Takahiro Imamura-san had never stood out from the boys at my school until Margaret introduced us to one another in our final year.
Margaret had chaperoned a group of final-year pupils who had signed up to see a kabuki performance of Macbeth, which we were studying. At Margaret’s invitation, I joined her in the front row of the bus. As the other pupils piled in, she indicated one of them with a nod and asked, ‘Do you know him?’ Takahiro moved down the aisle, a slightly long- and floppy-haired adolescent of medium height and build who wore a pleasant, open expression. He had a good complexion by the standards of a generation that was discovering milkshakes and hamburgers.
‘Only by name. I’ve seen him around. He’s neither a swot nor one of the cool guys, you know, who hang around in gangs and act tough and ask you out all the time.’
‘He’s your only competition,’ smiled Margaret, reclining her seat so that I had to turn my whole body around to look her in the eyes.
‘Competition? For what?’
‘Oh, come on,’ said Margaret. ‘You know.’
I really didn’t know.
‘You and he are the school’s top English-language pupils. It’s you two by a mile. No one else comes close. The pupils know it. And all the teachers say so.’
The bus moved off and out of the school gates to join the slow-moving evening traffic. Men and women in black suits under black umbrellas lined bus stops in anticipation of buses stuck behind fleets of black cars. Windscreen wipers were set to work intermittently. Streetlights seemed only to add to the gloom that I perceived only objectively, in a complete reversal of the pathetic fallacy we had studied in Macbeth.
Margaret’s comments were a revelation, a not unpleasant shock. I had never thought in such terms, never thought that, as I walked home from school or lunched in the school canteen, teachers, somewhere, as they readied themselves for home or opened their bento boxes, had said good things about me to each other, had lauded me and referred to me as a top pupil – me and Takahiro. I felt a strange kinship with him that warmed me before it discomfited me – doubly so, given that we’d never even spoken. Margaret’s comments stimulated me: if I was considered to have competition, I had to ensure I would win. In the space of seconds, I had gone from not thinking in terms of a competition to being determined to triumph. I would have to get to know my adversary. I would have to meet Takahiro.
‘I’ll introduce you to him, if you’d like,’ said Margaret.
Margaret made the introductions at the interval, by ensuring that all five pupils who had congregated around her, soft drink in hand, knew each other; which we did, if only by name. I immediately saw the group for what it was: three pupils with poor English in awe of their English language assistant and of two pupils with excellent English. Takahiro must have sensed this, too, for he replied readily, in order to save the others’ blushes, to Margaret’s question as to what we thought of the production; as though knowing that the others – and maybe I, too – would be too shy to say a word.
‘Maggie-san, I would be very interested to know if, in your opinion, I am completely wrong in my analysis and beg you to tell me if so; anyway, it is this.’ I was impressed and jealous of Takahiro’s easy familiarity in calling Margaret Maggie. ‘While I am enjoying the performance on, I must admit, a rather superficial level, I feel that the kabuki style of theatre is not suited to this particular play. I mean, Macbeth is interesting – a masterpiece – for its great psychological subtlety, and this kabuki performance, well, it renders everything one-dimensional.’ Takahiro received nods and grunts of assent from us all, save from Margaret, who merely raised her eyebrows in encouragement. ‘I mean, take Banquo’s ghost. The scene of his appearance is played like a comedy. “Oh! Help! I’ve seen a ghost!” The actions are exaggerated and stylised such that there is no room for ambiguity. Such is the nature of kabuki.’ Takahiro clutched his paper cup with both hands and shook his head, then continued, ‘There’s something else. The colour scheme is all wrong. When I read the play, the colour that dominated was red, all I saw was red; there’s so much killing, and blood is mentioned so frequently. Here, all we see is white, the white kabuki faces, the white-sheeted ghost.’
‘And black,’ I felt compelled to say, and immediately wished I hadn’t as Takahiro looked at me, looked at me properly, searchingly, as though seeing me for the first time; which perhaps he was. ‘The witches are all in black, the soldiers and other men are dressed mainly in black and the minimalist stage is black.’
‘Yes, you’re quite right,’ Takahiro assented. ‘There’s a lot of darkness but that, to me at least, serves to reinforce the impression of a monochrome world; one I didn’t have on reading the play. Besides, having actors dressed in black as well as the kurogos’ – the clearly visible stagehands – ‘is confusing; but I can see that that may be considered to concentrate the psychological action on Macbeth himself.’ Takahiro stopped there and we all looked into our cups.
From that day on, when Takahiro and I bumped into each other, we would wave and exchange quick konnichiwas and brief, nervous bows. In the sixth-form room, we chatted with increasing familiarity once the ice had been broken by his first, ‘Do you mind if I join you?’ Takahiro had the ability to make what one said seem interesting and profound and to make one feel clever, as though one had something of value to say. In contrast to most of our countrymen, he maintained eye contact when speaking and never interrupted with chirrups of encouragement. Believing that he was more interested in what I thought – in the concepts that I expressed – than in me, I was flattered by the intellectual attention and by his frequent lapses into English. He evidently relished speaking it in complicity with the only pupil who could hold her own with him, and I delighted in the pressure I felt to weigh my words carefully with him.
The stress all school-leavers were under at the end of that final term, to exchange addresses and telephone numbers with fellow pupils they hoped to stay in touch with, was absent in my and Takahiro’s case: he was going to study English at the same university as me.