our calves, heading for the front door. The garden struck my laid-back Californian sensibilities as poetic in its sparseness yet almost too formal, with hardly a branch out of place.

  I glanced down at a stone basin, filled with crystal-clear water that held not a spot of dirt at the bottom, and nervously thought to scrape some dirt off my jacket. The garden floor looked as clean and pure as a fresh layer of snow. With such a fine garden, I imagined I might be about to step into the home of an ancient Japanese warrior, and I straightened my posture. I soon discovered I wasn’t too far off.

  The front door slid open, revealing a woman wearing a modern dress covered by a housewife’s apron. She smiled and beckoned us in. We stepped into the most elegant genkan, entry room, I’d ever seen, the size of a small bedroom. The genkan normally sits at street level and the rest of the house is a step higher, so the boundary remains clear between the shoe-allowed genkan and the shoe-forbidden rest of the house. The main house rose up much higher, about three feet, accessible by a large step that also served cleverly as a wide bench. Square silk pillows had been placed on the bench, along with a tray containing a teapot, cups, and slices of chocolate swirl cake. The offering drew us forward. We had come to this house to gather work equipment, and we were about to spend our only day off working in the gardens of Nakaji’s private client.

  I knew from Kei that Nakaji worked on Sundays in order to run his own business, in addition to six days a week with Uetoh. According to rumor, some years ago, Nakaji had requested permission to leave Uetoh so that he could start his own private business. The head boss had so disapproved, he’d picked up Nakaji’s heavy metal desk from the center of the room and dropped it in a corner. Nakaji apparently wouldn’t quit without respectful approval from the company, so instead worked seven days a week. This story mystified me. Why didn’t he just leave if he wanted to? My dad once said, “If something is deep in your heart, you have to do it.” Dad obviously hadn’t met a traditional Japanese craftsman.

  Despite the tempting tea tray, we remained standing three feet away, stealing glances at the sliced cake rounds, the black and white swirled side by side, like us. No one knew exactly what to do until Nakaji barked loudly, “Suwatte!” (Sit!) We sat down at once. The bench, its grain looking as smooth as an undisturbed pond, held us all, with the tray in the middle. Nakaji looked closely at the teapot, lifting the lid, and then said something to the woman who had greeted us at the door. She laughed warmly, smiled toward us, picked the pot up off the tray, and left the room. She returned shortly with another pot. I assumed that the first pot hadn’t looked sufficiently hot to Bossman. I also guessed that the woman was Nakaji’s wife, but I couldn’t be sure, as we were never introduced.

  We timidly drank our tea and took polite, hesitant turns reaching down and grabbing pieces of cake. I shivered a little while looking around. The cold never bothered Nakaji in the garden, or apparently in his home. Along a deep wooden shelf on one side of the room were displayed precious items of the household: a forbidding antique vase, an elegant ornate plate, and a maneki-neko, a well-known Japanese cat statue seen at the entrance to shops in red, white, and black. Nishizawa pointed to the kitty and let out a chuckle. Only a senior in the company could get away with that. I surveyed the circumference of the room, finally noticing just inside the main floor of the house a giant tree trunk, cut just above the roots and below the canopy. This thick, gnarled trunk stood taller than Nakaji and was broader than his shoulders. The lacquered surface glistened with each twist. When he saw me staring at it, Nishizawa said, “A cypress tree, one thousand years old.” My eyes widened. I wanted desperately to go up and touch it but stayed put. Nakaji invited us to step up into the living room while he gathered some things. As I passed the ancient cypress, I managed to graze the trunk with my left hand without anyone seeing.

  As ordered, the three of us seated ourselves stiffly on the living room’s black leather couch. I noticed some books on the coffee table and thought perhaps it would be okay if I looked through them; at any rate, I couldn’t resist. I found a wide selection of Japanese garden photo books and flipped through them. I soon determined that each book featured a garden built and cared for by Uetoh Zoen. Insatiable curiosity comes in handy! Then I discovered a landscape architecture magazine article featuring a large public Japanese garden in Vancouver called the Nitobe Memorial Garden. Nitobe had been extensively renovated by Uetoh Zoen.

  The year before I started my business, I’d done a solo trip up to Canada to bolster the courage I did not feel I had yet, and ended up in Vancouver one night, unable to find a place to stay. After an hour at a pay phone, calling places I’d looked up in a travel guide and feeling a bit frazzled, I succeeded in securing a night at a temporary summer dorm room on the University of British Columbia campus. I arrived at night, relieved that I didn’t have to sleep in the back of my truck. The next morning I stepped outside the dorm to refreshing sunshine. To my surprise, right next door to the building I’d slept in was a distinguished Canadian Japanese garden called Nitobe. I loved wandering around the garden with its winding streams, mesmerizing overhead maple branches, and strikingly simple lake design
, with white sand against blue-black water.

  Sitting on Nakaji’s black couch, I thought, What a coincidence! The young man sitting next to me on this couch had once worked in the garden I’d found by chance four years earlier! I looked over at Nishizawa, then again at the photos of Nitobe. In one photo, next to an enormous rock being moved with a tripod, stood Nishizawa. I wasn’t sure which coincidence was more amazing: that my crew had worked at the garden I had visited, or that I had picked that particular book off the table. My whole time in Kyoto, in fact, felt just like that, like one big coincidence that almost didn’t happen. A bit daunted, I looked down at the pile of books and magazines on the coffee table. I wasn’t sure which book I should pick up next.

  Instead I commented to Nishizawa, “Nakaji-san has worked on many gardens.” Nishizawa could understand a little English if I spoke simply and slowly. “Do you know at what age he began his studies to become a gardener?” Nishizawa responded gently, in his proper way: “I believe Nakaji-san began pruning after he finished his training as a kamikaze pilot in World War II.” He said this casually. Jesus! I thought. He was a kamikaze pilot? But I remained expressionless and just tilted my head a little, as though I was Spock reacting to one of Captain Kirk’s dramas. I kept a tight rein on my emotions; I did not want to appear ignorant about our role in the war and our bombing of Japan. I also didn’t want the men to think I would now fear Nakaji, even if he had brought me close to tears a couple of times. “Hmm,” I said pensively. Had the men been holding out on me about Nakaji, worrying about my reaction?

  The news penetrated my thoughts like a shovel cutting through hard soil. Nakaji, earlier in his life, would have considered me an enemy combatant. The shovel continued to dig. Later, he assumed the role of a thoughtful mentor for an American young woman. People since have told me that the realities and feelings of those chosen to become kamikaze fighters were complicated. Still, I marveled over Nakaji’s life journey. True, he had never shown me any appreciation; but if he’d wanted to, he could have made my life miserable. Nakaji treated me with respect. He skillfully challenged me and thoughtfully encouraged me to believe in myself. He pushed me, wanting me to learn but not fail. Despite his gruffness, I admired the man who in his youth might have killed me if given the chance.