The Ramen King and I (19 page)

“Mmm. Difficult if you’re not a Japanese journalist.”

My jaw tightened and I felt cold, even though my shirt was soaked with sweat. I hung up the phone, and for a few minutes I just stood on the sidewalk. There were several things I could have done next.

One was that I could have gone back to Nissin the following morning. I had gone back only once so far, and the man in
Ramen Discovery Legend
went back thirty times. I hadn’t even gotten on my hands and knees. Zen once told me a story about Masayoshi Son, the billionaire founder of Japan’s biggest software and Internet company, Softbank, who Zen said got his start thanks to similar persistence. According to Zen’s story, Son had no idea what to study in college, so without an appointment, he visited the office of Den Fujita (Zen’s favorite author) to ask for advice. Fujita’s secretary told Son that a meeting was out of the question, but Son returned every morning for thirty days (what was it about thirty days?), until finally Fujita noticed and asked his secretary about the kid who was always sitting on the steps outside. In the meeting, Fujita supposedly told Son, “Study computers.”

Another thing I could have done was to research the curse of Colonel Sanders. I had been intrigued by the supposed curse for years, and I thought of it right then because I was standing in front of a Kentucky Fried Chicken, and a life-size Colonel Sanders mannequin was staring at me from inside the restaurant. In the rest of Japan, KFCs proudly displayed their Colonel Sanders mannequins outside. But Osaka KFCs often kept their Colonels indoors. The reason was that after the Hanshin Tigers won the 1985 Japan Series (Japan’s World Series), ecstatic fans supposedly grabbed a Colonel from outside one of the restaurants and tossed him into Osaka’s Dotonbori Canal. According to those who believe in the curse, as long as the Colonel remains at the bottom of the polluted waterway, the Tigers will never again reign as champion.

(The Tigers reached the Japan Series in 2003 and again in 2005, and each time, fans reportedly dredged Dotonbori Canal. They failed to raise the Colonel, and both years the Tigers lost.)

I could have done either of those things, but in order to do them, I would have needed to be in control of myself. And when I got off the phone with Yamazaki, I was not in control. I went back into the hotel and packed my clothes and ramen comics, checked out, and walked to New Osaka Station. I reserved a seat on the bullet train to Tokyo. It’s amazing, looking back, that I knew exactly what to do to get what I wanted. “Wanted” is probably not the right word, though. Maybe “craved.” I knew where to go, which was Tokyo. I felt more comfortable in Tokyo. I knew my way around.

On the bullet train from Osaka, I tried to write to Ando about what was happening, but something else came out entirely. It was in the second person, and in capital letters.

The words scared me, even though I was writing them with my own hand. At the same time, they seemed familiar, like an old friend.

I
n 1948, a few days before Christmas, Ando hosted a farewell party for an American military official. The party was held at one of his downtown Osaka buildings and attended by several luminaries, including Bunzo Akama, the governor of Osaka. When the party was over, Ando walked out the back of the building. Just as he was about to get into his car, two American military police officers grabbed him, shoved him into their jeep, and drove off.

The Occupation government had filed charges against Ando for tax evasion. The problem, Ando claims in his autobiographies, was roughly fifty dollars a month that he paid the boys who made salt. Ando claimed that the money was akin to a scholarship and should not have been subject to income tax. Not persuaded by this argument, a judge gave Ando a choice. Leave Japan for good, or submit to four years’ hard labor.

Aided by a team of lawyers from Kyoto University, Ando counter-sued. While the legal battle dragged on, he was held in Tokyo at the U.S.-run Sugamo Prison. (General Hideki Tojo, who was later executed for war crimes, and future prime minister Nobusuke Kishi were also prisoners there.) Meanwhile, the Osaka tax authority took possession of Ando’s salt factory, all of his commercial real estate holdings, his home in Izumi-Otsu, the mountain in Hyogo Prefecture (where he was still making charcoal), and virtually every asset in his name, auctioning off most of them to the highest bidder.

Nevertheless, Ando insists in
Magic Noodles
that his treatment at the hands of the Americans was nothing like what he had endured in the Japanese military prison:

It took two years to work out a legal settlement in which Ando dropped his countersuit in return for his freedom and a clean record. After his release, he moved with his family to the house in Ikeda City, where he hoped to rebuild. But there was more hardship to come.

I
bought an iced green tea and a Korean-grilled beef bento box on the bullet train and read another episode in the comic book.

Sex—or sexual attraction, anyway—is an important theme in
Ramen Discovery Legend
. At first it’s expressed subtly, through an undercurrent of romantic tension between Fujimoto and the secretary, Ms. Sakura. They visit ramen shops together on lunch breaks, and when Ms. Sakura uses vacation time to accompany Fujimoto on a ramen research trip to Fukuoka Prefecture, coworkers gossip about her intentions. The sexuality gets more explicit when the character Kyoko is introduced. If you’re Ms. Sakura, Kyoko is your worst nightmare: a cute ramen freak drawn with impossibly large breasts. Kyoko has many ex-boyfriends, and she’s constantly showing up with a different one. “Another ex-boyfriend?” Ms. Sakura always thinks. Ms. Sakura is afraid Fujimoto might have a crush on Kyoko, but she has nothing to worry about. He’s in love with Ms. Sakura, and not tempted by Kyoko at all.

At Tokyo Station, I switched to the Yamanote Line. I got off at Ebisu Station. Why Ebisu? I know restaurants in Ebisu. I know bars in Ebisu. I feel powerful and desirable in Ebisu. Outside the station, I stood with my suitcase near a taxi stand while Japanese people jostled around me. Tokyo was not as hot as Osaka, but my clothes were already sticking to my skin. Across the street, I saw a sign running vertically along the side of a building.

The sign said HOTEL EXCELLENT.

It sounded like the setting for a Haruki Murakami short story, where behind the front desk there would be a talking goat, or something similar. I wheeled my suitcase across the street and rode an escalator to the Hotel Excellent’s second-floor entrance. The walls of the lobby were a beige shade of marble, and there was something Murakami-esque about the hotel, though I don’t remember any Murakami stories being set in a room with beige marble walls. Maybe the darkness of the lobby reminded me of the Gothic hallway at Princeton University where I met him, where he refused to explain the meaning of the woman who smelled her hand.

“Welcome to the Hotel Excellent,” the front desk clerk said.

“I’d like a room for one night.”

The clerk’s uniform was brown with gold buttons. The buttons made me think of the uniforms in the comic book series
Hotel
, in which the staff take their jobs very seriously and always solve guests’ problems. Like
Fantasy Island
, but indoors. I wondered if the clerk had read it.

“Certainly, sir.”

I dropped my suitcase in the room and walked back to Ebisu Station, where I jumped on one of the people movers. When I was a student at International Christian University, Ebisu Station was drab and quiet, but since then a fancy department store with a high-end food court had sprouted above the tracks. People movers now conveyed pedestrians to Ebisu Garden Place, an elaborate new shopping mall anchored by a Westin Hotel and a restaurant operated by the celebrated French chef Joël Robuchon. (His restaurant is housed in a full-scale replica of a French chalet.) In a gourmet grocery store that sold foreign wines and cheeses, I asked the man behind the counter for a taste of Bleu des Causses, and I was savoring its creamy, salty goodness when I noticed a woman in the shop. I say “noticed,” but I don’t think that at first I even saw her. It was more like I sensed her presence.

I turned to look. She wore a blue sweater and jeans, and her body reminded me of Kyoko’s in
Ramen Discovery Legend
. She was standing in front of a shelf labeled CALIFORNIA WINES. I didn’t have to think about what to say. I spoke in English because it would be less threatening. Tokyo is full of Japanese-speaking foreigners who approach beautiful women, and I didn’t want her to think that I was one of them, I guess because I was.

“Do you like California wines?”

She seemed surprised, but not uninterested.

“Are you Americans?” she asked.

Her English was good, not perfect.

“I’m from California.”

Her eyes lit up.

“Do you recommend?”

I recognized one of the labels from a winery I had visited in Napa Valley, and when I recommended it, she smiled and I asked her name. She told me it was Masako. She also told me that she had just been divorced, and that her married name had been Ando. It’s a common last name, but it was still quite a coincidence. I asked for her phone number and if she wanted to have dinner with me.

With Yamazaki everything was always difficult, but with the second Masako Ando it was not.

I didn’t have to think at all. I just knew what to do. I knew that I should wait a few hours before calling her. I knew that I should wear my black shirt. I knew that I should take her out to dinner at Kitchen Five, which I feel guilty about now because it had been a special place for Harue and me. The owner was a middle-aged woman who closed the restaurant every six months and traveled somewhere in the world, usually in the Mediterranean, where she would stay with a family or cook at a restaurant. After mastering regional dishes, she would return to Tokyo and add them to her menu at Kitchen Five. Harue and I used to linger after dessert, browsing photo albums from the owner’s culinary excursions.

The Kitchen Five owner always prepared all of her dishes in large serving trays, which she displayed at the counter as if she were hosting a potluck. Masako and I chose the lasagna, a lamb stew, and a stuffed artichoke. Over the course of the meal, I learned that Masako worked for a Japanese airline, but she made it clear that she was a ground-based agent, not a flight attendant. There was something in the way she said this that conveyed an image of herself as a runner-up. She was thirty-five and had grown up in Sapporo. Foreign men frequently asked her out.

“Do you think it’s my breasts?” she asked, matter-of-factly.

The bill came to nearly $150. I didn’t think about the money at all. Masako said she wanted to take me to her favorite bar, so after I paid the check at Kitchen Five, she hailed a taxi. She directed the driver, and when he stopped we were in an alley in a quiet residential neighborhood. I didn’t see any stores, or, for that matter, bars.

The taxi door flew open on its own, which surprised me because I hadn’t been in Japan for a while, and I had forgotten how taxi drivers always open the passenger’s door with a mechanical remote control. Outside the cab, Masako began walking toward what looked like someone’s home. When we got closer to the building, I saw a small sign above what might once have been a garage.

The sign said SOUL STATION in katakana.

I followed Masako Ando inside. Soul Station was a bar counter, a sofa, and a few chairs. The owner, a short forty-year-old with a shaved scalp, manned the bar. Behind him, three long shelves showed off his LP collection—all soul and rhythm and blues. He must have had two thousand records. We sat on stools at the counter, and Masako ordered a mojito, which she said was just becoming popular in Tokyo. I ordered one, too.

While mixing the drinks, the owner asked what kind of music I liked. I told him that I played the trombone, and he named some famous trombone players, mostly to show me that he knew them. J. J. Johnson, Kai Winding, Curtis Fuller.

“You like Fred Wesley?” he asked.

I told him that, yes, I liked Fred Wesley, and I tried not to think about the trombone striptease. The bartender served the mojitos in tall, thin glasses.

“Kampai,”
I said, lifting my glass.

“Kampai!”
Masako echoed. Then she asked a question.
“Ne . . . nan de Ando Momofuku ni aitai no?”

I had told Masako over dinner that I wanted to meet Ando, and now she was asking why. Zen had asked the same question. When Masako asked it, though, I felt close to her, and even without kissing her, I imagined a future in which I moved to Japan and she worked at the airport and I did translating or some other job in Tokyo and we got married and ate at lots of nice restaurants. The bar owner grabbed an album from his shelf, sliding the disk onto his turntable. The album was
Pass the Peas: Best of the J.B.’s,
and the title track started with someone (Fred Wesley?) posing a question to organist Bobby Byrd.