The School at the Top of the Hill
Chapter 1 of The Family Business
Kobe, September 1965, a rainy, dreary day.
I was late to class, which had already been in session for several days. And late for the morning session. Already two strikes against. I was seated somewhere in the third row of desks. I looked around to see about thirty-odd kids attentively listening to the teacher. The boy sitting at the desk to my left was playing with his watch. Nice watch, I thought, and then noticed everyone looking at me. I glanced at the teacher, Mrs. Bluette, from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, whose eyes were fixated on me, an expectant look upon her face.
“Well, Martin?”
“What?,” I stammered.
Strike three…
Almost silent giggles from my classmates, unintelligible whispers, and a look of horror from the boy at the adjacent desk.
“We don’t use that word here,” she said, and turned to the class, raising her voice. “Class, tell Martin the proper way to ask for clarification…”
Thirty-odd voices, in unison: “I… BEG… YOUR… PARDON!!!”
“I beg your pardon,” I said.
I felt myself getting hot, knots in my stomach, sweat poised to burst from beneath my skin.
“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Bluette,” she said, “I could barely hear you, Martin… Say it again! Stand when you are spoken to!” She bent over her desk to make a notation in her notebook, no doubt next to my name.
“Sorry, I beg your pardon,” I said, standing, with the best voice I could muster.
For the rest of my first day in Second Grade, I tried not to make eye-contact with any of my classmates, but the boy to my left was determined to find a way to draw me out. During a break, he made a point to locate me and got my attention, taking off his watch, waving it in the air, and handing it to me.
“Here, put this on,” he said. “It’s a Seiko.”
“Ahh… a Seiko,” I replied, duly impressed, as we became instant friends.
Though I didn’t know it on that day, James Rivers, or “Jimmy,” was to be my best friend through High School. I am always amazed how small gestures of courage and kindness can have long-stretching outcomes.
Thus began my experience at The School at the Top of the Hill, where I would spend the next ten years sometimes embracing, sometimes resisting, somehow learning to be an educated, productive human, instilled with the social knowledge needed to navigate a multicultural universe.
The city of Kobe, Japan, rises quite suddenly out of Osaka Bay and is nestled into the many hills and peaks of the Rokko Mountains which meet the ocean at that end of the bay. The School, Canadian Academy, or C.A., an International School with excellent academic credentials, was perched at the tip of Nagamine-dai, halfway up Maya-san. From the classrooms, we could see, on a clear day, the giant mega-city of Osaka sprawled upon the Osaka Plain, and the blue Osaka Bay, all the way to Wakayama, on the opposite side, where the land takes a sharp turn to head out toward the Pacific, accented everywhere with all the many ships in port, and anchored snug along the shoreline.
During my first week, Dad would take me from our home in Itami to the train station at Tsukaguchi, in Amagasaki, where we would board either a Semi-Express or Local train of the Hankyu Electric Railway Company, headed in the direction of Kobe. We would alight at Hankyu Rokko Station and board the school bus which would eventually take us up the steep road to C.A. Coming home, Dad would meet the bus at Rokko Station, and we would catch the train headed for Osaka, changing to the Itami line at Tsukaguchi, and exiting at Inano, walking the rest of the way to our house. In all, an hour and a half each way.
After the first week, I was given a solo test, and it was determined that I could make the journey on my own. I soon learnt that books were good friends, and from that point, I was rarely seen without having a book in my hand. In the winter, as it was dark by the time I returned, Dad would sometimes meet me at the station. So I quickly became comfortable living in myself and came to enjoy solitude, though I was frequently comforted by the friendship of a good book.
(This is the very start of a novel I am writing called “The Family Business.” I will post and link sections as I complete them )