This is a story I heard from someone.That someone was a woman somewhere in her mid-forties. She was plump. She had a loud, lively voice that seemed to bounce off the walls. And she was constantly chattering—the type who gets cast as an extra in serial TV dramas, the “gossipy local housewife.”
She and I had the chance to be alone together for just under an hour, and I was audience to what she called “something like my life story.” It was late, just past two in the morning, and a steady stream of golden oldies was flowing from her radio. It seemed like the kind of station that just played music, without any radio personalities yakking away.
She addressed me first—asked me if I had a driver‟s license. “Sadly, no,” I answered. “My reflexes are bad, so I‟ve given up on it. If I got my license, I‟d be a public menace.” She laughed loudly.
“Once you have your license, you find out it‟s not that bad.”
“Really?”
“It‟s true, you know,” she said, nodding broadly. “You might discover a whole new side of yourself.”
“Who knows? I might turn out to be a real hot-rodder.”
“They do say there are people whose personalities totally change once they‟re behind the wheel, and there certainly are. But do young people like you still use oldfashioned words like „hot-rodder?‟”
“I‟m not that young.”
“Oh! Well, then, let‟s not talk about age.”
Her features softened into a cheerful expression. I couldn‟t catch more than a glimpse of her face, but it was obvious to me that she was enjoying the conversation. I myself—even though I was a bit tired—felt that exchanging pleasantries was far more interesting than staring into space in boredom. I‟ve always been the kind of person who likes listening to the stories of strangers. And as temporary conversation partners go, shearoused my interest.
So when she broached the subject of driver‟s licenses, it wasn‟t with feigned but with real interest that I listened to her.
“I‟m something of an oddity for my generation because I got my driver‟s license when I was still young.”
“How old were you?”
“It was my second year of work after I left high school. That means I was twenty.
” When I thought about it, this did seem quite strange for a woman of her generation. “That‟d be some thirty years ago now,” she continued.
Oh, I thought, and made a minor adjustment to my previous estimation. She didn‟t look her age.
“You know, at first, I didn‟t think I had any need for a driver‟s license. I didn‟t think I was cut out for it, either. And if you think your reflexes are bad, mine were really awful.”
“Women think nothing of getting their licenses these days—not like thirty years ago.”
She nodded slightly. Again, her features softened. “Absolutely. These days they‟re getting them as soon as they‟re out of high school. My own daughter says she wants to get hers.”
“How old is she?”
“She‟s a senior in high school. A hopeless tomboy. She‟s graduating next spring, and she‟s determined to go to driver‟s ed once she does. Right now she‟s working parttime to pay for it. But she says that until she gets used to driving, she‟s going to borrow my car.”
“But that would probably put your mind at ease.”
“You‟re right. It‟s better than letting her drive around in some cheap rental car that hasn‟t been maintenanced in God only knows how long, or in a used car she bought off a friend on the cheap.” Her words revealed her motherly concern.
“But I‟ve gotten off topic,” she said, continuing. “Anyway, when I was twenty, I suddenly decided to get my license. I mean really suddenly. Before then I hadn‟t even given it a thought. Why all of a sudden like that, do you suppose?”
“Well,” I said, and laughed. “Maybe you had a crush on the driver‟s ed teacher.”
She grinned too. “This isn‟t that kind of story.”
A third-year student in high school. The equivalent of our seventh, eighth, and ninth grades are considered part of middle school; high school is the equivalent of our tenth,eleventh, and twelfth grades.
Just then, the slow-tempo ballad that had been coming from her radio ended. In the brief moment of dead air before the start of the next song, her words fell like a ton of bricks.
“You see, I wanted to kill somebody, so I decided to get my driver‟s license.”
For a moment I was dumbstruck. I think my face was still stuck in a smile. “Is that a true story?” I asked as the radio began to play the next song. It was Frank Sinatra‟s “Strangers in the Night.”
“It‟s true, it‟s true; I‟m not lying to you.” She tilted her head thoughtfully and looked back at me, nodding firmly. “But it‟s ancient history.”
“You really gave me a scare,” I said, laughing. “Have you told this story before?”
“A few times. When I‟ve felt like it.”
“I bet they‟re all shocked when they hear it, aren‟t they?”
“There was one guy who said it was a good idea, you know. Although I‟m sure there‟s some bad karma in store for him.” While listening to Sinatra‟s voice in a corner of my mind, I pondered that. A good idea….
“So you mean you were thinking of getting your driver‟s license and staging a traffic accident in order to kill somebody?”
“We have a winner!” she declared cheerfully. At that, I felt relieved. It really was an old story, and she herself seemed to find it funny. There was still a whiff of violence about it, but I thought at least that there was no real malice or hatred in what she was saying.
“Way back then, you know, when I was twenty, I was in dire straits.” The tone of her voice dropped—a key change. Here there was a sudden reverence for the past, and she struck a chord of sadness. “To put it bluntly, I had a failed relationship, and because of it I lost my job. He was a fellow employee, so in the end I couldn‟t stay on there.”
“I understand, I understand.”
“You see that kind of thing even now, don‟t you?”
“Yes. It‟s an uncomfortable reality.”
“It‟s always that way, isn‟t it? But you know, this was a long time ago, so it wasn‟t just a matter of hurt feelings. Things were a lot more unequal in those days. The company had a policy forbidding relationships between coworkers. So the moment the scandal broke, I was fired. But the man didn‟t have to quit.”
“Why not? That‟s hardly fair.”
She shrugged her broad shoulders. “He‟d agreed to an arranged marriage proposed by our boss. And because of that, he dumped me.”
“How awful,” I said, raising my voice. “So they got rid of the nuisance, huh?”
“That‟s it, you‟re right. But there was more to it than that—”
It was probably because these were such bitter memories that it took her a while to recover. “Okay,” she said, and there was a substantial pause before she began again.
“He—my boyfriend at the time—had his reasons for wanting to agree to the boss‟s arranged marriage. So in order to „take care‟ of me, he tipped the boss off to our relationship. He told him that we were involved. But he said that it wasn‟t serious, and that, to tell the truth, he was bothered by how I followed him around. That he‟d told me he couldn‟t violate company policy and had tried to turn me down any number of times.”
If it happened the way she said it did, it was an appallingly selfish thing to do. But then again, things like that do happen. In this world, anything is possible. I was old enough to understand that much.
“In the end, I was much better off not being involved with a man like that.”
“Definitely. It was for the best.”
“But at the time, I was miserable. One day, all of a sudden, the boss called me into his office and told me, „You‟re in violation of company policy, you know.‟
After that, I only got a month‟s notice before they gave me the axe.”
“My God, „betrayal‟ doesn‟t begin to cover it.” It had happened to a complete stranger, but I found myself getting angry. “But how did your boss find out about it in the first place? Surely not from the man himself?”
“Actually, yes.”
By now I was really aghast. “Could he really have been that despicable?”
“Some men are, you know,” she said, laughing cheerfully. Her good humor didn‟t seem to be a front for any kind of continued resentment. Probably the passing of time had given her such wisdom, strength, and resilience.
“What did he say?”
Her answer came with an understandably sarcastic smile. “He said he was sure I‟d understand. „If you really love me,‟ he said, „you‟ll want what‟s best for me. I believe you‟ll break things off cleanly.‟
I burst out laughing. She kept laughing, too. “Well, that‟s the kind of man he was. And I was pretty foolish myself.”
His implication was that she should not come looking for any tegirikin, or consolation money customarily paid to women after a break-up.
“But with a man like that, wanting to kill him isn‟t unreasonable, you know. Anyone would feel that way.”
“Well, if it were you, what would you do?”
“How would I kill him, you mean?”
“Yes. Would you do it boldly, without trying to hide it? After all, you would certainly have reason enough to do it, after all he‟d done. So would you just go ahead and do it, and expect people to recognize your right to act?”
I thought about that for a while. I wasn‟t the kind of person who could out and say, “Yeah, I‟d kill him on the spot.” I thought I would never be able to kill someone with such disregard for the consequences.
“No, that‟d be no good. I couldn‟t do it like that. Become a criminal on account
of a man like that? No thanks.”
“That‟s what I thought, too. So I thought I‟d do it by faking a traffic accident. That way, even if it were a fatal accident, it‟d still be an „accident,‟ right?”
“But wait a minute.” As I spoke, the music coming from the radio changed to
“Slaughter on Tenth Avenue.” Somehow it was too perfect. “There‟s a flaw in that plan. No matter how much it looks like an accident, when someone gets killed, the police are bound to investigate this and that as a formality, right? With just a little digging, they‟dbe sure to find out about the relationship between you and the man you ran over. At that point, they wouldn‟t treat it like any old accident.”
“That‟s why,” she said, perfectly matter-of-fact, “I‟d planned to wait at least ten
years to do it.”
Jibakuteki na satsujin, or “self-destructive murder,” in the original. Jibaku can refer to
suicide bombings.
“Ten years—”
“Yes. Until the trail had gone cold.”
“But after ten years, even if the trail had cooled off by then, you would have, too, don‟t you think?” I thought most people would. If not, then everyone who‟d ever been disappointed in love would be throwing their lives away on revenge.
“Even if decades passed, I thought I‟d never lose my will to kill him—just like a twenty-year-old girl to think that way,” she said. “I was totally convinced. It‟s not that I was planning on living off desire for vengeance alone; I thought that if I could just recover from this, I could make a good life for myself. But rationally, I couldn‟t bring myself to forgive him for what he‟d done. I just couldn‟t forgive him, no matter what.
So I felt I could wait.”
I could understand that feeling. But even given that, she‟d laid some far-reaching plans indeed.
“Sometimes I thought that waiting ten years would be painful.” Her tone was sober. Now there was no trace of laughter in her voice. “I didn‟t think I could live in the same world and breathe the same air as such a horrible human being for ten long years. Maybe five years—no, even three years—would be enough? At my most impatient, I thought I would do it the moment I got my license. I knew where he lived, and I had learned his daily routine. And as for an explanation, why, there were any number of them I could supply. For example, something like this: I‟d say that I just wanted to get together with him so badly, and that when I drove out to meet him, I happened to see him on his way home from the office, so I thought I might call out to him, but I was so 15nervous that I ended up stepping on the gas instead of the brakes. I‟ve only had my license for a week, I‟d say. I‟m still so new to driving—”
I groaned out loud and folded my arms across my chest. “I don‟t think that excuse would work.”
“Probably not, right? I figured as much, so I gave up on that one and decided to wait ten years.”
“You went back to your long-term plan?”
“Exactly,” she said, and she laughed. She‟d gone back to the same kind of cheerful laughter she‟d exhibited at the start of her story. “Ten years passed in no time at all,” she murmured, and it was as if I could see her turning the pages of an album in her mind. Even with the passing of time, the photographs had not yellowed at all; not a single speck of dust clung to these mementos. “I had a little bit in savings so right after I was fired, I went into driver‟s ed—the instructor was a real bastard, and that was tough, but at any rate I got my license without any real trouble. But after that, there was a big problem.”
“A big problem?”
“Yes. The circumstances were not my fault, but for outward appearances I had definitely been fired for breaking company rules. It was hard to find work after that.”
“I see….”
“I was a real worry for my parents, and life was hard. My family wasn‟t the kind that could support an adult daughter, out of school, lying around the house and doing nothing, so I felt like a burden. I was miserable. At one point I even thought about going into less reputable lines of work.”It struck me that this really was a story from thirty years ago. These days, there‟s any number of jobs for a girl in her twenties. A woman looking for a part-time job just to tide herself over could find something immediately.
“If I had my license and couldn‟t get my hands on a car in six months, or a year, I‟d forget how to drive. So I looked for work where I could put my driving skills to use.
But in those days, all of those jobs—all of them—were taken by men. There was just no space for a woman to get into that line of work.”
“That‟s right,” I said, nodding slowly. “Times have changed, haven‟t they?”
“They certainly have.” After a moment of silence, she continued. “For a time, because of my unemployment, I resigned myself to despair, but then out of the blue I had a stroke of luck. Bad luck, maybe, but luck all the same.”
“You found work?”
“Yes, as a live-in maid.”
I felt a twinge of sympathy. There‟s no shame in making a living. But for a twenty-year-old girl to go from having been an office lady, one of the best positions a woman could get in those days, to suddenly finding herself employed as a maid must have been painful.
“I was grateful, you know. I‟m sure you‟re wondering why. But while I worked there, they let me drive. That is, while I was working as a maid, I was also the driver for the lady of the house. They were the kind of household that only had imported cars —Mizushōbai, a word easy to understand but hard to translate, can denote waitressing at a bar, working as a prostitute, and everything in between.three of them. They had already hired a driver for her husband. But having just the one driver had gotten to be a little inconvenient—when she went to the beauty salon, say, or ran some other errand. So they trained me to be a driver.”
She told me that, for the first six months, she worked as a maid during the day, and at night, with the husband‟s driver as her instructor, she drove around the neighborhood, gradually gaining experience.
“The first time I drove the lady of the house by myself, I was so nervous I was soaked with sweat. They lived in the neighborhood of the Chinzansō,and it only took about thirty minutes to get from there to Mejiro Station.”
“You worked in a rich neighborhood like that? That‟s wonderful.”
“I thought I was pretty cute, too, back then.” It seemed like, even now, the twenty-year-old girl she once was still lived inside her mind, and she had great affection for that girl. It was exactly the same kind of affection she had for her own high-schoolaged daughter. Suddenly, I felt jealous of her. When I get to be her age, could I still feel that affection for my younger self?
“At the time I was forming my long-term plan,” she said, continuing. “And it wouldn‟t work unless I became a really skillful driver. Running someone over is one thing, but trying to do it on purpose isn‟t easy. So I really had to make my driving technique second nature.”
“That makes sense. Your target was a living human being, after all.”
“That, and when I went to set my plan into motion—to cause a fatal accident—I would want there to be as many extenuating circumstances as possible. Either way it‟d In English, its official name is the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Chinzan-so.
be a risk, but the thought of going to prison didn‟t appeal to me. So to make sure I was treated leniently, I would have to have a spotless driving record before the incident.”
“I see.”
It really was an incredible plan; she was obviously quite bright. She had thought of everything.
“One more thing: I needed to save up some money. After all, if you kill someone in an accident, you have to pay some compensation. Depending on how it happened, you might be able to whittle down the amount, but either way it‟d still be a lot of money.
And if I didn‟t have it, it‟d mean trouble for my family and my employers.”
“You were planning on paying compensation?”
“Of course. In the case of an accident, it‟s what‟s expected.”
“But didn‟t you think that was kind of ridiculous? What with your target being the kind of man that he was.”
“Killing him would make life hard for his family. If I didn‟t compensate them somehow, I‟d lose sleep over it.”
I was impressed, but for the first time I also felt a shiver of fear. This kind of lingering anger and cold calculation of all possibilities, this malice aforethought, was truly terrifying—more so than any crime of passion.
“I really worked hard at it.” Unconcerned about what I might be thinking, she continued her story. “After five years, I‟d become quite a skillful driver. But then, young lady, you never know what fate has in store. I got married.”
“Oh!”
Japan has separate prisons set aside for traffic offenders, the most famous of which is Ichihara Prison in the Tokyo metropolitan area.19
“To the husband‟s driver, the one I mentioned earlier.”She had tied the knot with her personal driving instructor.
“Even after we got married, we still worked in the same household. They were good people—the husband and his wife.”
“How long did you work there?”
“Just ten years,” she replied. “After that, the husband‟s company went under. If Ihad to say, they probably went bankrupt. And they lost everything—their estate and their employees.”
“What did you and your husband do?”
“For the time being, I quit working. My husband found another job, and by that time we had a kid and all my time was taken up raising him.” She suddenly laughed brightly. “You want to know what happened?”
“Of course I do.” What on earth had become of her long term plan?
“I was so busy that I totally forgot about my ten-year plan. To be honest, once I got married it completely slipped my mind.”
I felt relieved. And it must have shown on my face—but that was all right. “I thought as much.”
“Really?”
“Well, if you‟d really gone through with you ten-year plan, there‟s no way you could be in this line of work now, right?”
“You‟re right about that,” she said, laughing and tapping the white cap that she wore on her head at a jaunty angle. On the bill was the name of her company: “Sakura Taxi, Inc.” Times had changed. Thirty years ago, it would have seemed unreal; I wouldnever have believed I could be riding around in a taxi cab, late at night, with a female driver at the wheel.
But it was strange, I thought. I‟m the kind of person who talks to taxi drivers a lot, and when I do I always address them as “driver,” but when the driver was a woman, I couldn‟t bring myself to do that. Maybe it was just my personal hang-up, but I had great difficulty calling her “driver.” I guess that‟s starting to change, too, these days.
“Does your husband work for the same company?”
“No. He works elsewhere. Sakura Taxi‟s president is a woman, you see. She‟s trying to hire female drivers like me and make it a selling point for the company.”
She said she‟d started working there once her eldest son graduated from high school.
“It was about that time that we built our house, and I couldn‟t make my husband take on that debt all by himself. And that daughter in high school I mentioned earlier was starting to complain that having her mom at home all the time was annoying her and it‟d be better for her if I worked, or something to that effect.”
“It must be a nice house.”
“The wood trim in the guest room is real Japanese cypress,” she said triumphantly, and she puffed herself up with pride—even from the back seat I could sense her expression. “It was our dream to have a house like that.”
Without my noticing, the scenery outside the car window had become that of the neighborhood I knew so well. I was so absorbed in her story that on the way we hadn‟t Untenshu-san, or “Mr(s). Driver.” The term itself is gender neutral, but despite this, it appears the narrator‟s mental image of an untenshu-san is male. Compare to an older American being unlikely to address a woman physician as simply “Doctor.” discussed the route at all, but with only the address I‟d given her when I got into the cab to go on, she brought me right to my own block.
She really was good at her job. What a pro.
“It‟s not much farther now.”
“Yes. Turn left at the next corner, please. It‟s right there.”
The car rounded the corner smoothly, and before long it stopped in front of my house. The porch light was already off.
“You‟re getting home quite late, aren‟t you, young lady?” I answered her playfully. “My family‟s used to it by now.”
“Well!”
“I paid my fare and took my change, and while the meter was printing my receipt, she spoke, her tone that of a saleslady giving something away gratis.
“I picked him up once, you know.”
“Who?” I asked, realizing afterward that it was a stupid question. Who else could she mean? She was smiling wordlessly. She had turned to face me, and for the first time I could see her features straight on. Aside from the prominent beauty mark under her left eye, there was nothing noteworthy about her face; she was just a typical middle-aged woman. In another twenty years I would probably look like that, too.
“When was that?”
“At least a year ago or so now.”
“Did you recognize him right away?”
“The moment I saw him.”22
“It‟s a small world, isn‟t it?”
“And one with a strange sense of humor,” she said. “But if I‟d never met him to start with, I wouldn‟t be who I am now. So maybe I‟m better off having known him after all. I got a pretty good life out of it.”
You mean you made a good life out of it, I thought to myself. “Did he realize who you were?”
“No, not at all.”
“He didn‟t have a clue?”
“No, he didn‟t see my face. And anyway, when he knew me, I wasn‟t much older than my daughter is now. Maybe he still expected me to look like that.”
She laughed, and I did too. We both knew who we were laughing at.
“Here you go. Sorry to have kept you waiting.” She tore off the printed receipt and passed it to me. “Good night,” she said as she opened the automatic door.
“Good night,” I replied.
How did she feel when she picked him up? How had he weathered the intervening years, and what kind of man had he become in his fifties? At that moment I wanted to ask her, but not enough to actually do it. Her driving ability, and the look of calm on her face, were answer enough, I thought.
I don‟t usually do this, but as I put my hand on my front door I turned to watch her car drive away. Its red taillights shone proudly as it headed back to the city and into the night. She really was a pro.I wrote this story down without her permission. I doubt it will catch her attention directly, but the world is smaller than it seems. To those who are reading this: maybe someday, somewhere, you might happen to catch a ride in her cab.
If, when you do, she starts to tell you this story, please don‟t say, “Oh, I‟ve heard this one before.” I want you to listen to the end. The story you‟ll hear from her, in her own words, with her favorite radio station playing nothing but golden oldies in the background, will leave a far greater impression in your mind than these amateurish sentences.
I can promise you that much.
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