The Men in My Country

6

he next day, I find an excuse to phone Natalie, asking her if she knows of any freelance teaching work. I pretend that I am calling on behalf of a friend. But the talk is a ruse. Finally I get around to asking about what I want. The professor. Do you know him well? Oh yes, she says. Very fluent in English. Very smart too. He’s a smart cookie. And he wants to get to know some English-speaking adults. Australians . English. But Americans, especially. He told me he wants to get to know Americans, especially. Would I be interested? she asks. Natalie gives me the professor’s phone number and tells me she will also give the professor mine. You two would probably like each other. She accomplishes this so effortlessly I think this must be how an omiai must work, what a relief it must be to have these small details orchestrated by someone else. Then, like all good minor characters, Natalie disappears, returning to buttery America where I never hear from her again. I arrive at our first meeting fifteen minutes late, walking into the professor ’s office dragging mud from my boots with apologies spilling from my mouth. I’m sorry, I say. I had trouble finding your building in the dark. Really, I’m so sorry to be late. It’s all right, he says, rising. He extends his right hand to shake mine at the same time he bows, just as he did the first time we met. Dueling gestures, I think. He is a man of two cultures, two ways of relating to the world. And here is when I remember that Natalie gave me this information over the phone. That the professor is married. T ................................................................................ 23 That he has a three-year old daughter. That his daughter studies English at the Let’s Talk! conversation school. I am standing in front of the professor, bowing as he says, I thought perhaps you got lost along the way and that my directions were not as clear as they might have been, wondering why I have delayed in thinking about this information till now, why it seems so strange to absorb it now, this fact that the professor has two women in his life, a daughter and a wife, a whole complicated private private life. He speaks very formally, clearly, correctly, no missteps at all. Others might say, I thought Miss Marilyn had some troubles in dark. But he is smoother than that, this man so buttoned-up and well-spoken tonight. Yes, I say. I mean, no. I mean, yes, I got lost but really, your directions were fine. I’m just kind of spacey sometimes. I should have come just a little earlier when it was still light. We sit down at a table near his desk and launch into small talk — what the professor will later call small talks, only by then, after our relationship has advanced, I won’t have the heart to correct him as he has told me I should. Did you come straight from work? What kind of courses do you teach? Do you enjoy the sentō? Are there certain Japanese foods you especially like to eat? We speak in small doses, trading the information any two people might. The talk is anonymous, careful, slow. We offer up safe biographies . Where we are from. What we’ve done. The seduction of facts, I will think later. Salt Lake City, Utah. Nagano-ken. A professor of sociology. A newspaper reporter. At a small, mediocre paper. Then the professor asks if I would like some coffee. Yes, I say. Coffee would be nice. He gets up from his chair and moves toward the small coffee maker, situated on his desk, and I see him once again in relief: a man who, in flipping a switch, demonstrates he has planned very well for this visit, anticipating everything, even coffee, in advance. On the table he has placed a notebook and pencil should confusions arise between us 24 as we converse. The pencil, I see, has a very sharp tip. He has even sharpened his pencil in advance. Here is a man of patience, I think. Precision. I am moved that his precision involved planning for a visit from me. He brings me a cup of coffee, asks if I take my coffee black. I lie and...