“I… we … I’m so sorry. I didn’t want all this to happen.
A Japanese person genuinely apologizing happens about once every century. I was horrified that Mister Saito should have consented to such humiliation for my sake. It was all the more unfair because he had had no part in my successive demotions.
“Please don’t apologize. Everything has happened for the best. My time in your company has taught me a great deal.”
At least that was the truth.
“Do you have plans?” he asked me with a kind but appallingly tense smile.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll find something.”
Poor Mister Saito. I was the one comforting him. Despite his status and position, he was both a slave to and an inept torturer in a system that he almost certainly didn’t like, but which—out of weakness and lack of imagination—he would never question.
IT WAS MISTER Omochi’s turn. I was paralyzed with fear at the idea of being alone with him in his office. The vice-president, however, was in an excellent mood.
“Amélie-san!”
He pronounced my name in that wonderful and very Japanese way that somehow confirms a person’s existence by throwing their name in the air.
He had spoken with his mouth full, but it was difficult to figure out what he was eating from the sound of his voice. It must have been gooey and sticky, the sort of thing it takes your tongue a long time to clean off your teeth. It didn’t adhere to the roof of the mouth enough to be caramel. Too fatty to be liquorice. Too dense to be marshmallow. A mystery.
I threw myself into my well-rehearsed litany.
“I am coming to the end of my contract and it is with regret that I announce that I cannot renew it.”
Whatever delicacy it was he was devouring was on his knee, hidden from me by the desk. He put a new portion of it into his mouth, but his fleshy fingers hid their cargo before I could see what color it was. That was maddening.
The Obsese One must have realized I was curious about what he was eating because he threw it on his desk. It looked like pale-green chocolate.
“Is that chocolate from the planet Mars?” I asked, perplexed.
He roared with laughter, then was convulsed with hiccups.
Kassey no chokoreto! Kassey no chokoreto!”
This meant “Chocolate from Mars! Chocolate from Mars!”
I thought this was a pretty extraordinary way of greeting my resignation. His high-cholesterol hilarity was making me uncomfortable. I was suddenly worried he might have a heart attack right in front of me. How would I have explained it to the police? “I offered him my resignation and the shock must have killed him.” No one at the Yumimoto Corporation would have believed that. I was the kind of employee whose departure could only ever be very welcome news.
No one would believe the green chocolate did him in. You don’t die from chocolate, even if it is green. Murder was more likely. I would have had my share of motives.
In short, I had to hope that Mister Omochi didn’t die, because I would have been the ideal suspect.
The typhoon of laughter finally ended, and I was about to deliver my second recitation when he interrupted me.
“It’s melon-flavored white chocolate, a specialty from Hokkaido. Exquisite. They have perfectly re-created the taste of a Japanese melon. Here, try some.”
“No, thank you.”
I liked Japanese melon, but found the idea of it mixed with white chocolate repulsive.
For some reason my refusal irritated the vice-president. He asked again, in the form of a polite order.
“Meshiagatte kudasai.”
Which means, “Please, do me the kindness of eating.”
I refused again, as politely as I could.
He started to hurtle through the levels of language.
“Tabete.”
Which means: “Eat.”
I refused.
He shouted:
“Taheru!”
Which means: “Swallow it!”
I refused.
He exploded with rage.
“Now you listen to me! Until your contract is terminated you will obey my orders!”
“Mister Omochi, what difference does it make to you whether or not I eat some of this green chocolate?”
“Stop being insolent! It’s not for you to ask me questions! You will do as I tell you!”
“What do I risk if I don’t obey? Getting fired? That would be just fine.”
Once again, after the fact, I realized that I had gone too far. A glance at Mister Omochi’s expression told me that good relations between Belgium and Japan had come to a serious pass. His coronary now seemed imminent. So was my arrest.
“I’m so sorry.”
He found enough breath to roar, “Swallow it!”
This was my punishment. Who would have believed that eating green chocolate would be a matter of international diplomacy?
I moved my hand toward the packet, thinking that this was perhaps what had happened in the Garden of Eden. Eve had had absolutely no desire to bite into the apple, but a great fat serpent, in the grips of a sudden and inexplicable excess of sadism, had forced her to.
I broke off one of the greenish squares and brought it to my mouth. The color more than anything else was what had put me off. I put it in my mouth, bit into it, and to my great shame, discovered that its taste was far from unpleasant.
“It’s delicious,” I said grudgingly.
“Ha! Ha! Good, isn’t it, this Martian chocolate?”
He was triumphant. International relations were back on an even keel.
Once I had swallowed the casus belli, I started into the next part of my recitation.
“The Yumimoto Corporation has offered me many wonderful opportunities to prove myself. I will be eternally grateful for that. Sadly, I have not proven myself worthy of the honor.”
At first Mister Omochi was taken aback, probably because he had completely forgotten why I had come to talk to him; then he burst out laughing.
I had imagined that by debasing myself, so as to offer nothing for which they would have to reproach themselves, I would elicit polite protestations. Something along the lines of, “Yes, you were, Amélie-san, please. You were worthy.”
This was the third time I had delivered my little resignation speech, and as yet there had still been no serious refutation. Far from disputing my deficiencies, Fubuki had made it clear that my case was more serious than even I had suggested. Mister Saito, embarrassed though he may have been, had not questioned the basis for my self-denigration. As for the Obese One, not only did he find nothing to contradict, he seemed to welcome my announcement with enthusiastic amusement.
I remembered a line from André Maurois: “Don’t speak too ill of yourself. People will believe you.”
Mister Omochi pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, dried his tears of laughter, and, to my utter amazement, blew his nose. In Japan this is seen as the height of bad manners. Then he sighed.
“Amélie-san.”
He said nothing more. I decided that he considered the matter closed. I stood up, said good-bye, and left.
THAT LEET ONLY God.
I was never more Japanese than when I offered my resignation to Mister Haneda. My embarrassment was genuine, and expressed itself in a tense smile and stifled hiccups.
He greeted me with exceptional kindness in his huge and brightly lit office.
“I am coming to the end of my contract and it is with very great regret that I announce that I cannot renew it.”
“Of course. I understand.”
He was the first to react to my decision with any show of humanity.
“The Yumimoto Corporation has offered me many wonderful opportunities to prove myself. I will be eternally grateful for that. Sadly, I have not proven myself worthy of the honor.”
He replied immediately.
“You know very well that what you say is not true. Your work with Mister Tenshi demonstrated that you have superb abi
lities in a field that suits you.”
Now this was more like it.
He sighed.
“You’ve been unlucky. You came at the wrong moment. You’re right to leave, but please remember that if someday you change your mind, you would be most welcome to return. I’m certainly not the only one who will miss you.”
I knew he was the one who was wrong, but was moved nonetheless. He spoke with such persuasive goodness that for a fraction of a second I was almost sad at the thought of leaving the Yumimoto Corporation.
_______
NEW YEAR’S: THREE days of rituals and compulsory rest. This kind of idleness is fairly traumatic for the Japanese.
For three days and three nights, they are not allowed to cook. They eat cold dishes, prepared in advance and stored in beautiful lacquered boxes. I used to love the omochis, a kind of rice cake, but that year I couldn’t swallow a single one. When I brought one to my mouth, I was sure that it was going to roar “Amélie-san!” and burst into raucous laughter.
MY LAST DAY was January 7th, and after New Year’s I went back for my final three days of work. The whole world was focused on what was happening in Kuwait. I had my eyes trained on the bay window; all I could think about was January 7th.
On the morning of the last day, I couldn’t believe it had finally come. It felt as if I had been at Yumimoto for ten years.
I spent my day in the ladies’ room on the forty-fourth floor in a mood of sanctimonious piety. I performed each tiny gesture with priestly solemnity. “In the Carmelite order,” goes the phrase, “the first thirty years are the hardest.” I almost regretted not being able to test the truth of that.
At six o’clock, having washed my hands, I went around the offices and shook the hands of those who had, in their various ways, let me know they thought of me as a human being. Fubuki’s hand was not among them. I felt no rancor toward her. It was my self-respect that forced me not to say good-bye. I later thought that my attitude had been stupid. Choosing pride over any occasion to contemplate such an exceptional face was an error in judgment.
At six-thirty, I went back to my monastic cell. The bathroom was deserted. The neon lights didn’t prevent my heart from feeling heavy. Seven months of my life—no, of my time on this planet—had been spent here. Not something to get nostalgic about. And yet I had a lump in my throat.
Instinctively, I walked over to the window and pressed my forehead against the glass. I knew that this was what I would miss most.
The glass stood between the glaring light and the velvet darkness of the outside world, between the cramped stalls and infinite space, between what was hygienic and what was truly pure. So long as there were windows, I thought, any human being could enjoy their small share of freedom.
I threw myself, one last time, into the view. I felt my body fall.
This final defenestration completed, I left the Yumimoto Corporation, never to return again.
A FEW DAYS later, I went back to Europe.
On January 14th, 1991, I started writing a novel.
January 15th was the date of the American ultimatum to Iraq. On January 17th, war broke out.
On January 18th, Fubuki Mori turned thirty.
TIME, AS IT always does, passed.
In 1992, my first novel was published.
In 1993, I received a letter from Tokyo. Written in elegant Japanese characters, it read in its entirety as follows:
AMÉLIE-SAN,
CONGRATULATIONS.
—MORI FUBUKI
The letter brought me great happiness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Belgian by nationality, Amélie Nothomb was born in Kobe, Japan. The author of eight novels translated into fourteen languages, she has been awarded numerous literary prizes including the Prix du Roman de L’Académie Française, the Prix René-Fallet, Prix Alain Fournier, the Prix Paris Premier, and the Concours du Premier Roman de Sablet. Most recently she received the Grand Prix de l’Académie Française and the Prix Internet du Livre for Fear and Trembling. She currently lives in Paris.
Amélie Nothomb, Fear and Trembling
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