The Appetites of Girls (40 page)

So I nodded, not out of agreement, but because, in that instant, I could conceive of nothing to add to my argument.

“You’re a good person, you know,” Shiro said, squeezing one of my hands with fingertips that seemed too softly moisturized to be a man’s.

“Thank you,” I answered. And then my fingers were tightening around his as well, a fleeting grasp at the subject that would drop once Shiro drew back into his room.

But perhaps Shiro took my pleading for enjoyment or as some sort of invitation. His slippery smooth palms traveled upward until they rested just below my shoulders. He leaned forward, nearly brushing my cheek with his. “I feel very comfortable with you, Setsu. As a brother with a sister.” And this seemed an apology, as if he were sorry he could not offer more. His voice was powder in my ear, his nose in my hair, poking my neck. I could hear him inhaling, sucking at the scent of me as if he would like to convince himself but couldn’t.

I pulled my hand from his. “Shiro, I am not asking for— And I
wouldn’t—
”
I straightened, smoothing stray hairs back from my forehead.
“Even if you thought of me that way! Even if you thought of me as you do—”

“Who?” Shiro emitted a small bark of a laugh. In an instant, his face had hardened, his cheeks stone-still, his eyes narrowed slits of black ice.

“What are you implying, little sister?”

“What I’m implying, Shiro, is that you have made a whole life out of protecting Toru! In ways beyond what he even requests. Don’t you think that’s
peculiar
?”

Shiro tapped his chin, as if my accusation amused him, but his hand was rigid. “So I suppose you think you are very smart. Let’s hope your cleverness does not go the way of your looks, Setsu.” His voice was spiny, cutting with a sarcasm I had never before heard. “Besides, you have flattered yourself too much, little sister. If it
were
you I wanted, you think you could do so much better? All the time your beauty is slipping away like sand through parted fingers. You’re not really foolish enough to believe you can turn back to what was?”

Miserable, spiteful Shiro. I should have let his petty insults roll off me like rain. Still I could not stop myself: that night after bathing, I wiped the steam from the brightly lit mirror over the sink and studied every hard angle—prominent ribs, the shrunken cushions of my breasts, the deepened hollows of my cheeks. More months on Toru’s diet and I would waste away to nothing. Some weeks before, Francesca had come to Isaac’s Music House just before closing. “So good to see you, Fran. You look wonderful!” I’d said, kissing her cheek.

“Thank you. So this is what I have to do to meet up with you? I can’t seem to pin you down for dinner, but you can’t make any excuses now. I’m taking you for a drink,” she had laughed.

Sitting at a wine bar a few blocks from Isaac’s, we had talked about Jonathan, whom she was still seeing, about her plans for law school, and about her work at
Outdoor Playground
, the job I knew she found far more rewarding than she had anticipated. I could not believe it. Francesca the
critic, the agitator. She had never looked prettier and, for the first time, seemed actually content.

“It’s really good to see you, too.” Francesca asked about my work, when I had last spoken with Opal and Ruth, if I planned to continue my living arrangement with Toru. “Do you love being in New York? It’s the greatest city, isn’t it?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her hair longer and a shade lighter than I remembered. She nodded as I answered, but before we’d ordered our drinks, I noticed her smile begin to stiffen. She cleared her throat as if about to speak but then only adjusted the bud vase on the table between us. For a moment she looked away to the window behind me. When had Francesca ever been at a loss for words? It wasn’t until later in the evening when we stood to leave that I comprehended her awkwardness. “We should have done this much sooner. Take care of yourself, Setsu,” she said, frowning into my eyes, as if to make the words mean something more. And it was then I understood. I caught her staring at the places where my silk tank top gapped—places the curves of other women’s arms and shoulders and chests would have filled but where there was little more to me than thin tissue and bone.

God! God, what was I doing! How long did I think I could continue this without damaging myself in ways that could not be undone? I remembered something Rachel had mentioned to me during one of our shared shifts. She needed a new roommate, she’d admitted, to cover costs. At the time, I had ignored her offer. But I began to think I had been too hasty. I had only planned to stay at Isaac’s until I could find a better opportunity with higher compensation, but even if I picked up a few more hours at the Music House, I could manage half her rent, couldn’t I? And was this wishful thinking, that perhaps I would even find enough remaining for a weekly music lesson? The mirror clouded over once more, and I slipped my robe over my shoulders, pulling it tightly across my chest. No. No! I could not be expected to neglect my own needs forever. So this is what, clearly, calmly, head held high with self-assurance, I would explain to Toru.

But when I returned Thursday afternoon from the music shop, I discovered Toru swaddled in blankets, huddled in his corner rocking chair, a large embroidered handkerchief dangling from one hand. He turned to me with swollen eyes.

“Shiro left. He packed his things this morning. What kind of warning is
that
?” The words shot from Toru’s mouth like little pellets. “He said the arrangement we had in this house did not suit him. The three of us together here. What am I supposed to glean from this?” Toru swiped, with his hankie, a trail of wetness trickling from his left nostril. “Is
that
an explanation? Always there was a friction between the two of you. I sensed it. Did you know about this, Setsu?”

“No, Toru, no.” What good could come of repeating what had occurred? “I’m sorry you are so upset,” I said, my voice thin, shaky as my limbs, which were now shivering from the realization of what I had caused and from the slowly emerging thought that Toru was now my responsibility and mine alone.

So my plans would wait. What choice was there? Until I was able to find someone to replace Shiro, someone Toru found agreeable, I was accountable for his meals, the laundering of his sheets and pajamas, the sorting through bills, catalogs, the slow dribble of fan letters. I even drew Toru’s bath for him each evening, and now and then, to my deep embarrassment, he requested I hand him his towel as he emerged from the dripping water, buttocks sagging, penis hanging like a limp white worm. I learned to take phone messages for him on the small tabs of memo paper he had given me for that purpose. What little time I had left I spent in the kitchen, craning over slow-stewing meats and vegetables, stirring pots of unadorned noodles, soft rice. “To your health. For energy, brother,” I would say as I placed his tray of food on the bed beside him.

After some weeks we fell into a rhythm. As Shiro had done, I found I was able to anticipate most of Toru’s needs before he asked. And then—this was not pride, a figment of my imagination, was it?—I began to notice small improvements in his appearance. Minor changes since I had
begun to care for him—a ruddy hue in his cheeks, a fullness in his face, a straightening of his shoulders. Even his appetite had increased. The food I set before him began to disappear more quickly, and often, after finishing most of his own serving, he would let out a small grunt, pointing with his fork toward whatever remained on my own plate. “Were you going to eat that, Setsu?” So always I handed over whatever I had left, reasoning that he needed it more than I.

At Isaac’s, I now found myself often too weary to engage in conversations with the other employees. I listened quietly as they joked or compared stories of disappointing dates, overcrowded parties. But one late Tuesday afternoon, Rachel pulled me aside. Her violin coach, the well-regarded Gregory Palevitz (whose name I had now heard repeatedly from coworkers and patrons), had a single opening on Thursday evenings. She remembered that I had mentioned wishing to resume my studies. Was I interested in auditioning for him? She would put in a good word but needed an immediate answer. Gregory’s sessions filled quickly. Days before I would have dismissed this as an impossibility, but twice in the past week, on returning home from work or errands, I had glimpsed Toru (unaware of my presence) making his way from the kitchen back to his bedroom with energetic, almost clipped steps, humming, a glass of juice in hand. So early Wednesday, as I arranged a plate of coddled eggs and wheat toast before him, I introduced the topic. “I’ve been considering something, Toru. I believe . . . I think I might like to try taking lessons again.”

Toru moved aside the notepad he had been inspecting to make more room for the tray. He arched his brows. “This is your business. Why should I wish to stop you?” But he quickly lowered his head over his food so that I could not ascertain whether or not my announcement had surprised him.

“My audition for the teacher would be tomorrow evening at six, so I would not be here for your supper. But most of it I could prepare ahead of time,” I said. “You would need only to boil your rice, reheat your
chicken and vegetables. It’s really very simple. I could leave directions by the stove. I would not suggest this, Toru, but you have looked so much healthier of late. Perhaps you, yourself, have noticed in the mirror?”

Pink flashed across Toru’s cheeks for the briefest of instants, then he shrugged his shoulders. “Well, let’s see how I am faring,” he said, massaging his throat with his fingertips. “You know I can’t possibly predict how I will feel from one day to the next.” Leaning on an elbow, he rummaged through the top drawer of his bedside table until he found a tape he wanted to place in his Walkman, then plunged a spoon into the center of one of his eggs.

During the remainder of that day and night, I could not take my mind off the appointment with Gregory Palevitz, nor could I stop myself from regularly scrutinizing Toru’s appearance or listening to the muted noises that sounded from behind his door for signs of recuperation or decline. It was shameful to dread his deterioration because it would interfere with
my
plans. Still, I could not suppress the knot of irritation that rose in my chest the following morning as Toru began to moan of burning in his joints, of a leaden heaviness in his head.

“I guess your lesson this evening is out of the question, Setsu,” he said, blowing a thin hiss of air at the very impossibility of the thought. “Too bad I can’t control my ups and downs, eh?” He turned to me with a half-grin, half-grimace, which vanished before I could begin to read it. Then pointing to the cluster of bottles on his dresser, he asked if I would mind handing him the two farthest to the left. I watched as he gingerly unscrewed their caps and shook two pills from each into his palm. I should have offered words of comfort but could think of nothing but my own disappointment, the ill timing of Toru’s relapse.

“You know, big brother, I have faced some discouragements, too. And I think, well, sometimes I think moving on is only a matter of making a decision. Perhaps you just need to press—”

Toru snorted and swatted at a strand of hair drooping onto his brow.
“And what have
you
suffered, Setsu? Are you comparing your losses with mine? How could you have the
slightest
inkling, the faintest notion of what I am enduring?” His mouth pinched into a thin crease, as if challenging me to answer. But I could find no words. What came to me instead was a memory of sitting beside my parents in a large and darkened auditorium, watching as Toru’s violin glimmered under the stage lights, as his fingers galloped up and down the fingerboard playing the pieces of which I had memorized every note. Of crossing my ankles in the ladylike manner my mother had taught me, of holding my folded hands tightly on my knees because my heart was aching for reasons I did not understand. Yes, Toru was right. From the beginning, he had attained far larger successes, climbed to far greater heights. How much longer a distance, then, when he fell. So how could I begin to judge his struggles? What advice had I to offer?

“I am sorry, Toru. I did not mean to distress you,” was all I could think to say.

But Toru only squeezed his lips, turning them a mottled white, then closed his eyes. Within moments, I could hear the raspy exhalation of his breath in slumber.

How I hated for Toru to be angry with me. The few times I had made him cross in childhood the whole house had seemed blanketed in the same awful loneliness that clung to my insides. And despite the passage of years, little felt different now. So with silent hands, I slid open the drawers of Toru’s nightstand and began sifting through newspaper clippings, yellowed programs—the many proofs of his past accomplishments—hoping to find those that would best placate him when he awoke. Toward the back of his middle drawer lay stacked pads of paper covered with the notes I found him so frequently reading, beside them his tape player and a pile of cassettes. Lifting the top few tapes and pads from the drawer, I could see that he had marked them with various labels and dates and that each tape seemed to have a corresponding set of notes. Several were from
recitals and conferences, but others appeared to be simply recordings of old lessons and practice sessions. In the far corner of the drawer, a cassette in a scratched case caught my eye. It was more battered than the rest and was dated only a short time after Toru had come to live with us. As I held it to the light, I could see that its label was smudged and browned with age and that the blocky numbers and letters of the date were in Toru’s boyhood penmanship. So, curious, and judging that Toru would not wake for some hours, I inserted the cassette into his Walkman and, settling into the rocker across the room from Toru’s bed, fitted the headphones over my ears.

For some moments nothing was audible but the whir of the plastic ribbon around its spools. And then notes—so familiar, though at first I could not place them. Oh! Was it? Yes! The Corelli—the piece Toru and I were to have played as a duet. Two different violins were distinguishable. Somehow, without my knowledge, he must have taped one of our shared practices, borrowing, I assumed, the old, large-buttoned recorder that my parents had kept in the living room armoire. How very strange all these years later to hear preserved our childhood sounds, and I could not help feeling, with a stinging in my breast, that I was rousing sleeping ghosts, that these were fragments from a dream, from a life I’d long forgotten. But I could not bring myself to stop the music, and as I listened, I could not deny that one instrument stood out—its notes sweeter, more melodic, as if singing its very sorrows and joys. So it was just as well, perhaps, that Toru had performed the piece alone.