Drums: Heartbeat

As I stepped across the threshold from the plastic grass matt into the warm, steamy room, I saw the short, stubby figure of Aki form into existence, waddling quickly toward me.

"Ala! Angel-san! So glad you are here right now." Her long, scratchy washcloth hung over her sticky, wet, short black hair. She took my hand and pulled me to a faucet next to her belongings.

"Sit here," she commanded.

I sat on a pink plastic stool and set my rinse bucket on the tiled shelf in front of my knees. One by one I took the supplies out of my little bathing basket and prepared to rinse and wash as I listened to her story.

"Do you know about the drums," she asked as she whipped the cloth off her shoulders and rubbed vigorously with bar soap, making a rich, white lather over her thighs.

"Before there was anything, there was sound. That sound is God Himself. It's the sound of a heartbeat and that heartbeat is the beginning of all life. You see, it's just like when new life is beginning to form the womb of a woman. Before it even takes the shape of a little human, it has a heartbeat. Then the little mass of matter grows around that heartbeat and eventually, it becomes life.

Well, it's the same with the birth of the world. First there was a very big heartbeat and that rhythm lured the gods, you know, spiritual mass, from each of their places in the universe, bringing them all together to a central location- here - earth. They joined in a cave just a few kilometers from here.

Take this," she said, handing me her lathered rag and turning her back to me. By now, I was accustomed to just the right amount of pressure required to wash Aki's back. She'd taught me well. As I pushed the crumpled cloth in my palm in small circular motions over one shoulder, she continued.

"As the energy of all the heavenly gods came together, it was like a big spiraling wind." She whipped her arms in the air to demonstrate. "They swirled together making light. This brought into existence Amaterasu, the sun goddess".

"By now, the sound of the heartbeat was louder, stronger, more powerful. Boom! Boom! Boom - Boom!"

Aki's rough voice bounced off the steamy tiled walls of the little sento. The other women looked up from their rituals, nodding to affirm their listening participation in Aki's story.

"Amaterasu became excited, no longer content to stay in her dark, cold cave. Drawn to the sound, she began moving toward its source. Unsure of what lay ahead, however, she moved slowly, and with caution. As she neared the mouth of the cave, an amazing thing happened: she felt warm, and her light began to grow. She proceeded, crossing the opening of her narrow dwelling, and out into a wide-open space. Her light spilled out from her, covering the earth and all its waters and stretching all the way to the sky."

Aki turned back to face me, taking her cloth from my hands.

"Thank you," she said, and without breaking the movement of her body, she placed her rinse bucket at her feet, dropped her cloth into it, and turned on the faucet allowing the water to fill and spill over the bucket, emptying the cloth of her dirt and its foam. Wiping a clearing in the fog on the mirror in front of her with the thick pads of her hands, she continued, "So that was the first sunrise on earth. You see, it was the sound of God's heartbeat that called light into the world. And that's why the drums are so important."

"Isn't that the cave by the sea?" I asked.

"Of course. And there is a shrine there now to mark the spot.

Eli-san pulled herself out of the soaking tub, her skin glowing a soft red. "Tell her about the drought," she told Aki excitedly. "Angel san will like the drought story."

"Yoosh." Aki pressed the heels of her hands hard into the top of her knees, groaning as she teetered to standing.

"Come on, Angel - san," she muttered. "I'll tell you about the drought while we soak".

Our bodies vanished beneath the green sea kelp water, heads settled as independent buoys making territories for night fishermen. I took in the bitter, salty aroma through my steam - moistened nostrils as I listened to Aki's soothing, mesmerizing voice.

"Long, long ago, so long ago in fact, that nowadays no one even knows the actual time in our history, there was a terrible drought in this area. Farmers planted their rice seedlings in dry, cracked beds that spring, but nothing grew, of course, so there was no harvest that fall. The mikan trees bore no fruit and even the sweet potatoes and daikon pulled from the earth were useless - nothing more than tiny shriveled knobs ½ the size of my fist."

She lifted her fisted hand to demonstrate, dropping it quickly back out of sight. "You know the Shirokawa that runs out there along the highway?"

I nodded.

"That's still the dividing line between our village, Kita-cho, and our neighbor's village, Minami - cho.

Well, back in the time of this terrible drought, both villages had to get all their water from the Shirokawa. Many battles were fought over primary rights to that water, but for the most part, it was equally shared. The year of the terrible drought, however, was different. As the level of the stream got lower and lower, the leaders of both villages met to discuss the problem. They knew that if they tried to ration portions, but continue to share, the people in both villages would surely die. Both sides argued for days and days why their village should be the only one to survive. Finally someone suggested a competition of the heartbeat."

I cocked my head, not fully understanding.

"In other words," she explained, "each village chose their best drummer, and on the chosen night, they began to play across the stream. At first it was a conversational competition. First our man beat out a phrase, then their man beat his response. Then ours, then theirs. Little by little the phrases got longer and more difficult. Each man played his best, determined to out-drum the other so as to win the water - and life - for his village. Eventually the intensity got so big that both men were pounding ferociously at the same time. They became exhausted and weak, but they continued to play. They found new energy and beat at the drum skins like crazed animals. Finally, after several days and nights of this riveting competition, one man dropped. Dead. Just like that!"

She bounded out of the water and back down, clapping her hands over her head.

"Dead."

Ei-san left her faucet and came to the edge of the soaking pool. She lowered her bottom onto the drain tunnel and dipped her feet into the tub.

"Our man was the winner," she said to me with obvious pride.

"Of course!" confirmed Aki, voice strong.

"And that's why those Minami villagers still walk, even today, with an air of shame about them."

Indeed the competition between north and south villagers was fierce to this day, and as famous as basketball rivals in my Indiana hometown.

No shame in my inability to sit for very long in the steamy tub, I lifted myself up over the edge and sat next to Ei-san. She and Aki both giggled at me.

"All this time and we still haven't taught you to endure the heat any longer than that! Child, you've got to learn endurance before you return to your homeland."

"I've got to go to the dressing room," I said, splashing cool water from the faucet over my face.

"You're going to the festival on Saturday aren't you?" Aki called to me.

"Sure," I said.

"The drums will be there, you know."

I smiled, knowingly. Of course the drums would be there.

"Wait!" she called, as I slid open the door to the dressing room. I turned to look at her.

"Why don't you come with me tonight to the drummers rehearsal! Come to my house at 7 and my son will drive us to the mountain where they are practicing!"

************ ************** ********** *******

I arrived at Aki's house at 7, just as I was instructed.

"Angel-san! Angel-san!" she chortled as she opened the front door for me.

"No reason to take off your shoes, let's just go around to the back of the house and get in the van. Kenichi has it started and is ready to go.

One hand on the wall for balance, she had already stepped down into the entry way and was slipping on her shoes before she finished talking.

"But Aki-san, I brought you some strawberries," I said, holding the box up between us.

"Ala! Angel-san! You didn't need to bring strawberries!"

"I know, but please take them, I said, stubbornly holding my ground.

She huffed, slipped back out of her shoes, took the box and started down the hall to the kitchen. Suddenly she stopped, turned back toward me, and bowing deeply, said, "thank you, Angel-san, thank you."

I nodded in return and smiled at her. She spun on her heels and continued her run-shuffle down the hall.

The van was filled with excited chatter. Aki's sister-in-law, Jitsu, sat next to me. Shier and more reserved than Aki, her conversation with me was subtle, more hesitant. Because Aki was busy fidgeting in the van organizing over-stuffed shopping bags and quizzing her grandchildren on their days activities and the status of their studies, Jitsu took advantage of the opportunity to speak with me without really being noticed.

As we drove through town, she identified points of interest, in particular, the civic art center. She asked if I'd ever been there. She told me that she likes to go to the symphony and the Kabuki theater there. She also told me that she teaches Ikebana there. Long, comfortable pauses lingered between phrases like delicious wafts of aroma riding on the wind. She asked if I'd like to try Ikebana sometime, and by the time I said "yes", we'd turned into unfamiliar territory out of the city limits.

The lights were behind us and the mountain darkness enveloped our little group in the vehicle.

"Where are we going," I asked, realizing I'd not clearly understood the destination Aki referred to when she said "in the mountains".

"Oh! You've probably never been there before," Aki exclaimed. "We're going to an old, obsolete shrine that's hardly ever used anymore. It's the original site of the local villagers' shrine. It's where the country people gather for the New Year's celebrations, and it's where families come for special prayers and blessings like cleansing rituals after the death of a family member, or for dedication ceremonies for newborn babies. You've probably only been to the big city Shrine in the center of town," she said, correct in her assumptions.

"Most of us country people now go to the neighborhood shrine for those events; you know that shrine at the base of the mountain near my place?"

"Yes," I said, "I've been..."

"But this one is really small, more like a memorial," she continued.

Jitsu looked like she was about to tell me something, but Aki continued.

"The drummers practice up here in the mountain at this old shrine because the sound won't bother anyone. It's isolated enough from family life so no one can hear. Just fields around it. That way the drummers can practice as late into the night as they want."

"Gods hear," Jitsu said softly.

"Yeah, and the more we drink, the louder we play and the later we stay," Kenichi said, laughing.

"Oh, son!" Aki waved a reparatory hand toward him. "Don't you get drunk tonight!"

"You brought enough, didn't you?" he asked. He cut off her answer, looking through his rear view mirror winking at me. "Maybe Angel-san is a strong drinker and she will take all our sake!"

"No, no, no!" I laughed, imitating Japanese male teasing behavior.

Jitsu looked at me then lowered her eyes gracefully.

We wound our way along narrow forest-lined roads. We rose steadily into the cool atmosphere, the engine growling in its effort to carry us higher. The darkness became heavier, the roads more narrow, turns sharper. Human voice slowed to an occasional comment, unanswered. The engine roared louder. I felt as if our van was a heavy ball of tiny life form laden with meaningless objects, an alien intruder slowly rising in a vast universe of blackness, penetrated only by a spray of tiny white speckles over the night sky.

We finally arrived at our destination, a gold-roofed shrine placed oddly at the end of a stone footpath on a flat clearing amid sweet potato fields. There was a bare earthen space to one side of the footpath where a small group of people were preparing for the commencement of the evening. Men were lighting torches from the small bonfire contained in a metal barrel; women were laying out blankets and setting out the sake and square bamboo drinking cups, plastic boxes of home-made pickles, chopsticks, and bagged snacks from the convenience store at the edge of town.

We parked at the side of the road and walked up to join them.

Jitsu and I settled on the corner of one of the blankets and began nibbling on pickles while Aki took over the orchestration of the set-up for the assembly of on-lookers. There were soft brown and bright yellow daikon pickles, short strips of cucumber pickles covered in a barley and miso paste, pea-sized crunchy white pickled onions, chewy pickled carrots, and even pickled cloves of garlic. The sour salty taste was surprisingly delicious. And the sting of warm sake washing it down caused a pleasant sensation in my head.

Kenichi moved with ease into his role as headman among the men as they finished setting up the drums. A line of barrel drums on large bamboo tripods varying in size from two feet in diameter to nearly four feet in diameter was broken by a wide space, behind which stood the master drum, a magnificent instrument propped on its side so that the skin of the drum faced the audience. Its base was less than a foot high, yet Kenichi's head came only to just below it's center. Its very presence was powerful and awe-inspiring. A large bamboo xylophone stood at one end of the line of barrel drums.

Soon it appeared the preparatory rituals were complete. Even Aki had relaxed on an embroidered bum cushion she'd brought from home.

The bare-chested men performed their deep lunges and big arm circles. They took deep breaths, exhaling with short, staccato growls. They cracked their knuckles and knees and they slapped each other on the backs before taking their sticks in their strong, thick hands.

All was silent. Not a body moved, not a breath could be heard. Excited by the anticipation, afraid of making a sound, my inhalation went deeper and deeper. It seemed endless. Just when I thought I might float, Kenichi, strong, muscular back toward us, slowly raised his arms with powerful deliberation and let out a cry - long, strong, and enduring, it captivated me as it resonated off the tightly bound skin of the master drum before him. Without fading in intensity, his cry came to an abrupt stop and the pounding began. He sprung through the balls of his feet landing in a low squat. The muscles in his back worked like machinery - bulging out, down, up, controlling the penetrating rumble of the rhythmic ensemble. The men over the barrel drums did the same. Faces contorted with concentration, the sweat began to form on their brows and cast a glow on their bare, bronze, ever flexing pectorals.

I was pulled magnetically toward the sounds as though a trance had come over me... the drums were calling. The deafening vibrations of the huge instruments took over all my senses. I could feel them between my ears, in the crevices of my belly, pounding in my chest, and thundering along my spine. Close as I was, it wasn't close enough; I wanted to be inside them. I was aware of nothing but the drums and the all-encompassing darkness of the night. The monstrous sounds went down inside me, down beyond flesh and bone, and moved my entire being with great intensity and a profound sense of timelessness. They were possessing, taking me away to an emptiness that somehow seemed comfortable and familiar. I felt that my life as I knew and understood it had ceased, and that I myself, actually became one of the many rhythms.