Audition

by Ryu Murakami

  That a talented man like Yoshikawa had moved from television to film was decidedly not because movies themselves had regained anything close to the power and influence they’d once wielded. It had more to do with advances in digital technology. Private, digital-based viewing systems demanded film-quality software. High-definition TVs were easily obtainable, but camera technology was lagging behind, and it wasn’t financially feasible to make high-budget films solely for the ancillary markets. Negotiations with studios and backers were complex, and that was where a man with Yoshikawa’s skill and experience was indispensable.

  They usually met in the bar of some hotel or other. Yoshikawa had designated one in Akasaka for tonight, a fairly pretentious place with a lady playing a harp.

  ‘What happened to all the real bars?’ Yoshikawa said. He had arrived five minutes late and was tossing back a sherry on ice as he surveyed the room. ‘The places where a couple of real men could relax over a real drink. Look around you – nothing but incomprehensible couples in this joint. Check out the pair slurping their Bloody Marys. Shit. They wouldn’t recognise a really delicious Bloody Mary if they fell face-down in one. Ah well, let it go. But look at the two office girls baring their gums to the world as they yuck it up over whatever that is they’re drinking. Gimlets? I’m telling you, give it five more years and every bar in the country will have the atmosphere of a beer hall.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Aoyama said. ‘I’m not one who tends to think bars were so much better in the old days. There was more discrimination back then, for starters, and that’s never a good thing. And the belief that the cocktails in those snooty places were the gold standard is probably just another delusion.’

  ‘Something’s changed, though. Everything’s all mixed up. And it’s not only because the rich are poorer and the poor are richer.’

  ‘It couldn’t just be that we’re getting older, could it?’

  Yoshikawa thought about that for a moment.

  ‘One thing I can say for sure,’ he said. ‘Everyone assumes that in ten years the world will be more or less the same as it is now, right? We all think, Well, I’ll be ten years older, but we assume we’ll be alive and carrying on as usual. In spite of the fact that an earthquake or an act of terrorism, or any number of other things, could wipe us out in the next heartbeat.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So we act as if there’s no hurry to get things right, or to do the things we want to do. And when I say “we” I mean everybody – from the average teenage punk agonising over whether to ask a girl for a date to the politician contemplating reforming the tax code. No reason it has to be right now.’

  Aoyama had noticed that this doleful sort of tone was becoming increasingly common in his conversations with Yoshikawa. They were both in their early forties but sounded almost senior-citizenly at times. A few years ago they’d often joked about not understanding ‘the kids nowadays’, but this was different.

  The conversation turned to music. Yoshikawa said he and his son, who was about Shige’s age, listened to the Beatles together sometimes.

  ‘You’d think that anyone who likes the Beatles would have no use for the crappy Japanese bands of today,’ he said, ‘but I guess that’s not necessarily true.’

  He told Aoyama about a video made by one of the younger members of his staff, documenting a female pop singer’s concert at a stadium in some provincial city. Yoshikawa had happened to see parts of it, without sound, during a rough edit.

  ‘At first, I swear to you, I thought it was a ceremony for some new religious cult. Tens of thousands of kids, all dressed and groomed exactly alike, packed into the stadium in orderly rows, all rising to their feet or screaming or bursting into tears at the same time. But none of them – not one – actually seemed to be enjoying themselves. They all had this look of blood-chilling loneliness about them, as if they were stranded on the dreariest planet in the universe. What the hell happened to those kids?’

  As if on cue, the harpist began to play ‘Eleanor Rigby’. ‘Great song,’ Yoshikawa muttered, and Aoyama nodded. The two of them listened in silence awhile. Aoyama had bought the single back in the day, and he tried to remember what had been on the B-side. He was thinking it must have been either ‘Taxman’ or ‘Yellow Submarine’ when Yoshikawa grinned at him and clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘So you’re finally ready, eh?’

  On the phone, Aoyama had mentioned the idea of getting married again.

  ‘That’s great,’ Yoshikawa went on. ‘Everyone’s going to be glad to hear this. I might be a little pissed off if she’s too young and beautiful, but . . . Tell me about her.’

  ‘Haven’t found her yet.’

  Yoshikawa gave him a narrow look, then flagged a passing waitress and ordered another sherry, telling her to make it a double. There were four waitresses, all clad in long red velvet skirts, all young and all stunning. They were probably students working here part-time, which would make them twenty or twenty-one. Too young no matter how you looked at it, Aoyama thought as he watched those red velvet hips undulate towards the bar.

  ‘You haven’t found her yet? What are you talking about, then – an arranged marriage? Not that you couldn’t find somebody nice that way, but—’

  ‘Not omiai, no. Yoshikawa, you ever done omiai?’

  ‘Hell no.’

  ‘Me neither, but we know the drill. You meet the woman over dinner with the go-betweens, and then if you like each other you start dating. Which is fine, but once you’ve started dating it’s not as if you can arrange an omiai with someone else, is it?’

  Yoshikawa shrugged. ‘You got me.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to stick with one woman at a time. But who has time for that? I’m a busy man.’

  ‘What sort of woman are you looking for? Younger, I suppose?’

  ‘I’m not that particular about age, but nobody too young. Preferably someone who has a career and who’s been trained in some discipline or other.’

  ‘Discipline? You mean, like, bondage and shit?’

  Aoyama laughed.

  ‘Idiot. I’m talking about, you know, classical music, or ballet, something of that sort.’

  ‘Ah. Shades of Ryoko?’

  ‘Not necessarily. I just happen to think that nothing gives a person self-confidence like being classically trained. A person without self-confidence is incapable of being independent, and people who are dependent on their partners always create unhappiness. Always.’

  ‘Aren’t you being a little too picky?’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘A classical musician or a ballerina? I don’t care how good a catch you are, that’s asking a lot. You’re not exactly Onassis, you know.’

  ‘She doesn’t have to be successful at it, or even a professional. Just someone who’s seriously studied something.’

  ‘So she could be an actress, or a popular singer, say?’

  ‘I wouldn’t want anyone who’s been contaminated by the entertainment industry.’

  ‘Can’t blame you for that. It’s an industry where people are bought and sold like cattle, after all. But you’re setting the bar pretty high.’

  ‘It would be nice to have a chance to really check her out before getting involved, too.’

  ‘What, hire a detective?’

  ‘Get serious. I mean talk to her, ask her a lot of questions about herself. Of course, the ideal situation would be to meet and interview as many different women as possible in a relatively short period of time. As for age, let’s say from about mid-twenties to early thirties. I think if—’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Yoshikawa said. He took a sip from his new glass of sherry, then leaned his chin on his fist, thinking. ‘There’s only one way,’ he said finally and took another sip. ‘Let’s hold an audition.’

  2

  ‘Trust me on this. Have I ever let you down? When it comes to holding auditions, I’m a pro, you know. Just leave the details to me.’

  Yoshikawa got stra
ngely fired up that night. Not content with quiet drinks in the hotel bar, he’d loaded Aoyama into a taxi and taken him to what he called his ‘special place’, a club in Roppongi. The hostesses here wore gauzy evening gowns, and the décor was in the Italian style, with leather sofas and etched, frosted-glass partitions separating the tables. Curious, temperamental-looking potted plants were strategically placed throughout the room, and inorganic Eurojazz played over the sound system. Though Aoyama knew that a place like this might be shockingly expensive, he couldn’t see what was so unique about it. It was crowded, with men sitting even at the bar, but Yoshikawa was greeted by the staff as if he were some sort of celebrity. They were shown to an L-shaped sofa set in the corner by a waiter who was of a type one never used to see in upscale watering-holes like this: a dude in his late twenties with chiselled features, piercings in his ears and nose and lip, and a greenish-brown suit. He set a bottle of thirty-year-old Ballantine’s on the round table, along with an ice bucket, a siphon of soda water and glasses, and expressed a hope that they wouldn’t mind waiting ten or fifteen minutes. Meaning, of course, that all the hostesses were occupied at the moment.

  ‘Definitely a nice, relaxed atmosphere,’ Aoyama said when the waiter receded, ‘and certainly posh enough. But what’s so special, exactly?’

  ‘Very simple. No bimbos. Ever since the bubble burst, the only women in the ruined clubs of Ginza are the sorts of nitwits who look like they just climbed down from the pole in some disco, right? It’s like you were saying earlier: women who are serious about doing something with their lives avoid becoming airheads. The girls here are not only knock-outs, they’re all trying to make it as singers or dancers or actors. Hostessing in a place like this is actually a relatively wholesome way for a struggling artiste to support herself. You’d be surprised how hard it is to pursue a career in the performing arts without ending up in porn or nude modelling. I mean, do you have any idea how many women are calling themselves actresses these days? It’s an epidemic. Actresses everywhere you turn, and scarcely a face among them you recognise. It’s not as if we’re making many more movies than we used to, but the number of actresses has increased about a thousandfold. Truly a bizarre phenomenon, if you ask me. But it’s going to work to your advantage.’

  He was referring again to the audition idea. Aoyama was no stranger to auditions, having supervised a number of them for TV commercials and PR videos. Sitting in a studio, sizing up a row of fifteen or twenty swimsuit-clad hopefuls, he’d always found words like ‘slave trade’ and ‘auction block’ popping into his mind. Of course they weren’t slaves, but there was no denying that the women lined up on that little platform, posing in their bikinis, were trying to sell themselves. Buying and selling was the basis of all social intercourse, and the commodity an actor or model offered for sale was nothing less than her own being. Was it really all right, Aoyama wondered, to take advantage of such a system in searching for a wife?

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Yoshikawa said. ‘You’re not even drinking. What, you don’t like my sublime and brilliant idea?’

  ‘I’m not saying I don’t like it.’ Aoyama lifted his glass and took a sip. ‘I do have some reservations, though.’

  ‘But it’s the only conceivable way to meet your requirements! You worried about the money?’

  ‘The money’s one thing. What about the conflict of interest?’

  Yoshikawa nodded.

  ‘Point taken. But I’m not quite stupid enough to hold an audition just for you. That’d be fraud, after all.’

  ‘Fraud?’

  ‘Look. You could always take out an ad saying, “Wanted: second wife for successful 42-year-old widower”. But do you think you’d then get to choose from dozens of lovely and talented young ladies?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘On the other hand, we can’t audition women for some film we have no intention of making. That would be fraud by anyone’s standards. What I’m thinking is, we come up with an actual movie project. A love story, naturally. We need a leading lady, and she has to be a new face, an unknown. Early twenties to early thirties, say. Only aspirants with a solid background in some sort of classical training need apply. That’ll be an integral part of the story we come up with, that the protagonist is devoted to her art. So all your requirements are right there in the casting call.’

  ‘We’re actually going to make a film?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. There are dozens of film projects that fall through every year for lack of backers.’

  ‘But doesn’t that make it fraud after all?’

  ‘Hell no. There’s a big difference between holding an audition for a film you never intend to make and holding one for a properly proposed project for which you’re actively trying to come up with investors and a leading lady and a script.’

  ‘It’s possible we will end up making a film, then?’

  ‘The odds aren’t good, but you never know with films. In fact, with films, your chances are actually better if you’re just winging it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No. But getting all tenacious never helps either. Until something changes about the entertainment industry in this country, things like tenacity and careful planning alone will never get a movie made.’

  ‘So I’m going to marry the leading lady?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well . . . If it’s a love story, that means that in the film she’ll be involved with some actor. To be honest, I don’t think that would sit well with me. Besides, if we actually do make a movie, the woman will become a real actress, and I have doubts about whether it’s possible to lead a peaceful life with an actress. Maybe I’m just prejudiced, but they’ve always struck me as a fairly alien breed.’

  ‘That’s not just prejudice, it’s the truth. There’s no such thing as an actress with a stable personality. Show me one and I’ll shave my head, stick a cucumber in my ass and walk on my hands along the Moruroa Atoll. So no, you’re right. It would be a mistake to marry the one who lands the part. Besides, the odds are stacked against the film getting made anyway, so how would you explain it to her when the project disintegrates? How do you tell your bride-to-be, who’s all excited about starring in a movie, that it’s not going to happen after all? I don’t care how strong her love might be, I guarantee you that’d be the end of it. Not the leading lady, no. Not even one of the finalists. What you want is a woman who survives the first rounds, the sifting of the résumés, one who doesn’t seem cut out to be an actress but who’s intriguing enough to call in for an interview. You may not realise it, but there are some real buried treasures out there. If we can get a little buzz going, so that a thousand or so women apply, we’re bound to dig up a dozen or so of this type. The type 90 per cent of men will crane their necks to check out – but who’ve also got a lot more going for them than just looks. Some of these hidden gems have graduated from the very best schools, too. Not that you care about that, but I’m talking about genuinely intelligent women, proficient at classical ballet or piano or whatever, elegant and refined, nothing cheeky or affected about them. Women who make you think, you know – If only I were twenty years younger. Well, when I was twenty years younger I didn’t have the money or status to get them anyway, but still. Women of the type I’d like to see my son marry, let’s say.’

  Oh great, Aoyama refrained from saying as Yoshikawa mixed himself another drink. So we’ll be duping only ladies of the highest quality. But in spite of his reservations he couldn’t help imagining himself surrounded by ten or twelve lovely, intelligent, refined young ladies. What man, if not homosexual or mentally ill, wouldn’t take pleasure in a fantasy like that? The male imagination is a powerful thing, and it was enough to tip the balance. And to seal his fate. He had no way of knowing the unspeakable horrors that awaited him.

  ‘Anyway,’ Yoshikawa said, ‘you probably want to hear more about how we’ll arrange the audition itself, right?’

  Aoyama nodded. He’d drunk half his glass of Scotch and soda
and took a moment to look around the room. There weren’t that many hostesses, but even in the dim light it was clear they were top of the line. Nothing gaudy about their make-up or clothing, and none of the Chanel suits that were the standard uniform of hostesses these days. Nor were the customers of the pre-bubble type – the big executives, or the realtors with their Armani threads and truck-driver crew cuts. These were men who looked to be in the music business or hi-tech fields. Money to burn, yet they were subdued – not because of any adherence to decorum and moderation, but simply because they didn’t know how to enjoy themselves. The hostesses sat elegantly but attentively next to these quiet men, and Aoyama found himself focusing in on the former in a way he’d forgotten all about since Ryoko’s death. The male stare.

  ‘Depending on how you go about it,’ Yoshikawa said, ‘there’s no end to the amount of money you can spend on an audition. Buying a full-page ad in the Asahi Evening News or Pia or Tokyo Walker can run into millions of yen right off the bat. And the really effective media of that sort are booked solid about six months in advance. So forget that. Newspapers and magazines are powerful tools, but they wouldn’t really suit our needs anyway. How about the newer media, then, you ask, the internet or whatever? Well, that’s no good either. You think the sort of woman a hundred out of a hundred men would want for their lover, or their bride, would have any interest in media populated entirely by geeks with too much time on their hands?

  ‘So . . . This may sound a little old-fashioned, but I’m thinking FM radio. Not the kid stuff – J Wave or whatever – but Tokyo FM 1. I’m pretty tight with an executive there named Yokota. He’s an imbecile to the marrow of his bones, but he owes me big-time – he was once in danger of losing his job until I saved his ass by finding him a whole roster of sponsors. Radio’s so much cheaper than TV, it’s easy to sucker in thirty or forty sponsors just by telling them that FM is coming back bigger than ever. Advertising departments, as you know, are crawling with people whose frontal lobes are so underdeveloped that if you flatter them a bit they’ll swear shit is platinum. I’ll talk to Yokota, and we’ll hijack one of the regular time slots to create a buzz about the audition. I’ve got connections with a lot of the production companies behind Yokota’s programmes too, so assuming I bring along the sponsors there shouldn’t be a problem. Believe me, Yokota isn’t about to refuse if I ask him to devote a regular three-month programme to a theme like, you know, “Where is our leading lady?” How about Tomorrow’s Heroine for the title? I’ll have the copywriters in my office handle the script. Doesn’t matter who directs it, anybody’ll do, but the host of the show will have to be female. For the music interludes we’ll use famous movie soundtracks. We’ll choose a late-afternoon time slot, because you’ve got to get the students first, and you don’t want women who are working regular jobs anyway. I mean, office girls? Forget about it. It’s not that there aren’t any beautiful office girls, but get a well-adjusted woman with a regular job and it’s just not that easy to pull the wool over her eyes.