ten-story cylindrical building (with the obligatory giant television screen on top), and it has the much fancier name of Le Cafe Doutor. Oui-
The sun is setting on Ginza. Some folks are getting off work and heading with their colleagues and bosses to an izakaya or karaoke box for some heavy drinking and awkward flirting, and the evening shopping traffic is peaking. On the street, the distinct and theatrical sound of classical music wafts through the air, and looking up ahead, we see that a small group of people have gathered in a semicircle around a gentleman with his head down as he sways to the Mozart erupting around him.
As we approach, we can see that the man everyone is watching with such fascination is actually operating a two-foot marionette dressed in a tuxedo and playing a violin, with dramatic wisps of gray hair sprouting from his head and making him look like a two-foot Strauss. We stop and watch for a few minutes, enjoying the bizarre sophistication of standing on an opulent shopping street and being serenaded on the violin by a puppet.
We continue on and huddle into le cafe, order some coffees, and sit down by a window, where we can enjoy our illuminating conversation while still being able to see people narrowly avoid slamming their Matsuya or Mitsukoshi shopping bags into each other outside.
We ease into the English part of the chat, with Kenji asking me what I think about our bucho, or Japanese boss, at the school. I reply that he seems really nice and always wears cool ties. Midori says she hates having to go drinking with him and all the other Japanese staff because he always drinks too much and starts hugging everyone. And sweating.
We talk about a variety of things for the next forty-five minutes: the popularity of the Seattle Mariners’ Japanese outfielder Ichiro, the Japanese love of comics, scuba diving. We’ve just switched over to Japanese and started talking about hot tea when I see
She wears a pink silk kimono embossed with cherry blossoms, and she walks in traditional Japanese wooden sandals that look about as accommodating and comfortable as slabs of concrete. She walks up to the counter with the clipped, restricted stride typical of women wrapped in kimono. The skin of her face is a shock of white next to her pitch-black hair and eyebrows. Her lips are painted crimson in the middle, while the sides of both lips remain light pink, eventually fading into the powder white of her cheeks. She looks to be about sixty.
She is the personification of Japanese grace and dignity: a vision of beauty, of an aging sensuality, of an over- the-top willingness to be physically uncomfortable that is so unique to Japan. I struggle trying to watch her while also keeping up with our Japanese conversation as it veers towards the topic of coffee and then to a hard-to-follow (for me) debate about the merits of hot drinks over cold drinks during winter and summer.
At the counter, the lady smiles brightly with her whole face, nodding and bowing slightly as she gives her order to the employee. I watch as she takes out her small pink money purse with her gloved hands, produces some coins, and offers them gingerly to the cashier.
I know it’s time for me to put my two cents’ worth into the conversation since I haven’t said a whole lot since we’d switched to Japanese, so I offer a perfunctory remark.
“Cold drink good and but better than your hot drink for my summer.”
Kenji and Midori nod at me and smile, wondering what I’ve just said, but my gaze quickly turns back to that of the regal lady, who is now bringing her tray towards us. There is an empty table next to us by the window, and she is headed straight for it, this vision in pink silk. I wonder what she smells like. Flowers? Jasmine tea? Bubble gum?
She sits down, and I notice she has a cup of Japanese green tea and a miniature brass pitcher on her tray. She takes a tiny spoon from the tray and stirs the cup before bringing it to her lips for the briefest of tastes and then replacing it on its saucer. Afterwards she puts her hands together with her elbows on the table and gazes out into the Ginza street traffic.
I am so in awe that I haven’t even realized that Kenji has asked me a question.
“Tim-san! Are you OK?”
“Oh, sorry,” I reply in Japanese. “I watched that woman drinking her tea. She’s very beautiful.”
Kenji and Midori smile a little uncomfortably, and I quickly realize why. We are speaking Japanese, and though it would have been our own secret language had we been at a cafe in, say, Boise or Cairo, here it is far from a secret language, and everyone has understood what I just said. I’ve been so used to being able to say whatever I want wherever I want without worrying about the natives understanding me, it’s become second nature to just blurt it all out without thinking. Also, I think I’d spoken a little too loudly, as if I were addressing the audience at a pep rally, say.
I look over at the woman, who is still gazing out into the street. If she heard me, she has given no indication. Returning to our Japanese conversation, I apologize to my fellow conversationalists and ask if they’ve seen any good movies recently.
Midori launches into a rave about a movie that she saw the other day on DVD,
I return my gaze to our table and see Kenji, who generally prefers the more straightforward movie fare offered by your Arnold Schwarzeneggers and Bruce Willises, furrowing his brow at Midori’s explanation of the movie, which, if I hadn’t seen the movie myself, would’ve had me on the floor swimming the back-stroke, as it’s well beyond the limits of my understanding of the Japanese language.
Then we hear a dirty, low-pitched giggle coming from the next table. Midori stops talking. I look over at the woman drinking her tea. She sits like she’s been sitting for some time now, smiling serenely and stirring her tea. She does not have the appearance of someone who has just sniggered like she’s been told a really good blonde joke. Midori continues in Japanese.
“And the brown-haired woman has sex with John Malkovich, but actually, she is having sex with Cameron Diaz because she’s inside his head,” she explains. (I’m assuming, here.) I have never seen Kenji look so conflicted. He is suspended between the erotic curiosity straight men the world over exhibit when hearing about sex with two women involved, and frustration that none of this shit makes any sense.
Then there’s another giggle from the next table, this one more guttural and phlegm-shifting. Again we look over, and again the woman is stirring her tea, although this time a little more urgently. Her expression is now more an amused smirk than a smile of placid contentment, and she is nodding her head defiantly. She begins mumbling to herself as she clinks her teaspoon against her porcelain cup.
“And, um,” Midori continues in Japanese, “then Cameron Diaz falls out of the sky and onto the side of the road in New Jersey…”
“And her husband and she start fighting when he finds out she was in John Malkovich’s head, and…”
“Can we switch to English for a minute?” I interrupt, in English.
“OK,” Midori concedes.
“What is she saying? Can you hear her?”
Midori, who has been doing her level best to ignore the woman next to us, looks at Kenji, and they both smile sheepishly.
“I can’t hear everything she say,” Kenji begins, “but I hear her say something about, how do you say…shit of dogs?”
“Oh, I see, dogshit,” I reply. “What do you think she means? Is someone eating dogshit?” I look eagerly from Kenji to Midori and back to Kenji again.
There’s a bit of a pause while Midori and Kenji decide without speaking who will do the explaining. All the while the woman continues her rant, her laugh upgraded to a cackle.
“She say she, um, gonna make someone to eat the dogshit,” Midori says, warming to the subject, definitely not bored anymore.
“Uh-huh,” I nod sagely. “Do you know why? Did she give a reason?”
“I can’t be sure,” Kenji begins, also getting a kick out of our dirty topic, “but I think I hear her say a few names.