In a nutshell, I said, thanking her.

  Since the day of her arrival, Mrs Vining had been besieged by the press. An American, and a woman at that, being appointed to teach the Crown Prince, was deemed newsworthy in the extreme. To her surprise she found many of the American journalists intrusive in their questioning to the point of rudeness.

  She asked if I, in my time, had endured similar treatment.

  I said this boring old Englishman was not of much interest to them and they left me alone.

  Yamanashi, ever the gentleman, ever the diplomat, said, Mister Blyth has been among us so long he is more Japanese than English!

  I took that then, as I take it still, as a great compliment.

  It had been agreed that Mrs Vining would observe one of my private sessions with the Crown Prince, and she accompanied me to the little classroom. We were led into the room by the Chancellor, Mrs Matsudaira. The Prince stood and bowed to her, then he stepped forward and shook hands, first with me, then with Mrs Vining. I noticed he gave the American woman his most charming smile, perhaps in anticipation of more chocolate. If he was disappointed that none was forthcoming, he did not let it show. On the contrary, he sat up straight in his hard-backed chair and was the very model of attentiveness.

  His answers to questions were as clear and precise as always. But as the lesson progressed, I noticed him glance across at Mrs Vining, as if expecting her to speak. She responded by smiling encouragement at him.

  Eventually he began to manifest the faint signs of boredom I had come to recognise, a slight restlessness, a quick look down at his watch while pretending to straighten his cuff.

  It did occur to me that if I were a 12-year-old boy being drilled by a middle-aged gaijin in a language not his own, I might well be aching to run from the room and out to the playing fields.

  I am walking to the door, he repeated after me, dutifully. I am opening the door. I am closing the door. Now I am sitting down….

  Perhaps I should vary it. I am opening the door again. I am making a break for it. I am running as fast as my legs will carry me, out into the wide world…

  That might well make him laugh, as he did now and then if I said something that amused him. That mask of politeness and reserve would drop and his face light up with a momentary delight, a puckishness as brief as it was unexpected.

  Poor little fellow, said Mrs Vining. Such a weight of expectation on his young shoulders.

  Indeed, I said. It is unimaginable.

  His little hand was cold, she said. I felt it when he shook mine.

  I found myself strangely moved by her observation, and in that moment I knew it had been the right choice to appoint a woman, this woman, as the Prince’s tutor.

  His little hand.

  Che gelida manina.

  Mrs Vining made me laugh out loud when she told me of a ploy she had used in teaching the Crown Prince with his classmates at Gakushuin. She learned all the boys’ names (not an easy task for someone to whom the Japanese names were unfamiliar and perhaps repetitive). Then one day she announced that she was giving them new names – English names – which they would use within the confines of the classroom. Here we speak English, she said, so you should have English names. She told the first boy his name was Adam. He repeated it, tentative, uncertain. The next boy’s name would be Bill. On she continued, the boys increasingly amused, trying out their new names for size. Finally she came to the Crown Prince.

  So, she said. You are Jimmy.

  She said the other boys held their breath, not sure what would come next.

  No, he said. I am Prince.

  She wasn’t sure if he was refusing to join in the game, or didn’t quite understand, thinking perhaps she didn’t recognise him amongst his classmates. (Did she even think all-Japanese-boys-looked-the-same?)

  She explained again (acknowledging she most certainly knew who he was). She made it clearer, the names were only for here in the room, to help them feel English (or American), to help them learn.

  He looked very serious, taking it in. He said, Jimmy.

  Yes, she said.

  He nodded. Jimmy!

  He laughed, and so did the rest of the boys.

  After that, she said, it was the best lesson she had taught. The game seemed to allow them to relax, feel more at ease.

  Democratisation at a stroke, I said. Supreme Command Allied Powers should put you in charge of their operations!

  Was it my imagination, or did she tense a little at that, and was there the slightest flush to her cheek?

  Certainly here were those who thought while she might not actually be in the pay of SCAP, she was at least working in their best interests, not so much toward democratisation as Americanisation.

  My own sense of it was that she herself was true and worked in good faith, and she certainly had no idea of my own involvement in her appointment.

  Over time, the Crown Prince’s English improved dramatically (as much through Mrs Vining’s input as my own). I saw in the boy a genuine warmth and humanity struggling to come to the fore, and he saw that I was not, perhaps, as stern and patriarchal as he might first have feared.

  It took us by surprise, though I’m not sure why. It was five years since Harumi had been born and I suppose I had thought that was that. But we had not, as they say, been taking precautions. Tomiko, of course, recognised the signs. She was once more with child. There had been talk worldwide of what they called a baby boom after the war, a reaction, a surge of new life. Now we had our own boom-baby, a little sister for Harumi, born in Seibo Byoin in Shinjuku. This was an international Catholic hospital – a fact that seemed as appropriate as it was unlikely. I recall sitting, standing, pacing the hospital corridor, yet again conscious of my uselessness in the face of events. But at least I had managed to leave Harumi with our next door neighbour, Mrs Nabeshima, and cycle to the hospital where I sat, stood, paced, sat, stood, paced. I had not slept well the night before and once or twice when I closed my eyes I drifted off to sleep, woke startled to see a nun glide past, surreal in black and white. Or I found myself staring without comprehension at a framed Sacred Heart, the image lurid and sentimental yet somehow reassuring. It offered solace, compassion. Come unto me…

  Mr Blyth.

  The voice that woke me was soft, Irish. A young Sister, her eyes kind.

  Would you like to come and see your wee girl?

  So I did, I went and saw her, my wee girl, red-faced, eyes shut tight against the brightness, little being wrapped around herself. My second daughter, new arrival in this harsh world.

  What was her original face, before she was born? A sleep and a forgetting?

  Tomiko was exhausted but deeply at peace. She said we should call her Nana. It meant seven. She was born on the seventh of July, 7/7. So.

  I laughed, loving it, the repetition, the music.

  Nana.

  Nanako, said Tomiko.

  Little Nana. Our wee girl.

  Was it Nana’s birth that spurred me on to even greater effort in my writing?

  My Zen in English Literature had been well received.

  Mister Aldous Huxley, no less, had given it a favourable review in The Times.

  The book deals with the relation between moment-by-moment experience of things-as-they-are and poetry. It is a bit perverse sometimes, but very illuminating at others.

  I would settle for that as an acknowledgement and a fair description (perhaps even an epitaph?) A bit perverse sometimes, very illuminating at others.

  We does our best.

  The first of my four volumes of Haiku translations was ready for publication, and the other three were in preparation. Volume One was subtitled Eastern Culture. (I decided to let that pass – my publishers, Hokuseido had been extremely kind and generous in their dealings with me). The other volumes would be titled, more simply, according to the seasons: Spring, Summer-Autumn and Autumn-Winter. (I found that altogether more pleasing).

  I asked my friend Shinki to do the calligraphy for the covers and he did excellent work. (His non-ego would not quite allow him to bask in satisfaction, but I could see he was pleased with it, a job well done).

  As for the content, it was the mixture as before, my translations interspersed with notes, comments, asides, exegeses, non-sequiturs. There are those who say my explanations are better than the original poems. Others say they add nothing and should be omitted. I myself agree one hundred percent with both views.

  Once again, in moments of stillness, I realised how lucky I was, how grateful for the life I had been given. If I had stayed at home in little England with its rigid hierarchies, its class divisions, its snobbery, where would I be? My books unpublished, unread (perhaps unwritten). I might be an assistant professor at some provincial university, supervising graduation theses on, say, the colours of the beards of Shakespeare’s clowns.

  No, I chose the right path (or it chose me).

  Through those immediate post-war years I made regular visits – I would still call them pilgrimages – to Suzuki’s home in Kamakura. I always went with a head full of endless questions, on some obscure aspect of Zen doctrine, on the exact translation of some Japanese word I found confusing or ambiguous. He was never less than gracious, answering me at length and with infinite patience. One particular week, however, he sent a message to apologise for cancelling our appointment. He said he hoped I might come the following week as usual. I assumed, therefore, that there was not a problem with his health, but rather that his self-imposed workload, his intensely busy schedule, had simply not left time for our meeting.

  When I turned up the next week, he welcomed me as he always did with great warmth and we sat drinking tea, looking out over his garden, watching the spring rain fall. We sat in comfortable silence, then he told me why he had, regretfully, had to cancel our session the week before.

  He had indeed been busy, but in a rather unusual capacity. He had received a visitor who had interviewed him at length about Japanese philosophy, and in particular its effect on what he called the nation’s ethical code. But the visitor, Suzuki explained, was not some academic, studying these things in the abstract. He was in fact a Dutch judge by the name of Roling, currently presiding in the on-going war crimes tribunal taking place in Tokyo.

  It was quite extraordinary, said Suzuki. The man wanted to speak to me because he was trying to understand what he called the Japanese mind.

  No easy task! I said.

  Quite.

  I said I had actually heard of the man. To my surprise, Mrs Vining had taken a great interest in the trial, to the extent of attending one of the sessions – whether simply to keep herself informed, or observe history-in-the-making, or as a semi-official observer, I couldn’t quite ascertain. But she had certainly mentioned Judge Roling, and the Indian Radha Binod Pal, both of whom had impressed her. (She had, I recalled, been particularly taken with Mr Pal, describing him as tall, fine-looking and dark-skinned).

  She said there had been much discussion over the fact that no Japanese voices were being heard. It was very much a case of the victors trying the vanquished.

  It was ever thus, I said. History is always the story told by the conquerors.

  Suzuki said Judge Roling was very aware of this potential iniquity, and Mr Pal, perhaps because he was the only Asian taking part, was an even stronger dissenting voice.

  I understand Judge Pal is a pacifist, I said, anti-war and anti-colonialist. Asia for the Asians.

  I believe so, said Suzuki. But can a pacifist defend the war as a just one?

  And can he be anti-colonial and anti-war, if the war itself is seen as anti-colonial?

  I think for him this must be a kind of koan.

  And for Judge Roling?

  He seems to feel great respect for some of the defendants, especially Shimada Shigetaro.

  Shimada, I knew, had been an Admiral in the Imperial Navy. Unlike our friend Yamanashi, he had not voiced opposition to the war, taking instead the anti-colonial line, the avowed aim being to put an end to American domination. Japan’s own colonial ambitions, on the other hand, he thought entirely justified.

  Nevertheless, Shimada’s bearing and dignified presence had made an impression on Judge Roling who described him to Suzuki as a good man, fired by patriotism and working in the service of a higher cause.

  This is the paradox the judge is trying to resolve, said Suzuki. He was even more impressed when I told him Shimada-san writes poetry.

  Perhaps if he had written better poetry….

  I am not sure if Mr Roling will ever quite understand, said Suzuki. But he has come to like the Japanese and to see that our philosophy might have much to teach the West.

  And yet…

  And yet.

  There is a rumour that the Russians want everyone punished, as an example.

  Pour decourager les autres.

  Exactly. They want a purge, and I fear if they had their way, they would try the Emperor himself.

  I recalled those photographs I had seen of the Romanov family, the dreams that had so disturbed me.

  But that will not happen, said Suzuki, his voice firm, certain.

  No, I said.

  Outside, the spring rain continued to fall. We sat in silence, then Suzuki poured me more tea.

  So, he said.

  So.

  It was around this time I finally met Mr Christmas Humphreys, to whom I owed an inordinate debt of gratitude for making Suzuki’s writings available in English. Bizarrely, Mr Humphreys was a High Court judge and was in Tokyo to participate in the same war crimes tribunal which so interested Mrs Vining.

  I found it extraordinary (or shall we say paradoxical?) that a practising Buddhist, committed to respecting all sentient beings, could be in a position where he might have to sentence a man to death.

  We actually met – stranger and stranger still – at a display of excessive pomp to mark British Empire Day. Mr Humphreys and I were seated together at a parade ground opposite the Imperial Palace. A Message-From-The-King was read out then a military band swung into view followed by a detachment of the Navy, marching with colours flying and swords drawn.

  Personally I was rather uncomfortable with the whole spectacle, but Humphreys was quite taken with it all. In fact he seemed deeply moved and looked almost tearful.

  Damn fine, he said. Brings a lump to the throat, eh? Makes one come over all gulpy.

  He also insisted on referring to the young Englishwoman accompanying him as his fanny, by which (as I later discovered) he meant FANY, a member of the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry.

  Yet this was the same man who sat with me a few days later at Dr Suzuki’s home, discussing the finer points of Mahayana Buddhism and the distinctions between Zen and Pure Land. Suzuki told him of my Zen in English Literature, which he promised to read, and about my planned four volumes of haiku translations.

  A Herculean task, he said. I wish you well, but I fear it can’t be done. The little blighters just defy translation.

  He said he had tried his hand at it himself, not from the Japanese, but from rough versions in English which he’d tried to render into verse.

  Entirely without success, he said. Couldn’t make head nor tail.

  It’s a challenge, I said. But I shall do my best.

  Bon Voyage, he said, saluting, and he laughed.

  I couldn’t help myself. I asked how he would face the dilemma I had imagined, how to reconcile Respect for All Beings with donning the black cap and passing the death sentence on a convicted murderer. You shall be taken from here to a place of execution…

  His eyes were clear, his gaze piercing. I could imagine that gaze withering some poor shrivelled defendant in court. But for a moment those eyes clouded. He steepled his long thin aristocratic fingers in front of his long thin aristocratic face. Then he focussed again, and when he spoke his words were measured, considered.

  The rule of law must be upheld, he said. Karma is a complicated business. It is karma that has made me a judge. It is karma that makes criminals commit their crimes. It is karma that punishment be meted out. I like to think that when the time comes I shall be able to temper justice with compassion.

  A Herculean task, I said. Bon Voyage!

  I saluted, and he threw back his head and laughed again.

  I found myself wondering if the act of passing the death sentence would bring a lump to the throat, make him come over all gulpy.

  It must have been a few years later I read an article about Humphreys in the Manchester Guardian, saying how much he had courted controversy in two high-profile murder trials. He had handed out the death penalty in both, the first to a young man named Timothy Evans, described as illiterate and possibly mentally retarded, the second to an attractive young woman, Ruth Ellis, who had killed her abusive lover. In both cases there was an outcry at the sentencing, fuelling calls for the abolition of capital punishment.

  Suzuki also told me Humphreys had again been heavily criticised, but for exactly the opposite reason insofar as he had given lenient sentences for violent crimes, in particular for rape and serious assault.

  Was he trying to restore some kind of balance? Did he go from one extreme to the other in search of a Middle Way? Tempering justice with compassion?

  The next time I had the opportunity, I asked Mrs Vining if she would tell me a little more about her experience of the trial. I understood from reading about it in the press that Judge Pal had become quite outspoken in his criticism of the whole procedure.

  We were in the grounds of Gakushuin, at the end of a working day, the air pleasantly warm. I was pushing my bicycle, she walking alongside.

  He is certainly a firebrand, she said.

  A pacifist firebrand?

  Yes!

 

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