Alien Rice; A Novel. (9 page)

"I'll think it over. For I have to see if I can fit it in with my other work. I'll let you know as soon as I can," Alice simply replied.

"I'll expect your favorable consideration of the matter." So saying, the visitor left a basket of assorted fruits as a gift.

A few days later Alice conveyed her agreement to All Japan Radio and worked out the details. She was to give lessons twice a week and the fee for the class was to be a fabulous 100,000 yen a month.

As a result of this new arrangement, Alice Tanaka's name had become almost a household word throughout the country. The man in the street had come to know the name of this British language instructor.

In due course the Anglo-Japanese Institute became one of the largest of its kind in the metropolitan Tokyo area and perhaps the most successful, from the financial point of view, thanks to Alice's supervision and management.

Alice had set aside a quarter of a million yen each month for her own investment. She had been to Karuizawa frequently since that summer weekend with her husband. However, she was now going there not as a vacationer, but more as a businesswoman. Alice had since found two choice properties. One was a large villa owned by a German during the war. Another was a 1,000-
tsubo
lot on a hillside in the Mikasa section of Karuizawa. Alice paid three million yen for the villa and two and a half for the land.

Saburo knew what she was doing. In fact, there had been few, if any, secrets between Saburo and Alice since their marriage. For one thing, Alice realized that, however independent she might be, she was living in her husband's land and was in his custody after all. If something untoward happened, all around her would be strangers, or at any rate people not of her own kind, and she would find herself utterly defenseless. Smiling, friendly faces could turn into hostile, threatening ones overnight.

Saburo, on his part, was irrevocably linked to Alice now that he had an heir apparent, who could not grow without Alice's motherly love.

"How is your Karuizawa business these days?" Saburo asked his wife one evening.

"I've got three properties now. The villa I bought lately is well built and is in quiet surroundings. We could live there if you were chucked out of the company," Alice jestingly said.

"No, I don't want to live in Karuizawa all the year round. I don't mind spending summers there, though."

"Why not? It would be good for Toshio's health."

"I prefer to live near Tokyo. It's a big city. Many places to go. Many friends to meet and talk to. I would be too lonely in Karuizawa."

What Alice learned from this conversation with her husband confirmed her previous suspicion that the Japanese people, by and large, were gregarious and liked to get together. They abhorred loneliness. Another sign of their lack of individuality, Alice concluded.

The next summer Saburo took a few days' leave and went with Alice to Kyoto. Japan was not a big country, yet Alice was surprised how little she knew of the country apart from the metropolitan Tokyo-Yokohama region. She was not the only one; so few foreigners, except for diplomats who had more time, ventured out to explore the country.

The landscape along the Tokyo-Kyoto trunk railway was changing all the time. Paddy fields rose in tiers like amphitheaters on both sides of the train as it made its way into a valley ; then came a long tunnel and the vast blue waters of the Pacific suddenly came into view, as though a theater curtain had been raised, the moment the train emerged on the other side. The train then dashed along a narrow coastal strip barely separated from the sea, with Mount Fuji towering majestically over the hills.

In the train it was very hot and sultry, and not a few men nonchalantly shed their trousers and sat in their thin white underwear, which looked much like pajama bottoms. Alice was taken aback.

"What is that outlandish garment they are wearing?"

"That is
suteteko.
Most Japanese men wear these thin pants in the summer and lounge in them in order to keep cool," Saburo explained.

Alice was somewhat disappointed when she arrived at Kyoto. Right in front of the railway station she saw an ungainly skyscraper tower protruding over the old Japanese temple roofs. The small, shallow river which ran through the city was filled with trash. There were more Western-style buildings than typically Japanese structures, and both were mingled in a disorderly, discordant fashion.

However, some of the temples, shrines and gardens she visited were incomparably beautiful; so were those wooden houses with latticed windows and sliding doors.

"There will be Gion festival tomorrow, one of the most celebrated of all shrine festivals in Japan. You must see it, by all means," Saburo told Alice.

"What is the main feature of the festival?"

"It is a portable shrine, what we call
mikoshi
in Japanese, which large groups of young men bear on their shoulders through the city. The procession lasts several hours, with thousands of spectators marking the way," Saburo explained.

"Oh, that sounds exciting," Alice said. "Let's not miss it tomorrow."

The next day the couple went early in order to find a good spot to watch the time-honored procession. Husky youngsters carried the portable shrine above their heads with gusto and fanfare. Their march was not straight but took a zigzag course. The procession was an extremely boisterous affair. It went on amid great uproar. Everyone who took part in the shrine bearing was excited, worked hard and exerted himself to the utmost. But progress was slow and much energy seemed to be wasted in the process. An important-looking person sat in the carriage immediately preceding the
mikoshi
but he did nothing, let alone direct the march. He was being tossed around but seemed to enjoy the ride. It was altogether a strange, wild march, but the
mikoshi
finally reached its destination.

"What do you think of
mikoshi,
Alice?" Saburo asked.

"Very interesting, I must say. I didn't see much sense in it, but all the same it was a show well worth watching."

"Alice, whenever I watch a
mikoshi
procession I think of my company or any other business concern and the way Japanese business is conducted," Saburo began.

"In the first place, there are far too many people taking part in this shrine-carrying business and precisely for this reason the shrine does not go straight but meanders. The efforts of the bearers are not concerted or coordinated, but are largely wasted. The march is wild and everyone seems to enjoy it so long as it lasts. Once started, the bearers cannot very well stop but must somehow carry the shrine on to its final destination, no matter what happens. Isn't it very much like the Tozai Company anJ the way we work?" Saburo asked.

"That is a very interesting analogy, Saburo. I've never thought of that. And who was that fellow sitting in the carriage with a fan in his hand?"

"He is a boss of the town or somebody. I always liken him to the president of our company."

"Why?"

"Because that chap is not really directing the march of the shrine ; he is being tossed and shoved round by the carriers and is merely sitting in the place of honor. He prefers not to take a positive action but rather to follow the trend within the company. The rest of the crowd does the work."

Alice found Saburo's observations quite fascinating.

"On the other hand, the way you Westerners do business or run a corporation is like rowing a boat. Eight members of the crew follow the cox's leadership and none of the crew errs or digresses. The crew's efforts are concerted and no energy is wasted. The movement of the boat is swift and it reaches the destination without much ado or fanfare. This I thought when I watched the Oxford-Cambridge regatta on the Thames."

Alice was very much interested in what Saburo had to say. She was glad Saburo was aware of the irrational and wasteful practices of Japanese business corporations. But he had never openly criticized or condemned them until that day when she saw the
mikoshi
in Kyoto, presumably because he had been resigned to his fate.

Alice was glad she had come to Kyoto after all.

CHAPTER
  9

Toshio was now three years old. Because of Alice's strict upbringing, the boy did not cry as boisterously as did the other babies in the neighborhood. His eating and sleeping times were strictly observed by the maidservant. So Alice could often go out and leave the child with the servant or with a young babysitter, a high-school girl who lived close by. Since the babysitter had a key to the apartment, the nursemaid often went home after putting the child to bed.

One evening Saburo and Alice were invited to a dinner by the British consul in Yokohama. The consular residence stood in the best location of the Bluff, commanding a panoramic view of the harbor. It was an imposing building designed by a British architect and was a fitting symbol of Britain in the days when she ruled the seven seas.

Ian Morris, the consul, was exceedingly affable.

"I hear you live near Yokohama," he said to Alice. "You must have many interesting experiences living and working among the Japanese. We never seem to get to know the people, however much we try. For instance, I've been here two years now, but have never once been invited to a Japanese home."

"That is not your fault really. Japanese society is very much a closed world for non-Japanese, judging by my experience," Alice answered.

To Saburo, the consul was very diplomatic.

"How did you like England, Mr. Tanaka? I'm sure you will be a bridge to span Japan and England, so to speak, in the years to come."

At about 9:30
P.M.
, when the dinner was over and the guests were enjoying their coffee and liqueur, the Tanakas heard a fire-engine siren shrieking past the consulate.

The consul heard the siren, too, and told his Japanese servant to find out where the fire was. All the engines seemed to be going in the direction of the Tozai compound. Both Saburo and Alice were alarmed and stood up nervously.

In the meantime, the servant came back to tell the consul that, according to the police, the Tozai dormitory outside Yokohama was afire. Alice was frantic. Saburo hurried out of the consulate to hail a taxicab, and the Tanakas rushed back to their apartment without so much as bidding good-bye to Consul Morris and his wife.

When they arrived at the Tozai compound their section of the flats was enveloped in thick black smoke and firefighters were busy at work, holding huge water hoses in their hands. A crowd of curious onlookers blocked the Tanakas' way. Alice was wailing. Saburo was quieter but apprehensive nonetheless. They were stopped at a police cordon. Saburo explained that he was the resident of Apartment B3, around where the fire had started, and wanted to get back to rescue his son.

Flames had already been put out, but the ruins were still smoldering. The Tanakas could only get as far as Apartment BS, two doors away from their own, where they found, to their great relief, Toshio coolly sitting on the lap of Mrs. Watanabe, the Tanakas' immediate neighbor, and smiling.

It transpired that when the fire broke out in B2, Mrs. Watanabe's apartment, she tried to run down to safety by an emergency staircase. But it occurred to Mrs. Watanabe that, since she had heard no one enter the Tanaka apartment after the maid left, Toshio must be alone there. So Mrs. Watanabe smashed the window glass of the Tanaka apartment and went in to look for Toshio. Sure enough, he was fast asleep on his cot, with nobody else in the house. Seizing the boy in her arms, Mrs. Watanabe fled to the fire escape and descended before the fire engulfed the Watanabe and Tanaka apartments.

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 story 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.