The Typhoon Lover

by Sujata Massey

  The man standing ahead of me in the diplomatic line was finishing up, so now my thoughts turned from global politics to anxiety. What if, somehow, the cover didn’t work? I wasn’t a diplomat. It was implausible that a museum employee would be in the line with a diplomatic passport. I’d be found out and humiliated by the customs officer, perhaps taken to a private room for interrogation by the National Police…my old friends, the ones who would remember my name.

  I was thinking about the dark blue handcuffs I’d worn during my deportation a little over a year before, so I almost didn’t notice the customs agent waving me forward. I tripped slightly and caught myself on the edge of the carry-on. Great. I looked like a diplomatic klutz.

  The customs agent asked me in English for the passport. He opened the page to the picture, looked at it, then looked at me.

  He turned the page. “American Embassy,” he said, nodding to himself.

  “Hai,” I said in Japanese. I figured that if I spoke simple Japanese badly, it might eliminate a more complicated discussion.

  I smiled at him, hoping that this might be the end of it, but he turned to the computer and typed in something, and my stomach started churning.

  The agent returned his gaze to me and asked where I’d be staying.

  I glumly gave the name of the Grand Hyatt in Roppongi Hills. I’d argued for a Japanese ryokan, but Michael said the government insisted on using American businesses as much as possible.

  My passport was stamped, and I was waved through. Free, in the land I loved, and the job was about to begin.

  I’d expected to take a train, but it turned out that right outside the customs exit, there was an American with a shaved head and a sign with my entire name spelled correctly. I went to him reluctantly, thinking if they wanted me to travel incognito, having an American soldier meet me wasn’t the way to go. The businessman who’d sat next to me, in fact, emerged just as the soldier-chauffeur was taking my carry-on, and looked at me reproachfully, as if he’d expected the two of us to share a limo into town together.

  I fluttered my fingers at him and went off with my escort to a distinctly unglamorous van, which was already half-full with other government-sponsored arrivals: two military families with young children. I made funny faces at their babies as we rode away from Chiba prefecture and toward Kanto, where Tokyo waited. Outside, the sky was even grayer than I’d remembered; it looked as if rain clouds were hovering. Hugh had reminded me to check the weather reports before packing, but I’d forgotten. As a result I had no umbrella or raincoat, just a 1970s tweed coat that was hardly waterproof.

  Shopping for waterproof gear would be easy, I decided as we pulled up to my hotel two hours later. The Grand Hyatt was a glass-and-steel tower located on the corner of a street of designer boutiques that never existed in my previous Tokyo life. This was Roppongi Hills, an area that city planners had experimented with greatly, as evidenced by a curvy pink chair set out on the street as an example of modern art. I gaped at teenagers in blue jeans lounging on it, and then, a moment later, a cluster of young women dressed in short, frilly gingham-check dresses, frilled bonnets, and black patent Mary Janes, taking photos of each other.

  What was this, the land of Cabbage Patch dolls?

  The Roppongi I remembered was the stomping ground of girls in eighteen-inch platform sandals. I used to feel like a baby because I couldn’t handle those shoes—but now I realized that being a baby was cool. I jumped off the bus and tried to give the soldier a tip for hefting my luggage to the hotel door, but he politely refused.

  “That’s okay, ma’am. Have a good stay.”

  Once I’d entered the insulated, expensive world of the Grand Hyatt, I saw no more young women posing as children. Half the people in the ultramodern limestone lobby appeared to be stylish Japanese. The rest looked like foreign businesspeople on expense accounts. The desk clerks, all Japanese and gorgeous, spoke perfect English with the foreigners, so I was privately thrilled when I came up and was immediately addressed in Japanese. It had been so long since this had happened that I wanted to cry. And, I reminded myself, it was going to keep happening every day, as long as I was here to work on the mission.

  I was eager to see my room, which, when the bellman took me up, proved as starkly modern as the lobby. The room had a king-size bed—a radical departure from the usual twin beds in Westernstyle hotel rooms in Japan. The bed was a low mahogany wood platform covered with a crisp white sheet. There was an asymmetrical desk of the same wood, topped by a small, flat-screen TV. The bathroom was luxurious marble, with everything you could want: electric toilet seat with built-in bidet and yet another flat-screen television. I peeled my eyes away from the tub to the bellman, who was still in the bedroom, demonstrating how to use a remote control by the bed to raise and lower two different screens over the huge windows.

  I supposed Michael Hendricks would have wanted me to have both shades drawn down all the time, but at the moment I couldn’t bring myself to block out Tokyo. I was so excited to be back in town. The moment I was alone, I dropped my coat and headed for the telephone with a blinking message light.

  The voice mail was from Mr. Watanabe, who wanted me to call him immediately upon arrival. He’d left a number with a Tokyo area code. There was a second call from Hugh, asking me to let him know when I got in.

  So Mr. Watanabe was in the city along with me. That was good, I decided as I started to dial. Of all the people I’d met at the meeting, he seemed the most palatable.

  “Was Shimura-san’s travel comfortable? Are you safely arrived?” he asked after I’d given my name. There had been no secretary answering the phone; this meant, probably, that he was at home. I heard the sound of someone, probably a child, playing “Chopsticks” in the background.

  “Yes, thank you very much, Watanabe-sensei,” I answered, using the extreme honorific rather than the more prosaic san. Mr. Watanabe wasn’t technically a teacher, but he was such a senior diplomat that calling him sensei was in perfect order. I wanted to butter him up, because I expected to call on him for advice in the next week.

  I continued, “I didn’t expect you to be here in Tokyo, too.”

  “Well, my wife and daughters live here, so when I return here on government business, I enjoy a chance to see them.” He paused. “Just as I’m sure you will enjoy the chance to see your relatives.”

  “Oh, yes.” I hadn’t thought of calling Aunt Norie and Uncle Hiroshi and my cousin Tom tonight because I’d been so eager to get in touch with my friends Richard and Simone, and whoever else they could dredge up after they were done with their evening shifts as English and French teachers.

  “Have you seen the auction catalog yet?”

  “I studied it on the plane.” I paused, because I was unable to come up with more.

  “Ah, so desu ka. I’m actually telephoning about the sale. My assistant stopped by the gallery yesterday and learned that Flowers-san already expressed interest.”

  I understood the code word for Takeo, but not the rest of what Mr. Watanabe was trying to say. “Has he registered as a buyer?”

  “Yes, that’s the case. He may not be there, though. I hear he sometimes bids by telephone.”

  That made sense. Takeo was such a hermit that he’d much rather lounge around his house in Hayama with a pizza than dress up and make pleasantries with the important buyers in the Tokyo art scene.

  “I’ll do my best to find out what he’s interested in,” I said. “One of the auction assistants is bound to know.”

  “I will be at the auction, although of course we must not acknowledge each other’s presence. We can meet outside later on.”

  “Of course,” I agreed.

  “I do suggest that you arrive a little early to the auction, although of course you’ll be very tired on your first full day here. Will you ask the hotel to book you a wake-up call that gives you plenty of time to get there by four?”

  “I don’t usually nap on the first day. I’ve made this transition many
times, Watanabe-sensei. I’ll show up early and do my best.” The fact was that I had a lot of things planned for the next day—things like picking up the new Eastern Youth compact disc for Hugh, and shopping for bras for myself in the only country where A-cups ruled. But that was too much information for Mr. Watanabe.

  After we’d wished each other a good evening, I hung up the phone and pondered my little telephone-address book. I thought I’d want to go out for drinks, but I was beat.

  I telephoned Richard’s cell phone and left a message that I wanted to meet him the next day, after I’d rested. Then I swallowed a Melatonin along with two glasses of tap water. I ran a bath and sank into it with the antiques catalog held carefully aloft. I would use my last hour to try to guess what had caught Takeo’s discerning eye—and how I could do the same kind of thing myself.

  10

  To sleep a full first night in Japan, followed by an awakening at a normal morning hour, is an impossible dream.

  My normal wake-up hour, the day after I arrive, is three o’clock in the morning—or four, if I’m extremely tired the night before. Unfortunately, these hours are still too wee for Japanese hotel operators to consider turning on the hot water heater or serve breakfast.

  But hot water wasn’t an issue in this hotel, nor was heat or room service. I took a long, luxurious shower. I debated which telephone to use to call Hugh. Michael Hendricks had given me a sleek, high-tech cell that could receive and make international calls, take digital photographs, surf the web, and serve as a receptacle for ingoing and outgoing e-mail. Still, the frugal traveler inside me wondered whether I would get into trouble for using it for personal reasons.

  I put off the decision and dressed in the yoga pants and sweatshirt at the top of my luggage and moved through a half hour of stretches. My back and hips were stiff after the long flight. I needed to get out of my room and get breakfast somewhere.

  Tokyo’s wholesale fish market lay six kilometers due east. As I jogged the route I knew so well, I found myself running directly toward the rising sun—or the place where the sun would have risen, if there hadn’t been so many gray storm clouds. I didn’t mind. I was elated to run through Roppongi Crossing, passing my old favorite dance haunts like Gas Panic, Wall Street, and MoTown House. In the evening, you could barely walk a straight line through the crowds, but now it was uncrowded, and the only things I needed to dodge were the disgusting asphalt flowers that drunken salarymen had spewed along the sidewalk the night before. From Gaien Higashi-Dori I passed the Lamborghini dealer where Hugh had spent many wistful hours, and then the International Clinic, where many foreigners went for discreet treatment of venereal diseases contracted at the nightclubs I’d passed a few kilometers back.

  In my pleasant reverie, with U2 blaring into my ears from the Walkman I wore, I sped along the uncrowded sidewalks, giving the wide gray streets to the first delivery trucks, bicycles, and motorcycles, none of which speeded—this despite the open path, and the lack of police.

  I was tiring by the time I passed Tokyo Tower, but I knew the best part of the run was coming: Shiba Park, where I slowed down as I passed the graveyard of the Tokugawa clan of shoguns, and took a brief stop to drink some water at Zojo-ji Temple. I resumed my run again and emerged under a giant tori gate into the Hibiya business district, then Shimbashi, with all its wonderful little eating and drinking places still closed. Finally I ran through Ginza, the luxury shopping district where people said that if you stacked ten ten-thousand-yen notes anywhere on the sidewalk, the tiny portion of land underneath the bills would still be worth more. Then it was a right on Harumi Dori past the grand old Kabuki Theater and straight into Tsukijii, where I was delighted to slow to a walk to avoid running into the huge, glistening fish laid out directly on concrete sidewalks. The fishmongers with their thigh-high rubber boots and shrewd expressions glanced at me, but didn’t bother beckoning—it must have seemed obvious that a sweaty young woman in Asics was not a major restaurateur.

  I was a glutton, I thought, as I ran my eyes over the glistening sea creatures lying so ingloriously on concrete. A sleek blue-gray fish that looked as if it weighed only about ten pounds—big enough for a feast with my friends, though the price scrawled on its side made that fantasy unaffordable—gave me pause.

  “Excuse me, but what’s that called?” I asked the bored-looking fellow standing in a wool sweater and rubber wader overalls behind the beauty. The fish had a number scrawled on it, but that was its only identifying feature.

  “It’s a kind of shusseuo.”

  “Really! What kind, exactly?” Shusse literally meant “career progress,” and uo meant fish. Mothers gave children shusseuo before school examinations. It was interesting, and perhaps apt, that I’d gotten to see this fish this morning.

  He glanced around, then lowered his voice as if he were going to tell me a secret. “Wakashi. It’s very, very fresh.”

  “Oh, I bet it will make wonderful sushi.” He was talking about young yellowtail. If yellowtail was good, a younger version had to be heavenly.

  “Ah, yes, it will be gone within a half hour, I’m sure.”

  “Where was it caught, in Japanese waters or—”

  “What about some service for a real customer?” a sharp voice barked behind me and I stepped aside.

  I’d gone too far, asked too much. And the fact was, I couldn’t take the fish. I bowed to the fishmonger and the man who had interrupted me and slipped off. It was six-thirty, so some breakfast spots around the market had to be open. I began searching for a little hole-in-the-wall place where Tom had taken me for an incredible seafood stew a few years earlier. After a minute’s walk, I recognized its sign—a smiling octopus—but the door was locked. However, two doors down a long blue curtain fluttered in another doorway.

  A red-faced man with a kerchief tied around his head bellowed out a welcome as I stepped inside the tiny restaurant. It couldn’t have been more than ten feet long and five feet wide, with a blond wood counter and five stools. Every stool was filled, but the chef motioned for me to stand behind the chair of a fishmonger, who was finishing up a plate of squid roe sushi. I took the time to look around and decide what I’d order. The man next to him was eating tai, one of my favorite fishes. Soon, the fishmonger had departed and I took his spot. I asked for tai and wakashi hammachi.

  The chef shook his finger at me. “We don’t carry wakashi fish. It’s because the little ones are caught too early that we have fish shortages, neh?”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.” My cheeks warmed with shame. Why hadn’t I thought of this myself, when I’d been joking with the fishmonger outside? Ever since sushi had exploded in global popularity in the 1990s, Japan’s once teaming tuna and yellowtail population had dwindled. Fishermen who caught baby fish like the one I’d seen, rather than waiting for the babies to mature and lay eggs for a future generation, were thinking of quick profits and disregarding the environment. But the whole reason they chose to be unscrupulous profiteers was the existence of greedy gourmets like myself.

  The chef suggested inada, which was a slightly more mature form of hammachi, and I agreed readily. I sipped a tiny cup of hot green tea while I watched the chef deftly slice the fish and layer it on fresh sticky rice. Then, it was my turn. I swirled each piece of sushi through a mixture of soy and wasabi in a little blue bowl at my side. I was in a state of bliss. The only problem was that I knew another person was behind me, subtly but hostilely waiting for the seat. A few years ago, I would have turned around to acknowledge him and apologize, but today, I was bent on enjoying myself. I didn’t turn. I kept eating steadily, at a pace that suited me.

  “Okusama, another honorable customer is waiting,” the chef said, scooping my plate away from me after I picked up the final piece of tai with my chopsticks.

  I cringed. Why had the man addressed me as “honorable housewife,” the kind of honorific men used only with female customers of a certain age? I’d gone through my previous life in Japan with restaurant and
shop owners calling me oneesan, which meant “big sister.”

  The tai in my mouth suddenly tasted metallic, but I dutifully chewed and swallowed. Then I picked up the hand-scrawled bill and squeezed through the standing-room-only crowd to the cashier. The sumptuous sushi breakfast had cost about $8.50, a bargain compared with what breakfast would have cost in the hotel. I got a receipt for business purposes and tucked it safely away in my pocket, confident that so far, I was handling expenses in a way that my government would approve.

  My worries about not knowing how to behave correctly continued when I reached the Meiwashima Auction House in late afternoon. The young woman behind Gucci sunglasses who was guarding the door didn’t recognize me. In fact, she attempted to stop me from entering.

  “I believe I am preregistered. Shimura Rei?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” The girl looked at her clipboard and nodded. “Yes, yes, I see your name is on the list. You may pick up paddle number fifty-three at the main office.”

  I remembered her from half a dozen sales past, but apparently she hadn’t remembered me. Well, there were a lot of people, I thought to myself, as I joined the long queue standing at a desk behind which a crew of women were issuing pine paddles approximately the size of fans. I looked around covertly at the well-dressed shop owners and private buyers who were nodding and smiling at each other as they waited. I spotted a few familiar faces, those belonging to the owners of some big, fancy shops in Roppongi, Omote-Sando, and the like. The ones who recognized me gave the correct half-bow, to which I bowed back at the same forty-five-degree angle. There was no need to chat. This was a chichi auction—a place to which it had taken me a couple of years to gain admittance.

  It took a good twenty minutes to get to the head of the line, and when I did so, I asked, as innocently as I could, if Takeo Kayama was bidding.