Alien Rice; A Novel.

by Ichiro Kawasaki

  Saburo continued to play golf, which he insisted was more of a duty than relaxation. One Sunday he was to leave home at the unearthly hour of 4:30 A.M. to join in a tournament of his colleagues.

  "Saburo, can't you stay home once in a while on Sunday to help clean up our apartment?" Alice said fretfully; lately she was having moments of irritation because of her approaching childbirth.

  "I have to join in tomorrow's competition, as our director is offering a trophy. I cannot very well ignore it as I have to stay in the good graces of the director."

  "And why must you leave so early in the morning? You are crazy," Alice exclaim ed.

  "The Nikko Highway is very crowded. It takes a good part of two hours just to get to the golf course, even under normal conditions. Besides, the course is so crowded on Sundays that we have to start playing as soon as the day breaks."

  Hearing his explanation, Alice, rather than being angry, pitied Saburo for his relentless struggle to get ahead in this overpopulated country.

  Spring in Japan is a most delightful season. Saburo went on a weekend trip to Minakami Hotspring, some eighty miles north of Tokyo, with his colleagues of the foodstuff section. This was one of those semi-annual recreation trips organized and subsidized by the company.

  The Japanese are inordinately fond of organized group activity. The trip affords the salaried worker relaxation from harsh daily routine and the management encourages such trips, as they foster camaraderie and theoretically promote a sense of dedication to the company.

  The Japanese inn where the group stayed overnight stood on the top of a cliff, at the foot of which rapid mountain streams rolled in torrents of white foam. Surrounding mountains with tall cypress trees and new green leaves were superbly beautiful. Mountains and woodlands, rivers and valleys all were small in scale compared with those of other countries. But this very daintiness added much to the picturesqueness of the scenery, with the result that the whole place looked like a miniature landscape garden.

  Saburo went into a communal hotspring bath. The pool was large, much like an indoor swimming pool, and hot water was constantly welling up and overflowing. Immersing himself in this hotspring pool, Saburo forgot all his worldly cares and found himself in an exhilarated mood.

  After the bath he changed into a yukata, a cotton robe, and sat on the veranda alone to contemplate the deepening evening twilight. In the valley down below, mist was now gathering, which sent up delightfully cool, moist air. The faint contour of the mountain in front was gradually disappearing into the darkness.

  Dinner was again a group affair. It was held in a big hall, whose floor was covered with immaculate tatami matting on which everyone sat more or less informally, with legs either outstretched or crossed. The section chief took the place of honor, followed by twenty men and girls in the order of their rank in the office. It was as though the whole section had temporarily migrated to a resort setting; the group did not have the look of carefree individual vacationers. They had all changed into loose cotton kimonos. The meal was brought on a black lacquered tray to each of the participants.

  They drank beer and sake, many of them way beyond their normal capacities, with the result that some were quite intoxicated. They all became hilarious, at last forgetting the grinding daily routine of office life.

  Then one boy started his favorite stunt of shedding one garment after another, at the urging of his female colleagues, until he became stark naked. He then began to perform a solo dance, with strange movements of his hips and hands in full view of the audience, and everybody burst into laughter. After that several boys sang in chorus an erotic song with many puns, to the obvious delight of the girls present. Now they all were really letting themselves go.

  During the dinner Saburo's eye was caught by a young maidservant who waited on the group. She was pretty, with white skin and small round eyes, and looked like a doll. During the course of the meal Saburo's interest in her was heightened by her demure and delicate manners.

  "What's your name?" Saburo asked as she filled his sake cup.

  "Mariko."

  "A very nice name. Rather lyrical."

  "You look sad. Why can't you cheer up? Do have another cup of sake, please."

  She perceived Saburo's air of loneliness and was not averse to his subtle advances. Lately Alice had not been readily available due to her pregnancy. Saburo also had had so many worries in connection with Alice's arrival in Japan that he was depressed. Late that night he sneaked into a small room in which Mariko had been expecting him. As always, and more so that night, Saburo was impetuous and straightforward. Without many preliminaries he was thrusting himself deep into Mariko's innermost part. Saburo felt as if he were crushing the girl's bones to pieces. How frail she was! Having been used to a broad, well-developed Western female body, Saburo felt a strangely delightful sensation. The difference was as great as the difference between an oak and a willow tree.

  Footnote

  * One mat = 1.97 square yards.

  CHAPTER

  6

  In the room the hospital staff jokingly referred to as the "expectant father's den" Saburo Tanaka butted a half-smoked cigarette into an ash stand. Then he got up from the leather chair where he had been sitting for the last hour and a half, and walked aimlessly around the room.

  From the window he looked down on the roofs of rickety houses and shabby tenements stretching for miles toward the Honmoku district of Yokohama.

  The Bluff Hospital, where Saburo was going through an ordeal of anxious waiting, was once owned and operated by foreign residents for their exclusive use. Now it came under Japanese management but had a few prominent foreigners on its board of directors, and the hospital was still patronized by many foreigners living in the Tokyo-Yokohama area. The hospital was clean and tidy and the nurses well trained.

  Suddenly the door opened and a hospital attendant came in from the corridor outside. But the news was for someone else. After another hour's waiting the door from the corridor opened, and this time it was for Saburo.

  A nurse came in and asked, "Are you Mr. Tanaka? Your wife has just delivered a boy. Both mother and baby are doing well. Congratulations."

  Saburo now remembered a series of discussions he had had with Alice during the preceding months. It was about the name they would give their first child. Should they give their offspring an English or a Japanese name?

  "I think we should give the child an English first name and a Japanese middle name," Alice suggested.

  "No, since the child will automatically be a Japanese national, why should we give him a foreign name? That would be embarrassing to the child when he or she comes of age."

  "What is your suggestion for a Japanese name, then?" Alice asked.

  "I've always thought that Toshio, meaning 'intelligent boy,' is a good name while Hanako, 'flower girl,' would be an excellent name for a girl."

  Alice now remembered what Mrs. Lilian Saito had told her in the Union Club some time back. "Saburo," she pleaded, "Even if the child is born in Japan it does not necessarily follow that he or she will always live in this country. Especially if the baby is a girl, chances are that she may marry a Westerner and live abroad. If she does, a name like Jane or Florence would be more suitable for the child's sake. They are international names. What was it you said, Hanako or something? It does not convey anything."

  However, Alice realized that she was irrevocably married to a Japanese and that, legally at least, she herself had already become a Japanese citizen. Whether she liked it or not, her son or daughter would duly be registered as a member of the Tanaka family in the family ledger-book kept in the Nagoya civil registration office. So Alice reluctantly agreed to Saburo's suggestion.

  Toshio was a big boy, weighing a little over eight pounds at birth. When Saburo first saw him through the glass partition window he was surprised. The baby was almost a Caucasian, with a sprinkling of silver hair, and, unlike his father, he was very fair. The baby bore almost no resemblance to Sabur
o. If there were any resemblance at all, the baby had a rather flat nose.

  A staff nurse in the obstetrics department opened the door and cheerfully announced, "A visitor for you, Mrs. Tanaka," and ushered Saburo into the small semiprivate room.

  "Saburo, darling!" Alice held out her arms, wincing slightly as the movement caused her to change position in the bed.

  Saburo went to her, kissing her tenderly, and said, "Alice, are you feeling all right?" For a moment he held her tightly.

  "Saburo, you wanted a boy and you have him now." Alice smiled.

  "It's a big, healthy boy and looks very much like you," Saburo said.

  "Well, I felt it even in the womb and I'm glad he was born that way." Alice was proud.

  The Tanaka apartment in the Tozai compound suddenly assumed animation. It was customary for a Japanese with a Western wife, no matter how small his salary, to hire a servant when a baby was added to the household. So a young maid, a country girl who trembled when she first saw Alice, began to come every day to look after the baby and to help Alice in household work. The baby cried as boisterously as any other in the neighborhood. Diapers had to be dried in the sun on the tiny balcony, as there was no other space available. The maid soon got used to Alice and worked hard for the small sum the Tanakas paid her.

  Since arriving in Japan, Alice had often observed the way babies were brought up. Cots or playpens were not generally in use. When a baby started fussing before bottle time or bedtime, its mother in most cases acceded to her baby's wishes. If the baby put its fingers in its mouth or sucked its thumb, the mother would not slap its hand or try to break it of the habit. When a walking child fell on the ground, the mother would rush to help it stand up. In such ways the child's initiative was almost completely stifled and its spirit of independence nipped in the bud.

  Alice was determined not to follow such practices and trained her maid from the very beginning to put the baby on a strict feeding and sleeping schedule. So before the year was out the maid, as well as Toshio, had formed good habits, and Alice could safely leave the baby in the girl's care.

  Saburo was still very much away from home. While in London Alice had thought it was bad enough, but now Saburo's life was almost mortgaged to the company. To put it more bluntly, Saburo was nothing but a slave to the Tozai Trading Company, which had the power to end his career or starve him. Without the company Saburo did not exist. But in the eyes of the company Saburo seemed almost nonexistent, as he was a very small cog in the gigantic machinery called Tozai. Yet, he had no alternative but to carry on.

  There were thirty-four million Japanese like Saburo-what the Japanese called "salary-men." Once taken in by a business firm or any other place of employment, these people could not very well quit; no reputable firm would take a "drop-out" from another firm. One had to start from the bottom and climb up the ladder, regardless of what happened. Theirs was an employment for life which had its origin in the feudal system, but essentially it was the product of perennial poverty. The system was not without merit. It was a means of ensuring the loyalty and dedication of the worker to management. At the same time, the system represented denial of individual liberty and initiative.

  Now that the baby was born and the maidservant was hired, Alice had more free time than before, and she reflected a great deal on the future of her husband's career.

  Alice also went more often to the Union Club in the afternoon as well as in the evenings. One evening she met an American who was sitting in the lounge w ith a Japanese woman over a drink. The American was about fifty years of age, and apparently a businessman. He introduced his diminutive wife to Alice, whose curiosity was suddenly heightened. Here was a Western man who had married a Japanese, and she wondered about his problems, compared with her own.

  "I came to Japan soon after the end of the war and have been here ever since. I represent an American oil company in Japan with an additional territory in Korea," the American said, introducing himself.

  "I met Tsuruko in the States and married her in Yokohama. We have no children."

  "How do you like working in Japan?" Alice asked.

  "Well, at first it was kind of difficult, you know, but once you get used to it, it's all right. "

  "Have you got many Japanese friends?" Alice was inquisitive.

  "Well, I'm married to a Japanese, so naturally I meet Tsuru's relatives sometimes. My brother-in-law, her elder brother, is a director of a big munition factory in Nagoya. Through him I've learned a great deal about the inside mechanism of Japanese business enterprise.

  "But there is one thing I cannot quite understand. I know how much money my brother-in-law makes a month and am familiar with the standard of living of his class of people—a managerial class. Their life is surprisingly frugal, their house is modest. They have not much in savings, either. Yet the company he works for wastes money like anything.

  "The other night I was invited by a certain business firm to a so-called after-dinner drinking party in a back street of Ginza. I could help myself to whatever drink or food I liked—you just order it yourself. For curiosity's sake I inquired of the bartender how much they charged for a glass of brandy; 8,000 yen was the reply. I was astounded. My company does not authorize any hospitality item exceeding 25 dollars per person, which is incidentally the equivalent of the cost of a glass of brandy in that bar.

  "I think this expense-account business has gone too far in this country. This unethical practice is now their way of life. It will cripple the Japanese economy in the end."

  Alice was deeply interested in what this American businessman had to say and thought of Saburo's nightly jaunts with his clients and colleagues. "Yes," she thought, "Our house is a matchbox affair, perhaps a little better than a dog kennel. We have not got much savings. I cannot tolerate Saburo's being a slave for the rest of his life. I must do something. Things cannot go on like this."

  Alice was firmly determined.

  The Genzo Tanakas came to Yokohama. Their object was to see their newly born grandchild. Upon hearing the news of Toshio's birth, they had hoped to come immediately, but the old Mrs. Tanaka was ill again, and they had had to delay their visit.

  Saburo's apartment was so small that there was little room for the two visitors to move about. As soon as they arrived Alice ran to the entrance and greeted them with a cordial smile.

  "Irasshai-mase [Welcome. I am so glad you came]," Alice said, and bowed.

  Thereupon Saburo introduced his mother to Alice, and after that had to interpret most of the conversation.

  "Papa has told me much about your blue-eyed wife," the shriveled old woman said to her son. Then, turning to Alice, the mother-in-law spoke in Japanese.

  "I've long wanted to come and see you, but I've not been well lately, as you know. Upon hearing the news of the baby, though, I suddenly began to feel better and made up my mind to come to Yokohama by hook or crook."

  The old couple were shown to a cot placed in a corner of the living room and there saw Toshio fast asleep.

  "What a big boy! And isn't he fair—like a foreign doll!" exclaimed old Mrs. Tanaka.

  "He weighed a little over eight pounds when he was born. And he is so healthy," Saburo added proudly.

  Though still somewhat awkward at times in the company of their foreign daughter-in-law, Genzo and his wife seemed more relaxed than Genzo had been at the airport. Alice boiled a kettle in the kitchen and made green tea to bring in to the visitors.

  "Dozo [please]," she offered in Japanese.

  The grandparents were particularly pleased with the name of the baby. "Toshio is a good name," the old Mrs. Tanaka commented. Before leaving, they went to the cot again and watched the baby with obvious satisfaction. Now they had a grandson, their first grandchild, and they felt strong kinship to the baby. Tanaka's family line had been perpetuated.

  Alice was also glad to see their happy smiling faces.

  "This is midsummer season, almost O-Bon, when it is customary for us to take gifts to our s
uperiors' homes. We have to do this twice a year; at this time of the year and again at year-end. You have at least to call on Mrs. Sasaki, the director's wife, with a suitable present. It may be advisable also to take a gift to Managing Director Sato's house, for Mr. Sato is in charge of our department," Saburo explained to Alice.

  "Must I go and distribute gifts myself like Santa Claus? I've never met Mrs. Sasaki, let alone Mrs. Sato." Alice's reply had a tone of protest.

  "That doesn't matter. You know everybody else in the company does that; some of us even have our wives call on the wives of the president and vice-presidents over and above the wives of our immediate bosses."

  "But I never did that sort of thing in London." Alice was not convinced.

  "Well, things were a little bit different while we were abroad. We went more by Western custom. But even in London I knew for a fact that some of my colleagues took presents to the manager's home regularly.

  "In the Head Office the practice is so common that we simply cannot do otherwise. We must try to stay in the good graces of my bosses, even to curry their favor, or else my chances of promotion may suffer. "

  "What do I have to take? Alice inquired.

  "Usually a carton box containing dried bonito fish, a bottle or two of whisky or brandy, or a box of assorted tinned foods. In your case a bottle of imported Scotch whisky may be in order. Big department stores are now doing brisk business selling these semi-annual gift items."

  So Alice one muggy summer afternoon went to Director Sasaki's home in Setagaya, a suburb of Tokyo. Though Saburo had given her a direction map, Alice had a hard time locating the house. Difficulty was due not so much to lack of street names as to the irregular and haphazard numbering of houses. She went back and forth along narrow lanes and side streets until she finally got to Sasaki's house.