Mister Timeless Blyth, page 23
Please, he said, guiding me into a little anteroom where I was even more surprised to find Ishiwata seated. His face was a mask, like something from Noh drama, blank and impassive.
There were the usual deferential politenesses, but more quickly than usual they got down to business.
As it happened, they too had been discussing just such an initiative on the part of the Emperor, and my suggestion chimed perfectly with their own thinking. It had been put to the Emperor – subtly and deferentially – that a formal statement would be well received in the wider world beyond Japanese shores.
I suggested that like the Jewel Box speech, ending the war, this message too should be transmitted as a radio broadcast.
That too has been discussed, said Yamanashi. It will be called Ningen Sengen. The Imperial Declaration of Humanity.
I nodded. That seems well chosen. It has a ring to it.
Yamanashi continued. You are good friends with Mr Henderson at SCAP?
We share a love of haiku, I said.
And I have been telling Minister Ishiwata of the good work you have been doing together on behalf of the School.
The Minister gave a slight nod.
It has been suggested, continued Yamanashi, that you and Mr Henderson also work on a draft of the declaration, in English.
It would be an honour, I said, with a little sideways nod to Ishiwata.
I understood the delicacy of the situation. It was important that the initiative for the declaration should be seen as coming from the Emperor, but also that it met with the full approval of the Americans.
This is where you come in, said Yamanashi. Hakuin says the sound of one hand is difficult to hear.
He held up his right hand.
In this case we need both hands.
He held up his left hand, brought his palms together in a loud clap.
Which hand made the sound?
He laughed. You are man-in-the-middle, can bring both sides together.
He clapped again.
Ha!
Mindful of the Japanese love of formality and their rambling circuitousness of discourse, I was reluctant initially to be too bold in my suggestions. But it was clear we were in agreement – we had to come up with a form of words that could be open to interpretation, that would keep both sides happy, as it were. In relation to the Emperor’s supposed divinity (which of course he had never claimed in the first place), this should be seen as fulfilling a symbolic, a ceremonial function. Might it be viewed as a kind of metaphor, a myth in the broadest sense of the term?
Of course the Minister flinched at the word myth, and I had to sidestep, ramble about mythos and logos, the very structures by which we understand our humanity, our place in the universe, our sense of hierarchy. I spoke of Nama Rupa – name and form. (I actually heard myself saying this!)
He began to glaze over.
Yamanashi intervened, said it was a matter of framing the Emperor’s declaration in a way that allowed him to retain his dignity in the eyes of his own people, but which would also placate the Americans and reassure them that his position was not a threat to them.
Ishiwata made one of those little sideways movements of the head with which I had become so familiar. noncommittal, prevarication in the smallest gesture.
Anno…
He sat in silence for a few moments as if in deep contemplation, fingertips pressed together in front of him. Then he gave a low guttural grunt that came from deep in his gut, and he stood up.
So…
He bowed, a stiff nod of the head, thanked me most courteously and said the Admiral would be in touch with me soon about how to proceed.
Later Yamanashi took me aside and explained that the Minister was absolutely ferocious about the need for tact and secrecy. I had heard of the bloody events surrounding the Emperor’s Jewel Box broadcast, the rebel army officers who had tried to prevent it going ahead. What I hadn’t realised was Ishiwata had been caught up in the chaos and had only narrowly escaped with his life.
The uprising had become known as the Kyujo Incident and had been nothing less than an attempted coup, a refusal to surrender. If it came to it, the rebels would prefer the honourable death of the hundred million.
Led by two disaffected officers, Hatanaka and Shiizaki, they had invaded the Imperial palace trying to find the recording of the Emperor’s speech. Ishiwata had concealed it and had it smuggled out (as myth had it, in that laundry basket full of underwear). He himself had hidden in a dank cellar, a vault beneath the palace while the rebels searched for him, intending to disembowel him. All the telephone lines were cut and the whole place was in darkness due to a black-out in anticipation of an air raid. The rebel leaders, realising the tape had gone, hurried to the broadcasting studios of NHK, hoping to stop the transmission. When that failed, the two ringleaders left and headed across town, Hatanaka on a motorcycle, Shiizaki on horseback, throwing off leaflets as they went.
As the Emperor’s speech was broadcast, both men shot themselves, each with a bullet to the head.
Good God, I said to Yamanashi. A real blood-and-thunder story.
I think they saw themselves like the Forty-Seven Ronin.
I’m sure.
And at least you can understand why Minister Ishiwata takes this whole matter so seriously.
I can only imagine, I said.
I pictured him, cut off in the cellar, a dungeon, in complete darkness – a descent into the abyss – not knowing when it was safe to move, or what carnage to expect when he finally did emerge.
And at least I understood the Minister’s intensity, his inwardness, that Noh-mask of a face.
So.
Word came through very quickly, just a few days after our meeting at the school. The intention was that the Emperor’s declaration be broadcast on New Year’s Day. It was already the first week of December so the whole thing was a matter of some urgency.
I was picked up as usual in the official staff car and taken to SCAP headquarters where I went directly to Henderson’s office.
Henderson was surprised at my announcing we had important work to do, and as he said later, slightly alarmed at my ‘state of high excitement.’ I told him our work on Gakushuin would have to wait. We had been asked to prepare – immediately – a draft of the Emperor’s forthcoming Declaration, for transmission on January 1st. Henderson’s reaction was akin to panic, and he retreated behind protocol, saying he could do nothing in the meantime as his immediate superior, General Dyke, was away for a few days. The matter would have to wait.
As patiently as I could, I explained that we didn’t have a few days, and that the very future of Japan might depend on our getting it just right.
My rhetoric had an affect, and he started jotting down notes as I outlined what was required.
I thought there should be a preamble to the message, making a virtue of the fact that it was being broadcast at New Year.
Happy Holidays! said Henderson.
A resolution on behalf of the nation.
Should we introduce a kigo, a season-word?
We settled to it, got to work.
The ties between us a matter of trust and affection… not dependent upon myths and legends…not based on the idea of the Emperor’s divinity or of the superiority of the Japanese people…
Henderson said the crux of it was right there in that one word, divinity.
For the Westerners, I said, that’s certainly the case. But for the Japanese not at all. It comes down to a misunderstanding, perhaps a misinterpretation of the word kami. Yes it means god, but not with a capital G. It carries the sense of someone or something superior, worthy of respect and even worship. But Shinto is inherently animistic. It might worship a stone or a tree.
Or any one of eight million gods.
Indeed.
And yet as I understand it, said Henderson, Japanese are essentially agnostic. They worship their ancestors, they marry in Shinto ceremonies and take part in Buddhist rites.
And to my mind they’re none the worse for it!
So where does that leave us? asked Henderson, looking perplexed.
With a job to do, I said. A koan to be solved.
After two hours we had a draft of the speech written out on his yellow notepaper. I copied it out, word for word, in a notepad of my own and returned his draft to him, telling him to destroy it.
He looked confused, as if he thought I might be joking, or I had become unhinged. But I assured him I was being perfectly serious and that secrecy was essential.
Real cloak and dagger stuff, he said, and in truth there was something faintly ridiculous about it all. But these were the roles we had been assigned, and we had to play them well or not at all.
I sat up all night working and reworking the short statement, wrote several drafts on the same kind of yellow paper that Henderson had used – he had given me sheets of it from his own supply.
Ningen Sengen.
Getting it just right. The best words in the best order.
We met again in the morning, went through it sentence by sentence:
The ties between Us…capitalised, as the royal We… and Our people have always stood upon mutual trust and affection. They do not depend upon legends and myths….
This was a decent beginning. But for the Japanese consciousness, the Japanese sensibility, there had to be a slight change in emphasis.
I made a suggestion:
The Ties between Us and Our people do not only depend upon legends and myths, but also upon mutual trust and affection…
Henderson liked that. He said it left a door open, gave room for manoeuvre. I told him the Japanese version would depend on that slight ambiguity. In a sense we were trying to make one statement to the Japanese and another to the Americans.
When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less…
The question is, said Alice, whether you can make words mean so many different things…
Nama Rupa.
Again I had a sleepless night as I stayed awake, fine-tuning my version of the speech. I presented it to Henderson early the next morning, after he had solemnly assured me he had burned his own draft in a metal bin in his office, then poured water over the ashes and emptied it down a drain.
To make assurance doubly sure, I said.
Indeed.
Henderson was impressed. He said I had come up with a sophisticated way of making a very fine distinction.
Damn it, he said. You’re good!
The message was transmitted on Japanese radio. The English version was aired on the American Forces Network and the BBC World Service. Tomiko and I listened, in our new home in Mejiro, on the Gakushuin campus. New Year’s Day 1946. Showa 21.
Even now, almost twenty years later, I can recall the statement, word for word.
It began with what I had suggested, the (very Japanese) reference to the season, the auspicious date, a time of new beginnings.
This is a new year, a new year for Japan, a new world with new ideals, with Humanity above nationality, and the Great Goal, Brotherhood, based upon natural affection, that of the family, that of the nation and that of mankind. In our country, love of the family and love of the nation have always been specially strong. Now let us work towards love of mankind.
There were a few other formalities, then the passage which Henderson and I had delivered.
The ties between us and our people have always stood upon mutual trust and affection. They do not only depend upon mere legends and myths. They are not predicated upon the false conception that the Emperor is divine and that the Japanese people are superior to other races and fated to rule the world.
Translations were broadcast in Russian and French.
Henderson and I had contributed our tuppenceworth, our ten cents worth, our little footnote to the history of the time. We celebrated, moderately, with a drink in a little bar in Shinjuku, in a street that had survived the firebombing.
It takes a kind of resilience, I said, and courage, to reopen for business like this, to carry on.
Like London in the blitz, said Henderson.
Exactly so.
London. Another life. My mother had survived and was well, as was Dora, and after VJ Day, Ma had received a note from Annie, saying she and Lee had made it through, unharmed
I closed my eyes a moment, consciously sent them all goodwill.
Henderson raised his little glass of sake – it was all that was on offer in the meantime.
To the Declaration of Humanity, he said.
Humanity, I said, raising my own glass of soda water.
On the wall behind the bar was a framed portrait of the Emperor and a Rising Sun flag. On the counter was a little Daruma doll, like the one that had sustained me during my detention in Kobe.
The barman was looking across at us, face blank. I raised my glass to him.
Nana korobi ya oki… I said.
Seven times down, eight times up.
His look was still uncomprehending, but he gave the slightest nod of the head.
Hai.
Yamanashi and Ishiwata thanked me for my work on the Declaration, and passed on the thanks of the Emperor himself.
I have another of my sheets of lined yellow paper from this time on which I had written – quickly, to judge by the headlong forward slant of the script – notes for Yamanashi, outlining my further thoughts (for what they were worth) on the Emperor’s role.
The Emperors of Japan have always been the supporters and the symbol of Japanese culture. But no culture is possible without a world view, a religion. In Japan this has largely been that of Mahayana Buddhism, and the unique contribution of Japan to world culture is the putting into practice, especially in daily life, of the principles of Kegon Philosophy. This is the power of Japan, the origin of its self-respect, and the only foundation for its future influence.
The model of Kegon philosophy was one that I thought would have great appeal, at least in its structure. The Kegon school taught that the Buddha himself was the centre and ground of the universe, and all phenomena emanated from his own being. In ancient times the imperial court had appreciated the imagery of a central power to which all subsidiary things owed their being.
Yamanashi agreed it was a powerful image.
The Emperor, I argued, should be the spiritual leader of his people. Without this, his cultural leadership would become mere dilettantism, and have no moral or spiritual power. He should be himself religious and show great interest in all practical religion as socially effective. He should be principally Buddhist in vocabulary and flavour but should welcome all Christian religious experience and thought.
(I said modern Buddhism should assimilate all the good of Christianity without the shortcomings).
No easy task, said Yamanashi.
Take the King of England, I said. (Please!) He is head of the Church, but influences culture very little. The Emperor should be head of the spiritual church of Japan. He should be an international leader in the fields of universal brotherhood, freedom of religion and belief. He should propose a poetical world view, putting beauty before comfort, significance before beauty. He should be leader in the country of Shakespeare, Hakurakuten, Basho, Plotinus, Spinoza, Eckhart, Gandhi, Christ, Buddha…
Yamanashi applauded.
And would the bible of this country, he asked, be Zen in English Literature and Oriental Classics?
I laughed.
I shall insist on it being used as a textbook in every school!
At a practical level, I suggested to Yamanashi that the Emperor alone could provide the emotional motive power for the proper distribution of food, to put an end to the black market. He should make a trip round Japan, visit the coal mines and farming districts. He should listen to the people, talk to them, ask them questions. On his return he should make a statement about the hoarding of food. He should stress the importance of making sacrifices now, just as in war time. He should uncork some feeling, pull out the stop marked vox humana, and appeal to Japanese to share their supplies for the greater good.
Once again Yamanashi thanked me and he said my suggestion was timely. Plans were already in place for just such an initiative.
It was not long before the Emperor was visiting the devastated areas, making speeches, redefining his public role.
If I am honest – and I hope I always am – I watched with a curious detachment (or detached curiosity) as things took their course. I had played my own small part but found it unsettling, almost surreal, to see the grainy newspaper photographs of the Emperor, uncertain, endeavouring to embrace his newly-declared Humanity, walking with his entourage through blitzed and burned-out cities – Yokohama, Kagoshima. It was particularly poignant to see this small figure in his overcoat and homburg hat, standing on an open-air platform in Hiroshima, addressing a crowd of thousands, all standing to attention, bare heads bowed in reverence.
It all had an air of unreality, or perhaps heightened reality. It was like a scene from a film, as if it had been stage-managed, which of course it had. Reality framed to make it more real, and paradoxically, rendered more true for being filmed in black-and-white. An artifice then, but as I looked on I felt a certainty that this process was essential. In the interest of the greater good, the good of the nation, this was how it had to be.
