The letter was mercifully brief, drifting in tone between high-patriarchal and boys’-night-out: “Although I haven’t been in touch of late, my thoughts are often with you . . . breakfast at Polo Lounge . . . Lara Lavalle, the silicone queen, who uses her finger to read her lines off the monitor . . . Hoping this finds you well, Chris. Your loving father.” No lectures about wasting one’s life, turning up one’s nose at all the golden opportunities. Ransom junior was relieved, and chastened at the thought of the bad-mouth he had put on his dad for both Rachel and Marilyn.
Again he felt the onslaught of panic and regret—he could nearly smell it—and turned in self-defense to the ad copy, a pitch for a new chain of saunas. The art showed a bikini-clad Japanese girl against the Manhattan skyline:
I LOVE SAUNA
Let’s Sauna
Let’s Sauna for my happy
Let’s Sauna for your happy
Let’s Sauna joyful life
Let’s Sauna for our happy
Oh beautiful day, healthy day, nice a day.
Let’s Sauna all happy.
Honda’s note indicated that the copy would also serve as the lyrics to a song which would saturate national radio to mark the grand opening of the sauna chain. Ransom didn’t know where to begin. Despairing of the language, he decided to evade the issue by consulting with Miti-san, the art director, who because he had scored low on his preschool tests was rejected by the best kindergartens, and subsequently did not get into the best schools, including Tokyo University, thus was unable to get a job at Dentsu, the top Japanese ad agency, and therefore ended up in charge of design and layout for A-OK textbooks and ads.
Miti was holed-up in his cubicle, separated from the rest of the office by a sheet of glass. When Ransom knocked, he was sitting in front of his drafting table reading a magazine. Looking alarmed, Miti-san slipped into his shoes and straightened his tie. They exchanged pleasantries—Ransom asking about the wife and kid, Miti about karate—and then Ransom asked what was the thinking behind the bikini and the New York skyline.
Miti shrugged and looked down at the artwork again, as if he hadn’t seen it in a long time.
Don’t they have saunas in New York? he asked, fearfully.
Sure they do, Ransom said. He was just curious if New York was particularly associated with sauna bathing in the minds of the Japanese.
New York is like sex, Miti said, relaxing a little. You can sell almost anything if you attach it to New York.
Ransom finally convinced Miti that he hadn’t come in a spirit of criticism so much as a spirit of curiosity. Miti became almost loquacious.
The principles of Japanese advertising, he said, were really quite simple. Gaijin were glamorous. If you were selling a luxury product—liquor, perfume—you used a gaijin, preferably a blond model, a New York, London or Paris backdrop, and an English slogan. If you were selling a household product, you used a domestic-looking Japanese model. The interesting cases were those in between. Miti had decided that the sauna, being a service, ought to have some racial identification as well as gaijin glamour.
Miti asked Ransom what he thought of Sadaharu Oh, the home-run heir apparent.
Ransom said he was a fine ballplayer.
Miti said, Hank Aaron is a Negro, isn’t he?
Ransom said he was, unsure of the significance Miti attached to this fact. He went back out to his desk and struggled with the sauna copy, the construction of which was brought back to him that evening as he worked through Lesson Nine of Level Two with his Mitsubishi class, Ransom reading and the class repeating, books closed.
I make a deal.
“I make a deal.”
You make a deal.
“You make a deal.”
He makes a deal.
“He makes a deal.”
She makes a deal.
“She makes a deal.”
Mr. Smith makes a deal . . .
20
On Tuesday night the sensei asked Ransom to stay after practice. The cool night air was a relief from the mugginess of the day, which Ransom had spent in Osaka, untangling English words from Japanese constructions, correcting pronunciation in a smoke-filled room in the Mitsubishi building.
Practice had gone well. In sparring, Ransom had given the Monk a hard time for his two points. The Monk, now smoothing and folding his gi on the steps of the gym, was among the last to leave. Finally he cinched the compact bundle with his obi, the kuro obi, bowed to the sensei and Ransom, who remained in their gi, and walked off, looking as if he were closing down a movie.
Ransom watched the sensei walk out to the center of the lot, marvelling at his grace and ease. In one of their first after-practice sessions, the sensei worked on Ransom’s gravity. First he imitated Ransom’s walk, bouncing up and down, swinging his arms, swivelling his head. That’s how Americans walk, the sensei said, and months later, seeing a group of American tourists sauntering up Shijo Street, Ransom saw what he meant: moving as if they were trying to launch themselves into space, confident that the air would part to let them pass, without a worry about the ground beneath their feet. Over a period of months they worked on lowering Ransom’s center of balance, bringing it down from his chest. During practice the sensei would clamp a hand over Ransom’s head to fix it level as he moved. Sitting on chairs, he said, contributed to the terrible top-heaviness of Americans. Ransom complained that he was never going to get any shorter—that was what it came down to—but his walk had changed.
Now Ransom stood facing the sensei, hands crossed, waiting for instructions.
The sensei poked at the asphalt with the ball of his foot. Then he said, I don’t believe in fancy moves. Triple backward upside-down kicks . . . He twisted his body preposterously to illustrate. Movie stuff, that jumping around. He jumped. Understand?
Ransom said he understood.
Also, he said, it took me two years to get you down closer to the ground. But, when one masters the basics, there are other techniques . . . useful . . . understand?
Ransom nodded.
He said, I’ve been thinking about a new technique for you. For your build, some techniques don’t make sense. But I think this one will suit you. Ready?
They assumed fighting stance.
The sensei jumped up and let loose a kick at Ransom’s chest. Ransom blocked it easily, then saw the other coming at him, sweeping just past his nose, brushing hair over his forehead, the sensei in mid-air in front of him, coming down lightly, all at once.
You spring from the back leg, the sensei explained. The first kick is a fake, but you use it for upward momentum. The first kick is chest level, but it’s the second that has the power, head level.
The sensei reached inside his pants and adjusted himself.
It’s dangerous, though, the sensei said. Dangerous for the attacker. If you don’t spring hard enough, if you’re blocked hard on the first, you can land on your back. Also dangerous for the opponent. If you connect with the head kick . . . He paused.
In practice, we lower the level of the second kick till we can control it. Understand?
Ransom assented eagerly.
It was a matter of combining moves he was already familiar with and extending them. After half an hour the sensei seemed satisfied with his progress.
Let’s get a drink, he said as they were changing.
To say that you didn’t drink, Ransom figured, was especially foolish when your sensei was the one asking.
Okay, Ransom said. Where?
Gion, the sensei said.
Ransom said, I’ve got an extra helmet, indicating the shoddy old 250 Scrambler Udo had given him to use until he could clear the sugar out of Ransom’s bike.
We can take a cab, the sensei proposed.
Why waste the money? Ransom asked.
I’m not getting on the back of that thing, he said.
Ransom asked him if he’d rather drive.
He shook his head. I’m not crazy, he said. Those things are dangerous.
&nb
sp; They left the bike there and took a cab. Traffic thickened as they approached Gion, and at Sanjo Street, on the northern edge of the district, the sensei paid the cabbie and hopped out. The gaudier establishments, cabarets with neon signs and loud music, circled the district. Further in, the streets narrowed into one-way alleys and tributary passageways. Drunken businessmen in blue suits stumbled from doorways singing and holding each other up. The signs became more discreet, the architecture more domestic as they walked in, passing tea houses and member’s clubs.
The sensei had a bottle at a little nomiya, a tunnel of a place with eight seats along the bar, two of which happened to be empty. The hostess made a fuss over the sensei and the patrons greeted him deferentially; Ransom was subjected to the pet-gaijin treatment. The sensei proclaimed Ransom a real samurai. A bottle of J&B, decorated with the sensei’s name and the stylized profile of a clenched fist, was placed in front of them, along with a setup of ice and soda.
They talked baseball. The sensei demonstrated tricks with matches and coins. But once their sashimi arrived and Ransom started in, the sensei grabbed Ransom’s chopsticks with one hand and the back of his head with the other. He showed how easy it would be—given the position of the chopsticks, pointing directly back into the mouth—to skewer Ransom’s skull, then demonstrated the safe technique, keeping the chopsticks off to the side of the face so that at worst your cheek was pierced.
The whiskey tasted harsh at first, but the second one was better. The sensei insisted. Two seats down a man was passed out with his head on the bar. As if on tracks, the hostess and her daughter glided back and forth from one end of the bar to the other. The stereo played hokey love songs. Suddenly, the sensei wanted to sing. He asked the hostess to play the instrumental backup tape to “Onna Hitori.” The other patrons applauded. He pushed back his seat and stood up, as the music began. He closed his eyes and sang:
Kyoto ohara sanzen-in
Koini tsukareta onna ga hitori
Yuki ni shioze no sugaki no obi ga
Ike no mizumo ni yureteita
He had a fine voice. It was a song about lost love, a woman alone, snow falling on a temple, on the woman. When the sensei finished they all applauded enthusiastically.
Did you understand it? the sensei asked.
Not all the words, Ransom said. But I liked it.
Good. The words aren’t so important. It’s the feeling—he patted his belly—that counts.
Ransom remembered something: Love to feel everything rather than think. The sensei was a Funky Babe.
When the bottle was dry the sensei said it was time for a bath. The hostess walked them to the door, telling them to be careful and to come again soon. They walked east, toward the river.
The whiskey had given Ransom a headache. The sensei was in fine form, smiling and humming. He asked Ransom if he had ever been to a Turko Buro. Ransom said that he hadn’t. It’s time you did, the sensei said.
Ransom tried to think of an excuse.
What do you say in English? the sensei wanted to know.
“Turkish bath,” Ransom said.
Do you have them in America? the sensei asked.
Not really, Ransom said.
Either you have them or you don’t.
He could plead hydrophobia, Ransom thought.
The sensei stopped in front of a doorway and knocked. A buzzer sounded and the sensei pushed the door open. The empty reception area might just as easily have been a dentist’s waiting room: Naugahyde couch and chairs, coffee table, magazine rack. The sensei told Ransom to sit down.
A wooden panel, set into the far wall, slid back revealing a small window and a face. The man shook his head. They were closed, he said through a speaker. The sensei stepped up to the window and held a conference with the man. Ransom sat down on the couch. He could not bring himself to tell the sensei, who would not understand, and would probably be offended, that he didn’t want to do this. He tasted something metallic in the back of his mouth.
The sensei joined Ransom on the couch. He said, I had to convince them you were a good gaijin. Normally they wouldn’t take one. They don’t want any trouble.
Thank you, Ransom said.
I paid for the bath, but for the hon-ban you have to pay the girl once you’re inside. It’s three thousand yen.
He picked up a magazine and kicked off his sandals. Then he suddenly turned back to Ransom. He asked, Do you know about the bubble dance?
Ransom nodded. I’ve heard about it.
It costs extra, the sensei said, but it’s worth it.
A door beside the window panel opened. A man with a samurai haircut stuck his head out and looked them over; his face was like a side of beef. He stepped into the room, displaying an improbable tuxedo. The folds of his neck hung over the starched white collar.
“Konbanwa,” the sensei said.
The man grunted unintelligibly. He stared for a moment and left, closing the door behind him.
The sensei had just swapped magazines when a girl in a pink bathrobe appeared in the hall at the other end of the room. Welcome, she said. She looked like a well-fed schoolgirl, with a face that was all horizontals.
The sensei turned to Ransom and told him it was his choice: He could go with this one or take his chances on the next one. Feeling queasy, Ransom stood up and followed the girl, not wanting to prolong this further. She led him by the hand down a brightly lit hallway, turning corners until Ransom thought he must be back where they started. The hall was carpeted and everything except for the buzz in his head seemed muffled. She stopped in front of a door she unlocked with a key, then knelt down and removed his shoes.
He followed her into a tatami room furnished with a bed and a standing wardrobe, which opened onto a tiled bath chamber with turquoise tub and ceramic Cupid fountain.
Undoing the buttons of his shirt, she asked his name. Hers was Haruko. She hung his shirt in the wardrobe and helped him out of his pants and shorts. Ransom was glad, at least, that she wasn’t a talker. She removed her robe, revealing a plump body, and a pair of black lace panties.
She led him into the tiled room and seated him on a plastic bath stool. Cupid was pissing into a golden oyster shell. The tub was empty. She turned on the water, holding a bucket under the spigots, then soaked him down and told him to relax. Ransom looked her over for signs of abuse, bruises, needle tracks, tattoos—anything to confirm his sense of the involuntary nature of her line of work, the kind of work Marilyn might be forced into. But she looked healthy enough.
She shampooed him first, then soaped up a washcloth and worked her way down. He looked very strong, she said, and again told him to relax, he was as tight as something that wasn’t part of Ransom’s vocabulary. She massaged his shoulders and back.
When her hands went below his waist, she was as thorough as she had been elsewhere. She looked up briefly at him and asked Ransom if he would say that he was an average gaijin.
There was no such thing, Ransom said, as an average gaijin.
She said she meant, was he average physically?
Ransom knew what she meant, and shrugged.
Suddenly coy, she asked if he wanted the bubble dance.
Ransom shook his head.
She ran her soapy hand down the inside of his thigh. I do it very well, she said.
I’m sure you do, Ransom said.
Are you sure? she said, running her hand back up between his legs.
Ransom said he was sure.
She finished with his feet, washing and massaging each of his toes. Finally she rinsed him off and gestured toward the bath. He eased himself in, Haruko adding a burst of cold water. The water was fine but the whole procedure was happening to someone else and Ransom wanted only to be outside, headed home. She started kneading his shoulders again. He was sorry that she had to wash and fuck strange men for a living, but his sympathy wasn’t going to do a thing for her. She told him again how tight he was.
When the bath was finished Haruko asked if he woul
d like the hon-ban, gesturing toward the bed.
No, thank you, he said.
Most of the younger men get the hon-ban, she said.
I’m sure they enjoy it. Ransom felt ridiculous, standing nude in the middle of the changing room, trying to be polite.
You’re the first gaijin customer I’ve had, she said. She looked him up and down as if committing the details to memory, then she went to get his shirt. He tried to tip her, feeling that he had been a financial disappointment, but she wouldn’t accept it.
He waited for the sensei in the reception area and after a few minutes heard his voice. A woman on his arm, he strode through the doorway, nearly radiant. He and the woman bantered for a few minutes, and Ransom received his fair share of comment.
Once they were out on the street, the sensei asked what he thought of the bubble dance.
Terrific, Ransom said.
They turned a corner into a narrow, covered passageway and caught sight of a geisha, ghostly in her white makeup, framed in a doorway. She froze, looking at them, and Ransom was reminded of a deer caught in headlights. Then she turned, hurried across the street with tiny pigeon steps and disappeared in another doorway. Ransom and his teacher stood in the passageway, both looking at the door.
21
For two years Ransom had been watched wherever he went, and he had gradually stopped noticing that conversation paused when he entered a restaurant, that all heads turned when he boarded a train. But now, if he was glanced at by a man in a suit, his first thought was that he was under surveillance. Where before he had felt only curiosity, he now detected hostility. These people didn’t want him in their country, and some of them might feel more than a vague resentment. According to Marilyn, Kyoto was owned and operated by the yakuza; the police were in on the take, every bath operator and street vendor paid protection, and every third-rate entertainer on television was in their pocket, not to mention government officials.
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