The New Samurai Read online

  “Promise?” said Tara.

  Paul was uncharacteristically quiet.

  “Anyone else hungry?” asked Sam, hurriedly changing the subject.

  “Yes, I’m starving,” said Helen, catching his tone.

  Sam smiled at her gratefully. “Maybe some beer, too,” he said, glancing at Paul.

  Yoshi was right. The next day Sam felt wonderfully loose-limbed. He got to school early and wrote up a poem on the board for his first class. It wasn’t in the curriculum or the text books he’d been instructed to use, but Sam had got to know some of his older pupils well enough, so he thought, to think that they might enjoy it: and because it offered an insight into English humour, which was so different from the more direct, literal, Japanese humour.

  It was, he knew, an unusual choice: a poem called ‘Summer Dawn’ by the comic Spike Milligan. It had always amused Sam and had worked brilliantly with the pupils at Kidbrooke. Plus, the opening reminded him of some Japanese poetry that Yoshi had translated for him.

  My sleeping children are still flying dreams in their goose-down heads. The lush of the river singing morning songs Fish watch their ceilings turn sun-white. The grey-green pike lances upstream Kale, like mermaid’s hair points the water’s drift. All is morning hush and bird beautiful.

  If only, I didn’t have flu.

  It was a horrible mistake. He read the poem twice in complete silence. They just didn’t get it; the students stared at him, their expressions blank. Then one of the braver pupils, Kazuo, raised a tentative hand and said,

  “Please explain English joke, sensei.”

  He tried again, explaining about pathos and bathos, about punch lines and puncturing pomposity. Nothing: no response. Zip, zero, zilch. He’d never felt like such a useless teacher, never experienced such a lack of, well, anything. He’d have felt better if they’d played up, given him hell, shouted and sworn; at least then he’d have known what to do. But instead they just gazed at him with the puzzled expressions of scientists watching a failed experiment. The temperature in the classroom was rising and Sam tugged helplessly at his tie, feeling sweat trickle down his back.

  After what felt like an eternity of torment in the pit of Hades, the bell rang for the end of the lesson and the start of assembly. Giving thanks to the gods of strung-out teachers, Sam let the pupils pass by him towards the classroom door. He began to erase the poem, and with it the concomitant memory of failure, when he had a moment of inspiration. He allowed one of the students to jostle him. They immediately apologised and Sam shook his head.

  “No, I’m sorry… Hige sori!”

  The students burst out laughing. For some reason they found it hilarious that the English phrase ‘I’m sorry’ was almost a homophone for ‘hige sori’ – ‘shave my beard’. They ran up to Sam in excitement, delighted that he had, at last, understood the complexities of a Japanese joke.

  The boys were grinning broadly, slapping each other’s backs as if they’d won a prize, and the girls giggled happily. It was mystifying, but a welcome relief, too.

  Suddenly the smiles were wiped off their faces. The building shook fiercely and Sam was thrown against the side of the door.

  “Jishin!” shouted Sam.

  Immediately the students responded. They scuttled under their desks, head first, holding onto the table legs as the building shook and shivered above them. There was no screaming and although the pupils looked tense, they weren’t paralysed by fear. A pile of books fell off Sam’s desk with a crash, and one of the windows gave way with a loud crack. The floor of the classroom shook again, more violently, and it was hard for him to keep his balance, even on his knees.

  Sam’s heart was knocking through his ribcage but to his relief, after four more, long, long minutes, the tremors slowly began to die away.

  There was a brief pause, in shocked silence, while Sam considered whether it was safe or not to get up. He could hear the feet of other students in the corridor outside the classroom. Standing quickly, the pupils were released from their statue-like state and queued up behind him. He led them quietly out of the building in perfect order, instructing them to line up in the playground, just as they practised every month during their regular earthquake drills. They waited in silence, a prescribed distance from the school building in case of falling masonry. Nobody spoke.

  One of the senior teachers hurried towards Sam with a class register and quickly made sure that all the students were accounted for.

  She looked at Sam and smiled tentatively, worried, perhaps that the gaijin might start screaming or running round the playground.

  “Shoga-nai.” she said, quietly. It can’t be helped.

  Suddenly an aftershock rippled through the playground. Several students lost their footing and fell. Sam gestured to the rest to crouch down. It was more than unnerving to have the tarmac swirl beneath his feet.

  The students, who had up until that point been fairly calm, now started to look worried. Several car alarms were wailing helplessly and Sam could see smoke coming from behind a nearby building. A pair of fire trucks pealed past, their sirens adding to the general feeling of consternation.

  Mr Tanaka, the Head Teacher, blew a whistle and instantly there was silence. He spoke briefly to the students and instructed everyone to sit on the ground. The severe-looking Ms Amori started moving through the students, a First Aid kit clutched in one hand. Sam walked briskly over to her and gestured to the case.

  “I’m a qualified First Aider,” he said. “Can I help?”

  She nodded curtly and pointed him towards a second kit. Sam pulled on a pair of thin, rubber nurse’s gloves and went to work. The injuries were mainly minor: cuts and bruises caused largely during the aftershock. One girl, a junior, looked very pale and was being held by her friend, who looked tearful. Sam suspected that she had a broken wrist.

  “Amori-san!” he called.

  She hurried over.

  “I think this one will need hospital,” he said, in a quiet voice. “Have you got any blankets in case she goes into shock?”

  She nodded without comment and snapped an order to one of the other teachers, who hurried away, returning with an armful of thick, fleecy blankets.

  Another of the students tried to give the injured girl a drink of water.

  “No!” said Sam. He didn’t know whether or not the girl was going to need anaesthetic; in which case an intake of liquid was definitely not a good idea.

  “Iie. Byoin ni iki-masu.” She is going to the hospital.

  The girl blinked up at him, her eyes wide with fear. Ms Amori laid a hand on Sam’s shoulder.

  “Patterson-san, I will stay with her. Please see if any other pupils need your help.”

  Sam nodded and stood up, feeling Ms Amori’s eyes on him the whole time. He made his way slowly through the lines of students, helping where he could, reassuring where there was nothing else to do. He had no idea whether or not to expect more aftershocks, but he knew it was important to keep the students calm.

  After an hour of sitting in the increasingly hot sun, the emergency services arrived to check over the school building. A few cracked panes were removed and the IT suite was closed due to several computers having smashed onto the floor, but otherwise the school had survived reasonably unscathed and they were allowed back in.

  For the rest of the day the students were subdued, and several were taken home early by parents anxious to check out the damage in their own apartments.

  The rail service was working more slowly than usual and the crowds were horrendous. The Japanese responded with their usual stoicism and Sam merely joined the orderly queues and waited his turn.

  Two hours later than usual, he reached the hostel, wanting nothing more than to shower and rest. But when he reached his room, there was a note taped to his door in Tara’s handwriting.

  ‘Helen hurt in quake. Don’t know how bad. Come when you get this.’

  There was an address scrawled below.

  Cursing the day he
’d decided not to get a mobile phone in Japan because of the exorbitant line-rental charges, Sam flung his backpack on his futon roll, vaguely noticing that all his books were scattered across the floor, and hurried back out, his street map in his hand.

  He arrived at the hospital hot, worried and covered in a film of dust, with no idea of where to go to look for Helen.

  He tried asking several official-looking people, all of whom shook their heads in dismay when the gaijin tried to ask for information. In the end Sam wrote Helen’s name in Katakana on a piece of paper and handed it to a man who looked like he might be in charge of something.

  The man’s face wrinkled in concentration and he wandered off, muttering to himself. Sam had no idea if he’d gone to get help. He stood in the middle of the entrance room, his frustration close to reaching fever pitch, even wondering whether making a scene would be helpful.

  “Sam!”

  He spun round when he heard Tara calling him.

  “Sam, thank goodness! Are you okay?” her voice was concerned.

  “I’m fine. Are you okay? Helen? Have you seen her? What about Paul and Yoshi?”

  “Yeah, we’re all fine. It’s okay. Well, Helen was knocked out by a falling TV of all things. She has concussion, but she’s being released now.”

  “What? They’re sending her home even though she’s got concussion?” Sam had been concussed enough times to know that people were usually kept in for observation, often overnight.

  Tara rolled her eyes. “Trust me, Sam. She’ll be better off at home; it’s chaos in there. We just need to get her a taxi.”

  Sam frowned. “But she could slip into a coma in the night; she could…”

  Tara grabbed his hand and held it tightly, forcing him to look into her eyes.

  “I know, Sam, I know. But I mean it when I say she’s better off with us looking after her. I’ll sleep the night in her room, so if anything happens I’ll be right there. She’ll be fine. Now stop panicking and get us a cab. Okay?”

  At that moment a pale-faced Helen walked slowly towards them, supported on either side by Yoshi and Paul.

  Her voice, however, was calm and full of its usual warmth and humour.

  “Hi, Sam! Good to see you. Are you okay? You look like crap warmed up.”

  Sam laughed, relieved to see Helen was her old self.

  “Thanks! I just took two trains and ran nine blocks to get here and you insult me!”

  Helen smiled sweetly. “How many blocks do you usually run to be insulted?”

  “I’ll get that cab,” he said.

  “Good idea!” she smirked.

  Eventually they all piled into a taxi and Yoshi fired off the directions. The cab driver looked relieved to have a native speaker amongst the self-loading cargo.

  “God, that was an experience I could have done without,” said Helen, rubbing a lump the size of a hen’s egg on the back of her head.

  “What happened?” said Sam.

  Helen wrinkled her forehead.

  “I was in my classroom when the earthquake started and, lucky bugger that I am, I happened to be standing underneath the one thing that could actually do me some harm: an old TV screen that was sitting on a shelf. I wasn’t out long, a few seconds maybe, but the school insisted they call an ambulance. I was impressed how quickly one came but, really, they’re just drivers, not paramedics like at home. They dropped me off at the entrance and I had to wait in a queue. I must have waited about three hours and then got a three minute consultation with a doctor who looked about 12 years old and didn’t speak much English. Thank god Tara and Yoshi turned up when they did, or I’d still be there.”

  “Yeah,” said Tara. “Someone from Helen’s school had phoned Frau Brandt’s office and got a message to me. It was just lucky that I was sent home from school early today because of the quake. I left messages for you guys but I bumped into Yoshi just as I was leaving for the hospital. You little beauty!”

  She gave Yoshi’s cheek a squeeze and Sam couldn’t help noticing the jealous look in Paul’s eye that quickly gave way to a tight smile.

  “I’m so lucky to have met all of you,” said Helen, tiredly.

  “Sure, no problem, mom!” said Paul, raising his eyebrows.

  “You spend all your time looking after us,” said Tara, her voice soft with sincerity. “It’s nice to return the favour.”

  When they finally arrived back at the hostel, Sam and Yoshi volunteered to get some take-out noodles, then they all squeezed into Helen’s tiny room, eating and chatting – until she begged them all to go away and let her sleep.

  “I’ll be fine,” she promised. “Tara’s going to look after me; I just need to rest.”

  Yoshi and Paul headed back to their rooms and Sam dragged himself to the shower block. All he wanted to do was sleep, but the heat and dust of the day had left him feeling gritty. He let the hot water run down his back and wondered, not for the first time, if it were possible to fall asleep whilst standing up in a shower.

  When he could barely keep his eyes open any more, he shut off the tap, wound a towel around his waist and trudged back to his room.

  He’d nearly made it to the door when he noticed Tara waiting in the corridor.

  “Is Helen okay?” he said, a sudden rush of adrenalin burning through him, his brain immediately alert.

  “Oh, sure. She’s fine,” said Tara, quietly. “Don’t worry.”

  “Okay, then,” said Sam, breathing out slowly.

  He waited for her to say something else about Helen but instead she said, “I was worried about you today – when you didn’t show up at the hospital. And you don’t have a mobile so I couldn’t call you, and I didn’t know… if you were hurt… or anything.”

  She bit her lip as if she really wanted to say more, but something held her back.

  Sam’s lips twisted in an awkward smile and he shrugged.

  “I had to do some first aid on some of the pupils and then there were long queues for the trains. I didn’t get back here till gone seven. I came as soon as I saw your message…”

  “I was worried,” she said, taking a step towards him.

  He looked up at her, reading her expression.

  Suddenly Paul’s door opened. His eyes narrowed when he saw them together.

  “What’s up?”

  Tara looked away. “Nothing,” she said. “Helen’s asleep now. I’ll stay with her – just in case. Night, guys.”

  Sam watched her as she walked away but Paul’s eyes were on him.

  “Sam?” Paul’s voice was cold.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you making a move on Tara?”

  Sam looked at his friend, feeling annoyed. “We were just talking.”

  Paul didn’t reply, but turned back into his room and slammed the door.

  Sam stared and stood outside Paul’s door, hesitating for half a minute, before shaking his head and closing his own door against the world, and the tiredness that threatened to engulf him.

  Sam’s Blog

  Hi everyone!

  I’ve just survived my first earthquake! It was pretty, intense but although it was a 4.5 there wasn’t much damage that I could see. Helen got knocked out when a TV fell on her (‘perils of the media age’, she says) so I got to experience a Japanese hospital. I can’t say it filled me with any desire to return: it was a bit like Friday night at the Royal Free after chucking out time. Maybe more disorganised than that. Helen was okay, but with a Hackney-sized headache. Anyway, don’t panic Fi – I’m fine.

  Ok, now I’m going to answer the burning question that you’ve all been bugging me with: what is karaoke like in Japan? Short answer: like nothing else! Did I sing? Maybe ‘sing’ is too specific a verb: suffice to say, I partook…

  Paul led the way to a typical karaoke bar in the Shinjuku district, which is an area for nightlife and clubs of all kinds. He’d wanted to go to Lovenet in Roppongi, which has the infamous Aqua Suite featuring an oversized bath for up to six singers, (your k
ind of place, Keith) but I think he’d had enough of spa treatments after going to the onsen at Odaiba last weekend. I’d say more, but then he’d have to kill me.

  We were going to a place called Big Echo, which is part of a karaoke chain, like MacDonalds with microphones, but as we were walking down the street we were accosted by a shifty-looking spiv in a mac, smoking a roll-up cigarette (you don’t see that often in Japan – he might have been channelling Humphrey Bogart?). Apparently there are a lot of karaoke touts around here because it’s such big business. He wanted to charge us ¥600 for half an hour but Yoshi negotiated it down to ¥500 including all our drinks (which worked out about £4 per person for half an hour). Pretty cheap compared to most nights out in Tokyo – and way cheaper than the hostess bars. Go, Yoshi!

  We were put in a cheap-looking room with vinyl settees arranged around booths, and three or four groups of salarymen who had already been knocking back the old sake, and had their ties around their heads like bandanas (see photos for evidence of cliché).

  You could choose from hundreds of songs but the most popular ones were at the top of the list: everything from Eminem to Aretha Franklin. Then one guy in the booth next to us jumped up and dragged Paul and Yoshi up to the front and got them to sing Bowie’s ‘Rebel Rebel’, although only the tune gave it away – I have no idea what words the salaryman guy thought he was singing. It sounded a bit like ‘Leper, Leper’.

  There was an applause-meter scored out of 100 and those out-of-tune gits got 98! (Ok, so the score is based on noise not ability, and Helen and Tara were howling like banshees – I think I burst an eardrum.)

  The mama-san bar owner brought over a bottle of something she said was whiskey (it tasted like she’d distilled it the day before) and we shared it out with everyone there. Then I got dragged up to sing ‘My Way’ (the video has been destroyed, so don’t even think about it), and I stumbled and fumbled and mangled my way through Frank’s magnum opus in a way that would have him spinning. Actually, I think it was closer to Sid Vicious than Sinatra, but at least I didn’t have to do it sober (or, as Tara so elegantly put it, ‘boozed up like a dunny budgie flat-out lizard drinking’. Don’t ask, cos I have no clue either).