At the onsen

When I enter there are three men, plus a young father and his baby. He is very small, the baby.

The onsen is also small, smaller than I imagined: the hot-water tank is leaning against the middle wall of the onsen, which separates, rigidly, the men's half from the women's half. In the men's half where I am, the tub is divided in two by a wooden divider.

One of the three men is sitting on the floor and enjoying his time. How much we communicate without saying anything! He sees, immediately, my inexperience: he points first to one part of the tub, then to the other part and says, in English, ‘Hot’, ‘Very hot’. I put my things-the backpack, the camera, my shoes and my clothes-in one of the compartments. Naked, standing on the wooden platform, I look around.

On three sides of the tub there is an area, barely a metre wide, where two of the three men wash themselves with great care: they have soap and a small towel with which they rub themselves vigorously, and one of them, at one point, begins to shave.

Sitting on the floor, they sometimes use one of the yellow basins available: they take hot water from the basin and throw it on themselves. There is more than one rule, in this ceremony, but the unbreakable one is that the dirty water must not contaminate the clean water of the basin: the soul and reason for this place, which already gushes out hot from some thousand-year-old fissure in the ground.

So one draws the water from the basin and, sitting on the ground or huddled together, pours it on, taking care that its final destination is only the floor around the basins and, eventually, the drains that border the room.

The air is hot and almost saturated. The building in which the onsen is located is of an orange wood, it has windows, at the top, sheltered by vertical wooden slats alternating with empty spaces. For a moment, blades of afternoon sun enter. The result is a memorable mixture of lights, vapours, sounds, colours.

I follow suit and make the liturgy of the onsen my own: I sit on the floor in a vacant corner, take hot water from the tub and wash myself. Sometimes I alternate it with cool water from a small tap. I pay attention to the fact that everything about me must be clean before I can immerse myself: it is a kind of right-duty, if I had to catalogue it.

When I try to get into the tub, I marvel at how hot the water is. The other twelve public onsens in this small town all have extremely hotter tubs: only those who know how to dive in can do so. I chose this onsen because of the temperature. And because, they say, the spring from which the water flows was discovered by a bear. And because of the colour of the wood it is made of.

Cautiously, I sit on the step, with slow, controlled movements, I stand with my feet in the water: I wait.

Another person enters and greets some of those present, takes off his few clothes and starts talking to the gentleman who told me ‘Hot’, ‘Very hot’. I can't understand what they are saying to each other, but I'm sure they are making small talk: they have the tone of two people who met at the market, while shopping.

When I'm ready, I change position a little and slide into the tub: I don't stay there long. I stay just long enough to understand the public baths in Japan. In the meantime, I go over: the sentō, the onsen, the rotenburo, which have outdoor baths, some even in unthinkable places like on the seashore or along mountain streams. I think that here, where I am, two tectonic plates are pitted against each other, all the energy that comes out of this push. I wonder when I will go back there, to the onsen. I think about what winter must be like, with the snow.

The muffled sounds coming from the other side of the onsen bring me back here: I recognise a laugh, small, from Greta, or maybe she is waving.

I get up, wash my feet with the cold water from the tap, once again. I reach out a hand and retrieve the towel: I dry myself without wetting the wooden platform on which one dresses.

Just before going out I slip on my sandals. I take a step and push open the door, which creaks a little.

I am outside.