People Who Eat Darkness (10 page)

Yet for all this, she insisted that the club was not principally about carnality. “We were taught three things when we started. How to light our client’s cigarettes, how to pour his drinks, and not to put our elbows on the table. We were also advised not to eat in front of him: it shows lack of subservience. Those rules aside, your job was to fulfill his fantasy. If he wanted you loud, you were loud. If he wanted you intelligent, you were intelligent. If he wanted you horny, you were horny. Sordid? Yes. Degrading? Yes. But one thing it wasn’t was the White Slave Trade. The one thing the hostess bars are not about is sex.”

The public telephone booths of Tokyo were full of printed flyers advertising prostitutes; what the hostess clubs offered was both more specialized and more costly. Unexpectedly, the more expensive and select a club, the less tolerant it was of touching and groping. “Other clubs in the mizu sh
ō
bai provide the service of masturbating a man to ejaculation,” Professor Allison observes. “In the hostess clubs, by contrast, the masturbatory ejaculation is of the ego only.”

Japanese sex, like Japanese society, is ordered and orderly. Japanese men like to know exactly what is expected of them and how they are meant to behave before entering any situation. And in the hostess clubs, they know that the only thing on offer is titillation … The Mama who owned and ran [my club] made one thing very clear: touching, now and then, with a client was OK; sex was a sackable offense. But most of the clients—Japanese clients anyway—did not expect sex. They expected flirtation and flattery, and that is what they got.

Within those parameters, you put up with whatever came your way. Some conversation was offensive, some was not, but the most important thing was not to be silent. One night you might discuss Tchaikovsky with a charming and courteous gentleman. The next night that same man might ask you how many times you climax each night, when you lost your virginity and compare your breasts with those of the two other hostesses at the table. Your job was to smile and pretend you found him entertaining. You made him believe that he was the most wonderful, most important man in the world, that you longed to jump into his bed. He made himself believe that this tall, beautiful Western woman was desperately in love with him, found him fascinating and was going to become his mistress that very night. They loved talking about sex and sometimes the conversations would become explicit or highly suggestive, but at the end of the evening, you went your separate ways. Neither side would be surprised or disappointed because neither side had expected anything else.

You tell him you wish he was your lover. He tells you he would like to take you home. You say that would be lovely, but my sister is in town and I have to show her the sights. It is the answer he was expecting; he might well have been frightened at any other.

The only people who did not understand and play by these rules were foreigners, Western men who were unable to grasp the Japanese obsession with ritual and role play. I remember a Frenchman being furious when his hostess wouldn’t go back to his hotel. “Why on earth has she been coming on so strong all evening if she doesn’t want to sleep with me?” he exploded.

The argument of
Nightwork
was that, rather than sex, hostess clubs were actually about work. By encouraging and subsidizing the salaryman to spend his evenings together with colleagues, clients, and hostesses (rather than at home with his wife and children), Japanese corporations enabled him to discharge stress and frustration in a way that served the corporations’ ends—bonding with his workmates and building good relations with clients. The hostess club was both leisure
and
work; in colonizing the salaryman’s after-office hours, as well as the working day, the company ensured that his first loyalty was not to his family but to his job. “They are tired when they arrive and the last thing they want to do is flog their wits to entertain either a client or a woman,” Professor Allison wrote. “The hostess solves that problem. She entertains the client, flatters the man who is paying, and makes him look important and influential in front of others … If that same man went to a disco, he would probably fail to pick up a woman and go home feeling deflated and rejected. The hostess clubs remove the risk of failure.”

How did Western women fit into all this? The truth, according to Allison, was that they were little more than a novelty: “Japanese men certainly fantasize about sleeping with Western women, but the reality of having one as a real wife or mistress frightens them. We might intrigue them, and there is certainly kudos in having a Western woman on your arm, but Western women are known to have opinions, to be neither obedient nor subservient.” It was a fantasy that, by the consent of all concerned, was kept alive only for the evening and only within the club. And the club itself was closely monitored by a manager, waiters, or the presiding mama-san. “I cannot say that I enjoyed my time as a hostess,” Anne Allison wrote. “It was hard work, and a lot of the time it was degrading. When you have to sit and smile politely while a man asks if you fart when you pee, and still smile when he says it for the tenth time, you get fed up. But I never felt threatened, I never felt compromised, and I never felt there was a situation I could not handle. And if I had felt in trouble, the Mama would have come to my aid. In Tokyo, even in its red-light district, I felt a lot safer than in New York.”

*   *   *

If the job of being a hostess truly was confined to the inside of a hostess club, Lucie Blackman would be alive. But it was more complicated than that. Once she had entered the mizu sh
ō
bai, a woman was subject to pressures and temptations that shadowed her life in Japan, whether she was aware of them or not.

They were rooted in what was called
shisutemu
: “the system”—the tariff of charges and incentives imposed by each club on its customers and hostesses. At Casablanca, a customer paid ¥11,700 an hour, which included unlimited beer or mizuwari and the company of one or more girls. Out of this, a new hostess like Lucie was paid ¥2,000 an hour. For five hours’ work a night, a hostess earned ¥10,000; at six nights a week, this came to ¥250,000 a month. But that was only the beginning of an arrangement of bonuses and compulsions that were the heart of “the system.”

A girl who had impressed a man one night might be “requested” by him the next; for this, he paid a supplement and she received a ¥4,000 bonus, on the basis that she was bringing in business. If a customer ordered champagne or a “bottle keep”—a personal bottle of an expensive whiskey or brandy that was kept behind the bar for his private consumption—the hostesses in attendance shared a commission. Girls were encouraged to go on what were called
d
ō
han
—dinner dates with men who had taken a fancy to them and whom they brought back afterwards to the club. They enjoyed an evening out with an attractive young woman, she got time off work and a free dinner, and the club got more business.

D
ō
han were not optional. At some clubs a dozen d
ō
han in a month brought a bonus of ¥100,000. At most clubs, including Casablanca, any girl who pulled in fewer than five d
ō
han a month, and fewer than fifteen “requests,” faced the sack. Securing d
ō
han, for many hostesses, became an obsession and a source of deep anguish. It was not just a question of agreeing to dinner with men one disliked. As the month neared its end, an underperforming hostess would go on a d
ō
han with anyone who was willing. Male friends were recruited to make up the quota; sometimes a hostess in imminent danger of termination would pay the d
ō
han charge herself.

“In the changing room, by the toilet, there was a chart on the wall with everyone’s name and the number of requests and d
ō
hans you’d had that month,” said Helen Dove. “You were really put to shame if there was a zero next to your name. I was so bad at it, I was always near the bottom of the list. I couldn’t be bothered in the end. I completely lost enthusiasm. I’d rather talk to the other girls than pretend that I fancied these Japanese men. I’d had only one or two d
ō
hans, a few requests. It got so bad, I ended up asking my landlord if he could do me a favor and pretend to be my d
ō
han.”

She was sacked anyway, the week before Lucie went missing.

*   *   *

In the atmosphere of competition at Casablanca, rivalry was just as likely to flourish among the hostesses as friendship. But Lucie and Louise got on well with most people. “They were very close friends. They did everything together,” Helen Dove remembered. “They were living together, they were cycling to work together, they’d socialize together. They got on very, very well. I found them … I don’t know … naïve, quite young, a little bit foolish, a bit girly. They used to kiss each other when they met, even if they’d only been apart for a few hours. I thought that was sweet.” Helen was struck, as many people were, by the attention Lucie paid to her hair and clothes and makeup. “I wouldn’t say she was absolutely stunning, but she had a vivacious personality that made her attractive,” she said. “She didn’t strike me as being underconfident. Lovely hair, lovely personality, lovely and tall.”

Customers liked her too. “She was different from Canadians or Americans with big laughs, women who are too bright and lively,” said Mr. Imura, the squid-fishing publisher. “Her conversation was not over the top.” Mr. Watanabe, the Photo Man, was immediately impressed: “At first sight, I took in that she was from good family. She looked gentle, graceful, charming, and refined … I could really recognize her well breeding, good education, plentiful culture, and nice sensibility.”

“It is obviously not the job of my dreams, but it’s so easy,” Lucie wrote in an e-mail to Sam Burman. “I am earning good money and it is so different from the UK. The men are so respectful. Obviously you get the odd one but so far I’ve met some really nice people.” “The odd one” may refer to the unidentified customer who had offered her the equivalent of ¥1 million ($9,400) to sleep with him. In the version of this story that she recounted to her mother and sister, she laughed the offer off. As Louise remembered it, “She was furious and asked our manager to remove him.”

The hostesses were instructed to collect business cards from the men they had entertained and to telephone and e-mail them to encourage their return to the club. A few of Lucie’s e-mails have survived. In them, she strikes just the right note of chaste flirtation and noncommittal coquettishness.

From: [email protected]

To: Imura, Hajime

Date: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 3:01 AM

Dear Hajime,

I just wanted to write to you to say “Hello!” It is me Lucie here from Casablanca. I was the girl from London, with long blonde hair who you got on so well with …

It was so good to meet you the other night at the club, I really enjoyed your company, and like we planned would love to meet up with you soon for dinner.

… I am going to call you on Wednesday between 1200 and 1600 so I can talk to you and make some plans to meet up. Maybe you are free sometime next week?

Well, I have to go now, but I will leave you with this message so you can find some time in your very busy schedule during Wednesday morning, then I will call you Wednesday afternoon, to finally talk to my new special friend.

I hope you have a lovely day, I know I will as I will be speaking to you soon.

Take care,

Lucie x

From: Imura, Hajime

To: [email protected]

Date: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 5:30 PM

Hello!

Thank you for your E-mail.

How are you, Lucie, a cute girl with long blonde hair, today? I always liked girls with blonde hair and also with short skirt. I hope everything is going well

Which cuisine do you like the best, French, Japanese, Chinese, etc.? Please choose one of them and go to a restaurant for dinner with me? How about next Tuesday? Do you have time to do?…

By the way, can you speak American English? I cannot speak Queen’s English very well, because I eat rice and miso-soup every day. I suppose you could not quite catch what I said the other night. But I could understand what you said. So please whisper at my ear whatever you like to tell me.

Enjoy yourself your life in Tokyo, anyway …

Hajime Imura

The secret of success in hostessing was to build up a stable of loyal customers for whom the girl, rather than the bar, was the attraction, and who regularly notched up requests, drink commissions, and d
ō
han.

Without at least a handful of regulars, it was difficult to survive. But Lucie got off to a good start in this respect. “I have a friend … who comes in every night in the last eight days,” she wrote to Sam Burman. “It’s excellent as he speaks really good English, isn’t that bad looking and is part of the aristocracy therefore ultimately is loaded!!… He said if ever I needed to make up numbers [for requests] he’ll come in any time.” This was Kenji Suzuki, Lucie’s most regular regular, her professional salvation and emotional burden.

Ken was in his forties and unmarried. He had large metal-rimmed spectacles, high cheekbones, and a wavy fringe of hair. His family may or may not have been descendants of the old, and long-abolished, Japanese feudal aristocracy, but he was undoubtedly well-off. With his elderly father, he ran an electronics company, but by 2000 the family business was struggling. In his many e-mails to Lucie, worry and loneliness gusted through the façade of brightness and cheer. He spoke of anxious meetings with clients, grueling business trips to Osaka. Some nights he would be in the office until eleven o’clock, with a six a.m. bullet-train journey the next morning. Booze and Lucie were his consolations. “I did not explain to you my troublesome situation and environment for my business,” he wrote to her in his cheerfully inexact English. “You can imagine it is rubbish. I could drink around but I never became to SMILE until I met you, oh! what a poor guy, hohohohohohohoh.”