Mary: Meeting Yoshida

November 24th, 2008:

Once we'd settled in to our apartment in Kyoto, we had a surprise visitor: Doctor Kisho Yoshida, our longtime correspondent. When the only contact you have with someone is through print, you get a certain picture of them in your mind, and the image I had absolutely did not match up with the man in the flesh. Yoshida was eighteen going on sixteen, with unkempt, black hair, glasses, some acne and a significant overbite. He wore a work shirt with Japanese lettering and a logo of a cartoon, smiling whale embroidered on the breast pocket, the garment clearly not coming fresh from the laundry. His pants were chinos, and his black shoes were scuffed and had Velcro instead of laces.

Once we opened the door for him he gave a little nod to Josh before walking to a chair by the rain-streaked window, sitting down, pulling out a handheld electronic device and staring at it. Josh and I went from glancing curiously at each other, to him and back to each other, Yoshida not saying a word. Kimi, our translator introduced him and bowed, but he never looked at her or acknowledged her in any way.

Finally, the silence having deepened to an unbearable length, Josh said, "So, can I get one of those shirts? It's kitchy in a sick way, which is kind've my thing."

Without looking up from his PDA, Yoshida said, "I've cross referenced every permutation of the number '13' with whales, practical magic, stage magic, bingo, centipedes and a dozen other topics and subjects, but besides the predictable 'lucky' or 'unlucky' cultural biases there is nothing of interest." Without pausing or making eye contact, he continued, "What type of whales were they?"

"Uh, humpback. You want a Coke or something? Or maybe a shower? With soap?" I elbowed Josh, and he looked properly abashed, but Yoshida didn't seem to notice.

"Humpback. You should have made a note of that in your post. Typical. Their population numbers approximately eighty-thousand. Do you stand firm in the statement that you killed one thousand of them?"

Josh grimaced. "I really hadn't thought of it like- yeah, I guess so. About that many."

Yoshida nodded and tapped on his electronic device. Then he rose, walked to the door, opened it and went out.

I said, "Whoa, wait! That's it? You're just leaving?"

He stopped and turned around, looking me in the eye for the first time. "Yes."

I just stared at him, speechless. Meanwhile, Josh stepped in, carrying on the conversation in the hall. "Did you tell your uncles that we were your 'comrades'? Mary and I have a bet going." I considered elbowing him again, but was too curious to know the answer myself.

"No."

Josh nodded. "Okay, thanks. It did seem a little-"

"I told them that you were my friends. My uncles' assistant confuses the two words."

I'm ashamed to say that at this point I gaped openly. "You said we were your friends?"

Yoshida cocked his head slightly, puzzled. "Of course. What else would we be?" This time even Josh was speechless. "I will call you if there is a breakthrough with the number." He turned to go once more.

I called after him, "Your uncles left phones for us. You can call at-"

He spoke as he stepped into the elevator at the end of the hall, once more looking down at his PDA. "I handle my uncles' communications. I know the numbers. I have all the company cell numbers memorized."

As the elevator doors began to close, Josh asked, "How many cell numbers are there?"

"There are seven hundred and fif-" his voice cut off as the doors closed in front of him. For all I know, he kept talking all the way down, never noticing we were gone.