The Salaryman's Wife(41)

Richard was everything to me. Having grown up an only child, I felt cheated that I’d never had anyone with whom to sing in the car or play secret games. Karen and Simone, who had experience in such things, assured me brothers really weren’t that fun, but I still chose to define my three years with Richard in sibling terms.

“I hope you remember to remove your stud when you drink hot liquids,” I faux-lectured Richard as the electronic melody chimed over the intercom to tell us the regular workday had officially ended. It hadn’t. Most salarymen spent at least four more unproductive hours at their desks or in Richard’s and my English classes.

Not only did we have to teach at night, we had to teach groups Nichiyu management insisted on arranging according to work section and not language level. This meant bossy men who couldn’t put together two sentences dominated each class, while better speakers of lower rank were afraid to open their mouths. Today when I asked “What was the best thing about your vacation?” three times at slow speed, it met with dead silence.

“The best thing was sleep!” Mr. Fukuda bellowed at last, and there was nervous laughter from the group of adults clustered around the U-shaped table.

“Sleeping! Surely, Mr. Fukuda, you didn’t sleep the whole five days?”

Yes, he had. So had Mr. Nigawa. The only person who admitted to doing anything was Ms. Mori, who had made a cake for her family.

“No one went away?” I asked skeptically, remembering all the souvenir sweets.

“You, Sensei!” someone asked me. “Where did you go? Mr. Randall said you left him alonely in Tokyo.”

“Alone in Tokyo and no, let’s not talk about me today.” I knew why my students begged me for monologues—it enabled them to glaze over into sleep. “Come on, let’s all ask our neighbor what the best thing about vacation time was, and also what we missed about work. I’ll model this with Ms. Shinchi.” I motioned my best student to her feet. “Hello, Ms. Shinchi!”

I held out my hand for her to shake. The shy woman pumped it up and down while bowing slightly.

“Hello, Ms. Shimura.”

“Did you return from New Year’s vacation?”

“Yes, I returned from New Year’s vacation,” she parroted back.

“What was the best thing about your vacation?”

“The best thing about my vacation was seeing my mother in her house.” She stared at her feet.

“Can you tell me more about that?”

“I had not seen her for one year’s time.”

“Mmm. Is there any reason you’re glad to be back at work?” I prompted.

“I like returning to work to earn some money.”

“There! Let’s see how many different answers we can find in ten minutes, and I don’t want to hear any Japanese.”


We got home late, but Richard persuaded me to stay up to watch a Junzo Itami comedy called Funeral. It was surprisingly hilarious. I was laughing at a greedy priest trying to make off with a mourner’s precious tiled table when Richard hit the VCR’s PAUSE button.

“Someone’s in the hallway.”

“Mr. Noguchi’s drunk and searching for his key again,” I guessed. We had another neighbor one landing below, a widower who lived on shrimp chips and Yebisu beer. When he was really badly off, he sometimes stumbled up an extra floor.

“Nope. He’s knocking on our door,” Richard insisted, so I got up and looked through the peephole. The man standing outside was not Mr. Noguchi, but he wore a business suit and carried a briefcase. A lost salaryman? I opened up.

“Miss Shimura?” The stranger looked like he wanted to flee. Maybe it was my long underwear, but what did he expect at a quarter past ten? I tugged my yukata more tightly around myself and took the card he handed me. The side printed in English identified him as Junichi Ota, Attorney at Law.

“I’m not looking for any representation, thank you.” I started to close the door.

“I have been sent by my client, Hugh Glendinning.” As Mr. Ota spoke, my sense of gravity shifted, and I grabbed at the door frame for stability.

“I did not know you had a husband.” Mr. Ota was looking past my shoulder at Richard sprawled across my futon in his long underwear.

“He’s nothing. I mean, he’s a colleague, not a husband, and he was getting ready to go to his room.”

“Goodnight Miss Shimura, my honorable colleague.” Richard slouched off without protest, since he would be able to hear everything through the paper thin door.

“What happened?” I asked Mr. Ota when we were alone, gesturing for him to sit down with me at the tea table.