The Last Samurai (74 page)

I said:

He laughed.

I said

You left out some lines

He said

I haven’t seen it in years, Kikuchiyo-san.

I remembered suddenly that according to the
Kodansha Romanized Japanese-English Dictionary
kisama is [CRUDE] and very insulting, that according to Sanseido’s
New Crown Japanese-English Dictionary
kono yar
meant you swine, and that according to
Japanese Street Slang
baka was Japan’s most popular swear word, baka ni suru meant don’t fuckin’ fuck with me and shiyagatte was the offensive gerund. I thought I’d better stop while I was ahead.

I went over to look at the piano. It was a Steinway, but it was the only thing in the room apart from a rolled-up sleeping bag and a suitcase.

I said

Did you know that Glenn Gould practically rebuilt CD 318 so that it wouldn’t sound like a Steinway?

He said

Everybody knows that.

He said

Do you play the piano?

I said

Not Alkan.

I said

I can play Straight No Chaser.

He said

It doesn’t matter. I don’t give lessons. I don’t even give concerts.

I said

I wasn’t asking for lessons.

Then I said

Why don’t you give concerts?

He started walking up and down the bare floor. He said

I kept giving the wrong size of concert. People missed their trains and they found it detracted from their enjoyment of the evening.

Then he laughed. He said: I thought a few hours one way or the other couldn’t matter but people don’t like to catch just any train.

He was still walking up and down. He said: People kept giving me good advice.

I said

Why don’t you make a CD?

He stopped by the window. He said

No one would buy the kind of thing I’d like to put on a CD and I can’t afford to make a CD that no one will buy.

I said

Variations on variations on variations

& he said

Something like that.

He said

It’s funny the things people won’t buy.

He started pacing up and down the floor again. He said

When you play a piece of music there are so many different ways you could play it. You keep asking yourself what if. You try this and you say but what if and you try that. When you buy a CD you get one answer to the question. You never get the what if.

He said

It’s the same only worse in Japan. People take the train every day. They get on a train and get off and get on and get off day after day.

He said if that was the thinkable you’d think the unthinkable would be—

He said even if you weren’t interested in music wouldn’t the idea that things could be different—

He stopped by the piano. He said

But actually people don’t really like a piece of music until they’re used to it.

He began picking at one of the thin steel strings of the treble. Ping ping ping ping ping. Ping ping ping

He said

I’m stuck in a rut myself. I’ve been doing this too long. I keep telling myself I should bite the bullet, play some of my party pieces and make a comeback. What’s the use of spending my life in this room?

Ping ping ping

Then I go and look at CDs.

Ping

Hundreds of CDs with whole pieces played once for the thousands of people who want CDs with whole pieces played once.

Ping

So those thousands of people are doing OK and they’ll go on doing OK even if I don’t play my party pieces

Ping ping

But anyone who wants to hear what if can’t hear it anywhere, not in the store not in the world not with that kind of piece

Ping ping ping ping ping

He said

I can’t afford to make a CD that 5 people would buy, but there’s something about playing my party pieces for the thousands of people who can always find party pieces to choose from, there’s something about walking away from the 5

He said

Not that I’m doing them much good in this room.

I said

Well I could afford to make a CD that no one will buy

& he said

What?

He said

Why, do you have £10,000?

I said

I’ve got something that’s worth a lot of money. I could get a lot of money for this,

& I took the painter’s heart out of my backpack. It was in a plastic folder to protect the silk, the white silk was still white and the blood was brown.

He said

What is it?

I explained what it was and he said

I’ve never heard of him, thanks but I can’t accept this

I said he could and he said he couldn’t and I said he could and he said he couldn’t.

I said: But what if

He said: What if what

I said: What if it was a matter of life or death

I said: What if it was a matter of a fate worse than death

He said: What are you talking about?

I said: What if someone called the Samaritans

He said: Who?

I said: The Samaritans. They’re a group of people who think anything is worse than not breathing. You can call them if you’re feeling depressed.

He said: So?

I said: What if a person called the Samaritans and they weren’t very helpful? What if a person kept doing the same thing day after day? What if a person kept riding the Circle Line around and around? What if there was a person who thought the world would be a better place if everyone who would enjoy seeing a Tamil syllabary had access to a Tamil syllabary? What if there was a person who kept changing the subject? What if there was a person who never listened to anything anybody ever said?

He said: Did you have anyone special in mind?

I said I was speaking hypothetically.

He said: And what exactly did you think this hypothetical CD could do for this hypothetical person?

He was smiling. He was strumming the strings of the piano softly.

I said: What if the person got off the Circle Line at Embankment, crossed the bridge to Waterloo, took a train to Paris and went to work for a famous sculptor?

He said: What, because of some stupid CD? What planet are you living on?

I said: The premise was that there were only 5 people on the planet who would buy the CD, obviously most people would not get off at Embankment because of a CD but maybe the type of person who would buy the CD would be the type of person who would.

I said

The type of person who thinks boredom a fate worse than death. The type of person who always wants things to be different. The type of person who would rather die than read
Sportsboat and Waterski International
.

Oh
, he said.
That
type of person.

He picked out the Seven Samurai theme on the treble strings.

Better not take out an ad in
Sportsboat and Waterski International
then.

He picked the theme out in the bass.

I said

Look at it this way. You don’t have to make
hundreds
of CDs. You could just make 10. 5 for you and 5 for me. Then they’d be the only 10 in the world and they’d be valuable. Say we get £10,000 for the heart, say it costs £1,000 to make the CDs, say they sell for £1,000 apiece, we could either maximise our profits or we could even give one away if we happened to know the type of person who didn’t mind missing trains.

He went back to the treble. Ping ping ping PING ping ping PING ping ping ping

He did not seem to be finding the argument persuasive.

I said: I could teach you a language. Would you like to learn a language?

He said: What language?

I said: What language would you like to learn?

He said: What do you recommend?

I said: I could teach you to count to 1000 in Arabic. I said: I know about 20 languages so if there’s some other language you want to learn I might know it. I said: Or I could teach you the periodic table. Or I could teach you survival techniques.

He said: Survival techniques?

I said: I could teach you edible insects.

He said: What if I don’t want to eat an insect?

He went back to the bass. Dum dum dum DUM dum dum DUM dum dum dum

I said: What do you want me to do? Do you want me to come back in 10 years? For all you know it may be too late.

There was a short pause. He looked thoughtfully at the strings of the piano. I thought I was really getting somewhere.