He talked about the new computer system that his project team was currently developing. It was designed to generate an instantaneous diagram showing the most effective method for returning trains to the depot after an accident. In fact, it sounded like a great idea, but the principle made about as much sense to me as Finnish verb conjugations. While he raved on and on, I nodded at appropriate times and thought about women—like who I should take where to drink what on my next day off, including where we would eat and the hotel we’d use. I must have an inborn liking for such things. Just as there are those who like to make plastic models and draw train diagrams, I like to get drunk with women and sleep with them. It was a matter of Destiny, something that surpassed all human understanding.

Around the time I was finishing my fourth beer, dinner was ready: smoked salmon, vichyssoise, steak, salad, and fried potatoes. As always, my sister’s cooking was pretty good. I opened the Chablis and drank it alone.

As he sliced his tenderloin, Noboru Watanabe asked me, “Why did you take a job with an appliance manufacturer? I gather you’re not particularly interested in electrical devices.”

My sister answered for me. “He’s not particularly interested in anything that’s of benefit to society. He would have taken a job anywhere. It just so happened he had an in with that particular company.”

“I couldn’t have said it any better myself,” I chimed in.

“All he thinks about is having fun. It never occurs to him to concentrate on anything seriously, to make himself a better person.”

“Yours truly, the summer grasshopper.”

“He gets a kick out of smirking at those who do choose to live seriously.”

“Now, there you’re wrong,” I interjected. “What I do has nothing to do with what anybody else does. I just go along burning my own calories in accordance with my own ideas about things. What other people do doesn’t concern me. I don’t smirk at them; I don’t even look at them. I may be a good-for-nothing, but at least I don’t get in the way of other people.”

“That’s not true!” cried Noboru Watanabe in something like a reflex action. “You’re not a good-for-nothing!” He must have been brought up well.

“Thank you,” I said, raising my wineglass to him. “And by the way, congratulations on your engagement. Sorry to be the only one drinking.”

“We’re planning to have the ceremony in October,” he said. “Probably too late to invite the squirrels and bears.”

“Not to worry,” I said. Incredible, he was making jokes!

“So, where will you go on your honeymoon? I suppose you can get discount fares?”

“Hawaii,” my sister answered curtly.

We talked for a while about airplanes. Having just read several books on the crash in the Andes, I brought up that topic.