The Woman in the Purple Skirt

by Natsuko Imamura

  “Yes.”

  “But that makes me feel better. It’s not unusual for girls who can’t fit in, you know, to quit almost immediately. But you, Hino-san, you seem like you’ll be able to fit in very well. I mean, my gosh, if Supervisor Tsukada already likes you, then you’ve got to be doing something right!”

  “Supervisor Tsukada is very kind.”

  “She’d be pleased to hear you say that. Uh-oh. Time to get back to work.”

  The director got up from his chair, went to the vending machine, bought two cans of hot coffee, and came back.

  “This one’s for you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “To keep your strength up for this afternoon.”

  “Oh. I appreciate it, very much!”

  “Ha ha. That’s the reply I want to hear! Excellent!”

  The next day was my day off. But since the Woman in the Purple Skirt was going in, I too decided to go in. She boarded the same bus as the day before, and punched in at exactly the same time. I was about to follow her, almost automatically, when something suddenly occurred to me and I returned my time card to the rack.

  Although I had come in, I had not the slightest intention of doing any work. More to the point, it was my day off, so I wouldn’t even have been included in the head count. In that case, then, why was I there? Well, naturally, it was to observe, from some concealed position, how hard she was working. And of course, if the right moment presented itself, I was also hoping to introduce myself.

  But the moment I stepped inside the locker room, I realized I had made a catastrophic mistake.

  Incredibly, I had forgotten my uniform. I’d have no hope of gaining access to the floors of the hotel without it. Yesterday, as I always did the evening before my day off, I had brought the whole set, dress and apron, back with me, and this morning I had put it in the washing machine and then hung it out to dry on my veranda.

  How stupid of me. I could hardly loiter in the hotel corridors in my ordinary clothes, and if I was going to borrow a uniform, that meant having to go and make conversation with whoever happened to be managing the front office. As soon as they realized it was my day off, I was pretty sure I’d be sent packing.

  Feeling enraged and frustrated, I left the building, even though I’d only just arrived, then boarded a bus and returned home. Well, at least I’d had my season pass; I hadn’t wasted any money. Such were my thoughts on the ride back.

  Once home, I watched a little TV, then took a nap. When I woke up, I could see that it was already beginning to get dark. I stayed in bed a bit longer and then, just before the stores in the shopping district would be closing, I roused myself and got up.

  Once I was in the shopping district, I wandered by the greengrocer’s, then the drugstore, then the hundred-yen shop, and took a look inside. At the Tatsumi sake store, I bought something from the vending machine at the entrance—avoiding actually entering the shop itself. My last stop was the sozaiya, the mom-and-pop shop that sold rice balls, ingredients for oden, and other basic prepared foods. I was comparing two packs of something that had been discounted, unable to decide which to buy, when I raised my eyes and saw the Woman in the Purple Skirt heading toward me.

  I was stunned, never imagining we’d run into each other at this time of day. I was sure I’d seen the whiteboard show an occupancy rate at the hotel of less than one third, in which case she would have finished work hours ago and would already be ensconced at home.

  The distance between us was a good fifty feet or so. As I watched her walking up the street, something about her struck me as a bit off. She had none of the easy rhythm and speed that she normally had when walking through the shopping district. Maybe it was because it was late, and there were fewer people to avoid, but my goodness, she hardly seemed able to put one foot in front of the other.

  Had Supervisor Tsukada worked her too hard? It was her third day of work. The closer she came, the more clearly I could see her face: her eyes were dull and unfocused, her head lolled on her neck, and her jaw was slack.

  What could it be? What on earth could have happened to her?

  I bitterly regretted how I had spent my morning. Why did I turn on the TV like that and just lie around napping and doing nothing? Why didn’t I return to the hotel? I should have just shoved my uniform—who cared if it was damp—in my bag and gone straight back. I had my commuter pass. I shouldn’t even have had to think about it.

  Every now and then one of her legs seemed to give way, and the Woman in the Purple Skirt staggered sideways. If somebody had tried to bump into her, she would’ve been sent flying and landed flat on her face. The thought crossed my mind, momentarily, but of course nobody tried anything so stupid. The Woman in the Purple Skirt passed right by me, slowly, and continued walking, or rather staggering, in the direction of her apartment.

  After she had passed by me, a customer standing nearby remarked to the shop owner:

  “That girl looked very unsteady. I wonder whether she’ll be okay.”

  The owner threw a glance at the receding figure of the Woman in the Purple Skirt. “Well, she’s able to walk. I don’t think there’s any cause for concern.”

  Neither of them appeared to be aware of who it was that had just passed by.

  I spent the next day in a state of anxiety.

  It was the Woman in the Purple Skirt’s day off—her first since the day (Monday) she joined the agency. From the state she had been in the night before, I imagined she’d probably spend the whole day in bed. It was unlikely that someone so thoroughly inebriated could recover in the space of a single day. I wanted to ask Supervisor Tsukada what could have happened, but unusually, Supervisor Tsukada too was off that day.

  What made me particularly concerned was the possibility that the Woman in the Purple Skirt wouldn’t make it to work the morning after her day off. So many recruits stick it out for the first two or three days, and then, on their very first day off, all of sudden they just disappear.

  I didn’t want that to happen with the Woman in the Purple Skirt. Here she was, finally employed. She should stick it out just a little longer. At least until we got to know each other.

  I felt considerable relief when I saw her the next morning at the front of the line for the bus.

  Her demeanor was completely different from that of a couple of nights earlier. Her color had returned, and she was standing up straight, clear-eyed and focused.

  When the bus came, it was already packed. It’s always like this in the morning, which is a pain in the neck, but waiting for the next bus would mean being late to work. Taking advantage of her small frame, the Woman in the Purple Skirt squeezed herself on board, pressing herself right up against the flank of a salaryman.

  Several people in line for the bus gave up trying to squeeze on board and headed for the taxi stand, so I suddenly found myself near the front of the line, even though I had been toward the back. Like the Woman in the Purple Skirt, I scrunched down and then pushed my way in, pressing myself right up against the backpack of a high school student.

  Inside the bus, the Woman in the Purple Skirt was completely obscured by clumps of salarymen. From where I stood, I could catch a glimpse of only a portion of her head and her shoulder. One of the men was having a good sniff of the Woman in the Purple Skirt’s hair. She must still be using my “fresh floral”–scented shampoo. Maybe she’d washed her hair that very morning. Any day now, surely, she was going to run out of those samples. And what would happen then? Was her hair going to go back to being all dry and stiff again? She wouldn’t get anyone sniffing her hair then.

  For a moment, a gap appeared around her head, and I managed to get an unimpeded view of her face. “Oh! Hello! So you take this bus too?” Would I ever get to say that to her? Would she ever say it to me?

  But something else had caught my attention. From where I stood, unable to move, I spotted a gra
in of rice stuck to her coat. It was on her right shoulder.

  It appeared to be a cooked grain of rice that was now quite dry and hard. Supervisor Tsukada had told her that she should eat a traditional Japanese breakfast; maybe she was now doing so. For all I knew, the piece of rice could have been stuck on her shoulder for days. I wanted to pick it off for her. But pressed up against all these people, I could hardly move my hand, let alone my fingers.

  Inch by inch, as stealthily as I could, I stretched out my arm toward that grain of rice. But just as my fingertips were about to pick it off her coat, the bus leaned into a series of steep curves and lurched violently, first one way and then the other. Rather than picking off the grain of rice, my fingers ended up tweaking the Woman in the Purple Skirt’s nose.

  The Woman in the Purple Skirt let out an odd sound.

  “Ngha—!”

  As quickly as I could, I withdrew my hand.

  At the next stop, a whole load of passengers started to file off the bus, and I could now see that the Woman in the Purple Skirt had a fearful expression on her face and was looking searchingly at all the people around her. She must’ve been thinking: Somebody just tweaked me on the nose; which one of these people was it? Now she was glaring straight at me, with that same accusing look in her eyes. “It was you, wasn’t it?” But no, the next second she went straight up to the man next to me—a salaryman, judging by his gray suit.

  “You just touched my bottom, didn’t you!” she said.

  And then, pointing straight at him, she declared:

  “This man just groped me!”

  The man started babbling incomprehensibly, clearly upset. But he did not deny it.

  The other passengers immediately pushed forward and formed a tight ring around him.

  The driver, seemingly aware of what was happening, came to an emergency stop in front of the first police box he saw.

  The doors of the bus opened, and the Woman in the Purple Skirt quickly got out. The man was dragged out by the other passengers. Then the doors closed, and the bus continued on its way. From the rear window, I watched as a policeman emerged from the police box. The Woman in the Purple Skirt was handing over the man she suspected of touching her.

  And so that day the Woman in the Purple Skirt arrived two hours late to work. After the morning meeting, the staff were abuzz as they waited for the elevator to take them to the hotel floors. Well, that didn’t take long, did it—for her to go AWOL. Don’t expect we’ll see her again.

  Supervisor Tsukada, however, insisted there must be some explanation.

  “I just don’t think she would leave without telling us.”

  “Really?” one of the older cleaning ladies said doubtfully. “You don’t think it’s the usual thing happening again?”

  “No, I don’t. She’s just not the type to quit without a good reason,” Supervisor Tsukada repeated.

  “I don’t think so either,” Supervisor Hamamoto said.

  “Oh, so you agree, Supervisor Hamamoto?”

  “Yes. She is giving the training her all.”

  “It’s precisely the ones who give their all who suddenly quit!” This was from another older member of staff.

  Supervisor Tsukada shook her head, adamant.

  “No. When you’ve been on the job as long as I have, you can tell immediately, from the look in their eyes. This one’s a keeper. I’m right, aren’t I, Supervisor Hamamoto?”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Hmm. I don’t know about that . . . ,” the other woman said.

  “And anyway, she told us: ‘This job is really fun!’ Didn’t she? Supervisor Hamamoto? Supervisor Tachibana?”

  “Yes, she did,” Supervisor Hamamoto said.

  “She did,” Supervisor Tachibana confirmed.

  “A group of us went drinking a couple days ago, you see,” Supervisor Tsukada explained. “Well, why not, we thought, seeing as only about a third of the rooms were occupied. Work was over by three. The four of us left work and went straight to that cheap kushikatsu bar by the station, for drinks and skewered meats.”

  “The four of you?”

  “Yes. Supervisors Nakata, Nonomura, and Hori were all off that day.”

  “But what about Supervisor Gondo?” asked one of the older staff, her voice very soft, perhaps hoping I wouldn’t hear. “Didn’t she go?”

  “Oh, come on. You know she’s a teetotaler!” Supervisor Tsukada replied. “It’s not fair to include people like that! It only makes them feel bad.”

  “Yes, and anyway, Supervisor Gondo was off that day, too,” Supervisor Tachibana added.

  “Was she? That’s odd. I thought I saw her.”

  “Really? You’re imagining things, I think, Supervisor Hamamoto. Supervisor Shinjo was grumbling about having to do an inventory of all the supplies since Supervisor Gondo wasn’t around.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  “So anyway, it was in the bar that she told us. Straight up. ‘This job is really fun!’ she said. ‘I want to work here as long as I can!’ She stuck her chest out, like this, and announced it,” said Supervisor Tsukada, imitating the Woman in the Purple Skirt.

  “Really? Sounds to me like she was drunk!”

  “Well, she was drunk, that’s true.”

  “Maybe she has a hangover today, and can’t get out of bed?”

  “Come on, that was two days ago. A hangover doesn’t last for two whole days!”

  “Who knows? She did have an awful lot to drink. Maybe it’s still in her system.”

  “Well, I guess you ought to know, Supervisor Hamamoto. You had quite a bit to drink yourself!”

  “Not as much as you, Supervisor Tachibana.”

  “Me? Well, I know I had a few. But nothing compared to all the plum and shochu grog you were chugging down!”

  “Oh, come on now. I think of the two of us, I was rather moderate. I noticed you got hooked on the shots of whiskey right from the start!”

  “Well, I don’t know about that!”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Supervisor Tsukada said. “We all drank more than we should have. It was ‘ladies’ day,’ after all.”

  “And you, Supervisor Tsukada—well, you were under the table!”

  Wa ha ha. All three laughed uproariously. Just then the director called from the other end of the corridor.

  “Tsukada-saaan! Hino-san has just telephoned: she’ll be coming in a bit late.”

  Supervisor Tsukada turned in his direction and gestured with her hands—“Got it!” She turned back with a triumphant look. “See? What did I tell you? She hasn’t quit after all.”

  In her telephone call from the police box, the Woman in the Purple Skirt appeared to have given the director a full account of what happened.

  The director was treating her to a can of hot coffee from the vending machine.

  “Otsukare-san. That must have been quite a shock this morning.”

  It was three in the afternoon. The Woman in the Purple Skirt, who had come down to the cafeteria for a belated midday break, deferentially accepted the coffee he held out to her, and bowed her head.

  “I’m terribly sorry to have been the cause of so much trouble.”

  “Not at all,” the director replied. “You haven’t been the cause of the trouble. You’re the victim in all of this. There’s nothing to apologize for. The person at fault is that pervert who groped you. What a creep. As a man myself, I find it inexcusable. You must have been terrified.”

  The Woman in the Purple Skirt dipped her head.

  “It might be best to come in on an earlier or a later bus. The perpetrator has been apprehended, I know, but even so: you never know if someone like that might sneak up on you again.”

  “Yes. But there isn’t another bus that gets me here at the right time. The one that comes before arrives far too early, and
the one that comes after gets me in too late.”

  “Hmm. That is a concern. . . .”

  “But it’s quite all right! If anything happens to me, I’m sure the other passengers and the driver will come to my rescue.”

  “Really? You say that, but . . .”

  “It’s quite all right. Please don’t worry about me.”

  “No, but it is concerning. I was quite worried this morning. Although you made it here safely, there was no word from you even after the morning meeting started. You know I told you that our new employees sometimes just quit, with no notice.”

  “I would never do that!”

  “I know you wouldn’t. And the floor supervisors all insisted you wouldn’t. Did I hear you went drinking with them a couple days ago?”

  “Yes. I was just about to head home when they invited me to go with them.”

  “I hear you can really hold your alcohol. That surprised me.”

  “Oh no! Did somebody say something?”

  “No, no, don’t worry, it’s good. Very promising. . . . You can handle your job, and you can also hold your alcohol.”

  “Oh, but actually that’s not true. Quite the opposite, in fact. If anything, they didn’t let me say no. At some point I began to feel like I might throw up, and well, frankly, I have no idea how I managed to get home. . . .”

  “Really? Hm. That sounds dangerous.”

  “And also, I don’t think I deserve any credit for being good at my job. I think it’s all because Supervisor Tsukada explains everything so well.”

  “Ha ha ha. Well, I’ll make sure to tell her that. And I’ll let her know you’re hoping to take over for her eventually.”

  “Oh, but . . . that’s not what I said.”

  “I’m only joking, don’t worry. But, well, it’s something you might consider. . . .”

  “What?”

  “Well, this is strictly between you and me, but at some point I’m thinking of relieving you of housekeeping and making you one of the in-house trainers.”