At last, Enoki can be just a tree.
Silently Burning
It always makes me nervous when they stare at my hands. Taking care not to falter, I set my brush down on the open page of the album I’ve been entrusted with and begin to write. Whatever happens, I mustn’t make a mistake. Meanwhile, the owner of the album stands on the other side of the counter of the small temple office, staring fixedly at my handiwork. Maybe she isn’t actually staring, but I feel like she is.
The visitor is a woman in her fifties. She’s most likely concerned because I appear too young to be doing this job. I’m not wearing any makeup, and with my jet-black hair in a simple shoulder-length cut, I probably look even younger than I am. I have bangs, which doesn’t help matters either. As more people hand over their albums to me, their hesitation is palpable. “Is the chief priest not in today?” some of them ask, their eyes full of misgivings. Their fervent hope that it’ll be the chief priest who writes in their album rather than me spills out of their every pore.
All this makes me a bit despondent, but I can understand why they would feel that way. The younger someone is, the less accomplished their calligraphy is likely to be—that’s the simple fact of the matter. People treasure their shuin albums, and if they’ve gone out of their way to get them signed and stamped, then they want them to look as elegant as possible. They want the calligraphy to be beautiful. I don’t have an album but if I did, I’m sure I’d feel the same. Ultimately, though, everyone gets it: album-signing is about the unpredictable, unrepeatable encounter between calligrapher and album owner. That’s all part of the fun.
When I’ve finished, I cover my handiwork with a piece of thin blotting paper cut to exactly the right size, then close the album. With the blotting paper on top I can still see the letters I have inked, but it looks as if the text has moved farther away, something I always find a bit disconcerting. Cutting pieces of blotting paper in half so that they fit the albums is one of several tasks I perform when I have nothing else to do. There is always a good number of people visiting the temple to collect stamps, so if I don’t cut up fresh batches of blotting paper regularly, I often end up short.
“That’s three hundred yen,” I say, returning the album with its prettily patterned washi cover to its owner. The woman must have had her money ready because it appears on my palm instantly, like some magic trick. Under the overcast, drizzling sky, the three silver coins are dazzlingly bright.
I assume the woman must have checked my handiwork then and there, because as I am putting the money away, I hear her speak.
“But what lovely writing!” Her words seem to have flown out of her mouth of their own accord.
“Thank you,” I say, looking up and then immediately dipping my head. I’m not very good at looking people in the eye while I talk.
There is a particular expression that most people’s faces take on when they see my calligraphy, somewhere between surprise and satisfaction. Their expressions also say, I’m glad I got this girl to write in my album. It seems like the more they doubt my abilities to begin with, the more overjoyed they are when they see the results. It’s hardly my fault if they decide to underestimate what a young woman like me is capable of, but I’m still relieved to see them looking pleased.
I’ve been studying calligraphy since I was small. The other kids I knew all turned their noses up at it because it was uncool, but I liked the hush that would settle within me when I was doing it. The simplicity of the world that took shape on the page in front of me, a world made up of ink, and ink alone, provided me with an escape route from the blaring clatter of the outside world.
While I was at university, the chief priest at my local temple began to suffer from chronic back pain, and a neighbor introduced me as a potential replacement. That was how I came by my first temporary job as temple calligrapher. Strictly speaking, it wasn’t just calligraphy I was doing—there were other menial tasks involved, but I enjoyed those, too. There was something deeply satisfying about having a fixed, unchanging set of duties to accomplish.
Even after graduating from university I continued to attend calligraphy lessons, and so the job offers kept coming. Sometimes I’d go to different temples on different days of the week, but my tasks were always pretty much the same. Every day, I would sit there, brush in hand, and write.
I found I liked sitting in the spot reserved for the calligrapher inside the temple office, which sold talismans and ema—wooden plaques for people to write their prayers on. All kinds of people would come by, do whatever they’d come to do, and leave. There were always certain locals who came day in, day out, and whom I got to know by sight. Sometimes they would give me boiled sweets or little cakes. Perhaps they found it funny, seeing a young person like me sitting there so solemnly in my monk’s work clothes. I’ve always been told that I don’t have a very expressive face.
People come to temples to pray for different things: safety for their family, academic success, safety on the roads, warding off evil, luck in love, and so on. They pray, and I watch. I come to the temple practically every day, but I’ve never once prayed. I guess it’s not just expressiveness I’m lacking in, but feelings, too—by which I mean to say, I don’t have any idea what I’d pray for. I don’t
