Paul Theroux - The Great Railway Bazaar

'A fire was reported on the line,' he said. 'Computer gets information. Computer corrects mistake. We hope it will not happen again.' He gave me a pamphlet explaining the computer that regulates the high-speed trains. 'It is all here.'

'May I ask you another question?'

'So.' He closed his eyes and smiled.

'Sometimes Japanese trains stop for thirty seconds at a station. That's not very long. Do you ever have any accidents?'

'We do not keep a record of such accidents,' he said. 'I can say there are not many. Coffee?'

'Thank you.' A cup of coffee was placed at my elbow by a lady pushing a coffee trolley. She made a slight bow and wheeled to the next desk. We were in a large office, holding perhaps fifty desks, where men and women sat processing stacks of paper. 'But what about the passengers,' I said. 'Do they mind all this jumping on and off? They have to be so quick!'

'Japanese people are quick, I think,' he said.

'Yes, but they cooperate, too.'

'Passengers cooperate to make the trains normal. It is Japanese nature to cooperate.'

'In other countries passengers might want more than forty-five seconds at a major station.'

'Ah! Then the trains are slow!'

'Right, right, but why is it – '

As I spoke, orchestral music filled the large office. From my experience on Japanese railways I knew an announcement was coming. But there was no announcement immediately; the music played, loud and a bit off-key.

'You were saying?'

'I forgot my question,' I said. The music went on. I wondered how anyone could work in a place where this sound was so loud. I looked around. No one was working. Each clerk had put his pencil down and had risen. Now the voice came over the loudspeaker, first seeming to explain and then speaking in the familiar singsong of the exercise leader. The office workers began to swing their arms, sighting along their forearms, doing semaphore; then they swayed, bending at the waist; then they did little balletic jumps. The female voice on the loudspeaker was naming the calisthenics, the patter that goes, 'Now here's one to make the blood flow in that aching neck. Twist around… two… three… four. And again, two… three… four…'

It was a few minutes past three. So every day this happened! No shirking, either: the clerks were really going to town, doing deep knee-bends and jaunty arm-flutters. The effect was that of a scene in a musical in which an entire unembarrassed office gets to its feet and begins high-stepping among the filing cabinets.

'You're missing your exercises.'

'It is all right.'

The phone rang on the next desk. I wondered how they'd handle it. A head-wagging woman answered it, stopped wagging her head, muttered something, then hung up. She resumed her wagging.

'Any more questions?'

I said no. I thanked him and left. And now he joined the others in the office. He stretched out his arms and reached to the right, two-three-four; then to the left, two-three-four. All over the country, instruments were commanding the Japanese to act. The Japanese had made these instruments, given them voices, and put them in charge. Now, obeying the lights and the sound, the Japanese aspired to them, flexing their little muscles, kicking their little feet, wagging their little heads, like flawed clockwork toys performing for a powerful unforgiving machine that would one day wear them out.

At its eastern limit the Trans-Siberian Express is a stale-smelling Russian ship that sails two or three times a month out of the dust-storm smog of Yokohama, through the windy Tsugaru Straits and the Sea of Japan – in whose bucking currents whole blizzards vanish – to Nakhodka, in freezing Primorsk, a stone's throw from Vladivostok. It is the only way west to Nakhodka, the pneumonia route through gales to the rail head. Like the train, the ship follows Soviet custom: it is riddled with class distinctions so subtle, it takes a trained Marxist to appreciate them. I was in a four-berth cabin at the waterline, one of the subclassifications of 'Hard Class' (a truer description than the other class Intourist advertises as 'Soft'). Bruce and Jeff, the Australians in the upper bunks, were nervous about going to Siberia. Anders, a young Swede, carbuncular, with one of those unthawed Scandinavian faces that speaks of sexual smugness and a famished imagination, was in the bunk opposite. He listened to the Australians, and when he said, 'Hey, I hear it's cold in Siberia,' I knew it would be a rough crossing.

By late afternoon on the first day the coastline of Honshu was snowy and we were entering the straits. Already the bow and foredeck of the Khabarovsk were sealed in blue ice. Apart from the occasional lighthouse and a few rusty trawlers pitching wildly in the strong current, there were no signs of life. The shore and the mountains behind it were bleak. 'That is Osorayama,' said one of the Japanese students, motioning to a mountain. 'There are demons who live on the top. So people never go near here.' The Japanese stood at the rail, snapping pictures of this bewitched place. They took turns photographing each other, holding a little slate with the date, time, and place chalked on it: the poses were always the same, but the information on the slate altered rapidly. They were mostly students; some were tourists. There were a score of them, and they were going everywhere, but only one spoke English. The sociologist on his way to the Sorbonne did not speak French, nor did the man on his way to the Max Planck Institute speak German. They had phrase books. These they thumbed continually. But the phrase books weren't much help in conversation. They had been compiled by fastidious Japanese and contained such Japanese sentences as 'The room does not suit me!' in German, English, Italian, French, and Russian.

I took New Grub Street to the bar, but there were interruptions: Japanese students drew up chairs and sat in a circle, holding their phrase books like choristers with hymnals, inquiring about the price of a room in London; an American couple wanted to know what I was reading; and there was Jeff, the older Australian, on his way to Germany. Jeff had three days' growth of beard and he habitually wore a beret to cover his baldness. He hated the ship, but he was hopeful.

'Ever been on a ship like this?' he asked.

I said no.

'Listen, I had a friend who was on a ship like this. He was going from Sydney to Hong Kong, I think. He said everyone was very nice when they got on board, but as soon as they were at sea they started going crazy. You know what I mean? Doing things they didn't normally do.' He leered. 'Kind of losing their marbles.'

That night there was a film about Minsk in the lounge. Jeff went and later described it to me. It depicted Minsk as a sunny city of fashion shows and football games, and closed with detailed shots of a steel mill. Afterwards the Russian stewards got their instruments and organized a dance, but it was poorly attended. Two Yugoslav shipping officials danced with the librarians from Adelaide; the American danced with his wife; the Japanese watched, clutching their phrase books.

'Anyone lose his marbles?' I asked.

'This is no voyage,' said Jeff. 'This is like a Sunday-school outing. If you ask me, I think it's because the Russians are in charge.'

The bartender, a muscular blonde lady in pink ankle socks, listened to Jeff's complaint. She said, 'You don't like?'

'I like,' said Jeff. 'It's just that I'm not used to it.'

Nikola, the Yugoslav, joined us. He said he'd had a wonderful time at the dance. He wanted to know the name of the shorter librarian. He said, 'I'm divorced -ha, ha!'