Mahayk and the Barber of Lyle: Book I the Night Tokyo Burned

By Norman S. deLisle

Synopsis
MAHAYK AND THE BARBER OF LYLE
This literary novel is about a twelve-year-old Japanese violinist, who has lost everything when 360 B-29 bombers have burned Tokyo in 1945, becomes a Gamigaze pilot. During his mission, US Task Force 78 shot him down in Korea Strait. General Ma Halbin who survived Tragic Long March of the Red Army and fought the Japanese all his life until being fatally wounded and disabled by the Japanese attacks in Yenan, saves this enemy boy. The boy fights Korean War; becomes a commander; and exiles to America accused of plotting a coup detat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 20, 2008
• ISBN: 9781477160329

Norman S. deLisle

Norman S. deLisle was born in 1943; WWII destroyed his family in 1945; came to America in 1964 and vagabonded until meeting his bride. He earned degrees––a BA, MA and MS––but missed his PhD by failing dissertation, and quit 16 years of schooling working odd jobs. When his wife died in 2000 after 32 years together, he has been living alone a hermit so devastated with his two cats, Cindy and Taro, going nowhere, totally withdrawn from society, calling or visiting nobody, just reading or writing in Lisle, Illinois.

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Copyright © 2008 by Norman S. deLisle.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2007908635

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4363-0037-7

Softcove                                 978-1-4363-0036-0

Ebook                                      978-1-4771-6032-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

– Published by arrangement with Hermit house Publisher

– Cover Photograph from Wikimedia Commons

– Author Photograph by Tina Welch, D’lara Photography

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgment

BOOK I

I’ll Play It Again

No Music in Gdansk

The Bridge of No Return

The Last Meal

BOOK II

A Little Boy Named Mahayk

Josun, the Land of Morning Calm

Shihung Defense Command

Farewell by Destiny

BOOK III

Summer ’57

Gypsy Air

The Barber of Lyle

About The Author

About the songs

In memory of

CARLA KIM,

whose love helps life endure;

in memory of my grandmother-in-law,

M. MARIE MAYNARD,

who devoted her whole life to the family;

and for my mother-in law,

BARBARA KOKENES,

who has long sacrificed for the family

Acknowledgment 

Before Paula and Bill Demlow, I drop my knees to earth bowing my head low to offer my deepest gratitude for their heed on this project. When I readied writing this story, accepting an early retirement at age 59 in 2002, they bought me five basic books for the dummies helping me move forward. Then, they provided delicious gourmet coffee every month through out the entire following year. They secretly rallied their grown-up kids, David, Lori, and Keri, and her sister Stephanie and her husband Gary Loofboro and their grown-up kids, Jarret and Jana, in Bohemian Restaurant to boost my morale by a banquet on my 60th birthday.

With my heart and soul, I thank editors—Donna Miller, Rhonda Snelson, Suzan M. Rey-Olson, Theodore O. Wagner, Alessandra Lopez, and Kathrina Lorilyn Monique Garcia—who kindly read the draft and offered valuable comments and helpful suggestions to improve the work. I also thank Tina Welch—D’Lara Photography, 4941 Main Street, Downers Grove, IL 60515—who took my picture and retouched presentable my less than handsome old face.

I respect the works of Alessandra Lopez and Rhoda Dejito who copyedited the draft of this volume. I must also thank Sarah Scofield and Cheryl Gratz who believed in this story more than the author. Cheryl was the initial contact; then Sarah took over and ultimately introduced this volume to the world. Sarah also discovered the images to be used for the cover. Also appreciated are Frieda Lovett who coordinated all the production works with the author. Frieda applied the final retouch work to the production. George Mathew also involved in final retouch works while Ivan Agustin and Ronwaldo Rey Puzon completed the interior and the cover design including the battle scene which required intricate graphic knowledge.

Still more appreciations are extended to the following teachers who are all PhDs, but doctoral titles are dropped here for brevity: Harley M. Upchurch, Stanley M. Trail, and Robert Suchner. These teachers first trained me into writing to finish successfully the thesis in 1971. They were enraged with my poor writing, but also ultra patient. I never forgot them. I continued my drill to do better even though I left them by graduation thirty years ago.

Another group of teachers, also all PhDs, to whom I owe my thanks are Donald Ostberg and Rodney Angoti who punished me when I failed. Also, I must thank the all-time departmental patriarch, Eugene Singletary, Ross Overbeek, John McCharen, Dennis Cudea, and Peter Lawes. Ross Overbeek was the main man who designed my future. Overbeek taught me, trained me and refreshed me when I fell behind. Peter Lawes was the man who rescued me throwing a rope when I was drowning in the technology waters and gave me an unfailing guidance for my life. I owe them all for what I am today. I also thank Robert Everett, who always granted tuition waver for all the B-average semesters.

One more group of people I must add is the former co-workers who truly believed the author’s intention to write; bought five writing start-up books; and handed over at the goodbye get-together. Those books provided the first-hand strength to begin the project. They are Carol A. Jones, Ronald Barnes, Steven Bytnar, John Jerome, Thomas Robert Solon, Jeffrey Nelson, Daniel Tregoning, Drew Toskatos, Steven Freund, Stephen Groce, William Carlberg, Theresa Hill, Fang Hungchin, Susan Muller, Joseph Saavedra, Lawrence Kociolek, Lamont Lucas, Ellen O’flaherty, and Lori Gazdowicz.

Thank you again, God bless you all!

BOOK I 

The Night Tokyo Burned

I’ll Play It Again 

1

The little boy had begun to play violin at age four, tutored by his mother, a schoolteacher for children. His father was a young officer of the Japanese Imperial Navy, constantly moving in the sea. He had never settled in one place long enough, serving sometimes at the naval bases of the Combined Fleet at Hiroshima and elsewhere, and other times at an office of the Naval General Staff in Tokyo. He followed increasingly unpredictable orders in the air of possible wars.

We are in Tokyo now, I never know for how long! the father and husband said, as the others listened. Not wealthy but with both husband and wife working, they lived modestly and were in good health. The family of five—the father, the mother, older son of school-age, daughter the middle child also of school-age, and the younger son, the little music boy—wished only to stay in union for a while. They were all beautiful and charming people. They would be in Tokyo together for now.

We’ll always be prepared to go wherever you go! said the wife, pledging from her heart.

Any arrangement for his violin lesson? said the father.

Meiji Institute! Too young to enroll, just a child prodigy! said the mother.

My boy is wasting his time, and you are not a help at all! the father grumbled.

During their time, Japan had not assimilated the Western music. Violin was not well known to draw large audience yet. Although inquisitive into the new wave of sounds, people considered them as foreign curiosities. Only a handful of amblers gathered around if they performed in the street.

Ordinary Japanese knew only such traditional entertainment as bunraku (puppets show by muted operators with chanting narrators caroling puppet characters’ fears, joys, and sorrows to the string music accompaniments); gabugi (exclusive male-only stage show in traditionally colorful Japanese costumes and heavy facial makeup); noh (spiritual connective between the living and the dead delivered by everyone in the show: dancers, drummers, flutists, singers and zithers); sarugagu (thick-painted unmasked performers singing witty monkey music satirizing cast off samurai, faithless monks, or salacious wives); ragugo (an actor’s emotive soliloquies sitting on a square cushion at the center of stage); manzi (duos sing and dance and barter playful banters and tricks on daily life themes); and yose (variations of ragugo and manzi).

These entertainment use such traditional instruments as biwa (Japanese lute), godo (plucked zither like harp with thirteen to seventeen strings), saguhaji (flute), shamisen (three-string heron-necked mandolin endeared by geishas), daigo (drum). The list can go on and on, but no violin.

This is a naval family—his great-grandfather, grandfather, and me now! His grandfather is the classmate of Admiral Yamamoto Isorogu. See that? he said, his posture insistent.

Fine. When he grows up, he goes to the navy, but until then, he plays violin! she said.

The deep culturally fortified society availed the boy little opportunity to succeed with violin. It deviated from their past order. His parents envisioned him to follow the family’s samurai legacy. It meant to command, not entertain people. Violin was an unprepossessing paradox to his future.

Who is going to teach him? the father said.

Don’t know. I’ll find out when I take him to the institute! she said.

Japan, at the time, was in dearth of violinists, as well as schools or public programs that included violin as integral instruments. During the ’30s and ’40s, there were scarcely enough musicians schooled to teach violin comparable to Western advancement. If there were any, they were within their narrow confines of private circle, and the public remained unaware of their presence. Not only was it hard to acquire instrument parts and music sheets, but it was difficult to find an educational opportunity. Japan is an old country full of native civilization. The traditional musical development the Japanese enjoyed the most had been derived from bushido, samurai, and Shinto into the mainstream. Other life themes and the nonnatives were absorbed in their mundane indigene.

2

The boy was six years old, still learning the rudiments of music from various random sources—anybody who could show him how to play. It was then when Lydia Fenesta, a lady working in the cultural attaché division of Italian embassy in Tokyo, called. The call was in response to a query about Italian music schools for the boy she made after she has learned that her husband has been ordered to Rome to serve as a naval attaché representing the naval general staff of the Japanese Imperial Navy. She rushed over to pick up the phone receiver off the craned neck of the varnished chestnut-brown-boxed Graham Bell telephone sitting on top of a small chest of drawer. She held the receiver to her ear with one hand and drew the speaker to her mouth with the other hand. Except for the static interference, her response was clear.

"Moshi, moshi. gojirawa Harugo desu (Hello, hello. This is Harugo)!" she said.

The mother did not speak Italian, but Lydia spoke Japanese, so the phone conversation went on. With sweet singing voice, Lydia explained in slow and kind clarity.

Mrs. Harugo, this is Lydia Fenesta of Italian embassy. I’m calling regarding your query about violinists in Rome! Lydia said.

Yes, yes, Madam Lydia! said the mother.

Well, I tried a couple of well-known names—Camillo Sivori and Antonio Bazzini—who are famous in Europe, not just Italy, but they are not in Rome right now, continued Lydia. But I found some still in Rome. So before you depart for Rome, stop by my office for details about them and also about Santa Cecilia School of Music too! Lydia added.

I will certainly do that. Thank you so much, Madam Lydia! said the mother.

Thank you, Mrs. Harugo! said Lydia Fenesta in a tone of kind good-bye.

That night when her husband came home, the family of five felt a mixture of glee and sorrow. Mom and Dad and the boy who will be going to Rome were in glee, but his brother and his sister who would stay with their grandparents in Hiroshima were impelled to sorrow. These two are older than the boy, but being school-aged, they were required to remain in the school and were not allowed to travel overseas.

I wish I could go too! said the brother. I can’t see me living in Hiroshima for the next two years while my parents are away, overseas. That’s not fair! the brother lamented.

I agree! said the sister, openly sobbing in grief.

Children! You have to continue school; and grandma and grandpa will take a good care of you! said the mother.

World is uncertain, kids. We may come home in a month! said the father.

The boy kept silent,looking busy, rolling a handful of his glass marvels on the floor.

His father was scheduled to visit for six months each in four capital cities—Rome, Berlin, London, and Washington DC—in that order. It is a two-year tour of duty from the beginning of 1939 to the end of 1940, to survey Italian, German, British, and American naval engineering technology. The wife, on the other hand, foresaw a musical opportunity for herself and her six-year-old son, and she longed for this miraculous opportunity. The acquisition of knowledge in Western music for her and in violin for her son was her cherished dream.

Their first-month stay in Rome passed swiftly without much learning. It was strange to discover that Rome, the birthplace of violin, had very few violinists from whom her young boy can learn. She also discovered Madam Lydia Fenesta told her the truth about Camillo Sivori and Antonio Bazzini who left a while back, but she had successfully found Alfredo Campoli and two women violinists, Gioconda de Vito and Pina Carmirelli at Santa Cecilia as she was informed.

The enraptured mother became so enthusiastic, arousing passionate interest at a time when music, orchestra, and violin were a man-only domain and when the Santa Cecilia accepted her visit with the child. That bright spring, early in the morning in her office, Gioconda de Vito suggested through embassy interpreter:

We will have an audition; not as a condition of acceptance to the school, said de Vito. The minimum age to qualify for entry is ten. This audition would be just an ability show! said de Vito, with the emphasis on the word ability.

3

The young boy was all dressed up in a down-to-ankle concert suit on top of an immaculate white shirt. He wore a flowing white cravat showing a coin-sized single red dot and beams coming out all around it symbolizing Hinomaru, the rising sun. A small bowtie perched over between the collars. His black leather shoes were well-polished. The boy looked irresistibly sharp. All in all, his first overseas performance was truly exciting. The audition was scheduled for ten o’clock at the Chamber Music Room, and his mother has brought her son half an hour earlier. The mother and her young boy sat at a bench outside of the room, listening to the sweet music of strings played by the occupants ahead of his audition, flowing into the hallway. When the accompaniment receded to silence, the violin sang in full bloom, making the boy intuitively motion his left hand to duplicate fingertip positions of the player inside. He wished he could join those musicians.

My violin never sounds that good, Mom! said the little boy. I don’t know how I could convince the masters with my old violin. My violin never matches what I hear now.

He worried that his nineteenth-century violin did not sing like that.

Your violin grates, screams, and hisses, the mother thought. It is for practice, not for serious performance! But the mother only smiled, running her hand over the boy’s head.

When the time neared ten o’clock, a man came out from inside to beckon the young boy and his mother. The man, without speech, waved in his one hand a few times, directing toward inside, holding the doorknob with the other hand, standing in front of the door that was left ajar. The young boy carried his violin case, feeling everybody’s gaze as if they witness a spectacle that has never occurred before. Gioconda de Vito stepped forward, opened both her arms, and welcomed him with cheerful greetings in melodic Italian.

Here comes our boy from Tokyo. What a sight! she said.

Then she took his awkwardly big violin case that is almost as big as the young boy. She hailed him her prodigy. All eyes were fixed at him not only with ineffable curiosity but also with heartwarming welcome. The young boy did not know what they were saying, but his heart can feel their sincere welcome. He also saw Campoli and Carmirelli, both holding violins. When she was ready to call for the floor, she raised her hand for attention. Everybody stopped chatting instantly. She was fully in charge when she opened the audition:

"Good morning, my dear students, I want you to welcome a young boy from Tokyo, Japan.

He told me his name, but I am not accustomed to Japanese, so I can’t pronounce it correctly. He has come to audition for the violin. One thing very special about this young boy is that he has never been taught by anyone in this world. He learned the instrument by himself with his mother’s help in Tokyo; then at the age of six, he won the Children’s Violin Contest of Japan and was awarded a nineteenth-century German violin with which he has been practicing all along. Here he is today, coming all the way from Japan to audition for us. There was a thunder of applause. She handed him out a thin Amati violin that has been checked out from the vaulted school-safe on an on-the-spot-loan just for this occasion. Gioconda de Vito continued, I asked the young boy to play for us a familiar Japanese piece that he knows well of. After all, I never heard any Japanese music. I like to hear one." Looking at the boy, the hostess nodded as a sign to go ahead. The next thing the audience were to witness was truly unusual.

The young boy accepted the violin, rested the tailpiece on the collarbone heedfully not to hold the chinrest under his chin or jawbone, sliding the left hand under the fingerboard along the neck, all four fingers right above all four strings. He leveled the violin raising his upper left shoulder, looked so intently at fingers on the bridge, adjusted its tunes, turning the pegs; then he tested tunes all four strings back and forth, G-D-A-E E-A-D-G, pressing the bow hairs against each string. He landed the bow with his right arm holding the stick with all four small delicate fingers kept together at the top, and the thumb at the bottom. Most unusual for the audience to see was the boy’s handling mannerism—posture, bowing, and everything—definitely not Italian. The forefinger playfully lifted unpredictably before the end screw, but fixed the other fingers steadily. His right arm drooped low in slant angle, showing his face expressing varying emotion. The room was quiet in excitement and expectation.

The audience could not believe that this young boy has never been taught by anyone. There were some questioning whispers. How could that be possible? Look at his posture, arm angle, the bow position, fingers on the neck, said one voice.

And learned everything by himself? That’s impossible, said another voice.

What they see appeared too systematic, too disciplined, and too formal for a six-year-old.

Meanwhile, the boy is overwhelmed simply holding the violin as weightless as air unlike his own. All the preparatory acts are over now. The boy is ready to deliver his ability show. The boy looked straight at the maestro searching for eye contact to see if he should start.

Go ahead, play! commanded the maestro, simply looking, smiling and raising her hand.

The young boy raised the bow, paused, softly and swiftly landed the bow-hairs on the strings and delivered the morose, slow and tender tone of Mis-irono-hanggeji (Water Colored Handkerchief) serenely and beautifully. It was a whisper of sad soul of perpetual love melody taking them far away, somewhere in a land of peace. The boy’s face looked plaintive, his eyes almost closed like in torment; but his arms were actively mobile. Then again, changing tones, his hands, eyes, arms, shoulders, and jaw shook with the tunes of the music—taunting, pulling, and moaning. All in the audience were held together with the repertoire of the love song. It was his true soul brought to these Italians as a gift. The boy ended the piece, delivering the total of his body and soul. It was a reflection of his heart and emotion. He bowed.

Gioconda de Vito saw glistening tear lines running down Campoli’s cheeks and made some audience burst to tears too. My God, incredible! exclaimed Pina Carmirelli, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. The melancholy and the soulful tone