Free Generation X by Douglas Coupland Page B

we
    sat down for salty green Japanese tea.
    "Of course, I was wondering what his hidden agenda was in getting me up into his room. He talked pleasantly enough . . . how did I like my job? . . . what did I think of Japan? . . . s t o r i e s a b o u t h i s k i d s .
    Nice boring stuff. And he told a few stories about time he had spent in New York in the 1950s as a stringer for the Asahi newspapers . . . about meeting Diana Vreeland and Truman Capote and Judy Holiday. And
    after a half hour or so, we shifted to warmed sake, delivered, with the clapping of Mr. Takamichi's hands, by a midge of a servant in a drab brown kimono the color of shopping bag paper.
    "And after the servant left, there was a pause. It was then that he a s k e d m e w h a t I t h o u g h t t h e m o s t v a l u a b l e t h i n g w a s t h a t I o w n e d .
    "Well, well. The most valuable thing that I owned. Try and explain the concept of sophomoric minimalism to an octogenarian Japanese pub-lishing magnate. It's not easy. What thing could you possibly own of any value? I mean really. A beat up VW Bug? A stereo? I'd sooner have d i e d t h a n a d m i t t h a t t h e m o s t v a l u a b l e t h i n g I owned was a fairly extensive collection of German industrial music dance mix EP records stored, for even further embarrassment, under a box of crumbling Christ-mas tree ornaments in a Portland, Oregon basement. So I said, quite truthfully (and, it dawned on me, quite refreshingly), that I owned no thing of any value.
    He then changed the discussion to the necessity of wealth being
    transportable, being converted into paintings, gems, and precious metals and so forth (he'd been through wars and the depression and spoke with a u t h o r i t y ) , b u t I ' d p u s h e d s o m e r i g h t b u t t o n , s a i d t h e r i g h t t h i n g —p a s s e d a t e s t—a n d h i s t o n e o f v o i c e w a s p l e a s e d . T h e n , m a y b e t e n minutes later, he clapped his hands again, and the tiny servant in the noiseless brown kimono reappeared and was barked an instruction. This caused the servant to go to the corner and to roll the cheap little safe across the tatami mat floor next to where Mr. Takamichi sat cross-legged o n t h e c u s h i o n s .

    "Then, looking hesitant but relaxed, he dialed his combination on t h e k n o b . T h e r e w a s a c l i c k , h e p u l l e d a b a r , a n d t h e d o o r o p e n e d , revealing w h a t , I c o u l d n ' t s e e .
    "He reached in and pulled out what I could tell to be from the distance, a photograph—a black-and-white 1950s photo, like the shots they take at the scene of the crime. He looked at the mystery picture and sighed. Then, flipping it over and giving it to me with a little out-puff of breath meaning 'this is my most valuable thing,' he handed me the photo and I was, I'll admit, shocked at what it was.
    "It was a photo of Marilyn Monroe getting into a Checker cab, lifting up her dress, no underwear, and smooching at the photographer, pre -sumably Mr. T a k a m i c h i i n h i s s t r i n g e r d a y s . I t w a s a n u n a b a s h e d l y sexual frontal photo (get your minds out of the gutter—black as the ace of spades if you must know) and very taunting. Looking at it, I said to Mr. Takamichi, who was waiting expressionlessly for a reaction, "well, well," or some such drivel, but internally I was actually quite mortified that this photo, essentially only a cheesy paparazzi shot, unpublishable a t t h a t , w a s h i s m o s t v a l u e d p o s s e s s i o n .
    "And then I had an uncontrollable reaction. Blood rushed to my ears, and my heart went bang; I broke out into a sweat and the words of Rilke, the poet, entered my brain —his notion that we are all of us born with a letter inside us, and that only if we are true to ourselves, may we be allowed to read it before we die. The burning blood in my ears told me that Mr. Takamichi had somehow mistaken the Monroe
    photo in the safe for the letter