Bicycle Days (16 page)

They had been at the office until midnight, caught in the final negotiations for a joint venture with a small Japanese computer company. Alec had done some research on the deal, and Boon said he wanted him there for the finish. Alec had sat dully through the meeting, watching five Japanese executives smoke thirteen and a half packs of cigarettes. The trains had stopped running by the time everyone left. The stayover was Boon’s idea.
It would be nice to have a chance to talk, he said. They rode through the near empty streets in his chauffeur-driven car.

There was the sense in Boon’s modern, sprawling house of the furniture and carpets and prints not belonging to him. The colors were not his colors: earth tones and pastels in shades like off-salmon. Chairs and sofas and even desks were all chrome and glass, hard and gleaming under halogen light cast by Italian lamps. Alec looked but could not find Boon in this house. There were no old reading chairs to give the rooms Boon’s sense of being comfortable with himself. It was as if someone else had one day set the house just as it was and then left, and Boon had not wanted to, or not been able to, change it. Alec thought as he watched him that Boon walked like a guest in his own house, not quite tiptoeing, but almost, having taken his shoes off at the door so as not to disturb his invisible hosts.

But those thoughts had already come and gone. Things seemed less complicated to Alec now as he sat in Boon’s study drinking whiskey. He compared the breasts of the different talk show guests and felt a warm contentment settle somewhere in his chest. He looked over at Boon.

“Joe?”

Boon turned his face so that he could keep one eye on the television and the other on Alec. “Yeah?”

“I just remembered this dream I had a few nights ago. Okay if I tell it? It’s funny.”

Boon put his full attention on Alec. “Sure.”

“Okay. It’s very vivid. Ready? It opens and I’m standing alone in a field somewhere in the Midwest, probably Kansas. The land is flat and green and endless. I can see for miles, as far as you can imagine. There’s a wind blowing, ruffling my hair. It’s coming in gusts, sweeping through the long grass in these wild, pulsing patterns. And I’m standing right in the middle of it. There’s just this huge open space—no other people.” Alec laughed. “So I spread my arms and dance across the country like Julie Andrews in
The Sound of Music.
That’s it.”

Boon was laughing. “That’s it? The whole dream?”

“You want more?”

Boon held up his hands like a traffic cop. “That’s enough. You started like a poet and finished as Julie Andrews.”

“I’ve already got the interpretation,” Alec said. “It’s all about the lack of open space in this country. Did you know that within a thirty-mile radius of where I’m living there are more people than in all of California? Think about that. No surprise I’m dreaming about dancing across Kansas.”

“So what about me?”

“You don’t have to because you live in this huge house. Your living room could easily be Kansas. Your dining room’s Idaho. The bathroom off the kitchen would have to be Delaware or Rhode Island. I’ve got it all figured out.”

Boon was shaking his head. “I can’t believe I hired you.”

Alec grinned, took another belt of whiskey. Warm contentment had turned into loquacity. Boo-boos, he thought.

They were quiet for a while. Watching television, drinking. Boon looked almost asleep, his eyes heavy-lidded and bloodshot.

“Um, Joe?” Alec said finally.

Boon nodded imperceptibly.

“I was just thinking this house isn’t what I expected. It doesn’t seem like you.”

Boon gave a wry smile. “It’s hard for me to imagine what a place that
seemed
like me would look like. And I doubt I’d live there if I knew.”

Alec shrugged. “I don’t know. More lived in, maybe. And wiser, if that makes any sense. Some old leather reading chairs and a beat-up sofa. An antique desk. A pool table. Those sorts of things.”

“You mean a real home?”

“I suppose so.”

“I don’t spend enough time here for that,” Boon said. “It seems there are business dinners almost every night. Or just work to do, like tonight. Then up every morning at six. Anna
makes me breakfast, and I’m off to work again. That’s my routine.”

“Anna?”

Boon had a peculiar expression on his long face. “Anna cooks for me. She’s lived here since Diane left—in the room off the kitchen. She’s probably asleep now.”

Alec didn’t say anything.

“She’s half Filipino,” Boon said quickly, as if he felt he had to say something. “Her father’s American. He was an old friend of mine.”

“So she’s pretty young,” Alec ventured. It seemed safer than asking a question.

“Yes,” Boon said.

The topless talk show was ending. As the credits were moving up the screen, pop music began to play. The host and his guests got up and started dancing. The topless women looked pale and young beneath the bright stage lights. Their movements were jerky, their smiles uninspired and unchanging. Alec wondered if they would dance across Kansas with him. Then the credits ended, the women disappeared. An old monster movie took their place.
Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster.

After a couple of minutes, Boon muted the volume with the remote control. “About work …” he began.

“I know,” Alec said gloomily. “The high-tech report. I’m working on it. It’s coming along. I just need a couple more weeks. Sorry.”

Boon waved his words away. “Relax, Alec. I know you’ll get it done. That’s not what I’m talking about. I was really pleased with the way the meeting went today. That’s a good-sized deal for us, and you were a big help with it. I was impressed by the way you handled yourself.”

“I hardly did anything, Joe. I basically sat there counting cigarette butts. I’ve never seen people smoke so much. It was Guinness book material.”

Boon’s thin mouth turned up at the corners. “How about
being just a little serious for a couple of minutes? Okay? I’ve been watching you at work the last few weeks—probably more closely than you think. And I’ve been reading over some of your reports. They’re good: you have an eye for the kinds of things that make products and companies successful. More than that, you’re good with people. They seem to like you, to feel comfortable around you in both English and Japanese. That’s how to establish a good business environment in this country.” Boon took a swallow of whiskey. “What I’m saying, Alec, is that so far the job is a success—that
you
are a success at the job—and you ought to stay on. One summer is nowhere near enough time. You’re younger than I was when I started here, and you probably know a lot more than I did. My guess is you’ll be a successful businessman with or without my help. But as long as I can help and advise you, I’m glad to do it. That’s the nice part of being in my position.”

Alec noticed that Godzilla and the Smog Monster were engaged in mortal combat over the miniature cardboard city of Tokyo. Godzilla was visibly choking on the dark clouds of soot and toxic fumes. He was stumbling backward, trying to cover his mouth with his useless, reptilian forelegs. And then he was collapsing, crushing an entire neighborhood beneath his gargantuan frame. Even with the sound muted, Alec imagined he could hear the cries of woe rise up from the rubble. He helped himself to more whiskey. The bottle was nearly empty.

“I don’t know, Joe. Business to me has always been what my father does, the big part of
his
life, not mine. I don’t think I know enough about anything to make plans right now.”

Boon didn’t appear to be listening. “The important thing is that you stay on. You’ll do very well here. But it’s good to think about things, too. So I thought this might not be a bad time for you to take a weekend away from Tokyo. I’ve arranged for you to spend the next few days with Kawashima’s grandparents up north in Yamagata Prefecture, in a small village called Yamadera. They don’t speak any English, but Kawashima assured me
they’ll be happy to have you. Unfortunately, she has too much work to go with you. But I’m sure it will be fine anyway.”

Alec was on the edge of his chair. “You’ve
arranged
with
Kawashima
for me to go away this weekend? Alone with people I’ve never met? Joe, that’s crazy. It really is. I can’t go.”

“Why not?”

“A lot of reasons. I don’t know these people. Kiyoko’s not even speaking to me these days. This wasn’t my idea. Things like that.”

“You
can
go, Alec,” Boon said, and he was already getting unsteadily to his feet. “You should get out of the city. Everything’s arranged. I’m giving you tomorrow off to catch the twelve-thirty train. I’ve booked you first class.” He was moving slowly toward the door of the study. “And as for Kawashima, if you want to talk to her, you ought to make the effort. Or if you want me to talk to her for you, that’s fine, too. Okay? Right. Well, we’ve settled a few things, then. That’s good. I’d say it’s time for me to get some sleep. If I don’t see you in the morning, have Anna make you some breakfast. Good night, Alec.” He disappeared out the door.

“Good night,” Alec mouthed. He gave his chair an open-handed smack and felt the whiskey rear up and come down on his head with a numbing thud.

Godzilla was back with a vengeance, scorching the Smog Monster with breaths of fire. There was a mad chase, more cardboard rubble flying everywhere, more silent screams of woe. But Godzilla was winning: gradually the Smog Monster was melting, his body turning shapeless and then liquid, running through the war-torn streets like sewage. People held their noses and ran for cover.

T
he bullet train took him north from Tokyo to the coast city of Sendai. He managed to sleep most of the way; curled in his seat, he was only vaguely aware of the train’s speed. At Sendai, he switched to the Yamagata line, took the express train for the one-hour leg to Yamadera. He was fully awake now, his initial resistance to the trip already eclipsed by the unnerving thought of staying with Kiyoko’s grandparents. Turning away from the old man sitting beside him, he pressed his face against the window and stared through his own breath at the unfolding countryside.

The land was lush and green, rising as it pleased, now into sloping hills, now into steep mountains and rocky gorges. Scattered along the ridges, pine trees grew in clusters like people gathered in the afternoon to talk. Between its valleys and ridges, though, the land had been given over to the growing of rice, the flat, geometric uniformity of the paddies contrasting with the sharpness of the surrounding landscape. Looking at them, Alec
thought he could feel the soothing coolness of the paddies, the way the thin, pointed shoots rose like needles from the fields of murky water. They flashed past him and changed shape, cresting again into razor-edged peaks, descending again into hidden pockets of foliage and pin-pricked envelopes of dark water. Had he been asked, Alec would have sworn that he had seen this land before. It was like a collage of familiar images, each one akin in some way to a sister image in his memory: hills he had climbed somewhere else in his life and woods he had walked through; the mottled green of an orchard he had once visited in Massachusetts; the cool darkness of a brook where he had fished with his father as a small boy. This was not just one place he knew, but many.

Its wheels screeching and clacking against the iron rails of an old bridge, the train passed over a narrow river. Alec could see a few men fishing, waist-deep in the fast-flowing water, their bodies still. Only the long, thin rods moved, worked as though by some invisible hand. Stretched out across the far bank of the river, grapevines crawled up their latticework supports. Alec craned his neck to watch the fishermen until they had disappeared from sight. The train moved deeper into the countryside. Small farms appeared only to be obscured by groves of cherry trees. The old man in the seat next to him said that this was the growing season, the time to watch the land as though it were your own child. His Japanese was gritty, full of the country, and Alec could only catch a word here and there.

As the train slowed, the conductor called out Yamadera Station. Alec jumped to his feet to gather his belongings. Stepping off the train and into the crowded station, he sensed immediately that he was the only foreigner in the building, perhaps in the town. People gathered around him as if he were a museum piece. They pointed and stared, unhurried and unashamed. They touched and prodded him with their eyes. He walked out to the front of the station and looked around. People of all ages continued to mill around him. Giggling and saucer-eyed,
the young children tended to dawdle the longest, eventually dragged away by their mothers. He stood there for a while, the center of activity. And he thought of Kiyoko, wondered how he would feel if she were with him.

A piece of clothing was poking out from the top of his duffel bag; he bent down to stuff it back in. As he was getting up, he almost knocked heads with a silver-haired man. Excusing himself, Alec stood up, but the man remained bent over at the waist, head down and eyes closed. His ears were large and curved sharply out from his head. He was dressed in a summer yukata the color of wet hay and wore wooden geta on his feet.