The Thong Also Rises (30 page)

A few hours later, the doorbell chimed. A tall, beige-uniformed man stood in my doorway, yet when he saw me, he took a step back, then flushed like a steamy crab. He bowed profusely as I ushered him into our
genkan
, or
entrance hall, where he removed his shoes, as is customary in Japan. Then I led him to our disobedient
o-furo.

He whipped out a miniature digital camera and started flashing—mostly aiming at our bathtub and the pipes leading to its water heater. He said he'd need a few more minutes, to make sure he got everything.

As the bathroom was so tiny, the two of us could hardly fit inside, so I left him to take pictures and do whatever else he needed to repair the tub.

About ten minutes later, the flashing noises subsided, so I returned and asked him: “Is everything all right?”

“All's under control” he replied as he rushed out the door. “I'll be back later,” he shot at me as he rammed his feet into his shoes and took off down the stairs.

I didn't expect the doorbell to chime again ten minutes later. But sure enough, it did and my tall friend came back with a short, skinny man in the same beige uniform. The skinny man bowed deeply to me as well, then they both removed their shoes and slid in their immaculate white socks towards the
o-furo.

I left them alone and fifteen minutes later, I returned to find out how the repairs were coming. “Oh, no repairs yet. We need to check the measurements and take more pictures,” the first man replied, pulling out his camera again. He snapped away at the walls, the ceiling, the laundry basket, etc.

“How many pictures do you
need
to fix a bathtub?” I asked him, suddenly annoyed.

“Almost done,” he said, flashing two more times. Then they left.

Not more than five minutes later, I heard a knock on the door. “
Sumimasen
” (excuse me), someone whispered. I opened the door and three workers—the skinny guy and
two new ones—were lined up before me. They were carrying some heavy toolboxes.

“That was quick,” I said to myself, relieved that the work would finally get done. I led them into the bathroom once again, then left them to do their repairs. I went back to the kitchen, where I was painfully trying to concentrate on my doctoral dissertation. I couldn't wait until the last of the workers would finally be gone.

I heard some whispering, then someone laughed out loud.The others followed. I couldn't make out the slightest sounds of drilling, screwing, or hammering—just a steady stream of manly giggles. Intrigued, I went over to see for myself what the heck was wrong with my
o-furo
—it had to be something wild, for them to let loose like that. “Is everything all right?” I queried.

“Yes, all right,” said one. “We're almost done taking pictures,” said another as he whipped another camera out of his pants pocket. I stole a quick look at him, then at the other two, who were squeezed into a corner of the bathroom. My dirty laundry basket lay smack in between them.The lid was off, and what did I see but Bonnie's and my used underwear—pink and bright yellow—gracefully sprawled over the dingy heap.

I'd been planning to do our laundry that day, but with all the interruptions, I hadn't had time. I gazed at our dirty panties blatantly displayed before my guests, then scrutinized those three shoeless
o-furo
workers. They appeared as if they'd just stolen a heap of grandma's hot home-baked cookies. Or a pile of
o-baachan
's rice cakes, rather, since we lived in Japan.

One worker was leaning to the side, trying to conceal the lid of the laundry basket. That's when I remembered that I had carefully covered the basket, because I didn't want any
workers seeing our dirty laundry. I understood at that moment that those five workers hadn't come to take pictures of our
o-furo
, they'd merely come to have a quick sniff of our used girly knickers.

Once I'd reached this conclusion, I pretty much threw the three out of my
mansion.
In Japan, of course it's not polite to be rude, but when you catch guys inhaling your private
pantsu
, or
rangelei
(just switch the “l” and the “r” and you get “lingerie”), I say you have a right to defend your territory. Especially if you're a female
gaijin
(foreigner), and you've got a serious deadline to make.

I
did
need my
o-furo
fixed though, so as I chucked them out, I tried to act like a respectable
gaijin.
I pretended I didn't know what was going on.The skinny one told me they'd be back the next day to fix the tub. They bowed like mad, then finally left me alone.

I slammed the door, then flew straight to the laundry basket. Sure enough, all the undies were on top. I counted four of mine and five of Bonnie's. A few lacy bras nestled underneath, as if searching for cover from those beige-clad
skebes
(dirty old farts). I tried to remember which panties I'd worn the past week, since I'd done the laundry last, and did some simple arithmetic in my head…

The conclusion was easy: in one week, I go through seven pairs of drawers, yet only four of mine could be found in the basket. That means, three pairs were missing…not including Bonnie's (who might be missing two, but I couldn't be 100 percent sure, for even though we were very close friends, I hadn't memorized her daily underwear habits).

In shock, I sat at the kitchen table and stared at my notes. After about an hour of struggling, I finally gave up on my dissertation. Thoughts of my dirty undies in someone else's pockets and printed on Fuji film overwhelmed me. I grabbed
my backpack and left to go buy a few groceries. On my way down the stairs, I ran into two beige-uniformed men climbing up, with the same logo on their shirts as all the others.

The taller of the two stopped me, then had the nerve to ask me: “
Sumimasen.
Are you busy? Could we just see your bathroom, it won't take a minute.”

I blew a fuse. “
lie
” (“No.” One
never
says “no” in Japan, it's not polite, but at that point, I could've ripped that man's neck off, which wouldn't have been very polite either. I chose the former solution.)

I certainly didn't have time to show two more workers my dirty drawers, and I
knew
they didn't need any more pictures of my tub. Plus, I was on my way out.

After my curt refusal, the man insisted, with: “What time are you returning? We can wait.”As if all they had to do was sniff
gaijin
underwear all day long! No wonder they were incapable of repairing my
o-furo.
I told him off, as best I could, without worrying about the consequences. Bonnie and I could take showers for the next year—I couldn't care less at that point.

Amazingly enough, despite my foreign rudeness, the next day, two new men came to repair our tub. Just in case, I'd gotten up early to do all our laundry that morning and it was safely hanging outside to dry. I was sure I could read disappointment on their faces when they saw the empty laundry basket in our bathroom. So with no frilly, exotic, olfactory distractions, they kept their cameras at bay and swiftly repaired our
o-furo.

Once the last pair of worker's shoes had left my
genkan
, I closed my front door, locked it, then sauntered straight to the bathroom. I gaily pushed the
o-furo
button and watched streams of boiling water rush into the tub. It was time to
release some deep-seated physical and mental tensions caused by my painful twenty-four-hour cultural underwear crisis. I ripped my clothes off, tossed them into the laundry basket, scrubbed my body raw once again, then lowered a toe into the scalding water.

Laura Kline is a Belgian-American creative writer and translator living happily in Brussels with her partner and her fuzzy Calico cat. She came back from Japan in 2003 after obtaining her Master's and Ph.D. degrees, and spends her free time jotting down anecdotes from her crazy traveling experiences in Japan, Europe, and Mexico. She's currently working on learning her seventh language, and her dream is to write books and make films (comedies). She hopes that by sharing her odd, yet true international experiences, the world will become a playground for peace and love, instead of war.

It's important to know when to raise a stink.

T
HE NICELY DRESSED YOUNG MAN WHO HAD SHARED
our compartment since Düsseldorf said goodbye in Munich, pressed a brown nugget the size of a hazelnut into the palm of my hand, and quickly got off the train.

“I think that guy just gave me a chunk of hash,” I said to Yvette.

“You're kidding,” she answered, looking at my hand. “No, you're not. That's amazing.”

“What do you think I should do? Should I keep it?”

“Sure, why not? Just hide it somewhere. No one's gonna suspect us.”

I don't know if it was some puritan ethic that stopped me from tossing a gift away, Yvette's confidence, or my evil twin named “curiosity,” but I quickly stashed the little lump in my suitcase. And then forgot about it until the incident on the train in Yugoslavia when I learned what can happen when you never throw anything away.

It was Yugoslavia then, a communist country, not Slovenia,
Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, Bosnia-Herzegovina. We were slicing through it on our way to Athens after enduring a cold late-October day in Salzburg. Snug in our sleeping car, Yvette on one bench, me on the other, we stretched our legs out, drank a morning cup of coffee, and lazily watched the foreign film unspooling outside the window. We were naïve Eurail travelers; it was our first trip to Europe. We didn't know we'd be sharing the compartment until the door opened at our last stop in Austria, and “Grandma” struggled in.

She wore a heavy dark blue sweater over a brown cotton dress spattered with small beige flowers. Her gray hair was pulled loosely into a bun. A jumble of bags hung from one arm; in the other, she held a baby.

Yvette quickly scooted to my side of the compartment. Grandma humphed down next to the window on the bench across from us. She snugged the baby into blankets and pillows on the seat beside her and smoothed her dress over her thick legs.

We smiled at her and said, “Hello.” She answered with something we didn't understand. We pointed to the baby and smiled again.The baby made faces. Grandma gibbered more words we didn't understand and grinned. She was missing a front tooth.

Yvette decided that Grandma had been visiting her children in Austria and was now schlepping the grandchild to her village in Greece to give the parents a break. While Yvette was spinning her tale, Grandma began unwrapping bread, cheese, fruit, and jars filled with baby food. We were hungry and glad someone had brought food, especially home-made food. We nodded appreciatively, said, “Oh, that's nice, thank you,” and offered her a soda. She took the soda and smiled her toothless grin. Then she fed the baby, ate her
lunch, drank our soda, and tossed everything they didn't eat out the window.

In the field outside the train window, a woman in a long skirt and head scarf cutting hay with a scythe put down the curved blade and looked up from her work. A horse tethered to a wagon nearby swished its tail.

“That was really horrible,” I said in a sweet voice to Grandma, knowing she didn't understand a word.

Yvette joined in, smiling at Grandma, “I hope you get a stomach ache and your other tooth falls out.”

Grandma smiled back and began changing the baby's diaper. When she finished, she put the used diaper in a bag, and stuffed the bag under the bench.

“Did you see that?”Yvette hissed behind a hand held in front of her mouth, as if Grandma could understand. “She threw our lunch out the window and saved a disposable diaper.”

“She must be going to toss it out later.”

“No,” said Yvette. “I saw another one inside. I don't think she knows they're disposable.”

We shared a candy bar and read our books. When the baby started crying, we decided to look for a dining car. On the way, we had to elbow through a company of soldiers. Yvette used the “F” word to tell them to back the “F” off, and marched on, head high, her wild, curly black hair bouncing with every stomp. They may not have understood English, but they understood Yvette. I slipstreamed behind her.