Triple trouble

01.10.2008

Some years back, during my sojourn in Wakayaka-Kefl, Japan, for reasons I’ll never know, I was asked by the Osanaki Iesusu-kai Sisters to teach a course in Comparative Cultures to the young ladies of the senior class at the Shin-al Tankidai (Junior College) near Wakayama City.

Taken by surprise I reluctantly consented. It is hard to describe the panic and feverish efforts that went into trying to find and assemble material that might be even slightly helpful in fulfilling the needs of the course.

The Department of Education as part of its campaign of the time had recently been emphasising the need for young people to be introduced to cultures other than their own. Inexplicably, no guidelines or texts had  been provided. I have no doubt that, when I started my researches, I was at least as unschooled in the subject as any of the young ladies I was about to ‘educate.’

My first encounter with my young charges was awesome. All those about to graduate that year, no matter what their major, were required to take the course during a one hour class period each week. Just to get their attention while the home-room teacher called the roll was a formidable challenge.

To launch them into discussion of ancient civilisations and cultures would have taxed the powers of the most choleric drill sergeant. However, an occasional few seemed interested in what I tried to convey

One young lady in particular was especially attentive. She kept taking copious notes. The second period brought more or less a repetition of the first. The only puzzling detail was the reappearance of my diligent listener from the first period. Imagine my astonishment when the same young lady appeared in the same seat for the third period!

Came the next week, and sure enough, there sat the young lady, for three sessions in a row, diligently jotting down what her puzzled, if somewhat flattered, tutor was endeavouring to expound.

This time, at the end of the third session, I managed to waylay my young admirer and compliment her on her application in attending all three sessions. ‘Oh,’ she replied, laughing, ‘those other two are my sisters. You see, we’re triplets.’ Well, what could I say? So obvious an explanation had never occurred to me.

The young lady promised to introduce me to her sisters. A week later she did. I had encountered identical twins and triplets before, but the resemblance between these three was startling. Not alone facially but in voice and even in mannerisms they really were indistinguishable.

Over the subsequent weeks we became good friends. Along the way, during the opening semester, as I got to know my numerous charges better, I had invited any and all of them to visit my idyllic Ryujin mountain home where, with consent of school and parents, they could enjoy a break from city and college life in reasonable comfort and breath-taking scenic surroundings.

During the May Golden Week mid-term break my triplet friends accepted my invitation and found their way by train and bus to my Enchanted Valley. Clad in less formal attire, they were easier to tell apart. Their enjoyment of the break was total. Much of their time was spent splashing in the sparkling waters of the crystalline river bounding the property, and later relaxing in Ryujin Spa, one of three hot-springs, Japan-wide, supposed to enhance feminine beauty. Ryujin Tomo No le, ‘Friendship House’ provided comfortable accommodation for them during the break.

Some days later the postman delivered a letter addressed in unfamiliar handwriting. It was from the girls’ mother thanking me profusely for recently accommodating and entertaining her daughters. She followed her thanks with a tragic story which had, however, a happy ending.

Early in her marriage, her husband had died in a freak accident, leaving her pregnant with triplets. Her condition was proving difficult so her doctor reckoned that in her questionable state of health she could not safely continue the pregnancy to term. So he recommended that she abort at least two of the foetuses to make sure that one would be born healthy to a healthy mother.

Outraged by the doctor’s suggestion, she consulted with another gynaecologist who happened to be Catholic. He assured her that he would see her through to a safe delivery. The happy upshot was that three healthy baby girls were born needing no incubation.

Though not Christian, the relieved mother resolved then that her daughters, from kindergarten upwards, would be educated exclusively in Catholic schools. She was never to regret her decision. She would forever be grateful to the Catholic doctor for her precious girls and to the Shin-ai Sisters for helping her raise them as genuine young ladies who had never given her a day’s trouble.

At school year’s end I was privileged to be a guest at the graduation party of my three young friends. There I met their mother in person. She proved to be exactly as I had imagined her.

The girls had already found employment with prestigious firms. To my keen regret and shame, I have not kept in touch with them or their mother since then.

I must do something about that.

Fr Eamonn Horgan has served in Japan since 1954.

Read more from The Far East October, 2008