Authors: Sujata Massey
To sleep a full first night in Japan, followed by an awakening at a normal morning hour, is an impossible dream.
My normal wake-up hour, the day after I arrive, is three o’clock in the morning—or four, if I’m extremely tired the night before. Unfortunately, these hours are still too wee for Japanese hotel operators to consider turning on the hot water heater or serve breakfast.
But hot water wasn’t an issue in this hotel, nor was heat or room service. I took a long, luxurious shower. I debated which telephone to use to call Hugh. Michael Hendricks had given me a sleek, high-tech cell that could receive and make international calls, take digital photographs, surf the web, and serve as a receptacle for ingoing and outgoing e-mail. Still, the frugal traveler inside me wondered whether I would get into trouble for using it for personal reasons.
I put off the decision and dressed in the yoga pants and sweatshirt at the top of my luggage and moved through a half hour of stretches. My back and hips were stiff after the long flight. I needed to get out of my room and get breakfast somewhere.
Tokyo’s wholesale fish market lay six kilometers due east. As I jogged the route I knew so well, I found myself running directly toward the rising sun—or the place where the sun would have risen, if there hadn’t been so many gray storm clouds. I didn’t mind. I was elated to run through Roppongi Crossing, passing my old favorite dance haunts like Gas Panic, Wall Street, and MoTown House. In the evening, you could barely walk a straight line through the crowds, but now it was uncrowded, and the only things I needed to dodge were the disgusting asphalt flowers that drunken salarymen had spewed along the sidewalk the night before. From Gaien Higashi-Dori I passed the Lamborghini dealer where Hugh had spent many wistful hours, and then the International Clinic, where many foreigners went for discreet treatment of venereal diseases contracted at the nightclubs I’d passed a few kilometers back.
In my pleasant reverie, with U2 blaring into my ears from the Walkman I wore, I sped along the uncrowded sidewalks, giving the wide gray streets to the first delivery trucks, bicycles, and motorcycles, none of which speeded—this despite the open path, and the lack of police.
I was tiring by the time I passed Tokyo Tower, but I knew the best part of the run was coming: Shiba Park, where I slowed down as I passed the graveyard of the Tokugawa clan of shoguns, and took a brief stop to drink some water at Zojo-ji Temple. I resumed my run again and emerged under a giant
tori
gate into the Hibiya business district, then Shimbashi, with all its wonderful little eating and drinking places still closed. Finally I ran through Ginza, the luxury shopping district where people said that if you stacked ten ten-thousand-yen notes anywhere on the sidewalk, the tiny portion of land underneath the bills would still be worth more. Then it was a right on Harumi Dori past the grand old Kabuki Theater and straight into Tsukijii, where I was delighted to slow to a walk to avoid running into the huge, glistening fish laid out directly on concrete sidewalks. The fishmongers with their thigh-high rubber boots and shrewd expressions glanced at me, but didn’t bother beckoning—it must have seemed obvious that a sweaty young woman in Asics was not a major restaurateur.
I was a glutton, I thought, as I ran my eyes over the glistening sea creatures lying so ingloriously on concrete. A sleek blue-gray fish that looked as if it weighed only about ten pounds—big enough for a feast with my friends, though the price scrawled on its side made that fantasy unaffordable—gave me pause.
“Excuse me, but what’s that called?” I asked the bored-looking fellow standing in a wool sweater and rubber wader overalls behind the beauty. The fish had a number scrawled on it, but that was its only identifying feature.
“It’s a kind of
shusseuo
.”
“Really! What kind, exactly?”
Shusse
literally meant “career progress,” and
uo
meant fish. Mothers gave children
shusseuo
before school examinations. It was interesting, and perhaps apt, that I’d gotten to see this fish this morning.
He glanced around, then lowered his voice as if he were going to tell me a secret. “
Wakashi
. It’s very, very fresh.”
“Oh, I bet it will make wonderful sushi.” He was talking about young yellowtail. If yellowtail was good, a younger version had to be heavenly.
“Ah, yes, it will be gone within a half hour, I’m sure.”
“Where was it caught, in Japanese waters or—”
“What about some service for a real customer?” a sharp voice barked behind me and I stepped aside.
I’d gone too far, asked too much. And the fact was, I couldn’t take the fish. I bowed to the fishmonger and the man who had interrupted me and slipped off. It was six-thirty, so some breakfast spots around the market had to be open. I began searching for a little hole-in-the-wall place where Tom had taken me for an incredible seafood stew a few years earlier. After a minute’s walk, I recognized its sign—a smiling octopus—but the door was locked. However, two doors down a long blue curtain fluttered in another doorway.
A red-faced man with a kerchief tied around his head bellowed out a welcome as I stepped inside the tiny restaurant. It couldn’t have been more than ten feet long and five feet wide, with a blond wood counter and five stools. Every stool was filled, but the chef motioned for me to stand behind the chair of a fishmonger, who was finishing up a plate of squid roe sushi. I took the time to look around and decide what I’d order. The man next to him was eating
tai
, one of my favorite fishes. Soon, the fishmonger had departed and I took his spot. I asked for
tai
and
wakashi hammachi.
The chef shook his finger at me. “We don’t carry
wakashi
fish. It’s because the little ones are caught too early that we have fish shortages,
neh
?”
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” My cheeks warmed with shame. Why hadn’t I thought of this myself, when I’d been joking with the fishmonger outside? Ever since sushi had exploded in global popularity in the 1990s, Japan’s once teaming tuna and yellowtail population had dwindled. Fishermen who caught baby fish like the one I’d seen, rather than waiting for the babies to mature and lay eggs for a future generation, were thinking of quick profits and disregarding the environment. But the whole reason they chose to be unscrupulous profiteers was the existence of greedy gourmets like myself.
The chef suggested
inada
, which was a slightly more mature form of
hammachi
, and I agreed readily. I sipped a tiny cup of hot green tea while I watched the chef deftly slice the fish and layer it on fresh sticky rice. Then, it was my turn. I swirled each piece of sushi through a mixture of soy and wasabi in a little blue bowl at my side. I was in a state of bliss. The only problem was that I knew another person was behind me, subtly but hostilely waiting for the seat. A few years ago, I would have turned around to acknowledge him and apologize, but today, I was bent on enjoying myself. I didn’t turn. I kept eating steadily, at a pace that suited me.
“Okusama, another honorable customer is waiting,” the chef said, scooping my plate away from me after I picked up the final piece of
tai
with my chopsticks.
I cringed. Why had the man addressed me as “honorable housewife,” the kind of honorific men used only with female customers of a certain age? I’d gone through my previous life in Japan with restaurant and shop owners calling me
oneesan,
which meant “big sister.”
The
tai
in my mouth suddenly tasted metallic, but I dutifully chewed and swallowed. Then I picked up the hand-scrawled bill and squeezed through the standing-room-only crowd to the cashier. The sumptuous sushi breakfast had cost about $8.50, a bargain compared with what breakfast would have cost in the hotel. I got a receipt for business purposes and tucked it safely away in my pocket, confident that so far, I was handling expenses in a way that my government would approve.
My worries about not knowing how to behave correctly continued when I reached the Meiwashima Auction House in late afternoon. The young woman behind Gucci sunglasses who was guarding the door didn’t recognize me. In fact, she attempted to stop me from entering.
“I believe I am preregistered. Shimura Rei?”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” The girl looked at her clipboard and nodded. “Yes, yes, I see your name is on the list. You may pick up paddle number fifty-three at the main office.”
I remembered her from half a dozen sales past, but apparently she hadn’t remembered me. Well, there were a lot of people, I thought to myself, as I joined the long queue standing at a desk behind which a crew of women were issuing pine paddles approximately the size of fans. I looked around covertly at the well-dressed shop owners and private buyers who were nodding and smiling at each other as they waited. I spotted a few familiar faces, those belonging to the owners of some big, fancy shops in Roppongi, Omote-Sando, and the like. The ones who recognized me gave the correct half-bow, to which I bowed back at the same forty-five-degree angle. There was no need to chat. This was a chichi auction—a place to which it had taken me a couple of years to gain admittance.
It took a good twenty minutes to get to the head of the line, and when I did so, I asked, as innocently as I could, if Takeo Kayama was bidding.
“He has a number, yes! And here is your paddle!” the clerk answered brightly.
“Sorry to bother you, but what is his number?” I said, slowly taking the paddle numbered 53.
“It’s not a problem for Kayama-san; he already knows the number. He already registered,” the clerk answered.
“We are old friends, and I do not want to bid against him. For that reason I would like to know whether he’s placed any absentee bids on any of the items in today’s sale.”
“Yes, he has. But it’s against the rules of our auction house to give direct information on a particular customer’s interests.”
“Oh, is that so? I apologize. Well, then, if you don’t mind, I’ll take my paddle.”
“You already have it, Shimura-san. And why don’t I give you this brochure, which explains our company rules in detail.”
I turned away, not wanting them to see the blood that had rushed to my face. I’d screwed up in front of gossipy antiques people. I’d come in looking so proper, wearing the claret-color St. John suit Grand had sent from Neiman’s right before the trip; the suit was so grown-up it made me look over thirty, which actually was my goal. But now—I’d lost my advantage by behaving like a kid.
The setup for the auction was a high stage with multiple televisions suspended from the ceiling over it, for close-up views of the items to be auctioned. There was a table where small items would be placed for viewing, and a podium on which the auctioneer would stand. In front of the stage, tight rows of small gilt chairs waited for the audience. Most of the seats were filled; I realized that because of the long time I’d spent in line, it was only twenty minutes until the auction started.
Mr. Watanabe walked along the side of the room, as if unaware of my presence, though I knew, from a cell phone call I’d gotten while waiting in line, that he’d seen me. I made a slow circle around the room’s perimeter, seeking out the items that had the highest estimated values in the catalog. Takeo wouldn’t bother with little things, and neither would someone who was supposedly buying for the Sackler.
One of the most confusing elements of the viewing—something I anticipated because of my past experience at Meiwashima—was that not all the items for sale were Japanese. For instance, there was a huge, fantastically carved four-poster bed—Chinese, I’d figured out from the catalog copy, although to me it looked like the stuff of fantasy in an Arabian Nights.
I moved on to ceramics. My interest was caught by a graceful Momoyama period vase with a mottled gray finish. This was the kind of thing that I should be interested in.
I asked a young man wearing the severe black suit that was the auction house’s uniform to open the case. He paused until I reminded him that the house rules stated that auction attendees were allowed close examinations of goods for sale before the actual event took place. Apparently not many of the shop owners bothered.
The young man’s eyes were wary as he placed the vase on the examination table in front of the case. I sank into a deep squat, a posture of which my fitness instructor would have approved, and took out the tiny digital camera-phone, but before I could use it, the man stopped me. Apparently, I was breaking another one of the rules.
I put away the camera, feeling irritated and deciding that I wasn’t certain the piece in front of me was as old as estimated. Although the Tokyo antiques-dealing community had an overall good reputation for honesty, some Japanese potters were so traditional in their approach to hand-shaping and firing that it would be quite possible to pass off something newer as older. Only very subtle clues could tell me whether the vase was likely to be as old as the catalog said.
I stared at the vase, and in my long moment of indecision someone brushed past, causing me to lose balance and pitch forward.
My life flashed before my eyes as I struggled to keep myself from knocking against the vase. But the young man had it in his hands. All was saved, though I looked undignified on my hands and knees on the carpet.
“My God!” I exclaimed, so discombobulated that I accidentally lapsed into English. Immediately, I switched to a Japanese apology.
“It’s okay,” the young man said, his voice shaky. “That other customer was hurrying by very quickly. It was not your fault.”
I slowly came up to a standing position. My dodgy right knee was going to trouble me for the next few days, after the way I’d smashed onto the floor. No more runs through the city for a while, but that was a small price to pay in exchange for not being responsible to Meiwashima Auction Gallery for $50,000 worth of damage.
“Do you still want to examine it?” the man asked, as if he’d noticed that I was backing away from the vase.