The Naked Eye (New Directions Paperbook)

by Yoko Tawada

  I was under the impression that a language school would solve every one of my problems in a single blow. The simple sentence: “I am studying in Paris” would wipe from my body all suspicion of being a prostitute, an illegal alien, a thief, imposter, or fraud. Studying in Paris was most certainly a refined occupation. Even Ho Chi Minh spent six years studying here. In Moscow, on the other hand, he studied only one year. My uncle told me that once to tease me. Now I was grateful to him for this information.

  C h a p t e r F o u r

  T h e H u n g e r

  Jean was drinking tomato juice. Ai Van went into the bathroom and didn’t return right away. “This tastes good,” I think Jean said, and I found myself fascinated by the pale, dry skin on the back of his hand that, because of the particular way the light was striking it, appeared almost transparent. My fingers flew over the absent wife’s teacup to stroke the old skin, then gave it a firm pinch. Jean shouted and grabbed my fingers, pulling them to his mouth, and bit down. I screamed. “What’s going on?” Ai Van jumped out of the bathroom; I hid my throbbing hand behind my back, got up, and peered at my right eye in the mirror as if looking for an insect.

  A year had passed without my ever having spent time alone with Jean. Perhaps Ai Van made a point of never leaving us alone. I, too, avoided being alone with him whenever possible. When I was home, Ai Van stayed home as well. When Ai Van left the house, I made sure I went out as well, usually to the movies, since I didn’t know where else to go. In the movie theaters there were sometimes men who spoke to me. I would say a word that didn’t exist in any language and walk away. This one word was meant to signify: “I am unable to speak.” It was a noun in the singular signifying “speechless subject”; or else it was a verb that could be used only in the first person singular and meant the opposite of “to speak.”

  Sometimes I would flip through the dictionary Ai Van had given me to translate more of the text from Ecran. The dialogue piece was an interview with you. The letters crept off the paper and were being taken over by your voice. But every time Ai Van came into my room, the words quickly retreated into the dictionary’s shell, making me feel abandoned.

  “I want to work in a factory.” “In a factory? Can’t you think of a better job?” “What would be a better job?” “Why don’t you want to work in a café, for example.” “It’s dishonorable to work as a waitress, a waitress is obliged to serve customers.” “What’s wrong with that?” “It’s the same as the nobility and colonial masters who had servants at home to serve them meals. And it’s completely ridiculous when customers pay some piddling tip just so they can play the role of this extinct ruling class.” “But there’s only self-service in cheap fast-food restaurants and the student cafeteria.” “Expensive restaurants should use self-service too, then people will start to understand.” “If there were no more waitresses, a lot of people would lose their jobs.” “There are many other meaningful forms of work. They simply aren’t being offered as jobs.” “You are still completely obsessed with these strange ideas. Didn’t you see how the Berlin Wall fell? That was over a year ago now.” “How could I have seen that? I wasn’t in Berlin.” “I mean on television, of course.” “I don’t watch television. Television programs have nothing to do with my life.” “You don’t have a life. You go to the movies, and besides that you don’t do anything at all.” “That’s why I want to work in a factory.” “It’s so difficult for people without an education to find work. And you lack not only an education but the ability to speak the language. Perhaps it really would be better for you to do factory work. But I don’t know anyone who works in a factory. What about housecleaning?” “That would be great, too.”

  I’d heard that some of the greatest celebrities cleaned other people’s homes and offices for work when they were young. When you clean, you see what people consume and throw away. This gives you a good grasp of the national economy. A woman should always begin her career as a housecleaner. I couldn’t remember if these words of wisdom came from Confucius, Ho Chi Minh, or someone else. I found them quite plausible. “What I’d really like to do would be to clean houses for movie stars.” “That’s nonsense. A person who wants to work must begin by setting aside his own wishes and going wherever he is sent.”

  Jean didn’t seem to approve of my plan. He spent half an hour arguing glumly with Ai Van. Later she told me Jean was worried. He was afraid that if I got a job, someone might find out I was living here illegally. Then Jean and Ai Van could be held responsible for having harbored a visa-less creature for over a year. “Does this mean I won’t be able to work or even show my face for the rest of my life?” Ai Van’s nostrils expanded as she smiled in embarrassment. “Jean thinks we should stage an accident that would solve everything. A car runs you over and damages your memory. You can speak Vietnamese, but you no longer recall anything from your past. Then they’ll send you home, and none of us will be held responsible.”

  There was a job for me. Ai Van whispered these words quietly into my ear although Jean wasn’t even home. A private clinic was looking for someone. I was to go there three times a week; the salary would be satisfactory even though the work was quite easy. I found this offer far preferable to throwing myself in front of a car and feigning amnesia.

  It was a Monday. The clinic was situated on the outskirts of town. Beneath a gray sky, I walked at a rapid pace between immense concrete warehouses. Large trucks passed, no drivers visible in their elevated front seats. Except for me, the sidewalk was completely empty. Only once did I cross paths with another person—a tall slender African.

  As instructed, I rang the bell by the door that displayed the three letters “C.S.L.” A young woman in a white lab coat welcomed me, led me to one of the back rooms, and introduced me to Dr. Lee. This Chinese doctor was from Hanoi and had spent time in Bangkok as well. Dr. Lee had never been to China, but hoped to go some day to collect snake skins. She moved to Paris ten years ago. At first she occupied herself with plastic surgery for the victims of accidents and wars, and became particularly well-known for her skill at concealing facial scars. Then she began to take on additional assignments in general plastic surgery, as well as collecting medicinal herbs and developing products to repel mosquitoes and cockroaches. She was also developing a line of cosmetics and diet pills. My task was to allow her to use my skin for experiments.

  Dr. Lee marked off the area to be tested with lipstick on the soft, sensitive skin of my inside left arm. Then she rubbed three different salves on my skin.

  When I returned to the clinic two days later, one area of my skin was red. Dr. Lee studied this area with her magnifying glass, scraped off a bit of skin and examined it under her microscope. Then she asked me if I’d ever given blood. “Of course. Why do you ask?” She extracted a thick cylinder of blood from me and smeared a salve where the needle had entered. This wound became infected two days later.

  The clinic employed several women whom I only ever saw from behind. On my third visit, I was paid for the first time. I was told to eat a lot of spinach and inner organs before I returned the following week.

  With the cash in my pocket I went to the movies. For the first time, I paid for my ticket with my own money.

  During fifteen minutes spent in a hospital waiting room, the skin can lose its color and acquire countless tiny folds. Beneath the eyes, little pockets of flesh collect; the lips grow dry and the hair falls out. These things might happen during a short wait. The sort of perfectly ordinary short wait I experienced constantly: waiting for the light to turn green, for the next métro to arrive, for my turn in line at the movie theater. I waited for things hundreds of times every single day, though only for very short periods of time. Even during these infinitesimal spans of time, the body can be transformed, slip through a hole in time, and re-emerge a century later. My blood supply would run out eventually, just as every movie has to end. Even eating the undercooked flesh of animals, drinking tomato juice, eating bright red borscht, and biting into pomegranates can
not prevent the blood from growing thinner and thinner.

  In this film your name is Miriam. Miriam is a vampire. Your partner, a vampire in baroque makeup who flutters his thick eyelashes like a rock star, suddenly ages while waiting in a hospital. Miriam places his coffin on a stage where no more rock concerts will take place. Other coffins are already onstage.

  After her partner’s death, Miriam gazes deep into the eyes of a young woman in a white lab coat. The woman is surprised by this vampire gaze, for usually she only looks at the skulls of monkeys on a screen. She seems to be a biologist.

  Miriam offers the biologist a glass of red wine. They clink glasses and drink with trembling fingers. The young woman splashes wine on her blouse and takes it off. First her bosom is bared, then her hips and legs. Standing confidently in front of naked science is Miriam, the champion of the blood-sucker clan. She removes her black undergarments as well. The two female bodies lie down together on the bed, four hands stroking, pressing, rubbing, two mouths open, searching, sucking, and the air is silken. While I, the movie-goer, dream transfixed, and the biologist falls asleep as if freshly in love, Miriam kisses science on her weak spot. Blood is sucked, a mark remains behind, and a new vampire is born.

  Ai Van warned me not to tell Jean about my new job yet. He would definitely be opposed. The man who had given us the information about the job was the same man from Marseille with the prosthetic leg. For this reason Ai Van and I discussed the job only in Jean’s absence. “How are things at the clinic?” “They told me I should eat a lot of inner organs and spinach,” I reported hesitantly, for Ai Van hated to take other’s requests into account concerning food. There were always arguments when Jean made comments about the food, such as “It’s a bit too salty” or “Are there only vegetables in this soup?” Up till now I had always eaten everything Ai Van cooked for us without remark. “Inner organs and spinach? They don’t know what they’re talking about. They probably want you to produce blood more quickly. For that one should drink turtle blood. Snake blood would work well too. Both are difficult to find here. If you’re lucky, you can get snakes and turtles at a specialty shop for book binders, but not a grocer’s.” “Isn’t there any substitute?” “Well, maybe foie gras would be good for you.” “What’s that?” “You really don’t know? How long have you been living here?” “Do you think I’m going to have to keep giving blood?” “I don’t know.” “Have you gone through the same thing?” “No, of course not.” “What will happen to me if I keep losing blood?” “New blood is constantly produced.” “But my blood, the blood that was inside me, is no longer there.” “It’s better to rid yourself of old blood. Otherwise you’ll age more quickly.”

  That evening Ai Van made us coalfish with potatoes and cabbage. As Jean ate in silence, I discovered a minute trace of lipstick on his white collar.

  It is time to suck out the blood of the victim—the man Miriam has seduced at a disco and brought home with her. His jeans don’t fit so well. He has a crumpled grin, and his head is filled with one thought: perhaps this incredibly beautiful woman will allow me…, I might…, maybe I’ll…, and perhaps these fleshy curves…, and so on. He is embraced, pressed against the wall, and emptied out. A scream that comes too late, a rescue that never comes. He is consumed and tossed to one side—a snack for Miriam.

  The biologist is not a snack; she is the partner Miriam has chosen. Miriam lovingly sucks her blood to make her one of them. After the ritual she will cease her scientific explorations of nature and will be a vampire. Will she have trouble adjusting to this change of profession?

  Even at an early age, as a young woman named Carol working at a beauty salon, you were beginning to practice for your future profession. Carol cleans the fingernails of an elegant lady. A close-up showing the pale surface of this lady’s skin reveals thin body hair and droplets of sweat. Carol is distracted by thoughts of the shadow man from the night before. The nail scissors slip from her hand into the deadly dream, into the woman’s flesh. The jaws of the screaming woman with their formidable teeth fill the screen, viscous blood flows out, shiny and black.

  At night I would sneak out of the house to return to the movie theater. I was like a boat adrift, and the gleaming marquees were lighthouses. Most of the passers-by looked as if they’d just left a restaurant. I had never once eaten in a restaurant in this city. Nor did I pay the slightest attention to the menus posted outside the restaurants, for I knew I would never find your name there.

  In Vietnam, vampires appeared only metaphorically. Interest rates, for example, were seen as vampires, since they sucked the blood of the people and grew fatter and fatter. Entrepreneurs and drug dealers were described as vampires as well. In Paris, on the other hand, that is, in the movie theater, real vampires could be found. They were not metaphorical. I no longer had any objection to becoming a vampire—being completely emptied out, belonging, sharing blood in order to survive, surviving in togetherness. With Miriam. Life as a vampire might even be preferable to my current one. I wanted to become a vampire. When I’d had enough prey, I would immediately extract blood from my arm with a thick syringe and fill Miriam’s wineglass. Actually both the syringe and the wineglass were superfluous. Miriam would drink directly from my neck—a pleasure for me.

  Miriam plays the role of a bourgeois lady living in an elegantly furnished apartment who gives children music lessons. She doesn’t really need to earn any money as the form of nourishment she requires cannot be bought with money. The cost is not money, but rather blood and flesh. Miriam, however, cannot afford to become conspicuous. A person who does not work immediately stands out. Perhaps there are many who work only for this reason. When I started work at the clinic, I began to walk right in the middle of the sidewalk. I no longer hung my head, my hands stopped looking for an invisible railing in the air. I no longer had cause to feel guilty. I was working, I was a worker, I was no longer nobody.

  The enviable woman whom Miriam has selected cannot grasp how fortunate she is. Perhaps the sciences have no vocabulary for describing the happiness one feels as a vampire. She is confused; she wanders about with a distraught expression and disheveled hair, arrives panting in front of a telephone, attempts to dial a number, sweating profusely, apparently trying to salvage something. Is she crazed because she’s drunk the blood of her own husband? What a shame he’s dead, but his death isn’t her fault—it’s just the vampire lifestyle. When people eat chicken fricassee, the chicken is also dead. She must be afraid of something else. In her previous life she conducted experiments on monkeys to study abnormal phenomena in nature. Now she herself has become a phenomenon that is not rationally comprehensible. If a biologist were to wake up one morning as a laboratory rat, she would immediately commit suicide. I would go on living as a rat until a human killed me.

  Every vampire wears a necklace that is really a knife. You have to use this knife to cut open the neck of your victim and siphon off the blood to drink. The teeth of modern-day vampires are not sharp enough to pierce the skin. Miriam wears such a knife, and the biologist does as well. She stabs the knife into her own neck. She screams, bleeds to death, and dies. What are you doing?! Why are you doing this?! Miriam collapses in tears. There is no return.

  She no longer exists. But what “she” is it that has vanished? There is still the face of the biologist who no longer works in her laboratory but instead gives children music lessons. Has Miriam put on the body of the dead researcher like a stage costume? Or is it in fact Miriam who has died? The two women have become one.

  C h a p t e r F i v e

  I n d o c h i n e

  A melody ripples across the screen, muddy water fills my field of vision. Ships with dragon wings are being navigated and rowed by Vietnamese-looking men and women. A few seconds later your name appears in pink letters. As always, this is the breathtaking climax of the film. Before the title is revealed and the story begins, your name must emerge from beneath the sea. Without this name there would be no actress, and without her the
re would be no Eliane Devries, who is supposed to have lived in Indochina, and without Eliane there would be no story to tell. The only Indochina I’ve ever seen was on the screen in Paris.

  The narrating voice belonged to you. I didn’t understand what was being said, but I recognized your voice. And because I didn’t understand, the voice floated on its own, self-confident, elastic, rising and falling. I heard breathing, friction, sighs, sometimes even ardor becoming sound. This was the first time you spoke in a film before showing yourself Your voice rising from the water, the sails, the wind, the rubber trees.

  Someone is already dead before the story begins. Your voice speaks of this deceased person. Eliane stands before an altar in a mourning dress, a black veil hangs over her face. Beside her stands a little girl who has not yet reached a third of her full height. The girl takes Eliane’s hand without looking up, as if it is her self-evident right to do so. The girl’s face expresses dignity, though her skin probably still bears the creases left behind by her diapers.

  Eliane and the girl cannot be blood relatives. The girl bears a strong resemblance to someone. I can hardly believe my eyes, but the girl resembles me as I appear in a specific childhood photograph. I suspect the girl’s parents are dead and Eliane has adopted her. The clothes and the atmosphere of the ceremony reveal the high social standing of the departed.

  It was highly unlikely that my parents died after my departure, but when Ai Van asked me why I never wrote to them, I quickly replied that they were dead. The next day I realized that a death can never be taken back again, not even a fictional one.

  Is the tango a contract between a man and a woman? Between a man whose warm muscles are palpable through the thin cloth of his trousers and a woman who allows herself to be twirled like a white silk glove? Is the tango a pantomime between a woman with provocative glances and a man whose thin lips never show the slightest hint of a smile?