Mismatch

by Lensey Namioka

Several of the kids broke apart their wooden chopsticks but hesitated to start eating. Andy knew that most of them had learned to use chopsticks while preparing for the trip, but some of them were not sure how they felt about the strange food.

  “What’s this?” asked Nathan, pointing at a small sausage. “It looks like a hot dog.”

  Andy took a bite of his sausage. “It is a hot dog.”

  Hunger won out, and soon everyone was digging in. “I can’t believe how good that was!” said Ginny. “And I don’t even like fish!”

  The program for the afternoon included visits to some Buddhist temples. Andy knew the difference between a Shinto shrine and a Buddhist temple, but the guide had to explain to the others. “Shinto is the state religion of Japan. The Hachiman Shrine we just visited is Shinto. Buddhism, on the other hand, is a religion imported from India by way of China.”

  The guide took them to a Zen temple first. “Kamakura is famous for its five great Zen Buddhist temples. The Zen sect is particularly favored by the samurai class. We can say that Zen Buddhism began its rise here.”

  Sue suddenly spoke up. “Zen Buddhism actually began at the Shaolin Temple in China. That temple is also famous for being the home of the monks who developed the kung fu style of fighting.”

  Surprised, the guide turned again to stare at Sue. Andy grinned at Sue and gave a thumbs-up sign.

  The Zen temple they visited was Kencho-ji, which stood under a hill with ancient juniper trees. There was such a feeling of peace that Andy found it hard to believe that Zen was the religion of the samurai class and the warrior monks of Shaolin Temple.

  Even Ginny, usually the loudest of the students, fell silent as the guide told them all to stop and listen. They heard the liquid sound of a birdcall. “The bird is called an uguisu, or Japanese nightingale,” said the guide.

  The melodious birdcall made Andy think of Mozart’s Magic Flute. He was totally entranced by the call of the nightingale, the fragrance of the juniper trees, and the serenity of the temple. When the guide told them it was time to go, Andy was the last one to pass through the temple gate.

  Their next visit was to the Great Buddha. Andy had seen photos of the bronze statue, but he was still overwhelmed by the real thing. The half-closed eyes and the hands resting on the lap gave the figure a feeling of total calm and repose.

  On their way back to the bus depot, the guide allowed the kids a few minutes to browse along a shopping street, which was lined on both sides with stalls containing colorful merchandise. “Wow! Look at this scarf!” cried Ginny. A couple of the other girls also started picking up things: a tiny doll, a necklace, a miniature model of a shrine gate . . .

  Andy bought some postcards, while Sue looked over some of the things in one of the stalls. “I want to get something special for my grandmother.”

  “Why your grandmother?” asked Andy. “What about the rest of the family?”

  “Grandma was very upset at the airport,” Sue said softly. “I feel I really let her down.”

  Andy remembered the old woman’s fury when she found out his family was Japanese. “Are you going to let your grandmother rule your life?” he demanded.

  Sue shook her head. “No, I’m not!”

  That wasn’t good enough for Andy. “Sue, you’re not going to let your grandmother break us up, are you?”

  “Of course not!” Sue said quickly. “But I hurt her feelings, and I want to make it up to her.”

  Andy wasn’t completely satisfied, but there was nothing he could do. I’ve got to think of some way to take care of Grandma.

  Sue went over to look at some lacquerware in one of the stalls. “Our guide said Kamakura is famous for its lacquer,” she told Andy. “Maybe I can buy a dish or a bowl for Grandma.”

  Sue picked up a bowl whose outside was rough, unpainted wood, and whose inside was lacquered in bright orange. “Um . . . I like this,” she murmured, and turned it over to look at the price tag. She yelped and hurriedly put it down again.

  “Let’s wait until we get back to Tokyo,” Andy told her. Anyway, it was time to leave, and the guide was calling people over to the bus.

  “My dad will probably want a full report on the outing,” said Andy as the bus brought them back to Tokyo. The thought depressed him. He knew his father would want to hear how impressed he was, how at home he felt in this place he had never been to before. But Andy felt as much like an outsider here as his classmates.

  “You can tell him about seeing the Great Buddha and the Zen temples, and the stage where that lady was forced to dance,” suggested Sue.

  “Yeah, but those are the things other tourists talk about,” said Andy. “I want to tell him about some special experience I had, some connection I felt to the place.” Then he smiled. “I know what. I’m going to tell him about the nightingale!”

  10

  On Friday, the day after their excursion to Kamakura, the Lakeview orchestra went to the Kasei School for their first rehearsal.

  Again, Mr. Sato drove Andy and Haruko to the school. Andy felt well rested, and breakfast with the Sato family went more smoothly now that he was familiar with the routine. He made fewer mistakes, and when he asked for the jam in the correct Japanese, “Chotto, jamu o kochirai,” he saw approval in the eyes of the older Mr. Sato. At this rate, they might even begin to treat him like family. But the women, Mrs. Sato and especially Haruko, still looked at him with disapproval.

  Haruko and other Japanese students went off to their classes while the Lakeview kids waited for Mr. Baxter. He showed up a few minutes later, and Andy thought the conductor looked slightly tense. His shoulders were hunched, and he chewed his lips for a few seconds before addressing the players. So I’m not the only one su fering from stage fright.

  Mr. Baxter took a deep breath. “Okay, people, the principal tells me that the auditorium is now open. Let’s go in. We’ve got some rehearsing to do.”

  It was one of the worst rehearsals Andy had ever played in. The orchestra was still not completely recovered from jet lag. Andy, like other string players, found that his fiddle had to be drastically retuned. Maybe it was the change in altitude from the flight, or the high humidity in Tokyo. The bassoon player complained that his reeds were sulking, and he played an ugly blaht to prove it.

  Andy became even more nervous when Laurie told him that the conductor of the Kasei orchestra was in the auditorium listening to them. When they broke for lunch, the conductor came up to talk to Mr. Baxter, and Andy heard some of the exchange.

  “You’ll have to excuse us,” Mr. Baxter was saying. “The players haven’t gotten over their jet lag yet. And I’m not doing much better.”

  “Please don’t worry,” said the Kasei conductor. “Our orchestra had a hard time, too, when we first arrived in America. You’ll be fine in a couple of days.”

  The Lakeview players ate in the lunchroom with the Kasei students. The lunchroom had narrower tables than the ones at Lakeview, and it was a lot more crowded. Space was simply more limited. That was the impression Andy had of the school building as well. Otherwise, things didn’t look all that different.

  In the lunchroom, some of the Lakeview players went to sit with students from their host families. Andy looked around for Haruko and found her already at a table with Mia and Ginny. Andy and Sue went over to join them. Squeezing himself into the space on the bench, Andy thought that it was almost like being back in the Lakeview lunchroom.

  A Japanese student sat down next to Andy. He spoke a little English, and he and Andy began to compare school schedules. “You already on vacation,” the Japanese boy said enviously. “Our summer vacation starts at beginning of August, and it lasts only one month.”

  “No kidding!” said Andy. I guess American students are pretty lucky. “What are you planning to do on your vacation?”

  The Japanese boy made a face. “Before I enjoy vacation, I have science project to do.”

  Andy was puzzled. “Then who grades your homework? Your teacher for this year, o
r your teacher for next year?”

  The Japanese boy explained that the new school year in Japan didn’t start in September. “I still have same teacher after summer vacation. I don’t go up to next grade until April first.”

  It became too strenuous for the Japanese boy to continue the English conversation. He exchanged a few polite phrases with Andy and went back to talking in Japanese to his friends on the other side.

  With Haruko busy talking to Mia and the Japanese student talking to his friends, Andy and Sue found they had some privacy. It was almost like being at Hero’s again, except that the food was different. Instead of a sandwich, Andy had a little plastic bento box provided by Mrs. Sato. It contained a simpler version of the bento he had eaten in Kamakura. “What have you got for lunch?” he asked Sue.

  Sue showed him a plastic box containing a slice of meat with some vegetables and potatoes. “It comes from Mr. Chong’s convenience store,” she said.

  Just then, Haruko broke out laughing as she chatted with some of the Lakeview students. The sound of her laughter grated on Andy. “I don’t think Haruko has ever laughed at anything I’ve said,” Andy said to Sue. “What’s so funny about Mia and Ginny?”

  Sue frowned. “I don’t get why she bothers you so much. She’s not a nice person. Get over it.”

  “Yeah, but then she’s nice to Mia and Ginny. I don’t understand it,” said Andy.

  “She’s the one you wanted to write about on that wooden plaque in the Kamakura shrine, right?” asked Sue.

  Andy nodded a little defensively. “Yeah, well, I just got tired of being sneered at all the time.”

  “But she seems nice enough now,” said Sue.

  Andy sighed. Nobody understood how weird Haruko was with him. She was sweet and friendly at school, so they assumed she must be the same way at home. “She’s mean to me, but as soon as she meets the other Lakeview kids, she’s all smiles. So she’s Dr. Jekyll with them, but with me, she’s Mr. Hyde.”

  Sue shrugged and turned back to her meal. Andy didn’t know whether she was annoyed at him or what. He decided to drop it.

  Soon it was time for the afternoon rehearsal. After the break, the first piece they rehearsed was the Bach double violin concerto.

  Andy and the concertmaster walked up to the front of the stage. He hoped he didn’t look as scared as his fellow soloist. “Pray a lot,” whispered the other boy.

  As the orchestra launched into the introduction of the concerto, Andy found that his right hand was aching from clutching his bow so hard. He needed serenity. The thought of serenity suddenly brought a vision of the garden at the Zen Buddhist temple they had visited in Kamakura. The crisp, sharp notes of the music reminded Andy of the sharp rocks in the garden. He found that he was finally able to relax the deathlike grip on his bow. The first solo passage, played by the concertmaster, echoed the orchestral part. Then it was time for Andy’s entrance as the second soloist; from his instrument came the same jagged notes, but played in a lower register.

  The second movement was the real test for Andy. It opened with his solo, a slow, almost agonizingly beautiful line. Andy thought of the liquid notes of the nightingale at Kencho-ji Temple. Then he remembered the half-closed eyes of the Great Buddha at Kamakura, and he half closed his own eyes. The total calmness in the face of the statue brought him the needed focus. The swirls in his melodic line were like the swirls in the robe of the statue. When he finished his passage, he opened his eyes and glanced up at the conductor. Mr. Baxter was smiling at him.

  The concerto was the turning point for the orchestra. The last piece they rehearsed was actually their opening piece for the concert, Schubert’s Rosamunde Overture. It was a lively, cheerful piece and a crowd pleaser. True, they played a few wrong notes here and there, but Andy knew the Lakeview orchestra was going to make it.

  As the players began to put their instruments away at the end of the rehearsal, the Kasei conductor came up to congratulate the two soloists of the Bach concerto. “Suzuki?” he said, looking at Andy. “You’re Japanese, aren’t you?”

  “No, he’s American,” Mr. Baxter said firmly.

  When Andy met Sue in front of the school, he found that he was starved. He grinned at her. “I need one of Hero’s supersized sandwiches, and I need it fast!”

  Sue grinned back, and Andy suddenly wished that they could be sitting across from each other at Hero’s, just the two of them. Things seemed less complicated there.

  The Kasei students began to stream out, and Haruko walked up to Mia. “Goodbye, Mia,” she said. “It was so much fun for me to get to talk to some American kids.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Mia, looking puzzled. “Hasn’t Andy been staying with you?”

  Haruko flicked a glance at Andy and turned back to Mia. “Well, he’s not a real American.”

  Mia’s mouth dropped open. “Of course Andy’s a real American!” she said. “He’s as American as I am!”

  “But he can’t change his looks, no matter how many years he lives in America,” said Haruko with a sniff. “He’ll never look completely American.”

  “Look, Haru . . . uh . . .” Mia paused and took a breath. “Americans come in all shapes and colors. We don’t all look exactly the same.”

  Andy thought the orchestra had done pretty well on Friday afternoon, so he was surprised at how picky Mr. Baxter was when they rehearsed on Saturday morning. He made them play some passages four or five times. He even criticized the concertmaster, who normally played faultlessly. Andy couldn’t hear anything wrong with the concertmaster’s playing, and he dreaded what Mr. Baxter would say when it was his turn.

  Sure enough, when Andy started playing his solo in the second movement of the Bach concerto, Mr. Baxter pounced on him. “Smoother, smoother!” he shouted. “This is supposed to be legato, for God’s sake!”

  Andy half shut his eyes again and tried to picture the calm face of the Great Buddha. Mr. Baxter’s voice seemed to come from a distance, and Andy played almost in a daze. He just hoped he could recover his serenity on the day of the concert.

  When Mr. Baxter finally called an end to the rehearsal, the players were close to collapse. Andy saw that Laurie was almost in tears.

  Mr. Baxter cleared his throat. “Well, folks, you probably thought I was a bit hard on you.”

  There were groans from the players. “We weren’t all that bad, were we?” asked a trombone player.

  “You weren’t bad at all,” said Mr. Baxter. “In fact, if you play as well as this at the concert, you’ll be okay!” When some of the players started to protest, Mr. Baxter raised his voice. “I was hard on you because this is my last opportunity to really pick on you.”

  “Aren’t we going to rehearse this afternoon?” asked one of the players.

  “There’s school on Saturday morning, but not in the afternoon,” explained Mr. Baxter. “So we can do what we want for the rest of the day. My advice to you is to take it easy and get some rest. God knows I can use some myself!”

  “What about tomorrow?” asked Mia. “Aren’t we going to rehearse?”

  Mr. Baxter shook his head. “Tomorrow is Sunday, and the school is closed all day. That’s when you get your chance to do some sightseeing in Tokyo. So have a good time, folks, and I’ll see you on Monday! We’ll have a short and sweet rehearsal in the morning, and then we wow them at our concert in the evening.”

  Andy wasn’t going to argue with Mr. Baxter. After that rough rehearsal, he wanted to spend the rest of the day as a couch potato—a mashed potato. As the kids left the auditorium, he asked Sue what she planned to do on her free afternoon.

  “I’m going to take Mr. Baxter’s advice,” she said, and smothered a yawn. “I’ll just stay at the Chongs’, write postcards, and catch up on sleep. That’s about all I’m good for. What about you?”

  “It depends on the Satos, I guess,” said Andy. Too bad he couldn’t invite Sue over to be his fellow potato. “I’ll have to ask Haruko what her plans are this afternoon.”r />
  After lunch, Mrs. Sato apologized to Andy. “I’m sorry, Andy-kun, but Haruko won’t be able to take you sightseeing this afternoon. She has to go to school.”

  “I thought there’s no school on Saturday afternoons,” said Andy.

  “It’s a special school that will help Haruko with her mathematics and social studies,” explained Mrs. Sato.

  Andy was surprised. “Isn’t Haruko doing well in school? She seems pretty sharp to me.”

  Mrs. Sato explained. “Haruko will soon be taking her entrance examinations for college. We want her to do really well.” She looked curiously at him. “Don’t you have examinations for colleges in America?”

  “We do,” said Andy. “They’re called SATs, or Scholastic Aptitude Tests. The test results help colleges decide whether to accept us—that, plus our grades.”

  Mrs. Sato nodded. “It’s the same in Japan. We all want our children to go to the best schools.”

  Andy knew that in America some colleges had more prestige than others—the Ivy League schools, for instance. But he didn’t personally know of anybody going to a special cram school. The competition seemed to be tougher in Japan.

  As Andy watched Haruko glumly walking out the front door, he began to feel a little sorry for her—a little, but not much. At least he wouldn’t have to look at her scowling face all afternoon.

  He took a long, refreshing nap, and when he woke up he called Sue to see how she was doing. Her voice sounded a bit groggy when she answered. “I just woke up from a nap. How about you? Is Haruko going to take you around?”

  “Haruko is going to a special cram school this afternoon,” Andy told Sue. “It’s to help her with the entrance exams for college. There’s cutthroat competition to get into the good ones.”

  They talked a little more, and Andy finally hung up. He stared at the phone and suddenly felt a strong urge to see Sue’s face, to see that mischievous little smile . . . Hey, what if I go out on my own and look for Sue? Maybe I can call her again and ask for directions to the Chongs’ house.

  Then he looked at his watch and saw that it was already four o’clock. It might take him hours to find the right subway and buses to take, and even if he found the right street, he wouldn’t recognize the house. He sighed. It just wasn’t going to happen.