Spring Ham

Itsunori warned me that this was budding season: I should expect odd things to happen and people to act a little mad.

The day before he’d seen a young man on the train--well-dressed, ordinary-looking--and the young man was calling out in a loud clear voice for 8 Man, a famous Japanese superhero.

“Where is 8 Man?”

“He should be here by now.”

“What’s happened to 8 Man?”

In this way he passed into the next car, calling out at every step for the overdue superhero.

Sure enough, as soon as I left class I felt a little odd. I couldn’t go, as I usually did, to the kissaten to study. Instead I walked along the river, following the Sobu Line to Yotsuya, to a place with cigarette smoke and fake wood paneling and the best katsudon anywhere.

As soon as I sat down at the common table, a man struck up a conversation with me. Which might sound normal to you, if you’ve never been to Tokyo.

In Tokyo this never happens. Strangers do not talk. Any stranger who speaks is assumed at once to be insane, which is something I ought to keep in mind.

He was a tidy black-suited Japanese salariman and his business was ham. He imported prosciutto from Italy, Spain and St. Louis.

I wanted to know. “Is the prosciutto from St. Louis really as good?”

A sigh gusted out from him. “I do not say ‘better’, I say ‘different’.”

Seriously, it was hell, he confessed, trying to sell that damned American prosciutto. The Japanese didn’t trust it.

Italian and Spanish prosciutto was famous. But this was perfectly fine prosciutto. It was made in Italian style by an Italian family, a family with a history of prosciutto, a prosciutto pedigree. It was just made in America and, yes, made from American meat.

American meat was perfectly safe. Never mind the current scandals. After the scandals it was going to be safer than ever. Tough new regulations, everybody double-checking everything. Nothing could be safer than American meat. It was perfectly safe, this first-rate pedigreed prosciutto, this prosciutto on which his livelihood depended, his wife and child he almost never saw because he was always on a business trip hawking prosciutto, perfectly safe first-rate prosciutto that absolutely nobody wanted.

“Maybe you should just stick to the Italian and Spanish kind,” I suggested.

He looked at me with pure hate.

I finished my katsudon quickly. I skipped the cabbage entirely. I really like the cabbage.

I stood up and made a small apologetic bow. He didn’t acknowledge me. I hurried away.

I reminded myself that I must be careful now. It was budding season. Care must be taken with the Japanese, who are reserved, who hold so much back, and are thus bound to be terribly strained during this very dangerous season.

I must be wary when I speak.

Heaven knows what prosciutto lurks beneath.