“I’m sorry it’s so late,” she says, stroking Koji’s hair. “Isn’t your friend coming home?”
“My girlfriend,” I say. “No. She moved out.”
“Good friend?”
“Girlfriend,” I repeat. “You know…my ra-ba?” I’ve always hated this word. It sounds so cheesy, so show-off y. But Keiko looks confused or uncertain and I want to finish what I started so I say, “shi-ko-re-tto ra-ba?” Secret lover. And suddenly I get why there are so many eikaiwa or English conversation enthusiasts among people who have no plans to go abroad. I get why the members of SMILE come so regularly even when they never intended to make a speech at the festival. When you want to say something difficult, when you want to get something off your chest, it’s so much easier to do it in another language. It’s like a costume for your words.
“Oh,” Keiko says. “Omoshiroi.”
“Funny?”
“Interesting,” she says. “It must be nice. No gokiburi husband to expect dinner on a tray while he watches baseball…always someone to talk to you.”
“Well,” I say, “my relationship with Carolyn had its own problems.”
“Had?”
“We broke up,” I say. “Hey, I thought you didn’t know the past tense. You always use the present.”
“Really?” she says. “Eh. I do not realize this. I guess it’s because of Fumiya.”
“What do you mean?”
“Fumi only uses present. For him, there is no difference between yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”
He really lives in the moment, I think, remembering Einstein’s definition of insanity as doing the same thing over and over but expecting new results. Only Fumiya probably doesn’t have these expectations. He probably finds the predictability comforting.
“What kind of problems did you have with your ra-ba?” Keiko asks me.
“I think we were too similar,” I say. “Not our personalities, but our circumstances, at least here. There wasn’t enough difference to keep things interesting, and it made us competitive. Also, it was difficult to have to hide all the time. We were pretending so hard not to be lovers that after a while we really weren’t lovers anymore.” I think about this, how we started by living a lie, and soon the lie turned into the truth.
“I understand,” she says. “I have…I had…shi-ko-re-tto ra-ba, too. We also shared similar circumstances, and we also had to hide.” She looks down at Koji as she says this. His lashes look long and luxurious against his pale cheeks. His eyes flutter beneath his lids. I wonder what he’s dreaming about.
“Kobayashi-sensei?” I guess.
“You know?” she says. “I try to be so careful! I try to hide my feelings so well!” She sounds shocked, but not upset. Actually, she seems glad. Secrets are lonely. The fun part of hide-and-seek—the whole point of the game—is getting found.
“Is it over?” I ask.
“Mmm,” she says. “My life is difficult enough, ne?” I wonder who decided this, who called it off. She sighs and says that they should probably leave, that her husband is going to expect dinner when he gets home from work and Koji needs to go to bed. At the door, she thanks me for helping Fumiya and then gives me a quick, fierce hug.
“Good-bye,” I call out as they get into their car.
“Good-bye,” Fumiya repeats and Koji grins, flashing his big new teeth.
I’m washing the sukiyaki dishes when I hear another knock at the door. This time I open it to find Miyoshi-sensei, his arms filled with blooming cherry branches. Tucked between the stems is an envelope. “Happy birthday Mari-chan,” he says, handing me the knobby bouquet. “I know it’s late. I have an important thing to tell you. I’m sorry to disturb you and Carolyn.”
“That’s okay,” I say. “She moved out.”
“Really?” he says. “Where?”
“She’s living in Hakui,” I say. “She wanted to be closer to her school.”
“Ah,” he says. “I see.”
He follows me down the hall and accepts my offer of tea. I can feel him mustering the nerve to say something and I force myself to keep quiet for once instead of filling in the blank space with my nervous chatter.
“You have big hands,” he says at last.
“Thanks a lot,” I say, wanting to sit on them.
“I meant it as compliment,” he says. “Your hands look strong. Like you. Mari-chan, I must ask a favor.” He is still looking at my big hands. “I know it’s a burden, but could you teach our classes alone tomorrow?”
“Of course,” I say, although his request surprises me, since he’s the one who told me that teachers here never take sick days. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he says. “I have to take someone to the hospital in Nanao.”
“Is it your father?” I ask.
“No,” he says, pausing to sip his tea. “Can you keep my confidence?”
“Of course,” I say. “Who could I tell?” For the first time, I notice that there are honey-colored rings around his irises. His face is dangerously close. It would be so easy to make the same mistake twice. “It’s Ritsuko,” he says. “She is in a kind of trouble. Maybe she was…unprotected. With huge consequence. Do you catch my meaning?”
“She’s pregnant?” I guess, hoping that I’m wrong.
“Mmm,” he says. “Tomorrow she will have procedure to terminate.”
I think back to the way Ritsuko left SMILE club early this week, claiming not to feel well. Then I remember what we were discussing right before she left. I’ve been told that abortion isn’t stigmatized in Japan, that it’s not considered a big deal. But I’ve also seen countless roadside shrines filled with row after row of mizuko or “water babies,” faceless granite dolls that look like chess pieces, dressed in pastel rompers and hand-knit bonnets, toys and candy arrayed at their feet. These mizuko are available for purchase by women who’ve miscarried or had abortions, to serve as vessels for the frustrated spirits of their unborn children. It’s the stuff that makes me sad, the clothing piled behind the statues in larger and larger sizes, all that guilt.
“Again, I must ask you to keep my confidence,” Miyoshi-sensei says. “If anyone discovered that I took her to the hospital for this reason, I could get in huge trouble. But it’s my responsibility, so…”
“What do you mean, your responsibility?” I ask.
“Ritsuko is my student,” he says. “My best English student. I encouraged her to go abroad to study English this summer in California. I helped arrange homestay. Ri-chan’s dream is becoming tour guide. It’s not impossible. She is very determined. But she is only sixteen years. Sixteen is so young. She shouldn’t be alone tomorrow.”
“What about the father?” I ask. “Shouldn’t he go with her?”
“She won’t tell.”
“You mean she won’t tell you who he is, or she won’t tell him she’s pregnant?”
“She wants to keep private.”
“Nakajima is her boyfriend,” I say.
“My responsibility is to help Ri-chan,” he says, “not to force confession.”
“You keep talking about responsibility, but shouldn’t he at least help her pay for the abortion? He got her into this mess. It shouldn’t be your job to clean it up.”
“My job is to take care of my student,” he says. “I am doing my job.”
“You are very kind,” I say. “Most teachers wouldn’t do what you’re doing.”
“Most teachers are probably smart,” he says.
“I’d like to help,” I add. “If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”
He places his stein of tea on the table and circles the rim with his fingertip. “Maybe there is something you could do for Ritsuko…” I nod, and he clears his throat. “Following procedure, she will feel discomfort. If she goes home, she will have difficulty hiding this from Sakura. Maybe, if you don’t mind, she could stay here for one night? She could say you are helping her with English. You will speak English together, ne? So it’s kind o
f true.”
“Sure,” I say.
He thanks me and stands up and I follow him to the genkan, where he bends down to put on his shoes and finds them still on his feet. “I forgot to take off my shoes!” he says, sounding as upset as if he’d discovered that he weren’t wearing any pants. I tell him not to worry about it, that I wear my shoes indoors all the time. “You do?” he asks. “Really?”
“I’m a temporary person,” I remind him.
“I wish you were not,” he says before slipping outside.
After he leaves, I go to the kitchen to put the flowers that he brought me in water. As I arrange the cherry branches in a Mickey Mouse stein, his envelope tumbles out. I take the letter upstairs to read in bed.
Dear Miss Marina,
This is final attempt to write speech on why English is useful for me. You said before, “Why not make speech on memory from homestay in Eureka, California?” Now I will show you why not.
I was eighteen years when I went to California to participate in immersion-style English program. According to dictionary, “immersion” means sinking in, like drowning in water. Immersion also means living in a host family. To my surprise, I arrived in Eureka and learned that my “family” was just one man, divorced DEA officer. Do you know DEA meaning? It’s “Drug Enforcement Agent.” He told me to call him “Dad.” Then he laughed when I said “Dad” in front of other DEA officers. He called me “Son” and they laughed more.
“Dad” had a big moustache and he always wore mirror sunglasses, like police from a TV show called Cops that he enjoyed watching so much. His refrigerator only had beer and milk. Other host parents took foreign students to the movies or Disneyland, but “Dad” only drank beer or milk and watched Cops show. I think he was kind of depressed because of divorce, and because his children hated his guts. This is what he said so often, after drinking many beers. “My kids don’t get me. Only you get me,” he said and I nodded and said, “Mmm.”
One day he brought me on “drug bust” to secret garden filled with marijuana plants. Together with DEA team, “Dad” seized criminal property. It was like Cops show, only nobody was beat up. “Dad” said to me, “I’ll bet you don’t see much weed back in Japan,” and I agreed. “I’m giving you a real American experience,” he said. “Fuck Disneyland.” After that, I never mentioned my desire to attend Disneyland again.
To tell the truth, this “immersion” experience was kind of lonesome. So I was happy when “Dad’s” daughter came to visit at the end of the summer, even if she took guest bedroom and I had to sleep on bumpy couch in family room. Sliding glass door of family room went to backyard. Every night, Kathy left through this door, and every morning she came back again before sunrise. I don’t know where she went. I pretended to be sleeping. In the morning, “Dad” would say to me, “I thought I heard you go out last night, Son,” and then Kathy would say, “Me too!” and I would feel panic. If I don’t tell truth, I betray him. If I tell truth, I betray her. I decided to keep her confidence. One time, she took me to the beach with her friends. Listening to their conversation, I could enjoy learning slang and idiom. “Beats me,” she said when her friends asked who I was. “Some dude my dad’s milking for child support money. He’s supposed to be learning English, but he’s like mute.” I had to look up this word.
One night I am lying on bumpy couch, pretending to sleep, when Kathy comes and sits next to my body.
“Dad’s working tonight,” she says.
“Oh,” I say, sitting up.
“Have you ever smoked dope?” she asks.
I say, “What’s dope meaning?”
She says, “The weed you helped my father to harvest.”
I say, “This is confiscated police property!”
She says, “You are kidding, right?”
I say, “I am man, not kid, and I can speak!” She laughs and so I laugh too. After smoking dope, I become hungry, but of course only beer and milk live in the refrigerator. Kathy orders a pizza with ham and also pineapple, which is delicious or not, I can’t decide, so I have to keep biting it again and again to check.
“You are stone,” Kathy says.
“I am not stone,” I say.
Suddenly she says, “Remind me what your name is.” I say, “What?” She says, “Your name, I forget what it is. I asked my dad, but he doesn’t know.”
WHAT?!?
After two months, “Dad” does not remember my name? Then I realize: maybe he never knew. Maybe this is why he calls me “son.” I feel humiliation. I try to speak, to answer the question, but nothing comes. Why? Because I can’t remember my name! Probably you think it’s impossible. But it is truth! My own name is like an English vocabulary word I learned and then forgot. I am standing in a flooding river and I can’t swim. I am immersed.
“I don’t know!” I say.
“I guess you really are stone,” Kathy says.
“I am not stone!” I say. “I am man. But it’s true that I often feel like stone.”
Then she lies down with (next to? beside? on?) me and admits that she also feels like stone so often. But not that night. After that happens, we never talk about it. Maybe she feels regret. I don’t know. Once more, English was not so useful for me.
After I returned to Japan, every year I send New Year card to “Dad,” and after he remarries, I begin to receive Christmas newsletter. Like such, I learned that Kathy got married to the mayor of Eureka. So I had idea to form sister-city relationship. Shika rhymes with Eureka. Also, both towns are close to the sea. I think it’s good match.
In my official proposal, I said that Shika’s town hall would pay their airplane tickets. First Kathy wrote to say thank you, that they felt so excited for this trip and opportunity. But after I sent travel itinerary, she wrote again. In American newspaper, they read about power plant accident in Tokaimura. Article mentioned other plants in Japan, including Shika. So she learned about the campaign to close our plant. She tells me her husband feels nervous to form relationship with nuclear power town. Maybe people of Eureka don’t want it. “We’re still coming,” she said, “but we can’t promise to sign a contract until we see Shika and talk to people.” I have not admitted this to my father. I told him, “It’s a done deal.” I told him, “You will be on TV, and everyone will feel so happy and remember what a good mayor you were.”
So why do I admit all of this to you now? Two reasons. Reason one: to explain why this festival is so important to me, and also why I can’t make a speech. When I first came back to Shika after my summer in Eureka, everybody asked “what was best experience of your trip?” I couldn’t admit truth. Best experience was forgetting my own name. This is effect of immersion. This freedom comes from new language. But also, I think, from “dope.” This is reason number two for sharing my story with you.
I know you smoked some “dope” at Shika’s beach, together with Carolyn and Joe. I am not judging. The black pot shouldn’t judge the black kettle, ne? But I should warn you to be more private when you practice risky behavior. One male student spotted you, and he reported your transgression to me. We are lucky. If he reported to principal, I could not protect you, no matter how much I want to. You would be sent home, or even to prison. I really don’t want this. So please take more care.
Yours,
Hiroshi Miyoshi
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
abunai: (ADJ.) dangerous; risky; close
* * *
Please rank the following on a RISKY BEHAVIOR
scale from 1–10.
1 means SAFE SEX (anzen na sekkusu).
10 means DANGEROUS SEX (abunai na sekkusu).
1. French kissing (a tongue goes inside another person’s mouth): ____
2. Masturbation or “jacking off” (a person touches his or her own genitals):____
3. Frottage (two bodies rub all over each other, without penetration):____
4. Making out (kissing, touching fingers to breasts or genitals):____
5. Fellatio or “blow j
ob” (a penis goes inside someone’s mouth):____
6. Cunnilingus or “eating out” (a tongue goes inside someone’s vagina):____
7. Protected vaginal intercourse or “fucking” (penis, inside condom, goes inside vagina):____
8. Unprotected vaginal intercourse (penis, without condom, comes inside vagina):____
9. Anal intercourse or “ass sex” (penis comes inside anus):____
10. Rimming (a tongue goes around anus):____
* * *
I leave the faculty room ten minutes before the boys return from the nuclear power plant, to hang the posters around their classroom. Today’s worksheet was easy to make. I just pictured Nakajima’s face. All night long, I couldn’t stop thinking about the things that Miyoshi-sensei has told me recently: that it’s against the law to teach sex-ed here; that boys won’t wear condoms for fear of seeming gay. I kept thinking about fifteen-year-old Ritsuko at the abortion clinic, and about Nakajima sneaking into our house with his classmates’ school uniforms. He must have been there when we went to the beach. He must have followed us, and reported everything back to Miyoshi-sensei.
The boys enter the shed still dressed in their red nuclear power plant jumpsuits. They circle the room like sharks in an aquarium tank, taking in the posters I taped to the walls. They stare at the two naked men holding each other, the woman lying with her head on another woman’s lap, the Asian girl offering the white guy a condom.
“Nani wo kore?”—what the hell?—mutters Nakajima.
If You Follow Me Page 27