Chapter 8

One day when we were in Japan, toward the end of the stay, I had to take care of some paperwork at a municipal center- things that needed doing before returning to New York- and while I was at the help desk Mitchell waited in the lobby in an area that turned out be a “yochien” or daycare center, and sitting there biding his time he felt scratching at his back.He turned around and saw a little girl was behind him.

“What are you doing?”

“Cleaning,” she said.

“Thanks. I need it,” Mitchell said. He realized he did. He was wearing all black- for Japan; I urged him to wear style that fit with my stylish country, different from America where most people don’t care how they look- and dust had alit on the surface, specks that appeared white against the black.

The child was plucking them off one by one, seemingly having fun, as if playing a game, or grooming a great ape.

“If you didn’t,” he said, “I’d have this stuff on me, falling off all day. Doesn’t look good.”

When she finished, she came in front of him, turned around and spoke, curious. It took Mitchell a moment to realize she wasn’t using Japanese.

“Spanish,” he said, recognizing the language.

“Yes.”

“Where are you from?” She asked her question.

“America,” Mitchell said. He’d thought of saying New York, also of apologizing for the government and its bad behavior on the world stage but stopped short of this, remembering that he was addressing a child.

Calling himself a resident of New York would have been a subtle disavowal of responsibility for the global threat the country had become. I’m a New Yorker, he would have meant. We’re different from other Americans. He understood that wasn’t necessarily true, in any case.

But he skipped the politics, nonsense as far as the little dark-haired girl was concerned. Her bangs were split in the middle like the delicate leaf of a banana tree.