Scene 16

Maille slept restlessly that night – like he always did when he needed to wake up early the following morning. It belonged to the perks of his job that it had no fixed working hours – as a consequence, he had no reason to spring out of bed at an unearthly hour. He called it the «mineralwatersleep», taking pains to distinguish this form of sleep from «pumpwatersleep». While mineralwater rises of its own volition to the surface in a quiet and natural way, pumpwater is shaken violently out from its slumber in the bowels of the earth and hustled unceremoniously up to the top.

When Maille had perforce to rise at a particular time the following morning, then he was disturbed by the prospect of it all night long.

In his dreams that night he was hunting in a snowy mountainscape – it was obvious he was after somebody. He found himself atop Mount Déboulé in Santa Lemusa – that much was clear – although his homeland was so close to the Equator that it was too warm, even during the coldest season on this 1288-metre high mountain peak, for snow.

Then he was in a typical Swiss chalet. From the spruce furniture to the flags to the calendars on the walls, everything was as one expects it to be in such a place. Yet, as much as one was clearly in Switzerland here, this Switzerland seemed rather like a fiction, on of these fabulous islands about which ancient seafarers had repeatedly cooked up stories right until the 19th century in order to extract money from their unsuspecting clients for new expeditions.

And then suddenly, he was on Fujisan, following, with bated breath, tracks in the snow – with, far above him, the grey skies appearing to promise both everything and nothing at all:

Kaze ni nabiku
Fji no keburi no
sora ni kiete
yukue mo shiranu
waga omoi kana

Blown by the Wind
the Smoke of the Fuji Mountain
wafts away from the heavens.
So also, who knows where
my innermost wishes are headed

Poem and German translation from: «Gäbe es keine Kirschblüten…». Stuttgart: Reclam Verlag, 2009. S. 75. Listen to how the poem sounds in Japanese.

What monk Saigiō hat wished in 1186 was one thing – but what were then Maille's own innermost wishes? The question was so demanding that Maille opened his eyes long befor the wakeneing call.

continue