The New Samurai

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  “What did you have in mind? Have they been to Tokyo before?”

  “Yes, Sam-san, but only on school trip to see Imperial Palace at New Year. This is very much different. I have booked rooms in hostel here. Yumi will be very happy to see you.”

  Sam grimaced. And he really didn’t feel like humouring an 18-year-old girl with a crush on him but Yoshi shook his head, as if divining his thoughts.

  “No, Sam-san. I tell her you with Tara-san. Is no problem.”

  Sam winced.

  “Yoshi,” he said, wearily, “Tara and I aren’t…”

  But Yoshi interrupted him, shaking his head sadly.

  “Sam-san, you like man standing in dark room who think he blind because he will not turn on light.”

  Great. Now Yoshi was giving him advice on his love life.

  A knock on the door made Sam turn round. Paul was standing there grinning like the Cheshire cat.

  “Am I interrupting, fellas? It sounded like Yoshi the Love Doctor was on the case.”

  “Yes!” crowed Yoshi exuberantly. “I Doctor Love!”

  “Great,” muttered Sam. “Now look what you’ve done.”

  Paul just smiled more widely.

  “Suck it up, buddy. Suck it up.”

  Sam scowled and Paul laughed out loud.

  “Anyway, what’s the occasion, Doctor Love?”

  “My sister, Yumi-chan and her friend Miho-san are coming for visit in one week,” explained Yoshi.

  “Oh yeah?” said Paul, raising his eyebrows.

  Sam could almost hear Paul’s thoughts: two teenage girls on the town and Paul at the ready to offer his services.

  “Definite possibilities,” said Paul, “but first we gotta plan tonight’s agenda.”

  Sam frowned. “Helen said we were going for a drink and karaoke?”

  “Sure!” said Paul. “We’ll get to that but first – I’ve got something else planned.” He hung an arm around Yoshi’s shoulders, “And you guys are gonna love it.”

  The girl was pretty, petite and dressed in a pink and white approximation of a French maid’s outfit, with a skirt short enough to be generously described as a pelmet, white stockings with frilly garters and unfeasibly high platform shoes. She wore a large floppy bow in her silky, black hair, her make-up heavy, artifice winning over natural beauty.

  “Welcome, Master!” she said to Paul, bowing low. “Welcome, Mistress,” she said to Helen.

  Helen raised her eyebrows. “A Maid Café?” she said, glancing at Paul, who looked like all his Christmases had come at once.

  Paul grinned. “If this doesn’t get Sam’s motor running, nothing will!”

  Helen rolled her eyes.

  “Sometimes, Paul, you have the sensitivity of a bog roll and the emotional range of an hormonally-challenged adolescent.”

  “Love ya, too, mom!” he laughed, completely unabashed.

  Yoshi looked pleased as well, gazing happily at the excess of eye-candy that surrounded him. Sam skulked at the back, wishing Paul a thousand fiery deaths, as another maid, this one in blue and white, insisted on taking his jacket, linking her arm through his, and escorting him ‘home’ – which meant to their table, decorated to look like an approximation of a family dining room.

  “You have hard day at office, Master?” she said, gazing up adoringly into Sam’s eyes. “You like shoulder massage?”

  “No, I’m fine thanks,” he muttered, while Paul laughed at his expression.

  “Yeah, he’d love a massage,” said Paul, handing the waitress ¥3,000. “Thank me later, buddy.”

  Helen smiled serenely. “In that case, Paul, you can pay for me to have a neck rub, too. I’m feeling a little tense, suddenly. And Yoshi doesn’t want to be left out.”

  Paul frowned, peeling off another set of notes for Helen and Yoshi’s waitresses.

  “Ah, what the hell! You only live once, right?”

  “Thank you, Master,” said the waitress in pink and white.

  “No problem, honey,” said Paul. “Just call me, Daddy.”

  Sam’s waitress brushed her fingers down his neck and started massaging his shoulders. Her touch was gentle but firm and, if it hadn’t been for the fact that she chattered non-stop, it would have been very soothing. He closed his eyes, trying to tune out the babble around him.

  After ten minutes of gentle kneading, the maids served cold beer and started to bring out the meal. To Sam’s extreme embarrassment, his waitress knelt at his side, gently laying a napkin across his thighs and handing him every dish personally, commenting on how well he held his chopsticks, what long fingers he had, such soft skin, such pretty hair, such wide eyes, such long lashes.

  Sam’s face was scarlet but Paul looked like he was in his element. Yoshi took everything in his stride and Helen merely looked bemused.

  Eventually the torture was over. Sam had found it very hard to eat much when every mouthful he took was commented on. He wondered what Tara would have made of it. She’d have laughed.

  “Shall we go and find somewhere to have a drink?” said Helen, sympathetically.

  “God, yes!” muttered Sam. “Anywhere but here.”

  They paid the bill as the maids waved from the door.

  “Come back soon, Master!”

  “I’m in love!” said Paul.

  Sam was working late at his adult language class when Yoshi had arrived back from the airport with Yumi and Miho in tow. Sam was quite relieved to miss going out for a meal with them but had arranged to meet them for drinks at a Shinjuku bar later.

  He pushed through the crowded bar, trying to ignore the stares that followed him and the second glances that he’d never really become used to. He saw Yoshi first, looking unusually stern, sipping weak beer and appearing to take his in loco parentis role seriously. Paul was sitting between the two girls and was clearly flirting in stereo. Helen looked a little bored but she brightened when she saw Sam.

  Miho and Yumi looked up and giggled, Yumi blushing a deep red. Whatever Yoshi had said to her appeared not to have taken effect. Sam greeted them formally in Japanese and informally in English. It didn’t really matter what he said in either language because they just giggled at him from behind their hands. It was sort of annoying.

  “Thank goodness you’re here!” whispered Helen, as Sam squeezed into the booth next to her. “I was beginning to feel like a gooseberry.”

  Sam smiled crookedly. “Does that mean you’ll be my date for the evening?”

  She laughed. “Willingly!”

  He pulled off his tie and folded it into a square before shoving it in his pocket. Then he rolled up the sleeves on his shirt and loosened the top couple of buttons. He didn’t notice that Yumi’s eyes nearly popped out of her head, and he was entirely oblivious of the way she gazed up at him from beneath her heavily mascaraed eyelashes.

  But Helen wasn’t oblivious and she wasn’t alone, Paul clearly irritated to have lost his captive audience.

  “So, what do you girls want to do while you’re in town?” said Paul, to regain their attention.

  “We want to go to Ice Bar!” said Yumi, after a brief consultation with Miho.

  “Yeah? That’s sounds cool,” said Paul, laughing at his own joke.

  Sam smiled and shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re too late for that; it closed a couple of weeks back.”

  The girls pouted in disappointment.

  “Huh?” said Paul. “There was a cool bar in town and I haven’t been there. How come? I thought I was your buddy?” and he punched Sam on the shoulder.

  Helen took in Sam’s expression and hurried to dissolve the sudden tension.

  “Oh, it was one of those themed places,” she said, quickly. “It was full of ice sculpture and the temperature never rose about -5oC. I can’t imagine anyone would stay longer than for one drink, even in the summer.”

  “So how come it’s closed?” said Paul.

  “It used too much power to keep it cold. There was a bit of a move to close it when s
o many buildings were turning off the aircon to save energy since Fukushima. It just wasn’t thought ‘green’ enough.”

  “Pity,” sighed Paul. “It would have been a great place to snuggle with your honey,” and he winked at the girls. Then he turned to Sam, “I suppose you went with Tara, huh?”

  Helen rolled her eyes. Sometimes Paul could be so insensitive.

  “It’s okay, Helen,” said Sam, quietly.

  “He’s a prick!” she said, her tone angry.

  Sam grinned. “Yeah, but that doesn’t make him wrong, does it? Besides, I’m not allowed to wallow. Right?”

  “Right! In which case, why don’t you ask me to dance? I may be twice the age of the rest of you kids, but I’ve still got some moves.”

  “So I hear,” said Sam, speaking directly into her ear, above the noise of the bar. “You and Malc: every room in the Love Hotel?!”

  Helen slapped his arm, but she couldn’t hide her blush.

  Sam liked being with Helen. She was easy company. But he couldn’t hide from himself his longing for a different set of arms as they danced.

  Sam’s Blog

  Hi everyone!

  Sorry I haven’t written for a while.

  Last weekend Yoshi’s sister Yumi came down for the weekend with her friend Miho. It was a pretty full-on time and we did all the touristy things that I haven’t done here yet, so it was intense, but all for the craic.

  Yumi and Miho wanted to go the Jingu-bashi to see the cosplay-zoku – girls dressed up as anime characters in punk kimonos. (You’ve really got to see that!) Paul nearly embarrassed himself leching after the Lolita goths and a bunch of chijo girls who had cut holes in their clothes at strategic places, so we took him away and got him a beer. Sometimes Japan is so straitlaced but there’s this other side that is really wild – I’m still only just getting my head around it.

  Oh, and you can’t buy alcohol here unless you’re over 20 and Yumi and Miho are only 18. They got carded in a couple of places so we didn’t go in and, anyway, Yoshi was taking his big brother role very seriously, much to Yumi’s annoyance!

  On Sunday the girls wanted to go to Tokyo Disneyland. I said I’d rather chew off my foot than go there. In the end we compromised with DisneySea which is a kind of grown-up version, if you can imagine that. The rides are supposed to be faster and scarier. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, although the highlight was Paul throwing up on his shoes. He swears he ate some bad seafood and who am I to contradict him? Then we went to a place that you would have loved, Sylvie: a café where they only serve desserts with a version of an all-you-can-eat buffet. I stuck to the coffee and Paul stuck to the water. But Helen went kind of wild and ate enough to choke a buffalo.

  Yumi and Miho went home with a load of tacky souvenirs, so I think they enjoyed themselves. Yoshi has invited us all to go up for a weekend’s snowboarding when the slopes open next month. Actually I think Yoshi is really keen to see Miho again, so watch this space. I’ll have to replenish the wallet first, but it would be amazing to see Hokkaido in the snow after having seen it in the summer.

  So that was last weekend but it’s been busy at school, too, and all the language teachers have been involved in a festival at a village outside Kyoto, which is about 270 miles from Tokyo.

  It was a great honour for the gaijin to be invited to take part so we were all on our best behaviour, under the severe eye of Frau Brandt.

  It was an experience, in all sorts of ways, not least because a typhoon hit while we were there.

  The typhoon warning had been on the news for a few days beforehand so most people in the village where we were staying were well prepared. The village is in a river valley and most houses are built quite low down. But even though the road basically follows the river, it didn't overflow thanks to the dam about 10 miles up the mountain. That seemed like pretty good forward planning but Yoshi says that just about every river in Japan has a dam system. This definitely helps out when it gets to typhoon season!

  I noticed that every house in the village was fitted with a set of metal rain shutters for each window in case of times like these so thankfully, there were no major problems. We later heard that some of the towns along the coast suffered worse (as could probably be expected) but, as always, the Japanese are well prepared and stoical about any damage.

  We weren’t quite so well prepared. There were 15 of us on a minibus and I guess our driver forgot to keep track of weather reports because a few minutes out from the ryokan (a traditional inn) where we were staying, we were caught in the middle of it. The road became a river and the amount of water running off the hills was unbelievable. The rain was hammering down so heavily it was like being underwater. The driver refused to stop because he said that this area was known for mud slides and he’d rather try and get further up the valley! Wayne, it was even worse than that time we drove back from Wembley after City’s cup defeat!

  Yep, I'm definitely keeping busy! All my weekends and time off for the past month or so have been taken up with this festival (‘matsuri’). I've been hauling a big shrine on my shoulders with some of the burly men from the village who were built like Samoan props, all of us dressed in yukatas, and followed by a session of pounding rice into oblivion with a mallet to make mochi rice cakes. It was all to do with the rice harvest and making offerings to the local kami. People came from miles around to watch and there was the usual eating and drinking and carousing. There was a parade of floats made by local schools and businesses which were amazing and Paul said it gave the New York St Patrick’s Day Parade a run for its money. The floats were decorated with figures from kabuki and various historical figures (most of them I had no idea who they were but Yoshi said one looked like Akebono Tara, a famous Sumo wrestler) and there was traditional dancing, too. Yoshi fancied one of the dancers but despite Paul’s best efforts to help him, he didn’t manage to pull. I’ll just say that Paul’s approach lacks… er… subtlety. Among other things. On the plus side, Paul and I beat a few locals at their chopstick-drinking game tournament.

  The whole thing finished with a spectacular fireworks display. It was LOUD!

  Up in the mountains where we were staying the leaves are beautiful now autumn has come, but I've been told by everyone that they're not up to par compared with previous years. They have that countryside penchant to complain that October and November have been too warm and dry! Did they forget about the typhoon already?! This affects the leaves apparently but they look fine to me. I can see why one of the names for Japan is Land of a Thousand Autumns.

  Although 75% of Japan is covered with forested mountains, there is a lot of concrete, too. Yoshi says they need it on the coast as it’s extremely important to help protect the towns during typhoons and tsunamis, as we saw all up and down the coast from Fukushima, but these walls of concrete are a really big eyesore. Around here, where the valleys are steep, there is a big forestry industry and a lot of these areas have concrete and meshes following the roads to help strengthen against landslides. It really is a shame, but if you go a bit deeper into the woods there's no sign of human inhabitation at all. I did get a chance to explore a bit – I don’t think there were any bears in this area but Yoshi insisted that we sing to keep them away (as we didn’t have any cow bells to wear!). Well, he sang, I made a noise that sounded like a bear choking, apparently. And I also found out that Yoshi knows every Simon and Garfunkel song ever written – it could have been worse. If the hike had been any longer he’d have moved on to the Beyonce oeuvre, or failing that, Celine Dion. Dear God!

  We got a day in Kyoto, which was amazing. We visited Ise-jingu, Japan’s most sacred shrine. But the best thing, for me, anyway, was the famous nightingale floor at Nijo Castle. The castle was built in the early 1600s by Tokugawa Ieyasu, the shogun. He was so paranoid about being assassinated that he had these special wooden floors created. Every time someone walks on them, the way they’re constructed means that the wood rubs together and it really does sound like nightingales singing. In ot
her words, it’s impossible to cross the floor in silence – and we all tried – in our socks! (In Japan no-one has holey socks because you have to take your shoes off all the time. Keith, take note!) Anyway, the nightingale floor would have made it completely impossible for anyone to sneak up on you in the night and cut your throat.

  It kinda reminds me of the floorboards at home when Fiona used to try and sneak in late without being caught by our mum! Now we know why she never got them fixed, hey, sis?

  That’s all the news that’s fit to print.

  Sayonara!

  Fiona’s haiku

  Silently my sister creeps

  Loud in the dark, one more step.

  Caught by mum.

  Chapter 13 – December

  Sam was creased up laughing as Kazuo marched across the classroom wearing a bowler hat, arm-in-arm with Harumi, who was wearing a scarf around her head fifties style. Then Fumio slouched after them wearing a pink Mochican wig, his face screwed up trying to look cool. The girls in the class giggled and the other boys howled with laughter.

  They were practising for Sam’s school assembly – a lecture on British culture. At least that’s what it was supposed to be. Sam had had another idea.

  The classroom door opened and the students fell silent instantly. Sam twisted round, the smile falling from his face as he saw the severe expression on Ms Amori’s face.

  “Patterson-san,” she said, her voice steely, “Tanaka-san would like to speak to you.” She narrowed her eyes a fraction, “if it is convenient.”

  Sam followed her out of the classroom. He felt the need to explain.

  “We were practising for the school assembly on British culture. I thought it would be… fun… to use music and fashion from the last fifty years, so…”

  His words trailed off. He couldn’t tell if she wasn’t listening or just so deeply disapproving that she preferred not to hear.

  He’d hoped that on his return from Nagasaki, a thawing of relations would have continued. In which case, he seemed doomed to disappointment. There was no entente; Ms Amori’s hauteur was entirely intact.