The Last Samurai

by Helen Dewitt

  You may have mentioned it, I said.

  These subtitles said Sib seem to stand at a similarly respectful distance from what the characters actually say. I am going to try not to think about it. One good thing though is that it hardly affects some of the best things about the film, look at Miyoguchi standing silently in the door, he is like a great actor of silent film I have no idea how many LINES they gave Kyuzo but the lines are completely beside the point. How long did it take you to work out what everybody was saying?

  I said I didn’t know. I spent a whole day on one scene one day and after that it got easier.

  Well how many times did you watch this scene said Sib

  & I said I didn’t know, not that many, maybe 50

  The film reached Manzo’s return to the village to cut off Shino’s hair. This is supposed to make her look like a boy and so of no interest to the samurai. It’s not much of a disguise. Sibylla is bored by Shino; she stopped the video and said she had to work.

  She turned on the computer and began typing in text from Practical Caravanning 1982. Rikichi factor 5. She looked about the way you’d expect someone to look who’d once made a terrible mistake.

  She might be waiting for my birthday, which was only a day away. Or maybe I could pretend to sudden insight into the defects of Lord Leighton and Lord Leighton—the writer was obviously the author of the magazine article she once showed me.

  If I said anything about the Moonlight Sonata or Yesterday or drapery it would be a dead giveaway, but suppose I said: the problem is that they are classicistic rather than classic, pursuing both truth and beauty not for themselves but because manifested in these forms in the great works of the past. It would be harder, of course, to seem as though I saw these faults from a state of grace, but maybe she would overlook that.

  I picked up the postcard and gave it a piercing look, as though suddenly struck by something. As a matter of fact there did seem to be rather a lot of cloth in the air. Now all I had to do was casually comment on this superfluity of airborne material in a way that would show not only pity for the perpetrator but a grace beyond pity.

  PRACTICAL CARAVANNING said Sibylla. What in God’s name is practical about caravanning and why in God’s name should the word ‘Practical’ be thought to add appeal to the activity am I yet again a market of one? Impractical Caravanning. Impractical Boating. Impractical Knitting. I would buy any of the above and I have not the slightest interest in knitting, boating or, God help me, caravanning.

  I unfolded the magazine article yet again. This was a lot harder. Moonlight Sonata, I said to myself. Yesterday. I read through it trying to see what she had seen.

  The horror! The horror! said Sibylla.

  She had been typing for about 5 minutes. Earnings for the day so far: about £1.35.

  If I interrupted the most likely thing was not that she would change her mind but that she would go back to watching Seven Samurai.

  I went back upstairs. She didn’t look up.

  I looked everywhere in her room, but I couldn’t find the envelope.

  Today is my birthday. Sibylla hasn’t said anything. I thought she might when I opened my presents, but she didn’t.

  I said: I think what’s wrong with Lord Leighton is that he is classicistic rather than classic, pursuing both truth and beauty not for themselves but because manifested in these forms in the great works of the past. Something similar seems to be wrong with the author of the magazine article.

  Hmm said Sibylla.

  I was afraid she was going to say in what way similar so I said quickly:

  I’m sorry I said the tape was crap. He deserves our pity.

  Sibylla looked as though she was trying not to laugh.

  I said: What do I have to say?

  She said: You’re looking for something in the wrong place.

  I said: I just want to know who he is.

  She said: Are you telling me you don’t care what he’s like? You’ve read hundreds of travel books. Who’s the worst writer you can think of?

  I didn’t even have to think.

  Val Peters, I said.

  He had had an affair with a Cambodian girl with one leg and he had written a book about Cambodia and the girl and the stump with poetic evocations of what remained of the countryside and the leg. This was the worst book I had ever read. It wasn’t really that he was a bad writer, though—even though I was only eight I could see he was quite a good writer.

  She said: If that was who it was would you still want to know?

  I said: Is that who it is?

  She said: VAL PETERS! Why the man’s a veritable Don Swan.

  I said: Well then who is it?

  She said: You don’t want to know. Why won’t you take my word for it?

  I said: Because you’re a market of one.

  Sibylla said: Well, you may be right. Would you mind if I had a look at that book on aerodynamics I got you for your birthday?

  and without waiting for a reply she took the book from the table and opened it and reading began to smile.

  The present was not much of a surprise. Sib came across it at Dillon’s Gower Street and about three pages into the book began to laugh and to pace up and down repeating the words THICK MANTLE OF FEATHERS while the three other people in the room got out of the way. WE APPROXIMATE THE BIRD’S BODY BY A SPHERE OF RADIUS 5CM, said Sib, I had no idea aerodynamics was so entertaining, and under the impression that everyone in Dillon’s would like to share the joke she said Just listen to this example:

  Grebes (an example is the common ‘hell-diver’) are among the birds that hunt their prey underwater. Unlike ducks and other surface water birds, whose feathers are completely water repellent, the outer two-thirds of the grebes’ body feathers are wettable. However, like the duck, they require the buoyancy as well as the thermal insulation of the air trapped by a thick mantle of feathers when they are on the surface. In order to facilitate the underwater maneuverability required to catch its prey, the grebe increases its specific gravity to near that of the water by drawing its feathers close to its body (each feather has eight muscles); their partial wettability assists in expelling most of the air, leaving only a thin layer at the skin surface for thermal insulation.

  We approximate the bird’s body by a sphere of radius r = 5cm and assume it has a specific gravity of 1.1, and find the thickness Δr of the layer of air under sea level conditions required to bring the specific gravity of the combination to unity.

  Did you know that each grebe’s feather has eight muscles? asked Sib.

  No, I said.

  Did you know that the outer two-thirds of their body feathers were wettable?

  No, I said.

  I did not point out that everyone within a radius of 10 metres knew it now. I said I didn’t think I was ready for aerodynamics, not because I didn’t think I was ready for aerodynamics but because the cheap books in the room were £20.

  Of course you’re ready for it, said Sib flipping through the book. You can tell just from the names of the mathematicians. Bernoulli’s equation—Euler’s equation—Gauss’s divergence theorem—I have no idea what these actually ARE, but essentially the mathematics at the heart of the subject seems to be post-Newtonian developments in calculus, 18th 19th century stuff. How hard can it be? And look, it’s got an appendix on natural prototypes with a discussion of the hummingbird and aerodynamics of insect flight.

  I said: When was it published?

  1986, said Sibylla.

  I said in that case maybe we could get it secondhand at Skoob.

  Good point, said Sib. Would you like something on Laplace transforms?

  No.

  What about Fourier analysis? Not for your birthday, obviously you can’t have Schaum’s Outline Series for your birthday, but just to have? It says it’s a crucial mathematical tool for modern engineering.

  No.

  We’ll see if they’ve got it at Skoob, said Sibylla, and of course when I opened my presents not only were there th
e books on aerodynamics, Fourier analysis and Laplace transforms, but also Gordon’s Introduction to Old Norse, Njal’s Saga in Icelandic & in the Penguin, various other bargains and a new skateboard.

  I wanted to throw everything on the table to the floor and shout. All I wanted was something that everyone else in the world takes for granted and instead I got Laplace transforms and the aerodynamics of insect flight. I was about to say this when I saw that Sib had stopped smiling and was now holding her head in her hand, even thick mantle of feathers had not kept away whatever it was she didn’t want to think about. I thought I might say something anyway if I stayed, so I went out to ride my skateboard.

  3

  Funeral Games

  Well, now I know.

  When I got back to the house Sib said she was going out. I had seen that look on her face before. While at Skoob we had seen a secondhand copy of The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, the brilliant four-volume updated version which had come out in the early 80s, an amazing bargain at just £100. We had had a long argument in which Sibylla had said I ought to have it and I had said we could not afford it and Sibylla had said it was a superb work of scholarship which no home should be without and I had said we could not afford it.

  I said: You know we can’t afford The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ. Sibylla said she was going to Grant & Cutler. I said we couldn’t afford to go to Grant & Cutler and Sibylla said I didn’t have to come. The last time Sibylla went to Grant & Cutler alone—actually I don’t want to think about the last time Sibylla went to Grant & Cutler alone. I said I thought I’d come too.

  You’re right, she said. We can’t afford it

  and she turned on the computer and then sat curled up in a chair not doing anything at all.

  I thought: This is insane. I thought: Who cares what’s wrong with Lord Leighton? We’ve got to get out of here. But I still didn’t know where she kept the envelope.

  I had to do something, so I went out on my bike to Blockbuster Video to see what I could find. At last I found something.

  I went back to the house. Sibylla was still sitting in the chair. I said: I got you a video, and I put the cassette in the TV and turned it on.

  A copyright warning came and went.

  Sib sat up.

  OHHHH, said Sib, Tall Men in Tight Jeans!

  What? I said.

  I haven’t seen this in YEARS, said Sib.

  It says on the cover that it’s a western based on the story of Seven Samurai, so I thought you’d like it.

  LIKE it! said Sib. I ADORE it. You KNOW how much I like the Tyrone Power school of acting.

  Do you want me to take it back? I said.

  But it was too late. Sib was sitting alertly on the arm of her chair like a terrier with its eye on the ball. Ball flies through air, terrier flies over ground; terrier gets ball, terrier barks insanely, terrier spends hour growling if anyone tries to get ball & whining if no one shows interest. No sooner had the film begun than gleeful Sib pounced on some point in which it was inferior to Seven Samurai and for the next hour there was an almost constant stream of comment, interrupted only by howls of laughter at each appearance of the recruit from the Tyrone Power school of acting & by occasional silences in which I was meant to disagree so she could argue some more. There may have been some dialogue—if there was, I couldn’t hear it.

  Brynner began to recruit men for the job.

  It’s a difficult assignment, said Sibylla. It will be hard to find so many tall men in tight jeans.

  Will you shut up? I said.

  I’m sorry, said Sib shutting up.

  Isn’t there ANYTHING you like about it? I said.

  How can you ask? said Sib. Not ONE but SEVEN tall men in tight jeans—it’s simply MAGNIFICENT.

  Never mind, I said.

  And it’s so easy to follow, you can tell which one is the mercenary because he has a stomach.

  Never mind, I said.

  The villain is the short one, said Sib. The starving peasants are fat. If they were tall and lean it would be too confusing.

  I looked at the screen without saying anything.

  James Coburn, said Sib. I always like watching James Coburn. And Eli Wallach is brilliant. And then, one of the problems with Seven Samurai is that none of the actors has the faintest idea of how to do Oriental inscrutability. Mifune is HOPELESS, and are the rest any better? Shimura, Kimura, Miyaguchi, Chiaki, Inaba, Kato, Tsuchiya—pathetic. It’s only when you see Tall Men in Tight Jeans that you realise what a handicap it was to Kurosawa in not being able to draw on the genius of Charles Bronson. If he had had an actor with a face like a Japanese woodcut who knows what he might have achieved—

  I’m trying to watch the film, I said.

  I won’t say another word, said Sib. I’ll be as silent as the grave.

  And suddenly I knew where she kept the envelope.

  For as long as I can remember Sib has been pining for Fraser’s Ptolemaic Alexandria (a superb work of scholarship which no home should be without). It is not available in public libraries (or at least in none known to us) but sometimes we would come across a secondhand copy in a bookshop and visit it on a daily basis. Sib would draw attention to marvellous footnotes on Eratosthenes (who worked out the circumference of the world) or the Alexandra of Lycophron which was a whole poem narrated by Cassandra in a prophetic frenzy and which made so little sense that scholars could never tell whether textual corruption or the madness of Cassandra was to blame for their difficulties, or the Theriaca of Nicander which was a long poem in hexameters about snakes. It was always too expensive, and sooner or later somebody richer would buy it.

  Four months ago Sib found another copy and this time she bought it. I don’t know where or what she paid for it—she wouldn’t tell me. She said she would ask to be buried with it but it would be cruel to rob posterity of one of the few copies in existence, she would be willing to bet that if she died 50 years from now Oxford University Press would still be pretending to be about to reprint it, and she said if she had a funeral perhaps I could pass the book around and people could read out interesting passages from it. I promised that if I had any say in the matter it would be read at her funeral.

  The last time I had seen the envelope in the drawer had been six months ago; the reason it was no longer there was that in the meantime she had got the book.

  I had to watch the rest of the film but I couldn’t concentrate. I don’t know whether it was any good; all I could think about was the envelope and the book.

  At last it was over. Sib said Thank you. She said she’d better do some work.

  Ptolemaic Alexandria was in a bookcase behind her back. I got out Volume II and opened it to the description of a tragedy portraying the events of Exodus (Fraser quotes an exchange between God and Moses in iambic trimeters), and there it was. To Be Opened In Case of Death.

  I thought: If ’twere done, ’twere well ’twere done quickly. I thought: What’s a sealed envelope? A door marked No Entry or Authorised Personnel Only. Something to ignore if the circumstances warrant it.

  I put it inside my shirt and went upstairs. When I got to my room I opened the envelope.

  It wasn’t Red Devlin. It wasn’t anyone like that.

  I remembered one of his books that I hadn’t bothered to finish. He’d gone to Bali. The men there walk barefoot across the lava field of a live volcano. He didn’t. He stood watching them walk across the lava and then he went back to the hotel and wrote about how he’d watched them. He didn’t know any Balinese. He fucked a woman back at the hotel on the basis of three words of Balinese. Maybe she liked nocturnal animals.

  4

  Steven, age 11

  Three days after I learned his name I realised I’d jumped to conclusions. Quite often in travel books the writer goes from being naive or ignorant or cowardly to doing something quite brave later on. It was stupid to judge him with so little to go on. So I went to the library to look for the rest of
his books. Sibylla is right, he’s very popular—they have everything he’s written, but only two books were there.

  Right beside them on the shelf was my old favourite, Journey into Danger! I must have read that about 20 times. Well, too bad.

  I took down The Lotus-Eaters. There was a picture of my father on the back, taking up the whole back cover. He stared frowning into the distance. He was less handsome than I’d imagined, but it might be a bad picture.

  An Antique Land had a different picture on the back. Another audition for the Tyrone Power school of acting.

  If the books had been fiction the librarian probably wouldn’t have let an 11-year-old borrow them, but because they were travel writing it did not occur to her to object. She was used to my borrowing from the grown-up section, especially travel books; she probably didn’t realise these were X-rated.

  I read the two books I’d found, and then I got three more at the Barbican, and I read the latest one at the Marylebone Library because I didn’t have a ticket. By the end of the week I had read all my father’s books.

  Well. I have to admit I’d hoped to find some spark of genius or heroism unnoticed by Sibylla. I wanted to open a page and think But this is brilliant! This didn’t happen. I kept reading anyway. I don’t know what I was hoping to find.

  When I didn’t find anything in the books I thought he might be different in person.

  He had been married to his first wife when he met my mother, it had ended, and he had married again and moved to another house. So even if I could have discovered the location of the Medley, it would now be occupied only by his ex-wife.

  Then I thought he might give a talk somewhere, and I could follow him home. But I thought it would end in drinks, and be hard for me to follow. I could try the hunchbacked midget costume I had to wear when we went to see The Crying Game—but I thought I might have trouble getting into a bar even as a midget sensitive about his height.