Grotesque

by Natsuo Kirino

  “Okay. I’ll meet you in front of the movie theater.”

  She hung up hurriedly, before anyone could know she was making a private phone call, and looked around her. She looked radiantly happy. Undoubtedly she was going to meet a man. “It’s important to make strong alliances as best you can and turn the negatives to your advantage.” That’s what my senior colleague had advised. If that was the case, the best alliances a woman could have were with men. Yamamoto couldn’t take being here much longer, and that’s probably because she had a man. I returned to my desk feeling dejected, flopped down in my chair, and laid my head on my desk.

  “I’m going now,” Yamamoto called, as she headed for the door. She was wearing freshly applied bright red lipstick and her whole body was suffused with joy. I straightened up abruptly and followed her.

  The man waiting for Yamamoto in front of the movie theater wore the drab uniform of a graduate student: jeans, jacket, and sneakers. There was nothing particularly remarkable about his face, and everything about him looked ordinary. But there was Yamamoto waving to him as if she were the happiest woman in the world. The two then disappeared into the theater. What the hell? I had assumed Yamamoto’s boyfriend would be incredibly handsome and was bitterly disappointed to find things so contrary to my imagination.

  Once the bell for the movie sounded and I was left standing alone in the street in front of the theater, my heart would not stop racing. Small black insects began to crawl their way through my heart. First one, then two, then three, and finally four. The more I tried to chase them away, the more they came. Before long I felt like my entire heart was little more than a wriggling black mass. The feeling was so oppressive, I wanted to break into a run.

  Yamamoto had what I would never be able to obtain. And it wasn’t just Yamamoto. The female assistants who taunted me for not being able to do my work, my male peers whose rudeness knew no bounds, the marginal old men like Kabano—all of them had the ability to interact with others: friends, lovers, someone to whom they could open their hearts, someone with whom they could share conversation, someone they longed to see once work was done. They had people outside the workplace who made them feel happy.

  The May breeze was cool and delightful. The setting sun dyed the thicket of trees in Hibiya Park orange. Even so, the dark mood that had encircled my heart would not leave me. The black insects swarmed around one another, wiggling, multiplying, dangling along the edge of my heart, and finally spilling over. Why only me? Why only me? I continued to ask myself this as I fought against the breeze, making my way to the Ginza, my back bowed with the effort. Once I returned to my dark lonely house, the only person who would be there to greet me would be my mother. That was all I had to look forward to. The thought of returning to work the next day was more depressing than I could bear. My disappointment, my irritation, fed the insects in my heart.

  The life I was living was no different from that of a middle-aged man. I went to work and then I went home. I existed solely to carry home a paycheck. Whatever I earned was turned immediately into household expenses. First Mother put my check in the bank. Then she bought cheap food for our meals, paid my sister’s tuition costs, and made our house payments. She was even responsible for doling out my own meager allowance. If I took off somewhere and never returned, my mother—who had already used most of the savings—would be completely at a loss. I couldn’t run away. I would have to continue looking after my mother until she finally died. Weren’t my responsibilities exactly like those faced by men? I was only twenty-five years old at that point, yet I was already shouldering the weight of a family. I am forever a child with a paycheck.

  But men have secret pleasures that they are able to enjoy. They slip off with their buddies for drinks, they play around with women, and they enjoy all kinds of intrigues on the side. I had nothing outside of work. And I wasn’t even able to enjoy work because I wasn’t considered the best; Yamamoto took that title. I had no friends in the firm. And when I looked back to high school, I could think of no one there whom I could have called a friend. No one! The insects in my heart squirmed as they whispered their taunts. I was so overcome with loneliness and despair that I came to a halt right there on the streets of the Ginza and started to cry. The insects writhed.

  Someone speak to me. Call out to me and take me out. Please, please, I’m begging you, say something kind to me.

  Tell me I’m pretty, tell me I’m sweet.

  Invite me out for coffee, or more….

  Tell me that you want to spend the day with me and me alone.

  As I continued on my way along the Ginza streets I gazed pointedly into the eyes of the men I encountered, beseeching them wordlessly. But every man who happened to glance in my direction quickly averted his eyes with an irritated look. They would have nothing to do with me.

  I turned off the main avenue and darted down a side street. Women who looked like they worked in hostess bars brushed passed me, their faces thick with makeup, the air around them heavy with perfume. These women refused to look at me too, assuming I’d accidentally stumbled onto their turf. They only had eyes for men—potential customers. But the men who stumbled by all looked to be the type who worked in a firm just like mine—just like me. The insects squirmed, addressing the women. One of the women standing in front of a club stared long and hard at me. She looked to be in her mid-thirties. She was wearing a silver kimono with a burgundy obi. Her jet-black hair was swept up atop her head. She glared at me suspiciously through upturned eyes.

  The insects in my heart accosted the woman: What are you looking at? And when they did, the woman began to preach to them.

  An amateur like you—you’re an eyesore here. Leave. You don’t understand much of anything, do you, you pathetic little princess. These are bars for company men. What goes on here is directly related to what goes on in the company. And both are a man’s world. All for men and men alone.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  Women who polish their skills and capture a man are the shrewdest. The kimono woman looked me up and down, clearly unimpressed by my drab appearance. She snorted scornfully. Impossible for you, I suppose. Did you abandon your femininity?

  I didn’t abandon anything. If you compare me to a woman like yourself, I look pretty drab; but as a result, I’m able to work a real job. I’ll have you know I graduated from Q University and I work at the G Firm.

  All totally worthless, I imagined that the woman replied. As a woman you’re less than average. You’d never be able to get a job in the Ginza.

  Less than average. Less than the fiftieth percentile on a standard scale. No one would want me. The thought made me go nearly crazy. How horrible to be less than average.

  I want to win. I want to win. I want to win. I want to be number one.

  I want people to say, What a great woman, I’m glad I got to know her.

  The insects in my heart continued to squirm.

  A long thin limousine pulled up. The smoked glass on the windows prevented me from seeing inside. While the people walking down the street paused to watch the car pass, the limousine, almost too big for the narrow lane, turned the corner and came to a halt in front of an elegant-looking establishment. The driver leaped out and opened the passenger door. A fortyish man, looking very enterprising in his double-breasted suit, stepped out with a young woman. The hostess-club women, the waiters, and all the others passing on the street took notice of the woman, expressing awe at her exceptional beauty. She wore a glimmering black cocktail dress. Her skin was pallid, her lipstick bright red, and her hair was long, light brown, and wavy.

  “Yuriko!”

  I called her name without even thinking. There she was in the flesh: my love rival from high school, licentiousness incarnate. She had no need for diligence or study; she was a woman born exclusively for sex. Yuriko heard me and turned around. She glanced at me briefly, turned back to the man, and took his arm without saying a word. I’m Kazue Sat! You know that perfectly well. Why are you pret
ending you don’t recognize me? I bit my lip in anger.

  “Do you know her?” The kimono-clad woman asked me suddenly. All this time I’d been having an imaginary conversation with this woman. To have her suddenly address me took me by surprise. Her real voice was surprisingly youthful and kind.

  “We were in high school together. I was good friends with her older sister.”

  “You’re kidding. Her older sister must be a beauty, too.”

  The woman could hardly conceal her admiration. I was quick to reply, “No, she was a real dog. They didn’t look a bit alike.”

  I left the kimono-clad woman standing there looking shocked and hurried home. I felt a great sense of satisfaction; I think the sight of Yuriko set it off, knowing how humiliated her older sister would be to know what Yuriko was up to. The knowledge released me from my own misery. Here was someone even more pathetic than I was! Yuriko’s older sister was not as intellectually gifted as I. She reeked of poverty, and she would never be able to get a job with a first-rate firm. I was still better than her, I told myself, appeasing my earlier despair. All it took was a petty incident like that and the insects in my heart vanished into thin air. That night I was freed from the anxiety I thought would hound me forever. But I still feared the insects would return to torture me—a foreboding that still seemed very real.

  I don’t have any good memories of my childhood. I have tried to forget it. Gazing at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I cannot help recalling unpleasant times from the past. I’m now thirty-seven. I’ve still retained my youthful looks. I diet, so I’m thin. I can still wear a size two. But I’ll be forty in three years and it terrifies me. By the time a woman is forty, she’s basically an old hag. When I turned thirty I was afraid I was slipping over the hill, but it’s nothing like turning forty. At thirty there was hope for a future. By hope, I mean I thought I might finally get selected for something good at work that would seal my success, or I might meet Mr. Right, or something equally ridiculous. Now I don’t entertain any such notions.

  I always get a little crazy when I reach a turning point in age—like when I was teetering between nineteen and twenty or twenty-nine and thirty. I was thirty when I first started the prostitution business. I was annoyed that I had no sexual experience. When I said I was a virgin, I got a customer right away just because he was curious. I don’t want to remember that encounter. But at the time I figured I wouldn’t ever be fifty. I doubted I’d even live to be forty. At any rate, I thought it would be better to die than become an old hag. That’s right. I’d rather die. Life has no meaning for an old hag.

  “Would you like a beer?”

  I heard the customer calling to me from the other room. I was in the shower washing myself, washing every nook and cranny, washing away the sweat and spit and semen that glistened all over my body—fluids from a man I didn’t know. Even so, the customer that night was not particularly bad. He was in his late fifties. From his clothes and his manners, I would say he was employed by a respectable company. He was gentle. And he was offering me a beer. That was a first for me.

  From the perspective of a fiftyish man, I must have appeared young, even at thirty. If I always had customers like him, I’d be happy; I could continue in the business even after I passed forty. I wrapped the bath towel around my body and returned to the room. My customer was sitting in his underwear smoking a cigarette while he waited for me.

  “Here, have a beer. We’ve still got time.”

  His relaxed manner calmed me. If he’d been younger he’d want to try to do it again and again.

  “Thank you.” I used both hands to lift the glass to my lips, and the customer’s eyes narrowed in a smile.

  “You’ve got good manners. You must have been brought up to be a proper young lady. Tell me then, why are you doing this?”

  “I wonder…” It made me feel good to hear him say I had good manners, so I smiled at him politely. “I guess at some point I just got bored with going back and forth to work, day in and day out. Women sometimes want adventure in life. A job like this—I mean, for a woman, I see all kinds of people I might not otherwise have ever had the chance to meet. I guess I get to know a little bit more about the world.”

  I do it for the adventure? Oh, please, that had to be the oldest line in the book! But the customer was the type who wanted the fantasy. He wanted a woman who would give him a story.

  “Adventure?” He fell for it.

  “Selling your body is the ultimate adventure. I’m sure a man couldn’t do it.”

  I smiled sweetly and adjusted my wig. Even when I shower I don’t get my face wet, and I never remove the wig.

  “You work for a firm?”

  “That’s right. But it’s a secret!”

  “I won’t tell; let me in on your secret. Which firm is it?”

  “If you tell me, I’ll tell you.”

  I did my best to build the suspense. If I played my cards right, he might ask for me again. At least that was what I was banking on.

  “It’s a deal. I’m kind of embarrassed to say, but I teach at a university. I’m a professor.”

  I could tell he was proud of what he did and who he was. If I could get a bit more information I would have scored a great success.

  “You’re kidding. Which university?”

  “I’ll give you my business card. And if you have one, I’d like to have it.”

  And so, naked, we exchanged cards. My customer’s name was Yasuyuki Yoshizaki. He was a professor of law at a third-rate private university in Chiba Prefecture. Putting on reading glasses, Yoshizaki peered at my card respectfully.

  “Well, this is a shock! So you’re the assistant manager of the research office at G Architecture and Engineering. My, my, what a distinguished person. Your job must come with considerable responsibility.”

  “It’s not so bad. I do research and write reports about the economic factors affecting our markets.”

  “Well, then, we’re practically in the same line of work. Did you go to graduate school?”

  Yoshizaki’s eyes revealed both fear and curiosity. I was driven to take advantage of his excitement.

  “Oh, no. After I graduated from the economics department at Q University, I didn’t go on. Graduate school was too much for me!”

  “You graduated from Q University and you’re working as a hotel call girl? Well, that’s a first! I’m impressed.”

  Clearly excited, Yoshizaki filled my glass with beer.

  “I hope you’ll see me again. Let’s drink a toast to our next meeting.”

  We clinked glasses. I’ll look forward to it, I offered. I queried Yoshizaki as I studied his name card.

  “Professor, may I call you at your office? I’d like to meet you without having to go through the escort service. If I go through the office, they take a cut and I lose. If it’s all right, could I have your cell phone number?”

  “Oh, I don’t carry a cell phone. But you can call me at my office. If you tell them you’re Sat from Q University I’ll know who it is. Or you could say you’re Sat from G Firm. That’d be fine too. My assistant would never suspect a graduate of Q University of being a call girl!”

  Yoshizaki chuckled. Doctors and professors were the most lascivious of all. From what I knew of their world, most men who were obedient to authority figures, as well as those who had earned authority positions, were always idiots. When I recall the anxiety I once felt about being at the top of that world, I laugh so bitterly it makes my teeth ache.

  When we left the hotel, Yoshizaki stepped into the street away from me as if he had never met me. But I didn’t care. Instead, it made my heart throb with excitement. Yoshizaki was interested in me as a woman, and surely this was proof that he was destined to become one of my loyal customers. I’d be able to meet him privately, without the escort management taking a cut from my pay, which was the ideal way of earning money in this business. Women use their bodies to earn money—so it seems unreasonable that we can’t stand on street cor
ners alone. Yet there isn’t anything more dangerous than trying to procure your own customers off the street. But Yoshizaki was different. He was an affable university professor who seemed to have a real interest in me. I was counting on him to become a good customer.

  I hummed happily as I strolled through the night with Yoshizaki. I forgot the chilly reception that awaited me at the escort service office, the Braid’s belligerence, the way my colleagues at the firm snubbed me, my mother’s nagging, even my fear of growing old and ugly. I was flushed with a sense of victory. The future was bright. Good things were in store for me. I hadn’t felt this sense of optimism for a long time. For the first time since I entered the escort agency at the age of thirty, my position as an elite businesswoman was appreciated, and I was being celebrated and sought out.

  I grabbed Yoshizaki’s arm and linked my own around it. Yoshizaki broke into a grin and looked over at me.

  “Well, well, don’t we look like a fine pair of lovers.”

  “Shall we become lovers, professor?”

  The young couples we passed along the hill turned to stare at us and then broke into whispers. A bit old for it, aren’t you? they seemed to say. I couldn’t care less what they thought and didn’t pay any attention, but Yoshizaki brushed my arm away, looking confused.

  “This doesn’t look good. You’re young enough to be mistaken for one of my students—and a mistake like that could cost me my job. Let’s be a bit more discreet, shall we?”

  “I’m very sorry.”

  I apologized politely for causing any inconvenience, to which Yoshizaki waved his hand in front of his face timidly. “No, no, don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not blaming you.”

  “I know.”

  He still looked upset, though, and looked nervously around him. When a cab approached he flagged it down.