Portsmouth Square
Portsmouth Square is a small open park on the slope above Kearny Street in San Francisco, a modest patch of grass and paved paths where old men read newspapers, doze on benches, and pigeons wander in search of food. It is here that Nobusuke Tagomi, the ranking Trade Mission official, retreats in the aftermath of the violent shooting of two SD men in his office—an act that has shattered his sense of order and plunged him into a profound spiritual crisis. The park becomes the setting for one of the novel's most intimate and philosophically charged scenes, as Tagomi, clutching a newly purchased silver ornament, seeks to recover his equilibrium and find a way back to the world he once inhabited.
A Retreat from the World
Tagomi arrives at Portsmouth Square by pedecab, carrying a paper bag marked with the name of Robert Childan's store. He seats himself on a bench in the sun, warming his hands on the bag, and lifts out his new possession: a small silver triangle ornamented with hollow drops, black beneath and bright and light-filled above. The park is filled with shabby men reading newspapers or dozing, and others lying on the grass nearly asleep—a setting of quiet, unremarkable human life that contrasts sharply with the violence and political intrigue Tagomi has just witnessed. He holds the squiggle of silver in his hands, reflecting on how it resembles a boxtop cereal trinket, a Jack Armstrong magnifying mirror sent away for as a child. The object, he thinks, might be like the Om of the Brahmins—a shrunk spot in which all is captured, both at least in hint.
The Quest for Meaning
Sitting alone in the park, Tagomi subjects the silver triangle to an exhaustive, almost desperate examination. He pleads with it, contemplates it, threatens it, and philosophizes at length, but the object remains inert. He shakes it violently, like an old recalcitrant watch or dice in a critical game, trying to awaken the deity inside. He puts his finger in his right ear to shut off traffic noises and holds the triangle to his left ear, listening for the roar of a simulated ocean, but hears nothing. He fingers every bit of its surface, smells it, and even pops it into his mouth like a cracker, tasting only a bitter, hard, cold thing. Finally, he returns to seeing—the highest ranking of the senses on the Greek scale of priority—and turns the silver triangle every which way, viewing it from every external standpoint. He asks himself what clue of truth confronts him in this object, and commands it to yield its arcane secret, like a frog pulled from the depths, clutched in a fist and ordered to declare what lies below in the watery abyss.
The Vision of Light
As Tagomi continues his scrutiny, a transformation occurs. He reflects that metal is from the earth, from the lowest, most dense realm—the world of trolls and caves, dank and dark, the yin world in its most melancholy aspect, the world of corpses, decay, and collapse. Yet in the sunlight, the silver triangle glitters, reflecting light and fire. It is not a dank or dark object at all, but pulsing with life, the high realm, the aspect of yang—the empyrean, the ethereal. He realizes that this is the artist's job: to take mineral rock from the dark silent earth and transform it into a shining, light-reflecting form from the sky, bringing the dead to life, turning a corpse into a fiery display, the past yielding to the future. He asks the silver squiggle which it is—dark dead yin or brilliant living yang—and in his palm it dances and blinds him, so that he squints, seeing only the play of fire. He perceives the body of yin and the soul of yang, metal and fire unified, the outer and inner, a microcosmos in his palm. The object has disgorged its spirit: light. His attention is fixed; he cannot look away, spellbound by the mesmerizing shimmering surface. He tells the object to talk to him now that it has snared him, and he prepares to face the clear white light without terror, as described in the Bardo Thodol, the Tibetan Book of the Dead. He feels the hot winds of karma driving him, but he remains, his training correct, refusing to shrink from the light, for to do so would be to reenter the cycle of birth and death, never knowing freedom, never obtaining release.
The Interruption and Aftermath
The vision is shattered when a tall, blue-suited policeman stops by his bench, smiling, and remarks that he was watching Tagomi work that puzzle. The policeman mistakes the silver triangle for one of those little puzzles you have to take apart, like the ones his kid has. The light disappears, and Tagomi is left holding only the dull silver triangle. He is furious, thinking the interruption spoiled his chance at nirvana, and he mentally rails against the white barbarian Neanderthal yank who supposed he worked a child's puerile toy. He rises unsteadily, feeling incredible, unredemptive passions clashing in his breast, and makes his way through the park, seeking catharsis in motion. He reaches the periphery of the park, the sidewalk on Kearny Street, and is confronted by a hideous, misshapen construction on the skyline—the Embarcadero Freeway—which he has never seen before and which appears to him as a nightmare of a roller coaster suspended, blotting out the view. He asks a passerby what it is, and the man grins, saying it's awful, that a lot of people think it stinks up the view. Tagomi feels he is in a mad dream, that his perception of space is distorted, and he hurries along, shouting for a pedecab that never comes.
The Return to Order
Tagomi's disorientation deepens as he enters a dingy lunch counter, where all the stools are taken by whites who refuse to yield their places to him. When he insists, one man tells him to watch it, Tojo, and the others watch with hostile expressions. Tagomi flees, realizing he is in a Bardo Thodol existence, where all appear hostile to him, and he stands isolated, unsuccored wherever he turns. He discovers the silver triangle is gone, left on the bench in the park with his briefcase, and he runs back, finding the briefcase still leaning against the bench and the triangle fallen through to the grass, partly hidden, where he had hurled it in rage. He reseats himself, panting, and focuses on the silver triangle once more, counting to ten and uttering a startling noise, trying to break the hypnagogic condition. He reflects that his space and time are creations of his own psyche, and when these momentarily falter, he lists eccentrically, all sense of balance gone. He sends two small Chinese boys to check for pedecabs on Kearny Street, and when they return reporting five or six, he gives each a dime and rises, gripping his briefcase, deciding to return to his office and his job. He hails a pedecab and orders the driver to take him to the Nippon Times Building, and as he rides, he feels a certain renewal of hope, even though he has not fully recovered his equilibrium.
Significance
The scene at Portsmouth Square is a pivotal moment in Tagomi's arc, marking his attempt to find a way back to the world after the trauma of killing two men. The silver triangle, a piece of Edfrank Custom Jewelry that Robert Childan has urged upon him, becomes the focus of his spiritual quest, embodying the novel's themes of historicity, wu, and the search for meaning in a world of chaos and evil. Tagomi's vision of the triangle as a unification of yin and yang, metal and fire, offers a glimpse of transcendence, but it is fleeting and interrupted, leaving him to return to his duties with a sense of hope that is both fragile and persistent. The park itself, with its old men, pigeons, and shabby benches, serves as a stark contrast to the political intrigue and violence of the novel's main plot, grounding Tagomi's crisis in the ordinary, everyday world he must rejoin.
