Kensuke, Final

Continued…

From the end of the block he saw his mother’s figure stretching up to reach a branch of the plum tree. She stood teetering on tiptoe, holding the branch in one hand and with the other, reaching with clippers to snip it off near the trunk. He ran the last hundred yards and with a leap threw himself over the garden gate.

“Oh, what a fright you gave me, Kensuke! Why do you scare your old mother so?” Mrs Aoki pretended to scold her son and leaned forward to wipe a spot of chocolate off his cheek. She realized it wouldn’t be too long before she would have to stand on tiptoe to bring her face even with his. Turning back to the plum branch, she said, “Go inside and wash your face and hands.”

“If I stand on the wall I can cut that branch for you real easy.”

“You are a thoughtful boy, but no, I would rather cut it from here and keep you off the garden wall. Now go on and wash your face, but don’t bother your Papa. He is very busy with a new magazine assignment.” She turned back to the branch, but then called over her shoulder, “There’s some sweet bean cake on the kitchen table.”

Some time later, in a small room off the kitchen, Mrs Aoki worked on a new flower arrangement centered around the plum branch, while at the other end of the house Kensuke sat in his room, hunched over books writing his report about the Mongol invasion. In the studio upstairs, Mr Aoki worked with a collection of expensive Pelikan fountain pens and a bottle of ink, arranging them around an old journal of film director Akira Kurosawa. The items were on loan for the purpose of a Pelikan advertisement, and Mr Aoki was shifting the composition, trying to find good angles for his photographs.

For a time the house was silent. From his desk Kensuke listened to the faint click of his mother’s clippers as they shaped the plum branch. Overhead, in a small wooden cage, two crickets sensing the twilight began to chirp, while in the garden a glass wind chime tinkled briefly when a breeze stirred the tree where it hung. Soon there were other familiar sounds that told Kensuke his mother would soon call him to dinner.

He swallowed a last mouthful of rice while his mother filled a cup with steaming green tea. His father held out a bowl of rice and his mother poured tea over the rice. Three noisy gulps and both tea and rice were gone. Mr Aoki complimented his wife on the food. She touched him lightly on the shoulder and said she would take his tea upstairs to the studio.

Kensuke regretted that his Papa was too busy to spend time with him. He turned to his mother and asked if she would help him with the social studies report.

“I will come soon, but first take this tea up to Papa,” she answered.

Sitting with Kensuke later at his desk, Mrs Aoki read the words he had written describing the hordes of Mongol invaders who descended upon Japan almost 700 years earlier. Like many boys his age, Kensuke had written much about the blood and gore of war, and she had to persuade him that leaving some things out would improve his report. She pointed out some places where the grammar was a little shaky, explaining carefully in a way he could understand the mistake.

They worked together for an hour, mother urging son to choose the words and phrases without her telling him. Both were satisfied with the report by eight o’clock, and she told him he could watch television for one hour before bed.

He turned on the small television opposite his bed and watched for a minute while the picture jumped and rolled into a close-up image of Farah Fawcett-Majors. As the theme music for Charlie’s Angels pitched into high gear, Kensuke changed into rumpled sweat pants and T-shirt, then bounced over the end of his bed onto the pillow.

He watched for a while, but the hit TV show wasn’t enough this time to keep a tired boy in suspense, and soon Farah was playing to a sleeping Kensuke.

Mrs Aoki looked in to say goodnight and found Kensuke sleeping soundly, despite the bang and boom of television gunshots. She turned off the television and taking a blanket from the foot of the bed she spread it across her son. When she did that, Kensuke garbled something in his sleep and snuggled deeper into the pillow. Mrs Aoki stood looking down on the unmarked face of her only child and felt again the squeeze of anxiety.

••••••••

Kensuke, 4

Continued…

Sachiko’s story awakened the dread of entrance examinations all too vividly in Kensuke’s mind. For several minutes neither of them spoke. Despite her own feelings, Sachiko recognized in Kensuke a look that said he was for now unable to say anything. But she was grateful to him for listening and felt some relief over letting her feelings out. She had no way of knowing what was going through Kensuke’s mind, as she had never known his friend Hiro in Namba, had never heard him mentioned. And so she settled back on the pine shaded old bench and waited patiently for the strained look to pass from her friend’s eyes.

A few minutes passed and Sachiko glanced at Kensuke, noticing the forgotten Rocket Bar that had melted all over his fingers. She made a gesture toward the chocolate and Kensuke looked down at the mess and groaned. Sachiko laughed and pointed to the water fountain a few feet away.

He washed the chocolate from his hand and the two of them turned in the direction of the library doors.

Sachiko was about to speak when Kensuke jumped in with the story of what Fumio had done at lunch. “Oh, you should have seen Fumio’s face, Sachiko. He looked like he’d swallowed a bee. And Mr Nagasawa had the red juice all over his face…Hope his punishment isn’t too severe.”

Sachiko forgot Kobe and her cousin’s death and laughed out loud at the story of Fumio and the flying cherry. But in spite of his happy description of Fumio’s mischief and despite Sachiko’s laughter, Kensuke remained preoccupied with the girl in Kobe and the boy in Namba.

The library was crowded with students and boys and girls whispered together at every table. Over in one corner, a group was sprawled in beanbag chairs reading magazines. In another corner three girls were crowded around a slide viewer looking at photographs of London. The large aquarium stood in the center of the library, its filters gurgling softly in a steady stream of rising bubbles.

Sachiko and Kensuke headed straight for the fish. It was an especially beautiful aquarium, and Mrs Sakamura, the librarian, was devoted to its care and to the dozens of colorful fish that dodged and darted, gliding around rocks and between the swaying fronds of water plants. She spent many hours making sure that the conditions of the tank remained perfect for the tropical fish.

“Oh, look at that one, Kensuke!” Sachiko pointed to a small eel squirming its way into the crevice between two rocks.

Kensuke answered that he liked the baby catfish that attached themselves to the glass. “They help keep the glass clean because they eat the algae that grows there.”

It was such a peaceful underwater world that the two of them stood mesmerized for several minutes before being called back to class by the ringing bell.

Agreeing to meet again in the library on Saturday, Kensuke and Sachiko ran off toward their separate classrooms. In the crowd of students jostling their way up the stairs, Kensuke saw Fumio ahead and caught up with him before reaching the classroom.

“Did he believe you when you said it was an accident?” he asked, amazed at Fumio’s attitude of shrugging it off. He gave the impression of believing the whole incident something so minor it didn’t even require explaining.

“Is he going to tell your parents?” Kensuke was persistent.

“No, I was lucky about that part. Mr Nagasawa said it would all be put in the past once I had written the essay and handed it in.”

In reality, Fumio was putting on a brave front. Beneath the calm exterior he was indeed upset over Mr Nagasawa’s scolding, and the essay he now had to write. He was to write at least two pages explaining where and how cherry trees are planted and grown, how the fruit is harvested, and finally how the cherries reach the markets. It was an assignment he dreaded much more than a few quick licks from the Principal’s bamboo rod. He had three days to write the essay, and then would have to stand and read it in front of his class. More than writing, Fumio hated reading aloud in front of other students. An essay about cherries was sure to bring the laughter of classmates crashing around his ears, especially since most of them knew all about the business in the cafeteria.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent at social studies, and then a music lesson. For his social studies assignment Kensuke was working on a report about the Mongol invasion of Japan in 1281, when the country was saved by the great kamikaze, or “divine wind.” In the music class, students had a demonstration of the shakuhachi, or bamboo flute. The teacher first played the flute himself, and later some recordings of different kinds of music arranged for the shakuhachi, explaining how the flute changed its tone to accommodate the mood or theme of the composition. Closing his eyes, Kensuke let the music wash over him, taking him far from the classroom, to a place where water bubbled over rocks and wind shivered the leaves of trees. It was so close to being real, he almost felt the wind on his cheeks, the cool water on his fingertips.

He resented the bell that jarred him loose from the music. Content, lost in the husky notes of the shakuhachi, his sense of time had receded. This bell was the last of the day, signaling three o’clock and the end of classes.

Continued tomorrow…

Kensuke, 3

Continued…

Without Fumio there would be no after-lunch Indian wrestling that day, so Kensuke thought instead he would go to the school library. Maybe there would be some new magazines. He returned his lunch tray and passed on through the doors at the far end of the cafeteria. Leaving behind the shouts and laughter that filled that room every day, he dashed off to buy a drink from the vending machines near the nurse’s room.

After a second or two of indecision, he settled on coffee milk and dropped a hundred yen into the coin slot. Taking the carton of coffee milk out of the chute, he realized that he now had only enough money left for a small ice cream cone after school. Well, no matter, he thought, opening the carton and taking a big gulp, leaving a milky brown mustache over his top lip.

Turning and moving off toward the library, Kensuke noticed Sachiko Arai standing about ten paces away. She was pretending to read a book, but was in fact watching Kensuke closely.

“Hello, Sachiko! You haven’t been at school since Monday. You been sick?”

“Thank you for asking, but no, I have not been sick. My family had to go to Kobe. Our relatives live there.” Sachiko’s voice was soft, and today seemed more restrained than usual.

“Oh yeah? Did they have a wedding, or something?”

Staring at the ground between them, slow to answer, Kensuke sensed something wrong. He wondered if he had blurted out something impolite. He was about to say he was sorry when Sachiko spoke.

“No, not a wedding…it was a funeral. There is terrible sadness in my aunt’s house, because last week she lost her daughter.” Sachiko’s voice had become even quieter and Kensuke had to lean closer to hear.

For a moment he felt embarrassed, not knowing how to respond to Sachiko’s words. He moved a step closer and pulling from his pocket a Rocket Bar, he extended his hand offering her the chocolate. Sachiko smiled, but shook her head to say no thanks.

“Sachiko-chan, here… Share this chocolate with me while we walk over to see the fish,” Kensuke said, referring to the sixty-liter aquarium with a collection of tropical fish in the library.

Sachiko accepted the Rocket Bar this time. Kensuke had boosted her spirits a little, and she gave back a wan smile. As they walked slowly along the path leading behind the playground to the library, Sachiko debated with herself whether or not to tell her friend about the cousin in Kobe. A sense of family privacy warned her against speaking about such to anyone outside the family. At the same time she was deeply confused and wanted the help of a friend who might help her understand the terrible thing that had happened in Kobe.

The cousin in Kobe, an eighteen year-old girl had flung herself from the roof of her school. This happened not at a high school, but at a cram school, a large preparatory school where as many as one hundred students crowded into a classroom, all struggling to prepare themselves for the next round of university entrance examinations. All the students were making a second or third attempt to pass the examinations they failed the first time around. Each student attended class with the fervent hope that next time would bring success, and open the doors to university.

Before jumping from the seventh floor of the school building, Sachiko’s cousin had removed all identification from her clothing, and left her schoolbag and shoes neatly aligned at the roof’s parapet. On her white blouse she had pinned a note reading, ‘I have passed the examination to heaven.’

The girl’s mother had wept bitterly at the revelation that no one, neither teacher nor classmates could put a name to her daughter’s face.

Keeping her voice even, speaking almost as if it were about a stranger, Sachiko told Kensuke the story of her cousin’s suicide. It wasn’t hard for Kensuke to read the pain in those words, no matter how calm the voice of his friend. They had stopped walking and were sitting on a bench beneath a large pine tree near the doors of the library. The bench was old and tattooed on every surface with the scratched names of students long gone from Tamade Primary School, and as she spoke, Sachiko ran her fingers over and over the worn markings, as though looking for an explanation in those old names. Kensuke listened quietly to her words, words that had begun to separate him from the carefree beginnings of afternoon.

“I am confused about why my cousin did such a thing. My mother has explained it to me, but it only makes me understand it less,” her plaint reaching out to Kensuke in the hope that he might help her understand this terrible action.

Unknown to Sachiko, her story of this cousin’s death in Kobe had taken Kensuke’s thoughts far away. He sat without speaking, unaware for the moment of the girl beside him. Beneath the quiet mask of his face his head thundered at the memory of a friend in Namba, crushed beneath the wheels of a speeding subway. Just like Sachiko’s cousin in Kobe, Kensuke’s friend had found the pressures of entrance exams too much to bear. But in his case it was entrance exams to a private junior high school. The girl in Kobe had been eighteen, the boy in Namba thirteen.

Kensuke had been devastated by the death of his Namba friend. It had brought to him an acute awareness of pressures he had not imagined, and that now lay on his own horizon. For several weeks before his friend had killed himself, Kensuke has noticed something troubling him. The days and weeks of study all aimed at passing one examination had not gone unnoticed, and he watched his friend grow sullen and retreat from friends. Then he began to skip his cram school classes and to stay away from home. He fought bitterly with his parents, a scene Kensuke unwillingly overheard from the back garden of their home. The last time he had seen Hiro, Kensuke noticed that all the light and life of his friend had drained away.

For days afterward, Kensuke had badgered his mother for an explanation of his friend’s motives. He did not understand the depth of such difficulties, for it was not in his experience. He was happy at school and unfamiliar with something like the pressure of examinations. For the first time he considered the possibility of such an examination hell, fearing that it could happen to him. Both mother and father did their best to calm Kensuke, but he was nonetheless left with a dread of entrance examinations.

Continued tomorrow…

Kensuke, 2

Continued…

Kensuke and the other students washed their calligraphy brushes and tidied up the mess of crumpled practice sheets and the splotches of spilled ink, making the classroom and themselves ready for the next lesson of the day.

By the time everything was straightened and in its proper place, the blackboard was filled with math problems, and Mrs Wakita stood with chalk in hand. Kensuke never felt completely comfortable during the math lessons, not because of any particular weakness in the subject, but because his teacher was very demanding in this subject. For that small measure of discomfort though, Kensuke was benefitting from Mrs Wakita’s stern methods. And so, for the next forty-five minutes he set himself to the problems on the blackboard.

“Aoki-kun?”

Kensuke involuntarily jumped at the sound of his name, spoken in a manner that indicated a question about one of the problems was next. His throat tightened as he rose to his feet.

“Yes, sensei.”

“Please come to the blackboard and explain the solution to this problem.” She tapped the blackboard to indicate the first problem.

Solving the problem should have presented no difficulty to Kensuke. It was a problem in fractions, and to Kensuke was not especially complicated. But under the stern eye of the teacher he stumbled through the problem, erasing his results more than once, and taking twice the time it would have, had no one been watching. Finally, laying down the chalk and eraser, he turned reluctantly to his teacher, both hands now white with chalk dust.

“Perhaps a little extra time on your math tonight, Aoki-kun. Would that be time well spent, do you think?”

“Yes, sensei. I will study tonight and do better tomorrow.”

The remainder of the math study passed in relative ease, with other students going to the blackboard in turn to work out a problem and Mrs Wakita guiding them through the correct steps, or difficult sections. At the end of their study students turned in their notebooks to be looked over by the teacher.

Kensuke was sorry that his class couldn’t visit once more Fujitsu Computer. Last week Mrs Wakita, along with the new science teacher Miss Nakatani, had arranged to take the class to Fujitsu to tour their research and development department. At the sight of the computers, Kensuke’s eyes had been like two great saucers. He could hardly believe the speed at which processed information poured out of these giant “brains.” His favorite part had been the time given students to ask questions and tap keys on the one of the computers. Everyone had laughed when three students input several commands one after another, and after a loud ringing noise a message popped up on the screen saying, ‘Too many questions!’ Later, the students learned that Miss Nakatani had arranged with the Fujitsu engineers to have the computer do that as a joke.

He pushed on with the math problems, his mind moving quickly through the numbers. Kensuke looked at the problems as he would a puzzle, without drudgery, but with eagerness over how the numbers would fit together to make an answer. Near the end, his notebook showed a neat page of numbers and fractions all arranged into what he hoped were correct answers. For the remaining minutes before lunch he sat daydreaming about the day he would be a great baseball star and become good friends with Japan’s king of baseball, Oh Sadaharu.

He imagined himself together with the great man roaring down the highway in a neat little sports car, two beautiful girls laughing in the cramped rear seat. He had smashed two home runs in that day’s game, and now he and his friends were driving down to Misaki for an evening of dinner and dancing. One of the girls was Oh’s girlfriend, and the other was a glamorous movie star Kensuke had met at a party. He went to a party every night, and…

“Ken-chan! Hurry up! We’re going to be last in line for lunch.”

Fumio’s voice startled Kensuke back to the present. Mrs Wakita stood by the door waiting for notebooks to be turned in, and he quickly handed over his own.

Lunch on Thursday was often curry and rice, and a favorite among all the students. When Kensuke and Fumio reached the cafeteria there was a long line up of students at the serving line, but it didn’t take them long to get their lunch of curry with rice, and a small bowl of fruit cocktail.

Kensuke was jabbering away about a recent baseball game between the Yomiuri Giants and the Hanshin Tigers and not really paying much attention to what Fumio was doing. He didn’t notice that his friend was firing cherries and grapes across the room, using his chopsticks as a sling. Neither did Fumio notice the school Principal, Mr Nagasawa entering the cafeteria. Unfortunately for Fumio he walked right into the line of fire and caught a cherry broadside on the nose. Suddenly the cafeteria became deadly quiet as the Principal stood there with a line of red cherry juice running down his face, his mouth agape.

Almost before Kensuke had time to look up from his curry, Mr Nagasawa crossed the room and grabbed Fumio by the collar, pulling him out of his chair and onto tiptoes.

“Good day, young Mr Hattori. You are caught I’m afraid, and now we shall see what happens to boys who throw their food at other people!” Holding tightly to Fumio’s collar, Mr Nagasawa led him off toward the administration offices, dabbing at his cherry-stained face with a white handkerchief.

Continued tomorrow…

Kensuke

SOMETHING DIFFERENT TODAY. THIS, AND THE NEXT TWO POSTINGS WILL WANDER A LITTLE OFF THE BEATEN PATH. THE FOLLOWING IS A STORY TITLED, “KENSUKE,” AND THOUGH BASICALLY FICTION, THE CHARACTER AND EXPERIENCES OF KENSUKE ARE BASED ON THE 12 YEAR-OLD SON OF TWO FRIENDS IN JAPAN.

•••••••

On Thursday morning Mrs Aoki stood at her garden wall watching her son Kensuke walk off toward school with three of his classmates. She was warmed by the excitement in his step, and the enthusiasm in his voice. As the four boys disappeared around a corner, she caught the last strains of her son’s story. He was describing to his friends the wonderful photographs he and his father were taking for the school paper.

Kensuke enjoyed school. In a country where education is the key to everything, students like Kensuke are a great joy to their parents, and Mrs Aoki was happy in the knowledge that her son’s enthusiasm would serve him well in the years ahead. Like all mothers, she felt a squeeze of anxiety when she considered the examinations and keen competition that would rule her son’s life throughout high school and university.

But that was some years off, and for now Kensuke was happy and carefree, consumed by an innocent passion for cameras, microscopes, ice cream and baseball.

Kensuke was twelve years old and in the sixth grade at Osaka Ichiritsu Tamade Primary School. Each morning at eight o’clock, Kensuke’s friends Yûki, Fumio and Teiji met at his house, and from there the four of them walked the short distance to school. On this particular morning Fumio and Kensuke were arguing over which camera was better, Pentax or Nikon. Kensuke naturally favored the Pentax because it was the one his father used.

“Wait till you see the pictures we took yesterday of the crow in our garden,” Kenji said.

“My papa’s camera takes pictures like a machine gun!” Fumio countered, spitting out a staccato blip of camera clicks.

Teiji interrupted, wanting to know what Kensuke thought of their new science teacher. At this, Fumio giggled and gave Kensuke a knowing look. This was a topic that had for days captivated the boys at Tamade Primary School, because the teacher was not a growly old man with a short temper, but a pretty young woman. For all the students a female science teacher was something of a novelty. A pretty science teacher was something no one had dreamed of.

At Teiji’s question, Kensuke blushed red, stammering that she was okay. But the other three could tell from his reaction that she was more than just okay. The painful truth was, Kensuke was experiencing his first crush, and it was the source of much embarrassment. The day before, when Miss Nakatani had stopped to help Kensuke adjust a slide in the microscope, he had become so nervous and flustered by her close attention, he dropped the slide and had to start all over again with a new one. But in spite of the agitation, Miss Nakatani had awakened in Kensuke a new interest in science. Her explanations enlivened the details of science in ways that were fresh and interesting to him.

It was a day for their calligraphy lesson. Every Thursday Kensuke’s class spent one hour practicing writing with brush and ink. The teacher often reminded students that this practice was not only for the development of beautiful writing, but also to teach concentration and discipline. The time of practice and study was far more than the mere copying of Chinese characters, more than rote imitation of the teacher’s example. Assignments were meant to reflect not only correctness and clarity of form, but also to seek out through contemplation the beauty of the words or poem being copied.

Kensuke’s assignment this Thursday was a haiku poem by the famous poet, Matsuo Bashô. It was a special project, one that required only Japanese kana characters without the use of Chinese kanji characters, and when it was approved by his teacher, Kensuke meant to present it to his father. It was a way for him to express his appreciation for the hours his father spent teaching him how to use a camera. Kensuke liked the poem, and was sure his father would, too.

As his hand moved in curving sweeps over the paper, Kensuke imagined the poet’s words coming to life.

Wake up! Wake up!

Come sleepy butterfly

Please join me on my journey

The teacher stopped to watch over Kensuke’s shoulder. “Good, Kensuke…Here…” She gripped the brush around Kensuke’s hand and guided his brushstroke. “On the word ‘butterfly’ try to feel the lift of the butterfly’s wing. When you sense the lightness of his wing…then your poem will fly from the page.”

“Do you think my father will like it, sensei?”

“I think he will be filled with pride to see how the words have touched you.”

The teacher recognized in Kensuke a talent she hoped could be cultivated. There was obviously some of the parents in the boy’s work. She had met his mother and father more than once and was herself familiar with both the mother’s and the father’s art. Mr Aoki’s graphic designs could be seen in a number of prominent magazines, and Mrs Aoki was recognized as an expert in the field of ikebana, flower arrangement. The calligraphy teacher suspected that some of that talent had rubbed off on the boy.

Continued tomorrow…