Alien Rice; A Novel.

by Ichiro Kawasaki

  For many years afterward the Tanakas were deeply grateful to their neighbor's wife and always remembered Mrs. Watanabe's superhuman heroism.

  Saburo, as chief of the section, now reported directly to Sasaki, director of the department. Sasaki was senior to Tanaka by six years. Saburo Tanaka and Isamu Sasaki had not worked together before, but they were not strangers, as everyone in the department was more or less acquainted with everyone else.

  Director Sasaki was a graduate of Keio, one of Japan's Ivy League universities. In fact, there were quite a few Keio graduates among the senior officers of Tozai and many more on the lower echelons. Saburo was a graduate of the University of Commerce, and there were also very many Commerce University graduates in the company.

  It had been rumored both in and out of the company that there were two rival cliques in the Tozai organization, namely the Commerce men and Keio boys. Saburo had never been able either to disprove or confirm such an undercurrent, though he himself suspected it.

  The so-called university clique was not a new thing; it had existed ever since the Meiji Restoration of 1868, when the nation embarked on its ambitious modernization program, with university education and foreign trade. In any given organization, in a government ministry or in a business corporation, members belonging to these different groups fought between or among themselves, trying to undermine others with a view to their own eventual victory. Rivalry was often sly and underground, and never very discernible to the outsiders. It was a legacy of the feudal days of Japan when the rival clans carried on perennial internecine warfare for many centuries.

  One afternoon Saburo was called to Director Sasaki's office.

  "Tanaka, why did your section fail to obtain a license to import 1,500 tons of New Zealand mutton from the Food Ministry? The rival Tokyo Trading, I hear, got 1,500 tons, while we only got 1,000 tons. 1,500 tons should have bP.en our target," Director Sasaki fumed.

  "I did not know that. But the Food Ministry often issues different quotas for different firms. Sometimes we get more and sometimes less than Tokyo Trading."

  "Don't you know that Tokyo Trading and we have been engaged in a fierce competition to increase our total sales? And during the last six-month period our sales were slightly lower. It is a matter of prestige. Everybody is watching to see whether we or Tokyo Trading will emerge as the number-one trading firm in Japan. You cannot afford to be complacent."

  "I've done my best, Sir. My section is on particularly good terms with the import quota allocation section of the Food Ministry."

  "Then why did you get only 1,000 tons while our rival firm got 1,500 tons?"

  Saburo was silent for a while, then said, humiliatingly.

  "I am responsible for this poor showing. I am sorry, Sir."

  Saburo knew that Director Sasaki had never felt quite cordial to him. Sasaki often found fault with Saburo and magnified a molehill into a mountain, while pinpricking Saburo, as he did that afternoon. Sasaki was known to favor some section chiefs who were Keio graduates. At least Saburo suspected that he did.

  After the fire the Tanakas moved into an apartment improvised within the main building of the Anglo-Japanese Institute. Alice's own office and two other adjacent rooms were converted into living—and bed-rooms for the three members of the Tanaka family.

  One day a woman reporter rang up the institute and asked for an interview with Alice. The reporter was from the Weekly Mirror, a mass circulation magazine featuring gossip and scandal. Alice agreed to receive the woman reporter the next morning.

  "Do you know the publication called Weekly Mirror?" Alice asked Saburo in the evening when he came home.

  "Yes, it is the most popular weekly magazine, with a circulation of well over a million copies. Why?"

  "A representative of the Mirror is coming to see me the first thing tomorrow morning."

  "No wonder. You are now a celebrity, especially since you started those English lessons on All Japan Radio. But be careful, Alice. Those weeklies have no scruples. They twists facts and sensationalize everything." Alice did not quite understand what Saburo meant.

  The woman reporter showed up at the appointed time. First she produced a professional visiting card at the entrance. She had with her a male photographer. Alice asked whether the reporter needed an interpreter.

  "No, the woman says she can speak English."

  The reporter was a vulgar-looking person, in her early thirties, or so she seemed to Alice.

  "I'm very sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Tanaka, but Weekly Mirror wants a feature article on you for next week's issue."

  "What do you want to know?" Alice asked.

  "I hear you come from Scotland. Is that so?" was the reporter's first question. Alice nodded.

  "How many pupils are enrolled in your institute?"

  "I've no exact figure on hand. I must check with my reception cleric."

  "About two thousand? Is that so?" The woman already had the figure and merely wanted to confirm it.

  "Is your matriculation fee 1,000 yen per person?" was the next question, followed closely by "You have bought many villas and pieces of land in Karuizawa. Is that so?"

  The reporter's questions now sounded like those of a policeman interrogating a suspect. Alice felt angry.

  "I cannot answer any such personal question."

  "I hear you were a typist in the London office of Tozai Trading. Can you tell me about your romance with Mr. Tanaka?"

  Alice's patience was now exhausted.

  "I cannot see you any more, sorry," she replied.

  "I must take your picture," the reporter said, and hurriedly called in the photographer, who took Alice's picture twice, despite her protests.

  One day the following week Saburo came home with a copy of the Weekly Mirror. He looked excited.

  "Alice, I warned you."

  "You mean that reporter from the weekly magazine. Oh, she was so rude!"

  "You know what she wrote? I was so embarrassed. Today the whole of Tozai, from the director on down to the girls and messenger boys, was reading the article with obvious joy."

  Saburo opened the magazine and showed her the page on which there was a huge picture of Alice sitting in the office. Naturally Alice could not make anything out of what was written. Saburo translated the headline:

  SHREWD SCOTSWOMAN WHO MADE A FORTUNE BY EXPLOITING THE JAPANESE PEOPLE

  Then he related the contents of the article.

  "Ten years ago Alice Tanaka was penniless. She came from a lowly Glasgow family and worked as a typist in the London office of the Tozai Trading Company. She fell in love with Saburo Tanaka and married him. Usually a materialistic motive is suspected when a foreign woman marries a Japanese.

  "Alice Tanaka was shrewd and had already made much money by teaching English to Tozai's Japanese personnel in London. On the very day she arrived in Japan she embarked on a grandiose program of building 'Alice Tanaka's Financial Empire.' The first big swindle was to snatch Mrs. Enami's English Institute away from her. Mrs. Enami died in anger and grief.

  "The unique 'get rich quick' tactics of Alice Tanaka manifested themselves in many ways at the institute. She swindled enrollment fees without giving lessons. Alice Tanaka invested the institute's money in real estate. Due to the recent land boom in Karuizawa, Alice Tanaka is now reputed to be worth 100 million yen at a very conservative estimate. She is said to own many choice properties on the Bluff in Yokohama.

  "It has been said that international Jewry and overseas Chinese are exploiting the Japanese people and fleecing them white. But there is another group, the Scots, who are stealthily operating in Japan, and Alice Tanaka is a typical example. We must beware of them."

  Alice was furious.

  "How mean, how rude! I'll sue the Weekly Mirror for its lies and calumny."

  "Wait a minute, Alice. Publishers of these weekly magazines are very clever. They sensationalize the whole story but they are cautious as to the facts.

  "In your case, for instance, the sto
ry about taking the institute out of Mrs. Enami's hands is an example of their cleverness. Mrs. Enami is dead and nobody can prove whether it was a swindle or not!"

  "But I have the receipt from Mr. Enami for that million yen."

  "Yes, but the receipt does not say whether Mrs. Enami parted with the institute voluntarily or against her will."

  "But I did not swindle the matriculation fees."

  "Here again they are cunning. There were some pupils who paid the fee but were placed on a waiting list for lack of class room, you remember? The Mirror refers to that situation, by stating that you 'swindled enrollment fees without giving lessons.' They always twist facts and distort figures in order to pander to popular interest. There are certainly a lot of exaggerations and incorrect figures, but they can always prevaricate when sued."

  "But how did they know about my Karuizawa properties?"

  "Oh, it's quite simple. It must have been the talk of the town, your walking around Karuizawa with the real-estate people. It's a small world, you know. The rumors spread to Tokyo and the weeklies never miss such a story."

  "But the whole thing is a sheer lie, a slander!" Alice cried.

  "Mind you. I'm not siding with the publisher or anybody. You can sue them if you like. But the case may hang in the court for months, if not years, and the verdict may not necessarily be in your favor, for the evidence is scanty and inconclusive.

  "Besides, once the article is out everyone reads it, but nobody pays any attention to denials and refutation."

  Saburo suspected that, in fact, the rival English-conversation school in Tokyo had instigated the Weekly Mirror to write about Alice, but he did not feel like telling her about it that evening.

  Saburo was nervously waiting in the lounge of the Grand Hotel for Mr. MacDonald. The day before Saburo had gone to Haneda Airport to meet MacDonald, who was to arrive from Toronto by Canadian Pacific Airlines.

  MacDonald was a representative of the orange importers' association of Canada. At the airport Saburo was forestalled by about half a dozen young men from the rival Tokyo Trading Company, one of whom was an aggressive man called Tamaki, a section chief, and incidentally Saburo's counterpart in Tokyo Trading.

  Tamaki's tactic was to have one of his men penetrate into the airport landing area, disguised as an airline official. That afternoon, too, Tokyo Trading people had gotten hold of MacDonald well before he emerged from the "arrival" exit, where Saburo Tanaka, Tozai's section chief, had been patiently waiting.

  When Saburo approached MacDonald with a visiting card in hand, the Canadian trader, a tall and commanding figure with a thick moustache, had already been surrounded by several Tokyo Trading boys.

  "Welcome to Japan! I'm from the Tozai Trading Company. We are entirely at your disposal," Saburo managed to say to MacDonald, avoiding the hostile and angry stares of his rivals.

  "That's very kind of you, but arrangements for my stay in Japan have already been made by Tokyo Trading. "

  Saburo was rebuffed but persisted.

  "Tozai Trading also would like to have the pleasure of welcoming you and discussing business matters! "

  "If that is the case, you could come and see me at the hotel tomorrow afternoon sometime," MacDonald suggested.

  So now Saburo was waiting in the main lounge. He had been told by a hotel reception clerk that MacDonald was out. Obviously MacDonald had forgotten about Saburo's coming. At any rate it was not a firm appointment. Either MacDonald had completely forgotten what he had said at the airport, Saburo speculated, or perhaps it was an excuse to drive Tozai's representative away politely.

  After an hour's agonizing waiting, however, Mac-Donald did come back to the hotel, but he was surrounded by several smiling Japanese men who no doubt were Tokyo Trading people. The face of one Japanese was flushed, evidently as a result of intake of alcohol, and Saburo concluded that they had just been to a luncheon party with MacDonald. It was obvious, to Saburo as well as to anyone, that the Canadian trader was now completely in the hands of Tokyo Trading. Saburo felt a great chagrin and serious mental agony.

  "Could you get hold of Mr. MacDonald yesterday, Tanaka?" Director Sasaki inquired the moment Saburo stepped into the director's office to make a report.

  "Sir, I did see MacDonald yesterday at the airport and told him of our interest in the matter."

  "And what was his reaction?"

  "Well, he said he would consider our offer very seriously."

  "And what are the arrangements for a geisha dinner party I want to throw for MacDonald?"

  Saburo hesitated for a moment.

  "He said he was feeling very tired after the journey and wanted to rest completely for a couple of days in the hotel." Saburo had to tell a lie.

  "Why didn't you, then, offer to take him to a resort hotel in Hakone? Where is MacDonald staying?"

  "The Grand Hotel, Sir."

  "We are paying the bill, I presume."

  Saburo was at a loss for a reply.

  A week later, when it was known that Tokyo Trading had succeeded in securing a contract to export 5, 000 tons of mandarin oranges to Canada for the coming Christmas season, Sasaki, the departmental chief, was in a rage.

  "What are you doing? Were you sleeping or something?"

  "I did my best but had no luck," Saburo replied sadly.

  "I hear your wife is a millionaire now. And you seem to be getting soft on your foreign wife's bounty."

  "No, Sir," Saburo protested.

  "If you couldn't do it yourself why didn't you ask your wife to win over MacDonald to our side? He was of the same kind as your wife. Instead your wife busied herself making money.... "

  Sasaki was becoming personal. Saburo knew that the director had been deliberately cool to him all along and that he preferred to have Togo, a Keio graduate, as the section chief rather than Tanaka.

  In the meantime that scoop story in the Weekly Mirror was resounding throughout the country. Every day dozens of letters, both anonymous and signed, were pouring into the Tanaka household, letters of censure and condemnation. Some even demanded the immediate expulsion of Mrs. Alice Tanaka from Japan.

  The Anglo-Japanese Institute was not doing as well as it used to, because of the Weekly Mirror exposure, and applications were falling. What with the fire in which Toshio was all but incinerated, and with the Mirror story, Alice was deeply depressed. All the Japanese around her now seemed filled with hatred toward her. She was feeling ill at ease and was thoroughly disgusted with Japan.

  One afternoon Mr. Enami came to see Alice, bringing with him his eighteen-year-old daughter. She acted as an interpreter for her father most of the time.

  "I'm truly sorry for that Mirror article, Mrs. Tanaka," Mr. Enami began.

  "Surely it was none of your fault, I presume," Alice countered.

  "My wife had always had a great admiration for you and if she were alive she would have resented that slanderous story and would have defended you more than anybody else," the aging man assured a relieved Alice.

  "Thank you, Mr. Enami," she replied. "We were very good friends, your wife and I. I was very sad when Mrs. Enami passed away. You must miss her very much, Mr. Enami. She was such a fine woman." Miss Enami, sitting beside Alice, had tears in her eyes.

  "Coming back to the Mirror story again, Mrs. Tanaka, I must tell you that it was Tsugami English College of Tokyo which was responsible. Even in the days when my wife ran the place Tsugami people tried every means of destroying our institute. At one time there was a rumor that a Tsugami agent was about to set fire to our place. You know, competition is keen in any business in Japan but Tsugami College people have no scruples; they are mean and despicable. That was one of the reasons why I sold the institute to you. We were so fed up.

  "Since you took it over I have admired the way you ran the place but at the same time have been apprehensive lest you should one day get into trouble. Tsugami people, from the biggest English-language school in Tokyo, were resentful that you took so many pupils away from t
hem. They were jealous and wanted vengeance.

  "I was told on good authority that Tsugami College men invited some of the Mirror staff to a sumptuous dinner in Akasaka some time ago. Also, Mrs. Tsugami spent a great deal of her time in Karuizawa last summer and must have heard of your activities. I have therefore no doubt in my mind as to the background of the recent Mirror article.

  "My wife, who went to a college in America as a girl, always said that Western people were fair-minded and free from such petty rivalries and cutthroat competition as we see in this country. You must also feel that way, Mrs. Tanaka.

  "I hope you will not think ill of us because of what has happened, and please do not think too seriously of that silly stuff in the Weekly Mirror."

  "Thank you, Mr. Enami. You are very kind. I feel much better after listening to you," Alice said as the Enamis rose to take leave.

  Saburo was still out most evenings at company banquets or working late at the office. But recently he had looked haggard and was in low spirits, or so he seemed to Alice. He had definitely lost weight since his London days. One of the rare evenings when Saburo came home early, Alice asked him, "Are you really enjoying your work in the office?"

  "Well, working in the Head Office is terrible, every day so busy, receiving visitors, attending meetings, keeping my director and others informed of what we are doing."

  "Is there any prospect of your being assigned to an overseas office again in the near future?"

  "Not for some time, I don't think. At least not for another three years."

  "Do you want to stay with Tozai for many more years?"

  "I've no alternative but to continue."

  "Is there any chance of your doing something else, like my Anglo-Japanese Institute, for example?" Alice inquired.

  "I'm afraid I've no special talent, nor the necessary funds to start a new business."