Amélie Nothomb: Fear and Trembling

YUMIMOTO WAS ONE of the largest corporations in the Japanese business universe. The Import-Export Division, as far as I could tell, bought and sold everything on the face of the entire planet.

Yumimoto’s import-export catalog was truly titanic: from Finnish Emmental to Singaporean soda, by way of Canadian optical fibers, French tires, and Togoan jute. Nothing escaped its grasp.

The money involved exceeded human comprehension. After a given accumulation of zeroes, the sums left the realm of recognizable numbers and entered into that of abstract art. I wondered whether in the heart of this company lived some creature that rejoiced at making a hundred million yen, or mourned losing an equivalent amount.

Yumimoto’s employees, like these zeroes, were of value only in relation to the other employees. All, that is, except me, who didn’t even have the value of a zero.

The days passed and I still didn’t have anything much to do. I was not greatly bothered by this. Being forgotten was not an unpleasant feeling. I sat at my desk, reading and re-reading the documents Fubuki had given me. They were prodigiously uninteresting, with the exception of one, which listed all Import-Export employees—their last names, first names, dates and places of birth, names of spouse if they had one, and of their children, with dates of birth.

There was nothing fascinating about these facts in and of themselves. But when you are very hungry the tiniest crust of bread is a feast. In the starved state in which my brain found itself, the list seemed as juicy as a gossip magazine. It was also the only document that I understood.

To appear as if I were working, I decided to memorize the list by heart. There were about a hundred names. Most employees were married with children; this made my task more of a challenge.

I worked at it, bending my head over the material, then raising it so that I could commit it all to memory. When I looked up, my gaze always landed on Fubuki’s face opposite me.

MISTER SAITO STOPPED asking me to write letters to Adam Johnson—or to anyone else. He didn’t ask me to do anything, actually, except bring him cups of coffee.

Nothing could be more normal when beginning a career in a Japanese company than starting with the ôchakumi —“the honorable function of making tea.” I took this role all the more seriously because it was the only one I had.

I soon knew everyone’s drinking habits: for Mister Saito, a cup of black coffee at exactly eight-thirty; for Mister Unaji, regular coffee with two spoonfuls of sugar at ten o’clock; for Mister Mizuno, a mug of cocoa on the hour; for Mister Okada, a cup of English tea with a hint of cloud of milk at five o’clock; and for Fubuki, a cup of green tea at nine o’clock, black coffee at noon, a second cup of green tea at three, and a last cup of black coffee at five. She thanked me each time with charming courtesy.

THIS HUMBLE TASK turned out to be the first instrument of my downfall at Yumimoto.

One morning, Mister Saito informed me that the vice-president was receiving an important delegation from a sister company in his office.

“Coffee for twenty people.”

I entered Mister Omochi’s office carrying a large tray, and performed to perfection. I served each cup with studied humility, incanting the most refined phrases in current usage, lowering my eyes, and bowing. If there were such a thing as an ôchakumi Order of Merit, it would have been awarded to me.

The delegation left several hours later. The voice of the enormously fat Mister Omochi thundered.

“SAITO-SAN!”

Mister Saito leaped to his feet, turned white, and trotted into the vice-president’s lair. The Obese One’s bellowings reverberated on the other side of the wall. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but it didn’t sound like anything pleasant.

Mister Saito returned, his face ashen. I felt a rush of tenderness for him, thinking that the poor man was only a third the weight of his aggressor. He called for me, furiously.

I followed him to an empty office. His anger made him stammer.

“You have thoroughly antagonized the delegation from our sister company! You served the coffee using phrases that suggested you speak Japanese absolutely perfectly!”

“I don’t speak it all that badly, Saito-san.”

“Be quiet! Why do you believe you can defend yourself? Mister Omochi is very angry. You created the most appalling tension in the meeting this morning. How could our business partners have any feeling of trust in the presence of a white girl who understood their language? From now on you will no longer speak Japanese.”

I was dumbfounded.

“I beg your pardon?”

“You no longer know how to speak Japanese. Is this clear?”

“But—it was because of my knowledge of your language that I was hired by Yumimoto!”

“That doesn’t matter. I am ordering you not to understand Japanese anymore.”

“That’s impossible. No one could obey an order like that.”

“There is always a means of obeying. That’s what Western brains need to understand.”

Now, we’re getting to it, I thought.

“Perhaps the Japanese brain is capable of forcing itself to forget a language. The Western brain doesn’t have that facility.”

This absurd argument seemed admissible to Mister Saito.

“Try all the same. Pretend. I have been given orders. Do you understand?”

When I returned to my desk, my face must have been wearing a strange expression because Fubuki looked at me with tender concern. I sat quietly for a long time, wondering what I should do.

Quitting would have been the most logical thing. And yet I could not quite resign myself to this idea. To Western eyes, there would have been nothing ignominious in this; to Japanese eyes, it meant losing face. I had been at Yumimoto barely a month, but I had signed a year’s contract. Leaving after so short a time would have brought disgrace on me—in their eyes as well as in my own.

Besides, I had absolutely no desire to leave. I had gone to some trouble to get a job at this company: I had studied Tokyo’s business terminology, I had taken language tests. Granted, becoming a leading light in international commerce was never my life’s ambition, but I had always had a yearning to live in the country I had worshiped since early childhood.

I would stay.

I therefore had to find a way of obeying Mister Saito’s order. I probed my brain in search of a layer favorable to amnesia. Were there any oubliette cells in my neuronal fortress? Alas, the edifice had its strengths and weaknesses, its watchtowers and sculleries, but nothing that would accommodate permanently entombing a language I heard spoken around me all the time.

Could I pretend to forget? If languages were a forest, would I be able to hide behind the French beeches, the English limes, the Latin oaks, the Greek olive trees—and of course the towering Japanese Cryptomeria cedars (whose name now seemed perfectly suited)?

Mori, Fubuki’s patronym, meant “forest.” Perhaps that was why, at that very moment, I was looking at her helplessly. I realized that she was still watching me, an inquisitive look in her eye.

She stood up and beckoned me to follow her to the kitchen. I slumped into a chair.

“What did he say to you?” she asked.

I poured my heart out. My voice was convulsed with emotion, I was on the brink of tears. I could no longer hold back what was building up inside me.

“I hate Mister Saito! He’s a bastard and an idiot.”

Fubuki smiled slightly.

“No. You’re wrong.”

“ You can say that because you are kind. You don’t see any harm. But, I mean, giving me an order like that, he’d have to be some kind of…”