The Last Samurai

She said: I think she’d been taught by her father, who was a mathematician.

If I had had a mathematician for a father I could probably have beaten the record.

I said: Well what’s the youngest anyone ever did classics?

Sib said she didn’t know.

I said: Younger than 11?

It seems unlikely, said Sib, but we can only surmise.

I said: Do you think I could go?

Sib said: Well you probably could but how would you ever learn quantum mechanics?

I said: But if I got in at 11 people would say all my life that I got in at 11!

Sib said: They certainly would. She said: Or I could give you a piece of paper certifying that you read Sugata Sanshiro in the original Japanese at the age of 6 and all your life people would say you read Sugata Sanshiro in Japanese at the age of 6.

I said: What do I have to do to get in? Do I have to read a lot about chess endings?

Sib said: Well, it worked for RD.

Sib seemed to have no interest at all in helping me set a record. I argued with her for a long time until at last she said: Why are you saying all this to me? Do whatever you want. If you pay £35 you can go to as many lectures as you want; the RATIONAL thing to do would be to pay £35 or whatever it is, get the lecture lists, go to whatever looks interesting, collect reading lists, go through the reading lists, decide on the basis of evidence which lecturers are moderately competent teachers, decide on the basis of evidence which fields you are interested in & who is doing interesting work in those fields; collect further evidence at OTHER universities (assuming THEY let in paying guests) by going to lectures given by the interesting people to see whether they are reasonably competent teachers & then decide where to go when you are about 16.

SIXTEEN! I said.

Sib began to talk about boring people she knew who had got jobs at Oxford & someone brilliant who had just gone to Warwick.

I did not say WARWICK! but Sib said drily that I would have of course to weigh very carefully the benefit of studying with someone brilliant against the undoubted drawback that people would merely say all my life (if they bothered to mention so uninteresting a fact) that I had gone to Warwick at the age of 16.

I could see that at any moment she was going to start talking about Sugata Sanshiro so I said quickly that we could talk about it some other time.

I said: Aren’t you supposed to be typing The Modern Knitter?

Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure; all take their turns of retardation, said Sib. I’m up to 1965.

I said: I thought you were going to finish it by the end of the week.

Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance, said Sib, was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker’s mind. He that runs against Time, has an antagonist not subject to casualities.

Sib went to the computer and typed for five minutes or so and then she stood up and sat on the sofa and turned on the video.

Kambei raised the bowl of rice. I understand, he said. No more shouting. I’m not going to waste this rice. Fair enough, said my father.

Tough-looking samurai strode up and down the street. In a doorway stood the farmers, impressed, Katsushiro, impressed, Kambei, arms crossed, unimpressed. Thanks, said my father. I mean that.

Kambei sat inside facing the door. He handed Katsushiro a heavy stick. Hide behind the door, he said. Get in position. Take the overhead-sword stance. Hit the samurai when he comes in, hard. No holding back! As hard as you can. Fair e

I stared at the screen. Katsushiro stood behind the door. I stood up and began walking up and down while a samurai came through the door and parried the blow.

Now I did not hear my father’s voice or see his face; though the film had moved on I saw in my mind a street full of tough-looking samurai, and Kambei in a doorway watching the street.

In my mind I saw Katsushiro standing behind the door with a stick. I saw Kyuzo slicing through a blustering second-rater. But a good samurai will parry the blow.

I thought: I could have James Hatton after all! Or Red Devlin. Or both!

I thought: I could have anyone I wanted!

I thought: Opening middle game endgame.

I thought: A good samurai will parry the blow.

I thought: A good samurai will parry the blow.

I looked at Sib’s paper & it said that HC was about to walk across the former Soviet Union, and that he was planning to go alone.

I thought, HE could fight with swords. Here I thought was a man to challenge, a man who knew 50 languages, a man who had faced death a hundred times, a man impervious to praise and ridicule alike. Here was a man who on meeting his son for the first time would SURELY encourage him to go to Oxford at the age of 11, or at least take him on an expedition instead.

The paper did not say where he was staying.