Audition (10 page)

    ‘I’m having a beer. What would you like?’

    She took a seat across from him and bowed her head slightly, still smiling in a way that manifestly revealed her to be beside herself with joy but somewhat embarrassed about feeling that way. If this was an act, Aoyama thought, the girl was a genius.

    ‘I’ll have a beer too,’ she said quietly, then shook her head and laughed.

    ‘What’s so funny?’ Aoyama asked, smiling in spite of himself.

    ‘I’m sorry. I really didn’t think we’d meet again like this, so . . . I’m just happy.’

    The waiter brought another beer and poured it for her.

    ‘I made a reservation at an Italian place I’m fond of,’ Aoyama said. ‘But I couldn’t get a table until seven-thirty. Can you wait that long to eat?’

    ‘Of course.’

    They touched glasses, and Aoyama decided to get straight to it.

    ‘Yamasaki-san,’ he said, ‘I haven’t asked you anything about your family. Are they all well?’

    The smile vanished as if turned off with a switch. Her face went pale, and she pressed her lips tightly together. Yoshikawa’s words reverberated in Aoyama’s brain:
As of right now, we have no one who knows anything at all about this woman
. Was he about to catch her in a lie, before he’d ever kissed her or even held her hand? Maybe she
was
hiding something. Maybe it was all some sort of scam after all.

    ‘I don’t want to keep anything from you,’ she said, ‘so I’m going to tell you the truth – all of it.’

    Aoyama braced himself. His heart was pounding so hard he wondered if the lapels of his jacket weren’t bouncing up and down. His complete attention was riveted on her, and everything else around them ceased to exist.

    ‘My parents divorced when I was small – I don’t even have any memory of it – and I was sent to live with my mother’s younger brother. All I remember about that time is being terribly mistreated, mostly by my uncle’s wife. She was just that sort of person, I guess. She . . . This isn’t a pretty story, and it might not be pleasant to hear, but it’s the truth, so  . . .’

    Aoyama nodded and shifted in his chair.

    ‘My uncle’s wife once bathed me in cold water – this was in the wintertime – and I ended up coming down with pneumonia. Another time she slammed my head into a window, and I got a big gash on my forehead and bled so much I thought I was dying. And she once pushed me down the stairs. It could have killed me, I think, but all I got was a dislocated shoulder. As a little girl, I always had some sort of wound or bruise or broken bone, but when I was in elementary school a doctor became concerned enough to intervene, and I was sent back to my mother. Mother had remarried, and her new husband . . . well, he was my stepfather, of course, but even now I can’t think of him as any kind of father to me. I hate to say that, but it’s true.’

    She fell silent for a moment, as if waiting to build up the strength to continue. Aoyama’s heart was hammering even harder now. He hadn’t expected to hear anything like this, and it froze his blood just to imagine her suffering the sort of abuse she was describing.

    ‘My mother’s new husband didn’t beat me every day, the way my uncle’s wife did, but he used to say things like, “You disgust me. Just looking at you leaves a bad taste in my mouth.” Things like that. “I hate you. I’d just as soon kill you as look at you. You smell bad, too,” he’d say. He wouldn’t have me in the same room as them, even during dinner. As soon as I got home from school, he’d tell me to go to the other room. It felt bad, of course, but I didn’t know any better, and I guess I just thought that this was the way life was. My mother never tried to protect me and never even said she was sorry about what was happening. It . . . it mystifies me to think about that now. But the truth is, the fact that she never apologised to me was a blessing, in a way, because it helped me, or forced me, to be strong. If she’d ever said, “I’m sorry, honey,” I think it would have been even harder for me, though I can’t say exactly why. I still see my mother sometimes, we’ll meet for tea, but once, quite a while ago now, we were drinking together – my mother’s a big drinker – and she said something I’ve never forgotten. Her own mother, my grandmother, was an alcoholic too, and apparently she was married and divorced several times. My mother said she’d always wanted to live a life completely different from the one her own mother had led. But she said she hadn’t been able to after all.’

    When he noticed the tears welling up in her eyes, Aoyama’s chest constricted. Not just figuratively, either – it was as if someone were tightening an invisible corset around his ribs. She bit her lips to hold back the tears, and after a moment she continued her story.

    ‘She said that even though she was able to picture a different life, she wasn’t strong enough to make it a reality. She told me that real strength is the capacity for kindness to others, and that I should do whatever I could to find that kind of strength. She said she couldn’t tell me how to go about doing that, because she never found it herself, but that people who were strong enough to be kind to others could always get by in this world. My mother’s new husband was handicapped – he didn’t have the use of his legs – and for some reason I was always a fast runner. Mother said maybe that was why he hated me so much, but  . . .’

    Aoyama quietly took a few deep breaths. Her confession explained a lot, and he was aware of a certain sense of relief, among all the other emotions. Undoubtedly her mother and the ‘new husband’ had been living in the apartment in Suginami. Though they were probably her parents legally, she wasn’t in regular contact with them, which would account for her not knowing they’d moved. Why should she care?

    ‘The last time you were kind enough to meet with me,’ she said, ‘I’m afraid I told you a lie. I said that we sometimes went to soba shops or family restaurants together, but the truth is we never went anywhere as a family. It wasn’t easy for my mother’s new husband to get around, for one thing, and I wasn’t allowed to eat meals with them even at home. Well, I did share a meal with my mother from time to time, but . . . Here you’ve been so kind to me, and what do I do but lie to you the first time we get a chance to talk? I know there’s no excuse for that. If you want me to leave now, please just say so.’

    Aoyama looked into her eyes. She was clearly holding back the tears through sheer force of will. He searched for the right words to say, and finally decided just to express his feelings honestly, without embellishment.

    ‘I don’t know what I’d do if you left,’ he said. ‘You have no idea how much I’ve been looking forward to seeing you. And what you’ve just told me doesn’t change anything.’

    She nodded deeply, and quietly began to weep.

    In the taxi later, en route to the restaurant in Nishi-Azabu, Aoyama said there was just one thing he didn’t understand.

    ‘Ask me anything,’ she said. ‘I’d die rather than hide anything from you ever again.’

    It was as if her confession had relieved her of a burden. She sat relaxed, casually leaning towards him in the seat. Aoyama, too, strangely enough, was much more relaxed now. He thought it must be because they’d shared something so intimate, and so powerful.

    ‘I’m no expert,’ he said, ‘but obviously you suffered severe abuse as a child, both physical and emotional. And to my knowledge, people with that sort of background generally have a difficult time relating to others. They tend to be riddled with complexes and basically unpleasant to be around. I once read that when victims of child abuse grow up they unconsciously do things to make other people dislike them, because they actually feel more at ease being disliked, which makes a certain twisted sort of sense, I suppose. But you’re not like that at all. You don’t seem like someone who’s been – how to put this? – scarred by it all.’

    She nodded several times, as if to herself, then leaned against him and said in a barely audible voice, ‘Thank you.’ Her face was close to his, and as he looked at her long, drooping eyelashes, a tremor ran down his spine.

    The restaurant was on a relatively quiet little street just up the hill from the Nishi-Azabu intersection. It was famous for its Tuscan cuisine, but it wasn’t listed in guidebooks, and the management actually discouraged media coverage. The interior was immaculate, the service was excellent, and none of the diners looked as if they’d stumbled into the wrong place. Anyone coming here for the first time would experience, if not awe, at least a pleasant sort of tension on seeing the exquisite engraved designs on the glass partitions around each table and the magnificent tapestry, of which the manager was especially proud – it depicted seventeenth-century Florence and covered one entire wall. It was not a large place, and you couldn’t get reservations without a formal introduction from a trusted customer. Yamasaki Asami’s eyes sparkled as they sat down. When the waiter asked if they’d like an aperitif, she ordered a Campari and orange in an appealingly girlish voice and looked at Aoyama as if to ask if she wasn’t making a faux pas. He winked at her reassuringly and ordered the carpaccio, a speciality of the house, and another starter consisting of three types of pasta. He chose Florentine T-bone steak for the main course, and a bottle of 1989 Barbaresco.

    The aperitifs arrived, and Yamasaki Asami took a sip of her Campari.

    ‘I think it’s because of ballet,’ she said. For a moment Aoyama had no idea what she was talking about. ‘You mentioned that I don’t seem scarred by the abuse. I was really glad to hear you say that, and I think it’s true, but it made me wonder: why is it that I don’t still carry the scars? I thought about it when we were in the taxi but couldn’t really come up with a good answer. And then, when we came in here, it’s such a fantastic place  . . .’

    She paused and smiled. It was a perfect smile, Aoyama thought. Who wouldn’t be enchanted by this smile?

    ‘I guess my attention span isn’t all it might be,’ she said, ‘but maybe that’s one reason I don’t get too depressed about things. When we sat down here, and I saw this tablecloth, and these candlesticks and napkins, and especially the beautiful designs on this glass – these grapes and the little birds and these musical instruments, the curving lines . . . Do you think they’re all handmade? The designs are different at each table.’

    ‘I wonder. Maybe they
are
engraved by hand.’

    ‘I’m sure of it. They’re so warm and intimate . . . Anyway, as I was looking at all these things, forgetting all about my question, the answer popped into my mind: ballet.’

    ‘So you’re saying that ballet helped you heal the scars?’

    ‘Yes. I was in the fourth grade, and we were living in that small apartment in Suginami. Just down the street was a little ballet school, run by an elderly woman and her daughter. The lessons were cheap, and my mother suggested I give it a try. Apparently I have the right build for ballet – at least, that’s what I was told – and after a year the teacher, the elderly one, told me I should switch to a bigger school. She wrote a letter of introduction for me, and I ended up getting a scholarship to a place in Minami-Aoyama, one of the biggest ballet studios in Japan.’

    She looked down at the tablecloth, and Aoyama waited for her to continue.

    ‘I don’t know how to express this very well,’ she said, ‘but when you work up a sweat dancing, it’s as if all the bad things, all the bad thoughts, pour out of you. You can almost see them evaporating. You know the big mirrors they have in dance studios? When I’d watch myself in the mirror after mastering a new
pas
, a new step, I’d feel, well, purified. To see that I was able to some extent to become one with something beautiful, with this graceful image I had in my head, was . . . Well, I can’t explain it. But it helped me forget my troubles, and I think that’s how I managed to overcome it all.’

    The sommelier uncorked the Barbaresco, freeing its distinctive bouquet, and poured some into Aoyama’s glass. As he took a sip and rolled it over his tongue, he had to make an effort to stifle the tears. He nodded, and the sommelier retreated. A waiter placed the carpaccio on the table before them, and when they were left alone again, all Aoyama could manage to say was, ‘I see.’

    A moment later he added: ‘You’re amazing.’

    They clinked their glasses in a toast.

    ‘You really do understand, don’t you?’ she said. ‘That makes me so happy. I put everything I had into ballet, for so long, but there was no one I could really talk to. And after I hurt my hip . . . It’s not that I don’t have friends, or many opportunities to meet people, but there was no one really to comfort me. In fact, you’re the first person I’ve ever talked to like this, about my mother’s new husband and everything. I’ve never told anyone about these things, ever  . . .’

7

Aoyama escorted her home in a taxi. They’d taken their time during the meal, following the wine with grappa and lingering over dessert, and now it was past eleven. He was sure she’d gladly have gone along if he’d suggested they have another drink somewhere, but he felt that dinner was enough for tonight. The exhilarating sort of tension he’d experienced for the past five hours was taking its toll, and besides, he didn’t want to press his luck. How much happiness, after all, would the gods allow one man?

    Mushy with wine and grappa, he wanted to hold her hand in the taxi, but decided after some mental wrestling to resist that impulse too. And thought: a 42-year-old man who frets over whether or not to hold hands – how ridiculous is that?