Alien Rice; A Novel. (2 page)

Meanwhile, Saburo became aware of the curious glances of their fellow diners toward his table, and he felt self-conscious. When dinner was nearly over, a three-man band started to play dance music. Saburo was tempted to ask for a dance but he was afraid he might look ridiculous trying to lead his oversized partner around the floor. It was not that he was a bad dancer. Saburo had learned to dance in Japan and had danced a lot with Japanese girls. Now he was here with a Western woman for the first time. After some hesitation Saburo finally rose.

"May I have the pleasure of dancing this slow fox-trot, Alice?" he offered.

"I would rather not, Saburo. Not tonight anyway, if you don't mind. Frankly, I'm not in the mood."

Alice's reply was disappointing, if not humiliating, to Saburo.

"Then let's just listen to the music and enjoy watching others dance," he acquiesced, trying to gloss over his embarrassment.

A few weeks after that evening at Quaglino's, Saburo asked Alice to go out for a drive one Sunday afternoon. It was a proposal to which she had no reason to object, especially as she would attract much less attention driving in the country than dining or dancing at Quaglino's.

It was a warm September afternoon when Saburo picked up Alice at her apartment house. They drove in a small Ford out on Great West Road, heading for Maiden-head, stopping for tea at a riverside inn before driving on toward Oxford. Saburo suggested having dinner somewhere before returning to town. They decided on Lion's Gate Inn, just outside Oxford.

In the restaurant there was a lone Japanese man, dining by himself. He stared at Saburo and Alice all during the meal. Later Saburo happened to meet this man in the hall and wanted to accost his countryman. But the latter abruptly turned his face aside and hurriedly walked away.

"Isn't that strange? I should think that anyone traveling alone would welcome meeting his own countrymen, but he seems to shun us. Is it because of me?" Alice asked.

"No. Most Japanese, especially when abroad, are like that. They try to avoid their countrymen because they are ill at ease in a strange situation, so they lose confidence and fail to act naturally," Saburo explained.

On the return journey they had to cope with heavy Sunday traffic, and it was nearly eleven
P.M.
by the time Saburo drove Alice back to her place.

At the door Saburo wanted to bid her good night. But when Alice invited him to come up for a cup of tea Saburo suddenly felt the throbbing of his heart. Feigning composure, he followed Alice to her apartment. It was rather a shabby, studio-type room; the furniture was mediocre and the whole place betrayed her frugal style of living.

Alice went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Soon tea was ready and they each had a cup with a few biscuits. Saburo felt faintly tired from the day's outing but was in delightful bliss now that he was face to face with Alice in the intimacy of her home. Suddenly he was seized with passion. He embraced her, and she readily gave her lips in response to his rather abrupt approach. He did not utter many words of love but set about straightforwardly to possess her. By now Alice shared the urgency of her Oriental partner. Saburo, panting, kissed her again, and both he and Alice were now quickly disrobing themselves.

In no time, Saburo, completely nude, was perching on her snow-white body. Alice glanced in the dim light at a luxuriant bush of jet-black hair surrounding the object which was swelling to enormous proportions. His body, small as it was, was agile and had a powerful thrust, and the two figures were now locked together more closely and more deeply than ever before.

Alice was no virgin; she had had affairs in and out of bed ever since she had left Glasgow. She found her own menfolk generally big in size, both as regards the body and its vital part. The Japanese are certainly smaller in comparison, but the stiffness and potency of Saburo's possession was a pleasant surprise and a pleasurable experience to Alice, For many years afterward it was Alice's opinion that, in many things temporal, bigness often carried with it certain disadvantages, such as lack of alacrity and firmness, and as such was not necessarily conducive to satisfaction.

When Saburo wrote to his father asking permission to marry Alice, Genzo Tanaka, a retired high-school instructor living in Nagoya, was completely taken aback.

"Fancy, Saburo marrying an English girl!"

"What shall I do if Saburo comes home with his blue-eyed bride?" wailed Mrs. Tanaka. "I can't understand a word of English and I can't cook Western food. Suppose a baby is born, I can't think of myself being a grandma to an
ainoko.
^*
It would be a disgrace to our ancestors," said the old-fashioned mother, almost in despair.

"We should have arranged a marriage for Saburo before he went to England. It does no good to cry over spilt milk now," Genzo Tanaka said regretfully.

"Why can't you ask Mr. Soga, the present ambassador in London, to dissuade Saburo from marrying the English girl?" his wife suggested. "He comes from Nagoya. He might help us."

"I don't know Ambassador Soga well enough. Besides, I don't think the embassy would intercede in such matters," Genzo replied.

Thereupon the retired teacher simply wrote a lengthy letter to Saburo, setting forth his and his wife's objections to the marriage. Six weeks elapsed but no reply came from his son. Apparently the remonstrances had fallen on deaf ears.

It was some weeks after the incident in Alice's studio apartment that Saburo and Alice went to Glasgow over a weekend to visit Alice's parents. The Burnses lived in a shabby-looking but neatly maintained tenement house just outside the city. They appeared to be much worse off than the Tanakas of Nagoya, Japan.

Evidently they were not favorably impressed by Saburo. As they looked at him, they recalled the caricatures of Japanese soldiers they had seen in wartime posters, more than ten years before. Mrs. Burns sized up her daughter's suitor with a disapproving eye. How short he was, and how swarthy!

"How do you do. I'm very pleased to see you." Saburo greeted them stiffly, without any expression on his face.

Mrs. Burns wondered why her daughter should have fallen in love with such an Oriental, when there were so many finer specimens among her own people. The mother lamented it in the depth of her heart.

James Burns, when told of their desire to marry, started lecturing.

"'East is East, West is West, and never the twain shall meet.' Wasn't it the poet Kipling who said that? You can continue to be good friends, but I hope you'll not jump into a marriage. What if a baby was born? There would be plenty of trouble."

Yet Alice was determined to get married. And so was Saburo. Alice figured that, despite all these odd doings in the London office, Tozai Trading was after all an internationally known corporation with an extensive network throughout the world. Saburo would have to leave London within a few years but there was a chance of his being posted to New York, Sydney or Paris, or any other world metropolises. Alice, as Saburo's English wife, would command respect and admiration among the company's Japanese personnel, if her two years' experience in the London office was anything to go by.

Such unaltruistic motives were not totally overlooked in her decision to marry Saburo, a decision which culminated in the sumptuous wedding reception at the Savoy Hotel.

*
chazuke :
a simple meal consisting of hot tea poured over boiled rice and pickles.

*
ainoko:
a half-breed or Eurasian. Generally used in a derogatory sense.

CHAPTER
  2

Saburo and Alice rented a furnished flat in Golder's Green. It was a modest apartment, little larger than a studio, and could not be called luxurious. But the new apartment was the best Alice had ever lived in and one which she could never have hoped to afford, had she continued as a bachelor working-girl.

Saburo's pay was not large by either English or Japanese standards. In fact his basic salary from the Tozai Trading Company was surprisingly small. But, having been assigned to London, he was entitled to an overseas allowance, taking into account the cost of living in a given country and also the need to keep up the standard of living expected of a representative of the great Japanese trading concern. Hence, when Saburo's basic pay and foreign allowance were combined, the total came to twice or three times the amount a British clerk of his age or standing could have earned.

Thus Saburo could live a fairly comfortable life; at least he did not have to worry at the end of a week or a month about how much money he had in his pocket. Also, Alice's decision to contine to work in her husband's office made Saburo's pecuniary situation more secure.

"Shall we have a Japanese dinner tonight?" Saburo suggested one evening soon after the wedding.

"I've never fancied foreign food. I've never even tried French, Hungarian or Chinese restaurants. I think our own English food is wholesome and best," replied his bride.

"You may like Japanese cooking, though," Saburo urged. "It is light and delicious. Why not try it?"

"Soon after I joined Tozai one Japanese gentleman asked me to sample it but I politely declined. Don't you eat octopus and things like that?"

"If you don't like fish or octopus you can always eat sukiyaki. It's almost an international dish."

Alice gave in.

The Japanese restaurant they went to that evening was a part of the Japanese Club near Cavendish Square and was run by a concessionaire under the club manager's supervision. The club premises were not particularly pretentious but were reasonably clean and tidy. The moment they went into the dining room, however, Alice smelt a nauseatingly pungent odor of soya sauce and broiled fish. She felt almost sick. In a Japanese-style wooden house such an odor seldom stays, for the house is full of crevices, but in a more solidly built Western structure the smell seems to permeate the walls.

Alice did not dare to tell Saburo about the shock she felt. Instead she waited curiously to see what was going to happen.

'Now, what will you have, sukiyaki or a set Japanese menu?" Saburo asked.

Having already been overwhelmed by the odor of the place, Alice felt she could not stand the smell of sukiyaki.

"I'll try a typical Japanese dinner, rather than sukiyaki."

In due course a waiter brought two lacquered trays and placed them on the table. On each tray there were a black lacquered bowl which contained clear fish soup, a square porcelain plate for a tiny broiled fish with a stick of red ginger, another fairly deep porcelain bowl containing a few slices of raw tuna fish and a few other items. The bowls, dishes and plates were all of different colors, shapes and designs, and were calculated to please the eyes.

When Alice stared at the raw fish, Saburo started to explain.

"It is
sashimi,
or sliced raw fish, which is a great delicacy in Japan. You pick up each slice with your chop-sticks, dip it in the soya sauce and eat it.'

"Oh, dear. I cannot eat raw fish,"

Alice replied. "Alice, it's delicious. Try it and you'll like it," Saburo insisted.

"No. I've never had raw fish in all my life. The mere throught of eating raw fish repels me," she retorted.

"But don't you eat raw oysters after dipping them into tomato ketchup, just as we eat tuna fish after dipping it in thick soya sauce? Don't you know the Dutch eat a lot of raw herring?" He tried to reassure her. Still Alice did not feel like touching it.

"Well, if you don't like it, give me the bowl and I will eat another portion myself."

Then Saburo suddenly remembered his recent business trip to Germany. In Hamburg, a German member of Deutsche Tozai Handels, a German subsidiary of Tozai, took Saburo to a restaurant. There the host insisted that Saburo sample steak tartare, raw ground beef, of which Germans are passionately fond. Saburo had looked at the big helping of red-colored raw meat with horror. He had been feeling the urge to explore Hamburg's famous, or infamous, Altona district for some fun, and his host had insinuated, with a leering grin, that the dish was not only delicious but fortifying. But even so Saburo could not bring himself to eat it.

"How do you use the chopsticks, dear? I can't pick up a thing." Alice was using the sticks with an overlapping grip of her fingers.

"No, not that way. You must hold the sticks with your fingers interlocked. It's quite simple, you see."

Saburo demonstrated. Alice struggled with the sticks but they slipped each time.

"I quit," she finally said in despair.

Saburo realized, then and there, that this was only a small beginning on the long road of mutual concession and accommodation that lay ahead.

Over weekends Alice was often left alone in the flat because her husband almost always went golfing. Saburo star ted to play golf soon after he joined the company. Unlike most of his countrymen, he was not too keen on the game at first; but since everybody else in his office played it he felt he could not very well stay away, and over the years it had become a habit.

One Friday evening, when told that Saburo had to play in a company golf tournament the next day, Alice was genuinely peeved.

"Saburo, why can't you take me out for a drive once in a while? I've become a 'golf widow' over weekends. Is this how a husband behaves in Japan?"

Her words had a tone of protest and indignation.

"Alice, didn't I ask you to take up golf the other day? Then you said you didn't feel like playing golf. If you played, you could have taken part in the company tournament yourself and would not have been left behind.

"Tomorrow the manager is offering a big trophy and since the vice-president who is here from Tokyo is joining us in the competition, everybody will be there. In Japan you cannot do business without playing golf. An important deal is often made on the nineteenth hole-I mean in the club bar where one goes after finishing eighteen holes. In Tokyo I was often told by my chief to entertain our important customers in golf on Sundays, and sometimes we invited trade ministry officials for a game of golf-we not only paid their green fees and luncheon bills but lost bets on purpose."

"And the company reimbursed you later! Isn't that a form of bribery?" Alice interrupted.

"Yes, it is, almost. You know some of the ministry officials have authority to issue licenses to import and export many items and we've got to be on good terms with them."

Alice was disgusted with what her husband told her. Despite outward modernity, Japan was fettered with many feudalistic ideas, Alice concluded; she deprecated this Oriental practice of using a game of golf as a means of corrupting certain people.

Like most other young Japanese of the day, Saburo had never worn a hat, either formally or informally. Even after he came to London he did not bother to buy a bowler hat, as did some of his more senior colleagues. Nor had he ever before worn a cap while playing golf.

After his marriage to Alice, however, Saburo bought a broadbrimmed canvas hat and wore it on the golf course. Goto, one of his intimate colleagues, noticed this and made fun of him.

"Tanaka, I've never seen you wearing a hat before when playing golf. Has your marriage something to do with your change of mind?"

"Don't pull my leg, Goto."

"I'll tell you what. You don't want to look like a Nubian slave now that you've married a white girl. Isn't that it?"

Inwardly Saburo was always conscious of the color of his skin, which was in striking contrast to that of his wife and her own countrymen. When he went with Alice to Glasgow to see his future father- and mother-in-law, what was uppermost in Saburo's mind was his complection. Hence his pathetic effort not to get sunburnt on the golf course. Alice had never known this, or even suspected it. Nor would Saburo tell her about this secret of his for the rest of his life.

Some months after Alice's marriage to Saburo, Mrs. Takahashi, wife of the manager, invited her to a staff wives' tea at her West Kensington flat. Alice was granted a special leave from her work that afternoon.

The manager's apartment was quite sumptuous; it had been rented on a long lease to the company some years ago and was used not only as the successive managers' residence but also for certain official entertaining by the company.

Mrs. Takahashi, a woman in her late forties, was not wearing a kimono as she had at the Savoy that afternoon, but was in Western afternoon dress, as were the rest of the ladies. She had dignity and charm in her own way and seemed to be at home with Western manners. In fact, she had lived in Seattle and Bombay for several years with her husband.

As for the other ladies, some were quite young, or so they seemed to Alice. A few were barely twenty years of age. They behaved less naturally and were more self-conscious than Mrs. Takahashi. Alice was struck by their short stature. She had been used to the physical appearance of Japanese men, as she saw them every day in the office, but had never before met so many Japanese women. None looked shapely in European dresses. Alice observed that their short stature was accounted for by their rather short legs.

A few days later Alice heard from Saburo that there had been considerable discussion and argument among the wives as to what to wear that afternoon, especially since Alice Tanaka was going to be there. Finally Mrs. Iida, wife of the assistant manager, ascertained of Mrs. Takahashi what she herself was going to wear. Upon being told that the manager's wife was to be in Western dress, everybody else followed suit.

As Alice entered, Mrs. Takahashi greeted her in English.

"Mrs. Tanaka. I'm so glad you came. You have not met many of our wives since your wedding, I suppose.'

As she started introducing Alice to the rest of the crowd, nearly thirty ladies, all considerably younger than Mrs. Takahashi, stood up, and when the introductions were completed there was an awkward silence.

"How are you getting on in your new life? I hope you both are happy," Mrs. Takahashi asked kindly.

"Thank you, Mrs. Takahashi. We are gradually settling down," Alice replied. None of the ladies dared to speak but watched Alice intently. Another moment of awkward suspense followed.

"I hear you come from Glasgow, Mrs. Tanaka," Mrs. Takahashi asked, trying to get the conversation going.

"Yes, I was born and brought up in Glasgow. Have you ever been to Scotland, Mrs. Takahashi?" Alice responded.

"My husband took me to Scotland on a short holiday last summer and I thought the rolling moors were particularly enchanting."

All this time the ladies were stoically listening to the dialogue without any facial expressions. Alice had hoped that they would join in the conversation or start chatting freely among themselves. But no, the ladies were still watching gravely, as if the whole afternoon were devoted to a dialogue between the manager's wife and Alice.

By that time Mrs. Takahashi had exhausted her topics of conversation and she herself remained silent. Alice tried to break the ice and spoke to Mrs. lida, who sat next to Mrs. Takahashi and who was the wife of the number-two man in the office.

"How long have you been in London, Mrs. lida?"

At this sudden question from Alice, Mrs. Iida, slightly younger than Mrs. Takahashi, was embarrassed and at a loss for an immediate reply. When everybody else looked at her, Mrs. Iida became more confused and started chuckling. After a few moments of hesitation Mrs. Iida finally spoke.

"Yes, about three years," she said, bashfully and awkwardly.

"Don't you play golf like your husband, Mrs. Iida?" Alice tried somehow to continue.

"Yes, I don't play golf," was the curt reply. Alice had been so used to this Japanese usage of "yes" that she understood.

Then a couple of maids brought in tea and Mrs. Takahashi started pouring. Now everyone drank tea and partook of refreshments in rigid silence and the whole affair assumed the air of a wake.

Alice did not know until some years afterward that it was the presence of a foreign woman in their midst that had stilled and stifled the smooth flow of conversation. Japanese women by nature are quite as chatty as other women the world over. As a matter of fact, the Japanese ideograph for "talkative" or "boisterous" is composed of three characters meaning three women: the implication being that when three women get together they start talking like anything and are therefore noisy. Yet, in the presence of a foreigner, especially a Caucasian, the Japanese are stricken into awe and become extremely nervous. Too, when speaking in a foreign language they become so self-conscious that they prefer not to speak at all, if possible, rather than risk committing a mistake and thereby making laughingstocks of themselves.

That afternoon Alice left Mrs. Takahashi's party feeling exasperated and convinced that her Japanese colleagues were all a bunch of smiling doll-like beings, without individuality or initiative, who merely responded to their husbands' whims and desires.