laughs, and draws his finger across his throat suggestively. I understand that—so I think. What laborer worthy of his hire has not longed to do that to his boss?
"Housemaster's wife, Papa-san, verree—'hat you say? Japanese speaking netamashii. Understand, Papa-san?"
Quick, Watson-san, the dictionary! Nessuru, heat; nesugosu, oversleep—here we are—netamashii—envious, jealous.
"Jealous?" I ask.
"Yiss, Papa-san—verree jerrous. Beecause Papa-san's car verree nice, cost too muchee money. She's speaking Papa-san's car don' stay this prace."
"Oh!" I say. "You mean the housemaster's wife doesn't want me to park my car inside the gate? Well—all right. I'll move it. I'll put it outside in the street."
"No, Papa-san. Tonight all right, can stay. Today morning Goto-san speaking, verree angry, don' stay housemaster's job."
Again Goto-san makes that gesture, and I realize, with some horror, that he has just quit his job—he has just cut his own throat, economically speaking—out of loyalty to a friend of two weeks, and a foreigner, at that! Even worse, perhaps, is the fact that he will lose this house, which went with the job, at a time when there simply are no houses to be found.
"But, look—you can't do that, Goto-san! I'll go to the housemaster and apologize—I'll tell him the car will never be inside the gate again. You must not quit your job!"
"Already finish, Papa-san," Richi-san says. "Papa-san 'ant more koppu of tea?"
Weakly, I have another "cuppa" of tea, wondering if I have not just had thrust upon me the responsibility for support of a Japanese couple. Luckily, Goto-san and Yoshi-san have no children, but only a bobtailed cat named Chako. Goto-san, however, seems singularly un-worried. He is eyeing me and rattling off a stream of Japanese at the interlocutor.
"Papa-san?"
"Yes, Richi-san?"
"Goto-san speaking iffa Papa-san in Japanese army, maybe sergeant, Beecause Papa-san verree tar."
"Very what?"
"Tar!" and she makes a gesture to indicate height. Tall.
Which may prove that the old Japanese army was like old armies the world over—the sergeant was the man big enough to beat hell out of any of the corporals and privates. Things have changed....
There is a single flower in a vase on the table, and Papa-san, who doesn't know much about flowers in the first place, and has a bad memory in the second, asks what it is called in Japanese. There is a moment's grave discussion.
"I'm forget, Papa-san," Richi-san says. "Same kind have in States?"
"Yes—in California. Many of them. But I can't remember the name. It wasn't exactly an English name. More like Latin, I think. Spanish maybe. I can't seem to remember. Let's see ...."
"Oh, I know, Papa-san! Japanese word. Gladiolus!"
I chuckle. "Japanese word, eh? We have English word, too—gladiolus. But if you can pronounce the 'L's' in gladiolus, why can't you say 'tall'?"
"Oh, Papa-san—different! Gladiolus we always have!"
With some understandable concern, Papa-san drove out to his friends' neighborhood a couple of evenings later, hoping that either the housemaster or Goto-san had relented, and that the job remained in status quo. But nobody was in the small cottage, and Chako, the bobtailed cat, was nowhere around. A middle-aged neighbor woman, smiling and bowing, appeared, chattered volubly in Japanese, and made gestures indicating that I was to stay by the car.
Then she ran off through a narrow alley and skirted a small plot of rice about the size of a back-yard garden. Looking at this and hearing a rooster crow, I remembered that Richi-san had apologized on behalf of all the cousins for the neighborhood in which they lived; it was, she said, "verree countree"—when, in fact, the city of Tokyo extended for miles beyond it.
The neighbor woman, I learned later, was "verree kindness." She was, too, and it is unfortunate that I never learned her name. She became known to me as Other House Mama-san, and that she remained.
Other House Mama-san returned shortly, still traveling at a fast trot, and brought Richi-san. They conducted me to a place only a few blocks away, as we would measure the distance, to Goto-san's new quarters.
He was living in a small apaato, or apartment, where his drawing table took up at least a quarter of the entire living space. Yoshi-san was at home to serve us honorable tea, but Goto-san was working.
"Goto-san have new job, Papa-san. He's takushi du-river. First day, he's Number One du-river that takushi company, too muchee money making, new boss verree hoppee!"
Papa-san was verree hoppee, too, until he learned that Goto-san had driven his taxi a mere eighteen hours the day before, and planned to continue working that kind of shift—had to, it seemed, if he was going to keep out in front as the ichiban cab jockey in the transportation firm, which he was.
And he did. He drove the cab all over Tokyo, eighteen hours a day, for a couple of weeks. That kind of industry simply can't go unrewarded in a country which still regards democracy and free enterprise as something new.
He passed me one day on the street, tootling his horn as vigorously as only a Tokyo cab driver can do, and waved at me. The eighteen-hour day didn't seem to have worn him down.
The next time I saw him he was sporting a uniform with brass buttons and a visored cap, and I learned that he had just been promoted, within the company, to driving one of its big buses on a regularly scheduled route. In Japan that can be a career.
A few months later Goto-san had become a sort of trouble-shooter for the company and was driving a company car, which he was allowed to take home at night.
All of which proves that it's a ba-ad heart that bodes nobody good.
Driving Is
Justa Rittle
Different
THE red English sports car at the head of the line, waiting to buzz down the Tokaido—Japanese Route Number One Highway—bore a stranger device than anybody realized. Painted across the cover of its spare wheel was the word "HARE."
To you and me that is a reminder that the race is not always to the swift, a proverb especially applicable to sports-car rallies in a land where the speed limit is thirty-five miles an hour. But to the small Japanese girl who sat beside me as my guido, the label was only confusing.
"Papa-san?"
"Yes, Richi-san?"
"Papa-san, what meaning 'har-reh,' Engrish speaking?"
"Har-reh?" I puzzled, and then, when she pointed to the sign, "Oh, I see. That means rabbit—usagi. That car is usagi, and all these others, including ours, are inu. Rabbit and dogs—hare and hounds. Understand?"
She shook her head. "I don' sink usagi, Papa-san. I don' understand. Japanese speaking har-reh meaning justa rittle stomachy, and nice wezzer. I don' know!"
"I
