mornings were now exposed, while those that had been slightly cooler in the evenings now took until midnight to become habitable. At both ends of the day, the faces of the habitués changed, grumpy at the unaccustomed hour.
Our cabin was among those now exposed in the afternoon, and although the purser assured us (after more bribes) that he could provide cooler rooms (though perhaps not a suite) it would not be until Hong Kong (in twelve days). In the meantime, I slept fitfully, one night joining those on mattresses the stewards had dragged onto the decks, although I was loath to inflict the effects of my dreams on the other refugees.
Miss Sato, on the other hand, seemed to be sleeping just fine. Every morning she appeared on the dot of seven, chipper and sharp-eyed as a sparrow, pecking at our grammar like a bird after crumbs. Every afternoon she would stand before her growing crowd of admirers, wait for silence, give us a bow, and launch into the day’s topics. Following the stop in Singapore, she produced a heap of bulging string bags filled withexotic foodstuffs. She talked about seaweed, rice, the scarcity of meat, and the many products derived from the soybean—then handed us each a pair of chopsticks and invited us to try them. When the ensuing hilarity had run its course, four women—two British, one American, and a New Zealander—talked about their native cuisines. It would be difficult to judge who was the more off-put: the Japanese at the idea of calves’ brains, or the Americans faced with dried seaweed and amorphous blobs of bean-curd.
The next afternoon’s topic was both less demanding and more sparsely attended: in tropical heat, the temptation of Our Classic Literatures was less of a pull than a swim in the boat-deck’s canvas pool. Or, in Holmes’ case, a session with the engineers.
I, however, did go.
Miss Sato was as punctual as ever, and seemed unaware that the numbers were less than half the usual. She bowed, thanked us for coming, and said that she hoped to introduce the English speakers to the pleasures of Japanese literature, then do the same in reverse to the residents of Japan, dividing the English side into two: America, and England itself. In each case, the brief look would include both poetry and prose writers. Not that we would be able to so much as touch upon the riches, she noted, but completeness was not the goal here, merely formal introductions.
This time, in the interest of fairness, Miss Sato chose to begin with English literature—or rather, American, with one of my schoolteacher table-mates called upon to talk about Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. I had vivid memories of Mr Clemens, whom I had met when I was small, although I admit his writing never caught my attention. Nor did it that day, with the lady earnestly reading small bits from both men.
An elderly woman behind me began to snore.
Miss Sato then spoke about two Japanese writers. One was an aristocratic lady of the eleventh century named Murasaki, credited with writing the world’s first novel, a tale of secret aristocracy and forbidden love. She read a few passages from an ongoing English translation, thenturned to Matsuo Bashō, a seventeenth-century itinerant poet and master of the form called “haiku.” Miss Sato did get a bit bogged down in her explanation—that the form was at the poet’s time known as hokku , that what he had mastered was more the linked renko than the haiku itself, that the classic 5/7/5 syllable arrangement of haiku did not really mean syllables—but then she put aside the lecture and thought for a moment, oblivious of the stir and coughs.
“The haiku captures a fleeting moment. Of great beauty, or heartbreak. A moment that, hmm … encapsulates the essence of a season. Such as the fragrance of blossoming cherries, or the sound of snow, or the feel of hot summer wind blowing the bamboo. I am sorry, my words are not sufficient. I will read.”
So she read us a few. Those of us not
Our cabin was among those now exposed in the afternoon, and although the purser assured us (after more bribes) that he could provide cooler rooms (though perhaps not a suite) it would not be until Hong Kong (in twelve days). In the meantime, I slept fitfully, one night joining those on mattresses the stewards had dragged onto the decks, although I was loath to inflict the effects of my dreams on the other refugees.
Miss Sato, on the other hand, seemed to be sleeping just fine. Every morning she appeared on the dot of seven, chipper and sharp-eyed as a sparrow, pecking at our grammar like a bird after crumbs. Every afternoon she would stand before her growing crowd of admirers, wait for silence, give us a bow, and launch into the day’s topics. Following the stop in Singapore, she produced a heap of bulging string bags filled withexotic foodstuffs. She talked about seaweed, rice, the scarcity of meat, and the many products derived from the soybean—then handed us each a pair of chopsticks and invited us to try them. When the ensuing hilarity had run its course, four women—two British, one American, and a New Zealander—talked about their native cuisines. It would be difficult to judge who was the more off-put: the Japanese at the idea of calves’ brains, or the Americans faced with dried seaweed and amorphous blobs of bean-curd.
The next afternoon’s topic was both less demanding and more sparsely attended: in tropical heat, the temptation of Our Classic Literatures was less of a pull than a swim in the boat-deck’s canvas pool. Or, in Holmes’ case, a session with the engineers.
I, however, did go.
Miss Sato was as punctual as ever, and seemed unaware that the numbers were less than half the usual. She bowed, thanked us for coming, and said that she hoped to introduce the English speakers to the pleasures of Japanese literature, then do the same in reverse to the residents of Japan, dividing the English side into two: America, and England itself. In each case, the brief look would include both poetry and prose writers. Not that we would be able to so much as touch upon the riches, she noted, but completeness was not the goal here, merely formal introductions.
This time, in the interest of fairness, Miss Sato chose to begin with English literature—or rather, American, with one of my schoolteacher table-mates called upon to talk about Mark Twain and Walt Whitman. I had vivid memories of Mr Clemens, whom I had met when I was small, although I admit his writing never caught my attention. Nor did it that day, with the lady earnestly reading small bits from both men.
An elderly woman behind me began to snore.
Miss Sato then spoke about two Japanese writers. One was an aristocratic lady of the eleventh century named Murasaki, credited with writing the world’s first novel, a tale of secret aristocracy and forbidden love. She read a few passages from an ongoing English translation, thenturned to Matsuo Bashō, a seventeenth-century itinerant poet and master of the form called “haiku.” Miss Sato did get a bit bogged down in her explanation—that the form was at the poet’s time known as hokku , that what he had mastered was more the linked renko than the haiku itself, that the classic 5/7/5 syllable arrangement of haiku did not really mean syllables—but then she put aside the lecture and thought for a moment, oblivious of the stir and coughs.
“The haiku captures a fleeting moment. Of great beauty, or heartbreak. A moment that, hmm … encapsulates the essence of a season. Such as the fragrance of blossoming cherries, or the sound of snow, or the feel of hot summer wind blowing the bamboo. I am sorry, my words are not sufficient. I will read.”
So she read us a few. Those of us not
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