The Last Samurai (12 page)

The author of the grammar discussed this marvellous grammatical feature with a kind of stiff scholarly charm, so that he would (for example) explain in a little footnote that ‘the other Semitic languages do not exhibit this peculiarity, excepting the Phoenician, the most closely related to Hebrew, and of course the Moabitish dialect of the
Mêša
‘inscription’— just the three words ‘excepting the Phoenician’ were better than hours of the kind of help you can get on a helpline.

This progress in the sequence of time, is regularly indicated by a pregnant
and
(called
w
ā
w consecutive
¹
), which in itself is really only a variety of the ordinary
w
ā
w copulative
, but which sometimes (in the imperf.) appears with a different vocalization.

I was beginning to feel almost not too bad.

I finished the section & then I turned to the cross-references in Syntax & then I read this and that & when I looked up two hours had gone by. L was sitting by the fire reading about David and Jonathan and singing a little song.

I gave him lunch and then another half hour had gone by. I returned to the computer & typed for three hours with only occasional questions from L. I took a short break and typed for half an hour; I took a break for dinner and typed for two hours; I put L to bed at 9:00 and went back downstairs at 9:30 and typed for three hours and then I went back upstairs.

It seemed to be rather cold.

I did not see how I could leave him upstairs in the morning and I also did not see how I could bring him downstairs.

The Alien whispered It’s only fair to give the other side a chance.

The Alien whispered He’s not a bad man.

I did not really want to go to bed knowing I was just going to wake up the next day. I put on three sweaters and rewound the video. PLAY.

A striking peculiarity of the film is that though it is called Seven Samurai it is not really about seven samurai. Bandits are about to attack the village and only one farmer wants to fight; without him there would be no story. Rikichi glared from the screen with burning eyes; his pale face glowed in the cold dark room.

¹
This name best expresses the prevailing syntactical relation, for by
w
ā
w consecutive
an action is always represented as the direct, or at least temporal
consequence
of a preceding action. Moreover, it is clear from the above examples, that the
w
ā
w consecutive
can only be thus used in immediate conjunction with the verb. As soon as
w
ā
w
, owing to an insertion (e.g. a negative), is separated from the verb, the imperfect follows instead of the perfect
consecutive
, the perfect instead of the imperfect
consecutive
. The fact that whole Books (Lev., Num., Josh., Jud., Sam., 2 Kings, Ezek., Ruth, Esth., Neh., 2 Chron.) begin with the imperfect
consecutive
, and others (Exod., 1 Kings, Ezra) with
w
ā
w copulative
, is taken as a sign of their close connexion with the historical Books now or originally preceding them. Cf., on the other hand, the independent beginning of Job and Daniel. It is a merely superficial description to call the w
ā
w consecutive by the old-fashioned name
w
ā
w conversive
, on the ground that it always converts the meaning of the respective tenses into its opposite, i.e. according to the old view, the future into the preterite, and vice versa.

My mother’s father was a jeweler. He was a handsome, shrewd-looking man; he was an accomplished amateur musician. He spoke excellent English, but he could hear his own accent and he knew there was something comical about it.

Buddy said he did not want to be an accountant and his father told him he had no idea the amount of work it took to be a professional musician. Five years you studied the violin his father said and did you practice five minutes? Five years piano.

Something looked through my grandfather’s eyes and it said Werner and du and mein Kind in tones of tenderness and authority. Buddy could more or less understand what was being said but he could not argue back, he tried to think of something from Schubert lieder or Wagner but it all seemed too melodramatic. Something looked through my grandfather’s eyes. It said Being an accountant, it’s not the end of the world.

Something looked at my Uncle Danny. Something looked at my aunts and it said A secretary, is that so terrible?

Linda had seen four before her do something that was not so terrible and already there was something about them, their whole lives ahead of them and the best thing cut off, as if something that might have been a Heifetz had been walled up inside an accountant and left to die.

Doom. Doom. Doom.

My father got straight to the point. He argued passionately that Linda would never forgive herself if she did not give herself this chance.

Our
lives are ruined, said my father, are you going to let the same thing happen to you? He argued passionately and used words like “hell” and “damn”, strong words for the time, and there was something masculine and forceful about it.

What do you think? said Linda, and she looked at Buddy.

Buddy said: I think you should go.

—because of course if she went anywhere she would go to the Juilliard.

My father said: Of course she should go. She can be in New York by noon. Linda said she could pretend to be going downtown to look for a sweater, because she had just been saying she needed a new sweater.

My father said he would drive her to the station.

Buddy said he would come too in case anybody asked any questions.

Linda said: If anybody asks you just say I went to look for a sweater.

Buddy said: That’s right, if anybody asks me I simply explain that you were threatening to kill yourself when you suddenly remembered you needed a sweater. I think I’ll come along for the ride.

Linda said actually maybe he should come with her to New York, she needed him to carry the cello.

Buddy said: Why would you want to take the cello?

Linda said: For my audition.

Buddy said: If they don’t take you on piano they sure as heck aren’t going to take you on the cello.

Linda said: Don’t you tell me what to do

& they got into a heated argument while my father stood idly by. My mother was convinced that the Juilliard would despise her if all she could play was the piano, whereas if she brought a selection of instruments they would see she was a real musician.

The Konigsbergs all despised the piano, there it was all the notes conveniently divided up into a keyboard you went away and when you came back there it was the notes all still attached to the keys just where you left them, how boring, a child of four could play it (they all had). They also hated sight reading, & it is a tiresome feature of piano music that (since 10 or more notes may be played simultaneously) it involves anything up to 10 times the amount of sight reading of any other instrument. It was an instrument no Konigsberg would play if someone smaller could be made to play it instead, & since my mother was the youngest she never got the chance to hand it over to someone else. It may seem odd that the youngest got the part with the most sight reading, but as four brothers & sisters a father and a mother pointed out if she got in trouble she could always play it by ear. It wasn’t, anyway, that she
couldn’t
play the violin, viola and cello (not to mention flute, guitar, mandolin and ukulele)—it was just that she never got the chance.

Buddy argued that he didn’t think her technique on any of the stringed instruments was up to the Juilliard, & Linda said how would you know when was the last time you
heard
me.

At first she wanted to take everything to show what she could do, but at last she agreed to take just a violin because she could play some hard pieces, a viola because she got a better tone on it for some reason, a mandolin because it was quite an unusual instrument to be able to play and a flute because it never hurts to let people know you can play the flute.

Buddy: And you will tell them you want to audition on the piano.

Linda: Don’t you tell me what to do.

My father: Do you mean to say you’re not planning to play the piano? You’ve got this fantastic talent and you’re not going to play it? What about that piece you were just playing, you’re not going to play it for them?

Linda: Do you know anything about music?

My father: Not really.

Linda: Then mind your own business.

My father said: Well we’d better go if you’re going to catch that train.

Buddy said again that he would come along for the ride & Linda said he could explain she had gone to look for a sweater why did he always make such a production out of everything & Buddy said yes she had gone to look for a sweater & had taken along a violin a viola a flute & a mandolin just in case he thought he would come along for the ride.

My father said as a matter of fact he needed to talk to him, so they all three drove down to the station.

Linda got on the train. She had the violin case & the viola case in one hand, the mandolin case and her purse in the other, and the flute under one arm.

The train pulled out & my father commented to Buddy: You guys are amazing. I always thought a musician would take some music or something along to an audition.

Buddy said: Oh. My. God.

It was too late to do anything about it, though, and anyway she could always buy some music in New York, so they went to a nearby bar, and my father said: Let’s buy that motel.

Buddy said: What if that guy was wrong?

My father said: If he was wrong we’ll have a worthless piece of real estate. On the other hand, old Mrs. Randolph will be reunited with her widowed daughter and spend her declining years under the sunny skies of Florida, so at least someone will be happy.

To the sunny skies of Florida, said Buddy.

To the sunny skies of Florida, said my father.

My father and Buddy decided to drive down immediately to clinch the deal. They left in my father’s car, Buddy driving, my father asleep on the back seat.

My mother meanwhile reached the Juilliard. She found her way to the general office and demanded an audition. This was not a simple matter to arrange, and she was told many times that it was necessary to apply and fill in forms and be given an appointment; but she insisted. She said that she had come all the way from Philadelphia. She was very nervous, but she had an inner confidence that if she could only start to play for someone she would be safe at last.

At last a homely man wearing a bow tie came out of an office and introduced himself and said he would find a room. The Juilliard had its forms and applications and procedures, but people there were no different from people anywhere: they loved a story, they loved the idea of a brilliant young musician getting on the train in Philadelphia and going to New York and walking in off the street. So my mother (carrying violin viola mandolin handbag & flute) followed him to a room with a grand piano, and the homely man sat in a chair down the room, one leg crossed over the other, and waited.

It was only now that she realized that she had overlooked something.

Under my father’s urging she had walked straight out the door. In her excitement at the idea of just walking out the door she had walked out the door without stopping to practice and without even her sheet music, and now she had nothing to play from and nothing prepared.

Some people might have been daunted by this setback. The Konigsbergs faced musical catastrophe on a daily basis, & their motto was: Never say die.

What are you going to play for me? asked the homely man.

Linda took the violin out of its case. She explained that she had left her music on the train, but that she was going to play a Bach partita.

She played a Bach partita, and the homely man looked without comment at his knee, and then she got through a Beethoven sonata with only a couple of hairy moments, and the man looked calmly at his knee.

And now what are you going to play? said the homely man without comment.

Linda asked: Would you like to hear me play the viola?

Man: If you would like to play it for me I will be happy to hear you play it.

Linda put the violin back in the case, and she took out the viola. She played an obscure sonata for viola solo which she had learned a couple of years ago. Even at the time it had seemed completely unmemorable, the type of composition which composers do for some reason foist off on the viola. For a moment she wondered whether she would be able to remember it, but it came back once she got going. She couldn’t remember how to go on after the first repeat & so had to do it twice to stall for time, & she had to make up a new andante having temporarily forgotten the old one (but luckily the piece was so obscure he probably wouldn’t notice), but apart from that she thought she scraped through pretty well.