‘I see,’ said Sadako. ‘That is a shame.’ Again, the words were automatic.
‘My wife doesn’t like me spending too many nights away, you see.’ His voice was more clipped when he spoke about his wife.
They finished their drinks and J left soon after, touching Sadako’s back lightly as he said goodbye.
When she was younger, Sadako had been touched on the train—her thighs and, once, her underwear pulled at beneath her skirt. She didn’t even know how the man managed to make such a stealthy move, right under the nose of other passengers. But he had obviously got away with it before. Sadako was fifteen, no man or boy had ever touched her there before; this man was the first to do it. She told her mother, who was newly single after the divorce, after her father lost his job. Her mother told her to stop boasting. You think you’re so attractive? It’s nothing to be proud of, to be touched by a creep. Sadako didn’t tell her mother when it happened again, when a man managed to touch the lip of her vagina. It had become something that could not be spoken about.
Towards the end of the month, the man named J returned to the bar in Kabukicho. It was the end of spring; the cherry blossoms were falling across Tokyo. J seemed preoccupied, his face drawn, his smile a little forced. Sadako was used to businessmen coming in and complaining about their bosses, their wives, their families. They seemed ready to burst with the many things they could not say to the people in their everyday lives.
‘My wife is acting strange,’ said J. ‘She is very preoccupied. She’s forgetful—she forgot entirely about a dinner we were supposed to attend last week in Nagoya. She was late and forgot to bring a change of shirt for me. And she’s never home on the weekends anymore. Not that I want to do too much on the weekends—I’m tired, after all, I need to rest—but it would be nice if she thought to be around.’
He drained his whisky and Sadako poured him another. She said that must be difficult for him. He nodded and kept talking. Sadako never had to say too much to the men about their complaints. They just wanted someone to listen.
J said that his wife had always been a quiet woman, not particularly bubbly in group settings, not especially social. But she had always been attentive to his needs, until now.
‘And every wife wants a child, right? Why else do we get married, settle down in a home? Do you know the population rate is falling at a troublesome rate? It’s a responsibility now.’
As the night wore on, J relaxed a little. They were joined by one of his work colleagues, who was accompanied by another hostess. The conversation became lighthearted. J was smiling now, no longer the resentful, frustrated husband who had walked in an hour earlier.
‘You have such a nice face,’ he said to Sadako. ‘It’s open and honest.’
His face was shining and Sadako was sure he was more than a little drunk. Clients changed when they relaxed, when they had been drinking long enough; they leaned in closer, murmuring compliments as though they weren’t quite aware that they were saying out loud what was in their minds.
When the two men were ready to leave, Sadako and the other hostess stood at the entrance to the bar, making smiling bows and waving. Outside, Kabukicho shone with bright, artificial light, as if the sun came from behind these signs in red, white, pink, orange, blue, turquoise, yellow. Signs piled up on each other, layering the street. You could only see a clear space if you craned your neck right up to the sky that had no stars. Couples and groups walked, laughed, called. It was never peaceful in this street at night, there was never a breath of fresh air. The two men waved and farewelled them with drunken smiles. While the other hostess went back inside, Sadako watched for a moment as the man J, his slightly stocky figure, thick head of hair, entered the night-time crowd.
The client, J, became more demanding over the next month. He had recently received a promotion, which required him to make more regular trips to Tokyo. Each time, he visited Sadako at the bar in Kabukicho, sometimes two evenings in a row. He occasionally came with a few colleagues, but usually he was alone. Sadako’s life in Tokyo had taken on a familiar pattern: working at the bar in Kabukicho from eight in the evening until two or three in the morning, going to the public baths on the weekends when the hostess bar was closed, visiting Kumiko’s hair salon every few days. J became a fixture in her weeks, always with a complaint about his wife.
Sadako started to form a mental image of this woman, of the apartment where she and J lived in Nagoya, a city she had never seen, and of the life they lived there together. Often J would complain about something his wife had specifically failed to do, some inattention she was guilty of, while other times he paid Sadako compliments, praising her warm personality, her open smile, her way of speaking to him. Sadako knew that he was mentally comparing her with his wife. The men always thought they found in hostesses what their wives lacked.
Sadako was used to this kind of behaviour from clients—though perhaps others were not as persistent as this man J—and so she assumed that he would eventually stop visiting so frequently, when things settled down at home. Younger men like him, newly married, often had complaints about their new wives, as though each woman had not quite lived up to the expectations these men had about how their girlfriends would transform into wives. Older clients were more resigned; their complaints did not come with any expectation that things would change. They came to see the hostesses as a regular part of their marriage, not as an escape from it. There was always a pattern: the men seemed to have grown up with a version of a woman in mind—devoted and demure yet hardworking in the home—and the younger ones were still hoping that their new wives would mould themselves to this shape.
Another client, a man in his early twenties who was quite attractive but also shy and distracted, asked Sadako if she would accompany him to a family function. Could she pretend to be his girlfriend? These outside dates paid well, and the man seemed sincere, so Sadako said yes. He looked relieved and she poured him another drink. He confided in her that, in truth, he found relationships too much trouble, he was too nervous and the expectations of a relationship were too demanding, and since his parents lived in Kobe and he worked in Tokyo, he rarely had to confront his lack of a girlfriend with them. But now they were coming to Tokyo for a cousin’s wedding, and he needed to be seen to have a partner, to be taking the proper path of a young man his age.
Sadako dressed in a light blue dress with short, puffed sleeves. The wedding reception was held on the penthouse floor of a building in Minato Ward. Large round tables and chairs, covered in white, were spaced out evenly across the floor. Far-reaching views looked past the skyscrapers. Sadako was introduced to the man’s parents, his cousin who was now married and her new husband, to family friends and grandparents. In all, the function went as planned; everyone seemed fooled by their occasional handholding, their smiles at one another. Towards the end of the night, however, Sadako started to feel that something was wrong, some unknown resistance reared up in her, and she realised she felt lonely. Perhaps it was the way the client’s grandmother, with her soft, wrinkled hand on Sadako’s, said that Sadako was a lovely girl and she wished her a healthy and prosperous future with her grandson, or when Sadako looked over to see the client talking with his parents, a bashful smile on his face as though he had been fooled by his own lie. For whatever reason, Sadako left the wedding feeling hollow.
She lay in bed as the sun came up, drank coffee, watched videos on her laptop. She was a pretend person: the enthusiasm, the compliments, the laughter. She couldn’t actually remember the last time she had used laughter or felt enthusiasm as an expression of her own, true emotion. For most of her conscious day she was pretending, the only real moments were these, curled up in her bed, or at Kumiko’s salon, where it was okay to be tired or unhappy. At the hostess bar, she had to make sure she wore a different dress every night of the week. The hair appointments and facials were designed to hide the fact that her body was struggling to cope, as if rotting inside. I’m no good, she told herself. I don’t know wh
ere I’ll go from here.
The next time J visited her at the Kabukicho bar, he was more animated. He had arranged for his wife’s parents to talk to her over lunch that weekend. They would discuss the matter of children. It was a family concern.
Sadako played her role of supportive listener, offering encouragement, remaining positive.
‘I can’t talk to her like I can to you,’ J said. ‘She’s my wife, after all. With you there aren’t the same boundaries.’
Many men had said this to her. Sadako, in her role, offered something that the men felt was impossible in their real lives.
‘She’s not very good at making conversation in a large group,’ he said. ‘It’s as though she can only nod and listen or agree with people. When we go to work functions, she’s awkward. I really thought she would learn to be more energetic in those situations. If I could take you to those dinners, things would be more interesting.’
At some point she mentioned her role as a fake wedding guest.
‘Most people would go to a proper agency, who provide real actors to play the roles. But I suppose because this man knew me from the bar he thought it would be easier for him to fake a relationship with me. The faking has to go both ways, of course. The person who is real has to fake it as well, almost to the point where they believe it.’
‘Do people use fake wives or husbands?’
‘Of course. Sometimes people want a fake wife when their real one has died, so they tell the actor what memories they need to mention, what quirks or gestures or habits to have, what nicknames to use, so the person paying really believes their own fabrication, or can at least pretend they believe it. Other times, it’s for appearances—you know, like taking them to school events when the kid is bullied for not having a father.’
J laughed uncomfortably. ‘Sometimes I wish I could bring a fake wife to work events here in Tokyo. It would just be too much bother to get my wife to come to these things.’
Sadako rarely thought deeply about the wives or girlfriends her clients mentioned over beer and cocktails. They were always abstract figures, indistinct images of women she would never see. But she had heard J talk for months now, and gradually his wife took on a more solid form in her mind. They seemed to be in a moment of crisis and J was just now realising this. He had shown Sadako a photo of his wife’s Facebook profile picture: her hair was cut to the shoulders, and she wore a black coat and red scarf, standing next to early spring blossom. Her smile was somehow veiled, as if she was not really smiling, at least not with her whole face. It made Sadako wonder about this woman, the wife, what she felt about her husband, what she really wanted. Mixed with her intrigue there was envy; she felt this, even if in a dull way, about all the women whose husbands and boyfriends she met. They were living a life that wasn’t open to her, the hostess, the daughter of poor, divorced parents. No man would seriously date her now, unless she kept her past ten years a secret. And then what kind of marriage would that be, one built on complete dishonesty, with a husband who never really knew her?
They finished their drinks and J stood up to leave. Sadako stood and smoothed down her dress. J looked at her with an uncomfortable expression.
‘I was wondering, could we maybe have dinner next time I’m in Tokyo?’ He seemed embarrassed, but rushed on. ‘I mean, as though we are really a couple. As though you’re my wife?’
‘You want me to pretend to be married to you?’
J nodded, earnest as a child. ‘Just for the date. I just want to know what it’s like to be with the kind of woman I thought my wife would be. She’s growing more distant every day now. Afterwards, things can go back to normal between you and me. I’ll come back to the bar.’
To her own surprise, Sadako agreed. She did not know if pretending to be this man’s wife would be an act of compassion—perhaps going to the wedding with the young man who never wanted to marry was also an act of compassion—or whether she also wanted to pretend to have things that she did not have. She named a price, made it clear there would be no sex, and they exchanged phone numbers. J said he would call.
A pervasive thought—What is wrong with all of us?—stayed with Sadako as she walked J to the entrance.
Almost two weeks later, the client named J sent Sadako a message on her phone, asking if they could meet for dinner. He suggested a place near Akasaka Station. It was close to where he had meetings that day, so he would not be too late. J asked if she could wear something in a bright colour, if she could be affectionate and talkative and fun. She guessed that J had looked at some rental websites or heard from acquaintances that these were things that could be requested of a fake spouse, lover, family member. Since it was a weeknight, Sadako had to arrange for the night off work from the hostess bar. She chose a dress in pure red, and spent an hour at Kumiko’s salon in the afternoon.
They met at a small bar with fewer than ten seats. J was waiting, scrolling through his phone, still wearing his suit jacket. A middle-aged bartender nodded and greeted Sadako, and J stood up as she walked over. They sat down, J ordered a beer, Sadako a white wine. Sadako could not help but wonder how she seemed to the bartender—who she seemed.
J removed his suit jacket; he seemed less comfortable than when he came to the bar in Kabukicho.
Sadako asked him many questions: ‘How was your day?’ And: ‘You must be busy with work since the new promotion?’ She complimented his work ethic.
‘And you?’ J asked. He made shy, hesitant noises, clearing his throat and sniffing. ‘How was your day?’
‘It was fine,’ said Sadako. ‘I went to the hairdresser. It’s relaxing.’
‘Your hair looks very nice.’
‘Thank you.’
‘The red dress. It looks good. You never wear that sort of thing.’
‘I’m glad you like it.’
When they finished their drinks, they went to a restaurant nearby. J, who was still a little formal and nervous, pulled the seat out for Sadako. A waiter came to the table, one arm behind his back, the other moving gently as he described the chef’s specials for the evening. They ordered drinks, and then J ordered the food based on what he knew was good at the restaurant. He ordered so many things, Sadako was sure they would not even eat half of them.
As the first small dishes arrived, J suggested they visit his parents soon, down in Kyushu.
‘It’s a shame that you didn’t meet my grandparents. My grandfather worked hard after the war. They both put the past behind them and got on with things. I really admire that.’
Sadako continued in her role. ‘Are you happy we live in Nagoya?’
‘Absolutely. I wanted to do well, to put my family in a good position. It’s the responsibility of a son. But Saga had limited opportunities. In Nagoya there was more opportunity for success. The economy was recovering after the drama of 2008.’
He ate several mouthfuls quickly.
‘What should we do after this?’ Sadako asked. ‘Let’s do something fun. Karaoke?’
J laughed. ‘Sure.’
The next round of dishes arrived, larger and full of meats and crispy vegetables, along with two bowls of rice.
J cleared his throat. ‘I really like spending this time with you. We should come to Tokyo more often.’
‘I like it too.’
They left the restaurant and stood in a busy street in Akasaka. The early summer nights were starting to grow humid. Restaurants and bars sent warm light glowing across the pavement. The smell of cooked food came from some of the smaller snack bars, where businessmen sat with their ties undone, their faces red, dozens of small plates and tall beer glasses in front of them, their voices merging and filling the open street. They started to walk side by side, stopping to sing a few songs at a karaoke bar, J drinking and watching Sadako while she laughed along, thinking to herself, Yes, this is fun, I can believe that this is what couples do.
They went back out into the street. Sadako’s head felt light; she had drunk several glasses of wine. Her body did
n’t want the alcohol, she was starting to feel sick, but it was all part of the role.
‘Do you know what we’re going to do now?’ J asked.
She shook her head, still smiling, light with his mood. ‘We are going home,’ he said, putting his arm around her waist. ‘You are my wife and we are going back to our apartment.’
J kept one arm around her waist and with the other took her hand in his. Sadako had never really had a real boyfriend. The clients she had dated could never seem to forget that she had first been a hostess to them. They wanted to see her in the evenings, after work, as though continuing the hostess–client relationship that took place only after hours. She had never done things like go to the movies in the daytime, walk through a park holding hands, the things that seemed to her to happen only in movies. Even when she had sex with the men she dated, they seemed somehow guilty afterwards, refraining from affection, as if they didn’t know how to act in that way. Everything remained very functional, like they were still only pretending to be intimate.
J had booked a hotel for the evening rather than travel back to Nagoya on the last train. The hotel was very close by, in Akasaka, and belonged to the same chain as the one where Sadako and the other hostesses attended the party over a month ago. Budget Hotels for the Business Traveller, said a sign in the lobby.
The room was small but had a doublesized Western bed and a small chair near a sealed window. They took off their shoes and stepped into the slippers by the door. Sadako managed to imagine that this was an apartment, that it was familiar to her. On the desk, next to a lamp and hotel stationery, Sadako saw a couple of books with titles like The Real History of Japan and Pearl Harbor: The Plot, next to maps of Tokyo and vouchers for tourist attractions.
‘New books?’ she asked.
J shrugged. ‘I haven’t read them.’ He took off his suit jacket. ‘It’s nice to be home where we can relax.’
‘Yes, it is nice.’
The Shut Ins Page 7