Meanwhile the conversation was proceeding briskly. It was obvious that our host understood English perfectly, but the pretty girl interpreted for him just the same, and with a lively dignity. He obviously relied on her good sense as well as on her competence. What does the Japanese man think of this new woman? I made up my mind to find out somehow, some day. As for her, she appeared to be extremely useful as well as ornamental and, above all, she seemed to be happy. Her ancient sadness was gone. Tragedy had left her, and if what had taken its place was not exactly comedy, it was something vivacious and delightful.
In an amazingly short time the details of our co-operation were fixed — if anything can be said to be fixed in the fluidities and exigencies of film making. The amenities, at least, over, this head of a great triangular company invited us to meet with the remaining third, the production manager. We knew then that we had reached the ultimate, the practical, the man with whom we must deal again and again. To meet him, however, would not be possible until after the weekend, for it was the end of the day, and the day the last of the working week. The weekend in Japanese society has become as important an event as in the most Western country. Nothing could be done until it was over. It was the ideal time to accept the invitation from my friend.
Not far from the huge and modern city of Tokyo is the quiet town of Kamakura. It is famous in Japanese history but famous now because it is the home of some of Japan’s best-known writers. My friend’s husband was in Europe but she herself came for me in her comfortable and chauffeured car. We drove through the crowded city and the spreading suburbs into the country. It was a sunny afternoon in August, but we did not know it was sunny until we got out of the city because of the smog, which is the same anywhere, and in Tokyo it can be rich and thick, and was that day.
I greatly enjoyed the drive, nevertheless, not only because it gave me the opportunity to see the general outlines of the amazing new Tokyo, at least in one direction, but also because I found that I could really talk with the equally amazing new Japanese woman at my side. She remained beautifully Japanese in her gray silk kimono, her hair smooth, her face amiable and composed, but her mind was cosmopolitan and sophisticated in the true sense of the word. She could and did remain herself anywhere in the world, at ease in any capital. I am accustomed to cosmopolitan and sophisticated women in many countries, but my friend has an unusual and individual quality. One could never mistake her for any but a Japanese, and yet this national saturation of birth and education is only the medium through which she communicates a universal experience and with wisdom and charm. A rose is a rose anywhere in the world, and yet in a Japanese room, arranged in a Japanese vase in a Japanese tokonoma, the rose becomes somehow Japanese. That is my friend.
I asked hundreds of questions, I fear, and was delighted by her frank and informed replies. Two hours slipped past like minutes.
“I have invited some of our writers to meet you,” she told me at last. “We will have dinner at a famous inn.”
When we arrived at Kamakura, the sun had already set and we went directly to the inn. The car stopped at some distance away, however, and we walked along a narrow footpath, far from the main street of Kamakura. At the end of the path we entered a wooden gate and stepping stones led us from there across a garden to a wide lawn, lit by stone lanterns. The low roofs of the buildings nestled beneath great trees, climbing the abrupt slopes of a mountain behind the inn.
We were late and the guests were waiting for us, a few of Japan’s best-loved writers. They all wore dark Japanese kimono, and they sat on a long stone bench, sipping tea. I was introduced to them, one by one, and recognized especially Mr. Kawabata and Jiro Osaragi. Mr. Kawabata is president of the P.E.N. Club of Japan, and had just returned, on the same jet with me, from a visit to North and South America. Since I had never met him, I did not know who he was. He sat just across the aisle from me and I had kept looking at him from time to time.
“That is certainly a great man of Japan,” I murmured to my seat mate.
He was not tall and his bones were delicately fine. The eyes, however, revealed the man. They were large, dark, and so lit with intelligence that they were indeed windows through which one looked into a sensitive and brilliant mind.
Now I was looking through them again and with instant recognition.
“It was you — on the jet!” I cried.
He smiled. “I knew you but you didn’t know me.”
“I know you now,” I declared. “I have read your books. I know you went to South America. And — forgive me — I knew when I looked at you that day that you were — somebody.”
He laughed at my stupidity, and I admired in my heart his delicately carved features, the firm ivory skin, and the shock of gray hair. He is sixty-two years old and his heavy silk kimono completed his air of an aristocrat. Yet he is also very lively and modern. When I commended, later in the evening, the excellent service on the Japan Airlines he looked mischievous and wagged his head.
“But,” he said, “I have a complaint. The hostesses I do not always find very pretty!”
We laughed and my friend explained amicably that this famous writer attracts young girls and therefore is a connoisseur.
We sat for an hour, admiring the moon and enjoying cool fruit juice. The conversation was in English or in Japanese translated for my benefit. Most of the writers did not speak English. Then we were summoned, and we sauntered into the restaurant, took off our shoes at the entrance and walked into a large room, open on two sides to the garden. There to the breeze of a big electric fan, we talked or rested now and then in peaceful silence. I sat beside Jiro Osaragi and my friend translated for us. I had just finished reading for the second time his tender novel, Homecoming, a book almost feminine in its grace and subtlety. It was difficult to imagine it written by this tall strong handsome man in middle age. Certainly he was not in the least feminine. But the combination of delicacy and strength, of tenderness and cruelty, is usual in the work of Japanese writers, and is perhaps inherent in Japanese nature.
While we talked, one dish after another was served. It was the season of sea trout, the first good season in a long time, I was told, for sea trout have been destroyed in recent years in some fashion not clear to me, perhaps by atomic waters. At any rate, it was evidently a delicacy now. The trout were served individually roasted on hot stones instead of on plates, each fish placed as though it were swimming on the ocean bed. A line of salt symbolized the beach, a bit of cedar twig the seaweed. It was too exquisite to eat, but we ate and found it delicious. When it was taken away, there came next a length of green bamboo, split, and steamed inside was the tender flesh of young quail. And so on until the end of the meal and we went back to the garden again. There in an open mat shed we had “genghis khan,” a Mongol dish of thin sliced beef and vegetables broiled on a charcoal brazier, the forerunner, I daresay, of modern sukiyaki. Properly it should be prepared and eaten outdoors, as we did, in memory of nomad Mongol life. But let me not go into this matter of delicacies, for there is no end to the ingenuity and imagination of the Japanese in culinary matters. The evening passed, too soon the hour of separation arrived. We said our farewells and went our way.