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It’s sweltering in the room and the beer is cold and good. “The first thing I
did was with your friend John Illingworth after he showed up from Toronto.”
“He was fine last time I saw him. Went to visit his folks on their farm near
Cupar once. We promoted and showed a British film documenting the horrors of a
nuclear war. It was a real downer that scared the hell out of people. We showed it
in theatres in Regina and Saskatoon, and several times at their universities. Then I
took it to Vancouver. After that, I worked in the bush up north. I came back to
Regina once in a while between jobs. What about you?”
“When I came back, I went to Mashiko to continue my apprenticeship with
Nakeno-sensei. You’ll meet him.”
“We’re in Kasama. Japan is shaped like a boomerang that turns north just
east of Tokyo. Kasama is about fifty miles from Tokyo in Ibaraki Prefecture. The
nearest big city is Mito which is on the Pacific coast. Kasama is smaller than
Moose Jaw, and Mashiko is smaller than that. Mashiko is a centre for traditional
Japanese pottery. Bernard Leech, the English potter once lived in Mashiko. That’s
where I found Nakeno-sensei. He took a shine to me and gave me a chance to
study under him. Little pay, lots of hard work and long hours.”
“That sounds familiar. We seem a lot farther away from Tokyo than fifty
miles.”
“Yeh, but Japan is a small place. The same distance seems greater in a small
country than in a big one. Glascow seems to be on the other side of the world from
London, but it’s only as far as Winnipeg to Regina. Who knows why?”
She has opened the sliding doors in the bedroom closet and has begun to
remove some fluffy-looking bedding. “Randy and I sleep in here and you will
sleep out there,” she says. “We close the fusuma for privacy.”
“The padded sliding doors with fabric covering are called ‘fusuma’,” Randy
instructs. “Fusuma separate rooms. The doors covered with rice paper that you’re
familiar with are called ‘shoji’. They permit light to enter a building. We don’t
by Morley Evans