Requiem

by Frances Itani

  That evening, Okuma-san told me about the Heiligenstadt Testament, which Beethoven wrote when he was thirty-one years old. He had addressed it to his brothers, one of them by name, but it was never sent and was discovered among his papers after his death.

  “It is a sad document,” said Okuma-san. “Very sad. Because in it, Beethoven finally accepted his permanent infirmity, his deafness. Imagine, at thirty-one and with the kind of genius that was inside him. Who knows how he was able to triumph over those devastating conditions? Maybe his deep love of life and his love of God allowed him to continue.”

  The kitchen was almost dark by then, and I went to bed feeling that the music was still inside me. I did not want the feeling to escape.

  On the Friday that art classes began, I had begun to worry about the possibility that Mr. Abbott, the gym instructor, would walk into our classroom and announce that he was the teacher. I knew he could make my life as difficult and as complicated as he wished it to be. It was a relief to me when the other veteran—there wasn’t a student in the school who did not know which two teachers had fought in the war—Mr. Owen, walked through the doorway and announced, “Today we will begin the study of art.”

  Mr. Owen had fought in the Battle of Hong Kong and had been wounded. A bullet had gone through his cheek. There was a large scar on the left side of his face. His left eye was lower than the right, as if it had been mangled in the process of being wounded. He had been taken prisoner in Hong Kong by Japanese soldiers and was sent to Japan to work in a factory. Everyone knew how weak and sick he had been at the end of the war, when he’d finally returned home.

  Our first class was a drawing class, and that was fine with me. Mr. Owen wanted us to draw either a horse or a dog. He handed out art paper and then he began to draw on the board with chalk, demonstrating a model of ovals and circles that could be created into a horse’s head and belly and back. The outer lines could be erased after a likeness had been found.

  The demonstration of the dog began with two ovals and a circle. The circle was positioned behind the oval and transformed into a long, floppy ear on each side of the head. Another oval was positioned on its side and became the dog’s seated body. Legs and tail were added at the end.

  I drew the horse, but did not need circles and ovals to help me. From memory, I drew one of the wild horses from the camp.

  Mr. Owen walked up and down the rows of desks, looking over our shoulders. He was impressed with what I had done.

  “It’s good, Ben. It’s really very good. You didn’t need any of my teaching aids to get started. And as you already know, there are many ways to draw a picture.”

  He asked me to stay after class that day.

  “Ben,” he said, “have you ever looked at real paintings in a gallery? Would you like to borrow some of my art books? I have quite a library at home. It’s important, when you are an artist, to look at the work of others and to know what has been done before.”

  I agreed, cautiously. I was not accustomed to excessive kindness from teachers. But a friendship between us began that day.

  Mr. Owen helped me to pay more attention to the natural world. He encouraged this so as to provide me with grounding. To start with basics but to be aware of every aspect of my own creations. “Look at what is around and between the objects you draw,” he told me. And I did. I began to focus on the spaces between, the angles and shadows, the fragmentation of light. I even began to wonder if I could draw these on their own: the shapes and groups of shapes above and between and below—instead of the objects themselves.

  It was almost a decade later when I experimented in earnest this way, divorcing myself, freeing myself from being bound to actual objects, appreciating abstract shapes, real and imagined, and the ways they could exist for their own sake.

  Along with Okuma-san, Mr. Owen helped me at the beginning of this journey. He challenged me to believe that every new drawing and painting deserved the excitement I gave to it as I searched for new forms that might bring it to life. Even when I was in grade eight, this was deemed to be important.

  Some days, during those Friday afternoon classes, my classmates would ask Mr. Owen to tell us about the war. One time, he spoke about being a prisoner in Japan.

  “I was weak,” he said, “and I had lost a great deal of weight. More than fifty pounds. My clothes were ragged; I had no shoes; there was little food to be shared. One of my jobs was to take deliveries from the factory in which I worked to a second factory, more than a mile away. I was given a heavy knapsack that was filled with metal parts, and told where to deliver it. I did not have to have a guard because there was no place for me to escape. If I had tried to hide, some of my comrades would have been killed in my place. In my weakened condition, barefoot, it was a long walk for me at the time. I had to pass through a remote village on the way. The village was poor and it was obvious that the people who lived there were barely scraping by.

  “One afternoon, while I was walking past a small house, I became dizzy from hunger and from the heat, and I had to sit down at the edge of the road. An elderly couple came outside and offered water. Then they went back inside and came out with a small scoop of cooked rice. They helped me to stand, and I was able to continue. The scoop of rice and the water kept me going.”

  Mr. Owen stared out the classroom window for a long time before he continued, but none of us spoke or tried to interrupt.

  “I can never adequately explain to you what that meant to me,” he said. “Apart from the obvious fact that I stayed alive one more day.

  “The old couple looked out for me after that, and helped me whenever they saw me on the road between factories, carrying the heavy knapsack. When they had extra food, they shared it. Sometimes it was nothing more than a fish head pulled from a watery stew. Sometimes it was a rice ball. They were probably putting their own lives in danger by giving me food, and I have always felt badly that I had nothing to give in return.

  “When the war ended, before I left, I sat on the floor of my bunkhouse and made a drawing of the two of them, the man and his wife. I took it to them and said goodbye. I was able to leave them a ration kit, given to me by American soldiers. Many of my comrades had died from starvation and abuse in the prison factory. But I am alive today and standing in this classroom because one elderly Japanese couple who had almost nothing themselves were humane enough to help me.”

  It is possible that after Mr. Owen told his story, I found myself in fewer fights at school. Certainly, my classmates and I remembered the story, because we talked about it several times, among ourselves.

  I did borrow art books from Mr. Owen that year. Week after week, month after month, until I had gone through most of his library. One of his books was about Japanese woodblock prints, and some of the representations within reminded me of the scroll I had been given by Okuma-san. I took the book home to the chicken coop and showed it to Okuma-san, and we delighted in turning the pages, examining the uniqueness of the art. I was especially captivated by the way water had been drawn. Some waves looked like hard chunks of river. Others showed as soft ripples or shadows. I began to understand that there could be a soft or hard look to water, that there could be many ways of depicting rivers, that this was a matter of technique and of choice.

  Mr. Owen also introduced the use of watercolours to our class, but I found this to be a difficult medium. We had many discussions—just the two of us—about the artists I had read about in his books. He gave me hope that some day I might be fortunate enough to stand before some of the great paintings I had seen on the pages, and witness them for myself.

  At the end of the year, on the report card that would be presented to the college I was moving to in Ontario, the one where Okuma-san and I would once again restart our lives, I was given an A plus for my work in Mr. Owen’s class.

  The two of us talked after our last class, Mr. Owen and I, and he told me, “Ben, there will be a great deal of pressure put upon you to be ordinary, to follow the norm, never t
o raise your head. Because of this, your art will become the most private part of you. The secret possession that you will guard the most.”

  Okuma-san and I left the plank keyboard behind in the chicken coop, and Mr. Boyd drove us to the train station. Before we departed, I walked to Mr. Owen’s house and presented him with a watercolour I had painted. It had been a struggle, but I had done my best and I had created my own representation of the golden hills that edged the town. The golden hills and the sun-hazed sky that fell upon them. I signed the painting Bin Okuma, using my real name. It was the first time I had ever signed anything I had drawn or painted. Never again did I use any other name except my own, after that day.

  REQUIEM

  Life’s wayfarers drink from one and the same stream.

  CHAPTER 26

  1997

  I haven’t been successful in reaching Kay by phone, but I leave a message on her answering machine and tell her I’ll phone from the next stop. Basil and I are in Alberta now, just beyond the border, sitting in the sun at a picnic table that’s next to a gas station and truck stop. Basil has been well fed but he’s eyeing my hamburger, watching me chew as if he’s about to expire from starvation. We’re both happy to be out of the car, enjoying the spring air. It’s warm enough to be outside here, as long as I keep my jacket on.

  A family, parents and two children, a girl and a boy, come out with hamburgers and fries, and join us at the picnic table. The boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, reaches for Basil, runs his fingers through his coat, and Basil responds with his groaning, contented noise, mouth open. When the boy lifts his hand, Basil nudges him for more, and then gives himself a good shake.

  “His hair is pretty matted,” I tell the boy. “We’ve been on the road for over a week and he needs a good bath.”

  The boy tells me they have a dog at home, a Dalmatian named Putty. Basil is on his best behaviour with this family. The boy tells me he’s going to study to be a veterinarian after he finishes high school. His mom and dad are ranchers, and his younger sister rides. She has her own horse and that’s what interests her. She gives me a shy grin and looks down, and she, too, gives Basil a few pats. The boy is so comfortable and easy around his parents, and around Basil and me, he reminds me of Greg not so many years ago.

  When we’re back in the car again, I think of Greg the year he finished middle school. That would have been 1989, and Miss Carrie had invited us for dinner—a family night I had not forgotten.

  HE IS A GOOD CITIZEN, Greg’s homeroom teacher wrote in a note home, the day final reports were given out. What a pleasure to have him in my class.

  “I’ve heard of parents writing teachers to thank them, but not teachers writing parents,” Lena said. “Do you realize that’s the second teacher who has written to us with the same message, both using the word citizen?”

  I’d noticed, yes. And Greg was listening, smiling to himself.

  “What was it like at your schools, Bin, when you were a child?” Miss Carrie asked. “After the war, I mean.”

  Three faces looked at me, waiting for an answer. But I rarely talked about my schools.

  “I learned to use my fists,” I said. That was all. But my mood had changed and I had altered the mood at the table as I’d tipped into darkness. Too late to catch myself. Lena watched as I shut down.

  “Pass your plate,” said Miss Carrie, promptly changing the subject. “We’re having plain stew. No luxuries, I’m afraid, even though it’s a celebration: Greg finishing middle school with straight A’s; the butcher donating bones for the stew; you returning home after being out and around the Empire.”

  At the word Empire, Lena rolled her eyes and laughed out loud. We were seated at the long walnut table in Miss Carrie’s dining room. Despite her claims about no luxuries, there were ample chunks of beef in the serving dish, along with the donated bones. The stew, one of her specialties, was thick with dumplings on top, and potatoes, onions, carrots and tomatoes under the steaming surface.

  I had recently returned from a trip to both Malta and Gibraltar. I was still earning part of my income from magazine and book illustrations—especially from two loyal editors. They knew I would travel, and they sent work my way or sent me away to the work. My paintings had been selling, and I was buoyed by that. But I was looking forward to a time when I would not have to rely on outside work at all. I was obsessed with supporting the family—Lena told me often enough—even though we both had earnings. I was also trying not to repeat myself on canvas, feeling frustrated just as I was trying to move in a new direction. I had had two exhibitions of my own, both held at Nathan’s gallery. I had participated in many group shows, but other responsibilities had a way of moving in on my time. I had a show coming up and Nathan had great hopes for it, as did I—although, as always, I had doubts. There were always doubts.

  After dessert, we moved to the living room and Miss Carrie brought out an unopened bottle of Daddy’s decades-old brandy. For Greg, she had made fruit punch. There was an upright piano along one side of the room, but the cover had always been pulled over the keys. This night, the cover was rolled back and the ivory keys exposed. Miss Carrie saw me looking that way and remarked that the piano had been purchased before she was born. She had taken lessons as a child, but the piano had been placed in storage when Daddy marched off to the Great War and she and Mommy followed as far as England.

  “We rented this house for the duration of the war while we were away,” she said, “but the piano was never the same after coming out of a damp warehouse. We kept it, nonetheless, and I’m glad I still have it. I suppose I’ll sell it someday, when I can no longer pay my taxes. I wish I had learned to play properly when I was a child. But I was more interested in what was happening around me than in practising scales. The teacher Mommy sent me to before the war provided lessons in her living room, and for years I was compelled to go to her house every Thursday after school. Heavy maroon drapes were pulled across the double windows right next to her piano, and not a speck of natural light was permitted in the room. There was a musty odour, too, disagreeable and depressing. I felt that the drapes had sealed in the century before mine, and now I can’t help but associate piano lessons with that jowl-cheeked woman and the smothering odours of cheek powder every time she squeezed onto the bench beside me in that airless room. Still, our own piano was played after the war. This old house hosted many parties, and there was always someone who knew how to play. We even hosted the famous war ace, Billy Bishop, one evening. He was staying at the Château Laurier, and Daddy bumped into him there and invited him. A dashing officer. His uniform is in the War Museum here but whoever arranged the display did not do justice to the great pilot.” She looked back to the piano. “Bishop stood in that very corner during a singsong at one of Mommy’s parties.”

  “I took piano lessons for a while,” Lena said, and Miss Carrie and Greg and I looked at her in surprise. Lena shook her head. “Oh, not that many years. I insisted on playing everything by ear, and that did not please my teacher. I studied as far as grade eight in my conservatory exams, so I have the piece of paper. I played to amuse myself, mostly. I miss it, I suppose. But I haven’t given piano playing much thought, because I’m so busy teaching all the time. And we have so much recorded music to keep us company at home.”

  After we returned home, Greg went straight to bed—Did Miss Carrie really know Billy Bishop? he asked. Didn’t he fight the Red Baron? And we assured him, Oh, yes, if Miss Carrie says so, it’s true. Lena and I were preparing for bed, undressing, talking about the evening.

  “Every emotion you’ve ever learned,” she said, as we got into bed, “has been turned inside. Locked in. But it will come out, even the anger. It has to. How can it not?”

  I knew she was talking about the reference to my fists over dinner. But I was past anger—I thought. And the old anger I had carried around for so many years had not been about school. Not really. It had been about—and I had to face it—it had been about everything. Removal, exile, di
spersal, being on the outside. Being given away—now there was a reason to be angry. Perhaps none of those things had been dealt with. Not in the way Lena meant. And what would be the point, anyway?

  “You’ve told me some things that happened in your past,” Lena said. “And I know I haven’t heard them all. You have a right to be angry. The anger is part of your story.” As far as she was concerned, everything that happened to a person was added on to the cumulative story.

  She continued. “All of those things that happened, they’ve also made you different from everyone else. They’ve made you the fine artist you are. But there are times when your dark side hangs over you like a mantle, a heavy cloth. We hardly ever talk about this, but there have been days when I’ve wanted to yank off that mantle, drag it away and shout, ‘Move over! We all have pasts, we all have backgrounds!’ Sometimes, when I’m trying to understand all of this, I get angry myself,” she said. “So figure that out.”

  Silence.

  But she wasn’t going to stop there. “If the moods always trace back to your first father,” she said, “remember that you’ve also had choice. Two role models. One who seethed with anger—with good reason. Another who had the same reasons to be angry but managed to create peace around himself and everyone else. Maybe, just maybe, you ended up being a better father yourself because you were able to choose. You are a father, a good one.”

  To love a child. Yes. I understood what it was to love a child.

  But to give one away?

  Having two fathers had always created a complex double measure. And if all I had to do to be a father myself was to love Greg, then I had been doing that. But my intent was also to keep our family of three, now four—three plus Miss Carrie—safe and close, and I did worry about that. I knew there was no reason to worry, but I did. I was always trying to protect everyone. It was part of the fates. There could be sudden losses—every Japanese Canadian knew that.