The Spirit Drum Read online

  “This was the most difficult part of my business; such deception was utterly inappropriate, except for when I was forced to dishonor myself for the sake of another. But the young wife nodded as if satisfied by my explanation.

  “ ‘I too considered that the drum might be at fault. But then I thought that it might be my lack of talent, so I’m relieved to hear you say that. Well then, I’ll carefully store this away somewhere,’ she said with a smile.

  “The wife pressed a ten-yen bill into my hand. Shortly after that my spinal problems began and I was no longer able to work, and the wife, being busy with other work, never came back to see me.

  “But I just couldn’t get it out of my mind. So whenever I happened to visit Kudan I would gather information about the Tsuruhara family from the apprentices there…and then, what do you know…

  “Rumor had it that the Viscount Tsuruhara was, by nature, a fastidious man who was proud of his lineage, to the extent that he found it difficult to find a wife and remained single until the age of thirty. But on a trip to Osaka to take care of a bit of business near the end of the previous year, he was hit by a so-called bolt of the blue. It is not clear where they first met, but it seems he fell deeply in love with the woman who would later become his current wife, and eventually made her part of the viscount family. But unfortunately his wife’s ancestry could not be determined, so each and every one of his relatives severed ties with him. No longer able to remain in Kyoto, he went to live in Nakano, Tokyo.

  “But, in any case, shortly after the wife (I remember her name being something like ‘Tsuruko’) moved to Tokyo and began to learn the hand drum, one day when the viscount was absent the maid in attendance, face pale, took out The Spirit Drum and began playing it, ignoring all requests to stop. Some later time it seems the viscount scolded her severely after hearing of this, and––perhaps disturbed by what happened––the viscount was plagued by convulsions and confined to a small cell-like room. Following that Tsuruko sold off their Nakano residence and built a small house doubling as a convalescent home in Kougai city, Azabu, where she lived with her husband. But as she cared for him while taking lessons from a young master, her husband grew thin as a thread and passed away this spring.

  “Then Lady Tsuruhara, now a widow, brought in nephews and various others in an attempt to create a successor, but her relatives were all angered by this and clamored to the nobility to revoke her status. To make matters worse, many unpleasant rumors were spread about the young widow Tsuruko herself…either way, the Tsuruhara family’s succession was essentially cut short.

  “I am not going to tell anyone, but I think all of that happened because of The Spirit Drum. And so, recently I’ve made up my mind. Being my son, you’ve learned the basics of the hand drum long ago. In time, I think you’ll figure out how to properly play it.

  “But I have something important to tell you. No matter what happens, you must never try to play a hand drum. I’m not being superstitious here. If you try to play one, you’ll naturally desire a better instrument. I’m telling you this because, in the end, you’ll surely be tempted by that drum. Because The Spirit Drum embodies all the secrets of drum-making.

  “And when that happens, your days will be numbered. There isn’t a single person who has heard the voice of that drum and not been touched in some way. You’ll either lose your mind or be changed irrevocably.

  “You must study hard, become a merchant or government official, and go someplace far from Tokyo. Also make sure you stay away from the Tsuruhara family.

  “I’ve been obsessively worrying over this lately. I eventually plan to make this same request to the old master, but if you don’t heed my warning that won’t matter.

  “Now son…don’t you ever forget…”

  Listening to my father talking was like listening to the telling of a fairy tale. But I didn’t have any particular interest in learning to play the hand drum, so I just nodded quietly.

  This appeared to put my father at ease.

  In the autumn of that year, my father passed away and I was taken in by the old master in Kudan. Before long I continued my schooling at Fujimi Elementary School, all cheerful and pudgy. I never had another thought about The Spirit Drum.

  The old master was short, well-tanned, and had dark eyes that sparkled. At the time he had just turned 61 years old and was planning a special celebration that spring for this auspicious occasion, but his adopted son had unexpectedly run away from home and in the ensuing confusion the festivities got canceled.

  The young master’s name was Seijiro. I had never met him before, but Seijiro, unlike his father, was a portly, kind man who produced an excellent tone on the hand drum, to the extent that first-class geisha would come from all over when Seijiro had a performance someplace like Tokyo or Osaka. He left home at age twenty with nothing but the clothes on his back, and without any notes left behind or anything to serve as a clue nobody had any idea where to search for him. Around that time, I heard from a talkative maid that a certain impatient apprentice who lived with the master was secretly plotting to become his successor.

  “But you will probably become the successor, right?” said the maid.

  However, the old professor never said anything to me about becoming a hand drum player. He only showered me with affection.

  But with the family being what it was, the sound of the hand drum could be heard constantly from morning to evening. When I was forced to listen to the relentless drumming to the point of utter annoyance, in spite of being a young child I soon developed an ear for the drum. Sounds that at first seemed pleasing gradually began to sound uninteresting to me. The tone of the supposedly most skilled apprentice sounded more rounded, more pretty, even more graceful than the others, but even so it never went beyond what I would call beautiful. I wondered if there could be a drum with a slightly more noble tone…quiet like a god…or an eerie sound like the voice of an evil spirit.

  I had developed an unbearable urge to listen to the old master’s hand drum.

  But the old master usually played either on stage or when teaching at a student’s house, and at home rarely even picked up his drum. Furthermore, because I was going to school, for a while after coming to live in the Hayabashi household I was unable to hear the old master’s drum even a single time. Someone said that he had played some sort of auspicious song at the first practice of the year, but unfortunately I missed it, having been serving customers at the time.

  One day in early spring when I was sixteen, I returned to Kudan with a diploma from a two-year college and went immediately to the old master’s place on the roof, where I showed the certificate to him. Facing away from me, in the middle of writing something with a red pencil, he turned to me and smiled.

  “Ahh, here you go,” he said, piling a bunch of candies onto a saucer for me. He watched with a grin as I nibbled on the candies, but before long withdrew an old hand drum from a drawer next to a decorative alcove and began to play.

  When I heard the tap, tap, tap, thuh, thuh, thuh sound of his drum, I was struck by its sense of nobility and my hair stood up on end. I felt as if a benevolent mother was whispering something to me, and emotions overtook me.

  “So, do you want to learn the hand drum?” the old master said to me with a grin, a single pristine white false tooth showing.

  “Yes, please teach me,” I answered in an instant. And so, that day I began learning songs like “Mitsuji” and “Tsuzuke” on a cheap practice drum.

  But my reputation as a hand drum player was not very good. To begin with, I couldn’t produce a nice tone. And the other apprentices always complained to me about my improper timing and breathing.

  “You eat too much and it disturbs your concentration,” they would say, making fun of me. “And when you play, your cheeks get all rosy like the kitchen maid…”

  But it didn’t bother me in the slightest––after all, I didn’t need to become a hand drum player. I just needed to take care of the old master until he pas
sed away, repaying his kindness, and then I would become a monk and travel all over Japan…but because of these thoughts I ate even more to keep up my health.

  Around the end of spring the following year, it was decided that the young master would be considered deceased, so a small, private memorial service was held in the old master’s room with only candies and tea.

  “Perhaps you should soon adopt another…” said a gray-haired gentleman who appeared to be the old master’s father, and three or four apprentices looked towards me at once. The old master smiled.

  “Hmm…After Sei (the young master) I am not expecting to find anyone else. No one is any better than the others…” he said and looked across at their faces. The apprentices all blushed.

  Right then I suddenly had a great urge to see the young master; I was sure he was still alive somewhere. And I got the feeling he was still playing the hand drum. I truly wished to hear the sound of his drum…but as I daydreamed while staring at the young master’s memorial tablet, lit brightly by the light on the altar behind the old master, I was shocked when the gray-haired old man unexpectedly spoke out, butting in once again.

  “What about that boy Kyuya?”

  “Certainly not. You see, this boy is what you would call ‘drum-inept’…His nature forbids the production of any reasonable tone. He may very well be like this his entire life. Such a condition has been quite rare for ages, though,” the old master said as he patted my head. It was my turn to blush.

  “Will that boy ever amount to anything?” came a voice from the group of apprentice boys. One of them even broke out laughing.

  “When he does, he will be a true master,” said the old master, voice calm. Everyone’s mouth gaped open wide in bewilderment.

  After we all came down from the roof the old master took out his special sweet bean jelly. He spoke as he smoked tobacco from a long pipe.

  “I wonder why you can’t make a good tone with the drum…You should be capable of a good sound, but you ruin it by constantly adjusting the tuning paper. I wonder why you would ever do such a thing…”

  I answered without hesitation.

  “There is no drum that I like. They all resonate too much.”

  “Indeed,” said the old master as he let out a puff of white smoke towards the dark ceiling, his mood apparently gone a tad sour.

  “Then what type of sound do you like?”

  “Every drum I play sounds like thump, thump, thump, and I can’t bear to hear the ‘ump’ part. I want a drum with a quiet sound that doesn’t resonate: thuh…thuh…thuh.”

  “…Hmm…Then what about my drum?”

  “I like it, but…it makes a sound like thuhn, thuhn, thuhn. I personally think it would be better if the ‘uhn’ sound wasn’t there.”

  The old master blew out a big puff of smoke again towards the ceiling as he blinked bleary eyes.

  “Master,” I said with a hint of confidence in my voice.

  “I heard that there is a famous drum at the Tsuruhara residence. Might it be acceptable to borrow that?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said and glared hard at me. Until then, I had never seen the old master with an expression that serious. I looked down, avoiding his gaze, and said nothing.

  “Is it not said that one who uses that drum will cause bad luck for their family? Even assuming it is a tall tale, it is inappropriate to wish misfortune on another family. Now you listen to me. If there is no drum that you like, you’ll never step foot on stage.”

  I turned dead pale––this was the first time in my life I had been this severely scolded by the old master. But deep down, I didn’t feel any remorse for what I said.

  It was then that The Spirit Drum became the object of my longing.

  Shortly after, the old master announced to everyone that I would be his successor. All of the apprentices called me “young master” reluctantly.

  But I was disheartened by this. After everything that happened, I was going to become an honest-to-goodness hand drum player. I was doomed to a life of catering to those below my level. This thought alone was enough to upset me. I remembered with great hatred what my father had always said: “You must never turn your back on what the old master has done for you.” At the same time, I felt as if I now understood why the young master had run away from home, and my longing for him grew intolerably strong. Even so, my desire to see the young master was but a fleeting urge compared to my yearning to see The Spirit Drum.

  As before, I continued to put on weight as I played my drum. Rumpapum, rumpapum.

  In the spring of 1923 I turned twenty one. One afternoon in mid-March the old master summoned me. “Take this to the Tsuruhara family,” he said, passing me a square-shaped package wrapped in wrinkled cloth.

  When I heard the words “Tsuruhara family”, I remembered the drum and my heart raced as I looked at the old master’s face. He stared back at me intently.

  “Don’t let anyone find out. Their house is diagonally opposite from the Shinto central office in Kogai city. Enclosed by fir trees, there’s no nameplate or anything else to identify it by,” he said, blinking.

  Carrying the candy-like package, I passed through the Hayabashi residence’s crossbarred gate wearing a hunting cap, a white and indigo blue patterned cloth, a hakama made from kokura fabric, a black long cloak, thick tabi socks, and geta clogs made from magnolia wood.

  Below the cloudy sky the sakura trees around the Shinto central office in Kogai city blossomed a pure white. A short distance away was a gloomy single-story building surrounded by a grove of fir trees. There was no nameplate visible on the tall cement wall or the cypress-built entrance, nor was there anything written on the round, polished-glass lamps below the eaves. This is the place, I thought as I crossed the bridge spanning the moat, a single plank of wood.

  The moment I opened the latticed door in the entrance, an inner door made of shoji paper slid open and an emaciated student, a year or two my senior, wearing dark blue and white peeked his head out and made a polite bow, three fingers from each hand touching the floor. He wore black-rimmed glasses, hair parted neatly down the middle of his head.

  “Might this be the Tsuruhara family…I am from the Hayabayashi family of Kudan and…I brought this from the old master…” I said as I passed him the candy box, still wrapped.

  The student accepted the package and glanced at my face for a moment, then untied it right there, revealing a cedar box wrapped in high-quality paper, tied with black strings. Upon it was a scrap of paper with writing in blocky letters: “Myoin Temple, Seian Takayo…7th year of death“.

  Oh my, I thought. I had carried the package all the way here without realizing it had actually contained a special tea commemorating the young master’s 7th death anniversary. His memorial service had been held in a small private group such that none of the amateur students were informed, so why would the old master do something like this? As I watched, thinking that perhaps Lady Tsuruhara had gone out of her way to give a monetary offering, the student picked up the slip of paper, reading and rereading it as his face went pale. There was something odd about his reaction.

  Eventually the student flashed an odd grin at me and said, “Thank you for coming all the way here…Would you mind coming in for a little while? I’m all by myself, but…”

  His voice was extremely soft, possessing the charm of a young woman. I considered my options. Some part of me felt that I should not go in, but at the same time I felt an unbearable urge to enter. But as I was standing there indecisively the student, holding the box, hesitantly spoke again.

  “…There shouldn’t be any problem…besides…I have a little favor to…ask of you.”

  I made up my mind and took off my shoes. The student led me into a small closet-less room on the side of the entrance, which seemed to once have been a reception room. Inside was a space roughly one hundred square feet cluttered with various newspapers, novels, and magazines mixed in with wicker boxes and other odds and ends, and in the center was a lar
ge porcelain brazier with an iron kettle, around which was only barely enough space to sit down. The student pushed aside a jumble of tea utensils, then handed me a cushion from the corner of the room.

  “I’m Tsumaki, Lady Tsuruhara’s nephew,” he greeted me.

  So that’s who this guy is, I thought to myself as I lowered my head in respect again, when Tsumaki––acting at odds with his kind demeanor––abruptly picked up the cedar box and pulled the string taut until it snapped. As I stared in surprise he opened the lid, took out a Fugetsu bean-jam wafer, popped into his mouth, and then quickly offered one to me.

  “Would you like one?”

  I was a bit startled by this. But when I realized his lips were white and swollen like tofu, I finally understood. Addicted to sweets, Tsumaki was doing this sort of thing constantly. And as a result, he was destroying his stomach. It seems he had invited me in to make me an accomplice to this practice. Now, having understood his intentions, I suddenly felt a sense of familiarity with the young man and extended my hand to accept his offer.

  However, I couldn’t help being amazed again by his crude way of eating. Not only had he already finished off four or five more candies than me, but he continued to stuff them down his throat at an alarming rate, four or five for every three I ate, and before I knew it the box was already over half empty.

  I finally surrendered and drank a sip of tea. Tsumaki popped two more wafers into his mouth, pulled an old newspaper from between a set of books behind him and snapped it open loudly, wrapping the remaining twenty candies inside before stuffing the paper deep behind the books. He then picked up the cedar box and crushed it with a loud crack, gathering the pieces together like a bundle of firewood. After wrapping the wood and the label in the special paper, he tied the string around it all.

  “I’m terribly sorry, but…” Tsumaki said, holding out the bundle towards me.