Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

Dina—the author does not explicitly state whether she is the protagonist from the title story— decides to leave Baltimore and move to Tokyo, certain that she can earn enough money there to then live “somewhere cheap and tropical for a year” (210). Dina’s neighbor, Miss Gloria, encourages Dina to go. Dina has been fascinated by Japan for years based on depictions in movies and the Japanese food she had eaten, but when she gets to Tokyo, Dina finds it difficult to get a job. There is an economic downturn, which means that businesses feel obligated to hire Japanese people first. Dina is finally hired to work in an amusement park that hires a lot of foreigners. Dina spends the summer working with a young man named Ari. After the summer ends, Ari and Dina are both unemployed. Dina sells her return plane ticket and searches for another job.

There are very few other black people in Tokyo, and Dina is constantly exotified by Japanese men who call her “sexy.” Ari finds a new job, but Dina still searches, and her temporary visa expires. Ari suggests that she take a job sweeping a pachinko parlor, but Dina doesn’t want to fulfill the stereotype in which black people are often depicted in films as criminals and janitors. Since Dina is still unemployed, Ari invites her to move into his one-room apartment with him. Shortly after, Ari invites a couple named Petra and Zoltan to move in as well. Petra, who is from Moldova, was once a model until she damaged her face falling down an escalator. Now Petra dreams of having her old face again and possibly going to America for better reconstructive surgery. Zoltan, who is Hungarian, was once a body builder. The couple is loud, both when they fight and when they have sex, and Petra frequently weeps.

Dina asks Ari why she lets Petra and Zoltan live with her, and Ari’s response is to show her his hand, saying, “See this? Five fingers. One hand” (218). Dina finds this cryptic, especially if he is suggesting that they are stronger together since only Ari really contributes to the household. Next, Ari invites a man named Sayeed to move in with them. The group shares what little food they have. They talk about their lives, but they’re hungry, and each person’s story turns to food. Dina becomes homesick thinking about her old neighborhood and more specifically about the food she used to eat in Baltimore. They learn that Sayeed, who is Moroccan, had been disowned by his family for breaking an arranged marriage agreement and marrying a foreign woman. After Sayeed’s wife left him, he moved to Tokyo. Inexplicably, when Sayeed talks about his wife and his family, he glares hatefully at Dina as if she is at fault.

One night, Dina wakes up and finds Sayeed holding a knife to her throat. She screams. Petra wakes up and starts crying, Zoltan doesn’t care and goes back to sleep, and after Sayeed berates Dina in Arabic, Ari pulls Sayeed away from Dina. Ari and Dina usually sleep next to each other, but tonight Ari puts his arm around her and comforts her. Dina touches his arm, but Ari kindly rejects her. Frustrated, Dina exclaims, “I can’t take this” (222), causing Ari to quietly lose his temper. Dina can’t leave, so she and Sayeed avoid each other. Dina dreams about Baltimore. She is more determined than ever to find a job so she can get away from Sayeed. The roommates begin to steal food. This works at first until the shopkeepers start to catch them and become suspicious of foreigners. Starving and hopeless, they stop leaving the apartment. One afternoon, Ari comes home from work and invites them to the park, showing them some cheese and crackers and a plum. The group has a picnic, and Ari confesses that he has lost his job. There are Japanese families in the park who stare at the group of foreigners just as they stare at the food that the families are eating.

There is a flock of geese nearby, and Zoltan gets up and tries to chase them. Dina realizes that he is trying to catch one and begins to dream about roasted goose. Zoltan is unsuccessful, and the geese fly away. The Japanese families are entertained and applaud, but Zoltan tries to hide the fact that he is crying. A week later, they eat the last of the fruit in the apartment. Dina takes the last piece after no one claims it, realizing too late that the others were just being polite. Determined to make money, Dina goes to the train station. When a Japanese man calls her sexy, she goes with him to a motel and has sex with him for money. On the train back, Dina thinks about what she learned about Japan in school and about kamikaze pilots, who would fly with just enough gas to make it one way. At the time, Dina couldn’t understand why someone would be willing to go on such a mission. She notes how, “in the all-knowing arrogance of youth—she’d been certain that given the same circumstances, she would have done something different” (233).