Last I joined Gunch again at his local - Machan's Okonomiyaki shop. When we arrived there were two customers, rather dapper looking old men in suits who were, of course, 67 (Gunch likes to tell me the age of everybody he knows, especially if they are sixty seven). Gunch had brought with him a huge bag of what looked like unopened pistachios. As he passed huge handfuls over to Machan's wife, he told me quietly and proudly that the two dapper customers used to be pro baseball players. To me this made them seem extra dapper. I had had the good sense to bring some South African tourist brochures with me this time and the baseball players poured over them paying particular interest to The Kruger Park. Pictures of lions being watched by tourists are always a winner.
Whereas before Gunch and I had shared an okonomiyaki, this time I had one to myself, Gunch being more interested in Sake. I wolfed it down unaware that it was not going to be the only thing I was presented with. I was subsequently presented with a pile of persimmons and the nuts I had thought were pistachios but weren't anything of the sort - Machan had heated them in a hot pan with salt and oil and showed me how to crack the papery shell to reveal an oily green kernel that tasted somewhere between a mielie and a peanut. When I declined beer (my stomach now fully distended and groaning) I was plied with umechu, a sweet plum wine served over ice.
Gunch drank steadily and when it was time to leave I was glad that we were headed in the same direction because he seemed at risk of toppling over. We must have made an odd pair shuffiling through the autumn evening towards the station; a gaijin girl in her new white coat pushing a bicycle and a sixty seven year old man fumbling his coat pockets for his cigarettes. Gunch has never smoked in front of me before but tonight he seemed not to care, he puffed away telling me stories about Mihara - how he had watched the elaborate construction of the shinkansen, how he new every nook and cranny of the town, his favourite bits and bits that had been destroyed by progressing industries. A few blocks before we parted ways (he was going to stay with his 92 year old father who lives not far from the station) Gunch told me that he might not be at Mihara high school next year. Why not I asked, shocked. He mumbled about not being welcome at the school, too old he said and also mentioned that he was not very well. Seeing him standing there in the dark, a bit sozzled and coughing up his 20 maybe 30 a day habit I was dreadfully sad, bur not surprised. I said "what will I do without you?" and he laughed and shrugged. Then we went our separate ways into the night, him probably unaware of how seriously I meant my question.
Its not that I hate my school. But Gunch certainly is the the best thing about it. My days would be much more grey, my japanese would plummet and my intake of experiences would taper off without his instruction and advice. Also I remember Nana, the lady that worked for my family my entire life, till I was seventeen saying that once you retire you begin to die. With nothing to do and no bus or train to catch first thing in the morning, you lose your focus and life beings to slip through your fingers. I fear this would happen to Gunch. He still has so much to teach the students, to teach me! Its selfish, but I need him. I dont want him to go away.
So I hope it was just the booze talking, but I fear it wasnt. I can picture all too clearly the principal hatching a plan to give this wonderful old man the boot. What Gunch's revelation has done is make me work harder for our lessons. Whereas before they were a certainty I now see them as a precious thing that like world oil, is running out.
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