If You Follow Me (23 page)

“Smile?” he repeats.

“Shika Machi-ites for International Language Exchange.”
Machi
means town, but I don't know who came up with the term “
machi
-ite.” Probably Miyoshi-sensei. Joe snickers and I tell him that the name wasn't my idea. “I didn't think so,” he says. “Did I ever tell you about how the folks from the Nanao City Hall once called to ask my opinion on the name they were tossing around for their new shopping mall? They wanted to name it ‘Nappy,' a fusion of Nanao and happy. They asked if I saw anything wrong with that particular moniker. So I told them that yes, in fact, I saw several problems, explaining that in America, ‘nappy' is a racist term for kinky hair, and in Britain that's how we refer to diapers. They thanked me very much for my time and opinion. The next time I happened to be in Nanao, I drove past the new mall. Guess what it's called?”

“Nappy,” I say, laughing again.

“Roight you are.” He laughs too. “Maybe I'll come to SMILE,” he says. “If you'll have me, that is.” I tell him that it won't be that much fun, since it's the last meeting before the festival and everyone will be practicing their speeches. He offers to help coach them, reminding me that he's an actor.

“Creamy talent,” I say. “How could I forget?”

 

The first rule of SMILE is: in English please. The second rule of SMILE is: be direct. The third rule of SMILE is: first names only. And the fourth rule of SMILE is: smile! I didn't make these rules, Miyoshi-sensei did, and I don't enforce them, but the group members follow them like the law, and police each other assiduously too.

I throw a tennis ball into the air, aiming for the back of the tiny theater. Naturally, it lands in the lap of SMILE's worst English speaker. “
Eh
?” the yam truck driver says, holding the tennis ball up
to his eyes as if the lime green fuzz might turn into crystal, revealing not his future but a simple English question. “How are…” he begins, then stops. As per my one and only rule, “How are you?” is strictly off-limits in a chat volley. He pauses to think, sticking his fingers inside his neck brace to scratch his throat, making a sandpapery rasp.

Uyesugi-san is recovering from surgery to defuse his vertebrae. Before acquiring his yam truck, he used to drive an eighteen-wheeler for Shika's nuclear power plant, ferrying supplies into town and waste back out. His CV radio received signals from as far as Australia, which is how he learned what little English he knows. “How about rice farmer?” he says, lobbing the tennis ball back at me. “Over and out!”

I'm not sure how to answer his question, so I ask another one instead. “Do you think the rice farmers will be able to meet women here in Shika?” I toss the ball to the left side of the theater, where the Ishii brothers are seated next to each other, both dressed in short-sleeved plaid shirts, wire-rimmed eyeglasses peeking from their pockets, even their hair parted on the same side. The dentist catches the ball.

“If so,” he says, “I offer free tooth whitening for wedding gift.”

“Free?” echoes the doctor.

“It's advertisement,” the dentist says. “To lure new patients.”

The dentist's own teeth are the color of lightly seeped tea, certainly no advertisement for his business. I never saw them when I was his patient, since he never once took off his goggles and face mask, not even when he pulled the rabbit's two front teeth, which looked like bloody knitting needles. He wrapped them in a paper towel, dropped them in the garbage can and then backed away, not answering when I asked whether he still wanted those free
eikaiwa
or “English conversation” classes I'd offered in exchange for his vet
erinary ser vices. I figured I'd scared him off. I assumed that was the last I'd see of him. But there he was at the first SMILE club meeting, sitting next to his brother. Keiko was there too, in the row behind them, Fumiya to her left and Koji to her right. Behind them sat Ooka-sensei, the elementary school vice-principal, Sakura and Ritsuko Ueno, and Noriko, the high school librarian. Facing me, they looked like a jury. Keiko tried to calm Fumiya as the boy rocked in his seat, mimicking its squeak perfectly.

At that meeting, Miyoshi-sensei explained that the mayor had initiated SMILE so that the English speakers of Shika could get speeches ready for the upcoming festival to celebrate the signing of the sister-city contract. I was there to coach them. Anyone who didn't feel capable of writing a speech, but who still wanted to participate—children in particular—could recite a poem. That was a month ago. Every week I ask who wants to practice their speech and no one volunteers. But they all come without fail. They are already in their seats when I arrive. There's a reason why I know everyone in this room. These are Shika's English hobbyists, the people who have sought me out.

“Do you like my plan?” the dentist asks, handing the ball to his brother.

“Hmm,” the doctor says, “I think your plan is
chotto
…”

“In English,” the dentist scolds him.

“I think your plan is ‘a little'…”

‘“A little' what?” I prod him.

“Just…‘a little'…,” he repeats, still smiling. In Japanese, you can say that something is
chotto…
without making a direct criticism. It's like Mad Libs. Your listener supplies the missing word. I tell him that this doesn't work in English. “Be direct,” I remind him. “You could say, ‘I think your plan is a little silly,' or explain why you think it won't work.”

“Okay Taichi,” he says, his smile blossoming into a grin. “I think it's a little impossible. I don't see how whitening farmer's tooth for free will lure patients to you.”

“Simple, Yuji,” the dentist says, rubbing his hands gleefully. “Rice farmer in search of bride will be on TV. Everyone will see his white tooth. It's so unusual for farmer. Everyone will wonder, how did this happen? It's amazing! Then they will seek my ser vices too.” He throws the tennis ball over his head, and Noriko catches it.

“How about whitening my tooth for wedding gift?” she asks him.

It wasn't until I started coaching SMILE that I realized that since there was only one dentist in town, Taichi Ishii had to be the man she was marrying. The local matchmaker, Sakura Ueno, also comes to SMILE, trailing after her daughter Ritsuko. During her self-introduction, when Sakura announced, “My hobby is making marriage,” the dentist cleared his throat and said, “I think hobby means for fun,
ne
? Not for profit…” Sakura responded, “It's hobby because I enjoy.” I assumed that everyone in the room knew that she had brought the librarian and the dentist together, but no one mentioned it. And Noriko and Taichi never sit next to each other, even though they're engaged to be married next month.

“I don't think so,” the dentist says to his fiancée.

“Why not?” Noriko asks.

“You won't be on TV,” he says. “Also, your teeth are white enough. But maybe you could use…how to say…like a railroad track? To make straighter?”

“Braces,” I offer.

“I like your teeth the way they are,” Joe says, and Noriko covers her mouth, hiding a smile or a frown. Joe is seated between Noriko and Ritsuko, his arms draped across the backs of their seats. “I've missed you lot,” he says. “I can't remember the last time I was in Shika.”

“Eight weeks ago,” says Ritsuko.

“You remember so well…,” Noriko says.

“He stayed at our home,” Sakura says. “I made tempura. His favorite.”

I remember Joe's last visit too, since it coincided with Valentine's Day. I had just returned from the elementary school and he was bumming around Shika that week. He attended all of our secretarial classes, and in each one Miyoshi-sensei asked the girls to write him valentines. In the
New Horizons
textbook, Yumi, Ken, and Pablo were all writing persuasive letters to their local papers, urging people not to litter so that the earth wouldn't turn into a trashscape. The chapter stressed the idea that persuasive language is specific. “Probably you love Mister Joe so much,” Miyoshi-sensei told our classes. “It's easy to find reasons why you love him. But why should he love you? Be specific, and persuade him to choose you!”

At the end of each class, Joe chose his favorite valentine to read aloud and the girls guessed who had written it. I remember quite clearly the valentine that won first place in the freshman secretarial homeroom. “You are cool boy,” Joe read. “I don't want to be near you. It's only close. I don't want to be with you. It's not close enough. I want to be you.” He turned the card over but didn't speak. He looked distinctly uncomfortable. I took the card from him. On the back was written, “Ogawa, Haruki,” in pencil letters so faint I could barely make them out. For a moment I hesitated too, not wanting to reward the boy who trapped our cat in the refrigerator. But as I looked at him hunkered down in his chair, willing me not to call his name, I realized that ignoring him was exactly what he wanted. So I picked up the heart-shaped box of chocolates we'd decided to give as a prize, which had come in a care package from my mom, and I held it over his head. “Good job, Haruki!” I said. “You really love Mister Joe!” Joe told me to knock it off, to stop “recruiting for the team,” obviously mortified.

“I want to talk about homophobia,” I say.

“Homosexuals?” asks the doctor.

“Homophobia,” I repeat. “The prejudice against homosexuals.”

“Oh bollocks,” Joe says. “Here we go…”

“We often use SMILE to talk about cultural differences,” I inform him. “That's what it's for.” Actually, that is not what SMILE is for. But I love having the chance to find out what people here really think about difficult subjects, urging them to be direct, to speak from their hearts. “Yesterday, a boy in the technical class called Miyoshi-sensei a homo,” I begin.

“Miyoshi-sensei is a homo?” Noriko asks.

“No,” I say. “I mean, I don't know about Miyoshi-sensei's personal life.”

“He is not married…” the dentist says.

“Neither am I,” I say.

“It's true,” Sakura says. “You are not married…”

“That's not the point,” I say. “Why is being gay considered bad?”

“Because of AIDS,” says Yuji Ishii.

“AIDS isn't just a homosexual disease,” I say. “You're a doctor. You know that.”

“Of course,” he says, “but in 1985, first case of AIDS in Japan was a homosexual man. It's documented fact. Not…homophobia. After that, many people believed only homosexuals could spread AIDS.”

“That's terrible,” I say.

“It's crisis,” he agrees. “Men won't use condom. They don't want to seem
ayashii
.”

“Perverted,” I translate.

“Gay,” he says.

“Don't kids learn the truth in sex-ed?”

“Sexed,” Fumiya repeats, turning it into one word and then laughing, wriggling in his seat as Keiko tries unsuccessfully to calm
him down. Fumiya has an almost uncanny gift for latching on to the most inappropriate words, which doesn't really matter since he can't understand a thing he says. I'm not sure why Keiko brings the boys to SMILE. The conversations are over their heads and she has to spend most of her time taking care of them. She probably can't get a babysitter.

“What is sex-ed?” Yuji Ishii asks. As usual, he doesn't even look over his shoulder, as if the woman behind him weren't his wife and the boys weren't his sons, or as if not seeing the problem meant he didn't have to help.

“Sexual education,” I say. “Every student in America has to take it.”

“You need class to learn how to have sex?” asks Sakura. “Isn't it…organic-u?” I suspect she's yanking my chain. She loves to play the provocateur, the cat to everyone else's mouse. She is a flirt and a tease and a constant embarrassment to her daughter, batting her eyelashes and twirling her long hair around her heavily jeweled finger and asking questions just to get people to say outrageous things.

“Sex-ed teaches kids how to avoid getting pregnant or catching diseases.”

“But how?” she asks.

“Well,” I say, thinking back, “in my sex-ed class, we learned about different kinds of birth control and how to use them. We practiced putting condoms on bananas.”

“Ayashii
,” she says.

“It's not perverted,” I say. “The point is to show kids that sex is normal, not something to be ashamed of, so they'll make smart choices and stay safe.”

“In another prefecture,” Doctor Ishii says, “some teachers tried to teach sex-ed using anatomically correct dolls. But many parents protested. They say sex is private, not suitable subject for school. We shouldn't talk about it so directly.”

This strikes me as absurd in a place where condoms and dildos and boxed sets of panties (allegedly worn by the pubescent girls pictured on the boxes) are sold in vending machines alongside soda and tea, beer and cigarettes. Then again, maybe the whole point of the condom and sex toy vending machine is anonymity, to spare the customer that humiliating moment at the counter. Solutions here are often chillingly pragmatic. Recently the police broke up a high school prostitution ring. Teenaged girls were performing ser vices for middle-aged men, who'd call their cell phones to arrange meetings at love hotels. The solution? Ban cell phones for female students.

“If guys won't use condoms then why isn't there more teen pregnancy?” I ask, realizing that I've never seen a pregnant girl here.

“There is,” Yuji says. “Japan has high rate of pregnancy termination.”

“Abortion?” I say. “Are they easy to get?”

“Hai
,” he says. “I mean, yes.”

Ritsuko stands up and pulls up the hood of her coat, which she never took off. She apologizes for leaving early, explaining that she doesn't feel well. As her mother starts to put on her coat too, Ritsuko tells her that she wants to walk.