by Susan Barker
Quite a few people were out enjoying the fresh air, among their number a doctor, smoking a cigarette and flicking ash into the flowerbeds. Really! Those in the medical profession should know better than to smoke in front of sick children. They should know better than to smoke at all. You will be pleased to hear I gave that doctor a very stern look of disapprobation. It was while I was conveying these sentiments that I noticed the foreign girl sitting on a bench quite close to him. Not just any foreign girl. It was Mary from England. So unexpected was the encounter that it stopped me in my tracks, and I almost dislodged the drip from poor Mrs Tanaka’s arm. Mary wore a black T-shirt and linen trousers and was sitting beside a frail boy in a white hospital gown. She had an open book on her lap and was reading to the boy as he stared into mid-air. The boy was malnourished-looking, the cadaverous physique beneath his gown suggestive of some terminal, wasting disease. As our procession drew nearer to Mary I saw that she was reading from an illustrated book of Japanese folk tales. This surprised me, as not many foreigners can read Japanese. A butterfly with lavender wings fluttered up to Mary, distracting her from the folk tale she was narrating. She smiled and pointed the butterfly out to her companion, who stared at it blankly until it flew away. As I rattled by her bench with the drip stand, Mary met my eyes, but did not recognize me. She must have thought I was a hospital porter or suchlike. I did not mind this, nor did I care to ask her to return the money I had loaned her. It pleased me to see her sitting so contentedly with her sickly companion.
I bade farewell to the Tanaka clan at 3.30, as I had arranged for the locksmith to come at 4 p.m. While the locksmith set upon the front door with his selection of tools, I went about with a bucket of soapy water cleaning Mariko’s savagery off the walls. The spare room was so badly soiled that no matter how furiously I scrubbed the residual pink lipstick stain would not come off. The only solution is to give the walls a fresh coat of paint. Extravagant, I know, but we want the walls back as they were, don’t we? I shall make a trip to the DIY store tomorrow. You will be pleased to hear that the shrine has been restored. I had a good rifle through the family albums and replaced all the damaged pictures. In your frame I put that photo I took of you on the Kyushu ferry crossing. How very beautiful you are, laughing beneath your own halo of sunshine. It really brightens up the shrine.
After the locksmith had demonstrated the workings of the locks and handed over the shiny new keys, I went upstairs to see the cello. It lay on the floor, still draped in your red silk kimono. Carefully, I lifted it in my arms and carried it down the stairs and into the backyard.
Sundown darkened the sky and I could barely make out the bushes at the end of the garden. Fortunately the light from the kitchen was just enough to work by. I laid down the cello and began to dig up the lawn with the potting trowel. The trowel could only scoop a little earth at a time, making the task more laborious than I had expected. Perspiration stuck my shirt to my back and a painful blister wept from my hand. When the hole was ready I lifted the silk-sheathed cello and lowered it into its new resting place. I stood for a moment in silent remembrance, before returning to my hands and knees to refill the hole. When I had finished I used my shoe to tamp down the mound of earth so that it was smooth. The lawn is a mess but I shall remedy that tomorrow with some grass seeds. I put the potting trowel back on the window ledge and went inside for a well-deserved bath.
Our house is almost purged of Mariko’s cruelty. With cream cleanser and elbow grease I have reclaimed it and made it ours again. If only it was as easy to purge my heart. Even after all that Mariko has done I find myself regretting her absence. While cleaning my teeth in the bathroom earlier, I found one of her hair-grips in the toothbrush holder. It had a cotton rosebud sewn onto the end and was slender enough to pick a lock. I turned it over in my hands. It made me quite nostalgic for those short-lived days when Mariko had been a kind and considerate house guest. It annoyed me that the wisdom of hindsight did not stop me from missing her. In the end I flushed that hair-grip down the toilet, not even caring if it got stuck in the pipes.
III
How peaceful it is at night, the entire neighbourhood tucked beneath a blanket of sleep. Only the breeze stirs, chasing its tail about the garden, restlessly shaking the leaves. Once again I am sitting at the kitchen table. The kitchen is very dark – the light bulb died earlier and I have not replaced it. This may strike you as melancholy behaviour, but I assure you I am far from discontent. I feel very alive, my chest astir with possibility and hope.
Though the clock struck midnight a while ago I will not be retiring. Sleep tonight is nothing more than wishful thinking. It is better to remain at the table than to fidget to the brink of insanity in my futon. Let me stay here and talk to you instead.
Mrs Tanaka’s recovery advances in leaps and bounds. When I went to see her at the hospital this morning she was sitting up in bed, knitting, and looking much more like her old self in her claret quilted housecoat and turquoise turban (her skull bandages just visible beneath the gold trim). For once she was all alone, her niece and husband nowhere in sight.
‘Good morning, Mrs Tanaka,’ I said. ‘You seem very lively today.’
She smiled and nodded, looping wool round her knitting needle. As her ability to speak had yet to return, I dispensed with small talk and sat on the chair beside her bed. The television was turned off and, in the absence of bouncy television presenters and jolly ad jingles, the gentle clack clack clack of Mrs Tanaka’s knitting needles possessed the room. Without breaking the rhythm of her knitting, Mrs Tanaka eyed me expectantly, waiting for me to say something of interest.
I felt quite awkward and wished I had some of Naoko’s chatterbox talents. ‘You look quite well today,’ I said. ‘Our outing to the hospital garden yesterday must have done you some good.’
Mrs Tanaka did look a great deal more sprightly. She bowed her head and counted her stitches.
‘I am sure it won’t be much longer until you can go home. Is there anything that I can do in preparation for your return? Any shopping I can buy? Or housework I can do?’
Needless to say, Mrs Tanaka could not answer these questions. She scowled into her knitting and I wondered if my inattentiveness to her handicap had offended her. Then I saw that she had dropped a stitch a few rows down and a hole had crept into her knitting. Crossly, she began to unravel her work. She did not stop at the hole, though. She unravelled and unravelled until nothing was left. Then she pointed at my hands, making frail sign language and waving her wool at me. It took me a while to realize that she wanted to use my hands as a wool-winding frame. I held them out as instructed, leaning over in my chair so Mrs Tanaka could reach. When Dr Ono came in to take Mrs Tanaka’s temperature he laughed to see me tangled up in this bondage of wool, and joked that I was Mrs Tanaka’s ‘little helper’. Mercifully, when the nurse came with a mid-morning snack of fruit salad and milk, Mrs Tanaka let me rest. The nurse chided Mrs Tanaka, saying she had heard from the night nurse that she had sat up all night doing her knitting. ‘Now is not the time to indulge your knit-o-holic tendencies,’ she said. ‘You ought to be recuperating.’ When the nurse left, Mrs Tanaka fed herself fruit salad and I read to her from the Daily Yomiuri. Midway through an article about a proposal by the Ministry of Fisheries to bring in a new regulation of net sizes, I looked up to see that Mrs Tanaka had nodded off in the upright position.
‘Mrs Tanaka,’ I whispered. ‘Mrs Tanaka, are you sleeping?’
She made no reply, so I surmised she must have worn herself out night-knitting. I folded up the newspaper and lifted her tray onto the nightstand. Then I went over to the window and pulled the yellow curtains to, darkening the room.
As I crept to the door a tiny croak issued from the bed: ‘Has she gone?’
I gave an excited little start and spun round. Mrs Tanaka was wide awake against her pillow throne. Her eyes sparkled in the gloom.
‘Your voice has come back!’ I cried.
Mrs Tanaka was not in the l
east bit surprised by her resurgence of speech. ‘Well,’ she persisted, ‘has she?’
‘You mean the nurse?’ I asked.
‘Not the nurse,’ Mrs Tanaka said. ‘That girl.’
‘Mariko? Oh, yes, she has gone.’
A tremor betrayed my unease. I had forgotten about Mrs Tanaka’s vehement dislike of Mariko. Not wanting to upset her, I decided not to mention the unhappy circumstances of her leaving.
‘Good,’ said Mrs Tanaka. ‘Let’s hope we never see that poor girl again.’
Poor girl? Mrs Tanaka had changed her tune! The way she spoke made me feel she was better acquainted with Mariko than I had thought.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘Did she say anything to you?’
Mrs Tanaka softened at my alarm, her claret quilted arms folded over the bed sheets. ‘I knew she would not break you,’ she said, strength returning to her voice. ‘And I was right, wasn’t I? I was not so easily broken either.’
These strange words only heightened my alarm. ‘Mrs Tanaka,’ I said, ‘did Mariko ever try to hurt you?’
A memory of Saturday night resurfaced. Mariko shivering on the front lawn, one sock rolled down round her ankle, the flowers on her dress faded by dusk. ‘I heard a noise,’ she had said. The memory sprang claws that penetrated my heart.
‘Mrs Tanaka, that night you fell and hit your head . . . Mariko didn’t . . .?’
‘My fall had nothing to do with Mariko. That young girl was responsible for nothing,’ she said. ‘We will talk about this no more. I just wanted to make certain she was gone. That was all. Now let an old woman get some sleep.’
For all her frailty there was a hardness in her eyes that warned me off pursuit of the subject. I was on fire with curiosity, but decided there and then that Mrs Tanaka will tell me what she knows when she tells me. I refuse to press an invalid pensioner.
‘Very well, I will let you get some sleep,’ I said. ‘I will see you again tomorrow. I have to go home and paint the spare room anyway.’
As I said this, Mrs Tanaka’s face became sad and defeated. She seemed to age before my eyes. ‘Mr Sato,’ she whispered, ‘I want you to know that I feel it too sometimes, very strongly. You really shouldn’t live in that house any more. She is angry at you, don’t you see? She will never let you live in peace . . .’
Mrs Tanaka ran out of breath at this point, which is just as well really – her head was obviously still quite muddled by concussion.
‘Mariko is gone now,’ I reminded her. ‘And I have changed the locks on the front door, so don’t worry, she can’t get back in.’
Then I told her to make sure she got plenty of rest, waved goodbye and left. I simply couldn’t wait to telephone Naoko with the good news that her aunt was talking again.
I was up the stepladder, using a roller to anoint the walls of the spare room eggshell off-white, when the telephone rang this afternoon. It had been weeks since I last heard its noisy jangle, and it sent me flying right out of my skin. Nerves a-twitter, I climbed down the ladder and rested my painting equipment on the frame. Then I hurried down the stairs and snatched up the receiver, exhaling an anxious ‘Hello’ into the mouthpiece.
‘Ah! Sato! Enjoying your holiday?’ Deputy Senior Managerial Supervisor Murakami boomed.
I winced and at once regretted not having one of those devices that informs you of the identity of the caller. Murakami-san was number one on the list of people I did not wish to speak to . . . Well, number two. The privilege of first place belongs to a certain hostess.
‘I am very well rested, thank you,’ came my curt reply. ‘I hope everything in the office is back in order?’
‘Don’t you worry yourself about the office, Sato,’ Murakami-san said. ‘Miss Yamamoto took the opportunity to co-ordinate a complete overhaul of the filing system. Ambitious little minx, isn’t she?’ Murakami-san gave a throaty chuckle.
I thought it quite improper of him to refer to Miss Yamamoto as a ‘little minx’, but held my tongue. I wondered when he would apologize for all those lies he told about you. ‘I hope it did not take them too long,’ I said.
‘Oh, they worked until seven or eight on Monday night. When they finished I took them out for a slap-up meal at the Octopus Hut. A little reward for all the work they put in.’
The thought of all my grossly inconvenienced colleagues gathered at the Octopus Hut sent a rush of heat to my face. I dread to think what was said about me as the sake flowed.
‘Are they managing well enough without me?’
‘Oh, they’ve been managing just fine. Ogata-san, the Assistant Warehouse Manager, stepped in to fill your shoes. Did you know he has a certificate in accountancy? I have never seen a man with such an appetite for number-crunching, Sato!’
The news of my replacement brought relief. Ogata-san is an upstanding, well-liked employee, who will ensure that the Finance Department runs smoothly in my absence. However, his appointment did little to compensate for all the disruption I had caused.
‘I cannot begin to convey,’ I began, ‘my apologies for what I did to the office. I would also like to apologize for my behaviour on Saturday night . . .’ The next word caught in my throat. After all, I was not sorry for everything. I was not sorry for what I said when he lied about you, for instance.
‘Er . . . Sato, can you hold a moment? I’ve got a call on the other line . . .’
Without waiting for my reply, Murakami-san put me on hold. A recording of ‘Greensleeves’ (arranged for panpipes) forced me to move the phone away from my ear. It was a pleasant afternoon. Sunlight slanted through the glass of the front door, casting the hallway in a mellow buttercup light. In the street children played, rubber balls and roller-skate wheels clashing pavement. I heard a mother call for her son to come home and take his bath, followed by the boy shouting back that he was too old for baths. The next thing I heard was the boy’s cries as his mother gave him a smack. Two more minutes of panpipe music was endured before Murakami-san returned to my ear.
‘Sorry, Sato! Urgent call, couldn’t wait. Now, where were we? Oh yes! How are you enjoying your holiday? Getting plenty of rest?’
Murakami-san had clean forgotten our exchange of words prior to the interruption. I was obviously of little consequence to his short-term memory.
‘Yes, I am very well rested, thank you.’
‘And your hostess, Mariko, is she still . . .?’
‘She is gone,’ I said.
How stiffly delivered, these three words. And yet how tangible my sorrow. Amazingly, Murakami-san stemmed the flow of stupidity from his tongue. In his silence I heard myself explaining matters further, behaviour I can only put down to the ventriloquism of my subconsciousness.
‘You were correct in your suspicions about Mariko,’ I said. ‘She was deceiving me all along.’ Murakami-san cleared his throat and said: ‘I went to The Sayonara Bar last night. When I was there I called the Mama-san over and told her about you. I told her that she will lose customers if she lets her girls go about playing dirty tricks on salarymen. I tell you what, Sato, I have never seen that Mama-san in such a pig of a mood! She was stark raving drunk and bitchy as you please. She called Mariko over and told me to deal with it myself. Then she stormed into her office. Well, when I confronted Mariko she denied everything, saying she had met you only twice before, each time at the hostess bar. At first I thought she was lying, but when I pressed her she began to cry. She said that she had been seriously ill in bed for the past two weeks and could not remember anything. Strange as it sounds, Sato, I believed her. At least, last night I did. She ran away and hid in the kitchen, crying her eyes out as she went. Taro and I drank up and got out of there quickly. We went to the Copa Cabana instead. I am thinking of closing our company account at The Sayonara Bar. That place has gone downhill!’
Mariko’s denial stung my heart, but it did not surprise me. The tears, however, did.
‘Don’t feel too bad about being duped,’ Murakami-san said, in confidential undertones.
‘I want you to know that I sympathize. We’ve all gotten mixed up with bad hostesses before. I once had a mistress who blackmailed me for months, forcing me to buy her the whole autumn range of Issey Miyake shoes and handbags . . .’
Well, I interrupted him right there! ‘Mariko was never my mistress.’
One could almost hear the smile of disbelief on Murakami’s face. ‘Call it what you will, we’ve all been there. You learn from your mistakes. Exercise more precaution next time.’
There will be no next time. But trying to persuade Murakami-san of this is as futile as trying to persuade him Mariko was never my lover. I reproached him with my silence, an ineffectual means of reproach indeed.
‘Anyway, Sato, we must press on. I want you to know that Chief Supervisor Sanjo and I have discussed your position within the company and arrived at the joint conclusion that you might benefit from a change of scene. The Shipping Department has a vacancy for an assistant file clerk. I know it is a bit of a leap into the unknown, Sato, but how does it suit? Your new post starts on Monday, provided you see a doctor and supply us with a clean bill of mental health.’
Ah! The sound of the guillotine blade in descent. They were shunting me as far down rank as one can get before one has to don a pair of rubber gloves and scrub dishes in the canteen. And to be honest, I would much rather work in the canteen than the Shipping Department, with its battery-farming cubicles and pervasive odour of damp and mustard gas. Eighteen years until retirement, I thought. A life sentence! Strangely enough, the news did not devastate me as much as it once would have done. The nasty incident with Mariko had left a substantial buffer zone against pain.
‘Sato? Sato? Are you still there? Don’t go upsetting yourself now. You do understand why we are doing this, don’t you? I assure you this is only temporary. I will do my best to get you promoted back up to the Finance Department . . . Sato? Can you hold for a moment? I’ve got another call coming through . . .’
The line clicked and the panpipes made an unwanted return. How carelessly Murakami-san ordained my fate.