John Updike - Rabbit At Rest

Mr. Shimada is proud of this up-to-date analogy and of his unanswerable command of English. He smiles to himself and opens, with a double snap as startling as a gunshot, his briefcase. From it he takes a single sheet of stiff creamy paper, sparsely decorated with typed figures. "According to figures here, between November '88 and May '89 Springer Motors fail to report sale of nine Toyota vehicles totarring one hundred thirty-seven thousand four hundred at factory price. This sum accumurating interest come to as of this date one hundred forty-five thousand eight hundred." With one of his reflexive, half-suppressed bows, he hands the paper across the desk.

Harry covers it with his big hand and says, "Yeah, well, but it's accountants we hired reported all this to you. It's not as if Springer Motors as a company is trying to cheat anybody. It's a screwy – an unusual – situation that developed and that's being corrected. My son had a drug problem and hired a bad egg as chief accountant and together they ripped us all off. The Brewer Trust, too, in another scam – they had a dead mutual friend buying cars, would you believe it? But listen: my wife and I – technically she's the owner here – we have every intention of paying Mid-Atlantic Toyota back every penny we owe. And I'd like to see, sometime, how you're computing that interest."

Mr. Shimada leans back a bit and makes his briefest speech. "How soon?"

Harry takes a plunge. "End of August." Three weeks away. They might have to take out a bank loan, and Brewer Trust is already on their case. Well, let Janice's accountants work it out if they're so smart.

Mr. Shimada blinks, behind those lenses embedded in his flat face, and seems to nod in concord. "End of August. Interest computed at twelve per cent monthly compounded as in standard TMCC loan." He snaps shut his briefcase and balances it on its edge beside his chair. He gazes obliquely at the framed photographs on Harry's desk: Janice, when she still had bangs, in a spangly long dress three or four years ago, about to go off to the Valhalla Village New Year's Eve party, a flashlit color print Fern Drechsel took with a Nikkomat Bernie had just given her for a Hanukkah present and that came out surprisingly well, Janice's face in anticipation of the party looking younger than her years, a bit overexposed and out of focus and starry-eyed; Nelson's highschool graduation picture, in a blazer and necktie but his hair down to his shoulders, long as a girl's; and, left over from Nelson's tenure at this desk, a framed black-and-white posed school photo of Harry in his basketball uniform, holding the ball above his shining right shoulder as if to get off a shot, his hair crewcut, his eyes sleepy, his tank top stencilled MJ.

Mr. Shimada's less upright posture in the chair indicates a new, less formal level of discourse. "Young people now most interesting," he decides to say. "Not scared of starving as through most human history. Not scared of atom bomb as until recently. But scared of something – not happy. In Japan, too. Brue jeans, rock music not make happiness enough. In former times, in Japan, very simple things make men happy. Moonright on fish pond at certain moment. Cricket singing in bamboo grove. Very small things bring very great feering. Japan a rittle ireand country, must make do with very near nothing. Not rike endless China, not rike U.S. No oiru wells, no great spaces. We have only our people, their disciprine. Riving now five years in Carifornia, it disappoints me, the rack of disciprine in people of America. Many good qualities, of course. Good tennis, good hearts. Roads of fun. I have many most dear American friends. Always they aporogize to me for Japanese internment camps in Frankrin Roosevelt days. Always I say to them, surprised, `Was war!' In war, people need disciprine. Not just in war. Peace a kind of war also. We fight now not Americans and British but Nissan, Honda, Ford. Toyota agency must be a prace of disciprine, a prace of order."

Harry feels he must interrupt, he doesn't like the trend of this monologue. "We think this agency is. Sales have been up eight per cent this summer, bucking the national trend. I'm always saying to people, `Toyota's been good to us, and we've been good to Toyota."'

"No more, sorry," Mr. Shimada says simply, and resumes: "In United States, is fascinating for me, struggle between order and freedom. Everybody mention freedom, all papers terevision anchor people everybody. Much rove and talk of freedom. Skateboarders want freedom to use beach boardwalks and knock down poor old people. Brack men with radios want freedom to selfexpress with super jumbo noise. Men want freedom to have guns and shoot others on freeways in random sport. In Carifornia, dog shit much surprise me. Everywhere, dog shit, dogs must have important freedom to shit everywhere. Dog freedom more important than crean grass and cement pavement. In U.S., Toyota company hope to make ireands of order in ocean of freedom. Hope to strike proper barance between needs of outer world and needs of inner being, between what in Japan we call giri and ninjó." He leans forward and, with a flash of wide white cuff, taps the page of figures on Harry's desk. "Too much disorder. Too much dog shit. Pay by end of August, no prosecution for criminal activities. But no more Toyota franchise at Singer Motors."

"Springer," Harry says automatically. "Listen," he pleads. "No one feels worse about my son's falling apart than I do."

Now it is Mr. Shimada who interrupts; his own speech, with whatever beautiful shadows in Japanese it was forming in his mind, has whipped him up. "Not just son," he says. "Who is father and mother of such son? Where are they? In Frorida, enjoying sunshine and tennis, while young boy prays games with autos. Nelson Ank-a-stom too much a boy still to be managing Toyota agency. He roses face for Toyota company." This statement tugs his flat lips far down, in a pop-eyed scowl.

Hopelessly Harry argues, "You want the sales staff young, to attract the young customers. Nelson'll be thirty-three in a couple months." He thinks it would be a waste of breath, and maybe offensive, to explain to Mr. Shimada that at that same age Jesus Christ was old enough to be crucified and redeem mankind. He makes a final plea: "You'll lose all the good will. For thirty years the people of Brewer have known where to come to buy Toyotas. Out here right on Route One One One."

"No more," Mr. Shimada states. "Too much dog shit, Mr. Ank-strom." His third try and he almost has it. You got to hand it to them. "Toyota does not enjoy bad games prayed with its ploduct." He picks up his slim briefcase and stands. "You keep invoice. Many more papers to arrive. Most preasant if regretful visit, and good talk on topics of general interest. Perhaps you would be kind to discuss with rimo driver best way to find Route Four Two Two. Mr. Krauss has agency there."

"You're going to see Rudy? He used to work here. I taught him all he knows."

Mr. Shimada has stiffened, in that faintly striped smoky-blue suit. "Good teacher not always good parent."

"If Rudy's going to be the only Toyota in town, he ought to get rid of Mazda. That Wankel engine never really worked out. Too much like a squirrel cage."

Harry feels lightheaded, now that the ax has fallen. Anticipation is the worst; letting go has its pleasant side. "Good luck with Lexus, by the way," he says. "People don't think luxury when they think Toyota, but things can change."

"Things change," says Mr. Shimada. "Is world's sad secret." Out in the showroom, he asks, "Rovely rady?" Elvira with her clicking brisk walk traverses the showroom floor, her earrings doing a dance along the points of her jaw. Their visitor asks, "Could prease have business card, in case of future reference?" She digs one out of her suit pocket, and Mr. Shimada accepts it, studies it seriously, bows with his hands at his side, and then, to strike a jocular American note, imitates a tennis backhand.