Once I hang up I begin to think about what I’ll wear to the club tonight. My apartment consists of a bedroom, combination living-dining room, and a small kitchen. Not much space. The closet and dresser are combined—I hardly have that many dresses anyway. When I worked in Roppongi at the clubs for foreigners, I had a ton of gorgeous dresses. Valentino and Chanel dresses costing close to a million yen apiece. I must have had clothes worth a fortune. I’d slip into one or another of my beautiful dresses and fasten on a diamond as big as a glass bead without even giving it a second thought. Then I’d step into gold sandals that were too extravagant to wear for walking. I would never wear stockings—for the sake of customers who enjoyed kissing my toes. I’d take a taxi from my apartment. After work I’d set off in a customer’s car to a hotel and from the hotel I’d return home by taxi. My muscles were only used while in bed with a man.
But as I began to fall from that world, my clothes also became the kind of cheap garments you can buy anywhere around here. I went from silk to polyester; from cashmere to wool blends. And now I have no choice but to cover my well-worn legs in bargain-basement stockings—legs that are dimpled with fat that refuses to melt away, no matter how I try to exercise.
What’s changed the most is the quality of my customers. At the first club I worked in, the clients were actors, writers, young self-styled entrepreneurs. Many were at the level of company president or were distinguished foreign VIPs. Then at the next club they were mostly businessmen with no limits on the way they spent their company’s accounts. From there I went to salary men with meager monthly paychecks. At present the customers I have are either weirdos who want wacky women or men without money. By wacky I mean grotesque. In this world there are people who prefer beauty after it’s gone away or the dregs of a prosperity depleted.
With my monstrous beauty and my monstrous desire, I suppose I’ll now become a full-fledged beast. My ghastliness has increased along with my age. I’ve written it any number of times already, but I do not feel lonely. This is the true figure of the woman who was once a beautiful girl. I daresay my sister must take great delight in my decline. That’s why she calls me all the time.
I have more to say about Johnson.
When he came to meet me at Narita International Airport he wore a strained expression—and Masami was right beside him, beaming brightly. What a study in contrasts! Johnson was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and regimental tie, and he was tapping his lower lip nervously with his index finger. I’d never seen him so attired. Masami was wearing a white linen dress—perhaps to show off her tanned skin and a veritable treasure trove of gold accessories that adorned her ears, neck, wrists, and fingers. The jet-black eyeliner at the corner of her eyes was way too dark. It was hard to tell what kind of expression she wore. Was she being serious or playful? That’s why I started watching Masami when she put on her makeup because depending on how she applied it, I could tell—better than by anything she said—how she was feeling. That afternoon Masami revealed an exaggerated joy.
“Yuriko! What a long time since we saw you last. My, how big you’ve grown!”
Johnson and I exchanged glances. Now fifteen, I’d grown almost eight inches since I was in elementary school. I was five feet seven inches tall and weighed 110 pounds. And I was no longer a virgin. Johnson gave me a light hug. His body trembled slightly.
“It’s so nice to see you again.”
“Thank you so much, Mr. Johnson.”
Johnson had told me to call him Mark, but I preferred Johnson. “Idiot Johnson!”: that’s what my sister had called him angrily just before she hung up on me. Whenever I thought of that I silently whispered in my heart, “God-sent Johnson.” He was my one defense.
“I wonder if your sister’s going to come?”
Masami looked around the airport dubiously. She needn’t have bothered. I hadn’t even told my sister of my arrival time.
“I didn’t have time to call her before I left,” I explained. “Besides, I heard my grandpa wasn’t feeling well.”
“Oh, I almost forgot!” Masami hadn’t even heard what I’d said. “The admissions examination is this afternoon,” she said, squeezing my arm happily. “We have to hurry home. Q Junior High School will accept you under the kikokushijo category, the one for students returning from overseas. It’s going to be really convenient for you to commute to the school from our place—and I’ll get to brag on you for going to a first-rate school like Q. I’m just delighted you got back in time for the exam.”
Q School. That was my sister’s school. I didn’t want to go to a school like that. But Masami—ever the show-off—was determined to get me in. I looked to Johnson for help, but he just shook his head.
“You can put up with that much, at least,” he said.
“Put up with it.” That was the same thing Uncle Karl had said in the cabin that day when he took those pictures. I bit my lip in resignation. Masami led me by the hand and shoved me into the backseat of her flashy Mercedes-Benz. Next to me on the beige leather, I could feel Johnson’s warm thigh pressing against mine. The incident in the cabin. Our secret. My eyes must have danced to have rediscovered the happiness. I waited for the next joy to unfold. Life doesn’t happen according to plan. But we are free to dream.
On the way from the airport, Masami stopped the car to let Johnson out so he could go back to work. I was left in Masami’s hands. She dragged me off to Q Junior High School in Minato Ward. The main building was made of stone and was very old-looking. The buildings flanking it were more modern; the high school was to the right. Without even thinking, I started looking to see if my sister was there. We hadn’t seen each other since we parted in March. It had been more than four months. If I entered Q School, it would surely depress her. I can only imagine how angry she’d be. She’d studied herself silly so she could get into this school, all in order to get away from me. I saw right through her little ruse. When I laughed bitterly, Masami completely misinterpreted my feelings.
“Yuriko-chan, smile! You’re so pretty when you smile. If you smile you’re sure to pass the interview. Well, it’s a paper test, but in name only. I know they’ll want to have you around for a long, long time since you’re so pretty. It was the same when I took my airlines exam. The competition was awful, but the girls with the best smiles were picked.”
I doubted that a flight attendants’ exam and the entry exam for this school were quite comparable. But since arguing wasn’t worth it, I decided it would be easier to go with a sweet little smile. If I was accepted, what then? It would cost more than my father could pay to send me to this school. But then Johnson had agreed to put up half the tuition. Wasn’t I little more than a prostitute then?
There were about ten students taking the exam to enter the school as “returnee students.” All were kids who had been overseas because of their father’s businesses. I was the only half, and I was the worst of the bunch when it came to the exam. I have no passion for school. What’s more, I hardly have the vocabulary for conducting everyday conversations in either English or German.
That night I was so exhausted I ran a fever. Johnson’s house was behind the Nishi-Azabu Tax Office. The room that Masami had prepared for me was on the second floor. The curtains, the bedspread, even the pillows were all done in the same Liberty print fabric, clearly Masami’s taste. I had no interest in interior design and found the whole business overly fussy, but what did I care? The minute I crawled under the covers, I fell into a deep sleep. I woke in the middle of the night, sensing someone’s presence. Johnson was standing by my pillow in a T-shirt and pajama pants.
“Yuriko? How are you feeling?” he asked in a low whisper.
“I’m just really tired.”
Johnson bent his tall frame down and whispered in my ear, “Hurry up and get better. I’ve finally captured you.”
Captured. A woman to be consumed by men. Unless I accepted my fate, I could never be happy. Again, the word freedom floated up in the back of my mind. I was fifte
en years old. And in an instant I had become an old woman.
The next morning, we got the news from Q Junior High that I had been admitted. Masami was beside herself with joy. After she called Johnson at his office to tell him the good news, she turned back to me in great excitement and said, “We need to tell your sister!”
I had to give Masami my grandfather’s phone number. I knew I’d have to meet my sister sooner or later. After all, we were now both in Japan. Even so, I knew my sister hated me. And for my part, I hated her. We looked nothing alike. We were like two sides of a coin. My sister reacted just as I knew she would.
“If by some chance you should run into me at school, don’t you dare say hello. I’m sure you’re very pleased to be getting all this attention. But I’m forced to do everything I can just to survive.”
I too was doing everything I could just to survive. But I had no way to explain this to my sister.
“Well, aren’t you the lucky one,” she said.
“I want to see Grandpa.”
“Well, he doesn’t want to see you. He hates you. He said you have no inspiration. That you don’t have what it takes to go after something with mad intensity.”
“What’s inspiration?”
“You idiot. Your IQ must not even top fifty!”
And so ended my conversation with my sister. When school started after the summer, she pretended not to know me. After I dropped out in my senior year of high school, all ties with the Q School system were cut. And for years I had no opportunities even to see my sister. Yet recently I’ve been getting all these phone calls from her. I’m suspicious of what she has up her sleeve.
• 5 •
When they took me in, Masami was thirty-five and Johnson was five years her junior. Masami’s sole purpose in life was to keep an eye on Johnson and ensure that he didn’t lose interest in her. Because Johnson cared about me, Masami made it her business to make sure he knew that she was looking after me. It seems she worried his love for her would cool if by any chance she might overlook something in caring for me.
If I did not agree with what Masami did, I couldn’t very well complain to Johnson. And even if I had, it was unlikely he would have gotten angry with Masami. Everyone was out for personal gratification. For Masami, without a child of her own, I was a pet. For Johnson I was a toy. That was all there was to my existence. I was born to be used.
I had to wear the clothes Masami bought me as if I loved them with all my heart—even though they were often pink and frilly or emblazoned so boldly with brand-name logos it was embarrassing, even if they were so ridiculous they made people turn around and stare. Masami enjoyed dressing me up in outlandish costumes that turned heads.
But for some reason she never once bought me underwear or socks. She felt she only needed to buy me things that Johnson would see. I had to buy those other things from my own measly allowance. Occasionally, when I got tired of trying to scrimp and save, I responded to the men who approached me in order to get money from them. Enjo ksai, dating for profit. At the time there wasn’t a term for it—as there is now.
Masami was very easy to manipulate. If others complimented her by saying, “Oh, what a pretty daughter you have,” she would slip on her maternal mask and act deliriously happy. When my teachers informed her that “Yuriko-san is not self-assertive,” she would explain—in her best martyr’s voice—“She has had a difficult time since her mother committed suicide.” When I brought friends home from Q School, she would revert to her years as a flight attendant and treat each and every one of us to first-class service. All I had to do was act submissive and all went well.
Whatever food Masami fixed I would eat, exclaiming all the while that it was delicious. This was true of the donuts, which she dusted so heavily with powdered sugar they looked as if they were covered in snow, and the cooking lessons she took once a week, which resulted in fussy French cuisine. And then there were the lunches she would make every night, in preparation for school the next day; they were ridiculously ostentatious. I’ve said it any number of times now, but it is really only in my heart that I was able to enjoy a sense of freedom, a freedom no one else could see. I suppose that is why I derived such pleasure—such a secret sense of affirmation—from deceiving Masami while I was with Johnson.
Johnson was superb at playing the part of the love-struck husband. When he was with Masami, he would pull her to him and wrap his arms around her hips. After dinner he would always help clear away the dishes. On weekend nights, he’d leave me at home and take her out for dinner. On those nights he locked their bedroom door when they returned, and they would spend the night together alone. Masami hadn’t the slightest idea of what Johnson and I were up to—until it happened.
Johnson always made love to me early in the morning. Because of Masami’s low blood pressure, she didn’t wake easily. It was Johnson’s job to make breakfast. He would slip quietly into my bed beside me as I slept. I enjoyed having my body—still half asleep—fondled by Johnson. First my fingers would awaken, and then the tips of my hair; slowly, slowly, the warmth would rise to my body itself until I would burn so brightly I could hardly stand it, and my body became suffused with heat. No sooner had he finished up than he’d nuzzle my hair and say, “Yuriko, don’t ever grow up.”
“Is it wrong for me to grow up?”
“That’s not it. It’s just that I love you best the way you are right now.”
But I did grow. By the time I advanced to Q High School, I had grown tall. My bust had filled out and my waist became willowy. I had transformed almost overnight from a little girl into a young woman. I was afraid that Johnson would tire of me, now that I was no longer childlike. But in fact, the reverse was true. He began visiting my bed as soon as night fell. He desired me so badly he could not help himself. Masami—whose diet-induced thin figure looked terrific in the latest fashions—could not satisfy his craving.
My body—now womanly to perfection—seduced young men, to say nothing of the middle-aged. While on my way to school I was approached any number of times by interested men. I refused no one. My sense of autonomy existed deep within my heart. It never ever manifested itself on the exterior.
Well, I’ve gotten ahead of myself again. Summer vacation ended and the new school year began. I entered the junior high division of the Q School system and was placed in the East group of the third-year students. The instructor in charge of my group was Kijima, the biology teacher who had conducted the admissions interviews. I assumed he was also after me; in his perfectly starched white shirt, he stared at me so intently he might have bored a hole right through me.
“I hope you’ll adapt quickly to the way we do things here so you will enjoy your time at Q School. If there’s anything you don’t understand, anything at all, please do not hesitate to ask me.”
I gazed up into his eyes as they glittered behind his metal frame glasses. Kijima looked away as if in a panic and asked, with his gaze downcast, “So you have an older sister with us as well?”
I nodded and stated my sister’s name. I suspected Kijima would immediately run off to the high school section and look her up. He would be disappointed to discover that my older sister and I looked nothing alike. Or perhaps he’d be suspicious. Perhaps he’d begin to look for faults in me as well. My sister’s face was nothing like mine, so people who learned we were sisters were always curious.
As soon as homeroom was over, the boys and girls (the Q system was coed up to high school) clustered around me with unabashed curiosity. I was taken aback by their childlike straightforwardness. They were supposed to be such elite children, yet their inquisitiveness got the better of them.
“Why are you so pretty?” one boy asked with a straight face.
“Your skin’s just like that of a porcelain doll!” a girl said, as she brushed my cheek with the palm of her hand. “You’re the same color as one of those Meissen porcelains from Germany.”
The girl overlapped her hand with mine to compare. Another girl tou
ched my hair. Yet another shrieked out, “Oh, you’re so cute!” and tried to hug me. The boys stared and stared, pressing into a tight circle around me until I felt my skin flush with the heat. But no matter how the boys may have fancied me, they were still, after all, just boys.
At that point I decided I would pretend to be an innocent child while attending this school. I realized it would be best not to engage the other students in conversation. Glancing to the side, I let out a big sigh, realizing that no one here would ever really understand me. As I turned my gaze down, I caught the eye of a boy with short hair sitting off to the side. His forehead was wrinkled; it gave him a weathered look of experience. He seemed to be criticizing me with his eyes. He was head instructor Kijima’s son.
Young Kijima was the first male who did not feel desire for me. I sensed this immediately. He was also the second person to hate me, the first of course being my sister. Both my sister and Kijima were able to make me feel that in their presence there was no purpose to my existence. Because my sole reason for living was the fact that others desired me, I began slowly to peel Kijima’s gaze off my skin. Your father wants me, I thought. I had always lacked the strength and free will to confront another this way, but now I channeled my emotions until they had a target for the first time: young Kijima.
Lunch hour arrived. A group of students went off together somewhere for lunch and took their time coming back. I sat alone and ate the lunch Masami had packed for me. But no matter how much of it I ate, the lunch just didn’t seem to ever end. I looked around the classroom for a trash can.
I heard a voice above me. “My, my, what an elegant lunch! Were you expecting company?” A girl with tiny curls dyed a reddish brown was peering into my lunch box. She tried to pick up a portion of shrimp and olive mousse lodged in one corner, but the mousse slid through her fingers, landed on the desk, and lay glittering in the light of the mid-September sun, looking rather pathetic. She scooped up the olive.