The howling came from the studio’s backyard, punctual as always at a quarter past midnight, a time when for sure, there wasn’t a soul to witness it for miles around. For Masao this was torture, but he would never have admitted it. His companion Aki pretended that she was hearing it too only to appease him, and that only because of his high blood pressure condition, another thing he would never acknowledge. After Berru’s disappearance he continued his daily routine, calling him before bedtime from the woods, where the horny little mutt usually kept a very busy social life. Masao would get very upset if told that his pet was gone for good and not coming back. The grumpy, reclusive middle aged man, looking older than his early fifties was very attached to his little dog. The two of them were very much alike. Short but tough, fiercely independent, impossible to be kept tied down, they both needed a lot of space. It was the reason why Masao had left Nagoya to move in the middle of nowhere, not far from Hideoshi, next to Mizunami, in Gifu prefecture. He lived in a corrugated metal structure that used to be a storage facility for The Tea Museum, a certain olfactory memory still lingering within its walls. It was minimal comfort but on the upside there weren’t any neighbors for miles around. The only living creature tolerated on the premises, besides his dog and the dwellers of the forest, was Aki Yumi, his companion. Aki was a typical miniature Japanese woman, looking like a schoolgirl in spite of being in her late forties. In the dim moonlight her complexion seemed without blemish and only her old fashioned night gown could have made one wonder about her age. In the beginning, she was accepted only as a visitor for short periods of time, to bring some yin spirit in Masao’s secluded residence. Gradually she fought her way up and was granted “the alien resident status”, as she would often jokingly call it. Even Berru accepted her gladly, a major plus in favor of her inclusion into the household. His joyful barking at her arrival resembled the broken sound of a gaijin bell. That must have been the reason his name meant in Japanese “un-Japanese bell”. However, Masao continued to travel for his exhibitions alone and send Aki away whenever he had visitors. Aki was often wondering if her staying with the dog was the only reason Masao was putting up with her presence. Since his continuing obsession with “Equilibrium”, the dark unfinished sculpture in the back yard, he became more and more difficult to approach. It was complicated mixed media piece that seemed to keep a continuous status of “work in progress”. He would stare for days at a time at the pile of incongruent materials that refused to blend into what Masao was trying to shape as the epitome of balance and harmony. He seemed to be able to go on without eating or sleeping, deeply immersed into his unfathomable inner world. Periods of contemplative apathy would alternate with a cacophony of clunking, drilling or feverish hammering. Aki would leave food in a spot within his visual range, but he would rarely touch it. He would mortify himself to the point of nearly passing away. Then he would accept to swallow a few spoonful of miso soup and drag himself with Aki’s help to the bedroom. Berru disappearance made things much worse. Masao would not utter a word for days, communicating with Aki in a strange sign language. His behavior became more reclusive and despotic, to the point of forbidding any kind of movement or noise in his presence. Only Aki’s inexhaustible devotion and patience made things still resemble a relative normality.
Berru’s howling - Masao had no doubt about its source - came at short intervals, like a delayed painful echo. This time he was not alone. Manole Antip , a Romanian artist and friend was staying with them for the weekend before going to Kyoto to set up his new exhibition. Both of them sculptors, they had known each other for more than ten years. Manole was a frequent guest at their house, having a show in Japan at least once a year. They had met in Ghent , Belgium at an art fair, while exhibiting with the same gallery run by a Dutch collector based in France . After a week in the rainy medieval city, sampling the local beers at every pub in town they became friends. What bound them besides liking Belgian beers is hard to tell. They were completely different personalities. The Japanese very reserved and hardly communicative; the Romanian exuberant, talkative and “bon viveur”. What they didn’t know at the time was a much deeper connection that would show that “six degrees of separation” were more like two.
Kenji Itto, Masao’s paternal grandfather, was a young small town physician when the second World War started. His choice of profession was a fluke in the long military tradition of the Itto clan. Kenji’s great grandfather was one of the founders of the Japanese Imperial Army. Since then every male member of the clan chose a military career. Following the family code of honor he enlisted as lieutenant and was sent to Manchuria . He spent four inglorious years toiling as a surgeon in a mobile hospital unit. It was a nerve racking routine, bound to ware off the strongest characters. Weeks of total boredom alternated with periods of frantic work when piles of wounded would block the entrance to the medical tents. The end of the war caught up with him on the newly opened Russian front. He and his whole unit were declared prisoners of war and were sent to a camp in Siberia . That is when the worst part of his military life began.
Camil Antip, Manole’s maternal grandfather was the son of a preeminent Romanian family. Following the family’s traditional vocation young Camil was a well known lawyer when Romania entered the war. The first part of his military service was almost enjoyable. He was drafted rather late into the conflict. Using his family connections he was stationed in Bucharest , as the liaison officer for the High Command. Most of his tour of duty, Camil was in charge with the American prisoners of war, all of them pilots shot down over the cursed oil fields of Ploiesti. His job was to make the prisoners’ life as comfortable as possible, providing them with good food, liquor, often even with girls. Although fighting on the German side the Romanians were more Anglo-Franco-phones than anything else, with a great sympathy especially for the Americans. In the last two years of war, in spite of the intensified air raids and the menacing approach of the Red Army, Camil was happy. He fell in love with the daughter of the university professor Andrei Savescu, Ana, a popular figure in the Bucharest high life. He met Ana during an air raid, both taking refuge in an overcrowded shelter on Calea Victoriei, kind of the local Main Street . They connected instantly and ignoring the commotion around them spent the most romantic evening of their lives. After that they were inseparable and oblivious to dramatic events that were overtaking Romania. The young lovers were planning to get married at end of August. Camil was living in a daze, always wearing a wide smile glued to his face, always humming some cheerful melody. For the American inmates his optimism was contagious making the crazy world around more bearable. They even gave him a nickname – Lucky. Unfortunately his popularity with the American prisoners as well as his social status was to alter the young lieutenant’s good fortune. On August 24th when the Russians took over the city, Camil was one the first ones to be arrested. That afternoon, he was returning from the famous Royal Jewelry store on Calea Victoriei, whistling a Mozart minuet, holding a superbly crafted wedding ring in his pocket. The jewel, a thin band of 24 carat gold with five in castrated diamonds was a masterpiece of elegance blended with simplicity. He had chosen it after weeks of carefully examining the design of David Samuelson, the best designer at Samuelson & Sons. It was a jewel perfectly matched with Ana’s delicate beauty. Just as he entered the Romanian Army’s HQ two Russian counterintelligence officers picked him up, driving away in an, ironically American made Jeep. They took him to the outskirts of the city, where a quickly set military tribunal was working day and night, barely keeping up with the long lines of collaborators corralled by the Russians. The interrogation and the trial lasted less than half an hour. Camil managed to open his mouth twice denying some preposterous accusations. The sentence was seven years in a labor camp, to be executed somewhere in Russia, as far East as possible. The devastated young man was sent away without even the permission to see his family and fiancée. Camil was in a state near paralysis. The only thing he managed to conceal and take with him was the ring for Ana. This is how two very unlikely candidates for a friendship in those terrible times, Kenji Itto and Camil Antip became neighbors in distant Siberian camp in Kamchatka. It just happened that the barracks of the Japanese and Romanian prisoners were separated by a flimsy fence. The Russians didn’t bother too much with security measures. The only way out was through the icy tundra surrounding them for hundreds of miles and it meant certain death. The most noticeable routine in the camp life was the presence of death and it was occurring mostly during the interminable digging marathons the inmates had to perform every day. Late at night whoever was able to drag himself out in the freezing wind, would gather at the few openings in the barbed wire fence to barter anything that was available. In order to survive, the inmates had to deal with two capital problems - one was to decrease as much as possible the amount of labor performed; the second to increase the food rations. Any upgrade of their starvation diet could mean the difference between life and death. When the camp commander found out that Kenji had medical training, he instantly designated the Japanese “the camp’s official dentist“. It was a messy job, performed in the most primitive conditions, but it was indoors and the room was even heated. It took sometimes an outrageous bluff to alter dramatically your chances of survival. That is what Camil did when the new camp dentist tried to find an assistant for his booming practice. The Romanian jumped at the opportunity pretending to have some medical training. The other candidate was an obnoxious German who probably had some medical background, but couldn‘t speak anything but German. Kenji guessed immediately the Romanian’s bluff but Camil was speaking French and English rather well. The pragmatic Japanese figured that it will be easier to teach a novice some basic medical skills as opposed to teaching someone a foreign language, so the Romanian won. Patiently Camil learned how to make extractions and how to stop bleeding with crushed ice and aluminum sulfate. Later they became more creative making fillings from recycled lead from dead batteries and tooth caps from wasted tin cans, an artifact that made them very popular with the kitchen staff. With an ornate rusted metal smile, the cook’s assistant would often sneak into their soup a few precious pieces of meat that would pull them through the long deadly winters. During the long years of detention, the two young officers shared almost everything, cigarettes, their meager rations, a warmer item of clothing from someone who just died, and, most of all, memories about their far-away homes and dear ones. With the passage of time Camil’s stories were gravitating more and more obsessively around his fiancée Ana. He had an extraordinary confidence in getting back to her, keeping her on a high pedestal, giving her an almost saintly status. However, with time the hardships, the lack of food, the constant presence of death around started to erode Camil’s confidence and inborn optimism. Kenji had to use all the possible and impossible arguments to assure his friend that she must be still waiting somewhere for him. It was the only thing that kept Camil sane. Then in the autumn of their fifth year the Romanian came to Kenji’s barrack with the news of his imminent relocation. The young man had a very bad feeling about it and fearing the worst asked his Japanese friend to keep his most precious possession, the wedding ring for Ana. The Romanian revealed to him that during all these years he managed to avoid the random strip searches by hiding sometimes the ring in his rectum. The small object became a symbol of survival to which the young man was clinging desperately. Kenji had to promise that if he will make it alive from the camp the ring will get somehow to Ana. The following day the Japanese watched full of grief how the Russian guards dragged away several Romanian prisoners. Camil was one of them and Kenji didn’t see him after that. Three horrendous years later, emaciated and sick Kenji was released and returned to Japan . His family was from Nagasaki and no one had survived the war. Almost all of them had died in the second nuclear blast. His only brother Nakao, died in combat at Iwo Jima. Looking for a fresh start Kenji moved to Nagoya, and opened a dentist practice. He tried in vain to find a male assistant but after the war years it was impossible. The detention in the Russian camp left him with failing health and bad dreams. The years dragged along as if life was some kind of mandatory, unavoidable duty. He found a companion and they had a child. But Kenji’s mind was consumed by the inherited obsession to return the ring to Camil’s fiancée. His constant attempts to fulfill his promise were fruitless. The communist government in Romania didn’t grant him the visa to enter the country and trying to locate Camil’s fiancée proved to be impossible. He realized that he didn’t even know her family name. The ring was kept in the family shrine and Masao learned its story from his grandmother. His grandfather didn’t like to talk about it. What grandfather Kenji didn’t know was that Camil Antip survived the camps and returned to Romania to become a prisoner again. His ordeal continued for four more years, in what the Romanian government was calling the de-Russification process. Camil’s fiancée Ana had died in the last air raid of the war, but his only letter with the detailed description of the ring accompanied by an elaborate drawing became a sort of family heirloom. Manole kept it framed in his studio and that was were Masao saw it on his first visit to Romania. At first it seemed to outrageous to run into such a coincidence. Masao kept it to himself for several days, peeking furtively at the drawing, burning of curiosity about the letter. He had to be sure that he doesn’t make a fool of himself. Then he asked his friend about the drawing. They spent a whole night finishing a bottle of whisky and staring incredulously at the faded piece of paper. By returning the ring to Manole, Masao felt that his family name was released from a highly dishonorable situation. It was as if a curse was lifted, changing the karma of the Itto family.
At the beginning of their friendship Masao had his own gallery in Nagoya. The following year after their Belgian exhibition, the Romanian had his first show in Japan. By then Masao left the big city trying to find tranquility and inspiration closer to nature. That is when Manole met Masao’s dog, Berru, with whom he hit it off in spite of the dog’s notorious antisocial reputation.
Five years later, on a crisp October night Manole was awake with a monumental jetlag trying to do some work in the back of Masao’s workshop. The unusually brassy sound came from behind the metallic door leading to the little sculpture garden in the back of the house. There, in the middle of the overgrown lawn, reigning in the midst of an eclectic collection of works made by friends, was the dark silhouette of "Equilibrium". It was an uncanny combination of materials joined together with an intricate network of very thin wires. Rusted metal, shiny aluminum, aged wood were mounted on a massive cone made of clay tiles. All the elements were connected with an array of steel threads, their ends joined in a perfectly crafted stainless steel ring. The effect was a simultaneous blend of tension and balance. It was probably more than a coincidence that Masao’s last name - Itto - meant “thin thread” or “wire” in Japanese. Masao needed five years to finish the sculpture. Five years of frustration and suffering, when besides the obstinate materials that did not want to stay together he had to fight depression and a long list of ailments. Manole followed the progress of his friend’s work at one year intervals, always hoping that at his next visit the sculpture would be ready. This time it seemed that Masao was pleased with his work and was ready to declare it finished. But Manole couldn’t help experiencing an uncanny feeling when he was around it. That night intrigued by the strange noise he opened the back door, looking for the source of the howling. The sound suddenly stopped leaving only a light vibration lingering in the air. Shortly after, the noise of the crickets took over making the silence seem deeper. He approached the dark shape of the sculpture profiling against the sky. Looking closer he noticed puzzled the wires still vibrating. He had the odd feeling that he was looking at some vocal cords that were still vibrating after their use. He turned around and saw Masao staring at him. For a moment Manole thought he saw a malefic sparkle in Masao’s eyes, something that wasn‘t there before. Without saying a word Masao turned around entering the house. Manole sat on a wooden sculpture reminding the stylized head of a horse. He looked towards the woods where darkness seemed to add another dimension to silence. Thinking of poor Berru, he examined pensively the vaguely menacing silhouette of the “Equilibrium” sculpture illuminated by the moon. The Japanese was a strange character. Very economical in everything he was doing, Masao had an almost cynical pragmatism. He was always extremely organized, a precise plan in place for the simplest task. He would use any information strictly to achieve his goals, discarding any content that wasn’t related to his objective. He recalled now how three years before, when touring the monasteries in Southern Romania, Masao was absorbing like a sponge everything about local crafts traditions and legends. At “Curtea de Arges” a small town, home of the famous monument with the same name, he told Masao with great detail the legend of his namesake “Manole the Craftsman” or “Master Manole”. ”Mesterul Manole”, as it is spelled in Romanian, was the mythical architect of the monastery. It was a beautiful structure. By some XVI century traveler accounts the locals considered it one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The legend says that to overcome the constant crumbling of the walls Master Manole prayed, asking God for guidance. As a result he had a vision in which he was told that the only way to finish the building was to sacrifice what was most precious to him. His beloved wife Ana would have been walled within the church by Manole himself, finishing at last the magnificent construction. Visiting his proud possession the king asked the architect if he could build another church more beautiful than this one. When the architect said yes, the king ordered the scaffolding to be removed, leaving Master Manole and his apprentices stranded on the roof to starve to their death. Manole with his men, using chunks of the wooden roof tiles, built themselves wings to escape, becoming a Medieval version of Icarus. On the presumed spot of Master Manole’s crash, a well was built, collecting the waters from the spring that emerged at his death. Masao was quite taken with the story. Manole found his friend sitting pensively next to the well, slowly drinking from its waters. Next to him was an opened sketch book with pages covered with unintelligible markings and ideograms. He insisted on climbing up into the Bell tower to see the place from where “Master Manole” jumped to his death. At half hour intervals “the Romanian berru” was still marking the passage of time. The idea of “ultimate sacrifice” seemed quite appealing one for the Japanese sensibility. Masao spent hours on the roof as if pondering what materials to use to build his own wings. It was, of course just another project for a sculpture. At the time, Manole didn’t pay any attention to it. That visit happened in Masao’s fifth year of his struggle with the "Equilibrium" piece, just a couple of months before he finished it.
It was a chilly October night in Mizunami, Gifu prefecture. Aki brought a blanket to cover Masao. He was often dozing off in front of the TV after a day’s work. The two documentaries they were watching kept them alert for a while but it proved to be too long for Masao’s attention span. She had never encountered a subject on Romanian mythology, or a Romanian for that matter. The legend of "Manole the Craftsman" was a very strange story, so different and yet so similar with the eternal themes of loyalty, betrayal and sacrifice. And then the incredible saga about the friendship between a Japanese and a Romanian officer in a Siberian labor camp made her cry for the first time in years. The moment of reunion between the two former prisoners of war, now old men, one of them on his death bed was heartbreaking. Too bad Masao didn’t stay awake to see the end. Aki stepped outside in the dark night. There were just a few glimmers of star light bouncing off the silent metallic web, anchoring the inner ring of the finished masterpiece “Equilibrium”. The forest began just a few yards away from their door step, a rustling monolith swallowing its own echoes. She put two fingers into her mouth the way Masao had taught her and whistled. Berru came out running from the bushes and jumped into her arms.
