by Allen Say
"This is harder than I thought," I said to Tokida. He came over and looked at the mess I was making, but for once he couldn't give me advice. We sat on the grass and laughed. He was happy in the sun, talking about van Gogh. I thought how good it would be to have a studio of my own one day, with a tall ceiling and big window that faced the north. Portraits are the hardest things to paint, and that was what I wanted to paint most of all.
***
At the end of August I turned fourteen and Mother gave me a camera. I'd been wanting a camera for a long time and the gift delighted me. It was a small camera with a black leather bellows, a small prism for a viewer, but no range finder. Hoping I was focusing on the right place, I had to guess the distance between me and the subject to set the camera.
School began a few days after my birthday. I took up Abacus's offer and started to use the art room after classes. It was large and quiet, and I felt comfortable there. Many easels stood stacked in one corner, and along the tall wall were the statues of the discus thrower, Michelangelo's David, Brutus, Venus de Milo, whose nipples someone had blackened, and a couple of others I didn't know. It was the nearest thing to having my own studio. Though Venus was familiar to me, David was the first piece I tackled. I wanted to draw a male face for a change. His curly hair was hard to draw, and I was determined to learn to draw faces.
One day as I was drawing David with great concentration, a strange thing happened to me. I heard a kind of buzz inside my head, as if something had plugged up my ears, and I felt suddenly cut off from everything around me. My body went numb. I watched my hand holding a long stick of charcoal, moving up and down against the paper like the hand of a marionette. Then I felt myself wafting upward, leaving my body on the stool. Up and up I went, floating up to the ceiling. I was now a big eyeball, hovering against the ceiling, looking down at the room below me. I felt nothing, and saw everything—the cracks on the walls, paint smudges on the easels, the wide gaps between the wooden slats where the nails had come off. But strangest of all, I was watching myself, drawing like a mechanical man, with my right hand working on the paper.
I didn't know how long I had been up there when the sharp shrill of a whistle startled me. As in a dream I floated, falling and falling, back into my body. Suddenly I felt the weight of my raised arm. Like a sleepwalker I shuffled to the window and looked out to the playfield. Boys in striped shirts were playing soccer and the gym teacher was running with them, blowing his whistle. Had I been dreaming? Was I going mad? But there, leaning against the easel, was the drawing. It wasn't finished, but the rough shading and the outline looked like they'd been drawn by an expert. A shudder went through my body. It was the best drawing I had ever done and I had no idea how I had done it.
After that I locked myself in the art room every afternoon to see if it would happen again. It didn't happen often, but when it did, my drawings seemed too good to be my own work. It was as if I'd discovered something in me that I didn't know was there. Power to work magic. Did all artists experience such a thing? I wondered. If so, why hadn't I heard about it? Maybe it was too insane to tell anybody. Maybe it was the secret of art. I felt a great elation. Whatever it was, I would keep it to myself.
Also I was beginning to manage my time better and to concentrate on my studies more. But my social life at school, except for my casual friendship with Mori, didn't improve much. Mori and I occasionally had coffee together, and he taught me what he said was the proper way to drink it. He said a good cup of coffee had to be strong and rich enough to hold cream on the surface without mixing, and the coffee was supposed to be drunk through the layer of cream. According to him there were only three places in Tokyo where they served such coffee. He took me to all three, and teased me about some girl who was supposed to have a crush on me. But whenever I asked Mori who it was he would mention a different girl, so after a while I stopped asking him. We talked mostly about books, especially love stories, like Lady Chatterley's Lover. Mori paid a small fortune for a copy of that book, for it was banned in Japan, and lent it to me. I read one passage over and over until I could recite it backward. I kept the book three weeks.
THIRTEEN
At the end of October all the students in the second year went on a day's outing to the seashore of Chiba, a prefecture north of Tokyo. There were three classes in my grade, with about fifty students each, and it was only on those excursions that the students from the classes mingled with one another.
I took a whole roll of pictures that day, guessing distances and lens openings, hoping for the best. The girls posed for me willingly, and even many of the teachers asked me to take their pictures. But Mori was the most eager subject of all, though when I first showed him my camera he said it was a primitive piece of machinery.
I was happy and excited when all the pictures turned out well, and I pored over them with satisfaction. Mori was in many of the shots, always clowning with his big eyes. One picture in particular came out clearer than the rest—a photograph of three girls from Mori's class on the beach with the white sky in the background. The chubby girl on the right was grinning, holding a dead crab, and the girl on the left had her eyes closed. I stared at the tall girl in the middle; her name was Okamoto Reiko, and she seemed to look back at me with a faint smile. I'd seen her many times before, but never paid much attention to her. Now I looked at her carefully; her hair came down to her shoulders, and the wind had caught it, revealing the oval shape of her face. There was stillness in her eyes, and her broad lower lip curved out. In my mind I rearranged her hair and gave her a big bun at the back of her head, then put a black velvet dress on her, with a plain round collar. My heart began to beat fast. The Degas painting! I had to see Reiko.
But it was Friday afternoon. Two whole days before I would see her in school. Then I remembered the little book the school had issued us when I was first admitted. The book had all the addresses and telephone numbers of students and teachers. A private telephone was expensive, but most of the students came from wealthy families. I was in luck—she had a telephone. I ran out of the house and rushed to the nearest public phone booth.
I wasn't used to calling people on the phone. I'd used it no more than a dozen times and felt like an idiot every time I had to talk into the machine. What should I say to her? Calling up a girl was almost unheard of. Maybe her mother or a housemaid would answer and report me to the principal; I was shaking from nervousness as I put a coin in the slot and dialed the number.
"Okamoto residence," said a woman's voice.
"Hello, may I trouble you to let me speak with Reiko-san?" I said in my best voice.
"May I tell her who's calling, please?"
"Kiyoi, no, I mean Sei. My name is Sei."
A pause.
"One moment, please," said the voice.
Sounds too formal, must be the maid, I told myself. She's taking an awfully long time coming to the phone ... probably lives in a mansion ... Looking out the glass panel I saw yet another man join the waiting line.
"Hello?" said a female voice.
"Okamoto-san?" I asked. She had a deeper voice than I expected, and I had a hard time putting her face to the voice.
"Yes?"
"This is Sei. I'm in Mr. Sato's class, you know, Goldfish."
"Yes?" she said again. She sounded as if she didn't know what I was talking about.
"Do you remember the picture I took of you on the beach the other day? Well, I got it back today and I'd like to give it to you."
"That's very nice of you. I'm sure the other girls would like to see it, too."
"I thought you might like to have yours first. It's really a good picture of you."
"Couldn't you give it to me at school?"
"Yes, but I didn't want to do it in front of other students."
"Couldn't you send it to me then?"
"I could, but I wanted to give it to you in person."
"How do you mean?"
"I thought perhaps you could meet me somewhere."
&nb
sp; "Oh ... Mother wouldn't approve...."
"No, I suppose not. But couldn't you see me anyway? Without telling your mother?"
"I don't know ... Where?"
"You live in Setagaya, don't you? I can come to the station."
"Someone might see us."
"What about Shibuya then? In front of the dog statue."
"I don't know."
"I only want to give you the picture. I thought maybe we could have coffee somewhere."
"Oh, Mother wouldn't approve of that sort of thing."
"No coffee then. Can you see me just for a few minutes?"
"When?"
"Tomorrow morning?"
"I have a piano lesson."
"In the afternoon then?"
"I'll have to think about it."
"Look, I'll tell you what. I'll be at the dog statue at three tomorrow afternoon."
"I'll have to think about it."
"Three o'clock. I have to hang up now. I hope you'll come. Good-bye."
There were now six people lined up outside the booth and they greeted me with stony silence. Did they hear me trying to arrange a date with a girl? Well, I would never see them again.
I walked slowly back to my room, trying to remember what her voice sounded like. It would be thrilling to hold hands with her, even for a brief moment. Small children do it all the time. So do adults. But we weren't children anymore, and not yet fully grown. For us holding hands or meeting on our own simply wasn't done. But were all girls as dense as Reiko? Why couldn't she make up her own mind? Her mother wouldn't approve! Piano lessons! She was probably taking tea lessons and flower arranging, also. It was all too bad. She was the only girl I knew who looked like Degas's painting.
***
I arrived at the Shibuya station at two, full of hope and anxiety. I positioned myself next to a telephone pole across the square so I could keep a sharp lookout on the dog statue. And leaning against the pole I pretended to read a newspaper while rehearsing all sorts of lines in my head. Should I give her the picture right away, or wait till we got to an art gallery, or even a cafe? But then I didn't want to alarm her. I wouldn't think of doing something her mother wouldn't approve. A stroll through Meiji Park? A museum in Ueno? A movie would take too much time. If I could only see her for a moment perhaps I could talk her into meeting me again.
As three o'clock approached I got all the lines mixed up and didn't know what I was thinking anymore. Maybe she's standing somewhere and spying on the dog statue, too, I thought suddenly. So I crossed the square and walked to the statue, fumbling with my newspaper. One by one smiling faces appeared out of nowhere, paired up with somebody who'd been standing near me, and disappeared into the crowd, happy as imbeciles.
At three-thirty an old man with a beat-up felt hat and a box camera coaxed his toothless wife to pose in front of the statue and snapped a picture of her. Then they changed places, the old man telling his wife that all she had to do was to push on the shutter. She couldn't find it. I thought of taking the picture for them but felt too depressed even to offer.
She never came.
FOURTEEN
Going to school was dreadful after that. Reiko was cool and indifferent, and acted as though we had never had our conversation. She seemed vacant, as if she had no feelings. Maybe she wasn't too bright, but that thought didn't cheer me up. I never gave her the picture.
Mori was full of praise for my snapshots, and was delighted when I gave him all the ones that included him. I showed him all the pictures, hoping he'd notice the one of Reiko and tell her something about it.
"You have the eye of an arust, no doubt about it," he declared. "And that lens of yours is sharp as anything Zeiss makes." He picked up the one of the three girls and studied it with a knowing smile.
"You're a sly one, Sei. How did you guess?"
"Guess what?" I asked.
"Don't play innocent with me. You know what I'm talking about."
"No, I don't."
"You know one of them has a crush on you."
"We're not going to go through that again, are we? You men don a girl every dme I see you, and it's a different name each time," I said sarcastically, hoping he wouldn't notice me flushing.
"Don't pretend with me, Sei; I've told you about her before. It's the same one. You have a short memory when it comes to names."
"If you mean the one with the dead crab, I think she's rather pretty, too," I said. Mori fell for it.
"Don't be a fool. And I don't mean the moron standing next to her either."
"Let me guess. The one whose eyes are forever closed to me?"
"What do you expect? You made her nervous."
"Here, give her the picture, with my compliments."
"Any message?"
"No."
"You have nothing to say to her?"
"Why should I? I'm not interested in her."
"Say hello to her or something, at least."
"Look, if you like her so much, buy her a cup of coffee at one of your special places."
"To hell with you, Sei," he said and walked off.
One day during the morning assembly in the auditorium, a girl sitting next to me slipped a paperback book onto my lap. Slowly I turned my head around to make sure no one was watching and put the book in my coat pocket. I looked at her from the corner of my eye and whispered, "Thank you." My face flushed. She didn't look at me, but pretended to listen to the featured speaker on the stage.
Her name was Nakano Michiko. She was not in my class, but she'd been assigned the seat next to me since the new term began. I'd spoken to her a few times before, making snide comments about boring lectures, and she had nodded and smiled politely. I now studied her with quick sidelong glances. Her hair was cut straight across her forehead, and also on the back of her neck. She was one of the few girls who wore a school uniform, a pleated skirt of navy blue and a shirt with a sailor suit collar. The drab clothes and her schoolgirl haircut made her look plain, but now I saw that she was rather pretty.
The book was a work by Soseki, the great Japanese writer. Opening it in the art room that afternoon I found a note inside.
If you have not read this, please keep it. You'll think me stupid,
but the man in the story reminded me of you.
Nakano
I read the thin handwriting over and over again. It was the first note I had ever received from a girl and it excited me tremendously. I was flattered, and had enough sense to know Michiko was telling me that she liked me. I read the book eagerly to find out what I had in common with the man in the book.
It was a strange tale of a man in his thirties, a painter who would scribble a poem every time something interested him. And the plot of the book was about his long vacation in a mountain inn and his encounter with a young woman who could read his mind. The book gave me an eerie feeling. If Michiko saw a similarity between me and the hero, she understood literature far more than I did.
"Thank you for the book," I whispered to her next day at assembly.
"Did you read it?" she asked without turning her head.
"I read it last night."
"Isn't it a wonderful book?"
"I liked it very much."
"I don't understand how he knows so much about women," she whispered.
"You think the woman is real?" I asked in surprise.
"Oh, yes. I often feel the way she does."
I thought about that for a while. Most likely it was the woman in the story who reminded Michiko of herself. The hero was probably an excuse to let me know how she felt about me.
"Did you read about the man who killed himself in Nikko?" asked Michiko.
I nodded. In the morning paper was an article about a man who had jumped from the top of the waterfall at Nikko, a well-known summer resort in the north. It was a popular place for committing suicide. The news was that they hadn't found the man's body.
"He's causing a lot of trouble," I said. "Why couldn't he have done it in a place where the
y wouldn't bother to look for his body? Jumping into a volcano would've been better."
Michiko gave me a quick look. "But don't you think it's egoistic to kill oneself?"
I nodded knowingly. I didn't know what she was talking about.
A few days later I gave her a book during meditation. It had been translated from German, but I felt a closeness to its hero, who lived alone in a boarding house. It didn't matter if she'd read it before, I wanted her to have my copy. We were now even in terms of gifts.
That afternoon I ran into Michiko in a bookstore near the Shibuya station. Actually I wasn't aware of her until she called my name. I blushed and started to stammer. I had the feeling our meeting wasn't an accident.
"Thank you for the book," she said and bowed to me in the narrow lane. "I'm glad you like Hesse. Have you read Demian?"
I shook my head.
"It's a lovely book. It's the kind of book you like to keep to yourself and not tell anyone about. Are you angry with me?"
"Why should I be angry?" I looked at her.
"For meeting you here."
"No, why should I? Are you looking for something special?"
"I'm just looking," she said and scanned the shelf in front of us. "Do you ever visit your friends?"
"I don't have many friends," I replied.
"I don't either. I like to be alone and read books. I spend all my allowance on books."
"I like to read, too, but I spend most of my free time at Sensei's studio."
"Your cartoon master? He must be a wonderful person. His serials are so amusing."
Michiko didn't seem like someone who read comic strips, and I wondered if she read Sensei's serials because of me.
"Sei-san," she said and hesitated. "Will you be angry if I ask you to come to my house some weekend?"
"No," I said and looked away. I had never expected an invitation from a girl. And Michiko's invitation meant that she'd already asked her parents' permission to bring me home. Whatever she'd told her parents about me must have been good.