by Susan Barker
‘You have been painting today,’ Mariko remarked.
‘Yes, I have,’ I said, surprised. ‘How could you tell?’
‘You have paint flecks on your glasses.’
I removed my spectacles at once and was startled to see that Mariko was right. How could something literally right in front of my eyes have escaped my attention thus? I rubbed ineffectually at the lenses, only to add a liberal smudging of fingerprints. With a sigh of resignation I put them back on.
Mariko giggled, amused by my plight. ‘Do you know you have paint on your ear lobes too?’
Again I sighed. ‘Well, that will teach me to rush out of the house without consulting the mirror first.’
We laughed at this and I took another sip of my syrupy cocktail.
‘You are not with Mr Murakami tonight?’
‘No, not tonight,’ I said, hoping she would not probe any further.
She was astute enough not to. Instead she said, ‘You know, Mr Sato, you don’t have a very strong Kansai accent. Where are you from originally – if you don’t mind my asking? Tokyo?’
‘Yes, that’s correct: Tokyo. I moved to Osaka in 1984.’
‘I thought so!’ Mariko exclaimed, taking girlish delight in her guesswork. ‘And what brought you to Osaka?’
‘My wife’s mother was dying. We moved here so my wife could nurse her.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ Mariko lowered her eyes, genuinely sad to have unearthed this piece of family history.
‘But we ended up staying. My wife grew up here. She says that Osaka is the friendliest city in Japan, that Tokyoites are too uppity.’
Mariko tittered demurely, fingertips pressed to her lips. ‘That can’t be true, Mr Sato – you’re not uppity in the slightest!’
I glowed, pleased by this, although certain that you and my work colleagues would beg to differ.
‘And you don’t have a Kansai accent either, Mariko-san. Where is your home town?’ I asked.
‘Fukuoka prefecture. But right out in the sticks. Where I come from, well, you couldn’t even call it a village. My father is a rice farmer.’
Funny how a mere handful of words can impart far more information than the teller would ever wish to disclose. Country folk are very conservative and rightly suspicious of the city. No farmer would let his daughter move to Osaka to embark upon a career in hostessing. She must either have left without her parents’ consent, or be concealing the truth of her occupation from them.
‘Fukuoka. That’s a long way to travel home for the holidays.’
‘Yes. I tend to stay in Osaka.’
‘Did you come to Osaka by yourself?’
‘More or less.’
What a wishy-washy answer. I wanted to know more about the circumstances of Mariko’s leaving Fukuoka, but she was called upon to make a Long Island iced tea for a whiskery gentleman at the far end of the bar. Just as well, I told myself: it is rude to pry. By poking at a bamboo thicket one can draw out a snake.
Two more couples were dancing now, but in a jaunty, upbeat fashion. One of the girls was Mary from England, her blond ponytail bouncing about as she jitterbugged along to the rock-and-roll music. The quiffed singer had also grown very animated, the heel of his pointy shoe hammering the stage floor at the speed of a pneumatic drill, his body jerking behind the electronic piano. Perspiration glistened upon his curled upper lip: ‘Oooo whooo, ooo whee, ooo whee, ooo woooo . . .’
I turned to Mariko to ask what the strange American was singing, but she had disappeared. Seconds later she emerged from the kitchen, carrying a plate of chicken impaled upon wooden skewers along with grilled green peppers and tomatoes.
‘Watanabe made an extra order of these kebabs by mistake. Please help yourself,’ she said.
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ I protested. ‘I am sure they are delicious, but I cooked dinner earlier. There is nothing worse than eating when you have no appetite.’
At this Mariko broke into a beatific smile, like kindling bursting into flame. ‘You cooked for yourself? I’m impressed. The only time my father and brother turn on the stove is when they need to light a cigarette.’
‘That’s a shame. Cooking is such a wonderful pastime.’
‘Absolutely. All men should know how to cook. Especially when they live alone like you do.’
Something felt amiss. I thought back over our conversation of that evening. ‘Mariko-san,’ I asked, ‘how do you know that I live alone?’
Mariko blinked, her smile faltering. She toyed with a loose strand of hair. ‘Didn’t you mention it earlier?’ she asked.
‘No. I don’t believe that I did.’
‘Didn’t you say something about your wife? I mean, I can’t think why I thought that . . .’
I fell quiet for a moment. Mariko ran a limp rag over the surface of the bar counter, blushing pinkly. Murakami-san must have told her, I thought. He must have told her everything he knows about you and me.
Mariko gave a tense, impromptu laugh. ‘Forgive me. I should learn to mind my own business . . .’
‘I make no secret of the fact I live alone,’ I said, smiling to ease her discomfort. So she had heard some gossip about me. She is not to blame for having ears.
‘Can I get you another drink?’ Mariko asked.
‘No, thank you. I should be returning home now.’
Mariko seemed dismayed by this. ‘Already? But it’s so early . . .’
At that moment Stephanie appeared beside me, fluttering a thin sheet of paper. ‘Hey, Mariko. Can you run into the kitchen and get Watanabe to do these orders?’
Mariko hurriedly snatched the paper, oblivious to the puzzled eyebrow Stephanie raised.
‘Can you wait a moment?’ Mariko asked, pleading with her eyes. ‘I won’t be a minute. There is something I want to ask you.’
I nodded. But the second she was gone, I gathered my overcoat and left.
7
MARY
I wake to tepid sunlight and radio static, my sheet twisted round me like a vine. I lie in limbo for a moment, before the cluttered reality of my room swoops in. Empty cigarette cartons and semi-read paperbacks breed on the tatami, a puddle of red beside my futon, where I unfastened my dress last night and let it drop to the floor. I dreamt of work again last night. These days I dream of little else.
My alarm clock tells me most of the day has already gone. I pull on a crumpled T-shirt and pad barefoot into the kitchen. Mariko stands in front of the cooker, thrashing about the contents of a sizzling wok, housewife-like in her plaid headscarf and prim skirt.
‘Hello.’
Mariko leaps about four feet out of her skin. She turns round, one hand clutching a spatula, the other her heart. ‘Mary! You scared me.’
‘Sorry.’
I raise myself on tiptoe and try to discern the contents of her wok.
‘It’s spinach and aubergine. You can have some if you like . . .’
Mariko turns back to the cooker and the last of what she says is sucked into the extractor fan with the steam. First thing, even the simplest Japanese can confuse me. I sink down at the kitchen table and extract a Lucky Strike from a scrunched-up pack on the table. Mariko scoops some rice into a bowl and puts it in front of me. ‘I bet you’re hungry,’ she says. ‘It’s not good to smoke on an empty stomach.’
She crowds our table with miso soup, lacquered chopsticks and a plate of vegetables. I get the feeling Mariko doesn’t like eating alone and she times her cooking to coincide with my waking.
‘Did Mama-san find out what set the fire alarm off at the hostess bar last night?’ I ask.
‘Someone broke the hallway alarm. Maybe one of her enemies.’
‘Who are her enemies?’ I ask, intrigued.
‘Oh, you know, ex-hostesses . . .’
I was in the karaoke booth, at about midnight last night, when this salaryman’s rendition of ‘Close to You’ was cut short by the squall of the fire alarm. A second later the ceiling sprinklers sprang into action. Everyone
panicked. This geriatric millionaire in the booth with us began hyperventilating. He kept saying, ‘Earthquake? Earthquake?’ again and again as Katya steered him outside by the arm, soothing him with the baby talk he is so notoriously fond of. Paler than I’ve ever seen her before, Mama-san shepherded everyone from the bar. Deafening and drenching the clientele is not good for business.
The shrill of the alarm emulsified the air. Most people evacuated with their hands clamped over their ears, but I didn’t mind it so much. The water from the sprinklers was refreshing as a cloudburst on a muggy afternoon. When no one was looking I closed by eyes and raised my face to the ceiling.
‘Last night I never thought that there was a real fire,’ I say. ‘I thought the alarm was not real, a . . .’ I search for the right word, but my vocabulary is sleep shrunken.
‘A fire drill,’ Mariko says.
I repeat this to myself, to lodge it in my memory. Mariko puts her hands together, as though in prayer, and says thanks for the food. I echo her words then attack my bowl with my chopsticks. I spear some aubergine, the flesh indigo where its skin bled in the wok.
‘It was real to me,’ Mariko says. ‘I could practically smell the smoke. I remember thinking: There have to be better places to die than in a hostess bar.’
‘There have to be better places to work than in a hostess bar,’ I say.
Mariko smiles, the dimples in her cheeks like punctuation marks. ‘Three months,’ she says, ‘is all I need to pay off my father’s debts, then I can go back to Fukuoka.’
‘I’ll be out of here in three months too,’ I say. ‘Maybe we should throw a joint leaving party.’
I eat at twice the speed of Mariko and finish before her. I poke my chopsticks into the remainder of my rice so they stand upright like wooden stilts. Then I push the bowl aside and reach for the cigarette I took out earlier. Mariko lifts her eyes over the rim of the bowl she sips from, spilling soup on the table as she snatches my chopsticks from the rice.
‘You must never do that,’ Mariko says severely, as though I’d just jammed a screwdriver into a plug socket. ‘It is very bad luck . . . That is how we offer rice to the dead.’
‘I’m not superstitious,’ I say.
‘Do you think it makes any difference to them,’ Mariko says, ‘whether you are or not?’
She returns to her soup and the room falls quiet, the only sound the kitchen clock, each tick the disparaging cluck of a tongue.
Hostessing is not Mariko’s first choice of career. Mariko is an elementary-school teacher manqué. A year into her teaching degree, her father’s farm ran into financial difficulties. He had to take out a huge loan and Mariko came to work as a hostess in the city in order to help him make the monthly repayments. She has never really specified whether this was her decision or her father’s.
Mariko is a popular hostess, though she never flirts or puts on a sexy act for the clients. Uncontrived sweetness is her strength; she assumes the role of drinks-server and confidante as though it were second nature. Some men come here for sexual provocation; others, for feminine nurturance: to be consoled for the brutal, corporate lives they lead. While I tend to discourage melancholy behaviour with drinking games, Mariko always listens patiently to their whining, and then, with a few skilfully chosen words, persuades them their problems aren’t so bad after all.
I forget that Mariko is still a teenager. Her lack of interest in music, or fashion, or people her own age, fascinates me. During the day she will go for a walk or watch television, and wants for little else in the way of distraction. She cooks her meals, cleans the flat, and is generally pleasant and unobtrusive. The only time we have clashed over something was when Yuji smoked a joint in the kitchen. She stormed out of her room at 4 a.m. in her Snoopy nightdress to tell us that she would not abide drugs in the flat. Yuji was so taken aback by her outburst he stubbed it out at once, apologizing like a madman. Mariko doesn’t mind me smoking cigarettes, though. She says she is used to the smell because practically everyone in her family smokes. Sometimes I come home from work to see my ashtrays washed and placed upside down on the draining board to dry.
After I’ve showered and changed, Mariko and I leave for work. We get there just before it starts to rain, and stand in the foyer of our building watching the pedestrians whisk by beneath an undulating sea of umbrellas. We stall for as long as we dare, then go up in the musty lift. Up on the sixth floor there are no windows, so you don’t know when it’s raining. It could be as sunny as Dubai and we’d be none the wiser.
My shift begins in the bar, where I make drinks and small talk with the loners who congregate there. Tonight’s entertainment is a Japanese guy in a stetson playing an acoustic guitar. I polish a stack of ashtrays and watch him sing beneath the sickly yellow spotlight. His bittersweet version of ‘Country Roads’ brings on a seldom-felt pang of homesickness for England.
The first hour or two passes slowly. I mix whiskey sours for a heavyset construction-firm boss and ply him with overpriced bar snacks. He asks me if I can use chopsticks, so I find a pair and gamely demonstrate my skill, transferring peanuts from one bowl to another. Then he asks me if I have ever screwed a Japanese man, and I laugh politely and tell him that is ‘private’. The air conditioning is on full but his face is slippery with sweat.
At about nine o’clock Mama-san does her tour of the lounge, pausing at each table to chat to the clientele and jokingly ask if the hostess present is ‘behaving herself’. Decades of hostessing have bestowed on Mama-san great intuitive powers when it comes to determining a customer’s conversational needs. She knows when to ask after a client’s family, when to get misty-eyed over ‘old times’, when to cackle bawdily, and when to bitch about the Nikkei Index and government policy. Watching her I can see echoes of the talented, exuberant hostess of her youth.
Mama-san makes a stop at the bar, Mr Bojangles nestled against her creamy silk blouse. She greets the construction-firm boss, screeching like a parakeet: ‘Miyata-san! Long time no see! How is little Takumachan? In junior high school? Already! They grow so fast . . . Tell me, has Mary-chan been behaving herself?’
She pinches my waist and tells him I am too skinny. I laugh as though this is perfectly OK. In retaliation I roughly tousle the tiny head of Mr Bojangles. ‘Such a cute little doggy!’ I coo. Then it is Mama-san’s turn to laugh as if no lines have been crossed. Mr Bojangles, not fooled for a second, stares back at me with black, vengeful eyes.
‘How’s your boy these days?’ the construction boss asks. ‘He must be in college by now.’
‘College? God, no.’ Mama-san lets out a thorny burst of laughter. ‘Yuji’s got himself a job as a motorcycle courier.’
The construction boss nods approvingly. ‘Smart boy,’ he says. ‘Why waste four years at college when there is experience and opportunity to be had straight away? Good-looking fellow too. I bet the girls are throwing themselves at him.’
Mama-san laughs. ‘Barbed wire couldn’t keep them away. He has more girlfriends than I can keep up with. Still, the rascal can get away with it – he’s still young, after all.’
The smile slides from my face. Mama-san wishes the construction boss a pleasant evening and moves away to Katya’s table. I watch her greet the clients there, all big-hearted smiles, flesh jiggling beneath the silk of her blouse. What do I care what she says or thinks anyway? It’s not like she has the power to will me out of Yuji’s life.
The construction boss begins telling me some likely story about how he runs six kilometres every night with a backpack full of bags of rice. He must have one hell of a sluggish metabolism to do all that exercise and still be that pot-bellied. ‘I wear ankle weights as well,’ he adds. ‘Two kilograms each.’
Over his shoulder I can see Mama-san walking to the office, Katya trailing behind like some disgraced handmaiden. Mama-san only calls a hostess into her office during a shift if she has committed an offence (like the time Sandrine told this high-school principal that he was a pervert unfit to work wi
th teenage girls). But Katya is too self-possessed to do anything like that. The door to Mama-san’s office closes, then opens a minute later as Katya strides out, her chin held at an angle suggestive of wounded pride. She heads for the double doors. I excuse myself and follow.
Katya is standing in front of the lift, punching the call button repeatedly, her face clenched in agitation. The lift cables groan as they crank between the floors.
‘Katya! Where are you going?’ I ask.
‘Down. If the lift ever gets here. I’ll probably be as old and mean as Mama-san before it does.’
The lift doors open with a metallic ping. The polished interior reflects us both; me with my silver hoop earrings and high ponytail, and Katya with her shiny dark hair, her shoulders, wiry and bare in her strapless top.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. ‘Have you been sacked?’
Katya turns and faces me. Her make-up, so rich and smoky in the lounge, is garish in the stark light of the corridor. Purple eye-shadow, streaks of pink blusher. I want to take out some tissue and wipe it all away.
‘No, nothing so dramatic. Mama-san scheduled too many hostesses to work tonight, so she called me into the office and pointed to where she’d erased my name from the rota five minutes ago. Then she told me I had made a mistake by coming in.’
‘Are you sure you were meant to work?’
‘Positive. My night off this week is Sunday. Not tonight.’
The lift doors threaten to slide shut. Katya curses in Ukrainian and hits the call button again.
‘Did you tell her you knew what she’d done? That you were definitely scheduled?’ I shake my head. ‘She treats us so badly. No wonder everyone here hates her.’
Katya sighs and taps her foot. ‘I don’t have a visa to work in this country. I am in no position to argue my rights. Besides, I have worked for far worse than Mama-san. She was just being sly tonight, trying to save herself some money.’ Katya looks at me, shakes her head and laughs. ‘Don’t look so upset, Mary. I’m the one being sent home, not you. At least I can watch TV now. And I get paid for the hours I’ve been here. You should get back before you get into trouble . . .’