I stepped back from the rail of the shrine to let the next person come forward. An old man - the shrine guardian, judging from the way he was dressed - shuffled towards me.
"America-jin?" he asked respectfully.
I shook my head and tried to remember the right Japanese phrase. "Chiga imasu. Eikoku-jin desu."
The old man smiled and nodded. "We do not get many gaijin here. Why have you come to this place?"
I looked at the shrine. It was a low, wooden building in a courtyard. Brightly-coloured banners hung from poles that lined the courtyard. The building had been set on a promontory that overlooked the junction of the Sumida and Onagi rivers. Anonymous suburban architecture, typical of that part of Tokyo, surrounded it. "I wanted to see where Bashō went for his inspiration," I replied.
"Ah." The guardian nodded again. "Many come here. But you have come a long way, yes?"
"Hai," I said.
"Then come a little further." The old man beckoned me to follow him. He led me down a set of steps to the riverside walk below. Despite it being March, it was warm by the river. The buildings and high banks provided shelter from the wind, and the concrete walls that lined the path had been soaking up the heat from the sun. A set of benches had been placed so that anyone sitting on them had a view of the buildings on the opposite side of the river.
"Bashō is meant to have sat here," the shrine guardian told me. "He is meant to have sought inspiration from the river and land around it."
I looked at the wall of tower blocks in front of me. "The view must have been better then."
The old man laughed and said something in Japanese that I didn't understand. Then he went back to English. "Excuse me. I agree with you. Did you know that Bashō did not actually sit here? I think he sat over there." The old man pointed upstream to a nearby bridge. "I have studied the old paintings and compared them with what this land was once like. I think that Bashō's favourite place to sit was under that bridge. Now it is covered in concrete."
I stared bemused at the bridge. "I thought the Japanese liked to preserve their heritage?"
"We do. But only when it is convenient."
"Why are you telling me this?" I asked.
"Nihon-jin de wa inain desu kara." Then the shrine guardian clapped me on the shoulder and walked back up the stairs, laughing.
I walked upstream and stood beneath the bridge, listening to the rumble of the traffic passing overhead.
