The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and Other Short Stories

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The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and Other Short Stories Page 5

by Rebecca Otowa


  Now the exchange with Joanne-sensei circled back to the top of her brain. It had taken most of her courage to approach the foreigner. But she needed lots of Valentine chocolate for Kenji-kun this year. She hoped Joanne-sensei would agree to her request and provide something really special.

  It was full dark when Saeko approached the after-hours center annexed to the primary school. She peeked in the brightly lighted window before pushing open the door. Kenji was there, roughhousing around the room, brandishing what looked like a plastic baseball bat. As usual, he was one of the last children to be picked up. The teacher sitting in the corner looked tired. Saeko prepared her apology as she went in.

  “I’m home!”

  The unmistakable thuds of briefcase and shoes sounded on the entryway floor, and then Hiroyuki came into the kitchen, loosening his tie. Busy at the sink, Joanne raised her cheek for his kiss. “Hi, how are you?”

  “Okay. Tired. Where are the kids?”

  “In their rooms doing their homework, I hope.” As she spoke, Joanne heard the upstairs bedroom doors slide open and slam against their tracks, then the elephant stampede as Megumi and Taro took the stairs two at a time to greet Daddy. The little kitchen was suddenly full of noise and love. A flurry of combined English and Japanese rose on the air, mingling with the aromatic steam of the curry stew as Joanne lifted the lid to give it a final stir. “Okay, everyone, wash your hands! Dinner’s ready!” Hiro-yuki was pulled out of the room by his children, who grabbed his hands, one on each side. Joanne put the finishing touches on the meal. The “evening zoo” had begun. She didn’t mind it—her family were her joy, and she relished the happy noise and confusion of a group of people who were at ease with each other. It was a welcome contrast to her workday.

  A couple of hours later, dinner, baths, and bedtime stories completed, Joanne sat opposite Hiroyuki on the floor at the low kotatsu table. The house rang with the kind of silence that follows a sustained period of loud noise. She knew they both relished that silence—which was why, unlike most couples, they left the TV off in the evening—but she needed to break it tonight.

  “Something weird happened at school today. Can I tell you about it?”

  “What?” Hiroyuki’s eyes didn’t leave his newspaper.

  “One of the teachers asked me to give a giri-choco to her six-year-old son.” Joanne used the term “duty chocolate,” which was a universally accepted Valentine’s Day social custom in Japan. She herself had been the indirect recipient of a lot of giri-choco over the years—Hiroyuki always brought home the chocolate he received from the “office ladies.” She knew they didn’t have romantic designs on Hiroyuki; they just bought into the meaningless gesture—women give chocolate to men—like millions of others. And like most men, Hiroyuki didn’t like chocolate that much.

  Joanne gave the back of the paper a flick with her finger. “Hey. This is important.”

  “Okay.” He laid the paper down and looked at her.

  “What did I just say?” she asked, teasing.

  “Something about giri-choco. I was listening.”

  “Humph. Well, it’s a wonder. Anyway, what do you think? This teacher I barely know asked me to give her son a chocolate gift for Valentine’s Day.”

  “Kind of weird, you’re right. Still, it’s only giri-choco. Why not do it?”

  “Because that’s not what Valentine’s Day is all about!”

  He looked at her quizzically. “Do you mean to tell me Valentine’s Day isn’t about giri-choco?”

  “Oh you! I’ll giri-choco you, with my fist!” Launching an attack with her father’s favorite phrase, she got him in a good-natured headlock and a moment later they were on the floor in each other’s arms.

  “While we’re on the subject, what are we doing for Valentine’s Day this year?” Hiroyuki asked, his mouth in her hair.

  Joanne knew this was as much “learned behavior” as her own habit of bowing when answering the telephone, but she was grateful to him for making the effort. She knew a lot of her friends’ husbands didn’t do things like remembering Valentine’s Day, preferring to stand on their Japanese male dignity. Though born and raised in Japan, Hiroyuki had the advantage not only of their ten-year marriage, but a long stint as an exchange student in the United States in his university days. Thank goodness for a bit of Westernization, Joanne thought. It had made all the difference to their relationship.

  “Dinner out!” she responded excitedly. “A family dinner at Tony Roma’s. Plenty of Surf ’n’Turf, a big dessert. Sunday night!”

  “You got it.” Hiroyuki stood up and held out his hand. “Coming to bed?”

  “Mama!” shouted Kenji as soon as he saw her. He dropped the bat and rushed at her, almost knocking her off her feet with his exuberant greeting. Saeko laughed and glanced at the teacher in charge. “I’m sorry,” she said, disentangling herself from her son. “I’ll try to get here earlier next time. I realize you want to get home after your hard day.” She gathered up Kenji’s belongings and buttoned up his coat.

  Mother and son walked home through the winter darkness. Kenji held her hand, swinging her arm up and down, chattering about the events of his day. Saeko listened fondly. She envied her son his boundless energy and enthusiasm.

  “Do you know what day it is on Saturday?” she asked him.

  “Valentine’s Day!” he crowed. “Chocolate!”

  “Yes, chocolate, and I’m sure you’re going to get a lot. My big handsome boy! All the girls will want to give you chocolate.”

  “Yay!”

  “And I’ll tell you something else, something nice.”

  “Oh, Mama, what is it? Tell me!”

  “Well, you know there is a foreigner working in Mama’s school, and you just might get some chocolate from her as well. It’s sure to be special, because she is American. Maybe even with a note in English just for you.” Kenji jumped up and down with glee. Saeko smiled to herself at the thought of him opening chocolate from a foreigner. If only Joanne-sensei would say yes!

  They arrived home, and Kenji turned on the TV, while Saeko went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. After a few minutes she got up, returning with a glass of water. Masato would be late, as he was every night, and she began to go over the details of the two dinners she had arranged. Curry rice for Kenji, then an assortment of snacks and beer for Masato followed by grilled fish, soup and rice. How the hours would drag by until he came home at eleven o’clock! Even then, she would have to wait until he had finished eating and watching the late news on TV and taking his bath, before she could get in the bath herself and go to sleep.

  Saeko pushed herself up from the table, went to the refrigerator and took out the pot of curry she had made that morning.

  Thursday

  Joanne had such a good time with Hiroyuki laughing about giri-choco that she almost forgot about Ms. Kikuchi. However, the next morning, there she was again at Joanne’s elbow as she prepared for her first class. This time, Ms. Kikuchi ceremoniously set down a fresh cup of tea before her.

  “Good morning, Joanne-sensei. Have you, perhaps, considered my request?”

  “Ah, good morning.” Joanne launched into the response she had decided on. “Well, Kikuchi-sensei, you may not realize it, but we Americans view Valentine’s Day a bit differently from Japanese people. For us it is a romantic holiday between adults, and has nothing to do with children.” She pushed aside a dim memory of exchanging cards with corny sayings in her third-grade class back in Peoria, Illinois, circa 1992. That wasn’t real Valentine’s Day, she told herself.

  Ms. Kikuchi was not at all flustered. She looked exactly like any Japanese person receiving the news that Christmas was actually not about eating strawberry shortcake, but about the birth of Jesus. Her look said, Yes, but this is Japan.

  “Ah, is that right?” she said vaguely. “Still, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind making a little boy happy. Anything would do. Please?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t. Please forgive me.” Joa
nne rushed off as the bell rang, leaving the tea undrunk and Ms. Kikuchi standing.

  On a brisk tour through the supermarket that evening, Joanne found herself thinking about Ms. Kikuchi again, and felt something that she hadn’t felt since those first difficult years in Japan—the excruciating, thin-skinned sensitivity of being a foreigner. Why were these people so everlastingly polite and considerate to one another, and so willfully clueless when it came to foreigners? Joanne knew that her sensitivity was just as ridiculous as their thoughtlessness—but oh, there were so MANY of them and only one of her! She wanted, longed, to just be herself, but it was an uphill battle. Everyone around her seemed to be silently bellowing, “Resistance is useless! You will be a buffoon for the Japanese and do your part to maintain the comfort level of our society. And you will LIKE IT!” Why did it seem as though Ms. Kikuchi was singling her out? Had she made the same request of any of the Japanese teachers at the high school? Why did these people seem to want foreigners to participate in whatever ridiculous thing they came up with? Do it yourselves, but leave me out of it! she wanted to scream. I AM NOT ONE OF YOU!

  “More.”

  Masato held up his empty rice bowl without looking away from the TV. Saeko took it and refilled it from the rice cooker stationed at her elbow. As her husband ate, she tried to concentrate on the lesson plan for the next day, which she had opened surreptitiously on the other side of the kotatsu. But she kept thinking about Joanne-sensei. She had never spoken to a foreigner before, and this was her first experience of the devastating directness she had heard about. Joanne-sensei’s refusal was incomprehensible. How could anyone just say no when asked to do something? Especially a woman? She tried to remember if she had ever done such a thing. Her own mother had set an example of selfless womanhood, right up to the end. That was how women were supposed to be. It was a woman’s job to keep the wheels of society turning smoothly, as it was a man’s job to keep the money coming in. Were foreigners really so fundamentally different?

  “I’m done.” Masato clattered his chopsticks down on the table, pointed the remote at the TV, and rose. “Dinner tonight was better than last night.”

  “I’m glad you liked it, now how about a bath?” Saeko responded.

  “I think I might be catching a cold. I’ll skip my bath for once. You go ahead, I’m going to bed. Good night.”

  Ten minutes later, Saeko lowered herself gratefully into the steaming water and closed her eyes. As she did so, a wonderful idea occurred to her. She knew what would convince Joanne-sensei to give Kenji the chocolate. Tomorrow morning before school, she would sit Kenji down and have him write a letter, maybe with some of his cute drawings. No one could resist a letter written by a child!

  Saeko dried herself and put on her nightgown, averting her eyes from the mirror.

  Friday

  The next morning, when Joanne came to work, she saw a white envelope carefully positioned in the middle of her desk. Feeling like a submarine officer upping periscope, she raised her head cautiously and glanced down the row of teachers’ desks, each with its occupant busy getting ready for the school day. Ms. Kikuchi was there, but she seemed to be searching through a drawer, her head almost invisible.

  Joanne angled herself so her back was turned directly to Ms. Kikuchi, and picked up the envelope. No markings of any kind. Inside, she found a folded piece of white paper, which when unfolded showed the large, wobbly pencil printing of a small child. In Japanese, it said, “Please give me chocolate, Sensei!” It was signed “Kikuchi Kenji” and surrounded by drawings of flying KitKat bars.

  Oh boy, thought Joanne. She’s raised the stakes. And I know what I have to do now. It’s something I should have done right at the beginning.

  Leaving the note on her desk, Joanne stood up, walked straight to the principal’s office at the end of the teachers’ room, and knocked on the door. Hearing a muffled grunt of acknowledgment, she went in.

  “Good morning, Joanne-sensei.”

  Don’t let it get to you, she told herself. “Principal-sensei, may I please have a moment?”

  “Yes?” Principal Goto was a large, heavyset middle-aged man. Though he had a kind face, his bulk was intimidating. Joanne found it a little hard to know where to begin.

  “I’m afraid I have to complain about the inappropriate behavior of one of my fellow teachers,” she finally said, and briefly recounted Ms. Kikuchi’s escalating requests over the past three days.

  Principal Goto regarded her for a moment. “In what way do you regard this as inappropriate? Was Kikuchi rude or insulting to you?”

  In spite of over a decade of schooling herself in the ways of this country, Joanne felt her anger growing. Her eyes snapped. “Principal-sensei, I am a Westerner. We have certain ideas about these holidays that are different from Japanese people’s, and I don’t feel I should be forced to participate in your rituals.”

  “Did you explain this to her?”

  “Yes, I did, but she doesn’t seem to understand. I came to you because I resent being bothered in the workplace with something I regard as a personal request. Kikuchi-sensei is taking advantage of her status as my colleague to get something from me.” As Joanne spoke, she saw Principal Goto’s eyes glaze over. She knew he was about to take refuge in platitudes.

  “You know, Joanne-sensei, my job as principal is to promote the smooth running of the school for everyone’s benefit. The teachers need to teach and the students need to learn. Anything that disrupts this should come to my notice. Is Kikuchi’s request preventing you from doing your job?”

  “No,” Joanne admitted. “But I have been disturbed by it, and since it happened at work, I felt I should come to you.”

  “Well, I suppose I could talk to her. Tell her how you feel. I’m not sure what her reaction will be, since it is evident she doesn’t think she is guilty of any wrongdoing. Would you prefer to be present?”

  “No, that’s all right. Thank you for your time.” Feeling that she had accomplished as much as could be expected, Joanne withdrew.

  She’s seen the letter, thought Saeko, peering between the stacked books on her desk toward Joanne-sensei. Now she’s opening it. Now she’s … With a gasp of dismay, she watched the other woman straighten up and march straight to the principal’s office. Surely this didn’t have anything to do with her, or with the letter! Her heart raced as she collected her teaching materials in preparation for the first class. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Joanne-sensei come out, her heels tapping angrily, and sail out the door leading to the classrooms without a glance in her direction. No question. The visit to the principal had definitely been about her.

  Saeko’s mind raced. Would she lose her job? She had heard of such things happening after contretemps with foreign teachers. She had to keep working, had to keep saving, for Kenji’s sake. There was so little time left. But the principal would never understand. How could Joanne-sensei have caused so much trouble, so casually? Terrible visions chased each other around in her head, and big black blobs began to obscure her vision. Not now! She breathed deeply.

  “Excuse me, Kikuchi-sensei,” the secretary approached her. “Would you mind stepping into Principal-sensei’s office for a moment?” Summoning all her strength, Saeko smiled at the secretary. “Certainly,” she whispered. She felt the stinging darts of the other teachers’ curious gazes on her back as she knocked and entered.

  “Good morning, Principal-sensei. You wished to see me?”

  “Yes,” Principal Goto harrumphed. “I’m sorry to disturb you just before class, but I just had a visit from Joanne-sensei. She says you have been asking her to give Valentine’s Day chocolate to your son. She seems upset by this request. I’m not sure where I come into it, but …”

  Saeko was aghast. To bother the principal with such a thing! Scarlet shame chased pale fear across her face. “I don’t know what to say, Principal-sensei. I had no idea she would get so upset. It is all my fault. I implore you to let the matter drop.”

  “We
ll, that’s what I would like to do, but you know, I must keep everyone happy, and that includes the foreign employees. Would you mind offering her an apology?”

  “Yes, of course I will apologize to her. Principal-sensei, I am so ashamed. Please forget you ever heard about this matter. You have nothing to worry about.”

  Principal Goto’s face relaxed with relief. His Japanese sensibility told him that an apology would fix everything. “Now, we must all get to work. Nothing further needs to be said about this. Good day.”

  Saeko never knew how she got out of the principal’s room.

  To avoid an unpleasant scene, Joanne dashed to her first class as soon as her interview with Principal Goto was over. She felt a little wobbly after bearding the principal in his den, but the routine of work had a calming effect. At lunchtime, she returned to her desk and took her sandwich out of her bag. The other teachers seemed quieter than usual, and that was kind of peaceful. She ate her lunch, reading a book at the same time, and went to her afternoon classes without encountering Ms. Kikuchi. So far, so good. Maybe Principal Goto’s little talk had done the trick. In any case, Valentine’s Day was tomorrow, and there was no school, so that was the end of the Tale of the Math Teacher and her Greedy Chocolate-Loving Son.

  As Joanne was about to leave for the day, the secretary approached her desk holding a large white card. “Excuse me, Joanne-sensei, would you like to sign this?”

  Joanne flicked her eyes toward the card. It was a shikishi, a traditional group message card, and seemed already to have about twenty messages written on it. Unlike other shikishi Joanne had seen, this one was pure white and all the messages were written in black. “Uh, what’s this for?”

 

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