At the beginning, Okuma-san worked both outside and in. Not only did he help with gardening, but he was also asked to keep track of invoices that were impaled on a sharp spike on a desk in the enclosed back porch of the main house. Mrs. Boyd had been looking after this task until we arrived, entering the figures in a black ledger. She showed Okuma-san what was expected, and he spent long hours over the invoices every week. Old furniture had been stacked up and pushed together at one end of the porch so there would be room at the other end for the office desk and the shelf above it.
Two local men worked in the gardens, and these men lived within walking distance in the town. Their jobs were to weed and harvest and look after the sprinkling system during the evening hours. One man was responsible for pruning the apple trees. He showed me how he had made inroad paths that allowed for both harvesting the apples and the reach of the sun. He showed me, too, the place where asparagus plants pushed up next to the trees, and he told me that in the spring, he tended them and kept them healthy. At night when I went to bed, there were new sounds and I could hear the rhythmic swish-tick of irrigating, the hum of water as it paused in the air before it fell to the parched rows all around.
Okuma-san pitched in outside wherever help was needed, and I helped, as well. All of this meant that there was little time for any other activity. The plank keyboard had followed us by bus to the Boyds’ address, and had arrived at our chicken coop one hot, dry afternoon. So far, it had not been touched. Nor had I opened the sketch pad that was tucked into the shallow drawer of my homework table.
Okuma-san did take an hour off work, however, to accompany me to school on my first day. We walked from the Boyd place at our end of the town, crossed a short field to reach Main Street and continued to the other end, where the school was located. It was a large two-storey building and contained classrooms for primary, middle and high school combined. High school students used the upper floor, all other grades the lower. I was to be in grade four.
Several laughing, playing children were standing around the entrance for the younger grades on that first day. Some of the smallest students were accompanied by their mothers, but most children were on their own. They were talking excitedly in raised voices, darting in and out of small groups and calling to one another. As we approached, everyone became silent and the crowd stood back to let us through. Most of the mothers looked at the ground when we passed, but the children stared at me and I had an uneasy feeling at the pit of my belly. I wondered if I might be getting sick. If so, that would mean I wouldn’t have to attend school after all.
Okuma-san ignored the stares and the averted eyes and walked into the building as if he knew exactly what to do and where to go. He led me down a long hall and around a corner to a second, shorter hall. He stopped outside a classroom that had a brass number four nailed above its doorway. The door was open, and I followed him into the room. We had not spoken since entering the school, and this made me uneasy because I wondered if he had been guessing the location of my classroom.
A young woman was standing behind the teacher’s desk and she looked at us and said her name was Miss Paxton. She seemed to be expecting us, and this surprised me. Her cheeks flushed as Okuma-san bowed slightly and presented her with an envelope that contained my report cards from the camp. The contents were supposed to be proof that I belonged in her class, though from the look on her face, I thought she was on the verge of denying this.
“This is my son, Bin,” said Okuma-san. “He has completed grade three, but he has also done much of the grade four work because he was in a mixed class last year.”
Miss Paxton looked at the envelope that had been deposited in her hand, but she did not open it. Instead, she pointed to a row of desks and told me to take a seat at the back. The other desks were spoken for, she assured Okuma-san, though he had not commented on this. He bowed his head slightly as he departed, and when he reached the doorway, he half-turned in my direction and nodded, making certain that I looked him in the eye before he left.
There was no time to think about my abandonment in this large, strange place because a bell rang out loudly and the building expanded like a bellows in response to the sudden noise. Children came from every direction, through the doorway and into the classroom, but they slowed when they saw Miss Paxton. They became completely silent when they saw that I was already in my seat at the back of the room. After one quick glance around, I knew that there was no one like me in the class—no other child with a Japanese face.
Every child seemed to know exactly where to sit. Perhaps some order had existed before school began. All I knew was that within seconds, every desk was filled. Order prevailed until a girl in my row held up a note and said she had to be near the blackboard because she couldn’t see properly. Miss Paxton nodded while she read the note, and had the girl exchange seats with a boy in the front row.
Miss Paxton then called for complete silence. We stood, sang “God Save the King” and recited the Lord’s Prayer, and the school year began.
To start off the day, Miss Paxton said, “Let’s take turns, class. As you all know, on the first day of school, we stand beside our desks, one at a time, and say our names out loud. Both names,” she reminded. “Last and first. I’ll begin. My name is Miss Paxton.” She said this as if Miss was her first name, and then she printed MISS PAXTON on the board.
As I was in the last seat of the farthest row, my turn came after everyone else had finished. I stood, pressed a hand to the back of my desk and said, “Okuma, Binosuke,” putting my last name first, because I was not certain what I should do. I sat down quickly.
The children laughed so loudly, I became confused and wondered if, instead, I should have given the surname of my first, and not my second, father. I stood again and the room went silent. I blurted out, “Oda, Binosuke,” and my cheeks felt as if they had been slapped.
“Did you just say two different names?” said Miss Paxton. She looked down at her attendance sheet and then back to me.
I nodded and sat in my seat.
“And how do you come to have two sets of names?” she said.
I told her I had two because I had once lived in the family of my first father.
“Stand up again,” she said. “How many fathers have you had?”
“Two,” I said, and quickly sat down again. All of this sitting and standing made the class laugh even harder.
“What kind of names are those, anyway?” Miss Paxton said. “What kind of names, class? Shall we hear them again? Stand up and tell us, so that we can understand.”
“My name is Bin,” I said, thinking that if I gave only my shortest name, no one would laugh.
“Bin,” said Miss Paxton. She printed
“Bin is not a name we use for children in this country,” she said.
“We say bin for dustbin or garbage bin, but it is not a name we give a child. We’ll assign a name that we can remember, an English name. We will call you Ben. Can you remember that?”
“Yes,” I said. And I wanted to leave this room and never come back, even knowing that Okuma-san would not let me stay home from school.
Miss Paxton printed
When the day was finished, I walked out the school door alone. Behind me, I heard a boy’s voice mutter: “So long, rice paddy. Don’t bother coming back.”
Okuma-san was waiting for me at the end of Main Street as he had promised. When he asked how the day had gone, I said, “Fine.” I told him nothing about Miss Paxton, nor did I tell him that my name had been changed back to an English name again.
But that was only the beginning. On my second morning, Miss Paxton said, “Stand up, Ben. Stand beside your desk and tell the class your mother’s name.”
I had only one mother, but I wasn’t certain if Miss Paxton was laying a trap. I did not want the class to know anything more about my family, so I stood and spoke quickly. “My mother’s name is Oda, Reiko.”
And the entire class, as well as Miss Paxton, laughed as if they would never stop.
Every morning, for the rest of the week, Miss Paxton made me stand and say the name of my mother aloud so that the class could start off the day with a good laugh.
Miss Paxton was my
