Seiobo There Below Read online

  He waves for a long time as the elegant, sparkling black cars wind out of the western gates, then for yet a long time, as the two abbots from Kyōto disappear into the traffic in the street leading away from the monastery, he waves, and he feels unspeakable relief that at last, at the end, after they discussed every possibility, they too have departed, and that generally everything had gone well yesterday, and the kaigen shiki came to an end with no greater problems, and he slowly strolls back to his quarters; however — for he is somehow very tired and feels even much older than his years — he decides that he will not take part in the daily morning meditation in the zendō, but will, exceptionally, take a nap, so that as he saunters in the chill wind on the narrow paths of smoothly raked white stones between the gardens, he thinks: Exalted Buddha, how fallible they were, how unworthy, how many mistakes, how many errors, how many times they faltered in the texts, how often the great drum beat at the wrong time, and above all how many wrong steps before the altar, how many uncertain and perplexed moments, from which they could not free themselves, and all the same, they did it, they were capable of that much, they had not fallen short of their abilities, he strolls in the chilly, early spring wind, to remain apart a little while, still hearing the voices led by the jikijitsu, reciting the sūtra in the zendō, he looks all around at the beautiful order and the tranquil pavilions of the monastery, and then suddenly an idea springs to mind, or well it really isn’t an idea, but rather just that . . . he slows down, comes to a standstill, then turns around, heading back toward the zendō, he walks in front of it, again hearing the monks’ sūtras, and the rhythmic thumps of the mokugyo, and suddenly he finds himself in front of the hondō, and then comes to his senses, as if he were about to ask himself what he was doing here, and why he wasn’t he going to take a rest already — then he forgets what he even wanted to inquire about within himself, and slips out of his sandals and straightens his robes, as if he were about to go into the main entrance; but he doesn’t head up the steps that would take him there, instead — he himself doesn’t even know how — he stands on one of the lower steps, he looks around, no one is in sight, everyone is in the zendō, so he sits down on one of the steps and he remains there, the early spring sun shines on him, at times he shivers in a stronger breeze of the chill air, but he doesn’t move from there, he just sits on the step, leaning forward a bit with his elbows pressed onto his knees, looking ahead, and now at last he is able to pose the question to himself: what in the world was he doing here, he is able to ask himself, he just can’t find the answer, or rather he cannot understand: even if what he hears there within his soul does exist, it all adds up to just this much: nothing, he is doing nothing at all in the entire world, he just sat down here because he felt like it, to sit here and know that, there inside the hondō, Amida Buddha is now enthroned upon the altar, and he sees what no one else but himself can see, only and exclusively he, he sits there on the steps, his stomach growls, he scratches his bald head, he stares into space, onto the steps below, the steps of dried-out old hinoki cypress, and in one of the cracks he now notices a tiny ant, well, and from that point on he only watches that ant as it goes about on its funny little legs, climbing, hurrying and then slowing down in this crack, as it starts forward, then stops, then turns around and lifting up its little ball of a head, hurries off again, but once more it comes to a dead halt, climbing out from the crack, but only to crawl right back into it, and starts off again, then after a while coming to a halt again, it stops, turns around, and just as sprightly as it can, goes again backward in the crack, and all the while the early spring sun shines on it, at times a draft of the wind strikes it, you can see the ant struggling not to be carried off by the wind, little ant, says the abbot, shaking his head, little ant in the deep crack of the step, forever.

  5

  CHRISTO MORTO

  He was generally not the type who walks with banging steps, he was not the resounding, military, lock-stepping Hussar type; yet because he liked the leather soles of his shoes and the heels of the leather soles to last a long time, the soles and the heels were fitted with proper old-fashioned shoe taps, which, however, echoed to such a degree, with every single step he took, in the narrow back street that it was becoming increasing obvious with each meter that these shoes, these black leather oxfords, did not belong here, not in Venice, and particularly not now, not in this silent neighborhood, during this total siesta; he did not, however, want to return and change them; and he might have tried to walk more softly on the old paving stones, only that he couldn’t, so that he felt continuously, passing before each house, that inside, the occupants inside were flinging curses upon him: why couldn’t he just go away and die somewhere, and what was he doing outside anyway, and especially a character with such damned well-shod black oxfords; he stepped with his left foot, he stepped with his right foot, and that was enough, he already took it as a given that the tranquility of the siesta had come to an end within these buildings with their closed façades, cloaked in muteness, because here outside — thanks to him — the silence had been broken; there was not a God-given soul in the little alleyways, not even a tourist, which was rare indeed, so that there were only the Venetians, there inside, with their failed attempts at a siesta, and him, here outside, with his solidly-made oxfords, so it seemed that only the two of them existed in the exact center of the sestiere of San Polo, in this sweet and narrow labyrinth this afternoon — he could practically hear the curses breaking out from behind the closed wooden shutters: off to stinking putrid hell with you, with those wretched black oxfords — but in this he was mistaken, for it was not only the two of them in the sweet and narrow labyrinth of the sestiere of San Polo: there was someone else as well, who at some point just appeared behind him, lagging considerably behind though in any event trailing after him with more or less the same speed: a thin gangly figure in a light-pink shirt, but of such a light pink that it stood out immediately as this very light pink flashed now and then at a turning point behind him; he didn’t know when he had been joined by him, he had no idea when he had begun to be followed, if indeed he was being followed, but somehow he sensed right away that yes, when he had set off from the San Giovanni Evangelista, where he had stayed for one night at the address of San Polo 2366, in the Calle del Pistor or the Campiella del Forner o del Marangon, he definitely was not behind him, indeed not even — he tried to recall — when he cut across the Campo S. Stin in the strong sunlight toward the Ponte dell’Archivio, or still yet, he suddenly reflected, it was possible that this figure had already been waiting for him when he stepped out through the courtyard, open to the heavens, of the San Giovanni Evangelista, and came out of the entrance of the house with its elegant, useless entrance arch designed by Pietro Lombardi, to make his way toward the Frari; it was possible, it flashed through his mind, even very possible, and he felt that at the mere conjecture that someone wanted to attack him, his stomach convulsed into a knot, and he began to feel cold, as he always did when he was afraid; he stopped at the end of the square that opened up before the Ponte dell’Archivio, like someone trying to find the right way, someone who is ruminating — as is often the case with foreigners in Venice — if it would really be a good thing to cross this bridge now or instead to turn away; and he did ruminate, but really just so that his shoes would stop making that huge clattering and he could gaze back — and he did gaze back — and the chilly sensation in his body was transformed from the chill of an uncertain anxiety to that of a decidedly sharp fear, and he had turned away already, in his echoing black oxfords, toward the Ponte, wishing to cross it hastily, but what does he want? — his step quickened in fright — to rob me? beat me? strike me down? stab me? — ah, somehow no, he shook his head, somehow the whole thing was not like that, the character behind him did not particularly give the impression of being a robber or a murderer, instead it seemed as if he, the visitor to Venice, was the one leading him, pulling him, drawing him onward with the clattering of his painfully echoing oxfords, o
r as if this otherwise rather laughable figure couldn’t resist the clattering of his shoes, a figure who was moreover bent like the letter S, with collapsing legs, a rump thrusting backward, a crooked back, and a head that sloped forward, yes, he said to himself, passing along by the Ponte dell’Archivio, no he doesn’t want to rob me or murder me, this character in the pink shirt was simply not a robber or a murderer, but of course he could have a gun on him, who knows; he fretted on and on, walking with unflagging speed, in no way displaying how much he was afraid, he went further along the Fondamenta dei Frari toward the square, all the while understanding what was happening less and less; in the first place, why he was so afraid; this figure coming after him clearly wanted something but that was still no cause to be so afraid; he was, however, very afraid, he admitted that, and this acknowledgement was made even more tormenting by the fact that he was freezing, at the same time sensing that the situation was ridiculous, because what if it emerged that it was all just a misunderstanding, that this figure wasn’t even there because of him, but just by happenstance, such happenstance often occurs, and finally there was no one on the streets, but no one, not a single soul; it could be natural that he too was headed for the same place, and with the same gait, for he had noticed in the meantime that the beanpole had not come closer, but was always on his trail; he did not lag behind, but neither did he draw near, there was always just one street-corner between them as they proceeded onward, or none at all, he noted, his heart in his throat, because right now in fact it was as if that distance separating them were somehow a little less, a little shorter — he attempted to estimate just by how much — until now, that is, there had always been one corner between them, regardless of the distance from one corner to the next, but now, here, on the Fondamenta there was unequivocally no corner at all between them, that is to say that Pink-shirt was, beyond a doubt, approaching, which caused his stomach to clench into an even tighter knot; he’s chasing me, he said to himself, and at that word he shuddered, he grew chill, or he was freezing from fear, he couldn’t decide which; yet he was also frightened now by the very fact that he had to fret over such things; what was going on anyway, he had no idea, there was something in the whole story, something unreal, something unlikely, some misunderstanding, some mistake that he, who had practically just arrived in Venice, and who had just stepped out of the pension’s entrance, was being pursued by someone, the whole thing was just not right, no and no, he kept repeating to himself, then he stopped in front of the entrance to the Frari with an unexpected idea, like someone who is looking to see when it will be open again, he stopped, to bring everything to a head, and to see what the other was doing, indeed, not even waiting for what step he might take, proceeding beside the entrance to the Frari; then, he went to the other end of the church and there — the enormous building was buttressed with a supporting ledge, which, as it were, stood out from the smooth façade about one meter above the ground so that you could sit down on it — he too sat down, because the sun was shining there, he collected himself and sat down as one who is interrupting his journey for the sake of taking in a bit of sunshine; but misfortune had already found its recipient, as on the far side of the Campo dei Frari a little café, the Toppo, was open in spite of the siesta, even though there was not a single customer; the sunlight did not reach over there — in any event he could stop there, indeed, so that when he sat down in the sunlight by the wall of the Frari — the other sat down in a chair in the shade under a sun-umbrella, as if having decided to take a drink in the city, in this brief tranquil interval, and it was precisely here, on the ever more tranquil Campo dei Frari this afternoon that, in a word, nothing, but nothing came to light; until now, the thought that the beanpole had followed him accidentally had seemed a possibility, and perhaps he was looking for nothing more than a place open for business where he could just sit down, where he could rest those tired legs of his, collapsing with each and every step — it could have seemed a possibility if he, here and now, sitting on the ledge of the wall of the Frari, had been capable of believing in it, but he did not believe it; on the contrary he took it as a given that as he sat down, the other, too, sat down right away, as if their movements were synchronized; he had betrayed himself — I am being followed, he concluded decisively, and although he wasn’t aware of it, he nodded at him; the sunlight began to work his chilled hands, from which the conclusion could be reached that fear (one clearly fully justified!) had made them so, but besides all this it still was a little chilly outside, you could feel it in the air, it was only April after all, and in mid-April it could certainly happen that from one hour to the next, in these places in the city not exposed to sunlight, it would suddenly turn cool, everything changes quickly here, including the weather, he sat on the protrusion from the wall, he warmed himself in the pleasant sunshine, all the while, naturally, not for a moment taking his eyes off his pursuer, who sitting on the other side of the square was just now placing his order with the café proprietor, when for no particular reason at all something came into his head, a newspaper article, as it happened, which had nothing to do with anything — most likely his brain was fatigued in the midst of these fearful states and had wandered off — sitting on a small but splendid eighteenth-century marble table in the proprietress’s sitting room of the pension where the mail of the occupants of the house was kept, there was a newspaper he had seen, in which he read a little about what Benedict XVI had recently said, but it was not necessarily the article itself that drew his attention, but the headline, and it was this that had remained in his memory, and because of this, his attention now slipped, wandering off, back here to that moment — even if his gaze remained fixed on the other over there, as he sipped his coffee, for it seemed that no sooner was the order given than it was fulfilled; almost in the exact moment of the order a cup of coffee appeared on the little table beneath the sun-umbrella — slipped back to the headline, which read something like this:

  HELL REALLY EXISTS

  and below which it was repeated that, according to Benedict, who had recently spoken at a convocation in a northern district of Rome, it was an error to think, as more and more people did, that hell was just a kind of metaphor, an emblem, an abstraction; because, reported Benedict, it has a physical reality — this, the article on the front page of the Corriere della Sera, was what came into his mind, what an impossible situation, he thought, sitting two hundred meters away from me is someone who has followed me, someone who is watching me, and here I am, beside the Frari, with this idiotic thing in my brain, I’ve lost my mind; he tried to pull himself together, but he couldn’t because it then came into his mind that while John Paul II was of the opinion, as the Corriere stated, that heaven and purgatory were not really extant, Benedict went so far, continued the reporter, as to state with full emphasis at this convocation in the north of Rome that it was possible that heaven and purgatory did not really exist, but that hell did, moreover in the concrete physical sense, where the word, that is to say physical, had been set in italics, there in the daily mail of the occupants of the house on the little marble table; but what could this possibly mean, he thought, but only this much: well, let’s just stop here, what is this, so there’s no heaven, no purgatory, that’s fine, to hell with the whole thing, that’s fine — but he did not continue the thought, as suddenly a feeling arose that he was flirting imprudently with danger, a danger that possibly didn’t have any basis, but if this were not the case, then he was, with complete utter carelessness, flirting with it; he jumped up suddenly and set off for the narrow alleyway that ran alongside the apse of the Frari, but just as suddenly regretted doing so, turning back to the Campo dei Frari, and quickly crossed the square on the near side — in opposition to his plan, that is to say, actually, contrary to his intended direction, he turned into a back alley just as narrow and dark and damp and chill, in order to draw attention away from where he was really going, but he nearly ruined it, it shot through him; he nearly revealed against his own will where he
was going with those resounding steps of the black oxfords, he nearly betrayed to his pursuer his destination; he himself hardly understood how he could have been so rash, but it’s fine now, he thought, calming down a bit, there is no way anyone could now tell where he was headed, which, as senseless as that might have seemed, still could be the case; that is, not to reveal where he was headed, inasmuch as there was no question whatsoever of pursuit, inasmuch as it was, however, a question of pursuit; it will all soon come to light, he kept looking backward in the alleyway; and so, as to allow that chance to occur, he stopped, trying to discern if he heard steps in the quiet that suddenly sprang forth from the silencing of his own hard-soled shoes, but he didn’t hear anything, only a small breeze struck him, coming in both directions from the damp walls; in any case, because he had to know if that character was on his trail again, he slowly began to move backward in the alleyway, cautiously, on tiptoe lest the shoe taps betray him yet again, and hiding his body behind the wall, he leaned out, looking out onto the square, but there was no one sitting on the other side at the little table beneath the sun-umbrella, on the contrary, he was nowhere on the square, he had disappeared, had been absorbed, evaporated, he stated to himself, and stayed there for a few moments longer, until he could cut across the small intersections without his heart jumping into his mouth — as he reflected, for a while, Pink-Shirt could pop up in front of him at any moment, surprising him at any one of these little intersections — but as one intersection came right after the next, and nothing of the sort occurred, he slowly began to calm down; he stopped, he listened, then after he turned and went back toward the Campo dei Frari, he found the square in exactly the same state as before, that is to say completely deserted, he now had the courage to turn definitively into his own alleyway, so that taking it he could reach the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, which was his goal, he went to the end of the Salizzada S. Rocco, which now did not seem as narrow as it had a moment ago, when no one at all was walking there, perhaps because now, as he turned into the alleyway, he caught sight of a few pedestrians who were already approaching from the opposite direction, from the San Rocco to the Frari, that is to say in the opposite direction to himself; in any event these few encounters, as each stray pedestrian passed by, felt as if someone were shaking him by the shoulders, saying wake up already, it’s all over, it was just a bad dream, don’t worry about it, that was his mood as he reached the Campo dei S. Rocco where nearly the whole of the little square was filled with sunlight, and there to the left stood the marvelous Scuola Grande di S. Rocco, for whose plan we can thank a certain master builder of the name of Bartolomeo Bon, although for the entire building itself — in other words the entirety of the San Rocco in all of its full glory — our thanks are due to Sante Lombardo and Antonio Scarpagnino, so that after 1549, Giangiacomo dei Grigi had nothing to do but finish it, that is to create the gestures still missing from the structure, so that it could stand in all of its beauty resplendent before the visitors, just as it stood today before him, who even at first went toward the iron gate of the plot of land facing the building and stood there, and turned around to gaze at this creation which in the opinion of all Venice-goers responds to the most exalted and perfect architectonic conception — simply to give himself over not only to the wonder, as he had already stumbled upon this, amazed, when he had been here for the first time, but to his memories as well, because it was, as a matter of speaking, about this too; it was for the sake of this that he had come to Venice, for the sake of this one single building, because once, when he had come here for the first time, he had been so overpowered there inside that in fact he had shuddered; he stood in the sunlight and looked at the elegant façade of the San Rocco, but his gaze strayed again and again to the entrance, where he himself would step inside, as he had stepped inside once before, but not now, he composed himself; now, for the time being, he had to catch his breath, free himself from the horrifying dream of just a few minutes before, to expel from his head this entire nightmarish pursuit, because really, looking at it from here, he thought — amid the smaller crowds of people that already, at the end of the siesta, were inundating here and there between the entrance and exit points of the tiny square — it seemed completely impossible that someone would start pursuing him as soon as he stepped out of the doorway of the pensione, some guy in a pink shirt, a ridiculous gangly sort with his strange S-shaped body, his collapsing knees, his head dangling forward, how could he even have imagined it, and even more so that this figure had targeted him, it was really totally absurd, he decided, because why the hell would anyone be looking for him in Venice, where he knew virtually no one, what reason could there possibly have been for anyone to trail him among the tens of thousands of tourists, especially him, who in the whole God-given world had no ties at all to Italy, let alone Venice, and moreover, he was not one of those who kept coming back here again and again, in pursuit of so-called illusory pleasures, giving himself over to the blank drift of superficial and frankly idiotic raptures — he was not in any way like one of them!? — actually he did not truly admire Venice: as far as he was concerned, Venice reminded him too much of a woman, for him, there was in Venice a kind of immoderate feminine delusion and fraudulence, no, this city was not his cup of tea, though of course he could not deny that it was truly beautiful, that there was in Venice an unparalleled beauty, this strange city — from the Ca’Doro to the San Giovanni e Paolo, from the San Marco to the Accademia, the Hotel Giorgione to La Fenice, and so on — but admiration was denied to him and he did not love Venice, he was instead afraid of it, the way he would be of a murderously cunning individual who ensnares his victims, dazing them, and finally sucking all the strength from them, taking everything away from them that they ever had, then tossing them away on the banks of a canal somewhere, like a rag; yes, this was how he now saw this laughable situation; he didn’t even come here very often, in the course of his long life this was the second time he had been here, and now, he thought, smiling at his own fears, what a crazy, terrifying, perhaps excessive, if he could put it that way, fantastical start, he was fortunate, he added to himself, completely relaxing now in the midst of the crowd, that he didn’t have to go to the Ca’Foscari or the Palazzo Ducale, nowhere at all, he didn’t have to budge from here, and a vaporetto wasn’t much so that he didn’t have to pay a lot; if he wanted, apart from the S. Rocco, he didn’t have to see anything of Venice — just the one single thing he had traveled here to see; the visitation of which was more important to him than his entire mediocre, senseless, barren, and superfluous life.