answers to such questions, the response back was either a nervous giggle or a blank stare. In Japan, my story was simple. My name is Abigail. I am an American. I grew up in Maryland. Because my identity is reduced to basics in Japan, I feel more at ease here than anywhere else. In the United States, people look at my frizzy brown hair, glasses, and thin, intense face and say, Are you sure you’re not from New York? When they learn my mother is from South America, they look at me with skepticism. I try to help them out by saying, I know I don’t look it—I take after my father. And having a Catholic mother and Jewish father makes me not quite a member of any religious community. In Japan, I am unambiguously, incontrovertibly non-Japanese. I fit the profile perfectly, and so I shed layers of complicated history and am much lighter for it.
Traveling Man Tree next asked if I liked haiku. Yes, a lot, although I have never written any of my own, I answered. We were silent for a while. I reread his haiku: a sea breeze billowing in the sleeve of hanging dolls. I had never thought of writing my own haiku. Now I wondered why. I found myself answering the question aloud, forgetting my rule of not giving too many personal details in first encounters. Frankly, I don’t think I have a poetic soul! I never kept a journal as a young girl. I never went through that phase of writing poetry as an adolescent. I can’t imagine starting to write poetry now. Traveling Man Tree nodded knowingly and replied, Oh, lots of Japanese people who never think of themselves as the poetic type write haiku. One of the most famous haiku groups, at the prestigious Tokyo University, has always attracted more science and engineering students than literature majors.
Neither Traveling Man Tree nor I had been paying much attention to the aisatsu ritual, but it was now Traveling Man Tree’s turn to offer remarks. He stood up, took the microphone, and motioned to me as he spoke. I want you to welcome my neighbor. My friend is fond of haiku. She tells me she has never written haiku, but I think perhaps she is just shy. I am sure she writes excellent haiku. Perhaps 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
