Essay

Fruit for thought

By Kit Pancoast Nagamura

An elderly woman lost control of her shopping cart, spilling groceries down the train station stairs near my home. I was coming up the stairs, on my way home that spring evening. People milled about me, dodging the tumbled goods. I had been in Japan long enough to know that no one was going to stop and help the woman. Jumping in with assistance might injure someone's pride — or so the average Tokyoite's reluctance to help others had been explained to me.

A can of tuna rolled near my shoe. I picked it up. The frailty of the woman — silver hair, stooped back, and wrists like twigs — got the better of me. I helped the woman collect her packets of nori, noodles, takuwan and other items. She thanked me, but there was something complex in her eyes, a depth that remained uninvolved with her smile and bow of gratitude.

I left the station, and headed toward my apartment, stopping briefly at my neighborhood fruit shop. Here, the choicest merchandise was arranged in a mouthwatering display that was impossible to ignore. It was a clear, blue spring evening, and the vendor's lights caught the blushing gradation of colors — pale yellow to pink — on a single remaining box of high-grade Japanese cherries.

Cherries like these were out of my budget back then — but I could imagine the sweet and tart flavor below their taut skins. I thought, maybe just this once, I should reward myself with a special treat. I was mid-offer in my halting Japanese when someone jostled me from behind. A thin arm snaked out around me, and grabbed the last box of cherries.

It irked me to find the box in the hands of the same elderly woman I had just helped. Without a glance in my direction, she moved in front of me, her money at the ready. The vendor shrugged at me in apology — what can you do about pushy customers?

I had plenty of time to consider the remaining, cheaper fruits because it was clear the woman wanted her fruit gift-wrapped. I rolled my eyes; I already knew that, in Japan, wrapping could be a time-consuming affair. The old woman darted a look back at me. "Sumimasen," she said.

For the next 15 minutes, I puzzled over the odd ways of the world, as night fell and street lights flicked on. The cynical saying, "No good deed goes unpunished," crept through my head. I was new to Japan, so I hadn't yet suspected that the woman had bought the cherries for me, nor did it occur to me until later how much my kindness had cost her.

Shukan ST: May 2, 2008

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