A Woman's Nails (45 page)

I turn towards Urara, who now looks and sounds like Reina with all her fierce sexuality. With
anger in her voice, Reina says, “Peador, I can’
t believe what a pushover you are to lose
your heart to a cunt like that.”
I want to tell Rein
a to go fuck herself, but I don’
t. I follow her back to bed
and have sex, the sound of Mie’
s steps still going clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp
as the headboard of the bed we a
re
fucking
in bangs in rhythm against the wall, thunk, thunk, thunk.

Late
r
in the afternoon, I take a long walk. The streets are quiet, hardly a soul to be seen. On the way to Tôjin Machi, I pass my office. The windows are dark and lifeless. The thought of having to return to work in a few days time fills me with such a dread that
I come to the conclusion there’
s only one thing for me to do about it.

Continuing forward, I come across a Buddhist priest, dressed in a brown
kimono
with
juzu
prayer beads hanging from his wrist. He bows deeply, reverently before a home, mumbling softly. There is a large white lantern at the entrance of the house, much like the lantern hanging before the gate of my apartment building, only with a different family crest. Someone in that family has died during the past year. The priest straightens up, gives a final blessing, and turns away from the house with a hiccup. His face is red; he reeks of whiskey.

There is a calm solemnity as I walk through Tôjin Machi. All the shops in the arcade have been closed up for
the
Bon
, some with small mounds of salt before them to ward off evil spirits. The cemeteries, too, are deserted. The simple flower arrangements of reddish orange Chinese lantern flowers and chrysanthemums that were put out only yesterday are already beginning to wilt. The smell of incense lingers before the charnel houses.
A
bove the gray tombstones, red dragonflies dart
about
with t
he determined recklessness of
kamikaze
s
.

From there, I head towards Ôhori Park, which is also quiet despite today being
a
Saturday. T
he occasional young family
stroll
s
together around
the large pond, but there aren’
t any of the usual couples on dates or groups of high school students lounging about. A boy fishes alone righ
t next to a sign that declares “No Fishing!”
A mother and her teenage daughter walk their Golden Retriever. I imagine the poor dog is probably cooped up most of the day in their small condominium. It kills me. Peo
ple will tell you that they a
re animal lovers,
only to
l
ock their poor pets up in cages . . .
B
ut
, that’
s neither here nor there.

The daughter has an adorable sweetness to her, so different from her mother who like so many housewives here wears a tired indifference on her
face. Does she remember what it wa
s like to be adored? The daughter, with her hair done up playfully in pi
gtails, reminds me of Urara. It’
s
only now that I realize I haven’
t yet called her as I promised. What an arse she must think I am
.

“
Hontô-ni gomen nasai
, Urara.” God, I a
m getting tired of always
having to apologize to women. “
I will call you. Just let me take care of this one last thing
first
.
”

Since I’
m already half way there, I walk to Gokoku Shrine, the shrine that impressed me so deeply back in April when all I had to distract me from mysel
f w
ere
long aimless walk
s
. It’
s been months since I was last there, and as the
Bon
is a Buddhist festival rather than a
Shintô
one, I don’
t expect much of the visit. B
ut, b
oy, am I ever wrong!

At the entrance of the shrine, near the towering wooden
torii
gate is a sign announcing the start of a
“
festival
”
held for the spirits of the dead called the
Mitama Matsuri
. The road passing below the
torii
cut
s
thr
ough the thick woods leads me
to the shrine. As I continue in, a second set of
torii
gates come into view. Behind them is an amazing sight that stops me in my tracks. On the broad lawns that stretch from this second
torii
all the way to the golden
shinden
where the faithful pray and
Shintô
ri
t
e
s are held, an area nearly the size of a football pitch, there are tens of thousands of rectangular lanterns hung in rows, eight feet high and a hundred or more yards deep, forming a d
ozen or so walls of soft light.

Entering one of these illuminated corridors, I see that all of the lanterns have been hand painted and signed. This being Japan, some of the boxy lanterns are of course illustrated with
anime
like characters
;
others have more traditional and somber drawings of seasonal flowers or calligraphy.

Gokoku Jinja is, as I’
ve mentioned before, a shrine dedicated to those who lost their lives defending their country in
past
wars. Not only the disgraced leaders who committed
seppuku
and the
kamikaze
s who tried to crash
their burning planes into
the ships of the
Allied
forces
, but also those who died when incendiary bombs
rained down
on their cities are memorialized here. On
the
19
th
of
June 1945, a quarter of Fukuoka, a city then the size of Rochester, New York was destroyed and more than nine hundred people
were
killed. Those thousands upon thousands of lanterns lit up like fireflies in the growing dusk are the most beautiful yet sobering re
minder of loved ones lost. I can’t help be
overcome with a deep sense of awe just walking among them. So much pain and grief and all for nothing.

3

I don’
t know what I was thinking back in April. I seldom do. The past is more of an embarrassment than so
mething to recall with fondness;
th
e recent past, particularly so.

On that early spring evening, I put on my best attire
,
hoping that
I might be able to impress Mie.
N
ow, I can barely remember why I even bothered. Tonight, I spray a bit of cologne on myself rather than shower, and get dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The Japanese might say I look lik
e an American. Well, hell, that’
s
what I am, after all.

Mie is waiting in f
ront of the Nakasu
Mister Donut
. To reach her, I have to pass through a gauntlet of scouts and pimps and hostesses who try their damn
e
dest to sweet-talk
and coax you
back to their bars. Some of the women, gorgeous and dressed to kill, can be quite persuasive.

Mie is conservatively dressed.
And yet
, the beautiful curves of t
he body I loved last summer
are not
hidden. In
her letter, she wrote that she ha
d gained weight, but it doesn’
t sho
w. She i
s as lovely a sight to b
ehold as ever and I tell her so.

We chat
a bit
and she’
s surprised by
how much
my Japanese
has improved
. Living everyday w
ith the language as I do, I can’
t see it growing before me. A year ago, it was barely able to stand, to take a few clumsy steps without falling. Today? Who knows? I have to take everyone else's
word that it is getting better.

Mie is alone. No escorts lingering a few steps away, waiting to be beckoned and introduced. No one to protect her from the past like before. Is she no longer afraid of it, has she buried me and made her peace?

Mie takes me by the hand
and leads me towards her friend’
s
snack
.

It was here in this neon Babylon
almost a year and a half ago
that Mie and I first hit it off. She brought me to a
snack
, where after several drinks she would get jealous when one of the hostesses became a l
ittle too friendly with me. She woul
d suggest we go back to
her place, and when we did, we woul
d end up falling asleep, half nake
d in each other’
s arms. We didn’
t have sex that ni
ght—b
lasted as I was
, I probably couldn’
t have performed anyways. B
esides, I knew she had a fiancé
. It was just after telling me about him that we first kissed.

Nakasu is still a wonderland for me, a brash, gaudy, sexist
N
ever
L
and
of sorts
. Memories of that
first
night
there with Mie
will always be tied to the island. It was the first place in Japan wh
ere I tasted happiness
.

We walk along Nakasu’
s main drag, a narrow two-lane road clogged with taxis and black Benzes with tinted window. Tough men mill about in dark suits and sunglasses, protecting their eyes from the screaming glare of the neon lights and
temptation
. Hostesses dressed to kill eye me playfully, invite me to join them for
a drink. It’s hard not to
turn
your
head
and
stare
at them, as beautiful as water to a man who’s been
lost in the desert. Mie squeezes my hand gently, reminding me that she is my date for the night.

The
snack
Mie take me to a simple affair, long and narrow with a counter that can
only accommodate
about ten custo
mers. Behind the counter is Mie’
s friend, called
,
as the proprietress always is, “
Mama
”
, and another hostess. Unfortunatel
y neither is much of a looker.

C
an’
t have everything
.

We sit down
,
and after the usual introductions and an exchange of business cards, an ice bucket, a bottle of
Suntory
Hibiki
and two tumblers are placed ceremoniously before us. Mama the
n fixes us up with two whiskey ‘n’
waters.

I give Mie an abridg
ed version of the penny opera I’
ve been living since we last met, sparing her th
e ugly details of my love life.

“I’ve decided to quit,”
I say.

“
Well, with a boss
like that, who could blame you?”

“I’
m surpris
ed I’
ve hung around this long.”

“
What did y
our boss say when you told her?”

“
Oh, I
haven’t. Not yet,” I say. “
Abazuré has threatened so m
any times to sack me
right there on the spot, I have half a mind to do the same: you know, jus
t up and walk out on her.”

“Peador, you wouldn’t!”

“
No, I wo
uldn’t. But it’
d give me immense satisfacti
on to see the look on
the witch’s
face.”

“
What
are you going to do about work?”

“Work’
s the least of my problems, Mie. I'll manage some
how
. . . I always do. Things mi
ght be tight for a while, but I’
ll be so much happier not having to deal with those . . .
those
awful women anymore. Besides, I
’
ve wasted enough time already.”