The Fourth String. Janet Pocorobba
furiously at the edge of the stage. The audience applauded. And then silence. And then, as if in code, two taps. Ki! Ki! A shamisen strummed, a slow cranking up of the song that stirred the lead singer to moan, “Saruhodo ni …” “Well, once upon a time …” The voice went up and down, all rumble and ride. The shamisen plucked and fired, and ended on a fading ostinato.
Shan! Denise stomped out in her three-inch clogs, wielding her umbrella, wearing an oversized black kimono with butterflies stitched on its skirts, with red leggings and a purple obi sash that looked like twisted balloon art.
I folded my hands on my lap and kept my eyes low.
Bench, reach, do not search but find.
My lips opened.
Was I singing?
Whose sound was whose?
The music moved fast, like a river, past us all. The shamisen toiled, all slap and buzz and stick, embellishing, adding, building hard. Drums ticked and popped below. Sensei’s drumsticks appeared to splash the patch of deer skin in the center of her drum. A flute started shredding the air. I let them all fill me, like the bittersweet incense on the sleeve of an old geisha singing next to me, the glint of Sensei’s famous hair below.
An infant in Japan is not age zero but one. At birth, the shape is already there, the way known. She does not have to become anything that has not existed already.
I sang so softly I couldn’t be sure I was singing. My goal was to be invisible, to prostrate myself, to surrender completely to the musical past. After, I unfolded my legs gingerly. Ki o tsukete, everyone was murmuring, Easy does it. My knees ached, my ribs hurt.
But I knew, at least now, the shape of what must be filled.
Later, over a bowl of soba noodles near the station, Sensei asked of my performance, “How did you go?” We had left the concert hall even though the music continued. “Fine, I think. It was hard to tell.” I felt slack again in Western clothes. Three weeks, in which had passed a couple of lessons and a kabuki show, in which I hadn’t exactly learned to sing, now unspooled and I was back in my life.
We stood in a knot at the turnstile of Ofuna Station, where housewives with bags of groceries were hurrying home and teenaged girls clutching Tiffany bags were laughing and pointing at shop windows.
A subtle tension in Sensei was now gone. We’d gotten through without major gaffes. Doug’s chocolate mishap could be cleaned. My sudden muteness was forgivable. Lisa missed a few drumbeats but we’d be spared. It had all worked out.
Greatly relieved, we all laughed, a little buzzed relief.
I turned to Sensei. Did one hug Sensei? Before I could decide she slipped through the ticket gates, her raspberry lace kimono coat humped over the obi like a little camel. Something was radiating in her that had not been present before the show, some flush of contentment within. Doug followed, his red nylon shamisen bag like a great oar on his back; Denise, her blond hair twisted into a proud crown; Lisa, blending in with her dark hair and pale skin.
Sensei turned and my heart skipped a beat. Already I had no idea what I would do without her. “Call me next week! I am going to Kyoto in the morning to look for drums.”
They receded and I felt like I did in the entryway, or genkan, of Japanese homes, no longer a part of the interior, but not yet outside, either.
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