Perhaps it’s because of the season, I don’t know, but I’ve been feeling extra generous these days.
First, there was this business with the laundrywoman. I had asked if she could send her daughter over to clean my apartment. They came knocking at seven in the morning. I was up until four the previous night so I groggily opened the door and before going back to sleep, I sent them off, telling them to come back at twelve, after lunch. As if they hadn’t understood, they were back at eleven, the laundrywoman shouting from the corridor, “Okay, that’s enough. You’ve had enough sleep.”
I almost jumped out of my skin.
But this time, I let them in— mother and daughter, armed with grocery bags full of sponges, powdered detergents, disinfectants, and cloths of various colors and sizes. They wriggled their way through a jumble of shoes, books, and half-filled luggage bags, until they finally found an empty space on the floor to set their equipment on.
“You do the sink while I scrub the bathroom,” the mother immediately ordered, handing her daughter a thick, yellow-and-green sponge. It was the multi-purpose kind— one side for delicate glasses and china, and another for scrubbing and scouring heavy stains.
“Wait! I thought I only asked for your daughter,” I called from where I was standing beside the door, one hand still holding the doorknob, though I had somehow managed to light a cigarette with the other.
She didn’t so much as give me a glance. “Things will get done much sooner if there are two of us working.”
But then I’d have to pay double, I wanted to say, but now she was tossing empty shampoo bottles and soap cartons out of the bathroom, and I was beginning to see that there was no point in arguing. “Besides,” I said almost inaudibly that I might have been talking to myself, “there’s not much to do.”
Which was an out-and-out lie, I must admit. I could not even remember the last time I swept the floor, which, I could see now, had yellowed and acquired an overall rough feel. Layers of dust had made the jalousies opaque; the damp walls were covered with mildew and tobacco smoke.
Well, true enough, they finished in less than two hours. As they gathered the last few pieces of trash (a chipped plastic food container with a mismatched lid, non-confidential documents from the office, some old magazines), I summoned the old lady and handed her an amount that would surely horrify anyone with enough common sense. My mother, for instance. She’d say, “That much for not even a couple of hours! What are you, a philanthropist?” (That was what she told me when she learned about the business with the plumber who had come to fix a leaky faucet.)
That same evening, while picking at my tonkatsu at a nearby Japanese restaurant, a stout Indian-looking man came walking towards my table. (I had asked to be seated outside, on account of my penchant for smoking before, during, and after meals.) A beggar, I believed he was. For why then was he coming towards me with his eyes fixed on my plate?
Why, nowadays, they come in different forms! One night just a couple of months ago, I was on my way home from work when a burly, badly sunburned white man (a tourist, he seemed like) wearing an aloha shirt and cargo shorts jumped in front of me. He had his right arm fully extended, palm facing up. His hand was dangerously close, as if he were about to cup my chin. His other arm was wrapped around what seemed to be an enormous bundle of towels.
“Do you have extra money?” he demanded in an unfriendly, business-like tone. His accent was so heavy, it came out as “Juvstramuhnee?”
It was less his accent, though, than the absurdity of the whole situation that had me frozen in my tracks. A white man! Begging for money! As if by impulse, I shook my head. “Sorry, I—“
I don’t understand, was what I wanted to say. I don’t understand why a sunburned tourist, in a Hawaiian shirt, in the middle of the city miles and miles from the sea, would beg money from a native.
But he didn’t allow me to explain. Instead, he hurriedly strode off to the far end of the deserted street, hugging the bundle in his arms, which turned out to be a weightless, sleepy boy who now looked at me with droopy, accusing eyes. I just stood there, glued to where they had left me, feeling cheated out of my one chance at doing a heroic deed. I followed them with my gaze until they turned a corner and disappeared into the night.
And now, this Indian (for as he drew nearer, I saw that he was indeed Indian— clean-shaven, more appropriately dressed, and less out-of-place than aloha shirt). What does he want? A foreigner would not be satisfied with loose change. A tonkatsu set, perhaps? I made a mental calculation and decided that if he asked for it, I could afford to buy him one.
But this Indian, too, did not give me a chance.
I was the only customer seated outside the café— facing the street; behind me was a solid wall. His gaze still fixed on my food, he walked past a row of empty tables. And walked past me, right smack into the wall!
Except that the wall had a door. This I learned later when, without turning back, I heard a rattle of keys and the chink! of key in a metal lock.
Terribly disappointed, I finished the last of my miso soup in one hasty gulp, left an unnecessarily large tip for the waiter, and quickly left the café.
Out on the street, the cool December wind blew. It wasn’t the biting kind, but it was cold enough to make you wish you had brought a muffler or a thin scarf. It was getting late but a few shops were still open. Outside the grocery store, little multi-colored lights were chasing around a sign that said “Welcome!”
There was no earthly reason whatsoever to believe that the white man with the little kid from a couple of months ago would still be around. But I kept an eye out for them, anyway.
Clusters of families were milling about. Taking a breather from all the exhaustion and excitement brought about by the last-minute trips to the supermarket, I supposed they were. An elderly couple limped out of a coffee shop, leaning so close to each other that it was hard to tell who was supporting who. Trailing them was a miniature version of the old woman, perhaps a great-granddaughter, wearing similar clothes and the same kind of makeup.
I was about to get into the supermarket when I felt a slight tug on my sleeve. I spun around to see a tiny girl in raggedy clothes; black dirt splayed out of her mouth like hardened whiskers. Why, I thought, she almost looks like a cat!
She blinked and after a minute of hesitation, she started to sing, “Deck the bowls with jowls of Polly,” which was a mighty difficult song, if you want my honest opinion. I was impressed. It all came out tuneless that she might have been reciting a poem, but at least she got the “Falalalala lalalala” part right. I watched her, amused, and allowed her to finish before handing her a fistful of coins that I had fished out of my pockets. She started on “Thank you, thank you” but I waved her away.
I watched her skip merrily towards her friends, balling her hands carefully around the coins, as if she had just caught an insect that was trying to get out. “Merry Christmas!” I called to her.
She didn’t look back, though I thought I saw her ears perk up just the tiniest bit. Or it could have only been my imagination.
Ordinary Thoughts of an Extraordinary Mind 