Grotesque (72 page)

“Come in here and take off your clothes.”

I pulled off my coat as I shivered in the cold. I stripped off my blue suit. I took off my underwear. Zhang sat there fully clothed, wrapped in his leather jacket. I lay back on the tatami and looked up at the ceiling.

Zhang looked down at me.

“Haven’t you forgotten something?”

“What?” I asked, my teeth chattering against the cold.

“Why did you take your clothes off before you got your money? You’re a prostitute, aren’t you? I’m here to buy you, so you ought to make sure you get your money first.”

“Well, give it to me then.”

Zhang placed three thousand-yen notes over my body. One on my chest, one on my stomach, and one on my crotch. A measly three thousand.

I wanted to scream, I want more! But on the other hand, I would have been happy to do Zhang for nothing. I wanted to experience normal sex. I wanted to be held tenderly. I wanted to make love.

Zhang said, as if reading my heart, “You’re not worth more than three thousand yen. What do you think? Do you want the money? If you don’t, you’ll become a normal woman, not a prostitute. But you know I’m not interested in normal women, so I don’t sleep with them. So what will you be, a whore who’s worth no more than three thousand yen or a normal woman I don’t want to touch?”

I collected the thousand-yen notes off my body and clung to them. I still wanted him to hold me. I could hear Zhang pulling the zipper down on his jeans. And in the dim light I could see his erect penis. Zhang put his penis in my mouth and began moving his hips. His breathing grew labored.

“I can’t do it with a woman unless I pay for it. Even if it’s just a paltry three thousand.”

Zhang lay down and entered me. He was still dressed, and it was only where he entered me that he was warm. It felt strange. His leather jacket 4 5 5

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was cool on my skin, and every time he moved the friction of his jeans rubbing against my thighs hurt.

“You like prostitutes because your sister was one?”

“That’s not it.” Zhang shook his head. “It’s just the opposite. I liked prostitutes, so I made my sister become one. I didn’t do it because I wanted to sleep with my sister. I did it because I wanted to sleep with my prostitute sister. There’s nothing in this world that’s off limits. But people who get duped wouldn’t understand.”

Zhang gave a high-pitched laugh. He began to move on top of me. I wanted him to kiss me. I stretched my face up to his, but he turned his head away, intentionally avoiding my lips. Only our lower bodies touched, moved, machinelike, methodically. Was this really what sex was? I felt so empty, like I was on the verge of going crazy. The other time he’d been gentle. And I’d felt like I’d never felt before. What would happen today?

I heard Zhang laugh. He was growing excited, breathing heavily. He was completely alone now, wasn’t he? That was sex.

I heard Yuriko’s voice. I saw her sitting on my left. She was wearing a wig with hair that fell to her waist. Her eyelids were painted blue, her lips bright red. A prostitute dressed just like me. Yuriko began to tickle my left thigh with her slender fingers.

“Go on! See, I’m going to help you. I’m going to help you come.”

Slowly, softly she began to massage my thigh.

“Thanks, you’re so nice to me. I’m sorry I bullied you in high school.”

“Silly, the one who got the worst bullying was you. Why didn’t you see it? You never could see your own weaknesses.” Yuriko spoke ruefully. “If you’d known, you might have been happy.”

“Maybe.”

Zhang had begun to thrust into me violently. He was getting heavier, pressing down on my chest so hard I couldn’t breathe. Zhang didn’t even notice the woman who had to bear his weight. Most of the men I took as customers were like that. Did they think I was going to go on forever without noticing their contempt? The stunt with the money really brought it home. Was that really my worth? Not likely! Not for an employee of G Corporation who pulled down a salary of ¥10,000,000 a year.

“There are customers out there who are attracted to a woman like me without a breast. Pretty odd, wouldn’t you say?”

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I remembered that voice. I turned in surprise to my right and saw the Marlboro Hag sitting there. She was wearing a black bra with a wad of material where her breast should have been—the breast she’d lost to cancer. I could see the bra through her flimsy nylon jacket. The Marlboro Hag massaged my right thigh. Her hands were dry and calloused but strong. The massage felt good. It was like it had been in Zhang’s apartment when I was doing Chen-yi. Dragon was on my right and Zhang on my left, both stroking my thighs.

“Don’t think about anything. You think too much! Give in to your body, relax, enjoy life!” The Marlboro Hag laughed. “I gave you the turf in front of the Jizo statue because I thought you’d do a good job—a better job than you’ve done, anyway.”

“That’s not true!” Yuriko shouted at the Marlboro Hag. “You knew all along that Kazue would turn out like this.”

The two of them continued talking, completely oblivious of me or Zhang. But they never stopped their hands. They continued stroking my thighs. Zhang was nearing orgasm. He let out a loud cry. I wanted to come too. I heard a voice above my head.

“Your foolishness wounds my heart.”

It was the crazy woman with the Bible. I didn’t know what to believe anymore. I was so confused, I started to scream in the darkness.

“Save me!”

Zhang came just as I screamed. Panting heavily, he finally rolled off my body. At the same time, Yuriko disappeared and then the Marlboro Hag, and I was alone in the room, lying by myself on the tatami, naked.

“You’re talking to yourself again!”

Zhang opened my handbag without asking, pulled out a packet of tissues, and used them all on himself. Then he caught sight of the crumpled tenthousand-yen note that I had squeezed out of Arai.

“Don’t try to steal it. That’s mine.”

“I’m not going to steal it.” Zhang laughed and snapped my purse shut.

“I don’t steal from prostitutes.”

Liar. Didn’t he just say there was nothing in the world he wouldn’t do?

I suddenly felt cold and got up to dress. Lights from a passing car raced across the walls of the room. In that burst of light I could see that the walls were spotted with stains and the paper room dividers were torn.

How strange that someone with as good an upbringing as I would end up 4 5 7

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in a room like this. I tilted my head to the side. Zhang opened the window in the kitchen and threw his spent condom outside. He turned back to look at me.

“Let’s meet here again.”

I’m home now and have opened my notebook. I think it won’t be long before I have to bring my journal writing to an end. It’s supposed to be a record of my activities as a prostitute, but I’m having more and more days without customers. Therefore, Kijima-kun, these notebooks are for you. Please don’t send them back to me like you did with those love letters in high school. Because, you see, what you’ve read in these journals is another true side of me.

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E I G H T SOUNDS O F T H E W A T E R F A LL

I N THE D I S T A N C E : THE L A S T C H A P T ER

ell, everyone, I’ve reached the conclusion of this long and convoluted tale. Please bear with me a little longer while I wrap things up.

I have tried to tell you as much as I possibly can about the tragic death of Yuriko, my younger sister, who impressed all who saw her with her beauty; daily life at Q High School for Young Women, the epitome of the classist society so firmly embedded in Japan; the sensational events involving Kazue Sato, a former student of that school; the successes and setbacks of Mitsuru and Takashi Kijima, also associated with the school, who happened to find each other years later; and the scoundrel Zhang, who came from across the seas to encounter, strangely enough, both Yuriko and Kazue. To that end I have made public the records, diaries, and letters I have in my possession. And I have persisted with my account, hoping you would understand at least a fraction of my story.

And yet—and this is what I have struggled with—what exacdy is it that I want you to understand? Even now I am not certain.

After Yuriko and Kazue died, you would think that I would have tried to counteract all the humiliation that the crime and the succeeding trial—so widely publicized throughout the mass media—had generated.

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But you would be wrong. I had neither that kindness nor that sense of justice. And why was that? I don’t have a definite reason.

I can only come up with one suggestion: Perhaps Yuriko and Kazue and Mitsuru and even Takashi and Zhang are all part of me—whoever “I”

am. Perhaps I exist in order to remain behind as their spirits—floating, recounting their tales. If that’s the case, I am sure there are some among you who will observe that mine is a black spirit. And you would be right.

A spirit, you should know, assumes a black form. It is painted with hatred, dyed with bitterness, and has a face disfigured by curses and resentment. And that’s why it lingers on. Perhaps you could say my existence was like that of grimy snow packed darkly in the pit of Yuriko’s heart—and of Kazue’s and Mitsuru s and Zhang’s. Having said as much, I realize I have probably taken the comparison too far. But I have no other way to express it. I was flesh and blood—just an everyday, ordinary person rife with intolerance, resentment, and jealousy.

Once I graduated from college I took a completely different path from my model-turned-prostitute younger sister. I chose to be inconspicuous.

In my situation, inconspicuousness meant living forever as a virgin, a woman who would have no contact with men.

A permanent virgin. Do you know what this signifies? It may sound wholesome and pure to you, but that was not actually the case. Kazue articulated it brilliandy in her journals, didn’t she: to miss the only chance one has to have power over a man. Sex is the only way a woman has to control the world. That was Kazue’s twisted view, at any rate. But now I can’t help but wonder about whether or not she was right. When a man enters me (the very idea is even more ridiculous than I could have imagined) and ejaculates inside me, am I not overwhelmed by satisfaction.

. . feeling as though I am finally in touch with the world? At least that’s what I feel for the moment. But this is a complete delusion. The delusions arise from believing that prostitution is the only way—that the only way for a woman to have any control over her world is to do what Kazue did. A woman who awakens to this fact will know it was all just a big mistake.

I have said, haven’t I, that I preferred a nondescript life. But in truth that’s not quite correct. All I ever wanted was not to be compared to Yuriko. And since I was going to lose whatever competition we had, I decided to withdraw from the game altogether. I was very strongly aware of the fact that I lived to be Yuriko’s other side, her negative image. A 4 6 0

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person like me—a negative image—is profoundly sensitive to the existence of shadows in those who live in sunlight. Those radiant creatures carry their black thoughts furtively, not wanting others to see. But they get no sympathy from me. I am immediately aware of their blackness, having lived so long as a negative myself. Far from sympathizing, it would be more accurate to say that I survive off the dregs I manage to collect from the shadows cast by those who live in the sun.

Kazue’s record of her life as a prostitute was so sad it gave me new will to go on living. The sadder she was, the more I resented her. I enjoyed her failures. Do you understand? And for the very same reason, Yuriko’s diary gave me nothing. Beneath it all, Yuriko was really a strong cunning woman. This much became obvious to me. She was absolutely hateful.

And I had nothing I could use against her.

I was imprisoned by Yuriko. I had no choice but to trail after her all my life as though I were her shadow. Zhang’s deposition, therefore, held no surprises for me. It was a tedious affair. That’s because Zhang, a villain through and through, did not possess even a mote of shadow. There are villains, you see, who live in the sunlight.

Kazue’s journals were different. Zhang’s deposition may have been predictable, but not Kazue’s. The dissolute loneliness she depicted was awful. When I finished reading her words, I felt a change come over me—something I’d never felt before. Before I was even aware of it, I started to weep in sympathy. Me! I couldn’t hold back the tears as I thought about how completely alone Kazue had been: her outward appearance so grotesque she was like the Incredible Hulk. The reverberations that echoed through Kazue’s empty heart made my own heart tremble, paralyzing me so I couldn’t speak. I’ve never experienced an orgasm, but I wonder if this feeling was not similar?

Her journals fill two large notebooks, one bound in brown leather, the other black. Each is lined with neat precise handwriting, reminding me very much of the notebooks she used to keep in high school. Kazue recorded the amount of money she received from her customers with absurd vigilance. She had a personality that was so honest, so meticulous, she could not bear to go without writing about the encounters she had. Kazue, the excellent student who only wanted to be praised for her 4 6 i

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intelligence, the nice girl who longed to be admired for her proper upbringing, the professional who aimed for a career at the top levels.

Even at her best, Kazue was always somehow lacking—and here she had unintentionally revealed herself and her spirit in the pages of her journals.

I suddenly recalled Mitsuru’s words: “You and I are the same. And Kazue too. We all had our hearts wrested away by an illusion. I wonder how it looked to others.” No, she was wrong. That’s wrong! I cried out in my heart. Don’t you see? “Hatred and confusion.” That’s what Yurio had said when he touched Kazue’s journals, and that’s what I held in my heart. It couldn’t be otherwise. I was a woman sensitive to the shadows in others. So where was the hatred and confusion in me? The dregs that I lived off were only what I gleaned from other people, their hatred and confusion. I was not like Kazue. I was not a grotesque monster.