in Japanese the hotel lobby offered the illusion of escape, where guests sat in European-style antique chairs reading the International Herald Tribune and a corps of bell boys dressed like a marching band called me “Madam.”
The only illusion my room offered was that of being in a cell. The room seemed to be a complete unit, as though every piece had been perfectly engineered to fit into place. Although the bed was designed for one person no taller than five and a half feet, it took up two thirds of the room and touched three of the four walls. A small nightstand with a lamp touched the bed and was connected to a narrow desk that took up the fourth wall. On the desk was a mini entertainment center consisting of a compact twelve-inch television, along with a tea set and complimentary tea bag. Next to the desk, a small luggage rack loomed over a pair of beige plastic slippers.
In a small closet-sized room was the unit-bath. It was one continuous piece of putty-colored plastic with a drain in the center of the floor making it look like what you might find on an airplane if the bathrooms included a half-sized tub and shower. Like a one-man band with the drum, cymbals, and banjo all included, the unit was so compact that I could shower, brush my teeth, and flush the toilet all at the same time.
I couldn’t do much in my room except lie on the bed and think. Usually I brewed my complimentary tea bag and worried about work. Besides the uniform and the way women were treated, the apartment situation troubled me. Taking the apartment represented total compliance. I felt the corporate walls forcing me into a mold as though I were trapped inside a Fisher-Price playhouse, in which each piece of furniture fit perfectly into its assigned space and had a single hole for a peg-shaped doll. I didn’t want to be that doll, and the more threatened I felt, the more I wanted to resist.
I decided to call Mr. Yoshida and ask his advice. He didn’t take sides but suggested that I present specific and convincing reasons to the Personnel Department as to why I wanted to live somewhere besides Nerima. He thought I should find an alternative apartment and gave me a general idea of what would be a reasonable rent. Because I was thinking about living near my parents’ friends, he also thought I could make the argument that living there would be safer for me. Mr. Yoshida said he would call the Personnel Department the following week if I wanted him to, but I got the feeling that he thought I should try and work this one out on my own.
I called one of my mother’s Japanese friends. She welcomed me to Japan and asked how everything was going. I told her that things were great and that I would soon be looking for an apartment in her neighborhood. She offered to help me look, and we made a date to meet.
When I hung up I was suddenly overwhelmed with sadness and started to cry. I thought about calling a friend in America, but it seemed so far away and I wasn’t even sure that I could explain my feelings. I didn’t want to admit to anyone, especially to myself, that my dream job was not everything I thought it would be. I felt more alone than ever before. My head ached from crying, so I swallowed a packet of bitter Japanese aspirin powder, took a bath, and ate an entire chocolate bar.
The headquarters building stood on one corner of an intersection in Aoyama, a chic business district in Tokyo where wide streets house boutiques, cafes, and showrooms. The Honda building was less than two years old and was the most modernlooking concrete high-rise on the block.
The front of the building protruded out toward the corner. Each of the sixteen floors had a window running round it that sat back from the smooth, gray stone surface of the building, making it look like a modern bunker. The entryway was clad in austere steel and glass. It was easy to miss the understated sign above the sliding glass doors that said Honda.
On the corners across the street to the right and left of headquarters were similar tall concrete buildings. Kitty-corner from Honda was a conspicuous gap in the landscape. No building or construction existed—only a six-foot high, moss-covered stone wall. In this bustling commercial district, the empty corner stuck out like a gaping hole in a smile.
The stone wall circled an area bigger than the size of a hundred football fields. It belonged to the Imperial Family and housed an immense garden, a guest palace, and lots of wideopen space. Commoners were not permitted inside the walls and were even discouraged from viewing the grounds. When a thirty-two-story building across the street from the garden was built, a special agreement was made to prevent people from looking inside the wall. Not a single window exists on the entire north face of that building.
With help from my mother’s friend, I found an apartment in her neighborhood that was within my budget and only a thirtyfive-minute subway ride away from headquarters. I presented my case to the Personnel Department, emphasizing, as Mr. Yoshida had suggested, that I be allowed to live close to a family friend who would surely be helpful in case of an emergency. Ms. Uno’s boss was unsympathetic but said he would consider my request. I went back to my hotel room that night feeling entirely at his mercy. There was nothing more I could do. I had decided that I wouldn’t bring Mr. Yoshida into the battle; it was clear to me that this was the first of many to come.
When I got back to my hotel room I put on my favorite baggy pants, put my hair in a pony-tail, and walked around the neighborhood looking for ice cream. The cool, dainty scoops didn’t seem like enough on the hot September evening, so I ate three.
The next day Ms. Uno told me that we wouldn’t be going to visit the Nerima apartment because her boss had decided I didn’t have to live there. Arrangements would be made to rent the apartment I had found.
My new apartment wasn’t quite finished when I moved in one Saturday morning with two large suitcases. The apartment was on the first floor of my landlord’s house. Like many homeowners in Tokyo who wanted to profit from high real estate prices, the family had recently renovated their lower floor into two small apartments.
The apartment had two rooms, which were measured using the standard dimensions of a tatami mat. A single mat is about three feet by six feet, making it easy for me to fit my whole body into the space of a single mat. The front room had a blond hardwood floor and was measured as a six-mat room. The other room was four-and a-half mats and had a tatami floor.
I sat in the tatami room enjoying the quiet and sunshine that filled the apartment. Sliding paper screens softened the light coming through the windows, and the brand-new mats smelled green and fresh. All morning, workmen and the landlord’s children had been trekking in and out of the front door, which still didn’t have a lock. It was lunchtime and everyone had taken a break, including me. The landlord’s sister had brought me some food, which I laid out on top of a blue suitcase like a picnic: seaweed-covered rice balls, glazed doughnuts, and a can of iced coffee.
I looked around and admired the space—the hardwood floor was flawless and the kitchen gleamed. Next week I would pick out furniture from a leasing company. I would also be getting the equivalent of $2,000 from the company to buy dishes, appliances, and other start-up items. It seemed like so much money.
Just by moving to Japan I got a fifteen-percent raise and a per-diem allowance. I knew the raise was given to any employee who accepted a foreign assignment, but I didn’t feel that I had done anything to earn it. The extra money was supposed to compensate for the sacrifice of living overseas, but I wanted to live here.
It wasn’t as though Japan was a Third World, hardship assignment where I couldn’t drink the water or get medicine. In many ways Japan seemed more advanced than America. The streets were safe for a single woman at night. Subways and trains were clean and ran on time. The taxis were impeccable—drivers wore white gloves and covered their car seats with lace doilies. Even the bathrooms at headquarters were exceptional: every sink had a mouthwash fountain and many toilets were equipped with an electronic bidet. I liked the polite way salesclerks treated me even in places like the drugstore where I had gone to buy powdered aspirin. The clerk had said, “Please take care of your health.” I felt my living standard had improved.
A man from the Administration Department accompanied me to the Tokyo Lease Company. I paged through several brochures, examining tables and refrigerators. It was hard to make choices because I didn’t know exactly how much I was allowed to spend. The Honda man would not tell me what the limit was. He weaseled his way around my questions, holding his authority like the gavel of a parent who makes all final