Mina's Matchbox by Yoko Ogawa

Author:Yoko Ogawa [Ogawa, Yoko]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2024-08-13T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The television sat on a sideboard in the living room. Every Sunday evening, right at seven-thirty, Mina and I installed ourselves on the rug and waited for The Road to Munich to start. We could just as easily have viewed the show from the comfort of the couch, but as we grew more and more eager, we naturally found ourselves kneeling right in front of the screen. Perhaps we thought that in enduring the pain in our legs we were, in some small way, partaking of the sacrifices of Morita and Nekoda.

For some reason, Yoneda-san was in the habit of joining us, kneeling beside us on the rug. Perhaps she just wanted to know what sort of program it was that had captured our attention. Grandmother Rosa watched too, from the couch, but her interest in the show had less to do with volleyball than it did with the fact that Munich, a city from her homeland, was mentioned in the title.

In each episode of the The Road to Munich there was an animated film focusing on one of the players on the national team and highlighting his role in the fight for the gold medal. There were photographs inserted here and there amidst the animation as well, a technique that, at the time, seemed incredibly novel and impressive and made us watch all the more eagerly.

“It’s just soccer with the hands,” observed Grandmother Rosa, seemingly a bit disappointed that, despite the title, there were no scenes of Germany.

“Not at all,” said Mina.

“Oh,” Yoneda-san blurted out, “that one’s really short.” She had a habit of saying whatever it was that came to her mind.

“That’s Matsudaira, the coach. He’s the most important of all. And he’s not actually that short, it’s just that everyone else is so tall.” It was my turn to answer; no matter how many questions they asked, Mina and I took turns responding without taking our eyes off the screen even once.

“They certainly make a big fuss about it…”

“There’s no goal, like in soccer, so how do you score a point?”

“You score a point when the ball hits the floor on your opponent’s side.”

“When you’ve got the serve.”

“Got the serve?”

“We’ll explain the rules later, Grandmother, but could you keep quiet for now? It’s too much to go into while we’re watching.”

Mina and I would have preferred to concentrate on the program without their company, but there was only one television in the house, so we didn’t have a choice.

The first strains of the theme music and the sight of the red-and-white uniforms on the screen were enough to throw us into paroxysms. We’d be moved to tears by shots of a player, ignoring his bloodied body, flying across the court to dig out a spike, or another practicing alone in a dimly lit gymnasium until all hours, trying to perfect some new technique.

“Which one is your favorite, Mina?” Grandmother Rosa asked.

“Number two,” Mina replied. Nekoda was on the screen now, tossing up A-quick sets, one after another.

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