Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 10:38:28 +1200 From: prime wordsmith Subject: Honor 06 Honor 06 I slid the door closed and reached up to him. Joshie stood there obediently. There was hope for him yet. I reached up to remove the house robe. He seemed to understand. Good Joshie. He allowed me to take it off. I gently set it aside. What next had me flummoxed. I supposed I did not need to remove that thin neckerchief affair, although I found it offensive. If you are going to wear a collar so your master can lead you or choke you, your master should have you wear something more elegant and yet more effective. Something in leather or heavy plaited silk would have looked much more pleasant. But I had learnt early that the all-conquering heroes had very little style. All brash brave bravado. So crass. So common. So lacking in finesse. Grandfather told me later that the neckerchief affair was called a tie. I supposed that was appropriate. You could use it to tie them up. But it was a little flimsy, rather inept and definitely too short. Maybe it was only a token indication of servitude. The officers I had seen all wore those ties too, so I supposed it was a symbol of servitude to their higher powers, perhaps their elected monarch, the president. I left the tie. The blouse could have got in the way too. But I was not going to interfere with his superiors emblem of possession. Since I was not going to remove his tie I could not see how I could remove his blouse. The belt holding up his trousers should not provide much problem. It had a big shiny buckle and was a little more ornate than needed. But I did not think it would be very complex in the undoing way. These sorts of trousers I had had experience with before. They were not like the Chinese varieties but were modeled after the English style. Father had had a pair he had obtained from a British officer. The British naval captain was an observer on one of our vessels in that short and sharp naval conflict of 1905. The Russian fleet was heading towards Port Arthur when our fleet intercepted it in the Korean Sea. The British officer said he was worried we were going to lose our pants to the superior firepower of the Russian fleet. He laid a bet with my father to that effect. Father accepted. If we won, the reward was the British officer's pants. If we lost, the British officer was unlikely to collect since Father believed in fighting to the finish. Father won the bet and the British officer insisted on paying his dues immediately. Father accepted. I think Father rather lost, because in accepting the British trousers he had to provide one of his ceremonial robes for the Britisher. There were no Japanese trousers on board which were long enough for the Englishman. A blanket was obviously out of the question. The ceremonial robe was worth far more in monetary terms than the officers trousers. But father was delighted. It enabled him to tell the story about how the Englishman lost his pants. I used to enjoy caressing the British captain's trousers. They sort of communicated to me. They were quite a different material to what I was used to and were constructed differently. I used to love doing and undoing the buttons all the way down the front. The two at the bottom were a little more difficult to undo than the rest. They seemed more stiff. I once asked Father if the English had used some sort of glue to deliberately stiffen them. Father went very quiet, and very still. He breathed very slowly and very calmly. I knew he was controlling. I could not fathom why he had to control because of my question. Maybe the glue was some precious secret I should not know about. I apologized and Father said nothing. The question had never been asked. So I had no problem with Joshie's trousers. His lower buttons were a bit stiff too. But I had become adept at doing stiff ones by practicing on the English captain's. I was pleased he did not have on those slow to remove street shoes. The house slippers came off at the same time as his trousers. He kindly lifted up first one leg then the other. It reminded me of taking my deer hounds for a walk amongst the trees on Grandfather's persimmon estate. They used to lift their legs there so smoothly and retain their balance so easily. My Joshie-hound was proving as poised. I began to feel confident that he would be able to direct his stream as effectively as my deer hounds did on the trees. White cotton undergarment. That was next. I did not know that the Americans used cotton to make their tents. They must have used cotton for light tropical tents. I knew they were always interfering in the internal affairs of the countries to the south of them in the Caribbean and in Central America. It was hot enough there. Maybe cotton was used for tenting down there. Joshie seemed to be proving the American use of cotton for tenting purposes. It was quite fascinating. I did not understand the compressional characteristics of cotton fiber so thought to try stretching it for myself. Or at least testing it where it was already stretched. The expression on Joshie's face was a little difficult to read. Not because it was enigmatic. Nor because he was hiding behind it. But because there were so many elements of expression on his face. I was unsure I could sort them out in the fraction of time before they changed and became lost. Life is so difficult when you have so much to learn. Grandfather had told me that it is better for life to be so difficult because you have so much to learn, than for life to be so boring because you have already learnt it all. I asked him if he found life boring. He said not yet. He expected that when he reached Kagoshima age. This was a new allusion for me. He explained. People of Kagoshima live on the far southern tip of our southernmost main island Kyushu. They have a very temperate climate there and do not suffer the rigors of a snowy winter. They live on the coast, but not the exposed coast. Their city is on a sound which extends north south and is enclosed on three sides. The end opening out to sea curves around so the sound is even further protected from storms and high seas. In the middle of the sound, opposite their city is an island they call Cherry Blossom Island. It is a quiescent volcano. About fifty years ago it last erupted and joined itself to the eastern side of the sound. He said it is very beautiful there. Hot springs abound and all the inhabitants of Kagoshima relax and recharge each evening in the hot springs. They are all long-lived there. They have the reputation of being the longest lived of our long living race of people. Some live to 130 or 140 years of age, by the lunar method of reckoning years. That is Kagoshima age. When he achieves that age, Grandfather said he suspected he might find life a little boring. But not before. I was relieved. Then I understood. Joshie was wearing such a complex expression because it was all so new for him. He still had much to learn. But he wanted to learn. That relieved me. When conquerors simply impose themselves without wanting to learn, when they are closed off like that, then clash and conflict abound. Admittedly wanting to learn indicates an awareness that there is much not understood. Lack of understanding can indicate confusion. But not wanting to understand indicates a deification of confusion. Confusion comes to reign supreme. This was not so with Joshie. He wanted to understand. I thought there was hope for the invaders yet. The cotton had a lot of give in it. Except where it was glued. It was quite stiff there and seemed to rub more noticeably against my fingers. It sort of flowed over my fingers in other parts. But where it was glued it was a bit rough on my fingers. I could not understand why Joshie wanted the glued cotton on the part nearest to his genator. The tip of my genator is the most sensitive part. Even warm moist air there can be too much at times. And yet he had this stiff rough part nearest to the tip of his genator, and some of it was warm and moist too. I did not understand so I slipped them off while pondering the significance of this interesting phenomenon. What a fine upstanding sailor this Joshie was. He saluted me as soon as he appeared from behind the cotton enclosure. He displayed battle wounds, unless he had got it caught in a large pencil sharpener. I wondered how he could have been wounded there. It seemed to have been massacred but yet so neatly. Father had told me not to ask his veteran friends how they came by their wounds. If they saw me showing interest, they would probably tell me the story of their injuries. Most would be proud to tell me. But some got their injuries in less honorable ways and might be reluctant to tell me about them. I had to allow them the free choice of telling or not. I was really interested in Joshie's wound and hoped he would tell me how he came by it. I hoped one of our soldiers had not caused it. But then again, down at the dock he had said that he had only just arrived in Japan. It would have to wait. I hoped he had noticed my interest. [If you would like this story to be continued please email me, Yoshi Torriati, at primewordsmith@hotmail.com Positive feedback would be greatly appreciated. Many thanks to David Spencer for editorial assistance and advice on English usage.]