One Saturday evening I agreed to go with Toyoda-san to a Brazilian nightclub in Roppongi, one of the entertainment districts in Tokyo popular with both Japanese and foreigners. She’d gotten to know a few of the musicians who played in a samba band there.

‘They’re all Brazilians, really fun guys, musicians, singers. Please come with me, Mary!  We’ll have fun – honestly! They’re really nice and I just know you’ll like them!’

Theoretically, I liked the idea of going out and doing something for a change instead of mooching around my apartment and listening to the Far East Network, but I’m not really a nightclub kind of person. ‘You know, Toyoda san, I’m not really into nightclubs . . .’

‘Oh, come on!  It’ll be fun – really!’

‘But going to a nightclub – the action doesn’t even start until after ten o’clock!  We’ll be back too late – the trains will stop running!’ I had a real dread of missing the last train after my embarrassing experience in the Yokohama police station.

‘We’ll catch the last train!  I won’t let us miss it. Come on, say you’ll come!  Pleeeease!’

‘But if we miss –’

‘Mary! We won’t miss it!  Don’t worry!’

I let her twist my arm.

Roppongi has long been a place where soldiers go to be entertained – ever since 1890 when the Imperial Japanese Army had a division there. After the war, several U.S. military installations were located there too, and even now there are so many non-Japanese people in Roppongi – red and yellow, black and white –  that you might as well be in downtown Los Angeles.  Or perhaps more aptly, on 42^nd Street in Manhattan.  Nowadays Roppongi is a different scene: Africans of various countries, young women from the former Soviet bloc. Back then it was pretty much wall-to-wall Americans, and they were almost all military.

I’d been to Roppongi a few times before and always found it intimidating.  The night Toyoda san and I were there was no different:  the streets were a garish, noisy mess of neon-lit cabarets and bars, blasting with music, chock-a-block with American Armed Service personnel, some of whom had no business being out in the state they were in. No sooner did we step off the train than I was seized with the desire to be back in my own tame little apartment, wearing my long flannel nightgown, a mug of hot milk and a good book at hand. Toyoda san and I, dressed in our evening finery, got catcalled quite a few times before she managed to find the nightclub we were looking for down a side street.  I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach: it was barely nine o’ clock! There were hours of this to come!

I have to admit that as nightclubs go, Toyoda-san’s Brazilian joint was a fun one with a lively, jumping samba beat to it. The Brazilian musicians on the stage were in their mid-twenties; they winked at Toyoda-san and me and seemed thrilled to have us there. Two of them turned out to be very shy as they spoke no Japanese and very little English, but Toyoda-san greeted them all by name as she introduced me.  She explained to me that they were staying in a small apartment directly above the nightclub. I only managed to remember the names of two of the men – Ronaldo and Jorge.

Toyoda-san and I sat in the front row and listened to set after set of samba music, peppered with wonderful percussion from a variety of drums. It was fantastic stuff  – I felt like jumping up and dancing, instead of sitting there and listening –but I couldn’t help but notice that it was getting late. I kept sneaking looks at my watch, but Toyoda san told me to relax – that we’d be okay.

The audience was invited to take part in some of the sets – during which time I found that Toyoda san was a whole lot better on the maracas than I was – and finally, when the band took a much-deserved break, the Brazilians invited us up to their apartment. ‘Come on up for a few minutes, ladies!  It is not much, but you will like it.’

I must not have looked very eager, because Jorge added, ‘Really – come up and see our apartment.  We have a pet kitten!’

I didn’t believe for a minute that they actually had a kitten, but I didn’t have the nerve to say so. I asked Toyoda san if she’d been up to their apartment before. She hadn’t. ‘Do you think they really have a pet kitten up there?’

‘I have no idea. Maybe they do – why would they say they did if they didn’t?’

‘What if they’re trying to lure us up there so they can jump us?’

‘Oh, Mary! You are so suspicious!’

She was right, I was. I couldn’t help it: I had women friends back home who’d had some pretty bad experiences with men in similar circumstances. I wasn’t just suspicious, I was downright paranoid.

‘Come on, Toyoda-san, they’re only here in Japan for a short time and this is the middle of Tokyo. There is no way that they have a kitten up there!’ I said this rather wistfully: I think kittens are great.  Just say the word ‘kitten’ and you can usually get me to go anywhere.

She shrugged. ‘We’ll never know whether they’ve got one or not if we don’t go and see their apartment.’

I hesitated, and Toyoda-san grabbed me by the arm. ‘Oh, come on, Mary!  Lighten up!  Live a little!’

So up we went.

Their apartment was remarkably clean considering the fact that it was occupied by four unmarried men. Once we’d been ushered into their small front room, which doubled as a bedroom and repository for musical instruments, I kept waiting for one of the guys to jump us.  Instead, we were shown to a rather battered sofa and told to make ourselves comfortable.  Ronaldo, who – cliché or no – was tall, dark and handsome, offered us something to drink. Toyoda san and I had already had considerably more to drink than we should have, so we asked if they had coffee. Jorge, who also spoke some English, grinned, rolled his eyes and gave us a duh look: did they have coffee?  Please! They were Brazilians!.

As we sat there on the sofa, I couldn’t help it:  I still felt nervous. Then all of a sudden the door opened a crack and a tiny kitten walked in. It was ginger and white and its thin little tail pointed straight up as it moved with a precise delicacy that was beguiling. Meee! it cried as it approached us. We stretched out our fingers and the kitten delicately sniffed them, finger by finger. Then it jumped up and settled on Toyoda-san’s lap and began to purr.

Ronaldo peered into the room and smiled. ‘Oh good – you have met our little girl!’  I smiled sheepishly at him. I felt like an idiot.

Looking back on it, we had a very tame evening considering the fact that we were two young single women with four exceedingly hot Brazilian men, directly over a nightclub in Roppongi, a proper den of iniquity. We sat with them, drinking their delicious coffee, giggling at the mistakes we all made in English and Japanese, trying out Portuguese words. We played with their pet kitten and – no pun intended – tried out all their instruments. And nobody jumped anybody – not even once. Both Toyoda san and I had mad crushes on Ronaldo, though, and might have been tempted to jump him ourselves if we’d been left alone with him.

On our way to the station, she elbowed me. ‘Did you like Jorge?’

‘Mmmm – what?’ I was picturing Ronaldo’s gorgeous café-au-lait hands on his drum, the fingers long, tapering and sensitive-looking . . .

‘Jorge, Mary!  Did you like Jorge?’

‘Oh!  Yes, actually – he seemed really nice. They were all nice, actually, and that coffee they served us was out of this world. Well done, Toyoda-san, finding guys that nice.’

She looked smug. ‘Told you so’

‘Yes you did – and you were absolutely right!’

‘How did you like Ronaldo?’

I shot her a guilty look, which she correctly interpreted. ‘Oh shit, Mary!  I like him too!’

We walked along in silence for some moments, then she turned to me. ‘They’re not going to be here long enough, that’s the problem. Their visa is only for six months and they’ve already been here for three.’

I nodded. I knew about their six-month visas and I’d already thought about this problem myself. Three months: Just enough time for a fling – or to get your heart broken.

Toyoda-san knitted her brow, obviously deeply in thought. ‘You know, Mary, you’re so nice, I’d share him with you.’

‘What?’

She actually blushed. ‘I don’t mean – well, you know. I mean like the Mormons. You could have him one day and I could have him the next. He looks like he’s up for it.’

I stared at her:  she seemed entirely serious. ‘Well, thanks but no thanks. Three months – I don’t know. It’s hardly enough time for a proper affair. Especially when we’ve only got half each. And he might not even want us. Besides, he probably has a wife and kids back home in Brazil.’

‘Well, it was just a thought.’

‘And believe me, I appreciate it.’

We were at the station by this time. Toyoda-san went to look at the train schedule. ‘Oh no!’ she wailed, ‘we’ve just missed the last train!’

This was the last thing I wanted to hear. I gritted my teeth and resisted the urge to say I told you so!

Toyoda-san walked over to the huge train schedule that gave the times for all the various trains – trains that ran the length and breadth of Tokyo, that took you as far as Chiba Prefecture to the east, Atsugi to the west, Tokorozawa to the north – or Yokohama to the south. She studied it for a few moments, her brow knitted, then nodded. ‘Right. No problem. I know what we’ll do, come on. We’ll have to walk a ways to the next station, but you’re okay with walking, aren’t you?’

I did my best not to sulk. I reasoned that a brisk walk in the night air would take over where the strong coffee had left off:  it would sober us up.

When we got to the next station, there was a train already waiting there. ‘Come on,’ yelled Toyoda-san, ‘we’ve got a minute or two but I don’t want to take any chances!’

Neither did I. I broke into a run, cursing my stupid high heels.  Once we were on the train, still panting from the run, I commented that I hadn’t realized this line took us back to Yokohama.

Toyoda-san looked guilty. ‘It doesn’t.’

‘What?’

‘It only goes as far as Kawasaki at this hour.’

It was all I could do not to shout. ‘So what are we going to do?’

‘Relax!  You worry too much, Mary! We’ll be fine. We’re staying with someone I know.’

‘Who?’

She smiled. ‘My grandma.’

‘What!?’

‘She’s special – it’ll be fine.’

I could not believe her. I tried –  and failed –  to picture showing up on my own grandmother’s doorstep unexpected, unannounced, at midnight, drunk, and hoping to spend the night. And to top it all off, with someone she’d never met before.  Who was a foreigner!

‘Toyoda-san, I’ve got just enough money for a taxi back to Yokohama. Why don’t you go to your grandmother’s and I’ll – ’

‘Forget it, Mary – it’ll cost you a bundle!’

She was right, but even parting with a bundle seemed preferable to showing up at a strange grandmother’s house at midnight, still drunk enough that running in a straight line had been a challenge.

When we showed up at her grandmother’s house, I just knew what was going to happen. We would be met at the door by a grumpy, indignant eighty-year-old in a hairnet and pajamas. Who almost certainly remembered her house being fire-bombed by the Allies during the war. She’d be madder than hell to find us on her doorstep – of course she would. Toyoda-san would be embarrassed, I would be mortified, and the whole situation would be just horrible. 

Toyoda-san acted like it was all such a hoot. ‘She’ll still be up!’ she said breezily. ‘Just you wait and see. She never sleeps, I swear.’

I shivered and tried to make myself look as innocent, respectable and contrite as possible. The door opened a crack. I heard an elderly voice. ‘Hai, donata dessho ka?’   Polite language for Who is that?  That was a good start.

Toyoda-san grinned. ‘It’s me, obaasan! Akiko!  And I’ve got a friend with me. We need to crash!’

The door opened wide. ‘Akiko!  And a friend!  Lovely!’

‘She speaks Japanese, Granny. She’s American – her name’s Mary!’

‘Well, come on in, the two of you! You’ll be freezing out there!  Ha-ha-ha!’

She held the door open for us, and looked me up and down as though I was the most interesting thing she’d seen in ages.  ‘Nice to meet you,' she said. I mumbled the same back.

Toyoda-san’s grandmother was easily eighty, maybe older. But she moved with the grace and energy of a thirty-year-old. ‘So come on through! Have you eaten? Are you hungry? Wait – I’ll go and put on some tea.’

Toyoda-san elbowed me as we were ushered into the warm, well-lit sitting room with its typical grandma paraphernalia of  bric-a-brac, grandchildren's photographs and  certificates.  She sat down on the comfortable sofa, stretching her arms over her head and yawning widely. ‘See? What did I tell you?’

I couldn’t answer her. I could have tripped over my jaw, it had dropped that far.

After a few cups of hot tea, Toyoda-san and I climbed into the warm, fluffy futons that her grandmother had put out for us. We slept a good eight hours each and woke up to the smell of roasted fish, miso shiru and rice. After a decent breakfast -- and many expressions of thanks from me -- we left and went our respective ways.

Decades have past since that late-night visit to Toyoda-san's grandma. I'm a mother of teenagers now, and although I try, I often fail to live up to her incredible example of hospitality.

Recently we had a midnight visit ourselves from a couple of teenagers, friends of my eldest. They'd been to the local festival and foolishly managed to get locked out of their houses. Neither of them dared to wake their own parents up, my daughter told me sheepishly; could they please stay at our house overnight? Bear in mind, I'm not like Toyoda-san's grandma. I'm a grumpy old grouch and I prize what little sleep I can get around here.  But such was the power of grandma Toyoda's kindness and generosity that I could see her welcoming face, hear her telling us to come on in and get out of the cold. 

'Tell them to come on in,' I told my daughter. 'And ask them if they're hungry.'