MRS. KUBOTA’S HUSBAND WAS SHORT AND SHY BUT AFFABLE, AND USUALLY didn’t come home from work until at least eight o’clock in the evening. He too could barely speak English, but did not seem to possess the same burning passion for learning it as his wife. Mrs. Kubota dutifully served him dinner, which she and I always had earlier—the couple never ate together. Each evening after dinner Mr. Kubota left the house without fail. Did he go out to the bar? Play poker with the boys? Visit a lady “friend”? I only hoped that he wasn’t a pachinko addict with designs on poisoning his spouse. But Mr. Kubota’s whereabouts remained a mystery because none of these scenarios seemed to fit.
After dinner Mrs. Kubota watched television, and I watched with her, hoping to pick up a few morsels of Japanese until I could study properly at the free Japanese class.
Hen na Gaijin was not only one of the weirdest TV programs I’d ever seen but one of the most personally offensive as well. And it happened to be Mrs. Kubota’s favorite. Looking it up in the dictionary, I found that hen na meant “strange” so the show’s title translated to “Strange Foreigner.” The program consisted of Japanese accosting gaijin on the streets of Tokyo, asking them seemingly embarrassing questions and filming them with hidden cameras anywhere from restaurants to public toilets. Gaijin were also invited to perform various stunts for the live studio audience, showing off their Japanese language and social skills. It appeared that at the same time as they were being lauded for acting Japanese and trying to fit into Japanese society, they were just as quickly ridiculed for it. The only thing I could compare it to was if my Milky Way Text coworkers, who had been so polite and admiring, had suddenly turned against me. The show seemed to be a cross between an amateur talent show and a perverted Candid Camera.
Young Japanese women made up most of the audience, and they’d react either by bursting into laughter or shouting “Heyyyyyy?” a sound or expression that seemed to denote almost painful incredulity. Another feature was the appearance of large dialogue balloons filled with kanji that occasionally popped up above someone’s head, rendering the whole thing one big comic strip.
But the most striking aspect about Hen na Gaijin was the host. By now I had witnessed a number of perky Japanese women on television; in fact, except for a few serious newscasters and plain-faced comedians, a rabid cuteness seemed to be a prerequisite for allowing Japanese women to appear on TV. They reminded me of bright-eyed chipmunks the way they nodded their heads in assent every three seconds and blinked about as often.
But the host on Hen na Gaijin seemed to have no equal. In comparison to these other women she was the high priestess of perkiness. Her eyes would bug out, her mouth opened into a perfect O, and then she would let out with her own “Heyyyyyy?”
Sometimes she even uttered, “Oh . . . my . . . God!” in English with a not-too-shabby imitation of a Valley Girl accent. But more often she repeated a Japanese catchphrase that seemed to be her signature line. A giant cartoon balloon erupted over her head every time she said it. I was, of course, clueless as to what it meant.
Princess Perky also appeared to crack incessant jokes seemingly at the gaijin’s expense but with an innocent look, causing the audience, as well as Mrs. Kubota, to go into hysterics. It was frustrating to understand so little. I didn’t know why I cared about such a silly show, but for some reason a defensiveness rose up in me whenever I saw fellow gaijin being humiliated, no matter how imbecilic they appeared. It was painful to not be able to defend them and, in turn, to perhaps not be able to defend myself.
And not knowing what was being said, and the impossibility of receiving any meaningful translations from Mrs. Kubota, only added to my discomfort. But at the same time it fueled my perverse interest.
The host was always dressed in the most stylish outfits, showing off her willowy figure, the perfect blueprint of a young, radiant Japanese woman. But she struck me as supremely insufferable. Mrs. Kubota, though, had the very opposite reaction. “So cute, so nice,” she always said. “So funny.” And then she would giggle, her hand covering her mouth. I was tempted to say, “Not good, not good,” but kept quiet. One time she pointed to the screen and said, “Takuya—he like!” Good Lord, I thought, was it Takuya’s favorite program too?
One night after a viewing of Hen na Gaijin, where foreigners were forced to participate in an eating contest, chowing down on what Mrs. Kubota had said were hefty portions of fermented soy beans and sea urchin, she was flipping through the channels with the remote control when I heard something familiar.
“Wait!” I said, holding up my hand like a traffic cop.
Appearing on the screen was the same singer singing the same song I saw when I was watching TV in the lounge at the Gaijin Banana House. But this time, instead of a music video, she was performing live on a stage in front of a cherry blossom tree that must have been phony but looked remarkably realistic. I’d never forgotten the haunting melody and the emotion in the woman’s voice and it seemed just as dramatic now. Again, she was dressed in a kimono but one with more vibrant colors, a pattern of purples and blues with a silver background. During one part of the song, she held up her fist, as if to demonstrate her sheer will and determination, her face twisted into a grimace. The lyrics displayed at the bottom of the screen, indecipherable to me.
“I really love this song,” I said. I tried to hum along but didn’t get very far. “My aunt Mitch used to sing songs like this.”
“It is singer Maki Kanda. Song is ‘Nozomi no Hoshi,’ ” Mrs. Kubota said. She went for the dictionary. “ ‘The . . . Wishing . . . Star.’ ”
“The Wishing Star.” I liked the sound of it. I watched, holding my breath, as Maki Kanda managed to deliver her last, big wavering note, the orchestra playing a crashing and dramatic finale. For a brief moment I saw myself on the same stage singing the same song.
“So beautiful,” I murmured.
I turned when I heard the front door open and eyed Mr. Kubota, back from his mysterious outing. He greeted us, smiling. As usual he looked normal enough, neither drunk nor otherwise disheveled. Once he walked down the hall toward the bedroom, I got the courage to ask Mrs. Kubota where it was that he always disappeared to.
“Garage,” she said, puffing out her cheeks in disapproval. Pointing at the front door, she seemed to be indicating that the garage was not attached to the house but was in a separate building, perhaps down the street. I knew that the Kubotas did not own a car and that the house had no garage, so it was puzzling as to why they were apparently renting or borrowing one.
“Garage?”
“Yes.” Her demeanor was quick to change, as did the subject. “Soon!” she said, smiling. “You meet Takuya!”
FREE JAPANESE CLASS. PLEASE HERE.
This was the sign on the door that greeted me when I arrived at the Miyamae Cultural Center promptly at eleven o’clock on Wednesday morning. Walking inside, I found myself in an empty classroom—no teacher, no students.
I was curious about Harris-sensei, the instructor indicated on the flyer. Could this actually be a gaijin, perhaps one of the fluent guests on Hen na Gaijin? But I also supposed it could be a Japanese woman married to a foreigner.
As the minutes ticked by, I glanced around the room, which was devoid of any décor other than a faded world map tacked on the wall next to a chalkboard. Looking for the United States, I at first couldn’t locate it. Then I realized why: on every map of the world I’d ever seen, the United States was placed in the middle, but here that spot was reserved for Japan.
After waiting almost fifteen minutes, I didn’t know how much longer I should stay; perhaps this class was only a figment of someone’s imagination. I was just about to look for a person to ask when a Japanese woman came rushing in, out of breath, her high heels clicking at a clipped pace.
“Sorry to be late,” she said in good English with only a slight accent. She looked around, bewildered. “It’s just you?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Shit. Are you fucking kidding?”
I was no prude, but somehow I didn’t expect a Japanese teacher to have such a natural affinity for English profanity. “Are you Harris-sensei?” I asked.
“Yeah. But if it’s going to be just you and me, you might as well call me Mariko.”
Mariko looked about ten years younger than Mrs. Kubota. Her long, slightly wavy hair was almost black except for a slight auburn tint. And like most every Tokyo woman I’d observed, she was rail-thin and dressed to perfection, chic and stylish in bright mustard-yellow stiletto heels, tight-fitting black jeans, and a silver T-shirt peeking out from under a black leather jacket.
“I’m Celeste. Celeste Duncan.”
“Okay.” Mariko looked distracted as she ran her hands through her hair. She removed her jacket, casually tossing it on the chair next to her and said nothing further.
There was a long silence until I said, “So have you lived abroad? Your English is so good.”
Now she seemed back in focus. “Yeah, I’m married to Frederick Harris. He’s American, and we’ve been living in Cleveland for five years. Now he’s teaching English at one of the universities here. We’re back in Japan for now because my sister’s been kind of sick.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She’ll be okay.” Mariko said the words as if she had the ability to make it so. She became quiet, staring straight ahead, another pause in the proceedings, but then just as quickly snapped back. “But I can’t see myself staying in Japan forever. I’m so like ‘get me out of this crazy fucking place’!” She cackled. “So what the hell are you doing here?” Before I could answer, she scrunched her face as though she could smell the sewer backing up, then spit out, “And why do you want to learn Japanese?”
This seemed an odd take for a Japanese teacher, though I had to admit her forthrightness was refreshing and quite different from what I’d been encountering. But I was so taken aback that for a moment I myself questioned such an endeavor. There was also something about Mariko that put me on edge. The first thing to come out of my mouth was, “Ah . . . I’d like to understand the words to this song I’ve been hearing. It’s by this woman, what is her name?” Now she’d think I was even more of a twerp for pursuing Japanese. “The song is called something like, ‘Zonomi’ . . . ah, ‘The Wishing Star’?”
Mariko pondered for a moment. “Oh! Maki Kanda? ‘Nozomi no Hoshi’?”
“That’s it. I love that song,” I said, hoping that maybe she did too. “Is there a name for that type of music?”
“Well, it’s not my taste, but it’s called enka and it’s basically for the senior set. But I understand that there are younger singers like Maki Kanda who have made it a little more popular with young people than it used to be.” She sniffed. “Sorry, but it just about puts me to sleep.”
“No need to apologize.”
“Enka’s sort of like country music in the United States. Songs about yearning to go back to your hometown, losing your love, drinking too much sake, that kind of thing. Tearjerker stuff.”
“Nozomi no Hoshi” and the songs Aunt Mitch had sung didn’t resemble country music in the least to me, but I let that pass. “Or maybe you can help me figure out what they’re saying on Hen na Gaijin.”
Mariko’s laugh came out like a honk. “Ah! You watch that crap?”
“It’s Mrs. Kubota—she’s the woman I’m homestaying with—it’s her favorite show.”
“Oh, that girl, that Sakura Sasaki is so annoying.”
“What’s her name again?” It was obvious that Mariko had watched such crap at least once.
“Sakura Sasaki.”
I knew that sakura meant cherry blossom, but the name didn’t match the Hen na Gaijin host, who appeared more Rottweiler than flower petal.
Mariko made a stab at Sakura’s wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression. “Ii kagen ni shite ne!”
I couldn’t help but laugh; it was a spot-on imitation. I clapped my hands. “That’s it. That’s what she always says. What does it mean?”
“Let me see. I guess, kind of, ‘Give me a break, for God’s sake.’ ” Mariko shook her head. “That girl is about the most obnoxious person on Japanese television and there are plenty of those.”
“I know. I can’t stand her either.”
“Did you know she’s haafu?” Mariko said.
“Haafu?”
“Half. Her father is Japanese and her mother is French, I think.”
“Really? She looks Japanese to me.”
“Yeah, she does, but not quite. Some people who are half look more Western and others look more Japanese. If you’re half, you seem glamorous to Japanese people. Exotic. That’s one reason she’s so popular. There are lots of tarento who are half.”
“No wonder Mrs. Kubota seems to worship the ground she walks on.”
Mariko nodded but was off in her own world once more. I continued on about Mrs. Kubota, even relaying my unfortunate experience with the toilet slippers. It was such a plea sure to talk at a normal pace, with normal English, and have someone understand. I was tempted to kiss her feet.
“This Kubota-san sounds pretty uptight,” Mariko said with a shrug.
I was on a roll. I went into my explanation about how I was in Japan to look for Hiromi Taniguchi, but by now Mariko had temporarily spaced out again and didn’t seem to be listening.
She nervously glanced around the room, looked at her watch, then at the open door. “Well, it looks like no one else is going to show up.”
“Does that mean the class is canceled?” Despite the rather unusual teacher, I hoped this wasn’t the case.
“They pay me no matter what,” she said. “I’m happy to give you a private lesson, but . . .” She leaned toward me and in a conspiratorial stage whisper said, “To tell you the truth, I’m starved.”
I wasn’t sure what she was getting at. Was she going to abandon today’s lesson and run off on her own, or was she extending a lunch invitation?
Her eyes flashed. “I’ve been dying for some linguine with clams and a good glass of Chianti.” She grabbed her coat and purse and looked into my face. “Shall we have lunch in Venice?”
Two train rides and a monorail later, I found myself not in Venice but in a reasonable facsimile. Mariko had brought me to an area of Tokyo that long ago was part of Tokyo Bay but was now landfilled and home to shopping malls, condos, and amusement parks.
We were in Venezia-Lando, an indoor mall depicting an Italian marketplace with a ceiling that looked uncannily like a real blue sky, resplendent with white fluffy clouds, where the “sun” rose and set every hour. Authentic gondoliers imported from Venice were outfitted in black-and-white-striped shirts and jaunty white straw hats with black bands. They rowed gondolas on the mall’s canals, singing the Italian hit parade: “Funiculì, Funiculà,” “O sole mio,” “Arrivederci Roma.”
At a restaurant called Oh! My Pasta, overlooking the canal, Mariko pointed to the wine list, then spoke to the Italian waiter. “Castellare Chi-anti Classico, per favore.”
“A beautiful wine for two beautiful ladies! Ciao, bella. Utsukushii!” the waiter replied.
He returned promptly with the bottle of wine and a basket of bread sticks. Soon I was indulging in pappardalle pasta with pancetta and Parmesan, putting to shame anything that could be had at Mama Corleone’s Spaghetti Shack in Cupertino, but which also cost twice as much. I couldn’t make this a habit.
“So who is this Kubota-san again who loves Hen na Gaijin? How do you know her?”
It was surprising to find Mariko asking about something she seemed to have lost interest in when we were back in the classroom. All she had talked about on the way to Venezia-Lando was her legendary research on the sexual performance differences she’d noticed between Japanese and American men, a mostly one-sided conversation I was unable to contribute much to.
I explained to Mariko about how I’d lost my job at Milky Way Text and found my way into the Kubota house hold, and again relayed the story about Hiromi Taniguchi and how she might know about the man on the DVD who could be my father. I wasn’t fond of repeating myself, but it seemed to be the only way in dealing with Mariko. And with her excellent English I hoped that maybe she’d be willing to help me with my search.
“So you’re looking for this woman? Your aunt?” she asked.
“Well, technically she’s my great-aunt’s younger sister.”
“How are you planning to try and find her?”
“Well . . . I know the name of the place where she last lived.”
I could hear the sound of rippling water. A gondolier floated by, his boat empty of passengers. He waved and smiled as if he knew us.
Mariko shouted something in Italian, a phrase that seemed to please the gondolier. He answered back, and soon they were engaged in a conversation peppered with bawdy laughter. I sunk back in my chair and stared at the water in the canal. There was something off about it, though I wasn’t sure what. My ears filled with Mariko’s raucous laughter, the gondolier’s singsong voice, the sound of flirtation. I thought of Dirk. I looked again at the water. That’s it, that’s what’s wrong, I thought. It’s much too bright, more a toilet-bowl-cleaner blue. Gazing at the clouds moving across the ceiling like puffs of smoke, I wondered if Frederick Harris tolerated this kind of behavior in his wife or if he was kept in the dark. Finally the gondolier gave a big, enthusiastic wave and called out, “Ciao!” as he rowed away.
Mariko poured more Chianti into our glasses. “So where’s that?” she said.
“Where’s what?”
“Where’s the place this aunt’s sister last lived?”
“Oh. Kuyama. In Hokkaido.”
“Do you have an address, a phone number?”
“No. I just know that she lived in the Higashi Arakawa district in the city of Kuyama. The family had a tofu shop there apparently.”
Mariko cocked her head, a dubious expression on her face.
“I thought I would visit, see if she’s still there, see what I can find out,” I continued. “And hopefully be able to return Aunt Mitch’s ashes.” I told her more about the man in the old home movie who could be my father and how I wanted to ask Hiromi about him. “I’m not sure exactly how I’ll get there and how I’ll go about it, but . . .”
“Oh! I’ll take you there!” That’s what I hoped Mariko would say, but it didn’t happen. Instead her skeptical look made me feel that I was having this conversation with Dirk, that I was nuts to have embarked on such an endeavor, since once you got down to the details, everything seemed so vague.
I took out the envelope with the photographs I carried in my purse. “This is my aunt Mitch and her sister Hiromi in 1949, and here’s a picture from around 1976.”
“A long time ago,” she said. She fished out a clam with her fork, placed it delicately in her mouth, then dropped the shell into the bowl next to her plate, which was already brimming with discarded shells. “And you don’t know any Japanese?”
I shook my head. Yes, Mariko, I am clueless about everything. That is why I signed up for your class, which may not even exist.
Mariko squinted. “Hiromi Taniguchi? That’s a pretty common name.” She sighed. “You don’t have too much to go on.”
Tell me something I don’t know.
Mariko chased down the last bit of wine in her glass and wiped her mouth primly with her napkin. “So you quit your job, rented out your apartment and everything, and came all the way here just for this?”
My stomach lurched. Did she have any right to make that kind of remark? “Yes, I did,” I said. “It’s important to me. I don’t have any family and it was kind of nice to all of a sudden find out that maybe I did. And it’s possible I could learn about this guy who could be my father. And I felt I needed a break, to get away from San Jose, to get away from my boyfriend there, get a new perspective. . . .” I could hear the defensiveness in my voice.
She turned her gaze toward the canal, saying nothing.
As if on cue, another gondolier started up with “Arrivederci Roma” in a lush baritone. Yes, it was arrivederci time. It was time to leave. I had said too much and should have shut up much earlier. It would be best to give Mariko my half of the money I owed for lunch and then just get the hell out of this weird fake Italy. Yet there was one small glitch: I had no idea how to get back home. And jumping into a cab and telling the driver, “Asahidai,” would likely incur a ride of two hours in crawling traffic, not to mention a fare of more than one hundred and fifty dollars.
Mariko turned back toward me, shaking her head slowly. “I’m afraid trying to find this person will be like looking for a goddamned haystack in a needle.”
I took a deep breath, not bothering to correct her English. I was still mad, but deep down I knew she was right.