The Maid

by Yasutaka Tsutsui

  “Oh… Uh… I see. Well… thanks.”

  He also hung up immediately. All fearful and trembling, he must have cut a ridiculous figure in front of Takako. Of course, Takako herself would have been in too much of a state to have given Teruo any thought. But as to who made the biggest scene, surely Teruo won hands down.

  Nanase giggled. What an unfortunate spot for them to have met. That it was a hotel made them look all the more guilty.

  Teruo seemed to have gone to the clinic. Naoko came home first. She was burning with jealousy. Until now, she had never once been jealous over her husband, but the fact that his partner was Mrs Ichikawa made her explode. If her husband had been carrying on with some unknown woman, she probably wouldn’t have felt anything.

  I’m sure she’s been making fun of me all this time.

  For some reason, Naoko assumed that her husband and Mrs Ichikawa had been seeing each other for a while already. And of course, she was convinced that they were having sex.

  They’ve been carrying on in the hotel during his lunch breaks!

  Imagining this scene drove Naoko into a frenzy. Whatever Nanase said, she was no longer composed enough to reply. For Nanase’s benefit, she made a pretence of throwing herself into housework, but her eyes sometimes glazed over and her hands shook constantly. Shogo Ichikawa never appeared in her thoughts. From the moment he saw his wife, Shogo’s mood had turned sullen, turning 180 degrees. He was no longer of any concern to Naoko. She could only recall over and over Teruo’s panic-stricken face and Takako’s look of terror when she ran into them as they were leaving the restaurant.

  They must have had good reason to be so upset. I wonder if they had already had sex, or if they were going to their hotel room. Now that they’ve been found out, they have nothing to lose.

  Naoko’s face twitched convulsively.

  She no longer knew what she was doing. She gave up on housework, sat down on the living-room sofa, and started chain-smoking.

  I’ve got to stay calm until he gets back. What should I say to him? I wonder what he’ll say. I’m also at a disadvantage. They could be suspecting us too.

  Naoko began to think that keeping quiet might be the best course of action. Since she didn’t want him to make a fool out of her, she should just stare at him and grin.

  The first one to act jealous loses. He’ll probably just grin at me too. If he’s going to suspect me anyway, then I’m better off making him suspicious, so we can be on equal terms. I won’t be made a fool of. Better not to say anything – grin. Better not to do anything.

  It was already evening when Naoko, after all this meandering, finally decided on the stance she’d take towards her husband.

  Teruo came home.

  He was clearly frightened. Of course, if his wife pounced on him in anger, he was mentally prepared to turn the tables on her. But if it came to a full-fledged argument, he had no confidence that he could out-talk her. Teruo’s show of respectability had become second nature, so there was nothing he found more demoralizing than arguing with a woman.

  Besides which, he was overcome by an uncontrollable jealousy. Strangely enough, this jealousy, uniting with his libido, had turned into a burning sexual desire for Naoko.

  Teruo was disillusioned with Takako. After the incident she had started sobbing. Even as a passing fancy, how could I have been interested in such a childish, helpless woman, thought Teruo, disregarding his own hysterics at the time.

  Nanase imagined that Takako was even more disillusioned. Teruo could act like a gentleman when it suited his own interest, but when the chips were down he’d only think about himself. He probably made no attempt to comfort the poor woman.

  Teruo and Naoko looked at each other, grinning in unison, and then turned away.

  So I was right.

  So she is sleeping with him.

  At least we can avoid making a scene in front of the maid, they thought with relief, when a new wave of intense jealousy suddenly assailed them both. Stealing glances at each other, they drowned themselves in their bleak delusions.

  I wonder what she’s like. Better than me?

  I can’t believe he’s more potent than I am.

  She’s smaller than me.

  Maybe he’s really something.

  These virginal types are the most passionate.

  I wonder how much she moans with him.

  Just how infatuated is he?

  What do they look like in bed?

  I wonder if they slept together today.

  She might have some marks somewhere.

  They were unable, however, to confirm in words what they were thinking. The first one to ask would become the object of ridicule. During dinner and for the rest of the evening, they simply watched television without saying a word to each other. It was risky to say anything – especially in front of Nanase – because the other person might react in anger. Even an innocuous comment involved great risk, for neither one knew if the other was lying in wait for some opportunity to lash out. Their silence went on interminably. When alone in their bedroom, they were still unable to confirm anything in words. There was only one way left. They would seek confirmation through their bodies.

  Again that evening, Nanase was disturbed by the couple’s erotic consciousness flowing from their bedroom. Even if she couldn’t actually see it, she could tell that their lovemaking was more intense than ever. The jealousy they both felt towards each other’s lover had given new impetus to the sexual act. To some degree, they were trying to outdo their rival lover, but, more than that, they were enacting a kind of revenge by torturing each other physically.

  So that’s how she cried out.

  So that’s how he grabbed at her hair.

  By confirming the accuracy of their fantasies, their passion reached new heights.

  He couldn’t have done this.

  His tongue?!

  So that’s how it was.

  He’s thinking of her now…

  His sweat.

  Her legs, like this. Her.

  Him. She’s thinking of him.

  I’ll put her out of his mind.

  I’ll make mincemeat of you.

  “More.”

  I won’t let go of you until you’re a wreck.

  Him.

  “Ohh…”

  I’m not going to play second fiddle to her.

  Momentary ecstasy and loss of self. Flashing light. Heavy breathing. Sweatsweatsweat. A hollow feeling. Smiling at each other shyly.

  And yet love had returned to the couple. You could even call it true marital love. They both sensed this. She thought of him as her husband and he thought of her as his wife. Their feelings of indifference, ridicule and fear had been completely washed away.

  I’ve lost, thought Nanase.

  It was as if Nanase had helped consolidate the bonds between the couple just as they were about to dissolve. Nanase was convinced that with some small differences in detail the same scene was taking place with the Ichikawas next door. I have a lot to learn about the complexities of the human mind, Nanase thought wryly, as she pulled the quilt up to her chin.

  That her experiment had produced such an unexpected result could certainly be considered a defeat for Nanase. But what have I lost to, Nanase wondered. Obviously not to boundless love. I haven’t lost to morality, ethics or sound judgement either.

  That’s it, she realized. I’ve lost to the unconscious cunning of the middle-aged. The desperation of the middle-aged couple who, in order to maintain almost non-existent marital ties, would even use each other’s infidelities as a way to heighten the sexual act; the flounderings of a middle-aged couple shamelessly trying to hold on to the ecstasy of unbridled sex; the indolence of a middle-aged couple trying to convince themselves that their partner is the only one for them – really just a convenient excuse for their unconscious acceptance of the morality of a monogamous society; in short, the psychology of a middle-aged couple raised and nurtured on prosperity, peace and leisure seeking an out
let for their strong sexual drives – this is what had defeated Nanase.

  The next morning, Nanase, about to go shopping, ran into Takako in the hallway. Her sleeves rolled up, she was hard at work washing down her apartment door. There was a big bruise under her eye where her husband must have hit her. And yet Takako looked happier than ever before.

  7

  The Sunday Painter

  “Mr Takemura? You must mean the artist Tenshu Takemura. He lives over there – in the house behind the gas station.”

  Nanase was confused. The lady who ran the appliance store at the edge of the shopping district referred to Takemura as an artist, but Nanase’s former employer had said that he headed an accounting department. Oh well, probably a Sunday painter, Nanase thought. Still “Tenshu” had the ring of a professional name. And if he really were an ordinary businessman, why should he be known in the neighbourhood as an artist?

  The Takemura residence was a hotchpotch – a decaying main house, a garishly painted cottage and, visible from the gate, a Western-style atelier tucked away in the garden, back to back with the gas station. The name on the gate read “Tenshu Takemura” – so it actually was his name.

  “You worked for the Takagis? As their maid?” “You did?” “Miss Hita, is it?” “You’ve come for the maid’s job?” “Yes, I see.” “Oh really?”

  While Nanase introduced herself, Toshi Takemura kept up a string of unnecessary responses to everything she said. It was almost as if she was trying to stop Nanase from talking. Repeating the word “maid” in rapid succession, she showed Nanase into the living room.

  Toshi was a slender woman whose face betrayed tremendous strength of will. Nanase sighed. Once again, she’d probably end up getting badly hurt and in return have to hurt someone even more.

  “We had a servant once before, when my father-in-law was still alive. We’ve wanted a servant – I mean, a maid – for some time now. But I hear all sorts of things. You know, that young servants – uh, young maids – are all spoilt nowadays. They expect to be treated as one of the family. I heard a horror story about a maid who demanded that she go to dressmaking school. So I kept putting it off. But Mrs Takagi told me you weren’t like that. And the housework’s been piling up.”

  Toshi sat down directly in front of Nanase. Her tone made her feelings clear: Nanase should consider it an honour to be a live-in maid at the Takemuras’. She was also intentionally saying “servant” and then correcting herself with “maid”. Nanase didn’t have to read her mind to figure out that Toshi was trying to intimidate her by showing her she was the boss.

  I will not treat her like an equal. A maid is a maid. If she doesn’t understand the difference in our social standing, we won’t be able to maintain family tradition. The Takemuras are an illustrious family. We go back a long way. But even if I tried to explain, a young girl like this wouldn’t understand. Humph, uppity young girls.

  Annoyed at Nanase’s unchanging expression, Toshi grew more and more antagonistic. She had arbitrarily concluded that Nanase was a typical “uppity young girl”.

  She won’t say anything. I wonder if she wants to complain. Maybe she’s sulking. Or maybe she’s just weak in the head.

  “Uh… excuse me,” said Nanase, realizing that this misunderstanding of Toshi’s would only get worse if she kept quiet. “When I asked for directions at the appliance shop, I was informed that Mr Takemura is an artist.”

  “Oh.”

  Toshi suddenly noticed that Nanase spoke unusually well for a nineteen-year-old girl. Caught slightly off guard, she answered with an ambiguous smile. On the one hand, Toshi liked to boast that her husband was well known even as a Sunday painter; on the other, she looked down on him for not painting as well as his father, Nessa, and not establishing himself as a professional artist. She despised him for not living up to her expectations.

  “My husband works for a company during the week and paints on Sundays. His father was a famous artist in the Japanese style, but my husband only paints abstracts in oils. His paintings don’t sell, so he has to work for a company.”

  Toshi wrinkled her nose disdainfully at the word “company”, then abruptly changed her tack. She wanted to make sure Nanase knew that the Takemuras were as illustrious as ever. “Even so, my husband has a fine reputation,” she quickly added. “Last year he did the illustrations for a newspaper serial.” Toshi did not mention that it was an obscure provincial paper.

  Just from reading Toshi’s mind, however, Nanase could not tell what kind of person Tenshu was.

  An artist’s temperament. Too trusting. No flexibility. Thinks only of his paintings. Knows nothing of the world.

  These thoughts flitted through Toshi’s mind, but they couldn’t be taken at face value.

  So “Tenshu” was his real name after all. Probably his father had given it to him. Hoping his son would follow in his footsteps. But for an oil painter specializing in abstracts, “Tenshu” was not very appropriate.

  “Your job won’t be difficult,” Toshi continued. “We’re a small family. Katsuki, our son, lives in the cottage. All he does is sleep or play mah-jong. And that’s the whole family. Just the three of us. Your job will be easy.”

  Your salary’s too high.

  Earlier Toshi said the housework was “piling up”; now she was saying how “easy” the job would be. This time, Nanase sensed, she was telling the truth. Toshi had decided to hire a “servant” as a way of restoring the appearance of the family’s former grandeur. She was a vain and intractable woman. Even after twenty years, she couldn’t forget how she had been pampered when she came as a young bride into the house of the master painter Nessa Takemura.

  Nanase was given a dark, two-mat room that had been used for storage. There was just enough space for her to spread out her bedding. She had lived in a number of homes before, but this was the worst. There was a closet, but no desk or lamp. These were probably the same conditions servants had to put up with in this house twenty years before. As Nanase arranged her belongings, it occurred to her that if she really were an ordinary maid, she would have already left in a huff.

  No guests were expected and no washing had to be done, so once Nanase had prepared dinner, according to Toshi’s instructions, she had nothing to do.

  Tenshu returned from work a little after six in the evening.

  Of normal height and build, he seemed like a good-natured man who was always slightly smiling. He was ten years older than Toshi.

  As he stood by the entrance to the living room staring awkwardly at Nanase, Toshi spoke sharply to him, “Don’t just stand there – sit down!”

  I won’t give you the chance to complain.

  “This is Nana, the maid. She started working for us today.”

  “What?” Naturally, Tenshu was taken aback. This was the first time he had heard anything about hiring a maid.

  Nanase expected that Tenshu would make some kind of objection. She figured he’d say something mild like “Do we really need a maid?” or “We can hardly afford the luxury” or “Why didn’t you discuss this with me before?” Even the most submissive of husbands would say that much. But Tenshu didn’t utter a word. This wasn’t because Toshi was glaring at him to keep him from speaking. On the contrary, he was staring at his wife as if he were looking at something totally incomprehensible.

  When Nanase, sitting upright by the table, peered quickly into Tenshu’s mind, she had a bit of a shock. She had never seen a consciousness like this before.

  Toshi’s face, as reflected in Tenshu’s consciousness, was suddenly flattened out as if a truck had rolled over it. Then the image was transformed into a dark-green rectangle with four sharp corners. The rectangle had no eyes, nose or mouth. But whenever Toshi said anything, one of the pointy corners of the rectangle would quiver – so Nanase could tell that the rectangle in Tenshu’s mind was his wife!

  This was the first time Nanase had glimpsed the consciousness of an abstract painter – and one who, judging by his ability for
abstraction, could be considered a professional. But she could not believe that all abstract artists had minds like this. For no matter how much time elapsed, the four-sided figure in Tenshu’s mind never reverted to Toshi’s real face.

  That wasn’t the half of it. When Tenshu sat down at the dinner table, the objects before him assumed an odd assortment of geometric shapes. His rice bowl became a chrome yellow trapezoid with a thick white border; his boiled fish in its oblong plate turned into a honeycomb in shades of brown.

  Tenshu was eating in a state of total abstraction. Toshi’s story of how she had hired Nanase did not register in his mind as words, her voice producing only the smallest of changes in the overall colour of his consciousness. Nanase combed through Tenshu’s mind, but she could not find the least trace of anger or resentment towards Toshi.

  “You’re staring into space again.”

  Just as you always do.

  “Are you listening?”

  Acting above us all. Posing as an artist. Even though you have no talent.

  Toshi glared at her husband, full of hate.

  Yet Tenshu kept eating in silence. One might have interpreted his attitude as a kind of schizophrenic apathy, where he remained completely indifferent to changes in the outside world, or a kind of autism. But both Nanase and Toshi were well aware this was not the case. Tenshu was deliberately, methodically, shutting out the world.

  “Humph. Pretending not to hear.”

  Whenever it’s to your advantage, or we have some problem to discuss, you act like you’re deaf.

  “I can’t stand it any more,” Toshi spat out, giving up trying to talk to him.

  Of course, someone who could not read minds like Nanase would have no inkling of the images floating around in Tenshu’s head. It was only natural for Toshi to interpret Tenshu’s silence as hostile. How could she imagine that he was converting people and objects into abstractions to protect himself from the hostility surrounding him!

  This is an amazing talent! Nanase thought. Tenshu is probably sensitive, naive and vulnerable – not “posing as an artist”, as Toshi likes to think. He was using his special ability as a defence mechanism, as a way to maintain his artistic purity. While Nanase felt sorry for him, she also respected him for discovering this talent within himself.