Sake and Steam

I’m sitting in the bathroom last night, next to my ancient clunking hot-water unit. It’s late, almost one, and I’m trying to shave my five days of travel stubble so I won’t look like a caveman when I trudge into work tomorrow morning. I’m taking my time; the steam from the bath has heated the tiny room to a comfortable temperature and in an apartment where the wind whistles under the doors and freezes the pipes, this is a luxury.

Suddenly, my door buzzer goes off. Keeps going off. Someone is leaning on the buzzer. It’s harsh and loud against the morning silence. I figure it’s one of the other JETs from the complex, coming back from a late night bender and deciding to have a laugh because they saw my lights on. “Hey!” I yell “I’m in the bath. Who is it?” There’s no answer, just the buzzer still going off. “Fuck, cut it out!” I grab a towel, wrap it around my waist and open the door. Steam billows off my shoulders and outside. It’s cold out there.

There is an old Japanese man with his head on my doorbell. He sways back and forth slightly, a plastic bag full of one-shot sake bottles dangling from one hand. He is completely plastered. I can smell the stale reek of bad breath and cheap sake from where I stand, my body rapidly cooling as the wind whips in from outside. The old guy doesn’t look up, but starts to slur in heavily accented Japanese I can only just understand. “I’ve lost my way. Where is the station. The police. Do you know where the police box is.” I push him slightly to one side, so he’s no longer on the doorbell and point out that the station is 20 minutes down the hill. That the trains stopped running more than an hour ago. “Police. The police box.”

I don’t know what I’m going to do.

I umm and ahh and say I don’t know where the police are. That I’m not sure where the police box is. He pushes himself backwards and looks up for the first time. I can’t imagine what I look like, towel wrapped loosely around my waist and half-shaven beard. “Oh” he says, “you’re a foreigner. That’s why you don’t understand.” He pushes himself upright and stumbles down the stairs. I close the door and listen to the rustling of the plastic bag recede.

About twenty minutes later I hear a car engine start somewhere in the complex. I wonder if he’s found someone that understands.

Posted in Japan on Wednesday January 4, 2006.