Where the Wild Ladies Are

by Matsuda Aoko

  I pat Gum’s head with its straight, narrow nose, and Gum arches her brown back with its stylish black marking, revealing her eggshell-coloured underbelly that runs from the base of her neck all the way down to her stomach. Her nose is slimy. Gum is pretty slimy all over, actually.

  I don’t know if she’s had a sudden change of mood or if she couldn’t bear her hunger pangs any more, but with as little perceptible reason as when she first climbed on me, Gum dismounts and disappears in the direction of the kitchen. I’m left there lying on the bed, my sweatshirt now covered in sticky Gum-slime. Keeping up with the washing is no joke when you live with an enormous toad.

  No longer buried by Gum’s large stomach, my smaller stomach growls loudly, as if crying out for joy at being liberated.

  I can see there’s nothing for it – I’m going to have to find something to eat. With a big groan, I hoist myself up from the bed.

  Having A Blast

  In the rakugo story San-nen-me [The Third Year], a dying woman makes an agreement with her husband that, should he be forced to remarry after her death, she will return to haunt him on his wedding night, thus scaring off his new bride. However, there is a hitch in the plan when she discovers she must wait three years for her hair, which has been shaved upon her death according to custom, to grow back. Without her fully-grown hair, she reasons, she could not possibly be attractive to her husband.

  By the time she finally appears as a ghost, her husband has given up on the idea of her ever returning, and he and his second wife have grown close and had a child.

  The idea of waiting three whole years for my hair to grow out is barmy. I can’t deny that when I’m scaring people, it’d help accentuate the mood somewhat if my hair was all long and dishevelled, but with such a range of wigs and other options on offer these days, waiting all that time would just be dumb.

  When I died, which was a pretty long time ago, it was customary to shave dead people’s heads. I woke up in the afterlife lamenting the loss of my hair, which I’d treasured more than life itself – although I was already lifeless at that point, so I don’t know how that works! Anyway, as I tremulously made my way to the River of Three Crossings in that white shroud they’d dressed me in and peeked at my reflection, I saw that my shiny bald pate kind of suited me. That really took me aback. I never noticed it while I was alive, but I have quite a nicely shaped skull.

  While I was alive, the idea that my husband would remarry after my death left me devastated and distraught, but as soon it happened, I immediately stopped caring. It was as if whatever fear or anxiety had been possessing me had slipped right out of my body. People assume that ghosts must be up to their eyes in resentment and all, but that’s a misperception. I feel as if I had a lot more grudges when I was alive than I do now.

  While we were still together, my husband used to say that if he ever remarried, I ought to come back to haunt him if he took another wife – so I decided to make an appearance. It was slightly sooner than I was expecting, but I guess that’s how it goes. He’d always been incapable of doing anything alone, so it figured. An image of my mother-in-law desperately rushing to find a new wife for her darling only son flashed through my head. When I’d fallen sick, she’d seemed truly distressed.

  It was going to take a full three years before my hair got to a decent length even in this dimension, and as I said at the beginning, that seemed ludicrous to me, so I decided to make an appearance in all my bald glory. Full disclosure: I’ve always been a real lazybones. While I was alive, I made a brave effort to hide my true nature, but now that I’m dead, I behave exactly as I please.

  It had been a while since I’d been back to our house, but barely a thing had changed. In fact, the only alteration was that the person lying next to my husband on the thin futon was not me. The new wife was fast asleep. I couldn’t see her face, and I didn’t make a huge effort to look either. I reached out a hand and tapped my ex-husband’s shoulder. He opened his eyes immediately.

  I thought he might get a fright seeing me there with my bald head and all, but he just burst out laughing.

  ‘Man, it really suits you!’

  (Of course, my husband is from a different era, so he didn’t actually use these words. Translated into modern parlance, though, this is what he meant.)

  I rubbed my head bashfully – bald heads feel great to rub – and smiled.

  ‘You saw it at the funeral too, though.’

  ‘Yeah, but I wasn’t really in a position to notice that kind of thing. I just felt so awful.’

  ‘Aww, thanks. That’s sweet of you. Well as you can see, I’m not doing bad at all, so I want you to enjoy yourself as well, okay?’

  ‘Okay, that’s cool.’

  ‘See you, then.’

  ‘Bye for now.’

  And with that, we parted again. I think that was a better parting than our first one. First time round, I’d been at death’s door, and then I died, and between all the caring for me and the grief and so on, my husband was a total mess. Come to think of it, I think we were both intoxicated by the tragedy that had befallen us. From where I’m standing now, that seems totally uncool.

  Anyway, from that point on, I’ve been a skinhead. I’ve seen a lot of styles of dress come and go across the ages, but I feel like today’s fashion is probably best suited to the skinhead look. There are lots of women like me on earth these days – their ears full of piercings, wearing ripped band t-shirts and torn black jeans, DMs, bright red lipstick and plenty of eyeliner. It seems like people have finally caught up with my style. What took them so long? That’s what I’d like to know.

  I’m pretty partial to this age from a cultural perspective, too. I guess the correct term is ‘pop culture’? Anyway, I like it. I find myself listening to loads of music and watching a ton of films. This year I was very proud to see that Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road had the same haircut as me. I was so chuffed, in fact, that I ended up going to see it four times! I kept on popping up in the aisle, on the seats and in various other places around the auditorium, cheering Furiosa on in her adventures, stealing bits of caramel-coated popcorn and slurps of Coke from audience members too caught up in the action to notice. That was a real blast.

  My wife seems to be enjoying herself so much after death that I haven’t yet managed to speak to her.

  This is my first wife I’m talking about here. She was of a sickly disposition while she was alive and passed away in no time at all after we married. In fact, the post-mortem version of her seems more full of life than the living one ever did.

  Nowadays, we’re both working at the same company. It’s a big company and she seems entirely oblivious to the fact that I work here, too. There are times when I think to myself, surely, surely she must have seen me just then? The other day, we passed right by each other in the corridor, but she was wearing these huge headphones carelessly leaking sound and she walked right past me, humming. It’s not like she’s ignoring me deliberately. She’s a punk these days, so she doesn’t make eye contact with or smile at everyone she passes. I want to respect that choice. Above all, I’m just happy that she seems to be doing well.

  Now I can understand what she might have been thinking when she came to visit me when I was still alive, stood by my bed and told me in a very phlegmatic way that she was doing fine, and that she wanted me to enjoy my life just as she was enjoying her death, before promptly disappearing. At the time, it struck me as a bit cold-hearted. I wanted her to be pining for me, for ever and ever. Remembering that now, it seems pretty damn rich of me to have felt that way when my new wife was lying right there beside me in bed.

  My wife belongs to one of the company’s top-secret departments, and the nature of her job is shrouded in mystery. Mine, on the other hand, consists of regular admin work and routine checks.

  I don’t have any exceptional talents. After my death, I came to see that very clearly. It made me wonde
r what on earth I’d been playing at while I was still alive. People treated me well because I was a man – they treated me the way that men were treated, simply because they were men. They sorted out a new marriage for me straight away when my first wife died, and generally made sure everything was hunky-dory. I took that for granted, and while I’m embarrassed to admit it, I never really gave it much thought. I don’t even remember having worked particularly hard. What was I thinking, honestly?

  But I like my current job. Maybe it’s just a reaction against the brainless existence I led while I was alive, but this steady work that demands persistence and accuracy is novel to me, and even enjoyable. I always wanted to do things properly, I really did.

  At our company, there’s about a fifty-fifty split between the living and the dead. There are also a few who occupy a kind of intermediary position between the two. Of course, most of the living can’t see us dead. My guess is that if they could, they’d be genuinely shocked by how many people are moving around this building.

  Since I joined this company I’ve often thought about how people tend to be much more full of beans after they die. That definitely goes for my first wife. The living have this great limitation placed on them by the fact they could kick the bucket at any time. Having a mortal body is really restrictive. What’s more, you’ve got society to deal with, which restricts you even further. I feel genuinely sorry for humans. I don’t mean to make excuses for myself, but I do feel that society had a role to play in what a waste of space I was while alive – although back then I’m not sure they even had a word for what I’m describing as society.

  After lunch one day, I was sitting on a bench in the courtyard drinking a can of coffee when I glimpsed Mr Tei walking down one of the first-floor corridors. No sooner had that perception formulated itself in my mind than he was standing right in front of me. It scared me half to death. Mr Tei does stuff like that, though. He shows up everywhere, and gets through an unbelievable amount of work, to the extent that what he does often seems physically impossible.

  ‘Agh! Mr Tei! Honestly, how many of you are there?’ I once said jokingly.

  ‘Oh, there’s only one of me,’ he replied, deadly serious, before continuing, ‘How is work going?’

  ‘I’m enjoying it,’ I answered honestly, a big smile breaking across my face.

  ‘That’s good to hear.’

  I thought I saw the corners of his mouth relax slightly at this, but he was still just as expressionless as ever.

  ‘How about you, Mr Tei?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What does work really mean for you? How much importance do you place on company mottoes and business models and things like that?’ I said, deciding on the spur of the moment to try out some of the terminology from a bestselling business book I’d just finished reading.

  ‘Company mottoes and business models…’ I saw a frown form beneath Mr Tei’s black-rimmed spectacles. ‘Well, personally I think that the first priority is to squeeze as much as you can from the rich.’

  As I reeled slightly at the unexpectedly militant tone of his answer, Mr Tei continued, ‘Then to give it back to the poor, in whatever ways you can. The imbalance between the rich and the poor has always troubled me profoundly.’

  Saying that, Mr Tei bowed to me and headed off towards the main gates. I noticed he was suddenly sporting a cosy woollen scarf and carrying a briefcase, neither of which, I was sure, he’d had a moment ago. What a peculiar character, I thought to myself, as I drained the tepid dregs of coffee from the can.

  My husband seems to be really enjoying his work after death, so I watch over him quietly. While he was alive, he used to leave absolutely everything to me, so the change is really heartening. Thinking about it now, I probably should have challenged his behaviour more at the time – should have questioned whether he really thought that it was okay to act like that, and thought more about my rights and so on – but back then I didn’t have the slightest issue with it. More fool the both of us.

  I should explain that my husband isn’t a bad sort really. I don’t have a problem with talking to him per se. It just feels a bit boring to have the same kind of relationship in the afterlife as we had while alive, and at the moment I reckon things are just fine as they are. Acting all lovey-dovey requires effort, anyway.

  Standing by the window, sipping my drink through a straw, I look down on my husband as he sits on a bench in the courtyard. With all the shrinking and expanding that goes on, the geography of this company is hard to wrap one’s head around as it is, but the section where I work is tucked away in a particularly out-of-the-way corner of the building, so there’s little risk of my being found out. I’m not permitted to divulge too much about the nature of the work I do, but broadly speaking, I’m in research and development. Sometimes I wish that my talents were a bit more interesting – that I could metamorphosise or had some other special skill at my disposal like the company’s star players do – but I also know there’s no use longing for something you don’t have. I’m satisfied with what I’ve got. Bringing new things into the world is an amazing occupation. I’m also thoroughly attached to the lab coat I have to wear here. I don’t know why, but this white coat just really suits me.

  Now that I’m dead, the husband I loved so much seems like a total stranger. That’s been a major revelation. In my case, my husband died before I did, so I got to fully savour the joys of single life for a while again before my own death. I guess that didn’t help matters.

  For the record, I’d like to state that I did go through a proper grieving period. For a time, I spent every evening weeping, asking myself why he’d had to go and leave me on my own. But at some point, I realised that it was actually easier being alone. It also meant a lot less housework.

  So maybe it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that I’m ‘watching over’ him. He just happens to fall into my field of vision – that’s about the size of it. By the look of things, he hasn’t spoken to his first wife either, so he probably has a similar take on matters. That all’s fine and dandy, it seems to me. Everyone’s enjoying themselves, everyone’s happy, so where’s the problem?

  I watch him toss his empty coffee can in the bin and return to work as I savour the last of my sweet and delicious Starbucks iced chai latte. Even though the weather’s taken a wintry turn, I still far prefer them iced.

  The Missing One

  The classic story of the sara-yashiki [plate mansion] tells of the beautiful Okiku, servant to a samurai. For some time Okiku’s master attempts to have his way with Okiku, but she resists his advances. Growing impatient, the master tricks Okiku into believing she has lost one of the household’s ten precious Delft plates. After counting the plates over and over, Okiku finally breaks down in tears to confess her oversight to her master, who agrees to forgive her only if she will become his mistress. When Okiku refuses, he throws her down a well to her death.

  Okiku’s ghost, it is alleged, counts to nine before emitting an ear-splitting screech. Successful exorcism relies on a worldly being crying out a hearty ‘Ten!’ when she reaches the end of her count.

  ‘One, two, three, four…’

  Outside the window a bicycle raced from right to left, its bell ringing cheerfully, and for a second Kikue almost lost track of her count, but she managed to focus her efforts and resumed.

  ‘Five, six, seven, eight, nine…’

  Kikue took her hands off the plates and stretched them above her head. This was her third attempt to count the plates.

  ‘Nope, there really is one missing here,’ she murmured to herself. She checked the stock sheet just to be sure, but it was marked with an unambiguous ‘10’.

  Kikue stared at the nine plates laid out in front of her on the counter. She’d loved them the moment she first laid eyes on them at the trade show last year. Seeing those pretty drawings of plants and animals, she’d felt her heart rate
quicken. They were proving to be a hit with the customers too. As soon as Kikue posted news on her blog and her Instagram account that the plates were in stock, people would start appearing from goodness knows where, walking away with their favourite piece from the selection. It was fair to say they were the shop’s most popular product. Because they were hand-painted individually by an up-and-coming illustrator, the plates took a while to be delivered, which only fuelled people’s passion further. And now, when Kikue’s order had finally arrived after such a long wait, one of them was missing.

  Returning to their boxes the plates she’d been intending to put straight out onto the shelves, Kikue opened her laptop and typed an email to the person she’d been in touch with at the manufacturing company:

  Unfortunately, the shipment we received today is missing an item.

  As she hit the send button, Kikue let out a deep sigh. Writing these kinds of emails always made her a bit tense. Manufacturers quite often refused to take her seriously, or listen to what she was saying, because she was a woman single-handedly running a shop. In that respect, at least, owning a shop wasn’t that different to office life. She’d only interacted with this particular company over email, and the one thing she knew about the person she’d been in touch with was that he was a man. She could tell by his name: Yūta. She just had to hope that he believed her.

  You sure about that, love? an imaginary middle-aged man admonished Kikue in her head. Sure you didn’t just break it? Think you can pull the wool over our eyes, do you? With lewd eyes, the man glared at her mockingly.

  In order to pre-emptively alleviate the shock she would feel if something really terrible happened, Kikue chose to imagine the worst-case scenario. This habit of insuring herself in advance, of building a protective wall around herself, had been firmly established by the time she entered her mid-thirties.