Praise for
Yukiko Motoya
and
The Lonesome Bodybuilder
“I knew immediately this book was a work of quality entertainment by a writer who had consciously worked to hone their craft—but was it literature? I had the lingering doubts of an old man now far removed from the current readership.
“Wanting to delve deeper, I decided to read it again, laying aside my long-held view of fiction: one that demarcated ‘entertainment’ from ‘real literature.’ I realized I couldn’t deny it. This collection serves almost as a sampler of fresh ideas and forms, but the pieces demanded more than simply to enjoy them and then put them away, saying, ‘Well, that was fun.’ How is it that these pieces work with their twists and tricks, and then, on top of that, also attain the state of literature?
“The writer possesses an acuity in human observation that will be a life’s work, and the prose skill to describe it concisely. After tasting the delightful surprises in each story in this varied collection, I felt not as though I had passed through a gallery hung with individual talents, but that I had seen at one glance the irrepressible formation of an artist.”
—KENZABURO OE, Nobel laureate,
Oe Prize commentary on Arashi no pikunikku
(8 of 11 stories in The Lonesome Bodybuilder)
“I wish I could live inside a Yukiko Motoya book. Her perception and wisdom make the everyday experience feel magical and weird and the strangest experience seem strangely familiar.”
—ETGAR KERET, author of Suddenly, a Knock on the Door
and Seven Good Years
“Charming, bizarre, and uncanny, The Lonesome Bodybuilder is Etgar Keret by way of Yoko Ogawa. I’d follow Yukiko Motoya anywhere she wanted to take me.”
—CARMEN MARIA MACHADO, author of
Her Body and Other Parties
“Playful and eerie and utterly enchanting, Yukiko Motoya’s stories are like fun-house mazes built to get lost in, where familiar shapes and features from the everyday world are revealed to you as if for the first time, twisted into marvelously odd shapes. These eleven stories possess a mundanely magical logic all their own, surprising and entirely absorbing.”
—ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN, author of
You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine and Intimations
“I could never try to explain Yukiko Motoya’s stories. For me, the joy of reading fiction isn’t to analyze it, but to feel it in my body. In that sense, her writing offers enormous satisfaction to the sensitive organ inside me that is attuned to the pleasure of reading.”
—HIROMI KAWAKAMI, author of Nakano Thrift Shop and Strange Weather in Tokyo
“I was impressed by how each story has a different idea, none being mere variations on a theme. It’s not a book to consume in one sitting. Read carelessly and you run the risk of ending up flat on your back with no idea of what just hit you. It dawned on me that in these pieces, Motoya, already well-known for theater, was trying to achieve in fiction the gamut of what can’t be done on stage. Reading this made me want to sit down and get to work. This is a collection that is provocative to writers as well.”
—YASUTAKA TSUTSUI, author of Paprika,
Gunzo magazine on Arashi no pikunikku
(8 of 11 stories in The Lonesome Bodybuilder
“Playwright-turned-novelist Motoya has been steadily making her presence felt in the English-language market in literary magazines like Granta. Here she offers a deft combination of magic realism and contemporary irony . . . A whimsical story collection from a gifted writer with a keen eye and a playful sense of humor.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A mix of the fantastical and the painfully real.”
—The Millions
“This inventive and chilling volume will have U.S. audiences craving more from Motoya.”
—Library Journal
“In eleven short stories, Yukiko Motoya pulls back the curtain from everyday lives, to reveal that beneath the most mundane lies a world bizarre and alien.”
—Bustle
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Arashi no Pikunikku © 2015 by Yukiko Motoya
Irui kon’in tan © 2016 by Yukiko Motoya
First published in Japan in 2015, 2016 by Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo
Publication rights for this English edition arranged through Kodansha Ltd., Tokyo
English translation copyright © 2018 by Asa Yoneda
All rights reserved
First Soft Skull edition: 2018
The following stories have been previously published, in slightly different form: “Fitting Room” (originally “Why I Can No Longer Look at a Picnic Blanket Without Laughing”) and “The Dogs” (Granta); “How to Burden the Girl” (Tender); and “Typhoon” (Catapult).
ISBN: 978-1-59376-678-8
eISBN: 978-1-59376-683-2
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.
Cover design by salu.io
Book design by Wah-Ming Chang
Published by Soft Skull Press
1140 Broadway, Suite 704
New York, NY 10001
www.softskull.com
Soft Skull titles are distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West
Phone: 866-400-5351
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
The Lonesome Bodybuilder
Fitting Room
Typhoon
I Called You by Name
An Exotic Marriage
Paprika Jiro
How to Burden the Girl
The Women
Q&A
The Dogs
The Straw Husband
The Lonesome Bodybuilder
When I got home from the supermarket, my husband was watching a boxing match on TV.
“I didn’t know you watched this kind of thing. I never would have guessed,” I said, putting down the bags of groceries on the living room table.
He made a noncommittal noise from the sofa. He seemed to be really engrossed.
“Who’s winning? The big one or the little one?”
I sat on the sofa next to him and took off my scarf. I’d planned on starting dinner right away, but the gears on my bicycle hadn’t been working, and I was a little tired. Just a short break. Fifteen minutes.
Eyes still glued to the TV, my husband explained that the little one was looking stronger so far. They seemed to have reached the end of a round, and the gong was clanging loudly. Both fighters were covered in blood, I guessed from getting cuts on their faces from their opponent’s punches, and as soon as they sat down on the chairs in their corners, their seconds threw water over their heads.
“It’s like animals bathing. So wild.”
I’d tried to make sure the “wild” didn’t sound too reproachful, but my husband picked up on it.
“That’s the kind of man you really want, isn’t it?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend. I know. I know you secretly want a brute to have his way with you.”
“You know I prefer intellectual men. I don’t want an insensitive jock.”
He put the remote he’d been clutching back on the table, then pulled up his sweater sleeve and wrapped his fingers around his wrist, as if taking his own pulse. His wrist was far thinner than the boxers’, it was true.
“It’s like you might be some kind of artist,” I teased. He hated being pitied more than anything, so I was careful
to make it sound like a joke.
“Are you saying you wouldn’t go along with it, if a guy like that came on to you?”
Say something, anything, to build his confidence back up, I thought, but my attention had been stolen again by the men on the TV. My blood pumped, and I could feel my body getting hot. “Of course I wouldn’t go along with it! Anyway, it’s not like that would ever happen.” Fighters are so beautiful. Incredible bodies, both of them. Taut bone and flesh, nothing wasted.
My husband spoke again. “What do you think of my body?”
“I like it. Your skin’s so fair, and soft.” Why had I never watched this kind of thing before? Boxing, pro wrestling, mixed martial arts—I’d assumed they weren’t for me. How wrong I was. I always do that. I decide who I am, and never consider other possibilities. I’ve been like that since middle school. The time I went to the amusement park with my friends and decided that a quiet girl like me wouldn’t like roller coasters, I was the only one who didn’t get on the ride. Someone like me would obviously sign up for one of the cultural activities at school. Would feel at home in the crafts club. Would find a job locally. But what really would have happened if I’d gotten on the roller coaster that day? I have the feeling I would have met a version of myself I don’t know now. Lived a completely different life.
The gong sounded, and the men stood up. I’d assumed that throwing out punches was all there was to it, but the boxers guarded against every blow, observing each other’s movements with eagle eyes. That must be what they call dynamic vision. If only I had some dynamic vision too, I might not have missed out on so many things. The match was over, and they sounded the biggest gong yet.
The very next day, I started training to become a bodybuilder. I thought at first that I could aim to be a pro boxer, but I realized that I didn’t have a trace of fighting spirit in me. No desire to beat anyone up. It was the bodies of the two boxers I’d seen on TV the previous night that seemed to be seared into my brain, even while I was at my job, working the register at a natural health and beauty shop.
They turned in all directions, showing off their bodies to me. Even while I described various products to customers. This is a moisturizing cream with pomegranate traditionally used in herbal medicine. How do firm limbs feel? This hair oil is made from rare organic concentrated plant extracts. What is it like when a strong body throbs?
Was I looking for an affair? Of course not. I loved my husband. He could be bumbling and juvenile, but he was just working too hard, that was all. I only needed to hang on until he was done with this busy period, and then he’d start initiating again. It wasn’t that I wanted to touch any other man. I just wanted to luxuriate in some taut muscle. I hadn’t felt so giddy in a long time. I’d swing by the pharmacy on my way home from work and get some protein powder.
I liked the taste of the protein powder when I tried it, and decided to join a gym. I felt a little worried about fitting it into the household budget, but I found a small, independent fitness club two train stops away, whose website advertised “100 Free Sessions Until You See the Results You Want!” Having never done any serious exercise before, I had no idea what kind of progress I’d be able to make in a hundred sessions.
On the first day of my private sessions, I confided to the trainer—a boy in his early twenties—that I wanted to become a bodybuilder. He stopped writing on his clipboard and looked at me with surprise.
“Bodybuilding? Not weight loss.”
“Yes. Your website said you have a training program.”
“We do, but this is pretty unusual. Women in their thirties usually come looking to lose weight, so I assumed . . .”
“Is it very difficult?”
“Not really. But with bodybuilding, you won’t get anywhere with weight training alone. Nutrition is key. Could you handle consuming, say, four thousand calories a day? That’s double the daily amount for an average adult male.”
“I can spread it out over the day.”
“What about protein powder?”
“I’ve already started.”
“Do you have a specific goal in mind? Do you want to compete?”
“No. I don’t need to show anyone. Just some muscles for myself.”
“That’s pretty unusual,” said the polo-shirted youngster again, and then tapped the tip of his ballpoint pen on his clipboard a few times. I started to worry that he would turn me down, but then he surprised me by saying, “Okay. Let’s see about coming up with a training program for you.”
I found out that he’d been an athlete since childhood. He’d played rugby at university, and seriously considered becoming a dolphin trainer, but thanks to some connections he had, he ended up joining this gym as an instructor. He was a cute kid, with a boyish face. A snaggletooth. Twelve years younger than I was. He probably dressed a little dorkily when he wasn’t in sportswear. That’s the impression I got from his haircut. Makes sense, if he’d spent all his time playing rugby. He looked like he’d be into young women around his own age. My husband and I were the same age. We’d met in college.
The trainer, in his bright red polo shirt, looked at me soberly as these frivolous thoughts ran through my head. He said, “You need to be aware that public acceptance for bodybuilding is extremely limited. Be prepared. Also, you’ll definitely need your family members to be on board.”
In spite of this advice, I never did tell my husband. We’d been married seven years, and this was the first time I’d kept a big secret from him. Lately, though, he’d been spending all his time at home either buried in his work files or on his computer, and only ever talked to me when he needed me to reinflate his confidence. Marital affection was pretty much nonexistent.
I explained the change in my eating habits by saying I’d started a protein powder diet on the recommendation of one of the customers at the store. I’d tried out a lot of fad diets before, so my husband seemed not to find anything amiss. I religiously followed the training plan that I’d developed with my young coach. Hidden from my husband, who’d be holed up in the study, I did push-ups, sit-ups, squats. My basic strength began to improve, so I started to go to the gym four times a week, where I did pull-ups, dumbbell presses, narrow-grip bench presses. Reverse crunches, to add muscle definition. Ball crunches. T-bar rows. Rack pulls. Plus protein powder every few hours, and double the daily calorie intake of the average adult male.
Sculpting beautiful bundles of muscle took a lot more commitment than I’d thought. You had to reach what felt like your absolute limit, and then keep going—another two, three steps. Alone, I might have given up, but I had my coach for a hundred free sessions. Bodybuilding workouts required a partner: if you overreached on lifting a dumbbell and dropped it on your neck, you could end up dead. Coach was always by my side, making sure that didn’t happen. “One last rep! You’re doing great. Yes!”
By the end of a workout, I was always foaming at the mouth from breathing hard through clenched jaws. But even that felt like an exciting new discovery. When I had first gotten married, I had a hard time managing the housekeeping accounts. My husband, who brought work home even on Sundays, saw the way I let receipts pile up without dealing with them, and said, “You just have no willpower.” He often berated me: “Have you ever in your life actually accomplished anything?”
The thickness of my neck was unmistakable. At the store, we demonstrate the moisturizing soaps to customers by lathering up a sample onto the backs of our hands, like whipped cream. But now all the customers were riveted by how my wrist was double the size of theirs, with well-defined tendons and veins. They pretended to pay attention to my description of jojoba oil while they looked at my neck, which was nearly as wide as my face. I could see in their eyes that they were trying to picture what they would find under my apron. It was like being stark naked.
Eventually, I got summoned by the owner of the store. “You seem a little different lately,” she said. “Is something going on, dear?”
“Yes, well.”
“I mean, haven’t you gotten bigger, a lot bigger, than you used to be? At first I thought you might be pregnant, but . . . perhaps you’re taking some kind of medication that doesn’t agree with you? Something for the menopause. Are you experiencing side effects?”
“I’m not.”
“But it’s clear your hormones are completely out of kilter!”
I confided in the owner about my training. At first she only nodded, looking doubtful, but when I told her that I’d never felt this committed to anything before, she looked at me and said she could see it in my eyes. She was a very self-assured woman who’d raised three children on her own and managed a chain of stores. She became wholeheartedly supportive, and—knowing the old, unremarkable, unassertive me—said she much preferred the way I was now.
My coworkers at the store said that they’d help me with my fresh start too. The next day, someone brought in a yoga mat they didn’t use anymore so that I could train as much as I liked behind the hair care products shelf while there were no customers around. No one batted an eyelid at me drinking raw eggs from a beer glass during breaks. Occasionally some kids would graffiti things like WARNING smiling muscle woman will strangle you to death on the wall of the parking lot, but almost all the customers responded positively, once they got used to it. A lot of single mothers, and women busy with careers or raising children, said they felt encouraged by my progress. I made sure I never let my smile slip, no matter how hard things got, because as a bodybuilder, I was cultivating muscle in pursuit of an ideal of beauty.
Only my husband seemed not to notice anything, even though my chest felt so solid it was as though there was a metal plate under my skin, my arms looked huge enough to snap a log in half, my waist sported a six-pack, and from a distance I looked like a big inverted triangle on legs. When I asked my coworkers for advice, they commiserated: “That’s just what men are like,” and “Mine doesn’t even notice when I get my hair cut.”
My hair was the one thing I hadn’t touched, because my husband preferred it long. I tanned as dark as I could and got my teeth whitened inexpensively by a dentist a customer had introduced me to, but my hair was the same as it had been before I became a bodybuilder.
The Lonesome Bodybuilder Page 1