Free Silence Once Begun by Jesse Ball Page A

it. The schoolteachers were always suspicious of me, I don’t know why.
    INT .
    Do your own children take after you in that respect?
    JIRO
    How do you mean?
    INT .
    Well, that one seems to be trying to run away with my hat.
    JIRO
    Yes, nothing is safe around here.

Interview 13 (
Brother
)
    [
Int. note
. Shortly after that, I asked him about his father’s reaction when he discovered that Jiro was still visiting Sotatsu. He had told me earlier that his father had been angry, but he hadn’t gone into detail. Later, when I asked again, he was more forthcoming.]

    INT .
    How did it come about that your father learned you were visiting Sotatsu?
    JIRO
    There was a photograph, an unfortunate photograph that was published in the newspaper, a photograph of the prison. Some photographer had visited there to take photographs of various inmates, my brother included. He passed me at the prison entrance and noticed my resemblance to Sotatsu. I tried to avoid it, but he took my photograph and sold it to the newspaper. He sold a photograph of me visiting my brother for money, and that photograph was seen by my father. He demanded that I come to see him. I did so. He was furious. He said that a decision had been made and we would all stand by it. He said that some of us were trying to continue to live, to continue with our lives, and that I wasn’t making anything easier for anyone. I replied that, in fact, I was. I was making things easier for myself and for my brother, Sotatsu. I told him that I didn’t believe Sotatsu had done anything wrong. I said I didn’t like any of it from the beginning to the end. He said that I was still stupid, and had always been so. That whether Sotatsu had done something or not was not the point and neverhad been. He said that you had a chance with each life, each person’s life, that there was a chance to get along without drawing the wrong kind of attention to yourself. That if you did, it was never good, it always ended badly, and the facts of the matter were nothing, were no good. He said I had a liar’s respect for the truth, which is too much respect.
    INT .
    And that’s when he …
    JIRO
    He told me he didn’t want to see me again.
    INT .
    But he went back on that.
    JIRO
    He did. Later that same year he went back on it. But he was so changed then that it didn’t matter. He was a different person. As he is now. You can see, can’t you? There’s no satisfaction to be had from the person you met.
    INT .
    …
    JIRO
    Whether you will say so or not, you can see what a shell he is.
    (Tape clicks off.)

Interview 14 (
Watanabe Garo
)
    The First Time He Spoke with Oda Sotatsu
    [
Int. note
. This was the interview at the ramen house, and it was the interview to which Garo brought the photograph I showed some pages back. He had the photograph in a manila envelope along with other things that he did not show me. I was very curious about what else was in the manila envelope, but if it was perhaps necessary for me to have won his trust further in order to have seen it, then in that case I failed to do what was necessary. I did not learn of the other contents. The photograph that he did give me, that of Jito Joo in a kimono, had writing on the back. The writing read,
On a lake, they float, but they do not see the lake. They only see what’s above, and only in the day, and only when the sun is not too bright
. I tried to discover the provenance of those lines but was unable to, until speaking to Jito Joo herself. For now, however, I was sitting opposite Watanabe Garo in the ramen house, my tape-device dwarfed by two enormous bowls of ramen.]

    INT .
    I am very curious, of course, to hear anything you might have to say about Oda Sotatsu, but most of all I’m curious to hear about the times when he spoke to you. Do you remember which was the first time?
    GARO
    Do you think I could forget a man like that?
    INT .
    So, he made a powerful impression, visually?
    GARO
    No, no, not at all. In fact, that was the