Hands on the Wheel Ch. 01

This is a calculated risk, the first chapter of a fairly long story I've been struggling with off and on for several months. When I hit a dry spell, I fleshed out a few ideas for shorter pieces and submitted them, but this story started calling me again. I've almost finished it, but unfortunately the most incomplete chapter is the next one. I was going to wait until I had it all finished before submitting, but we're leaving on a weeklong trip in four days and I really want to start getting this up.

I'm hoping that the deadline will move me to finish Chapter 2 before we leave, because I know I will once again irritate people no end if there's a long delay between chapters. But Ivan keeps giving me accusing looks, so I'm risking your wrath to avoid feeling guilty.

*

Ivan Wolfe looked out at the 60 conference attendees, virtually all C-levels of major corporations. The Japanese translation of what he was saying streamed from the bud in his left ear, making it difficult for him to focus on his pitch. This being Japan, the C-levels were all men, each looking for an edge in the ever-more-cutthroat global marketplace.

He didn't need this distraction, he was nervous enough about representing Golkonda Ltd at the data mining conference. Golkonda claimed they could bring data mining—previously limited to corporations, educational institutions, and government agencies with deep pockets—to mid-sized enterprises. Accordingly, they sent a phalanx of marketing suits—all male, of course, to match their audience—to convince these leaders of Japan's major companies that "it isn't necessary to spend a painful portion of your operating budget to start panning for gold in the ever-burgeoning streams of data."

Ivan winced every time he heard that piece of marketing fluff. He was the token software geek, sent along to lend authenticity to the seminar; his role was to dazzle the C-levels with footwork while the marketing mavens baffled them with bullshit. He knew that most of the men listening to him didn't understand his technical presentations; his job wasn't to teach them, it was to assure them that Golkonda had the technical chops to deliver what they promised.

So that everyone present could understand everyone else's words, each attendee had a wireless receiver in his shirt pocket connected with a coiled cord to an earbud; it carried the translation of what was being spoken in either English or Japanese to the other language. Ivan had to suppress a smile; it made the room look like it was full of a bunch of Asian Secret Service agents.

The occasional technical term he used that passed through untranslated let him gauge the delay between 6 and 9 seconds, depending on how fast he spoke and the particular term he used. As far as he was concerned, simultaneous translation was a perfect instance of Arthur C. Clarke's observation that sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic. (He was more inclined to cite Enoch Root—sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a yo-yo—and loved it when someone condescendingly corrected him.)

Ivan had studied Spanish for five years in high school and college; he could translate printed Spanish pretty well if he had access to a Spanish-to-English dictionary. He still had difficulty understanding spoken Spanish, however; translate spoken Spanish on the fly? Yeah, right, just as soon as he broke the 2-minute mile. No doubt about it, both would take some magic.

But no magic was involved in the simultaneous translation of this conference, just three young Japanese women wearing headsets in a glassed-in booth at the front of the conference room. Ivan figured that translating unbroken speech had to be majorly stressful. Only one of the three was actually translating; the other two were taking the break they were allowed after 45 minutes.

He managed to finish his presentation—the first of six he was scheduled to give over four days—with no major goofs. Trying to hide his sigh of relief, he returned to his seat in the front row. Their Japanese sales rep was speaking now, and the voice in Ivan's earbud segued smoothly from Japanese to uninflected English. Again, he was amazed at the skill of the young ladies in the glass booth.

He wasn't interested in the marketing pitch; he'd heard them all too many times already. He zoned out—at least half of it was pure BS, anyway—and focused on the young woman in the booth speaking into her headset mike. Her voice was soft but not quiet, an intriguing quality. She spoke English with no accent; he wondered where she had studied it. Sometimes her eyes were shut, sometimes she glanced down at papers on the desk in front of her, sometimes she looked straight ahead with an unfocused stare.

When the sales rep ended his pitch and announced a 15-minute break, Ivan happened to be looking at the young translator as she was locked in one of her unfocused straight-ahead stares. As she completed her translation, her gaze snapped into focus and she found herself looking directly into Ivan's eyes.

They stared at each other for a moment, then she blushed and looked away, but he continued to look at her. She tried to sneak another look, then blushed as he caught her. She tried to hide her embarrassment by picking up a pen and writing something on a notepad. The young woman next to her glanced with a puzzled expression at what she was writing, then looked out and saw Ivan's stare. She giggled and whispered in the embarrassed young woman's ear, who shook her head and blushed more furiously.

Ivan was enjoying this silent exchange. If the first day of this four-day conference was starting so well, who knew what more interesting experiences lay ahead? He stood and left the conference room for the bathroom, glancing at the translators' booth as he went by, causing all three women to quickly look down and giggle. He smiled all the way to the bathroom.

The rest of the first day passed with no further amusing incidents. At dinner, Ivan got involved in a discussion of the merits of competing data mining products with some attendees who spoke English. He was frustrated at times because he couldn't adequately describe the advantages and disadvantages without getting into technical aspects that were beyond the understanding of the other participants, and in some cases proprietary to Golkonda.

After dinner, while walking through the grounds of the hotel, it occurred to him that both he and the marketing people were using some terms that, while not overly technical, were nonetheless uncommon English. He thought it might prove useful to provide a glossary of some he knew they would be using to the translators.

Ivan returned to his room, fired up his laptop, and started entering the terms and their definitions. After an hour and a half, he had a three-page glossary of 35 terms and headed to the hotel's business center to print copies for the translators and marketing reps.

_________

The next morning he went to breakfast early with the marketing guys and ordered a full English breakfast. Yesterday he had decided that as a guest in another country it was only polite to honor their culinary traditions, so he had ordered a Japanese breakfast. It came in seven bowls. Two tasted okay, two were marginal, three were so unpleasant that he ate only a few bites. He had no idea what some of the items were, and decided that from now on he would eat only things whose taxonomic kingdom he could identify.

The English breakfast, as promised, came with two eggs, sausage, back bacon, baked beans, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, and toast; the meat, beans, tomatoes and mushrooms, toast, and eggs were each served on separate small plates. The waitress, a diminutive young woman, bore an oval tray holding all the small plates plus metal pots of coffee and tea. She served the plates one-by-one without putting the tray down.

The plate of eggs was last. When she took it from the tray, the pots overbalanced it and the tray tipped up; its edge clipped the egg plate. Both eggs—over very easy, of course—slid off into Ivan's lap and the pots fell to the floor. The pots didn't break but the eggs did; coffee and tea spilled everywhere on the floor and runny eggs splattered everywhere on Ivan's lap.

The noise attracted everyone's attention, including the maître d'. The waitress burst into tears then dropped the tray, adding to the cacophony. She snatched Ivan's napkin from the table and started trying to wipe the egg mess from his trousers.

The maître d' charged up glaring like a berserker samurai, hissed something in Japanese to the waitress, and grabbed the napkin from her hand. She fled to the kitchen and the man began apologizing for the extremely rude and unpleasant service Ivan had been forced to endure. Ivan tried to assure him that it wasn't a problem, he had another suit, these things happened, he had been a waiter himself and caused similar embarrassing incidents.

Nothing would mollify the maître d'. He told Ivan that it would never happen again, that his meals would be complimentary throughout his stay, a replacement breakfast would be here momentarily, and he should leave his soiled trousers plus the jacket on his bed and they would be returned, cleaned and pressed, by evening. The maître d' pleaded with Ivan and the others at his table not to judge the hotel by this disaster, said it was extremely unusual, and assured them all it would never happen again.

Ivan had been trying to clean up his lap as best he could with several napkins. By this time the replacement breakfast arrived. It was very good, but his appetite had waned and the atmosphere at the table was subdued. He ate some of his breakfast, went back to his room, changed into his other suit—bought just for this trip, how many geeks own two suits?—and headed for the conference room.

The translators weren't there yet. He glanced into their booth as he walked by, but before he reached his seat he realized that something was troubling him: the maître d' had assured everyone too fiercely that "it will never happen again." He hurried back to the dining room and looked around for the young waitress but couldn't see her. The maître d' saw him, rushed over looking concerned, and asked if something was wrong. Ivan asked to see the waitress who had dropped the eggs.

"She is no longer here!" the maître d' snapped. "Fuji-ya has standards. Those who cannot meet our standards are no longer permitted to be employed."

Ivan repeated that it wasn't her fault, that it could happen to anyone, but the maître d' was adamant. Angered by this injustice, Ivan headed for the front desk to speak to the hotel manager, but another waitress was waiting for him just outside the dining room. She told him that the maître d' fired Hoshimi and she had already packed her suitcase and was headed for the bus stop near the hotel. He asked her to point the direction, then hurried out of the hotel.

Ivan spotted her carrying a suitcase not far from the bus stop shelter. No bus was in sight, but he started running. When he got closer he shouted for her to stop; he wanted to help her because he was the reason she lost her job. Given the attitude of the maître d' and what he had read about Japanese business culture, he didn't think there was much hope of getting her job back, but he thought that $100 might help tide her over until she found another job.

As he dug in his pocket for his wallet and shouted for her to wait, she turned around looking frightened. No, she looked terrified. What was this crazy gaijin going to do? Ivan was making her feel worse, not better, but help arrived in the person of the young translator he'd stared at yesterday; she was rushing toward the waitress across the grass.

"What are you doing?" she shouted at Ivan. You're frightening her!"

Ivan was frustrated beyond belief. Damn! I can't do anything right! Instead of helping the young woman who lost her job and continuing his flirtation with the pretty young translator, he was scaring hell out of one and pissing off the other. He stopped and held out his hands palms up in what he hoped was a universally understood gesture of peace.

"She was fired because she dropped some eggs in my lap at breakfast. I didn't care, it was an accident, but the maître d' was furious and fired her. I just want to give her some money to help until she can find another job." As he blurted this he took a Benjie out of his wallet and showed it to the translator. Her anger faded, and she began trying to calm the waitress.

After a few exchanges both young women were smiling, but the waitress bowed to Ivan, shook her head, and said something. "She says that you are too nice, that she was a bad server and it was her fault, not yours."

Ivan shook his head more strongly than she had. "Tell her that I insist, that she is a beautiful young woman and an excellent worker and I am a rich American whose feelings will be terribly hurt if she doesn't let me try to make up for what that asshole did. Oh, and also tell her I will think all Japanese people are either very bad or very silly if she doesn't accept it." Then he bowed to the waitress.

At his words, the translator raised an eyebrow and tried not to smile. She turned and spoke more calming words; this time the waitress smiled shyly. Ivan wasn't sure how "asshole" got translated, but the waitress's smile almost broadened into a grin at one point; apparently the translation was true to Ivan's intent.

He walked up to the waitress, bowed, and held out the $100 bill. She bowed back, took the $100 bill, then looked at the translator and said something that sounded like a question. Ivan felt like they were performing a version of the business-card-exchange ritual he observed in the bar after the first day's sessions.

When the translator smiled and nodded yes, the waitress stepped over and kissed Ivan lightly on the cheek, blushed, then quickly turned, grabbed her suitcase, and hurried to the bus shelter. He couldn't remember that part of the business card ritual.

He hadn't noticed the bus approaching, but it pulled up just as she got to the shelter. She walked to the bus door, turned, waved, and disappeared inside. The bus glided off—Japanese buses are really quiet—and Ivan breathed a sigh of relief.

"You didn't have to do that, but it was very nice of you. Are you really a rich American?"

Ivan grinned at her. "Why, are you looking for one?" Her face clouded. He wanted to smack the side of his head. Too much, you idiot, too soon! Before she could respond or, worse, leave, Ivan hurried to fix it. "Sorry, that was uncalled for. We don't know each other well enough for me to joke like that. Please forgive me."

She frowned for a moment, then relaxed. "That's okay. Americans aren't known for sterling manners, but I'm sure you meant well." She tried to soften the rebuke. "And thank you again for what you did. You probably needn't worry about her, though. She should be able to find another job fairly easily." She turned to walk back to the hotel. Ivan fell in beside her and they returned to the conference room, but there was no small talk.

The two other translators and about half the attendees were there. As the rest trickled in and the session got underway, Ivan remembered the list of technical terms. At the morning break he got it from his room and handed the copies to the translators and marketing reps. The translators all thanked him as everyone broke for lunch, saying it would really help them with his presentations. They said they could have used the same sort of help with some of the marketing buzzwords.

_________

The remaining days passed with no further incidents. Ivan often glanced at the pretty young translator and she occasionally smiled in return, but they never encountered each other outside the conference room. He glared at the maître d' at every meal, but his glower had no effect on the great stone face.

The final day ended with an alcohol-fueled gathering for all the attendees and presenters in the bar. The presenters' drinks were paid for by the attendees, and Ivan discovered a fondness for Suntory whiskey, which he thought to be as smooth as a good single malt whisky. Being women, the translators weren't invited, of course.

Most of the attendees left that last day; the hotel bused the presenters to the Odawara train station the following morning. The next bullet train for Tokyo was in a little over an hour, so they sat in the waiting room and soon were post-morteming the conference, which they all thought went well.

After half an hour or so the conversation turned to detailed marketing topics. Ivan lost interest, and noticed the translators sitting a few rows away; on a whim he decided to join them. The seat beside the one he had hoped to flirt with was empty. He walked over and asked if he could join them. All three chorused their approval, and he sat in the open seat.

He introduced himself simply as Ivan; the two sitting opposite him were Keiko and Minami, the one next to him was Fumiko. All three thanked him for his glossary and said their job would be a lot easier if more of their clients would take the trouble to do the same.

That made him feel pretty good, so he in turn told them how impressed he was with their ability to make everything that was said at the conference accessible to everyone, regardless of which language they spoke. When he offered his opinion that simultaneous translation was akin to magic, Keiko gently corrected him, saying that the proper term is interpretation, not translation; then they all laughed at his claim of magic and agreed that while it wasn't easy, it was simply a matter of education, training, and experience.

He asked how they got into interpreting. Keiko and Minami went to university in England, where they both got undergraduate degrees in English literature; Keiko went on for an MA in Conference Translating at Manchester, Minami an MA in Translating and Interpreting at Newcastle. Fumiko took a different path, earning a BA in Linguistics at UC Berkeley, then an MA in Translation and Interpretation at Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey.

Fumiko asked Ivan about his education. Keiko and Minami started discussing some of their upcoming jobs before he had a chance to answer. When he finished describing his BS and MS in computer science from Iowa State, Fumiko said she wanted a cup of tea and asked if Ivan would like one also. He readily agreed. They made their excuses and walked across the waiting room to the snack bar.

They sat at a table by a window, and he insisted on buying a pot of tea. He put the pot and two cups on the table and sat across from her; she poured for each of them. He picked up his teacup and looked up; once again found himself caught in her direct gaze. Unbidden, in his mind he heard Willy singing a few lines from Hands on the Wheel:

And with no place to hide
I looked in your eyes
And I found myself in you.

_________

They talked about everything. He told her what it was like growing up on a farm in Iowa: March mornings when it was cold enough to see your breath, but the sun's warming light from a brilliant blue sky promised better days; State Center, Iowa, the small town where everyone knew everyone else, which meant that you had a really big, caring family, but every time you did something stupid like steal a case of beer from the loading dock at the back of the grocery store your parents knew about it before you got a chance to drink any of it; the long, muggy days of summer filled with sweaty field work and thunderstorms that could bring devastating hail, and languid evenings promising (and occasionally delivering) romance; chill autumn evenings when once again you could see your breath; the smell of burning leaves that meant harvest moon, hayrides, and Halloween; winters of snow and freezing rain made tolerable by ice skating with friends followed by a chili supper at the Baptist church.