Grotesque

by Natsuo Kirino

  I realized that my Swiss father was not my real father when I first became aware of Yuriko’s existence. True, Yuriko did not resemble anyone, but she clearly had both Asian and Western features. And the fact that she was dumb made her even more the spitting image of our parents. I also did not resemble anyone and yet, unlike Yuriko, my face was more clearly Asian-looking. And I was smart. So where did I come from? Ever since I was old enough to be aware of things I was racked with doubt about my parentage. Who was my father?

  Once during science class I thought I’d found the answer to my question: I was a mutation. But the euphoria of my discovery soon evaporated. It was far more likely that the beautiful Yuriko was the mutant. Once that theory was shot to hell I was back where I started: perplexed, chagrined, and completely without an answer to the question that tormented me and would continue to torment me. Even now I have no answer. And Yuriko’s return to Japan brought all my doubts back to the surface again.

  My grandfather seemed to have gone out for the evening; at least he wasn’t home. And he hadn’t made any dinner preparations. So, lacking an alternative, I started rinsing the rice. I took the tofu out of the refrigerator and made miso soup. We had nothing else in the house—no side dish of any kind—so I suspected my grandfather had gone out to buy something and waited for his return. Night fell. I waited, and still he did not return. It was close to ten o’clock when I heard the front door open.

  “You’re late!”

  “Oops,” Grandfather mumbled. I went to the entry hall and found him bowing his head in a playful show of contrition, just like a child being scolded. Huh? I thought to myself, Grandfather’s gotten taller! He was slipping out of a pair of snug-fitting brown shoes I’d never seen before. When I looked closer at them, sitting on the entryway floor, I saw they had heels as high as a woman’s shoe.

  “What’s with the shoes?”

  “These are known as secret boots!”

  “Where on earth do they sell shoes like that?”

  “What’s wrong with them?” Grandfather scratched his head bashfully. The smell of pomade that wafted around his shoulders was particularly pungent. Grandfather was very self-conscious and never went without his pomade, even when he was just puttering around the apartment, but that night he had used more than twice the usual amount. I held my nose and scrutinized him. His brown suit, which I’d never seen him wear before, did not fit properly, and he had borrowed a blue shirt from his friend the security guard. I knew this was the case because I remembered seeing the security guard wearing the shirt with great pride sometime earlier. Besides, it was obvious he was wearing a borrowed shirt because the sleeves hung out below the sleeves of his jacket. To top it off, he was wearing a very bright silver-colored necktie.

  “Sorry. You must be starved,” he said, and handed me a small wrapped parcel. He was in good spirits. I caught the whiff of grilled eel. The odor was so strong I thought for a minute I might faint. The package was stained with sauce and still lukewarm. I took it in both hands and stood there for a moment without saying anything. My grandfather looked so strange. Maybe he had gotten over his obsession with bonsai. But how was he able to buy new clothes and shoes? Where was he getting the money?

  “Grandpa, is that a new suit?”

  “I bought it at the Nakaya in front of the station,” he replied, as he smoothed the fabric with his hands. “It’s a little large, but I think I look like a playboy when I wear it. You know me, I’m a sucker for luxury. And they recommended this tie. They said a silver tie would show up well on a suit like this. If you look closely you’ll notice the material is patterned. It looks like snake scales, doesn’t it? And when it catches the light it glimmers. I went over to the Kitamura Store on the other side of the station for the shoes. I’m a short fella, you know, and others tend to look down on me, which I can’t tolerate. So I’ve been on a bit of a shopping spree. This shirt’s the only thing I didn’t buy—I was feeling a little guilty about all the spending—so I borrowed it from my buddy upstairs. But don’t you think the color works well with the suit? It would be better if I had French cuffs, though. As soon as I can find a good shirt with French cuffs, I’m going to buy it. That’ll be my next purchase.”

  Grandfather looked down regretfully at his shirtsleeves. They really did flap loosely, extending as they did all the way to his slender fingers. I pointed to the package, “So what’s with the eel? Did someone give it to you?”

  “Oh, right. Hurry and eat it. I thought you could use it for your lunch tomorrow so I bought extra.”

  “I asked if someone gave it to you?”

  “And I said I’d bought it, didn’t I?” Grandfather answered gruffly. “I had a little change left.” He finally noticed that I was angry.

  “Did you go to Mitsuru’s mother’s bar?”

  “Yes, I did. Do you have a problem with that?”

  “You went last night too. You sure have money to burn.”

  Grandfather opened the door to the veranda with a loud racket and gazed out. I suddenly had a sickening premonition and rushed to the veranda. Two or three of his plants were missing.

  “Grandpa, did you sell your bonsai?”

  Grandfather made no reply. He picked up the large pot containing the black pine and rubbed his cheeks affectionately against the pine needles.

  “And do you plan to sell that one tomorrow?”

  “No, I’ll die before I sell this one. Even if the Garden of Longevity offers me thirty million yen for it.”

  If I let my grandfather do as he pleased, before long he’d sell off all his bonsai, and whatever profit they provided would be sucked up between the Garden of Longevity and the Blue River. Our life would hit rock bottom.

  “Was Mitsuru’s mother there?”

  “She was.”

  “What did the two of you talk about?”

  “She was busy, you know. She couldn’t sit there and entertain me the whole time.”

  She. There was something about the way he said it that sounded so affectionate. A strong power seemed to emanate from my grandfather’s body, an essence I had not encountered before, strong but soft. I could feel Yuriko’s influence; her presence was changing everyone. I wanted to cover my eyes and ears. Grandfather turned around and looked back at me. There was a trace of fear in his face. I think he realized that I found his newfound love offensive.

  “What did you and Mitsuru’s mother talk about?”

  “I told you we didn’t have time for a real conversation. She’s the owner of the bar, for crying out loud.”

  “But you went out and ate eel somewhere.”

  “True. She said she could slip away from the other girls for a spell and asked me to join her. She took me to some expensive place on the other side of the river. I was a bit nervous, never having been to such a fancy eel restaurant before. I drank liver broth for the first time, too. It’s pretty good. I told her I wished I could give you a taste, that it was too bad you had to be at home alone, so she ordered this serving for me to bring home to you. She said it was really sad about you losing your mother and you were really brave to be coping so well on your own. She really is a nice lady.”

  Why, I wondered, would she speak to my grandfather as if she were some kind of heavenly maiden? Even Mitsuru criticized her—her own mother!

  When I remembered that morning in the car I felt my breast fill with an anger for Mitsuru’s mother that was so sharp it threatened to explode.

  “So the eel was a gift?”

  “Well, you got me there.”

  When Grandfather tried to brush it off I was ready. “And if I tell Mitsuru’s mother that you’ve been in prison, what then? I bet it’d give her a shock.”

  Grandfather removed his suit jacket without saying a thing. The space between his eyebrows wrinkled into a crease. I wanted to say whatever I could to upset him, but that was because I wanted everything to stay just like it was, with the two of us living happily among his bonsai. Here he was, threatening to ruin everythin
g by heading off into that repulsive realm of love—just like Yuriko. Traitor!

  “If anyone’s going to tell her it’ll be me,” my grandfather said, with a deep sigh. Just then he lost his footing and tripped over his trouser leg, stumbling a few paces before regaining his balance. Without his secret boots, the trousers were too long and trailed behind him like the hem of a samurai’s court costume. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. First Kazue and her fake eyelids and now this. The lengths stupid people will go to for love! I was filled with hatred and an irritation so great I thought I would go insane.

  “Grandpa, is she inspired?”

  Grandfather looked back at me with surprise. Frustrated, I asked again, the anger in my voice rising. “Mitsuru’s mother. I asked if she’s inspired.”

  “Oh, that. Yes, she’s nothing but.”

  I was racked with disappointment. How could my grandfather, who had spent his days puttering with his bonsai spewing out words like crazy and inspiration, now be calling a frumpy middle-aged woman inspired? What was going on? Earlier, Grandfather had said Yuriko was too beautiful to be inspired; the change was too bizarre to imagine. I began to feel my love for my grandfather withering and spoke to him sharply. “Fine. Then I have something to talk to you about.”

  Grandfather hung his jacket neatly on a hanger and looked up at me. “What now?”

  “Who’s my father? Where is he?”

  “Who’s your father? Are you serious? You know he’s that Swiss bastard.” Grandfather slipped the belt off his trouser, now in a sour mood. “Who else would it be but him?”

  “That’s a lie. That man’s not my father.”

  “Do we have to get into this now?”

  Grandfather stepped out of his trousers and sat on the tatami mat, looking suddenly very tired. “Are you dreaming? Your mother is my daughter. Your father is that Swiss. I was opposed to the wedding but your mother wouldn’t listen and went ahead with it anyway. So, you see, you’re wrong.”

  “But I don’t look like either of them—or anyone else, for that matter.”

  “Looks. Is that what this is all about? I already told you, the people in my family rarely look like anyone else.”

  Grandfather gazed at me perplexed, as if he couldn’t quite understand why I would be so upset. I was disappointed, so distraught I just wanted to hurl that disgusting package of food to the floor. Before I could act on the impulse, I had a frightening thought. What if my mother went to her death with the secret hidden from us all?

  “Check the family registry. It’ll all be listed there,” Grandfather said, as he pulled his necktie off, busily smoothing the wrinkles out with his hands. But I knew that wouldn’t do any good. My father was a handsome and intelligent white man, perhaps French or British. He would have abandoned my mother and gone off to wander on his own. Maybe he’s already dead. If so, I can never contact him. Or maybe he is waiting for me to grow up so he can contact me.

  I had always lived with this strange sense of distance from my father, a distance I could not bridge. All you could say about our relationship was that we never got along. When my father spoke to Yuriko, his voice was always natural. But whenever he had to deal with me he was full of tension. I would immediately notice the way the lines would form at the sides of his lips. Whenever we came face-to-face, we had nothing to talk about, and it was clear he had to search long and hard for something to say.

  Occasionally, when my father returned from work, he’d press me with questions. Whenever that happened I knew he was in a bad mood and I ought to exercise caution. But on the contrary, I would feel a rebellious urge course through me, compelling me to engage my father in an argument.

  When my parents argued it was unbearable. But Yuriko would just sit there nonchalantly watching TV. When my father and I fought she would sneak out of the room, but when our parents fought she didn’t seem to care. Was she really that dense? Or couldn’t she bear to watch my father and me fight?

  When my parents fought it was almost always about household expenses. In our family, our father was in charge of the money. Mother would get just enough from him every day to go to the market and buy provisions for dinner. As I said before, my father was a miser, and he tended to go over every little detail, far more thoroughly than anyone could possibly imagine.

  “You bought spinach yesterday. There’s no reason you need to buy more today.”

  My mother tried to launch a futile defense. “Do you know how much spinach you have after you boil it?” She took an imaginary bundle of spinach and piled it on her palm.

  Father took the imaginary bundle up in his palm to show how the spinach would expand.

  “Well, it’s obvious you don’t do any cooking,” Mother would say, “because you don’t know what you’re talking about; it shrinks. If you split this much among four people, it’ll be gone in a day’s time. That’s why you need two days’ worth. If you boil it and make a chilled spinach salad it’ll be gone in no time. If you slice it up with carrots and sauté it with meat that’d be fine, but it doesn’t really go well with what we eat. I’ve tried to accommodate myself to the food you want me to serve in this house; you just don’t know.”

  And on and on she went, to no avail.

  My father just assumed that whatever he did was right, and he grew furious with anyone who tried to challenge that assumption. Next to Yuriko, I hated him the most. To cut to the chase, I had a very lonely childhood and grew up disliking everyone in my family. Really pathetic, don’t you agree? That’s why I thought it was so bizarre that Kazue Sat was able to accept her father’s values so unconditionally. I just couldn’t understand how someone could be such a daddy’s girl. It made me despise her all the more.

  My relationship with my father was as I just described it. And I never once loved a man or had sexual relations with one. I’m not a nymphomaniac like Yuriko.

  I can’t think of any creature more disgusting than a man, with his hard muscles and bones, his sweaty skin, all that hair on his body, and his knobby knees. I hate men with deep voices and bodies that smell like animal fat, men who act like bullies and never comb their hair. Oh, yes, there is no end to the nasty things I can say about men. I’m just lucky to have a job at the ward office so I don’t have to commute to work every day on the crowded trains. I don’t think I could stand riding jammed in a car with a bunch of smelly salary men.

  But then, I’m not a lesbian either. I would never do something so filthy. True, I did have a bit of a crush on Mitsuru when we were in high school. But that was more like ardent respect, and it was short-lived besides. When I noticed Mitsuru honing her intellect like a weapon, I understood and felt a kind of admiration for her. But something happened that forced a falling-out between Mitsuru and me.

  A number of weeks had passed since my grandfather started going off to the Blue River. He raised money for his little adventures by selling off his bonsai. I felt sad every time I looked at the emptying veranda—bitter and almost beyond despair. That’s when it happened, one day when I was wrapped in a sense of desolation.

  I’d just finished my art class. I had elected to take calligraphy. The art instructor had told us to write any word we liked, so I had splashed out the word inspiration in a wild scrawl. When I got back to homeroom, Mitsuru, who had just returned from music class, waved a sheet of music at me, signaling for me to come over. I was already in a foul mood, since I’d managed to get ink stains on my blouse. And Mitsuru’s buoyant voice made me all the more irritable. She’d been studying hard for the upcoming midterms, and her eyes were red from lack of sleep.

  “I’ve got something to tell you. Is now okay?”

  I stared at the red veins that formed a crazy pattern in the whites of Mitsuru’s eyes and nodded.

  “My mother wants to have dinner with you, your grandfather, and me. The four of us. What do you say?”

  “Why?”

  I feigned ignorance. Mitsuru tapped her front teeth with her fingernail and cocked her head to the
side.

  “Well, it looks like my mother has taken an interest in you. You live nearby, so she said she’d like to have a chance for a nice leisurely talk sometime. If it’s all right we can meet at our house, or we can go out somewhere for a meal, our treat.”

  “Why do you and I have to go? Wouldn’t it make more sense for your mother and my grandfather to go out by themselves?”

  Mitsuru hated unreasonableness. I saw the light flicker through her eyes as if she were struggling to solve a riddle.

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “You should ask your mother. It’s not my place to explain.”

  That was the first time I’d ever seen Mitsuru angry. Her face flushed red and she looked as if her eyes would shoot daggers.

  “You have no right to be rude. If you have something to say, say it. I don’t like playing games.”

  When I heard the tears creep into her voice, I knew I had hurt her feelings. Mitsuru was touchy when it came to her mother. But I had to tell her what I thought.

  “All right, then. My grandfather is head over heels in love with your mother. There’s nothing wrong with that, in and of itself, and it really has nothing to do with me. But I don’t want to get dragged into the middle of it. I refuse to be some kind of pawn in their little love game.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  Mitsuru’s face had turned from red to white and was growing whiter by the minute.

  “My grandfather’s become a regular at your mother’s bar, you know. Since he doesn’t have any money, he’s sold off all his bonsai. It’s got nothing to do with me. But why does your mother want to get involved with my grandfather? I think it’s strange. I mean, my grandfather is nearly sixty-seven, and your mother’s not yet fifty, is she? Of course, age doesn’t matter when people are in love, but I’m just really, really uncomfortable when everything gets ruined with lust. Maybe it’s on account of my sister—but you’ve changed recently too. And now my grandfather’s acting weird. Ever since Yuriko’s come back, everything seems to be falling apart and I can’t stand it. Do you understand?”