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The Woman and the Man

Tony Concannon

        It had been three months since her Japanese boyfriend Akira had dumped her when Heidi saw the old woman in the purple dress in the cornfield. Heidi, on her way to the photography studio to pick up the pictures for renewing her passport, was getting on her bicycle in front of her apartment building. The woman, who was barely taller than the stalks of corn, had her back turned, and Heidi thought it was a scarecrow until she had ridden down the driveway and out onto the rode in front of the field. As Heidi passed the field, she wondered what the woman was doing there on such a hot day.
    Heidi had been so distracted since the breakup that she had almost let her passport expire. She and Akira had met two years earlier, during her second year at International Christian University in Tokyo, where she was doing an undergraduate degree in Japanese. She already had a B.A. in Economics from the University of Wisconsin, and she had come to Japan when she was twenty-three, nine months after graduation. Akira had been in the graduate program in International Business. He had seen her studying one of her textbooks on a bench outside the library and he had asked her if Japanese was difficult. They had spoken for several minutes. She had started sitting in front of the library every afternoon in the hope he would stop and talk, which he did nearly every day. Later, when she had confessed to him about sitting there intentionally, he had admitted he had deliberately gone by the library in order to run into her. He had asked her out for dinner after two weeks of talking and they had had sex for the first time in her apartment on their third date. By then, she had fallen in love with him.
    He spoke English perfectly, something she didn’t find out for nearly a month, as he always spoke to her in Japanese. He had played basketball in college and he was over six feet tall, matching him well with Heidi, who was five-eleven. He was handsome with high cheekbones and round eyes. He told her his ancestors had come from northern Japan and there was Russian blood in him. His father owned a large import-export company in Kobe and Akira was studying at graduate school to be better prepared to run the company when his father retired. He was Heidi’s first real boyfriend. In college she had had male friends, some of whom she had slept with, but no serious relationships. School had always been number one and she had graduated with a 3.9 and received a scholarship to study in Japan, which she had visited in the summer between sophomore and junior year.
    The breakup, which she hadn’t seen coming, had been in June, after Akira had finished graduate school. For over a year he had talked about working for a multinational company in Tokyo or Yokohama to gain experience before joining his father’s company. He had never looked seriously, though. At the graduation ceremony in March she had met his parents for the first time and they had seemed formal and distant, almost cold. He had always joked to her about how they wouldn’t like him dating an American woman. Then, one night at her apartment he had told her he was moving back to Kobe to work for his father and he thought they should end the relationship. He had taken a taxi back to his apartment and she hadn’t seen him since then. She had been so devastated that she had missed school for the next three days. Even now there were places on campus, such as the front of the library, that she couldn’t walk past without feeling as though she were being bowled over. Her schoolwork had suffered. All along she had assumed she would find a job in Tokyo after graduation; now she was thinking about going home.
    The old woman was in the same place when Heidi returned from the studio. And she was there now, as Heidi went out for the second time. Heidi mounted her bicycle and rode down to the end of the driveway. The woman was going to get sick if she stayed out in the sun without a hat much longer. It was the season of what the Japanese called zansho, the hot, humid weather that lasted into early fall.
    “Are you okay? Can I help you with anything?” Heidi called out in Japanese.
    When the woman didn’t answer her, Heidi called out again, louder. The old woman still didn’t answer. Heidi got off her bicycle. The large bag in the basket made the bicycle top-heavy and it took her a few seconds to get it to stay up on the kickstand. She walked around the front of the field and down between the rows of corn.
    “Are you okay? Can I help you with anything?”
    The old woman had been staring at the building in back of the field the whole time. She turned her head to see who was talking. Lines of sweat had run down the makeup on her face. Her purple dress looked expensive.
    “I don’t know you,” the woman said slowly, emphasizing the “you”.
    “I live over there. Are you okay? It’s awfully hot today.”
    “Did you move here recently? I’ve never seen you before. I live in that building,” the woman said, pointing to the one at which she had been staring. The building was a dormitory for single, male employees of an automobile parts manufacturer. Heidi knew because her landlord, the owner of the building, had told her.
    “You live in that building?” Heidi asked, pointing at the dormitory to make sure they were talking about the same building.
    “Yes. I live there with my husband.”
    “Where is your husband now?”
    “At work, of course.”
    “Are you sure you’re okay standing out here on such a hot day?”
    “This is my father’s field. I’m checking the corn.”
    Heidi’s landlord owned the field, too, and he was
    younger than the woman. She had to be senile and, to boot, probably lost. Heidi’s grandmother had been the same way: always going for walks and then forgetting who and where she was. In the end Heidi’s father had had to put her into a nursing home.
    “Excuse me, but what’s your name?” Heidi asked.
    “Adachi.”
    It wasn’t a name Heidi had heard in the neighborhood. The woman didn’t have a purse and Heidi didn’t see one on the ground, where the woman might have dropped it.
    “Could you wait a minute, please,” Heidi said.
    Heidi’s landlord had lived all his life in the neighborhood and he would know the woman if she were from the area. Heidi was almost at the gate to his house when she heard a car coming. She jogged back and moved her bicycle to the side of the road, next to the low wall in front of the field. Again, it took her a few seconds to balance the bicycle. As the car went around the corner, the man driving glanced at Heidi and the old woman, who had gone back to staring at the building. The man was a stranger to Heidi. She had been thinking about flagging down the car if the driver was someone she knew. She walked up the street and rang the bell at her landlord’s house. No one was home. She came down the street, past the old woman who was still staring at the building, and up the driveway to her apartment building. The Suzukis next door were the only people in the building whom Heidi knew. She rang their bell. No one was home there, either. She looked at her watch. It was ten to twelve and her first class was at one-thirty. All she could do now was call the police.
    There was a clatter. Her bicycle had tipped over. She walked out to the street and picked up the bicycle and the books that had fallen out of her bag. The old woman hadn’t turned her head to see what had made the noise. After Heidi returned the books to the bag, she took it out of the basket and placed it on the wall. Worrying that she would look foolish for calling the police if it turned out that the woman lived around the corner, Heidi walked back to her apartment. The woman’s clothes weren’t right for the neighborhood, Heidi figured. And no matter where the woman lived, she was going to get sick if she stayed out much longer
    in the heat. Heidi unlocked the door. She had never called the police in Japan. She could speak Japanese quite well but she wasn’t sure she could explain the situation over the telephone. She didn’t even know what number to call. 110 was for emergencies, but this wasn’t an emergency. If she had more time, she could ride down to the police substation half a mile away and explain the situation in person. Then again, if she couldn’t handle a situation like this, what was the use of having studied Japanese for nearly four years? She remembered the map she had received from City Hall when she had moved into the neighborhood two years earlier. On the back were the telephone numbers for the various city offices and services. She got it out of her desk drawer. The map had a number for the police substation. She took the map into the living room, where the telephone was. She was still worried about looking foolish, though, and she walked out to the kitchen and opened the door. The woman hadn’t moved. Heidi made up her mind.
    A policeman answered on the second ring.
     “I live in Takaki-cho nana-chome,” Heidi began. “Right now outside of my apartment there is an old woman. She’s been standing in the same place for nearly an hour. I think she’s senile and lost. I’ve never seen her before in this neighborhood. It’s awfully hot today and I’m worried about her.”
    “Did you speak to her?”
    “I tried but she didn’t make any sense. I really think she’s senile.”
    “Okay. We’ll go right up. Takaki-cho nana-chome?”
    “Yes.”
    Heidi gave him her name, address and telephone number. As usual, she had to repeat her last name, Menard, several times. After she had hung up, she went outside to wait. She was feeling a little proud. A police car came in two minutes. It stopped at the widest part of the street, where two cars could pass. The old woman took no notice. She was still staring at the building behind the field. Heidi, who had been standing in the shade of the apartment building, started down the driveway. One policeman entered the field and began talking with the woman. A second policeman got out of the car when he saw Heidi. He was nearly as tall as Akira.
    “You’re the person who called?”
    “Yes.”
    “Thank you.”
    People from the neighborhood began to gather. There had been no siren and Heidi wondered if they had been watching the whole time from their windows. An elderly man asked the policeman standing with Heidi what was going on, and the policeman began to explain. Heidi looked at her watch. It was one minute before twelve. She still had time. It was twelve-oh-five when the policeman led the old woman out of the field. Walking, she looked even frailer, like one of those figures children put together with Popsicle sticks and glue. A small crowd had formed by now. The two policemen helped the woman into the backseat of the police car and closed the door. The policeman who had spoken to Heidi walked over.
    “We’re going to take her down to the police station. She said her husband’s name was Nakajima, so we’ll check that first. She doesn’t have a purse or any identification. Thank you very much for your cooperation.”
    The other policeman bowed to Heidi and the two of them got into the car and drove off. Heidi walked up the driveway and locked the door to her apartment. When she got back to where her bicycle was, the people who had come out to watch were still talking. Heidi put her bag into the basket, got onto the bicycle and started off to the train station. The elderly man who had spoken to the policeman called out, “Good job.”
    When the doorbell rang that evening, Heidi was trying to force open the cassette holder of her Walkman with a knife. The Walkman had been in her bag when her bicycle had tipped over, and the force of the fall had jammed the holder. Her books were on the table, but she hadn’t been able to get started on her homework. The telephone was there, too, just in case Akira called.
    When she saw the old man through the peephole, she was disappointed until she realized who he was. She unhooked the chain and opened the door.
    “I’m Nakajima,” he began immediately, speaking quickly. “The police gave me your name and address and I wanted to thank you for helping my wife.”
    He had on a brown suit and his hair was combed back. In his right hand was a box, wrapped in fancy paper. He was no taller than his wife and Heidi smiled down at him.
    “It’s okay. You don’t have to thank me.”
    “The police said you went out of your way. I came by earlier to thank you but you weren’t home.”
    “I just got back from school a little while ago. I really didn’t do much to help your wife. I just called the police.”
    The man shook his head.
    “You helped her very much. She might have gotten sick or hit by a car or something.”
    He held out the box and went on, “I didn’t know what an American would like.”
    “You don’t have to give me anything.”
    “You helped my wife very much,” he said strongly.
    “Okay. Thank you.”
    She bowed slightly and took the box.
    “I wasn’t sure what an American would like,” he said again.
    “Are these chocolates?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Then I like them very much.”
    “That’s good. You speak Japanese very well. I would have called you first but I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to speak Japanese. I can’t speak English at all.”
    “I’ve lived in Japan almost four years.”
    “I’m very surprised,” the old man said, shaking his head. “I didn’t know what I was going to do if you couldn’t speak Japanese.”
    “Is your wife all right now?”
    “She’s fine. That’s the strange thing. Once she got home, she was fine. This is the first time this has happened.”
    “Do you live around here?”
    “On the other side of Mitaka Station.”
    “And she walked all the way here?”
    “She took the wrong bus and got confused. A boy found her purse on the bus and turned it in. She said this morning she was going to Kichijoji. She always takes the bus because she doesn’t like to go up and down the steps at the train station. Her legs aren’t that good.”
    “My grandmother had the same problem,” Heidi said. “She would go off on her own downtown and forget where she was. Somebody would call and my father would have to go and pick her up. We lived in a small town, so it wasn’t that bad.”
    The old man nodded slowly.
     “Sometimes she would be fine and then all of a sudden she would go off somewhere and get lost. Finally my father had to put her into a nursing home.”
    “How is she now?”
    “She died about ten years ago. That was when I was still a child.”
    The old man nodded again.
    “I’m worried about my wife. We live alone and I still go to the office every day. I have my own company. It’s a very small company.”
    “My father was always worried about his mother.”
    “Does your father live with you now?”
    “No. He’s back in the United States.”
    “He worries about you.”
    “I know. He wants me to come home.”
    The old man nodded again.
    “I hope your wife’s okay,” Heidi said.
    “Today was the first time. I hope it’s the last.”
    Heidi didn’t say anything.
    “Well, I just wanted to thank you. You helped my wife very much.”
    “There was no need for you to come all the way over here. Thank you very much for the chocolates.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    Heidi put the box of chocolates on the table next to the door, stepped into her sandals and went outside. The temperature had dropped considerably since the daytime. She wanted to show Mr. Nakajima where his wife had been standing. His car, a green Nissan, was in the parking lot.
    “Your wife was in that field,” Heidi said, pointing. “And she said her name was Adachi and she lived in that building.”
    “Of course her name is Nakajima and her maiden name was Sanuga. We never lived in an apartment building.”
    He noticed Heidi looking at the long scratch on the side of his car.
    “When the police called me, I was in such a hurry that I grazed the wall pulling out of the parking lot.”
    “Mr. Nakajima, why did you think I was American? I’m just curious.”
    “I didn’t know. The police said you were probably American but they weren’t sure. They said they could check but I told them there was no need.”
    She nodded.
    “America’s a big country,” he said.
    “Compared to Japan, anyway.”
    “I have to be leaving. My wife is home alone. Thank you very much for your help.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    He got into the big car and started the engine. Heidi walked down to the end of the driveway to help him back out. The cool evening air was pleasant. When his car was on the street, Heidi waved good-bye. He waved back and then drove slowly away. Heidi looked at the dark field and the building beyond it. Lights were on in many of the windows. She felt okay for the first time since Akira had left. She would move on with her life, she knew. It wouldn’t be easy, but she would move on.

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