Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

When our family arrived in the United States, the exchange rate was 360 yen to the dollar, and Japan’s per capita GDP was not much more than a third of America’s. By the time Azuma entered our life, though the exchange rate remained the same, the GDP at home had shot up to about a half. Still, it was costly to send someone to the States for an extended period of time, so candidates—and this applied to technicians too—were chosen with great care. They were literally the chosen few. They had to be hardworking, highly skilled, able to speak some English; they also had to be flexible enough to get on with a small team of people and tough enough to cope with the challenges of living abroad for years, not returning home even when a parent died or their house burned down. Even though camera sales were booming in the States and my father’s outfit needed extra hands, to the head office, hiring a man off the street must have seemed a risky gamble. I imagine my father had had to be persuasive, arguing that Azuma would work for little more than half the others’ salary, that he already knew the language and was used to living in America. No wonder he thought he was doing Azuma an enormous favor.

In point of fact, it was the company that benefited most by hiring him.

There are lots of people who are intelligent but physically clumsy. Azuma was not one of them. His intelligence coincided with nimble fingers. Someone once told me, to my amazement, that back in Japan you spent your first six months in the factory doing nothing but polishing lenses under the scrutiny of more experienced workers. In America, that was a luxury the company couldn’t afford: Azuma was given one task after another, which undoubtedly worked out to his advantage. No one expected him to be able to do more than the easiest of repairs in the beginning, but before his first year was over, he was handy at most of the jobs his colleagues did. The rumor was that Taro Azuma must have had some previous experience.

One day, I heard my parents talking.

“That guy never breathes a word about it himself, but everyone at work figures he must have been some kind of mechanic back in Japan. A real beginner could never catch on so quickly.”

“Well, if that’s the case, why doesn’t he say so?”

“I guess he doesn’t want to talk about it.”

“You mean he doesn’t want people to know he was a mechanic?”

“I don’t know. It’s more like he wants to forget everything that happened to him back home.”

STILL, WHAT ASTONISHED the other employees most was the passion with which Azuma devoted himself to learning English, a language that presents a huge challenge to Japanese people. That Azuma’s English was better than theirs was only natural: he had the advantage of coming to the States while young, and he had lived with an American family. But the effort he put into trying to get a grasp of the language—single-mindedly, not caring in the slightest what other people thought—went even beyond my father’s expectations. During his work hours he listened to American radio stations with an earphone, silently mouthing new words and phrases. At lunchtime, he did homework for the night classes he took. My father encouraged everyone to enroll in these classes, which the city of New York provided for recent immigrants and illiterate adults, and he gave his staff permission to leave early for that purpose; but it was Azuma, the least important of them and the least required to know English, who attended them the most assiduously. Eventually he became the man of choice when English was needed—not only to negotiate on the telephone but also to handle correspondence, though once in a while he would ask my father to check the wording.

“His English is becoming the real thing. No wonder—he’s worked so hard at it. Those guys in the export office back in Tokyo could learn a thing or two from him.”

My father admired him—to my disadvantage. His admiration sounded like a reproach, for I was still down on the language and spent every spare moment reading novels in Japanese. Fortunately, it didn’t occur to him to compare his own spoiled daughters with someone like Azuma.

“Didn’t Nanae have some kind of vocabulary cards she used to study with?” he asked.

“Yes, you mean the flash cards .”

“That’s right. Are they still in the house? Or did she take them with her to Boston?”

“No, they’re still up in her room.”

Nanae’s room was on the third floor.

“Run up and get them for me, would you? Maybe he could use them.”

The Nanae I knew was unwilling to let go of even a handkerchief if it had any memory attached to it, and I could just imagine her pouting in protest, as I’d so often seen her do when younger.

“Don’t you think he’d prefer some new ones, Papa?”

“I don’t want him spending money if he doesn’t have to. He won’t mind that they’re used.” Then, turning to my mother, he said, “He’s going to go far, that boy. The company got a good deal.”

AZUMA KEPT HIS distance from people.

“He is a bit weird, that one,” Mrs. Cohen told us matter-of-factly.

We got all our office gossip from this Japanese woman, who wore her brownish hair in a short bob, and who was my father’s secretary and bookkeeper. She was a local hire, since no Japanese company would consider sending female employees abroad.

If I were to describe Mrs. Cohen, I would have to say that she was a woman of uncomplicated feelings. She was blissfully lacking in introspection, though I wasn’t old enough to phrase it quite like that. Only later did I realize that it was not a crime to describe others in such terms, and that the world is full of people—good people—just like them. But back then, feeling that she was someone with whom I had nothing in common made me uncomfortable, without my being able to say quite why. She was quick-witted, had a friendly personality, and I enjoyed listening to her talk, which made me all the more guilty about the way I felt when I was with her.

Human relationships are often asymmetrical, and Mrs. Cohen rarely felt that kind of awkwardness, I imagine. As a young woman, she had moved from her hometown in Tohoku to Tokyo and was working as a typist of documents in English—one of the most sought-after jobs for young women then—when she met a Jewish businessman, an American who loved Japan; the two got married and then moved to the States. I suppose she found my family easy to be with because, like her, we sensed our ties to Japan losing their hold on us. She lived nearby and often dropped in on weekends, saying, “Dave took the boys ice-skating this afternoon” or something. She would find herself a seat on the sofa and chat with my father for an hour or so, a cigarette in her hand at all times, her nails neatly manicured and painted bright red, though otherwise her appearance was quite casual. The two of them talked about subjects that were off-limits at the office.

I couldn’t tell how much they actually had in common—my mother claimed she wasn’t at all his type—but they never ran out of things to say.

“That’s the problem with the managers in Japan.”

“They haven’t a clue what’s going on over here. It’s a mess.”

“You’re so right, Mr. Mizumura.”

No matter what my father said about the head office in Tokyo, she always agreed with him, encouraging him to carry on happily. “You’d never guess that she’s the daughter of a fishing boss up north,” my mother would whisper to me, for Mrs. Cohen was indeed the image of a modern working woman, puffing cigarettes and talking straight. She even managed her own stocks. Apparently, she worked because she enjoyed it, not because she needed to supplement the family income. She probably also wanted to stay in touch with things Japanese and speak in her own language, however much she liked complaining about Japan and its people. Her two sons were still young; she had a black housekeeper come in each morning.