Building Waves

Taeko Tomioka, Louise Heal Kawai

• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781564787156
• eBook ISBN: 9781564787507
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literature General
• Index: Literature

It is the early eighties, and the housing industry is booming. Previously unpopulated mountainous areas of the Japanese countryside are being leveled to accommodate new waves of people. Similarly, a new wave of feminism, particularly a change in attitudes toward marriage and child-rearing, is growing among the women of Japan. Both the physical and social landscapes are in flux. In her early forties, married, and childless by choice, Kyoko has no compunction about getting what she wants. But when she begins a relationship with a man who is as traditional and conformist as they come, the result is at times uncomfortable, at others comical, but ultimately fatal.Beautifully written by Taeko Tomioka, a renowned poet, Building Waves is often droll in tone, but always touching in its portrayal of a culture divided, and ultimately swept away, by ferocious waves of change.

1

Back when I used to watch a lot of prime-time TV, there was a particular dating game show that always caught my attention. At first the young men and women were divided by a wall, and each had to imagine what the other was like only from their voice. Then when the host yelled out “Time to Meet!” the divider would be raised, and the couple would have their first conversation face to face. This conversation invariably kicked off with one member of the couple asking the other, “What do you do in your spare time?” As I watched week after week, I heard the same old question over and over. Eventually, I was sick of hearing it. But there was no denying it was a good way of getting to know something of the other’s private life or personal side.

“What do you do in your spare time?”

“Hmm, I guess I go for drives and stuff.”

“Oh, you’re into cars?”

“Yeah. You too?”

“Yeah.”

When I was a student in the sixties, no one in my circle of friends had a driver’s license. I know that kids nowadays all go to driving school in the summer vacation of their first year in college, but still a response like “I go for drives and stuff” irritated me to no end.

What exactly is someone’s personal life . . . ?

“So what do you do in your spare time?” I asked.

I found it amusing that I had resorted to the same line of questioning as the young people on the dating game show. At the same time, I reasoned that this line of questioning might just be a universally-accepted, logical approach to getting to know someone.

“Let me see . . . mostly I just drive around.”

“Oh, in your car.”

Right then, in the beginning, I wasn’t remotely interested in learning any more about this man’s private life. I mean, we weren’t anywhere near a car and I didn’t see any connection between the man and the concept of driving, or even to a car. Nowadays, being able to drive a car is nothing out of the ordinary. But I suppose I have to admit that, for me, there was still something special about it.

And so, when the man had finally turned up in his car, I was momentarily dazzled by the combination of this meticulously cared-for vehicle and the man behind the wheel.

“About how much does a car cost?” I asked.

“Well, it depends. The most expensive can go for just about anything. This one cost me one and a half million yen.”

“Hmm, that’s pretty expensive.”

“It’s just an average car.”

“A car’s something you’d buy on credit, right?”

“Yes, normally. But I paid for this one in cash. My financial controller is generous about those sorts of things.”

I didn’t own a car and couldn’t drive, which put me pretty much out of touch with today’s society—a fact I was well aware of. It was only someone like me—unable to operate what had become an everyday piece of equipment—who would think it so special. But it did turn out that through his flippant use of the term financial controller to refer to his wife I had managed to uncover a tiny bit more of this man’s personal life.

“Expensive, though, aren’t they—cars? Or maybe I’m just cheap. Perhaps career women are all cheap by nature,” I said jokingly. But the man took me at my word.

“It must be really difficult for you women to have a career—unless you’ve got your husband’s understanding anyway,” he replied, a serious expression on his face. The moment I heard him use the phrase your husband’s understanding, I immediately tried to forget he’d said it. What exactly was a husband supposed to understand? Whenever Japanese wives say to each other “You’re so lucky to have your husband’s understanding,” the phrase always sounds empty, as so many clichés do. But I don’t doubt that if I turned to the speaker, the kind of person who thoughtlessly tosses around that kind of expression, and told them how meaningless it was, they wouldn’t have a clue what I was talking about. I had scant tolerance for any of these kinds of platitudes, so when the man said “your husband’s understanding,” I was so busy trying to keep talking, to hide how much it bothered me, that I got all flustered.

If we’d been on that game show, the red, heart-shaped lamp that signaled a successful match would never have lit up. It only took a couple of minutes in the man’s car for me to come to this conclusion. The man, for his part, seemed totally bewildered by my conversation.

“This is the first time I’ve ever talked to an intellectual woman like you,” he commented.

I laughed. “Look, I wrote a few poems when I was younger. Really, the word poet is an overstatement. I was more like a disreputable hack. I wasn’t earning any kind of honest living—I was a reprobate, scum of the earth . . .” I was laughing but I realized he was staring at me blankly, uncomprehending. This wasn’t a look of reproach for my fake badass routine—it was all too obvious that he’d just never heard the terms hack or reprobate.

“But I’ve seen books of your poems in the bookstore. If you’ve been published then you must be an intellectual,” the man persisted, apparently in earnest.

“Is that right?”

“Sure it is,” he grinned triumphantly.

There being nothing more to say on the subject, I instead grabbed a box that was sliding around on the back seat.

“Are there tapes in here?”

“Do you want to listen to something?”

“What kind of music do you have?”

“Song of the Seasons, Song of Daybreak, you know—traditional folk songs. That kind of thing.”

“Huh?”

“Shall I put one in?”

“Um . . . I’m fine, thanks.”

Without warning, he launched into a rendition of The Seashore Song. His powerful tenor voice, exactly what you’d imagine springing forth from a large body like his, resonated through the car. He didn’t seem to put much effort into each note, yet there was volume to spare. His rich, hearty voice never seemed to crack or falter.

“You’re in a good mood,” I remarked.

“Of course. I never get to go for a drive with a woman next to me,” he replied seriously, then resumed his song.

I looked over at him. “You must be at least six feet tall.”

“Right. Six feet two inches.”

“And about 180 pounds?”

“More than that.”

“I’m guessing you’ve never had any serious illness.”

“No, never. The past few years I haven’t so much as caught a cold.”

“That’s probably because you don’t poison your body with stuff like this,” I grinned, lighting a cigarette.

“Right. I don’t drink and I’ve never even tried smoking.”

“Perfect health.”

For the past month, I’d had a constant headache. From the middle of my forehead, around past my temples, to behind my ears, it felt as if my head was being squeezed by an iron band. There seemed to be no way of loosening it.

The Seashore Song continued. In that wholesome, crystal-clear tenor. He spun the wheel with arms that looked sturdy and strong. He hadn’t made a single lighthearted comment the whole time we’d been together, but I assumed that The Seashore Song was his way of communicating his good feelings. He was entirely contained in his own bubble of healthy wholesomeness, completely indifferent to how bored I was. You couldn’t really call him overweight, but he was bulky, like one of those sixth-grade winners of a school fitness contest. You’d see their photos in the local newspaper, bursting with energy and vitality. They always reminded me of samurai warrior action figures. His hair was cut short too, like a professional athlete’s, a pair of glasses the only distinguishing mark on his untroubled face. Even these weren’t particularly thick, so they didn’t obscure his cheerful expression in any way.

“Don’t you like any popular songs? How do you feel about jazz or rock?” I asked in the face of the interminable Seashore Song.

“It’s not that I don’t like them. I just can’t sing them. That vibrato sound—like the one you get in enka songs—I just can’t get it right. Whenever I try to sing that way, people tell me to stick to folk songs.”

“That’s unusual for a Japanese person. Unless you’re very young. Usually if a Japanese person tries to sing a foreign song, any song really, somewhere along the way, that vibrato creeps in and it turns into enka. Well, at least with the over-forty crowd.”

I grinned, knowing that he was forty-two. However, he chose not to show his solidarity with his generation and said simply, “I just like folk songs.”

That was a total conversation killer if ever I’d heard one. There was nothing to do but pass the time by talking; hopefully I could entertain the man and at least amuse myself doing it. It had plainly escaped his notice that providing what amounted to some kind of one-way chatting service was my only source of entertainment here with him. It wasn’t taking me long to work out that he wasn’t the kind of person who liked to strike up a conversation, or even considered it a way for two people to have a good time together. I had to abandon all hope of that.

But really, I decided, it wasn’t that he was taciturn by nature, or shy, or even inarticulate. I concluded, rather maliciously, that he just didn’t have anything to say. Oh well, I supposed it was probably better than having to sit there bored, nodding in agreement while he tried to explain mundane concepts that most people already understood (such as the term vibrato) in an interesting or amusing way.

Normally if two strangers want to get to know each other better, there’s really no alternative to conversation. You can try joking around the whole time, but that method only works with some people. And there’s a point at which bland, neutral small talk is no longer enough—without asking about each other’s personal life, there’s really no other way of getting to know someone. So, in most cases, you chat casually about your hobbies, work, or family, and in turn listen to the ...

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