September 11, 2024
B and I saw Drive My Car last night in an old theater
on the corner of Clinton and 26th, where the screen is framed by an
arch that rises to a rounded peak
The film takes its time, the opening titles shown forty
minutes in
A whole world before then – a wife telling stories to her
husband in bed – her infidelity, her death
Sometimes, we just hear the sound of the car’s engine
A long scene, driving north from Hiroshima to Hokkaido –
according to Google maps, a twenty-seven-hour trip – two people, not speaking,
the woman twenty-three – the same age as the man’s daughter would have been,
had she lived
Whipping rain and wind on a ferry
Silence of snow
When they do speak, their words are Japanese, a language I
don’t know
Instead, I read the subtitles
A silent activity
A three-hour movie
B and I sitting side by side in the dark, the road ahead lit
on the screen
It’s like we’re on a trip together, driving through the
night
Passing factories and broad bodies of water, through a tunnel
as long as our own city
The rubble of a house beneath a landslide
In the movie, the man is staging the Russian play Uncle
Vanya, and the actor who portrays Yelena speaks Mandarin and English
The actor who plays Sonya speaks in Korean sign language –
her hands like wings shaping words
I didn’t sleep the night before, my mind a tangle of live
wires – now, in the theater, I drift off now and then – not really sleeping,
but relaxing my grip, easing into the story of these characters, these people
How many times has B seen the film?
Watching a movie he loves is like stepping inside his heart
– treading softly beneath leafy branches, my sleeve brushing a fragrance of his
inner life
My son, who was once an infant to whom I used to sing in the
night
With whom I used to walk around Mt. Tabor and smell the
scent of fir needles and berries and damp earth
B talks about how the grieving father in the movie is now a
father figure to other people’s children
When my father died, I knew him as I hadn’t known him before
I saw that every part of him was beautiful – I saw the
tenderness that was there even when he was in a temper – the flames of which
were sometimes hard to part when he was living
Sitting here today, on a chair in our damp yard, a wool
blanket over my lap, I see our neighbor’s elm tree, untouched by chainsaws,
left to tower and spread and break when the wind comes
The flower island in our grass looks so puny in comparison –
feverfew, black-eyed susan, coneflower – but the blossoms add color – white and
yellow, black and gold, pink and salmon
The distant traffic of Highway 26 is muted – we’ve lived
here for almost 34 years – the sound so familiar – it could be the ocean
B was born just after we moved in, then I got my driver’s
license so we could go places together without having to bump a stroller up the
steps to the bus and hold him while I balanced on the moving vehicle and put my
quarters in the fare box
Confession – I worried about him crying and disturbing the
other passengers
A mistake? A character flaw? A mother who didn’t yet know
herself?
We bought a big, beautiful boat of a car back then – no, it
was ugly, faded to a silvery green, musty, cracked seats – if you rolled down
the windows too far, you couldn’t roll them back up again – but the silent beast
could move – gracefully – up hills, around green curves – and B and I would
sing – Lena Horne: “It’s Love,” Frank Sinatra: “Let’s Take It Nice and Easy”
B knew every word
Eventually, he sang whole songs for our friends: “On the
Street Where You Live,” “Witchcraft”
Oh
Nostalgia? Now?
Why polish the same misty mirror over and over again, flipping
through the same faded pictures in the plastic sleeves?
The crows are calling this morning, and a yellow leaf from
the Virginia creeper that grows on the warehouse behind me has landed in the
fragrant arms of the rosemary bush – time to go inside to check on the dog, who
is probably awake now
and wondering where everyone has gone.
*
B (aka Bennett Campbell Ferguson) is a film critic. You can
read his review of Drive My Car here.
