Aoi Matsushima
Building a diving pool in a department store in the middle of Tokyo was a mad idea; no one believed it would happen. But this was 1989, a time when anything was possible, and when it actually happened, the media swarmed all over it.
‘There’s a new guy in the diving section,’ Kyoko said, coming back to our small office, which could barely fit two desks and a filing cabinet. ‘He’s kind of cute, and I think he’ll be a real help to you, Mai, because he’s amazingly…’
Just then, the phone rang, so I had to answer. ‘Press office! May I help you?’
It was from a journalist researching an article on ‘Retail Stores of 1989’. In the meantime, Kyoko took another call from a diving magazine. And as soon as I put down the receiver, the phone immediately rang once more… Nearly an hour later, we could talk to each other again.
‘So how did the TV shoot go?’ I asked.
‘Fine,’ Kyoko said, cutting out the magazine pages in which products from our store were featured. ‘This new guy helped me to clear a space for the camera. He’s very supportive… Where are the Post-its?’
‘Here. Which issue is that magazine?’
‘October. Anyway, this guy Naoki is pretty impressive. He can speak a lot of languages. It’ll be a great help for you, won’t it? The sales assistants will stop calling you whenever a foreigner comes in.’
‘Maybe,’ I said, with mixed feelings about having another language specialist in the store. I had been the only English-speaker, which made me somewhat unique.
‘Which languages does he speak?’
‘Mandarin, Cantonese…’
‘Oh, so he speaks Chinese. That’s great,’ I said, secretly relieved… no competition.
‘He studied at the University of Beijing, he said. And he can speak English, French, Spanish…’
‘Has he lived in Europe as well?’
‘I don’t know. He said something else… Oh, Arabic.’
‘Arabic?’
‘Yeah, amazing, isn’t it?’
‘How did he manage that?’
‘Guess he’s from a pretty wealthy family, a diplomat’s son or something.’
‘Then why is he working as a sales assistant?’
‘I didn’t have time to ask him. He was wearing a trainee badge, so maybe he’s doing work experience. But he’s not arrogant, he’s very friendly. You’ll like him, Mai.’
Then the phone started to ring, putting an end to our gossip.
Two weeks later, I met this Naoki in person. He came to our office with a bunch of new brochures about diving lessons for PR use. It was Kyoko’s day off, so I was alone in the office.
‘So, are you the new guy in the diving section?’ I said, looking at his trainee badge.
‘Yes.’ He smiled. I knew what Kyoko meant by ‘kind of cute’. He wasn’t particularly good-looking; he was skinny and pale, wearing glasses, not like his tanned and well-built colleagues in sports. But he had a smile to light up the room, and it made him look like a little boy full of curiosity, as he checked out our tiny PR office.
‘Do you have the international PADI licence?’ I asked him, looking at the diving brochure.
‘Not yet. But I’ve done several trial dives in Australia,’ he said, looking at the piles of magazines on my desk. ‘I’d love to do that again. It was absolutely beautiful, with amazing fish. I even saw a shark. Do you dive?’
‘No.’
‘Not even a trial one? It’s fun.’
‘No, but I feel like I have, after talking about our diving pool so much to journalists.’
He turned to me and smiled. ‘The publicity’s great. Do you do the PR for the entire store?’
‘No, no, just for this new wing. The main PR office is at headquarters. We set up this small branch office because there were so many inquiries about the new wing, and the target market is too young for the old men at headquarters.’
‘It looks like a cool job.’
‘It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. It’s a bit like a call centre.’
‘What are these on the shelves? New products?’
‘Yes, they are for promotion.’
‘I can bring new sports products here for publicity!’
‘Thanks, that’ll be a great help,’ I said. Kyoko was right, he seemed to be very cooperative. ‘And I’ve heard that you speak some languages?’
‘Yes.’ His eyes lit up. ‘I can speak Mandarin, Cantonese, English, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, a little bit of Russian, Hungarian and some Arabic.’
He said all this within a breath, and it took a while for me to digest the information. ‘That’s amazing,’ I said, after a pause. ‘Do you speak as many languages as Schliemann?’
‘Who is that?’
‘Never mind.’
I couldn’t believe him as easily as Kyoko did. What he didn’t know was that I had majored in languages – English and French – and knew what it takes to speak several languages, especially languages with such different structures as Arabic and Chinese. But Naoki was smiling, looking straight into my eyes, and didn’t seem like the kind of guy who lied. Surely ‘Brazilian Portuguese’ or ‘Hungarian’ was too specific to be a lie. Maybe he could speak some languages fluently and knew a few phrases in others. He wanted to boast because he was new to the company. I was tempted to speak to him in English to test his ability, but the phone rang again. So I was back to work, and he returned to his floor.
At lunchtime in the canteen, I happened to queue behind another sales assistant from the sports section. I knew him quite well, because we had joined the company at the same time four years earlier, so I asked him casually about this new trainee’s language ability.
‘Oh, you heard about it?’ he said. ‘Isn’t it amazing? At his age!’
If the people from his own section said so, I had to believe it. ‘How old is he? He looks quite young.’
‘Twenty or twenty-one, something like that.’
‘But I heard he graduated from the University of Beijing. He couldn’t be that young.’
‘He skipped some grades when he lived in the USA.’
‘He lived in the USA?’
‘So I’ve heard.’
I didn’t say anything further and moved on to order pasta. But it was strange to hear that Naoki had once lived in the USA. I myself had lived in London in my childhood and I could usually tell the people who had been brought up in Western countries from their mannerisms or body language. We could sniff each other out, like dogs. But I didn’t notice any signs from Naoki. Or had he lost them while he lived in China?
A few days later, I heard the same story from Mrs Akao, who was in charge of training recruits. No one would have the guts to tell her a lie.
‘Isn’t it a shame he’s working on the sales floor?’ Mrs Akao shook her head. ‘He should be transferred somewhere he can use his languages.’
But his immediate boss, Mr Tanabe, didn’t seem to know about his skills. I’d seen him treating Naoki just as roughly as he would any trainee.
‘He’s a son of one of the major shareholders,’ Kyoko explained to me a week later, after another photo shoot at the diving pool. ‘He didn’t even know it himself, until someone else told him. His father wanted him to start a career just like anybody else and he asked Mr Tanabe to take him under his wing as a trainee.’
Kyoko had more opportunities to meet Naoki, as she loved watching over TV shoots to get out of our little office, while I handled press interviews with the store manager. She had been working as a sales assistant since finishing high school and hated deskwork. If she didn’t suffer from back pain she would never have left the sales floor. For her, the only good thing about PR was being able to chat with people.
Every time she came back from the diving section, she told me how helpful Naoki had been: he had the new merchandise and brochures ready for the media; he assisted them by carrying camera equipment, being friendly and attentive. He was still a trainee, so he wasn’t interviewed like the senior sales manager or the diving instructor. But he was definitely playing a key role in the PR work. Since he had joined, the display shelf in the press room had never run out of diving-pool brochures or other new products. Occasionally he even dropped by during his tea break just to say hi to us. Yes, he was a nice boy.
‘He’s always learning something,’ said Kyoko, as if she was talking about her little brother. ‘He’s taking a correspondence course for accounting. He says he likes getting qualifications, and he’s saving money to take his diving licence next.’
The only time I did PR for the diving pool was when foreign journalists came. It didn’t matter which country they were from, what language they spoke – I was the international PR officer and I loved it. The 1980s provided foreign journalists with no shortage of materials for articles on the ‘eccentricity’ of the Japanese, and the diving pool was one of them, attracting headlines like ‘A Compact Pool in Tokyo’ or ‘Instant Diving’.
One day a journalist from Hong Kong wanted to see the pool. I didn’t know how good his English or Japanese was, as I had previously communicated with him only by fax. But Kyoko reassured me that Naoki would assist me, and she had warned him in advance.
I waited for the journalist at the entrance of the department store, but he was late and I was getting anxious. Soon the person on the information desk came to me.
‘There’s been a call from the diving counter,’ she said. ‘The Chinese journalist is already there.’
‘Thanks,’ I said with relief, and rushed to the diving section. I was hoping that Naoki was being attentive and showing the pool to the journalist. But when I got there, I found the journalist standing in the corner, like a lost child. I couldn’t see Naoki anywhere and there was only a part-time sales assistant at the counter.
Luckily Mr Lee, the journalist, was fluent in English. He was one of those people in Hong Kong who had spent most of his life in England and he was pleased with my English accent. His worried face cheered as I guided him to the diving pool.
‘Do you dive, Mr Lee?’
‘No, unfortunately.’
I was secretly relieved, because he probably wouldn’t ask me anything too technical. Even so, I looked for Naoki from the corner of my eyes, in case Mr Lee wanted me to explain something I didn’t know about.
‘The pool is four metres deep,’ I said. ‘We built it with the image of sea in mind. See the motif of waves on the wall?’
‘Yes, it’s pretty. But isn’t the pool too small?’
It was, actually. But I kept smiling. ‘Well, it’s big enough for the initial lessons. We also arrange lessons in the sea for those who want to take the licence.’
‘Where do Japanese people dive? Okinawa?’
‘The islands of Okinawa are beautiful, but there are places nearer Tokyo. You can get to Atami in less than an hour.’
‘Isn’t it the place famous for hot springs?’
‘There are pretty dynamic diving spots as well.’
I was hoping that he wouldn’t ask me any more about Atami, because I’d never been there. So I changed the subject.
‘Please look at the windows on the side. You can see people in wet suits diving in the pool from outside. It’s pretty with the lights on.’
‘A bit like a fish bowl.’
Again, I kept smiling. ‘This pool is to make people dream that they’re deep in the ocean, not in the middle of the city.’
‘And Japanese people love everything compact.’
‘Exactly. And the convenience – you can learn to dive after work.’
He took several photos of the pool and I gave him the press release in English. He didn’t need anything further for his article. I didn’t need Naoki’s help, but after Mr Lee left, I asked the assistant at the counter where Naoki was.
‘He went on the early lunch shift,’ she said with a pout.
Kyoko frowned when I told her about Naoki’s early lunch.
‘He promised me he’d be there. Maybe his boss changed his shift.’
I was pretty much convinced that Naoki was lying about his language skills. He must have run away instead of helping me as he did Kyoko. But I decided not to tell Kyoko yet. I needed some proof before disillusioning her.
The opportunity came earlier than I expected. The very next day, I returned from a meeting to find Naoki in our office for his tea break, chatting with Kyoko. He smiled, showing no guilt at seeing me.
‘He’s just got a certificate as a master of calligraphy,’ Kyoko said, before I opened my mouth. ‘He’s a collector of qualifications.’
In front of them was a weekly women’s magazine, open at an article on self-improvement correspondence courses to boost your qualifications and earning power – the sort of article you often see in this kind of magazine. I was annoyed with Kyoko for being fooled so easily. Naoki looked at me straight in the eyes and for a moment he was challenging me. Call me a liar, if you dare.
‘How wonderful,’ I said, picking up the magazine. ‘So, tell me which qualifications you have.’ I read from the top of the list. ‘Calligraphy?’
‘The master certificate,’ he said, with calm pride.
‘Accounting?’
‘I’m taking the first-grade course.’
‘Boiler technician?’
‘Ha ha, no.’
‘Counselling children?’
‘I’ve taken the basic course.’
You had to be very naïve to believe him, but he answered without hesitation. Kyoko didn’t change her expression. I became irritated.
‘Interior consultant?’
‘Yes, I have the second grade.’
‘Hang on,’ I couldn’t help interrupting. ‘You have to be over twenty-five with interior designing experience to take the exam.’
Then he looked at me – not in his usual innocent way, but with cold anger.
‘At my high school, there was a special course. Once we’d taken the class, we were qualified enough to be an interior coordinator. We just have to wait to twenty-five to be officially qualified.’
I knew enough about the qualification to be certain that what he was saying was complete bullshit. I had done several PR projects with interior designers. But there was something about him that meant I couldn’t say it straight out. He scared me now. It was not the lying itself so much as his cold eyes… I realized that I had pushed him too far. I had cornered him in a cul-de-sac and he was forced to reveal himself…
I shot a glance at Kyoko. She, too, was astonished to see the anger in her favourite boy. But she knew what she had to do. She took the magazine from my hand.
‘Graphic design?’ she continued, going down the list.
‘I… I learned it at school.’
‘Proofreading?’
‘I’m qualified for the second level.’
‘Music editing?’
‘I have a friend working at a sound studio and he taught me the basics.’
As Kyoko went down the list, I could see that Naoki was regaining his energy. His smile returned. He began to answer as convincingly as ever and became a nice boy again – even if we all knew he was lying. I admired the way Kyoko remained calm and even smiled at him occasionally. That was probably the secret of how she had become the company’s top sales person. There were about twenty titles on the list, and he was apparently qualified for all but two of them. I couldn’t bear to listen by the end because it was getting too painful, so I welcomed an incoming phone call and grabbed the receiver. Kyoko managed to reach to the bottom of the list and gave Naoki a ‘Well done!’ smile. Then she, too, had to answer a call and Naoki left the room.
When we had both finished our phone calls, silence fell in the office. Then Kyoko turned to the window.
‘You know what?’ she said. ‘Before you came back, we were talking about those flowers…’
She pointed at the pots of Saintpaulia by the window.
‘I told him how small they were when a stylist gave them to me and how I had managed to nurture them… Then he said he has the same flowers at home and he has managed to mix different types. Now he has white flowers with purple dots…’ She sighed. ‘Purple dots, you know?’
For a couple of days, there were no inquiries about the diving section, so I didn’t have to face Naoki. He didn’t come up to our office, although I knew Kyoko occasionally went there to say hi to the staff, including Naoki. She had a big heart. Maybe she had even known about Naoki from the start.
For my part, I was somewhat ashamed of myself and tried to avoid Naoki. I wondered why I had had to push him that far – after all, he was just a trainee.
‘It’s probably because you can speak languages,’ Kyoko would say. ‘Because you’ve lived abroad yourself. You are living in Naoki’s fantasy life. And it’s all reality to you.’
I didn’t know what other people thought about Naoki’s stories. Few would be as sympathetic as Kyoko. All I knew was that the rumours about him, such as studying at the University of Beijing, being the son of a shareholder, had died down. People no longer talked about Naoki.
Soon I was told by the main PR office to reduce media coverage of the diving pool. It was a strategic decision, partly because we had already had a lot of publicity and didn’t want to risk over-exposure. But also, I saw the sales figures for the diving pool, which were not good. It had been expensive to build in the first place, but it was too small to hold proper lessons for advanced divers, so the pool’s use was limited to absolute beginners and equipment tests. This wasn’t enough to make a profit. Some staff complained that it had been insane to go ahead with the idea of a diving pool in the first place. It was more a PR stunt than a business proposition, they said. They even discussed the possibility of selling the facility to sports clubs.
On the way home that night, I passed the diving pool. The pool is to make people dream that they are deep in the ocean, not in the middle of the city. How many times had I said that to journalists? It was already dark and the light was off, so I couldn’t see anything. If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t think there was a massive water tank in front of you.
Even if the pool wasn’t making a profit, I would tell journalists it was doing very well. I had explained so much about diving, although I’d never tried it myself. Then I remembered what I had told Naoki: But I feel like I have, after talking about our diving pool so much to journalists.
He must have thought that PR was his ideal job.
Shortly afterwards, however, I discovered that Naoki had gone further.
It was the day I delivered photocopies of the pages of magazines in which their product was featured to the diving section. This was part of our routine, to keep the sales staff updated about what was in the media in case a customer asked about it. Mr Tanabe, the manager of the diving section, flipped through the pages and spotted a mistake.
‘They say the new wet suits come in five different colours.’ He pointed to the sentence. ‘But we only have black.’
I called the magazine’s editor, who was surprised to hear what I said.
‘I called you before we went to press to confirm the details,’ she said. ‘I’m sure this is what you told me.’
‘Did I tell you that?’
‘Hang on, I’ll get my proof copy… No, I don’t think you were there, but your colleague answered. Is Mr Yamada working with you?’
‘Yamada?’
‘Yes, I remember. A very friendly young man answered my call and he was very helpful…’
I reported this to Mr Tanabe.
‘It was Naoki, wasn’t it?’ He sighed.
‘He must have been in our office while both Kyoko and I were out,’ I said. ‘It could have been during his tea break.’
‘Sorry about the trouble he caused. He meant to be helpful, I’m sure.’
‘I know… But…’
‘I’ll tell him that he can’t do things beyond his role. I’ll tell him there are boundaries.’
Now I wondered if Naoki understood the boundary between fantasy and reality. The boundary between the harmless lie and a deception that broke the rules of honest business…
‘I’ll leave it to you,’ I said to Mr Tanabe. ‘But I’ve learned that Naoki is…’
‘He didn’t go to the University of Beijing, if that’s what you mean.’
‘No, I didn’t believe that from the start.’
‘He’s just an ordinary guy from a small high school, with average grades, from an average family. He didn’t lie on his CV to get a job or anything. He just likes… to make himself look larger than life. We don’t know why… But this is a different story, to make things up to journalists or customers.’
When I told Kyoko about this she looked distressed, feeling somehow responsible.
‘I shouldn’t have encouraged him so much, raving on about how helpful he was for PR…’
‘It’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. Maybe not even his… He just can’t help himself.’
‘No one believes him now in the diving section.’ She sighed. ‘He’s pretty isolated. He knows he lost us as well… He’s realized that he’s lost his whole audience.’
‘So maybe he’s trying to reach out further for someone who’ll believe his stories…’
Soon I heard that Naoki was moved from the diving section to work at the counter selling sports towels – where less consultation with customers was required.
Kyoko told me that her back was getting better, and she wanted to return to sales, so long as she didn’t have to stand all day. She missed dealing directly with customers and the feeling of achievement in meeting sales targets. She missed the sense of reality. As for me, PR was the only thing I had ever done, or wanted to do, in the department store. I was offered a pay rise and was told to plan a campaign to sustain the current media attention into the next year. But I knew that media coverage would be quieter once we lost the sparkle of being a new store. Secret plans were under discussion to sell the diving pool. We also knew the Japanese economy was slowing down and we wouldn’t sustain the gross sales of the last year. Reality would creep in. Still, I announced publicly that we were expecting a sales boost at Christmas.
Perhaps people would stop believing me.
Several weeks later, someone called me: ‘Ms Kawano!’
I turned around and it was Naoki, smiling innocently as always. I hadn’t seen him for a while and he had had his hair cut shorter.
‘Great to see you on the sports floor.’ He smiled in a friendly manner. ‘A TV shoot today?’
‘No. I’ve come down on my tea break…’
‘Oh, for shopping?’
‘No.’ I hesitated. ‘I’ve just registered for diving lessons next month.’
‘Wow, are you finally going to go diving?’
‘Why not, while I can do it with the staff discount?’
Or while the pool was still there… Or to think about how to make it work… But I couldn’t tell him that.
‘How about you?’ I said. ‘Have you tried the pool?’
‘No, actually,’ he said. ‘And it’s a bit too late.’
‘Why?’
‘I was going to tell you that… this is my last day.’
‘Oh? I didn’t know that… Does Kyoko know?’
‘No. I was going to go up to your office to tell both of you. Thank you for everything, and it was a great pleasure working with you.’
‘Thank you for your help…’ I said, and I couldn’t help asking, ‘What are you going to do next?’
‘My family is moving to Australia. My father’s starting a business there and I’m going to help him.’
I looked at him and he looked straight back at me. He smiled, and I couldn’t help liking his smile. Yet my heart sank a little. I hoped there was some truth in what he said, even just a word. We all wanted to believe in the fantasy.
‘Good luck with whatever you do in the future,’ I said.
‘Thanks.’ And he smiled, just like an innocent child.