I
did indeed start taking notes. “So your son pays for your
apartment?”
“My son pay everything. He is the best son. Very American
now. But he still like his mother. Not like me!”
“I’m sorry, do you mean that he takes after his mother,
or that he enjoys his mother’s company?”
Mr. Oono had no idea what I was talking about, which he indicated
by freezing in place for a full ten Mississippis. And so I said,
“No problem. I’ll just clarify this when the translator
gets here.”
Again he laughed his halting, catching laugh. “Why wait?
Already here!”
I smiled; I was getting used to his gnomish sense of humor. “Okay,
Mr. Oono, I’ll bite. Where is the translator?”
He gave me a genuinely confused look and asked, “‘You
bite?’”
I was about to explain what I meant in less metaphoric language,
but as I began to speak he put up a hand to stop me. “Please,
put the writing book down. The pen too.”
It took me a second to realize that “writing book”
meant my notebook, and that by “down” he meant he
wanted both on the table. I flipped over to a clean page and put
the notebook and pen in the center of the kontastu.
Mr. Oono switched his gaze to the prosthetic; I watched it come
to life. The hand crawled like a spider toward the pen. Once it
picked it up, however, it could no longer move, so Mr. Oono gave
me a look that meant “Sorry I couldn’t pull off the
trick better,” picked up the arm and positioned it atop
of the notebook. Immediately the hand began writing.
After it finished, Mr. Oono picked up the pad and read the Japanese
that the prosthetic had written. Then he laughed. “You bite!
Hiya! I never hear that expression before. How can my son not
use that expression?”
He flipped the notebook to another clean page, again positioned
the prosthetic atop of it and, making the tada! gesture, said,
“The translator.”
Of course, my notebook was where I had written all of my questions
for Mr. Oono, so I wasn’t quite sure how to proceed with
the interview. But there was no need to worry: he just started
speaking, the hand scribbling furiously as he spoke, and as soon
as I figured out what was happening I positioned myself over the
notebook and watched the story materialize as it was being written.
4.
I am an old man, my bathroom tells me every day, with its fluorescent
lights that seep into the bottom of my wrinkles, and its judgmental
mirror, and its toilet that is smarter than I am telling me I
should eat less sugar. The bathroom nags me like a wife about
my age, but I do not feel like an old man. I am not sick, I am
not slow, I am not tired of my life, I am not stooped and quiet
and emptied of ambition. I am learning to shoot a bow! I go three
times a week. It is good training for my new arm, though I have
only average talent for it. But my teacher is very encouraging,
she is a policewoman, fat and tough and a voice like the cement
mixers that you see all over Kyoto now, but with a shy kind smile
like Daikoku, who is also all over Kyoto if you look for him.
My
favorite part of archery is the target. Big, colorful target like
an eyeball looking back at you. In archery, whether you hit or
miss, there is a target. It is so simple.
I feel ashamed that I spoke badly about wives. Can we erase that
part? No, no, I spoke the words; leave it in. But write this too:
my wife never once nagged me. She was the best person I have ever
known. She died six years ago. How I loved to rub her feet! She
was so embarrassed by it, she always said she was not worthy of
such kindness, she always tried to rub my feet instead, and sometimes
I let her because I am only human and I love to have my feet rubbed.
But I loved rubbing her feet too, and how ticklish she became,
and how self-conscious, and how thankful. And her feet were beautiful.
I would have eaten them if I could.
It was when she died that my son Ryuu bought me the Clarke. At
first he did not want me living alone in Japan, he wanted me to
come live with him in San Antonio Texas. San Antonio! I do not
like Texas. Please forgive me, are you from Texas? I mean no offense.
It is very hot in Texas, which I do not like, but mainly Texas
is impudent. They fly their own flag above the American flag.
My son told me that that was how the state was founded, that they
would not join the rest of the country unless they were allowed
to be considered Texans first. Such audacity! They are not a country,
they are a part of the United States, they are subject to its
laws. They should become their own country if they feel that way.
See how they fare then!
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