Grotesque (16 page)

The streetlight bounced dimly off his little eyes. He must have learned that from Kazue. I stood there petrified. He continued. “It’s wrong to lie. I’ve never once lied in all my life. Lies are the enemy of society. Do you see? If you don’t want me to report you to the school, you’ll not come near Kazue ever again.”

“I understand.”

I could tell that Kazue’s father was staring after me until I turned the corner at the end of the street. Four years later he would suffer a cerebral hemorrhage and die on the spot, so my chance encounter with this man would be my first and last. After her father died, Kazue’s family fortunes plummeted. I suppose I was a witness to the fragility of Kazue’s family, having observed it only years before its drastic demise. And yet I can still feel the way Kazue father’s glare bored into my back like a bullet that night.

After a week had passed, my father called to tell me the funeral had gone smoothly. I didn’t hear so much as a peep from Yuriko. Convincing myself that her plans to return to Japan had been dealt a setback, I spent the next few days walking on air. And then one evening not long thereafter, an evening so warm it felt like summer vacation had already arrived, I got a phone call from the last person in the world I was expecting to hear from: Johnson’s wife, Masami. Three years had passed since that time at the mountain cabin.

“Hii-aaai! Is this Yuriko’s seesta? It’s meee! Masammy Johnson!”

She stretched her vowels inordinately long and pronounced the s’s in her name just as a foreigner would. Just hearing it made the flesh on my arms crawl.

“It’s been a while.”

“Well, I didn’t know you’d stayed behind by yourself in Japan! You should have told me! I would have been happy to help you any way I could. How silly for you to be so reserved. Look, I was really sorry to hear about your mother. What a shame.”

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“Thank you for your concern,” I managed to mumble.

“Actually, I’m calling you about Yuriko-chan. Did you hear?”

“Hear what?”

“Yuriko’s going to stay with us! At least while she’s in junior high school. We have a spare room and we’ve been fond of Yuriko ever since she was a little girl. She has to change schools, of course. She said she wanted to go to Q School, where you are. So I checked into it, and found out what was required to get her enrolled as a student returning from abroad, and they’ve agreed to admit her. I just got the news a little while ago. Isn’t that great? You and Yuriko will be going to the same school! My husband’s really happy about the way it’s all worked out. He says Q is a really good school, and it’s not far from where we live!”

What the hell was happening? I’d studied my butt off in the hopes of finally getting away from Yuriko, and now here she was seeping back into my life like some kind of poison gas! I sighed in despair. Yuriko was as dumb as a doornail, but her beauty would forever entitle her to special treatment. On that score, the Q School system was no different.

“Where’s Yuriko now?” I asked.

“She’s right here. Just a minute. I’ll put her on.”

“Hello, Sis? Is that you?”

I had told Yuriko not to come back to Japan, but here she was. Her carefree voice on the other end of the line was quite a contrast to the distraught girl I’d heard just hours after our mother had died. Clearly she was now eating up all the attention the Johnsons were dishing out and rolling in the luxury of their swank house in upscale Minato Ward.

“So are you transferring into Q Junior High?”

“Yes, from September. Isn’t that great? We’ll be in the same school.”

“When’d you get back?”

“Hmmm, about a week ago, I guess. Daddy’s remarrying, you know.”

She said it casually, without the slightest bitterness, as if whatever was okay with her was okay in general.

“How’s Grandpa?”

Gripping the phone tightly in my hand, I glanced back at my grandfather.

He was engrossed in his bonsai, completely unaware of the conversation taking place right next to him. He’d calmed down over the previous few days.

“He’s fine.”

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“Mm.” Yuriko’s response, if you could call it that, betrayed her complete indifference. “I’m really glad I didn’t go stay to with you in P Ward.

I’m going to try really hard to get along on my own over here.”

Yeah, right. She was really going to be on her own. What a farce. With no interest in pursuing the conversation further, I hung up, utterly dejected.

• 6 •

The events I’ve narrated up to this point were those I experienced personally.

Yuriko and Kazue—and Kazue s father—still live in my memory.

It’s something of a one-sided story, but what can you expect? The only one left to relate the events is me, and here I am as healthy as can be, working in the ward office. My grandfather, as I’ve mentioned, has Alzheimer’s and is off enjoying himself in never-never land, where neither time nor place holds any relevance. He doesn’t even remember how he once devoted himself to bonsai. He sold off his beloved oak and his black pine; either that or the trees withered long ago and were dumped in the garbage.

Mention of bonsai makes me remember that there was one more thing about my encounter with Kazue’s father that I’ve forgotten to mention: the need to pay back the cost of that international telephone call, ¥10,800.

Since I wasn’t carrying much money on me at the time, I had promised to pay it back later. But that became a problem. At the time, my allowance was a mere ¥3,000 a month. After I got through buying all my necessary school supplies—notebooks and pens and such—there wasn’t a whole lot left over. My father sent ¥40,000 a month in addition to tuition fees. But I handed all that over to Grandfather. I mean, after all, I was living in his apartment. Of course he squandered it on his bonsai, either buying new plants or new paraphernalia for the plants he already 9 7

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had. At any rate, I’d never imagined an international phone call would be so costly, and as I made my way home from Kazue’s house that night, I racked my brain over how I was going to pay for it.

From time to time we’d get phone calls from Switzerland, but of course my father always covered the charge, and besides, we never talked very long. We just weren’t the kind of family to have long chats.

Even if I asked my father to send me the money for the charge, it would take time for it to reach Japan. I figured I had no choice but to ask Grandfather to lend me the money.

But when I got home that evening from Kazue’s, my grandfather was already snoring away in bed, trying to sleep off the sudden surge in his blood pressure. The neighbor, an insurance lady, was there looking after him. “You have to pay how much? Why on earth didn’t you call collect?”

she snapped, when she heard about the phone call.

“You’re the one who told me to call from there, remember? You should have told me then to call collect. How’m I supposed to know about international calls?”

“You’re right.” The insurance lady sucked on her cigarette and blew the smoke out the corner of her mouth so it wouldn’t go in my face. “But still, it’s awfully expensive. Who spoke to the operator and confirmed the actual charges?”

“Her father.”

“What if he lied? He probably figured he could pull a fast one on you, since you’re just a girl. Even if he didn’t try to cheat you, most people would have felt sorry enough for you—losing your mother and all—to have covered the cost, kind of like offering a condolence gift. I know I would have. It’s really the only decent thing to do. But I suppose it’s a question of character.”

The insurance lady was particularly stingy. I had a hard time believing that she’d actually extend charity to anyone. But still her words caused a shadow of doubt to spread across my heart. Did Kazue’s father lie to me?

But even if he did, I had no proof. I looked at the scrap of paper I’d stuffed in my pocket: the statement of the telephone charge. The insurance lady snatched at it with her thick fingers. The longer she stared at the figure, the angrier she got.

“I just can’t believe someone would write out a sum like this and hand it to a child: a child whose poor mother has suddenly been taken from her and whose old grandfather has taken to bed ill. What a monster.

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What line of work is he in? If he can send his kid to that school he must be rich. I’ll bet their house is nice.”

“I couldn’t really say. He told me he worked for some major corporation.

They did have a nice house.”

“Figures … the greed of the wealthy!”

“It didn’t seem like that.”

The atmosphere of stingy frugality permeating Kazue’s house floated before my eyes, and I shook my head from side to side.

“Well, then, I get the impression that he is just a run-of-the-mill salary man with a low income trying to pretend to be wealthy. If not, he’s a real cheapskate!” Once she reached this conclusion, the insurance lady hastily collected her things and left, obviously wanting to clear out before I could get around to asking her for a loan. I felt an uncontrollable anger and hurled the scrap of paper with the phone charges at the wall.

The next morning when I saw Kazue in class, she immediately started to press me for the money. “My father told me to tell you to be sure not to forget about the money you owe us for the telephone call.”

“Sorry. Can I pay you tomorrow?”

I can still remember the way Kazue’s eyes panned over my face. She clearly did not trust me. But were they being honest with me? Still, a loan’s a loan. I knew I had to pay it back. So as soon as classes ended, I rushed home and picked a plant from among my grandfather’s bonsai collection—a nandina tree, one that was small enough to carry. My grandfather was particularly proud of it; he used to describe with pleasure the beautiful color of the red berries that it bore in winter months.

Luxuriant green moss, as thick as a carpet, covered the soil at the base of the little tree. It was planted in an enamel-glazed pot of somber blue.

My grandfather was engrossed in a sumo bout on TV. I couldn’t hope for a better chance than now, so I quietly walked out of the apartment with the bonsai. I put it in the basket of my bicycle and pedaled as fast and furiously as I could to the Garden of Longevity.

Night was falling and the garden was closing. The probation officer stood at the front gate seeing off customers. He looked surprised to see me ride up with the bonsai.

“Good evening,” I said, as politely as I could. “I was wondering if you would buy this bonsai from me.”

The man looked annoyed. “Did your grandfather put you up to this?”

I shook my head from side to side.

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He smirked. I realized he wanted to get revenge on my grandfather. “I see. Well, I’ll give you a fine price for it then. How does five thousand yen sound?”

Disappointed, I held up two fingers. “Can’t you give me two bills for it? Twenty thousand yen? My grandfather says it’s a fine nandina.”

“Young lady, this bonsai is not worth that much.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll take it to someone else.”

The probation officer immediately doubled his price, offering ¥10,000.

I countered that the pot itself was worth that much. After he thought that over, he offered in a wheedling voice, “It must be heavy,” and put his hands over mine, encircling the pot. The hard skin of his hands had the luster of finely polished leather and was strangely warm. Repulsed, I drew my hands away instinctively, letting go of the pot. When I did, the bonsai slipped between us and struck one of the garden stones, smashing to pieces. The roots of the nandina, released from bondage, sprang out in all directions. The young people who’d been cleaning up around the garden stopped what they were doing and looked up in alarm. The probation officer bent over and began picking up the pieces in great agitation, glancing at me with nervous apprehension as he did so.

In the end I got thirty thousand yen for the deal, broken pot and all. I decided to deposit the money I had left after paying the phone bill in my savings account. I never knew when I’d need to come up with quick cash for a class field trip or something. At Q High School for Young Women we were always being pressured to contribute to events, from the annual school festival to some birthday celebration. None of the other students thought anything of it. The extra cushion in my savings account would be for my own protection.

My grandfather didn’t notice a thing that night, but the next morning, when he stepped out onto the veranda, he let out a heartrending cry.

“Mr. Nandina! Where have you gone?”

I went about fixing my lunch as if I hadn’t noticed. Grandfather rushed into the cramped sitting room and raced around in search of the nandina. He opened the closet and then peered up on the shelving along the ceiling in the smaller room. He even went out in the entryway and rummaged through the shoe cupboard.

“It’s nowhere to be found! And such a nice bonsai it was. Where could it be? Come out, come out, wherever you are! Please, Mr. Nandina. I’m sorry if I neglected you. I didn’t mean to. But my daughter just died, you 1 0 0

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see, and it’s been hard on me. I’m heartbroken. I’m sorry, really I am.

Please come out. Please don’t pout.”

Grandfather searched the house like a madman, until I guess he just wore himself out. Crestfallen—his shoulders curling inward—he stared off into space. “He went off to guide her to the next world.” My grandfather was much practiced in the ways of swindling others. But it never once occurred to him to doubt me or the insurance lady or the security guard or any of the other people who were around him all the time. He hadn’t even the slightest suspicion. It looked like this was the end of the absurd event, so I went off to school feeling relieved. Visiting Kazue’s house had been the cause of one misfortune after another.

When you think of it, though, my mother’s sudden suicide resulted in the scattering of the entire family. I stayed with my grandfather, Yuriko ended up with the Johnsons, and my father remained in Switzerland, where he started a new family with that Turkish woman. For my father, Japan would always be associated with my mothers death. Later I learned, to my great surprise, that the Turkish woman was no more than two years older than me. She gave birth to three children, I learned, all boys. The oldest child is now twenty-four, and I’ve been told he plays for a Spanish soccer team. But since I’ve never met him and have no interest in soccer, it’s as if we’re from completely different worlds.