by Vann Chow
“My name is Sadao Maeda. You're very pretty.” He swept his camera slowly from her head to her toes as if this was nothing but an item on an antique appraisal show.
When the camera returned to her face, Tanaka saw her blush.
“Here's your money.” The cameraman waved a stack of Yens in front of her.
“Ehh?” The pitch change of her voice showed that she was genuinely surprised. “Ehh? What's this for?”
“Take it. You want them.” He shoved the money in her direction. “This is ten thousand yen.”
The girl stood motionless, ogling the large amount of money in the man's hand.
“You're going to go home with this money, buy something for yourself and feel great.” Then he hummed flattery words as if it was a lullaby, “you did well today.”
“No...” her voice trailed off. What had happened and what was happening now finally came together.
The man bent down to stuff the money into one of the paper shopping bags.
“I'm giving them to you anyway. Whether you take them or not,” he said. “See? It's in there. You can use them, or throw them away. You're a beautiful and smart girl. You'll choose correctly.”
Slowly, he backed away from her, his camera still pointing at her relentlessly. At a loss of what else she could do, she smoothed down the wrinkles in her mini-skirt.
“Bye now, Misa Hayami,” the man said, sounding almost kind.
The screen turned dark for a second then sprung back to life as another sequence came up, in another deserted suburban Japanese street.
19. The Girl in the Tape
Present time, in the museum café.
“Tanaka-san,” Arai opened his mouth to voice his concern.
“What?” Tanaka barked.
“Did something happened?” Arai asked. “You looked terrible after you came back from the toilet.”
Good observation. Tanaka was impressed.
“I was just thinking about work.” Tanaka could not possibly explain everything to him without some preparations, so he chose to keep it simple. The boy was reliable and honest. He had thought about recruiting Arai into his personal projects and grooming him to become his protégé. Yet he was such a nervous wreck near persons of authority. And he had such a weak chin and a pair of sad drooping eyes. Was he able to handle it? Tanaka needed to observe him longer.
“Do you also have the impression that she was too young? In my humble opinion,” Arai said, “I think this footage will not work for the commercial...” he said trailing off at the end of his sentence.
Tanaka gave Arai the death stare. “Then why didn’t you say so earlier?” Tanaka had his back against their targets the whole time. He was relying completely on Arai to make the right call. The essence of paparazzi work was to be quick on your feet because circumstance changes all the time.
“I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry for not speaking up earlier.” Arai looked like he was in pain.
“Shut the camera off and relax your arms. You’ve been holding up your cell phone for a good half an hour.” Tanaka said, as quiet as he could. “Even if you’re not tired, somebody will soon realize you’re up to no good if you keep holding that thing in the same position.”
Arai laughed nervously and flexed his arms in relief. Blood had been draining off his arms slightly after five minutes into filming. For the next twenty-five minutes that led to the ultimate numbness in his arms, he had challenged his inner demon to a fight as to whether he should utter his professional judgment or he should just do what he was told and be professional about it. One side of him was afraid that it might seem like he was making up an excuse to slack off. The other side of him was afraid that his arms might soon need to be cut off to preserve the rest of his body. Now all his emotions had seemed so unnecessary.
“The girl is very beautiful,” Arai said, now rubbing his arms as inconspicuously as possible under the table. “Made me want to learn Japanese, too.”
Tanaka snorted.
Yes, she was beautiful. And with such a beautiful, memorable face, Tanaka couldn’t have possibly mistaken who she was. She was the real thing. The subject of his studies for the last two months. Hundreds and thousands of her frames he had studied. He had known a little bit too much about her than he was willing to admit.
Arai had noticed his uneasiness. Indeed, he felt the girl’s eyes were on him as he passed en route to the men’s room, which, he assured himself, was just his mind playing tricks on him. He was not being watched. Not by Mona Lisa and not by her. The girl had no idea who he was. The acquaintance was one-sided. There was no reason to be worked up, Tanaka.
“I thought his Japanese teacher would be older,” Arai said, his eyes wandering off in the general direction of the pair.
“Is this how you’ve envisioned it?” Tanaka asked him.
“Yes, I was wondering whether we could pass this for a business meeting, with him listening carefully to what she had to say and responding in the local language. This image of a good-listener would befit DaiKe’s employee. And we have the luck that they picked the seats by the window – their silhouettes against the background of cars and pedestrians passing outside. Put a blurring filter on those and boost the contrast. A close-up of their faces as they speak to each other – it would have been the kind of thing we want, or am I wrong?”
“You’re quite right,” Tanaka said.
“It’s a pity she’s a bit too young.”
“Well, it doesn’t always have to be business related. Imagery of the old and the young, of men and women, of a foreigner and local being in harmony together, could be quite moving. It could give the audience a new perspective about DaiKe.”
“Boss, you are a genius!” Arai said. “Should we go over to talk to them?”
“No, let me talk to Smith on Monday. Let’s watch them a little longer for now.”
***
“What's with the suit?” Andy asked grabbing Smith on the shoulder in a forceful swoop.
“Where in the devil did you come from?” Recovering from the sudden physical assault, Smith's oratory sense was now under attacked by a wave of rap music that glorifies murders and crimes in close quarters, coming out from the mp3 player that Andy had stuffed in the back pocket of his pants. Smith snatched it to turn it off.
“Let me,” Andy grabbed it back and turned the volume dial down, “before we have to call technical support.”
“So you're learning Japanese from Misa!” Andy said loudly in surprise, paying no heed to his surroundings. People were reading and listening to music in the museum cafe and in him came barking. Smith couldn't stand him sometimes, especially when he was wearing a hoody inside a leather jacket, with his hair made spikey by an excessive of hair gel, the look that reminded him of his daughter's favorite actor, Ryan Reynolds, whom he had never wanted to punch more in the face.
And Ryan Reynolds gave an all-too-friendly hug to his barely legal-aged Japanese teacher, without even asking whether he was intruding. This almost brought him back to the second state of shock – anger.
“Where's your leash?” He had to say it. Andy and Misa were like a drop of ketchup on Claude Monet's Water Lilies.
“Raff!” Andy barked. The man had no shame. Smith scanned the room hoping that the other patrons in the cafe would be squinting their eyes towards the agitator in unison to instill the Bushido fear and order into him, but they were as docile as he had imagined them to be.
“How'd you find us?” Smith asked. “By sniff'n?”
“Oh, don't be bitter!” Andy waved off his sarcasm with a dramatic slap on Smith's back, spitting his words of wisdom on Smith as if someone had tapped the '57' on his neck. “Misa needed someone to drive her brother home. And only one of us here drives a Honda.”
Smith was tempted to stab his eyes out with his BMW key chain. Lucky for Ryan Reynolds, they were in his luggage at home that held everything from the States.
“How'd you know that?”
“Cars, I was with y
ou when you went to the police. Remember?” Andy leaned himself against the coffee table. It sunk a quarter of an inch. “And I was the one who told you her name. I called her to check if she was okay yesterday and she's asked me to help pick up her brother.”
“Misa, you could have asked me to accompany you.” Smith decided he should appeal to Misa's common sense.
She merely smiled. How could one blame the innocent, trusting creature? However, given what had happened to her the last time in Andy's presence, maybe she should learn to stay away from men who had no regard for traditional dos-and-don'ts.
“You know what, we were just talking about you, right, Misa?” Smith said. “ O-jama-shimasu . Just when you are walking in.” – 'Jama' meant devil. And when used as a verb, in this case, it meant 'to bother'. Either way, it fit.
“Let's go, Misa,” Andy said to the girl. “You too, chop chop!” He turned to Smith. “You only paid for an hour,” and tapped the surface of his wristwatch, which showed the time to be seven minute past two. “or did you not?”
At Andy's vile reminder, Smith realized that he almost forgot about it.
“Misa, how shall we do it?” Smith scrambled to take out his wallet. “If you don't mind, I can pay you a little bit more than minimum...”
“Just pay for the coffee,” Andy pushed the money back towards his direction. “And the cake.”
“Who are you to her?” Smith questioned.
Andy pointed with his forefinger at Misa and himself and said, “Friends.” Then he pointed his forefinger between Misa and Smith, and said, “Teacher-student. Ehh, not so close.”
“Next Saturday again?” Misa asked as she looped the handle of her tote bag over her shoulder.
“ Ichi ji ni matte imasu. I'll wait for you at one,” Smith replied. He was proud of himself, almost.
20. The Relationship Expert
“I'm terribly sorry I had forgotten to call back. I really meant to,” Smith said apologetically to Aileen, taking her hand into his. “But know that the injustice has now been avenged. I have been sitting in a cafe for two hours waiting for someone at work to come this afternoon, but he didn't show. That's why I look like this today. Then I realized that I didn't have my apartment keys with me, and I couldn't go home to change into something proper for our date. I wandered the streets of Tokyo until now.”
“Are you truly apologizing or just hinting that you would like to get an invitation to my apartment after our dinner, 'cause you can't go home?” She smiled a wickedly.
“Oh, I wouldn't dare thinking that far ahead. Don't we have a, uh, relationship expert in our midst tonight? Miss Newton, you know her, she's disruptively creative. I hope I last until the end of the ordeal with her expert to take home the beautiful mädchen.” Then he corrected himself, “Well, I meant I would see to it that you are home safely, and then I would go back to mine.”
“I'm just wondering what 'mädchen' meant,” Aileen asked, giggling at Smith's clumsiness in expressing his feelings, as he held the door to the Italian restaurant to let her in.
“Oh, it's German for 'girl',” Smith explained. “You really can't teach an old dog new tricks. I'm learning Japanese now and the other foreign languages I learned as a kid kept popping up and messing up my sentences. It's like there's a certain area in your brain where you throw all the foreign words in, and then you realized that you've forgotten to index them!”
“Girl, you called me! You keep pretending to be confused!” She laughed, flattered at being called a girl at thirty-six.
And there, in the middle of the restaurant, sat an elderly Caucasian lady. She was wearing a white two-piece dress suit that reminded him of a mix between the Queen of England and his Oral English teacher in high school, who was always asking him to 'e-nun-ci-ate'. No doubt she was Mrs. Newton, for she was staring disapprovingly at him the same fashion he was staring at her.
“Looks like the expert is none other than Miss Newton's mother herself.”
“I'm nervous,” Aileen murmured to him under her breath. “Do we really need her to psycho-analyze us? I think we're getting along fine by ourselves...”
“Marriage counseling before the marriage. It makes total sense,” Smith said ironically, “in Japan.”
His mind perched for a few seconds on the revealing statistics he saw about the commonness of extramarital affairs in the countries where divorce was almost unheard of.
Before Smith could suggest that they sprint for the door together, a waiter came forward and took the scarf and the handbag from Aileen.
“Party of three for Mrs. Newton, I believe?” he said.
“Too late,” Aileen whispered in Smith's ear. “That bag costs a fortune! And it has all my papers in it.”
Smith tapped her twice on her waist to cheer her up, and then he offered to help Aileen take off her quilted coat. He was hit by the familiarity of the scene at once. This was something that he would do for Debra in a restaurant, for the last twenty-eight years. His ear twitched in reaction.
“Hello, Mrs. Newton,” the two said in unison.
“Aren't you two an item already?” Marionette Newton said. Her voice was chirpier than Smith had anticipated, given the antiquity that oozed off her appearance, accentuated by the British accent that reminded him of the colonial times. To be fair, she could not have been more than ten years’ senior to him, still with the working man's vigor.
After the group had ordered their drinks and food, Mrs. Newton began her session.
“Thank you for being here today. I am delighted that you two have made the commitment to come to my session together. Do we not all crave for long-lasting, trust-based and happy relationships? And that's why we usually have sessions like these for pairs that we've matched and who have shown fair interests in each other but needed a little something to jump start the relationship. For these pairs, we would always ask them to come together and do a little exercise that will make them open up. Despite my looks, I am not a witch, and I do not make love potions. I cannot guarantee sparks, and I cannot make up feelings between two people. But what I can do, is to make the two of you consider carefully what you need and want, and about what you have as an option, as well as let me in on what other options I can offer the two of you in case we have a mismatch. The journey to finding your soulmate is not easy, and I am here to help you. So Carson Smith and Aileen Martin, let's begin.”
“Wonderful,” Smith remarked, liking the sound of quality. He felt a lot more comfortable with psychological assessment tests than the telling-impressive-jokes-at-a-bar competition when it came to dating.
“Good,” Mrs. Newton said, taking out a stack of flashcards from her purse. “For our first exercise, I'm going to say a word, and in turns, the two of you will have to reply the first sentence that comes into your mind related to the word. The first word is ...” Mrs. Newton pulled a card randomly from her stacks of cards. “Camel. Carson, you’re first.”
“Um, well...”
“One sentence, remember. You can put as many pauses in it, but if your sentence ends, your turn is over. And don't be shy. You can say everything that is on your mind. This will help Aileen, and I understand you better.”
“Well, then I'm going to say that I don't know how 'camel' is going to help me 'carry on' with my date,” he winked at Aileen, “but I do think that Camel is a strong and intelligent animal just like me.”
“Okay, my turn,” Aileen took a deep breath and said.
“Oh, you've used up your sentence,” Mrs. Newton said.
“No! I haven't even started!” Aileen rebutted.
“That's the rule. But okay, I'll let you have this one,” Mrs. Newton conceded.
“So I think...” Aileen thought carefully, this time, not to use up her sentence too quickly before she expressed her opinion, “that camels are ugly and scary beasts because I've ridden one during my last vacation to Egypt but, ” she stressed the 'but' in order to declare that she still hadn't finished her quota of one full stop, “with
the right riders, they can be reliable transportation means for people in the desert.”
Mrs. Newton had an excellent memory and quick hands. As soon as Aileen finished, she had already scribbled their answers down on two separate pieces of flashcards. She showed Smith's response to Aileen and Aileen's to Smith.
“Aileen, what do you notice about Smith's response?” she asked.
“It's different from mine,” she commented jokingly. Seeing that Mrs. Newton's silently demanding a more thoughtful and sophisticated answer, Aileen said, “Well, I think Carson's comparison between himself and the camel was a bit odd.”
“You wouldn't do that?” Smith said, surprised at what she picked up.
“Nope,” Aileen compressed her lips into a thoughtful pout.
“And what do you think about Aileen's?” Mrs. Newton prompted Smith.
“I like her answer. Even though she failed the first time, she managed to pull off telling me something about herself and her vacation in that one short sentence. I thought that was impressive.”
Aileen smiled at the compliment.
“Don't be too flattered. He was only complimenting you to avoid talking about the fact that you're not a very attentive person. First, you've gotten the question wrong. I said 'camel', not 'camels'. Second, deserts are camel’s natural habitat. They don't need any training or any owner.”
Smith raised his palms up to show his innocence.
“Don't be too cheery yourself either, Carson. You make a lot of assumptions. You've never seen a camel before, I believe. Otherwise, you wouldn't make that comment about their intelligence. And you are very insecure. That's why you had to compliment yourself when I said a word as neutral as a camel. But that can be good, of course, for you two, as a pair.” She looked at Aileen then back at Smith, sincerely, as if she wasn't making assumptions about the unfamiliar herself. “Both of you are equally eager to show off. From this response, Smith focused more on his intellects and personality. And Aileen, you focused on appearance and experience. An interesting combination. So, you've learned so much about yourself and so much about each other already in less than five minutes. Let's do another one,” She suggested, without stopping to console the distastes in the participants' mouths. “The word for this round is 'Decide'. This time, I'll ask Aileen to speak first. Mind you; it is 'Decide', present tense, not past tense.”
