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The Fly on the Wall By Anel Viz © Anel Viz 2009 Because of his
extensive knowledge of languages, the corporation hired Robert Paxton fresh out
of business school with the idea of someday putting him in charge of one of
their numerous overseas affiliates. He
was a linguist in the old sense of the word, truly a rare phenomenon nowadays
in the He soon moved into the highest ranks of middle management. He’d been working for them less than a year when a Chilean firm sent a delegation to discuss a possible joint project. The night they arrived, one of the senior executives invited him to the welcome dinner, in part to have somebody there to socialize with their guests, in part to assess his speaking abilities. Bobby impressed them all. He chatted fluently, perfectly at home in the language and clearly attuned to all the cultural subtleties that so often result in misunderstandings. One of the Chileans remarked that he must have lived many years in a Spanish-speaking country. He hadn’t. He’d visited all the countries whose languages he spoke and had spent a few weeks in each, but he hadn’t lived in any of them. From then on Bobby was present in the conference room as the company’s spokesperson whenever a foreign contract was being negotiated. His European languages seemed perfectly under control, but when a Japanese firm sent three representatives to negotiate an important contract, he demurred. “My Japanese isn’t nearly good enough to handle something like this,” he said. “I thought your wife was from “Yes, about half the time, but we don’t talk business. I don’t know that vocabulary. And the language has all kinds of formalities built into it. You don’t speak to corporate executives the same way you talk to your wife. The grammar and way you say things aren’t remotely alike.” “You’ll understand what they say, though, won’t you?” “Most of it, probably. I could sit back and listen, take notes, and debrief you on their conversations later, even jump in and smooth things over – in English – if anyone makes an unintentional gaffe, but negotiate directly in Japanese, I’m afraid not.” “It would be better if they didn’t suspect you understood them, like a fly on the wall. You could pretend to be a secretary. Sit in the corner, run out to get whatever papers we need, serve coffee, that sort of thing.” “If I dressed up as a woman to do it, it would throw them off entirely.” “They’d hear your man’s voice.” “Oh, it’s easy enough to speak at a higher pitch,” he said at a higher pitch. “If the company invests in a professional makeover for me, I bet they’ll never know the difference.” “You really think you can pass for female?” “I’m sure of it. I was in the drama club all four years in college, and just for fun took all my electives in the theatre department. I played Jerry in our production of Some Like It Hot. It was harder playing up the out-of-place masculine gestures than just going for a one-hundred percent feminine look.” “What name would you go by?” “Bobby. Why complicate matters?” “I’ll discuss it with the CEO. It’ll be worth it just for the show even if the whole thing turns out to be a bust.” “If they catch on it’ll be because one of you guys can’t keep a straight face.” Even Bobby’s colleagues scarcely recognized him. He showed up at work in heels and a gray woman’s suit, conservative except for the skirt, which came to three inches above his knees, exposing two very shapely legs, painfully waxed the night before. He had on a wig cut like Uma Thurmon’s hair in Pulp Fiction and a minimal amount of make-up. He ushered their guests into the conference room and told them the chief executives would be there shortly. To their delight he put several in plates of o-sembe on the table, as his wife had suggested. Would they like him to serve coffee? Or perhaps they’d prefer green tea? “Ah, green tea, yes. Thank you very much.” When he went for the tea, one of his co-workers pinched his butt in the outer office. “Keep your hands off the merchandise!” he barked in his normal voice and resuming as much of his natural body language as he could in high heels. Then he added, back in his feminine persona: “Or I’ll deck you.” What no one had anticipated was that the Japanese might not be able to keep their hands to themselves. The elderly Mr. Misoshiru in particular was totally enchanted with the good-looking secretary, and dropped numerous hints that he’d like just such a woman for an escort during his stay in their city. To Bobby’s dismay, his CEO assigned him the job. “You didn’t have to give in that easily!” Bobby complained during their first fifteen-minute break. “You didn’t have to give in at all! He wasn’t expecting it. I heard what they were saying to each other in Japanese.” The CEO winked. “Well, it’s done now, so make the best of it.”
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