Almost Always

This was a bad idea. I knew it from the time I stepped foot out the door. I got that little feeling somewhere in between my heart and my gut that maybe, just maybe, I should not take a day trip by myself through Kyoto. But did I listen? Ha. And did I think to maybe charge my phone before leaving the home of the very kind, very understanding host family? Iie. That’s the Japanese word for “no”, although I’ve been told it doesn’t quite mean “no”, because saying no isn’t polite, or something like that. It’s also one of precisely five Japanese phrases I know, and I can’t even remember number four. 

I’m never coming back to Japan after this. Real-life Kyoto doesn’t have dub, or subtitles, or the ability to slow the speed at which people speak. Real-life Kyoto is not anime. That was the mistake in my thought process when signing up for the cross-cultural program at my college. 

I finished all my schoolwork for once, and I guess with all those smarts crammed into my brain, I just had to balance things out by doing something stupid. 

Standing at a random intersection and waiting to cross, I click my phone on. 11:13 PM and three percent battery. 

Think, Rose, says the sensible voice in my head. What do you need most right now? 

Probably ice cream. 

Eating ice cream on a street at midnight is not a smart idea. 

I tuck my phone back in my pocket and cross the street, then stand and wait to cross to the one diagonal from where I started. It’s been a long day. I spent a ton of money at all these cutesy little shops, mostly on anime merch, which is bagging me down and making my steps even heavier than usual. As my eyes rove the intersection, I notice another cutesy little shop that I can easily get to without crossing the street. 

Go in there and ask the attendant where a hotel is, says the reasonable voice. I nod. “Good idea,” I whisper to myself, hoisting a bag of T-shirts higher and making my way toward the little shop. 

The door jingles open and a warm blanket of air ushers me in from the night chill. Someone calls a welcome to me- at least I assume it’s a welcome. The shop smells like tea and coffee and something else that seems out of place- cats? Great. I just apparently walked into a cat cafe. 

Closing the door carefully behind me, I rehearse the Japanese phrases in my head. 

Sumimasen.

Arigatou gozaimasu. 

Hai. 

Iie. 

Eigo ga hanasemasu ka?

I remember that I don’t know how to say hotel in Japanese. Shifting my bags to my left hand, I retrieve my stubborn survivor of a phone from my sweatshirt and open up Google Translate. I try to type “hotel” with one hand but can’t reach the e, so I’m forced to set my bags down on the floor. Three cats immediately start sniffing the bags and sticking their heads inside. 

My phone screen blinks out. I shake it, I click the button a gazillion times, but nothing happens. Great. 

I approach the young woman behind the counter and smile politely. “Sumimasen.” Excuse me.  

“Don’na goyoudeshouka?” she says sweetly, giving a small bow. 

Don’t panic, Rose. 

I take a deep breath and slowly enunciate. “Eigo ga hanasemasu ka?” Do you speak English? 

The young woman smiles. “O-nihongo wa sugoi desu ne!” 

I feel myself getting what my friends call the deer-in-the-headlights look. 

“Eigo ga hanasemasu ka?” I repeat urgently. 

“Iie, gomen’nasai ga, o-nihongo wa kirei desu.”

Iie. I recognize iie. She doesn’t speak English. 

“Hotel?” I try. Maybe she’ll know one word. 

“Hoteru ne?”

What does hoteru ne mean? 

“Hotel?” I ask again. 

“Koko no chikaku ni mittsu no hoteru ga arimasu.” 

“I don’t speak Japanese,” I say desperately. 

“Shou shou machi kudasai.” She bows again and goes through a sliding door to a back room. I drum my fingers on the counter. A cat rubs against my legs, and I reach down to pick it up. It snuggles into my sweatshirt, nothing like my cat Ophelius at home. Ophelius hates me. Cuddling the cat close, I peer into the back room through the open door. The Japanese woman is on the phone. I can’t understand a word she’s saying. I watch. My eyes flit to a clock on the wall. 11:31. My feet hurt. My legs feel like they’re glitching out of existence. The cat grows heavy in my arms, and I set it back on the floor. It runs away to join its friends in checking out my merchandise. 

The woman on the phone waves to me like she’s saying hi. I smile and nod. She waves again. 

Waving means come here, the sensible voice reminds me. I slip behind the counter and through the door to the kitchen and approach the woman, who’s still on the phone. She holds the phone to my ear. 

“Kochira desu,” the woman says. 

“Hola, ¿hablas algo de español?” a male voice asks. Hello, do you speak any Spanish? 

Spanish is not my first language, but growing up in New Mexico, I heard enough to understand a decent amount. It may not be English, but it’s music to my ears. 

“Sí, poco,” I answer. Yes, a little bit. 

“Supeingo wo sukoshi hanashimasu,” he says. The Japanese woman next to me nods in comprehension. 

“Namae?” the woman asks. 

“¿Cómo te llamas?” the man on the phone asks me. What’s your name? 

“Rose,” I reply, grateful that at last I am no longer a nameless foreigner, but a known person. 

“Nani ga hitsuyoudesu ka?” the Japanese woman asks. 

“¿Qué necesitas?” the man says. What do you need? 

“Um, buscando- estoy buscando un hotel por el noche. Estoy en Kyoto solo y no me habla japonés.” I’m looking for a hotel for the night. I’m in Kyoto alone and I don’t speak Japanese. 

“Hoteru wo sagashiteimasu. Hitori de Kyoto ni imasu ga, nihongo wo hanasemasen.” 

The woman nods at the translation, eyes showing understanding. “Chikaku no hoteru made kanojo to aruku koto ga dekimasu.” 

“Ella puede caminar contigo al hotel cerco.” She can walk with you to the nearby hotel. 

I sigh with immense gratitude. “Arigatou gozaimasu,” I say to the Japanese woman with immense gratitude and a terrible accent. I even add a deep bow, probably doing it completely wrong, but at this point, I don’t care. 

“¿Qué es su nombre?” I ask the man on the phone the name of the woman helping me. 

“Satomi-san,” the man replies. 

“¿Y tu nombre?” I want to know his name as well. 

“Javier.” 

“Muchas gracias, Javier.” 

Javier and Satomi-san exchange a few words in Japanese, then Satomi-san hangs up the phone. We walk in silence now, recognizing that nothing we can say will be of any help to the other. Satomi-san picks up my bags and hands me about half of them. The other three bags, she holds onto, and I feel incredibly embarrassed about the amount of stuff I managed to buy in one day. Satomi-san doesn’t seem to care. She turns off the lights and locks the shop, and we walk in the light of streetlamps to a parking garage. On the second floor, she unlocks a small, probably eco-friendly car, and I get inside. 

You shouldn’t be getting into a stranger’s car, Rose, the sensible voice in my head says. 

“Shut up, when are you ever right?” I mutter to it as Satomi-san puts my bags in the back and slides into the driver’s seat. 

Almost always. 

Everything’s always worked out fine in the end, though. When I accidentally tripped and fell into the fire alarm in high school, it turned out there had been a chemical spill in one of the classrooms, which the students had been about to enter before having to evacuate to the parking lot. When Ophelius escaped last summer after I left the door open, we found him in a space under the shed right next to a hundred-dollar bill I’d lost the year before. When I broke my leg right before the soccer tournament last year, they brought in a sub who turned out to be the best player on the team. Why should this be any different? 

The streets grow darker as we leave the warm glow of the street lamps. I look at Satomi-san questioningly, but her eyes are on the road ahead of us. Unlike the city streets, the road we’re on now is nearly empty. The car grows tense, and I wish Satomi-san had put on music or something. 

The streetlamps disappear entirely, and the only light comes from the two bright beams and the sinister glow of the taillights. We’ve been in the car longer than I thought would take to get to a nearby hotel. 

Then something large looms in the distance. Satomi-san’s face is cold and expressionless in the dim light. 

“Where are we going?” I ask, even though she can’t understand me. I squint at the door and see that it’s locked. Not that I would jump out, anyway. I do stupid things, but not that stupid. 

The building looms over us, black and foreboding. The car clock reads midnight. A giant garage door on the front of the building creaks open, and Satomi-san inches her car inside, switching off the headlights. I don’t know much about Japan, but I’m pretty sure Japanese hotels aren’t anything like this. 

Satomi-san parks her car, the garage door closes behind us, and we start to ascend on what I can only assume is an elevated platform. The floor we parked on ducks for cover and leaves us in what seems to be a giant living room, with the exception of the car that is now sitting in the center. 

Satomi-san takes the key out of the ignition, and the car goes quiet. She gets out, then comes over and opens my door for me as I sit there, frozen in uncertainty. 

“Satomi-chan,” a voice calls from behind the car. A tall, dark man in a black suit stands erect, as though he’s been expecting company. “Youkoso. Dare to kimashita ka?”

“Kochira wa rouzu desu. Eigo shika hanashimasu.” Satomi-san bows to the man. He bows in return, though not as deeply as Satomi-san. Then he bows to me as well- a tiny bow, barely more than a dip of the head. 

“Rose,” he says in perfect English. “Pleased to meet you.” 

“Same to you; have I been kidnapped?” I demand, getting out of the car and standing to make myself appear more assertive. 

“Consider yourself fortunate,” the man replies evenly. “You have been kidnapped to what will soon be the only safe place on earth.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?!”

The man walks over to one of the many plush Western-style couches littering the room. “Have a seat. I’ll fill you in as much as I can- legally.” 

So I have a seat. What else can I do? I’ll just shut off the sensible voice in my head and hope everything works out. It always does. Almost always.