From a Town on the Hudson (10 page)

IT WAS still early morning, and the large terminal of Gatwick Airport in Britain was cool and quiet. In the summer of 1990, our family spent two days in London on the way back to Japan after a five-year stay in the United States. Stifling our yawns brought on by jet lag, we rode the escalator from the terminal to customs. Carrying my big suitcases I assumed that at this moment near the exit there would be many Britons who would noisily welcome new arrivals, as Americans do. I presumed that Westerners in general—Americans, British, French—would behave similarly. When our family got to the exit, however, we stood looking at one another. Even though many people had been waiting for the arrivals to come out, the atmosphere was so quiet it woke us up from our jet lag. The people around us were tall and neatly dressed. Some just stood, others stood with arms folded, and many smiled but said nothing. Soon, each of them began to beam with delight and wave their arms as they found familiar faces among the arrivals. As they approached, they shook hands, hugged, kissed, and whispered to each other. Their behavior looked so smooth and beautiful. It was as if they were acting according to some form of etiquette or ceremony. Yet they seemed to be reserved and not as open as I had expected. This scene was a surprising contrast with what I had seen in the United States.

In the summer of 1988, the fourth summer of our American life, our family returned to New York from a two-week vacation in Japan. Around the exit at the arrival terminal of John F. Kennedy Airport, we saw many people who had waited to welcome the arriving passengers. As soon as the lines of new arrivals started coming out, the people who were waiting, most of whom were big and wore
T
-shirts and shorts, began to cheer, clap their hands, whistle, and call out loudly the names of friends and family. Although the welcome was not for us, it was for a young group who had shared the flight with us on Japan Air Lines. Beaming with delight the two groups shook hands strongly, as if two trains had connected. They hugged each other like football players clashing. They kissed each other as quickly as a stamp is canceled by a post office clerk. As I watched the scene I couldn't help but think of how many wonderful ways people express themselves. The scene was neither polished nor calm, but the energetic, lively, and free atmosphere was enough to make me believe the fact that America had welcomed newcomers from all over the world in this most generous way.

The silence among the gentle British people had awakened such memories of my life in America, where I had been only seven hours earlier. As our family left the terminal we were welcomed by England's fresh air and showered by her mild morning sunlight. It was a truly different Western world.

FROM GATWICK Airport our family took a taxi and headed for the hotel in London. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. The taxi drove along a narrow, crooked, and empty road between gently sloping green hills. The peaceful view of the road completely fascinated us because for the past five years we had been used to Americas dynamic vistas of wide roads that continued as far as the eye could see. At such a memorable moment, however, all of us were quiet because we missed our older son who had left by himself for Japan a year ago. In the soft morning sunlight, the scattered trees cast round shadows on the hills where flocks of sheep grazed. The land had a gentle slope to it, and through the slightly open window of the taxi, a breeze came in and comforted me.

The taxi driver broke the silence blowing his nose. He then began to speak through his nose. "The grass looks almost brown because we haven't had much rain yet this summer." Turning his head to the right and left, he repeated the words "brown" and "dry" as if he were driving us through the Sahara.

In my mind's eye, however, it was the pastoral English scene I had longed for since I had learned English poetry in my college days. For me this was the country of the great poets such as Keats, Browning, and Wordsworth. In such a quiet place, they might have been prone to recollection, considering life for hours in the gentle breeze.

The driver asked my husband what kind of plans we had for our short stay in London, but I continued to think of the poets. They had unstintingly put their heart and soul into their work and had created great poems. It might have been because God blessed England by giving her such a gentle climate which produced neither a tundra nor a desert under the burning sun. If I could savor one of my favorite poems before we passed through the farmland, I thought, this drive would be the height of happiness for me. The air might not be the same as those poets had breathed in the nineteenth century, but I wanted to share something with them. I took a deep breath of the cool air.

The driver sneezed. Then, while trying to turn around and look at us with a vulgar smile on his face, he began urging us to take a sightseeing tour of London at the price he was offering.

A famous poem of Robert Browning's occurred to me. Unlike the season in the poem, it was summer, however. I thought that the poem would serve as a reminder of this beautifully green, pastoral scenery forever.

The year's at the spring

And day's at the morn;

Morning's at seven;

The hillside's dew-pearled;

The lark's on the wing;

The snail's on the thorn:

God's in his heaven—

All's right with the world.

(Song from
Pippa Passes
)

When I recall this poem in Japan, however, the English pastoral scenery is dry and brown. In addition, the driver's nasal voice rings in my ears and his vulgar smiling face closes in on me.

OUR FAMILY took a taxi at Narita Airport when we returned from the United States in the summer of 1990. It was extremely clean. The seats were covered with freshly laundered white cloth. The windows were shining. Neither litter nor mud was seen on the floor. A box of tissue paper had been put in the back window. I could even smell a floral fragrance. As I look back, this was the Japanese standard. However, I had not lived in Japan for more than five years, and it seemed as if I were a tourist from the United States. The cleanliness of the taxi reminded me of contrasting experiences taking yellow cabs in the United States.

Once I rode in a remarkably messy yellow cab. The seats were stained. The windows were cloudy. Inside, both the floor and seats were littered with smashed, empty Coke cans, hamburger wrappers, and several other pieces of paper. The young driver, who looked like a poet, got out of the cab when he saw me hesitate to get in. If he were a Japanese taxi driver, he would say, "Sorry. I'll clean that up right now, ma'am," and would take out a broom and a dustpan from the trunk. However, it came as a refreshing surprise to see the American driver clean up the mess. He said, "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" and pushed the litter into the far corner of the floor with his right foot. A minute later, I was sitting on the seat worrying that the stains on it would get on my skirt, and I was kicking a smashed Coke can as it kept rolling back toward me.

When I saw the meter of the Japanese taxi from Narita Airport start to run, I was sure that I had returned to Japan. I remembered that I didn't have to tip any driver in Japan. In the United States, trying not to pay more than the fare plus a fifteen-percent tip, I was always busy calculating mentally and watching the meter as my destination approached. I once miscalculated and gave the driver too big a tip. I understood too late why he turned so cordially to shake hands immediately after he took the money.

In the Japanese taxi, our family could hear unfamiliar Japanese love songs on the radio. The middle-aged driver, who appeared to be proud of his profession as a taxi driver, wore a white shirt with a tie, navy blue trousers, a pair of white gloves, and a cap with a white, cloth cover on it. He seemed to have worked for the taxi company for many years. He was very restrained and said nothing more than "Certainly, sir" when my husband told him our destination. This stiff behavior caused me to recall American drivers who had given the impression of being quite relaxed.

One summer day in America, I saw a young driver who was wearing sunglasses, a
T
-shirt, shorts, and sandals as if he had just come from the beach. While driving, he constantly shook his head listening to rock music on the radio. When there was a traffic jam, he didn't hesitate to say things like "Damn you!" and "Go to hell!" Many American drivers, in general, seemed to be working for the cab company temporarily. Young drivers especially might have been making money for some big goal in the future.

As time passed in Japan, I came to realize that there were various kinds of Japanese taxi drivers. Once I saw a driver throw cigarette butts out of the taxi window. No driver refused a tip if he was offered one. Some drivers yelled "
Konoyaro!"
(roughly translated, "You son of a bitch!") at each other when there was a traffic jam, too.

When I was suspicious of a Japanese driver although he talked to me kindly, I remembered that I had been moved almost to tears by an American driver's friendly encouragement at the beginning of my life in America. I had called a taxi from Fort Lee's Babe's Cab Company, calling from the Driver Testing Center in Lodi. I sat in the corner of the rear seat of the cab, upset and withdrawn like a clam, after failing the road test. When the cab arrived at my house, the driver, who looked to be in his early sixties, unexpectedly started to encourage me to practice driving some more. I was surprised to hear him speaking so sincerely to a stranger, but his words comforted me so much I was encouraged to try again.

Generally speaking, the experiences we have when living abroad wake us up. I learned a lot about my home country and my host country, from such small details as a dirty taxi cab. It seemed that the more trifling the matter was, the more it revealed the true character of the society.

ONE OF the memorable things about my life in America from 1985 to 1990 was that I drove a car.

We moved to Fort Lee, New Jersey, in the spring of 1985 because of my husbands new assignment in New York. Unlike Japan, the United States seemed too large to carry out the daily routine without driving a car. My husband already had a drivers license, but all my life I had never imagined getting one. Because we didn't have a car for the first several days, we walked around town as we settled into our new life. Soon my big denim shoulderbag which I had brought from Japan was torn from carrying such heavy items as milk, cooking oil, and canned foods. In ten days I had sore feet. In two weeks I started thinking about getting a driver's license after hearing from my Japanese friend who had already gotten one in New Jersey. Then I began noticing people who drove their cars everywhere. Every driver, from a racecar driver to an elderly woman who caused a traffic jam, looked great to me because they all had passed the difficult tests and were driving their car confidently. I took the written test once and the road test twice in Lodi, New Jersey. I got my license in September. I was thirty-nine.

I remember the first day I drove to the nearest supermarket by myself. I took detours because I was trying to turn left as little as possible. I parked my car in the space farthest away from the store entrance because no cars were parked around me. I bought nothing but bathroom tissue because I was on tenterhooks until I arrived back home safely.

Being safe took precedence over everything—especially in the beginning. I depended on a supernatural power; while looking at his framed photograph, I prayed to my father, who had died long ago, to protect me from having an accident. I forbade my two sons to fight in our car by telling them beforehand, "You will be unable to see your grandparents in Japan again if I cause an accident because I was distracted by your noise." The two boys turned pale. I also took slower city streets when someone asked me for a ride in my car; those who disliked my slow driving didn't ask me again. Most of all, I was anxious about speaking English if an accident happened. If I were badly hurt, however, I would be unable to speak even in Japanese, I realized. The area of the United States is twenty-five times the size of Japan, and it is mostly flat. Though I was not going to drive all over the United States, I resented the vast area of the country.

Gradually, however, driving came to be a part of my daily routine. I drove my sons to their weekend Japanese schools, summer schools, swimming school, the library, the pediatrician, the dentist, the orthodontist, the ophthalmologist, the dermatologist, their friends' houses, movie theaters, the skating rink, TOYS-R-US, and so on. I also drove my husband to the bus stop on chilly winter mornings.

I used our car for myself, too. I had time to go out, and, as long as I didn't give any serious thought to economic, ecological, and cultural matters, I didn't have to be inside my house until the time school was over. For instance, in the United States, I had less housework than in Japan: I was free from gardening because the gardener came to mow the grass once a week. In the early morning, I didn't have to put much laundry out in the sun because I had a big dryer. I didn't attend any memorial services because I had no Japanese relatives in the United States. Moreover, I didn't have the Japanese rainy season in June. The days of early summer in the northeast United States were beautiful.

While my husband worked at an office in New York's World Trade Center tower building and while the children went to Fort Lee's public schools, I made short work of doing the dishes and cleaning the house and then had my own time. I drove to the library, adult schools, shopping centers, and friends' houses. I started volunteering in Teaneck, New Jersey, as well. Roads were wide. Cities were completely equipped for driving. If I hadn't driven a car during my five-year stay, I would have missed seeing the spaciousness and richness of American life. I learned, too, that quick judgment and fast decisions were always required for safe driving. I thought the reason why American women in general looked self-assertive might be partly because they had been trained by driving. Although I earned nothing, I felt I was going out into the world. Yet I was fully aware of being a beginner at driving. I didn't run risks; I preferred local roads and never drove to Manhattan.

One day, however, an accident occurred. My father's supernatural power which I had been depending on from my first day of driving wash't perfect. He must have taken a nap in heaven once while his daughter was driving in Fort Lee. On that day in October 1988, my car was hit when I was proceeding into an intersection on a green light. Another car suddenly jumped out from the right. With a big crash my car was lifted a bit above the surface of the street and swung around. "This must be an accident!" The next moment, however, I neither thought of my family nor my country, Japan. I was quickly making English sentences about the traffic accident which my teacher, Elizabeth, had taught me in her class. Nobody was injured after all. However, both a wheel cover and a part of a fender of my car were scattered over the road, and the fender was run over by oncoming cars. Besides that, the two doors and the center support on the right side of my white Pontiac were crushed. The area around the left headlight of the car that hit mine was smashed, and pieces of broken glass were scattered about, too. I was upset but lucky in some ways. First, we two drivers didn't have to roar at each other the way some American drivers did, because the other person spoke less English than I did. Second, a red public works truck happened to pass by and a man in uniform swiftly helped us and went to report the accident to the police department a block away. Third, the police officer who arrived then listened carefully to my English as I explained what had happened. It took three weeks to repair my car. Insurance covered the $3,200 cost. After a while, I resumed driving. I was more cautious than before, but at the same time I became more at ease, as if I had passed the barrier of an entrance examination to be accepted by the United States. I felt sure I had become closer to American society.

Before I left the United States, I still had time to appreciate the abundant nature along the roads which extended for miles and miles. With all my heart I wanted to make good use of every moment. When I began to listen to music on the radio and the cassette player in my car, the landscape looked like a gorgeous opera stage. Although sometimes there was a song with no singers, the stage was as high as the sky, as deep as the horizon, as full-colored as nature, and I was admitted free. Once in early summer, at a traffic light on a hill I had a commanding view of a town colored fresh green as, fortunately, I was fascinated by a dynamic passage of Dvorak's Symphony No. 9, "From the New World." When every flower was in full bloom in the yards of the houses lining the streets, I drove my car slowly as I enjoyed Mozart. The melancholy section of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto seemed appropriate to the crooked uphill road bordered by trees colored with autumn tints. At that time, the upper part of my body unintentionally moved with the music as I sat behind the wheel. I felt as if I had the wealth of the world when the harmony of music and nature so inspired me.

Winter passed and our sixth spring in America came. I was informed that my husband's assignment in New York would be finished in a few months. The spring sky, pink magnolia trees, old houses, shops, schools, and traffic signs which I had been familiar with looked fresh through the windshield of my car. I embraced the finite days in a fond farewell. At the end of July 1990, my family said good-bye to our Pontiac.