A True Novel Page 6

  “It’s hard to escape America, isn’t it?” I cried out.

  He smiled faintly, showing his white teeth. We stood there, apart and yet together, bathed in sunlight and watching the horizon; it was as if an enormous crystal fan had been laid on the surface of the water, which scintillated in the afternoon sun. Seagulls wailed as they flew above us, and white sails glided in the distance. A picture-perfect scene. So it was America that spread out beyond the horizon.

  “If this were the Pacific, we’d know at least that Japan was over there on the other side,” I said, raising my voice again.

  He did not respond immediately, but after a while, still looking far out to sea, he asked in a loud voice, “Do you want to go back to Japan?”

  “Yes, I do.” I thought it ridiculous that we should go on shouting, so I moved a few steps closer. Since he kept his eyes on the horizon, I felt the need to repeat my longing for my own country. “Of course I want to go back.”

  He still looked ahead.

  However desperate he’d been to come here—however miserable his life had been back in Japan—wouldn’t it be natural to have at least some nostalgia for the place?

  “Don’t you?” I ventured. Then I remembered my father talking about Azuma’s losing his parents when he was little and being raised by an uncle.

  He simply said, without turning his head, “Why would I go back? There’s nothing for me there.”

  Now his voice was so low I had to strain to hear him. It made me feel I had offended him. Maybe I ought to have regretted asking such a question, but all I felt was a fresh awareness of the deep gap that divided us. I had no idea what Azuma’s past had been like, but no matter what I said, I was bound to feel I offended him.

  While I remained silent, he added, as if to soften the tone of what he’d said, “There’s really nothing for me there, so, no, I don’t want to go back.” He then turned toward me for the first time, a surprising mildness in his expression.

  He turned back to the water; we stood there for a while longer, saying nothing. It was a day without wind, and the scene before us was peace itself, with only a few wisps of clouds a long way off.

  “I hear you came over on a ship?” I asked, after some time.

  “Yes, a freighter.”

  Was it pride that made him say it was a freighter?

  “I’ve only been on short boat trips. What’s a long voyage like?”

  “A long voyage,” he repeated, as if the phrase sounded odd to him. “I’m sure an airplane is more comfortable, but …”

  “But what?”

  “The ship went so much faster than I thought it would. When I was standing at the bow looking out, I felt almost dizzy. That was true on really foggy nights too, when you couldn’t see anything even with the lights on. It just kept moving at full speed.”

  He paused before going on.

  “Even when it rained hard it just kept moving fast.”

  I was amazed to hear him talking so much.

  Azuma was quiet for a while before speaking again.

  “It was almost scary.”

  His voice was even lower than before—as if it were echoing from the far end of a night enveloped in dense sea mist. It was a dialogue with his own memory, not me.

  “It seemed like a miracle that we didn’t crash into something and sink. And I said to myself that if the ship arrived safely, it’d be a sign that I should go on living.” He stopped, now aware it seemed of his surroundings. “Of course, modern ships don’t sink that easily, but at the time that’s how I felt.”

  He was gazing into my eyes. It suddenly dawned on me that this person didn’t count himself among the adults either; that he found it less of a trial to talk to someone like me. Away from Japan, he also was deprived of a chance to meet people his own age from his own country. I was stunned at this realization—that, despite all that separated us, this man had somehow placed me on the same plane as himself. But he can’t have known what was going through my mind.

  “They say you’re going to art school.”

  “Yes, that’s my plan.”

  “So, you want to be a painter.” Before I could reply, he chuckled and added, “Wear a beret and all that?”

  I burst out laughing. It was funny to hear him come up with such a quaint image of what an artist is, and even funnier to hear him trying to be funny. Still smiling, I shook my head. “No, it’s more that my English isn’t very good. I don’t feel comfortable going to a regular college.” I nearly went on to say that I liked painting, but not studying. I stopped myself in time. Those were things I knew I shouldn’t say in front of him. I told him instead: “My father’s always been impressed by how hard you study.”

  He looked away, his face hardening. I suppose I may have expected him to come out with some platitude about how grateful he was to my father. But he said nothing. I took this as a rebuff. We each turned our attention to the stretch of shimmering water.

  I remembered my mother’s remark that Azuma must be ambitious. Perhaps that was what affected me so strangely standing next to him. But what kind of future could this man possibly look forward to? For me, the future would begin in three months, in the fall. It would sweep me up and carry me into a new world: a new town, a new school, a new set of people. I myself would change, not only into someone different but someone better, higher. Azuma, in contrast, in three months’ time, would still be living in the basement of that gabby old lady’s house, driving that same nicked yellow Corvair, working in that same repair room with the glaring fluorescent light, surrounded by the same people telling the same jokes. Would it be much different if it were three years rather than three months? The sense of being rebuffed by him was quickly gone. I felt guilty beside the young man next to me.

  The blue sea sparkled in the distance.

  Something in the water nearby caught his eye.

  “It’s a dead seagull.”

  I too saw something white floating there, but when I tried to take a closer look, he stepped in front of me as if to block my view. Turning toward the shore, he said, “Let’s go back.” Following his gaze, I saw our group, all with heads of black hair, returning to the picnic area.

  I LEFT THE group again when the men pulled out their gloves and bats and started playing baseball on a field they’d reserved, with the women chatting and watching the game. My parents, feeling no need to join in, sat at a picnic table in the shade, absorbed in conversation with Mrs. Cohen. No one would notice my absence.

  A small creek flowed through the park. Following the creek was my favorite route whenever I went there, because I could always find my way back. Besides, I could be totally alone. Suburban Americans, who seldom got out of their cars, apparently didn’t subscribe to the idea of just taking a walk, and this was before jogging became popular. I walked for quite a while without meeting anyone, and when I felt I might have gone too far, made a turn and headed back until I knew I was near the picnic grounds. There were clusters of hydrangea bushes in full bloom along the path. I stepped off the path and lay down on the earth, hidden by the flowers and their tracery of bright green leaves.

  In the suburbs of New York, where virtually all the ground was covered with either asphalt or manicured lawn, there was no smell of the earth. But there in the park I was able to breathe in the rich scent of black earth being slowly awakened by the heat of the early summer sun, and with it the raw and sensual smell of warm fresh grass. I could even hear the beating of insect wings, though faintly. All this brought back memories of the days when Nanae and I made mud pies in the small garden of our small home in Tokyo, the hum of cicadas in our ears. It was less an exercise in nostalgia than simply a feeling of wholeness that came over me. Flat on my back, with my eyes closed, I lost track of where I was and felt the onset of summer in every part of me. I forgot about time, about Japan and America—about me.

  When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a heavy head of blue-violet hydrangea blossom dangling over me and, through layers of g
reen leaves, someone’s white-shirted back beside the creek. It was Taro Azuma: he was the only one of the men who never wore a polo shirt. Crouched down and hugging his knees as boys do, he was gazing into the water.

  Another person wanting to be alone.

  If I hadn’t been planning to leave for art school in Boston at the end of the summer, I might have fallen in love with him, carried away by the sentimentality of that moment. I now know how horribly embarrassing that would have been for him—and for me—but my head luckily was full of what lay ahead of me. When I went to Boston, a town full of students from all over the world, I would surely meet some young Japanese man who would run his fingers through his straight black hair and speak to me in eloquent Japanese about art, life, and even politics. We would have a full-blown love affair, the kind described in novels. Whether because I was hopelessly anachronistic from reading those old books—or because I was just an ordinary girl of the time (or of any time)—it was my basic assumption that the man of my dreams would be far more knowledgeable than I was, a reader of books beyond my ken. Beside that image, Azuma, burdened with a life that left no room for books, seemed little more than a shadow.

  Someone shouted in the distance, and Azuma stood up. I watched until he disappeared, and then followed.

  IN SEPTEMBER I left for Boston. A totally different world did indeed open up for me. I lived on the third floor of an old brick apartment building where I had cockroaches for neighbors and smelled garbage whenever I opened the back door that led to the basement. Dinner often meant opening a can of tuna or Spam at home or ordering a Big Mac at McDonald’s. Dirty clothes piled up, as I was too lazy to go to the laundromat just around the corner. A poster with a red clenched fist urging revolution hung on the wall. Even someone as out of it as I was somehow got caught up in the times: I grew my hair long and wore jeans; I drank beer straight from the can and, if offered a joint, took a puff, trying to fit in. Though a foreigner, I suppose I began to live a life like any ordinary American student’s, which was far from anything I had read about in my beloved old novels but at least satisfied my curiosity. Lost in that new world, my horizons widened without my being aware of it.

  I only became aware of the change when I went home to Long Island for Thanksgiving. Though I had been away for only a couple of months, the place seemed duller than I’d ever realized. The impression was even stronger when, several weeks later, I came home again for the winter break and went to the New Year’s party my father’s company threw.

  Christmas was something Americans celebrated fairly soberly at home. New Year’s, in contrast, was anything but sober. Men and women let themselves go, partying till late at night, the liquor flowing freely. My father’s branch had kept growing larger, and so that year they held the event in a local hotel ballroom for the first time, inviting American employees and their families, doing everything the American way, establishing it as a new custom. My mother, with both her daughters gone, was becoming daily more involved with colleagues at her office in Manhattan and was just as glad not to have to host the office party anymore.

  Nanae, at this point a junior at the conservatory, had broken up with her highborn boyfriend and brought home someone else, not only less respectable but rather cocky and worldly-wise. They left for the city in the afternoon to spend the night on their own, probably to avoid going to the party, but I was looking forward to it. There would not only be drinking but dancing; and the prospect of dancing with Japanese people and speaking in Japanese was appealing. I also looked forward to seeing all the familiar faces from the company.

  The moment I entered the ballroom, however, I knew I’d made a mistake. The feeling is probably shared by almost all students when they return from gown to town—the normal world. The scene before me, in the bright lighting of the suburban hotel, looked tawdry, as did the Christmas tree with its tinsel garlands. The American secretaries had hung up the usual HAPPY NEW YEAR banner and decorated it with red, blue, and yellow balloons, but, instead of heralding something new, it seemed a sign that nothing new could ever happen. The people swarming in the hall looked gaudy, tacky, and out of fashion—this because they were dressed to the nines. What was meant to create an atmosphere of revelry announced the impossibility of any revelry.

  That wasn’t the end of it. Precisely because they were so bent on hosting an authentic American-style party, a certain dreariness, so typical of the Asian communities there at the time, subtly permeated the hall, as if from the sad, faint sound of a Chinese fiddle or the lingering smell of soy sauce. As long as the expatriates behaved in a strictly Japanese way, bowing constantly and exchanging name cards in their somber business suits, they were merely Japanese people in America. The moment they tried to behave like Americans, everything about them—their figures, faces, expressions, gestures, their speech, even their voices, which struggled out of their narrow chests and spindly necks—betrayed all too clearly the fact that they were not “real” Americans and made their efforts seem comic, if not pathetic.

  Waves of people holding plates and glasses moved around the room, some speaking English, some Japanese, some just laughing. Before long, the Americans started to dance in high spirits, swinging their oversized bodies about, and the Japanese timidly followed. Even though rock had become mainstream by then, the party featured mainly ballroom music. People who didn’t know any ballroom moves tried to imitate those who did, and so the night wore on.

  I was one of those who didn’t know how to dance properly, but I danced all the same. Maybe it was partly a way of trying to get over the dismay I’d felt when I first arrived, and partly to give in to the absurdity of the whole thing, to affirm the impossibility of any real pleasure. Every time a fast dance like a jitterbug or a cha-cha came on, I’d grab a partner—Yaji, Kita, or the handsome new repairman everyone called Elvis, who wore his hair slicked with pomade and was a superb dancer. When I was thirsty, I’d alternate between a Coke and some strong punch, and I kept on dancing, drunk and half-dazed.

  I had no idea what time it was.

  “This will be the last fast dance, everybody!”

  A middle-aged American mistress of ceremonies made the announcement through a microphone in a tone that suggested she was speaking to a group of kindergartners. She was one of the secretaries. I was taking a short break from dancing and was surprised to be told that the party was almost over.

  “I think I’ll dance with Taro Azuma,” I said.

  Yaji and Kita, who were sitting across from me, exchanged glances. It suddenly occurred to me that Azuma’s presence had been bothering me all evening. I hadn’t thought of him during the past several months while I was at school, but from the moment we met that evening, I felt uneasy and even found myself often searching for his face in the crowd. Azuma seemed more friendless than ever, more sullen too. The fact that he had seated himself at a table away from everybody else only made him that much more conspicuous. The air around him seemed clouded with the dark frustration Nanae had noticed.

  “He’s been sitting there all night.” Yaji and Kita followed my gaze, looking toward the figure in the corner.

  “He’s actually a pretty good dancer,” Kita said.

  My eyes widened in surprise.

  “We’ve seen him dance,” Yaji confirmed.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” they both replied.

  “Then why isn’t he dancing tonight?”

  They just looked at each other and said nothing. I soon learned the reason, but it didn’t register just then.

  Once again, the voice on the microphone boomed, “The last fast dance!”

  The very last dance, the one after this, would be a slow one. The lights would go down low and couples would dance cheek to cheek, their bodies pressed together. I didn’t have the nerve to ask Azuma to dance that one with me, so this was my only chance.

  “I’m going to ask him,” I announced bravely and, turning away from Yaji and Kita, trotted across the room in my high heels. I stood in f
ront of him and announced to his gloomy face: “Let’s dance.”

  “I don’t know how.” His face hardened. I wanted to confront him, say something like, It’s not that you can’t, it’s that you don’t want to, but I was too young and I hardly knew him. Clumsily, I repeated my invitation. He looked straight into my eyes. It was a chilling look.

  “Come on.” I could feel the blush heating my cheeks. At that moment, loud music started up and I had to raise my voice. “This is the last chance. Let’s go.”

  He probably thought I was trading on my father’s authority. I still can’t explain why I was so insistent. Drunken, conflicting emotions swirled in me. There was, for one, the girlish vanity that made me think that every young man would want to dance with me. Yet this conceited thought went hand in hand with a certain girlish sympathy. My heart—no, my soul—went out to this person, who sat there all by himself, nursing what seemed to be a burning resentment, and I wanted to help him connect with the world. Nevertheless, when it became clear that he was not going to give in, I began to feel—how shall I put it? Fury? Yes, fury. He had refused me. And this was quickly transformed into a desire to hurt him, humble him.

  Holding my breath, I glared at him, my eyes declaring, We’re both young but there you are, trapped in your little life, with no promise in your future. And look how small and low it’s made you, how dark and hateful. Then look at me, look how high I can fly, how lightly and gracefully. And the distance between us will only grow as time passes …

  Taro Azuma instantly understood.

  He had been sitting there immobile, but abruptly he stood up and guided me toward the dance floor. Was that swing or jitterbug? All I knew was that my body was in his arms, being whirled around the floor at a frightening speed. His own body was tight with pent-up emotion; it felt almost as if he was punishing me. I could barely catch my breath. A faint, tangy smell came from him, that same scent I’d noticed when he changed the lightbulb in my bedroom. I was wondering if I should apologize for being so insistent, when the music ended. Once he let go of my arm, I sagged, almost flopping down, but somehow managed to stumble to a chair in a corner. I was in no mood to return to my previous companions.