The Fat Innkeeper Read Free

that would involve themselves in beached whaledom. There would certainly be enough whale to go around
     for everyone. What he feared most was that there might be too much. The clean-up job was likely to be the whale of a tale.
    “Good evening.”
    Am turned. The smoker had stepped away from the whale’s shadow. He cast quite a shadow himself. The man was round, and somehow
     familiar. The shadow nodded to Am, and he found himself nodding back. Confronting Hiroshi Yamada, the Fat Innkeeper, was almost
     as surprising as confronting the whale. Hiroshi was the new owner of the Hotel California, or at least the son of the absentee
     owner. At the beginning of the year (not as, as Am was wont to observe, December 7, 1941) he had arrived at the Hotel with
     a coterie of countrymen from Japan. This was the first time Am had seen him alone. Much like Mary and her trailing lamb, wherever
     Hiroshi went, the other Japanese were sure to go. It was almost as if they were joined at the hip, but sour grapes might have
     colored that observation. One of Hiroshi’s cohorts, Makato Takei, had taken over Am’s former position of assistant general
     manager. Musical-chairs management had relegated Am into his current post, a fit he thought as complimentary as an East European
     suit.
    Hiroshi pointed to the whale. “The whale must have just died,” he said. “I see no signs of deterioration.”
    “Nor I,” Am said.
    Yamada’s English was very good. Usually, one of the Fat Innkeeper’s underlings did his speaking for him. Yamada took a deep
     breath. To all appearances, he liked what he smelled. His body expanded, especially his neck. Yamada was about thirty years
     old, not so much fat as large. He was built like a mini sumo wrestler, his more than two hundred pounds spread over a five-foot-eight-inch
     body.
    “Do you think the Hotel should look into salvaging the whale?”
    “Salvaging?” The whale wasn’t some galleon filled with gold or silver. Am couldn’t understand what Yamada was saying.
    The Japanese man translated his English: “Make use of it.”
    He said the words very slowly. The slowness, Am suspected, was for his benefit. Belatedly, he understood Yamada’s implication
     and all but shouted, “No!”
    The Fat Innkeeper opened his eyes wide with surprise. Too late, Am remembered that the Japanese avoided confrontation whenever
     possible. They didn’t even like to use the word “no,” much preferring that their disapproval be understood without their having
     to express it openly. In that regard, the Japanese culture was much like the hotel culture, with the altogether too direct
     word of “no” rarely uttered to a guest.
    Dumb, thought Am, reconsidering what he had done. It is bad enough to contradict a boss, but to defy a Japanese boss directly
     goes against all the conventions in that culture. The Japanese way would be to speak in nuances, to skate the issue and try
     to finesse the point subtly. But how do you skate around, let alone finesse, a dead whale?
    His friend Sharon had advised Am that when talking with the Japanese he should start with a point of agreement, a safe topic,
     and try to build on common ground. Practice
nemawashi,
she said, root-binding. By not taking any firm stands, by hearing and listening, direct arguments could be avoided. Maybe,
     thought Am, he and Sharon should have been practicing
nemawashi.
Their relationship was a long-distance one now, conducted mostly over the telephone. Sharon had been working for Yamada Enterprises
     for over three years, and had learned much of the Japanese way. Under her surreptitious tutelage, Am was trying to navigate
     the cultural minefield.
    Okay, he thought. How do you root-bind when you feel root-bound? Maybe he should comment on the eau de whale, crinkle his
     nose and say, “Sure stinks, don’t it?” But one man’s meat is another man’s poison. There were cheeses that Am thought tasted
     worse than last week’s socks that were