A True Novel Read online

  “They’re way too old, aren’t they?” I said, embarrassed at the idea of his handing over a bunch of battered books.

  “English doesn’t get old that fast,” he said.

  A FEW MORE months went by. Then one day it turned out that Taro Azuma was working at my father’s company as a camera repairman. I had no reason to expect to be informed about the process leading to his being taken on, yet this abrupt turn of events just stunned me. As a director, with the New York branch still quite small, my father must have convinced the head office to go along with it and provide him with a new work visa.

  “Atwood didn’t mind?” my mother asked when the subject came up.

  “No. He actually wanted him out. You see, his wife found out about his lady friend, and she knew that Azuma was chauffeuring her around too. She didn’t take it too well. I guess she didn’t want someone who knew about the affair right there in the house with them.”

  Far from objecting to Azuma’s departure, Atwood in private even gave him a secondhand car—a yellow Chevrolet Corvair—as a farewell gift, perhaps to keep him quiet.

  “Men get away with a lot, don’t they?” my mother commented, laughing.

  “In any case, it was better that Azuma left when he did. A guy like Atwood wasn’t going to care about his future.”

  “Right. Japanese are better off working for Japanese companies.” My mother was playing up to my father’s cheerful mood.

  “At first he’ll need some help, but I’m sure he’ll catch on in no time.”

  I felt betrayed by Azuma’s sudden transformation from private chauffeur into a mere repairman in my father’s company. The life of a private chauffeur had at least some potential for mystery in it. But how could there be anything of the kind in the life of a repairman? You could turn a life like that upside down and shake it, and nothing in the least mysterious or soul-stirring would ever fall out, of that I was convinced. I remembered how indignant I’d been when I heard about his first job. Now I was indignant all over again at the thought of someone like him sitting under the glare of a fluorescent light working away with tiny screwdrivers. My father, however, believed he’d done him a big favor.

  When our family arrived in the United States, the exchange rate was 360 yen to the dollar, and Japan’s per capita GDP was not much more than a third of America’s. By the time Azuma entered our life, though the exchange rate remained the same, the GDP at home had shot up to about a half. Still, it was costly to send someone to the States for an extended period of time, so candidates—and this applied to technicians too—were chosen with great care. They were literally the chosen few. They had to be hardworking, highly skilled, able to speak some English; they also had to be flexible enough to get on with a small team of people and tough enough to cope with the challenges of living abroad for years, not returning home even when a parent died or their house burned down. Even though camera sales were booming in the States and my father’s outfit needed extra hands, to the head office, hiring a man off the street must have seemed a risky gamble. I imagine my father had had to be persuasive, arguing that Azuma would work for little more than half the others’ salary, that he already knew the language and was used to living in America. No wonder he thought he was doing Azuma an enormous favor.

  In point of fact, it was the company that benefited most by hiring him.

  There are lots of people who are intelligent but physically clumsy. Azuma was not one of them. His intelligence coincided with nimble fingers. Someone once told me, to my amazement, that back in Japan you spent your first six months in the factory doing nothing but polishing lenses under the scrutiny of more experienced workers. In America, that was a luxury the company couldn’t afford: Azuma was given one task after another, which undoubtedly worked out to his advantage. No one expected him to be able to do more than the easiest of repairs in the beginning, but before his first year was over, he was handy at most of the jobs his colleagues did. The rumor was that Taro Azuma must have had some previous experience.

  One day, I heard my parents talking.

  “That guy never breathes a word about it himself, but everyone at work figures he must have been some kind of mechanic back in Japan. A real beginner could never catch on so quickly.”

  “Well, if that’s the case, why doesn’t he say so?”

  “I guess he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “You mean he doesn’t want people to know he was a mechanic?”

  “I don’t know. It’s more like he wants to forget everything that happened to him back home.”

  STILL, WHAT ASTONISHED the other employees most was the passion with which Azuma devoted himself to learning English, a language that presents a huge challenge to Japanese people. That Azuma’s English was better than theirs was only natural: he had the advantage of coming to the States while young, and he had lived with an American family. But the effort he put into trying to get a grasp of the language—single-mindedly, not caring in the slightest what other people thought—went even beyond my father’s expectations. During his work hours he listened to American radio stations with an earphone, silently mouthing new words and phrases. At lunchtime, he did homework for the night classes he took. My father encouraged everyone to enroll in these classes, which the city of New York provided for recent immigrants and illiterate adults, and he gave his staff permission to leave early for that purpose; but it was Azuma, the least important of them and the least required to know English, who attended them the most assiduously. Eventually he became the man of choice when English was needed—not only to negotiate on the telephone but also to handle correspondence, though once in a while he would ask my father to check the wording.

  “His English is becoming the real thing. No wonder—he’s worked so hard at it. Those guys in the export office back in Tokyo could learn a thing or two from him.”

  My father admired him—to my disadvantage. His admiration sounded like a reproach, for I was still down on the language and spent every spare moment reading novels in Japanese. Fortunately, it didn’t occur to him to compare his own spoiled daughters with someone like Azuma.

  “Didn’t Nanae have some kind of vocabulary cards she used to study with?” he asked.

  “Yes, you mean the flash cards.”

  “That’s right. Are they still in the house? Or did she take them with her to Boston?”

  “No, they’re still up in her room.”

  Nanae’s room was on the third floor.

  “Run up and get them for me, would you? Maybe he could use them.”

  The Nanae I knew was unwilling to let go of even a handkerchief if it had any memory attached to it, and I could just imagine her pouting in protest, as I’d so often seen her do when younger.

  “Don’t you think he’d prefer some new ones, Papa?”

  “I don’t want him spending money if he doesn’t have to. He won’t mind that they’re used.” Then, turning to my mother, he said, “He’s going to go far, that boy. The company got a good deal.”

  AZUMA KEPT HIS distance from people.

  “He is a bit weird, that one,” Mrs. Cohen told us matter-of-factly.

  We got all our office gossip from this Japanese woman, who wore her brownish hair in a short bob, and who was my father’s secretary and bookkeeper. She was a local hire, since no Japanese company would consider sending female employees abroad.

  If I were to describe Mrs. Cohen, I would have to say that she was a woman of uncomplicated feelings. She was blissfully lacking in introspection, though I wasn’t old enough to phrase it quite like that. Only later did I realize that it was not a crime to describe others in such terms, and that the world is full of people—good people—just like them. But back then, feeling that she was someone with whom I had nothing in common made me uncomfortable, without my being able to say quite why. She was quick-witted, had a friendly personality, and I enjoyed listening to her talk, which made me all the more guilty about the way I felt when I was with her.

 
Human relationships are often asymmetrical, and Mrs. Cohen rarely felt that kind of awkwardness, I imagine. As a young woman, she had moved from her hometown in Tohoku to Tokyo and was working as a typist of documents in English—one of the most sought-after jobs for young women then—when she met a Jewish businessman, an American who loved Japan; the two got married and then moved to the States. I suppose she found my family easy to be with because, like her, we sensed our ties to Japan losing their hold on us. She lived nearby and often dropped in on weekends, saying, “Dave took the boys ice-skating this afternoon” or something. She would find herself a seat on the sofa and chat with my father for an hour or so, a cigarette in her hand at all times, her nails neatly manicured and painted bright red, though otherwise her appearance was quite casual. The two of them talked about subjects that were off-limits at the office.

  I couldn’t tell how much they actually had in common—my mother claimed she wasn’t at all his type—but they never ran out of things to say.

  “That’s the problem with the managers in Japan.”

  “They haven’t a clue what’s going on over here. It’s a mess.”

  “You’re so right, Mr. Mizumura.”

  No matter what my father said about the head office in Tokyo, she always agreed with him, encouraging him to carry on happily. “You’d never guess that she’s the daughter of a fishing boss up north,” my mother would whisper to me, for Mrs. Cohen was indeed the image of a modern working woman, puffing cigarettes and talking straight. She even managed her own stocks. Apparently, she worked because she enjoyed it, not because she needed to supplement the family income. She probably also wanted to stay in touch with things Japanese and speak in her own language, however much she liked complaining about Japan and its people. Her two sons were still young; she had a black housekeeper come in each morning.

  While they chatted away, it was my job to serve green tea and snacks—crunchy rice crackers or tangerines, a bigger and thicker version of the mandarin oranges we had back in Japan. Friendless creature that I was, I was an eager audience for their conversation, particularly when it came to Taro Azuma, whom most people seemed to find “weird.”

  “He’s not at all like other Japanese,” said Mrs. Cohen. “He’s gone ahead and rented his own place,” she added with approval.

  Back then, Japanese companies with branches in the States paid decent salaries only to senior executives, representing their public face, while the rest of the employees, particularly the single ones, got wages consistent with Japan’s modest economic status. With the high rents around New York, it was not unusual for two or three of those employees to share an apartment, especially when they first arrived. Everyone knew Azuma was a local hire and paid even less. Everyone assumed he would move in with someone else. Instead, he found himself a cheap basement room in some old lady’s house. The place was in a suburban neighborhood fairly close to us, but far away from where most of the other employees lived. The yellow Corvair he’d been given was what made it possible.

  “His landlady is an unbelievable talker,” Mrs. Cohen reported.

  This old lady, a widow from Ireland originally and now the owner of a suburban house, had worked from childhood, starting out shucking oysters in a freezing alley behind some restaurant in Manhattan. When she answered the telephone, her hello had the deep hoarseness of a witch; hearing her voice alone would scare most Japanese away.

  “He seems to prefer it that way. He doesn’t want people bothering him. One reason he goes to those night classes, I think, is because it gives him an excuse not to socialize.”

  “I see,” my father said approvingly, being a bit of a misanthrope himself.

  “He used to go along for a round of golf once in a while, but he got fed up having to say no every time the others wanted to go out for a drink afterward. You know, Mr. Mizumura, he doesn’t drink?”

  “That’s right, he doesn’t, does he. I wonder if it’s because he can’t hold his liquor.” My father seemed to find it strange that Azuma hadn’t taken up drinking after he quit his job as a driver.

  “I wonder too.”

  “It is a bit unusual.”

  “So, we thought he’d pretty much given up golf …”

  “Who cares about golf, anyway?” Loathing his lot as a corporate employee, my father loathed golf too, a game epitomizing the corporate culture.

  Mrs. Cohen ignored his reaction.

  “But, then, the other day, when I asked him if he wanted to join Dave and me on the course, he gladly came along.”

  “Is that right?”

  “He’s got no money, but he’s somehow keen to get good at it. And, the same with English, he’s a fast learner.”

  “Still, why waste time on a thing like golf?”

  Again, she ignored his reaction.

  “He seems to be very athletic.”

  Mrs. Cohen was Azuma’s greatest supporter in those days. He too seemed to feel comfortable around her, as she was something of an outsider in the Japanese community, having married an American. Besides, for someone who didn’t want his private life to be a subject of speculation, a person as uncomplicated as Mrs. Cohen must have suited him well. The two kept in touch for quite a long time, and it was mainly through her that we heard news of him after he disappeared from our lives.

  “YOU KNOW THAT guy Azuma? He’s really strange.”

  I used to hear this sort of thing when my parents weren’t around from two characters, both in their mid-twenties, both camera repairmen, nicknamed Yaji and Kita (no one called them by their real names, Yajima and Kitano). They stuck together like the two travelers in the old picaresque novel Shank’s Mare, whose names they shared. And they were both single.

  “With only Papa around, it’s the same as having no man in the house,” was a refrain of my mother’s, and asking them to do some little chore for her became a favorite habit. “You wouldn’t mind coming over, would you?” she’d cajole, and soon they’d be painting the ceiling or pruning the apple tree in the back yard. My mother’s requests took into account the presence of a daughter who, secure in the knowledge that these men would flatter her with the attention that was a young woman’s due, lingered in front of the mirror trying on dresses and fixing her hair before going downstairs. But there was a good reason why my mother singled out these two. They were the most good-natured of the bachelors—too good-natured to actually be appealing to a girl my age. The sight of them side by side in polo shirts, the weekend uniform for company men, only accentuated their narrow shoulders and left me little to choose between them. It was sometimes genuinely difficult to tell them apart.

  These two filled me in on Azuma’s habits at work, like his listening to English on the radio with a single earphone.

  “Also, his pockets are always stuffed with little cards that have English words on them.”

  Nanae’s flash cards.

  “Having a serious guy like that sit next to you is a real downer. The rest of us have a hard time cracking jokes anymore.”

  “And yet he listens in on all our jokes.”

  “Yeah, laughs at ’em too.”

  That was about the extent of their complaint.

  “I TELL YOU, Mrs. Mizumura, the guy’s crazy,” declared Irie, his loud voice dominating the room. He was in his early thirties, one of the so-called New York bachelors who left their wives back in Japan; he worked in the microscope division. My mother liked him, probably because he was quite masculine. There was a wildness about him that working for a Japanese company had not completely tamed, as his rough way of speaking showed. Whenever he visited us, she was gay and bouncy. I myself found it difficult to leave the living room and lingered as long as I could, for even I recognized that he had the kind of appeal the too affable Yaji and Kita lacked. He talked more openly when my father wasn’t around.

  “Sometimes I wonder if Azuma’s really Japanese. I mean, he never eats rice. He practically lives on yogurt. Yogurt! Can you believe it?” Irie was sitting on the couch,
a can of Budweiser in his hand.

  “How would you know what he does and doesn’t eat, pray tell?” my mother asked a bit coyly, sitting on the carpet as if it were a tatami mat, resting her elbows on the coffee table and her cheek on her laced fingers.

  “Well, one weekend, some of the young guys at work raided his place. They were curious to find out what it was like, the place he lived in.”

  “And?”

  “Seems the old lady there lets him use her kitchen, and he has his own shelf in the fridge. And you know what they found on it? Yogurt and nothing but.”

  “No, really?” she said, wide-eyed.

  “That’s not all. Guess what the guy does when he wants some meat.”

  “I have no idea,” my mother said, shaking her head with a smile.

  “You know those packets of hot dogs? He takes one out and holds it under the hot water faucet. That way he doesn’t have to wash any pans.”

  “Eww, weird!” I shrieked, forgetting that I wasn’t supposed to be part of the conversation.

  “Isn’t it? Weird is the only way to describe it,” he said, facing in my direction and pretending to turn a hot dog around under a faucet.

  “Yuck!” My mother made a face, and asked in a tone that was half amazed, half horrified, “Why would he eat such awful stuff?”

  “For one thing, he doesn’t have much money. But I bet he also thinks cooking is a waste of time.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Wants to spend all his time learning English, I guess.”

  “That’s going too far.”

  Irie told us that until the raid, no one at work had suspected Azuma had such strange eating habits; at lunchtime, he bought a take-out sandwich like everyone else.

  “Don’t ask me how his mind works, Mrs. Mizumura, I really don’t know. I just don’t like that kind of guy.” Then he turned to me: “Minae, you stay away from him, you hear me?”

  I turned purposefully away, not deigning to notice the remark.