Out

by Natsuo Kirino

  Back in her apartment, she watched TV while she ate her lunch and drank some oolong tea. As she bit into a piece of pork soaked in brown sauce, she remembered how Yayoi had kicked over the pot. The woman had been a mess this morning, she thought, so absent-minded that she was no help at all. In fact, she was a real drag on the team. So what if her husband was beating her up; if it were Kuniko, she'd just hit him back. Polishing off the pork cutlet, she poured some soy sauce over a pack of frozen dumplings and slathered them with mustard. As she was digging into them, she found herself thinking about Yayoi again. If she were that pretty, she wouldn't be caught dead working the night shift in a factory; she'd get a job at a bar or a pub, or even someplace slightly disreputable - it wouldn't matter as long as the pay was good. The only problem was that she wasn't pretty like Yayoi, and she had no confidence in her own looks or style.

  A special feature on high-school girls came on, and Kuniko found herself setting aside her chopsticks and focusing on the programme. A girl with long, straight, dyed-brown hair was talking. Her face had been disguised with digital blurring and her voice was distorted, but Kuniko could tell that she was pretty and stylish.

  'Men are wallets, just wallets,' she was saying. 'Me? What did I get out of them? A suit, a ¥450,000 suit.'

  'Shit!' Kuniko shouted at the TV. 'Stupid little creep.' A suit costing that much must be Chanel or Armani. I want a Chanel suit, but if a little slut like that can get one for nothing, what's the point? 'Damn, damn, damn,' she kept muttering.

  The only good that had come out of working at the factory was meeting Masako, she thought, chewing on a lump of cold rice. She'd heard that Masako used to have a job at a good company, but she'd been forced out when they'd been restructured. She sensed that she wasn't the kind of woman who would go on slaving on the night shift at the factory for ever. She might be promoted to a regular employee, or even to management. And when she was, good things were bound to happen to anyone who stuck close to her. The one hitch in the plan was that Masako didn't seem to trust her.

  When she had eaten every last scrap in the lunch container and practically licked it clean, she tossed it in the garbage can next to the sink. Then she studied the Help Wanted section she'd saved from the newspaper. On her current salary at the factory, she could never hope to pay back the mountain of debt she'd run up; in fact, it was all she could do to manage the interest. But the pay for daytime work was even worse than what she was getting now. She'd have to work eight hours to make what she made now in five and a half, so there was no point in giving up the night shift. But then she had to sleep all day. It was a vicious circle. The bottom line was that Kuniko didn't want to admit she was bone idle. But at the same time, she was unable to bring herself to acknowledge how huge her debts had become. The interest alone was now so crushing that she had no idea whether she was even paying off the principal any more, no idea what the principal was.

  In the evening, she put on her make-up and her imitation Chanel suit and went out. She needed to find herself some sort of part-time job that she could do before going to the factory at eleven thirty. A housewife who lived next door was just pulling up to the racks as Kuniko went to get her bike. She was dressed in a cheap summer suit of the sort they sold at the supermarket, and carrying shopping bags. She looked tired. They must work hard at those company jobs, Kuniko told herself, bowing slightly at her, and the woman smiled back, sniffing the air as she passed. She can probably smell my perfume, Kuniko thought, it's 'Coco' today though I doubt she has any idea about expensive scents. They were forbidden to wear perfume at the factory, but she'd be taking a bath before setting out for work.

  She straddled the bike and set off clumsily down the busy, narrow street. The pub was near the next station, Higashi Yamato. There was probably no parking lot, so she'd have to go by bike, which was a drawback. What would she do on rainy days? Still, it was better than walking all the way to the station. If things went well and she got the job, she would think about moving.

  Twenty minutes later she was standing in front of the pub. 'Bel Fiore', the sign read. She'd thought that her chances for getting the job were poor, but seeing how remote and seedy the place was, she changed her mind. She could feel her spirits rising, her heart racing for the first time in a long while.

  'Hostess. 18-3 0 yrs old. ¥3600/hr . Uniform rental. 5.00 p.m.-1.00 a.m. nightly. No drinking necessary.'

  Recalling the details of the advertisement, Kuniko thought she might even quit the factory if she got the job. It took her a whole night of hard work making boxed lunches to earn what she'd earn in two hours here. Though she had just made a resolution to stick close to Masako no matter what, she could already feel herself moving in another direction.

  A group of young men in flashy suits stood by the door with a girl in a miniskirt who seemed to be advertising the place. 'I phoned earlier about the job,' Kuniko said to one of the men.

  'You want to go around back,' he said, staring at her with a surprised look.

  'Thanks,' she said. As she walked away, she could sense that they were watching her and she thought she heard someone laugh. When she reached the spot where the man had pointed, she turned into an alley where she found a metal door with a small sign for 'Bel Fiore'. 'Excuse me,' she said as she pushed it open and peered in. 'I phoned earlier.' A middle-aged man dressed in black was just hanging up the phone. Rubbing the deep wrinkles on his forehead, he studied Kuniko for a moment.

  'Ah, yes. Come in,' he said eventually. His look was a bit unnerving but his voice was low and gentle. 'Have a seat,' he said, waving toward a sofa set in front of the desk. Trying to look confident, Kuniko sat down, keeping her back straight. The man held out a name card that identified him as the manager. He bowed slightly, but as he raised his head it was clear that he'd quickly sized her up. She was miserably uncomfortable now, but she plunged ahead.

  'I'd like to apply for the hostess job you advertised.'

  'I see. Then maybe we should have a little chat,' the man said pleasantly, sitting down in a chair opposite the couch. 'So tell me, how old are you?'

  'Twenty-nine.'

  'I see,' he said again. 'And do you have some proof of your age?'

  'Oh, I didn't bring any with me today.' Almost as soon as the words were out, the man's tone changed.

  'Okay. You ever done this kind of work before?' he asked bluntly.

  'No, never.' She wasn't sure what she would do if he said they weren't hiring housewives, but the man had no more questions.

  'The fact is,' he said, getting up from the chair, 'the minute the ad came out we had six girls, all about nineteen, show up. We like them fresh like that; seems to be what the customers want.'

  'I see,' said Kuniko. But it's not just age, she thought, her spirits falling like an elevator. If she were pretty and stylish, her age probably wouldn't matter. Age wasn't really the problem at all, she thought, her insecurities now in the ascendant.

  'Sorry you had to go to all this trouble,' said the manager, 'but I'm afraid at the present time ... '

  'I understand,' Kuniko blurted out, nodding hastily.

  'If you don't mind my asking, what d'you do now?'

  'I work part-time in the neighbourhood.'

  'That's probably best anyway,' he said. 'This is hard work. The customers are spending ten or twenty thousand an hour, so they don't like to go home empty-handed. You're a big girl; you get my drift. They want "relief". That's not the kind of work you're looking for, is it?' The man gave a coarse laugh. 'Sorry you came all this way,' he said, slipping a thin envelope into her hand. 'This is for cab fare.' Probably a thousand yen, she guessed. 'But just for the record,' he added, '- you're really over thirty, aren't you?'

  "'No, I'm not.'

  'Whatever you say,' he sniffed, no longer bothering to hide his scorn.

  Feeling thoroughly depressed, Kuniko went out the back door of the pub, as she couldn't face the touts at the front again. A side street took her back to the restaurant where she'd left
her bicycle, and since she was hungry and in a foul mood, she decided to go inside and use the money for a meal.

  'Rice bowl with beef,' she ordered, then glanced around and found herself staring into a large mirror. There, staring back at her, was her own blank, homely face, perched on her own thick neck. She turned quickly away, recognising that the mirror probably reflected her true age, thirty-three. She had lied about her age to her friends at the factory, too.

  Sighing, she opened the envelope. Two thousand. Not bad! Well, who cares anyway? She lit a cigarette and tucked it in the corner of her mouth. There was still some time before she had to head to the factory.

  -

  3

  -

  As Yoshie opened the door, she detected the faint smell of urine mixed with disinfectant. No matter how often she aired the house, no matter how hard she scrubbed the floor, she could never get rid of this odour. She rubbed her fingers over her eyes to stop the twitching, the result of too little sleep. Her precious few hours of rest were still hours away.

  Behind the narrow, dirt-floored entrance was a three-mat tatami room crowded with an old low table, a chest of drawers, the TV, and other furnishings. It was in this small room that Yoshie and her daughter, Miki, ate their meals and watched TV. Since the room opened right on to the entrance, they were immediately exposed to any visitor who came to the door, and in the winter the room was so cold and drafty it was almost unbearable. Miki said the place was a disgrace, but in such a small house there was little Yoshie could do.

  Yoshie had brought home her factory uniform to wash. As she put the laundry bag in the corner, she glanced into the six-mat tatami room through the open sliding doors. The curtains were drawn so the room was dim, but she sensed a slight movement on the futon that lay on the floor. Her mother-in-law, who had been bedridden for more than six years, must be awake; but Yoshie said nothing, standing stock-still in the middle of the room. She worked as hard as anyone at the factory, and when she came home, she felt like a worn-out rag. What she wouldn't give to lie down and sleep, even for just an hour. Massaging her own stiff, fleshy shoulders, she looked around at the dark, shabby house.

  The sliding doors to the small room on her right were shut tight, as if to exclude everyone and everything. This was Miki's room. Until she was in middle school, Miki had slept with her grandmother in the six-mat room, but as she got older, it became impossible to force the girl to accept this arrangement. After that, Yoshie herself had moved in with the old woman, but she found she couldn't sleep well next to her and lately the whole situation was becoming unbearable. Perhaps she, too, was getting old. Only a small area of bare tatami was exposed in the crowded front room, but she sat down there now.

  She lifted the top off the teapot on the low table and found that the tea leaves from the pot she'd drunk before setting out for work were still there. She considered how much work it would be to throw them out and wash the pot, and decided it wasn't worth the effort. She was willing to put herself out for others, but when it was just for her, it hardly mattered. She filled the pot with lukewarm water from the kettle, and then sat for a while sipping the tasteless tea and staring off into space. She had something on her mind, something bigger than the usual problems.

  The landlord had told her that he wanted to tear down their old wooden house and build a nice apartment building that would be more comfortable to live in; but Yoshie was worried that it was just a pretext to force them out. If that happened, they had nowhere else to go. And even if they could come back to the new building, the rent was bound to be higher. If they had to go elsewhere, it would take an enormous sum to get them into another apartment, but they were barely getting by as it was, with nothing left over for this kind of emergency.

  'I need money.' The thought had become something of an obsession. She had used up the modest insurance settlement from her husband's death taking care of her mother-in-law, and now their savings were all but gone, too. She had only graduated from middle school herself and was determined to send Miki at least to a junior college, but she couldn't see how she'd manage. Saving for retirement - that was completely out of the question. Though the night shift at the factory was hard, quitting was never an option. In fact, she had just about decided to look for a second job during the day, but that left the problem of finding someone to take care of the old woman. She was usually good at coming up with a solution, but the more she thought about it the more stymied she became.

  All this made her let out an audible sigh, which drew a quick response from the sickroom.

  'Yoshie, is that you?' came a faint voice.

  'Yes, I'm back.'

  'My diaper's wet,' said the voice. There was a polite hesitation in the tone, but it was still clearly an order.

  'All right,' said Yoshie. After a final sip of the weak, tepid tea, she hoisted herself to her feet. She had long since forgotten how mean her mother-in-law had been to her in the first years of her marriage. She was just a pitiful old woman now, who couldn't get along without her.

  None of them could get along without her - when you thought about it, that was her reason for living. It was that way too at the factory. They called her Skipper, and she did, in fact, run the line. The role kept her going, helped her survive the dreary work; it was her one source of pride. But the painful truth was that there was no one to help her. Instead, all she had was her pride, goading her to keep working no matter how hard it was. Yoshie had wrapped up everything personal that mattered in a tight package and stored it away somewhere far out of sight, and in its place she had developed a single obsession: diligence. This was her trick for getting by.

  Without a word she went into the six-mat room, only to be confronted by a strong faecal smell. Overcoming her revulsion, she went quietly to slide back the curtains and open the window, allowing the stench to escape. Outside, less than a metre away, was the kitchen window of an identical ageing wooden cottage. As if she knew what was coming, the housewife in the kitchen instantly slammed the window with an irritated gesture. Yoshie was furious, but at the same time she could sympathise with the woman, who must have been able to smell the invalid's excrement since dawn.

  'Hurry up, dear,' the old woman murmured as she shifted uneasily on the futon, apparently unaware of her situation.

  'Hold still,' said Yoshie. 'You'll make a mess.'

  'But it's uncomfortable.'

  'I'm sure it is.' As she pulled back the light summer blanket and started to untie her mother-in-law's nightgown, she thought how much better it would be if she were changing a baby's diaper. She could remember getting her hands dirty while changing a baby or having the diaper leak on her clothes, but it had never bothered her. So why should this seem so filthy?

  Suddenly, Yayoi Yamamoto came to mind. She still had small children; and hadn't she just been celebrating the fact that the younger one was finally out of diapers? Yoshie could remember what a happy moment that had been. Nevertheless, Yayoi had seemed strange of late. Her husband had thumped her in the stomach, but Yoshie could imagine that Yayoi had somehow got on his nerves. She knew from experience that while it was convenient for a man to have a hardworking wife, a lazy one could also find it a nuisance. Her own husband had been like that. She thought about the man who had died of cirrhosis five years earlier. No matter how much she'd slaved for her mother-in-law or taken odd jobs to supplement the household budget, her husband had just grown more depressed.

  Yayoi's husband was probably sick of her exactly because she tried so hard. The odds were he was a selfish slob, just like her own husband had been. That was just how it worked out: the laziest men always seemed to end up with the most energetic women. Still, there was nothing to do but keep your head down and put up with it. She decided that Yayoi and she had this much in common.

  She changed the diaper with a practised hand. After rinsing it out in the toilet, she would pop it in the washing machine in the bathroom. She knew she could be using disposable diapers, but they seemed far too expensive. />
  'I'm all sweaty,' the old woman said as Yoshie was leaving the room. It was her way of asking Yoshie to change her nightgown, but that would have to wait.

  'I know,' she said.

  'But it's uncomfortable,' the woman moaned. 'I'll catch a cold.'

  'I'll do it when I finish with this.'

  'I think you make me wait on purpose.'

  'You know I don't.' Her answer was civil enough, but for a brief moment she felt an urge to strangle the old bitch. I wish you would catch a cold, she thought, I wish you'd catch pneumonia and die. What a relief it would be. But she quickly suppressed the idea. What was she thinking? How could she wish away somebody who needed her? That was inviting disaster.

  The alarm clock in the next room went off. Almost seven already; time for Miki to get up and on the move. She went to a nearby city high school.

  'Miki. Wake up,' she called, opening the sliding doors. The girl, in a T-shirt and shorts, looked up sullenly, then turned away in disgust.

  'I hear you,' she muttered. 'But don't open the door with that in your hands.'

  Yoshie apologised, before heading for the small bathroom which was next to the kitchen, but Miki's lack of understanding had upset her. She used to be such a nice girl and had even helped with her grandmother's care. Yoshie knew, however, that as she grew older Miki was naturally comparing her situation with that of her friends, and she must feel embarrassed. She also knew that she could never bring herself to scold her daughter for feeling this way; in truth, she herself was ashamed of the way they lived.