The Last Samurai (31 page)

EI (shade, gloom)/kage(ri) (shade, gloom)

kanae (ritual cauldron, tripod vessel)/TEI (triangular)

B
Ō
(toad, frog) and

KO (tiger)/tora (tiger)

I said so are you picking four, and Sibylla said yes because she could not wait four days for the term jinsai which was obviously an indispensable euphemism for small child. I said in that case I wanted

GYAKU (cruel, savage, tyrannical, oppressive)/ shiita (geru) (oppress, persecute, tyrannise, grind down)

instead of

B
Ō
(toad, frog).

Sibylla said Dozo, jinsai. She obviously thought this was very funny.

29 March. Today I finished Kon Tiki. I have decided to learn how to clean a fish.

30 March. Today Sibylla and I practised cleaning a fish. Sibylla was rather annoyed because I did not want to eat it.

31 March. I have started reading Into the Heart of Borneo. I wanted to practise cleaning a chicken but Sibylla said she was not in the mood. We went to Ohio Fried Chicken instead.

1 April. Sibylla still did not feel like cleaning a chicken today. I asked if my father’s name was Ludo and she said no. I asked if it was David and she said no. I asked if it was Steven and she said no. I said well what is it then and she said Rumpelstiltskin. Then she suggested we go out to Ohio Fried Chicken. I asked if it was really Rumpelstiltskin and she said no.

2 April. Today I finished Into the Heart of Borneo. I have decided to practise sleeping on the floor. I have started Arabian Sands.

3 April. Today I was still reading Arabian Sands. It was interesting. The Bedou do not wear shoes. This is to harden their feet. I asked Sibylla if we could clean a chicken today and she said No.

I have read Kon Tiki, Into the Heart of Borneo, Arabian Sands, Journey into Danger!, Quest for Adventure!, The Snow Leopard, In Patagonia, Amazon Nights, To Caucasus, Tents on the Steppe, Igloo Winter, With Camel and Compass, Among Pygmies and After Alexander. Today I asked Sibylla if she ever read any of them. She was watching Seven Samurai and I thought she might drop a clue while her mind was otherwise occupied. It was at the part where Kyuzo fights the other samurai. She said she had read In Patagonia. After Kyuzo killed the other samurai she burst out laughing. She said she had never even met Bruce Chatwin. I asked if she had ever met any of the others. She turned and looked at me without a word and then she looked back at the TV.

I am a bit fed up with these Japanese characters as none of them turn up in Sugata Sanshiro. We have mastered 98 so far. A few of Sibylla’s characters have turned up but not one of mine. Also I have looked up most of the characters in the book now and some of them are not even in the dictionary! It is extremely frustrating.

Today we went to the library. I got Tracks Across Alaska, Ticket to Latvia, Night Train to Turkestan, Idle Days in Patagonia, In the Steps of Stanley, In Search of Genghis Khan and Danziger’s Travels.

I have finished Sugata Sanshiro. There were some things that I did not understand because Sibylla could not answer a lot of my questions. Sibylla said I was being very quiet these days and she had done an enormous amount of work and we would go to Books Nippon and buy me another book in Japanese. I said I would like to get a book about an octopus. We asked at the counter and the lady said she would see if they had anything. Finally she showed us some books. We think we have bought a book about an octopus but we are not quite sure.

Today I finished Tracks Across Alaska. I decided to start reading Ticket to Latvia. Sibylla did a lot of typing and then she watched Seven Samurai for a while. When it got to where they get to the village I asked if she had actually read anything by my father. She said not if she could help it. I said what do you mean? She said someone in the office gave her one of his books so she had to read some of it. She said she said to the person that it seemed to have rather a lot of logical mistakes and the person said what difference does it make. I said casually do you still have it? She turned her head and looked at me. Then she said no, I didn’t keep it and looked back at the TV. I said who was the person? She kept looking at the TV. She said she couldn’t remember, they had all been crazy about him.

So all I need to do is find someone who was in the office and ask who they were all crazy about. The only problem is that I think they were all fired. When I am a bit older I can do some detective work and trace them.

Today was a real false alarm. I was practising my Japanese characters when all of a sudden I noticed that Sibylla was looking at my library books! I held my breath and watched her. After a while she picked up Danziger’s Travels and started turning the pages, and then she went over and sat down! She looked at it with a very sad expression and read pages here and there, sighing from time to time. At one point she said Isfahan under her breath! And then without even looking up she said ironically don’t leap to conclusions.

I said Why won’t you tell me who it is?

She said Because he doesn’t know about you.

I said Why didn’t you tell him?

She said Because I didn’t want to see him again.

I said Why didn’t you want to see him again?

She said I don’t want to talk about it.

Maybe he was about to set out on an expedition when they met. He had raised all the money for the expedition and if she told him about me he would have had to give her the money. But she knew his heart was set on the expedition so she didn’t tell him.

Sibylla got mad at me today because I asked a question about my father. All I did was ask if he knew any languages. She looked at me and said I want you to hear something. She had been typing but now she got up and said we had to go to the library even though we had just been there yesterday.

We went all the way to the Barbican and into the music library and she asked if they had anything by Liberace. They said they didn’t. Sibylla said this couldn’t wait so we took the Circle Line to King’s Cross and then we took the Piccadilly Line to Piccadilly Circus and we went into Tower Records. They said Liberace was in Easy Listening so we went up to Easy Listening.

They had a lot of things by Liberace but the cheapest was a cassette for £9.99.

£9.99! exclaimed Sibylla holding it in her hand. It breaks my heart but it must be done.

She bought the tape and we went home.

When we got home Sibylla put the tape on the tape player. It was quite old-fashioned music, and before each piece the performer would make a few jokes to the audience. The whole time it was playing Sibylla watched me. When it was over she said, What do you think?

I said it was rather old-fashioned but he played the piano quite well.

Sibylla didn’t say anything. She went to a drawer and took out a postcard. It was a picture of some Greek girls painted by Lord Leighton.

What do you think of this? she said.

I said it was a picture about ancient Greece and they were playing ball.

Anything else? she said.

I said it was quite good the way you could see the wind blowing because of the way he had painted their togas.

Then she got an old magazine out of a drawer. She opened it to a page and said Read this. So I started reading. At first I thought maybe it was something my father had written but it wasn’t about travel.