by Yoko Tawada
Kazuko was supposed to change planes in Paris and catch an Air France flight to Ho Chi Minh. The morning of her departure, however, the news on the radio said that the electricity was down in Paris due to a general strike. Kazuko pictured the airport in the midst of a blackout. The ground crew signaling the flight crew by waving flaming torches above their heads. Trailing streaks of light behind them, the fires would float through the darkness like the glowing souls one sometimes sees in graveyards. Kazuko took out a notebook and started writing a song: “In a pitch-black plane, by candlelight, stewardesses give all the bread they have to hungry passengers. Each piece is frozen, an egg-shaped piece of ice within.” Besides the notebook she used for stories and interviews, she had a special one for songs. If there were a Ms. C, a former budding singer-songwriter who in junior high school spent her nights with an acoustic guitar hugged tightly to her chest and her days scribbling chords in the margins of her textbooks, then Ms. C was almost certainly Kazuko. Much to Ms. Cs surprise, the Paris airport was ablaze with lights. International flights were leaving on schedule. The aluminum foil covering the steak the stewardess served her was so hot that Kazuko instinctively jerked her hand away and banged her funny bone on the armrest. Her elbow went numb, the warmth draining from her arm. A spot of steak sauce stained her white blouse. Both gas and electricity were supposed to be out because of the strike, so why was the food so hot? Kazuko was getting mad. Not to be outdone, the steak bubbled in its grease. Gripping the small but surprisingly heavy knife, Kazuko stabbed the meat hard, right in the center. Sauce spurted out to form a fresh blot on her blouse. France had started testing atomic weapons again, and here she was using their national airline. The plane left Europe wrapped in a blanket of snow; an expanse of white shrank beneath her. From the capital of France, the atomic weapons tester, she was flying to a former French colony. Just another dumb tourist with no other way to get to Vietnam, she murmured to herself as if she were talking about someone else.
The air in Ho Chi Minh was very heavy, and the heat completely opened her pores. She climbed into the backseat of a taxi. Up ahead, a swarm of motorbikes swarmed toward her. Viewed from the front, they looked like grasshoppers. There was tension in the riders’ chins. Young men with straight eyebrows and lips lifted slightly at the edges in a smile; women with slender cheeks and unflinching eyes. She wondered why Japanese faces looked so puffy and powdery. Perhaps too many cabbage patches had been paved over. Maybe white cabbage butterflies in search of their vanished vegetables wandered into dreams and fluttered their wings above the sleepers’ faces, powder sprinkling down and sticking permanently to cold, damp skin.
Motorbikes welled up from the earth and one by one slipped past Kazuko. A woman would sometimes be riding with another woman perched behind her. Bike after bike glided by in the dripping heat. If a man were driving, another man, or a woman, or a mother and child would be riding with him. Small vehicles carrying families of four looked like animals on wheels. Black hair streaming out in the humid evening air, shirtsleeves flapping in the wind, bare feet clinging to sandals. In Germany even children on bicycles wore helmets, but no one bothered to here. The traffic moved at such a leisurely pace it seemed on the verge of stopping. Kazuko didn’t realize how slowly her taxi was going until they entered the city.
A member of the tourist race, Kazuko was always in a hurry at home and marveled at the slowness of life in the places she visited. HERE TIME HAS STOPPED, the travel posters would say, and always in the background a photo of the sky taken who knows where—Greece, or India, or China perhaps. “Here for a vacation?” the taxi driver asked. Kazuko planted her bottom, which she had raised slightly off the seat, firmly back down. She had been about to take off her stockings, which were stuck to her sweaty inner thighs. The driver’s head was the shape of a well-formed apple, and covered with shiny, neatly trimmed black hair. He looked about sixteen, though he might have been as old as twenty. The back of his shirt was a dazzling white, without a single wrinkle. It made Kazuko want to hide her clammy legs. “There are lots of children in Vietnam,” the driver said enthusiastically, offering no further explanation as he maneuvered skillfully among the motorbikes with a business-like ease. “Are there many traffic accidents?” Kazuko fired back without trying to make a logical connection. “There are when Vietnam wins a soccer match. Everyone drives like crazy all over the city,” replied the driver, and Kazuko realized with some dismay that, when spoken aloud, kô tsû jiko, the Japanese term for traffic accident, didn’t bear the least resemblance to a collision between two motor vehicles. In fact, it sounded as though it should mean something more like “sheep bones thrown away in a grassy field.”
Japanese motorbikes were slender and rather cute, while the ones manufactured in the Czech Republic were heftier and all the same drab brown. The Vietnamese straddling these foreign bikes, though slight, looked strong all the way down to their fingertips. There was nothing helpless about them. The smiles of Vietnamese in Berlin, even their way of moving, tended to arouse pity. They walked as though they weren’t quite sure their hips would agree to move with their thighs. Their dark eyes darted right and left, careful not to meet anyone’s gaze, watching out for danger. Kazuko was like that, too. In Berlin, whenever she saw something moving nearby, she’d scurry out of the way. She stuck to the corners to keep from stealing anyone’s space. She was always spying around, frightened of what might be coming.
The souvenir shops on Dong Khoi Street were lined up like a row of front teeth. A glossy sheen that caught Kazuko’s eye, reminding her of the hard, plastic clipboard she had used in primary school, turned out to be a tray. Embedded in the tray were shiny seashells of seven different colors. The shells were arranged to form what appeared to be a rearing horse with its mane spread out in a tangle, then Kazuko realized that it was a dragon. A girl of about fifteen ran out calling, “Hallo! Hallo!” There’s something sad about souvenirs. The child’s face was cheerful yet serious. She sells this depressing junk every day, so why haven’t the tourists’ shoes left prints on her face? Kazuko wondered, remorse billowing inside her. Like a sparrow in flight, the little vendor fluttered over the mountain of knickknacks to where Kazuko was standing. But Kazuko wasn’t seeing the things in her shop. It was as if the stacks of trays, the rows of dolls dressed in sedge hats and nylon ao dai were not even there. Or as if she knew exactly where everything was without looking. The girl shoved a doll with Barbie eyes into Kazuko’s hand. Struggling to shake off her embarrassment, Kazuko twisted her body left and right. Kitsch was a word she hated, and would never use. Yet this Vietnamese Barbie doll was so frightening she wanted to shut her eyes, and could only imagine the word kitsch to describe its vulgarity. Suddenly, she was disgusted with Kazuko, standing in front of this souvenir shop tossing around abstract concepts like kitsch. “Tell me,” she chided, “what’s wrong with a Vietnamese Barbie doll anyway?” The Kazuko on the receiving end couldn’t think of an answer, and was beginning to feel terribly guilty. She escaped from this shop only to walk past another just like it. Still another nearly identical one waited further along. If she stopped, a girl would come flying out. Kazuko shook her head. It wasn’t that she was merely determined not to buy anything—all the cheap trinkets were starting to look like cancer cells. “But why are they so malignant? The tourists are the real carcinoma, aren’t they?” Another unanswerable question. No one around to ask it, but she heard it anyway. If we were to call the disgruntled owner of that voice Ms. D, then Ms. D might have raised the corners of her eyes like fishhooks and continued: “It’s arrogant of you to despise souvenirs this way. And saying they depress you is sentimental. You claim to be sad because you think you’re above the realities of the situation. If you really hate this stuff so much, then why not be honest, look the girl in the eye, and tell her you hate the shit she’s hawking, that it makes you sick just to look at it?” The moment she stopped walking, another voice would call, “Hallo! Hallo!” so she hurried on. As long as she was moving, the
oily veneer of souvenirs would slide past her like the wind. Then she glimpsed someone she thought she recognized, a woman polishing a tray with a dry white cloth. Startled, she began to wonder if that woman’s face hadn’t been identical to her own. But she couldn’t turn around and go back for another look. Souvenirs are… worthless?… lovely?… cheap?… cute?… ugly? What if she were just being silly, and it was, in fact, possible to create aesthetic harmony by attaching vinyl to bamboo, or metal to tofu?
“Arrogant if you’re sad, lazy if you’re not,” Kazuko sang to herself as she turned the corner and sat down at a restaurant in front of a construction site. It was called the Big Pup Cup, though Kazuko couldn’t imagine what that might mean. While waiting for the waiter to bring a menu, she read the scene before her as though it were a cartoon, beginning with the upper right-hand frame. “I’m arrogant so I’m not sad,” she sang. The melody was beginning to sound maudlin, like an overplayed pop song. A bat flew restlessly overhead, following a course unrelated to either a circle or a straight line. Homo sapiens were busy building a mammoth hotel below. The barricade around the construction site plastered with KEEP OUT signs reminded Kazuko of the Shinjuku district in Tokyo when she was growing up during the 1960s. Leaning against the barricade was a young girl holding a box filled with the bottles of juice she was selling. A boy of six or seven with a cloth sack hanging around his neck was chatting with her. When a young French couple sat down at the next table, he pattered over to them. Sidling up to the man, he took some postcards out of his sack and flipped through them one by one with slender fingers that seemed too long for the rest of his body. Absorbed in their menus, this couple clearly wasn’t buying. The boy then dashed out to the main street where three Asian women who appeared to be Japanese stood gawking. Their makeup, the color of drawing paper, was so thick it gave their cheeks a powdery look; they were smartly dressed in clothes with invisible seams. Kazuko looked for one of her notebooks to jot down a list of the physical characteristics that make Japanese women look Japanese, but realizing she had left them both at the hotel, she took out her guidebook instead. She would write some notes in the margin and copy them out later. As soon as he spied the guidebook, however, the little postcard seller scurried over. “You Japanese? No Vietnam?” he asked breathlessly, repeating the question over and over, grinning like a windmill. Oh, so he didn’t bother with me before because he thought I was Vietnamese, Kazuko thought, finally understanding. There was a ballpoint pen in the side pocket of her bag along with a subway ticket from Berlin. “The Japanese,” she wrote, “are people carrying guidebooks written in Japanese.”
A little girl in sandals played nearby, hopping on one foot. Like a monstrous beetle, a car inched along. A cyclo sped past the car. There was no one on foot. Walking, apparently, was a peculiar activity. People here hopped, pedaled bicycles, straddled motorbikes, sat on chairs or the floor, or stretched out on the earth. But they didn’t walk.
In Shinjuku, everyone walked, keeping the same rhythm, forming a current strong enough to sweep skyscrapers off their foundations and carry the entire city away. Moving their legs like scissors. A bit like soldiers. As they’d practiced in junior high school. Left, right, left, right. Marching through Shinjuku, she often thought of war. Sharp corners crumbling, causing whole buildings to cascade down. Tremors wracking the town until something completely different shot up from the rubble; crowds parading quietly through a metropolis turned into a monster.
Slices of eel floated in her coconut milk curry. The waitress looked exactly like Tanabe Mayumi, a woman she had once stayed with in Osaka. The way Ms. Tanabe filled the creases and hollows of your body with soothing words gave the impression that she was trying to sell you something even when she wasn’t. You had to imitate her at least a little or you’d feel out of place, ungainly as an elephant’s leg. Flustered, Kazuko spilled her soup. Here she was, playing the elephant’s leg to the waitress’s peahen crest. It was too awful for words. Having given the coconut Kazuko had just started to sip a shake and declared, “There’s nothing left in this,” when there clearly was, the waitress proceeded to ask, “You’ll have more rice, won’t you?” and brought it before Kazuko had a chance to answer. Finally, jabbing the center of the menu she commanded, “Try this for dessert.” This is what it meant to sell. Selling was service. She would serve Kazuko until Kazuko was roasted and ready to be served up fresh from the oven.
Kazuko was furious that the waitress shook her coconut. Not because the top of its head was cut off. The milk inside felt like it flowed from her own heart. Before she even tasted it, the milk quickened the core of her brain. And what about the fruit she ordered, not because she wanted dessert but so they wouldn’t think she was stingy? Tourists are forced to keep up appearances. No matter how hard they try to seem benevolent, everything they do inevitably looks bad, leaving them burdened with guilt. This dulls their thinking. “What kind of fruit would you like for dessert?” “Coconut will be fine.” “Coconut is not for dessert. Let me make another choice for you.” She meekly acquiesced. The waitress brought out a fruit Kazuko had never seen before. Though shaped like a kiwi it was brick red, and tasted like chocolate ice cream.
On the way back to her hotel, Kazuko took a slight detour to pass by the Rex Hotel. In the middle of an intersection, she saw an island rimmed with concrete and with real trees growing on it. A wave of motorbikes swirled around the island, the tide swelling, ebbing, and occasionally breaking as a group of bikes accelerated. In the center was a peaceful oasis. You might call this a park, thought Kazuko. Hundreds of aluminum balloons shaped like manju cakes tied to the vendors’ bicycles drifted in the deep blue sky. “Sell balloons all day, night falls come what may,” Kazuko tried chanting to herself but suddenly found her little song embarrassing and crumpled it up inside her head. Two teenage girls with coconuts dangling from poles slung over their shoulders rushed up to her. Each was carrying four coconuts in front and four in back, and when they came to a halt their bodies continued to gently sway. They stood waiting for the swaying to subside as if anticipating a moment of awakening. Then, with what looked like a solemn bow, they simultaneously lowered their poles to the ground. Absorbed in the girls’ behavior, Kazuko didn’t realize that someone had snuck up behind her. Feeling something the size of a soccer ball brush her cheek, she turned to see a mellow-looking middle-aged man. He, too, was holding a coconut, and then thrust it toward her, the straw sticking out of the top of the coconut almost touching her nose. When she shook her head violently, the man gave up and sauntered off. The girls stared after him until he was too far away to see them pointing at him, and said in Japanese, “No good.” It sounded like they were trying to warn her against eating him. Then one of the girls offered Kazuko a coconut and announced, “This one’s good, Big Sis,” with the other following suit. A clump of jet-black hair, drenched with sweat, was plastered to the first girl’s tanned forehead. There was plenty of skin on these cheeks and brows to soak up the sun’s rays. Their faces and the slightly husky tone of their voices filled Kazuko with nostalgia. Tourists often wax nostalgic over things they are seeing for the first time. “Good taste. One dollar,” they chimed in unison, shooting their index fingers straight up at the sky with the word “one.” “Buy mine, Big Sis.” Kazuko was embarrassed to be called Big Sis. Surely it wasn’t appropriate for this situation, she thought, but then again, what was wrong with it? And what exactly did they mean, anyway? Waves of laughter drained Kazuko’s strength until she couldn’t even giggle anymore, though her body still trembled. “Good taste,” repeated the girl with the bangs. Her eyes never moved. The name Kana dawned on Kazuko. This child was Kana, and she, Kazuko, was about to drain a coconut of its bodily fluid. But no name she could think of suited the other girl, and besides, wouldn’t buying from only one of them leave a blemish, like a spot of spilled ink, on the bond between the two girls? If there was a certain Ms. E, constantly worried about the hidden tides of malice and resentment that rise and fall between strang
ers, then Kazuko was determined to slam the door in Ms. E’s face. She would not let uncertainty keep her from being drawn in whichever direction the current pulled her. So when someone said, “Good taste,” and her mouth filled with fruity saliva, she would devour the nearest coconut. As she intended to nod, however, her head must have slipped to one side, making it seem that she’d snubbed the child, who promptly chirped, “OK?” once more for good measure. “OK, Big Sis? OK. I’ll get a knife.” Kazuko blushed and looked down. The girl borrowed a rusty carving knife from a man selling Coca-Cola and soon returned, slashing the coconut twice, left and right. Slipping a straw into the new hole, she handed the coconut to Kazuko. Meanwhile, the other girl placed her hands on Kazuko’s knees and shook them gently, pleading, “Big Sis, tomorrow, tomorrow.” Apparently she wanted Kazuko to buy her coconut the next day. Kazkuo’s guilt washed away; it was a relief to repeat, “Tomorrow,” with a decisive nod this time. The child then stuck out her pinky, singing, “Promise on your finger,” to which Kazuko could only respond by offering her own, which was much too long, while wondering how this Vietnamese girl could have learned a Japanese children’s ritual. And then Kazuko remembered she really couldn’t keep her promise after all. “The day after?” she tried, but the girl just tilted her head and looked puzzled. “Tomorrow” she understood, but “the day after” was a complete mystery. And besides, once you promised on your little finger there could be no “day after.” For if you broke tomorrow’s promise you’d have to swallow a thousand sharp needles and the day after wouldn’t matter anymore. While Kazuko handed a dollar bill to the coconut girl, the “promise” girl intoned, “Don’t tell a lie.” As a member of the tourist race, Kazuko knew that as long as she was speaking broken English she could tell any number of lies. The girl had seen right through her, and that’s why she had hooked her pinky around Kazuko’s: “Promise on your finger / If you lie I’ll make you drink / A thousand needles in a wink / By our pinkies linked.”