by Yoko Ogawa
“I pay these women to help me escape this fear. The desires of the flesh confirm my existence. And then, in the morning, I take the first boat back to the island. I throw out the notes for the sturgeon translation, the sample pamphlets, even the blotter I’d been using—and then I’m sure that the crisis has passed.”
I nodded. I hadn’t understood everything that he’d said, but I didn’t want to disturb the quiet of the classroom. He breathed a long sigh, as though his fear had finally left him.
The wind off the ocean had died at dusk. The leaves on the trees were still, and the school flag and the nets on the soccer goals hung limp. We went into the storage room at the back of the classroom. It was dark and stuffy and its shelves were filled with equipment for high school science experiments: flasks, beakers, mortars, a scale and weights, a chart with the periodic table, a slide projector, a model of the human skeleton, test tubes, microscopes, insect specimens, petri dishes. … We walked down the narrow aisle between the shelves. The air was faintly medicinal, like the translator’s plastic cord.
“Did you think me contemptible?” he asked.
“No,” I said. “I’ve known about these women since I was a child. They come to the Iris all the time.” A specimen box caught my eye; the pin inside had come loose, and the beetle lay at the bottom.
“Do you do the same things to them?” I asked.
“They could never be the same,” he said, shaking his head. “Mari …” I loved the sound of my name on his lips. “There is no one like you. You are unique, every fingernail, every strand of hair incomparable.”
I didn’t know how to answer—I just wanted him to say my name over and over. There was no need for other words, words that had a meaning. I opened and closed the drawers under the shelves at random, test tubes rattling together.
Earlier that same day, I had been tied to a bed with iron rails that were ideal for securing my ankles and wrists. He had cut away my slip with a large pair of scissors. The blades had been sharpened to a fine edge, and the steel had a dark sheen. He snapped them open and closed in the air, as if to test the sharpness and savor the sound. Then he drew them straight up my body from my spread legs, and the slip fell away as if by magic.
The blades touched my abdomen. A cold shock ran through me, and my head began to spin. If he had pressed just a bit harder, the scissors might have pierced my soft belly. The skin would have peeled back, the fat beneath laid bare. Blood would have dripped on the bedspread.
My head had been filled with premonitions of fear and pain. I wondered whether his wife had died like this. But as these premonitions became realities, pleasure also erupted violently in me. I knew now how I reacted at such a moment: my body grew moist and liquid.
He cut the shoulder straps on my slip with great care. I knew it was futile, but I continued to wiggle my arms and legs to loosen the cords. The bed creaked as I struggled, and that seemed to excite him even more. The remains of the tattered slip fell to the floor—the second one I had lost.
“The last boat will be leaving soon,” I said. The horn blew in the distance, and he sighed, as if he had heard the one sound he did not want to hear.
We held each other for a few moments, as we always did to delay the inevitable parting. It was the only way to hold the sadness at bay. Our bodies had melted into each other, cheek to cheek, breath meeting between us.
My blouse was glued to my back—with no slip to absorb the sweat. A faint red mark from the cord was visible on my wrist.
“Why do we have to leave each other? Why do we have to be apart?”
“I don’t know. …” He shook his head again and again.
S I X
It soon became more difficult to slip out of the hotel and see the translator. I was running out of excuses, and there was a limit to the number of times I could visit the “rich old lady.” At first Mother had been excited by the word “rich,” but her enthusiasm had faded. As soon as she realized there would be nothing tangible for her in the relationship, my imaginary friend became nothing more than an annoying old woman.
“What good does it do you to spend time with her? She should be giving you something for this. She has you come when it suits her, when she’s bored. And I’m the one who’s inconvenienced—at the busiest time of year. You have to drop her.”
The Iris was open year-round, and I had never had a regular day off. If I so much as went next door to buy an ice cream while I was supposed to be watching the desk, Mother got furious. “We’ll probably have an empty room tonight, thanks to you and your ice cream,” she would tell me. Then she’d take the half-eaten cone out of my hand and toss it in the sink.
I had to pick just the right moment to ask to go out. It was important to avoid inconveniencing her—even if she had nothing more important planned than an evening with her dancing friends, that always took precedence. Until now, my errands had been relatively unimportant, attending a soccer game, returning videos, buying menstrual pads. …
But things were different now. I was willing to tell any sort of lie to keep my appointment.
“I have a toothache.” I had decided to announce this at lunch, when the maid was with us. I had a feeling it might go more smoothly with her there. “Can I go to the dentist?”
“Which tooth?”
“A molar, on the right.”
“How much does it hurt?”
“A lot.”
“But the circus arrives tomorrow and every room is booked. How can you have a toothache at a time like this?” She went on muttering for some time. I took a bite of my cucumber sandwich, careful to chew only with the left side of my mouth.
The maid forced half her sandwich into her mouth and washed it down with a sip of beer. She said nothing about my trip to the dentist and avoided looking at me, staring at the crumbs on the table instead. “I’m sorry I won’t be able to help with the rooms,” I told her. She grunted noncommittally. “Oh, could you show me that pretty little purse you had the other day, the beaded one?” I wanted to be sure that she understood our agreement.
She drained the rest of her beer and threw the empty can in the trash.
“I don’t have it with me today,” she said.
“No? Too bad,” I said. I picked apart the last sandwich on the plate and ate the cheese. The maid lit a cigarette. Mother burped.
It was suffocating, and no breeze ever reached the kitchen. A fan rattled above the refrigerator, but it did little more than stir up the hot air. The guests were all down at the beach, and the hotel was empty. Cicadas cried in the courtyard, and the sun beat down on the back of the boy playing the harp. He seemed even more exhausted than usual.
That evening, there was a minor incident in the lobby. A guest came back drunk and touched my breast.
“Sorry!” he said and laughed obscenely. “That hand’s got a mind of its own.”
At first, I hadn’t realized what he was doing. I was passing his key across the desk when his hand shot out and held my breast for a moment. It took several seconds before I knew what was happening. Then I screamed and threw the key on the counter. I rubbed my breast, but that just made him laugh harder.
“No need to get so worked up, young lady,” he said. “It was just a little accident. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He steadied himself on the counter and fixed me with his bloodshot eyes. His breath reeked of alcohol. Then I screamed again at the top of my lungs.
Mother came running from the back room, and guests peered out from their doorways.
At some point my screams had turned to sobs, and I was crouching behind the desk. But I knew even then that I was overreacting. A drunk had gotten a bit out of line, nothing more.
“Can’t you take a joke, missy? Don’t be like that.” From behind the counter, it sounded as though he had begun to sulk.
“I’m very sorry,” I heard Mother say. “You must have startled her—she’s still just a child. Don’t think a thing about it. I’ll talk to her. … And I’m very sorry we distur
bed the rest of you. Please accept my apologies.” She was being her usual charming self for the guests. “You,” she said, turning back to me and lowering her voice, “will you stop that? He didn’t rape you, he just touched your breast. It’s nothing, like a fly landing on it. If we play our cards right, we might even get a little something out of him tomorrow.”
A dead cockroach lay curled up in the dust behind the desk. I wasn’t sure why I was crying anymore. It was quiet in the lobby, and I assumed the drunk had left and the other guests had gone back to their rooms. The only sound was Mother’s voice prattling on.
It occurred to me that I was crying because I wanted to see the translator. I wanted to feel the warmth of his skin, see the shy smile that lit up his face when he caught sight of me in the crowd. I wanted to repeat our secret ceremony at his home on the island. Though I knew I would see him the next day, that was somehow no comfort as I cried behind the desk. I wanted to see him that instant, and the feeling made me terribly sad.
The maid betrayed me. She did not show up at the Iris at the usual hour.
“She called to ask for the day off. She said she has a stomachache,” Mother told me.
“But what about my dentist’s appointment?”
“You can go tomorrow. But I’ve got to have you here today. We’re full. What a time to have indigestion!” But tomorrow wouldn’t do at all! I had to be in front of the clock in the plaza at two this afternoon. I wanted to scream this at her, but there was nothing I could do but obey in silence. “Well, don’t just stand there. When you’re done cleaning up in the dining room, you can come help me change beds.” Her orders always made me miserable. She beat me down and robbed me of any happiness.
I did the dishes. There were bits of ham with teeth marks to be scraped away, yogurt-coated spoons to be rinsed, leftover coffee to be poured down the drain.
Stragglers were still coming down for breakfast. A woman with big breasts in shorts and a tank top and a young man in sunglasses ordered an espresso and a tea with lemon. When I told them we only had regular coffee, the woman pursed her lips and the man snorted in disgust. I retrieved the lemon I had just put in the refrigerator and cut a slice. They had an endless stream of requests and complaints: Do you have blueberry jam? The cheese is too hard. Could you reheat the bread? There’s something on this knife. … A mountain of dirty dishes filled the sink. The glass the woman had used was smeared with pink lipstick, and no matter how much I rubbed it would not come off.
In the lobby, guests were beginning to check out. “Mari!” Mother called my name from somewhere. The cool of the morning had given way to a hot summer sun beating down on the courtyard. Someone was ringing the bell on the front desk. I threw the lipstick-stained glass into the sink, and it shattered with a lovely crystalline crash.
The maid was obviously just pretending to be sick. She must have known I had a date with the man who wrote the letter, and she was trying to prevent me from keeping it. Perhaps she was angry with me for bringing up the beaded purse in front of Mother. Perhaps she wanted to punish me. Or perhaps she simply enjoyed making me suffer.
The translator had no telephone, so I had no way to cancel our appointment. Somehow, I would have to get away from the Iris by two o’clock. I could not disappoint him.
After I had taken care of the guests in the lobby, I hid from Mother and phoned the housekeeper.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“It’s kind of you to call,” she said. Her tone was self-satisfied.
“Perhaps you drank too much beer.”
“Maybe—that would do it in this heat.”
“Mother’s pretty upset.”
“She’s always upset.”
“Why are you pretending to be sick?”
“Who’s pretending?” she said. I could tell she was barely able to keep from laughing. “Don’t talk nonsense. Why would I lie to get out of work? I don’t get paid unless I show up.”
“You don’t fool me,” I said. Mother had turned off the vacuum cleaner. I drew the phone closer and cupped my hand around the receiver. “I know what you’re up to. You want to keep me here, keep me from going to the dentist.”
“Don’t be silly! I couldn’t care less about your dentist. You can go see him or not, it’s all the same to me.” I could hear ice clinking in a glass and then the sound of swallowing. She was eating and drinking, and she wasn’t even trying to hide it from me. “And how would you know whether I’m faking or not? My stomach really does hurt, too much to be cleaning rooms, that’s for sure. Besides, your mother told me I could stay home—”
“Be here by one thirty,” I said, cutting her off.
“I’m sorry, but that’s impossible.”
“No, listen to me. By one thirty at the very latest.”
“And why should I?”
“Because if you aren’t, I’ll tell Mother. You know what I mean. And you’ll lose more than just a day’s pay; you’ll lose everything.” The vacuum cleaner started up again, but it was quiet at the other end of the line. I was afraid that she would say I could go ahead and tell, that she wanted to be done with us. Or that she would threaten to tell Mother I was meeting a man. I tried to calm myself; everything would be all right. I had burned his letters, so there was no proof. But what she had done was terrible. All I had to do was show Mother my little purse in her bag—or make her undress to reveal my slip. “You have until one thirty,” I said, and then I hung up.
It was a terribly busy day, without so much as a moment to eat lunch. The carpets in the rooms were full of sand, and Mother did nothing but scream at me the whole time we were vacuuming. Then the new guests started arriving before we had finished the cleaning. There were lots of calls—the clinic, a landscaper, the travel agency, the dance teacher—and guests canceling, making reservations, bothering me for directions. … And on top of everything else, the toilets on the third floor were clogged, and a sickening stench spread through the whole hotel. I called the plumber immediately, but he took forever to arrive. By now I was surrounded by guests shouting complaints at me—the vile smell, the sweltering heat, someone had cut their foot on the rocks. Everything seemed to be my fault.
The problem turned out to be a pair of panties that were stuck in the pipes in Room 301—the room of the couple who had been late to breakfast that morning. They were horrible, indecent panties, exactly the sort that woman would wear, and they emerged as a filthy lump from deep in the pipes.
Now it was getting late. The translator would have left the island and would be on the excursion boat, dressed as always in a starched white shirt, a tie, and the painfully hot suit. I stared at the clock as I apologized to the guests, and thought only of him.
The maid did not seem to be coming. I thought I heard something at the kitchen door, but when I looked out it was only a stray cat.
“I’m starved,” Mother said. “I can’t do another thing. Go make us lunch.” I went back to the kitchen and heated up some canned curry. Guests continued to arrive, so I ate standing in the kitchen door. By the time I got back to the lobby, Mother’s curry was cold.
It was nearly 1:30, but there was still no sign of the maid. She seemed determined to punish me. Even if I ran out the door right now, I would still be late. But here I was, eating curry. It was too awful. I forced down the last, cold bite.
“The tablecloths are dirty,” Mother said, still on edge despite her lunch. “Go wash them now or they won’t be dry tomorrow morning.” She slammed the door and went up to check whether things had improved on the third floor.
So I washed the tablecloths. I bleached out the butter and jam and orange juice stains and starched them, and then hung them out to dry in the narrow, mosquito-infested strip of dirt in back of the hotel. Four cloths on the top pole, three on the bottom, perfectly aligned, with the edges folded back exactly seven inches and secured with two clothespins. It had to be exactly seven inches, not six or eight, and exactly two clothespins, never three or one. Those were Mothe
r’s orders.
I’m not sure why I was so timid with Mother, why I didn’t just throw the tablecloths on the ground and run off to meet the translator. The thought of not seeing him was as unbearable as the thought that Mother would find out. I felt as though I couldn’t breathe, as though the air around me was getting thinner by the moment. If only the housekeeper would come, then everything would be all right.
The sight of the clock became unbearable. The hands moved relentlessly, past two o’clock, then three, and my hatred for the maid grew with every turn. I imagined the translator, standing before the accordion player under the merciless sun in the plaza. The coins in the accordion case sparkled, but the tourists never stopped to listen to the boy’s sad melody. Only the translator seemed to hear, to give himself over to its melancholy.
He would glance at his watch from time to time. Then he would look down the shore road, blinking in the sunlight, expecting me to come running up to him at any moment. The road was crowded with people, but the one person he wished for did not appear. His eyes moved back and forth from his watch to the flower clock, as if to be absolutely certain of the time.
His mind would run through all sorts of possibilities. Perhaps he had the wrong date. Perhaps I had never received his letter. I may have fallen terribly ill. He turned back to watch the boy and listen to his tune.
I pulled on a tablecloth with all my strength, smoothing out the wrinkles. I couldn’t bear to look at the clock anymore. He must have given up by now and returned to the island. I could only hope he hadn’t concluded that I hated him. Crouching under the drying poles, I thought of all the sad things that had happened since yesterday. When I pictured the translator, it was sadness I felt, even more than my love for him.
I don’t know how long I stayed that way. I could hear Mother’s voice in the kitchen. Dishes clattering, chairs scraping, footsteps, quiet laughter. The maid had come!
