Ode to silence
The weather report says that it shall rain the entire week. I take my cup of coffee and look outside the window. It hardly matters how my coffee tastes like anymore. I have 5 hours of experiment left before I take my umbrella and a solitary walk towards home. At a distance, I could see a lady cleaning a small bar and preparing for the evening service.
Last weekend, I discovered a new bar hidden on a small street that usually stretches to the heart of Sendai’s nightlife. A few hundred metres away, I could see a dull gate marking Kokubuncho in green. There is also a clock which is rather questionable. The zelkova trees are wet, hidden and usually neglected until Christmas. On the opposite end, I could see an Italian restaurant with huge letters on its wall : “Are you looking for recommendations around here?” I gasp and ask my friend to check if this new bar is open yet.
After a few flight of steps, we open the door and a man in thirties behind the counter welcomes us. Dressed in black, he donned a hat which fitted right between a bowler and a bearskin. He smiles, exchanges pleasantries and we take our seats. I look at the menu, ask for a glass of red wine while my friend gets a coffee-infused liqueur for herself.
“I used to work at a bar in the Bunka Yokocho before I opened this,” he takes the conversation ahead. “But you see, they didn’t really serve any food. Just alcohol,” he lamented.
“You like cooking?”, my friend asked.
“Yeah. That is why I decided to open this bar,” he explained.
“When did you start this?”, I enquired.
“Oh, only this month,” he smiled.
There was a certain sense of Columbian discovery that rushed through me at that moment. I wasn’t really the first customer but casual arrogance wanted me to be one.
“So, what do you recommend for food?,” I further ask him.
“Hmm..”, he pondered and suggested thinly sliced, fried carrots with a pinch of salt. We settle for the same. In the meantime, another customer who appeared to be an acquaintance to the owner-bartender, entered. He bowed in courtesy and took his seat right next to us.
Our indirect triangular conversations turned into a dialogue and soon found ourselves discussing Osamu Dazai’s No longer human and Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro with the stranger. And even before we could realise, the subtle drowsiness from our glasses and chopsticks turned into an ode for Dazai, Soseki and the brutally unexplainable nature of humans.
My friend took out her book of kanjis which she has been practicing since spring. I ask her about her favourite one.
“I love kaze (wind),” she replied. “Wait, uh… I think shinu (death) is more beautiful though,” she added.
“Why so?”, I wondered.
“You see, a part of the character looks like evening but not night. There is a sense of hope,” she explained.
“Your pronunciation is beautiful,” the stranger commented. He ordered a coffee-infused liqueur for himself too and the conversation slipped into appreciation of Japanese language, all over again.
The bar itself is fragrant of wood, leather and coffee-table books. There are books about the art of making cocktails and I see Singapore Sling on one of the covers. At the same time, I dive into the fried carrots and ask for something sweet. The bartender makes me a quick refreshing wine-sangria drink.
Even before I could take a sip, my friend enquired,“Why have you stopped writing poetry?,”. This was one of the few questions which I always avoided. It has been 5 years since I performed my poetry in front of an audience. Since then, I have been vomiting in my diary like a resentful child who wants to be heard but cannot speak. Much akin to sagging breasts, there was a time when there were men who would caress but none could care lesser now. I shrug off the question and delay it for another day.
“I can write poetry. May I write one?,” the stranger asked, overhearing us. “Sure!,” I said : a rather smooth escape from explaining myself
The stranger took a page and in big red letters wrote :
All along life, if saké cup is what I wonder
Is it now empty?
Dazai would have surely offered a drink if he would have been alive.
I don’t remember when we left the bar. The stranger stayed back and a girl in her twenties joined the bartender to help him through the night. The roads looked wet and the dampened yellow flame of the evening comforted the petrichor.
That night, we entered the bar as two different people meeting three others. By the time we left, there was one.
The ice in my glass melted into the leftover sangria and I sip my coffee looking at the lady at a distance.
“Who knows how many people would visit her bar tonight,” I smile.
