Essay Fruit for thought By Kit Pancoast Nagamura	フレームで見る  英文をプリントする  脚注をプリントする
正直者はばかを見る？！ 来日して間もないころ、筆者のキット・パンコースト・ナガムラさんは、駅の階段で買い物カートを倒し、食料品を落としてしまったおばあさんを見かけた。 ナガムラさんは親切に拾ってあげたのだが、そのあとおばあさんが恩をあだで返すような振る舞いをしたのに不快な気持ちに。 ところが…。

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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