One Day the Shadow Passed Read online

  “When nature is trained and tampered with over generations it becomes hard to return it to its proper course. The reason that you see those dead trees is because the first year I did what I thought was natural. I left the orchard to its own devices. I did no pruning and I barely set foot under the trees. The branches became tangled, branch overlapped branch and some leaves were cast into shadow where they became infected or were attacked by insects. Many trees died.

  “The same happened down in the fields. I left the rice plants to their own devices thinking that without interference they would be free to grow up tough and hardy. But much of the rice crop was too addicted to the chemicals and it had forgotten how to cope without the nitrogen and phosphates, and its natural defences that had been made unnecessary by the years of pesticides had broken down …”

  He leant forward and put another small piece of wood on the summer fire.

  “I was foolish. I thought that I could return this farm to its natural state overnight. Of course it was never going to be that easy, no more than one can quickly restore a human being who is dependent on all the crutches and supports of modern urban civilization to natural health.”

  He looked up at me again and I could see in his eyes a sincere desire to convince me.

  “Nature is so sturdy and yet she is so delicate. The trees in the orchard can survive frost and floods and battery by wild storms. The bough of a citrus tree is as strong and unbreakable as a leather whip. Can the wind and rain hurt a whip? No. But if a man goes into the orchard with a pair of scissors and chooses a young tree and cuts down a single bud from that tree, then that alone will be enough to change the course of the life of the whole plant. That bough will grow short and will be buried by the other limbs of the tree. It will fall into shadow and it will become the prey of insects and disease. One day the disease may grow to take over the whole tree. And so because one year we made just one cut, we are obliged forever more to trim and cut all the branches to compensate and try to return the tree to its natural state. Surely, it is better never to cut at all?”

  I was so confused. I didn’t know whether to believe what he was saying or not. All I knew was that his farm appeared to be on the brink of total failure.

  “But will the farm survive? Can you ever bring it back in line with nature?”

  “The first year was bad. I lost three hundred trees, half an acre of rice and half an acre of barley. The second year it was much worse. But last year was only as bad as the first year. I lost three hundred more trees in the northern end of the farm and rice blast carried off half an acre, but some of the trees that almost died in the first year have now begun to return to full health and these new trees are so strong and vigorous you would be amazed to see them. After three years I have studied the natural shape so carefully that I can now keep my pruning to the minimum and next year I will hardly have to prune at all.”

  I inhaled deeply in shock. Over one thousand trees destroyed. This ancient orchard, tended by hand since the days of the samurai, decimated in three years. And more than an acre and a half of rice and barley lost to disease that could be prevented so easily with a regular dose of poison. I shook my head in awe at the destruction.

  “But what if the harvest is down again next year? I am sorry to ask you this, but what if you still haven’t got it right? What if the farm shrinks even further? How will you survive?”

  “That won’t happen, but even if it did I need little to survive. I gave away all the family savings as alms for the poor. I sold all the farm machinery and gave the profit away too. Nature will provide for me, she will fill my belly and the barn as well. No one comes to the farm to rob me, for I have nothing. It is the commercial farmers who need money. Their plants are addicted to the expensive chemicals. They need machinery and fuel and spare parts. I need only my own good health.”

  As he spoke I thought of Masumi the young woman, waiting patiently. I had to struggle to suppress my rising sense of disbelief at this gentle man’s seeming inability to engage with the modern world, but when I thought of her I could suppress my horror no longer. Slowly and deliberately, I framed my question. Although I feared his answer, I had to know the truth.

  “Please, forgive me for asking, but who is Masumi and why does she really come every week?”

  For the first time since I’d met him, the farmer looked embarrassed and a blush coloured his ruddy cheeks.

  “Masumi and I grew up together in the village and used to play in the meadows and woods. She was my childhood sweetheart …”

  He paused and stared at his hands on his lap.

  “Masumi was engaged to be married to a rich young man, but he died in the war…”

  He looked up at me and for the first and only time I sensed that he was seeking my understanding in a different way.

  “Next spring, just after the barley harvest, we plan to marry. Her father was a rich merchant. He is dead now, but her mother and brothers will only allow the marriage to go ahead if the farm is successful and I have prospects. You see, they do not understand. They regard what I am doing as madness and so they withhold their permission but I am confident that by next spring I will be able to show them that they are wrong.”

  I could scarcely believe my ears. It was all far worse than I had feared. Although I had only known this man for a few hours, I felt completely bound up in his fate.

  “But, Fumimoto-san, you can’t do this. You can’t go on like this. Why not go to the agricultural co-operative and ask for some pesticide, just for this one year at least? Let someone else follow your dream, or do it in some years’ time when you are married and have a family and the farm is prosperous. You will be wealthy then and you can devote a small corner of the land to experiments.”

  The farmer interrupted my desperate pleadings.

  “James, that would never work. I would become a different person if I did what you advised. In life you can either choose to follow your heart or not. There is no middle way. You cannot follow your heart a little bit, just in the evenings, or only at the weekends.

  “It is like the women who dye the clothes in the village. Every day they wash the cotton in the vats of blue dye, and after ten years their hands are stained for ever. If I did what you say and became a commercial farmer, I would be rich and prosperous, maybe, but I would for ever more be a commercial farmer. I would forget the insight that I have had and no one would ever know that all mankind’s ideas of progress are mistaken and that the world doesn’t have to be like this.”

  He paused again and looked up at the ceiling and sighed.

  “Sometimes I lie awake at night in the mud hut, with only the moon as my companion, and I wonder to myself. If it were possible to pass this cup to someone else then maybe I would.”

  He turned his face to me again and his eyes were burning with passion. He raised the palms of his hands to the heavens.

  “But look around! There is no one else – not on this farm, not in Yokohama, not even in the whole of Japan, not even perhaps in the world. So it falls on me to do it. Humanity must learn that it knows nothing, or its arrogance will only bring more death and destruction and unhappiness. And words alone will never convince people so I must demonstrate that this is true and the only way I can do this is through farming …”

  We fell into silence again.

  Finally, I said: “But how can you bear to carry on, with the risk of losing her hanging over your head? Doesn’t your rational mind tell you that this is madness?”

  “James, it is often the fate of lovers that they have to suffer difficult trials. I simply think that Masumi and myself are no different. And you are right, my rational mind does panic and it does try to take control of my life, but that is not the way.

  “I think of the tale of the brave archer Yoichi who was challenged to shoot a single fan suspended over a boat drifting offshore. He drew back the string and took aim with his mind, but his eyes watered and his fingers shook. Luckily, he was wise, he let his heart, not his m
ind, take aim and loose the arrow, and he hit his mark.

  “So you are right: sometimes, my mind tries to deceive me and tell me there are other ways, but in my heart I know this is not so. And if you do not do what you know in your heart of hearts to be right, then all else is lost, all else will unravel.

  “If I take one step back down the road from which I have turned, my heart will shrivel up into dust and in a single night I will become like an old man. I have seen the truth of the world and now I can never betray it. If I do I will lose my spirit itself and if that happens I will also lose Masumi …”

  I shook my head in wonder. I was now so confused that I could not even recognize the emotions I was feeling. Was it despair? Or was it hope? Or was it simply incredulity at the courage of the farmer who was making this lonely, foolhardy stand against the modern scientific world and the arrogance of foolish and childish mankind?

  The farmer was looking at me with pity.

  “Have you forgotten that you have also seen the healthy orchard and that you have walked amongst the sturdy rice plants that are ripening in the fields below? You are like a child who has lost both his parents and doesn’t know what to believe. Or like the lamb who has been separated from the flock and doesn’t know where to turn.

  “I tell you that, within seven years, even the barren field that we worked this morning will bring forth great fruit and not one drop of poison will have sullied its earth. This farm will be reborn. The summer is on its way. You must have faith.”

  “And what about Masumi?”

  “Masumi is dearer to me than all the world. I will never allow her to become a lonely spinster. We will marry next year when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom. The seven herbs of spring will adorn her bridal gown and the children from the village will be her bridesmaids.”

  He rose to his feet.

  “But it is time now for me to go back out. One man’s life on earth is nothing more than an echo resounding through the mountains and off into the empty sky. If I am to leave my mark here so that others can find inspiration, then I must work hard day and night. Will you join me or not?”

  I looked down at my hands. Miraculously, the blisters seemed to have healed completely.

  “Yes. Even if I can’t use the scythe any more, I can at least walk behind you and sow the seeds.”

  I stood up and followed the farmer through the door and out into the warm embrace of the late afternoon sun.

  There once was an Emperor who owned a night-coloured pearl. No one who had asked had ever been allowed to see this pearl and even the Emperor himself had never laid eyes on it, for it was such an ancient heirloom that it was kept locked away in a box. But the Emperor often explained that the smooth-running of the empire depended entirely upon the night-coloured pearl’s safekeeping.

  One day the Emperor went wandering to the north over the cold mountains and across the dark sea and when he got to the edge of the world, he looked over to see what lay beyond.

  When he returned home he realized that the night-coloured pearl had gone. The people, who had previously been as honest as the deer in the woods, had become greedy and unruly. The trustworthy men now knew that there was a value to their trustworthiness and the virtuous men, who previously had been as meek as the lambs in the fields, knew that they were virtuous and secretly they puffed up their chests.

  The Emperor shook his head in despair. The whole empire was beginning to crumble. “I should never have gone to look over the edge of the world. I must find the night-coloured pearl.”

  First, he sent out scientists to find it. They invented microscopes and telescopes and all sorts of machines, but the more they looked, the bigger the world became. No telescope could see far enough and no microscope could see small enough; there was always something further away or something smaller to see. Finally, they threw up their hands in despair and sighed, “this way will never work.”

  So the Emperor turned to the philosophers, but the more they thought and argued the more confused they all became.

  Finally, in desperation, he turned to his generals. “You have to help me. Go into our neighbours’ lands and do whatever you have to do to bring me back the night-coloured pearl.”

  Soon there were war horses and soldiers camped in the suburbs, and slaves marched in chains through the streets.

  The Emperor retired to bed in despair but when he fell asleep he had a dream and in the dream he saw a small child playing in a meadow. The Emperor walked out into the field and the child stopped her game and spoke.

  “Why do you look for it when it cannot be seen? Why do you listen for it when it cannot be heard? Why do you reach for it when it can never be grasped? If you approach it, it will recede. If you draw away from it, it will come. Softly it flows, like water, and yet it destroys the hardest things. It dwells in the low places that people disdain and all the rivers of the world pour into it. It does not stand in front of the crowd, it sits behind. It does not shout out loud from rooftops, it whispers in the dead of night.”

  On hearing these words the Emperor became even more desperate.

  He fell to his knees before the child and begged: “But I have to have the night-coloured pearl. I want it more than life itself.”

  The child looked at the Emperor very solemnly.

  “Move as cautiously as someone crossing a tightrope over a ravine. Be as courteous as a guest in a stranger’s house and as alert as a spy in an enemy camp. Be as fragile as melting ice and malleable as a lump of clay. Be as clear and still as a glass of water. But never, ever, try to possess the night-coloured pearl.”

  The Emperor woke up in terror. He was exhausted and he had gone past the point of despair. He sank back into his bed in a fever and remembered his dream, and then he realized that he would never find the night-coloured pearl.

  Finally, his mind cleared and even despair had left him and there, in the middle of nothingness, was the night-coloured pearl.

  The Emperor shut his eyes and smiled to himself.

  “Nothingness, whom I never bothered to ask for help, all along had the night-coloured pearl.”

  And so the following morning we parted company. We had worked till late in the fields the night before and the moon was up as we made our slow way back to the farmhouse. After dinner I had collapsed exhausted into my bed by the fire. I was not used to farm work, but more exhausting than the farm work itself had been the experiences of the day.

  The farmer’s entire life and work had the effect of opening up great new vistas to me that left me filled with hope but which also left me feeling overwhelmed from the effort of trying to understand everything I was seeing.

  The next morning after breakfast, the farmer gave me back my shirt. It was shining white like the robes of a king. He handed me some rice wrapped in a banana leaf and filled my water bottle with fresh water. I gathered together my handful of belongings and set about tidying my bedclothes. I folded up the blue work shirt that he had lent me and arranged the slippers neatly next to the grass pillow.

  I stepped into the farmyard for the last time to find the farmer talking quietly to an old man who was also dressed in the straw shoes and blue-cotton work clothes of the traditional farmer. A brown farm horse was tied to the wooden gate. When the farmer saw me he broke off from his conversation and, looking around at the beautiful day, he smiled.

  “It is a fine morning for a departure. Even the last spiders have decided to go.”

  He turned to the old man and said something in Japanese and then ushered me over.

  “Come and meet Mitsuo. He has come up this morning to help me with some delicate work. I think that I am skilled in the orchard but, if I watch Mitsuo for even one minute, I always learn something new.”

  Whilst I bowed to the old man and muttered a few phrases in my halting Japanese, the farmer walked over and unhitched the horse from the post and led it back over.

  “There are hundreds of crossroads in the wood. A stranger like you will definitely go astray
– but I think you already know that. This horse knows the way. He will lead you safely to the village where you can rejoin your path. When you reach the first house, take him by the bridle, turn him round and pat him on the flank and he will come back here.”

  He adjusted the reins and tightened the saddle belt under the horse’s belly and then turned to me for one last time.

  “You are sure you won’t stay? Perhaps you should rest for one more day? You could join us in the orchard. It is not such hard work as out in the fields. Or you could just stretch your legs in the wood.”

  I smiled and shook my head.

  “Yes. I’m sure. But thank you. It’s time I pressed on. Besides, I would only slow you two down.”

  “You are too hard on yourself! You saved me many hours of work. I only hope that one day you will come back here and see the fruits of your labour.”

  I smiled in gratitude as I struggled to suppress a tear. Forgetting the customs of rural Japan I stepped up to the farmer and hugged him warmly and grasped his right hand firmly in my own.

  “Thank you for all your hospitality. I’m so grateful to you for sharing this time with me. I cannot find the words.”

  The farmer placed his hand on my shoulder and smiled.

  “There is no need for words.”

  He helped me up into the saddle and then, taking the horse by the bridle, he led us to the farmyard gate and patted the horse on its flank.

  “Farewell, Pilgrim. Until we meet again!”

  And so it was on horseback that I finally left this marvellous place. As I gently swayed from side to side, enjoying the rocking motion of the horse’s patient steps, I looked back up towards the top of the orchard to where I had first entered this strange world, only one day and a lifetime before, and in the distance I could see the orange glow of the citrus fruits hiding in the healthy trees.

  Enjoying the experience of being a passenger, I soaked up the morning sun. The track climbed the hill and bent slowly round the top of the farm before plunging back into the wooded slopes above, but before we disappeared into the shade of the trees I turned to look down the hill one last time.