Bicycle Days (12 page)

A
lec held the namecard in front of him with both hands. He ceremoniously studied it, first in English, then, turning it over, in Japanese. He was speaking to the supreme adviser to the Oyama Chemical and Construction Company. Bowing as smoothly as he could, he made the appropriate murmurings in Japanese about the great honor it was to meet such an exalted official from such an exalted company. That done, he waited eagerly for anything the supreme adviser might say in regard to his own lowly position of assistant manager. As usual, nothing was forthcoming. Alec thought he saw Boon hide a smile.

It was later, somewhere around eleven o’clock. They were in the hallway of a building in Ginza. Dinner had been a feast of Kobe beef and fresh vegetables, washed down with warmed sake. Alec had sat next to another Oyama executive and talked
American baseball statistics for most of the meal. He was pleased that he was finally getting a handle on doing business in Japan.

A bare wooden door opened at the end of the corridor, and the four of them walked into a dimly lit room. Inside, there was just enough space for a short bar and a piano with stools around it. Everything was close at hand, intimate, luxurious. The carpet felt like cushions under his feet; the curtains were made of velvet.

The mama-san of the establishment made a huge fuss at their arrival, grabbing Boon’s arm to lead him to a seat at the piano and chiding the supreme adviser for having forsaken her for so many weeks. “Tomorrow, I was going to close,” she announced, then grabbed his hand, too.

Three other hostesses, all attractive young women, rushed over to the guests, taking their coats and exclaiming at the rugged good looks of the foreigners. Alec translated the compliments to Boon, who quietly warned him not to pay any attention. They sat around the piano. Bottles of imported Scotch appeared. The women expertly mixed drinks.

Alec was sitting at one end of the piano, an empty seat between himself and the keyboard. To his left, the supreme adviser sat as though in meditation, his eyes glazed and hands on his thighs. Prospects for conversation seemed a bit dim. Alec felt a light hand on his wrist. The empty seat had been filled by one of the hostesses. Things seemed to be looking up.

“You are from America?” she asked in Japanese.

Alec grunted, was pleased with the way it sounded. He took a big swallow of Scotch. “Yes. From New York.”

Her fingers closed around his arm again and squeezed; a little of his drink spilled on the piano.

“Eh! I love New York! The Biggu Aperru.”

Alec looked at her more closely. “The what?”

“Biggu Aperru,” she repeated.

“Oh. Yes. Have you been to New York?”

“Me?” She touched the tip of her nose with her forefinger. “No, not yet. But I want very much to go. Yes, I want to go. I am an actress and singer, so I love New York.”

He smiled. “I love New York, too. Where do you perform in Tokyo?”

Her lower lip jutted out a little. Alec felt a wave of physical interest. He took another long drink.

“Work is very difficult,” she said. “I work every night, so there is not much time. In one month, I will stop working here. I want to be on television.”

Alec said, “You are very pretty.”

She stood up, moved around to the piano stool. “I will sing now. Do you like American music?” Alec nodded. “Yes? Good. I will sing Barry Manilow.” She started to play.

Alec stifled a groan. Why was everything always so difficult? The way Nobi had described it, all a person had to do was behave according to established social guidelines and everything would work out. Why was she playing Barry Manilow instead of sitting next to him?

She began to sing “I Write the Songs,” mispronouncing most of the words. With the music, signs of life began to emerge around the piano. The supreme adviser drummed his fingers on the piano top. In between remarks to the other Oyama man, Boon hummed a few notes of the song, noticeably off tune. Seated at the bar by the entrance, four Japanese businessmen sang along word for word, pausing only to take quick gulps of Scotch. The mama-san bustled back and forth between bar and piano, serving, chatting, finally coming to rest on a seat next to the now exuberant supreme adviser, who allowed his hand to rub lightly over her thighs. She gave his fingers a playful slap, eyeing him with feigned innocence. Alec watched with interest as the mama-san, herself in her fifties, brought the supreme adviser to life with lively, flirtatious conversation. She seemed to know exactly when to speak and what to say, when to laugh or touch his arm. As though awakening from a deep sleep, the
supreme adviser appeared to shake himself and sit taller on his stool; he laughed loudly several times and dabbed perspiration from his forehead with a handkerchief.

The song was over, and the hostess came back to sit beside Alec.

“I enjoyed that very much,” he said. “You have a good voice. Better than Barry Manilow.”

She looked pleased but shook her head. “Thank you, but I do not practice enough.”

The sounds of conversation filled the small room. Boon and the other Oyama man were the only ones speaking English. A hostess brought a cordless microphone to the back bar, where one of the young businessmen waited, jacket off and sleeves rolled up. Accompanied by a different hostess at the piano, he began to sing a Japanese love ballad that Alec had difficulty understanding. Something about love being just another form of pain. The phrase reminded Alec of the sex club he had visited with Park.

“My name is Masako,” whispered the woman beside him.

Alec introduced himself, nodding his head as a way of bowing without actually standing up. Now that he knew her name, she seemed more real, distinct from the other hostesses. Her hair was short, her face wonderfully Japanese, he thought, with almond-shaped eyes set above wide cheekbones and a full mouth. Her nose was tiny and would have been too small for her face if she herself were not barely over five feet tall.

As she mixed him another drink, Alec watched her cross her legs, the beige skirt rising up to expose smooth, stockinged skin. And he watched her hands, putting in more ice, pouring more Scotch with a touch of water. Her movements were precise, economical, as though she kept much of herself in reserve.

Smiling shyly, she put the new drink in front of him. “Please excuse me for not knowing English. I never learned.”

He smiled back at her. “If you speak slowly, there is no problem. Please do not worry.”

“Yes. I will speak slowly,” she said, looking relieved. “How long will you be in Tokyo, and what do you do here?”

“I will be in Tokyo for the rest of the summer. But perhaps I will stay much longer. I am working for an American computer company.” He used the Japanese version of the English word for computer, pronouncing it “computa.” He felt very Japanese.

“Sugoi,”
she said, the word indicating that she was impressed.

Alec looked around at the rest of his party, seeing them as though for the first time. The supreme adviser seemed to function at two extreme levels of activity: virile, almost youthful, when in conversation with the mama-san; sullen and aged when she was busy with other patrons. Across the piano, Boon appeared to be having a fine time, his face red and unusually animated. Unable to communicate with him in Japanese, the hostess beside Boon was spending most of her time topping off his drink.

The first man had finished his song. Time was racing by, measured only in music and drinks. Alec was finding it difficult to keep himself from grinning all the time. Masako remained next to him, speaking slowly and simply, laughing at his attempted jokes. Talking to her, feeling her hand on his arm now and then, he felt very sure of himself. The anxious times he had known since coming to Japan fell away under her spell. Once, she reached over and brushed his hair back in place with her fingers.

Word began to circulate in the room that it was time for one of the foreigners to sing. Boon was looking at the microphone, his lips pursed in worry. Then he pointed across the piano at Alec, who watched wide-eyed as a book of popular American songs was placed in front of him. Masako had stopped talking. The businessmen at the bar were clapping in unison. Boon just shrugged sheepishly at him. The supreme adviser turned slowly and squinted at him with the meaty, shining face of a retired boxer. The woman at the piano said she knew how to play “Johnny B. Goode.”

Alec was giddy enough to sing. He thought he might even get up and dance on the piano, gyrate his hips like Chuck Berry. But Masako touched him then. Hidden by the piano, she trailed her fingers up the inside of his thigh and took him in her hand.

T
he conference room was windowless, long and sleek as a cabin cruiser. A black oval table reached almost from end to end, surrounded by a ring of black chairs, their backs contoured to fit the natural shape of the seated human body. Alec was alone in the room, waiting for his first solo business meeting to begin. His palms were sweating.

A Japanese secretary knocked once and came into the room with a cup of coffee. Alec said hello and she blushed, then disappeared without a sound. The nondairy creamer was in a thin paper tube, sealed at both ends. There were no perforation marks or arrows indicating where to tear open the package. The yellowish powder spilled all over his lap when he ripped it across the middle.

For days now he had been working on a report about Japan’s commitment to liberalize its high-technology markets. He had found what English research materials he could and was finally ready to sit down to write the report when Park hurried over to
his desk, blinking and pointing wildly to a small advertisement in a Japanese-language business magazine. The advertisement was for a new encyclopedia of Japan’s high-tech industry, written by members of a prestigious Japanese economic research institute. Over sushi, it was decided that a meeting with a member of the institute should be arranged. Magnanimous as ever, Park had made the arrangements, assuring Alec that the people at the institute would all be able to speak English.

There was another knock on the door. The secretary entered, followed by two men dressed in identical navy blue suits, white shirts, and wide, striped ties. Alec put the cup and saucer down on the table, stood up.

“Please excuse me,” the secretary said in Japanese. “This is Ichikawa-san and Yasufuku-san.”

Alec introduced himself, put both palms on his thighs, and bowed. He thanked them for taking the time from their busy schedules to meet with him. Both men bowed in return. Not at all, they said. Apart from their clothing, they looked completely different from each other. Where Ichikawa was thick-set, with a ruddy face, salt-and-pepper hair, and a confident, bow-legged stance, Yasufuku reminded Alec more of a mortician: thin, stooping, and hollow-cheeked, his jet-black hair parted straight down the middle.

They exchanged business cards, Alec trying to receive theirs and give his all at the same time. The secretary glided out the door. They sat down, the two men facing Alec, nodding and smiling expectantly at him. He nodded and smiled in return, thanked them again for meeting with him. Ichikawa glanced quickly at Yasufuku, then both men nodded. The room was still. Alec decided that he would say a few introductory words in Japanese before switching to English for the more serious parts of the meeting.

“I am writing a report for my head office about Japan’s high-technology markets,” he began slowly. “So, I am looking for information about this subject.” Both men grunted and nodded. “I saw the advertisement for your encyclopedia and
thought that you might be able to answer some of my questions.…”

Both men smiled. As the older of the two, Ichikawa spoke first. “Of course, Stern-san, we will help you in any way we can.”

“Thank you,” Alec said clearly in English. “Now, my first question concerns the effective attitude of the Japanese government in general, and of MITI officials in particular, toward future tariff regulation of high-technology imports from the United States.”

Ichikawa and Yasufuku looked openly at each other and then at him, their faces molded into expressions of total incomprehension.