I agreed, cautiously. I was not accustomed to excessive kindness from teachers. But a friendship between us began that day.
Mr. Owen helped me to pay more attention to the natural world. He encouraged this so as to provide me with grounding. To start with basics but to be aware of every aspect of my own creations. “Look at what is around and between the objects you draw,” he told me. And I did. I began to focus on the spaces between, the angles and shadows, the fragmentation of light. I even began to wonder if I could draw these on their own: the shapes and groups of shapes above and between and below—instead of the objects themselves.
It was almost a decade later when I experimented in earnest this way, divorcing myself, freeing myself from being bound to actual objects, appreciating abstract shapes, real and imagined, and the ways they could exist for their own sake.
Along with Okuma-san, Mr. Owen helped me at the beginning of this journey. He challenged me to believe that every new drawing and painting deserved the excitement I gave to it as I searched for new forms that might bring it to life. Even when I was in grade eight, this was deemed to be important.
Some days, during those Friday afternoon classes, my classmates would ask Mr. Owen to tell us about the war. One time, he spoke about being a prisoner in Japan.
“I was weak,” he said, “and I had lost a great deal of weight. More than fifty pounds. My clothes were ragged; I had no shoes; there was little food to be shared. One of my jobs was to take deliveries from the factory in which I worked to a second factory, more than a mile away. I was given a heavy knapsack that was filled with metal parts, and told where to deliver it. I did not have to have a guard because there was no place for me to escape. If I had tried to hide, some of my comrades would have been killed in my place. In my weakened condition, barefoot, it was a long walk for me at the time. I had to pass through a remote village on the way. The village was poor and it was obvious that the people who lived there were barely scraping by.
“One afternoon, while I was walking past a small house, I became dizzy from hunger and from the heat, and I had to sit down at the edge of the road. An elderly couple came outside and offered water. Then they went back inside and came out with a small scoop of cooked rice. They helped me to stand, and I was able to continue. The scoop of rice and the water kept me going.”
Mr. Owen stared out the classroom window for a long time before he continued, but none of us spoke or tried to interrupt.
“I can never adequately explain to you what that meant to me,” he said. “Apart from the obvious fact that I stayed alive one more day.
“The old couple looked out for me after that, and helped me whenever they saw me on the road between factories, carrying the heavy knapsack. When they had extra food, they shared it. Sometimes it was nothing more than a fish head pulled from a watery stew. Sometimes it was a rice ball. They were probably putting their own lives in danger by giving me food, and I have always felt badly that I had nothing to give in return.
“When the war ended, before I left, I sat on the floor of my bunkhouse and made a drawing of the two of them, the man and his wife. I took it to them and said goodbye. I was able to leave them a ration kit, given to me by American soldiers. Many of my comrades had died from starvation and abuse in the prison factory. But I am alive today and standing in this classroom because one elderly Japanese couple who had almost nothing themselves were humane enough to help me.”
It is possible that after Mr. Owen told his story, I found myself in fewer fights at school. Certainly, my classmates and I remembered the story, because we talked about it several times, among ourselves.
I did borrow art books from Mr. Owen that year. Week after week, month after month, until I had gone through most of his library. One of his books was about Japanese woodblock prints, and some of the representations within reminded me of the scroll I had been given by Okuma-san. I took the book home to the chicken coop and showed it to Okuma-san, and we delighted in turning the pages, examining the uniqueness of the art. I was especially captivated by the way water had been drawn. Some waves looked like hard chunks of river. Others showed as soft ripples or shadows. I began to understand that there could be a soft or hard look to water, that there could be many ways of depicting rivers, that this was a matter of technique and of choice.
Mr. Owen also introduced the use of watercolours to our class, but I found this to be a difficult medium. We had many discussions—just the two of us—about the artists I had read about in his books. He gave me hope that some day I might be fortunate enough to stand before some of the great paintings I had seen on the pages, and witness them for myself.
At the end of the year, on the report card that would be presented to the college I was moving to in Ontario, the one where Okuma-san and I would once again restart our lives, I was given an A plus for my work in Mr. Owen’s class.
The two of us talked after our last class, Mr. Owen and I, and he told me, “Ben, there will be a great deal of pressure put upon you to be ordinary, to follow the norm, never to raise your head. Because of this, your art will become the most private part of you. The secret possession that you will guard the most.”
Okuma-san and I left the plank keyboard behind in the chicken coop, and Mr. Boyd drove us to the train station. Before we departed, I walked to Mr. Owen’s house and presented him with a watercolour I had painted. It had been a struggle, but I had done my best and I had created my own representation of the golden hills that edged the town. The golden hills and the sun-hazed sky that fell upon them. I signed the painting
REQUIEM
CHAPTER 26
I haven’t been successful in reaching Kay by phone, but I leave a message on her answering machine and tell her I’ll phone from the next stop. Basil and I are in Alberta now, just beyond the border, sitting in the sun at a picnic table that’s next to a gas station and truck stop. Basil has been well fed but he’s eyeing my hamburger, watching me chew as if he’s about to expire from starvation. We’re both happy to be out of the car, enjoying the spring air. It’s warm enough to be outside here, as long as I keep my jacket on.
A family, parents and two children, a girl and a boy, come out with hamburgers and fries, and join us at the picnic table. The boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, reaches for Basil, runs his fingers through his coat, and Basil responds with his groaning, contented noise, mouth open. When the boy lifts his hand, Basil nudges him for more, and then gives himself a good shake.
“His hair is pretty matted,” I tell the boy. “We’ve been on the road for over a week and he needs a good bath.”
The boy tells me they have a dog at home, a Dalmatian named Putty. Basil is on his best behaviour with this family. The boy tells me he’s going to study to be a veterinarian after he finishes high school. His mom and dad are ranchers, and his younger sister rides. She has her own horse and that’s what interests her. She gives me a shy grin and looks down, and she, too, gives Basil a few pats. The boy is so comfortable and easy around his parents, and around Basil and me, he reminds me of Greg not so many years ago.
When we’re back in the car again, I think of Greg the year he finished middle school. That would have been 1989, and Miss Carrie had invited us for dinner—a family night I had not forgotten.
