Moving Out

 

My boys say I should move into an apartment. They tell me the house, small as it is, is too much for me to look after, now that May is gone.

Sometimes I find myself looking around, trying to remember how she used to do everything. I hear echoes of her voice in the rooms. I walk in, half expecting to see her.

Maybe I should move.

Not because looking after the place is too hard, though. And not even because May haunts each and every room. I can get used to that. But because every damn night the girl across the street comes home at some ungodly hour and her boyfriend's souped-up car wakes me.

My bedroom is right over the road. I could move into the other one, the boys' old room, but I won't. Habit.

Last week it was at twelve that they woke me. Usually I turn over, pound the pillow and try to get back to sleep. At my age you can't turn sleep off and on too easily, though. It's hard to come by, once you're wakened.

Anyway, something sounded not right out there. when I got up to look out the window I saw them out in front of her house, the girl sitting in the car. A warm night, the windows open, I could hear her giggling. The boyfriend was rolling on the roadway in front of the car.

I was ready to go back to bed. I felt disgusted. A new kind of game they were playing. Then I noticed his flashlight illuminating the road in a broad beam. The car hood was up.

I pulled on a pair of trousers, a shirt, and went downstairs. When I called from the doorway, "something wrong?" she replied, "No, everything is fine." He was still on the ground, rolled in a ball, his arms cradling his head.

When he heard me call, he crawled over to his car, got into the driver's seat sideways and sat there, hands across his face. She stood beside the car at this point, still doing nothing. Just standing there. I walked across to the car.

"Let me have a look", I said. After a moment he took his hands away so I could see his face. Swelling, the skin an angry red colour. He'd twisted the radiator cap, she chittered in my ear. "The thing just blew up, stupid thing", she said. I turned from him to face her, a pretty blond thing, and said "call your mother. She's a nurse, isn't she?" "Can't", she whispered, "she's sleeping".

Whispering, after all that noise.

I could have left them there.

I went into the house, wrapped ice cubes in a towel and took it out, told him to hold the towel against his face. To reduce the swelling, alleviate the pain, I told him. I felt that was the right thing to do, temporarily. I'd once taken a St.John Ambulance course. When our boys were small, and I was a scout leader. Then I told them to get into my car. I'd drive them to the Emergency of the Civic Hospital.

I'm not usually out that late on the highway and I was surprised at all the traffic. In the back seat, he was moaning in a tight-sounding way as though he wanted to hold it back but couldn't help himself. The sound unnerved me, made me drive faster than I wanted to, but then I wanted to get him to the hospital, fast.

As we helped him out of the car he murmured, "call my mother". Through his swollen lips the words came out slurred. I could hardly understand at first what he meant, but once it penetrated I told her. She looked at him with a puzzled expression. Throughout the drive she had said nothing, had chosen to sit in the front seat rather than with him.

When I explained the situation at the front desk the receptionist buzzed for a nurse. We waited a short while near the desk. The girl gave the receptionist the information she wanted about the boy's name, address, next of kin.

He stood there, trembling. He refused to sit down. He shuffled his feet in a strange dance of pain, then stamped one foot with a bang on the floor, like a child throwing a tantrum. A muffled expletive made its way through the towel he still held against his face.

We hadn't waited too long before a nurse swung through the doors leading off the waiting room, pulling a wheelchair behind her. She had him sit down, adjusted the foot stirrups, then pulled the towel and his hands away from his face. She scrutinized him briefly, then without a word wheeled him away. The girl and I took seats. I reminded her about his request and she went to a pay phone to call his mother.

As it transpired, the mother was out. She called his father's place, which was where the boy lived, and not with his mother as I'd thought from his request. His father was out. Separated, the girl told me, living apart. She called again intermittently all the time we were there. Three hours, altogether. No answer.

I couldn't leave him there without anyone responsible to look after his interests. So I stayed.

We watched a slow but regular flow of people come into the Emergency Department. A fat woman accompanying a man with a cut hand. A harried young couple carrying a screaming child, two others hanging on behind. A jocular trio of young men, one of whom was waiting to hear news of his wife. A first child, they told anyone who might be interested. Few were. We watched them bang the Coke machine. It was stuck and they wanted their money back. One of them, the prospective father, I think it was, lifted a small framed watercolour off the wall and slid it into his jacket. A souvenir of this momentous occasion in his life.

"I found this baby robin like and fed it and everything and used to take it outside to fly around when it got feathers you know and when it got big enough I figured I would let it go for good but it kept coming back" she chattered at me. Harmless enough. Good natured. How can you fault someone who cares enough to try to help a fledgling? How reconcile that with the same person's inability to give succour to a friend?

"And I decided this one day to just nevermind it and let it spend the night out-of-doors 'cause I figured like it had to learn to look after itself. And I never thought it wouldn't. Like all I found in the morning was feathers scattered all over the place. So I figured some cat got it. Dumb bird."

Yes, well.

After several hours of waiting the receptionist motioned to me to come over. She informed me I could go in now and see the patient. I called the girl but she said she'd wait out there. I entered the Emergency Ward where a nurse sitting at a desk beside the door directed me to one of the curtained-off cubicles. When I hesitated, she got up and drew the curtain aside. "Here he is", she said brightly. "We've put an anaesthetizing cream on his face. He's not in as much pain now. Go on", she urged. "He's awake."

She left, to sit back at the desk, and I walked over beside the bed to stand looking down at the boy. His face was puffy, but no longer as red as it had been. The swollen look of his face reminded me of May's when she had been taking large doses of cortisone and her face had swelled like that and she hadn't wanted me to see her. "I look dreadful", she'd wailed and although I thought she did, I told her she looked fine.

There were voices coming from the next cubicle. A doctor interrogating a patient. "Now, ah ... Mr. Leger, is it? What day is this? Year? How old are you? What have you been drinking?" A muffled, unintelligible response.

A fleeting smile drifted across the boy's face. He squinted his eyes open, saw me and closed them again. He looked young and helpless. Made me think of our boys when they were young. Something inside me went out to the boy. I felt I had misjudged him because of that car, his waking me. He was just a victim of circumstances. Didn't know how to behave any better. Like so many other kids of this day. Because he had been neglected. Again he tried to open his eyes and finally regarded me through narrow slits. "Thanks", he slurred. "Thanks a lot."

I'd have to wheel him down to Ophthalmology, the nurse told me. "We've called someone in to have a look at his eyes", she said, pulling his socks back on, handing him his shoes, tying them up. "Where's your shirt?" she asked, looking about. "Oh, I forgot, we threw it out." She turned to me. "Full of grease, filthy! We were afraid if he put it back on, the burn area might become infected."

"Can you get him a hospital shift or something to cover himself with?" I asked. "The corridors are cool, he might catch cold." She shrugged, said she'd look for something for my son. "He's not my son", I shouted after her, but she was gone.

Another wait, this time for the eye doctor. And when a young man came in wearing jeans I didn't expect him to introduce himself as Dr. McPherson. He turned to the boy and asked me, "Is this your son?"

He examined the boy in a darkened room, using all the electronic equipment the small room bristled with. "I just want to satisfy myself that there's no serious damage", the doctor explained. "He's fortunate. The damage appears to be superficial. But I want to see him again in a few days, just to make sure. Can you bring him in on Monday? I'll give you an appointment." Again I explained he was not my son. The doctor made out an appointment card, slipped it in an envelope and gave it to me to temporarily end his part in the matter.

"S' all right", the boy mumbled. "My father'll take me." Before he left, the doctor squeezed another kind of anaesthetizing ointment on the boy's eyelids and his eyes and the boy winced in pain. "That'll help the pain a bit", the doctor said. "But it'll only last a few hours. You won't get much sleep tonight", he observed, almost cheerfully.

Finally, I drove the boy home. He insisted he would be fine. His father would soon be home. Then I drove the girl home. She prattled on about school, how she hated it, punctuating every statement with "Like you know, a drag". At 3:30 a.m. I crawled into bed myself. I should have been sleepy. I felt tired. But it seemed like hours had passed before I finally slept.

Next morning her father, getting his boat and trailer out of his garage woke me at seven.

That afternoon the girl's mother telephoned to say "Thanks very much for looking after my daughter's friend". I said nothing. She asked "Hello, are you there? Did you hear me?"

"I heard you" I said, and hung up.

The car sat there for a week. Some time later I saw him, the boy, looking at his car, fooling around under the hood. I waited inside the front door, knew he could see me through the screen. I thought he might come over, perhaps say something to me. But, no.

I take pride in my place. Always did. May and I have always been particular people.

They've taken to throwing their empty cigarette packages on the lawn. Last night I heard that car turn into the drive, back out and go on down the street, muffler throbbing.

Before I cut the grass today, I'll have to pick up those shattered beer bottles.

Scum.

 

On His Majesty's Service

 

Another storm during the night. Don't know how Fowler kept her on an even keel. He fought the wheel half the night. Rankin came on during the late watch, offered to take over, said Fowler looked half dead. but he snarled, told him to "hie yerself outta me sight"; so Rankin went below again.

My teeth are getting loose again, gums sore. The ship's biscuits harder than a cartwheel and full of life. Hardy creatures those weevils, can't figure how they make their way through the hardtack. For my part they can have it all. Captain says it's scurvy, what some of us gets, says he's going to start examining us regular. Whoever shows signs of the bone sickness he's going to leave at the next port. Doesn't want his ship a sick ship, says he's had a good record and we're thick-skulled not to follow orders.

"I've provisioned enough limes to do us the voyage. Never mind those sour looks! Just follow orders, and my orders are every man-jack of you take daily portions of the fruit. Take my word for it or don't take my word, you'll do as you're told, or be dropped off this ship."

When the bosun's whistle blows three short ones we drop whatever we're doing, assemble aft and listen to him. He likes to be listened to. Anyone who doesn't listen, look halfway respectful of the man, lets his fool self in for a tongue lashing no one else can deliver half so well. Try it more than once and it's another kind of lash that's employed. Runs a tight ship, does Captain Vancouver.

So why're my teeth loose, demmit? My mouth's in a constant pucker, that demmed fruit sours me for the morning's duration. As ship's surgeon, I support the Captain, take the medicine as prescribed. Wonder how many others have trouble with their teeth? He'll notice, I fear, that I leave the biscuit. No other officers' mess serves biscuit but the captain says the officers should have it no better than the men.

As I say, he runs a tight ship. Morale had been reasonably good at first, too. We hadn't the losses suffered in the rest of His Majesty's Fleet, nor quite the number of desertions.

That last contingent of city-bred lads the press gang brought in was a sorry lot. But reputation precedes acts of desperation and this time out there was but one desertion. Captain must have been sorry for him. He'd the Cat all right, thirty lashes and then out to the small craft with him, to go from one of His Majesty's Ships in Bristol Harbour to the next. Additional five lashes in each. Total of, let's see - fifty-five. Delirious for a week. Back festering, oozing pus. But draining nicely. I've kept the night-air miasma from him, though the cabin grows rank from decaying flesh. I feel another week and he'll do service again.

A stout Lancashire lad, he. Rambling on about his Tess. Pity, he'll never see his Tess again. Serve this voyage he may, but not many more.

More fortunate he was, than that other, the voyage previous. Wouldn't submit to the Captain's authority, the demmed fool, so he was keel-hauled. No one survives that. Betwixt the devil and the deep blue sea he was, hoisted down after the lashing, strung under the bow and pulled along from one end of the ship to t'other. Brought up at the stern properly keel-hauled. Barnacles torn the living flesh from his body. Completely flayed.

Couldn't tell when he'd drowned, near the start or to'ward the end. Sewed him into the shroud, said the words and shipped him below. Ah, there's no glory, none at all, for them that works the ships of His Majesty's Navy.

Yet there's some strange compelling need that brings me back, again and yet again to stand on the deck of another ship and look out over the vast eternity of sea, jealous of the free-winged albatross, waiting to see the first glimpse of the Humpbacks breaking water, hear the clarion-clear call of 'Land-Ho!' from above.

This time out, we're weary of the wait. The sea a raging beast in mid-winter. It was poor judgement to sail this late, but he would have it so. The lines, the masts are devilishly iced and hands cleave to the lines as though human flesh loves the deathly cold and grieved to let it go. Leaving as surety flaps of skin behind.

Days pass, mature into weeks of nothing but the blind raging sea and the murky grey sky overhead, the swooping form of a seabird followed closely by another and we look, desperate for sight of land. Ship's water has gone bad and we need fresh. Even cutting it with rum does little good, it is so brackish. We need to re-victualize. The galley crew canna do much with victuals running short.

Captain ordered Metcalf to the Crow's Nest. Him especially, known as the most sure-footed and -handed among the surly crew, but the man hung back. Fear spoke loud in his face. Pride, too. His admiration for the captain boundless, yet he was defiant, would not climb in that high wind. Captain Vancouver is a good man, but his face can assume the blackest proportions. Most threatening of any man I've sailed with. And he had his way.

We watched, bating breath, as Metcalf gripped the hawsers, drew himself upward, tortuously slow-like, his legs gripping the pole and sliding back occasionally. Then pulling himself up again, determined, swinging toward the Nest. And a cheer went up from us all, as though we were one tongue in one hopeful head, the scared-witless lot of us.

Turned to a groan as he missed and fell. Ah, Lord, how slowly time churned as he fell. Twisting, tumbling so agonizingly slow as we watched mouth agape. Fell in a languid motion in the frigid air to finally thump the deck. Head turned awry on his neck, so he was as though looking backward, over his shoulder, in the direction of the Auld Sod he'd never see again.

Doesn't do to get sentimental. Must be age advancing on me. No excuse for that kind of thing; sentiment. One less hand to reach greedily for the evening grog. One less mouth to mumble clandestine mutinies. One less man-jack to chase the aboriginal women and strip the deck to offer barter for bodies.

The Captain is a good and God-fearing man. I have no doubt this journey will conclude with a rare and new discovery. Those who travel the bosom of the sea must needs prepare for adversity.

 

 

Does Anti-Semitism Exist In Japan?

 

There has been a spate of articles recently in various news media alleging that anti-Semitism is rampant in Japan - if not rampant, then thriving in fertile soil and about to become epidemic. Could that be so? For what reason?

From my personal perspective here in this intriguing country I have been able to gain some little experience regarding how the Japanese view others and also to formulate opinion based on both my experiences and the reports and counter-reports which have been published. On the basis of those elements, I would have to state categorically that anti-Semitism certainly does not exist in this country. It never did, and in all likelihood, given the nature of the people, their culture and their religious orientation such as it is, it never will take root here.

Buddhism and Shintoism are gentle religions. Neither has attempted to influence unbelievers to share the tenets of their unpervasive and quiet belief. Japanese are not basically 'religious' people; they absorb the tenets of their religion in their everyday lives, their observances, and their adherence to the most basic of moral dictums which suggest that one respect one's neighbour. This is accomplished without any of the overt symptoms generally associated with religious adherence, and there is no 'guilt' associated with this lifestyle relating to religion, merely an acceptance of the way things are, as they should be.

Japanese share all the characteristics, behavioural and emotional, of people from other areas of the world. The emphasis may be slightly different, but it can only be brought home again and again that basically people are the same, have the same needs and desires wherever they live. Japanese have become adept at sublimating their more immediate needs and desires, however, for the good of the society as a whole; the society has a tendency to 'act' in unison, sharing an accord, and a vision of their nation as one unified by shared values to an extent unseen elsewhere. While there is a tendency to racism, then it is a kind of reverse racism in that the focus is on the perceived unitarianism of the people, their common heritage and 'purity of race' (despite its speciousness this is a unifying principle in Japan). Japanese have no wish to dilute the essence of their tightly-knit society. They have no wish to embrace the presence of foreigners, foreign ways or a dilution of their belief in the invulnerability of their cohesiveness. They feel self-sufficient and have a tendency to tolerate the presence of non-Japanese as being quite 'other' than themselves.

Upon coming to Japan a foreigner is faced with opposing wickets, one identified for Nationals the other for Aliens. Through the very structure of Japanese society foreigners may never feel that they are fully accepted as Japanese citizens, and in fact citizenship is denied even third-generation-born foreigners on Japanese soil. Yet the Japanese are generous, kind, courteous and have no wish to appear totally exclusionist to the outside world by whom they often feel beleaguered.

The cause of the furor accusing Japan of being anti-Semitic was the recent publication of several books by well-known Japanese (one actually a member of the Diet ... the Japanese parliament), on the purported social and economic influence of Jews, particularly Jews in America, on the world economy. The authors attempt to point out in their books that Jews control major American corporations such as IBM, General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Standard Oil, Exxon, AT&T, and others. One of these books by well-known Japanese author Masami Uno, has sold almost 600,000 copies. Certainly this might seem to represent a sizeable readership, but it's well to remember that:

a) Japan is a highly literate society;
b) its people are curious about almost anything;
c) there has been reason, particularly of late, to make Japanese more keenly aware of the world economic situation;
d) Japanese are aware of and admiringly curious about a perceived Jewish ability in finance, economics and business.

And, not least, the population of Tokyo alone stands at 12-million people. Proportionately, then, not that large a number have read the book in question, and of the number which has, it is ludicrous to assume that the book has been read as anything but a curiosity.

Anti-Semitism has no place in Japan historically; a community of Portuguese Jews existed in Nagasaki as far back as the 15th Century as traders, and there has never been any record of persecution. In Hiroshima, there exists a monument to the Holocaust. During World War II, a Japanese consul by the name of Sugihara issued visas to over twenty thousand Jews in Lithuania, and these Jews were permitted to land in Japan. The background to this is outlined in a book by Marvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz, titled The Fugu Plan - the untold story of the Japanese and the Jews during World War II.

At that time, thousands of Jews settled in Shanghai, then held by Japan, and lived out the war in safety. Although Japan was an ally of Germany, when news of the unspeakable horrors performed against Jews came to their knowledge they were horrified. When urged by Germany to annihilate the Jews under its protection, Japan emphatically refused, although she was eager to please her allies in any other manner asked of her.

The most recent article on the issue, published in The Economist, suggests that the books in question aimed to target the Jews as the economic movers and shakers (albeit wrongly) in a surrogate effort to 'get back' at the United States (toward whom Japan is currently struggling in a classic love/hate relationship) which many Japanese believe is actually 'run' by Jews.

Again, this is an uninformed minority, eager to grasp at any straw to explain Japan's current tight position where she is being wedged in and censured on all sides for her trade imbalances and her questionable protectionist trade practises. To imagine that the ideas are shared by a significant number of Japanese is wrong.

The Jewish community in Japan is a small one, consisting of two hundred families. But it is a comfortable community, here in Tokyo. None of its members have experienced anything akin to anti-Semitism, nor is there a belief among its members that such an emotional disease could possibly become endemic here. In an interview with a prominent member of the Tokyo Jewish community, the very idea was discounted as not merely remote, but absurd.

A former resident of Japan, who had spent almost half a century as a trader here, now residing in New York State, when made aware of the recent controversy, wrote the major Japanese newspapers with an open letter for publication, condemning the very thought of anti-Semitism in Japan being possible. His own long-term personal experience, his knowledge of past events, and his exposure to the Japanese people and deep respect for their sensibilities, made him recoil in disbelief at the thought that anyone could possibly believe that the assertions could have some basis in fact.

Although Japan does certainly have some 'faults' in her perception of those other than Japanese (and that, on her own soil), only one without knowledge of the people, the society and its history would ever attempt such a smear - unless the reason for it was purely mischief of a most evil intent.

c. 1987 Rita Rosenfeld
published in Outlook, Vol.25, No.7-8

 

ME, LAST YEAR; 1st Installment

 

The girl a few doors down from us on our street came over to wait for Brian and me. She didn’t want to go to school by herself, the first day. Kind of nervy, I thought, because she and her sister have never paid any attention to us at all since we moved in a month ago, and they were here first. But Mom said be kind and I thought it wouldn’t hurt to let her tag along, even though I know that she wouldn’t be interested in me any more after she makes some friends.

It’s Larry’s first year at high school and he left a half-hour ago, to get the school bus at the corner. Mom is all nervous, hurrying around all over the place. You’d think it was her first day at a new school, not ours. She’s making us all jumpy.

Anyway, Linda - that’s the girl next door - waited for us in the front hall while me and Brian got the rest of our things together. Brian would rather have gone by himself but Mom wanted us to go together, like a loving brother and sister. Sometimes I wonder where she gets her goofy ideas.

Brian was mad and he muttered under his breath that it’s bad enough to have to go with me, but he’d be darned (that wasn’t the word he used) if he’d go with some stupid girl next door. He did it anyway, because he didn’t want to hurt Mom’s feelings. He stayed with us - well, kind of walking ahead of us - until we got out of sight of the kitchen window, then he shot ahead like a bat out of hell, to put some distance between him and us girls.

I can’t blame him, that Linda is a pouty little brat. I wish I wasn’t so good-hearted. All she did on the way down to school meandering through the parkway, and then down Bearbrook Road until we got to the schoolyard was whine about how mean her older sister is to her. No wonder I’ve never seen her with other kids - she’s kind of hard to get used to.

At the school all kinds of kids were milling around. Looking for last year’s friends mostly, I guess. I felt a little lost looking around at all the unfamiliar faces. Nobody looked especially friendly. Linda kept hanging around me. She had gone to the junior school last year and was new too. I kind of felt sorry for her. For me too.

When the bell rang I went to the office and saw Brian there. Mom had registered us a couple of weeks ago, but we were supposed to check in at the office anyway. There were lots of other kids too. We had to stand around and wait until someone from the office took us around to our areas. We’d had a tour of the school before, when Mom had taken us to register, so I kind of knew the general layout, but it still seemed strange.

It’s an open-plan school, nice and bright, with a big library right in the middle. There’s carpeting on the floors and staircases all over the place to take you to different levels. There’s always lots of noise, too.

Well, I was taken to my area. It was called Cornelius Krieghoff-West, or CK-W for short. There’s C.K.-E, C.K.-N and C.K.-S. They’re called the quadrangles. The school’s called Cornelius Krieghoff Middle School. Cornelius Krieghoff was a Canadian artist (German, actually) who lived in Quebec and painted French-Canadian habitant scenes about a hundred years ago. That’s one of the first things Mr. Henderson told us. He's my home room teacher. He seemed really nice and he introduced me and some other new kids to the rest of the class. I mean, he told the rest of the class to tell us their names, then we did the same. Of course, I didn’t remember one name afterward. Nobody smiled, no friendly faces. I couldn’t figure what was the matter with everyone. It wouldn’t have hurt to smile, for gord’s sake.

It was a boooring morning. Mr. Henderson kind of reviewed the school system, told us who our teachers would be for science, math, history, that kind of thing. We had him for English and geography. I thought I’d like him … but I wasn’t sure about the other kids in the class. I mean I didn’t know if I’d like them.

I met Brian coming through the park on the way back home for lunch. He looked kind of glum. Just like I felt, actually. He told me he had the same kind of morning as me.

“Yeah”, he said. “I met some of my teachers. They’re okay, I guess. There’s one guy seemed nice, the other kids all seem to know each other. They’re not too friendly.”

Mom was all anxious, waiting for us at the side door, and before we even got a chance to take a deep breath she wanted to know how wonderful everything had been.

“What did you do this morning?” - “ Did you make any friends yet?” - “What do the teachers seem like?” - “ Did you have any trouble finding your room?”

“It’s too soon to tell, Mom. Nobody’s busting out all over to make friends, anyway. Already there’s little cliques and I guess there’ll be some left-overs”, I gloomed.

“Yeah, that’s right”, Brian said. “There’s a bunch of goons who hang out together and the kids who aren’t like them wander around themselves. I mean by themselves. You'd think they'd make their own group, of discards or something, but they just kind of hang around on their own, ignoring everyone else hanging out on their own. As though they're not good enough to hang around with, if they've been rejected by the in-crowd.”

“Oh well”, Mom said, looking disappointed. But I knew she wanted us not to be. “It’s too early to tell anything yet. For goodness’ sake, it’s just your first morning. You’ve simply had a negative impression. I was very impressed when we were taken through the school. It looked just lovely. Everything will work out fine, you’ll see.”

***************************************************************************************

Well, she was right. Kind of. I saw Brian around the school sometimes, changing classes, and he’d got some friends. I made some, too. We weren’t part of the little groups who think they’re so special, but I had a few friends. We had our own little group, but we weren’t stuck-up like the other kids, mostly. There was Diane Roy, Laura Mansville, Sally Clung and Jennifer Thackeray. That made two Jennifers in our group, because that’s my name too, Jennifer.

I liked Laura the best. She seemed the most like me and the others seemed all right, although I could see almost right away that Sally Clung sometimes wasn’t very nice. Like the time we were in the library supposed to be doing some research during tutorial and she was being loud and stupid. I mean really stupid, because we’re allowed to talk but we’re not supposed to scream and here she was. Screaming, I mean, when Mrs. Barker, the librarian came over and asked her to behave. Was I ever surprised when Sally told her snootily that she was behaving. Mrs. Barker sent her out of the library and on her way out everyone heard her say Mrs. Barker was an old bag.

I felt bad because Mrs. Barker was really very nice. She tried to help us in research, and she knew all about almost every book in the library, so she could tell you what it was about before you got it out, so you could see if you’d like it even before you read it. Mrs. Barker’s face kind of fell, like she felt hurt, but she didn’t call Sally back. Laura and I talked about it later. We thought it was because maybe, Sally is from out west and maybe they behave differently there.

What we did was, we all got together, me and Laura and Diane and Jennifer and we persuaded Sally to go see Mrs. Barker after school, to apologize. She made us promise to go with her and we did. She did things like that. Like I mean, said nasty things to people. I’d really have rathered not have her in the group but that would have meant she’d have no one to hang around with because it seemed like no one else wanted her. We decided to make the best of it. Laura felt really sorry for her.

 

 

ME, LAST YEAR; 40th Installment

 

At recorder classes Bianca has been giving us harder pieces to play. She’s started giving me solo pieces, so maybe she thinks I’m improving. I sure think I am. We had a concert for the parents the other night, and Daddy groaned “another concert!”, and Mom said, “Dear, how can you say that? We love concerts!” And she kind of nudged him, and I know it’s like telling him, don’t talk like that, you‘ll hurt her feelings, or something.

Larry said he’d go, just to hear how bad the little kids performed. Meaning me, of course. And Brian said he wouldn’t, he just wouldn’t go. Actually, what he did say was he’d be damned if he’d go to another bloody concert. How do you like that? Everybody’s so used to his talking like that that not either Mom nor Dad said anything at all. Well, actually, Dad said “you bloody well will!”.

So he did. Brian, I mean. He went to the concert and sat away down in his seat, and kept his ears covered with his hands. Mom was disgusted with him, and called him an uncultured clod, but Dad said he’s never going to insist Brian go to another concert again that he doesn’t want to attend. I guess we were pretty bad.

Mom told Bianca that I have a flute teacher now, and Bianca said she might be able to squeeze me into the Saturday morning group soon, because I’ve been improving, although she looked at me hard and said I could still do a lot better. Practise, she said. Practise! Crap! I practise plenty. I’m just not a music-looney like Larry. There’s other things to do, besides play music all the time.


There’s a rumour going around the school, that Mr. Farraday and Miss Hennesley have been going out together. They make a very nice pair, because they’re both very good-looking, and they’re both interested in sports and things. They’re both Phys.Ed. Teachers and both of them are always running around in shorts, even in winter. Too bad for Miss Blount, if it’s true, and Jane says it is. I don’t know how she always gets to hear this stuff first, but she does.

“Did you hear the latest?” I asked the girls, when we were sitting around in home room. Actually, it wasn’t really, really gossiping. Like I mean, everyone knew about it, almost.

“Hey, what?” Donna asked. Honestly, she’s so eager to hear stuff you’d swear her ears really do kind of perk up (reminds me of a little piglet, actually). Now I’m losing weight and even I can see it, and Mom keeps getting after me to eat more, but I won’t. Anyway, now I’m losing weight, it seems as if Donna keeps gaining more. She’s kind of frustrated about being fat and what she does, because she’s frustrated, is keep eating more. At lunch time, me and Diane keep telling her to stop buying all that junk, but she says she’s hungry, and goes ahead anyway. Well, it’s her life, and what can you do, anyway?

“Did you hear about Mr. Farraday and Miss Hennesley? They’re going out together, now.”

“Yeah? How do you know. Did they ask you out with them?”

“Oh, ha-ha, funny! No, Jane Parker - you know, over in CK-W - she was at my party, you met her there, remember? Well, she says. And she always knows. She said they’re always fooling around together.”

“That’s natural”, Jennifer said. “Don’t forget Jen, they’re both Phys.Ed. Teachers and they’ve got to plan things together and divide up the gym-time and equipment, and stuff."

“Oh yes, I know. But it’s not like that. They’re supposed to be going out on dates, and stuff.”

“Hey, but I thought he was going out with Miss Blount! Weren’t they?” Diane asked.

“Well, they were, all right. Boy, I wonder how she feels about all that?”

“Why shouldn’t people go out with other people. You’re silly, you girls. If a guy is going to go out with someone it doesn’t mean he isn’t going to go out with someone else. They’re probably all just friends.” Jennifer, always the sensible one.

“Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?” Diane said. “I mean, if it doesn’t matter, and they’re all just friends, and I think that’s very nice and all, but if it isn’t that way, I’ll just bet Miss Blount is going to be in a lousy mood. We’ve got Home Economics tomorrow Jennifer. You just wait and see.”

And when we had our Home Ec. Class we couldn’t see because there was a replacement teacher who told us that Miss Blount will be away for a few days. She has the flu. Kind of fishy, if you ask me. Winter’s over, and that’s flu time, not spring. Even if it is just early spring.

I’m getting to be awful! Just like some other people I know. I better stop talking like that about people. 

 

 

Chrysalid

The girl was the only bright object there, behind the infants' wear shop on College Street. A small plot of fenced city yard, grass struggling in an hostile soil. The fence, never painted, appeared skeletal, was ringed with discarded household effects; rusting relics that once had a use and no one had bothered putting out to the trash. And tires, hubcaps, a jack, broken. They might have been holding up the fence.

She lay on a sun-cot, bikinied, sunglassed, absorbing the sun. Movie and fashion magazines on the ground beside her flapped open in the light breeze. It was hot. She turned to bake on her back for a while, lay with her head cradled in her arms, thinking, thinking of nothing. Her hair, long and slightly curled, curtained her face. It was a pretty, petulant face, framed with filaments of honey. The onlooker, had there been one, would see her face again as she turned over once more, adjusted the cot to a semi-reclining position, tugged at the stubborn ratchet, then sat up.

She lifted her hair away from her perspiring neck and felt immediate cooling relief, then was hot again as she let her hair fall once more around her shoulders. Reaching under the cot, she pulled up a bag, took out a bottle of nail polish, let the bag fall. Her teeth pulled in her bottom lip as she concentrated on drawing the brush evenly over her nails. A garish purple that appealed to her, looked good, she thought, with her tan. She paused in the act of turning another nail into a perfectly oval grape. What would she wear tonight? If it was cool enough she could wear her white turtleneck; look good with her darkened skin.

A fly buzzed annoyingly, big and black; kept landing on her. She slapped at it, kept missing. Goddamn! The nail polish was dropped back into the bag, she wafted her hands around, drying the nails. Tentatively touched one; it was dry. Withdrew a bottle of sun-tan lotion out of the bag, began to grease it over herself again, being careful not to get any of it in her hair. Wouldn't have time to wash it tonight. Wish she could have a cigarette. They were there, in the bag, but if her Ma saw, she'd have a bloody fit.

Think of the old bag and there she is, leaning out the upstairs window, shouting 'Sheila!'. Sheila didn't bother to lift her head, made as though she'd heard nothing. Without looking, she knew how her mother would look. Face red, angry. Mouth open in a loud black whine. 'SHEILA!' The girl settled, squirmed back down on the cot, lifted her face to the sun, eyes closed.

"SHEILA! You get up here right now! You heard me!"

Sheila grimaced, lifted delicate fingers to her sunglasses, pushed them up slightly, innocently looked to her mother. "You want me? You calling me?"

"Get up here!"

Bitch! Stupid old bitch she is, the girl thought, looking now at the empty window, the blind grey with dirt, hanging crookedly.

The cot was hers, she'd bought it with her own money; damned if she'd let it sit there so Eddie or Mona could use it. Folded it, took it into the back room behind the store, then went outside again to climb the back stairs to the apartment.

The hall stank with stale cooking odours. The walls, an indeterminate non-colour, frosted with years of handprints, closed in on her. Better not touch them; she could feel herself shrink, repelled; and to think she had, years ago. Filthy mess, like the rest of the place.

It was cool going up the stairs, her bare skin pimpled.

The door opened into the kitchen; the linoleum greasy with spilled suds from the wringer-washer. Her mother, hair-bunned and grim, feeding a sodden mess through the wringer, dripping on the floor.

"Who do you think you are anyway? Laying out there like that! You'd never think to help me, eh?"

"I did the dishes this morning, didn't I?" What the hell!

"I did the dishes this morning", her mother mimicked.

Ugly old bitch, Boobs hanging, stomach sagging. Could even see it through that old rag she's wearing. You'd think she'd be smart enough to colour her hair, not leave it like that.

"There's other things ... there's always other things", her mother raged now, angry with her daughter's face. Deliberately blank. Her mother called her arrogant. Well, maybe she was - tough shit!

"I never sat around like that - when I was a girl I helped my mother!"

You never were a girl, old bag. And no one, no one could help you! Biting her tongue, wanting to say it.

"Yeah, well, what'd you want me to to do? I'll go change now."

"I'll change now - the lady! Sure you'll change! You're going to serve in the store like that? Looking like a tramp?" Fuck you, ma.

"Where's Mona?"

"Never mind where's Mona! She does plenty - more than you. You get going now!"

Down the hall to her room. Hers and Mona's. Her mother's voice following all the way. Who the hell gives a damn what she says? STIFLE! Yelling about her friends. Says who, she can't go out tonight?

One side of the room neat, the other like the rest of the apartment. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate neatness, cleanliness - she did. But why bother in this dump? Her kid sister could go on dreaming, thinking that by keeping her things neat it would make a difference. Well, it didn't, nothing did.

Suddenly her sister's attempts to cope infuriated her. She walked over to the unpainted chest, pulled the top drawer open, looked at the neat piles of faded clothing, pulled them half out, rumpled them. Left them hanging half out of the drawers. The slippers and extra pair of shoes timidly pointing their toes under her sister's half of the bed struck her as assertive. She kicked them under. Pulled the spread cunningly tucked under the pillows to hide the most worn portion, half off the bed.

Why the hell her go downstairs? Always her!

Sheila pulled off her bathing suit, let the pieces drop to the floor and kicked them aside. For a few minutes, she stood naked, admiring herself in the mirror, craning to see all of herself. A big contrast between her natural skin tone and the tan. Too bad she had to wear anything at all. She turned, admired her rear, wiggled, tossed her hair. That's what she looked like. She'd kill herself before she'd look like Ma.

Footsteps coming down the hall - she pulled on a pair of jeans, grabbed a tee shirt.

"What's taking you?" Standing there, hands on hips. "You don't think you're going to wear that outfit downstairs ... get some decent clothes on you."

"Ma ... I need a few dollars ... for when school starts. I need to get some stuff."

"What stuff? I just gave you ten dollars. Didn't I? Her mother raised a suds-lathered arm to push the straggling hair out of her eyes.

"Yeah, yeah you did, but that was last week. I had to get bus tickets, went to a movie. There was a few things I needed - it's gone."

"Gone! Go to work for more if you want it!"

"Okay! Okay, I'll quit school then. I don't mind going to work!"

"You don't, eh? You're only fifteen. Think you're so damn big, don't you? But I don't care, it's your father wants you to finish secretarial."

"Ma, I NEED the money!"

"How much? Never mind, I don't care how much. Five dollars is all you're getting. Hear?"

Back down the hall, footsteps shaking the wall. The smell of the wash, sour and grey, made her feel like throwing up. Good thing she didn't notice the mess on Mona's side. The kid'll go whining to her later, though, when she finds out.

Into the living room. Her mother's purse on the couch. She picked it up, flicked on the television set, the sound turned off. She stood absently for a moment, fascinated by the interior of a palatial home, its inhabitants acting out some peculiar sequence, a man and a woman, gesticulating, soundless, funny. Clicked open the purse, pulling out the small change purse. Fifteen dollars and sixty-five cents. She took fifty cents and a five-dollar bill. Changed her mind, thought a minute, and took a ten, put the five back.

Out through the room, then turned back to shut off the TV. Passing her mother's commitment to gentility, the lovingly polished surfaces of the dearly acquired dining room suite, where no one had ever eaten. Cherry stain. Not bad. She dug into her back pocket for her key and experimented. Running it over lightly, raised a skinny ribbon of wax. Didn't the old lady ever hear of wax buildup ... it was on TV all the time? Digging it in, she drew her breath. A scratch, white. Ruining the surface of the table. She quickly drew several others, a pattern of X's. Listened to hear if her mother was coming.

In the kitchen, moving sideways to pass her mother carrying a basin of steaming clothes to the porch to hang on the line. "Hurry up!" Grunting with the weight of the wet clothes.

"And if you think", her mother's voice shrilled down the stairs after her "that you're going to see that motorcycle bum again, forget it!"

In the store, her father, skinny and drawn-looking, glanced up from a customer. When the store was empty he called her over to him.

"About time!"

"Yeah. Ma only just told me."

"I told you yesterday I had an appointment at the hospital. Said be down by two. What were you doing, so busy?"

She stared at him, the deep ditches in his cheeks, hanging. Voice querulous. She recalled vaguely how, long ago, he'd laughed sometimes.

"Oh yeah, well I thought maybe Eddie would come in."

"Don't think, Sheila! Do like you're told, eh? Learn to do what you're told! Now c'mere."

"Yeah?"

"Christ! Don't you learn how to speak proper English at that school? You forget over the summer? Yes! It's yes, not yeah!"

"Yeah, sure."

"Look, unwrap this new shipment of layettes. Put them out on the shelf. Neat, eh? Don't make a mess of it. I'm going to the bank when I get back, then you can go."

"Okay."

"That's all you got to say to me?"

"?"

"I'm going to the hospital for tests - it's serious. I might have cancer - don't you care?"

"Well yeah, sure! Sure I do."

"How's about a kiss for your poor old Dad?"

A kiss. Yeah, sure.

"Can you spare a few bucks for me? I mean, I have some expenses to cover, what with school and all ..."

"Speak to your mother."

"But ... I ..."

"You know you're not supposed to come to me for money, Sheila. Speak to Ma, she looks after things like that."

She watched him count the money in the till, slip the bundle under the coin container, slam the cash register shut. He looked around the store, mentally ticking things off; satisfied. Outside, she watched his head bob up and down, walking past the window, out of sight.

She began unpacking, stopped to help a customer. Disposable diapers. Then a lady came in to buy some bibs, a diaper set. "Do you wrap?"

"Huh?"

"Do you gift-wrap; this is a gift for my niece," the woman explained, the sharp-nosed face scrutinizing her. She made Sheila feel stupid. Sheila assumed what she felt was a superior air and loftily said, "No, we don't bother. Usually too busy to do that kind of thing." Snappily too, she said it. No time to do 'that kind of thing'; beneath her. Wrap your own crap, lady.

She thought the woman would leave the stuff, walk out, but she paid for everything and didn't even notice she'd been short-changed fifty cents; too busy looking at Sheila.

Let her look, I could be in the movies; probably wishes her daughter looked as good. Let her look, she'll recognize me when she sees me on TV some day.

The store empty, Sheila began rummaging around, looking for tissue paper. She assembled a fair bundle, was satisfied with her efforts, glanced at the disarray on the shelves, outfits haphazardly lying one atop the other, the carefully interleaved tissue paper, smooth and opaque, no longer separating them.

A woman huge with her pregnancy wobbled in, interrupting the speculative thrust of her mind. Sheila turned a warm smile on the woman. Wow! Any day now. She should stay at home so no one'd have to look at her grossness.

"How much is the christening gown?"

"Christening gown?"

"In the window." Sheila turned to look in the direction of the pointing finger. No price on it, not for sale. Her mother's showpiece window dressing.

"Ten bu ... dollars."

"I'll take it!" The woman, her face padded with a triumphant flush, beaming. A real bargain. If she only knew. And Sheila almost told her, wanting to share the joke with someone, anyone; suppressed a giggle.

When the woman walked out clutching the box, Sheila locked the door, pulled the blind. Emptied the till into her bag. A lousy forty-five dollars. Sixty with the sales she'd made. Seventy counting the money she'd taken from her mother.

Going out to the back room hanging over the yard, she locked that door, crumpled tissue paper around the wooden floor, led a trail into the store. The paper caught well, a busy crackling sound, spreading nicely, caressing the cardboard boxes piled in neat rows along the back wall.

She walked back into the store, her feet tingling, feeling as though she were stepping on pins; yet pleasurable, the sensation. She stood there, watching the flames reach, following her it almost seemed, like an obedient pet, reaching tentatively at first into the store, then bolder, seeing her maternal, her prideful look of approval; pet fire ventured closer, finally made its crackling progression into the store.

Sheila jammed a chair against the knob of the door at the back-stairs, leading up to the apartment. Time for Ma's afternoon nap. Beauty sleep. She felt light-headed, giggly, like the first time she'd been humped.

She stood for another moment, mesmerized by the flames; beautiful, hungry pet; nicer colours than a kitten, a canary. The flames, red, blue and hungry, spread to the cartons flanking the walls, licked the counters. Slow to catch, the wood, but getting started, getting into the swing of things; like her at first, slow to like it, but learning fast.

Sheila let herself out the front door, locked it with the key from the till. LOVELY day! The sun still bright, washing the sidewalk with a golden glow. Heat inside, heat outside. College Street looks fine on a day like this. And there's the whole day ahead of her.

 

ME, LAST YEAR; 45th Installment

Wish they might lecture Kerry some time to stop driving us crazy with a new camp song he learned. It’s about a skunk who gets his revenge. And Kerry sings it all the time, and he’s driving us up the wall with it.

He sings: “Oh, I stuck my head in a little skunk’s hole,
and the little skunk said ‘well bless my soul’ (likely, huh?)
take it out, take it out, take it out, remove it.
Oh, I didn’t take it out and the little skunk said
if you don’t take it out you’ll wish you were dead,
take it out, take it out, take it out, remove it.
Phew! I removed it.”

If we could, we would give that little skunk a little lecture about how to really sock it to Kerry, but then that’s not very realistic, just wishful thinking on our part. Kerry just thinks he’s so smart. I suppose he is in some ways, but he’s irritating beyond belief, and there never, ever seems to be any end to it.


We all put our sleeping bags and stuff on the beds and got out our pajamas and soap and toothbrushes. Mr. Farraday is a health nut or something, (maybe just a plain nut) because he said we’ve all got to wash up and brush our teeth before we go to bed. What’s he think? We’re all back home again?

“It’s all right for him, his cabin is a lot closer to the wash house, but we’ve got further to go, and we’ll probably freeze, on the way back”, Diane said.

“Can’t you just imagine the headlines in the morning?” Jennifer T said: “Five innocent schoolgirls found frozen, while washing up in the wild north woods of Upper Canada?”

“Verrrry funny! I just happen to be serious”, Diane said, not laughing like the rest of us. “I happen to have a very delicate constitution.”

“Are you kidding?” Laura said, “I don’t remember you ever being sick.”

“That’s only because I take such good care of myself. I don’t care what Mr. Farraday says, I for one am not prepared to take such foolish chances with my health.”

“Yay, Diane!” I said. “Me too, I’ve got very delicate health too. You and me can take care of the cabin while the others go out and be good little girls, and get all washed up.”

“It’s for your own good, Jen” Laura said, looking at me very disapprovingly, like I was covered with dirt, or already sprouting green things on my skin, beginning to kind of smell peculiar or something-like.

“For my own good, I’ve decided to stay in the cabin instead of washing up. Me and Diane”, I said, shivering even at the thought of washing with cold water in an unheated cabin, then hurrying back to our little cabin.

“You’ll smell so bad by the time we’re ready to leave”, Jennifer T said, laughing at me “that no one will want to go near you.”

“Suit me fine”, both Diane and me said in unison and it sounded so funny, we all laughed our heads off.

 

ME, LAST YEAR

Like, I know all about what goes on, and things. A long time ago, Mom and Dad told us about what we’re supposed to know about reproduction and we’ve taken up about it in health classes.

But what Mom was talking about was different. She said about love and making love and what it means, separate and apart from just sexual intercourse. I blushed at that. I think she did, too. She talked about like how much more it means to get that close when a man and a woman love each other, and intimacy is part of their love for one another.

She told me about orgasms and climaxes, like how it seems like, an indescribably muscular spasm that feels like nothing too much else. And how that intimacy between a man and a woman can strengthen other emotional ties.

It wasn’t at all embarrassing at that point, and I thought that was really interesting. I told Mom that that was a kind of sex education that wasn’t anything like what they teach at school. And I thought they should teach that kind, too.

Mom said it’s very difficult to speak like that. That it might be embarrassing to the teachers, or something. But she said it’s not enough just to teach the mechanics of biology, someone should also teach the human psychological element, like how close and loving a relationship between a man and a woman can be.

On the other hand, Mom said you can talk about that, but you can’t teach tenderness and caring, you have to experience it. It begins at home, in the family, when everyone feels love for one another, and expresses it. Everything matures, she said, from that point.

I’m glad I’ve got her to tell me, anyway. Mom says even more important than telling me, is that I can see how her and Daddy live with love. Between themselves, and expressing their parental love for us. I just never thought about it that way, before. 

 

 

 

Living Adventurously

If Miharu’s mother had any questions about her young daughter’s friendship with an occidental woman clearly of her own generation, she betrayed no unease as she greeted Elinor in the tight confines of the family’s apartment, above the offices of the family business. Elinor knew they owned the building, a five-story concrete behemoth. It was a successful business, selling high-end second-hand construction machinery abroad. And renting appliances inside the country. But the Japanese, she had learned, shunned ostentation, were discreet about wealth. Above all, they were accustomed to living in close confinement in a country whose geography left little to accommodate its large population. Downstairs, the building held the company offices and showrooms. Other floors were rented out to unrelated businesses.

The family’s wealth could not, clearly, be seen in their domestic circumstances. The concrete floor of the family apartment laid with the same utilitarian indoor-outdoor carpeting as her own little apartment, halfway across the city. The public room she was shown into - the family living room - shabby and sparsely furnished, not all that much room even so, to move about. Typical of urban dwellings, although she had seen stand-alone several-story-tall homes shoe-horned into the slenderest of spaces between commercial buildings. Some homes simply cramped together precariously in crowded urban areas, other truly humble abodes even hung onto the overhead tracks of rail crossings. Most people in Tokyo, though, lived in steep, concrete high-rise apartments, stippling the city’s vast landscape.

There were obvious exceptions. Where famous Japanese couturiers had their custom-built homes in streets backing off Aoami dori, for example. With their postage-stamped, walled gardens where grew plum or persimmon trees, or delicate red-leafed Japanese maples. Not all that far from the Aoami dori cemetery with its orchard-setting of cherry trees, a pink-and-white-blossomed sight to behold in the spring, where the city’s inhabitants spread blankets and had their picnics under the trees, blossoms raining petals in the slightest breeze. Where, also, in various areas of the city were situated those discreet courtyards within which Japanese versions of western-style homes housed the families of foreign diplomats.

Actually, Miharu’s family, because of their business which had introduced them to western culture in a more informal way through business acquaintance, was a little more relaxed about customary treatment of foreigners. Few foreigners, in fact, were welcomed into the homes of Japanese. Entertaining took place outside the home, in restaurants. Not only for business purposes, but social entertainment as well; extended family and friends entertained in the auspices of commercial enterprises set up specifically for that purpose. This was an especial courtesy, an acknowledgement of her relationship with the younger daughter of this prominent business family. Their older daughter lived now in the Philippines with her husband, an area representative for the family firm.

A week later, when Miharu came by Elinor’s apartment she brought with her a surprise. She unwrapped something loosely hidden beneath a canopy of colourful rice paper. It was one of the most lovely miniature gardens she had ever seen. A Ficus Benjamina bonsai, with minuscule lantern and figure, the area beneath the ancient gnarled trunk covered with lush mosses, an urgent bright green that almost lit up the dun colours predominating in her apartment.

For me? She gasped, prepared to insist that she could never accept such a valuable gift. No, Mirahu, had smiled, a loan-presento from her mother, a symbol of her kindly regard, her trust. She almost panicked. She had no idea how to care for such a living treasure. What if her neglect and ignorance killed it? What then?

No worry, said Miharu placidly. Just use common sense. She’d had indoor plants before, hadn’t she? Well, yes, but nothing like this. She knew that this was important, this was a family heirloom. Just water it sparely, once a day. Once a day? she almost screamed, surely that’s too often! Miharu was unperturbed at her obvious anxiety, said she should relax, just enjoy having the bonsai for a little while. She’d retrieve it in a month or so …

Elinor, visiting the Happoen down the street, knew how deeply she was affected by any kind of green in this city of bland concrete walls climbing to the skies. How she reacted, in fact, to the carefully tended shrubbery, the rhododendrons in bloom and the azaleas, the colourful flowering cabbages, hibiscus, camellias, tended by municipal workers, the awesome ginkgo trees, the plane trees, maidenhair fern, with their colourful bark, their breadth, width and beauty.

Entering temple gardens, ancient places established all over the city, there was an immediate sense of transformation; a packed metropolis of harried people and vehicles suddenly become an orderly green ambiance of silent devotion to nature where huge silver and gold carp flashed by in lotus-sprinkled ponds, and rows of revered, century-old bonsai set on racks were respectfully nurtured by monks experts in their care. Expressing the Zen-Buddhist spirituality that her every breath so aromatically welcomed, strolling those pebbled pathways.

There, and in other temples, she had learned to find peace and solitude on the soul-sanctified salutary grounds of Japanese gardens. Their footpaths leading to one garden-sculpted nook after another in tidy reverence to nature’s diverse offerings. Artfully natural placing of stone and rock to resemble the lofty grandeur of mountain landscapes. Echoing the distant, readily-seen summit of the sacred Mount Fuji, from Tokyo itself.

Where indescribably inviting red-painted (good fortune!) bridges arced over placidly-floating streams, the water silvery, tinkling as it made its way through bamboo structures, all conspiring to bring human sensibilities into harmony with nature. Stepping under the city’s Torii gates made a similar impression on her; their ancient symbolic blessing soothing her sensibilities. Sight of the temple guardians with their fiercely threatening countenances did nothing to dispel the quiet solitude of rest.

The Japanese brought their reverence for nature, it seemed to her, into everything they did. On tight, narrow streets, unnamed, and unnumbered, there was a general respect for anything resembling nature’s creatures. Out from crowded interiors came vestiges of the inhabitants’ most treasured possessions. Tiny oaks and pines, expertly grown in small bonsai dishes, and ceramic-puffed fishbowls, with their single carp swimming serenely around and around. No one ever tampered with any of these private possessions, diffidently placed on public display.

There existed a social pact, it seemed to her, of universal trust. She never ceased to be amazed at the tangle of bicycles, motorcycles and electric bikes left, as though carelessly herded into livestock compounds, none of them locked, all trustingly left there, to be retrieved by their owners who had taken themselves off elsewhere in the city - on the subway line, or a rail train, a bus, or simply to enter nearby buildings where they worked, until the end of the working day, when a mass exodus would commence.

She was herself trepidatious about travelling by subway. She did have a small, bright orange folding bicycle that she had found abandoned at the back of a dark old shop. She’d taken possession of it for a few yen, still usable, and found it fine for short, local shopping trips. She shopped daily for her food, like most of the city‘s residents. Not everyone had refrigeration facilities. Besides, the Japanese were famously fastidious about the freshness of the food they ate. And so was she, now. Now that she had absorbed for herself the Japanese consciousness of nutrition and freshness.

The subway intimidated her even outside rush hours when professional pushers crammed people into already-crowded cars. She was aware of the vaunted efficiency of its magnificent intersecting meshwork of underground trains, its connections to trains, other subway connections, bus services going out of the city. All time-consuming, to absorb the requisite knowledge of areas mostly mysteriously unknown to her, and their connections. The shops in the underground system selling foodstuffs and hard goods, a constant source of amazement. She could buy pickles on her way home! Though she didn’t care for their limp presence, their unaccustomed taste; it was the convenience, the quaintness of the opportunity that intrigued her.

The helpful signage (hiragana, katakana) should have been of immeasurable help in negotiating her way around the city, but it wasn’t; it defeated her. Her ESL colleagues had no problems, and many of them hadn’t lived here as long as she; must be her level of confidence. She never attained the ease her colleagues did with the transportation system. She preferred buses, more her style. Less efficient, definitely slower lumbering along, their wood-platform floors fascinating her. She used them regularly on her week-end shopping expeditions to Ueno market.

Where she could walk in the park, admire the sculptures of whales, dolphins, visit the damp, cool interior of the national museum, amble along into the zoo with its excited crowds of onlookers awaiting the presence of the fabled pandas. And then, she could go to the area streets reserved specifically for housewares, or electronics, or footwear; even motorcycles. Networks of streets devoted to the sale of singular consumer items.

She’d tried, once, to go to Skiiji, but found herself disappointed. She’d have to arrive before dawn to witness the excitement of a city’s devotion to uniqueness, rarity and freshness in all the edibles of the ocean deeps. Wherever she went, though, she knew she would have to carry everything back with her on the bus, and it was a long, long trip. Over time, her arms had strengthened from their daily need to carry heavy bags. But she had also developed a chronic aching-shoulder syndrome that truly bothered her from time to time.

Mostly, she entertained herself endlessly walking in all those places. Miharu had introduced her to Roppongi, and when she’d first walked at night with a giggling Miharu, who pointed out to her which of the women wearing traditional white-face makeup and tripping along on elevated sandals, wearing gorgeous kimono were for hire to accompany men to the various nightclubs, she felt a thrill of romantic adventure suffuse her. She returned often to the area, brightly alight with blaring neon signage, like nowhere else on Earth.

Although on her many returns she walked alone, she knew she was safe, since women were rarely harassed, and street crime was virtually absent. But nothing relieved her of her loneliness, it strode alongside her like a mournful shadow, reminding her that she was a middle-aged woman in a foreign country, with few friends, no family, and no obvious opportunities to extend either of those categories.

All her co-workers were young and male. Unattached young men looking for exotic adventure; men from Australia and Germany, for the most part. Living frugally as she did in an expensive environment where the recompense for their day and evening shifts patiently teaching eager Japanese secretaries, academics, businessmen and just plain language hobbyists, the basics of English pronunciation and sentence structure. It wasn’t that her colleagues, such as they were, were unfriendly. They were simply detached, she represented no advantage to them in their search for the rare and the valuable in terms of life experiences. She could offer them nothing, and made no attempt to, believing herself to be just as devoid of interest to them as they took her to be.

Still, living there excited her, filled her with a vast admiration for the society, a pulsating ingathering of humanity, sharing a culture and a restrained religion that appealed immensely to her. Their homogeneity fascinated her; walking among them, a sole westerner, in a sea of gleaming black heads, all hurriedly making their way to some destination of importance in lives so distant from her own. She loved watching young women walking along Aoami dori during the working day, perfectly coiffed, elegantly dressed in designer clothing, as though each had stepped momentarily out of the glossy pages of a fashion magazine.

She wasn’t that ignorant of the country’s past. Knew very well how hated it was by its neighbours, for its brutal occupations, before and during the Second World War. But this Japan, she felt in her very bones, was an entirely different place with a strong sense of having paid too dearly for its past political-social malfeasance. She trusted this Japan, while at the same time, deploring the Japan that was responsible for horrible misdeeds in the not-so-dim past.

Truth was, she wasn’t anxious to return home. Nothing awaited her there. True, nothing seemed to await her either in Tokyo, but at least it represented a never-ending cycle of discovery, as her mind and her soul thrilled to everything she discerned behind the facade of a western-influenced, increasingly cosmopolitan nation that stubbornly held tight to its eastern identity. The western influence was one of convenience, in a practical acknowledgement that there lay progress, while the values of enlightenment remained with tradition.

She hardly knew what she would do when her contract expired. She knew she wasn’t a very good teacher. She enjoyed amicable relations with her clients, but there was that oriental distance she could never breach, and although it didn’t make her uncomfortable, nor did she ever feel at ease, unlike her colleagues. Too sensitive to nuances, they suggested, when she mentioned it to a few with whom she had easy, but not close relations.

The thing was, she wanted to be accepted. She had no complaints; she was respected. But she wanted to be liked. For who she was. And she tried awfully hard to elicit warm feelings between herself and her clients. Some of them might share a laugh with her, over a badly expressed sentence, but this was a matter of grave moment to them also, not quite a laughing matter. They were as intent on succeeding in speaking decipherable, and decently-accented English, as she was in being accepted among them, as one of them. It took her quite a while to finally understand she never would be. There was a social, cultural distance that existed that nothing she could do would bridge.

Except for Miharu. There, with that young woman, who at 28, was the despair of her parents for her constant refusals of marriage proposals, she found solace. Miharu seemed to understand her, was relaxed with her, shared thoughts with her, told her of her disgust at the thought of becoming a typical Japanese housewife. She had received a good education, had a masters in business administration, and had no intention of agreeing to hide herself away in some dreary little apartment, looking after children. She was independent. She worked for her family's firm. She drove her neat little rag-top convertible Volkswagen anywhere she wanted to take herself.

“You don’t know, Elinor, the woman is sacrificed to the family, to raising children, making a home for her hard-working husband who puts in extra work hours, goes out tippling after work, and returns home drunk, never seeing his own children.”

“It can’t be that bad. Surely things are changing”, she responded to an obviously-upset Miharu, who’d presented herself, unannounced, after one of her arguments with her parents. Miharu hated to upset her mother. She didn’t that much care about how angry her father would be, with his pinched, furious face, with his patriarchal view of a woman’s place. It was her mother’s unexpressed pain at her younger daughter’s defiance of tradition that bothered her.

“It’s bad”, she said. “Once a Japanese woman gets married her life is as good as over. Unless she marries a foreigner, and goes to live with him outside of Japan. And then another aspect of her life is over. Once she leaves Japan she can never return as a Japanese. She becomes a foreigner and that foreignness always hangs over her. Anyway”, she sighed “my parents would never forgive me”.

Miharu told her excitedly about a group she had just joined. Friends of the Earth, in Japan. They went regularly on trips outside Tokyo, to adjacent towns, where hiking trails led up into the mountains. They could see monkeys in the trees on some of those trails. Some of the forests were comprised solely of bamboo. There were temples atop some of the summits, and ancient ginkgo trees, some reputed to be two thousand years old. There was also a temple dedicated to the Buddha who had walked from India to Japan (Isn’t Japan a series of islands? No matter) and his immense sandals can be seen there, outside the temple. Some of the hikes would take them to formal tea houses, and they could take part in a tea ceremony.

She was sold. She was still in pretty good shape for 54. They’d had to rise very early on week-end mornings. To grab a series of subway trains, buses, rail trains, and again buses, to finally get them out of Tokyo, where, on the perimeter, the final bus would finally stop outside villages and towns close to where these trailheads began. It was all so bucolic, so infused with good fellowship and adventure. There was a mixture of Japanese, Australians, Germans, and her, the sole Canadian. Mostly men, a sprinkling of women. The Japanese always wore lederhosen, their version of how mountain climbers, trail trekkers, should look. And they didn’t miss an opportunity to try out their command of English on the foreign element that made up their group, sometimes with hilarious results.

Elinor hung back, with Miharu, on the first several of what turned out to be many such outings. Miharu might be furiously verbose in her denial of taking her customary place as a traditional Japanese woman, but tradition was steeped deep within her, and she was shy and quiet, and self-disparaging, particularly in the presence of men, most markedly in the presence of foreign men.

It was on their eighth climbing adventure that Elinor decided she would exert herself a little more vigorously, demonstrate just how robust she was for her age, decidedly more advanced than any of the group. She forged ahead, clambering up the rubble-strewn trails, very well aware of how surprised everyone else was, in her wake. She heard, behind her, people speaking to one another, marvelling at the physical resources she was exhibiting, striding seemingly without effort, before everyone else. Whenever they passed a group proceeding in the opposite direction she would gasp the obligatory "konichiwa", and forge on, determinedly.

Gradually, the effort began to tax her, and she felt truly alarmed at the increasingly leaden feeling in her limbs, her stifling, pounding chest. Still, she strode confidently ahead, the others straggling behind. She felt proud of herself, glowing in the reflection of the others’ awe at her progress.

Then they stopped as usual, for a break. Everyone searched in their backpacks for refreshments. Muffins, cookies, trail mix, and water to wash it down. Elinor had sprawled on the ground, her back resting on a Paulownia trunk. Miharu seated beside her, was eating crackers and dried fish. Suddenly, Miharu lifted her head, and closely regarded her friend. Who was not eating, not having anything to replenish her exhausted resources, but sitting there, dully, breathing heavily. “Something wrong?” Miharu asked, quietly.

“No”, said Elinor. “I just suddenly feel awfully tired. I don’t know, Miharu, if I can repeat what I’ve just done. I don’t seem to have any more energy”. This admission depressed her horribly. Made her feel ashamed of her previous bravado, her obvious audacity, her showing-off, like a kid looking for compliments and admiration. What, did she think one of the men would view her differently, decide he would like to become more intimately involved with this decidedly unusual woman whose energy belied her years?

When, finally, it was time to tuck everything back into backpacks and resume the hike, everyone did so enthusiastically, and slowly everyone in their group trickled off. There were some surprised faces, looking back at Elinor and Miharu, still sitting there, making no effort to rise and join them. Elinor felt a deep blush of shame paint her face. Miharu patted her friend’s hand, whispered to her that she should rest, take her time, they would catch up. Eventually

 

“Because the Jews ruined Christmas”

 

Oh, look! A class of third-grade children taught 

a history lesson by their teacher and just in time for 

Christmas. A re-enactment of the Holocaust, no less

an object lesson in a people's unforgivable sin against 

a Jewish prophet disbelieving his claim to a godhead 

and just as womanhood is haunted by Pandora's box

escapees, so too are Jews shunned in perpetuity as 

perpetrators of  the original deicidal plot earning the 

undying enmity of the spirit of existence and all 

humanity of divine faith. Here, Yiddele, you play Hitler 

and here, little boys and girls -- dig graves, shoot Jews 

for they must be punished for ruining Christmas. The

children wailed and grieved as they died in gas chambers

their pleas for mercy unanswered as transport trains 

kept on delivering them to their deserved punishment 

so that children playing Jews would fully know the extreme 

gravity of Jewish sin deserving obliteration. How

fitting their teacher was Black and thus entitled to her

mission to expand children's view of the world by

recalling history to show that some lives really and

truly do not matter. Hers the legacy of malicious hate.

 

 

Relations

The fire had finally taken, his patience rewarded. As he'd expected, as he knew it would. But not always; patience and virtue were supposed to be their own rewards. Still, they seldom were and like anyone else, when Ralph invested his time, however little, he expected a return.

Despite the rain that drenched the grass, the tree-tops canopied above kept them reasonably dry. Nearby, the sound of the rain splotching on the metal of the car pinged constantly. The stones supporting the iron grate under which Ralph's fire was now lustily eating lengths of dry kindling, leaping busily to lick heavy pieces of elm lying on the grate ... the stones yes, hissed their hot contempt at the puny efforts of the rain; those few drops that managed to evade the canopy of the trees.

Ralph rubbed his hands over the fire, his nails scraping dirt clots off his palms; dirt from scrubbing, from his hunkered-over position before the blaze and when he did, his knees buckled slightly. A cramp; in his determination to light the fire despite the damp air, the half-damp logs, he'd been kneeling there for some time, feeding the fire like an anxious mother spooning nutrition to a queasy child.

A cough beside him. Margaret standing there, warming herself. Staring glassy-eyed at the fire. As though hypnotized, why else would she stand there, coughing, yet permitting the smoke caused by the fire coming into contact with damp portions of the wood to swirl about her face, sting her eyes, irritate her nostrils.

"Margaret." Slowly she turned. Smiled. A curiously shy smile, as though acknowledging the presence of a pleasant-appearing stranger; the smile a courtesy, no reflection in her eyes.

"Margaret, move away, over to the other side."
"Why?" the smile turned to a puzzled frown and she remained there where the smoke continued to eddy around her and upward, the updraft taking with it bright embers that luminesced minutely then turned into dust, one or more occasionally embroidering her jeans before it turned to ash. One step, another, and he stood beside her, took her shoulders in his hands and gently shifted her to the side, laid her forehead on his chest, held her.

"Feel okay?"
"Mmmm, yes."
"Disappointed?"
"Why? This is lovely ... the rain, the fire."
"We came for berries, remember?"
"Berries?" she repeated distantly. "OH ... well but this is lovely." And again she began to contemplate the fire, the sap bubbling the end of a chunk of wood, bark ridges turning white and black, flames licking, curving themselves cleverly around the width of the logs.

The steady drone of the rain, the cracks and hisses of the fire resisting the occasional heavy raindrop were foreground sounds, comforting. And from a distance, another sound, insistent and annoying, muddied the air around them; that of a late summer carnival from the town below.

Driving up the mountain road they'd seen the snow fences hastily set up to encapsulate a small carousel and Ferris wheel, various colourful booths and decorated floats. Cars had lined the crossroads and they'd exchanged glances.

It was neither pity nor contempt, but something in between that they felt for those poor back-country blobs for whom a tawdry carnival was a cultural event of significance. It was disco music that competed with those sounds of nature around them, disco blaring on the country air with its meaningless musical neutrality.

He drew her to the place where he'd dragged over the park picnic table, dry and inviting under the tarpaulin strung up between a fortuitous stand of trees. Their checkered tablecloth, and on it the picnic spread; lean sliced ham, the rolls she'd baked, sliced tomatoes, green grapes and red cherries and caviar. Not sturgeon, but caviar anyway, to smooth on toasted rolls. They liked to do themselves well.

Ralph poured the coffee, pushed the cream at her, watched her drop her saccharine in, the hot liquid bubbling back. Everything smelled good, and the sky appeared lighter, the rain began lifting.

There had always been a distance between them which nothing, not the most urgent intimacies seemed to bridge. She was cool, aloof, even while her eyes turned upward to show the whites, perspiration pearling her forehead, her nails raking his back, demanding more. When it was over she turned away from him. He accepted that of her, thought time might change her but now had to face the reality of her distance deepening.

Everyone had to go sometime. And for him, it had been time enough. He should have died long ago. It was only his mean determination to order others' lives in a way that suited him that had kept him alive. Thinking of him forced a sour bile-ish liquid up from some secret place to nauseate Ralph. He drank his coffee and wiped his forehead.

"Feel okay?" He looked at Margaret daintily nibbling a roll, smoothing raspberry jam with her finger back onto the roll, saving it from spilling over to the tablecloth.

"You keep asking!"
"Sorry", he mumbled, turned aside to watch the fire. A steady but slight drip began to wet the middle of the tablecloth; a build-up of rain atop the tarp, and water always finds a way ....

It wasn't that funerals depressed him. They did everyone. He'd attended family funerals, had to, felt it his duty to; they'd caused him no great anguish, even his own father's. Just not his, not for any reason he could explain to her, but he'd been quite simply unable to. Mind blank, limbs unfeeling, he'd been unable to function.

Thought he'd find a way to discourage him, drive him away, keep her himself, the jealous old bastard. All those years of intimidation, stepping on eggshells, breathing shallow.

"You look pale..." he said, turning back to her, watching her blond hair dip forward, the tips of both sides almost touch as she leaned toward the roll, sharp white teeth tearing. Then Margaret leaning back, slowly absently, masticating the bread fibres, the bright red of the jam flecking her lips. Feeling his eyes on her, lifting her own and looking at him, hers blue and clear to his brown, anxious.

"You okay?"
"Me ...? Why do you ask?"
"You keep asking me, but you look so ... worried. What's the matter?'

He couldn't talk about it. They'd talk about anything else, reasonably dissect any subject, rationally argue opinion, respect each other's but not that topic. Ah Love, forgive me, I wasn't capable of rising to that occasion, I couldn't eulogize the cretinous sot who, by his own admission; no taunt - sodomized you.

"Love, about your father ... I'm sorry. I just couldn't bear to go, to take part in the whole barbaric ritual ... you know how I feel about it....

"No", she said coolly, her eyes like blue ice now, fixing him. "Tell me, tell me about how you feel, how you felt ...."

But how could he? Tell her of his dreams, her father naked and blue on a marble slab and he with a slender obsidian blade, wielding it like a surgeon, like an Aztec priest, dedicating the portions to the gods of anger, futility, disgust, and revenge? Tell her of the palpitating heart, the purple-sick brain, the ravaged entrails?

He turned away again, to the fire. If he was a believer, he knew that he might find comfort of sorts in imagining the other, tending another fire; he'd been an expert, for years tenderly whispering the embers of enmity to a final enduring hatred.

"Looks like it's stopped." She stood in a clearing, lifting her hands experimentally to no rain, delightedly forgetting the tension, no longer brooding, forgetful like the child she often seemed to be. "First more raspberries", she declared, rummaging in the car trunk for the plastic pails. "Then we'll climb the trail to the blueberries, okay?"

But their shoes soon squelched wetly through to their socks and their pants became drenched; the bright raspberry heads invited from canes amidst thick underbrush that nettled, and so did the tall thistles growing companionably beside the canes.

He watched her bright head bobbing in the brush and worked feverishly to fill his own container before the clouds scuttling above let loose again. Yet soon enough heard the birds begin to celebrate the rain. His back, the top of his head were quickly wet, and almost simultaneously, the mosquitoes began attacking. He walked the thin trail between the canes over to her, bending busily over a burdened cane, saw she was as wet as he was, and said "let's go, Margaret, we've enough for now."

"Soon" she replied, fingers nimbler than his, gently plucking treasure from the canes, leaving him standing there, waiting, no longer eager to pick. He felt anger rising in him, thought of the picnic table, dry and inviting, the fire warm and waiting, and hoped it hadn't gone out.

"Let's go!" he insisted. "Aren't the mosquitoes bothering you? They're eating me alive!"
"I'm rancid" she said, and continued picking.

He turned and slowly made his way back up the narrow pathway, back up to the car, the table, the fire, still burning. Stood there, watching, the vapour rising off his sodden clothing, roasting his front, then his back, waiting for her to come and join him.

But she wouldn't would she - join him, in a hurry. Stubborn, just because he was miserable, wanting to please her yet hating the discomfort. Stubborn, she had that from him, ingrained by now, nothing would change her. Did he want her to be different, more attuned to his wants as he tried to be to hers?

Ah god, no, let her be like she is, indifferent to his needs, willing to let him anticipate hers. Still, his stomach knotted in a hard ball of anger. He felt abused, ill-done by, wanting to strike out at someone, something.

That music! That bloody music snarling its harsh notes in the branches of the trees, flinging its discordance at him. Country boobs, didn't they know any better than to stick it out, their lousy carnival, in the rain?

Where was she?