By the time I finished reading Jack’s manuscript, twelve hours after first opening the package, I was overcome by the grief and sadness captured and conveyed in Jack’s words. I was at home seated in my favorite chair, an overstuffed, worn-out recliner. It had been dark for several hours and my once-roaring fire had diminished into an orange glow. I reached for a box of tissues, wiped my eyes, and blew my nose. Then, I sat back and stared at the fire.
Within the confines of my campus office, I had read well over half of Jack’s luminous tale, my feet often up on my desk—I had devoured it between a few trips for refills of coffee and a few for relieving my aging bladder into the enamel urinals that are one of the staples of any scholastic setting. But the remaining sunlight slowly began to slant almost horizontally through the shades of my office window, reminding me of the brevity of midwinter days in Indiana. “There’s a Certain Slant of Light—,”wrote Emily Dickinson, and so, with the early dusk approaching, and my imagination completely captured by the exotic tales of my former student, I decided to bundle myself up, withdraw from the office, and carefully wend my way homeward. My prim, highly reliable Camry was the only car in the lot as the wan sun dipped below the tree line.
Once back in my chilly manse, I brewed some strong English tea, built a fire, fried yet another egg for a sandwich, and sat down in front of my fireplace to finish Jack’s story. All told, it took a total of two long sittings to complete the first reading of the manuscript. Like most experienced editors, I’m a fast reader, and moreover, I had settled down enough to read it without the constant necessity of a pen in my hand for marking errors or moments of confusion in the text. In other words, I had managed to bridle my habitual need to proof a written text. I simply wanted to read the story through to the end. That level of editorial attentiveness and nitpicking would come later. One can always go back and reread, which I have done numerous times over the past year—twice straight through, both times with pen in hand, like the lifelong editor I am.
Before I began the second half of the manuscript, I perched the small gift-wrapped box, dressed up in its red, white, and blue decorations, on the table next to my chair, where it superintended the remainder of my reading task. Yes, I held steady and true to the admonition of my departed friend: the box remained unopened until I had completed the manuscript. In fact, its smiling presence, like some close friend’s special gift beneath a Christmas tree, added to the urgency, not that I needed much encouragement.
In all honesty, I’ve often wondered about what I immediately perceived to be Jack’s palpable remorselessness, his lack of guilt. But over the years I’ve known other victims of trauma, including classmates who were drafted and spent time in Vietnam, and so I know firsthand that the symptoms of trauma vary from person to person, and that, in this case, it would seem foolish to draw any conclusions. As St. Paul reminds us, there is always the matter of the “mystery of iniquity,” a vast, unsolvable puzzle resisting our petty attempts to solve it.
Having completed the narrative, I picked up the multi-colored box. I held it up to the light and studied it, turning it this way and that. Then, suddenly, I unwrapped it. Inside I found two objects: a small key and hand-written directions to the Chase Tower in downtown Indianapolis, with information enough to admit me to the savings deposit box area and into the private holdings of Dr. E. J. Springs.
It pains me to admit this, but almost four weeks passed before I was able to make it to Indianapolis, though I did wish to discover what might be up there. But duty calls, old habits die hard, and as a well-trained workaholic/pack-rat with classes or meetings scheduled throughout the week, I found it convenient to procrastinate, and inconvenient indeed to find a four-hour window to make the trip. In fact, and based on the few clues already given, I must admit that there may have been more than a little fearfulness in my heart, regarding what secrets I might find hidden up there in the box.
Finally, the first week of February, I was sitting in my office late on a Friday morning, with nothing else scheduled for the rest of the day, the weather decent, the sky shiny and blue, and that small box with the key, which I’d placed high on the bookshelf next to my campus desk, glowering down at me. Suddenly, I reached up and took it in my hands, inspecting it closely. Without further thought, I grabbed my car keys, my coat, scarf, and hat, my brown paper bag containing a sandwich, a banana, and some bottled water, headed briskly for my car, and soon enough was motoring down the highway confidently toward my destination. In a little over an hour, I was tooling slowly up Ohio Street in downtown Indianapolis, maneuvering my car into a parking space, and scooping up small change from the bottom of the drink holder to feed the meter.
Inside the skyscraper, I spied the various tellers and other personnel whose job it is to evaluate the various souls entering the lobby of the Chase Bank. One older lady caught my eye. She resembled an ancient librarian, sort of a latter-day version of Donna Reed in It’s a Wonderful Life. She semi-scowled at me through a winsome smile; and as she walked up to me, I noted that the name tag on her sweater said, “Edna.”
“May I help you?”
I fumbled for the key, and showed it to her. “Yes. I’m here about a box.” Brilliant, I thought.
She studied the key momentarily. “A safety deposit box, you mean?”
“Precisely. Can you direct me—Edna?”
Speaking her name seemed to accomplish some otherworldly magic, and her pursed lips widened into a full smile. Without a word, she unfurled her arm and gestured me through one of those low swinging doors, then toward a stairwell that led down into the bowels of the building. My platonic relationship with Edna was now officially terminated.
Downstairs, I sought out the correct attendant and was ushered into the solemn presence of a viewing room. The walls were lined with dozens of large and small boxes, and upon my provision of certain information and another presentation of the key, I was left alone with a fairly large container, approximately three feet by two feet, and about twenty inches deep. I sat there for what seemed just the right amount of time before flipping open the cover of the box to reveal its furtive contents, silently acknowledging Jack for whatever goods I might determine to be inside.
On top was a large, faded manila envelope. Nothing was written on it, and I placed it aside. Several old volumes came next. I took them out, one by one, and slowly inspected them. Indian Summer was on top, followed by A Hazard of New Fortunes and A Traveler to Altruria. These were all first editions of some of the greatest novels written by William Dean Howells, the centerpiece of my own academic eccentricities for some thirty years or more. They weren’t so valuable at auction, but they were all neglected novels that had been highly underrated, in my view. Books you might find stashed unknowingly in a crate at an estate sale, marked by their unwitting owner at an absurdly low price. Jack had placed these books here especially, to be retrieved by someone with a very particular interest in Howells— someone, such as myself. I smiled at his thoughtfulness.
I was so intrigued by these volumes that I did not initially notice the treasures beneath them: Pound’s signed copy of Moby-Dick, numerous other old tomes, but most importantly, another, rather large container of some kind placed at the bottom of the box. This item was wrapped in that same white and red striped holiday paper in which the small box holding the key had originally appeared. It was underneath everything else, on the very bottom of the box, a sort of foundation, and I lifted it out.
The faded wrapping paper fell away easily. It was Hemingway’s valise—or at least, Professor Goto’s facsimile. My first thought was that it was too small to hold much, but I was wrong. It contained multitudes. Opening it slowly, I found numerous file folders, all stuffed with old pages. One with “Pound” scribbled on top, another marked simply “Nook Farm,” along with a few more of Jack’s favorite volumes. Nestled at the very bottom of the valise, one more item was encased inside another plastic, padded envelope. The box within the box within the box, like an old Chinese puzzle.
I carefully opened the envelope and pulled out a volume with a leathery, faded green cover and gold embossed lettering. With a quickening pulse, I realized I held in my hands a genuine first edition of Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman’s 1855 masterpiece which the poet had prepared, printed, and then held with his own hands. It was the mother lode of rare literary relics, a collection of words as impressive and as influential as any ever penned by an American.
I set Walt Whitman aside, gently, and began pulling out the contents of the manila envelope. It included a large, bulging, blue money pouch, marked Chase Bank, the kind of pouch stores and vendors use for toting around large amounts of cash for deposits. I discovered as well a map and some hand-scribbled directions on several sheets of legal pad paper, including a couple of the pages written in what appeared to be Japanese. There were photographs and business cards, Japanese on one side and English on the reverse. And another envelope, this one with “Marty” on it. It was sealed, and I quickly opened it and removed the letter. By now I was no longer surprised to find that it contained yet one more letter from the dead. This one neatly typed on old Gonzaga letterhead.
Dear Marty,
If you are reading this, I am evidently deceased. That’s a euphemism I have always liked: deceased. I have ceased to exist—at least in this dimension. I have passed away—that’s a good one too, so gentle, like a train rolling out of the station and away, into the countryside, gaining speed very slowly, almost imperceptibly.
Funny how that sounds now, rattling off my keyboard. Having been given my decree of death just a few months back, thanks be to prostate cancer, I needed to put some things in order. By now you know all about that, if you’ve made it this far.
I date this letter as Independence Day, but my own independence—from the fear and loathing of my past—really depends on your help. Dating it the “4th” is symbolic anyway, like Thoreau saying in Walden that he went to live at the pond on July 4. Actually, I finished this letter and printed it off the week after the Fourth, but symbols are important, so let’s keep the date the way it is. I still believe in the efficiency of symbols, despite all I’m going through, or went through—I need to speak here in the past tense.
Do you like my small gifts? Yes, the Howells books are trifles next to Moby-Dick or Leaves of Grass, but you are one of the few people on planet Earth nowadays who can value them properly. I include Indian Summer, not because it is comparable in monetary value, but in particular because I love its title, and I sincerely hope that these things can commence a rebirth of sorts in your own remaining years. Together, they’re worth a fair amount of money, as you surely know. And now they are yours, to do with as you and your conscience see fit.
As you are about to learn, the best interests of humanity often clash with the sordid best interests of our outer shells—our biological appetites, as it were. Thus can a rare first edition of Leaves of Grass be either a blessing or a curse to you—and perhaps even a little of both, as Frodo discovered about the ring. A small gift, Sensei would tell me, as he slid a priceless book across the table toward my waiting hands.
I am a sap for romanticism and human sentiment, as you know. So are you, unless I have wildly misread you over the years. If true so far, perhaps you will go another mile. Do you remember the letter at the end of Shawshank Redemption? The one that Red, just out of prison, finds in the old cigar box buried under the tree in a New England field, next to a stone wall that seems plucked from a Robert Frost poem? His friend Andy writes:
Dear Red,
If you’re reading this, you’ve gotten out. And if you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to go a little farther. You remember the name of the town, don’t you?
Well, Marty, maybe you’re willing to go a little farther than the Chase Tower in downtown Indianapolis? Seven thousand miles or so further, in fact. Do you remember the name of the temple, on top of a mountain in the Japan Alps? I could use a good man like you to help me find a little redemption in all this.
Directions to the temple are enclosed. Also, thanks to Sensei, so is a bundle of cash, which will more than cover any expenses. Please do me the one favor and travel first class. Sensei would insist; he always wanted the best for his assistants. And don’t forget to take with you the talisman, the shibboleth, our little codebook that will admit you to the stash—Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea. It will be our little secret, OK? Maybe it is a little corny, but anyway, that’s how I’ve arranged it. As Shakespeare wrote, “some have greatness thrust upon them.”
One last thing. Hope IS a good thing—maybe the best of things. Even in the desultory twenty-first century, when it seems like multi-tasking postmodern digital natives [read: our students] are doing everything they can to AVOID the words, burying them under something else, so that they won’t be bothered by their wordy implications any longer.
Nevertheless: I hope … It’s why we keep on teaching. Right, Marty?
Your friend,
Jack
I opened the money pouch, finding four stacks of fifty-dollar bills, bound as a bank would bind them, each bundle appearing to have a hundred bills, meaning that perhaps I held a grand total of twenty thousand dollars in my hands, courtesy of the Goto dynasty. The directions Jack provided for finding the temple, Ryoan-ji, were clear and well-formulated for a novice like me, a man completely ignorant about Japan and its language and culture. The pages written in Japanese would appear to be further insurance, for any wayward strangers who might cross my path and willingly aid me.
And yet, despite these ample provisions, I was paralyzed by anxieties. I wish I could report that I immediately contacted my travel agent and made urgent plans to fly to Japan, but I didn’t. Again I hesitated. I’ve never been much of a traveler, I don’t like fish unless I catch it myself—much less raw fish—and I was always clumsy with chopsticks, so how might I survive? Crab brains? Oh my! The very concept sent my elderly body into convulsions of horror, as if a refined Henry James were being recruited to sail before the mast of Captain Ahab’s whaler. So I carefully gathered my booty, replaced the security box, returned to my properly parked car (with plenty of time left on the meter for the next person), drove under the speed limit back to Bloomington, Indiana, and went back into work mode, hardly even entertaining the possibility of flying off to Tokyo to attempt all that Jack had instructed me to do.
Yes, those are two of life’s most bone-chilling words—I hesitated.
There was, of course, the matter of the treasure’s safety. My cynical side assumed that the cache of collectibles might well be long gone by now. The earthquake had occurred roughly fifteen years in the past, and Jack admitted that he had no evidence that the boxes remained intact. Furthermore, he had revealed very little about what was actually contained therein. Mere innuendoes, really. And finally, there was the wrongdoing involved in attaining whatever lay hidden in that dusty old temple. Those buried words came at the cost of human lives. Blood had been spilled. Morally, it all made me a little queasy, and thus, more hesitations ensued.
Time passed. I mulled all this over, day in, day out. I found myself becoming even queasier. And then, it was March 11, 2011, just over a month after discovering the contents of the safe deposit box, when another jolt struck: 9.0 on the Richter scale, the fifth most powerful earthquake ever recorded on Earth, eighty miles off the northern coast of Japan. Over five minutes of intense shaking, followed by hundreds of strong aftershocks, a massive tsunami that devastated coastal cities, and punctuated by the nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima power plant, flinging radiation far and wide and commencing a massive evacuation. The footage of disaster that became available in the days and weeks after that massive quake was surreal, and the devastation that Jack had reported, culminating in the great Kobe earthquake of 1995, was actually surpassed by this temblor. It was dumbfounding to witness further calamity, just as I was contemplating a visit, and to say the least, I was horrified and thus became even less willing to fly to Japan, in light of these latest events. I now seriously wondered if I had it in me, psychologically, to undertake these “minor tasks” for Jack.
Eventually, however, life returns to normal and one settles down. In my heart, I knew I must go—someday in the vague future. A little over two months after my deepening anxieties provoked by the destructive earthquake and tsunami of March 2011, the skies somehow opened up, and something changed inside me. To this day, I still have no concrete explanation.
I had finished all the exams and handed in my grades in mid-May. At first I was exhausted and somewhat depressed, which is increasingly how I feel every May, needing a few weeks of unwinding from a very long year. But I was also entering a period, a lengthened reprieve, due to the fact that I had been awarded a sabbatical for the 2011-12 academic year. And thus, by the first of June of 2011, when I was beginning to see my life a little clearer again, I was greeted with the happy prospect of having the next fourteen months to do whatever I pleased. I was a free man, liberated from the intestines of the academic frenzy. Indeed, I felt open skies ahead.
Yes, I did hesitate—for a long time, it is true. But all at once, earthquake-like, in early June the novel concept shook me. I must make the trip—not just for Jack, but ultimately for me as well—as he put it, for that tired old dog, too set in his ways.
I booked the flight, in the spirit of Jack’s letter, for July 4th: Independence Day. A day for riddance. A day for fireworks and ice cream, for liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A day to protest the corruptive forces that rule every other day of our lives. I drove up early to the Indianapolis Airport, and parked my old Toyota in the most expensive lot, right next to the terminal, where it would await whatever I might bring back from the Land of the Rising Sun.
By the time I filed patiently off the airplane at Narita Airport outside of Tokyo, via Detroit roughly eighteen hours later, it was the 5th of July. Bleary-eyed, my back aching, I felt as though I might throw up with every footfall. I had gained a day magically by passing over another symbol, the International dateline, and so even the dates were dissimilar. The blank hallways of the Narita Airport seemed endless, a mile long each, then a corner, where one would face another mile or two. This endless maze made one consider running away in fear and loathing, back down some other interminable corridor, like the lion in The Wizard of Oz.
Entering Japan was assuredly foreboding. If Kafka were ever to pen a novel about an airport, I’m certain it would be set in Narita. The unsuspecting visitor flows with a mob through a doorway to discover a line of approximately seven thousand people at passport control, then is required to endure a seven-hour wait for luggage. Predictably, my bags were among the last to arrive. One overweight and silent official poked around for five minutes in my bags, looking for who knows what. He sniffed leisurely at my shaving kit, then finally waved me forward, all without a single word, just mute gestures. I was flushed out into the main receiving concourse of Narita, with hundreds of waiting friends and family members, pointing their digital cameras, holding flowers, balloons, large signs, babies, books, magazines, or sodas.
The two-hour ride into Tokyo, on a steamy bus being pounded by torrential rain, with no windows to open and minimal air conditioning, featured a few screaming babies nearby to make it as unpleasant as possible. As we pulled up to the Keio Plaza Hotel in Shinjuku, the baby directly in front of me vomited with great force upon his mother’s right shoulder. The tiniest amount of yellowish spittle flew toward me, landing on my left leg as I watched with a mixture of amusement and horror. I nearly vomited myself, actually tasted the bile in the back recesses of my throat. It was the end of a cosmically brutal trip from hell, an appendix to Sartre’s No Exit. When I finally got into my hotel room, it was already 5:30 p.m. the next day, so to speak, with the hot sun filling my southern-facing room/sauna. The view of Tokyo seemed to go on forever. Ten-and twenty-story buildings as far as the eye could see. But I pulled the curtains and fell face down into the bed, sleeping straight through for about ten hours.
Unfortunately, I was wide awake by 4:00 a.m. Though a bit timid to venture far from the hotel in the darkness of the middle of the night, I got up, showered, dressed, and headed down the elevator to see what I would see, determined to quit whatever complaining might crop up. It was still dark at five o’clock, but a hint of the rising sun was visible to the east.
Once outside, my timidity changed slowly as I wandered away from the high-rise quarter of new Shinjuku and vaguely into the mesmerizing alleyways of old Shinjuku, a half mile away. No cars were out yet except a few lonely cabs. Trains were already beginning to rumble inside the massive Shinjuku Station, or on the rail lines passing frequently overhead. I walked under one of the trestles and entered a new kind of cityscape, with bouncing bright lights still on even at this early hour of the morning. People still walked around here and there, men in rumpled business suits, and women in disheveled and brightly colored dresses and gowns.
An hour into my hike through the canyon lands of the city, I espied a familiar sight, with workers scurrying about inside and a few paying customers already sitting at tables: a Dunkin’ Donuts, here in the heart of postmodern Japan. I went in, pointed benignly at a few pastries, gestured for some hot coffee, and sat down for my first meal in Japan.
Fortified by the coffee, I hiked even further afield, first into an area called Yoyogi, where I spotted a sign, in both Japanese and English, pointing toward “Yoyogi Park.” Sunshine now dominated the haze of early morning, more people bustled around, and trucks and cars began clotting some of the streets as I wandered off in pursuit of the park.
The grounds were enormous and heavily wooded with evergreens, so that the urban sprawl slowly vanished away. One path led to another, and then underneath a massive red-orange torii gate—shaped like the Greek letter pi, just as Jack had described it—I found myself in front of an extensive shrine of some sort, weathered yet elegant. One old woman sat on a bench before the building, facing away from it toward those approaching. She was patiently feeding a swarm of pigeons, as incense wafted in sheets from a massive cauldron, filling the air with a spice of purity mixed with the exotic spray of foreign gods. Behind the old lady, on one side of the building, a monk in a bluish robe, his head completely shaven, swept a long wooden deck. Another old man walked his tiny dog, which, gleeful to be outdoors, pulled him forward. Branches swayed in the light breeze, as in an ancient Japanese dance. This extended moment has become in my mind’s eye one of those cosmic spots of time wherein all is suddenly well with the world. I was here, in Japan, as Jack had planned all along.
I sat on a bench opposite the old woman, her face wrinkled and weathered, but her hands gentle and caring. She glanced my way, her luminous smile a promise of sorts, as the old man disappeared down the garden path with his frenzied dog. In this somewhat altered state, I watched the woman, the monk, and the shrine long enough for the sun to rise completely, filling the air with an assurance of another steamy summer day to come.
Back at the hotel, now midmorning, it was time to pack and head off for another massive maze: Shinjuku Station, where I would pick up the express train to the big mountains of Japan, and specifically for the city of Matsumoto. I ate a late lunch a short walk from the main station, in front of the sinister Matsumoto Castle, which was mysterious for its being black, rather than the traditional white of most Japanese castles. Above the castle were dozens of large black birds circling slowly, as if it were a place of great calamity, and in the far distance to the west were the majestic peaks of central Japan. I found the bus stop to take me up into the far reaches of the backbone of Honshu Island, the Japan Alps, first to the resort town of Kamikochi, then onward to the end of the rainbow: Ryoan-ji.
In Kamikochi, the sky was a brilliant blue, but the air was stultifying. It was still early enough in the day to think that I could make it to the temple, but the mid-afternoon jet lag tugged at my enthusiasm. I had secured no reservation anywhere, and so I inquired through hand gestures for nearby inns, acting out a person sleeping and snoring. “Ahh, hai!” one attendant exclaimed, nodding proudly, “Sanko! Sanko!”
He smiled in gratitude, pointing up the hill. “Hai! Sanko desu!” Then he put his small hands on my back and pretended to push me toward a building hidden amongst old trees and large emerald ferns.
I trudged up the hill, hoping I might discover a small inn. I doubt if I have ever felt so alone, yet there was something thrilling about venturing out, unaccompanied, into uncharted waters. In retrospect, my brief stay at the Sanko Ryokan, up in the highlands of the Japan Alps, was one of the great days of my life. It was a tiny property, owned and operated by a single family. One older daughter, called Hideko, could speak a little English, and she happily attempted over and over to tell me about their business, their history, and the marvels of the surrounding countryside, noted for its wasabi, which I discovered was a kind of horseradish. The Sanko was a small taste of what Jack, and perhaps Sensei, might consider “Old Japan.” The rooms featured tatami mats for floors, shoji screens for doors and windows, and were enhanced by the rocks, ferns, moss, and stone lanterns in a lovely manicured garden just outside the window. There were wonderfully colored pillows for sitting, cross legged, on the tatami. The Sanko also featured a real hot spring, or onsen, bubbling up from the molten lakes of Japan’s volcanic underground. The waters were considered medicinal, therapeutic, and somehow spiritually regenerative. The place reeked of sulfur, like rotten eggs. They insisted that I disrobe immediately and take a bath, which I did.
As I inched into the steaming waters of the bath, I imagined that I was now slowly experiencing Japan as Jack had, uninhibited and unembarrassed. And though I was not used to the Japanese way of bathing in a large, open pool to be shared with any other interested parties, I found the courage to accept their offer and even to relax, as I partook of their steamy peace offering. This lowering of the curtains of my biological reality, so to speak, had an extremely humbling effect, it seemed. Just as the Japanese believe, the twenty minutes of utter vulnerability in the onsen soothed my troubled soul, its magical waters rinsing off the heaviness of my travels. The bath was a baptism of fire: sempiternally heated, the waters rejuvenated me as I relaxed, naked to the world.
Afterwards, they welcomed me, if only temporarily, into the family of the inn, bearing the gifts of their wonderful food and drink including a large tray of cooked octopus with soy sauce and homegrown wasabi and complemented by an iced glass mug kept full of Asahi Dry. They took turns refilling my mug as soon as I took a drink. Another platter appeared, this one holding an entire cooked fish, blackened and aromatic. I braced myself and fumbled around with the chopsticks. Hideko patiently instructed me about how to improve my delivery, helping me eat the fish as if I were a four year old. To my surprise, it was one of the most delicious things I have ever put in my mouth— fresh, wholesome, absolutely perfect. Steamed edamame— soybeans—were plentiful, and Hideko demonstrated how to squeeze out the contents and pop them into my mouth. Noodles, fried with vegetables and tiny shrimp, with steam rising from them, were delivered fresh from the kitchen, and they brought out the aged sake, served in tiny porcelain containers. Lacquered trays, steaming mugs of thick, green tea, bitter and hearty. And all of it, seated on the floor pillow, legs dangling into the pit underneath the shiny black table, with the screens thrown back to reveal the beautiful bluish-purple mountain peaks into which I would venture the next morning. Soon enough, the combination of jet lag, the soothing bath waters, and the copious food and alcoholic refreshments did their duty. I was on the brink of collapse. I slept as I rarely do, deep and long, on a fluffy futon with a stone-hard pillow for my head, dreaming of Old Japan.
By dawn I was awakened, and soon after breakfast, I handed a 10,000 yen note to Hideko and proceeded to show her my instructions, written in both languages. She studied them meticulously, with occasional nods, then summoned a local taxi for my use. After many thanks, I departed, with her and her parents standing outside the inn, bowing and bowing over and over, as the taxi motored slowly off. Just as the Keio Plaza had in Tokyo, Hideko supplied me with a few matchboxes with their name, address, and phone number emblazoned on the side, should I ever wish to return.
The taxi slowly began to climb the mountainous winding roads with severe switchbacks and sheer cliffs falling away into the tiny rice paddies carved into the terrain below. In about ninety minutes we had arrived at a remote location near the top of a mountain. Off to one side were some of the highest peaks in Japan. And there stood before me, finally, the massive torii gate described by Jack, under which I had to pass to find the path leading up the mountainside to the temple. Pulling out my stack of yen, I liberated another 10,000 yen note and handed it to the stunned driver. I pointed at my watch, saying, “Tomorrow?” Yes?” He nodded eagerly, jumped out of the car and pulled my bag out of the trunk. Setting it on the road, he presented it to me.
We both turned to peer up the mountain path. He still held the handle of my large, roll-around luggage, and it immediately occurred to both of us the absurdity of the immediate situation. I must labor up the side of the mountain, pulling along behind me this overstuffed piece? The wheels were good on sidewalks or train station platforms, but here they were simply useless; and so I turned to the driver, pulled out of my pocket the matchbox from the Sanko, and with heavy gestures, tried to communicate my desire that he return the bag, thus making my decision that I would grace the Sanko with a return visit. Thankfully he seemed to understand my intentions, replacing the bag in the trunk. Settled back into the driver’s seat, he repeated, “Hai Wakarimashita—Ashita, juji—OK—koko, OK!” Then he was off, and I stood alone, clutching my small backpack containing a few essentials and staring up an empty path into the heavily forested mountains.
I was at the Ryoan-ji Temple almost exactly twenty-four hours, including the time up and down the path, mosquitoes harassing me throughout. I arrived sweaty and with a severe headache, breathing heavily, even though I rested several times during my ascent. Almost magically, the inmates of the temple seemed to be expecting me, possibly due to the letter I had sent a couple weeks beforehand, though I had not specified a precise date.
As instructed by Jack, I showed them the weathered copy of Hemingway’s novel, The Old Man and the Sea. It worked its own magic, and I was immediately brought into the presence of their leader, still Watanabe-sensei, the same roshi who had hosted Jack some fifteen years before, but now even more gray, more bent over, and yet more sublime in appearance and tone than I could have imagined.
We had tea in a site of true grandeur—a clean and well-lighted tea room, with gigantic vistas overlooking those awesome peaks, the windows thrown open. We sat mostly in silence, across the table from one another.
“And how was your journey, sensei?”
I told him about the challenges so far, and about my rest stop at the Sanko nearby the previous evening, and Hideko’s generous spirit.
He nodded and smiled a moment. “And how do you like Japan?”
“Very much,” I told him and described the temple experience the first morning in Yoyogi Park.
“Ah yes, the Meiji Jingu. It is a shrine for the Meiji family, a kind of—what is it in English?—a place of burial, a memorial place for the dead. It is quite beautiful, I think.”
“Yes. And very peaceful.”
He thought about this for a moment, never rushing his words.
“And how about the food? Can you eat with chopsticks?” He grinned at these questions.
I laughed and told him about learning to eat the broiled fish the night before, and how I had managed with the kind assistance of the aging daughter.
He stroked the gray stubble on his chin. There were further brief inquiries made, then Watanabe got to the point. “I suppose you are now curious about the materials that Springs-sensei has left with us, yes?” He began to get to his feet.
I followed suit, and brushing the wrinkles off of my pants, agreed. “Of course, I have come a long way, and would be much obliged to inspect them—whenever it is most convenient.”
“So desu-ne,” he said. “Why not now?” With this he led me out of the side building where we had taken our tea and down a path toward the main temple proper. It emerged out of a lush bamboo forest and stood before me, seizing my attention utterly. In respectful awe, I gazed up at its tall, round timbers, its faded colors, red and black, and its massive bell, situated above the porch in the front of the entranceway.
Inside, he took me into a back chamber, and began disassembling some floorboards. Underneath the tatami mats was the vault with a cover that could be lifted off, one end precariously tilted above it. One by one we pulled out the six dusty old cardboard boxes that had been stored there, protected in their black plastic bags, for these many years. Watanabe bowed gracefully, and backed out of the room, leaving me to inspect the contents privately as a breeze fluttered through the open windows.
I was sitting on a tatami mat in a Buddhist temple near the top of the Japan Alps as streams of sunshine, filled with floating dust particles, moved through the muggy air. It was just after noon, and the moment for which I had traveled so far had finally arrived. The boxes arranged haphazardly before me had waited patiently for my arrival, slumbering beneath these ancient floorboards next to medieval katana swords, old Buddhist scrolls, and other historical and religious artifacts, for a very long time. And I was about to unveil their vast abundance of materials, out of which I might choose to focus and constitute the remaining scholarly work of my life. Still, I hesitated, soaking it all in, savoring the moment.
I began slowly, relishing each treasure as it emerged, one by one, folder by folder, stack by intriguing stack. Letters written by Longfellow, Stephen Crane, and Willa Cather. Old hand-written manuscripts by the likes of Jack London, Herman Melville, Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, Richard Wright, and Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Files written in Japanese, many by Mishima. Unpublished tales by Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Unpublished pamphlets written by a young journalist named Walter Whitman. An entire file folder of original pamphlets by Harriet Beecher Stowe, another containing newspaper articles by Mark Twain from the Virginia City Enterprise. Old notebooks and daybooks, penned by a variety of important figures. And there were very old photographs—Twain sitting in a carriage with an old black man; Stowe lounging around a table in the backyard of her Florida plantation; William Dean Howells with his arm around Henry James at someone’s birthday party; Ernest Hemingway, shirtless, smoking a fat cigar. Mishima, days before his suicide, calm in his freshly laundered white robe. And Allen Ginsberg, naked, eating a banana.
And the books! Two of the boxes held numerous first editions, many of which had been signed by the author. Masterpieces of the American canon, the books regularly assigned by professors to their eager college wards, with a few British titles for good measure. One by one I pulled them out of the cardboard containers, astonished with each one, and astonished that they had been imprisoned here for so long, ignored by man and by history. Many of the names of these books spoke of the magic they contained, their intrinsic enchantment: The Marble Faun. The Minister’s Wooing. The Princess Cassimassima. The Wild Swans at Coole. Perelandra. Others, however, balanced this majestic feel with a darker sense of life’s varied fortunes. The Sound and the Fury. The Grapes of Wrath. No-No Boy. Death Comes for the Archbishop. The Damnation of Theron Ware.
I inspected each one slowly and gingerly as time stood still, on that mountaintop, and on the most dazzling day of my life.
Patiently, I continued my investigation throughout the afternoon, with occasional water breaks outside, inventorying all I found in a spiral notebook that I had brought along for this very purpose. It was the curator part of my character, insisting that I record for all posterity everything unearthed from this sanctuary. But soon enough, one of the interns came to say that it was nearly the dinner hour of the temple, and that I was to be the esteemed guest of honor. By then, nearly everything was back in the boxes, ready for transport back down the mountain—a task that seemed unlikely, if not impossible, given the exhausting hike up.
At dinner, Watanabe was quiet, chewing his rice and swallowing large draughts of beer. The rooms were hot and stuffy. At meal’s end, he continued his inquisition from earlier in the day. “Sensei, did you find the contents of the boxes to be satisfactory?”
I considered his choice of words, and agreed. “Yes, the contents were … very satisfactory.” I felt no compunction to go into details, already under the hypnotic effect of the treasures left by Jack, and greedily desiring that they remain a secret between just the two of us.
“And so what are these marvelous things that Springs-sensei felt were of such great value?”
More hesitation. I am not one who is typically coy, but I took a long drink of beer, then wiped my mouth. “They are things of value to literature teachers such as myself and Professor Springs. Only that, I’m afraid.”
My answer seemed to amuse Watanabe slightly, though his poker face betrayed almost no emotion, except for a brief twinkling of an eye. He also took another long draft of beer, then responded. “I am surprised he would store such things so far up here in the mountains, then. I am sure you must be annoyed that he has forced you to come all this way for such small matters.”
I debated how best to respond, then said, “Yes. Well, perhaps just slightly annoyed. It has given me a chance to travel in your wonderful country, though. And to visit Ryoan-ji.” I faltered a moment. “But we have a saying in English. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Do you know that saying? It means … I suppose it means that although many people might find little value in the things Jack brought here, I find great treasure in them. They are … shall we say, of infinite value. Yes, for me, and for the others in my field who do what I do, I would say so.” Another long pause as my comments hung there, portentously. “There are great secrets in those boxes, to be sure. And yet so many people would see only things to be burned, like fuel for a fire.”
Watanabe thought over my little speech. Then he nodded, “Yes. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Much of life is like this, I think.”
We sat in more silence.
“And what will you do, now that you have learned the secrets contained in those boxes?”
I pondered his meaning. “Well, first I need to get the boxes down to civilization. It will be very difficult for me to carry it all back down the trail … So if you could be of assistance to me, I would be very grateful. I have arranged for a taxi to meet me there at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow morning, so—”
He smiled broadly. “Do you imagine us trying to carry those heavy boxes down the side of the mountain? And are we really so uncivilized?”
He laughed at his own joke, and so did I. “No, of course I wasn’t saying that you were uncivilized.”
“Relax, sensei. I understand. It is all actually a part of a small joke that Springs-sensei has played on you, just as his old friend Jim Daymon played it on him. When he first climbed the mountain, and even on his next trip, he also assumed that there was only one way up and one way down the mountain. This turned out to be absurd, of course. How could we live such a life? How would we get our food and other things up and down?
“Finally, after the earthquake, when he came with those boxes, terrified and clearly in a traumatic state of confusion, Jim showed him the back way into the temple complex. We have an old pick-up truck that we occasionally use for shopping and other matters, and it is parked down the mountain only about a five-minute walk away. But that driveway entrance is hidden by the trees, and known only to the inmates here and a select few others.
“So you see, Professor Springs has tricked you, just as he was tricked by Jim.” Here he actually stopped to laugh, then spoke some sentences in Japanese to the others, evidently explaining to them our conversation. He laughed again and the others joined him, all of them guffawing with great enthusiasm, just as it dawned on me that the short cut had been kept hidden from me by Jack. Watanabe regained his composure. “I suppose he felt that you needed to climb the mountain yourself. It is the only proper way to enter a holy site, through the torii gate, and then through each of the subsequent torii. It was fitting that you should do so. I am sure this is all that he meant by it, yes?” With this, he placed his hand gently on my shoulder, and nodded some more, yet still giggling a bit.
I thought through the implications of this final twist, and realized that it made my appearance on the scene even more special, and that it would allow for my departure to be much smoother as well. “I suppose it is fitting, then. I climbed the mountain, yes.”
Then I tried to ask one last favor. “So, with your truck … could you see fit to help me tomorrow? Could we load up the truck with the boxes, and take it all down to the place I left the taxi?”
Watanabe wiped his mouth, took another swig of the beer. “Of course. I was planning on it.”
And so, at 10:00 a.m. the next day, the taxi was already waiting for us as we made the final turn and spotted it. The driver leaped out, and with his earnest help, we quickly filled the trunk, then the back seat, with the six boxes.
By lunchtime, I was back at the Sanko. Hideko greeted me, and once I described to her what I had achieved so far, I asked her about the boxes. I needed to get them to the airport at Narita, then all the way back home to Indiana, I said. She thought this over, then smiled broadly, saying, “Kuro Neko! Kuro Neko!”
“Kuro Neko?”
She understood my confusion. “It means … black cat … they are very reliable, and can deliver these … packages to Narita!” Initially I was nervous about this proposition, but she assured me that they were the best option, so I agreed, recalling that the boxes had been buried safely within a mountaintop temple for over fifteen years. It seemed that my mission must have some good karma, thus I released my treasures with an almost irresponsible carelessness.
Many hours later, back in the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo, it was already the evening of July 8, and my return ticket was for the 10th. I lounged around the hotel that evening and got up early the next day, hoping to visit Asakusa Temple since Jack had praised its tranquilities. I hailed a cab and took a long, meandering ride to the other side of Tokyo, through kaleidoscopic curves and windblown, chaotic urbanscapes. Once there, I sat for a very long time in the temple’s grand presence, trying to discern whatever lingering spirits might be nearby. Kannon, goddess of mercy, superintended my visit, and I watched the clouds of incense rise up slowly into the sky. There were many casual tourists, appearing much like myself, out seeing the sights, snapping photos on their digital cameras. I smiled, feeling at home in this strange place, and somehow understood that in just a few days I had been transformed from a casual, frightened tourist into another kind of pilgrim, perhaps even a citizen of the world. I felt different, transformed by the journey, and enjoyed a strong sense of victory.
The next morning, I arrived back at Narita Airport several hours before my flight. Kuro Neko had my precious packages, and with their courteous help, I transferred them to an international express rate, to be shipped home. For customs purposes, I informed the agent that the boxes were filled with books and papers, which was vaguely the truth, and assumed that the professional customs agents of an international shipping company could most easily handle any potential entanglements. But I did carry onboard the most precious items—file folders of manuscripts, first editions of Fanshawe, Huckleberry Finn, and Lyrical Ballads, Jack’s personal copy of Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan by Lafcadio Hearn, and the original signed edition of Old Man and the Sea, among other valuables—all stored snugly in a valise purchased for this task. Just a few “old books” and as such, I did not feel the need to report them to US Customs.
The flight back was easy. I slept for much of it, and read from my old books for the balance. Driving back down the highway toward Bloomington and home, I tried to comprehend the implications of the commodities I would soon be receiving. Then, as if magically, I was home, after almost twenty straight hours of travel. It was still July 10, 2011, in Indiana, though by then, the calendar had already turned a day ahead in Japan. As such, it truly was the longest day of my life. Once more, I felt the ghost of Jack Springs toying with me. It was another test, or set of tests, and suddenly I realized I had no real plan for the documents, my booty. I fell asleep in my favorite reading chair, Leaves of Grass resting on my chest, while still contemplating what I should do with these fascinating, and troubling, new treasures. And I’m still working that out.
In many ways, how to conduct myself in view of this trove of literary treasures, and what to do with all of these items, have become the defining ethical dilemmas of my life. But they are pleasant dilemmas, something I surely never saw coming. A surprise ending to a rather humdrum life of teaching and research. I write these final words in summer of 2012, as I complete the endgame of sending this manuscript off to my agent, and thus releasing to the world a truly fascinating tale, including my own rather minor adventure tacked on for good measure. Our plan is to publish within the next year or so.
Always, I remember Jack’s haunting words. He keeps reminding me that I was enlisted by him to carry out certain tasks that he never found the courage or wherewithal to accomplish before his own demise. “I needed to put some things in order,” he wrote. So my ethical dilemma has something to do with this heady idea of order, and his tragic death has transformed all my efforts into a kind of sacred discipline in pursuit of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
It remains my earnest desire to be able to say with a clean conscience, that I have acted nobly with the materials so far. I began by going through it all, piece by piece, and cataloguing one more time the contents—but this time, in much more detail than I was able to carry out at Ryoan-ji. As it happens, I have an old friend who deals in rare books and collectibles, and I soon discovered that there was enough of real monetary value to create several small fortunes, at least for an old academic like me, whose needs are modest and few, and whose appetites are generally manageable. Yes, there have been significant temptations involved, though relatively small ones—I love aged mahogany, for instance, and fine wines: California Cabs, French Burgundy, and Tuscan Chianti, above all. And I love fly-fishing in the Adirondacks or Montana. And old books, I might add. One must have a few hidden preoccupations, to make all the hard work worthwhile.
For the record, the large majority of the items I’ve released so far have all gone into the special collections of my home university and thus are held in the public trust of a major state institution, safe behind heavy security and surveillance. Specifically, I have made a special arrangement with the Lilly Library of Rare Books here at Indiana, one of the top collections of its kind in the world, housed in an impressive limestone building in the middle of campus, and past which hundreds of students walk daily, hardly imagining the assets held within. The Lilly represents a marvel of familial philanthropy, all made possible by the prodigious wealth produced by the pharmaceutical giant, the Lilly Corporation, headquartered up in Indianapolis. The Lilly Library already owns, for example, a Gutenberg Bible, the four Shakespeare folios, and Audubon’s Birds of America, as well as a first edition (not mine) of Leaves of Grass—all thanks to the burgeoning sales of insulin products, Prozac, Cialis, and other modern wonder drugs.
Slowly but surely, my scholarly plan is to edit and present to the world most of the treasures that Jack saved from the firestorm at Sensei’s house in Japan. I believe these tasks are precisely the ones Jack would have assigned to me. And so those six boxes are now the centerpieces of my daily life. The recovery, analysis, and publication of the hundreds of heretofore unknown documents I brought back with me will now become the focus of the remaining years of work that God sees fit to bequeath to me. As I publish various items, I plan to turn them over to the Lilly Library here in Bloomington, where they can be viewed and enjoyed by scholars. The Lilly has been gracious enough, as part of my exclusive arrangement with them, to provide a modest honorarium for each of the gifts I have so far bequeathed, and I expect that generous arrangement to continue. These honoraria, along with the boon of my now rather considerable retirement contributions over forty years, and managed by the sanguine accountants at TIAA-CREF, have allowed me the financial means to devote myself full-time to the recovery, and then the publication of the rest of my cache of goods.
And so, as a result, I will give Indiana University my official letter of resignation, as of Jan. 1, 2013, at which time I will retire, becoming a free man during the week of Twelfth Night. Although, in keeping with academic decorum, I will dutifully teach one semester after my sabbatical ends, and then I will announce my resignation. I maintain a few of my favorite relics in a handy place, here in the house, hidden away in case some snoopy thief decides that my enticing tale warrants further investigation. I have now purchased a trained German shepherd, by the way, so I don’t worry too much about keeping precious documents and volumes with me here at home. The hound is thoroughly terrifying, if you don’t know him, and I call him Strider, a small token of my boyhood esteem for J.R.R. Tolkien. He prowls around the house like a secret service agent, ready to die for me, I believe—his coat black and silver, his bark able to wake the dead, as perhaps it does, now and then. But just in case, I keep my valuables locked up in a newly purchased safe.
Sometimes, I open up that safe, and carefully handle my most cherished possessions. Probably my favorite is that tall, yet thin, volume of rambling poems, bound in a musty, green cover. It was typeset by hand before the Civil War, much of it by the author himself. I enjoy sitting in my bed, often late at night, cradling the volume lovingly, knowing that its author once cradled it in his own calloused hands. Occasionally I open the book, and speak its hypnotic contents into the evening air.
Now I pierce the darkness, new beings appear,
The earth recedes from me into the night,
I saw that it was beautiful, and I see that what is not the earth is beautiful.
Yes, I admit I’m still hoarding that first edition of Leaves of Grass. Though perhaps one day I will release it, which at auction might bring me as much as a million dollars or more, due to its many inscriptions by the author throughout. For now I’m holding on to it. I don’t need the money and the Lilly Library already has one of its own.
It comforts me late at night to read aloud the words of the old prophetic misfit. Old Walt’s lyrics sound better somehow, when read from the actual first edition. And then, satisfied and sleepy, I gingerly place it back in the safe, protected in a bright green zippered pouch designed for a laptop. I twirl the combination dial, and go back to bed, Strider right beside me on the floor, snoring away, a protector of Hobbits.
You may well ask, what of all the ethical entanglements surrounding your claim to these treasures? Doesn’t it bother you even slightly, the manner in which these precious items ended up in your possession? Perhaps I could be more bothered by these circumstances, but most days, I’m not. Personally, I sleep just fine, mostly. On good nights, the words of my old friends—Jack Springer, Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway, and even Professor Goto—come flooding back to me, from some primeval place, underneath shelves of granite or limestone. But other times, the nightmares of my old student come back, also seeking me out. One night, it was a bloody Miyamoto, head wrapped in a towel, shrieking like a demon into the chill night air: “Help!” Another night, it was a burning house, with disembodied voices pouring forth, unidentified but filled with terror: “Blood money. Blood!” Both times, I awoke with a start. Strider stirred on the floor beside me, fully cognizant of the corrupting powers of the one ring. Yes, I remember the terrible circumstances under which these many items arrived in my home, twenty feet from my bedside. It’s a shadowy moral territory, at times overwhelming, though not nearly as traumatic for me as it must have been for Jack.
Writing these sentences, I can almost hear other words being whispered in the chill night air, siren-like. And I am haunted by the words, once again. Ultimately, I choose to overlook these skeletons—always surging forward, like the good Emersonian soul that I wish to be.
And so the story ends here—almost. I did receive one last letter from Jack, postmarked December 7, 2011, the one-year anniversary of Jack’s death, as per his own meticulous instructions to his bereaved father, a faithful servant to the last. Receiving a letter from the dead can provoke a certain eeriness, but by then I was used to it, and a buoyant comfort possessed me, as if the bonds with the dead somehow mysteriously continued—and perhaps they do. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Hebrews 12:1), a noble line from another old letter.
And so, after all that’s been said and done, I must give Jack Springs the final word in all of this, without any of my own thoughts or commentary appended. May his farewell letter grant my readers the same degree of comfort and peace it has granted me.
Thanksgiving Friday, 2010
Dear Marty,
If the timing has worked out the way I’ve planned it, you should be getting this final letter during the holiday season of 2011, about a year from the day I’m writing it. In recent weeks, I’ve had a spell of very fine weather, a temporary reprieve, so to speak, like C.S. Lewis’s wife Joy, in Shadowlands.
The pain has let up so much that I’ve been taking walks with my dog, Caliban, a small terrier who believes he’s much bigger than he really is. For a few weeks now, it’s been like my very own Indian Summer. I went by car with a friend of my sister, by the name of Emily, down to Brown County one fine, blustery Saturday in mid-October, to look at the fall colors. It was my first “date” in many years. The yellows, scarlets, and purples—all still stunning to me, jaw-dropping, in fact, even after all I’ve been through. I’ve gazed with romantic yearning at the spectacle of the trees, and inhaled deeply the damp, aromatic autumn air. I’ve even felt the old thrill of believing that it is great to be alive. Urge and urge and urge, always the procreant urge of the world, wrote good old Uncle Walt Whitman.
By the time you get this, a year from now when my father sends it, your life should be looking a lot differently. Maybe old Professor Martin Dean has successfully completed a pilgrimage to the Land of the Rising Sun, and discovered an array of valuable commodities, the ones I left on deposit there back in the cold winter of 1995. You did climb the mountain, yes? Because it is the correct way to approach the gods.
I could have called you on the telephone, to ask you these many favors, but I couldn’t justify it. Yes, it would have been the most direct way to do all this. But we got this far through the writing of letters, and so I’ve always felt it was important that we finish the way we started. I feel some shame in how it has turned out, despite all the years that have passed. And I do apologize, for never finding the courage to call you. I hope you can forgive me for that—and, in fact, I think you will because ours has been a friendship built on written words.
By now perhaps you’ve had interesting conversations with dealers and rare books aficionados in an attempt to discover what some of those items might be worth. And I don’t think it wrong that you find some benefit in all this. So why not keep a few select items for yourself? It’s only fitting. Even Indiana Jones got an honorarium sometimes. But also, perhaps, the treasures have caused you some difficult moments, wrestling with the moral dilemma of how they came into your possession.
I trust you will find a solution. But I can’t really see any of this changing you, to be honest. I envision you patiently staining a freshly milled molding for a bookcase in your garage workroom in southern Indiana, or fishing in a stream in the Adirondacks up in northern New York state. I see you being pleased with your lot in life as it already is, without that Ivy League polish, or panache, or whatever it is. And I hope the goods will remain in the Great Midwest, where the likes of Twain and Howells and Hemingway were born and raised. That seems proper to my old-fashioned Hoosier sensibility.
Meanwhile, my time is running thin. It was wonderful, though, sitting at the table with my family yesterday, one of the very good days. Thanksgiving dinner: a truly American invention, established by Lincoln himself, in the midst of a great civil war.
As always, Mom wheeled out a fifteen-pound turkey, roasted brown and dripping with butter and just the right amount of garlic. My dad sat at the head of table, a prince of the earth, a man of clarity, morals, and perfect punctuation, with a proper tool in each hand for carving the bird. My sister, Sue, brought along her new boyfriend Ted, all smiles, a quietly humorous corporate attorney, wearing a suit coat and a bow tie. They held hands occasionally as they picked at their green beans, or sipped their wine, smiling shyly like teenagers. We offered up a long, solemn prayer together, for health and fellowship, giving thanks for our bounteous blessings, of which there are many. Yes, I still think so.
As always, we watched some football, and Mom brought out her traditional pumpkin pie, made from scratch, of course. She whipped up some real cream, and placed hefty dollops on the wedges of pie. Some neighbors and friends dropped by later in the afternoon, as is our custom, and we played cards and carried on. Mom sang some hymns, the good old ones, accompanying herself on the piano. “How Great Thou Art,” “Blessed Assurance,” things like that. “This is my story, this is my song …”
It was a perfect holiday, a truly holy day, and my last one on God’s green earth, I suspect. Of course, my family and I are hoping for one more Christmas together. But last night I couldn’t sleep for the pain. Finally, I did get some sleep, fitfully, until very late in the day. I think I feel the old horror rising up with renewed strength inside me, doing something evil to my internal organs. The bad stuff has spread into various areas of my body, according to the physicians, including my bones. It’s harder to walk almost every single day now, and my back aches constantly, a dull and nauseating ache. But here I am, composing one last letter to an old friend, between the jagged edges of pain. Right now, as I work the keyboard, a steady rain beats against the shutters outside my window.
Tonight I’m thinking of Sensei’s last moments. He had only a few seconds left on Earth, but he wanted to make sure to remind me about the words. “Without words, the people remain powerless,” he told me. “Without beauty, the people become ugly, and life is unlivable.”
That’s why most of us become teachers of literature, don’t you think, Marty? For the words, words, words. I remember one clear, October afternoon, when you thundered through a lecture on the Romantics, about how words were our chance to express the Mind of God, fit for human ears, about something pulsating in us. I always hung on to that one. Remember the words, you commanded us that fine day. The sky was a shiny, cobalt blue, pouring in through the windows. You quoted Wordsworth from memory, spoke of a power rolling through us. I recall walking out into the primordial woods that day, believing I had heard a prophet. And perhaps I had.
Here’s Emerson one more time: “To my friend I write a letter, and from him I receive a letter … It is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give, and of me to receive. It profanes nobody. In these warm lines the heart will trust itself, as it will not to the tongue, and pour out the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals of heroism have yet made good.” In sentences like that, I perceive the purr of universal things, the pulse of a cosmic astonishment that still makes getting up in the morning worthwhile.
There are different kinds of friends in life, and ours was almost entirely of the spirit these past two decades or so—consisting almost entirely of written missives, sent back and forth over many miles, delivering the words without bodily presence— except to the extent that our letters, as Whitman used to say, do embody us. In that sense, we were and are present to each other—in our letters. He who touches this book, touches me, sayeth Walt.
Yes, Marty, ours has been an epistolary friendship. Finally, that’s why I cannot pick up the telephone and call. It just seems out of character. Written words are superior. You taught me that, and modeled it, too, because you were a lover of words and letters, and you tried to lead a life that revealed to the world that words and letters matter. Your life has been to me like a letter dropped by God in the street. And I’ve tried, in return, to live up to your example.
As in all of my letters, I once again send my thanks and heartfelt best wishes to you, old friend. Try not to grieve too much. I give thanks in all things (Ephesians 5:20).
Sincerely,
E. Jackson Springs, PhD
Thanksgiving weekend 2010
Indianapolis, IN
