Lost In Transit
The Family Business, Chapter 8
Winter came.
It started with a chill in the air, and then suddenly, it seemed the trees had shed their multicolored cloaks and stood naked under blue skies and a bright, cold sun.
The crows, as usual, didn’t seem to mind the cold. There was much to glean from the empty rice fields, and they busied themselves doing whatever it is crows do. It was something I thought of in passing, but I never invested the time to know much about it.
Nights became longer, and longer shadows came earlier, and as the daylight became more scarce, my mood, little by little, began a slow journey into the shadows.
I started moving through a portal to an alternate universe, each day feeling more removed from the day-to-day activity going on around me, living in my head, and reaching out less and less to exchange life and conversation with fellow humans.
It seemed I always built this wall around me in Winter. I knew I would break out again in the Spring. But this year, I started to prepare myself for making another type of wall.
I had accepted a mission from Mr. Radler. Well, Jimmy Rivers and I had, to be entirely correct, though I would have preferred to go it alone.
“I want you to build a scale model of the Berlin Wall,” he had said, “and explain it to the class.”
He’d noticed my interest and skill in model-building during his visit to our home. I had built quite a collection of military figures and vehicles, painstakingly assembled from the many excellent scale model kits made by the Tamiya and Hasegawa companies. I had painted them to be almost real-looking, and they were displayed on every horizontal surface in my room. I was in the process of building a battle scene between German and American troops, complete with soldiers, tanks, artillery, and realistic terrain. He had seemed to be particularly impressed with that.
He handed me a manilla folder.
“There are some drawings in there to help,” he said, “but I expect you to do some research. Use the encyclopedias, both the British and the American. Good sources. You and Rivers are to work together on this. I expect good things from the both of you.”
We were studying the rise of Communism in the Postwar Era and had just learned about the Iron Curtain. Most of the time, I didn’t have much interest in history, but this part of history fascinated me, and the assignment would be a good challenge.
Jimmy and I arranged to work at his house in Takarazuka since his dad had converted their garage to a workshop.
Jimmy’s dad had offered to help us if we needed it. He had studied architecture at school and had some experience in building models. We decided to meet over the weekend to get started.
Saturday morning arrived as usual, but with a bit of an extra nip in the air, and I shivered as I stepped out of the house into a crisp morning. Thin white wisps of smoke rose from the rice fields on the way to the station as the bright sun warmed the moist ground.
As I walked, my crow friends taunted me, as was their custom.
Near the station, I took a slight detour to visit a stationery shop guarding a small covered marketplace.
The shop fronted the road leading to the station and straddled a narrow alley leading into the market. On one side of the passage was the main room where shelves were packed to the ceiling with the typical things stocked in such a store — paper, pens, pencils, inks, art supplies, candles, and incense. On the other side, a smaller room had a section dedicated to scale model kits of cars, airplanes, and military vehicles.
I was a frequent visitor to the store, and the proprietor greeted me as I walked in. I checked to see if there might be anything useful for the Berlin Wall diorama.
I found some figures and other odds and ends like barricades, sandbags, and oil barrels. I made a note of these items in my notebook, waved to the proprietor, and hurried toward the station, intent on getting the next train.
Once at the station, I showed the attendant my student pass to get through the gate, crossed the track, and waited for the train. Before long, a dark brown train pulled up to the station. No crowds on a Saturday morning, I thought, plopping down on a fuzzy green seat and fishing for a book in my bag.
Soon I was flying high up in the sky over France, accompanying Lieutenant Biggles in his Sopwith Camel, looking for the next target of opportunity.
Somehow I managed to change trains at Tsukaguchi and Nishinomiya without noticing and I looked up from the book just in time to run out the door at Nigawa, my final destination on the Imazu line.
I shook my head as if to clear it of historical fiction, then set out on foot to Jimmy’s house.
It was a bit of a walk from the station, up and around a hill, and I became slightly winded and a bit thirsty. Once again, I lost myself in my thoughts as I walked.
Suddenly, I found myself at an open door, shocked to be face to face with a girl about my height, with curly red hair and the bluest eyes I had ever seen. She was dressed in a green sweater, a short tan skirt, and a big smile.
I had unknowingly arrived at Jimmy’s house and rang the doorbell, which had been answered by one of his sisters. Jimmy had three older sisters who constantly tormented him. The one I was looking at now, Jenny, was a year ahead of us, in the seventh grade.
I felt my stomach tightening in a knot and my hands getting a bit clammy.
“Hi Martin,” she said, smiling at me. “Are you here to see Jimmy, or did you come to see me?”
My face suddenly felt really hot. I attempted to reply, but try as I could, no sound would come out. I swallowed, then stood there petrified, embarrassed, looking at her with my mouth open, wondering what was wrong with me…
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