by Allen Say
"But you almost had us killed," I said, losing steam. "Look, they're still going at it." I nodded toward the Diet building.
"It's no good talking like this," said Tokida. "Let's get out of here. Here, take this and cover yourself." He handed me his raggedy jacket. "And don't tell Sensei any of this."
"I won't tell if you throw your knife in the river."
"I told you, I don't have it. Two thousand seven hundred yen down the drain. You're pretty strong for your age," he said and rubbed his arm where I'd grabbed him.
I didn't believe he'd lost his knife, but said nothing.
ELEVEN
It was still early when I got home that night. I took a change of clothes and went to a bathhouse. When I returned it was getting dark and I saw a light in my next-door neighbor's window. I knocked on the door.
"Come in," said Mr. Kubota. The door was unlocked so I went in, thinking that a karate expert never has to lock his door.
"Sei-san! Come in and have a seat; this'll take only a minute," he said, rinsing a pair of socks and a shirt in the washbasin.
"Am I interrupting you?" I asked out of politeness.
"Not at all. You came at the right time. Got a loan from my rich aunt and finally paid off my wine man, so my credit's good again. Got some beer and a bottle of the red stuff over there. Go in and open a beer; it's still nice and cold."
Two sweating bottles of beer and a full bottle of port wine stood on his desk. A book lay open under the desk lamp with pencil scribblings on the margins, and three pencils with the lead sharpened as thin as needles lay together like some surgical instruments on a doctor's table. There was something maddening about his orderliness. It was the sort of neatness Tokida would like to disrupt. I poured some beer into a teacup and took a sip. I was beginning to like its bitter taste.
"You can't wear the same shirt twice in this humid weather. I say it's time to shop for a wife," said Mr. Kubota, hanging the shirt and socks from a cord stretching across the open window. He put on his summer kimono and sat down.
"You haven't been around much lately," he said. "Some gahru frendo?"
"No, nothing like that," I said. I wondered why grown men liked to tease you about girl friends. "I've been working with Sensei."
"How does it feel to have your future secure at your age? What do you plan to do with your spare time?"
"I was wondering if you'd be willing to teach me karate."
"Why karate? I'd think with your background you'd lean toward swordplay," he said and sipped out of the beer bottle. He stared me in the eye even as he lifted the bottle to his lips, and it made me nervous. His were the eyes of a martial-arts expert, steady and calm eyes that never missed a thing.
"But isn't it true that karate is the most useful thing to know when you have to go against a crowd, like in a street fight, for instance?"
"Were you in a street fight?"
"No, nothing like that, Mr. Kubota. I accidentally got mixed up in a demonstration."
"The one in front of the Diet building? I heard about it; many of my friends were there. Some of them were hurt rather badly. A bad business, Sei-san; you must stay away from that sort of thing."
"I know, it was terrible; it was like war. But it was an accident, really. Did you ever get mixed up in something like that?"
"I avoid violence on principle. Tell me about the riot."
"We didn't throw rocks at them or anything, but they came after us anyway. They were ready to club us to death."
"Who is us?"
"Tokida and I."
I had meant to leave Tokida out of it, not wanting to mention his knife, but I had made a slip and there was no turning back now.
"He's Sensei's other pupil," I said. "He's seventeen. Anyway, he lost his glasses in the fight, and he can't see a thing without them, so I had to drag him all over the place, trying to get away; we were lucky we didn't get trampled to death."
"Is that why you want to learn karate? To fight the police?" He stared at me, narrowing his eyes.
"No, Mr. Kubota, I only want to be able to defend myself. Those people were wild; we had to fight our way out. It wasn't just the police—everybody was attacking us. I don't want to hurt anybody, Mr. Kubota; I only want to learn to defend myself the next time."
"The best thing is to make sure there won't be a next time. I tell you right now, Sei-san, the first law of karate is to run. When you see a fight coming, run the other way. I know very well what you're saying, but your basic premise is wrong. I'm willing to train you only if you regard it as a sport, and nothing else. Something to shape your body and perhaps improve your character. After all, that's what the martial arts are about."
"I probably won't be good at it anyway." I looked away.
I discovered that if I take a negative attitude about things—as long as I don't overdo it—people will encourage me. Mr. Kubota was no exception.
"Come now, that's no way to talk," he said. "Maybe karate will give you more self-confidence, and a little discipline may be a good thing."
"You'll teach me, then?"
"Why not? Come to the gym tomorrow and we'll start you out. Anytime after lunch."
"Thank you, Mr. Kubota; it means a great deal to me. I'll see you tomorrow." I bowed to him and left.
Once in my room I stared in the mirror above the washbasin and tried to look ferocious. I bared my arms and flexed my biceps. I had puny arms. I swished my right hand in the air and imagined it sinking into a policeman's helmet, then another slash, breaking a riot stick in half as though it were a chopstick. I'd been the worst athlete in all the seven schools I'd been to, and my classmates used to groan when they had to h?ve me on their team. I kept looking in the mirror, twisting my mouth and rolling my eyes like an angry samurai. If I worked hard, perhaps I'd be as good as Mr. Kubota. Anyone with a second-degree black belt had to be deadly.
Next day I went to the university gym right after lunch. Mr. Kubota was instructing seven men lined up in a single row on the hardwood floor. They were all barefooted, wearing the white karate gi, the two-piece suits similar to those the judoists wear. Mr. Kubota was the only black belt there; the others had on the plain white belts.
"One!" shouted Mr. Kubota, and the men took a long step forward, striking out with their right hands at the same time, and froze in place. "Hold your fist straight!" he barked at one of the men. "Mikami, straighten your leg behind you! Two!" he shouted again, and as the men took their step and thrust their left arms, Mr. Kubota grasped one man's wrist and yanked him forward. The man lost his balance and stumbled. "Don't reach out with your body! A judo man would've thrown you clear across the room!"
Mr. Kubota wasn't the friendly neighbor anymore, but a stern and fearsome master of discipline. One, two! One, two! He barked the cadence like a drill sergeant and seemed to glide among the men like a panther. He never missed a thing. The harshness of the training surprised me, but then I'd never seen martial-arts training before. I remembered reading about a sword master who put out his own son's eye during a mock duel to show him the seriousness of sword fighting. I began to wonder if I was ready for this sort of thing. But I'd asked Mr. Kubota to teach me and wasn't about to lose face in front of these men. After about half an hour Mr. Kubota gave a signal for the men to take a break.
"Well, what do you think?" he asked, wiping the sweat off his face with a towel.
"I'd like to learn," I said. "I like it because you don't have to fight on the floor like in judo."
"It isn't anything like judo. Come, I have a spare suit you can use for today," he said and took me to the locker room. I put on the uniform and wore a white belt with his name stitched on it. It was reassuring to know that Mr. Kubota was a beginner once.
He worked with me for a few minutes, showing me how to stand, to make a fist, and to hit with the first two knuckles of my hands without moving my shoulders. They were some basic movements, he said, but anything that required physical coordination was difficult for me. I had always thought o
f karate as a mysterious, secret ritual, but now I realized it was mostly hard work.
After a while Mr. Kubota made me stand in front of a full-length mirror and practice by myself. The person I saw in the mirror didn't seem like someone who could break one single roofing tile with his bare hands, to say nothing of a six-foot riot staff, or a steel helmet. The other men ignored me out of politeness and I went on with my exercise. I didn't want to let Mr. Kubota down.
My body felt numb when I left the gym after an hour. Walking along the campus building, I tapped my knuckles against the wooden sidings, hoping they'd grow hard and lethal overnight. I felt healthy and hungry.
Outside the university gate was a large bookstore, and looking in the window I thought about Tokida and the van Gogh exhibit. A book of van Gogh's letters had been published recently, and I thought how good it would be to get it for Tokida. He would really like that. I went into the store.
"Do you have the book of van Gogh's letters?" I asked.
"Dear Theo," the clerk said, without looking up. "Look under biography. If it isn't there check under art. And if you don't see it there, it's a special order."
In the art section I got sidetracked by thick art books with color plates in them, forgetting all about van Gogh's letters. As I thumbed through an expensive new book I hadn't seen before, I saw a painting that took my breath away. It was a small portrait of a young woman. Her hair was done up in a big bun at the back of her head, and she wore a plain black velvet dress with a plain round collar. Her face was turned three quarters to the right, looking straight ahead. Her nose was too big; her lower lip was thick and broad, and her heavy eyelids made her eyes seem dreamy, drowsy even. It was the most beautiful face I had ever seen, but like a vandal, Degas had scribbled his name right above her head. I stared at her eyes with great concentration, hoping somehow she'd turn her eyes to look at me. It was that kind of painting.
I was standing in a busy narrow lane and people brushed against me trying to reach around me for books. I had an uncomfortable feeling that everyone in the store was watching me. So every time I felt someone near me, I unconsciously held the book close to my body to hide the painting. I memorized the page number, put the book back on the shelf, and walked out.
It wasn't until I got on a crowded train that it occurred to me that I could have bought the book. But I was glad I hadn't. I'd also forgotten to get the van Gogh book and felt bad about that. I had wanted to surprise Tokida with it.
I stood in the packed aisle of the train and stared absentmindedly at a young woman by the automatic door. She stood with her back to me, listening to a man in a university uniform. As her head bobbled busily above her pink kimono collar while she nodded to everything the man was saying, something clicked in my mind. Her hair was tied in a bun like Degas's girl. I wiggled through the crowd to get near the couple, hoping she'd turn her head. I had to see her face. But the most I saw of her face was a three-quarter view, from the back. The soft round curve of her cheek thrilled me.
Two stations later, when the door opened, the couple stepped out. A kind of panic seized me, and without thinking I rushed out after them. I walked quickly, almost at a trot, and took in a whiff of camellia oil on her hair as I passed them. When I reached the staircase I turned around abruptly as if I'd forgotten something, and got a good look at her. She was still listening to the man, completely unaware of me or anything else in the world. She had a round face and chubby nose, and when she laughed a gold-capped tooth glinted inside her mouth. I wished I had not seen her face.
After that I went to the gym three days in a row, not so much to take my karate lessons, but to look at Degas's painting afterward. It was amazing how a painting could look so different from day to day. One day she'd seem pensive, on another day happy, and sometimes indifferent. And each time I saw her I tried to capture her image in my mind and draw her later from memory.
TWELVE
"You haven't been ill, have you?" asked Sensei, lying on the floor with a book in his hand.
Tokida, who was drawing Venus de Milo, looked up and told me with his eyes not to mention anything about the demonstration.
"I had to run some errands for Grandmother," I lied. I hadn't been to the inn since the day of the riot, and felt a little guilty about it.
"Do you think we're ready to paint in oil?" I asked Sensei.
"So you've come down with van Gogh fever, too. Tokida's been pestering me for three days. Maybe I ought to see the exhibit myself."
"You really should, Sensei," said Tokida. "You really can't tell what the paintings are like by looking at reproductions. They have one of his palettes in a glass case. It's got paint all over it, so you can really see how he worked. I like it better than some of his paintings. You could tell he was mad."
"His violence appeals to you," said Sensei. "You must like Sesshu's late works then, the same kind of masculine staccato strokes. I know what you mean about the palette. I like to look at unfinished works of masters; they tell you more about the artists than the finished works. There's something human about them."
"Do you like Degas?" I asked.
"I had my Degas period. You're in good company, Kiyoi. Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, and me. Degas was strongly influenced by the invention of the camera. Next time look at the way he composed his canvases. You'll notice a lot of things going off the edges, like in a bad snapshot—something we cartoonists have since perfected."
"I like his pastels and drawings better than his oils," said Tokida.
I knew nothing about Degas's composition, though I understood that he was a great draftsman. As far as Tokida was concerned, van Gogh was the painter. Neither Sensei nor Tokida mentioned Degas's girl. I would keep her to myself.
It was dark when we left the inn. It had stopped raining and the lights of the city reflected off the wet pavement. Sensei walked briskly as if he had a destination in mind. Maybe he's taking us to a cafe, I thought, even a bar. But it was an artists' supply shop he took us to, the largest I'd ever seen. There were more things there than I ever thought artists would need or use. Frames and statues and cheap prints hung on the walls. There were little collapsible easels, and the big studio easels that rolled on wheels, canvases that came in rolls and those that were already stretched, shelves and shelves of watercolors and oil paints, gouaches, papers, on and on and on.
"This has to be the most wonderful place in Tokyo," said Sensei, bending down and looking into the glass display case. "Every time I come here I feel like a boy in a toy store."
He was looking at the expensive English watercolors and French oil paints.
"Isn't it Noro Shinpei?" asked the clerk behind the counter.
"I'm afraid it is. I can't seem to stay away from your marvelous store."
"It's a pleasure to have you, sir. We received a large shipment of bristol boards since I saw you."
"I'm well supplied with those, thank you."
"Is there something special you're looking for then?"
"These oils here—I'd like two of everything."
Tokida nudged me with his elbow.
"Two of everything, sir?"
"Yes, meet Tokida and Kiyoi, so-called disciples of mine, two aspiring painters."
"This is indeed an honor." The clerk smiled at us. Tokida and I bowed to him.
"Have you been painting long?"
"They're only starting," answered Sensei. "What's a good brand these days?"
"Of course the French make the best, but if the young gentlemen haven't worked much in oils I should think the domestic paints would be quite adequate, and not so expensive."
"Then the domestic brand it is. Let me have two of these boxes, but if you don't mind I'd like to choose the colors myself. I also don't like the look of these brushes in the kit."
"No problem, sir. This kit is for display purposes, though a lot of beginners prefer it with our special discount. But then you're entitled to our twenty percent professional discount, sir. I'll get the boxes from the back ro
om while you make your selections."
Tokida and I were speechless. We stared at the two walnut boxes the clerk brought out of the back room. Each had a metal lining inside, with compartments for brushes and paints and oil pots. Inside the cover was a folding palette with a thumb hole. Sensei called out the names of colors he wanted in the boxes, all English names that sounded strange and delicious—lemon yellow, carmine, rose madder. They sounded like the names of something cool to eat, like jellied fruit.
When everything was packed Sensei sent us out of the store with our packages. From the doorway we saw him produce a big wad of money from his kimono sleeve.
"How much do you think all this came to?" asked Tokida.
"I don't know, but a lot. He doesn't want us to know," I said.
"Well," said Sensei, joining us. "The rest is up to you."
"Thank you, sir." Tokida and I started to bow.
"No ceremonies. A token of my appreciation for all your hard work. Come, a celebration is in order. We're a few days early, I think, but let's celebrate Kiyoi's birthday," said Sensei and took us to a cafe.
It was obvious that Tokida talked a good deal to Sensei when I wasn't around, for I hadn't mentioned anything about my birthday to Sensei. I felt a little jealous of their closeness, but then it was mostly through Tokida that the master knew certain things about me—the things I would hesitate to tell him myself.
Tokida and I wasted no time. The very next weekend we took a train south, to a place from where we could see Mount Fuji. We walked on the country roads with our paint boxes slung from our shoulders and looked at farmhouses. Tokida was not impressed with the scenery; everything looked too ordinary, he complained. And I wasn't interested in painting the great mountain. We were looking for some exotic scene, some place that looked like the south of France van Gogh had painted, with windmills, red tiled roofs, and cypress trees that looked like flames. But in the end we set up our traveling easels and painted the drab farmhouses.