One Day the Shadow Passed Read online

  “I had many questions, but I didn’t know where to begin. I wanted to explain to the Minister that he was quite wrong. I wanted to tell him about our farm and how perfect it was. But then I thought of the chef. In Japan, we have a saying – deru kugi wa utareru – the nail that sticks out must be hammered in. I thought of my fellow students in the queue who had laughed at me behind their hands and I thought of the chef’s stern face and I decided to stay silent. The audience rose to its feet. Applause filled the hall. From that day on I hardly spoke to anyone.

  “Soon after the lecture from the Minister, I stopped going to the lectures. I continued to study and I passed all of the exams, doing quite well in them. But I kept my thoughts to myself and slowly but surely over the course of the next two years I became disillusioned with the world.

  “I found that I was unable to sleep and my evenings became a series of aimless wanderings. This went on for months until finally, one evening, I was sitting on a train, coming back into the city at the end of a long, tiring walk when I looked out of the window and saw amongst the concrete of Yokohama a tiny patch of green.

  “It lay between the big raised intercity highway and the little local road that joined the highway to the city’s main road network. It was nothing really. No more than a mere triangular wedge of land, too badly placed and strangely shaped to be put to any constructive use. Nevertheless, it was hard to believe that it was not concreted over. There was scarcely an inch of ground in the whole of Yokohama that wasn’t concreted over, so it was almost miraculous that this little sliver of earth existed at all. Once upon a time it must have been farmland, but that would have been many years ago.

  “I was very tired, but I sat up in my seat and looked more closely. I saw that in between the weeds and chaos of the overgrown plot healthy, tall, strong rice plants were flourishing unaided by any pesticides or fertilizer.

  “I cupped my hands over the glass. Seeing the small unkempt patch of nature in the middle of the vast city was like suddenly spotting an old friend from home. I wanted to cry out with surprise. With a huge grin on my face I turned to my neighbour, but my neighbour was immersed in a comic book. I pressed my face back against the glass, with both hands curled around my eyes like binoculars. In this world beyond the window, young rice shoots were growing tall and strong: free of even the basic necessities of civilized farming, free of pesticides or fertilizer, free even of the plough – here amongst the skyscrapers and lead fumes of Yokohama!

  “I was ecstatic. When the train pulled up at the next station I disembarked and tried to find my way through the city’s streets to get back to the vision that I had seen. Of course I couldn’t find it, but I didn’t care.

  “I had seen it once and that was enough. The moon was full and bright. I wandered all through the night, finally ending up on the bluff near to my home. I went to Yamate Park and lay down on a bench with a grin on my face and fell asleep. In the morning, I was woken by the sound of children’s voices and birds singing. I looked up at the view and in an instant my mind was emptied completely. All that remained was one thought, one firm conviction that I knew was the only truth in the world: Mankind knows nothing.

  “I left the Institute the day after my insight. I got together a handful of belongings and took to the road, like one of the poets of old. I wandered the country; I saw the moon rise over the islands of Matsushima and I sat on my hat and wept at the site of the Godaido Shrine. I walked miles every day and I barely ate a thing. I had my insight and that was all the nourishment I needed.

  “Three months later my father died. That brought me back down to earth. I returned to the farm immediately in order to attend the funeral. Perhaps I had contributed to his ill health? I don’t know. The day after the funeral I helped my mother move to my sister’s house in the village, and then I announced to Mitsuo, our oldest and most trusted employee, that life on the farm was going to change.

  “‘Mitsuo – I don’t want you to prune the trees this year.’

  “Mitsuo was already downcast by my father’s death. He didn’t want more change. I had to plead with him to help.

  “‘Mitsuo, you have to trust me. No more pruning of the trees. No more pesticides. No more fertilizer. And I want you to open the chicken coop during the day. Let the chickens walk through the vegetable patch. That will be our fertilizer. And I no longer want you to plough the fields. We will sow the seeds directly onto the land and spread the straw from the harvest back over the unploughed fields.’

  “I knew that he was completely confused, and I knew that he and the other farmhands thought that I had gone mad, but there was no other choice.

  “‘Mitsuo, I ask you to do exactly as I request. You must trust me. We are going back to the old farming. We are going back to the farming before the samurai period. We are going back to the Tao. And I will not be moving into the farmhouse. We will all eat there at sunrise and at sunset and we will have tea there during the day to refresh ourselves. All of us together. Everyone who works in the fields and on the mountainside. It will be a place for us all to meet and talk together when it rains, or when it is cold. I will stay in the hut.’

  “I do not think I can remember Mitsuo ever questioning my father, but that day I took over the farm he finally could contain himself no longer.

  “‘But Fumimoto-san, if we do not prune the trees they will die. The branches will become tangled, the sun will not reach the leaves evenly and the trees will become diseased. And if we do not plough the fields … It is unthinkable, Fumimoto-san.’

  “The farmhands left the following week. Mitsuo stayed another three seasons, but he was old. Now it is just me, with the occasional help from some of the children from the village. I work hard every day to test whether or not this revelation is true.”

  The farmer had finished talking. How many minutes had gone by I did not know. He looked up at me and smiled.

  “I’m sorry. I have spoken too much. It is a mistake. There is no point in me trying to explain these things with words.”

  The farmer sighed and looked into the fire.

  “If I was a storyteller maybe I could think of a story that would make my point and then you would understand me better.”

  He fell silent for a moment and then I was heartened to see that the peaceful smile had returned to his face.

  “But I am not a storyteller, I am just a simple farmer from Ehime and so the only way I can make my point is through farming. If my insight is correct then all that man does to nature to encourage her to grow is futile and all the practices of modern farming are unnecessary.

  “I believe that this is so and I have come back home to my family farm to prove it for all to see, and that is exactly what you find me doing.”

  Suddenly he stood up. He had a concerned look on his face.

  “But let me give you something for those blisters.”

  I hadn’t realized it, but all the time he had been speaking I had been nursing the palms of my hands. The farmer disappeared through the garden door saying that he would be back in a minute. I sat there in silence mulling over all that he had said. I still had so many questions.

  It was an extraordinary tale, but most extraordinary of all was the conclusion. The farmer was so sure of his insight that he was prepared to reject everything: progress, science and centuries of farming tradition. He was willing to place them all on the altar of his belief, along with the farm itself, for surely he would lose the farm and his entire livelihood if his insight proved to be wrong.

  To be perfectly honest I thought that he was slightly mad. Of course I empathized with him. There was no question about that. After all, I was on a pilgrimage myself because I too had lost faith in the modern world somewhere along the line, so I wasn’t hostile to him on principle. It was just that he seemed to be questioning the very foundations of the modern world. He seemed to be questioning both the scientific world-view and the idea of progress. Whole cultures and ways of life were being smashed by the scientific world-v
iew and the forces of progress, and I had long ago given up the idea that a single person could ever stand up to them, let alone achieve anything good on their own.

  I felt a great affection for this troubled young man, but I couldn’t persuade myself to believe in his vision of farming and of life. It simply could not be possible that all of Western civilization, and indeed eastern civilization, was fundamentally wrong.

  How could one man have had an insight into the truth that had somehow escaped everyone else’s notice? And even if he did have such an insight, there was no way of actually putting it into practice.

  But despite these negative thoughts I still wanted to learn more, just in case, however unlikely it might be, there was a single grain of truth in what he had said.

  “Here, rub this on your hands.”

  The farmer had reappeared through the door carrying a handful of leaves.

  “I’m sorry but I don’t know the English name for this plant.”

  He squatted down next to me and gave me the leaves. There were four of them. Each one was the size of the palm of my hand.

  “Scrunch them up into a ball and squeeze them in your fists. The juices that come out will help to cool your blisters.”

  The farmer stood up again and watched me, patiently waiting to see what I was going to do. I smiled gratefully at him and did as he instructed. Immediately my hands began to feel less inflamed.

  “Thanks very much – that really helps … And thanks so very much for taking the time to talk to me. But can I ask something?”

  I paused for a second, trying to think how best I could phrase my question.

  “If science is so mistaken, then why does everyone use pesticides and fertilizers nowadays? And how can you possibly grow rice without these things? How do you protect against diseases and pests? And surely there are very good reasons why people plough the soil and use chemicals, otherwise, why else would everyone do it?”

  The farmer smiled warmly at me and then shook his head.

  “I cannot talk about this any more. You have to see the farm. Only then will you understand.”

  Outside the golden sun was shining brightly. Just as the farmer had predicted, the mysterious spiders had begun their exodus. All across the silver fields I could see fine threads breaking away and drifting upwards on the summer breeze, carrying their brave passengers off to pastures new. I followed the direction of the wind with my gaze and saw that all the brave spiders were being blown into the commercial farms that surrounded us. They wouldn’t last long there, I thought. There would be nothing for them to eat. All the creatures that the spiders preyed upon would already have been killed off with pesticides, and before too long a farm worker would pass through with his sprays and any spiders that were still alive would die an awful death. The spiders had no idea that they were utterly doomed. It was a heart-breaking sight.

  I followed the farmer round the side of the farmhouse and we took the path that led past his mud hut and down to the rice fields below. The door to the hut was slightly ajar and as we passed by I was able to glance inside. Lying on the dirt floor was a grass pillow, a blanket and a small piece of candle. I turned back to the path and had to quicken my pace to catch up with the farmer.

  “Why don’t you sleep in the farmhouse?” I asked when I had caught up.

  The farmer turned and stopped for a moment.

  “The farmhouse is too big for one man. When more people come to join me then we will all use it as a common room. Besides, I like to live in a simple manner. It makes me more sensitive to nature. If I had electric lights, I would be less aware of night and day. If I had gas-powered heating, I wouldn’t notice the changes of the air temperature. All my senses would be blunted.”

  We continued down the hill. I could not stop myself from shaking my head. Who would be brave enough or mad enough to join this man in his single-minded endeavour to swim against the tide of history? How would he ever persuade anyone to join him in dismantling the practices of the modern world if even his own farmhands had abandoned him?

  But just as I was thinking these things, the farmer turned round and smiled at me, and once again I had the disconcerting feeling that he could read my mind.

  “They will come. Don’t worry. When the farm begins to work, they will come.”

  He turned away from me again and continued down the path, and as I watched him go a great wave of affection for this gentle, optimistic man washed over me.

  But would they come? I was not so sure.

  The farmer’s rice fields stretched out for several acres in all directions and were bordered in the distance by the rice paddies of the neighbouring commercial farms.

  We walked in silence along a carefully mown path that crossed through the growing rice until we were right out in the middle of the fields. Surrounded on all sides by rice plants, I felt finally that I had come to rest on the very bedrock of Japan itself.

  “The beginnings of Japanese life!” I exclaimed in delight.

  The farmer grinned at me.

  “Yes. You are exactly right. From these fields and fields like these, Japanese civilization was born. The rice you see before us now and the winter grains – barley and rye – they are the staples of our land, and the rhythms of the two annual harvests give birth to the rhythms of all Japanese life.”

  I shielded my eyes with my hand and gazed into the distance. The commercial farms stretched away towards the horizon. For some reason the plants in the commercial fields seemed to stand much taller and their leaves seemed to be much larger. I strained my eyes to make sure my perception was accurate. Without taking my view from the distant fields, I voiced my suspicions out loud.

  “Is it just my imagination or are those plants much taller than the ones over here?”

  Calmly the farmer responded: “No. It is not your imagination. They are taller. And it is hardly surprising. They are fed on tons of chemical fertilizer and so naturally they shoot up very quickly and waste a lot of energy on extravagant leaves. But that is not the whole story. Look …”

  The farmer knelt down and gestured to me to do the same. With the care of someone who was handling a priceless vase he proceeded to examine one of his precious rice plants.

  “See, the proof is here. I want my plants to be compact and I want all the energy to be stored in the grains and I want them to be nourished by natural processes: by worms bringing oxygen to the soil, by natural fertilizer made from decaying rice straw and by the microorganisms that exist in my soil but not in the soil of my neighbours’ fields.”

  Cupping the head of a small delicate plant, he studied it.

  “My plants each have three or four small leaves, much smaller than those next door. But this year I hope that each plant will yield a hundred grains each. If that happens then they will be yielding more than the outsize plants in my neighbours’ fields.”

  I looked at the delicate grains that rested against the tough palm of the farmer’s hand.

  “But how can that be?”

  “There are many reasons. But let me explain my method then maybe you will understand.”

  We both rose to our feet.

  “In early October, probably next week or a few days after that, I will sow white clover just as we did in the orchard this morning and also I will sow barley …”

  I interrupted.

  “But how can you sow the barley when you haven’t harvested the rice and ploughed the field in preparation?”

  The farmer smiled patiently.

  “It doesn’t matter that the stalks of the rice are still standing and ripening in the late summer sun. It doesn’t matter that the fields are never ploughed. None of this matters at all. The tall rice stalks will protect the seeds from the birds, and nature’s ploughs, the earthworm and the mole, will till the land for us.

  “By the time that I come to harvest the rice, the clover will have grown an inch or two, and then as we walk through the fields harvesting the rice we will trample the sprouting barley seeds i
nto the earth.

  “Then, when the harvest is complete, we will thresh and winnow and store the new grains of rice and return the rice straw to the fields. We will lay the straw on top of the sprouting barley and clover to hide the young plants from pests and also to give back nourishment to the earth.

  “Then, soon after that, we will sow the rice seeds. They will lie dormant amongst the barley and clover until next spring when they will sprout and give birth to next year’s harvest. The chickens will be allowed to wander through the fields and their rich manure will help to decompose the rice and add to the nourishment of the land. All our sowing is complete before the end of the year and we can then return to the orchards above to pick the citrus and persimmons that should now be coming into season.

  “All that remains to do is to let in a little water for a week next year. This will drown any weeds but the rice and clover will survive. The clover will turn yellow and look a bit sick, but it is stronger than the weeds and, when the water is removed, it will spring to life again. The clover is the farmer’s best friend, for not only does it provide natural fertilizer to the soil, it also suffocates the weeds.”

  The farmer grinned.

  “And that is it. Nature can take care of the rest.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. I could hear the farmer’s words but I didn’t know what to think. Even though I could see the proof ripening before my eyes, I could still not quite comprehend that what he was saying was true.

  For my whole life I had been made to think of nature and human life in very different ways. Though I did not want to admit it, I had more in common with the commercial farmers and their chemicals, and their way of viewing the world. I thought of nature as a destructive force that had to be fought against in order to prevent the breakdown of civilization. Plants and people both needed to be schooled and educated; they both needed carefully designed environments in which to flourish. They couldn’t possibly survive without the aid of modern science.