My Secret Diary -- Part 4 (1987-88)
March 2, 1987
Freed by Guggenheim to actually write, I began drafting a new novel, but I must interrupt my work to begin that dismal exercise known as a book tour. I began today in New York where, after a fitful three hours' sleep, I awakened at 3:30, showered and put on makeup, and was downstairs by 4:30, my stomach growling. At 5:00 I was in a chair having more makeup applied.
Then the wait began, in something called a green room, where there was a buffet. A straw basket contained two dozen pastries laid out like playing cards, their sugary glaze giving me a headache from across the room. I didn't dare eat one and risk going hyperglycemic on national television, so I simply maintained a grim, upright posture. The only other person in the room was the boyfriend of a homosexual chef who was going to give a cooking presentation. The boyfriend couldn't eat any pastries, either; he probably had to watch his figure. So we sat and watched television, where someone was interviewing a medical expert.
At some point it dawned on me that we were watching the program I was actually going to appear on in a few minutes. It was strange to think that the source of those audio and visual emanations was a room down the hall, and real human beings. By that point I was starting to feel as insubstantial as the flickering television images, so I had a little orange juice.
Then I was called. A few moments later I was plopped onto a chair under lights bright enough to perform brain surgery under, and while two assistants buzzed over me with wires and tape and velcro, the woman who was going to interview me was speaking some sort of preparatory words to me, but I couldn't follow what she was saying. Then the assistants fluttered away, and a man was counting backwards in a loud strident voice.
The next thing I remember, I was in a taxi on the way back to the hotel. Somewhere, dawn was breaking. I realized I had just appeared on nationwide American television before something like five million people. But if you want to know what I said, you'll have to watch the tape, because I can't remember it at all.
March 15, 1987
Appeared at a bookstore in Louisville, which I keep confusing with St. Louis. A young woman presented herself to me and seemed to think I should know her. I smiled vaguely until she said, "You know! I was in your class last spring in M_______. You said my story was clever."
Little does she know that "clever" is, from me, not a compliment. I knew what was coming next. Sure enough, she presented me with a manuscript. When I murmured that I would like to talk to her about it at the end of the event, she practically glowed with excitement. But when I met her after the reading, it was only to give her the manuscript back and tell her I just don't have time to read unpublished work, that it's hard enough to keep up with my own. She did not get the joke.
August 1, 1987
Napa Valley workshop again. Is the fact that it's the only workshop I'm doing this year responsible for my feeling that all the laziness, stupidity and sheer illiteracy are concentrated in one group of 15 stories? I set aside a weekend two weeks ago to read them through. I thought I might be able to get through them if I did them all in one gulp, like a plate of unappetizing food one is expected to eat as the guest of an ethnic dignitary. But I couldn't stop myself from making extensive notes on each one, four times as many notes as I have time to deliver in the workshop, because one must make time for the other students to comment as well.
"I thought your scene specifics were good," said one lout to the person whose work was the subject of our critique.
"'Scene specifics,'" I repeated. "Could you tell us what you mean by that, and why you thought they were good?"
From the way his mouth opened and close without sound, I could see I might as well have asked him to say the Lord's Prayer in Xhosa.
October 14, 1987
Second anniversary of beginning my lessons with Mrs. Tanizaki. In my secret thoughts, I have been calling her "sensei," because I feel the false equality imposed by the American setting doesn't truly capture the feelings of devotion and obedience I feel in her presence. The other day she asked me to play a passage again, and it just jumped out: "Yes, sensei," I said.
She showed no reaction. But I played better than ever, and at the end of the lesson, as she opened the door to let me out, she said, "You are an interesting student."
I waited, but she said nothing more. Nevertheless, this is as close as she's come to encouragement, much less a compliment. The smell of the autumn leaves that struck me as she opened the door and uttered her statement formed a sense memory that imprinted itself on my mind. Now whenever I smell autumn leaves I will always remember her upright posture, her dry voice, and the firm line of her lips.
December 8, 1987
The Guggenheim people have renewed my grant. What a fabulous feeling, to be able to do nothing but write. Perhaps this country has some redeeming features after all. Aside from the fact that everyone can vote, that is.
January 17, 1988
A thought struck me today as I was practicing for my lesson. Playing the second section of the Liszt I suddenly realized that, while I hate teaching, Mrs. Tanizaki seems to love it.
At least I hope she loves it. I hope she loves teaching me, with her firmness and high standards and erect posture. If she didn't love it, wouldn't she slump the way I do when faced with a poor student?
But I am not a poor student -- I hope I am not. I try to be the very best student I can be, not only because I love playing the piano and want so badly to get better at it, but because she is so fiercely exacting.
I cannot make my students want to write as passionately as I do, or even as passionately as I want to play piano. But I can give them high standards, so that those who apply themselves can, at the very least, have something to aspire to.
Whether I dare to impose these standards on my own students is another matter. Her reserve, her insistence on excellence, the intense attention to detail -- these come naturally to sensei. I strive for the same effect, but it comes across as arrogance. But for that matter, when I use a word with more than two syllables, some students interpret it as arrogance as well. So I can't worry about what they think. Except for the matter of their student evaluations which, as department chairs continue to remind me, do figure in the hiring of visiting lecturers.
I suppose the best way to sum up my attitude toward students is with these tried-and-true words: Noblesse Oblige.
March 30, 1998
I was momentarily breathless today when Mrs. Tanizaki took my hands in hers for a moment. "Lift your hands, lift them," she said, as with her delicate white fingers she gently pulled my hands upward over the keys.
Surely she heard my thundering heart.
April 17, 1988
Trying to get Mrs. Tanizaki to touch me again, I deliberately let my hands go limp as I played the beginning of the Liszt. She signaled her displeasure with a sniff, and before I could even form the intention, my hands snapped back to their proper position.
Only the merest suggestion of displeasure, and I obey. If only my own students were as attentive. In fact, it is not a matter of obedience as much as fealty. Now I know the meaning of the Psalmist's words, "As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God."
Not that I need a religious faith: my obedience to sensei is religion enough for me.
June 12, 1988
Now that my daughter is 7, I thought it might be time for her to begin her own piano lessons -- and who better to teach her than my beloved Mrs. Tanizaki?
Clearly I had underestimated her. In response to my ever-so-polite, indirect, mere hint that she might deign to teach my daughter, sensei replied: "No. I never teaching a Caucasian children."
"I can understand that they are not raised with the same discipline as Japanese children--" I began.
She shook her head firmly. "Japanese children no good neither. Too middle-class, too looking-around. I only teach a Chinese children."
She lifted her chin a little bit, and seemed to gaze far off into the distance, perhaps toward a lofty, inaccessible, pure mountain peak. She said, "Chinese understand excellence."
One might think that I would be insulted. On the contrary, this rejection of my own offspring utterly thrilled me. Mrs. Tanizaki is above social niceties, above the notion that she owes me anything, and most of all, she is above taking a teaching job in order to make money. It is only this -- proof that she is superior to me, a hypocritical sellout who hates teaching but does it for the money -- that puts me to shame.
September 3, 1988
Hard at work on reviews and an essay for the NYR, I neglected my piano practice. Not so much -- but I was only able to practice five days this week instead of every day. And after all, it was Labor Day weekend.
Sensei was angry; she could, of course, tell the difference. She stopped me only two minutes into the rhapsody, and seemed to draw herself up. Though she is a tiny woman, there are times she seems to loom over me.
"You grow bored?" she asked. "Maybe you finished with piano."
"No, no," I murmured. "I love the piano, I love playing for you."
"Then why have you not practiced? What, you practiced only twice maybe?"
"No, several times... Just not every day."
"Maybe you bored."
"No, sensei, no."
The silence lengthened. Finally I whispered, "I had a lot of work to do. Writing, reviewing. I'm sorry."
"Don't say sorry. That's the one thing I like about America, nobody cares about sorry or not sorry. I hear on TV: 'Sorry doesn't cut it.' That's it exactly. I don't care sorry."
I tried very hard not to cry. "I promise I will practice every day."
But the lesson was over.
November 5, 1988
I had to go to New York to meet with my agent and sign some papers. In the past I stayed at the apartment of a friend, but this time I stayed at a midtown hotel, because they have a piano I can play. In the evening, after all the conventioneers and party guests have departed, I creep into a ballroom and sit down at the piano. The room is dark and vast and lit only by green EXIT signs, but I don't need light. I memorized Hungarian Rhapsody no. 4 long ago, and now I play it all the way through, then again, then faster.
My Guggenheim money is almost out, and I will have to teach again next year. But for now, I play in the darkened ballroom.
Freed by Guggenheim to actually write, I began drafting a new novel, but I must interrupt my work to begin that dismal exercise known as a book tour. I began today in New York where, after a fitful three hours' sleep, I awakened at 3:30, showered and put on makeup, and was downstairs by 4:30, my stomach growling. At 5:00 I was in a chair having more makeup applied.
Then the wait began, in something called a green room, where there was a buffet. A straw basket contained two dozen pastries laid out like playing cards, their sugary glaze giving me a headache from across the room. I didn't dare eat one and risk going hyperglycemic on national television, so I simply maintained a grim, upright posture. The only other person in the room was the boyfriend of a homosexual chef who was going to give a cooking presentation. The boyfriend couldn't eat any pastries, either; he probably had to watch his figure. So we sat and watched television, where someone was interviewing a medical expert.
At some point it dawned on me that we were watching the program I was actually going to appear on in a few minutes. It was strange to think that the source of those audio and visual emanations was a room down the hall, and real human beings. By that point I was starting to feel as insubstantial as the flickering television images, so I had a little orange juice.
Then I was called. A few moments later I was plopped onto a chair under lights bright enough to perform brain surgery under, and while two assistants buzzed over me with wires and tape and velcro, the woman who was going to interview me was speaking some sort of preparatory words to me, but I couldn't follow what she was saying. Then the assistants fluttered away, and a man was counting backwards in a loud strident voice.
The next thing I remember, I was in a taxi on the way back to the hotel. Somewhere, dawn was breaking. I realized I had just appeared on nationwide American television before something like five million people. But if you want to know what I said, you'll have to watch the tape, because I can't remember it at all.
March 15, 1987
Appeared at a bookstore in Louisville, which I keep confusing with St. Louis. A young woman presented herself to me and seemed to think I should know her. I smiled vaguely until she said, "You know! I was in your class last spring in M_______. You said my story was clever."
Little does she know that "clever" is, from me, not a compliment. I knew what was coming next. Sure enough, she presented me with a manuscript. When I murmured that I would like to talk to her about it at the end of the event, she practically glowed with excitement. But when I met her after the reading, it was only to give her the manuscript back and tell her I just don't have time to read unpublished work, that it's hard enough to keep up with my own. She did not get the joke.
August 1, 1987
Napa Valley workshop again. Is the fact that it's the only workshop I'm doing this year responsible for my feeling that all the laziness, stupidity and sheer illiteracy are concentrated in one group of 15 stories? I set aside a weekend two weeks ago to read them through. I thought I might be able to get through them if I did them all in one gulp, like a plate of unappetizing food one is expected to eat as the guest of an ethnic dignitary. But I couldn't stop myself from making extensive notes on each one, four times as many notes as I have time to deliver in the workshop, because one must make time for the other students to comment as well.
"I thought your scene specifics were good," said one lout to the person whose work was the subject of our critique.
"'Scene specifics,'" I repeated. "Could you tell us what you mean by that, and why you thought they were good?"
From the way his mouth opened and close without sound, I could see I might as well have asked him to say the Lord's Prayer in Xhosa.
October 14, 1987
Second anniversary of beginning my lessons with Mrs. Tanizaki. In my secret thoughts, I have been calling her "sensei," because I feel the false equality imposed by the American setting doesn't truly capture the feelings of devotion and obedience I feel in her presence. The other day she asked me to play a passage again, and it just jumped out: "Yes, sensei," I said.
She showed no reaction. But I played better than ever, and at the end of the lesson, as she opened the door to let me out, she said, "You are an interesting student."
I waited, but she said nothing more. Nevertheless, this is as close as she's come to encouragement, much less a compliment. The smell of the autumn leaves that struck me as she opened the door and uttered her statement formed a sense memory that imprinted itself on my mind. Now whenever I smell autumn leaves I will always remember her upright posture, her dry voice, and the firm line of her lips.
December 8, 1987
The Guggenheim people have renewed my grant. What a fabulous feeling, to be able to do nothing but write. Perhaps this country has some redeeming features after all. Aside from the fact that everyone can vote, that is.
January 17, 1988
A thought struck me today as I was practicing for my lesson. Playing the second section of the Liszt I suddenly realized that, while I hate teaching, Mrs. Tanizaki seems to love it.
At least I hope she loves it. I hope she loves teaching me, with her firmness and high standards and erect posture. If she didn't love it, wouldn't she slump the way I do when faced with a poor student?
But I am not a poor student -- I hope I am not. I try to be the very best student I can be, not only because I love playing the piano and want so badly to get better at it, but because she is so fiercely exacting.
I cannot make my students want to write as passionately as I do, or even as passionately as I want to play piano. But I can give them high standards, so that those who apply themselves can, at the very least, have something to aspire to.
Whether I dare to impose these standards on my own students is another matter. Her reserve, her insistence on excellence, the intense attention to detail -- these come naturally to sensei. I strive for the same effect, but it comes across as arrogance. But for that matter, when I use a word with more than two syllables, some students interpret it as arrogance as well. So I can't worry about what they think. Except for the matter of their student evaluations which, as department chairs continue to remind me, do figure in the hiring of visiting lecturers.
I suppose the best way to sum up my attitude toward students is with these tried-and-true words: Noblesse Oblige.
March 30, 1998
I was momentarily breathless today when Mrs. Tanizaki took my hands in hers for a moment. "Lift your hands, lift them," she said, as with her delicate white fingers she gently pulled my hands upward over the keys.
Surely she heard my thundering heart.
April 17, 1988
Trying to get Mrs. Tanizaki to touch me again, I deliberately let my hands go limp as I played the beginning of the Liszt. She signaled her displeasure with a sniff, and before I could even form the intention, my hands snapped back to their proper position.
Only the merest suggestion of displeasure, and I obey. If only my own students were as attentive. In fact, it is not a matter of obedience as much as fealty. Now I know the meaning of the Psalmist's words, "As the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the LORD our God."
Not that I need a religious faith: my obedience to sensei is religion enough for me.
June 12, 1988
Now that my daughter is 7, I thought it might be time for her to begin her own piano lessons -- and who better to teach her than my beloved Mrs. Tanizaki?
Clearly I had underestimated her. In response to my ever-so-polite, indirect, mere hint that she might deign to teach my daughter, sensei replied: "No. I never teaching a Caucasian children."
"I can understand that they are not raised with the same discipline as Japanese children--" I began.
She shook her head firmly. "Japanese children no good neither. Too middle-class, too looking-around. I only teach a Chinese children."
She lifted her chin a little bit, and seemed to gaze far off into the distance, perhaps toward a lofty, inaccessible, pure mountain peak. She said, "Chinese understand excellence."
One might think that I would be insulted. On the contrary, this rejection of my own offspring utterly thrilled me. Mrs. Tanizaki is above social niceties, above the notion that she owes me anything, and most of all, she is above taking a teaching job in order to make money. It is only this -- proof that she is superior to me, a hypocritical sellout who hates teaching but does it for the money -- that puts me to shame.
September 3, 1988
Hard at work on reviews and an essay for the NYR, I neglected my piano practice. Not so much -- but I was only able to practice five days this week instead of every day. And after all, it was Labor Day weekend.
Sensei was angry; she could, of course, tell the difference. She stopped me only two minutes into the rhapsody, and seemed to draw herself up. Though she is a tiny woman, there are times she seems to loom over me.
"You grow bored?" she asked. "Maybe you finished with piano."
"No, no," I murmured. "I love the piano, I love playing for you."
"Then why have you not practiced? What, you practiced only twice maybe?"
"No, several times... Just not every day."
"Maybe you bored."
"No, sensei, no."
The silence lengthened. Finally I whispered, "I had a lot of work to do. Writing, reviewing. I'm sorry."
"Don't say sorry. That's the one thing I like about America, nobody cares about sorry or not sorry. I hear on TV: 'Sorry doesn't cut it.' That's it exactly. I don't care sorry."
I tried very hard not to cry. "I promise I will practice every day."
But the lesson was over.
November 5, 1988
I had to go to New York to meet with my agent and sign some papers. In the past I stayed at the apartment of a friend, but this time I stayed at a midtown hotel, because they have a piano I can play. In the evening, after all the conventioneers and party guests have departed, I creep into a ballroom and sit down at the piano. The room is dark and vast and lit only by green EXIT signs, but I don't need light. I memorized Hungarian Rhapsody no. 4 long ago, and now I play it all the way through, then again, then faster.
My Guggenheim money is almost out, and I will have to teach again next year. But for now, I play in the darkened ballroom.
