A Woman's Nails

by Aonghas Crowe

  “C'mon. You weren’t in a coma, were you? Ha-ha-ha.” The joke smacks flatly up against a cold wall of silence. “So tell me, Eri, when did you wake up? What did you eat for breakfast? What did you do after you ate it?”

  The machinery in her head creaks, rusting cogs ache into worn grooves, and with a slow jerking motion the wheels begin to inch forward: “I woke . . . up . . . at . . . nine-thirty . . . and . . . took a shower?”

  “Yes, yes, and then?”

  “I . . . ate . . . breakfast . . . I had rice and miso soup and rice for breakfast . . . then I studied?”

  “Finally progress!”

  “P-pro-goo?”

  “Ah, never mind that.”

  “Mindoh?”

  “Yeah, never mind that either. I was joking. Jokku.”

  “Don’ mindoh? Jokku?”

  “Yes, yes, jokku. I was joking.” Things can get out of hand if you let them get caught up on one thing. Best to keep moving: “So, what did you study? What did you study?”

  “I . . . studied . . . English . . . for two hours?” she continues with excruciating slowness. But, hey, she's burning up the minutes here, like a big Chevy Suburban lumbering along at 6 miles to the gallon. Atta go, girl!

  With all the effort I can muster I suppress a yawn, then turn to Tsuyoshi, a rather bright high school boy who speaks relatively good English, and ask, “And, what did you do?”

  “I woke up at two, ate lunch, slept again. Woke up again, had dinner, took a bath, then went to bed.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes.”

  Ladies and gentlemen, I present you the future of Japan.

  2

  After three hours of dental work, I plop down behind my desk, exhausted. After dealing with kids so reluctant to speak as Reina’s students, the stale mood of the office almost seems refreshing.

  Ever since Yumi told Reina that I had tried to ravish her, an unnatural peace has prevailed over the office. Reina ceased talking to me altogether except when necessity demands it. Even then, whatever she has to say is always couched in a parsimonious use of words as if she is saving them up for something big. Yumi, on the other hand, has been a black hole. Any brightness you might interject into a conversation gets sucked away and squashed. Lovely sakura, you might say and she will tell you that in twenty years’ time all the cherry blossom trees around here will be dead. Seen any good movies, you might ask to start up a conversation, and she will reply that she hates going to the movies because of all the chikan there. As soon as the theater goes dark, they try to cop a feel. Kind of makes you wonder why this charming young woman doesn’t have a good man in her life, doesn’t it?

  I’m slouched in my seat rubbing my eyes wearily, impatient for the grueling four-hour workday to finish, when Yumi turns around and asks if I have plans for Saturday. Caught off guard, I reply truthfully that I don’t.

  After I gave up waiting for Nekko-chan’s return, I’ve been at a loss for what to do Saturday nights, and Sundays, and the rest of my life . . . I sometimes feel like one of those large glass buoys that sometimes get separated from Japanese fishing nets, floating on the surface of the sea and being pulled by the currents, not knowing where in the world they will end up.

  Yumi tells me that she has been invited to a kimono party at the Hyatt Residence Hotel in Seaside Momochi. Tickets are five thousand yen. The thought of being among a bevy of lovely young women dressed in kimono sounds so tempting it would be a shame to pass on the opportunity, regardless of the steep cover charge. And while I’m not particularly excited either about having to attend the party with Yumi as my “date”, I can appreciate that you sometimes have to toss sprat to catch a mackerel. And, I'm definitely in the mood to fish.

  3

  Yumi arrives at my apartment building late Saturday afternoon, ringing me from the ground floor intercom. Considering how eagerly she marched all the way up the four flights to ring my doorbell before, I find it amusing how she now remains downstairs even though I have buzzed the gate open. Perhaps she is worried that after claiming I had tried to rape her, I might actually go for the gold and do it for real this time. The Power of Suggestion, and all that. No, she'll wait for me downstairs, thank you.

  Whatever.

  It’s been drizzly and muggy all day, and now that the wind has petered out completely, the humidity is worse than ever. I would have preferred wearing shorts and rubber flip-flops, but put on a linen suit and colorful tie, just to be on the safe side. When I descend the stairs, I’m surprised to find Yumi in a simple black dress.

  “No kimono?” I say.

  She apologizes, saying that she didn’t have the time after work to change. I tell her that I don’t mind, and, really, I don’t. She could have shown up in a red fundoshi loincloth and happi coat, banging a taiko drum and I still wouldn’t take much notice of her.

  We hop into a taxi and drive out to the Hyatt where a reasonably large and promising crowd of beautiful young women clad in colorful long-sleeved furisode kimono is making its way towards the hotel with small, dainty steps.

  There are hundreds of gorgeous women, their hair and faces done elaborately as if they were going to a wedding reception. As I take in this alluring feast, the five-thousand yen ticket I grumbled about earlier suddenly feels the bargain of the century.

  Yumi and I enter the hotel, buoyed along a river of flowing silk towards a banquet room where several hundred women are standing and chatting, glasses of champagne in their dainty hands. There is a sumptuous feast laid out on tables along the far wall. The hall itself has been decorated with elegant flower arrangements here and there, but not much else. From what I can gather, there doesn't seem to be much point to the event, no stage, no live music, not even a DJ spinning shite on a turntable. The guests, as far as I can tell, are the show; the event nothing more than an occasion for the women to dress up in kimono.

  As we walk among the throng of attractive lassies, I am overcome with an almost childlike giddiness, drunk from taking in so much beauty so quickly. Yumi goads me on forward, to a table in the corner where a handsome woman in her late thirties is seated with several others so beautiful it wouldn’t hurt, as they say in Japanese, were I to poke my eye with them.

  Yumi introduces me to the woman, a Ms. Yamada, and says that this is her party. I’m tempted to give her a big hug and thank her for bringing so many single young women to this party. After further introductions are made, and business cards exchanged, I sit down next to Yamada while Yumi makes herself useful by fetching me some beer and snacks.

  I feel as if I have died and gone to heaven. Two of Yamada's entourage, I am told, are models for her kimono boutique. Another, who is dressed in simple beige silk blouse and pants, is introduced as a close friend. I joke that I wouldn’t mind her becoming a close friend of mine, either. Every time this friend reaches over to pick up a morsel of food with her chopsticks from a platter on the low table between us, her silk blouse parts revealing a scoop of vanilla, the lovely soft curve of her round breasts.

  Though this alluring woman seems unaware of my voyeurism, it takes Yumi no time at all to catch on. And no sooner does she return with our drinks than she makes the absurd suggestion that I might be more comfortable sitting beside Ms. Yamada rather than across from her. I am reluctant at first, but figure that getting to know the woman who put this party together might have long term benefits for me, benefits which will more than compensate for the missed opportunity to catch a little tit. I change seats, taking my place between Yamada and one of the models, a young woman by a name I’ll never forget: Urara.

  Ooh la la!

  4

  Yumi’s friends end up being a refreshingly cheerful bunch and do their best to engage me in conversation despite the obvious gap in our respective communication skills: they couldn't speak a word of Engrishu if their lives depended upon it, and, as for my own Japanese proficiency, I’m afraid I still feel as if I am scribbling with Crayolas. We do manage to communicate, though, the
conversation forging ahead from one slippery flagstone to the next.

  I cannot emphasize enough how rare moments like these are. For if the person I am trying to chat with isn't intent on inflicting his Pidgin English upon me then he is invariably breaking into a sweat and searching for a quick exit. It's natural to feel a bit apprehensive when speaking a foreign language you haven’t yet mastered, but, good God, the Japanese are the only people I've come across who shit their pants whenever a foreigner approaches them with a simple “konichiwa”. These charming women, however, are a godsend: they listen patiently; repeat questions when I fail to catch the meaning; and coach me each time I falter. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it.

  Now, the icing on the cake is that as the evening progresses it starts to dawn on me that these so-called “friends” of Yumi’s are not really friends at all. I’ve longed suspected from observing and listening to my co-worker that she doesn’t have many of what could be called friends in a traditional sense—people you hang out with, talk to, share secrets with, depend on when you’re down, laugh with when you’re up, and so on. Come to think of it, neither have I. But then, I have the handicap of being a foreign male in this silly country.

  What’s more, I am delighted to learn that these women are nothing more than acquaintances of Yumi’s. And as far as I can tell, they are only interested in my co-worker in so far as she might be encouraged by their conviviality to purchase yet another outrageously over-priced, terribly impractical and horribly uncomfortable, albeit exquisitely beautiful kimono.

  Not that I really care, though. The realization that these attractive women have little more than a passing knowledge of Yumi, however, means that they’re fair game, and if I want to make a move—and Lord knows I do, I do, I do, so much so that I can barely contain myself—then it is my God-given right to do that.

  Of course, I am not so callous as to do so in front of my co-worker. I may be an arse as far as Reina and Yumi are concerned, but, be that as it may, I’d like to believe that I am still a gentleman—warped, and increasingly insensitive, yes, but a gentleman all the same. So, I wait until Yumi joins the other guests in a roaring game of Bingo, the grand prize I'm told is—surprise, surprise—a kimono, before taking out my private name card and passing it out like an ambitious insurance salesman.

  I tell them that the magic will soon wear off, that my carriage will be changing back into a pumpkin, and add that I’ve had such an enjoyable time with them that I regret having to say good-bye. I suggest meeting again, and encourage them to call me. They nod enthusiastically, and, write down their own phone numbers on the back of their own business cards. By the time Yumi has returned from the Bingo game, frustrated again by the fickle ways of Fortune, I feel like a richer man, my treasure tucked discreetly away in my breast pocket.

  5

  It has stopped raining by the time we leave the hotel and the evening sky has started to clear up. Fukuoka Dome rises before us. As it happens, the gigantic retractable titanium roof has been opened. Noise and light spews out.

  Yumi tells me she has never been to a baseball game, so, feeling magnanimous, I suggest we go and have a look.

  We walk across the footbridge spanning the wide, slowly flowing Hii River. As the sun drops behind Nokono Island everything is bathed with an orange glow that warms my heart and reminds me of the lazy summer evenings in Oregon.

  God, how I still miss home at times.

  With the Bon Festival of the Dead coming up in a week's time, I’m tempted to hop on a jet plane and return to everything familiar and dear to me. The homesickness, the heartache, the loneliness of the past several months has been enough to make me want to scream, but at this particular moment I am in as reasonably a good mood as can be expected, something which I must admit I have Yumi to thank for. Had it not been for her invitation tonight, I wouldn’t have met the handsome Ms. Yamada, the adorable Urara, and others.

  So, for the first time in months, I speak frankly to my co-worker. I try to explain what I don’t expect her to understand: the feeling I often have that I am dying a slow and lonely death here in Japan. I tell her how I wake each morning to another day separating me from those I left behind in the States and my dreams. I hint at the memories which, no matter how I hard I try to hold onto them, trickle like sand through my fingers. I feel as if I am losing my roots, and am afraid of being blown away forever. I don’t know if she can understand what I am trying to say, but then again I’m only talking to myself really.

  “Why did you ever come to Japan?” she asks.

  I’ve looked a hundred times or more at the photo album I put together just before I left for Japan. Intoxicated with drink or whatever cheap drugs I could afford, the face in the photos always looks back at me with an irrepressible smile. My arm is always around one friend or another. Yeah, good question: why did I leave?

  “I don't remember anymore.”

  We walk in silence across the footbridge passing the midway point where only three months earlier Reina and I, pretending to be in love, embraced each other and kissed. Feels like a hundred years ago.

  “Yumi said she wants to take you to a baseball game,” Reina told me at the time. Yumi's infatuation tickled a nasty bone in Reina. Every time she talked of her co-worker’s unrequited love for me, she'd explode with laughter. At the time, it was hard to tell whether Reina was a sadistic bitch, or was merely getting a childish thrill out of having something someone else wanted, but now, after a month of being at the object of her scorn, I am no longer confused: Reina is a bitch.

  “You know, I have never been to the Dome either,” I lie to Yumi. “Why don’t we see if we can get in?”

  We make our way around the Dome to a gate for the outfield seats. Judging by the large number of fans wearing Daiei Hawks[17] jerseys and long faces, the game must be coming to yet another dismal conclusion. At the gate, I pretend to fumble around my pockets for tickets, mumbling to myself that I’d just had them, but the security guard isn’t buying it. Just as I am about to give up the charade, though, a man exiting with his son hands me his tickets.

  “Wow, you’re so lucky!” Yumi says after we pass through the gate.

  Reina said the same thing to me several months ago when a homerun ball bounced off of the back of a seat and plopped softly into my hand, just like that—thunk, plop! As it had been the very start of the season, and the Dome had only just opened, it occurred to me that I might very well have been the first gaijin to catch a homerun ball there. My fifteen seconds of fame squandered on a lousy baseball.

  We hurry inside, find some empty seats, and cheer the home team on just as they drop the game in the final inning. Defeated again by a team with the menacing name: Nippon Ham Fighters.

  Do they fight ham, I wonder. Or do they bat with a leg of ham? You can’t help but itch with curiosity.

  6

  After the game, Yumi and I hail a taxi and head into town to Oyafukô, to Umie where my vigil for Nekko-chan has come to an end; the last votive candle has fizzled out.

  I grab two Asahis from the beer cooler and join Yumi in the lower section. Handing her a beer, I sit down beside her on the very same stool Nekko-chan and I carried on so shamelessly only two weeks ago.

  For a Saturday night, the bar is dead. The lights are up; the volume of the music, down; and the small, empty dance floor before us has all the charm and verve of a freight elevator.

  The two of us, an odd couple if there ever were one, clink the necks of our beer bottles together, and as I’m about to take my first swig Yumi starts in: “All these girls,” she says with puritan indignation and an emphatic sweep of the hand, “they're all here just to meet foreign boys.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Over the past few months it has come clear to me that Yumi toils in a reality of her own like a diligent, yet demented jeweler sitting all day at his workbench under the sickly blue flicker of light, dismantling watches, untuning music boxes, and smashing up precious stones.

  “L
ook at them,” she says, gesturing towards the counter. “They all dress like prostitutes.”

  “What? You can't be serious?”

  Such is my suspicion of the machinery of Yumi’s mind that I have taken to dismissing off-hand most of what she says as nonsense. Foreign men? Women dressed like prostitutes? She must have had one too many at the party.

  I turn around to have a look. To my surprise I find two Iranians sitting at the far end of the counter with women who do, indeed, look like prostitutes. Funny, but I hadn’t noticed them when I was getting our beers.

  Before long, the two Iranians and their wenches get up to leave, passing us as the head out the door.

  “Did you hear their English?” Yumi exclaims with horror. “It was terrible!”

  Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

  My co-worker is no one to make judgments about other people’s English ability; you could house a good Catholic family in the room she has for improvement.

  “Does it really matter?” I ask.

  “Yes, it does!”

  “What in heaven’s name for? Just because a person cannot speak English fluently doesn’t mean she ought not try. I mean, Christ, listen to you!”

  It takes a moment for what I said to register, but when it does, her hand makes up for lost time. Before I know what is happening, her palm connects with a loud slap against my cheek.

  “Jesus Christ, Yumi! What the fuck was that for?”

  “You deserved it!”

  “I deserved it! Ha! You’re a funny one today. Got me in stitches, you have.”

  “Saitei!”

  “‘The worst’ is it, am I?”

  “Yes,” she says, her body tightening up like a spring.

  “Look, Yumi, all I meant was that your English isn’t perfect. It’s good, but it isn’t perfect. You still make a lot of mistakes, but, hey, you can’t make progress without stumbling, can you? It's like you Japanese say, ‘Shippai wa seikoh no moto.’ Failure's a stepping stone to success, right?”