A Clean Kill in Tokyo

even if the mark is invisible to most of the wider world, I’m always aware of its presence. Intimacy is no longer familiar to me. Probably, I sometimes realize with a measure of regret, it is no longer possible.
    I haven’t had a real relationship in Japan since my move into the shadows. There were some faltering dates, perfunctory on my part. Tatsu, and some other friends I no longer see, sometimes tried to set me up with women they knew. But where were these relationships going to go, when the two subjects that most define me were unmentionable, taboo? Imagine the conversation: “I served in Vietnam.” “How did you manage that?” “I’m half-American, you see, a mongrel.”
    There are a few women from the
mizu shobai,
the water trade, as Japan calls its demimonde, whom I see from time to time. We’ve known each other long enough so that things are no longer conducted on a straight cash basis, expensive gifts instead providing the necessary currency and context, and there is even a certain degree of mutual affection. They all assume I’m married, an assumption that makes it easy for me to explain the subtle security measures in which I engage as a matter of course. And the assumption also renders explainable the suspended, on-again, off-again nature of our relationship, and my reticence about personal details.
    But Midori had a reticence about her, too, a reticence she had just breached in telling me a bit about her childhood. I knew if I failed to reciprocate, I would learn nothing more from her.
    “I grew up in both countries,” I said after a long pause. “I never lived in New York, but I’ve spent some time there, and I know some of the region’s accents.”
    Her eyes widened. “You grew up in Japan and the States?”
    “Yes.”
    “How did you come to do that?”
    “My mother was American.”
    I was aware of a slight intensification of her gaze, as she searched for the first time for the Caucasian in my features. It’s still there, if you know what you’re looking for.
    “You don’t look very—I mean, I think you must have inherited mostly your father’s features.”
    “That bothers some people.”
    “What does?”
    “That I look Japanese, but I’m really something else.”
    I remembered for a moment the first time I heard the word
ainoko
—half-breed. It happened at school, and I asked my father about it that night. He scowled and said only,
“Taishita koto jaa nai.”
It’s nothing. But pretty soon I got to hear the word from the
ijimekko,
the school bullies, as they tried to beat the shit out of me, and I put two and two together.
    She smiled. “I don’t know about other people. For me, the intersection of cultures is where things get most interesting.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Sure. Look at jazz. Roots in black America, branches in Japan and all over the world.”
    “You’re unusual. Japanese are typically racist.” I realized my tone was more bitter than I had intended.
    “I don’t know that the country is so racist. It’s just been insular for so long, and we’re always afraid of what’s new or unknown.”
    Ordinarily I find such idealism in the face of all contrary facts irritating, but I recognized that Midori was simply projecting her own good sentiment onto everyone around her. Looking into her dark, earnest eyes, I couldn’t help smiling. She smiled back, her full lips parting, her eyes brightening, and I had to look away.
    “What was it like to grow up that way, in two countries, two cultures?” she asked. “It must have been incredible.”
    “Pretty standard, really,” I said, reflexively.
    She paused, her demitasse halfway to her lips. “I don’t see how something like that could really be ‘standard.’”
    Careful, John.
“No. It was difficult, actually. I had a hard time fitting in either place.”
    The demitasse continued upward, and she took a sip. “Where did you spend more time?”
    “I lived in Japan until I was about ten, then mostly in the States after that. I came back here in the early eighties.”
    “To be with your parents?”
    I shook my head. “No. They were already gone.”
    My tone rendered unambiguous the word “gone,” and she nodded in sympathy. “Were you very young?”
    “Early teens,” I said, averaging things out, still trying to keep it vague when I could.
    “That’s terrible, to lose both parents so young. Were you close with them?”
    Close? Though my face bore the stamp of his Asian features, and although he