The Origin of the Nemesis

Abstract

fell in love with the Nemesis in the summer of 1978. That was Tokyo. A town not impartial to romance. Any city will do when you're in love - St. Louis, Pads, New York - all you need is park, few lonely lanes and care or two. Everywhere you have the night. Idle while under streetlight and you charge that spot with moment of memory. Enough of these moments and you will ping emotionally everywhere you go, uptown, downtown, at crosswalks and monuments, waterfronts and alleys, under glowing clocks and signposts. Time goes by. Then the town belongs to the one you loved. Before and after me is history of schoolboys, college students and salary-men, all having passed the blue hour with Yuki Kara, alias the Nemesis. nickname was consequence of her war with my great friend, Oe. had warned him about her powerful effect on men. Most either loved or despised her, depending on how high they allowed their hopes to rise. Practical Oe never expected love, but he wanted respect. Nemesis, for the most part, expected to be left alone. hoped they would get along, but upon first sight of one another they were enemies. We were all three employed by Hakuhodo Inc., the prestigious and second-largest advertising agency in Japan. Miss Kara was part of the MacDonalds Japan team. Next door to her was the Kirin-Seagram room where worked. Oe was officially assigned to the Creative Division, but he frequently visited our floor to confer with the account executives. Oe had heard rumors of an American assigned to the Kirin account, and he walked the halls until he heard either my excellent English or my renegade Japanese. He introduced himself and offered to treat me to the finest ra-men shop in Tokyo. From then on we often had lunch together. Sometimes, after work, he would take me to one of his many drinking spots in the Yurakucho area. Usually it was just the two of us. Oe had few friends among his male coworkers. It was as much his language abilities as his irregular profile which set him apart. He ridiculed hostess bars and karaoke, and he dismissed Japanese male camaraderie as crypto-misogynist. Oe was thirty and single. He had about him the nervous air of boy-virgin which affected maternal and sexually-inhibited women like drugged chocolate. knew something of his kind of girl. Unloved and unlovely, they widened their tiny eyes with eyeliner and cast chemical blush over their naturally buttery, smooth complexions. They washed regularly, shaved their upper lips and never mismatched skirt with the wrong shoes. Oe's plain women fretted over him but never despaired. Living at home and flush with disposable income, they showered an indifferent Oe with gifts. One tall, executive secretary presented him with an expensive electric typewriter for Valentine's Day. He lugged it into the Seagram room where he ostentatiously offered to touchtype page of the sales report. It is rare Japanese male at ease behind keyboard, and more so one who'd brag of his secretarial skills. Oe sensed he could air his conceits before me without censure, and before long was confided his greatest deeds and feats, the highlights of his life. One of these, The Oe Mirror, he both designed and patented. According to Oe, it reflected an unreversed image of the viewer off concave steel surface. Oe boasted how he had mastered all of the intricate legal terminology and drafted the patent application himself, saving a veritable fortune in legal fees. was honestly impressed. had encountered Japanese know-it-alls before, but none with his nervy style. His pedantry fueled his creativity which was real and unexpected. Once Oe met me for lunch at Maxim's in the basement of the Sony Building wearing an ill-fitting pair of calico slacks which it was soon disclosed, he had cut and stitched together by hand. I am unafraid to dabble my talents in the emasculate arts, he said. cornerstone of his act, the plumb line of his eccentricity, was his magnificent English. …