Where the Wild Ladies Are

by Aoko Matsuda

  Kikue had left Himeji at the end of her teenage years to attend university in another part of the country and had subsequently found a job at a company in Osaka. Her family home was on the north side of the castle, so even on her occasional visits back to the city, she’d rarely ventured out to the monorail part of town where her shop now stood.

  The shop had once been a makeup salon run by Kikue’s mother. It was the kind of place you often found in shopping arcades in rural towns, where local women came to get cosmetic advice and buy products. In Kikue’s childhood memories, the little salon was always spilling over with middle-aged women.

  When her mother told her over the phone that she’d decided to close the salon, Kikue didn’t feel a moment’s hesitation. She didn’t have a lot of savings, but she knew the rent for this shop was ridiculously cheap. If she moved back in with her mother, she calculated, her rent would be lower than it was for her Osaka apartment.

  And so Kikue quit her job, redecorated the place—doing as much of the work as she could by herself—and started her own gift shop. She’d had enough of working for companies that were far too big. Kikue wanted to feel on top of everything that was going on around her. And if things didn’t work out? Well, then she’d figure out then and there what to do next.

  Still, when Kikue had gone back to the shop for the first time in years and seen that monorail column skewering the place, she half doubted her eyes. “What the . . . ?” she found herself muttering under her breath. It was far more peculiar than she remembered it. To add insult to injury, the building had aged considerably too.

  The entire block on which Kikue’s shop stood—a rather dreary strip of stores, including a ramen restaurant and a hair salon, all of which were exactly the same shape and size—was punctuated at regular intervals by monorail columns that poked up from the buildings like tall chimneys. Right there on the other side of the street was a block of slick-looking new apartments with auto-locking doors, but here, it was as if time had ground to a halt.

  If you headed west from where the strip of shops ended you came to the Takao Apartments, which contained on one of its lower floors the platforms for the Daishogun Monorail Station. The apartments were no longer occupied and had fallen into ruin. Vines and leaves had grown across the beams, so they looked like the limbs of giant monsters.

  If you crossed the road instead, making your way past the convenience store and the apartment blocks under construction, you reached the bank of the Senba River. Here, too, you would find monorail columns and tracks dotting the landscape. In this part of the city, through which the San’yō shinkansen ran, residents had done more or less as they pleased with the monorail tracks—affixing them with signs that read NO ILLEGAL DUMPING, growing morning glories along them, planting herbs and vegetables in the space around, and so on. Doubtless the transformation had happened gradually, over a long stretch of time. It was all a very strange business, and what Kikue found strangest was that growing up, it had never once occurred to her how bizarre those monorail remains were. She supposed there were things that became visible only when you left a place, grew older.

  Not long after Kikue moved back to Himeji, an ex-boyfriend of hers from Osaka had taken the day off work and come to visit her, and the pair had strolled along the monorail tracks to the aquarium. Although they’d already broken up, they dawdled that short distance hand in hand.

  It had been a cloudy day, Kikue remembered. Her ex had read up online about the monorail before coming and he seemed genuinely excited by its existence, taking a load of photos. When Kikue had asked him that morning where he wanted to visit, he’d said it was the monorail he wanted to see, rather than the castle, which was by far Himeji’s favored tourist attraction.

  The disused monorail had a certain popularity among those with a penchant for railways and ruins and so on. Kikue was now used to seeing people coming and going in front of her shop with big cameras slung around their necks. Some even stood outside the window and peered in covetously. She knew instantly that their dreamy gaze was directed not at the carefully curated merchandise on display but at the protruding section in the wall concealing the column. The tracks had been dismantled little by little over the last few decades, but with proper demolition work now finally getting under way, many people wanted to pay the monorail a final visit. It was very possible that in the future, this block containing Kikue’s shop would be knocked down entirely. It was also highly plausible that the real reason behind Kikue’s ex’s visit was a wish to see the monorail while he still had the chance.

  With her ex, Kikue visited the aquarium for the first time in decades. The aquarium stood at a height aboveground, and her ex surprised her with the information that its entrance had once been the last station on the monorail line. She’d had no idea.

  From a walkway leading to the aquarium, they looked down at the route they’d just walked and the spot where the line of monorail columns broke off for the final time. It was easy to surmise the course that the now-phantom monorail had traced from there to here during the days of its existence. The idea that its destination was still standing while its midway section was gone struck Kikue as kind of sad. The monorail was like the town’s phantom limb. Its loss was felt. It was only when all of it was gone that people would cease to be aware of its absence and stop missing it.

  For anyone used to big city aquariums like Osaka’s Kaiyukan, as Kikue and her ex were, the Tegarayama aquarium was utterly unspectacular, yet there were several displays that left them baffled. The one that particularly floored them both was the Specimen Corner. There was the exhibit labeled DECAPITATED GREAT SALAMANDER, which, true to its description, was a great headless salamander in formaldehyde. This was displayed alongside the CANNIBALIZED GREAT SALAMANDER, with half of its body eaten away. The panel under the latter read as follows:

  In 1996, one of our great salamanders, 35 cm in length, was eaten by another large salamander, 117 cm, in the tank and then regurgitated.

  When they stepped away from the Specimen Corner, Kikue’s ex said with a stunned expression, “I feel like I’ve been permanently scarred.”

  Kikue, who felt exactly the same, nodded gravely. The Petting Corner, where as a youngster she had touched starfish and various little fishes, now had a large pool containing sharks and flatfish. Several signposts warned WE CAN BITE! in red lettering.

  Afterward, they visited the botanical gardens, which had an oddly extensive selection of insectivorous plants. The explanations accompanying the hand-drawn illustrations were unsettling. Kikue could remember being entranced by the shy plants they had there in her childhood, which would shrink from her touch by curling up their leaves. The botanical gardens were far more run-down and neglected than she recalled.

  “Your hometown is kind of weird,” said her ex with a chuckle as they made their way back along the monorail tracks toward the station. Kikue agreed. It was as though the city channeled every last drop of its sublime energy into Himeji Castle. Accordingly, everywhere else was somehow a bit . . . off. Kikue was glad that she’d been able to share that weirdness with her ex, which she’d sensed since she was young. In the end, though, they remained apart, even though Osaka and Himeji weren’t really that far away from each other.

  A woman entered, and Kikue bobbed her head in greeting. Realizing that the shop was deathly silent, she hurriedly pressed play on her iPod, and Blossom Dearie’s honeyed tones flooded out of the speakers. Kikue had discovered since opening her shop that the owner of a gift shop ended up playing “gift-shop music” without ever intending to.

  With rough, careless movements, the woman picked up a wooden spoon and a couple of mugs and inspected them, then walked out of the shop. Kikue felt a pang in her chest. Although she had spent her time watching her mother at work, it was only now, when Kikue had a shop of her own, that she realized what a sociable person her mother was, how good she had been with the customers. Nowadays, Kikue’s mom spent her days absorbed in foreign TV drama series.

>   The truth was, Kikue still couldn’t get used to the fact that complete strangers could simply stroll in off the street to this sanctuary that she had created. Of course, she understood that that was the very definition of a shop. She knew she had to stand there with her heart wide open and declare, “Here you go! This is me! Come take a look, and then leave again whenever you like!” but she also knew it was going to take her some time before she could manage it. Come to think of it, there were plenty of people running cafés and bookshops on their own who were either downright unfriendly or just not very good at dealing with people. Kikue figured that they must have set up their own shops because they disliked working in offices with other people. It made perfect sense. Kikue didn’t think she’d fared too badly as a fully functioning member of society but she was, by nature, an introvert.

  It was just beginning to get dark outside when the man entered. Kikue was crouched behind the counter, hiding herself away so as to drink tea from her stainless-steel flask. The flask had been advertised for its exceptional heat retention, and sure enough, the tea it stored was still steaming hot. Flustered by the arrival of a customer at such a moment, Kikue gulped down her tea and proceeded to choke violently. When she finally managed to collect herself and look up, she saw the man standing on the other side of the counter, peering down at her apologetically. Hurriedly, Kikue stood up.

  “What can I do for you?” she said, her voice coming out hoarse and strange. “Sorry to give you a fright.” Saying this, the man handed her a thick paper bag. “I’m from the plate company. I’m really sorry about the missing plate. It was our mistake. Would you mind just checking if this is the right one?”

  Opening the bag, Kikue took out the flat cardboard box. Inside the box was a plate with various animals and plants trailing around the rim. Kikue smiled happily.

  “Yes, this is the one. I love these plates. They’re so pretty . . . but not too pretty, if you know what I mean.”

  The man smiled. “I’m really glad you think so. I’ll pass your compliments on to the illustrator. I’m sure it’ll make her day. My apologies again. Oh, I should have introduced myself at the start, shouldn’t I? Anyway, thank you for doing business with us.”

  The business card he handed her was emblazoned with a name she had seen often in her in-box. So, Kikue thought, this is the famous Yūta.

  She looked straight at the man standing in front of her. With his checked shirt and navy trousers, he gave off a soft, gentle impression. His short hair was flecked with white. Having imagined him as excessively awful, Kikue was now somewhat flummoxed at finding him quite the opposite.

  “Oh, no, thank you. It’s nice to meet you finally,” Kikue said. She opened the drawer and pulled out one of her business cards, which she handed to him hesitantly. It was a long time since she’d given anyone a business card, and she had half-forgotten the etiquette.

  Yūta took the card from Kikue, then said with a smile, “Your emails have always really intrigued me. I mean, you’re living in Himeji, and the character in your name is the same as in Okiku’s!”

  Then, looking flustered, he went on, “I don’t mean that in a bad way, of course. I’m kind of into ghost stories, you see.”

  Kikue smiled compassionately. “It’s okay, I’m used to it. People often remark on it. When I was small, we’d often take school trips to Himeji Castle, and every time we’d pass the Okiku Well on the way to the exit, all the kids would laugh and call me Okiku.”

  Kikue hadn’t minded having a name similar to the ghost in the story, or even being teased about it. If anything, she was kind of proud to share one of the characters in her name with Okiku. The reason was simple: Okiku was incredibly popular. Visitors on their way out of Himeji Castle could be guaranteed to flock around the Okiku Well, peering inside it and raising their voices in excitement. It was almost unheard of to see a person walk straight past. Whatever they might have said about her, everyone knew who Okiku was, and there was something about that well that people found impossible to ignore. Her popularity was so great that it was surprising they hadn’t started selling Okiku merchandise in the castle gift shop. It seemed rather special to Kikue that the legendary well, which she had always considered a fictional element in a story, really existed in the city. The Okiku Well brought together the unremarked and the remarkable. It was kind of amazing.

  “I can imagine. I’m from Himeji too, so.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Our offices are in Kobe, but I commute from here. I’m just heading home now, so I thought I’d drop in on the way. I mean, I am genuinely sorry that there was a plate missing, but you know, with you being Kikue and this being a plate, I found it impossible to resist . . .”

  Yūta smiled at her, laugh lines appearing around the corners of his eyes. Reflexively, Kikue found herself stealing a glance at his left hand to check for the presence of a ring—even though she knew that many married people these days didn’t wear wedding bands, and it really meant nothing.

  “Also, did you know that the Okiku shrine is just around here?” he said.

  “The Okiku shrine? No, I had no idea.”

  “I guess most people don’t know about it, even those who live in the area. It’s just a tiny little shrine, right over there. It’s really worth a visit. They’ve got a gravestone for her, with the words resolute woman engraved on it.”

  “‘Resolute woman’?”

  “Yes, that’s what it says. Kind of cool, right? I can show you one day, if you’d like. Not that it’s far enough that you’d need showing especially, but I like it there, and I’d love you to see it.”

  “Oh, um, well, yes, that’d be great.” In an attempt to compose herself, Kikue moved the box Yūta had brought over to where the other plates were stacked and began to count them again in jest.

  “One, two . . .”

  In an eerie voice, Yūta started counting along with her. “Three, four, five . . .”

  Smiling, Kikue went on, more playfully than before. “Six, seven, eight, nine . . .”

  Their eyes met, and together they said, “Ten!”

  Their peals of laughter echoed through the little shop.

  Kikue locked up the shop and set off east with Yūta, pushing her bike. They had carried on chatting until, before she knew it, it had been time for her to close up for the day. Her encounter with Yūta had been a bolt from the blue, but Kikue figured that such things could happen to anyone at any time and decided not to be surprised by it. When they emerged onto the main road, Kikue bade goodbye to Yūta, who was headed south. She got on her bike and made her way north. They had already made arrangements for their next meeting.

  As Kikue pedaled away, Himeji Castle loomed ever larger in front of her. Kikue gazed up at the castle glowing so white in the sky, her cheeks now tinged a vivid red.

  On High

  Tomihime gazed down at the castle town spread out beneath her with an expression of utter boredom. She was so high up that despite the windows on all four sides being covered in mesh, she could see far off into the distance whatever the weather happened to be doing. From the south-facing window, she could see the honmaru and ni-no-maru—the innermost and secondary citadels. Past the moat was the main road that led to Himeji Station and, beyond that, a strip of distant sea. Tomihime knew this scene like the back of her hand. There was nothing even remotely arresting about it. Looking up at the blue sky, where the clouds and the factory smoke coexisted amicably, Tomihime let out a big yawn.

  The castle was filled with the footsteps of visitors wearing the Himeji Castle slippers they had been given at the entrance. Shuffle shuffle shuffle, they went. Tomihime listened to the endless, sluggish sound with disgust. Shuffle shuffle shuffle. Shuffle shuffle shuffle. This was what it was like all year round, from the moment the castle gates opened in the morning to the moment they closed in the evening. It had become particularly bad since the renovations had finished; everyone was desperate to catch a glimpse of the castle’s new look.

 
; In retrospect, the renovation period had been blissfully quiet. The workmen had gone about their job with care, and the castle had been entirely shrouded in protective cloth for the duration. Tomihime had felt sufficiently at ease for the first time in ages, and had popped off to visit her younger sister, Kamehime.

  To separate those on their way up from those going down, the castle corridors had been divided with cones and poles in red and green to indicate which routes the visitors should take, and there were separate staircases depending on whether you were ascending or descending, all of which effectively prevented any one spot becoming mobbed with tourists and—well, there was no denying that it had all been carefully thought out, but Tomihime refused to feel impressed in the slightest. Men and women, young and old, from all across the globe, speaking in myriad different languages, would praise the vista from the viewing deck of Tomihime’s keep in the same way, take the same kinds of photos, then promptly disappear. Even after all that effort they had put into climbing the steep flight of stairs, they turned around and went padding back down almost immediately. Not a single person stopped to appreciate the fact that real people had once lived real lives in this place. Now even Tomihime found all of that hard to recall with any clarity. Was there any meaning to her still being here? Couldn’t this lot be left to shuffle shuffle shuffle around on their own? In her heart of hearts, Tomihime felt like going and getting blind drunk.

  Around closing time, when the numbers of visitors had eased considerably, a suited young man came up the stairs. Wearing a suit was clearly something he was not used to doing, and with everyone else around him dressed like tourists, he stuck out. Occasionally, there would be visitors who came to Himeji on business and had decided to stop by to look at the castle, but that didn’t seem to be the case with this guy. When he caught sight of Tomihime sitting on the floor and leaning back against one of the columns in a manner not befitting a princess at all, he bowed and walked toward her.