The Haiku Apprentice. Abigail Friedman

she will recite some of her work for us tonight. With that Traveling Man Tree sat down and gave me a wink, and the audience turned to look at me.

      What made Traveling Man Tree tell the audience I wrote haiku? I walked up to the microphone, wishing more than ever that I were someplace else. It’s true, I am very fond of Japanese haiku, I told the small gathering in Japanese. They are so beautiful and peaceful. But I am afraid Mr. Ōiwa is wrong, I have never written any of my own.

      Then, partly to satisfy the audience and partly to avoid having to reveal any more of myself to strangers, I offered to recite some of my favorite Japanese haiku. The group responded enthusiastically, and so, like a schoolchild, with my hands clasped behind my back, I began to recite a few haiku in Japanese that I had memorized from R. H. Blyth’s four-volume work on Japanese haiku. Those volumes were the first, and for many years the only, set of books I owned on the subject.

      夕晴れや浅黄に並ぶ秋の山

      yūbare ya asagi ni narabu aki no yama

      in the evening clear

      of a pale blue sky, a row of

      fall mountains

      KOBAYASHI ISSA (1763–1827)

      山くれて紅葉の朱をうばいけり

      yama kurete momiji no ake o ubaikeri

      the mountain darkens

      stealing the crimson

      from autumn leaves

      YOSA BUSON (1716–83)

      故郷も今は假寝や渡り鳥

      furusato mo ima wa karine ya wataridori

      my childhood home also

      now but an evening’s lodging—

      migrating birds

      MUKAI KYORAI (1651–1704)

      行く我にとダまる汝に秋二つ

      yuku ware ni todomaru nare ni aki futatsu

      I who am going,

      and you who remain

      two autumns

      MASAOKA SHIKI (1867–1902)

      After each poem, the audience nodded approval as one or another recognized a famous haiku. Ah, Shiki, sighed one. That’s Buson! exclaimed another.1

      A man in his seventies stood up and said, I was in the hospital for an operation last year. Kidney trouble. As he spoke, he lifted his shirt, pointed to his kidneys, and made a cutting motion with his hand. We all leaned closer, to see his scar. There I was, lying on my side in a hospital bed in nothing but a flimsy white robe, when suddenly this haiku sprang to mind:

      腎臓に管うがたるる酷暑かな

      jinzō ni kuda ugataruru kokusho kana

      into my kidney

      a tube pierces

      ah, the summer heat!

      The group leaned back and laughed. Can you believe it? I’m in the hospital, in pain, cranking out a haiku! I sent that haiku in to the Nihon Keizai Shinbun newspaper, and they selected it and printed it in their Sunday edition’s haiku column. Incredible! To think that’s what it took for me to get my haiku published.

      As he told his tale I quietly returned to my seat. Traveling Man Tree had made up a plate of food for me from the buffet: a bowl of cold soba noodles, a few cucumber rolls, some sushi and smoked salmon. I set the plate on my lap, pulled the chopsticks out of their paper sheath, and began to eat, as happy as if I was greeting an old friend at the end of the day. Traveling Man Tree watched me with a look of amusement on his face. You did a great job reciting those haiku. Listen, why don’t you join the haiku group I belong to?

      I was flattered by his offer, but protested that I really never had written a haiku in my life. My work kept me busy enough. Traveling Man Tree dismissed my objections. That doesn’t matter. You just have to enjoy haiku. You don’t need anything more. We meet once every couple of months in Numazu. Our haiku master is terrific. I have your card. I’ll send you an invitation.

      It was getting late, and people were saying their goodbyes. Before we left, we stood in a circle to perform the somewhat old-fashioned customary ending to a party. Yō . . . oh! Three sets of three rapid claps performed in unison by everyone present, followed by a single clap and then a round of applause. An elderly Japanese friend once remarked to me that young people in Japan do not seem to follow this custom much anymore, but she had added, almost as an afterthought, Just wait, though. As the young get older, they too will enjoy traditions.

      Outside, the pavement was wet from rain. I hailed a cab and slid into the back seat. On the way home, I chided myself for having stood up and recited haiku that evening. I must have looked ridiculous. Who ever heard of an American diplomat reciting haiku? I could only console myself with the thought that I would never see any of these people again.

      two

      CASCADING CRIES OF THE CICADA

      Traveling Man Tree’s invitation arrived in the mail about a month later. The Numamomo haiku group, it read, would next meet at the Goyōtei, in the town of Numazu, on Saturday, October 5, from one to five in the afternoon. I had no idea what Numamomo or Goyōtei meant, and no one I asked at my office had ever been to Numazu. One of my colleagues, a native of Tokyo, said with a tone of disdain, It must be one of those small towns in the countryside somewhere. After some searching, I found the town on the map. It looked to be about an hour and a half west of Tokyo by train, in the vicinity of Mount Fuji.

      That Saturday, leaving my family behind, I took the bullet train out of Tokyo to Mishima, the transfer point to popular tourist destinations south on the Izu Peninsula. It was the first time since having children that I was taking a trip unrelated to work, alone. I traveled so much for my job that it was hard for me to leave my family simply for pleas­ure. But the train sped along and I began to relax, catching glimpses from my window of the surface of the bay glimmering in the sun, stretching out toward the horizon. An apartment building whizzed into sight, blocking my view of the sea. Moments later it was gone, and the sea and curve of the horizon reappeared. Another building appeared, blocked the sea, became a blur, and vanished in a blink.

      How strange life is! Fifteen years ago, I was sitting in a bed at Dr. Takahara’s Lady Clinic holding my newborn son, wondering how I had ended up in Hiroshima and what it all meant. I was far from home and did not know the first thing about babies. I pored over child-rearing manuals as if they were science textbooks, trying to figure out why my baby was crying. I had spent four years in college studying the history of science and another three years studying law, and now I was supposed to intuitively know how to handle a baby.

      One evening, my husband came home and, as he watched me struggling to breastfeed our son, sighed, I don’t think this housewife role is right for you. You really should follow up with the Foreign Service. I had passed the Foreign Service exam before leaving the United States but had been lackadaisical in pursuing the option. I was having a hard time picturing myself as a diplomat. I recalled the scene well: our colicky baby had bit me, squirmed, and started to cry. Well, maybe you are right, I said, handing him the baby. A few months later we booked train tickets to Tokyo, so that I could complete my application there. Soon after that, I entered the Foreign Service.

      I thought that once I joined the Foreign Service we would come back to Japan. Instead we were sent to the Azores, windswept islands in the middle of the Atlantic. After that our life became a series of checkerboard moves, with assignments in Washington, Tokyo, Washington, Paris, and again Tokyo. Fifteen years, seven moves, and two more children later, I was back in Japan sitting on a train, this time heading out of Tokyo, past beautiful scenery, toward a town and people I did not know. I was midway through my second Japan assignment and no more certain of where I fit in the world as the day when, cradling my crying baby in Hiroshima,