The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice (14 page)

After inking eight boards, Sensei left for the evening, trusting us to finish the rest. He did that more and more, especially on week
ends. At suppertime the maid brought us a tray of Sunday feast.

"Do you think Sensei went straight home?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You know, seeing someone instead of going home."

"You mean a mistress?"

"I don't know. Does he have a mistress?"

"How should I know? What he does is his business," said Tokida and lit a cigarette.

"I suppose so," I said. "A friend of mine at school thinks all artists have mistresses. Can I have one of your cigarettes?"

"Have you been smoking?" He stared at me, narrowing his eyes.

"Of course not. I want to see what it tastes like."

"So you draw like Matisse, and you think you're old enough to smoke."

"When did you start smoking?"

"When I was twelve, but that's different."

"Look, I'm never going to be as good as you, so give me a cigarette."

He tossed one from across the table. I picked it up and tapped it against the table and lit it.

"Don't take too big a drag, it'll choke you to death," he warned me.

I puffed at it a couple of times.

"Well?" he said.

"I don't feel a thing."

"Idiot, you didn't inhale it."

I took a mouthful of smoke into my lungs and felt a sharp stab and exploded in a coughing fit. Tears ran down my face and I felt dizzy and nauseated. Tokida reached over and took the cigarette, shaking his head. Actually I didn't feel that bad, but was acting for Tokida's sake. I had to humor him a little—showing him my drawings had been a mistake.

"A wonder boy," he said scornfully and shot something like a white rubber band at me. It fell on the floor next to me and when I picked it up I saw that it was a long elastic band with a small loop on each end.

"What's this for?" I asked.

"Something to hold my glasses on my head," he said without looking up.

"I never saw you wear it before."

"I only use it when I demonstrate."

"What? Do you mean to tell me you're still going to demonstrations?"

"You'd better keep it to yourself."

"You've been rioting all this time without telling me?"

"I don't have to tell you everything."

"What about your knife? Do you still have it?"

"Look, I told you I lost it."

"But why do you go to those riots?"

"Listen, I never asked you to come with me, did I? And stop calling them riots. They're demonstrations."

"You know something, Tokida? You're going to get hurt one of these days. You're asking for it."

"So who cares? You're going to America, and you can have your America. Me, I'm staying right here and I'm going to fight for what's right. This is my country. I'm not going anywhere. What I do is my business, and if I get hurt, that's my business too."

"I haven't decided if I'm going or not. But the next time you go to a demonstration, take me with you. It'll be safer if there are two of us. I didn't tell you before, but I've been taking karate lessons."

"What?"

"I've been taking lessons from the fellow I told you about who lives next door. He's going for his third-degree belt next month. He has the quickest hands I've ever seen. He's deadly."

"So you think you can fight the police with your bare hands? You think you can go against somebody with a knife, a stick even? Don't be a fool."

"I don't use my hands. I kick them in their shins and groins. Take me with you the next time—if you get in trouble maybe I can help."

"You don't know what you're talking about. Just worry about your America."

"Oh, hell, give me a cigarette."

"Go buy your own," he said and went back to work.

From now on I'll show him only my bad drawings, I promised myself.

I thought of going to Yokohama to talk to Mother, but in the end I wrote to her instead. It was easier that way since I had no idea how she was going to react. I didn't say I wanted to go or not; I wanted to find out how she felt about it first. Mother replied immediately, saying how happy she was I had such an opportunity, that she would come to Tokyo in two weeks and we would talk things over at Grandmother's place. I wasn't eager to have Grandmother in on our conversation, but there was no way of getting around it.

It was early afternoon when I arrived. Mother was already there, and she and Grandmother were working away in the kitchen, preparing what looked like the New Year's feast. They had bought sea bream, large shrimps, and pickled melon from Nara, and were cooking rice with red beans in it. Red rice is cooked only on special occasions. Grandmother, having been pampered by servants most of her life, wasn't much of a cook, but neither was Mother. Grandmother was positively grinning the minute she saw me. Mother also seemed more high-spirited than usual.

"Sit, Koichi," ordered Grandmother. "Which would you rather have, tea or coffee?"

"Coffee? But you never keep coffee in the house. If it's American I'd like a cup, please," I said.

"The very best, Koichi," said Mother. "Today, you may have anything you wish."

"But I didn't make up my mind yet about going to America."

"Don't be fresh," said Grandmother. "Drink your coffee. Would you like cream with it?"

"Yes, please. Do you have condensed milk? And lots of sugar, please. So you want me to go to America, is that it?"

"We'll discuss that later," said Mother. "First things first."

"You mean this isn't my going-away party?"

"Look at him, Masako," said Grandmother. "He didn't tell me a thing."

"What didn't I tell you, Grandmother? Is the Empress pregnant?"

"Don't be disrespectful." Grandmother frowned. She was in an unusually good mood and I began to feel bolder.

"I know, you won the national lottery," I said.

"Don't talk rubbish. You know very well why we're celebrating," said Grandmother.

"I have no idea."

"You really don't know?"

"I swear by Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, whomever you like."

"That'll be enough, Koichi," said Mother. "Grandmother went to your school this morning."

"Oh?" I said, remembering the PTA meeting that morning.

"Do you remember," said Grandmother, "the first time I went to one of your school meetings? When I had to go through your exam papers with all the other parents present? You were near the bottom of your class, remember that? I wanted to crawl into a hole, Koichi, I'd never felt so humiliated in my life." I nodded, remembering it all too well.

"You are first in your class," said Grandmother. I looked at her
in surprise. "There's a girl in another class who scored two more points than you, but Mr. Sato told me that was because the girls have to take one class more than the boys. Home economics, I think. Nakano somebody."

Grandmother was talking about Michiko and that was no surprise. But the fact that I was first in my class did surprise me. I knew I had done well, but not that well.

"Are you sure, Grandmother? You weren't looking at someone else's papers, were you?"

"Of course I'm certain. Mr. Sato personally handed me your papers, and I had on my new glasses. After all, yours isn't a common name."

I looked at Mother but she turned away. I didn't know if Grandmother's comment about my name was intentional, but I felt a sudden anger swell up inside me. I felt she was still punishing Mother after all those years for marrying Father.

"What about America?" I changed the subject.

"What do you think, Mother?" Mother passed the question to Grandmother.

"I say he's too young, much too young. Why, he hasn't even finished middle school. He should at least finish high school here."

"But Mother, the longer he waits the more difficult it's going to be for him to learn English."

"But what is going to happen to his own language? After all he
is
Japanese. Do you suppose he's going to remember his middle school Japanese for long? Who knows what kind of schools they have in America. There's nothing like a well-educated man, and besides, only farmers emigrate to America. After all the sacrifices you've made to put Koichi in a good school, I think it's a pity."

All the sacrifice! She sounded as if I were the
only
one Mother had to worry about.

"Do you want me to go or not?" I asked Mother, not looking at Grandmother.

"That's not for me to say, Koichi," Mother replied. "Of course
we'll miss you if you decide to go, but the decision is entirely up to you."

I was sure Mother was noncommittal because of Grandmother. I would have to talk to her alone. I was back where I had started.

***

It was summer once again. I felt unsettled and irritable. Father's now frequent letters, urging me to make up my mind, didn't help, and neither did Tokida's absence from the inn; on days we didn't have much work, he was probably involved in riots, but as he said, that was his business. He and I seemed to be drifting apart. I didn't know what to do about it, and didn't much care. More and more I lost myself in painting and drawing, and also spent a good deal of time on my karate lessons.

My chest and arms had filled out somewhat during the year and I could go through some
katas
now. A
kata
is a kind of shadow boxing that one practices without a partner. The various movements of karate are combined in it so if you go through it properly it seems as though you're doing an elegant ceremonial dance. I was beginning to do some of the more complicated
katas.
So I was quite surprised when a few days after my fifteenth birthday, Mr. Kubota asked me to join him for supper after a late workout. I was still a rank novice, and being asked to supper by Mr. Kubota was like being invited to join the fraternity of experts.

"You're doing very well," he told me. "Two more years and I'll bet you'll be wearing a black belt."

His kindness embarrassed me. I remembered how stern he had seemed that first day I'd watched him instructing, and yet he never once shouted at me, nor said one unkind word, though once he'd blocked my punch during a mock fight and my arm had been bruised for days.

He took me to a Korean restaurant in a back alley of the Ginza and we each ordered the house special, strips of marinated meat cooked over a charcoal brazier right on our table.

I told him about my chance to go to America.

"That's exciting! When are you going?" he asked.

"If I decide to go I'll be leaving sometime next summer. Right now I don't know what I'm going to do."

"But what's there to decide?"

"If you had the chance, would you go?"

"Absolutely. A chance to get out of an island nation like ours and go live on a continent, I wouldn't think twice about it. We don't understand what it is to live with a lot of land around us."

"But I don't speak English. I'll have to start all over again."

"That won't be a problem. How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"But that's so young. You'll pick up English in no time. Staying in this country for the rest of your life is like being a frog in a well. Think of your career."

He went on and on. It was good to hear such encouragement.

"I've been reading those books you lent me,
The Thibaults.
" I changed the subject.

"Formidable undertaking. Martin du Gard won a Nobel Prize for that work. How far along are you?"

"I'm almost finished."

"I'm impressed. What do you think?"

"I don't understand some parts of it."

"For instance?"

"Do you remember where the older brother is thinking about his mistress after he gets a letter from her? He reads the letter, the letter that smells of her perfume, and he throws it away because he never keeps letters. But she wasn't just anybody. Then he says to himself that the woman is going to leave him someday soon. I mean he's so casual about it, so cool."

"Is that so unusual?"

"But how can you be in love and think about the day it's going to end?"

"I see what you're getting at," he said and paused for a second. "Don't you think that love has its own seasons?"

"What do you mean?"

"What I mean is that everything has a certain life cycle—a
beginning, a middle, and an end—like a work of literature. Isn't that so?"

"Are you saying that love is the same way? What about art then? Is there an end to art?"

"Is there an end to life?" he countered with a question. I wasn't used to that kind of discussion, and somehow his question didn't seem fair.

"Anyway," he said, "the man you're talking about is a worldly man who's had many lovers. He's carrying on an affair with a woman who he knows will leave him some day. So he throws the letter away, a symbolic gesture. It simply means that he's looking at the situation with a good deal of detachment; he's seeing a pattern in all the love affairs he'd had in the past. Do you know that some men go through so many women they actually tire of women? Do you know that many men go after young boys?"

"Yes, I know, I've read about that. But Mr. Kubota, do you think women have feelings like men?"

"Do they love as we do? Is that what you mean?"

"Yes, I suppose so," I said, and felt my ears turning red.

"I think what you're trying to find out is whether there is such a thing as love. I'd like to think there is, though it may turn out to be something quite different from what we expect. For instance, I don't expect to find love in my marriage."

"You don't?"

"Not at all. No doubt my parents will choose my future wife and I'll probably be very happy with the arrangement."

"You mean you're going to have mistresses?"

"Why not?"

I didn't know what to say to that. Van Gogh had loved only one woman and that seemed like the natural thing to do. But the woman he loved had no love to give him. Perhaps he was unlucky. But then maybe all love affairs were like that, one-sided love the Japanese call the abalone love, for an abalone has only one shell. I'd been feeling like an abalone for quite some time.