AY 30

SHIBUYA: YY, ¥14,000

SHIBUYA: WA, ¥15,000

I gazed at the photograph of my father atop my beat-up old piano. It’s the same photograph we used at his funeral service. He has a stern expression on his face as he stands, looking very dignified and dapper in a sharp suit with his office building in the background. I loved my father. Why? I wonder. Probably because he treated me as if I were the most important thing in his life. He doted on me. He, more than anyone else, was able to discern my true strengths—and as a consequence was distraught that I had been born female.

“Kazue’s the smartest girl in our family,” he would say to me.

“Well, what about Mother?”

“Once your mother married she stopped studying, didn’t she? Why, she never even reads the newspaper.”

My father whispered that in my ear as if I were his co-conspirator. It was Sunday, and my mother was in the garden tending to her plants. I was in junior high at the time, studying for the high school qualifying examinations.

“Mother reads the newspaper!”

“Only the society page and the television schedule. She doesn’t even glance at the articles on economics or political affairs. That’s because she can’t understand them. Kazue, I think you should get a job with a first-class company. You’ll be able to meet an intelligent man, someone who will stimulate you intellectually. There’s no need for you to marry, though. You could just stay on in this house. You’re bright enough to outdo any man out there.”

I was convinced that women who married and became housewives ended up as laughingstocks. I wanted at least to avoid that. Or if I did marry, I’d have to marry a man who was more intelligent, so he could appreciate my abilities. At that time, I didn’t understand that smart men don’t always select smart women. Because my parents did not get on that well, I believed it was because my mother wasn’t very smart and never really tried to apply herself. She treated my father with respect and put him on a pedestal in front of others, but behind the scenes I knew she despised him because he’d come from a rural upbringing.

“When your father married me,” she’d say, “he didn’t even know what cheese was. When I made breakfast he thought I’d let the cheese spoil because it smelled sharp, and he asked me what it was. I was shocked at his ignorance.”

Mother laughed when she told this story, but her laugh disclosed a sense of disgust. My mother had grown up in Tokyo, where her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather had all been either upper-level bureaucrats or lawyers. My father, on the other hand, was from some hick town in Wakayama Prefecture, where he had to struggle just to make it into Tokyo University. He had no choice after that but to enter a company and work as an accountant. My father was proud of using his wits to succeed. My mother was proud of her pedigree.

And what about me? After I graduated from Q University, I entered a top-notch firm. I was fashionably thin and men paid attention to me. I had it all, which in and of itself was extremely cool, I thought. By day I was respected for my brains; by night I was desired for my body. I felt like Superwoman! It made me grin as I thought about it.

“Kazue! Watch what you’re doing! You’re spilling your coffee!” I heard Mother scream angrily. I realized I’d dribbled here and there. A brown stain was spreading on my polyester skirt. Mother picked up the dishcloth and threw it at me. I tried to wipe the coffee off but only succeeded in making the stain worse. Once it had set, it was not going to come out. Resigned, I picked the newspaper off the table and began to spread it out.

“Aren’t you going to change?” my mother asked, without looking in my direction. She began clearing away my younger sister’s breakfast things. She always made my sister’s breakfast: toast, fried egg, coffee. My sister worked for a manufacturer and had to leave at the crack of dawn. I only had to be at work by nine-thirty, so I usually didn’t have to leave home until eight-thirty.

“No. The skirt is navy so it’s not that noticeable.”

I heard my mother release an especially loud sigh, so I looked up.

“What?”

“I just think you could pay more attention to your appearance. You’ve worn the same outfit how many days in a row now?”

This made me angry. “Look, I’m old enough to dress myself, so just mind your own business, will you?”

Mother was quiet for a minute after that. But then she started in again.

“I don’t want to bring this up now, but there is something I simply must speak to you about. Lately you’ve been coming home very late. What have you been doing? Plus your makeup has gotten so heavy, you’re thinner than ever, and I just wonder if you’re eating properly.”

“I’m eating.”

I chewed up a gymnema pill and washed it down with a swig of coffee. Gymnema was a popular weight-loss product. It was distilled from natural sources and helped break down fat cells in the body. I bought a bottle in the convenience store and ate the pills instead of breakfast.

“That’s not food, it’s medicine. You’ll get sick if you don’t eat well.”

“If I get sick, there will be no one around to keep earning money, will there?”

Mother had gradually begun to look like a nasty old woman. Her hair had thinned and her face—with her eyes spaced so far apart—had begun to look more and more like that of a flounder. When she heard my taunt, Mother let out a big sigh and then she said, “You’ve really become a monster. It’s frightening.”

She pointed to the bruises I had on my wrists. “Are you into something weird?”

“Oh-oh! I’ve gotta run!”

I looked at my watch and jumped up. I slapped the newspaper down on the table. Mother covered her ears with her hands and glared at me angrily.

“Was that loud enough?” I shouted. “You ought to be able to grant me that much. I mean, you’re living off my wages, aren’t you? Why do you think you can tell me what to do?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

“Because I’ll do whatever I damn well please and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

I felt better once I got that off my chest. Back when I first entered the same company where my father had worked, I was so proud of the fact that I was able to provide for my mother and sister. But now it had become a big weight around my neck. My father had collapsed in his bath. If we’d discovered him right away, we might have been able to save him. I couldn’t help secretly blaming my mother. She was at home, but she’d already gone to bed. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind that she was somehow to blame.

After my father’s death, my income was the sole support for the family, and I began to feel the pressure. I took on as many tutoring jobs as I could and spent all day running from one to the next. And what did she do, my mother? She just sat at home fussing over the plants in her garden. What a big fat zero. A worthless woman. I looked at my mother in total disgust.

“If you don’t hurry, you’re going to be late,” my mother said, without glancing over at me. What she meant was, Hurry up and disappear. I threw on my trench coat and grabbed my shoulder bag. Mother did not go with me to the front door to see me off. Here I was, setting off to earn the money that enabled her to live in this house, and she couldn’t even say good-bye. She’d always managed to send my father off.

I slipped into my dust-covered black high heels and left the house. I was tired, and my legs felt heavy. I hadn’t had enough sleep. As I walked to the station, I looked down at the bruises on my wrists. The customer I had last night was into S&M play. He’d tied my wrists tightly. I encounter that kind of customer from time to time, and each time I add an extra charge to the usual fee. “If you want to get kinky, give me another ten thousand yen and I’ll play along,” I tell them.

At work I was so sleepy I couldn’t take it, so I went into the conference room and stretched out on the table to nap. It was as close as I could get to crawling into bed. I lay there on my back and slept. Someone came into the room, but seeing that I was on the table, he closed the door in a hurry and left. I was sure someone would call me on it before long, but at that point I didn’t care.

I slept for about an hour before I returned to my desk. As I walked past Kamei’s desk I saw her hurriedly cover up one of her papers. I knew what it was: an invitation to one of the social gatherings that the others in the company organized. I never attend, so nobody bothers to invite me anymore. At that moment I was seized with the desire to have a little fun with Kamei. “What’s that you have?” I asked. Kamei took a deep breath, preparing her answer.

“Ms. Sat, can you come? They’ll be having a party next week.”

“When?”

“On Friday.”

I could feel the air in the office go still. Everyone held their breath, awaiting my response. I glanced over at the office manager. He was sitting at his computer pretending to type something.

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

The air began to stir again. Kamei nodded nervously.

“Oh, well, that’s too bad.”

Kamei’s outfit was garish. Today she was wearing a pantsuit made of some kind of glossy material. Her blouse was bright white and open at the throat, revealing a gold necklace underneath. She really stood out in a conservative work environment like ours. And when she left at night, I suspect she exuded the aura of a “career woman.” I felt a flash of superiority as I compared her double life to my own.

“Ms. Sat, you haven’t ever joined us on one of our nights out, have you?”

Kamei seemed to be launching some kind of offensive strike. I ducked down behind the piles of papers on my desk and did not answer. Just as I stuck the earplugs in my ears, I heard Kamei apologize for overstepping her bounds.

“Sorry.”

Actually, I had gone to one of the events, shortly after I’d entered the firm. There were about forty people there, as I recall. They held the event at a bistro next to our office building. I figured it would be like an extension of work and I probably should go. Other than the old-timers, there were about ten other new employees. Only two of us, another woman and I, had graduated from a four-year university.

There were hardly any other women in the company with university degrees. Out of the 170 new employees, there were only seven of us. There was no particular title or special section for us, so I assumed we would all demand to be given the same kind of positions that men graduating from university received. But I was assigned to the research post along with another woman with a degree from Tokyo University, just like Kamei, so I was certain that we were considered the talented employees. I think her name was Yamamoto. But I’m not sure, because she quit after working a little over four years.

When I attended the after-work gathering, all I saw were my peers and superiors running around drunk. What was particularly distressing was to see the way the male employees were checking out the new females. They were most interested in the women who had attended junior college and were assigned to lower assistantship positions. Amid all the chatter and hoopla, I sat with one other Tokyo University graduate. We both looked rather stunned. There were other women around us, but they seemed used to this sort of event and were shrieking with laugher and trading jokes with one another. Before long the men started running a poll to find out who the most popular female employee was.

“Okay, out of all the women here, which one would you pick for a trip to the beach?”

A male employee five years ahead of me started it off. The section head and the office manager both started to applaud when it came time to vote for their favorite. In the end an assistant in the design section was selected for the beach. Then the situation was changed. Who would you want to take to a concert? Who for a walk in the park? And so on. Finally they asked, “Who would you most want to marry?” And the bistro erupted in unanimous applause for a sweet modest girl who worked as one of the operations assistants.

“Just look at them all.” The Tokyo University graduate turned to me. I didn’t answer. I just sat there stiffly on my cracker-thin floor cushion. My dream was falling apart. Men who were competent at work were carousing around and getting drunk.

A man who entered the company when I did called over to us. “How about Ms. Yamamoto?” he said.

The men who had been voting on women turned and pretended to look awed with respect. “No, not Ms. Yamamoto. She’s too smart for us!” All the men laughed. Yamamoto was a beautiful woman, the kind most men found it difficult to approach. Yamamoto stared at them coolly and shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, then, what about Ms. Sat?”

The speaker pointed to me, and the men from the research department—all my seniors—looked at me, their faces red from the alcohol.

“Be careful what you say about Sat. She got her job through connections!”

I always believed that I’d gotten the job on account of my own abilities and hard work, but I guess that’s not how it looked to the others. I came to realize for the first time in my life that mine was an existence that would never meet the approval of society.