The Ink-Keeper's Apprentice (7 page)

"She's a dancer. Wants to know more about the body. She likes to walk around with paint smeared on her hands to show she's an artist."

"Do you think you'll ever change your mind and become a painter instead?"

"I don't think so. It's cartooning for me. Why do you ask? You think you might want to become a painter?"

"I don't know, but I'd like to learn to paint in oils. Wouldn't it be good to have a studio of your own, like the one we were in tonight?"

"So you can have naked models in there? Why don't you learn to draw first?" he sneered and crushed his empty cigarette package.

"Do you know how late the stores stay open?" he asked.

"You're still thinking about that stupid knife, aren't you?" I got back at him.

"Just curious. Let's get out of here."

We said good night at the station and went on our separate ways. I couldn't shake the feeling Tokida was holding out on me, that he had enough money to buy the switchblade and was going to go back for it.

"Use your eyes," said Sensei, looking at my drawings of the nude. "Then your head, and then your hand. Right now you're using only your hand."

"Yes, sir."

"Pay attention to what you see. Concentrate. Look at the model, then look down on your paper and imagine how that picture inside your head is going to fit on the paper. Then draw the head first. That's how you determine where the rest of her body is going to go."

"What about hands and feet, Sensei? They're so hard to draw."

"For now think only about the large shapes. Think of the human body as something that's made up of a series of large shapes. Head is one shape, then the torso, the hip area, the thighs. Look at her as though she's made of bricks."

"Why do we have to draw nudes in the first place?"

"Because the human body is the most beautiful thing to draw. So much of cartooning is drawing figures, and because it's
cartooning doesn't mean you can draw anatomically incorrect figures. A cartoonist has to be as fine a draftsman as a painter. And who knows, you may decide to become an illustrator or a painter someday. I consider drawing to be the most important thing I can teach you. One of these days I'm going to send you two to watch an autopsy so you'll understand how the body is put together."

"Prop me up when I start to faint, will you, Kiyoi," said Tokida. "You've seen an autopsy, Sensei?"

"It was a required course when I was in school."

"You went to an art school?" asked Tokida. He seemed surprised.

"I'll have you know that I even earned a degree from Ueno, that illustrious institution. It took me four years of schooling to discover that the world was run by a bunch of demented minds. You might say that political cartooning saved me from going insane."

So Sensei had been trained to become a painter, and the Ueno Academy was
the
art school in Japan. I was impressed.

"How long do I have to practice before I can draw hands and feet, Sensei?" I asked.

"A bad word, Kiyoi. Drawing is never a practice. You discover something new every time you draw. Discovery is what drawing is all about. Remember that."

"Yes, sir."

So whenever we would be caught up with our work, Tokida and I would draw Venus de Milo, using long sticks of charcoal and erasing with fresh bread. I had never used charcoal before and had a hard time working with it at first. The first few drawings turned out like some messy caricatures of a very black African, and one couldn't tell whether the subject was a man or a woman. But Tokida, who had been using charcoal for some time, was very good. His drawings had the look of the hard white plaster. I couldn't understand how he got the light gray tones, but I wasn't about to ask. Sometimes when Sensei wasn't around Tokida would lean over my shoulder and say, "Look at the statue. You see any black there?" I resented him, and wished I could work in a separate room. Once I sat behind him and watched him draw for a long time. He enjoyed that. The statue was pure white, and so was the paper, and Tokida was using solid black charcoal to bring the two together—drawing white on white. It didn't make much sense at first. The lightest shade Tokida made was far darker than the darkest shadow on the statue, and yet his drawing looked real and three-dimensional. I saw that he was creating an illusion. It was a big discovery for me.

***

Mother came to Tokyo one weekend a month. She always came with gifts and Grandmother fussed over her like a housemaid—as if to make up for all the years she'd punished Mother with silence and neglect. There was always a lot to say after a month's separation, but our conversations were mostly gossip and small talk. I'd been waiting for an opportunity to tell Mother about Sensei, but Grandmother was always hovering in the background, not giving us a chance to be alone.

In the end I decided to visit Mother at her shop, which was in a fashionable shopping area in Yokohama. It was a small place with three glass counters and mirrored walls, with a storage room and a tiny windowless office in the back. Walking in there was like walking into a cloud of smells, fragrances of the things women use—face powder and perfume, cold cream and nail polish. The two girl clerks who worked for Mother gave me a friendly smile. One of them was pretty and it embarrassed me to look her in the eye. I didn't know why.

"Is she expecting you?" she asked me in a whisper. I shook my head. It gave me a strange feeling to realize that she was my mother's employee. Clumsily I waved to her not to bother and knocked on the office door.

"Come in," I heard Mother's voice say.

She was leaning over her neat desk, with an open ledger in front of her. An abacus lay across the ledger. As she looked up her face broke into a smile.

"Koichi, what a surprise," she said and leaned back on the
swivel chair, and nodded at the empty chair in front of her. I went and sat in the chair, feeling like someone on a job interview.

"What a nice surprise," she said again.

"I meant to write to you first...." I started to apologize.

"Is there something the matter?"

"No, I thought I'd come and see you."

"How delightful. I like surprise visits. Have you had lunch?" I shook my head. "Let me finish this column and we'll go somewhere. Would you like a cup of coffee? Mari-san can run across the street and get you a cup."

"No, thank you." I shook my head. Mariko was the pretty clerk. We always drank tea at Grandmother's house, but Mother was fond of strong coffee.

She had on a finely knit lavender sweater with a brightly patterned silk scarf around her neck, held in place by a single pearl pin. Her lips glistened with deep rouge. Even her nails were painted. Grandmother didn't approve of cosmetics and in Tokyo mother dressed in somber colors and never wore makeup. On the wall behind her hung a framed picture of me taken a long time ago in Kyushu. Father had a copy of it in his album, but seeing it on Mother's wall always pleased me. Mother's fingers worked rapidly on the abacus, clicking the beads, and she entered the figures in the ledger with a dip pen. In about ten minutes she was finished.

"Let me treat you to your favorite dish." She looked up and smiled.

"Sweet and sour pork?"

"You were always such a fussy eater, but that's one dish you never refused. Is Grandmother well?"

"She's fine."

I noticed her tweed skirt when she went over to the corner to take some money out of the old safe. I'd never seen her in it before and thought it looked elegant on her.

Mother told Mariko we'd be out for about an hour and we walked out into the busy noontime street. I stood almost a full head taller than she, and I smelled her perfume as we walked
along the covered sidewalk. Mother was a familiar figure in the neighborhood, and from time to time someone would stop and greet us with a bow. One time she told me that a store owner on the same block had seen us together and thought I was her brother, and she laughed about it. We went to a Chinese restaurant a couple of blocks down the street.

"Have you been eating regularly?" asked Mother as she took out a package of cigarettes from her purse. I nodded and struck a match to light it for her. That was another thing she didn't do in front of Grandmother—smoke. She gave the waitress our order—a dish of sweet and sour pork, fried wontons, and some Chinese greens—and turned to me.

"So, what is on your mind? I know you didn't come just to say hello."

"I wanted to talk to you before, Mother, but I didn't want to do it in front of Grandmother."

"I'm listening."

"Do you know who Noro Shinpei is?"

"What a funny name. I think I've heard it before."

"He's a cartoonist."

"Oh, yes, I remember. Didn't you have some of his books?"

"Yes, the same one. He's my teacher."

"What do you mean? Is he teaching at your school?"

"No, Mother, he's a famous cartoonist. I went to him and asked if I could be his pupil. He said yes."

"You went to see him, just like that?"

"Yes. You see, he took on an apprentice last year. I read about it in the paper and thought he might take me on, too. I didn't tell you anything before because I wasn't sure if he was going to say yes."

"So it's the tuition, is it?"

"No, Mother, there's no tuition. He gave me a test to see how well I draw and I passed it. That was all. He says if I mention anything about tuition he's going to throw me out. Do I have your permission to study with him?"

"Well, you've already committed yourself, haven't you? I know
how important drawing is for you, Koichi, but so is your education. How are you going to manage your schoolwork?"

"I'll study hard, Mother, very hard, I promise. And if my grades go down I won't see Sensei till I'm doing better. I promise, Mother."

"Tell me more about your master."

I told her all I knew about Sensei. I also told her something about Tokida, leaving out his
yakuza
background. I talked about him as if he was a genius. But the thing that seemed to please her the most was that Sensei was a family man with a wife and two children.

"Does his wife use perfume?" asked Mother.

"I don't know, but it might be nice for a New Year's gift or something," I said, sensing things were going well for me.

"He must be an extraordinary person, taking on young men like you and your friend. He must think very highly of you. I'm glad."

"It's all right if I study with him then?"

"As, long as you keep your promise, I don't see why not."

"You really don't mind if I become a cartoonist?"

"Koichi, when you were a small child, I used to worry about you constantly. You were always disappearing, running away from home when you could hardly walk, and we lived so near the beach. I used to worry about you drowning or falling down the staircase or being run over. Then the war came. And we survived it. After that I knew I could survive anything. The war has taught me something: Whatever is going to happen is going to happen. No, I don't worry anymore, Koichi. I'm only grateful that we're alive. And if you want to be an artist, then you must study art. You were drawing before you learned to walk, and it isn't for me to change that."

"What about Grandmother?" I said. "She won't think a cartoonist is respectable. I just know it."

"Grandmother comes from a proud family, Koichi. A little old-fashioned perhaps, but she means well. After all, you're her only grandchild. Don't be too hard on her."

"Will you talk to her?"

"Yes, I will, and I'll be tactful. Eat your lunch."

Mother showed more concern about my not eating than about my future, and I'd worried sick about breaking the news to her. What would Father have said in the same situation? I wondered. I was glad I didn't have to deal with him.

When we were finished with lunch, Mother paid the waitress and gave me some money. When Grandmother gave me my monthly allowance it was always businesslike, but with Mother I felt like a small boy again, receiving my pocket money and running out to buy whatever I wanted with it.

I didn't go back to the shop with Mother but said good-bye to her in front of a trolley stop. She said for me to thank Sensei for all he had done. She looked beautiful when Grandmother wasn't around. I wondered if she had a suitor. I couldn't imagine anybody who would be right for her.

As it turned out, I'd gone to see Mother just in time. The following weekend, Mr. Kato came to the inn with a photographer. His editor-in-chief had decided to run a feature article on Sensei and wanted some photographs taken. Sensei was agreeable, and insisted that Tokida and I be included in the picture.

"Not me," said Tokida.

"Come now," coaxed Sensei, "think of your instant fame, the fan mail. Your friends back home."

"Should I shave then?" asked Tokida, rubbing his chin.

"Don't, Tokida," I warned him. "You'll cut yourself all over again."

Tokida was concerned with the way he looked, and that amused me. We weren't so different after all. I took out a comb and smoothed out my hair without looking in a mirror. When the photographer began to set up his equipment I felt nervous and had to go to the toilet. Sensei walked in and stood next to me. From the corner of my eye I saw a fresh-lit cigarette hanging from
the side of his mouth. We looked at the back garden through the narrow slit of a window framing the lush, damp part of the garden like a horizontal scroll. The moss on the rocks looked especially green in the shadow of the inn.

"Kiyoi," said Sensei, looking straight ahead into the garden, "have you ever been in Korea?"

"No, sir."

"Land of the Morning Calm, they call it, a very beautiful country. A land of poets."

I said nothing.

"If you ever feel the need to talk to someone, don't hesitate to come over at any time. Some evening, when you have nothing else to do, come and stay with us."

"Thank you, sir," I said. Tokida must have told him about my father and also that I lived alone. I felt tears well up in my eyes. Sensei walked out before me, leaving a trail of smoke, without looking me in the eye, without saying another word.