“What are you doing, son?” the American soldier with the Japanese face asks.

“Drawing.” Seiji holds up a scrap of cardboard on which he has drawn a picture of his old neighborhood before Tokyo was firebombed and his neighborhood erased.

“Nice work!” the soldier says in Japanese. He squats down to have a closer look. “Is that all you have to draw on?”

“Mmmm, I found it over there.” He aims a charcoal-begrimed finger at a nearby trash heap next to the concrete remains of what was once an elementary school.

The soldier gets up, goes to his Jeep, rummages around for a moment, then returns carrying a sketchbook and some charcoal drawing sticks. Squatting down again, he says: “Would these work better for you, son?”

Seiji looks at the sketchbook and the charcoal, each piece wrapped in paper and sharpened at one end. The soldier’s eyes are kind. Giving a slight smile, Seiji nods his head.

“Then they’re yours.” The soldier smiles and pats him on the shoulder. “I have a son your age back home. Do you come around here often?”

Seiji takes a moment to answer. “Sometimes. It’s a nice place for drawing.”

“If you’re here tomorrow would you mind my stopping by? I have more drawing supplies in my office that I’ll gladly share with you.”

“Mmmm,” the boy replies without committing himself. Mother has warned him about American soldiers. But this one has a Japanese face and speaks Japanese. Perhaps it is alright. Getting to his feet, he gives the soldier a quick nod, bows, and runs home.


So begins the story of Tokyo artist Seiji Matsuda. Where did he come from? If you have a few moments, I’ll tell you.

Sometime in early 2009, Malaysian writer and editor Aneeta Sundararaj encouraged me to write a short story and send it to Professor Mohammad A. Quayum of the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, who was editing a collection of new Asian short stories. I thanked her but turned the idea down, pleading the obvious: though I live in Japan, I am not Asian. Persisting, she explained that his parameters were probably broad enough to include me.

But what would I write about? I hadn’t a clue. Going through some old newspaper clippings, I ran across a photo of the Tokyo firebombings in 1945, that I’d clipped from a Seattle newspaper in 2005. One of the devastated areas was Asakusa, one of my favorite Tokyo neighborhoods. In my mind’s eye was an eight-year-old boy drawing on a piece of cardboard in the middle of the devastation. The boy was Seiji. I had my story.

 

I wrote the story, sent it to Professor Quayum, and waited. Selecting it from nearly 140 submissions it was published in his book, A Rainbow Feast: New Asian Short Stories, published by Marshall Cavendish Editions, Singapore, in late 2010.  Then I made a discovery: There was a lot more to Seiji’s story than would fit into a short story. So a little over a year ago, I began writing my novel about the life of an extraordinary artist and human being named Seiji Matsuda, owner of a little art shop named Matsuda and Son on Nakamise Street, in Asakusa.

 

Seiji is a survivor, a visionary, a supremely talented artist, a teacher, a community builder, a loving husband and father, a funny guy, and a very good friend. Few are aware of the terror, pain and loss he experienced as an eight-year-old boy during World War Two, and what it cost him. Or what his friendship with the American Army sergeant would mean.  (I was as surprised as he was about that.) At five feet nine and a half inches tall, he’s taller than average for men of his generation, but if you were to see him in a crowd, you might not notice him, his rectangular-shaped face being so ordinary-looking that it is easily missed. It is his way of carrying himself, his presence, and the way his eyes probe so deeply everything around him that people notice.

“Who is that?” people ask.

“Him? Oh, that’s Seiji Matsuda. He owns Matsuda and Son over on Nakamise Street. You ought to drop in there sometime. It’s quite an experience.”

In the novel, that’s what people ordinarily do.


I’m nearly finished with the novel’s first draft — so close, in fact, that I can see it. Then I’ll edit and rewrite where it’s needed, run it by a couple of people for proof-reading, and send it to my publisher. But I’ll never bid goodbye to Seiji; he’ll be with me until I die, one of those unforgettable characters that I almost missed, and would have, had it not been for the persistence of a Malaysian writer / editor named Aneeta Sundararaj, and the kindness of professor from Malaysia who published my short story in his excellent collection of new Asian short stories, A Rainbow Feast.

Watch for the novel’s publication date.

(A Rainbow Feast: New Asian Short Stories is available online from The Book Depository (www.bookdepository.com)  (free shipping to most countries), Amazon, Amazon UK, Amazon Japan and your local bookseller.)