Japanese Portraits: Pictures of Different People (18 page)

We next met at my house. Tamasaburo came bringing boxes of sushi for our supper. All I had to do was make some tea. He was charming, attentive, forthcoming, frank—the kind of guest who knows how to make himself at home without ever forgetting that it isn't his house.

He wanted to talk, and so I learned more about his early life, about a childhood filled with study and little time for play, how he learned to cope with those professional jealousies which began early and never ended, how awful Utaemon is to everyone, not just to him.

As he continued I saw that Tamasaburo was being as honest with himself as he knew how to be. He sat there holding open the doors of his mind, refusing to retreat into accepted opinion, ready answers. This is rare—he is not afraid of upsetting convention, and he has his own standards.

Thus encouraged, I asked something I had sometimes wondered about: when he makes love has he ever done it dressed as an
onnagata?

Tamasaburo was shocked, putting one hand on the side of his face. Oh, no, this he could never do. When I ask why, he thinks and then says it is because he could never lose himself if he did, that he would always be aware of himself.

- I'm an actor. Even when I was little I made a distinction between who I really was and who I was pretending to me—my role. Some actors purposely confuse them, but I don't.

Then, after more thought: The Kabuki isn't like that. When I am in a role I am aware—intensely aware—of playing a part, not of being that part. Yet being unaware is one of the points of making love, isn't it, surely?

I agree. Losing oneself is a great attraction—and not only through sex.

- When I make love I don't want to know who I am, he says with that shy adolescent smile which has nothing at all feminine about it, but something of the stalwart youth facing up to a fact of life.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi, warlord, unifier of Japan, advanced upon Gaspar Coelho, Superior of the Jesuit Mission to Japan. This was in 1585, when Coelho was being shown around Osaka Castle.

It was also the Shochiku Film Studio in Ofuna where the great gold assembly room had been recreated. Here the famous actor of stage and screen, Tsutomu Yamazaki, in full kimono, all scarlet and gold, was advancing upon Coelho, in habit and hat, all black, surrounded by his equally black-robed acolytes: Coelho being me, put into the picture as a sign of favor, or perhaps amusement, by director Hiroshi Teshigahara.

The film was Rikyu, a historical drama about the conflict between political Hideyoshi and aesthetic Sen no Rikyu, the tea master. The scene in which we were now engaged was meant to show the warlord being political—enlisting the foreign aid of the Jesuits. Just now he had completed a speech welcoming us and hinting that when he had conquered Korea and China we might follow in his steps and make them all Christians. Then he advanced toward me.

Having pondered over my single line—in Portuguese—I had already decided how to interpret my role. Knowing that Hideyoshi was later going to expel the Jesuits, I decided to be as politically canny as he was. It was to be a duel between equals: Gaspar standing up to the warlord. I would be stern and use my single line to lash out with, then retire with dignity, and when shown the gold (next sequence) I would be coldly attentive, nothing more. In front of the mirror I looked sternly at my reflection and delivered my line with a cold smile.

In the great gold assembly room Hideyoshi had gotten out all his foreign presents to impress his guests—that is, the Shochiku prop department had gotten out whatever it could find in the way of regal treasure. There was a Louis XV table and, a bit ahead of its time, a Victorian love seat, together with a Viking helmet, a stuffed polar bear, and lots of Persian carpets.

- Hey, man, said one of my Portuguese acolytes, sitting behind me on the tatami: That polar bear no good. They no got polar bear back then.

- They got polar bear, said the Japanese propman, also in English.

- And the rugs, man, continued my acolyte: They no Persian, they Syrian. They lousy.

The acolytes, chosen for their Latin looks, were actually Iranian, drawn from the large group of otherwise idle men in Tokyo, and they knew all about carpets.

Then Hideyoshi stomped in and at once began his speech. Coelho's interpreter, Luis Frois (the actor Ken Frankel), was supposed to be whispering into my ear the Portuguese equivalent, but since neither of us knew the language, he babbled and I nodded.

Then came my line: A
Coreia e a China n
ã
o querem a guerra!
—Neither Korea nor China had any desire for war. These were the words I used to lash the barbarian upstart with.

Or would have used, had I been able to get them out. But Yamazaki had advanced on me so suddenly that I forgot the last half. My delivery was consequently less than confident. This was just the rehearsal, however, so I turned to the single real Portuguese on the set and asked if he could simplify my sentence.

- It's pretty simple already, he said, scratching his head: Well, maybe
Coreia e a China querrem pas.

Again Hideyoshi made his appearance and again delivered his speech. Yamazaki—tragic criminal in Kurosawa's
High and Low
, comic truck driver in Itami's
Tampopo,
Richard III and Oscar Wilde on the stage—is not a big man but he is an imposing one. He is also a master of the techniques of acting, and here I was sitting on the tatami clutching my line and he was advancing on me.

I backed off as best I could, hat wobbling, and tentatively delivered my truncated Portuguese. Then Hideyoshi said that if I wanted anything I could approach him through Rikyu here. This personage bowed and I bowed and my hat fell off. However, it was still just a rehearsal.

- Why does he do that? I whispered to Ken: Come at me like that.

- It's his conception of the role. Notice how he does it?—it's fantastic. You see, an actor has to have a vehicle, and Yamazaki has chosen impatience. That governs every move, and makes his advancing on you necessary. He has to treat you this way. Understand?

-Yes.

- It's just marvelous, what he's doing.

I made no comment.

Now came the first take. Teshigahara and his crew were off to one side, a long shot, the camera then dollying in for a medium shot of the protagonists. There would stand the blustering warlord and there would sit, immobile as a block of stone, the worldly priest, outstaring the warlord with his own steely gaze.

Hiroshi told the camera to start. The set hushed. Yamazaki shouted impatiently and then advanced so swiftly and stood so close that I had to move back (difficult to do when kneeling on tatami), and as I looked up in surprise I knew that a steely gaze was impossible.

And, instantly, like any actor, I knew how to play my part. It all, as they say, came together. I was a pious old fraud—why hadn't I seen that before?

After this scene there was an interval. I was sitting next to Rikyu, played by Rentaro Mikuni. I asked him how I'd looked.

- Fine. The hat is nice.

- No, I meant my acting.

- Oh, he said, then, after some thought: Well, I think that playing the role in a comic fashion is certainly one possibility.

Comic? I hadn't known I was comic. Gaspar Coelho might well have been a pious old fraud but his being comic was far from my newfound interpretation of him. I turned to Ken.

- Actors play off each other, he said: They create right then and there. That's what you and Yamazaki did.

No, I thought, that was what Yamazaki had done.

- Hey, man, you funny, said the Iranian behind me.

We were to take the scene again. I wondered if Hideyoshi had really browbeaten poor Gaspar in that way. If he had, then maybe the Jesuit—peace at any price—had caved in. Maybe his single line was not defiance but defense.

And I thought of Japanese television, where the foreign guest is made a fool of, or makes a fool of himself. I always sternly refused such TV offers whenever they came my way, but here I was in a historical spectacular doing the same thing.

The warlord advanced and I whined my line, then fell timidly back when he moved still closer. This time Yamazaki wanted to shake hands and improvise some dialogue as well. I dropped my rosary and looked up meekly from under my hat.

- Cut, said Teshigahara, who made a thumbs-up sign and gave me a big smile.

- Hey, man, you natural comic, said the Iranian.

I straightened my hat, picked up my rosary, and said savagely: I am not.

But the die was cast, as they said back in 1585, and when everyone moved to the storehouse where all the gold was kept (next set), I tripped over my habit, was struck dumb at all the treasure, raised my hands to heaven, then bent forward greedily to touch. And all without any direction at all. I might not have become Coelho but I had become someone.

Afterward, when my moustache was being removed and my habit folded, I said to Yamazaki as the entire top of his head, samurai pate and all, was being lifted off: You did that!

- No, he said:
You
did it. Or, maybe, we did it.

- Is that what acting is like?

- Yes, said this fine actor.

- I thought it was more friendly.

- Nothing personal, said Yamazaki, smiling: Hideyoshi was that kind of person.

- And Coelho, was he what I made of him?

- Maybe, but it doesn't make any difference. The main thing is that he didn't want to become important and that Hideoshi did. He wasn't a warlord. Hideyoshi was. Understand?

I understood.

She put up the samisen and took down the
futon.
I was to spend the night. I then remembered seeing my host taking her into a corner, passing something over. Money, as it turned out.

Now she smoothed the sheet and plumped the pillows. Such wifely actions I found inconsistent with her showy kimono, her loud, striped sash, her skewered, piled-up hairdo. They would have seemed even more so if she had been a real geisha.

But she wasn't. She was imitating one—had learned the minimum necessary to enter the guild and escape the anti-prostitution laws: a few tunes on the samisen, a couple of classical songs, and the ability to pose her way through a dance or two.

She was of the recent variety then known as
daruma-geisha,
named after that round-bottomed toy that rolls upright after it has been knocked over, or
makura-
geisha, referring to the pillow she had just given a final kick to.

Earlier, she had given herself geisha-like airs—artificial laughter, hand over mouth, extravagant flattery, an occasional appraising glance, as though trying to guess how much I weighed.

And I, as is my wont, had tried to talk seriously, which sent her into fits of giggles. Then she kept complimenting me on my Japanese whenever I made a mistake. And she wanted unqualified admiration for what her little fingers could do with a tangerine.

Since I had failed to appreciate either her talents or her charms, her manner became cool and, moving to the other side of the table, she started talking about baseball, surmising—accurately—that I would know nothing about it.

At this I grew impatient and sulked. Shortly it became apparent to both of us, if not to our host, that we didn't like each other. Yet now it seemed we were to be yoked together for the night.

We both responded, in our separate ways, with bad grace. She gave the
futon
another kick and I yawned in her face. Then, while I scuffed about the room, she, with no seductive gestures at all, squatted in front of the dressing table and took off her wig, which made her look suddenly small, then wiped off her makeup, which made her look suddenly younger.

This young, pale, sullen girl then removed all her various robes except the final one, lay down on the
futon
, pulled up the coverlet, and closed her eyes.

One knows this happens to foreigners now and again, being taken out to dinner by someone who wants something, and then, after lots of food and saké, ending up in bed with the entertainment. If you're lucky you like each other.

Of course, at this point I could have left. But it would have looked bad, word would have got back to the host of hospitality spurned. And it was late, and I didn't know quite where in the city I was, having paid no attention to the way we had come, and my host had long since driven away.

But
I
could, at least, have left. She couldn't, no matter how much she disliked me. She had been bought, paid for. No matter how she felt she had to go through with it, whatever it was. At least I still had the freedom of refusal. She had no freedom at all.

Not that I felt sorry for her and her lot. She had chosen—like any of us. There was other work she could have found, though the labor might have paid less well. And, as I slowly undressed by the still form in the light of the small
andon
lamp, I found myself wondering how much she had cost.