AUDIO
Hideo Yamashiro sat on the platform at JR Otsuka Station watching the trains. In the morning, he had sat facing south, watching the Yamanote Line head west from Sugamo toward Ikebukuro along with the occasional freight train on the outer tracks. But now it was lunchtime, a quiet time for him despite the midday rush, and he’d turned north to watch the trains heading in the opposite direction while he ate the bento his wife had packed, leftover tonkatsu with pickles and rice, along with a can of coffee from a vending machine. Few people stayed on the platform for any length of time, two minutes at most, allowing him enough space to eat while keeping his notepad and pen on the bench next to him. He’d become adept at quickly switching his bento and chopsticks for the notepad and pen without spilling any food on himself, ready to write something down at a moment’s notice, though he rarely needed to make such dramatic moves. Lunch was quiet. People rarely did anything rash.
In many respects, Yamashiro wore a disguise. Sitting there in his pinstriped navy suit, he looked to the commuters like any other old office worker in Tokyo. Perhaps he was on his way to an important meeting or sales presentation with other gray haired, conservatively dressed businessmen, men trying to forget they used to be thinner, men set in their ways with narrow, well-defined expectations about what their work days would be like, how their young staffers would treat them, at what age they would retire, how often they would hear from their grown children, when they would prefer to become grandfathers, where they would go on the last vacation of their lives and with what tour company, not to mention how old they would be when they died, attended to by their quiet, supportive, matronly wives, women who watched Korean soap operas and treasured every step they took out of their houses, women with the decency to hide their assertive natures until their husbands had passed on. Yamashiro looked like one of these men, remembered what it was like to be one of them, but had one key difference. He was not on his way to a meeting or a presentation. He had spent the entire day on the platform at JR Otsuka Station. He was at work.
Or at least what passes for work, he said to himself.
He closed his bento and returned it to his worn leather briefcase. Not long ago, the case would have held reports and correspondence and insurance documents. Now it held, in addition to the empty bento box, a backup notepad, a box of pens, and several large pre-addressed envelopes. He snapped the briefcase closed, self-conscious of the lack of ‘real’ work inside, picked up his notepad and pen, and was about to turn around in his seat when something compelled him to take a thorough look around. Leaning forward, he began to look up and down the platform.
Coming up the steps from the ticket gates, a young woman with almost waist-length hair and a vacant expression walked gracelessly, her lurching steps seeming the result of an autonomic capacity for forward motion interrupted by a desperate need to focus her mind on something she could control, the movement of her feet. Yamashiro jotted down the usual notes. One hundred sixty centimeters tall. Maybe sixty five kilograms, give or take. Late twenties, twenty nine years old perhaps. Dressed for office work, black skirt, pale yellow blouse, small stud earrings shaped like rainbows, fake Chanel handbag. Round face, almost no makeup, sturdy legs, slightly tanned skin. All scribbled quickly but precisely in the shorthand preferred by his boss. Left out were his less certain conjectures. Background: from a wealthy family, likely in Nagoya, moved to Tokyo for a taste of independence, father disapproves. State of mind: scared, ashamed. Reasons for distress: maybe her boss made a pass at her, asked to speak to her in private, groped her breast. Not that she looked distressed precisely. Maybe disconnected was a better way to put it. Separated from the moment. Or maybe so totally in the moment she was incapable of objectivity, of distance. He watched as the young woman approached the edge of the platform, the toes of her shoes just sticking out into the air beyond, and for a moment he thought he saw them flex or wiggle, like someone might squeeze their toes on the beach, feeling the damp sand between them while watching the roiling surf, waiting for a wave to crash upon the shore and bury those toes in the edge of the earth.
Yamashiro continued to watch the woman curl her toes on the edge of the platform. He knew the recording announcing the next train would play momentarily and had his pen and notepad ready to record her exact actions, when someone’s cell phone rang. The ringing broke the woman out of her trance, and she reached into her handbag, pulling out a fancy pink DoCoMo phone that she fumbled with before answering.
“Moshi moshi… hello?” she said, her English revealed.
She isn’t Japanese? wondered Yamashiro. Strange, she looks Japanese.
He couldn’t follow the conversation, not grasping more than a few words of English himself, so as she stood on the platform talking he went over his earlier impressions. The way she carried herself, her clothes, her minimal makeup, around the eyes and a touch of foundation, when viewed through this new lens confirmed that, yes, despite certain similarities she was not a young Japanese woman. Was she American or Australian or British? The subtle differences between them were beyond his knowledge. If she was not Japanese, though, then she did not fit any of the profiles with which he was used to working. She was an anomaly, a potential outlier in his data.
The woman didn’t talk for long, nor did she get on any of the trains that arrived while she spoke. She finished her conversation just as a train was leaving the station, and as it sped off toward Ikebukuro, she returned her phone to her handbag, sighing, and again stepped to the edge of the platform. This time, her eyes were not vacant. She looked up and down the tracks in both directions, ignoring the tightly packed mass of apartments, condos, and minor offices that made up this slice of Tokyo, as though reminded of what she came to do.
She’s going to do it, thought Yamashiro. But I still don’t know why. Should I count her if she’s foreign? Does she even know the proper way?
Once again, the recording announced the approach of the next train. Yamashiro watched as the woman took a deep breath, leaning forward to look down the tracks toward Sugamo, flexing her knees. Rounding the corner, the familiar green and silver of the next Yamanote Line train came into view. The woman pulled her handbag up over her shoulder, leaning out even further, beginning to swing her arms. Her chest rose and fell with large, adrenaline-fueled gulps of air. Yamashiro couldn’t take it. Standing up, he rushed forward, grasping the woman’s shoulder. With a startled look, she turned.
“Excuse me, miss, but you’re doing it wrong.”
* * *
“What did you mean when you said I was doing it wrong?” Keala Watabayashi asked Hideo Yamashiro.
“Just that,” replied Yamashiro. “No one jumps in front of a train by standing at the edge of the platform and swinging their arms to build momentum. You wouldn’t have jumped far enough in front of the train.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Most people take a short running start. Also, jumping in front of a local train is a good way to get maimed but not killed. Better to find a station with an express train that comes through but doesn’t stop and leap out at the last moment. A freight train works for that as well.”
The pair walked slowly down the backstreets of Toshima Ward in northeastern Tokyo, past narrow apartment buildings filled with equally narrow studios, past rundown houses with crumbling restaurant signs out front that betrayed their owners’ inability to adapt to the flash and gleam of modern Tokyo, on a road that followed the tracks of the Arakawa streetcar line toward the university neighborhood of Waseda. After Yamashiro had stopped Watabayashi from jumping in front of the train, a JR station attendant had approached them to see if everything was all right.
“Yes,” Yamashiro had answered quickly. “My…niece just had a bit of vertigo.”
“Does she need an ambulance?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” said Watabayashi, giving Yamashiro a confused look.
“Perhaps a taxi would be better than a train today,” suggested Yamashio as he guided the perplexed Watabayashi away from the attendant and down the stairs to the street. The two introduced themselves to each other as they passed through the turnstiles and headed into the narrow residential streets of Otsuka.
“Should I get you a taxi?” Yamashiro asked.
“No, I think I’d rather walk around a bit,” said Watabayashi, sighing deeply and running her fingers through her hair.
“Then I’ll walk with you for a little while, if you don’t mind.”
They walked in silence, the noise of the city occasionally drowned out by the rumbling of the streetcars on the nearby track, until Watabayashi started asking questions.
“These streetcars…do people ever jump in front of them?” she asked, looking along the tracks ahead.
“You hear about it sometimes. Usually some drunk does it to show off and ends up losing his foot or arm. But no one does it to kill themselves.”
“Why not?”
“They’re moving too slowly. And the drivers are very attentive. They’ll stop the cars completely if they see people on the tracks.”
Another streetcar passed. Watabayashi watched it go by, a stone-faced driver in front, a young boy in the rear window, waving at no one in particular.
“How do you know so much about jumping in front of trains?” asked Watabayashi.
“Your Japanese is very good. What kind of a name is Keala?”
“It’s Hawaiian. My father is from Gunma prefecture and my mother is from Honolulu,” said Watabayashi, scrutinizing Yamashiro. “And you didn’t answer my question.”
“No, I didn’t.”
In the two months he’d had his current position, Yamashiro had never discussed it with anyone, except for his new boss. His wife had no idea what he did at work, though this was hardly new for her.
“I know about jumping in front of trains because I have to for my job.”
“What do you do?”
“I spend all day sitting on train and subway platforms around Tokyo, waiting for people who look like they’re going to jump. When I find someone who I think is about to jump, I write down who they are, what they look like, those kinds of things. Then I wait for them to jump, and I note the details. Did they leap forward or drop to the tracks first? Did they dive under the wheels or did they get hit by the front of the train? How did they look just before they were hit? Were they scared or happy or surprised or relieved? Did they succeed or did they live through the experience?”
“What do you do with all the notes?”
“At the end of the day, I collect them and send them to my boss.”
Watabayashi looked at Yamashiro, an eyebrow raised.
“What does your boss do with them?”
“I don’t know. He told me it was ‘market research’ but he seemed to be making a bad joke at the time.”
“Market research? He must be a real asshole.”
Yamashiro paused at this, thinking of his boss, Mr. Kubo.
“You’re probably right.”
* * *
Several months ago, Hideo Yamashiro had been sitting on the platform of JR Iidabashi Station in Chiyoda Ward. He sat through lunch and into the afternoon, eating the bento his wife had made him, reading newspapers and manga people had left behind or watching trash float by in the Kanda river, waiting until enough time had passed to create the appearance of a day’s work before returning home.
As he got up to get his mid-afternoon can of coffee from a nearby vending machine, he noticed a young business man, his discomfort in the black suit and solid red tie he wore an indication of how recently he had started his career, sit down at the opposite end of the bench from him. The young man had a blue backpack on his lap, an artifact from his not-so-distant university days, that he unzipped to remove a dog-eared notebook. As Yamashiro sat down again, sipping his coffee, the young suit flipped though his notebook, his eyes scanning the pages with a look of sadness, before tearing off several sheets, each covered in small, precisely written characters. The young man rummaged in his bag once more and pulled out a large envelope, shoved the torn sheets inside, and sealed it shut, sighing. He looked for a moment at the envelope, checking the address, before he turned to see Yamashiro watching him.
“Excuse me,” said the young business man.
“Sorry,” said Yamashiro, his slightly sagging cheeks beginning to blush.
“Do you happen to know what time it is, sir?”
“Oh, uh, I believe it’s three thirty,” muttered Yamashiro, checking his watch.
“Yes, it’s three thirty two.”
The young man nodded, adjusting his own watch.
“And has the express gone by yet?”
“No, I don’t think so. It should be coming by soon.” Yamashiro paused. “You know this isn’t an express stop, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know.”
The young man stood up, leaving his bag with the notebook and envelope on top sitting on the bench, and looked out along the tracks. In the distance, on the outside track, an express train came into view from behind a large pachinko parlor. Seeing it, the young man turned back toward the bench.
“Sorry to bother you again, sir, but I have a terrible favor to ask you.”
“Oh?”
The young man reached down and took the envelope, holding it out toward Yamashiro.
“Could you put this in a mailbox for me?” asked the young man. “It already has enough postage on it. You’d just need to drop it in the box.”
“Don’t you want to do it yourself?” asked Yamashiro, irritated. “How do you know I won’t just throw it away?”
“Please, sir. It’s very important, and I won’t be able to do it myself.”
“Alright, alright.”
“Thank you very much. I don’t want to miss the express,” he said, turning again toward the tracks.
“Yes, but I told you that train doesn’t stop…,” Yamashiro’s voice trailed off as he watched the young business man leap off the edge of the platform, running across one set of tracks just in time to leap in front of the express train.
The sound of man and train colliding was drowned out by the squeal of brakes, a horrified JR East engineer trying impossibly to stop his train before it covered the handful of meters between it and the jumper. Through the windows of the train, Yamashiro watched the passengers lurch and fall on one another, the open mouths of screams. He looked down at the tracks for some sign of the young man, expecting gore but finding the view obscured by the bulk of the train cars. People on the platform screamed, and as the train finally shuddered to a stop, platform attendants leapt down to the tracks, yelling into their radios, looking for where and how they could help.
A crowd of gawkers began to gather on the platform. Some helpful young men pushed their way to the edge of the platform, lending a hand to the passengers from the express that had begun to pour forth from the doors of the stopped train. Yamashiro stood amidst the crowd until a small group of JR staff and police appeared and began to usher people off the platform and out of the station. In a daze, he walked away from the station for a few blocks, paying little attention to where he was going until his knees began to feel weak. He squatted down and threw up into a storm drain, tasting bile and coffee and his wife’s pickled daikon. As his stomach emptied and he regained his composure, he remembered the envelope in his hand.
I wonder if I should give this to the police, thought Yamashiro. They probably have the young man’s backpack. This should be part of the evidence. And yet, he knew what he was doing. He could have just left the envelope in his backpack if he wanted the police to find it.
Yamashiro looked more closely at the envelope. The pre-printed address was for a business, Jade Buddha Consulting, somewhere in the Shinagawa neighborhood of Tokyo. Below the address, in smaller print, was a phone number.
I could give this business a call, he thought, just to let them know what has happened. Perhaps they can tell me what to do with the letter.
Yamashiro walked back toward a bank of pay phones near the station. Several ambulances and police cars sat parked in front of the station, lights flashing but sirens thankfully quiet. He ducked into a pay phone, fishing around in his pocket for change before dialing the number. The deep curt voice of a man answered.
“This is Kubo.”
“Uh, hello…”
“This is Kubo. Speak.”
“Uh, yes, I’m trying to reach, uh, Jade Buddha Consulting.”
“How did you get this number?”
“It was written on an envelope that was given to me.”
“Who gave you the envelope?” asked Kubo hastily.
“A young man, I don’t know his name. He gave me the envelope and then jumped in front of a train.”
“I see.”
“He asked me to mail the envelope for him, but I saw this phone number and I thought I would call first.”
“What is your name?”
“Yamashiro Hideo.”
“Yamashiro, did you actually see the young man jump in front of the train? Did you watch it happen?”
“Yes, I saw the whole thing.”
“Do you remember it clearly?”
“I don’t think I’ll ever forget something like that.”
“Good. What do you do for a living, Yamashiro?”
Yamashiro paused. This Kubo knew only his name. Telling him the shameful truth would not hurt. It might even be helpful to tell someone.
“I’m unemployed.”
“Retired?”
“No. I was let go by my company a few months ago.”
“What did you do?”
“I was an insurance underwriter.”
“And you haven’t found a new job yet?”
“I’ve stopped looking. No one wants to hire someone my age.”
“Where were you going on the train?”
Another pause, more shameful honesty.
“I wasn’t going anywhere. I like to spend the day on train platforms.”
“Why is that?”
“I haven’t told my wife that I’ve been let go. I can’t stay at home, so I dress for work and spend the day going from one train station to the next. If I don’t leave the platforms I can just buy the cheapest ticket.”
This time, Kubo was the one to pause.
“Yamashiro, I want you to do something for me. Write out everything you remember about the young man and how he jumped in front of the train on the back of the envelope you have. Include a telephone number where you can be reached. If your recollection is clear and thorough, I will offer you a job. Can you do this?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Good. I’ll be looking for the envelope in the mail.”
“Thank you, Kubo-san.”
But Kubo had already hung up.
* * *
Several days later, when Hideo Yamashiro returned home after another day of sitting on train platforms, his wife told him he had a message.
“A man named Kubo called this afternoon,” she said, “and asked that you call him back as soon as possible. Is something wrong?”
“No, no,” he said. “It’s work-related.”
“Then why did he call you at home?”
Yamashiro’s wife stopped making dinner and looked over at her husband, a worried glimmer in her eyes.
“I’m not sure, but it must be important.”
Yamashiro went to the bedroom for some privacy and dialed the number for Jade Buddha Consulting.
“This is Kubo.”
“Kubo-san, this is Yamashiro Hideo.”
“Is this the time you normally get home in the evening, Yamashiro?”
“More or less. Were my notes helpful?”
“Yes, you were quite thorough. I have a few questions to ask, but barring any unanticipated responses, I’d like to offer you a job.”
“Thank you, Kubo-san,” said Yamashiro, a slight smile playing across his face in the mirror of his wife’s nightstand.
“In our earlier conversation, you mentioned you were an underwriter. What sort of insurance did you specialize in?”
“Life insurance.”
“And as a life insurance underwriter, your job was to do what?”
“When people would submit life insurance applications, I would go over the information, evaluate their risks, and determine whether our company would be willing to insure them and for how much money.”
“If your company was unwilling to insure someone it was for what reason?”
“Well, there were a variety of possibilities. If someone was very old or sick or engaged in risky activities. Lifestyle played a key role in my assessment. I could list a number of specific factors, if you like.”
“That won’t be necessary. The bottom line, though, was that if your company was not willing to provide life insurance for someone it was because your assessment indicated that person was more likely to die than the average person on the street, correct?”
“Yes. That’s a bit of an over simplification, but yes.”
“And why were you fired?”
Yamashiro paused and squirmed where he was sitting.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I could speculate if you’d like.”
“Give me your assessment of the situation.”
“Our company got a new president last year, the son of the owner. He’s very energetic and has a lot of new ideas about profitability. Many of the managers like to compare him to Horie Takefumi, though our company is nothing like Livedoor. In any event, the new president started to implement a number of changes designed to make the company more profitable. One of the common ones was to replace aging staff with younger employees. This started at the lower levels of the company and slowly worked its way up. I was replaced by a 28-year-old who’d just finished his Masters degree at Tohoku University.”
“So, you weren’t fired for any sort of incompetence or negligence? A lack of due diligence?”
“I don’t think so,” said Yamashiro, kneading the pillows anxiously.
“Are you certain?”
“If I made any mistakes, no one told me.”
“How have you kept this from your wife?”
Yamashiro got up from the bed and checked to see that the bedroom door was securely closed.
“I simply haven’t told her,” he said, cupping his free hand over the mouthpiece of the receiver.
“She hasn’t noticed the change in your finances? The lack of a pay check?”
“Oh, actually, I have a plan for that. When I first got married, I used to complain to my co-workers that the allowance my wife gave me was too small. She was very frugal, and we had just bought our house. At the time, one of my co-workers told me that the next time I received a raise or a promotion I should keep it a secret. The extra money I could keep in a secret bank account that I could use for additional spending money. I did that for twenty five years without her knowing. Since I was let go, I’ve been transferring that money to our joint account periodically to make it look like I’m still receiving pay checks.”
“And you’re absolutely sure she suspects nothing?”
“From her perspective, my life hasn’t changed much in thirty years.”
“Good.”
“Then…?”
“I will hire you, Yamashiro.”
“Thank you, Kubo-san.”
“Every morning I will call you and give you a list of train and subway stations and times. You will visit each station for the time periods specified and pay close attention to anyone who comes onto the platform that you think is going to jump in front of a train. This may sound difficult, but after the first few you’ll develop a sense of what to look for. Take careful notes of not only who the person is but also the circumstances of their jump, both their attitude prior to jumping and the physical mechanics of the jump itself.
At the end of the day, collect your notes and mail them to me. I’ll send you some pre-addressed envelopes tomorrow by courier. The most important thing for you to remember is that you are an observer; you’re not there to save lives or stop people from jumping. Be objective.”
“I…I understand.”
“Good. Then I’ll call you tomorrow morning at six thirty with your first list of stations.”
“I do have one question, Kubo-san.”
“What is it?”
“Why are you collecting this information? I mean, don’t the police usually look into this sort of thing?”
“Think of it as market research, Yamashiro. Remember, tomorrow morning at six thirty.”
“Yes, Kubo-san.”
* * *
Yamashiro and Watabayashi reached the end of the streetcar line in Waseda. They went into a sandwich shop, ordered some sandwiches and coffees, and sat for a while by the front window, in silence.
“Why did you stop me from jumping?” Watabayashi finally asked.
“Are you upset I didn’t let you jump?” returned Yamashiro.
“No. I just don’t understand.”
“What’s there to understand? You were about to jump, I saw you, and I stopped you.”
“But you didn’t stop the others, did you?”
“The others?”
“The ones you take notes on.”
Yamashiro looked down at his coffee.
“No, I didn’t stop them. I’m not supposed to.”
“Why me?”
“You seemed different somehow,” said Yamashrio, emptying sweetener into his coffee.
“What do you mean?” asked Watabayashi, not touching her food.
“Well, for one thing, you’re the first gaijin, er, gaikokujin I’ve ever seen about to jump.”
“Really? Foreigners don’t jump in front of trains?”
“No,” said Yamashiro, smiling grimly. “At least, not in Japan.”
“Could you tell I was foreign when you saw me?”
“No, I could only tell once I heard your accent. When I first saw you…I don’t know what I thought exactly.”
“I’m not sure I knew what I was thinking either,” said Watabayashi.
Yamashiro and Watabayashi looked at each other, old eyes meeting young. For a moment, Watabayashi’s graceless familiarity and otherness disappeared, and Yamashiro imagined a closer connection. She was the right age to be his daughter, if he’d had any children. He had never considered how his life might have been different with a family larger than just his wife. Perhaps some vestigial paternal instinct had expressed itself earlier on that platform.
“May I ask you a delicate question?” asked Yamashiro.
“Sure.”
“Why were you going to jump?”
Watabayashi sighed, running her fingers through her hair, as before.
“Because I don’t belong anywhere.”
Yamashiro furrowed his brow.
“I don’t understand.”
“When I was a kid, I always wanted to travel. My mother always acted like the whole world started and ended on Oahu. My dad had travelled a lot when he was younger, but once he got married, he never wanted to leave Hawaii. He would tell me little bits about where he grew up in the countryside in Gunma, or about traveling to New York on business, or Hong Kong, or Singapore. Just enough to get me excited, and then he’d stop and say, ‘but Hawaii’s the best place of all.’”
“Isn’t it? My wife and I want to go there on vacation when I retire.”
“But I wanted more and he wouldn’t tell me! How is that fair?”
Watabayashi’s outburst drew stares.
“But look at you now,” said Yamashiro quietly.
“Yes, but…this isn’t any better. When I finished college, I got a job here teaching English. You know that big school across from Seibu Department Store in Ikebukuro? That’s where I work most days. Today I got sent to fill in at the Otsuka branch.”
“Don’t you enjoy it?”
“It seemed like a great job at first. I got to work in the middle of a big city. During the day, there were lots of housewives, and then in the late afternoon you start to get high school students and business men, and by evening anyone might be coming in for a lesson. I was busy all the time, but this is my first job, so I didn’t really have any expectations when I started. It wasn’t until a couple of weeks in that I started to get a sense of the problems I was causing. The head teacher, this tall skinny Canadian guy named Keith, pulled me aside just before I was going on my lunch break one day.”
“Yes?” asked Yamashiro, leaning forward in anticipation of office gossip, something he hadn’t realized how much he missed.
“He told me that people didn’t want to sign up for my classes because my family name was Japanese and I look Asian.”
“You do look Japanese, but why is this bad?”
“Keith told me that the students were complaining that I must not be a native English speaker because of my name and how I look.”
Yamashiro nodded, understanding the bias.
“But you are a native speaker, right?”
“Yes! But since I don’t look white enough, they think I’m not. Anyway, I went out to get my lunch after that, but I couldn’t eat anything. I just cried in the bathroom at MOS Burger until I had to go back and get ready for my next class.”
Yamashiro looked down into his coffee cup. During his time sitting on the platforms he had often wondered whether learning a foreign language would have made him more appealing to his former employer, whether he could have kept his job if he’d studied English. If he’d known a nice Japanese-looking girl like Keala could have been teaching him, a fluent English speaker that might as well have been family, perhaps he would have sought out lessons.
“You are lucky to have this Keith-san for a boss. He sounds very understanding.”
“But Keith-san couldn’t change that the students didn’t like me.”
“Yes,” said Yamashiro, pausing before dispensing an attempt at advice. “Some clients are difficult to please.”
“Clients. Right. Not students. Customers.”
“So, you were going to jump in front of a train because the students at your English school didn’t want to take your classes?”
“Ha! No, that’s just the beginning. I learned to deal with being unwanted at work.”
* * *
Keala walked back into the school after her lunch break, her eyes red from crying, traces of tear-diluted mascara that she’d missed washing off on her cheeks. She tried to avoid the other teachers and students as she made her way to the elevator, but she still managed to find herself riding up to the sixth floor with Kentaro, a Keio University student who worked part-time at the front desk.
“Are you okay?” asked Kentaro in his strongly accented English. “Is it raining outside?”
“No, it’s not raining,” said Keala, sniffling. “Why would you think that?”
“You look like you were caught in the rain,” he said, trying to keep the mood light.”
“Oh, I…”
“Here,” said Kentaro, handing her a handkerchief from his pocket. “I don’t know what is wrong, but you need to remember to smile.”
Keala dabbed at her eyes and cheeks before smiling at Kentaro.
“Thanks. Keith told me the problems you guys have had with getting students to sign up for my classes.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve been telling everyone that ‘Watabayashi-sensei has been teaching for ten years’ and ‘Watabayashi-sensei can teach you good Hawaiian English for your next vacation.’”
Keala laughed.
“You don’t have to lie about my teaching experience, Kentaro.”
“It’s okay. Everyone does it.”
“Really?”
“Yes. If you talk to the Japanese staff at any English school in Tokyo they’ll tell you all their gaijin teachers have at least five years experience, even if the teachers just finished university the day before.”
“Doesn’t anyone catch on?”
“Never. Don’t worry! Give me one month and I’ll turn you into the most popular teacher here.”
The elevator doors opened, and the two made their way to the teachers’ lounge. As Keala began grabbing student files to plan her next lesson, Kentaro sat down next to her with his own backpack, removing several thick textbooks and a notepad.
“What are you working on?” asked Keala.
“This? American history homework.”
“American history? Why American?”
“It seemed like an interesting class when I signed up. But now I’m so confused. Too many names and dates to remember.”
“You’re smart. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
“Maybe you could help me study sometime.”
* * *
“So Kentaro and I started dating,” said Watabayashi.
Yamashiro smiled, remembering his courtship of his wife. They had been an omiai match, true, but he had enjoyed getting to know her during their engagement nonetheless.
“He sounds like a nice boy.”
“He was. Is. And after we’d been dating for a while, I moved out of my company apartment, and the two of us moved in together.”
“That sounds very romantic. I imagine many women would like to be in your place.”
“I doubt that,” said Watabayashi, swirling the now cold coffee in her mug.
“It’s true. So many of the young women I used to work with would have given anything to find a nice young man, move in together, get married.”
Watabayashi looked up from her coffee.
“Married is not so easy,” she said.
“I suppose. But why do you say so?”
“It’s never just two people.”
“That’s true. Did your parents have a problem with Kentaro-kun?”
“No, not my parents. His.”
“What sort of problem could they have with you? You’re a very nice girl.”
Watabayashi blushed.
“Thank you. It’s just that his parents didn’t listen. Kentaro and I had talked about getting married for a little while. He wanted to go to graduate school in the US, and getting a visa would be easier if we were married. We went to visit his parents in Sendai during Obon week this year, and I knew something odd was going on.”
“What do you mean?”
“They had us sleep in separate rooms, but I figured they were just old fashioned. And they treated me so strangely. They didn’t believe I spoke Japanese. His mother tried to speak English with me, but she couldn’t make a complete sentence to save her life. So instead, they talked only to Kentaro and expected him to translate.”
“That is strange,” said Yamashiro, brow furrowed.
“And worse than that, since they didn’t think I understood Japanese, they would talk about me like I wasn’t there. They would say things to Kentaro like he should get together with a girl he knew in high school. Kentaro would try to explain that he and I were a couple, and they would say, “But this is a real Japanese girl. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life with a foreigner, do you?’ Only his sister, Momo, was nice to me. She was in high school and had lots of questions about boys and universities and living in Tokyo.”
“Did you ever explain things properly to his parents?”
“No. And after we came back to Tokyo he didn’t want to talk about getting married anymore.”
“Parents don’t often realize their children have different visions of the future than they do.”
“Do you have any children?”
“No,” said Yamashiro, playing with his napkin.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. My wife and I probably would have been like Kentaro’s parents. I can see myself being a demanding father.”
“Really? You don’t come across that way at all.”
“Thank you.”
Yamashiro and Watabayashi caught each other’s eyes for a moment, a smile playing between them.
“Well, I know it’s not very fatherly advice,” said Yamshiro, “but I think you and Kentaro-kun should just elope.”
“I wish it was that easy.”
* * *
One night not long ago, Keala returned home to the apartment she shared with Kentaro in Shimokitazawa. When she opened the door, she found him stuffing clothes into a small rolling suitcase, his eyes red.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Are you okay?”
“I have to hurry,” he said without looking up, “if I’m going to make the last shinkansen to Sendai.”
“Are your parents okay?”
“Yes, they’re fine. It’s my sister.”
“What happened?”
“She found out today that she didn’t get accepted to any of the universities she applied to.”
“Oh no! How’s she doing?”
Kentaro stood up straight, taking a deep breath.
“She threw herself in front of a train.”
“Oh my god…”
Kentaro hesitated a moment before zipping the suitcase shut. Grabbing his coat, he headed toward the door.
“Wait! Can you wait ten minutes? I just need to pack and call Keith to let him know what’s going on.”
“You don’t need to come.”
“No, I want to be there for you.”
“I don’t think it would be appropriate.”
“Look, I know your parents don’t like me, but…”
“I’ll call you when I get to Sendai,” said Kentaro before shutting the door and running into the night.
* * *
“He didn’t call when he got to Sendai, not right away,” said Watabayashi, picking at the crust of her sandwich.
“You must have been worried.”
“I tried calling him over and over for almost a week, but he never answered his phone.”
“His family was probably busy making funeral arrangements,” said Yamashiro, finishing his sandwich. “When did all this happen?”
“Over the last week. He finally called me back last night.”
“Was he coping?”
“I don’t know. He told me he thought we should break up.”
“That’s terrible. Did he say why?”
“He said it was okay for us to be together before, because his parents had had his sister. She followed their wishes and plans, and he could do what he wanted. But if he was their only child, he needed to be more respectful of their wishes.”
“Do you know what wishes he meant?”
“They want him to get married and move back to Sendai. It’s not that they didn’t like me. They just want him to marry a Japanese girl.”
Yamashiro leaned forward, putting a hand on Watabayashi’s knee. He could see the tears welling up in her eyes.
“Apparently, I’m too Japanese to teach English,” said Watabayashi, choking out her words, “but not enough to marry.”
Her tears came in waves, rolling down her cheeks as her body shook with sobs. Others in the restaurant turned and stared. Yamashiro leaned over to Watabayashi, putting an arm around her shoulder and handing her his handkerchief.
“Shhhh, shhhhh, you’re going to be all right,” said Yamashiro. “You don’t think breaking up with someone or feeling like you don’t belong are good reasons to jump in front of a train, do you?”
Wiping her nose, Watabayashi turned to him.
“I suppose you would know a good reason to jump.”
“Actually, I don’t think I do.”
Watabayashi blew her nose loudly into the handkerchief, the others in the restaurant cringing at the disgusting sound.
“Aren’t you the expert?”
“I know lots about how people jump. I can make educated guesses about why they jump. But as to what’s a good reason, I don’t think I’m qualified to make that distinction. But if you like,” said Yamashiro, thinking of how to help her, “I’ll tell you something I’ve never told anyone before about jumping in front of trains.”
“What’s that?”
“After I lost my job with the insurance company, while I was hiding on train platforms during the day, I came to the conclusion that if I couldn’t think of a solution to my problems by the time my secret bank account ran out of money, then I would jump in front of a train,” said Yamashiro, lying.
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. I decided I would take responsibility for my poor choices, my secrets, and avoid burdening my wife with my failure. If I had jumped so soon after losing my old job, I would never have found this new one. I would never have recovered.”
“Yes, but you still keep secrets from your wife, don’t you? She still thinks you work for your old company, right?”
“Well, yes,” stumbled Yamashiro, “but I can hardly tell her what I do now. And anyway, if I hadn’t taken this new job, I wouldn’t have been in a position to save you. You need to have faith that a better opportunity will present itself.”
* * *
Yamashiro and Watabayashi rode the streetcar back to JR Otsuka Station. Watabayashi seemed to be composing herself, little by little, though Yamashiro kept thinking of her earlier question. Yes, I do still keep secrets, he thought. I may have income again, but how has my situation improved? I watch people die every day, people I could stop, and yet I’ve never stopped any of them.
Except her.
They walked from the streetcar stop into the train station and up to the platform. Yamashiro looked at Watabayashi as she climbed the steps. She is in a dangerous place, he thought, and she could easily fall from the momentary peace she enjoys, but she is safe for the moment. She won’t try to jump again, at least not unless something else happens to her.
“Thank you again,” said Watabayashi. “I feel better.”
“Good,” said Yamashiro, looking up and down the platform. “I think you’ll be fine.”
“Can I call you? If I need someone to talk to, I mean.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Let me get my phone.”
As Watabayashi leaned over her handbag, Yamashiro spied a JR attendant looking down the platform in their direction. All those people I could have saved but didn’t, Yamashiro thought, and yet I chose to save this one. Why her? Why does she deserve to live when they did not? If my initial assumptions about her were wrong, what if I was wrong about the others that I did let jump?
Yamashiro placed his hand on Watabayashi’s back, just below her shoulder blades.
“Here it is,” said Watabayashi, turning back to Yamashiro with her phone, appreciative of his gentle, paternal touch. “So, what’s your number?”
Yamashiro heard the sound of a train rounding the curve from Ikebukuro. He glanced up, dismayed and relieved to see a freight train instead of the silver and green of a Yamanote Line train coming on one of the outside tracks.
“Hey, did you hear me? What’s your phone number?”
“What? I’m sorry, my mind was elsewhere.”
“Are you okay?”
Yamashiro didn’t answer. Instead, he stepped forward, hesitating only for a moment as he jumped off the platform onto the tracks below. As he moved, his fingers slid across Watabayashi’s back, parallel trains following the electrified rails of her ribcage, until they fell away. He hit the ground and sprinted forward, desperate to reach the outer tracks, as the nose of the freight train passed the end of the platform. Already the engineer had spotted him running, going by reflex for the emergency brake to stop the tons of speeding steel even as his brain calculated the obvious futility of the attempt.
“Wait!” yelled Watabayashi.
* * *
In a dark office, a sharply dressed man in a severe gray suit sits at a large oak desk. Strewn across it, between an old black rotary telephone on one side and a small paperweight of a frowning green buddha, are large envelopes mailed from all across Tokyo and the surrounding prefectures. The man removes a letter opener from his desk drawer and begins slicing open the envelopes, spilling pages and pages of detailed notes in a variety of different handwritings onto his desk. As he looks at the first page of notes, his phone begins to ring.
“This is Kubo,” he says as he picks up.
“Kubo-san, this is Sato Hideaki.”
“What is it, Sato?”
“I’m in Otsuka. I just saw the old man run in front of a freight train.”
“Your notes will be sufficient,” says Kubo, irritated. “You don’t need to call me.”
“But sir, he wasn’t alone. A young woman jumped down and chased after him. They were both killed, I think.”
“And?”
“…and I thought you would want to know,” says the man on the phone, hesitating.
“Sato, if your notes are ever insufficient, or in need of clarification, I will contact you. If you ever run out of supplies or have some trouble with receiving your pay, you may contact me. Beyond that, you are to follow your procedures to the letter. I don’t need any special reports when you think something unexpected happens. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Kubo-san.”
