by Helen Dewitt
She said: Anything follows from a false premise. If you accept that American novels should be written in English then it also follows that the Pope is a Jew.
I said: Well in that case Seven Samurai can’t be any good because it’s in black and white and Japanese. You’re being completely inconsistent. I thought: This is insane. Why don’t we just talk about the decline of traditional Zulu raindances or mutations in inland water algae in the Urals or some other randomly chosen completely irrelevant subject? I have a right to know who he is whoever he is.
She said: I wish you wouldn’t say the first thing that comes into your head, Ludo. There is an obvious difference between someone who works within the technical limitations of his time which are beyond his control and someone who accepts without thinking limitations which are entirely within his own power to set aside.
She said: It may have escaped your notice but I am trying to watch one of the masterpieces of modern cinema.
The farmers see a crowd of people. A samurai has gone to the river’s edge to be shaved by a monk.
Mifune pushes his way through the crowd and squats scratching his chin.
Katsushiro asks his neighbour what’s happening.
I said So you think Proust would have been better with some English and German added in & she looked at me with burning eyes & I said Why don’t we talk about the impact of tourism on the traditional Zulu raindance why don’t you test me on 50 capitals of the world this is completely irrelevant I have a right to know.
She looked at me with burning eyes.
I said: Well just tell me this. He didn’t rape you did he? (Everything I know about delicacy I learned at my mother’s knee.) For one horrible moment I thought he really had: increase Rikichi factor by power of 10.
She said: No.
I said: So there must have been something you liked about him. He must have had SOME redeeming quality.
She said: That’s one way of looking at it.
I said: What other way is there of looking at it?
She said: In our society one of the most highly prized virtues if not the most highly prized virtue is that of sleeping with someone you don’t desire for free, if it is prized in people who have to do it surely it would be a supererogatory virtue in someone who wasn’t even married.
I said: Is that what you did?
She said: Well, I was trying to be polite.
I was not going to be struck speechless now. I said: What word has escaped the barrier of your teeth?
She said: There is a strange taboo in our society against ending something merely because it is not pleasant—life, love, a conversation, you name it, the etiquette is that you must begin in ignorance & persevere in the face of knowledge, & though I naturally believe that this is profoundly wrong it’s not nice to go around constantly offending people.
I had heard this a million times. I said: Does that mean there WASN’T anything you liked about him?
She said: How can you be so sure something you don’t know is something you want to know? Look at Oedipus.
I said: What are you afraid of, that I’ll kill him or sleep with him?
She said, or rather riposted: Well, I wouldn’t sleep with him if I were you, and she said: Tiresias has spoken.
There is a strange taboo in our society against matricide.
She rewound the video ostentatiously to the place where I had interrupted.
The thief runs from the barn and falls down dead.
The parents of the child rush forward to take it.
Mifune rushes forward brandishing his sword. He jumps up and down on the body.
The samurai walks off without a backward look.
I’ve been telling her for years about Dervla Murphy who rode through the Andes on a mule with her eight-year-old daughter. My father probably does that kind of thing the whole time for a living. The most we’ve ever done is hitchhike through France. My father might like the chance to spend some time with the son he never knew he had. We could go to the source of the Amazon by canoe, or trek overland to the Arctic Circle, or live six months with the Masai (my Masai is pretty good). I know 54 edible plants, 23 edible mushrooms and 8 insects that you can keep down if you don’t think about what you’re eating; I think I could live off the land in any continent. For the last two years I’ve been sleeping on the ground outside even in the winter, and I walk for an hour without shoes every day to toughen my feet, and I’ve practised climbing trees and buildings and telephone poles. If she would just tell me who he is I could stop wasting my time on things that might just happen to come in handy and concentrate on the things I actually need to know. I’ve had to learn five major trade languages and eight nomadic languages just in case. It’s insane.
My name is Katsushiro Okamoto. Please, please let me become one of your followers.
Followers? I am Kambei Shimada. I am only a ronin. I have no followers
I thought about Liberace and Lord Leighton and the author of the magazine article. Even if she’s right, what’s bad about these people is that they are bad artists. Maybe my father was a bad writer—but it could be because he had more important things to think about. If you’re travelling across Siberia with a team of huskies you may not have time to polish every word. Sibylla does tend to take art too seriously.
I went up to my room after a while. She has been watching Seven Samurai for the last 10 years and she still has trouble with the Japanese. I could hear it downstairs. I knew she’d be there for at least another hour.
I had once seen an envelope in her room marked To Be Opened In Case of Death. I thought—well surely if she thought she’d be dead she’d say who my father was. I thought—I’ve tried to play by the rules, but this is ridiculous. I could just see myself in 10 years looking at the picture by Lord Leighton and not seeing anything wrong, or trying to find something wrong with one of the greatest writers of our time.
I had practised walking silently. I walked silently across the landing to her room. There’s a drawer where she keeps her passport. I thought the envelope might be there. I crossed the room and opened the drawer.
There was a folder with a thick stack of papers in it.
2
I know all the words
I read through the papers quickly.
There was quite a lot about my father, but she’d thought of a nickname and stuck to it. I kept thinking she’d say who Liberace was, or at least mention the title of one of his books, but she didn’t. Before I could start looking again for the envelope Sibylla called from downstairs
LUDO! ARE YOU UPSTAIRS?
I said
YES
and she said
WOULD YOU MIND BRINGING ME THE DUVET?
I put the folder of papers back in the drawer and took the duvet downstairs. I don’t know what I thought. I think I thought It’s not too late not to know and But I have to know.
The first part of the recruitment was over, the part where Katsushiro stands behind a door with a stick. When I was very little I would practise reading fast from the subtitles and Sibylla would say why do you think he did this and why do you think he did that and why doesn’t Shichiroji have to take the test and why does Gorobei take Heihachi if he says he always runs away? I would say something and she would laugh and say she never thought of that.
Kambei and Katsushiro find two samurai stripping bamboo poles for a match.
The fight begins. Kyuzo raises his pole. X holds his pole over his head and shouts.
Kyuzo draws back his pole. X runs forward.
Kyuzo raises his pole suddenly and brings it down.
X: Sorry, that was a draw
No. I won
Nonsense
If it had been with real swords you’d be dead.
Sibylla put the duvet around her shoulders. She said she would start typing soon.
I wanted to say: Was he really as bad as Liberace?
Liberace was the one thing she’d shown me that I could see was bad. Could my father reall
y be that bad? Could he be worse? I wanted to say: How bad is bad? Is it worse than gap-toothed urchins and coltish grace? Worse than scrap of humanity? Worse than veritable cathedral of ice? I wanted to say: But at least he’s seen the world.
I thought of saying to Sibylla, If I’m such a genius why won’t you let me decide for myself? I thought of saying, I thought you disapproved people who purely because they happened to arrive on the planet a few years earlier make other people who happened to arrive on the planet a few years later obey them without persuading them of the justice of their position. I thought you thought disenfranchisement on grounds of age the hallmark of a BARBARIC SOCIETY. I thought of saying, How do you know something I don’t know is something I don’t want to know?
In runs the gambler, who says they’ve found a really tough samurai.
Katsushiro runs to stand behind the door with a stick.
Gambler: You dirty cheat!
Kambei: If he’s a real samurai he won’t be hit.
Gambler: But he’s drunk.
Kambei: A samurai doesn’t get so drunk that he loses his senses.
A man runs through the door; Katsushiro brings the stick down hard. This samurai doesn’t parry the blow. He falls moaning to the ground.
This was the first scene I understood. It was because the scroll made me realise I could see the words. Obviously hearing something is just reading backwards, what I mean is, when you read you hear the word in your mind, and when you talk or hear someone say something you see an image of the word in your mind: if someone says someone you see a word in Roman letters, and if they say philosophia you see φιοσοφíα, and if they say kataba you see , you actually see an image of something you read from right to left. But for a long time I didn’t realise this worked with Japanese. I’d hear Nihon in my head if I saw on the page, say, but I didn’t realise I could see something in my head if I heard something. Anyway Kambei picks up the end and reads from it—what he actually says is ‘Tenshōsecond year second month seventeenth day born’, he says the sounds Tenshō ninen nigatsu jūshichinichi umare and suddenly I realised I could see some of the words, he was seeing them on the scroll and saying them and when he said ninen nigatsu jūshichinichi in my mind I could see . Second year second month seventeenth day. Probably because I was obsessed with Japanese numbers at the time.
For the rest of the film sounds would sort of crystallise here and there around an image and then I went back and tried to work the others out and by the time I was eight the images came into my head for most of the film and I could understand almost all of it.
Mifune recognises Kambei.
Hey you! Asking me ‘Are you a samurai?’ like that—don’t laugh at me.
Even though I look like this, I’m a genuine samurai.
Hey—I’ve been looking for you the whole time ever since then…. thinking I’d like to show you this [pulls out a scroll]
Look at this
This genealogy
This genealogy of my ancestors handed down for generations
(You bastard, you’re making a fool of me)
Look at this (you’re making a fool of me)
This is me.
[Kambei, reading] This Kikuchiyo it talks about is you?
[Mifune] That’s right
[Kambei] Born on the seventeenth day of the second month of the second year of Tensho … [bursts out laughing]
[Mifune] What’s funny?
[Kambei] You don’t look thirteen
Listen, if you’re definitely this Kikuchiyo you must be thirteen this year.
[All the samurai burst out laughing]
Where did you steal this?
[Mifune] What! It’s a lie! Shit! What are you saying?
Sibylla said: Can you really understand it?
I said: Of course I can understand it.
Sibylla said: Well what’s he saying then?
and she rewound the video to the place where Mifune staggers to his feet.
I said, Well he says Yai! Kisama! yoku mo ore no koto o samurai ka nante nukashiyagatte… fuzakeruna!
and Sib said for all she knew she might actually know these words, she never recognised a word when she heard it
so I wrote on a piece of paper explaining as I went, he says yai hey ! kisama you (the Kodansha Romaji says it’s CRUDE and very insulting) yoku well mo intensifying particle ore no me possessive particle koto o, thing object particle, i.e. periphrasis for me samurai ka interrogative particle nante COLLOQ. for nan-to what, how, as in how cold it is nukashiyagatte gerund of nukasu, to say, i.e. Asking me ‘Are you a samurai?’ like that, ! fuzakeruna negative imperative of fuzakeru, to joke, i.e. don’t laugh at me.
I explained that according to Japanese Street Slang shiyagatte was the gerund of shiyagaru, the common contraction of shite agaru, which was the offensive form of the verb suru, to do. So if nukasu was to say nukashiyagatte would be the offensive gerund.
What a wonderful language, said Sib, they seem to have toned it down quite a bit for the subtitles. I knew Japanese Street Slang was a bargain at £6.88.
In other words Asking me ‘Are you a samurai?’ like that—how dare you!
All right, said Sib, & then what?
ore wa na I topic particle emphatic particle Kō, in this way miete, present participle of mieru, appearing mo even, i.e. even appearing like this.
Sib said she might not know much Japanese but she did not believe for one nanosecond that Mifune said Even appearing like this.
I said I did not think consciousness was capable of operating in units of nanoseconds.
Sib said she did not believe it for the smallest unit at which consciousness was capable of operating and then what?
chanto shita, precise, proper, up-to-standard Up-to-standard! said Sib
samurai da, I am, i.e. Even though I look like this I’m a genuine samurai.
Which subtitle is that, said Sib, I don’t recognise any of this.
I said it came up roughly where he said I’m a samurai all right.
Hmm, said Sib.
yai hey ore wa na
I topic particle emphatic particle said Sib
arekara since that time omae no of you koto o thing object particle, i.e. periphrasis for you zutto the whole (time), I said talking fast
sagashitetanda contraction of sagashite ita, I was searching, contraction of no da it is a fact that, no nominalising particle da verb to be zo sentence-final particle expressing strong exclamation generally used only by male speakers, I said even faster
kore o this object particle miseyō plain volitional I’d like to show to, quotative particle applying to previous phrase, omotte na present participle of omou to think plus na emphatic particle, i.e. thinking that I’d like to show you this—
I know all those words, said Sib.
Well, do you want me to just write it down for you? I said. I wrote down a few lines and Sib said I might not be aware of it but writing was generally considered a means of communication & my handwriting in Japanese was even more enigmatic than the scripts I had introduced to English, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Bengali, Russian, Armenian and other languages too numerous to enumerate.
, I said, kore o miro
I know that, said Sib, Look at this
kono keizu, this genealogy, wa na
topic particle particle said Sib
ore sama no
my said Sib
senzo, ancestors daidai counter for generations no possessive particle said Sib
keizu yo
genealogy exclamatory particle said Sib
kono yarō baka ni shiyagatte nandei
kono, this, yarō boor, bumpkin, kono yarō you swine according to Sanseido, baka idiot most popular Japanese swear word according to Japanese Street Slang, baka ni suru is literally you’re making a fool of me but ruder in Japanese, don’t fuckin’ fuck with me according to Japanese Street Slang, so if shiyagatte is the offensive form of suru it’s probably even ruder, nandei whatever.
The subtit
les don’t really seem to capture the flavour, said Sib.
Anyway you get the picture, I said, and Sib said But you’ve only done a couple of lines, how can you stop after two lines of one of the CENTRAL SCENES of the FILM?
oK, oK, oK I said. The great thing about having two parents is that each protects you from the other. If I had a father he would notice that I was getting fed up and say Leave the boy alone, Sibylla. Or he would say tactfully I’m going over to the park to kick a ball around before it gets dark and he would offer to explain the scene to Sib himself later on.
Where are we up to? said Sib.
We’re up to where Kambei looks at the scroll, I said.
Sib went back to the beginning of the scene again and replayed it and she said she still couldn’t understand a word. I think you’re making all this up said Sib
I said it’s probably Mifune’s delivery that’s giving you trouble
& Sib said she would not hear a word against Mifune
I said Kurosawa said himself
& Sib said yes but it is part of the character and do go on.
I said would you mind if I just wrote it down neatly for you
Sib said she wouldn’t mind so I wrote it down starting at ‘You’re this Kikuchiyo born in the second year of Tensho,’ and I transliterated everything because Sib has a tendency to forget the kana from time to time. It seemed to be getting rather complicated to explain so I said I thought I would do the rest later and Sib said OK. She rewound the film to the very beginning of the scene, where Katsushiro begs to go, we can’t take a child says Kambei, at the end of it all I’ve no parents, no family—I’m alone in the world, & Heihachi looks up to see Kyuzo standing silently at the door.
Did you know that E. V. Rieu has Odysseus address his companions as lads? said Sib.