He did not look like our ordinary client at Seibu. He was about fifty years old, and although his shirt was nicely pressed, his pants sat low under his stomach, with deep creases in a triangle around his lap area. It was early in the afternoon and the floor was almost empty, but the members of my sales staff were avoiding the client, pretending not to see him. This goes against our policy. For this reason, although it is not within my job description, I approached the client and offered him assistance. I prefer to lead by example.
“Can I help you find anything?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m finding everything okay.”
He had a Southern gentleman’s accent, and I could tell from the way he spoke that he was gay. Also, I couldn’t help noticing that his teeth had plaque in the spaces between them, so that it looked like they were fusing into one tooth.
“I’ll be just over here,” I said. “Let me know if you need some assistance.”
I had begun to walk away when he addressed me—“What price is this?”—and I turned to find him holding a Kuriki Tatsusuke tea bowl from the Gray collection.
“I don’t know offhand,” I said. “Would you like me to go and have a look?”
He indicated that he would, and so I said, “I’ll just be one moment to check that price for you.” All of our prices are kept on an inventory file. I had begun to cross the floor to access that file from Mr. Ito’s station when the client said, “What’s the point of it?”
“Sir?”
“The bowl.” He flipped it to examine its bottom. “What do you use it for?”
“Oh, actually, it’s a cup. For water or tea.”
“Can you drink sake out of it?”
“Usually our sake cups are smaller, but of course, you are free to use that item for anything you like.”
I think maybe I smiled a little, a habit of mine when I become uneasy. I had been reminded by my phrasing of the off-color stories that I’ve heard about gays. For a moment, I worried that the client thought I was making an offensive joke, but of course, he was not aware of any of this thinking on my part.
“Is it real gold?” He indicated the inside of the bowl.
“It’s a glaze made with real gold, yes. Mr. Tatsusuke had a postdoctorate degree in chemistry, and he makes all his glaze himself.”
“It is safe to drink from it?”
“Mr. Tatsusuke is very particular his work is to be used, so I don’t think he made anything with real gold inside that would come off when you try to drink it.”
This is something that happens to me when I become nervous; my English begins to regress. While I have lived in America for forty years, I still have some of the irredeemable habits of a non-native speaker, particularly when I am shaken. I don’t know why I had become shaken. I had noticed by this time the client was producing a particular odor, but I can’t point to that and say, “This is how I was undone.” It was a collection of things, and I suppose that I have fragile nerves. I said, “I’ll go and check that price.”
I went to Mr. Ito’s computer. While I waited for the particular program to load, I glanced at the client. Alone with the bowl, he held it properly between his palms, and I had the impression that whatever he was imagining, it had led him to the decision that he would purchase the bowl, which was listed at $600.
It was a high price for a bowl, but Mr. Tatsusuke was enjoying a lot of success in Japan at that moment; he was in vogue. Actually, it was quite difficult to find his work, and we were able to stock it only because Mr. Tatsusuke had been a close personal friend of our company president, Mr. Seibu. In fact, he had even come to visit him in our store. A lovely man in his seventies, he arrived just wearing ordinary dungarees, and when he saw his pieces locked inside our jewelry cases, he got a little bit upset. He spent a lot of time with me personally, talking about the importance of touch. He said that a piece is beautified by being handled by all different sorts of hands, and he asked that I please place his work out, so people could touch it. He said, “I don’t make art. I make bowls and plates.”
I informed the client of the price, and he did not make any answer. He stood for a while admiring the bowl, picking it up and putting it down, and then he said he was going to think about it, and for a long time he wandered the store with his feelings painted all over his face. The other salespeople had grown accustomed to his appearance, and so for the most part, they were able to answer when he said, “What price is this?” regarding various store items, though I did hear Harry in menswear laughing.
What price is this, indeed.
* * *
It was half an hour later when I saw the client admiring the bowl again.
“Still thinking about that piece?” I asked.
He said something in a very soft voice. I couldn’t make it out, so I nodded. He continued in the same train of thought, and I realized a few moments later that he had said, “I want it for a gift for my guru.”
“This would make a very special gift,” I said.
He nodded. Then he looked down into the bowl for a long time, and I was quiet, in accordance with my sales training. When he spoke again, the client expressed his wish to purchase the Tatsusuke.
“Good choice,” I said. “Please come this way, sir.”
I was careful to wrap the bowl very nicely for the client, Mr. Thibideaux, and before he left, I gave him my personal card. I think … sometimes I imagine that my husband watches me in my ordinary day. My son said this is ordinary to do. My son is a professional, Western-style therapist, and he said it is ordinary as long as I understand that my husband has passed away. I understand this; he is gone, and he will never come back—so sometimes in moments like this, I think my husband smiles, to see how kind and elegant his wife can be. Sometimes it is my husband, but he looks like Mr. Tatsusuke.
* * *
A month later, Mr. Thibideaux requested my assistance on the floor. I was in a meeting with our payroll chief, Mr. Hanson, but informed that a client had requested me by name, Mr. Hanson encouraged me to go ahead and assist the client. I found Mr. Thibideaux bent over a jewelry display with his stomach pressed against the glass.
“Mr. Thibideaux,” I said, “how nice to see you again in our store.”
He looked up at me from where he was and pointed out a headdress inside the case. “What price is this?”
I unlocked the case and withdrew the ornament. After I read its price, which was unusually high, I put the elaborate headpiece into Mr. Thibideaux’s hands. He made a gesture, lifting the item up and down to indicate its weight. Then he asked if I would help him by trying it on.
“Excuse me? I’m sorry, I didn’t understand.”
He explained that he wanted me to try the headdress on. Actually, I had my hair pulled into a chignon, and I had no wish to perform this service. At the same time, I didn’t wish to refuse Mr. Thibideaux impolitely. While I searched for words, Mr. Thibideaux began to ask me about the piece. It reminded him, he said, of Utagawa Hiroshige III’s Amerika.
I was undone, and so I nodded and smiled in an uncomfortable way, my eyes most likely beginning to look confused, and blank.
He went on to explain it was a portrait of a foreign woman from the year 1860, done during a time when only twenty Western women lived in Yokohama. He explained that women in the West didn’t wear plumed hats, but in portraits of Westerners painted in Japan, they were quite common. He asked if I would place the headdress on his head, explaining that it was really preferable to my wearing it, because “The proper way to judge a piece of jewelry is to feel it against your skin.”
Of course, I was embarrassed. Had he asked me at the outset to place a crown upon his head, it is likely that I would have demurred, but now, seeing his second request as a politic way to evade his first, I acquiesced.
“Yes, of course,” I said. “Touch is very important.”
He bent forward, and I fastened the crown to his temples. It was elaborate, standing high above his head and adorned with feathers and semiprecious gems. It had two side panels that depended from the larger corona, and I righted those broad, beaded panels, laying them flat against his chest. Then I stepped back to allow him to look at himself.
The beauty of the piece transferred to Mr. Thibideaux. It bestowed an unusual quality to his form, which up until this moment had been quite ugly, almost obscene. Beneath the headpiece, Mr. Thibideaux’s ugliness, while not departed, was somehow changed, so that I noticed less his decay and his filth, his foul posture and his stink, and more the brilliance of his unusual form—and how curious it was to see such brilliance drawing such ugly and intricate shapes. Difficult to describe; it was as though the visual plane, the whole world—Mr. Thibideaux—were made of tiny points of light.
The two of us had a nice discussion. He just left the headpiece on, like it was his own, and talked to me about different things. He said he was taking a vacation, and I said good for you. He asked if I knew of a place where he could buy a certain Japanese delicacy, and I told him that I had never heard of that delicacy. He said it was mostly eaten in the country, and I told him that my family has been metropolitan for many centuries.
“Come from samurai.”
“Samurai,” he said, “so then, like me, you are already dead.”
I understood his reference to the Hagakure, of course. For reasons I can’t name, the world inverted and I stood in a waking dream, Mr. Thibideaux himself a phantom.
“Don’t I look…” Mr. Thibideaux craned his neck to see himself in the mirror behind me. He had trouble finding the word, but I could tell from his tone of voice that he was making a joke, so I pretended to laugh, and I was surprised to see color come into his cheeks.
He removed the headpiece and said, “I’ve come today to ask you about a commission.”
“Actually, I’m sales manager, so mine is a salaried position.”
“I wanted to know if it would be possible to order another bowl like the one I bought before.”
“All Mr. Tatsusuke’s bowls are one of a kind.”
It took him a long time to explain what he wanted, which was a bowl like the one he bought before, in white, with the same gold inside. He wanted to order it as a commission, from Mr. Tatsusuke himself.
I told him we don’t ordinarily do sales by commission, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I agreed to ask Mr. Seibu. That was probably not a wise decision.
* * *
Mr. Seibu and I have known each other a long time, and it’s generally our habit to address one another in familiar forms of Japanese. That’s why I didn’t stand on ceremony but simply explained the situation. Actually, I was surprised by Mr. Seibu’s response. He sat silently in his chair for a long time after I asked the question and didn’t even ask me if I wanted to take a seat. He keeps his office in the traditional style, without a lot of clutter or noise, or any kind of telephone or computer to distract him from his duties as store president, so when he was quiet for so long, it felt like a form of rebuke. In fact, it certainly was a rebuke. I couldn’t help fidgeting a little and trying to smooth my hair while he sat utterly still, with his hands folded on the slate-gray leather blotter before him.
More time passed. I began to think, Maybe he didn’t understand, so I started again, saying, “Mr. Seibu? We have a customer downsta—”
“I understand the question,” he barked, and held up one hand to tell me not to say it again.
“Of course, Mr. Seibu.” I felt myself nodding; also, I realized I’d slipped into formal address. I thought, Okay, this time I’m going to wait until he speaks.
After some time, Mr. Seibu took a deep breath and said, “Fumi, let me ask you a question—have a seat.”
“Yes, sir, thank you.” I took a seat in one of his leather chairs, and he said, “Fumi, I consider you a friend, and so I’m going to speak to you as a friend.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I’m very happy with your work on the floor, and I’m very happy with your administrative abilities in overseeing employees. All in all, your work has proved more than satisfactory.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“However, I see room for improvement in your…” He paused to seek the word and ultimately chose the English phrase “self-confidence.”
“Sir?”
“I don’t mean to suggest that your mannerisms betray any self-doubt,” he said, and at that, I felt an insult in the reference, however slight, to my fidgeting. “No, it is not a matter of presentation, but rather that I’ve observed in you some reluctance to take charge on the floor and make your own decisions. Do you understand?”
Actually, I did not understand. I figured out later what he meant, but at the time, I was shaken, and so I had a hard time seeing how this connected to the original question of the commission. What I thought at the time was, I have Mr. Thibideaux standing on the floor and likely causing some disruption, so I have to steer Mr. Seibu back to the original question, and then we can discuss this matter about my managerial style at a more appropriate time. I said, “Mr. Seibu, thank you. I will certainly evaluate my managerial…” Here I had trouble finding the word, and so after struggling a bit, I switched tack and said, “I’ll put this criticism into use.”
“It’s not a criticism, Fumi.”
“Naturally.”
When I said that, he looked irritated, and I could tell he was thinking, First she says it’s a criticism, then she says she knows it’s not a criticism. I didn’t know quite what to say, or why Mr. Seibu was so angry, so I said, “For the moment, however, maybe we can return to the original matter.”
Mr. Seibu’s nose turned purple. He has a problem with his heart, as well as unusually high blood pressure, with a high risk of stroke, so in moments like this, I worry that he will just explode and die. He said, “And what matter is that?”
“The small matter,” I said, “of the bowl, and this commission a customer has—”
This time he really flew through the ceiling. He said, “That’s up to you. That’s up to you to make your own decision. That’s up to you, Fumi. That’s up to you as manager.” I thanked him, and he said, “It’s up to you to make your own decision. That’s a decision for the sales manager.”
He was still repeating this refrain as I eased his door closed.
I know Mr. Seibu too well. He and my husband were friends before the untimely passing, and while Mr. Seibu is unfailingly polite to me, I can remember in the old days he would have something to drink and say about such-and-such employee, “Oh, he doesn’t know his ass from his elbow.”
* * *
I placed a call to Mr. Tatsusuke. He remembered me right away, and he asked after my son. I told him he was doing very well, and I thanked him for the gift he sent him on his wedding day. Then I told him the situation, and he did not hesitate to agree to the commission. “Anything for you, Fumi. If you ask it, I have no choice but to say yes. Yes, a white bowl for Fumi.” He didn’t even charge extra for the special request.
When I explained everything to Mr. Thibideaux, he didn’t hesitate. “Fantastic,” he said, and while I was ringing his deposit, he explained that the second bowl was also for his guru. I didn’t want to say anything, but somehow found myself saying, “He’s going to have a lot of bowls.”
Mr. Thibideaux didn’t have an answer for that, so I asked if he studied Buddhism in Japan.
“Study?” he said. “I lived six weeks in a zendo. I never would have left, but my mother is ill.”
Then he started to talk to me about his problems. Actually, this is something a lot of Western customers will do; we even receive training for it. It is best, when the customers do this, to seem neither embarrassed nor sympathetic. If you seem embarrassed, then the customer will realize he has been impolite. If you pretend to feel sympathy, the customer can sense your deception. And if you actually feel sympathy, then that is likely to create an unprofessional situation. I put my hands together, palms straight, just in front of my body and lowered my eyes.
However, Mr. Thibideaux’s credit-card charge was stuck in the machine, so while he spoke and I held my position, I worried that his $100 deposit was going to be declined. All this time he was explaining to me that his mother was suffering from syphilis, the sex disease. He said the two of them shared an apartment on the water, and then he started to talk about the great flood of 1992, and the mildew in the carpet.
I picked up the card machine and shook it. I looked to make sure the plugs had not come undone. Maybe that didn’t make sense to do, because the screen was all lit up. Then three beeps sounded, and the receipts came out the machine’s end.
“Can I just get you to sign here, please?”
Once Mr. Thibideaux had signed, I said, “And that’ll be it.”
I handed him his copy of the receipt, smiled, and bowed. He stood there, searching my eyes.
I said, “The white is going to be beautiful with the gold.”
“Or it’s going to look like an Ed Gein.”
I didn’t understand the reference.
“John Gotti,” he corrected himself. “You know, a mafioso.”
I blinked.
“Didn’t you ever see those movies?”
“Right.” I made my fake laugh, but the color in his cheeks did not brighten, and he did not smile.
* * *
When the bowl came in, I understood what Mr. Thibideaux meant about John Gotti. The white and the gold were sumptuous in a way that American filmmakers associate with the high life of a mafioso. I don’t mean to say that the bowl was ugly—in fact, it was striking in its beauty—but rather, that it took seeing the bowl to understand what it was Mr. Thibideux had tried to express.
Ordinarily, I am efficient in the dispatch of my duties, but in the matter of the Tatsusuke commission, I found myself procrastinating. I was reluctant to call Mr. Thibideaux. Sometimes I would begin to make the call, and then I would remember some other pressing matter. Other times, I sat for a long time in front of the phone, unable to pick it up and dial the numbers. I understand this is quite ordinary for others, but for me, this behavior is highly unusual. I also found myself lingering around the bowl, staring into it for long stretches of time.
I put a small white label on Mr. Thibideaux’s bowl, and handwrote on that label the word “sold.” I did not place the bowl out, where an unscrupulous customer could unpeel the label, but rather used it in a jewelry display. I placed it, perhaps a bit contrary to Mr. Tatsusuke’s wish, in one of our jewel-box street displays, adjacent to a very precious item made of twisted settings of uncut ruby stones.
The bowl did not go unremarked. The white Mr. Tatsusuke had chosen for the tea bowl was stainless. It was subtly luminous, and offset by the gold, it was luxurious. Unlike many potters who imitate the work of Lucie Rie, Mr. Tatsusuke does not aspire to ever-increasing feats of thinness in his clay, nor is he interested in a smooth exterior and flawless lines—a yoga student’s idea of peace. Mr. Tatsusuke’s hand is bold. He has a masculine commitment to his imperfections, rather than a fretting quality. His craftsmanship is masterly, and this particular bowl stood out from the body of his work. It was like a declaration of love. For what, I was unsure.
* * *
It was a month later, sometime in the middle of a weekday afternoon, that Mrs. Thibideaux and I had our only conversation. I had let the phone ring and ring, so I was startled when the rings came to a halt, and after a little fumbling, a woman spoke to me with great confusion.
“Hello?” she said. “Hello?”
“Good afternoon,” I said. “I hope I didn’t wake you?”
She just gave a cough and then apologized for her cough.
I said, “No need to apologize. I’m calling from Seibu department store. I was calling to inform Gerard Thibideaux that his commission has arrived in the store.”
“Hello?”
“Yes, good afternoon, I’m calling from Seibu downtown. Is Gerard Thibideaux available?”
“Jerry?”
“Yes, he had ordered a bowl from us, and I wanted to inform him it has come in the store.”
“Jerry isn’t here!”
“All right, could you please inform him—”
I heard her fumbling the phone in its cradle, and after a few moments, she managed to hang up.
* * *
My shyness about the bowl began to diminish. As days became weeks, I got in the habit of calling regularly. I think it was about twenty-one days later when, abruptly, Mr. Thibideaux answered the phone.
“Thibideaux residence, Jerry speaking.”
“Mr. Thibideaux, this is Fumi at Seibu department store.”
“Hello, Fumi. How are you?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I was calling to inform you that your commission has arrived in the store.”
“Uh-huh, thank you, Fumi. I appreciate that.”
“Of course. Do you know when you might be free to come in?”
“No, Fumi—to be honest, I don’t.”
“Sir? The bowl is in the store, for clarification. It has already arrived in the store. That’s for clarification purposes.”
He started to say something, but then he stopped, and for a little bit of time, both of us were quiet.
“Mr. Thibideaux?”
“Yes?”
“Your bowl has come into the store four or five weeks ago. Do you know—”
“I heard that, Fumi.”
“Oh.”
Then we were quiet again.
“Mr. Thibideaux,” I said, but before I could continue he said, “I’m waiting for some cash to land. Fumi, I’m waiting for some cash to land in my account.”
He began to tell me something about check number 622. I said, “Perhaps you could make a payment.” Then he started to tell me about a trust fund in Mississippi. He explained his great-grandfather was a pine baron. He talked about caring for his mother, about how much it cost him, and then his mother began to shout at him in the background. Actually, she was quite capable of saying things that were unkind. Mr. Thibideaux said, “Fumi, would it be all right if I called you back?”
But rather than letting me answer, he just hung up the phone.
* * *
Months passed with no word from Mr. Thibideaux. He never called, and he never answered the phone when I called. I left messages. I even considered writing him a card. I thought about it quite often. Once, I even found myself thinking about it under the strange conditions of a dream. I was trying to get some nails and tacks gathered in crumpled-up newspaper while at sea, in an old wooden sailboat, amid tossing white-crested waves. I was in the bottom of the boat, in a small cellar, so the tossing waves caused the nails to keep escaping my grasp. “It doesn’t matter,” somebody was telling me, and I was saying, “No, it does matter. It matters a lot!”
It was a small thing, an inconvenience, but it grew in my mind, so that when I looked at, when I even thought about, Mr. Thibideaux’s bowl, I felt sick to my stomach. It became the kind of incident a person could explain to a psychologist.
* * *
Several days after Mr. Tatsusuke died of natural causes, Mr. Seibu asked me to show him the white bowl from the jewel-box display. It had been a year since I had spoken on the phone with Mr. Thibideaux. Mr. Seibu ran his fingers along the spiral divot inside the bowl, where Tatsusuke had traced his fingers through the clay. He turned the bowl to examine its bottom, and I knew he wanted to take it. This is quite ordinary for Mr. Seibu, who could of course have any item in his store.
I knew he was going to take the bowl. I also knew that I was going to have a telephone call from Mr. Thibideaux. What I did not know was that Mr. Thibideaux was going to choose that particular moment to appear in the store, like the fox. He stood behind Mr. Seibu, who was saying, yes, maybe he would like to take the bowl to his home.
I nodded. I took the bowl and turned. I began to wrap it in tissue paper, and then I stopped. It was my responsibility to explain that the bowl belonged to Mr. Thibideaux. I took a moment to compose my words.
“Fumi”—Mr. Seibu gave me a funny look and extended his open palm to take the bowl. He bowed and said good night.
Actually, Mr. Thibideaux never spoke. He just turned and walked out slowly, even stopping to pick up a Daum figurine of a penguin. I considered racing out onto the sidewalk and taking Mr. Seibu by his sleeve. I would just have to explain—it was a commission, I made a mistake. But I was uncertain, thinking of all the different ways to begin.
* * *
Later that week, I received an envelope, and inside it I found a card. On the front of the card was a photograph of a naked old man who was tied to the ceiling by ropes and had some kind of foam smeared all around his bottom. A second old man, wearing a lot of leather, had his fist inside the first man’s bottom. I probably should have just thrown the card away, but I opened it and found a long inscription in a delicate hand.
Mr. Thibideaux wrote that he understood what had happened and bore me no ill will. He explained that he hated this world and everyone in it. The people whom he had once considered friends had abandoned him when his father died and his money was spent, and his mother had contracted this disease. He told me he himself had AIDS, and he described the circumstances under which he had contracted it. He said there is nothing beautiful in this world, nothing wholesome, and nothing sane. He said people everywhere are like figures in a certain painting by Bosch, and the time he spent in monasteries was characterized by impassioned bickering over the smallest things—the sound of chewing, the way a certain man moved his fingers. He told me how they fired an old cook just because he was flatulent, and because he used too much salt. When you drink a cup of tea, he said, you are a party to misery, and then I stopped reading what he had to say.
I never mentioned Mr. Thibideaux’s card to anyone. I imagine that he hoped to disturb me, sending that kind of card, but I am not some flower. I have been alive for more than fifty years, and I have thought many ugly things. Miserable people often think they have a special purchase on the truth. My husband was one of those. At the moment of his death, I told him I was relieved. He gasped, and then everything was torn away.