“What does your father do?”
Bellinger smiled wryly. “He’s an accountant. And my mother’s a teacher. Two rocks of Gibraltar. They don’t understand people who live creative lives.”
We both sat in silence, sipping our drinks, while I thought about what he had told me. It was the age-old dilemma of youthful dreams and parental expectation. “Nick,” I said, “your father may seem narrow-minded or misguided, but he only wants what’s best for you.”
Bellinger looked up at me, surprised. “Do you think I should go to law school or business school? I think I would die if I did.”
“I have no opinion on your actual path. I am only saying that your father is not speaking out of selfishness, but rather out of genuine concern for your future.”
“My future will be fine,” Bellinger insisted, “as long as I do what I really want to do. As you said yourself, I’m not doing badly. I mean, I’m twenty-nine and I have three small films under my belt, plus more than a book’s worth of articles.”
“I don’t doubt your talents or your dreams, Mr. Bellinger. I am merely stating that your parents know more than you think. And if they want something for you, no matter how disagreeable it seems, there is usually good reason.”
He stared at me in disbelief. “But Mr. Nakayama, did you always do what your family wanted? From what I’ve read, your father was a government official, a very important man. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would have approved of his son becoming an actor.”
“My father’s opinions always carried great weight, but no, he would not have approved of my choices. And in some ways, you see, he was actually correct. After all, my career was finished by the time I was thirty.” I paused, fearing that I sounded too harsh. “I am not suggesting that you blindly follow the path your father proscribes. I just think you should respect his opinion. If you act without your family’s best interest in mind, you will at some point question the wisdom of your choices.”
Bellinger nodded thoughtfully, but I could see that I had given him no comfort. And so, somewhat awkwardly, we resumed talking about his screenplay, and arranged for it to be delivered to my town house.
Of course, Bellinger had been correct about my father. He wouldn’t have approved of my becoming an actor, although to my great sorrow—and relief—he didn’t live to see it happen. My father tried to understand his son’s unusual notions about the world, but he was of an older generation, one still steeped in tradition, with strict ideas of tasteful behavior and legitimate careers. He could not have fathomed the allure of such a frivolous occupation; he hardly understood my interest in the world outside Japan. This lack of understanding was most clearly apparent when I decided to come to college in the United States.
I was sixteen years old, an age that seems much more childish here in America than it did in Japan, where a boy of sixteen has already contributed several years of labor to the family farm or business. Because I was always an exceptional student, I had already completed secondary school—and because my school was run by a Catholic mission, I had a strong command of English.
The school my brother and I attended, the St. Francis School for Boys, was in the city of Saku, a ten-minute train ride from our village. My studies at St. Francis ignited both my love for theater and literature and my interest in Europe and America. The teachers—particularly our history teacher, sister Mary Martina, who’d grown up in Ohio, and our literature teacher, Nakayama-sensei, who’d studied in California—described America as a vast and friendly land, where books were as plentiful as the apples in Nagano, and where people from any station of life could rise to prominence and become a businessman, a professor, even a governor. Because Akira was two years my senior, he had no choice but to remain on the family farm and assume more of the burden of running it. But since I was the second son, I had more freedom, and after graduation I found a job in the nearby resort town of Karuizawa.
Karuizawa then, as now, was the favored summer retreat of the business and political elite of Tokyo, as well as of visiting tourists from the West. Within the town itself, there were lovely old temples on quiet, deeply shaded grounds where one could meditate for hours. Just outside of it, streams meandered through vast fields of growing rice, with green mountains rising above them all, sometimes shrouded by willowy fog. The land was sublime, and I could hardly believe my good fortune in being able to live there. I worked as an all-purpose hand at the inn of the Ishimoto family, driving important visitors from the train station, bringing firewood up to their rooms, preparing hot baths for the guests. I would also take on odd duties for which there was no assigned help, such as securing alcohol for guests; escorting ladies into gentlemen’s rooms through the secret back hallways; and acting as a caddy for the visitors who wished to golf on the pristine new courses near town. I worked Tuesday to Sunday, returning home to my family’s village from Sunday night to Monday evening, and I enjoyed my new feeling of independence, as well as earning my own money, even though it mostly went to my family. My father disapproved of the work—he saw it as undignified and beneath my capabilities—but he could not object to the money I contributed every week, nor to the fact that, as everyone in the family remarked, I was growing into a fine and independent
