The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice (3 page)

"Kiyoi, watch Tokida and give him a hand," said Sensei.

Tokida moved over so I could sit next to him and watch what he was doing. With a brush he inked in the night skies, patterns on kimonos, hairdos—putting small touches here and there, giving life to the line drawings. When each frame was completed and the pencil lines erased, the finished drawings stood out against the sleek creamy paper. They were beautiful even before they were tinted with watercolor.

"Here, do this one," said Tokida casually, and gave me a board and a brush. "Fill in the large spots, like this man's coat. Always start from the top and work from left to right so you won't smudge the ink. And put a piece of paper under your hand so you won't grease up the board."

This was more frightening than drawing the horse yesterday. The master was actually going to let me work on his drawings. He and Tokida acted as though I'd been working with them for a long time. I felt like I was going into a duel with a real sword, without having gone through any training with a bamboo stick. Timidly,
with a shaky hand, I started at a safe place—in the middle of a blank area—and worked outward. As I went near the edges, I unconsciously grasped the brush harder with each stroke, but the brush had a way of wandering off by itself, right over the outlines. I was making a mess.

"Don't worry about it; keep going," Tokida encouraged me.

"But I've ruined it," I said, nearly in tears.

"That's nothing," said Sensei. "You should have seen Tokida when he started; he has the shakiest hand I've ever seen. Too much smoking. He'll show you what to do."

Tokida dipped a new brush into ajar of thick white paint and went over the mess I'd made.

"All you have to do is cover it up with white and the camera won't pick it up," he told me.

"What do you mean?"

"They photograph these drawings to make the printing plates."

What a relief! The drawing didn't have to be discarded. Now that I knew a dab of white paint would hide all my mistakes, I went to work with a renewed spirit. I ran the brush along the straight lines of the frame borders and found that I had more control when I painted with swift strokes.

"Very good, Kiyoi," said Sensei. "You used something sharp in the brush just now, like the edge of a knife. The brush is many things. Remember that edge."

He was right. There
was
something sharp in the brush, and I could cut a straight or curved line with a quick turn of my wrist. And the amount of ink on the brush had a lot to do with what you could do with it. I felt as if I was learning calligraphy all over again.

After I was through inking the piece, Tokida showed me how to accent rounded objects—wheels, balls, hairdos and such—to give them a sense of volume. It was thrilling to see a flat line drawing suddenly become three-dimensional by putting in the highlights. At first I couldn't handle the brush well enough to use the white of the paper for the highlights, so I had to put them in with white paint, but after a while I got carried away and began to put in two or three highlights on a single object.

"The sun, the sun, Kiyoi," said Sensei. "One sun, one shadow, one highlight."

"Yes, sir."

At noon Sensei sent me to a restaurant to order our lunch.

"Noro Shinpei's place?" asked the woman who looked like the owner's wife.

"Yes, we'd like three bowls of noodles with shrimp, please."

"We haven't seen you before, have we?"

"No, I'm new."

"What happened to Tokida-san?"

"He's working with Sensei. I'm the new pupil."

"What, another one?" The woman looked me up and down. "But you seem so young. You must be awfully good to be his student."

Even the owner came out of the kitchen to inspect me. It was wonderful to have a famous master.

***

The reporter came early. He was a fat man by the name of Kato, about twenty-five years old. He talked a lot, mostly about books which he produced out of his bulging briefcase. He was paid that day, he said, and the first thing he did was go to his bookdealer, settle the old account, and buy more books on credit. I thought it was amusing that a fat man would see his bookdealer before seeing his grocer.

When Sensei was finished with the boards we all went out for a break. I was as tall as Sensei, and for once I felt proud of my height. Tokida wore an old high school cap, and his wooden clogs gave him an extra three inches or so, but even then we walked shoulder to shoulder. Mr. Kato looked like a schoolboy walking next to us.

The cafe across the street from the train station was empty. The two waitresses and the owner greeted us as if we were a lordly procession, bowing and calling our master "Sensei" as Tokida and I did. So did Mr. Kato. I liked all the attention and looked at Tokida, but it was hard to tell what he was thinking. He was smoking one cigarette after another, drawing away in his sketchbook.

"My friends will sample your excellent coffee, and I'll have the usual," Sensei said to one of the waitresses.

"Have a sip." He pushed the tall silver mug in front of me when she brought it. I sucked on the straw and nearly burned the roof of my mouth. I'd never had hot orange juice before.

"Kiyoi has the cat's tongue." Sensei laughed. "Nothing hot for him. A pity, this being my own invention. Speaking of invention, do you realize that someone actually invented this?" Sensei lifted the straw.

"Someone with a case of mumps, I suppose," said Mr. Kato.

"Lockjaw is more likely. Who but the French would think of such a thing? All those Parisians in outdoor cafes sipping their drinks in an air thick with horse dung. And so the straw. The proper etiquette is to drink from the bottom up and leave the top layer untouched. That's what I call sophistication."

"Another one of your stories," said Mr. Kato.

"I thought you were well-read, Kato. Most of the so-called high fashion originated in such trivia. Take the high collar, for example ..."

"That I know, a boil on Edward's neck. Or was it King George?" said the reporter. "Talking to a cartoonist is like talking to an encyclopedia."

"Full of useless information," Sensei agreed.

"Where is our coffee?" asked Mr. Kato as he looked at his watch.

"They're grinding the mocha beans for you. It'll be here any minute, a special treat for my friends and associates," replied Sensei.

"But I must be leaving in a few minutes."

"What's the hurry?"

"I have another appointment, and then I have a rendezvous at five-thirty."

"I thought you got married last year."

"I did, but we're trying to keep it fresh, you see, as fresh as a new romance. Once a month, on my payday, we meet somewhere after work, and pretend we're out for the first time. You must try it sometime, Sensei." Mr. Kato gave Sensei a sly
grin. I turned to Tokida and saw him reaching for another cigarette.

"Wisdom of the newlywed," Sensei said.

"Well, one never knows what's going to happen when the first baby arrives. Keep it fresh as long as you can is what I say. I really must be going now, gentlemen."

"By the way, Kato, we're going to be moving to a new place," said Sensei. "It got a little cramped this morning, the three of us trying to work on that desk of mine. Now that I have Kiyoi, we need more space, to accommodate his long legs if nothing else."

"Not again, Sensei. The last time I couldn't find you for a month. My editor-in-chief blames me for everything, even for your disappearances. Please, Sensei, I don't want to lose my job quite yet. There's a chance of my being promoted, so please let me know as soon as you move. Good meeting you, Kiyoi-san. I'll see you next week." Mr. Kato gulped down the strong coffee and hurried out.

"Are we really moving, Sensei?" Tokida looked up from his sketchbook.

"It's time, Tokida. There's an inn I like in Takata-no-Baba."

"Why an inn?" asked Tokida. "Why can't you rent a studio somewhere?"

"I'm partial to inns. No leases, no deposits, and you can leave anytime you want. And most important, the room service."

"Do you move often?" I asked.

"Often enough, though I haven't moved since Tokida's been with me."

"I was lucky I found you yesterday then," I said.

"Kiyoi, I have a feeling you would've tracked me down no matter where I went. Thanks to Tokida's notoriety I've been getting more calls lately. And those reporters, all they can think about is deadlines, deadlines."

"That reporter is a strange fellow," said Tokida, "going out on a date with his own wife."

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's silly. Don't you think so, Sensei? I mean why did he get married in the first place if he has to date his own wife?"

Sensei laughed. "He's what they call a romantic, Tokida."

Tokida and I had another cup of coffee, then the three of us walked to Sensei's house. Sensei's wife was a young Kyushu woman, and her familiar accent made me like her immediately. Her name was Masako, same as my mother's. She and Sensei had two children, a girl about five and a boy about three. I kept looking at the children, and suddenly realized they looked very much like the children Sensei drew in his strips.

"So you're Kiyoi-san." Mrs. Noro gave me a smile. It was strange to see a famous cartoonist married, with children, and leading a normal life like anybody else.

Mrs. Noro invited us to stay for dinner but I declined. I wanted to be alone to think about all the things that had happened to me that day. Tokida said he had to return to the studio to finish some drawings. He probably felt that Sensei needed a quiet evening with his family and didn't want to get in the way.

On Wednesday Sensei gave notice to move, and by Friday we were finished with all the work, a full week ahead of schedule.

"If it weren't for you, Kiyoi, I'd be holed up here through the night," Sensei said. Though I knew he was exaggerating, his compliment pleased me. I was glad Tokida didn't hear him.

When Sensei left to spend the weekend with his family, Tokida and I spread out the finished boards on the long desk. There was something magical about the oversized artwork. We could see where Sensei's hand had quivered ever so slightly, where the pen had skipped, blotches of color where the brush had hesitated—things one would never notice on the printed page.

"Let's sign our names on them," said Tokida.

"We can't do that," I said in alarm.

"Why not? They don't have to be obvious." And he made a tiny mark in the middle of a bushy tree, another in a kimono pattern.

"You don't think Sensei will notice?"

"Well, look at it. If you didn't know I'd done it, could you tell my name was there?"

I had to admit I could not.

"Sensei never looks at them after they're printed anyway."

"How about putting in some birds in the sky then?" I said.

"Sure, but make them small."

We sat there a long time putting our coded names on practically every frame, beautifying the landscapes with birds and bugs and suspicious-looking flowers.

"When will this come out?" I asked, suddenly eager to see my work in print for the first time.

"In a couple of weeks. Let's go to that cafe.'"

"The hot orange juice place?"

"The same one. Nice waitresses. I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

We put away the boards, locked up the studio, and strolled to the cafe. I had a thick sketchbook now, like Tokida's, and I felt like I was wearing the badge of an artist. The two waitresses and the owner greeted us as before; they even remembered our names. We sat down by the window and ordered coffee, and when Tokida put a cigarette in his mouth, one of the waitresses struck a match to light it. I almost felt like smoking myself.

"Why does Sensei make fun of the police?" I asked.

"He's always making fun of them," said Tokida. "He used to be a political cartoonist and the police were always after him during the war. Do you know he's also a writer?"

I nodded. I had read many of his science fiction stories, but I didn't know he had been a political cartoonist.

"Did Sensei make up his pen name during the war, then?"

"Probably. He was doing drawings the police didn't like, so he had to go underground. That's why he never served in the army. They would've killed him."

"Tell me how you got to be Sensei's pupil."

"Don't you read the papers?"

"I read some of the things they said about you," I admitted. "Did you really walk all the way from Osaka?"

"That was the only way I could get here; I had no money. The
first time I ran away I got caught. I'd walked for ten days and got as far as Hakone, by Mount Fuji. A truck driver felt sorry for me and gave me a lift into Tokyo. The only problem was that he dropped me off at a police station. He thought the police would help me."

"What did they do to you?"

"They kept me up all night and asked me questions. They wanted to know where I'd been, what I'd stolen, things like that. Then they took my knife away. So I told them stories. I told them my old man was poor, Ma had cancer, and I started to cry because I started to believe the stories I was telling them. It didn't fool them, though. They wanted to know why I walked all the way from Osaka carrying a knife. They thought I was after somebody, so I told them the truth. I told them I'd come to Tokyo to be a cartoonist. They thought I was crazy. Why couldn't I be a cartoonist in Osaka, they asked me. I told them there weren't great cartoonists in Osaka, and besides Pa wouldn't let me, so they sent me home, with an escort."

"Did they handcuff you?"

"No, but they would have if I'd tried to run."

"What happened at home?"

"My old man beat me, and kicked me with his clogs. I thought he was going to kill me. That's when I lopped off my finger," he said, casually lifting his left hand to show me the missing finger. I grasped my hand under the table.

"It still hurts in damp weather," he said.

"Why did you want to hurt yourself like that?"

"I was so mad, I just took an axe and did it."

"But you could've lopped off your hand!"

"I didn't care. I didn't care if I lopped off my whole arm."