by John Updike
“Toyota strive to be fair-practices emproyer,” says Mr. Shimada. “Wants to be good citizen of your pruraristic society. In prant in Georgetown, Kentucky, many bracks work. Not just assembry line, executive positions.”
“We’ll work on it,” Rabbit promises him. “This is a kind of conservative area, but it’s coming along.”
“Very pretty area.”
“Right.”
Back in the showroom, Harry feels obliged to explain, “My son picked these colors for the walls and woodwork. My son Nelson. I would have gone for something a little less, uh, choice, but he’s been the effective manager here, while I’ve been spending half the year in Florida. My wife loves the sun down there. She plays tennis, by the way. Loves the game.”
Mr. Shimada beams. His lips seem flattened as if by pressing up against glass, and his eyeglasses, their squarish gold rims, seem set exceptionally tight against his eyes. “We know Nelson Angstrom,” he says. He has trouble with the many consonants of the last name, making it “Ank-a-stom.” “A most famous man at Toyota company.”
A constriction in Harry’s chest and a watery looseness below his belt tell him that they have arrived, after many courtesies, at the point of the visit. “Want to come into my office and sit?”
“With preasure.”
“Anything one of the girls could get you? Coffee? Tea? Not like your tea, of course. Just a bag of Lipton’s -“
“Is fine without.” Rather unceremoniously, he enters Harry’s office and sits on the vinyl customer’s chair, with padded chrome arms, facing the desk. He sets his wonderfully thin briefcase on his lap and lightly folds his hands upon it, showing two dazzling breadths of white cuff. He waits for Harry to seat himself behind the desk and then begins what seems to be a prepared speech. “Arways,” he says, “we in Japan admire America. As boy during Occupation, rooked way up to big GI soldiers, their happy easygo ways. Enemy soldiers, but not bad men. Powerful men. Our Emperor’s advisers have red him down unfortunate ways, so General MacArthur, he seemed to us as Emperor had been, distant and first-rate. We worked hard to do what he suggest rebuild burned cities, learn democratic ways. Japanese very humble at first in regard to America. You know Toyota story. At first, very modest, then bigger, we produce a better product for the rittle man’s money, yes? You ask for it, we got it, yes?”
“Good slogan,” Harry tells him. “I like it better than some of the recent ones’ve been coming down.”
But Mr. Shimada does not expect to be even slightly interrupted. His burnished, manicured hands firmly flatten on the thin oxblood briefcase and he inclines his upper body forward to make his voice clear. “Nevertheress, these years of postwar, Japanese, man and woman, have great respect for United States. Rike big brother. But in recent times big brother act rike rittle brother, always cry and comprain. Want many favors in trade, saying Japanese unfair competition. Why unfair? Make something, cheaper even with duty and transportation costs, people rike, people buy. American way in old times. But in new times America make nothing, just do mergers, do acquisitions, rower taxes, raise national debt. Nothing comes out, all goes in - foreign goods, foreign capital. America take everything, give nothing. Rike big brack hole.”
Mr. Shimada is proud of this up-to-date analogy and of his unanswerable command of English. He smiles to himself and opens, with a double snap as startling as a gunshot, his briefcase. From it he takes a single sheet of stiff creamy paper, sparsely decorated with typed figures. “According to figures here, between November ‘88 and May ‘89 Springer Motors fail to report sale of nine Toyota vehicles totarring one hundred thirty-seven thousand four hundred at factory price. This sum accumurating interest come to as of this date one hundred forty-five thousand eight hundred.” With one of his reflexive, half-suppressed bows, he hands the paper across the desk.
Harry covers it with his big hand and says, “Yeah, well, but it’s accountants we hired reported all this to you. It’s not as if Springer Motors as a company is trying to cheat anybody. It’s a screwy - an unusual - situation that developed and that’s being corrected. My son had a drug problem and hired a bad egg as chief accountant and together they ripped us all off. The Brewer Trust, too, in another scam - they had a dead mutual friend buying cars, would you believe it? But listen: my wife and I - technically she’s the owner here - we have every intention of paying Mid-Atlantic Toyota back every penny we owe. And I’d like to see, sometime, how you’re computing that interest.”
Mr. Shimada leans back a bit and makes his briefest speech. “How soon?”
Harry takes a plunge. “End of August.” Three weeks away. They might have to take out a bank loan, and Brewer Trust is already on their case. Well, let Janice’s accountants work it out if they’re so smart.
Mr. Shimada blinks, behind those lenses embedded in his flat face, and seems to nod in concord. “End of August. Interest computed at twelve per cent monthly compounded as in standard TMCC loan.” He snaps shut his briefcase and balances it on its edge beside his chair. He gazes obliquely at the framed photographs on Harry’s desk: Janice, when she still had bangs, in a spangly long dress three or four years ago, about to go off to the Valhalla Village New Year’s Eve party, a flashlit color print Fern Drechsel took with a Nikkomat Bernie had just given her for a Hanukkah present and that came out surprisingly well, Janice’s face in anticipation of the party looking younger than her years, a bit overexposed and out of focus and starry-eyed; Nelson’s highschool graduation picture, in a blazer and necktie but his hair down to his shoulders, long as a girl’s; and, left over from Nelson’s tenure at this desk, a framed black-and-white posed school photo of Harry in his basketball uniform, holding the ball above his shining right shoulder as if to get off a shot, his hair crewcut, his eyes sleepy, his tank top stencilled MJ.
Mr. Shimada’s less upright posture in the chair indicates a new, less formal level of discourse. “Young people now most interesting,” he decides to say. “Not scared of starving as through most human history. Not scared of atom bomb as until recently. But scared of something - not happy. In Japan, too. Brue jeans, rock music not make happiness enough. In former times, in Japan, very simple things make men happy. Moonright on fish pond at certain moment. Cricket singing in bamboo grove. Very small things bring very great feering. Japan a rittle ireand country, must make do with very near nothing. Not rike endless China, not rike U.S. No oiru wells, no great spaces. We have only our people, their disciprine. Riving now five years in Carifornia, it disappoints me, the rack of disciprine in people of America. Many good qualities, of course. Good tennis, good hearts. Roads of fun. I have many most dear American friends. Always they aporogize to me for Japanese internment camps in Frankrin Roosevelt days. Always I say to them, surprised, `Was war!’ In war, people need disciprine. Not just in war. Peace a kind of war also. We fight now not Americans and British but Nissan, Honda, Ford. Toyota agency must be a prace of disciprine, a prace of order.”
Harry feels he must interrupt, he doesn’t like the trend of this monologue. “We think this agency is. Sales have been up eight per cent this summer, bucking the national trend. I’m always saying to people, `Toyota’s been good to us, and we’ve been good to Toyota.”’
“No more, sorry,” Mr. Shimada says simply, and resumes: “In United States, is fascinating for me, struggle between order and freedom. Everybody mention freedom, all papers terevision anchor people everybody. Much rove and talk of freedom. Skateboarders want freedom to use beach boardwalks and knock down poor old people. Brack men with radios want freedom to selfexpress with super jumbo noise. Men want freedom to have guns and shoot others on freeways in random sport. In Carifornia, dog shit much surprise me. Everywhere, dog shit, dogs must have important freedom to shit everywhere. Dog freedom more important than crean grass and cement pavement. In U.S., Toyota company hope to make ireands of order in ocean of freedom. Hope to strike proper barance between needs of outer world and needs of inner being, between what in Japan we call giri and ninjó.”
He leans forward and, with a flash of wide white cuff, taps the page of figures on Harry’s desk. “Too much disorder. Too much dog shit. Pay by end of August, no prosecution for criminal activities. But no more Toyota franchise at Singer Motors.”
“Springer,” Harry says automatically. “Listen,” he pleads. “No one feels worse about my son’s falling apart than I do.”
Now it is Mr. Shimada who interrupts; his own speech, with whatever beautiful shadows in Japanese it was forming in his mind, has whipped him up. “Not just son,” he says. “Who is father and mother of such son? Where are they? In Frorida, enjoying sunshine and tennis, while young boy prays games with autos. Nelson Ank-a-stom too much a boy still to be managing Toyota agency. He roses face for Toyota company.” This statement tugs his flat lips far down, in a pop-eyed scowl.
Hopelessly Harry argues, “You want the sales staff young, to attract the young customers. Nelson’ll be thirty-three in a couple months.” He thinks it would be a waste of breath, and maybe offensive, to explain to Mr. Shimada that at that same age Jesus Christ was old enough to be crucified and redeem mankind. He makes a final plea: “You’ll lose all the good will. For thirty years the people of Brewer have known where to come to buy Toyotas. Out here right on Route One One One.”
“No more,” Mr. Shimada states. “Too much dog shit, Mr. Ank-strom.” His third try and he almost has it. You got to hand it to them. “Toyota does not enjoy bad games prayed with its ploduct.” He picks up his slim briefcase and stands. “You keep invoice. Many more papers to arrive. Most preasant if regretful visit, and good talk on topics of general interest. Perhaps you would be kind to discuss with rimo driver best way to find Route Four Two Two. Mr. Krauss has agency there.”
“You’re going to see Rudy? He used to work here. I taught him all he knows.”
Mr. Shimada has stiffened, in that faintly striped smoky-blue suit. “Good teacher not always good parent.”
“If Rudy’s going to be the only Toyota in town, he ought to get rid of Mazda. That Wankel engine never really worked out. Too much like a squirrel cage.”
Harry feels lightheaded, now that the ax has fallen. Anticipation is the worst; letting go has its pleasant side. “Good luck with Lexus, by the way,” he says. “People don’t think luxury when they think Toyota, but things can change.”
“Things change,” says Mr. Shimada. “Is world’s sad secret.” Out in the showroom, he asks, “Rovely rady?” Elvira with her clicking brisk walk traverses the showroom floor, her earrings doing a dance along the points of her jaw. Their visitor asks, “Could prease have business card, in case of future reference?” She digs one out of her suit pocket, and Mr. Shimada accepts it, studies it seriously, bows with his hands at his side, and then, to strike a jocular American note, imitates a tennis backhand.
“You’ve got it,” she tells him. “Take it back low.”
He bows again and, turning to Harry, beams so broadly his eyeglass frames are lifted by the creasing of his face. “Good ruck with many probrems. Perhaps before too rate should buy Rexus at dealer price.” This is, it would seem, a little Japanese joke.
Harry gives the manicured hand a gritty squeeze. “Don’t think I can afford even a Corolla now,” he says and, in a reflex of good will really, manages a little bow of his own. He accompanies his visitor outdoors to the limousine, whose black driver is leaning against the fender eating a slice of pizza, and a cloud pulls back from the sun; a colorless merciless dog-day brilliance makes Harry wince; all joking falls away and he abruptly feels fragile and ill with loss. He cannot imagine the lot without the tall blue TOYOTA sign, the glinting still lake of well-made cars in slightly bitter Oriental colors. Poor Janice, she’ll be knocked for a loop. She’ll feel she’s let her father down.
But she doesn’t react too strongly; she is more interested these days in her real-estate courses. Janice has completed one pair of ten-week courses and is into another. She has long phone conversations with her classmates about the next quiz or the fascinating personality of their teacher, Mr. Lister with his exciting new beard. “I’m sure Nelson has some plan,” she says. “And if he doesn’t, we’ll all sit down and negotiate one.”
“Negotiate! Two hundred thousand disappearing dollars! And you don’t have Toyotas to sell any more.”
“Were they really so great, Harry? Nelson hated them. Why can’t we get an American franchise - isn’t Detroit making a big comeback?”
“Not so big they can afford Nelson Angstrom.”
She pretends he’s joking, saying, “Aren’t you awful?” Then she looks at his face, is startled and saddened by what she sees there, and crosses their kitchen to reach up and touch his face. “Harry,” she says. “You are taking it hard. Don’t. Daddy used to say, `For every up there’s a down, and for every down there’s an up.’ Nelson will be home in a week and we can’t do a thing really until then.” Outside the kitchen window screen, where moths keep bumping, the early-August evening has that blended tint peculiar to the season, of light being withdrawn while summer’s warmth remains. As the days grow shorter, a dryness of dead grass and chirring insects has crept in even through this summer of heavy rains, of more thunderstorms and flash floods in Diamond County than Harry can ever remember. Out in their yard, he notices now a few brown leaves shed by the weeping cherry, and the flower stalks of the violet hosta dying back. In his mood of isolation and lassitude he is drawing closer to the earth, the familiar mother with his infancy still in her skirts, in the shadows beneath the bushes.
“Shit,” he says, a word charged for him with magic since the night three months ago when Pru used it to announce her despairing decision to sleep with him, once. “What kind of plans can Nelson have? He’ll be lucky to stay out of jail.”
“You can’t go to jail for stealing from your own family. He had a medical problem, he was sick the same way you were sick only it was addiction instead of angina. You’re both getting better.”
He hears in the things she says, more and more, other voices, opinions and a wisdom gathered away from him. “Who have you been talking to?” he says. “You sound like that know-it-all Doris Kaufmann.”
“Eberhardt. I haven’t talked to Doris for weeks and weeks. But some of the women taking the real-estate program, we go out afterwards to this little place on Pine Street that’s not too rough, at least until later, and one of them, Francie Alvarez, says you got to think of any addiction as a medical condition just like they caught the flu, or otherwise you’d go crazy, blaming the addicts around you as if they can help it.”
“So what makes you think Nelson’s cure will take? Just because it cost us six grand, that doesn’t mean a thing to the kid. He just went in to let things blow over. You told me yourself he told you once he loves coke more than anything in the world. More than you, more than me, more than his own kids.”
“Well, sometimes in life you have to give up things you love.”
Charlie. Is that who she’s thinking of, to make her voice sound so sincere, so sadly wise and wisely firm? Her eyes for this moment in dying August light have a darkness that invites him in, to share a wisdom her woman’s life has taught her. Her fingers touch his cheek again, a touch like a fly that when you’re trying to fall asleep keeps settling on your face, the ticklish thin skin here and there. It’s annoying; he tries to shake her off with a snap of his head. She pulls her hand back but still stares so solemnly. “It’s you I worry about, more than Nelson. Is the angina coming back? The breathlessness?”
“A twinge now and then,” he admits. “Nothing a pill doesn’t fix. It’s just something I’m going to have to live with.”
“I wonder if you shouldn’t have had the bypass.”
“The balloon was bad enough. Sometimes I feel like they left it inside me.”
“Harry, at least you should do more exercise. You go from the lot to the TV in the den to bed. You never play golf any more.”
“Well, it’s no fun with the old gang gone. The kids out there at the Flyin
g Eagle don’t want an old man in their foursome. In Florida I’ll pick it up again.”
“That’s something else we ought to talk about. What’s the point of my getting the salesperson’s license if we go right down to Florida for six months? I can never build up any local presence.”
“Local presence, you’ve got lots of it. You’re Fred Springer’s daughter and Harry Angstrom’s wife. And now you’re a famous coke addict’s mother.”
“I mean professionally. It’s a phrase Mr. Lister uses. It means the people know you’re always there, not off in Florida like some person who doesn’t take her job seriously.”
“So,” he says. “Florida was good enough to stash me in when I was manager at Springer Motors, to get me out of Nelson’s way, but now you think you’re a working girl we can just forget it, Florida.”
“Well,” Janice allows, “I was thinking, one possibility, to help with the company’s debts, might be to sell the condo.”
“Sell it? Over my dead body,” he says, not so much meaning it as enjoying the sound of his voice, indignant like one of those perpetually outraged fathers on a TV sitcom, or like silver-haired Steve Martin in the movie Parenthood, which they saw the other night because one of Janice’s real-estate buddies thought it was so funny. “My blood’s got too thin to go through a Northern winter.”