Category Archives: A La Une

Ses chroniques

November 19, 2015 viceversaonline

Arturo Mariani

Parfois mes amis me demandent d’arrêter de m’exalter et de ne plus leur parler des histoires que certaines créatures terriblement dipsomanes me révèlent lorsque je prends un coup avec elles. Je suis sûr que, par exemple, mes copains s’inquièteraient ou se moqueraient de moi et qu’ils trouveraient invraisemblables les récits qu’un personnage tout à fait spécial et pittoresque est en train de me rapporter aujourd’hui même.
Il me les relate à voix haute depuis ce matin, lorsque je l’ai trouvé au dépanneur du coin, tout enfermé entre murailles vitrées. Ce sont de très belles tirades. Un peu violentes et dédaléennes, certes, mais toujours avec un excellent conseil à garder, une délicieuse morale à retenir, une judicieuse philosophie à saisir, comme cette chronique sur le fou qui, à force de jouer aux échecs, rêvait souvent qu’il était à l’extrémité d’une diagonale ouverte d’où il pouvait guetter une tour à encercler, une dame à conquérir ou encore un roi à tuer, ou cette histoire de l’homme qui imaginait à son tour des histoires qui poussaient comme de splendides fleurs colorées dans une bouteille de pinot noir, l’homme qui un jour, lors d’un grand accès de colère provoqué par un oubli inouï – digne d’une étude de la part des plus célèbres médecins du monde – les avait toutes bues sans les avoir jamais racontées.

..les avait toutes bues sans les avoir jamais racontées.

Pour ma part, j’aurais voulu vous dire plus sur mon interlocuteur d’aujourd’hui. Mais j’ai encore soif, mon armoire est terriblement vide, il ne me reste que sa bouteille, et je pense que, sans l’élément dont il prend son inspiration, il va se taire bientôt. Et cela me cause beaucoup de peine : avec ses chroniques, le ver qui parle et ondoie dans cet alcool mexicain aurait gagné les plus prestigieux prix d’art oratoire, ou il aurait pu, grâce à l’entraînement à la nage qu’il a eu tous les jours depuis son enfermement, se rendre même aux Olympiades. Dommage que je doive boire le contenu de sa piscine et arrêter d’écouter ses histoires. J’aurais voulu en savoir davantage.

A La Une, Ficciones

Désert blanc

November 11, 2015 viceversaonline

Karim Moutarrif

Préambule

Les noms de lieux, les mots pour qualifier les choses sont, la plupart du temps approximatifs dans la vie de tous les jours. En plus ils sont proie à l’empire du préjugé. Le malaise de se situer est-il si important, ou est-ce un besoin créé? Au-delà de la perception humaine y a t’il vraiment un quelque part?

Ne vit-on pas là où on est?

En fait les lieux n’ont pas d’importance, ils sont justes investis culturellement pour des raisons idéologiques. Si les lieux n’ont pas vraiment d’importance, l’histoire est d’abord humaine. Et le héros, le citoyen lambda, qui ne se nomme pas parce qu’il ne s’appelle pas. Même dans les moments de dialogue intérieur, il parle avec son double; son double étant lui-même, il a encore moins de raisons de se nommer.

texture de papier abstrait arrière-plan flou – banque photo libre de droits

Il est de n’importe où, la souffrance ou l’amour ne sont pas racistes.

À l’heure où les questions – qui es-tu ? D’où viens-tu ? – deviennent dérisoires, tant il est évident que nous sommes tous pareils et qu’il n’y a qu’une seule race, la race humaine. Le héros est citoyen de la terre dans un gouvernement fédéral, où toutes les xénophobies et tous les fatras de la bêtise humaine seront un jour jugulés. Et dans la Constitution de la Terre, il faudrait inscrire le droit de rêver.

Tout cela est né de la fumée comme un sortilège dans un conte iranien.

Assis près du feu, dans ce bois. La nuit recouvrait tranquillement le jour de son voile noir.

Bientôt il n’y eut plus que la nuit. Et une multitude de constellations au-dessus de la forêt infinie. C’est dans le feu magique, dans la danse des flammes que s’est joué l’épilogue de cette histoire.

Avec l’esprit des premiers habitants de cette terre. Même quand ils ne sont pas là, il y a leur fantôme. Ils étaient là et leurs esprits hanteront cette lande à jamais. Les lieux qu’ils ont nommés ont gardé la marque à l’épreuve du temps et de toutes les amnésies.

Le bois, la terre, l’eau et le feu leur font écho. D’ailleurs ce soir là leurs esprits bienveillants étaient avec nous.

Il fit un rêve.

Le soleil projeta l’ombre de l’aigle sur la terre aride de soleil et dans le déploiement de son ample plumage, il s’élança vers les territoires de la mémoire. Des territoires comme l’étalement infini des dunes sculptées au gré des caprices du vent.

La mémoire comme une immensité passée.

L’ombre de l’animal traversait les zébrures de l’ombre des vagues de sable, comme par enchantement.

Une musique d’Afrique lui balaya la tête, comme un coup d’harmattan, laissant derrière elle un goût de sable dans l’air.

Il survolait la savane.

D’un battement d’ailes, savamment dosé, l’animal jouait avec le vent, en toute sérénité. Comme un vaisseau des airs, il était porté par le courant.

Il faisait le point.

Les images de sa vie défilaient. Le point au bout d’une longue course. Le bateau s’était échoué sur la rive d’un grand fleuve, au bout du voyage. Tout était mélangé dans sa tête depuis longtemps.

Il se sentait coupable d’avoir tout planté.

L’ombre de l’aigle parcourait son existence, débitrice de sa mémoire. Dans le monde de l’enfance d’abord.

Ce n’était pas un décor inventé. Je l’avais déjà vu dans nos galopades enfantines, à travers les coupures de ronces et d’herbes.

Je peux témoigner.

Quand j’étais petit, ça me semblait immense. On l’appelait “Le Secret” On, c’était une bande de gamins. Les plus vaillants explorateurs découvrirent un lieu où l’on pouvait se rouler dans l’herbe roussie par le soleil de l’été.

Ils gardèrent le secret et le lieu prit ce nom. Quand je suis revenu dix ans plus tard, j’ai apprécié la distorsion de l’âge.

D’autant qu’un immeuble était venu saigner la colline, en son flanc. L’immeuble que nous avions habité était d’un modernisme strict et bon marché du début des années soixante.

Au moment où ce pays était brutalement propulsé vers la civilisation des villes, où le mot “moderne” était magique. Il avait, comme d’autres bâtiments de l’ère fonctionnaliste, mal vieilli. Il en était pitoyable.

Dire que ceux qui y ont acheté un appartement croyaient avoir fait l’affaire du standing. Les mots anglais, ça faisait bien. Une entrée clinquante dans la modernité.

Mais tout est obsolète.

La ville avait changé. Après dix ans d’absence, il était presque impossible de retrouver les traces. Au pire les miettes d’un ancien décor transparaissaient de temps à autre.

Il était revenu incognito par la force des choses, mais en sus il était inconnu. Il n’avait jamais existé, habité, parcouru, usé ses fonds de culottes sur les bancs de la maudite communale, chapardé dans les vergers, péché l’anguille à la fourchette dans la rivière, dépouillé les cerisiers. En plus ça prenait un pedigree pour ronchonner.

Il fallait être blanc.

J’avais cru exister dans la candeur de l’enfance.

Et déjà je te cherchais.

Tu étais cette première petite fille qui m’avait embrassé sur la joue, quand on s’est dit au revoir, un soir, en remontant de nos jeux. Dans la cour bitumée pour les voitures.

Mais un soir d’été, c’est sûr.

Tu avais un nom de fleur au parfum délicat, un nom latin en plus.

Les magouilles politiques avaient permis à des entrepreneurs voraces de couper la ville en deux par une autoroute qui vous passait par-dessus la tête, juste à la sortie de la gare. La maison du facteur, celle de l’instituteur, la vieille gendarmerie, rien n’a été épargné par le progrès.

Les maisons mignonnettes d’antan ont été remplacées par des immeubles.

Plus de jardins, plus de tuiles rouges.

Il aurait été inutile de savoir ce que tu étais devenue, toi, cette petite fille que j’avais aimée et dont j’avais longtemps rêvé.

Toi qui m’as donné mon premier picotement au coeur.

Longtemps après, dans ma déportation, j’ai fantasmé sur la continuité de ce sentiment.

C’est drôle, c’était toujours dans un arrière plan où il y avait des herbes roussies par le soleil de septembre.

Et puis les petites filles sont vêtues de robes à fleurs dans cette période de l’année en rime avec la résurrection de la nature et l’exubérance du végétal.

Le vieux cinéma qui était le coeur de la vie folklorique locale avait perdu la course, objet de fierté d’antan, il avait fini comme le reste à la casse. Au nom de la rentabilité et du business.

La spéculation avait atteint ce petit bled au bord de la mer, comme un typhon des Caraïbes. À la seule différence qu’ici la vague de béton s’est pétrifiée en prenant toute la place. C’est devenu un solarium géant. Un pays de quelques centaines de milliers d’âmes envahi par des millions de bipèdes six mois sur douze. Et comme Attila, là où sont passées ces hordes, l’herbe ne repoussera plus.

Les pécores qui travaillent onze mois sur douze venaient se bronzer la couenne ici. Quinze jours de location à un prix délirant et au menu quotidien des sandwichs jambon beurre.

Avec des immeubles, le stockage est plus facile, c’est vrai. Ils ne cherchent pas à connaître les gens du pays, ils arrivent en terrain conquis après avoir vidé leur compte en banque. Ils repartiront vers le Nord avec des photos pour rendre jaloux leurs collègues qui n’ont pas pris de vacances cette année-là.

«Ils» avaient consommé son bled, «ils» l’avaient vendu par parcelle. Le boucher n’assurait plus, ils ont ouvert un supermarché. La boulangerie où il fleurait toujours bon cette odeur gourmande de pain au chocolat chaud n’existait plus. Et pour cause, on était rendu au pain industriel. Qui aurait pu imaginer que le corps du Christ serait ainsi bradé.

Au début, ils avaient habité à l’intérieur des terres. Un hameau perdu dans les champs et les vergers.

Ils avaient saccagé la terre de mon enfance. J’avais demandé à mon hôte de me déposer en haut de la côte. Je voulais déchirer mon désarroi tout seul.

J’avais envie de crier Assassins. Mais qui devais-je nommer?

Au fur et à mesure que je dévalais la pente, je démantelais mon rêve pierre par pierre. Sur mon chemin j’ai croisé la maison mystérieuse. Celle qui n’était jamais habitée. Sauf dans la cave, un travailleur agricole.

Elle avait rapetissé. Elle était laide. Et même l’ouvrier devait avoir perdu son travail depuis des années.

Ensuite j’ai rencontré le désert.

Toutes les demeures étaient vacantes, volets fermés, entravés de bardeaux. En train de se dégrader. J’eus une illumination. Je venais de comprendre. La terre avait été achetée par le gouvernement. Du temps où on croyait que ça allait toujours être comme ça.

Des projets mégalomaniaques avaient été échafaudés mais la crise, comme ils disent, avait tout remis en question. En attendant, les gens ont été obligés de déménager.

Ainsi, ils ont été dispersés.

Au bas de la côte je me suis arrêté pour regarder la maison que j’avais habitée.

La maison de mon enfance.

Là où j’avais rencontré le loup, le renard et la belette, la poule à famille nombreuse, les lapins, les papillons, les lézards, les fourmis, la rivière et les roseaux, sans oublier le coq de la voisine qui m’avait appris à prendre les jambes à mon cou.

Les prunes, les pêches, les cerises, les raisins, les mûres, les myrtilles, les ronces et la pêche à l’anguille, j’avais appris tout ça dans cette baraque.

Au temps où les locomotives étaient ces monstres de ferraille noire crachant des nuages de vapeur à chaque arrêt, dans un bruit infernal.

Et tu étais sur le quai d’en face. Dans une petite robe de dentelle. Avec tes parents, en habits d’époque.

Le jour où j’ai débarqué.

Ma mère me traînait par la main et pour la première fois, ce que j’avais compris plus tard, j’avais été attiré par toi, même si tu étais loin.

Toi, cet enfant d’ailleurs que moi. L’attirance de la différence et l’amour pour désintégrer toutes les barrières.

Et dans ma petite tête, je serais resté juste pour attirer ton attention, établir une relation.

(À suivre)

A La Une

Le visage transculturel de La Tribune Juive

November 8, 2015 viceversaonline

Souvenir de Ghila Sroka

Par Lamberto Tassinari

Photo prise par Ghila de la fenêtre de son appartement

Pour le trentième anniversaire de La Tribune Juive, Ghila m’avait demandé, à moi et à une douzaine d’autres montréalais, d’écrire un texte portant sur son journal. En pensant à elle, un an après sa mort, je publie dans ViceVersa son article.

Au moment de notre rencontre dans les années 1980, en principe, c’est-à-dire idéologiquement, la Tribune Juive et ViceVersa avaient tout pour ne pas s’entendre. La Tribune de Ghila est née en 1982, à une époque où le magazine ViceVersa n’était encore qu’en gestation, lui qui verrait le jour en juin 1983.

Remarquez seulement nos titres : de son côté une « tribune », et juive de surcroît, de l’autre un « magazine transculturel » libre de toute appartenance nationale et linguistique — justement, transculturel. En principe, je le répète, nous étions comme l’huile et l’eau : faits pour demeurer séparés. La transculture, en tant que vision du monde, se voulait une anti-idéologie, à tout le moins une négation des idées fortes, de tous les partis pris. Nous proposions non seulement le refus de l’idée même de nationalisme mais aussi celui de toute appartenance ethnique. ViceVersa avait choisi de renoncer au confort de sa propre communauté (qui aurait en principe dû être italienne) et, donc, à un usage exclusif de sa culture et de sa langue maternelles. L’italien était une des langues utilisées à côté du français, de l’anglais et, plus tard, de l’espagnol, sans jouer le jeu de la traduction sinon dans les éditoriaux. Si nous avions eu la même optique que Ghila qui avait choisi une tribune juive pour communiquer avec le monde, nous aurions dû nous identifier comme « Italiens », car nous étions, nous, les cinq fondateurs, tous originaires de l’Italie. Nous étions décidés à en finir avec l’ethnicité, mais il fallut du temps avant que le public comprenne le sens de la « transculture », si jamais cette idée fut comprise… Ce que la Tribune Juive et ViceVersa avaient en commun, en tout cas, c’est certainement ainsi que les Québécois « de souche » nous percevaient, c’était d’être deux publications immigrantes, étrangères, d’impure laine, nées à peu près au même moment dans le Québec postréférendaire.

L’amitié entre nos deux initiatives métèques s’est manifestée poco a poco, en dépit de la différence de notre approche, de nos théories, ce qui, surtout quand on considère cela avec trente ans de recul, est selon moi très beau. La revue et le magazine ont évolué, dialogué et échangé avec à peu près le même lectorat, puisant dans le même bassin démographique montréalais, chacun selon son style. La tribune avec beaucoup de polémiques, à haute voix et en français, avec des majuscules et beaucoup de points d’exclamation. Le magazine avec plus de légèreté, en trois ou quatre langues, en voulant séduire par les images, l’étrange, l’inédit, l’imprévu. D’où vient alors que nous nous soyons rencontrés? Je crois que cette convergence inattendue, aussi improbable que la vie sur Terre, est due au fait que la tribune et le magazine étaient « authentiques ». Malgré la grande différence de style et d’idées aussi, il y avait un fond d’honnêteté et de passion qui m’a progressivement amené à apprécier celle qui a été la responsable, l’animatrice, la force explosive de la Tribune. À un certain moment, je ne me souviens plus exactement quand, j’ai arrêté de fuir Ghila aux lancements, aux rencontres culturelles canoniques durant les années 1990. J’ai compris que le voyage, l’errance et l’exil étaient le socle invisible mais concret sur lequel nos deux initiatives reposaient. C’est cela qui nous a rendus amis, enfin. Ce n’est pas que la tribune et le magazine aient été interchangeables, absolument pas, mais l’écran idéologique qui nous séparait est devenu transparent : la devise de sa Tribune m’est soudainement apparue claire et de son côté, elle, la Tribune-Ghila, s’est reconnue « transculturelle ». Dans le souffle, dans la vie même, nous nous sommes reconnus, identiques dans la différence. Au cours de ces trente ans, Ghila est descendue de sa tribune et a rencontré toute sorte d’humanité par le biais de ses chroniques et débats incendiaires, des Juifs de la diaspora, bien sûr, mais une infinité d’autres personnes — commodes et incommodes — qui ont animé ses pages. C’est comme ça que je l’ai d’abord acceptée et comprise, et ensuite aimée, en réalisant enfin ce que j’avais toujours su mais que j’avais oublié : que juif signifie transculturel et que nos différences ne produisaient pas une opposition mais qu’elles étaient au contraire complémentaires et équivalentes à cause de l’authenticité de nos intentions. C’est cela la beauté dont je parlais.

A La Une, Ficciones

A Gem for Tamako

September 28, 2015 viceversaonline

Alessandra Ilaria Scarcia

Watanabe was lying in a hospital bed, on his way out. I had been his dedicated nurse for quite a while. I had grown fond of my patient and he had come to trust me. I had learned to catch the slightest change from one moment to the next, and I could now see the end in sight.

He summoned me one particular morning. He told me that he had wanted to write a libretto to put to music and he regretted that there would be no such accomplishment. It was then that I offered to help him with this project. Unlike him, I had no musical ear, but I could write a story under his dictation, however sketchy. And so we agreed to make the most of his waking hours by applying ourselves to this purpose.

The story takes place in Japan, somewhere along one of the many post-towns on the Tokkaido road. The 18th century is drawing to a close. The Tokugawa rule is still in full swing, but the floating world of the Edo period is maybe losing a little of its early floss and finesse. The action is confined to a portion of a mansion owned by a low-rank daimyo, who shared Watanabe’s name and fate; he was also sick and dying. His father’s poor management of the family rice paddies had bequeathed him barely an annual output of a few thousand koku. Yet his impoverished estate turned out to be his fortune. No threat to the Shogun, he was spared the routine of sankin-kotai. Instead, he had proved diligent as a gate-keeper along the stretch of the trade route he inhabited. Thus, he had been able to reside year round with his wife and develop a strong affection. To be fair, his family had granted him almost a love marriage instead of the typical arrangement. He had not chosen the most conventional of creatures but had respected the obligation to pick not below his station. Mores and customs were, therefore, sufficiently intact.
The lark was singing sweetly, very sweetly. Today, however, instead of comforting the master of the house, it angered him to the hilt. It reminded him of another bird, the hototo-gisu that had paid him a visit out of turn. At first, he had been grateful for its company and had marvelled at its wanderings out of season, long after the time of oranges in bloom. As if it had been waiting for him as long as possible, the bird was bidding him good bye, in case the master would not be there next time around at the right time of year. Come to think of it, he simmered, it must have been one of the almanac maker’s tricks when he had called unannounced that very evening. He had remarked on the little bird and sold its appearance to him as a good omen, clearly ready-made, to feed him lies about his prospects and the promise of future readings. To this the master had raged that more soliciting was unwelcome. Mercifully the visitor took his queue and left. Now, Watanabe had been sitting on the very spot on the veranda, basking once more in the evening breeze. The days went by. The only difference was the increased bitterness of his medication. He would sip and stir and have yet another sip. Still, he’d taste nothing but green apricots – the raw and root of all things nasty. It was getting chilly and he had become dependent on Ume to lift him up and carry him back inside. It had taken some time to get accustomed to the presence of this peasant woman, now second only to his shadow. He saw in her what his wife did from the start. The lady of the house was very much attached to her attendant and trusted her wholeheartedly and leaned on her resilience before tough and competing demands. Indeed, you could count on this stocky country girl to be there for you, uncomplicated, immediate and muscular. But his limp was badly deteriorating, his gait bent in two, his bamboo cane no longer sufficient. Soon he will have to renounce leaving his bedside altogether. A group of men would find it difficult to carry him, never mind hardworking Ume, no matter how strong and tried. He would want the room rearranged so he could see, reclining, the plum tree peering over the veranda, framing the pond below, once the sliding doors were open. He would want the lantern moved to hang on the other side of the doorway, where he could expect the usual score of attracted fireflies at dusk. He could do with a lantern now, in fact: it was getting dark. Something must be keeping Ume. Maybe Tamako was detaining her across the pond in her haiku pavilion, thus named after the poetry she habitually engaged in. “Tamako! Tamako!” he faintly tried to call.

As it turned out, the loyal attendant was entertaining the lady of the house, shaken by distressing expectations. Ume, hell-bent on raising the spirits of the widow-to-be, had made the most of a casual encounter at the market. Now she was back with a guest and a suggestion. She was proud of her success when in the end her mistress had instructed her to put the man up temporarily in the kitchen quarters. “I’ll take care of the rest tomorrow,” her lady concluded. “Now do make haste and see to the master for the night.” Indeed, ripe with anticipatory grief, Tamako found herself taking refuge more and more often in the haiku pavilion the master had built for her as a token of his maturing love, once he discovered her to be an accomplished poet and calligraphist, upon her arrival to her new home. Unschooled in these arts, she had cultivated them as a true vocation, following the instincts of an uninhibited amateur. Here, on a low cherry wood table she stored her pots in which she’d rub her ink stick till it bled black, barely needing extra water drops. Here she’d experiment with verses with a firm and graceful brushstroke applied to the soft side of the mulberry bush paper, the rough side flat on the hemp covering the board’s surface. Positioned as she liked to be, on one hand she would face the entrance overlooking the pond in front of her, and, on her left, the latticed doorway to the dry garden of sand and rocks that coasted the pond till it gave way to grass and moss all the way to the house. At one time she had surrounded herself with cushions bearing patterns of pheasants and beaded necklaces, but she had returned most of them to the master who in his illness most needed them for comfort.

One of the changes they had to make as the master’s health deteriorated was to move him upstairs to a more sheltered room where he would have access to the winding veranda and could watch the stars on cloudless nights. From where he’d sit, kitty-corner, he could enjoy the pagoda-roof of the haiku pavilion, topped by a shrine-like golden dome he had gone to great lengths to have varnished. Tamako, on her part, could see the eaves of the main body of the house, and its decorative figurines, as she wrote the days away on the other side of the pond. The two had discovered they could wave to each other from their seats and still keep each other company from afar. This had cheered Watanabe seeking soothing compensation for the acceptance of his decline. He could no longer receive his guests himself on the main doorstep and usher them into the ground-floor’s tatami hall, where, master of many a tea ceremony, he would boast his knowledge, endearingly staged, recognizing the various harvests of all the different tea leaves, just from one gulp. And in between the guesswork, the party would wisecrack, admiring on the tokonoma the wide hump on the trunk of the precious bonsai as it recalled the rear of a plump and sultry woman.

Much had changed. Tamako had soaked with tears the sleeves of all her robes. Even this last one clean kimono she had on—green with yellow lining—had not been blessed with a dry spell. Yes, she reminisced: he had been the right one for her. She first realized this one afternoon when, not keen on palanquins, they had taken their first official stroll in town, over a decade ago. Caught in the rain, they lovingly shared an indigo umbrella. Consequently, she had reaped dirty looks from the townspeople who watched them. A wife, dutifully submissive, should always lag behind her man, especially if one so much her senior. But the master appeared pleased that day. Perhaps he had not noticed the passersby. He remarked, instead, how well her hooded robe suited her peach complexion and how pretty the paulownia pattern. Soon after she overheard that she had earned the nickname of fox-face, referring to her seductive looks and the enchanting spell that had bewitched her besotted spouse. She doubted there was anything fox-like about her ways. But it was ages since she had last scrutinized herself in the mirror. She had been far too overwhelmed with sorrow to pay attention to gossip and to her appearance. At present Tamako regretted not having shared her feelings openly with her husband when he was in good health. But it was time to return to the house and try to rest. It was too late to bid goodnight to her pets: the carps and turtles in the pond. It was for the better. The sight of them tonight would make her heart burst. A walk would do her good. She had dismissed Ume from her chores and taken it upon herself to tour the residence and see that all was in order and that the fence shielding their home would be tightly shut, as if that alone could ward away bad dreams.

As Ume was picking her choice of water chestnuts and persimmons from the fruit vendor at the market and placing them in her basket, an oblong wicker trunk against the far end of the vendor’s stall caught her attention. She had peered and noticed a slovenly sort of man, lame on his geta, clearly from out of town, spreading out his merchandise on makeshift benches: a bizarre object she had never seen before, some outlandish head-gear and some beautiful fans. As she keenly admired the fans at a closer look, he embraced his shamisen, positioned by the trunk she had noticed, and embarked on a melancholic sort of tune, singing to it thoughtfully.

Recollections long put aside rushed to her nostalgically. Her old collection of pebbles and sea-shells which she had left behind in a previous life came to mind. The offspring of a tinker and a fisherman’s daughter, Ume had spent her childhood in the shadow of her parents, roaming the villages on the shores of the Inland Sea. The absence of siblings had not spared her financial constraints. Her parents’ hardship had finally led her to make her own way, seeking employment wherever she could as a domestic. She had served courtesans of all sorts on the countryside’s beaten tracks. Her plain looks had sheltered her from visibility and a life perpetually on display. She ladled for these courtesans the fish soup she concocted best: octopus and squid. And her broom had become her fastest friend as she tended to them without respite. Then the opportunity to make a move had arisen when, reminiscent of her parents’ life-style, she had attached herself to a peddler of sewing kits and threads who regularly visited the inn where she was working. It was a match without illusions and for a long stretch she had been grateful to him for removing her from daily toil. Later, this new life had taken them to the master’s house, on the way to Edo, and upon Tamako’s request, she was taken in as her servant and companion.
Dazed, she had not noticed the music had stopped till the musician spoke to her. So she asked him if he knew lighthearted melodies as well. He promptly selected a tune of good cheer. He explained that the first piece sang to the stories depicted on the fans in which she had taken an interest. He could play many more. It was then that she had her thought: yes, he could be useful to her mistress. Indeed he was quite a sight, Ume considered, as she examined him in his threadbare haori and his mud-caked, worn-out wooden clogs with one of the straps thoroughly in need of mending. But she was reassured by a self-conscious way about him. She trusted her instincts: he was the mild, kind and serviceable sort. She had nothing much to lose. They would visit the draper in the morning, buy some good fabric and she would tailor him a suitable outfit for his stay at her master’s house. She had a job for him, she said hastily, and she would be back for him tomorrow after sunset. She picked up her basket and gave him one last look. He had pronounced cheekbones, a goatee and an earnest gaze. He returned her look though not too intently, for people had started to gather around them. But the understanding was there. They knew they both had a past.
The following morning was crisp and encouraged an early start. Tamako entered the master’s bedroom and took her place by the medicine tray. She knew the exact proportions of musk and cinnamon and when to alternate liquorice, ginseng and myrrh. Watanabe stirred and looked at his wife and her low neckline, her back to him as she administered his daily dose. Her nape had always especially appealed to him. He only had to take a look at it to feel a tidal wave of tenderness towards her, as if it summed up and pinpointed her utmost inner vulnerability. Her nape was like a pearl that gave away her secrets. If others could see what a fragile little girl she was they would not attribute to her any fox-like cunning. Just a glimpse of her very white neck made it so obvious to him. The ivory hairpin that he had given her to tie up her hair absorbed the scent of narcissus whenever she used it as aromatic ointment in a steaming bath. Then she would carry the fragrance with her long after, like a veil on a wound. He would never have guessed that such a tiny gift would disclose her nape in such a way as to reveal so much of her to him and so much about compassion. Who would protect her after his departure? To think that today was antipodean: she had become his keeper… Tamako turned around, realizing he was awake. They both smiled and she told him they would have a guest. He had become a little deaf with time and she now often had to repeat herself. Impatient at first, she had gradually put herself away and come to find an erotic touch in his saucer-eyed stare hanging on to her lips. She had adapted the habit of articulating her words, as when she had first learned to read. “Yes, a guest,” she smiled again handing him his potion. “A minstrel,” she added, “Saburo. You’ll see.”
Saburo had diligently followed Ume’s directions to the villa and was on time. Ume had kept her part of the bargain and waited for him at the gate in a most cautious fashion. Saburo was thankful to be welcome to stay and rest his feet after days of endless marching. Once shown to his pallet he did not toss and turn as usual. Instead, he was able to undress himself of the fatigue that had seeped so deeply through his skin and enveloped him like a gown. He slept soundly. The following morning, lady and attendant had the visitor properly scrubbed, re-clothed and suitably instructed to be introduced to the master with his story.
He had arrived in town on foot but had occasionally shared an ox with ad hoc travelling companions to help carry whatever luggage the crew possessed. He had thus taken to an itinerant life of alms in exchange for music and entertainment on the road. But such had not always been his fate. He had grown up on the stage in Osaka and had become a kabuki dance musician, learning the skills of the trade from his father. A born jack-of-all-arts, with time, he found himself to be quick and resourceful. Although unschooled, he developed a taste and ability for design and handicrafts, both keenly put to use by the stage manager, who had inherited him from his predecessor and gladly secured him further employment. Saburo contributed to the choreography of the plays with imaginative props and puppets. He drew landscapes for colourful prints to be mounted on rigid screens as backdrop scenery and prepared delicate designs to be pressed on foldable fans that played such an important part in the pirouettes on stage. He illustrated the intrigues of courtesans in unlicensed pleasure quarters, the toil of outcasts and the bitter-sweet in the parochial details of the daily life of commoners, each captured according to a plot. However, an unfortunate turn of events led Saburo to leave Osaka. This twist was due to the tragedy that befell the very stage manager who had become his protector. When the latter lost his wife in child labour, together with the baby, it was rumoured that he gradually lost his mind as the result of a too intense and unrelenting heartache. He could not imagine the man’s grief, but he deeply regretted having gifted him with a frock for the child, complete with all sizes of baby towels and bath accessories, during his visit to his boss’s place just before the birth date. Indeed, that day the poor man had tenderly shown him the maternity obi he had stored for his expecting spouse, placed gracefully over the cradle. Later, the unhappy widower started to be frequently absent from the theatre, till, inconsolable, he finally went missing and failed to send any news. Some claimed he had taken to wandering the outskirts of town as a beggar and others that he had religiously withdrawn to some far off mountain retreat. Doubtful of such gossip, but saddened by this loss of his own, Saburo had set out for Edo, wary of finding a patron equally fair but confident of joining the stage in the capital and eager to adapt to a higher caste audience and a new repertoire of epic tales populated by warriors and shaped by glorious deeds or historical events.

Saburo was thus presenting the outline of his story soon to be recounted to the master at the lady’s request. As he carried on, he lay out to air, with Ume’s help, his belongings from his wicker trunk, releasing a subtle smell of dampness. There were his flexible fans with prominent ribs; some had stood the marks of time and the beatings of the journey; others were creased and frayed at the edges but made elegantly imperfect by frequent usage and many a quick sway. Then out came his paint set with samples of dye, rice-starch paste and powdered pigments. There was the outlandish head-gear that had caught Ume’s attention at the market and the mysterious long object she had never seen before. As it turned out, both were of Dutch origin: a helmsman’s hat and a telescope sold to Saburo by a merchant from Nagasaki. The master would be certainly interested in learning all about the latter, Tamako intervened. And so she led him to Watanabe’s chamber and introduced him, with a telescope in one hand and a shamisen in the other. “Saburo, to entertain you,” he bowed. Saburo’s practised eye, as the shoji opened on the reclining master, saw a painted world that he was willing to bring to life. He was sharp in catching the gist of the master’s predicament. He seemed someone who had adapted to the ways of a professional onlooker, past bargaining with the lines of the horizon to hold it and delay the sinking of a ship round the bend in the deepest seas. Even the sun shimmering outside looked sick and the slant of the rays tinged the room a mauve in limbo fever. He caught Tamako’s anxious glance; she looked dreadfully small. He knew why he was there. Without temporizing, he put down his telescope. Spanning the chords of his long-necked shamisen, he plunged vertically into a tune, in a quest for a note unknown, amidst the many and the familiar.

Uncle had not exactly been sent for, but he had been duly and unavoidably informed of the sorry state of affairs by a hired messenger. He had obviously taken it upon himself, as a rigorous man of conventions and as Watanabe’s Uncle to check for himself and see that all was fit under the circumstances. As the youngest offspring and last survivor, Uncle had benefitted from a unique set of laws, in that corner of the country, on partible inheritance and ultimogeniture. Uncle certainly had been rewarded for his caregiving services to Watanabe’s grandparents. Compared to his older brother, Watanabe’s father, he had proved more skillful, thrifty and mean. Now there he was, crossing the fence that wrapped the mansion, and he came accompanied. As he walked up the footpath to the house, something odd caught Uncle’s eye. “Why is this lantern burning wastefully in the middle of the day? How about cutting costs?” he cried, clearly missing the point. Ume greeted him and said the master had wanted it that way since the last Obon festivity and they had stocked up on incense burners too. She did not mention what her lady had explained; confronting the brutality of his impending end, the master had wanted to establish, soon, an ongoing connection with his ancestors in order not to be caught off guard should his demise be quicker than expected. Uncle would not approve in any case. Nor was it her place to volunteer further details. She was just the housemaid and Uncle was not her master. Silly girl, Uncle thought. There must be more to it, or maybe fox-face was up to something. Then right behind Uncle, as they approached her, Ume finally recognized the Doctor from his lacquered inro case hanging from his sash with carved ivory netsukes for toggles. During his previous consultations she had marvelled at how much that little medicine box could store: herbs, dried roots, leaves and tiny bottles of various potions. He was known to sell abortion drugs as well, and she suspected he was not short of clientele. He looked absorbed in his own thoughts today. Indeed, there was a strange blue in the burning flame that made the Doctor ominously uncomfortable, like the hue of his patient’s skin last time they met. On that occasion he had advised Tamako, as an experienced gardener of sacred lakes, to cut all the lotus leaves in their pond so that new shoots might rise from the old, to the benefit of his cure. Never mind if the calendar date was inexact for the procedure, he had retorted when Tamako objected on the basis of known religious practices. “Just in case the gods will grant the master some special luck—you never know,” he carried on. Ume, of course, had loyally helped with her share in this endeavour. Tamako had also promptly appeared at the rattling of the fence. Displeased at the sight of Uncle, she beckoned to the Doctor and together, amidst the chatter of the insects, they made their way to the pond to have a look at the prescribed floral arrangements. Making the most of this moment to themselves, the Doctor asked if the barley diet he recommended had helped the patient any. It was the new cure in vogue as a substitute for rice to combat illnesses of this kind. But alas, Tamako nodded furtively. She had done as she was told but the master kept withering away: he would soon see the challenge for himself. The two took their time in turning back. Then they climbed the staircase and as they were about to enter the master’s chamber, they eavesdropped.

“It is not yet New Year’s Eve and I have not sent for anyone to settle my accounts,” stressed Watanabe to his Uncle. It was clear that the latter did not want to be saddled with his nephew’s debts once he had passed away. Thus he planned to anticipate the New Year’s practice of paying creditors for their services. Reading his mind, the sick man added, “You shall now pay him yourself since it is you who called for him.” The Doctor kept Tamako from drawing the shoji open. He said he would come back to check on his patient another time. He could tell she was truly torn by this extra unnecessary strife. Uncle’s worries were untimely. So before she knew it, the good man had taken leave. Nevertheless, as a proper host Watanabe had asked Ume to bring in food for Uncle: flattened rice cakes and rice wine, clams and dumplings, bean paste and soy sauce. Ume had dutifully taken out the best porcelain for the meal. Like his spouse, Watanabe was not fond of Uncle. Every time Uncle had come up in conversation, the master had smirked commenting on his mannerisms in handling his pipe and smoke set. He had unfailingly labelled his put-on well-to-do airs and graces as sneaky as a lizard’s. Indeed, the lizard was now taking advantage of the master’s ill health. No longer as vibrant as he used to be, the master would clearly find it strenuous to respond. As Tamako knelt down, listening further to the conversation in the other room, more angry words from Uncle made her pale. Nailed with acute embarrassment, as if stabbed by the sharpest knife, she froze, motionless. Uncle carried on, uncalled for and cruel. That their age difference had been frowned upon was nothing new. Yet he had never been as void of clemency as today. His line of argument, as if rejoicing at his nephew’s financial straits, was that he should have taken in more servants and proper care. Spouse or nurse, his wife was simply unfit. “Why don’t you put a stop to her vulgarity? … Look at her as she strides flashing the hem of her scarlet undergarment, indecent and unladylike!… Why does she wear long sleeves as if she were still unwed?… Why can she not pluck her eyebrows like any lady in her position? And look at her uncouth, dishevelled hair, like an old hag.… Her mother should have taught her long ago to blacken her teeth….” Enough. Tamako got up, slowly; very slowly, and walked.

Little did Uncle know that he was going to get the performance of his life, rehearsed especially for him. Tamako, in fact, had summoned Ume and Saburo to stage the most lewd, coarse and unrefined pièce that could be concocted in half an hour. Ume and Tamako slapped on thick heavy make-up in a rush and put on the flashiest garments Tamako could spare and hurriedly did a sort of Shimada hairstyle, which actually, oddly suited them, so as to pass as siblings. Saburo took hold of an improvised drum and, together with his shamisen, repeated over and over an extract from his repertoire vaguely familiar from Ume’s former life in the backstreets. Tamako would mimic her servant’s dance and gestures, overcoming whatever clumsy shyness with her fury. She knew where the master stored his swords and, having picked the bluntest and the lightest, she brandished the weapon in the air with a tearing noise, contributing to the music. Since the venue for this show was the chamber adjacent to the master’s, Uncle was startled and asked what was going on. The master had his chance to take him for a ride. Pretending not to hear a thing, he asked him if he was going crazy: Did he hear voices? Was he the sick one by any chance? Watanabe understood Tamako’s purpose. She wanted Uncle out of there and what would induce him to leave their house better than the shock that his own nephew was breaking every possible rule that banned all music and entertainment upon the impending demise of someone of his rank? There, Uncle finally slung open the sliding doors and caught the seen in full. “What’s this madness all about?” he cried. They all seemed to have gone mad, enjoying the feeling of being carried away in a dizzy trance. Watanabe broke into his old hearty laugh. Tamako had not heard it in a very long time. His laughter had indeed changed in the last while. It was still subsisting but subdued. At the sound of his old self, she felt relieved: she knew she had done something right. “Why, what’s the problem? I have commissioned this artist from out of town to paint my death-portrait. Aren’t you proud? Won’t it provide you with plenty to boast about?” Watanabe sneered at Uncle. His old impetuous nature resurfaced with the spark of a short fuse. “I even thought I’d have you in it!” Uncle froze. His right hand as if impaled, clung to the shoji, while the trio played on. Tamako, in between acts, with the sword dangerously pointed at him, showed him to the stairs, inviting him to lead the way and descend. He lost his composure and rushed out having hardly properly slipped on his sandals. He crashed into the flower-pot at the entrance. The vase cracked but his foot was also sore. Then Tamako dropped her sword and the three of them ran after him into the garden, still making noise mockingly till he passed the outer gate. And so Tamako saw him off, as he cut across the fields, ripping through the swaying high grass and spikes of wheat to where his men and palanquin awaited him. “You’ll be an old man when I see you next,” she thought to herself, relishing the revenge.

Tamako summoned Ume and Saburo to the master’s room when the dust settled. “A wonderful idea,” she said, referring to the portrait. Ironically, it provided an ideal official reason for the presence of an artist of good standing in a household of their repute. Saburo would work in the master’s antechamber. There was plenty of room on the floor to lay down a long silk scroll for the painting. The shoji could be opened at any time for the artist to examine the master and the smell of paint would be contained at a distance from Watanabe’s person. The portrait would be executed according to the most rigorous rules. Watanabe would be looking to the right, thus the portrait would be placed pointing to the south. The master was to don his widest white neckband and his most formal tunic glamorously bearing the family crest on his chest. He would sit tall, with his bamboo cane; calm and serene, proud and strong: in a class of his own. Such were Tamako’s instructions. She turned to Saburo to make sure that all was clear. He assented. Ume would get him all he required for the undertaking. She then looked at the master for his final approval, expecting no resistance. “Tamako,” said the master, “I will be the only one allowed to see the work in progress.” He looked at her severely, “Not you, nor anyone else can do so in my place.” Slightly taken aback by the austere undertone, she bowed and left the room wondering to what extent she had been indelicate. Saburo was about to take his leave as well, but a stern look from the master beckoned both him and Ume to stay behind. The master, short and brisk, went straight to the point. He made it clear to them both that he was not dead yet. He had no intention of being slowly and gradually effaced with each and every brushstroke. He had other plans for them both and he trusted they understood that they owed him as the master of the house loyalty in exchange for employment and hospitality. His tone struck Ume as unusually imperative: he’d tolerate no retort. He had taken an interest in Saburo’s telescope, the master carried on. He wanted it placed on the veranda outside his room. It was optimally located as the moon and the stars were regularly in full view. While they could all take pleasure in admiring the sky at night, the telescope would stay there during the day, fixed to the railing. Peeping through the plush green boughs of the trees, Saburo would instead examine Watanabe’s spouse as she wrote poetry in the haiku pavilion, perfectly visible from the veranda. The artist was to impress the image of her in his mind and make it come alive in his painting. She and not the master would be the subject of the portrait. This was his final wish, to see his wife portrayed, and the end product would be his gift to Ume after his death for her services to his wife. Ume would see that Tamako would pose unknowingly by spending the day writing verses to suit the scenes on Saburo’s fans. In the evening Saburo would set them to music and the two women would dance for him to the sound of Saburo’s shamisen. They had already proved themselves at that, he smiled. All would be fine. He spelled out that he was confident they both would accomplish their tasks beautifully; this project was to keep his wife busy, sane and entertained. He loved her more than life itself. Yes, they understood; yes they would set to work immediately. Exhausted, Watanabe rearranged his wooden pillow, adjusted the cushions with Ume’s help, and turned his back on them both. They were dismissed.

Saburo, once alone with this thoughts, gave a sigh of relief. He was good-natured and always eager to please. Yet he was glad he had been spared the challenge of painting the master. He was only an amateur painter, though with some experience in the use of colours. For the most part, in the past, his drawings had been destined for woodblock prints commissioned by the theatre. Besides, he had been taught not to stare at his betters. It would have been unspeakably uncomfortable to portray such a man and for posterity. He was intrigued by the new task, instead: a special death-portrait about life and loss. He loved his telescope and with this instrument of precision, from a world far off and already in another era, he believed he could work wonders. Spy into this arcane woman’s soul peeling off the patina; catch it in the web of the painting for the master to get to know her depths as never before and see through her, like looking down at the bottom of the clearest well. He would transcribe her secrets and their afterglow would shine for the dying man in an unknown splendour. He hoped it would dazzle him as a revelation, intense as sunlight splashing on the globe and more of it as new mornings’ flow. He could therefore die in peace knowing he had truly met her. And once aware of her painted disclosure to him, open and most generous in this paper kiss, she on her part would not be haunted as often loved ones are awaiting the return of the dead to encounter them one last time for a goodbye that to grant definite severance and release must be sealed with one mighty dream.

As his work progressed, Saburo became perilously fond of the subject of the portrait as he traced the woman’s sinuous figure wrapped in sorrow. He learned to compress years in tiny moments: in the wrinkles of her forehead, spinning in a whirlpool of torment; in the tear drops in the corner of her eyes that came alive in a wailing whisper as her eye-lids winked and the star in her would twinkle. Each of her worries, floating on the scroll with a reason of its own, was made real by the prism of his long lens, piercing through the haze of the afternoon and leaning over the waves of chosen colours to create contrasts of light and shade. Yet her slanted gaze, as she looked up and sideways, taking a break from versifying, brush in hand, would be like a deep current in the sea. It carried her as far as she would have to reach to overcome the painful course of events upon her. But the richness of her soul and the curves in her tense ways could not be conveyed by too much perspective flowing from the reality-bound telescope in his hands. So Saburo came to trust his own dexterity in making cohabitation possible, on the page, of the wet moisture of her face, the strident rustling of her brocaded silk robe against the satin sash, a half-naked calf inadvertently escaping an imposed composure beneath the low cherry wood table where she would kneel to write, a hair lock let loose from the tight hold of the ivory hairpin she would never part from. He picked a translucent pearl hue for the nails on her ink brush; a slight rose-pink of safflower blossom for her calf; saffron crocus crimson and iron-red were her satin sash and autumn brown the tortoise shell pattern on her gown; jet-black her slanted pupils to pierce the master’s heart with the arrow of devotion. She would be placed, like in a cloud, in white lead pigment smudged with a chalky opaque, and copper treated with hot vinegar for a border of sweet grey-green, made to glisten with an egg-yolk blend. This shielding cloud of foam would represent her pavilion, shaped like a vessel sailing in a dark Prussian-blue ocean, with glittering silver powder to signal the forthcoming storm in the night destined to widow her. Now and again, Saburo would release the telescope and return to his work chamber. He would lean on the support he had built for the painting, placed on a velvet fabric right on the floor, hosting the silk scroll that had first been duly treated with alum and glue. He would hover over what he hoped to be his masterpiece, as she herself would over her own verses, caged in her pavilion, engaging with his fans to provide thematic guidance for the evening show. Confident that their tasks shared the same goal, he gathered the strength to put in art-form what he had seen her accomplish through the lens.

Watanabe was getting visibly weaker. He had been upset when his favourite cup had tipped over and chipped when it had slipped from his weary fingers. Oddly, that was the day his own voice started to break. Now he sometimes stammered and the words came out in bursts. Tamako’s devastation grew, increasingly attached to him as he to his cup, as his voice lost soundness, day after day, ever more finite, fleeting and fragile. He still wanted to use that cup and would do so till the end. No matter how many dents and cracks, like him, his cup had undergone. She reacted to her sorrow by applying herself with daily discipline to the job assigned to her which she had accepted without question. Keeping everything together for the master’s sake was her objective. Games, music, poetry, merrymaking and all things vibrant were to be her most magic gift to him for the transient fragments he had still to live. As on the previous days, she set out to the pavilion as if her own life depended on it. That morning she had looked for the headscarf she sometimes wore to keep her from the dust. Maybe she had forgotten it in the pavilion, when, absorbed in yet another verse budding inside her, she might have tussled it aside on the floor. In her neglectful ways of late, she had dropped the habit of wearing socks, in spite of the cold. She used to like the soft sensation of the moss as she trod the grassy path to the pavilion. But that seemed a long time ago, when she was still capable of proper sleep and feeling. Today, however, as she walked, she felt chilled by the dew on her bare feet. While she noted to have firewood gathered given the change of season, she was startled by a sudden flicker. The little golden dome on the pavilion’s rooftop sparkled. She turned around and amidst the branches she caught the flash of sun-rays reflecting on a mirror—or were they lens hiding in the green? She paused, perfectly still and looked up again. The glare had gone. But she had understood. It was the telescope and she was being watched. Disconcerted, she resolved to resume her day.

It would not take her long to get to the bottom of this affair. The following day was a very different one: heavy with thunder and dark rain. She had decided to take a break from her writing till the storm abated. Then, stepping out on the veranda to retrieve her parasol, she saw a camouflaging purple silhouette. It was gliding through the garden, almost floating, leaving no traces. Umbrella in hand, she speedily went out to follow the shadow. She realized it was Saburo approaching the pavilion. From a distance she could not quite tell what he was after, so she crept behind him without making noise. He was loosening the hinges of the sliding doors to her pavilion in order to obstruct their proper closure in the forthcoming colder weather. She understood: there would be a crack and he would still be able to see her through the gap. She let him work; and when he was done, he turned around. There she was, cradled under her umbrella, spread out like a peacock’s tail. Startled and confused, he didn’t know how to cover his surprise. He despaired that all was lost now that she knew. She looked at him inquisitively and waited. At first she appeared ruthless and made of ice: above fear or the need for favours, beyond resentment or remorse. “I did not expect my lady here today,” he managed to articulate. “No?” she grimaced, “Yet there are no chance encounters in the rain.” She mentally repeated this to herself, looking away. There was no choice but to accept whatever the master’s wishes were. Nor did she have the energy to oppose him or to pick on Saburo for his role. It would be easier to join forces, ride out the sadness and see the master through the ultimate test in the way that worked best for the ill-fated. There was no need for further explanations, her look implied, as she turned to him once more. “I do have one request,” the lady added. “You’ll make haste and finish the portrait to be ready for the master at any time. But you will not tell him when you are done. You’ll keep him from seeing the work in progress and carry on refining every detail. To know there is more to do will give him vigour. We’ll do our best to prolong this till the spring, his favourite season. Then, and only then, he will be truly ready to depart.” Saburo, once again, was relieved. Once more he had been spared: she was complicit with the sweetest deceit. “Keep dry and out of the draft,” he said referring to their deal. Tamako sighed. The rain had turned to snow. It was time to head back, each on their own.

When Tamako was not by his bedside, Watanabe would take comfort in the objects she had left behind: a scented comb, strings to tie her hair, a pair of tabi soiled with wet earth or dry sand from the garden, depending on the weather, and that one straw sandal with braided straps that had been there for days. It was still there. Why was it in the room? Where was the other one? Did she not wear her zori anymore? He looked at the footwear fondly. It was tiny, like a child’s. Poor Tamako. As his health crumbled he had come to tolerate the thought that she might break. She was still young: she still had the power to cry. She was skilled in the art of silence. Yet her tears, so telling of her age, gave her away. She had a long way to go before she’d learn to overcome the blows of life, the disappointments in store and the absence of destiny to which the inglorious majority is fated. But the craft of her bones was fit; she had all the means to rise out of despair one day and feel the way to be as smooth as the palm of her hand, no matter to how slow a pace the potholes along the road had condemned her. She’d get there, eventually, bruised but not erased. Without him.

He was sleeping more and more lately, yet he looked forward to the evening show. The night before he woke up to the sound of music. He had been dreaming of a beautiful butterfly with Tamako’s body flexing in between the fluttering wings and she wore fancy silver hairpins resembling antennae. He opened his eyes sensing his dream crystallized in a mirage. Ume was also dancing like a butterfly on stage. As the two women flashed about their winged sleeves and airy gowns, pursued by long trailing hems, they strewed ribbons and tugged acrobatically at the ones caught over the screens that opened onto the stage. Or they would hide behind veils hung up to act as curtains, before clasping in their grip the fans that were the centrepiece of the play. Most delightful it was to hear his dear wife sing:
Mellow was the helmsman,
that picked me from the shore,
and quick the oars,
that washed me upon this moor.
I sought the town expecting showers of gold,
but laboured hard scraping the mould,
and gathering the dust,
I dry-cleaned the courtesans of lust,
and saw their clients to the door,
when they wanted more.
And now I sit and watch the geese,
and envy them their ease.
For they know when’s the time to stay,
and when’s the moment to make way.
Then for a split second his mind was clouded by a jealous thought when he caught the connection in the look exchanged between Saburo and his wife as she sang the verses that translated the sequences, scenes and landscapes on his fans. Had intimacy occurred between the pupil and the teacher? Was he to blame for having bound his art and her poetry, his tunes and her voice, the servant and the lady of the house? Was this the pull of life he had wished for her, to allow her to cut loose and save herself from drowning with him in this black hole of no return? Was this the price to pay for her to stay by his side and suppress the urge to walk away before the ultimate loss of hope? Had he been too good or not noble enough? Were the two young ones looking behind their shoulders, circumspect, or were they riveted ahead onto the future, when he dozed off or gave in to the pain that bit as tearing as a set of dragon’s teeth in his belly? Regardless of the score between them or how the players came to be thrown together in this drama, he knew she had not abandoned him. This was all that mattered.

That evening Watanabe struggled to keep alert throughout the performance. It might be the last one, Tamako thought, looking at his skinny arms, like weather beaten twigs, and his fraught, loose-fitting skin. Ume and Saburo habitually tidied the room after the play. Tamako ordered them to leave it this time and keep wake in the adjacent room where the portrait had grown and bloomed. Then she put her man to rest and lay down beside him by the lamp. But the master needed air and his wife got up and slid the shoji open. There was a full bright orange moon, looking half cruel, half pleading. It shone through the plum tree that stood tall, framing the veranda. The long shadows of the leaves suggested to the master an enveloping embrace, like hands with prominent veins swung by the wind to take him with the tide. He caught a glimpse of white on the tree and in a pale, frail whisper asked his wife if they were snow-flakes. When she answered that it was the first plum blossom of the season, he knew it was time to go with the earliest spring breeze. “Ume! Saburo!” Tamako yelled to them in the adjacent room. “Bring it here!” As she begged her husband to hold on, the two had rapidly obeyed. They dragged the painting out and raised it before the master as Tamako lifted him up supporting his back so he could see the portrait with dignity by the burning light. He took a long dense look and vanished into the jet-black depth of her eyes.

A dim streak of light was filtering through the door frame that sealed off the dead man’s chamber where Tamako had retreated. She had mentioned she would be talking to Saburo before dawn. In the penumbra of the adjacent room, Ume and Saburo, as if scrambling to find a foothold, sat down without a word to play a game of Go. They soothed their anxieties by concentrating on their moves, as if the placement of a lucky stone might dissolve the uncertainties ahead. A few hours later Tamako softly entered the room. She had changed into a dress of wisteria bark. Saburo faced her, flushed, as if he were about to be judged. The two knelt down uncomfortably, yet with grace; they stood up, exchanged places and knelt down again. Ume did not have to be asked to retire. Tense, she went out for air. She found herself in the garden watching on the paper window panes the silhouettes of her lady and the painter as they spoke. She sensed Saburo’s animation. Was he begging to offer her comfort? Or assistance in producing a real death portrait to display? Why leave now? Should he be back after the mourning period? Would she want him to return on the 49th day? Was he describing to his lady her own bleak future with her spouse’s next of kin? Or as a rejected outcast? They could not possibly be negotiating his reward; she would amply compensate him for his work… And Tamako? Was she past the utterance of words? Was she struggling to feel numb? Was she putting out her feelings like a lantern light? Was she silently telling him his job was done? To pack his things and leave before her husband’s family would come to claim the body? And take Ume away with him maybe? Or was she praising him as a true artist? Reassuring him that the maid would treasure his painting and the lady the gem that came with it for she had seen herself at last through the old man’s loving eyes?

Tamako slid open the shoji facing the veranda as Saburo stood up. A lengthy silence followed. She had locked herself in a splendid solitude, magic and categorical, while he squeezed despondently his old outlandish hat he had worn for that evening’s play. He bowed. “If it has to be so,” he whispered and stepped out into the fading night, as the mist rose.

Alessandra Ilaria Scarcia
In memory of Jack Goldsmith (May 10, 1949 –
January 3, 2014).Dedicated to all the care-givers who have what it takes.

A La Une, Urania

Does only the Graffiti Remain?

July 7, 2015 viceversaonline

Jeremy Lester

... the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood. Susan Sontag

It is just possible that photography is the prophecy of a human memory yet to be socially and politically achieved. John Berger

* * * * *

The power of a photograph always lies in its capacity to remind us of something. For a photograph to do this, it is not important whether we ourselves took it, whether we appear in it, or indeed whether it has anything directly to do with us. It is enough that it touches us in some way. Its stillness triggers empathy. It allows the mind to wander and as the mind slowly drifts away from the present we re-live, albeit perhaps only fleetingly, thoughts and images from the past, our own past. This is exactly what these photographs of Chris Killip did. They stirred personal childhood memories – memories of economic hardship (if not outright poverty), pain, and anguish; of grim, bleak, alienating landscapes; and of the drudgery and burden of everyday existence. The images are harsh and stark; they are never sentimentalised. But at the same time, if there is misery here, it is never humiliating. As a consequence, there are also memories of hope, of tremendous dignity, of pride, and of the small pleasures that sustain life. Last but not least, and let us be honest here, there are the memories of the burning desire to escape, but also of the sense of loss that followed in the wake of this exodus; perhaps one might even say, this ‘running away’.

When he takes a photo of someone, Killip has that rare ability to capture more than an instant in time; what he is really able to capture is the essence of an individual’s whole life. They tell us almost everything that we need, or that we would want, to know about them. We can read their life story in the photographic image. It is for this reason that the people in the photographs are not strangers to us. It is as if we know them, we are familiar with them.

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*Chris Killip (born 1946) Is an English photographer of international renown whose work has always tried to document key aspects of the political and social life of working-class communities (past and present). His photographs are featured in the permanent collections of major institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco; Museum Folkwang, Essen; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and most recently, Tate Britain in London (as well as many others). He has also been the winner of many prestigious prizes, such as the 1989 Cartier- Bresson award for his work In Flagrante. More recently he has also turned his attention to non-fiction short films, and one such film, Skinningrove, was awarded the prize of best film in its category at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. The following short tribute and analysis is based on a viewing of his recent exhibition entitled What Happened: Great Britain 1970 – 1990, which was shown at Le Bal Gallery in Paris, together with another exhibition (entitled Arbeit/Work) held last year at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. All the photographs reproduced here are done so with the very kind and generous permission of the photographer himself.

Brother and sister waiting, Whitley Bay 1981

Couple eating fish and chips, Whitley Bay 1976

He has been called the chronicler of a bygone era; the last photographer of the working class. Both descriptions are only partly true. One appreciates the specific time and locality of what he is showing us – the old industrial landscape of northern England in the 1970s and 1980s – and one fully understands how this has been destroyed and decimated, along with the livelihoods they once supported. But one should not imprison these images in just one time and space. Like the work and the factories that once sustained them, they are movable images, re-locatable in space and time. Indeed, in many ways, a lot of his photographs, particularly those depicting redundancy and unemployment (as well resistance to these phenomena) may well be considered not a last image of a vanishing world, but instead a first glimpse, portent, or forewarning of the contemporary world that we now live in, which is dominated so much by the conditions of precariousness. The industrial working class has just about completely vanished, but the global and far more universal ‘precariat class’ looks as though it is going to be with us for a long time to come (unless we can find the will and means to resist).

***

I want to focus on three photographs in particular, each one of which gives us an image of exactly the same location, always taken from the same position. It is a street in Wallsend (on Tyneside) located right next to the Swan Hunter shipyard, which was the work that sustained the region for many decades stretching back in time. No more than six years separate the images in real time – the first one in 1975 and the last one in 1981 – but an eternity separates their meaning and significance.

In the first one, we see a scene that would have been a typical one at any time during the existence of the shipyard. There are children playing in the street, but no adults to be seen. The men are busy at work; the women are busy with their own daily chores. The children play quietly, tranquilly, together. This is still an age when the street was the natural playground for the child. They have nothing to sustain their amusement and their enjoyment other than the power of their own company and imagination. One of the children is temporarily distracted from what he had been doing. He has seen the photographer and he is looking directly in his direction. Strangers or casual visitors from outside would have been quite rare so it is natural that the boy is curious. But one suspects that it was only a momentary distraction. He would not have been unnerved, let alone frightened, by the stranger. He would have accepted him, let him get on with whatever he was doing, and he himself would have immediately picked up the threads of the game or the conversation with his fellow children (one of whom, I am pretty sure, would have been his sister).

To the left of the children (as we look at the picture) are the houses where they, their parents, their other relatives (near and distant), and the other shipyard families live. They are small tenement houses that are situated in neat, identical rows with no space separating them in the row that they belong to. They are houses that would have been owned either directly by the shipyard, or, more likely at this time, by the local council, with the rent due on the same day each month (and how one used to dread that day).

The Russian writer, Evgeny Zamyatin, who lived and worked in this region for nearly two years during the First World War – he helped design and build icebreakers, one of which was later re-named “Lenin” following the death of the first Soviet revolutionary leader – had an absolute hatred of these houses. In letters that he wrote home to his wife, he likens them to the storehouses and grain barns in Petersburg near the Aleksandr Nevskii monastery, and he cannot believe that people actually live in them. Above all, he is shocked and depressed by the fact that each one is an absolutely identical cardboard cut-out of the others to the same, dull, depressing zero degree. It is as though the people live surrounded by mirrors, with each house being an exact reflection of the others. ‘What a terrible lack of imagination’, he repeatedly wrote; what lack of spontaneity, what conformism they convey.(1) In his short story, ‘Islanders’, which he wrote during his stay on Tyneside, he wonders how the parishioners when they leave the church on Sunday can possibly re-locate their own houses, and the fact that somehow they can is likened to a veritable ‘miracle’. Is it any wonder, his narrator goes on to reflect, that the English are so herd-like, so set in their ways, and that any kind of originality is considered almost ‘criminal’. So deep were his negative impressions that he experienced here that they would later be used as a direct source for the physical contours and setting for his most well-known, nightmarish dystopian novel – We.

Of course, one understands his perspective, but it was the perspective of an outsider. For the people actually living here, the closeness and the identicalness of the surroundings would have been the bedrock of their shared sense of community. As always, what we read into an image or a landscape is dependent upon perspective and upon the subjective eye of the beholder.

To the right of the children playing in the street a wall extends into the distance as far as the eye can see. It is a boundary that theoretically separates the realm of the workplace and labour from the realm of the home and leisure. But so low is the wall, so tenuous is the separation, one knows full well that the one conjoined directly with the other. There was no real separation at all.

Towering above the children are the cranes of the shipyard. In their tentacles lies the product of the collective work performed by thousands of blue and white collar workers stretching over many years. At the time the photograph was taken the ship that can be seen was the biggest one ever built on the river estuary. “Tyne Pride” is its name (as we can just make out from the photograph), and for sure it bore the pride of those who made it. But what a price was paid for this pride. Few industries could have contributed more to the power of English imperialism than that of shipbuilding, for what would the might of English power have been without its capacity to rule the high seas of the world? But at the same time, few workers in any industry suffered more toil, exploitation, sickness, injury and death than shipworkers. Moreover, as the industry became ever more ‘modernised’ so too did the illnesses. Only later – when it was too late – would it be revealed the extent to which the workers were poisoned by their constant exposure to asbestos.

It surely does not take much imagination to begin to see the ship as some kind of monster. Indeed, both the children and the houses as well are living so cheek by jowl with this monster that its jaws could seemingly devour them at any moment. One is inevitably reminded here of Melville’s description of the great monster whale, ‘Moby Dick’ – its sweeping ‘sickle-shaped jaw’ which can tear human flesh as a mower can shear a blade of grass in the field. How it must often have been seen as the incarnation of malicious torments that demonise those who come into direct contact with it.

All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil… were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick.

What torn bodies and gashed souls this monster, this leviathan, leaves in its wake. And a leviathan is exactly what it is, in all the possible metaphorical senses of this term (including of course the meaning given to it by Thomas Hobbes).

If one wants, one can go even further back in time, to the Biblical origins of time and, like Melville, see this leviathan as it was presented to Job by Yahweh.

Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? Or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? Canst thou put a hook into his nose? Or bore his jaw through with a thorn? Will he make many supplications unto thee? Will he speak soft words unto thee? Will he make a covenant with thee? Wilt thou take him for a servant for ever? Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? Or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? Shall the companions make a banquet of him? Shall they part him among the merchants? Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? Or his head with fish spears? Lay thine hand upon him, remember the battle, do no more…None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me? (Job 41:1-10)

Who indeed?

Not long after this first photograph was taken Killip went back and photographed the same location. But look how different this second photograph is. Look how things have changed in only a matter of months. It is now the middle of winter. The snow lies deep. No children can be found playing outside; there are only forlorn, isolated men, each of them huddled up against the biting cold and wind that rages in these parts, with their heads bowed down. Did they salute each other as they passed? Did they engage in conversation or heated discussion to warm the cockles of their bowels?

Most of the image conveys a scene of desolation, of emptiness, and it does not take long to realise that this is the result of much more than the harsh weather conditions. If you cast your gaze to the right, the source of the emptiness is staring you full in your face. The leviathan has gone and it has left them with nothing but its entrails. Is its disappearance temporary or permanent? At the time the picture was taken the answer was not yet known, although one suspects that in their heart of hearts they knew that it was permanent and that the closure of the shipyard was imminent. How quickly disposable profits at one end of the social scale can be transformed almost like magic – black magic – into disposable, throw- away lives at the other end.

Yet not all is seemingly lost. Amidst the desolation a message of hope can still be conjured up. The camera lens on this occasion has slightly expanded its horizons. A wall is revealed that was not seen before, and its message rings out loud and clear. ‘Don’t vote’, it exhorts. It is already a sign that the political party which once upon a time proclaimed its allegiance to the working class has deserted and betrayed them, and by doing so it has paved the way for its political enemies to complete the job of destruction and annihilation under the diktat of Mrs Thatcher. But the betrayal has also unleashed the blinkers from their eyes. Things are clearer now than they once were. The absolute contrast between black and white is there for all to see. The negative exhortation not to do something is accompanied by a positive: ‘Prepare for revolution’.

Alas, it was not to be. The forces waged against them were too powerful, too overwhelming. Within the space of a few years, the jobs and the community that went with them were destroyed and a veritable waste land took their place (as can be seen in the third photograph).

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow/ Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, / You cannot say, or guess, for you know only/ A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,/ And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief, / And the dry stone no sound of water. (2)

And yet even here, amidst the bleakest possible desolation, it turns out that some roots do indeed still clutch. There on the wall to the left, the graffiti, the message, remains. It was not destroyed. No, more than that. To say ‘it was not destroyed’ might imply that it escaped destruction by accident; that it was some kind of oversight on the part of those who carried out the demolition. But I think there is something much stronger at work here. This was no accident that it was left intact. Even if the intent had been to destroy it along with everything else, it could not be destroyed.

***

Take photos otherwise they will not believe us (Franco Basaglia). (3)

As one enters the exhibition of Chris Killip’s photographs a story is recounted:

One night in 1994 my American friend John Clifford, who owned the best bar in Cambridge, took me into the middle of Boston to where the civic center and other administrative buildings now stand. These buildings were built in the 1960s on top of the old tough working class district of Scully Square, where John and his brothers were born and raised.

John pointed out to me streets that no longer existed, telling me who had lived where and in which house. Who had died in Vietnam, who had worked for the mob, who had gone to prison or ended up in politics. When I interrupted this narrative to tell him how great it was that he was telling the history of this place he spun around, gripped me by the throat and pushed me against the wall. With his raised fist clenched he said, ‘I don’t know nothing about no fucking history, I’m just telling you what happened.

We look at these photographs today, in the present, which are images of the past, and by doing so they compel us to reflect on the past and all that it entailed – for good and bad. But they do more than that. They likewise beg us to reflect on the future. But what future awaits us? ‘A people or a class which is cut off from its own past is far less free to choose and to act than one that has been able to situate itself in history.’(4)

Thirty years have passed since the final photograph was taken. For sure, the wall that contained the message has long since succumbed to the vagaries of time and destruction. But the message outlives the wall. The wall is only an outer, superficial container. It pales into comparison with the real container of the message which is our hearts and our spirit. And if the message can no longer be seen or heard on Tyneside, its echoes do continue to resound on the streets of many other places throughout the world.

There is one final photograph from Killip’s exhibition that I want to refer to. It depicts a young boy, no more than ten or eleven years old, who sits in front of a small fishing boat deep in concentrated contemplation. His face expresses immense sadness but in contrast his eyes express a depth of determination. Only the caption below the photograph can begin to reveal the inner workings of his thoughts. ‘A young boy takes to the sea again after the drowning of his father (1983).’

If only we can all find the political courage to match this young boy’s human courage, then not only will the ‘revolution’ be prepared… it might even succeed. Now wouldn’t that be an image to see…

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Notes

(1) See Alan Myers, ‘Evgenii Zamiatin in Newcastle’, Slavonic and East European Review, No. 68, 1990 and ‘Zamiatin in Newcastle: The Green Wall and the Pink Ticket’, Slavonic and East European Review, No. 71, 1993.

(2) T.S. Eliot, ‘The Waste Land’ in Collected Poems 1909-1962 (London: Faber and Faber, 1963), p. 63.

(3) This advice was given by Basaglia to Raymond Depardon so that a photographic record could be made of psychiatric conditions in Italy in the late 1970s. See Raymond Depardon, Manicomio: Selected Madness – Secluded Madness (Göttingen: Steidl, 2012).

(4) John Berger, Ways of Seeing (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1972), p. 11.

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