Our Trainer
Postcards of Memory (6) July
We threw neckties over our T-shirts after we finished our Sunday soccer and immediately lined up as a jubilation choir. Jozsi, surprised, froze and stood there with jeans in his hand, ready get dressed.
He used to wear the same kind of jeans and sneakers when he first arrived in Japan. This is what he wore on Sundays, coming to play soccer from the faraway research center where he sat day and night in front of his computer; and in the same puritanic way he just had a suitcase when after three years he left us, returning as a professor to a university in Budapest. This time he was just visiting Tokyo to give lecture at a conference, but he also packed his shorts and sneakers so as not to miss our regular soccer in Nishi-Eifuku. As if this was the purpose of his trip here from an other continent. He was told to come, we said with a nod, by our trainer. Our imaginary Uncle Pista.
Perhaps it was Jozsi who used to be the most consistent among us in creating the image of our strict and fair trainer. In this corner of the world, far away from home and all too easy to lose one's compass, we began weaving an authority figure from movie- or book characters, from teachers or threads of memories of real trainers. An unshakeable man, who can shout at you: do this! this is the right thing! Showing up at our Sunday soccer felt like a moral obligation.
Jozsi soon joined us in singing. He knew the song as he used to be with us when we practiced Neoszarvasbika at the good old bathhouse with the Mt.Fuji mural. After the song we hang a silk ribbon with a painted, wooden medal over Jozsi's neck. A gold medal he won from our trainer.
We threw neckties over our T-shirts after we finished our Sunday soccer and immediately lined up as a jubilation choir. Jozsi, surprised, froze and stood there with jeans in his hand, ready get dressed.
He used to wear the same kind of jeans and sneakers when he first arrived in Japan. This is what he wore on Sundays, coming to play soccer from the faraway research center where he sat day and night in front of his computer; and in the same puritanic way he just had a suitcase when after three years he left us, returning as a professor to a university in Budapest. This time he was just visiting Tokyo to give lecture at a conference, but he also packed his shorts and sneakers so as not to miss our regular soccer in Nishi-Eifuku. As if this was the purpose of his trip here from an other continent. He was told to come, we said with a nod, by our trainer. Our imaginary Uncle Pista.
Perhaps it was Jozsi who used to be the most consistent among us in creating the image of our strict and fair trainer. In this corner of the world, far away from home and all too easy to lose one's compass, we began weaving an authority figure from movie- or book characters, from teachers or threads of memories of real trainers. An unshakeable man, who can shout at you: do this! this is the right thing! Showing up at our Sunday soccer felt like a moral obligation.
Jozsi soon joined us in singing. He knew the song as he used to be with us when we practiced Neoszarvasbika at the good old bathhouse with the Mt.Fuji mural. After the song we hang a silk ribbon with a painted, wooden medal over Jozsi's neck. A gold medal he won from our trainer.
posted by bm at 10:07 AM
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