Butterfly's Shadow - Lee Langley [92]
He held up a hand. Instant silence.
‘You will now show me how it should be said. I want to hear from each of you, right?’
He stood over them, encouraging, and in turn they repeated the phrase, some fluently, others as haltingly as Joey. When everyone had spoken, he repeated it. This time no one laughed.
Joey set a lazy pace. How many spoke English? Hands up. And how many spoke Japanese as well? And who spoke no Japanese? Okay. He picked a noun, an absurd adjective, an unlikely verb, and asked for Japanese equivalents. At first they remained silent, unwilling to expose themselves to this childish game. Slowly he drew them in, easing his way to Japanese phrases where he was the useless one, where they could help him out.
He moved them around, pairing up the English-speakers with the Japanese-only. Varying the pattern. He began to ask questions, keeping it simple, repetitious. Did they notice that he too was repeating the Japanese, noting down each word? This was indeed learning by heart. A syllable, a sound, a gradual understanding; ritualistic, the naming of parts.
They listened, repeated. Began to ask questions. He had them locate and name objects in the classroom. Sometimes he made them laugh.
By the end of the lesson Joey was exhausted; the children bubbling.
Each day he moved them on a little. From nursery rhymes for the youngest, he took them to a verse or two of ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’; he even risked ‘archy & mehitabel’ – ‘Okay, there’s this cat, this neko, and this cockroach – cockroach? Gokiburi? Right. And they’re buddies . . .’
Meanwhile, he did his homework: in his hut he copied out words, marked vocal inflexions, checked nuances.
One day he introduced a new ingredient: personal possessions. He explained the concept of Show and Tell. Next lesson, one child brought a signed picture of Bing Crosby, another unrolled a piece of embroidered green silk that belonged to her grandmother. A harmonica sat beside an object resembling a small piece of candy which turned out to be a seal: ‘hanko – for stamping your name, like a signature.’
A small, square printed seal at the end of a letter from Nagasaki; Nancy’s voice, ‘It’s from Joey’s mother. Her name is Cho-Cho.’
One girl brought a new basket, smoothly and intricately woven.
‘My mother made it, from tule reed, sort of bulrush that grows here. It’s bound with string she unravelled from an onion sack in the garbage from the kitchen.’
A boy held up a tiny carved monkey made of jade.
‘Netsuke.’
‘Pretty.’
‘Useful,’ the boy said.
And Joey realised it was not enough to know the word. The use of this object required an explanation. The naming of parts should include the knowledge of its function, as in the poem Nancy had sent him, passed on from her British friend.
That lesson the class discussed netsuke, miniature sculptures, the word of two characters that meant ‘root’ and ‘to suspend’; the tiny object that long ago solved the problem of how to keep safe personal belongings in robes that had no pockets.
One of the older boys stepped in.
‘Small objects, such as coins, were placed in cloth containers and hung by a cord from a sash round the waist. The sash, obi, is—’
‘I know what an obi is.’
He picked it up, feeling the netsuke’s smoothness against his fingertips, returning the dark gaze of the monkey’s eyes.
Next day an elderly, silver-haired man appeared in the classroom door. Mr Murakami apologised for interrupting the lesson, but he had something to show Joey that might be of interest: a wooden carving, so small it fitted easily into his closed fist.
‘See no evil, hear no evil, ah, speak no evil – mizaru, kikazaru, iwazaru.’ He held out an exquisite carved trinity. Someone must have reported back that Joey liked monkeys.
‘Perhaps a play on words, our word for monkey is saru. This is a poor copy I have attempted of a seventeenth-century temple carving, in Nikko Toshogo shrine.’ He glanced round the room and said a few words rapidly, in Japanese.