Grotesque

by Natsuo Kirino

  “Well, wouldn’t that be good, to eliminate them, I mean. It’s not as if she had actually cared for my grandfather,” I said harshly.

  Mitsuru responded mockingly. “You can’t forgive me, can you? You think you’re better than I am because I ended up in a religious cult.”

  I tilted my head to the side. “Are you sure you haven’t lost a few marbles?”

  “Oh? So we’re going to resort to insults, are we?” Mitsuru raised her head suddenly. “I remember not so long ago you were more than a little obsessed with looks. How should I put this? You just cared about faces. I knew you had an inferiority complex because Yuriko was so pretty. But you went way beyond a complex; you were a fanatic. Ever since high school you’ve been really proud of yourself for being half, haven’t you? Everyone laughed at you behind your back, you know. You weren’t even remotely pretty. But you can transcend your body with how you discipline your soul.”

  I never would have believed I would hear such abusive lies from Mitsuru. It was too much. I could not, however, bring myself to speak in my own defense.

  “Your hatred of Yuriko was really bizarre,” she continued. “It was more like jealousy. I know you were the one who leaked the news about Yuriko and Kijima’s son. Whatever Yuriko was doing with the boys in the boys’ side of the school had nothing to do with you. But Yuriko was popular. Everyone idolized her. Still, to get your own sister expelled from school by spreading rumors about her being involved in prostitution—that was really vicious. And until you lessen your store of bad karma, you have very little chance of transmigration any time in the future. If you are reborn, it’ll be as some bug that crawls through the dirt.”

  I was furious. I had tried to let Mitsuru have her say, knowing she’d been brainwashed, but she’d gone too far.

  “Mitsuru, you are a complete idiot. I’ve listened to you go on and on about being at the top of the class, getting into Tokyo University Medical School, and all that crap about osmosis, and I’m just fed up. All this time I had thought you were a clever little squirrel, but you were nothing but a slug. You were just a puffed-up little show-off, no better than Kazue!”

  “You’re the one who’s crazy. Look at you—you look absolutely evil. Why do you think you’re any more sincere than I am? You go through life telling nothing but lies. And even now you’re sitting here thinking how wonderful you are because you’re half. I sure wish I could trade you for Yuriko.”

  I stood up angrily, kicking the chair back as I did. The waitresses, suddenly noticing us, looked up from what they were doing and stared. Mitsuru and I glared at each other until she hid her face. I shoved the bill for our coffee over to her.

  “I’m leaving. Thank you for treating.”

  Mitsuru pushed the bill back across the table. “We’ll split it.”

  “I had to sit here and listen to what you wanted to say; we’re not splitting the bill. You say I have a complex about Yuriko. I have to hear this today, on the day of the trial? I’m here as a bereaved member of the victim’s family. What gives you the right to insult me like that? I demand compensation for damages.”

  “You think I’m going to pay compensatory charges?”

  “Well, you have that rich family of yours. Your mother owned how many cabarets? And you rented that luxury apartment in Minato Ward just to flaunt your wealth, didn’t you? Then your mother went out and bought a condominium with a fancy intercom in that swanky Riverside area. All I’ve got is my measly job.”

  Mitsuru launched into her response with apparent relish.

  “My, you pick a convenient time to start complaining about your measly job. Just amazing. And here I remember you ever eager to boast about the way you were going to become some famous translator of German. But your marks in English class were just deplorable, weren’t they? Hardly what you’d expect from a half! And for your information, my family is not wealthy. We sold our house and our business, and the money we made on that and on the sale of our two cars and our resort property in Kiyosato all went into the coffers of the religious organization.”

  I placed my coins begrudgingly on the table. Mitsuru counted out the change and continued.

  “I’m going to go to the next hearing too. I think it’ll be really good for my rehabilitation.”

  Suit yourself, I wanted to say, but thought better of it. I turned and exited the coffeehouse, walking away briskly. As I did I heard the pitter-pat of Mitsuru’s canvas sneakers following me.

  “Wait! I almost forgot the most important part. I got letters from Professor Kijima.”

  Mitsuru dug through her bag, pulled out an envelope, and waved it in my face.

  “When did you get letters from Professor Kijima?”

  “While I was in prison. I got quite a few. He was really worried about me, so we corresponded.”

  Well, wasn’t Mitsuru just beside herself with pride. I hadn’t heard anything about Professor Kijima for such a long time, I’d just assumed he’d died. And all this time he’d been sending Mitsuru letters.

  “Well, how kind of him.”

  “He said it wounded him terribly for one of his students to be involved in a scandal—just like I would worry over my patients.”

  “Your patients weren’t out murdering people, were they?”

  “I’m still recuperating, you know. Still only halfway in my struggle to return to society, and your cruelty is not appreciated.” Mitsuru gave a big sigh. But I’d had just about all I could take, I wanted to get out of there. Still, if she wanted to talk about cruelty, she ought to examine the way she was using Yuriko and Kazue’s trials as her own personal class reunion.

  “He wrote about you too, so I thought you’d like to see. I’ll let you borrow them. But you have to be sure to give them back to me at the next hearing.”

  Mitsuru passed the thick envelope over to me. The last thing I wanted was a packet of letters I had no interest in reading. I tried to hand them back to Mitsuru but she was already walking away, staggering slightly. I watched her depart, trying to find in her something that resembled the girl she had been in the past. The Mitsuru who had been good in tennis. The Mitsuru who had been so light on her feet during our rhythmic dance routines. I’d been vaguely fearful of her—with her physical agility and her brilliant mind. She had seemed like something of a monster to me.

  But the Mitsuru I saw now seemed awkward, uncoordinated, even in the most casual of movements. Concerned about being followed by detectives, she was so busy looking over her shoulder that she practically ran into someone who was right in front of her. Anyone who had known Mitsuru in the past would have had a hard time recognizing her in the idiot she’d become. This hollow Mitsuru had transmigrated into an entirely different monster.

  I remembered that when we were in high school, I used to think of both Mitsuru and myself as mountain pools formed by underground springs. If Mitsuru’s spring was deep beneath the surface of the ground, so was mine. Our sensibilities were complementary and our train of thought was exactly the same. But now those springs had disappeared. We were now two separate pools, lonely and remote. Moreover, Mitsuru’s pool had already gone dry, exposing the cracked earth at the bottom. I wish I hadn’t seen her again.

  I heard someone calling to me. “Aren’t you Miss Hirata’s older sister?”

  I hurriedly stuffed Kijima’s letters in my pocket and looked up. A familiar-looking man was standing in front of me. He was around forty and wore a fairly expensive brown suit. His beard was flecked with white whiskers and he was as rotund as an opera singer, a “carnal personality” who clearly ate delicious food.

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, “but might I have a brief word?”

  I was trying to figure out where I’d seen him before, but I couldn’t place him. As I stood there with my head cocked to the side, the man launched into a self-introduction.

  “I see you don’t remember. I’m Zhang’s lawyer, Tamura. I hadn’t expected to see you just now. I had thought I would try to call you la
ter this evening.” Tamura led me to a corner of the corridor, clearly annoyed. We were next to the cafeteria. Lunch was over, the cafeteria had closed, and the employees inside were moving the tables around, carrying bottles of beer, and setting up for some kind of private function. Upstairs in the courtrooms they’re deciding someone’s fate, while downstairs in the basement they’re whooping it up. Easy for them. I’m just glad I’m not the defendant.

  “Sensei, I don’t know what you think, but I’m certain Zhang killed Kazue.”

  Tamura straightened the knot to his mustard yellow tie while he prepared his lines. “I can certainly understand how you must feel, as a member of the family, but I have to say I think he’s innocent.”

  “Surely not. The study of physiognomy makes clear Zhang’s a killer. There can be no doubt.”

  Tamura looked troubled. He didn’t dare try to refute my argument. I suppose he realized that he had to let the victim’s family members say whatever they pleased. But I wasn’t some sentimental idiot who sympathized blindly with the victim, I was trying to explain things from the scientific perspective of physiognomy.

  I needed to make that clear, but Tamura said in a whispery voice, “Actually, what I wanted to ask you is whether you had had contact recently with either Yuriko or Kazue. I can find no proof for this in the investigation, but it seems such an unlikely coincidence, don’t you think? I mean for your younger sister and your former classmate to be killed the same way, less than a year apart. It’s just too bizarre to be happenstance. So I was wondering if you’d heard anything from either of them?”

  Yuriko’s diary immediately came to mind, but I didn’t want to tell him about it. Let him find out about it on his own. “I don’t know. But then, I hadn’t seen either Yuriko or Kazue in some time. Don’t you imagine they both just hit a patch of bad luck? If you’d consider the physiognomy, Zhang is somewhere between a ‘calculating personality’ and a ‘carnal personality’—the type to go for prostitutes. He killed them both. Kazue too. There’s no doubt—”

  Flustered, Tamura interrupted me. “Yes, yes, I see. That’s fine. Zhang’s case is now under deliberation, and it’s best if I don’t discuss it with you.”

  “Why? I’m related to the victim. I’m the one whose only sister was murdered! Her precious sister.”

  “I understand. Really I do.”

  “What do you understand? Tell me.”

  Perspiration had begun to dot Tamura’s forehead, and as he patted through the pockets in his suit searching for his handkerchief, he changed the subject.

  “I believe I saw one of those cult members here not too long ago. Wasn’t she also a former classmate of yours? You certainly had a—well, what should I say?—unique high school class.”

  “Yes, it’s been a virtual class reunion here today.”

  “Well, yes, you could look at it that way. Excuse me,” Tamura said. He turned to leave, heading hastily into the coffeehouse. And here I had more to say, I thought, as I glared at his muscular back. First of all there was his remark about my unique class. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. And then there were the words Mitsuru had said to me earlier; they started spinning around and around in my head as well.

  When I finally managed to slink back to my apartment in the government housing complex, I found it cold. The tatami was old, stained here and there where miso soup had been spilled on it. And it smelled. I lit the kerosene heater and looked around the room. It was shabby and small. Back when bonsai pots crowded Grandfather’s veranda, we were poor, but oh, I was happy! Yuriko was still in Bern, I’d just entered Q High School for Young Women, and I had dedicated myself enthusiastically to looking after my grandfather, my true flesh and blood. I suppose I liked my grandfather so much because he was an affirmed scam artist. And yet he was so timid, even more so than I. Yes, it was odd. He was not a bit like me. The “class reunion” had brought me down.

  The letters? Once night fell I pulled them out and looked through them with disgust. Here they are. The handwriting is shaky—written by an old man’s trembling hand—so they’re hard to read. And, as I expected, they are preachy. But if you want to read them, go ahead. I don’t mind.

  Greetings and Salutations.

  My dear Mitsuru:

  Are you well? The winters in Shinano Oiwake are particularly severe. The ground in my garden has frozen over into tiny pillars of frost. Before long it’ll all be frozen and then the long winter will set in. I’m sixty-seven now and heading into the winter of my life.

  I’m still running the dormitory for the N Fire Insurance Company. Not much has changed. Now that I’m past retirement age, I fear I’m not much use anymore, but the director of the company has very kindly asked me to stay on. He’s a graduate of the Q School system.

  Well, then, let me begin by congratulating you on your release from prison. Now I can finally send letters to you—and hopefully receive them—without worrying about the prying eyes of the censors. You have certainly put up with so much and weathered it all with such fortitude. I feel deeply for you and the way you must worry over your husband and the children you’ve left with others to raise.

  But Mitsuru, my dear, you are not yet forty. Your future lies ahead of you. You have awakened from the nightmare of mind control, and if you struggle to live an upright life from here on, never forgetting to pray for the souls of those whom you harmed and beg their forgiveness—I am confident that you will be all right. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask.

  Dear Mitsuru,

  You were the brightest student I ever had, and I never once worried about your future. To have seen the way you have stumbled, however, has urged me to reconsider the past. I feel responsible for your slide into criminality; my careless manner of teaching must be held accountable. I have determined that I shall repent alongside you.

  To tell you the truth, ever since the religious organization you were affiliated with committed those crimes, I have hardly had a day free of turmoil. And then with the tragedies last year and the year before, I have had cause to grieve all over again. I am sure you are aware that both Yuriko Hirata and Kazue Sat were killed. They say the same murderer is responsible. To think of the way they were both so cruelly murdered, and their bodies abandoned, is more bitter than I can bear. I remember them both so well.

  Kazue Sat’s case has garnered particular attention, with headlines screaming OFFICE EMPLOYEE BY DAY, PROSTITUTE BY NIGHT! She was such a serious student when she first entered my classes—and then to have her turned into fodder for the rapacious media! To think of how this must mortify her family makes me want to rush to her house and throw myself before her mother and apologize. My dear, I imagine you must be mystified as to why I might feel this way. But I cannot overcome the feeling that somehow I failed as a father—consider my eldest son—and as an educator.

  We at Q High School for Young Women espoused an educational tenet that advocated self-sufficiency and a strong sense of self-awareness in our students. And yet, among the girls who have graduated from Q High School for Young Women, there are data to prove that the rate for divorce, failure to marry, and suicide is much higher than that in other schools.Why is it that girls who come from such privileged backgrounds, who are so proud of their academic accomplishments, and who are such excellent students must meet so much more unhappiness than students elsewhere? Rather than suggesting it is because the real world is crueler for them, I think it more accurate to suggest that we allowed the creation of an environment that was too much of a utopia. Or, to put it another way, we failed to teach our girls the strategies that would enable them to cope with the frustrations of the real world. It is this realization that continues to haunt me, and the other teachers feel the same. We realize now that it was our arrogance that prevented us from coming to grips with the real world.

  I’ve mellowed now that I have been living here in a severe environment, going about the mundane job of looking after a dormitory. The naked human is powe
rless against nature. As a scientist, I clothed myself with knowledge and believed that one could not live without the study of science. But now I realize that science alone is not enough. I suppose that when I taught school, all I taught was the heart of science; I am ashamed to think of it now. I wonder if there are similar teachings in your religion?

  My dear Mitsuru,

  I believe I need to rethink my approach to education. But when I finally came to this conclusion, I was well along in years and no longer actively teaching. I was retired—forced to resign because of my own son’s delinquent behavior. My regret over my failure to realize this sooner has only deepened over the years, made more painful still by what befell you, my dear, and the horrible business with your classmates Miss Hirata and Miss Sat.

  While tending to the dormitory I’ve also been busy with my life work of studying the behavior of the Kijima Tribolium castaneum. T. Castaneum is a species of beetle, aka the Red Flour Beetle. I discovered a strain quite by accident in the woods behind my house, so I was allowed to give it my name. Being that I was the one who discovered the strain that now bears my name, it’s necessary for me to follow up with an appropriate study.

  The behavior of a living organism is really a fascinating subject. If furnished with sufficient food and favorable living conditions, the reproduction rate of an organism will increase exponentially. As the rate of individual reproduction increases, the group population expands, as you well know, my dear. But if the increase in food supply is not commensurate with the increase in population, fierce competition will ensue among the population, at which point the birthrate falls while the death rate increases. Eventually this has an impact on the development, formation, and physiology of the organism—which is the foundation of physiology.

  In my research on the Kijima T. castaneum, I discovered a mutation—a beetle with longer wings and shorter legs than the others. This mutation was clearly the result of the intensification of a sense of individuation. I believed that modifications resulted in the insect’s shape and structure so as to enhance its speed and mobility. I want to study this mutation, to verify it with my own eyes. But I doubt I will live as long as will be necessary to complete the study.