(2005) In the Miso Soup Read Online Free

indefinably unnatural about them, though. Like Frank’s grin.
    “Whiskey-and-water okay?” Reika asked in English. Frank and I nodded, and she poured the unlabeled whiskey into our glasses, then squirted it with water from a siphon.
    “
Kochira Amerika no kata?
” Rie asked, sidling closer to Frank. You weren’t allowed to touch the girls in this pub. But sometimes, if you stuck to the rules, the girls themselves would initiate contact. Frank must have caught the word “
Amerika
,” because he turned to Rie and softly said: “Yes.”
    Afraid that Frank might take the same tiny sips as he had with his beer earlier, I made sure to explain that since the pub worked on a time system he could drink as much whiskey as he liked for the same price. He took tiny sips anyway. You couldn’t tell if he was drinking or just wetting his lips, and it was annoying to watch. Reika was sitting on the far side of Frank, and Rie wasbetween him and me. Reika put her hand on Frank’s thigh and smiled.
    “What’s your name?” Frank asked her, and she told him.
    “Reika?” he repeated.
    “Yes.”
    “That’s a pretty name.”
    “Really?”
    “I think it’s very pretty.”
    “Thank you.”
    Reika’s English was about middle-school level. I’m not a whole lot better, mind you, just more accustomed to using it.
    “Do a lot of Americans come here?” Frank asked her.
    “Sometimes.”
    “Your English is good.”
    “No! I want to speak better, but difficult. I want to get money and go America.”
    “Oh really? You wanna go to school there?”
    “No school! I am stupid! No, I want to go Niketown.”
    “Niketown?”
    “Do you like Nike?”
    “Nike? The sporting goods maker?”
    “Yes! You like Nike, aren’t you?”
    “Well, I do have some of their shoes—or wait, maybe mine are Converse. But why do you like Nike so much?”
    “No why! I just like. Do you go Niketown?”
    “See, I don’t know what this Niketown thing is,” Frank said. “Do you, Kenji?”
    “I’ve heard of it,” I said.
    Reika adjusted her bra strap and said: “One big building, many Nike shops! And we can enjoy Nike commercials on giant video screen! My friend said to me. She go to shopping Niketown and buy five,
ano
. . . ten shoes! Oh! It’s my dream, go to shopping Niketown!”
    “Your dream?” Frank registered disbelief. “Shopping in Nike stores is your dream?”
    “My dream, yes,” Reika said and asked him: “Where did you from?”
    When he told her New York City, she gave him a funny look.
    “Impossible!” she said. “Niketown is in New York.”
    Naturally, all Reika meant was that she was shocked he could live in New York and not be familiar with her dream store: nothing for Frank to get all bent out of shape about. But his expression underwent the same transformation as when the black tout had ignored him. From where I sat I could clearly see the vinyl-like skin of his cheeks twitching and the capillaries appearing, his face going like a watercolor wash from pink to red. I sensed trouble and turned to Reika, saying: “Only the Japanese make a big deal about Niketown, you’d be surprised how many Americans don’t even know about it. I’ve heard that half the customers are Japanese, and New York is a big place, it’s not just Manhattan, you know.” I repeated this in English for Frank’s benefit. Reika nodded, and Frank’s face slowly morphed back to something more or less human. My guess was that Frank was lying about living in New York, but I decided to avoid the subject from then on. Nothing good could come of a guide like me, with no official license, making a customer angry.
    “Do you want to karaoke?” Reika asked Frank. One of the other two customers, a middle-aged salaryman, was crooning euphorically into a hand-held mike. He was with a younger colleague, who was drunk and red-faced and humming along, lamely trying to clap in time. In one hand the singer held the mike and in the other the hand of a hostess in