The Last Samurai

Kambei was handing a razor to the priest with a bow. He sat by the river and splashed water on his head; the priest began to shave off his hair.

Fair enough, said my father.

Kambei put on the clothes which the priest had brought. He met the eyes of the shiftless Mifune with a face of stone. I think you’re going to have to wait a while, said my father.

Kambei took the two rice cakes and walked to the barn. The thief shrieked inside. I am only a priest, said Kambei. I won’t arrest you. I won’t come in. I’ve brought food for the child. Thanks, said my father. I mean that. That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard in a long time.

I stood up and began walking around the room, looking for something I could do for an hour or even ten minutes without hearing his voice. I picked up my book on judo but after two lines I saw his face, and I started reading Ibn Khaldun and he said Now I believe you read my books.

Have you seen him yet? asked Sibylla. This was her idea of delicacy, to bring the thing out in the open rather than leave me to wonder what she knew & whether I should say anything.

I saw him, I said. I don’t know what you saw in him.

You know as much as I know, said Sib, delicately indicating that she knew for a fact that I’d also read through her papers.

I didn’t tell him, I said.

Selbstverständlich, said Sib. I never could. I kept thinking I should, but I just couldn’t. I’d read something he’d written, thinking he might have changed, and he did change, but only in the way that someone from the Tyrone Power school of acting would show maturity: mouth set, furrowed brow, this is someone thinking tough thoughts. He woke up a boy and went to bed—a man. I’m sorry to speak ill of your sperm donor, though. I’d better stop.

It’s all right, I said.

No, it’s not all right, said Sib. She turned off the video. It is shocking to stop in the middle, she said, still at least Kurosawa will never know.

It doesn’t matter, I said.

All right, said Sib. Just remember that you are perfect, whatever your father may be. It may be that other people need a sensible father more.

We’re not talking about an exhaustible resource, I said.

We’re talking about luck, said Sib. Why should you have all of it?

Was I complaining? I said.

Look at it from his point of view, said Sib. It’s hard for a man to be upstaged by his son.

I wasn’t complaining, I said.

Of course you weren’t, said Sib.

He said he had kids of his own, I said. He said they watched Sesame Street and it was about the right level.

At what age? said Sib.

He didn’t say.

Hmmm, said Sib.

She stood up and turned on the computer and picked up the Independent and sat down to read it.

Did I tell you I was reading Die Zeit? said Sib. I was reading Die Zeit and I came across this lovely line, Es regnete ununterbrochen. It rained uninterruptedly. It sounded so lovely in the German. Es regnete ununterbrochen. Es regnete ununterbrochen. I shall think of it whenever it rains.

Did you ever think of having an abortion? I said.

I did, said Sib, but it was very late and I had to have counselling, they counselled adoption & I said Yes but how could I be sure your adoptive parents would teach you how to leave life if you did not care for it & they said What and I said—well you know I said what any rational person would say and we had an unprofitable discussion & she said

Oh look! Hugh Carey is back in England.

I said: Who?

Sibylla said: He was the best friend of Raymond Decker.

I said: Who?

Sibylla: You’ve never heard of Raymond Decker!

And then: But then who has?

She said that Carey was an explorer and Decker, she did not know what Decker was doing these days but in the early 60s they had been legendary classicists at Oxford. A pirate copy of Carey’s translation of Wee sleekit cow’rin’ tim’rous beastie into Greek for the verse paper in the Ireland was passed from hand to hand, & Decker had won the Chancellor’s Latin with an amazing translation of Johnson on Pope, not said Sibylla the bit where he says It is a very pretty poem Mr. Pope but it is not Homer which was actually Bentley anyway now I think of it but the bit that goes

… the distance is commonly very great between actual performances and speculative possibility. It is natural to suppose, that as much as has been done to-day may be done to-morrow; but on the morrow some difficulty emerges, or some external impediment obstructs. Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure; all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot, be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker’s mind. He that runs against Time, has an antagonist not subject to casualities.