The Maid

  “That’s one way to cure a hangover,” Eiko taunted. The fact that she and her brother had exactly the same metabolism, even though their gender was different, sent shivers down Eiko’s spine.

  Junichi laughed, but made no reply. In the first place, he thought his sister was an idiot like her mother before her. But what he really couldn’t forgive was her refusal, unlike her mother, to recognize her own stupidity. Incredibly enough, she even believed that she was some sort of intellectual.

  What a hopeless case.

  Even more upsetting was the fact that she was pilfering their father’s savings to spend on clothes. What right does she have to anything when she’ll only end up getting married? But Eiko would maintain that she was the kind of woman who required a lot of money to show off her good looks.

  The affected bitch!

  “Nana, could you get the whisky and sake?” asked Sakiko.

  Nanase went to the kitchen, where she deliberated for a while over which vessel to heat the sake in and which glass to use. Of course, by reading Sakiko’s mind, she already knew the answer. Sakiko thought only of such details.

  However, for Nanase, this was dangerous. If she did exactly as Sakiko wished, her uncanny intuition might arouse suspicion. In such instances, Nanase would consciously play the fool.

  When Nanase brought the wrong glasses on purpose, Eiko corrected her ever so gently.

  “Oh, aren’t there smaller whisky glasses? Those are champagne glasses.”

  Moron! Bumpkin!

  Eiko felt nothing but contempt for all other women.

  “It doesn’t matter. I prefer the bigger ones,” said Junichi.

  Don’t be a smart-arse, Eiko, you interfering bitch!

  Eiko grinned.

  Humph. You think you’re so hot. You lush!

  Hisakuni also grinned. “You seem to have a soft spot for Nana.”

  Is that the only thing you’re interested in? Dirty old man.

  “I have a soft spot for all girls.”

  Including your mistress, you senile bastard.

  “Is that so?” Hisakuni had no other answer.

  Hisakuni feared youth more than was warranted. He had learnt from painful experience that problems at work often arose when young employees defied their superiors – with a terrible obstinacy. If Junichi should ever rebel, he could imagine only too well how his own weakness and confusion would put a quick end to any parental authority. This insecurity made him quiver with fear.

  But Nanase’s observations of Junichi told her that Hisakuni was vastly overestimating him. Even if Junichi defied his father, he himself was so insecure he’d give in with the first counterattack. One roar would strike terror in his heart.

  Fear and guilt lay behind the hatred and contempt he felt for his father. Junichi himself didn’t realize this, but it would take only the smallest incident to make these feelings erupt.

  “Junichi, you can’t sweet-talk Nana. She already heard you talking in your sleep,” said Eiko.

  “Oh, I’m in for it now!”

  Junichi adopted a comic pose and let out a shriek. Then he stared at Nanase with upturned eyes, and asked in a mock nervous tone, “So what did I say?”

  I can’t take it any more, thought Nanase. A family that argues all the time would be a vast improvement over this. Suddenly she was overcome with an urge to destroy their precarious outward harmony.

  “You called out a woman’s name,” she said with a giggle.

  Junichi stopped eating.

  Eiko smiled to herself and licked her lips in anticipation.

  “A woman’s name?” asked Hisakuni in a slightly louder voice as he smiled at Nanase. In order to uphold his hegemonic position as head of the family, he felt obliged to speak out even in matters of little importance. “What name?”

  Nanase answered immediately, without batting an eyelash. “He said ‘Setsuko’.”

  For a moment Hisakuni’s face turned red.

  Junichi’s body tensed.

  It’s finally happened… Shit! The talkative bitch!

  Eiko picked up on the quick change in the moods of her father and brother, and sensed something was up.

  But that’s strange. I heard him talking in his sleep too, and I’m sure he didn’t mention any woman’s name.

  I’ve blown it, thought Nanase. She hadn’t realized that Eiko had also overheard him. Now she’d have to divert Eiko’s thoughts to the confrontation between father and brother. In order to do so, she’d have to provoke their hostility and suspicions even more.

  “And then…” Nanase acted as if she were lost in thought. She was searching for the name of Setsuko’s club, but she could not find it. Junichi’s thoughts were centred on his father’s expression and demeanour; Hisakuni was going over the possibility that the Setsuko he knew might also know his son.

  “And then?” asked Hisakuni. “Did he say something else?”

  “Oh, come on,” Junichi quickly joked. “Give me a break, Nana.”

  This said, any further incitement by Nanase would be risky, for it would draw everyone’s attention to her. Nanase abandoned her plan to reveal the name of the club. In this way, an irreparable break-up was avoided.

  For a while a tense silence continued.

  Hisakuni burst out laughing.

  “Is that so? Setsuko? Ha-ha-ha.”

  Having overcome his resistance to saying the name out loud, his spirits rose.

  Once more the whole family broke into hollow laughter.

  Balance was restored.

  There are lots of girls with the name Setsuko.

  Something’s up. I’m sure of it. I wonder who Setsuko is.

  The maid talks too much. I’ll have to do something about that.

  In contrast to their various dark thoughts, the topic of conversation turned to television. The family jabbered away with a wholesome animation right out of a situation comedy.

  Nanase sensed trouble. Junichi seemed to be planning something.

  As she expected, Junichi’s plot against her gradually took shape and was put into action two days later. He lifted from his parents’ wallets just enough money to be missed, and then confided in his mother that he had seen Nanase stealing the money.

  Nanase knew all about it beforehand, but was helpless to do anything. If she had launched a counterattack, there was the danger that her power would be revealed to Junichi.

  Strangely enough, Sakiko didn’t say anything to Hisakuni. It occurred to Nanase that Sakiko might have thought that there was nothing so odd about a maid pilfering a bit of money, and she wasn’t going to bother over it. From time to time, she’d undo her latch and read Sakiko’s mind.

  It was still a junkyard of everyday matters. Although Nanase couldn’t find the incident of “Nana’s kleptomania”, it was surely bumping around somewhere among the flotsam and jetsam. Oddly enough, no distinction was made between the important and the unimportant; everything lay scattered about evenly.

  From Sakiko’s attitude, Nanase guessed that she might not be fired after all, but this prediction proved wrong. In fact, all the while Sakiko had been mulling over Nanase’s next place of employment. She realized this when Sakiko broached the subject.

  “The name of the family is Jimba,” said Sakiko. “The children are getting bigger now, but they still need looking after. There’re thirteen in the family, so you’ll have your work cut out for you. It’s a shame to let you go, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to send you over there.”

  “Thirteen?” Inwardly Nanase breathed a sigh of relief.

  “But they’re good people – a nice family. And you’ll get a better salary.”

  Nanase read Sakiko’s mind, but all she could find were samples of roundabout expressions that wouldn’t hurt the girl’s feelings. However, it was clear to Nanase that she was no longer wanted, so she gave her consent.

  “I’ll take you up on the offer.”

  Sakiko nodded. “We’ll miss you.” She was, of course, without emotion. r />
  Just what kind of mental make-up does this woman have, Nanase wondered. Her emotions, the workings of her mind, were completely indecipherable, as if she were hiding her true feelings. When she thought this far, Nanase had a sudden shock.

  What if she were hiding her true feelings?

  In order to do this, wasn’t she deliberately strewing these ordinary matters over the surface of her consciousness? The same way countless fragments of aluminium scattered throughout the sky would block a radar screen and confuse the enemy?

  Of course. This would explain why Nanase had been unable to find in Sakiko’s thoughts any hint she was looking for a new job for her.

  Which meant that Sakiko was aware of Nanase’s telepathic powers.

  If that were the case, then Sakiko herself was telepathic.

  Who would have dreamt such a thing?

  Sakiko was the one she should have been most cautious of. And yet, up until now, Nanase had made light of her for her weak spirit and, like the rest of the family, had completely ignored her.

  Was she really telepathic? Or was she simply trying to hide her remarkable intuitive powers? Or was it telepathy after all?

  If so, answer in your mind.

  If so, answer in your mind.

  Nanase stared at Sakiko as she repeatedly called out to her inwardly.

  However, Sakiko was without expression. And the barren images spreading over the landscape of her consciousness remained the same as always.

  Nanase felt a cold shiver go down her spine.

  Was this how a telepathic wife would have to act to protect the outward peace and harmony of her family? Was this the only behaviour possible? And if Sakiko represented the declining years of a woman with telepathy, then would Nanase too end up like this someday? No, no, it wasn’t just a matter of telepathy. Wouldn’t any woman with a highly developed intuition have to hide her ability and, in order to maintain even a semblance of family harmony, have to pretend to possess the kind of mental make-up that is despised and ignored? And ironically wouldn’t she then be considered the epitome of a good wife?

  Hisakuni wrote Nanase’s reference.

  When he handed it to her, Nanase read Hisakuni’s mind and was relieved to find that there was nothing in the letter that would be particularly damaging.

  Which meant that, in the end as well, Sakiko had said nothing to Hisakuni about Nanase’s theft. This might have been because Sakiko knew that Junichi was the real thief.

  But Nanase didn’t care any more. The following day, shortly after noon, she left the Ogata residence. She had been there exactly one week.

  Go ahead and continue your play-acting as long as you like – go on with this family circus for ever, thought Nanase. She passed through the gate, not even bothering to look back at the house, as tidy as a stage set.

  In the yard, the red flowers were still blooming profusely.

  2

  Prisoners of Dirt

  The Jimbas ran a large shoe store on an avenue close to a suburban railway junction. The building extended all the way to the street behind, and the family lived in the back. Husband and wife took turns running the shop.

  As soon as Nanase arrived at the Jimbas’, she noticed a strange smell emanating from the whole house – the dark rooms in the rear, the living room, the kitchen, even the maid’s room – and enveloping the entire family.

  Every household has its own smell. Sometimes only the people who live there can perceive it; in other cases the reverse is true. Often the smell does not really exist but is only a psychologically induced association. However, nothing in any of the homes Nanase had worked in compared with the intensity of this odour. Needless to say, the smell wasn’t at all like the fragrance of the row of cedar and cypress clogs in the store.

  Even stranger was the fact that no one in the family seemed to notice the stench.

  “What’s that smell, I wonder?”

  Nanase let this slip while she was being interviewed by Koichiro, the head of the Jimba household. But Koichiro simply raised his chin ever so slightly and wriggled his nose.

  “Hmm… Maybe something’s burning in the kitchen.”

  Although Koichiro had just turned fifty, he already seemed worn out, but he was a good-natured, plainspoken man. Nanase knew that candour and gentleness in a middle-aged man existed often only on the surface, but as far as she could tell by probing Koichiro’s mind, they seemed to be the real thing. Basically he lacked the craftiness of most shopkeepers. He never asked Nanase why she had left her last job; in fact, he had not thought to make such an enquiry. This seemed to be his first experience hiring someone. Nanase liked him.

  “My old lady’s worked herself to the bone,” said Koichiro as he scratched his head in embarrassment. He was totally without affectation. “She still insists on doing the kitchen work, even though the doctor told her not to. But you see, we have eleven children.”

  “Yes, I heard from Mrs Ogata.”

  “Oh, is that so?” Koichiro seemed surprised. He stared blankly at Nanase.

  Even while they were talking, the little girls Yoko and Etsuko were running up and down the hallway, and sometimes Koichiro would have to disappear into the store to serve a customer. In this family, chaos had become commonplace, but for some reason a strange kind of order reigned. It occurred to Nanase that this might be the result of the odour pervading the house.

  After she relaxed a bit in her tiny room, the wife, Kaneko, came to see her.

  “It’s not going to be a piece of cake here. Prepare yourself for the worst,” Kaneko said, laughing.

  By reading her mind, Nanase could tell that Kaneko was determined to take it easy. Still, Nanase was not afraid of hard work; even the image in Kaneko’s consciousness of the heap of washing piled up in the laundry room did not faze her.

  “Shinichi, my eldest son, graduated from college this year and is working for a shipbuilding company. His brother, Akio, is in college… uh, what year is he, I wonder? My eldest girl, Michiko, is in high school. She’s studying for her entrance exams for junior college, so she doesn’t help with the housework. Next comes, uh… my third boy, Keisuke, who’s in high school. Oh, I’m sorry – Keisuke’s my fourth son, in junior high. Ryuzo’s my third son. Then…”

  Kaneko, who was rather obese, chatted with a sort of sloppy animation, displaying a mouth full of gold teeth.

  Of course, Kaneko had become a pig. What she had gone through raising all these children, plus having resigned herself to the task for the years to come, had formed such a thick sediment in her consciousness that it blocked everything else out. Nanase sighed.

  While she was talking to Kaneko, the stench kept getting stronger. It was so sharp Nanase began to wonder whether it was coming from the maid’s room.

  “What was this room up until now?” Nanase suddenly asked.

  “Huh?”

  For a moment Kaneko couldn’t understand the question; then, before Kaneko spoke, the answer appeared as an image in her mind. The room had been used for storage.

  “I must be your first live-in maid.”

  Nanase had jumped the gun, speaking before Kaneko had a chance to answer. Nanase immediately caught her mistake, for Kaneko was staring at her suspiciously.

  I wonder how she knew that?

  Nanase cursed herself.

  Oh, I did it again!

  In all likelihood there was no one who knew that Nanase had this ability to read people’s minds.

  When she was a child, she hadn’t thought of her power as anything special. As a result, she would often get into trouble for reading the thoughts of adults around her and laughing at them. In time she began to learn instinctively to hide her ability, and eventually she learnt how to control her power by deliberately shutting out people’s streams of consciousness. Now she realized only too well how the exposure of her telepathy would spell her own doom. Even so, when she first met someone, there were times when it was necessary to keep the “latch” of her mind open, making her una
ble to distinguish between what was spoken and what was thought. At such times, she would often inadvertently expose her power. Fortunately, most people, like Kaneko, were unable to conceive of the likes of a telepathist, and were never very suspicious. So Nanase was less in danger of being found out than she feared.

  All the same, you can never be too careful, Nanase would warn herself repeatedly. Get caught once and the game is up.

  “I know you’ve just arrived but…” said Kaneko hesitantly. “I wonder if you’d do the laundry. I have to go shopping for dinner.”

  Since I’m paying her a much higher salary than usual, she’ll have to work that much harder.

  Of course, any housewife would think the same, so Nanase wasn’t particularly put out. She nodded and stood up.

  As Kaneko led her to the laundry room next to the bath, Nanase stole a glance into the dining area. Three used rice bowls had been left sitting on the table.

  As soon as Nanase had opened the glass doors and entered the large room with its pile of laundry exactly as she’d seen in Kaneko’s mind, the ever-present stench got even stronger. Nanase recoiled, overcome by a wave of nausea.

  Nanase wondered if this was the source of the odour. All of the underclothes were soiled black; the male garments were particularly dirty and smelly, and the socks were the worst. Nanase felt sick. However, while Kaneko explained how to work the washing machine, Nanase was unable to find any reference to the smell in her mind.

  I wonder if she’s got used to it, thought Nanase. That was the only explanation. After years and years, the stench must have completely lost its offensiveness. And Koichiro and all the rest of the family must be as oblivious to the smell as Kaneko is. There is no way that anyone aware of the stench could possibly put up with it.

  An animal-like scent, acid mixed with saccharine. One might be able to block it out if one got used to it. But for those encountering the smell for the first time, it was so intolerable that it brought on nausea and headaches.

  “I’ll leave you to it. While you’re at it, you can clean up the living room.” There was no need to read Kaneko’s mind; her delight at not having to do the washing showed clearly on her face. She went off, dangling a large shopping basket on her arm.