MEETING NAOMI                        

It might be an exaggeration to say that Hajime and I got on just fine until the day we got on the plane to Tokyo, but it’s still largely true. Until then, we’d only fought over the usual things: who’d forgotten to put the milk back in the refrigerator, say. Whether he’d left the toilet seat up, or whose turn it was to take out the trash.

But an hour before our plane was due to land in Narita, I asked him when his parents were expecting us, and he said They aren’t.  It took me a while to figure out that by this he didn’t mean that they weren’t going to be at the airport, watching for us in the terminal. That what he meant was that they actually didn’t know we were coming to Japan at all.

I will admit that I didn’t take it well. Here I was, off to meet the new in-laws in Japan – that was enough worry for me right there. I didn’t need the situation to be more awkward and stressful than it already was.

All I knew about them was the few things Hajime had reluctantly shared. That they were fervent Christians, that his mother was from Hiroshima and his father was a minister. I’m Jewish (sort of) and American. Wasn’t the awkwardness potential of this meeting already pretty close to 100%? 

Sitting there on the plane, I’d been imagining how Hajime’s parents were anticipating our visit. The new daughter-in-law – what would she be like? What could they give her to eat? What conversational topics would be safe? I pictured them airing bedding, shopping for our meals, dusting furniture. Now it turned out they didn’t even know we were coming.

By the time we’d collected our luggage and taken the long train ride from Narita into Tokyo, we were hardly speaking to each other. I was filled with barely suppressed rage and Hajime was doing his usual suffer-in-silence act.

When Hajime and I went to New Jersey to visit my mother and her husband shortly after we’d gotten married, I’d given them weeks to prepare for us. My mother had scoured their already sterile house from top to bottom. Surfaces gleamed and squealed. Dust was an unthinkable aberration. Chemical floral-fragrance room-freshener molecules had permeated every square inch of every room. Waverly crackers had been topped with squeeze-out cheese spread and arranged artfully on cocktail trays. And we weren’t even staying overnight! If we’d shown up without warning, I don’t doubt that my mother would have asked us to wait in the car for five hours; I get cold shivers just thinking about the reception she’d have given us. So okay, I’ll admit it – I was projecting. But not calling at all when you’ve been away for years – is that right?

 I was amazed how little and shabby Hajime’s parents’ house was. Even though it wasn’t far from central Tokyo with its gleaming skyscrapers and state-of-the-art corporate centers, it was in a junky little neighborhood of cheaply-built wooden houses all cheek-by-jowl. Washing lines were rigged up in odd places, mouldy flower pots with morning glories growing in them did their best to brighten things up. But by and large the feeling you got was of barely respectable poverty.

Hajime and I still weren’t talking to each other. I’d made him call his parents from the airport and he was still pissed off over that. I’d stood next to him while he tersely informed his mother that we were in Tokyo, that we were on our way to see them and were hoping to spend the night. ‘Is everything okay?’ I’d asked him. He shrugged. Of course it was, what did I expect? I had no choice but to believe him.

As we stood there on their doorstep, I did my best to smooth out my skirts, to rake my hands through my long hair in an effort to make myself look more presentable. Then the door whipped open and there she was, Naomi. A small rotund woman in stretch pants, a horrendous perm, and a wide grin.

Makoto, Hajime’s father, helped us bring in our things. We all stood there awkwardly, in their tiny kitchen, on the battered, scarred linoleum, and smiled at each other inanely.

‘This is Ruth,’ said Hajime and his mother grabbed my hand and began pumping it like fury. ‘Really?’ she said, ‘You are Ru-usu? Ru-usu?’ I didn’t know what to say to this other than yes. I knew that my name was pronounced ‘Ruusu’ in Japanese, had already been through that with Hajime. But before I could wonder at her reaction, she threw another one at me. ‘I am Naomi!’ she cried, still pumping my hand. I nodded foolishly, not getting it. We were only nominally Jewish in my family, after all. We never went to temple and I don’t think there was an Old Testament anywhere in our house. So the Biblical significance of our names sailed right over my head.

‘Ruth and Naomi,’ explained Hajime. ‘From the Bible. Naomi is mother-in-law, Ruth is son’s wife.’ Duh.

You hear a lot about Japanese mothers-in-law. How they’ll do anything to queer your pitch, how they smile in your face and stab you in the back. How they’ve been treated like shit by their own mothers-in-law, so they’re just itching to get into a position of authority over someone they themselves can torment. Foreign daughters-in-law are even better victims than Japanese ones, I’ve heard.

You hear a lot about Japanese people in general – how they’re reserved, how they stand on ceremony, how they never show their emotions. And here I am with this funny little woman I’ve only just met, who’s still shaking my hand for all she’s worth, grinning maniacally. And suddenly she envelops me in this great bear hug. She thumps me on the back then draws back and says loudly ‘I am so happy. Ru-usu! I am so happy to meet you!’