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n the days that follow, I go about my business, teaching the Japanese businessmen once a month at night and teaching classes every day at Meizen. A student at Meizen draws pictures during English class. When I confiscate the goods, I find a caricature of Miss Kita and me, a skinny pole next to a wide-eyed blob. You have some talent, I tell the boy. I return the picture to his desk, take my pencil and draw a frown on the blob with eyes. The boy hangs his head, says quietly under his breath, Gomen. Later that day at lunch, I am seated next to the principal, who asks me what I think of the Japanese children at his school. I tell him these children need to learn some respect, that they ought to realize even gaijin are people too, but I mix up my words in Japanese and wind up telling the principal, even foreigners are carrots, too. After lunch another day, a boy approaches me at my desk in the teachers’ room and points and turns bright red. I assume he’s pointing at my breasts wanting to say something about gaijin women, how their breasts are so full. Kids here are always talking about that: how the gaijin body is so thick, so full, how the gaijin nose is so tall, too. I look him straight in the eye, disgusted. What? I ask. These kids are shits, I think, perverted little shits. Miss Marilyn. The boy stammers. His face is red as the Japanese flag. Rice, Marilyn-sensei. . . ? Yes, I like rice, I say. I have these conversations a dozen times a day. Do you like rice? Do you like Japan? Do you use chopsticks? Then something else comes out. Miss Marilyn— RICE. And suddenly I see: I have a glob of dry rice stuck to my shirt. Gomen nasai, I tell the boy, peeling the golf-ball sized glob off. Gomen nasai and dōmo. Sorry. Thank you. Please excuse me. I ................................................................................ 32 Meanwhile, the days tick by. Meanwhile, the students continue asking, Does Miss Marilyn like Japan? Meanwhile, the phone rings and I ignore it, willing the professor away. On the last day of February I come home from school to find two letters in my box: an acceptance letter on university letterhead to a graduate program in the United States, a school set in the middle of prairies and cornfields, a school I applied to on a lark. The second is a handwritten note in black ink on a delicate white sheet from the professor. It reads: Please excuse me my faults. I want to see you as soon as possible. In kanji and rōmaji, as if I might not guess who the note is from, the professor signs his name. I take both letters inside my apartment, read them each again and again. There is something stirring in the professor’s ordinarily eloquent tongue slipping. If his note were perfect, I would not be quite as aroused as I am now. Please excuse me my faults. I want to see you as soon as possible. Taking a hot bath that night and listening to Billie Holiday, I marvel at what a difference a day makes. I have a note from a university saying yes, and the university is in Iowa, a faraway and dreamy place. I imagine living in a large red barn and keeping chickens and growing tomatoes and reading and writing every day and I also imagine meeting someone. Because who would want to live in that barn all by herself ? And then there is the note from someone, from the professor, and the words from his note and the words from the university letter blur, because behind them is the same sentiment, and I just can’t get over how good it feels, this perfect February Japanese day, the words behind the words. You are the chosen one. Before falling asleep on a stack of pink futons, I make a decision: I will write back to the people at the school in the prairie to tell them Yes, I will definitely come. And I will force myself to wait a week before calling the professor to excuse him his faults. Just one week. A delicious waiting week. ...
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