Bicycle Days (3 page)

A newspaper flapped in the breeze from an open window. Alec thought he could still hear the echo of his own voice; the train seemed unbearably small. He noticed a young man by the doors with a thin cord leading from his ears into a shoulder bag.
What kind of music was he listening to? Maybe it was just a blank tape.

The train came quickly to a stop, the doors opened.

“We change here to the Ginza line,” Mari said.

Shhhh, Alec thought as the white-gloved men herded them off the train.

A
wakened by a hidden electronic eye, the building’s sleek metal doors parted soundlessly. Alec walked through without breaking stride. The second row of doors fell away, closing behind him as soon as he was inside. There was no turning back now; he had the feeling that the electronic eye only worked in one direction. A security guard in full uniform, with a hat just barely covering his close-cropped hair, bowed to the waist and said good morning. He repeated the gesture automatically for every person who came in. His voice never changed tone, he never bowed lower or higher than he had the time before.

The elevator opened for him on the fourteenth floor, and Alec stepped out quickly. His legs began walking almost without him, pulling him around the corner toward two tinted glass doors with “Compucom, Inc.” printed above them in bold letters. Through the doors he could see the receptionist at her desk, talking on the telephone, her head bobbing up and down
as she spoke. Alec watched her for a moment, thinking that her ponytail made her look like a schoolgirl. Then he pushed through the doors.

The receptionist was looking at him. “Yes, herro. Can I help, prease?”

Distantly, Alec noticed that she was no longer on the phone. “Oh. Yes.”

She gave him a hesitant smile. Almost encouraging, he thought. “And, so, who see?”

“I’m Alec Stern,” he said.

“Just moment, prease.” She started flipping through a little book, found a page, and traced a list of names with her finger. The finger went to the bottom of the page, then back up again.

Alec shook his head. “
I’m
Alec Stern. I’m supposed to start work here today. First time.”

She let out a brief giggle, and her hand flew to her mouth to cover it. “First time, too,” she said, indicating herself by touching the tip of her nose with her index finger.

“Really? Your English is very good.” Switching to Japanese, he added, “What is your name?”

Her face turned red, the hand went up again, curved and feminine. “Keiko.”

He put his own hand forward, holding it just above the desk. “I am Alec. Nice to meet you.” As he said it, he realized that the literal translation from the Japanese was something like “Please look after me.”

Keiko went through a brief struggle over what to do with her hand. Alec watched as it hesitated between the two points. Suddenly she grabbed his hand, shook it once, then quickly covered her mouth again.

Keiko took a moment to compose herself. “Please wait while I call Boon-san’s secretary,” she said in formal Japanese.

She punched a couple of buttons on the telephone. Alec looked around the waiting room. High-gloss photographs of various computer parts hung on the walls. The sofa and chairs were bright orange. Company brochures and spec sheets lay on
the glass coffee table. Absently, he picked up a brochure and leafed through it.

“Excuse me,” Keiko said. “Boon-san will see you now. His office is on the right.”

He gave a slight bow, really more of a nod. “Thank you very much. I’d like to talk to you again sometime.”

She blushed again. “Oh no, it is nothing. Your Japanese is so good.”

Alec had run out of things to say, so he shook his head, smiled, and hurried through the door. He straightened his tie, walked to the right and around a partition.

The central space was crowded with little clusters of desks. There were about twenty people, most of them on the phone, trying to be heard over the noise. Occasionally a telephone message would be yelled from one cluster to another, resulting in a flurry of messages back the other way. Off to one side, two men, one Japanese and one Western, were arguing in Japanese in front of a computer terminal. Alec could barely catch a word. Beyond them was a clear Plexiglas wall, through which he could see several people working in semiprivate offices.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned around.

“Morning, Alec. I’m Joe Boon.”

“Hello, Mr. Boon. I’m sorry.”

Boon smiled. “For what? Don’t be sorry.”

He was tall and thin, with a long, sloping face. Looking at him, Alec thought that it was the odd shape of Boon’s face that made him handsome, stretching and softening features that might otherwise appear too sharp.

“I was nosing around a little,” Alec said.

Boon nodded. “I know. I was watching you from my office.” He indicated a large, private room behind him. “I guess it’s a slightly different atmosphere from one you’d find in the States.”

They walked into Boon’s office. Alec sat on the edge of the sofa. Boon sat across from him on a deep leather chair. A computer system was set up to the side of a large, glass-topped desk. The screen showed a bar graph in fluorescent rainbow
colors. The walls of the office were lined with photographs of Boon with various Japanese dignitaries. In each one, Boon towered above the others.

“You arrived, when—yesterday?” Boon said. “You must be exhausted.”

“Yes, I suppose so. And maybe a little queasy.”

Boon laughed. “Good. I can remember feeling that way myself in the beginning. I’ve heard it’s a sign that everything will turn out all right.”

“I’ve never heard that before.”

“Trust me, Alec. So aside from your physical ailments, is everything all right? How’s the family?”

“Fine, I guess. I mean, it’s hard to tell right now. None of them speak any English.”

“That’s the way it should be.”

Alec nodded but couldn’t think of anything to say. Boon looked anxious to finish the meeting, his eyes darting around the room. He cleared his throat.

“Okay. So what’s the deal again? You stay and work here for the summer. If you like it, you stay longer. And if you don’t, you don’t. Does that still sound good to you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. This is a great opportunity for a guy your age. I could almost guarantee you’ll want to stay on.”

“Guarantees make me nervous,” Alec said, trying to smile.

Boon looked at him intently for a moment. Then he reached over and opened the doors to a bamboo cabinet. Alec couldn’t see, but he heard the suction release of the refrigerator door. Boon brought out a large bottle of Sapporo beer and two small glasses. He poured, handed one to Alec, and raised his own.

“Be patient, Alec,” he said. “Everyone has a tough time their first few days here. I did. And that was a long time ago.”

Alec took a sip of beer and wondered if Americans in Japan always started drinking this early in the day. He looked across at Boon, liking him.

Boon stood up after a while and took Alec on a brief tour of
the office. There were five secretaries, all of them Japanese, all named Satoh.

When the tour was finished, Boon left him to get acquainted with two of the Japanese professionals, a man and a woman, who shared one of the small offices located along the far wall of the main office. Takahara appeared to be in his late thirties, stocky, with a broad, flat nose and thick eyebrows that connected above the gold rims of his eyeglasses. He continually tapped his chest with his first two fingers to emphasize the importance of what he was saying. His English was raw and heavily accented, and its tone made Alec think of Mr. Hasegawa’s overly masculine, grunting Japanese. Distracted by all the chest tapping, Alec was not really listening to what Takahara was saying but thinking instead of Kawashima, the young woman sitting at the other desk. He wondered why she had not turned around to face him. He had only caught a glimpse of her face when Boon had first introduced them, enough to tell him that she was attractive and probably in her late twenties. She had turned quickly back to her work then, and Takahara had done all the talking. Alec wished he would be quiet. Finally, Takahara said he had a meeting and left.

Alec stayed in the office with Kawashima, staring at her black hair, waiting for her to say something. Still reading, Kawashima began twirling a pencil between her thumb and forefinger. Alec got up from where he was sitting and moved to the chair behind Takahara’s desk. He could see most of her face clearly now. It was a good face, he thought, but a little sad. Her nose was small and delicate, like so many of the Japanese women he had seen. But the bones of her face were different. Her chin was straight, almost mannish, and her cheekbones high and sharply defined. In the midst of such strong lines, her mouth seemed soft and unsure, as though she might cry. Her shoulder-length hair hung in bangs across the middle of her forehead and swept down behind her ears. Alec wanted to lean over and touch her hair, it was so black.

“You are staring at me.” She said it matter-of-factly in English, without turning around.

Alec expected to feel embarrassed, but didn’t. “I guess I am. Sorry.”

“It is okay.” Kawashima turned around to face him.

She was older than Alec had originally thought, and prettier. Faint lines turned down at the edges of her eyes, reflecting her mouth’s suggestion of sadness. Her neck was like a dancer’s, long and smooth.

“It’s a bad habit, staring,” Alec said.

Kawashima almost smiled. “Sometimes it is not so bad.”

He let that one sit for a moment, mulling it over. “How long have you worked here?”

“This fall it will be three years.”

“Really? Three years is a pretty long time.”

“You will find that time goes fast here.”

“That’s what people keep telling me.” He looked out the window at the building across the street, hoping it might offer something witty to say. Fragments of sunlight shot back at him from the reflective glass. “Your English is great. You must have studied abroad.”

Kawashima looked pleased. “Yes. Four years at the University of Michigan and then two more working in San Francisco. I enjoyed it very much.”

“I’ve never been to Michigan,” Alec said. He began to marvel at his capacity for inanity.

“I remember that it was very cold in winter. Colder than Japan’s snow country. But not as beautiful, I think. Do you know of the snow country?”

“Only from reading Kawabata.”

She leaned forward in her chair. “You have read
Snow Country?”

“Yes. For a class at school.”

“I am surprised,” she said.

Alec nodded but said nothing. They looked at each other for
what seemed to him like a long time, sometimes openly, sometimes surreptitiously. Then Kawashima gracefully swiveled her chair so that she looked out the window.

“Michigan was some years ago. I am thirty-three now.” She paused. “Does that surprise you?”

“Maybe a little. But being surprised isn’t so bad. You’re surprised that I’ve read Kawabata.”

“Yes,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if it was bitterness that he heard in her voice. “But sometimes my age surprises me, too.”

“How long have you been sharing an office with Takahara-san?”

“Only three weeks. Now, time does not move so quickly.” She smiled, but it was painful. “It was supposed to be a good thing for me, a promotion. But Takahara-san does not like the idea of sharing an office with a woman. Maybe he would not mind if I were young and beautiful, but as I am he is only angry.”

“He obviously has no taste.”

Kawashima looked down at the floor.

“Couldn’t you ask Mr. Boon for a change?” Alec said quickly. “Maybe you could switch with someone down the hall.”

She shook her head to signify there was no hope. “Such a thing would cause Takahara-san to lose great face, so one of us would have to leave the company. It is a very bad thing to make someone lose face. Things are never again the same.”

“It seems to me that a change is exactly what you need,” Alec said. “I mean, if he’s so rude to you, why make sacrifices just to accommodate him?”

“People do not think that Takahara-san is rude.”

“He doesn’t even let you speak. He expects you to sit there and be quiet while he goes around tapping his chest all day.”

“You have to understand, Alec-san, that I am a woman. In Japan sometimes that is the most important thing about me.” Kawashima paused, noticed that she was still twirling the pencil. She put it down on the desk. “Most women are never allowed
to work at an interesting job. And they are told that if they do not get married by age twenty-five, no one will want them. Some men have a name for women like me: it is called ‘Christmas cake.’ If the cake is not sold by Christmas, these men say, no one will ever buy it. And so I am lucky, I think, because I like my work. Of course, sometimes it is difficult.”

Kawashima was quiet after that, staring at the floor. Her cheeks were flushed. Absently, she pushed her hair back behind her ears. Finally, she looked up at him.

“I live with my aunt.” She said it like a confession.