Sunday Papers: Noël Coward

 

“It's discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” 

 

On the turntable:  Rod Stewart, "Thanks for the Memories"

Knowing Tranquility XXVI (Hiroshima)

 

 

Despite being only a couple of kilometers apart, there were no direct ferries between Honjima and its neighbor, Hiroshima.  So it was that for the second morning in a row I found myself on a boat leaving Marugame, as it streamed past the cantaloupes and rocket ships that are the most common shapes of industrial ports.  

The night before, I'd lucked upon Miroc Brewery, housed in an old warehouse and filled with decorative trappings often seen in similar microbreweries in the States or the UK. There was only another pair of customers, so the bartendress stayed mainly in the kitchen with the cook, whose teasing conversation drifted out to me as I sipped my udon IPA, a nod to the region's famed Sanuki Udon.  Belly filled, I wandered the older part of town, which had a curious beauty in the shuttered dark.      

At the wharf this morning, the ticket taker seemed determined to speak to me only in English.  I was asking him clear questions in Japanese, but I'm not sure what language he was actually hearing.  I asked twice if I could buy a round-trip ticket, which he confirmed.  But the ticket machine had a different opinion. I turned to him and say, "Oh, so we actually cannot?"  To which he said yes, again in English.  At least he pointed out the correct departure pier.   

I'd called ahead to rent a bicycle, an old beater bike which I found waiting for me at the pier.  I cycled clockwise, following the shoreline, past little clusters of houses that popped up again, and again.  I'd initially wanted to spend the night here, but there were only a few guest house, and none appeared to do food.  Maps showed that there was little else in the way of shops or eateries, and my ride confirmed the sparsity of just about anything.  Obviously, not many tourists visited Hiroshima.  

Nor had Richie.  He may have known about the quarry, whose scars now covered tremendous swathes of the islands northwest corner.  The accompanying small industry made up the other structures near the water's edge.  Were they instead picturesque homes the island wouldn't have felt so forlorn.  Unfortunately, at some point in the island's history some political bigwig had decided it expendable, a mere resource. 

I pedaled away from all this, into the island's heart. There I found a lovely little shrine, and a dusty road that pulled strongly against gravity over its sharply ascending pitch.  Luckily the trail, or what was left of a trail, quickly led into the forest.  Bamboo and felled trees leaned into my path, the footing below dense with last year's leaves.  Despite its condition, the path was reasonably obvious, but like the road below it climbed briskly up the mountain face.  

I reached a low saddle and turned right and toward the peak. It was easy going for some time, then a steep descent forced me to climb once again, this time through low spiky brush. Out to sea, I could hear the engine throb of passing ships that is the ever-present soundtrack to the Inland Sea, a throbbing that matched the rapid beating of my heart. It was hot along this stretch.  At least the earlier sections had had shade.      

 

 

The peak had no view, so I continued toward a picturesque formation of stones not far off, which I'd seen on a sign beside the road, but whose shapes were oddly not visible on Google maps.  I ran and climbed along the smooth faces of the stones here, softened and shaped by centuries of erosion, an ironic counterpoint to the severely-hewn quarries down by the shore.  

After a quick detour to a small Kobō Daishi temple cut into a cliff face, I backtracked to my bicycle, then rode to a lone vending machine where I quickly downed two cold drinks, under a sun growing even hotter.  My goal was to do a loop around the entire island, and check out the two other settlements to the north.  But I quickly found that the sole road around the island didn't stick to sea level, instead rising and falling repeatedly over Hiroshima's hilly topography.  I managed one set of steep hills, but midway up the next I pulled the bike over to cool myself in a small patch of shade.  

I sat here and thought awhile.  The island hadn't been giving me much, and what little there was seemed to be along this southern shore.  Plus the high temperatures and rolling hills were conspiring against legs already weary from the challenging hike.  In general, I have good physical endurance but I just didn't have it today. So it was that I wheeled the bicycle around, my conscious nagging at me.

I returned to a small stretch of beach that I'd seen earlier on.  As I was locking the bike against a small shelter, I peered into the shaded interior to see a handful of people silently watching me.  And who needs words when you have gestures, and the next gesture was one of unmistakable welcome, when the middle aged patriarch came over and handed me a cold beer.   

He and his family had come over on the early ferry, day-tripping to barbecue and to give the grandkids a day in the water.  I joined the latter there, looking across the windless, still surface of the water, to the mountain I'd not long before suffered up.  Yes, I'd made the right choice in quitting early.  

I hopped the early boat which would ride out to a few remote neighboring islands, before making a brief return to Hiroshima  prior to the crossing back to the mainland.  I felt even greater relief now, passing before a veritable roller coaster of shoreline hills, one dropping upon a village that was an overly concreted mass of nothing at all. 

The clouds began to come over and the wind changed, the sea taking on the slate-grey color of the sky.  Far out to the west, the horizon wore a distinct petrochemical glow.  Sailing past the shipbuilding factory was like going through a supermarket, each component part laid out in various hangers.  Immense cranes towered ten stories above.   

Onshore, a man asked for my tickets, then showed a bit of consternation that I'd done the loop to the outer islands free of charge.  He called a superior in an office somewhere, then told me that they wouldn't charge me extra this time, but that I mustn't do it again.  I knew my role here and dutifully apologized.  All very Japanese, each of us playing our parts, each getting what they wanted, yet still preserving face.  

 

 On the turntable:  Phish, "1998-11-02, E Center, Utah" 

 

Spirit of Shizen

 

Quite pleased to have contributed to this anthology, the catalogue for the exhibition “Spirit of Shizen - Japan’s nature through its 72 seasons” at Musée national d'histoire naturelle Luxembourg.

 

On the turntable:  "The Big Chill (Sdtk)"