Out

by Natsuo Kirino

  He had worried that his mother would be against his going, but when he told her what he was thinking, she agreed almost at once. Though he didn't know the language or the culture, his blood was half Japanese, she told him, so the people there would treat him as part of the family. That was only natural. There were successful Brazilian Japanese who had managed to send their children to college and secure a place for them among the country's elite, but Kazuo's situation was different. He was the son of a barber from the poor part of town, and it made all the sense in the world for him to go abroad to seek his fortune. Then he could return to Brazil with his savings and make a success of himself. He would be following in the footsteps of the man whose independent spirit he'd inherited.

  Kazuo quit the print shop where he had worked for six years, and six months ago he had arrived at Narita Airport. It had been an emotional moment, with him thinking of his father coming all alone to Brazil at the age of nineteen. Kazuo was twenty-five when he arrived in Japan as a guest worker on a two-year contract.

  But he soon found that the land of his forefathers didn't pay much attention to the fact that its blood was running in his veins. At the airport, on the streets, he knew he was seen as a gaijin, a foreigner, and it burned him up. 'I'm half Japanese,' he wanted to shout. 'I'm a Japanese citizen.' But to these people, anyone who didn't share their facial features, who didn't speak their language, just wasn't one of them. In the end, he decided the Japanese as a whole tended to judge most things by their appearance; and the idea of fellowship, which his mother had taken for granted and which involved going beyond appearances, was something few people here were actually willing to follow up on. The day he realised that his face and physique would forever consign him to the status of a gaijin, Kazuo gave up on Japan. It didn't help matters that his job at the boxed-lunch factory was less interesting than the work he'd done at the print shop back in Brazil. It was mindless, back-breaking work that seemed designed to break your spirit, too.

  So he had decided to think of his time in Japan as a spiritual test - a two-year test to see whether he could save up the money for a car. Kazuo's mother was a devout Catholic, but his was a different kind of spiritual discipline. Not God but his own willpower would give him the strength, the self-control to reach his goal. But last night, for the first time in a long while, he had let his self-control slip. He put the stalk of grass in his mouth and raised his eyes. Compared to Brazil, there were almost no stars in the sky.

  -

  Yesterday had been his day off. The Brazilian employees at the factory were on a five-day cycle, four days on and one off. This odd schedule numbed the body's internal clock, which was normally set to rest at the weekend, and made the workers feel exhausted when their day off came around. So, though he'd been looking forward to the break, Kazuo had been tempted just to spend the whole day in bed. He felt dull and heavy; perhaps, he thought, because he'd never experienced the rainy season in Japan before. The humid air plastered his black, glossy hair to his head and made his dark skin look lifeless. Wet laundry stayed wet; his spirits remained damp. In the end he decided to go and do some shopping in a town known as Little Brazil on the border between Gunma and Saitama prefectures. The trip would have been quick by car, but Kazuo didn't have a licence or a car. By train and bus, it took nearly two hours.

  He stood in the aisles of the bookstore in the Brazilian Plaza and read soccer magazines. Then he bought a few ingredients he needed to make Brazilian food and looked in at the video store. By the time he should have been heading back to Musashi Murayama, he was thoroughly homesick. He missed Sao Paolo, missed everything about Brazil. Deciding to linger a bit longer, he stopped in at a restaurant and began drinking Brazilian beer. None of his friends from the factory were there, but as he sat drinking with these Brazilian strangers, he could almost imagine he was in a bar in downtown Sao Paolo.

  The place he worked for had a dormitory for foreign workers near the factory. Two men could rent a single room with a small kitchen. Kazuo lived with a man named Alberto, but when he stumbled in drunk around nine, the room was dark. Alberto must have gone out for something to eat. Relaxed from his day off and the beer he'd drunk, Kazuo crawled into the upper bunk and dozed off.

  It was about an hour later that he woke to the sound of heavy breathing. Alberto and his girlfriend must have come back while he was sleeping and they were going at it in the bottom bunk. Apparently they had no idea that Kazuo was sleeping above them, or if they did, it wasn't dampening their enthusiasm. It had been a long time since Kazuo had heard a woman in the throes of passion, and by the time he'd covered his ears, it was already too late - somewhere inside him the fuse had been lit. For all that he'd tried to keep the gunpowder away from sparks, he'd never been able to get rid of the fuse. And once it was lit, the powder was sure to explode. He lay writhing silently on the upper bunk, his hands trying desperately to cover his mouth, to plug his ears.

  When the time came to go to work, Alberto and his friend got dressed and left the place, kissing noisily the whole time. Kazuo stumbled out a few minutes later and set off through the dark streets in search of a woman. He had never felt so pent up in his whole life, as if he might die if he couldn't find some release. He was scared to think that his self-imposed trials would probably make the explosion worse. But he couldn't stop himself.

  He walked along the ill-lit street that led from the dormitory to the factory. It was a lonely stretch of road, lined with an abandoned factory and a bowling alley that had gone out of business. It occurred to him that if he waited here, one or two of the part-timers would come by. He knew that most of them were as old as his mother, or older, but at the moment he didn't care. Still, it was late, and no one came. Part of him was relieved, but another part felt the violent disappointment of the hunter whose prey has slipped away. He watched the empty road with mixed emotions . . . and then suddenly a woman had come hurrying along.

  She seemed to be lost in thought, and even when he came up and tried to speak to her, she didn't notice him. That was why he had grabbed her arm, almost without thinking. As she pushed him away, he could see the look of horror in her eyes, even in the dark, and somehow that had made him want to drag her with him into the thick grass.

  Would he have been lying if he said that he had no intention of raping her? He only wanted her to hold him, so he could feel her softness next to his body. But when she began to resist, he suddenly wanted to force her down, to pin her there. That was when she told him that she knew who he was.

  'You're Miyamori, aren't you?' she'd said in that cold, hard voice of hers, and fear had gripped him. Now that he was close to her, he realised that he knew her, too: it was the tall woman who seldom laughed, the one who was always with the good-looking girl. He had often thought that anyone who looked that gloomy must be suffering nearly as much as he was. His fear gave way to guilt about the crime he was committing.

  When she had suddenly proposed that they meet again later, 'just the two of them', his heart had leapt. For just an instant, he'd felt he was falling in love with this woman, despite the fact that she was so much older. But then he had realised that she would say anything to escape from him, and he felt a black anger welling up inside. He was just lonely - what was so wrong with that? Why couldn't she humour him? He didn't want to rape her; he just wanted her to be nice to him. Overwhelmed with longing and unable to control himself, he pushed her up against the shutter and kissed her.

  How shameful it had been. He buried his face in his hands at the memory. But what happened later had been worse. When she had pushed him off and fled, he'd been terrified that she would report him to the management or to the police. He remembered that there'd been talk of a man stalking women in the area. The rumour had even reached the Brazilians, and some of the women seemed to talk of little else, forming their own theories about who it could be. It wasn't Kazuo, of course, but how was he going to explain that to this woman? He had to apologise to her - as soon as possible.

  H
e had waited there by the factory all night. It had started to rain - that gentle Japanese rain which he found so depressing - and he went back to his room to get his only umbrella. He'd waited for the woman at the entrance to the factory, but when she eventually appeared, she seemed icy cold, oblivious to the fact that he was soaked to the skin from standing in the rain. He hadn't been able to apologise properly, let alone explain to her that he wasn't the stalker. But why should she forgive him? If it had been his girlfriend or his mother, he'd have killed any man who did what he'd done to her. He decided that the only thing to do was to keep apologising until the woman forgave him. It would be his new and most difficult test. And so he had waited again, starting at the appointed hour of 9.00, crouching motionless here in the grass. He doubted she would come, but he would keep their appointment.

  All at once he heard the sound of footsteps coming from the direction of the parking lot. Startled, he turned to look and saw a tall figure coming toward him. Recognising her, he could feel his pulse quicken as he crouched in the shadows. He thought she would simply pass on by, but she stopped by the grass where he was hiding. Could she really be coming to meet him? He felt a rush of joy.

  But his excitement vanished almost immediately as he watched her pull something from her bag and drop it through one of the holes in the concrete slabs that covered the drainage ditch. From the sound, Kazuo could tell that whatever she'd dropped must have been made of metal. The dull splash was soon followed by a clinking sound as it landed on the bottom. But what could she be throwing into this filthy stream? Was she doing this on purpose because she knew he was hiding here? No, he was sure she hadn't noticed him. He could always come back in the morning, after it got light, to see what it was.

  As soon as she had disappeared from sight, he stretched his numb legs and straightened up. As the blood began to flow again, his mosquito bites started to itch. Scratching violently, he glanced at his watch. It was already 11.30, and he should be getting to work himself. The thought that this woman would be standing there on the line filled him with a mixture of hope and fear. Tonight, for the first time, he had discovered a real emotion in the midst of his long, dull test.

  -

  He saw her the minute he entered the lounge. She was standing by the drink-vending machines next to the door, whispering to the older woman who was often with her. She was wearing jeans and a faded denim shirt, and her arms were folded tightly across her chest. It was the same sort of sloppy outfit she always wore, but Kazuo was surprised how different she looked from this morning, after the long shift. He stared at her and she stared back, but he wilted under her sharp gaze.

  'Good morning,' he murmured, but she ignored him. The other person, however, the short, older one, smiled and nodded at him. This woman was one of the best workers in the factory, and even among the Brazilians she was known as the Skipper. Wanting to say something more to them, Kazuo searched through the Japanese words he knew; but while he was thinking, they went into the changing area. Disappointed, he followed them and began looking for the hanger that held his own uniform. He changed quickly and joined the usual group of Brazilians in one corner of the lounge. Trying to be inconspicuous, he lit a cigarette and glanced over at the women's side of the changing room.

  There were no curtains shielding the changing area, just the street clothes and uniforms hanging in rows, so the women were clearly visible as they put on their work clothes. He could see her stern profile and the deep creases that spread out from the corners of her clenched mouth. She was obviously a good bit older than he'd imagined, probably about the same age as his mother, who had just turned forty-six. He had never met a woman whose thoughts were so impossible to guess. The pretty girls he'd been with in the past were still more to his taste, but he found himself strangely attracted to this mysterious older woman.

  He watched as she stepped out of her jeans. The fingers holding his cigarette trembled almost imperceptibly and he lowered his eyes for a moment. But unable to resist, he looked up and found her staring straight at him. She had finished putting on her work pants, and her jeans lay in a heap at her feet. Kazuo blushed, but then realised that she was looking right through him at the wall beyond, her face completely blank. He knew that something had changed in her since this morning, if only because her anger toward him had faded away. Now she didn't seem to be thinking about him at all, which was even worse.

  The woman and her friend returned to the lounge, work caps in hand, and passed by without a word, apparently heading straight down to the factory floor; but as they went, Kazuo quickly memorised the shape of the characters on her name tag. Then, when nearly everyone had gone down, he pulled her time card from the rack and went to look for one of the Brazilians who knew Japanese.

  'How do you read this?' he asked.

  'Masako Katori,' the man answered. Kazuo thanked him. 'You fancy her or something? A bit old for you, isn't she?' The man had left Japan for Brazil more than thirty years earlier but had come back recently to work here.

  'I owe her something,' Kazuo said with a serious look.

  'Money?' the man laughed. If only it were that simple, Kazuo thought, going back to return the time card.

  From the minute he knew her name, she became someone special for him. As he placed her time card back in the slot, he noted that her schedule gave her every Saturday off. He also noticed that she hadn't punched in until 11.59 last night, no doubt because of him, but otherwise there was no sign of any connection between them. Spotting the shapeless pair of sneakers in the cubby-hole labelled with her name, he imagined that they must still be warm from her feet.

  After quickly washing and disinfecting his hands, he passed through the health inspector's checkpoint and walked slowly down the stairs that led to the plant. He knew that the women would be clustered at the bottom, waiting for the doors to open. They all looked alike in their uniforms, with only their eyes visible between their hats and masks, but he looked down the line for Masako, then realised she was right in front of him, standing slightly apart and staring at something. When he followed her gaze, he was surprised to find that it led to one of the blue plastic buckets they used to collect garbage. Was there something in it that bothered her? He craned his neck to peer in, but it contained nothing but scraps of food. She gave him a chilling look when he turned around.

  'Excuse me,' he said, determined to talk to her.

  'What?' Her low voice was muffled by the mask.

  'I was . . . sorry,' he said, blurting out the only words he could remember. 'I want.. . to talk,' he added in his halting Japanese. But before he could tell whether she had even heard this last part, she turned and faced the door, her expression hard, forbidding. It was a shock to be ignored like that, especially since he'd only been trying to make her understand, and he felt utterly miserable.

  The doors opened and the part-timers filed in to begin scrubbing their hands. Kazuo was assigned to one of the carts that delivered food to the assembly lines, so he headed for the kitchen.

  It was odd, but work that had been such a grind up to this point now seemed almost fun. His job tonight was to take the heavy vats of cold rice to the machine at the head of the line. The work was hard and carried some responsibility, since the whole line would stop if the rice didn't arrive on time. But it meant that he would get to see Masako with the woman they called the Skipper at their usual stations by the rice machine. And when he brought in the first load of rice, there they were, directing operations for the middle line.

  'Hurry up!' the Skipper called, '- it's about to run out.' Kazuo lifted the heavy vat with both hands and dumped the rice into the machine. Masako never glanced up from the stack of containers she was feeding to the Skipper. This allowed him to study her profile from close up, and though only her eyes were uncovered, he could tell they looked troubled. The Skipper, too, who was usually shouting or laughing or both, seemed more subdued tonight. Kazuo noticed as well that neither the good-looker nor the fat woman who usually worked with them
was on the line.

  8

  'Where were you, Mom?' a familiar but unexpected voice had called out as Yoshie arrived back from Masako's house, utterly worn out. Yoshie tugged off her shoes and ran inside - her daughter Kazue had come home. She had never told her friends at the factory, but she actually had two children. The reason she'd never mentioned the older one was that Yoshie herself could barely stand the girl, even though she was her own daughter.

  Kazue would be twenty-one now. She had quit school and run off with an older man when she was eighteen, and Yoshie hadn't heard a word from her since. This was the first time she'd been home in over three years. Yoshie sighed loudly, feeling both relieved to see her again and wary of the trouble she knew she could cause; also wondering what other surprises the day had in store for her after what she'd already been through. She studied Kazue's face, trying to hide her shock and apprehension.

  The girl's dyed-brown hair fell straight down almost to her waist, and tugging at the ends of it was a small boy who was staring up at Yoshie. This must be the child she'd heard rumours about a couple of years ago, her first grandchild. He looked exactly like his useless father, and none too cute at that. He was thin and pale, with a line of snot running down from his nose. The boy's dad was a loser who had hung around the neighbourhood, never able to hold down a regular job; and now his child was watching her with a knowing sort of look, as if he'd guessed what she was thinking.

  'Where have you been all this time?' Yoshie asked. 'You never even called, and now you just show up like this and expect me to be thrilled?' She had perhaps been a bit blunter than she'd meant to be, but the time for caring or even getting angry had long since passed. Her only real worry now was that her other daughter, Miki, would end up just like this one. If Kazue came back for good, she was bound to be a bad influence on Miki. And then there was the little matter of what had happened earlier this morning, and the details still to be taken care of.