Grotesque

by Natsuo Kirino

  “What’s with the bag?”

  “I bought it.”

  Didn’t she tell me the last time we met that she had no money? And there I’d stupidly split the bill with her like I had to dole out charity. With the money she spent on her Gucci bag, I could have bought at least ten of the bags I was carrying. I wanted to chew her out but I just nodded.

  “That’s nice. You look well.”

  “Thank you. I’ve been feeling a bit more settled.” Mitsuru smiled slightly. “The last time I saw you I was a nervous wreck. I think I’ve grown more accustomed to being back in society, but for a while there I felt like Rip Van Winkle. Everything was so different. The neighborhood had changed, prices had gone up. Every part of me was aware of how different things had become in the six years I’d been away. Actually, I went to visit Professor Kijima at his dormitory last week. We talked about all kinds of things, and I felt better after that. I’m going to start over.”

  “You saw Professor Kijima?”

  Why, I wondered, did Mitsuru’s cheeks suddenly redden?

  “That’s right. I thought about the letters I lent you and began to feel so nostalgic that I decided to go see him. He was delighted. We walked together through the woods of Karuizawa. It was freezing, but I was overwhelmed to realize there really are such warm people in the world.”

  I was shocked. I stared at Mitsuru, as she sat there blushing, and pressed the packet with Professor Kijima’s letters into her hand.

  “Professor Kijima’s letters,” she said. “Did you read them?”

  “I read them. But I can’t make much sense of them. Are you sure he’s not senile?”

  “Why? Because he couldn’t remember your name?”

  Mitsuru was perfectly serious—which made me even more annoyed.

  “That’s not why.”

  “I told Professor that I showed you his letters, and he seemed to grow concerned for you. He was afraid you’d think badly of him for writing the things he did. He’s worried that you’re depressed over what happened to Yuriko.”

  “Well, I’m not! Even if I am just Yuriko’s older sister.”

  Mitsuru released a long sigh. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but you’ve been warped for as long as I can remember. I feel sorry for you, I really do. I wish you could pull yourself out from under whatever spell Yuriko cast over you. Professor Kijima said what you were suffering was nothing short of mind control.”

  “Professor, Professor…you sound just like a broken record. Did something happen with the two of you?”

  “Nothing happened. But his words touched a chord in my heart.”

  It sounded like Mitsuru was in love with Professor Kijima, just like she had been in high school. There are people who make the same mistakes over and over without ever learning. I couldn’t take any more of Mitsuru, so I turned around and faced the front of the courtroom. Zhang was being led into the room, sandwiched between two guards, his hands in manacles connected to a cord around his waist. He looked over at me timidly and quickly glanced away. I could feel all the others in the courtroom staring over at me. They didn’t want to miss the showdown between the victim’s family and the assailant, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. I glowered at Zhang for all I was worth. But Mitsuru interrupted me. “Look over there,” she said as she grabbed my arm. “Look at that man.”

  Annoyed, I turned to look. Two men had just claimed empty seats in the spectators’ gallery. One was fat, the other a handsome youth.

  “I wonder if that’s Takashi Kijima.”

  Takashi Kijima had the same perversely precocious look that I had despised. But what was mortifying was that he was still so attractive and youthful. His body was long and slender: snakelike. And his head was small, compact and nicely shaped. His face had delicate lines, and his nose was high and thin, reminding me of the blade of a finely honed knife. His lips were fleshy, the kind girls would surely find sexy and swoon over. Right, girls like Kazue Sat. But surely he was too young. Besides, Kijima was never quite as attractive as this boy. I could hardly take my eyes off him. When the judge entered the courtroom, I looked back at the men again and stared at them.

  The man I took for Kijima held a duffle coat that he had folded neatly. When we had to rise for the judge, he got to his feet clumsily. After everyone else had taken their seats again, he still stood there, staring into space. The fat man had to grab him by the arm and pull him down. The bones in his shoulders and the muscles of his chest that I could detect through the simple black sweater he wore were perfectly balanced. He was at that age caught between childhood and youth where he was growing like a young tree. His face was lovely—the features as becoming for a woman as they were for a man. The shape of his dark eyebrows was beautiful, a perfect arch as if formed by hand. No, this wasn’t Kijima. I was certain.

  “No, now that I look at him carefully, it’s not Takashi Kijima.”

  “It is. It’s Kijima. It has to be,” Mitsuru whispered in my ear after the courtroom had quieted down.

  “There’s no way Kijima would be that young. Besides Kijima always looked much more disagreeable.”

  “No, not him, the fat one!”

  Startled, I almost fell out of my chair. The man had to be close to 220 pounds. If I carved some of the fat off his face, I might be able to find a likeness to Kijima in there somewhere. The trial had begun but I was too busy trying to look at the men behind me to pay attention. Besides, the focus of the hearing today was Zhang’s upbringing and background, and the deliberations were so boring I thought I would die.

  “I was an excellent student in elementary school. I was born intelligent.”

  How could he sit there in front of everybody and brag about himself like that without the slightest embarrassment? I couldn’t take much more of this. While trying to stifle a yawn, I thought about Takashi Kijima sitting behind me. How had he gotten so ugly? He looked like a completely different person. He’d changed so much, I wanted to call up Professor Kijima and let him know what had become of his son since he saw him last. That’s what I’d do! I’d take a picture of him and send it to his father with a letter.

  When the hearing ended for the day and Zhang left the courtroom, Mitsuru let out a shallow sigh, her shoulders dipping slightly.

  “Sitting through these procedures is more difficult than I thought. It makes me remember my own trial. I never felt more naked, more exposed, in all my life. Listening to the questions that the defendant was asked today brings it all back. My entire life history was spread out for all to see. I felt I was hearing about someone else, someone entirely different from me. It was strange. Once I realized that people were dying during those initiations, I was too afraid to do anything to help them in their final moments. Let karma have its way, I thought. Yet when my own time came, I was so terrified and trembled so badly I couldn’t even stand up. I was a doctor, trained to save human life. How was I able to do something so cruel? My trial continued amid great confusion. The only thing that got me through was my mother, who came with a group of other believers. When she entered the courtroom, we exchanged glances. Very subtle. But in her glance I understood that she was telling me to be strong, that I did nothing wrong. I was judged there in that courtroom, before the whole world, but I scarcely saw anyone but my mother.”

  “So are you saying you feel no remorse?”

  “Not that. What I’m saying is, everything was confused. It was like a TV drama.”

  I held up my hand in an effort to put an end to Mitsuru’s convoluted tale of tangled emotions. If I wasn’t careful, Takashi Kijima was going to get away. I wasn’t interested in him so much as I was in the youth with him. I had to speak to him. Why are you with Takashi Kijima? You rarely find such handsome boys. Was he Takashi Kijima’s son? If not, who on earth was he? I was consumed with curiosity. If he was Kijima’s son, no matter how hateful Kijima might be or how ugly he’d become, his worth in my eyes had just skyrocketed. And Mitsuru looked like she still had more to say.

&nbs
p; “Let’s have a class reunion,” I suggested.

  “What are you talking about?”

  The courtroom was now nearly empty and Mitsuru’s voice reverberated against the walls. I could hardly believe it when Takashi Kijima turned and headed toward us. He was wearing a gaudy sweater with jeans, trying to look youthful. Under his arm he clutched a small brand-name men’s purse, making him look like an out-of-date gangster. I imagined he had an overstuffed wallet, a cell phone, and a case of name cards stuffed inside, along with an assortment of other little things. Unfortunately, his young companion did not seem to be interested in coming along with him. He stayed seated, his eyes straight ahead, as he had been all through the trial.

  “You’re Mitsuru, aren’t you?”

  His voice was thick, in keeping with his body. It had a nasal sound, unpleasant to listen to. Proof of too many cigarettes, too much booze, and too many late nights. The skin on his face was grayish, the pores conspicuously large. I imagined if I put my finger on his cheek, it would feel slick with grease.

  “And you’re Kijima-kun, right? It’s been a long time,” Mitsuru said.

  “Mitsuru, you had a rough time of it. I read what happened in the paper and couldn’t believe it. But you look fine now. You’ve worked that out, right?”

  Kijima pointed toward the judge’s bench with an air of comfortable familiarity. Not just his physique but the way he spoke was round and soft. Like a woman. Mitsuru’s face clouded over.

  “Thank you very much for your kind concern. I am very sorry to have caused my associates from Q School system such hardship, but it is all behind me now.”

  “Congratulations.”

  Kijima gave a deep bow. Mitsuru bit back her tears. It looked just like a scene from some gangster movie. I was not at all interested, however, and turned to look at the boy. Mitsuru’s tear-choked voice had caught his attention, and he was now looking this way. His face was exquisite. Why did he look so familiar?

  “You recognized me right away, didn’t you, Mitsuru? Most people have no idea who I am, now that I’ve put on some weight. The other day I ran into a former Q classmate down in the Ginza, but he walked right past me. He was the same guy who was so smitten with Yuriko he’d throw himself on the ground in front of me, begging me to fix them up. And now for Yuriko to wind up getting murdered by a stranger! But when you come right down to it, that was probably her long-cherished dream.”

  “Long-cherished dream?” Mitsuru burst out.

  “Yuriko always told me she knew she’d be killed by one of her customers someday. It frightened her, but she seemed to be waiting for it to happen. She was a smart, complicated woman.”

  Mitsuru started tapping her front teeth with a troubled look: tap, tap, tap. I suppose she felt she couldn’t go along with what he’d said. Thanks to Takashi Kijima’s father, Mitsuru had finally returned to society. I pursed my lips and said, “Well, I can’t say I don’t agree that it was a long-cherished dream, but there’s no reason why you should stand here talking about it.”

  Takashi Kijima smiled bitterly. I despise people who smile when they mean to be sneaky. That’s just like my supervisor at the ward office.

  “You’re Yuriko’s older sister, aren’t you? You have my deepest condolences.” Kijima greeted me politely, just as he had done with Mitsuru. “I understand what you must be going through. Still, am I wrong to assume that you also believed Yuriko would wind up like this someday, once she went down the road she selected for herself? I think you and I are the only ones who truly understood her.”

  What impertinence. As if he might have actually understood my sister.

  “It was your fault. You’re the one who chased her down that wretched road in the first place. You’re the one who taught Yuriko all about the business. If she hadn’t met you, she’d probably still be alive. And that’s not all. There was Kazue too. You bullied her.”

  I went after him. I didn’t mean a word of it. I just wanted to harass him.

  Kijima hesitated. “I did not bully Kazue or anything of the sort. I just didn’t know what to do about all those letters she sent me. She was so pathetic. I didn’t like her, but I didn’t want to hurt her. I wasn’t that insensitive.”

  When she saw Kijima wipe away the globules of sweat that had beaded along his forehead with his thick hand, Mitsuru tried to change the topic.

  “Never mind that. What are you doing these days? Your father disinherited you, didn’t he?”

  “Well, like they say, As the boy, so the man. I’m still in the business, though we refer to it now as an escort service. I introduce women to men.”

  Kijima rifled through his wallet and pulled out two cards, handing one to both Mitsuru and me. Mitsuru read hers out loud.

  “Mona Lisa Women’s Club. High-class ladies are waiting for you. But Kijima-kun, you’ve used the wrong character to write high-class. And the card’s design—it seems so outdated.”

  “There are customers who prefer it that way—old-fashioned, I mean. It’s not a mistake, it’s intentional. By the way, Mitsuru, how is the old man?”

  “He’s great. He’s working on his insect study and supervising the dormitory in Karuizawa. You knew your mother passed away, didn’t you?”

  Mitsuru gave the news as delicately as possible.

  “When was that?”

  “I think it was three years ago. She had cancer.”

  “Cancer? That’s awful.”

  Kijima shrugged his shoulders dispiritedly, but because his neck was swathed so thickly in flesh it was hard to notice the movement.

  “I gave my mother no end of grief. I’m going to be forty next year, and I’m still doing the kind of work a mother can’t be proud of. There was no way I could face her.”

  “Professor Kijima worries about you, you know.”

  “Well, he didn’t write that in his letters, did he?” I snapped. “He says he wants time to reconsider his son’s conduct. What an asshole!”

  At my outburst, a nervous look washed over Mitsuru’s face.

  “Are there letters?” Kijima asked. “If he wrote about me I’d like to see them.”

  Mitsuru began to open her handbag, but I stopped her.

  “Make copies. Those are important letters. You don’t want to lose them. And you don’t know when you two will see each other again. Everyone in the office where I work makes copies of everything. Mitsuru, you trust people too much.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  Takashi Kijima pressed his hands together in mock prayer. “I just want to look at them. I’ll give them right back.”

  Mitsuru grudgingly handed the packet of letters to Kijima, and he sat down in the courtroom and started to read through them. I asked about the youth.

  “Kijima, who’s the kid? Is he yours?”

  Kijima raised his eyes from the letters. A jeering light shot through them. I felt uneasy.

  “You mean you can’t recognize him?”

  “No. Who is it?”

  “That’s Yuriko’s son.”

  Horrified, I turned back to look. Yuriko had mentioned in her journal that she had had a son with Johnson. So this was the child of those two beautiful people. He would be a high school student by now.

  Mitsuru smiled faintly. “Hey, he’s your nephew!”

  “That’s right.”

  Confused, I combed my fingers busily through my hair. I wanted to lure Yuriko’s son away from the ugly Kijima. But the boy—the focus of our discussion—did not look our way. He sat quietly, waiting for Kijima to complete his business.

  “Kijima, what’s the boy’s name?”

  “It’s Yurio. I think Johnson gave him the name.”

  “What is Yurio doing here?”

  “Yuriko’s death was such a shock that Johnson went back to the United States. He wanted to take Yurio with him, but he was still in the middle of high school, so I agreed to take care of him.”

  I started toward Yurio. I was delirious with the happiness that was coursing
through me, the happiness once again to have before my eyes a beautiful person.

  “Yurio-chan? Hello.”

  Yurio raised his head and stared at me. “Oh. Hello.”

  His voice had already changed. It was thick and deep but also strong and youthful. His eyes were beautiful. They seemed to look right through me. I felt my heart racing in my chest as I said, “I’m Yuriko’s older sister. That means I’m your aunt. I don’t know anything about you, but we’re related. Why don’t we put this horrible event behind us and get on with our life, shall we?”

  “Um—okay.”

  Yurio searched the room around him, looking perplexed. “Excuse me, but where did Uncle Kijima go?”

  “He’s standing right over there, isn’t he?”

  “Oh? Uncle Kijima? Where are you?”

  I noticed something very strange just then. Yurio did not seem to see Kijima, even though he was sitting only a few feet away. Kijima raised his eyes. They were full of tears, no doubt from reading his father’s letters.

  “I’m over here, Yurio. Relax.” And then he said to me, “Yurio’s been blind since birth.”

  How does the world exist for a person who is so exceptionally beautiful but who cannot see to acknowledge his own beauty? Even if he hears the way people sing his praises, he cannot affirm the concept of beauty, can he? Or, does he pursue a beauty that has nothing to do with the beauty one perceives with one’s eyes? I was dying to know what shape the world took for Yurio.

  I wanted to have my nephew live with me so badly I could hardly stand it. If Yurio was with me I could live freely; I could live happily, I thought. You could say I was selfish. I don’t care. I felt I had to have him. He was completely free of the bias that is implicit in the eyes of others. That’s right. Even if I was reflected in Yurio’s beautiful eyes, the image would never be transmitted to his brain. So the meaning of who I was would also change. Because for Yurio, I would exist only as voice or as flesh. He would never see my thick squat body or my ugly face.

  I don’t accept my own self? Is that what you think? I recognize that I am homely enough to have harbored an inferiority complex toward my younger sister, Yuriko. What about my theory that she was born of a different father? You say that’s a deception? You’re wrong. It’s a game I play in my head. I tell myself that I want to become a woman who was born beautiful, who is brilliant and a much better student than Yuriko, and yet who hates men. Gradually my imaginary self closes the distance—if only slightly—between reality and my make-believe. The malice with which I arm myself is simply the spice of my game. Am I wrong? Are you saying the body that contains the imaginary me is a fool? If that’s the case, you ought to try to live with a younger sister who is monstrously beautiful. Can you possibly imagine what it is like, I wonder, to have your own individual nature denied before you are even born? From the moment of your infancy the way people react to you is so clearly different from the way they react to others. How would you feel if you had to experience that, day in, day out?