Under the glowing golden maple that autumn day, I wanted to shift round and sit beside her and somehow or other ease through her reserve and win her acceptance. The wish to befriend her, to be her friend, the strength of my desire to know her, flushed me with determination. I’ve always been quite good, I think, at seizing the right moment when it comes, and not letting it pass me by. Before that I can hesitate and dither and feel sure of failure. But at those rare times when a truly important moment arrives, I seem to recognize it, something clicks inside me, and whatever doubts and wobbles I may have suffered until then seem to disappear in a surge of will-to-do.
But I didn’t know this at thirteen. That was one of the self-learning times. I’m going through another now, as I carry you in my swollen womb and ready myself to mother you. Doris says life is a succession of learning zones, and I’m finding out that she’s right.
I hadn’t started writing my pillow book yet, or even my mopes, so I don’t have an at-the-time record of what happened next. But I remember it vividly.
I knew better than to follow my impulse to sit beside Izumi. Such an intrusion would be the last thing she’d want. I tried to put myself in her place, tried to imagine what might win me over, if I were feeling alone and unhappy in a foreign land. I decided I’d like a message, written not spoken, so I wouldn’t have to answer unless I wanted to, and wouldn’t be confronted by the other person face to face when receiving it. The message would have to be personal, but be something about the other person not about me, so I wouldn’t be embarrassed by anything she wrote. And it would have to be trusting and private so that it was like a little gift, but not too private, because that would be too intimate for a first approach. (I wouldn’t trust anyone who was so self-revealing before we even knew anything ordinary about each other.) The message would be special but still somehow only a message, not a confession or a secret.
Nor could it wait. The moment was right. The message must be given to her now, while we were sitting by ourselves on opposite sides of the tree, or it would be too late.
The problem was, I didn’t have any paper or anything to write with. And of course there was the problem of how to give Izumi my message without putting her off by handing it to her. But when something is meant to happen the answers to problems come to you out of nowhere and you find what you need lying around waiting for you. In this case, a fallen leaf, a twig, and an eye-liner.
A carpet of fallen leaves covered the ground all round the tree. A wind the night before had brought down a harvest of them, fresh leaves in lovely bright golds and reds and pale yellows and washed-out greens. And as they’d been so recently plucked by the ruthless wind from their parent branches they weren’t dry and brittle but still firm and even leathery, like vellum perhaps, or parchment. Easy to write on with something soft and painterly. Like my black eye-liner, which naturally I’d brought with me in my little security bag containing keys, mobile, make-up and other necessities.
As for the message, when I thought I was alone under the tree before Izumi’s sneeze gave her away, I’d been thinking how mega-gorgeous the autumn trees looked, how tasty the sun-soaked sky, how refreshing the air after inhaling the school’s recycled breath all morning. And because I suppose I must have been a little sad or perhaps only because autumn can be a melancholy time, I’d been saying to myself these lines:
But you are lovely leaves, where we
May read how soon things have
Their end, though ne’er so brave:
And after they have shown their pride,
Like you a while: they glide
Into the grave.
(‘To Blossoms’ by Robert Herrick, 1591 to 1674. And if you’re wondering how I knew such a poem when I was only thirteen, the answer is a loved teacher, Ms Martin – but I’ll tell you about her later.)
Thinking about that, I knew at once the message I wanted to send to Izumi.
As for the way to deliver it: lying near me was a little branch, hardly more than a twig, rather like a wobbly arrow in fact, or a sleeping snake perhaps, about half a metre long, which the wind had snapped from the tree. The end where it had broken off was split as if sliced by a knife.
So I wrote my message with my black eye-liner on the underside of a pale-yellow leaf, fixed the leaf into the split end of the snaky twig, and then carefully flicked my message-stick round the tree trunk, hoping it would land at Izumi’s feet.
This is what I wrote:
Izumi. I like poetry. Cordelia.
Of course, I didn’t know why she was called Izumi, or that she was also potty on poetry, or that the Japanese are a nation of poetry buffs – they hold poetry competitions in which millions, really millions, of people take part. So I didn’t know that my little personal declaration would touch her where she lived.
For a few nervy minutes nothing happened. I sat as still as a hibernating hedgehog, all of me on tenter hooks (a row of hooks or bent nails on which cloth is stretched out to dry after dyeing or washing, and that’s certainly how I felt).
After a while, I heard a light small voice coming from the other side of the tree, which at first I thought was singing a song without words, but then realised was saying something in Japanese. The something was a poem. I knew because everyone in every language I’ve ever heard seems to use a half-speaking, half-singing voice when intoning poetry. Later, after we became friends, I asked Izumi to say again what she’d said that day, and this is it in Westernised Japanese words:
Katami tote
nani ka nokosan
haru wa hana
natsu hototogisu
aki wa momijiba.
After which there was silence again, before I heard Izumi’s still small voice say:
‘This mean something like:
What might I leave you
as a last gift when my time comes?
Springtime flowers,
the cuckoo singing all summer
the yellow leaves of autumn.’
Then another silence, before:
‘But my translation not good, sorry, Cordelia.’
I said, ‘I liked it, Izumi. Both in your language and in mine.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘By Japanese poet Ryōkan.’
Then silence again.
And again I waited. Now I didn’t know what to do. My certainty deserted me. I suppose, when you’ve risked yourself, and made the first move, you wait for the other person to take the next step. And not knowing anything about Izumi or her culture I didn’t understand that in her own mind she’d already taken that step by reciting a poem. I wanted her to come and sit beside me. Not words, but an action. It hadn’t occurred to me that words are actions.
Luckily, because of my sudden loss of confidence I held my tongue and did nothing. Sometimes doing nothing is a better way of making progress than doing something. Or as my father puts it: Do nothing till you have to.
At last, I heard Izumi stand up, and her footsteps approaching round the tree. Perhaps she was coming to join me after all. But instead of stopping when she reached me, she walked straight on without a pause, across the field towards school, and didn’t look back once.
I let her go, waited until she’d reached the buildings, then followed her, not knowing what her departure meant but feeling that at least I’d tried.
In class that afternoon Izumi behaved exactly as before, giving no sign of any kind, not even a glance, that acknowledged me and our exchange.
I had a club after school that day. When I got home a little package was waiting for me. Inside was an oblong cardboard box that looked like it was made from pressed autumn leaves. I thought at first it was a pencil case. But inside were two pairs of chopsticks, one pair jet black, one pair Japanese red, and each pair decorated in gold on the thicker ends with a design representing leaves and water and mountains.
Inscribed on the inside of the lid was an email address:
[email protected] Guessing this must surely be an invitation, I r
eplied at once:
izumi. thanx. when? cordelia.
And that’s how our friendship began.
Put out put on
Back to Will not turning up for our Saturday date. Izumi came over. I told her what had happened. She listened, she was always such a good listener, one of her best qualities – one of the best qualities in any true friend. She sympathised, comforted, reminded me of her own similar times. And then suddenly broke into a fit of Japanese giggles. Why? Why? Because, she said from behind her hand and between bouts, it was so funny (giggle giggle) that I had been (giggle giggle) stood up, or at least (giggle) let down (giggle) – me, who for the first time (giggle giggle giggle) was really serious (mega giggles) about a boy, when, she said, calming down at last, it was only to be expected, boys being boys.
Luckily, I saw the funny side too, or rather, was infected by her laughter, which is the nicest kind of infection. We held on to each other while we giggled till tears were running down our faces. And when our laughter subsided we held hands and kissed and repeated how foolish we were and how stupid boys were, all boys without exception, and asked ourselves the age-old ageless question why we bothered with them. By now we were talking for both of us as one, not just for me, and anyway, what we said was not what we meant, which was how good it was being together, Izumi and me, closest and best of friends, and our caring for each other and loving each other. And besides that, our laughter and talk and holding on to each other were an antidote to the hurt of thoughtless boys and their unreliability and waywardness.
‘Not their fault,’ Izumi said, always more forgiving than me. ‘They’re made that way.’
‘It is their fault,’ I said. ‘And even if it isn’t they should learn to do better.’
Which I still think they should. I won’t allow biology to be used as an excuse for unacceptable behaviour. We are animals, I know. But we are animals who think and have will power, which we should use to help us behave decently towards each other. (Here endeth the lesson.)
‘When this happens to me,’ Izumi said, trying to change my mood, ‘I take off everything put on for him, and put something on just for me. It helps very much.’
‘Good idea,’ I said, though I wanted to go on wallowing in my upset and anger, which I’m apt to do, but what are friends for if not to lift you out of such a slough? ‘Come upstairs. You can choose. Instead of putting something on just for me, I’ll put it on just for you.’
Izumi said nothing. But I knew, knew from the flutter of a smile across her face and the look in her averted eyes what she couldn’t say. And she made one little movement that she used sometimes when she couldn’t tell me what she felt about me – she raised her hand and drew the tips of her fingers with feather-touch tenderness down my cheek from temple to chin.
And I was happy again.
finger tips
writing sentences,
words of one syllable,
on my skin
spell of friendship.
Face lift
While I was undressing Izumi went to the bathroom. She came back to my room dangling a CD-sized packet in front of her face.
DEAD SEA spa MAGIK
ALGIMUD
active seaweed mask
* * *
REFRESHING
PEEL-OFF
FACE MASK
* * *
We go to the lowest place on earth, to bring you the highest standard of natural skincare treatments.
TIPS & HINTS
The easiest way to enjoy Algimud Facial is to ask a friend to apply it for you.
‘Yours?’
‘Doris’s. Extra special. Expensive.’
‘I know.’
‘Keeps it for times when she needs an extra special lift.’
‘You need extra special lift. Would she mind?’
‘No. And I can replace it.’
‘Let’s.’
‘But not just me. Both of us. I’ll get another.’
INGREDIENTS:
Solum Diatomeae, Algin,
Dead Sea Mud (Marius Limus),
Calcium Sulfate, Sodium Pyrophosphate,
C177499.
Hadn’t a clue what all that meant. But what lovely words science uses, quite musical, poems in themselves. Even the collection of numbers is like a little poem if you say it softly and quickly:
Cee-one-seven-seven-four-nine-nine.
Product not tested on animals.
I should hope not! But someone must have tested it, surely? Or is it permitted to slap mud from the Dead Sea, no doubt as polluted as every other sea by now, combined with various poetically named chemical substances, onto the faces of unsuspecting females without any tests being conducted for signs of danger to humans? Humans are animals too, remember.
What fools we mortals be.
The facial had to be mixed into a paste and applied with a spatula. According to Izumi, expert on these matters, the best kind of spatula for this purpose was the stick from a Magnum ice cream. There was only one left in the freezer so we shared it, while further adumbrating boys. (That should be adumberating.) We sat on my bed, wrapped in bath towels, sharing a Magnum bite for bite.
Then, as we faced each other cross-legged, hand towels wrapped round our heads like turbans to protect our hair (necessary according to the instructions – why? what would it do? make us bald? – it’s harmless but can be difficult to remove from hair), Izumi began to apply the mud, holding my head with one hand and with the other using the Magnum stick to apply the goo. She became very serious as she did this, as if painting a picture with a palette knife. It was wonderfully soothing, as I’m sure you know. Or have things changed so much by the time you read this that mud mask facials are out and some other treatment is in?
Always allow the Algimud mask to set properly, which may take anything from 10–20 minutes. It will easily peel off like a second skin.
Algimud is not water soluble, so do not try to wash it off.
‘You have lovely eyes,’ Izumi said, leaning back to survey her work. ‘Glasses hide them. Mask shows them off.’
‘Maybe I should wear a mask all the time,’ I tried to say without moving my lips so as not to crack the drying mud, which made it come out something like ‘Ay-he I hud er hu ak all hu tine,’ which gave Izumi the giggles again, almost setting me off too, so she had to rush to the bathroom to recover her composure before settling down on the bed again for me to paint her face. Applying the mud was as soothing and pleasurable as having it applied. And putting it on someone as beautiful as Izumi was, I have to admit, a turn on. Maybe, I thought, that’s one reason why people become beauticians (detestable word), and maybe physiotherapists and masseurs like body-stroking jobs also: because they’re allowed to touch beautiful bodies. No one ever says that’s a reason, but I’ll bet it is. And why not? Of course, it also means they have to handle bodies that turn them off, which means most of the time. Because, after all, the number of people who turn you on is very small, isn’t it? Otherwise, we’d be going round in a permanent state of repressed sexual dither.
When the mud-plastering was done, we gazed silently at each other for a while, waiting for the mud to dry completely, which was like having your face slowly shrink-wrapped. And because only our eyes and lips and the ends of our noses were showing, and our bodies were wrapped in similar towels and our heads in similar turbans, we looked like identical twins, mirror images of each other.
When the drying was complete Izumi took my left hand in her right and unfolded her legs and, carefully so as not to crack her mask, laid herself out full stretch on her back, her hand indicating to mine she wanted me to lie down beside her, which I did, the pair of us then like shrouded corpses.
Before we’d started applying the mud I’d put on a CD of ancient Japanese music from the time of our favourite poets, which Izumi had given me as a Christmas present. When I first heard it, I thought it was just a boring plinky-plonky noise, a man plucking some kind of stringed instrument, one twang afte
r another in a slow and unpredictable, not quite regular rhythm, that at first almost drove me mad. But listening to it again and again, which I did for Izumi’s sake, I discovered there was a rhythm quite unlike the rhythm of Western music. Then it began to have a strange, almost hypnotic effect, like a charm, a spell being cast, very beautiful and – not soothing exactly, but calming. And not thought-provoking, either, in the way we usually mean, but thinking that went beyond the head and beyond the body. Disembodied thought. No words could express it. I know now, though I didn’t then, that the music had lulled me into a kind of meditation.
Meditation. This is how it felt. As I lay beside Izumi, hand in hand, my eyes closed, the Dead Sea mud shrink-wrapping my face, the music lulling me with its charm, I began to feel as if I were levitating and floating off into the air. Not in to, but into. Becoming part of the air, airy. Time vanished. I saw it like a white bird flying away. I heard the blood flowing in my ears yet my heart was stilled. Even the breath left my lungs. Thinking without thinking, feeling without feeling, a kind of absence in which at the same time, there being no time, everything was present. My body, all of me in fact, seemed like one of Izumi Shikibu’s poems: small, spare, simple, fresh, yet endless too, dense, complex, as old as the universe.