Women On the Other Shore (6 page)

She handed her one of the buckets filled with cleaning supplies.

"You'll start in the kitchen. Aoi, you get the bath and toilet. The main room comes after that. Now remember, this is different from cleaning your own home. You don't necessarily have to do the bathroom and the kitchen and the entryway and everything all by yourself. One of you can start by doing only kitchens, while the other can do baths. In other words, the aim is to make yourself into a kitchen specialist or a bathroom specialist. Of course, during your training period, I'll be going over kitchens and bathrooms and balconies and everything else with each of you, but your ultimate goal is to develop a specialty where you can say no one does a better job on this than me. Got that?" T h e n like a schoolteacher addressing her class she added, "What do you say?"

"Yes, ma'am," Aoi said, sounding very much like one of those schoolchildren, and Sayoko quickly followed suit.

The woman turned to Sayoko. "I never introduced myself," she said. "My name is Noriko Nakazato and I'm the owner of At Home 45

Services, which is a housekeeping company. I'll be working with you over the next couple of months. Welcome aboard." She flashed her a warm smile.

Sayoko went into the kitchen as directed but wasn't sure where to begin. Somewhat tentatively, she filled her bucket with water and began sprinkling some scouring powder in the sink.

"Hold it right there. Isn't there something else you should do first?

You've got a head on your shoulders, so I suggest you use it."

Sayoko turned to find Noriko standing behind her, arms akimbo.

"Don't forget you have hot water, too. See this, and this, and this?

Anything that comes off, you want to get it into hot soapy water right away, to soften up the grime. Then clean something else while those things soak. Got that? What do you say?"

"Yes, ma'am," Sayoko said weakly. She stopped up the sink and started the hot water. As the sink filled she turned to look for some rubber gloves in the caddy of cleaning supplies she'd lifted from her bucket a few moments before. She rummaged through the jumble of rags, cleansers, and assorted tools but failed to find what she was after.

"I suppose you're looking for gloves," Noriko's voice rang out behind her again. "Sorry, but you won't find any. In cleaning, your two bare hands are your most reliable friends. With bare hands, if there's any dirt left, you feel the roughness right away. When the dirt's all gone, you get nothing but smoothness. Wear gloves and you'll never feel a thing. Don't worry, our cleansers are all-natural, so they won't mess up your hands. The ones that do nasty things to your hands may be tough on dirt, but if they're that hard on your skin, you know they have to be toxic. It's just that people these days try to cut corners by choosing the most powerful chemicals they can find."

When Noriko first started in on this harangue, Sayoko stopped what she was doing and turned to listen, but she was promptly told

"No, no, keep working while I talk," so from then on she just nodded 46

or put in the occasional "Uh-huh" or "I see" as she went about removing the grates f r o m t h e range and the fan from the vent. Everything she touched was tacky with grease. She dropped the detached items into the hot water in t h e sink.

She'd been convinced, all those weeks ago, that going back to work would solve everything. But now, as she lowered the grease-encrusted fan into t h e water, she was no longer so sure. The day she told Shuji her job description, he'd responded with what could only be taken as a put-down.

"Oh, so basically we're talking cleaning lady."

That had stung, b u t in point of fact, here she was, a cleaning lady.

She was scouring some u n k n o w n stranger's kitchen sink and range while gritting h e r t e e t h over her mother-in-law's snide remarks and worrying that even at this very moment her daughter might be bawling her head off. H o w was this supposed to solve anything?

"Stop! Easy does it!" Almost as soon as Sayoko attacked the range top with her scouring pad, another admonition from Noriko interrupted her thoughts. "Try going at it more gently, and in circles," she urged.

Sayoko eased up on t h e pressure and began moving the pad in circles. Sure e n o u g h , t h e resistance of the grime against her strokes began to melt away.

Once she was satisfied that Sayoko had the hang of it, Noriko proceeded to the b a t h r o o m and started issuing directions to Aoi. Sayoko craned her neck out to see what Aoi was doing, but the half-open door blocked h e r view. She could only hear their voices.

"Ugh. It's like slimy strands of seaweed."

"We don't need t h e commentary. Just scrape it all out with one of those chopsticks. W h e n you've cleared it, sprinkle some of this around, and let it sit while you wash out the tub. Got that? What do you say?"

"Yes, ma'a-a-am. Ooof. This is so foul!"

"I said you may dispense with the commentary."

It almost sounded like a comedy routine, and Sayoko had to stifle a laugh as she turned her attention back to her own task. Working her way slowly across the range top, she got so she could predict with almost gleeful accuracy when the last speck of grime would come away. The resistance of the caked-on grease diminished slowly, bit by bit, until
poof,
she could feel the precise moment when the last trace of friction faded to nothing—as if her pad had suddenly entered a small, circular void. She drew the scouring pad aside and stroked the bare stainless steel with her other hand. The polished surface slid smoothly beneath her fingers, exactly as Noriko had said.

Once Sayoko learned to read the progress of the retreating grime, scrubbing the grease-spattered floor on hands and knees and stretching deep into the cabinets to wash off a shelf turned into unexpected fun. Her soap-filled sponge described endless circles on the floor, round and round and round, and as she felt the layers of grease gradually peeling off beneath it, she could also feel her crowded mind steadily emptying out. Her mother-in-law's sarcastic voice fell silent, the nursery school waiting lists vanished, her doubts as to whether work was the answer melted into thin air, and a wide-open blankness spread in their place. It was a blankness that she found so serenely relaxing she wanted to remain in its hold forever.

There was still a good bit of work left to do, but they wrapped it up for the day a little before five. Back in the van, Noriko retraced the route they had come that morning, continuing toward Nakano Station after stopping to pick up the women they'd dropped off on the way. Fatigue showed on everybody's face.

Sitting behind the driver's seat, Sayoko glanced repeatedly at her watch. Aoi wanted her to stop by the office and start a work diary, but she'd told Grandma Tamura that she would pick up Akari by six. At the rate they were going, it would already be after six when they got 48

back to the office, which meant it would probably be at least six-thirty before she finished writing up her daily report and started home.

"Would it be all right if I made a phone call?" Sayoko asked timidly in the quiet van.

Aoi turned to look at her from the front passenger seat. "To who?"

"I left my daughter with her grandmother, and I need to let her know I might be late. Otherwise I'll never hear the end of it."

It was depressing to think of the biting remarks Grandma Tamura would have in store for her, so she tried to lift her spirits by saying it in as light a tone as she could.

"Actually, in that case, why don't you plan to do your diary at home? You can just go straight home from Nakano."

"Would that be all right?"

"Sure, you can write your report anywhere. This is your husband's mother you're talking about, right? Is she one of those mother-in-laws from hell?"

Still turned around in her seat, Aoi asked it like a child who can't wait to hear what happens next in the story.

"I don't know if I'd say that, but she likes to make snide comments, and she can lay it on pretty thick sometimes."

Self-conscious in front of the other women, Sayoko leaned close to Aoi and lowered her voice to say this. Aoi showed no such restraint.

"Oh, great! She makes snide comments. What people like that need is a punch in the nose!" she said, shaking her fist.

The other passengers, all silently gazing out their nearest windows up to now, looked at each other uneasily for a moment and then burst out laughing. Noriko quickly joined in, doubling over on top of the steering wheel. Suddenly the weariness that had hung so heavily in the air dissipated, and a fresh breath of cheerfulness blew in to replace it.

"She's right. You should give her a good whack," Blondie said between guffaws.

49

"Oh, if only we could," said Babyface.

"No, really, you youngsters today are a lot stronger, so why couldn't you do it?" Grayhair put in. "In my day, all we could do was grin and bear it, no matter what they dished out," she added as she launched into a personal tale of woe.

In the driver's seat, Noriko couldn't seem to stop laughing. Her shoulders kept shaking as she drove.

Sayoko got out of the car with the others at Nakano Station, bowed her good-byes, and started for the ticket gate. When she heard Aoi calling after her, she stopped and turned.

"Good job today! Don't let Granny give you grief!" she yelled, shaking her fist again as she did so. The three women whose names she couldn't remember were smiling warmly and waving to her.

Sayoko bowed deeply once more and turned to go through the gate.

Rushing up the stairs to the platform, she hopped on the west-bound train and dabbed at the sweat on her forehead. Aoi's voice urging her not to let Granny get her down still rang in her ear, and she smiled. Much as Sayoko had simplistically assumed a woman who ran her own company would wear designer outfits and fancy jewelry, Aoi had no doubt called to mind the stereotypical standoff between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law portrayed in soap operas and cartoon gags—playing on tired old cliches for easy laughs.

She gazed at her own disheveled reflection in the window and murmured quietly to herself,
Don't let Granny give you grief.

The next morning, a woman she thought looked familiar was already waiting in front of the bank when Sayoko arrived. She quickly recognized her as one of the people she'd met at the Platinum Planet offices on the day she went to accept the job, but she couldn't immediately recall her name. She was surprised how disappointed she felt on realizing that Aoi wouldn't be coming.

"Good morning. I look forward to working with you," Sayoko said 50

bowing formally to her "senior" colleague, whom she guessed to be ten years her junior in age.

The younger w o m a n quickly sidled up. "Tell me, tell me," she said as if they'd known each other for years, "you went yesterday, too, right? What was it like? Was it hard work?"

Under overcast skies, t h e van pulled into the turnaround again at 9:05, and Sayoko climbed into the back with her younger colleague.

Already seated there was an entirely different crew from yesterday.

The young woman sat next to Sayoko and prattled endlessly in her ear. As she listened, Sayoko finally remembered that her name was Junko Iwabuchi, and that she'd had a temporary position at a publishing company before coming to Platinum Planet.

Noriko drove t h e m to t h e same work site as the day before. There, she instructed Sayoko to continue with the kitchen while she started Junko on the main room. T h e younger woman was soon getting the same treatment Sayoko had received the day before.

"You can't get t h e dust off the ceiling just by thwacking it with a duster. Use your head. You do have one, don't you?"

"It's not enough to sweep the carpet, you have to beat it! Got that? What do you say?"

Sayoko listened from t h e kitchen while attacking some stubborn patches of grease on the vent fan with a scraper.

At the fast-food restaurant where they went for lunch, Junko began squawking the m o m e n t they sat down.

"Man, am I beat! This totally reeks. Nobody told me about anything like this. I really don't believe it. I mean, it's like, are you serious? Look at me," she said, thrusting out a cheek for Sayoko's inspection as she continued her bellyaching. "I'm having a makeup meltdown, aren't I? Hey, wait a minute! You're not even wearing any.

Sheesh, you could have told me. How was I supposed to know I was in for hard labor?"

Her facial cream was indeed starting to break up, but Sayoko just nodded vaguely as she pulled at the wrapper on her hamburger with wrinkly fingers.

"Seriously, I've got to talk to the boss about this. She's gonna have to send Mao or somebody instead of me. I mean, my back can't take it. And I'm not just saying that. I have a bad spine. It's congenital The problem with Miss Narahashi is that she has no head for details.

She never did give me a proper job description."

When Sayoko first met Junko Iwabuchi at the office, the woman hadn't struck her as the sort to prattle on and on like this. But now, about the only time she fell silent was when she paused to take a fresh bite of her hamburger; otherwise she managed to keep a constant stream of chatter going even while she was chewing and swal-lowing. The words kept coming like steady rain, and Sayoko merely nodded or grunted now and then to show she was listening.

"Maybe that just means she doesn't have much faith in me. But when I look at her, I don't see a person who's very good at planning for the future. It's kind of like she's still trapped in a student mind-set or something, you know? Without Yuki Yamaguchi to stay on top of the finances, we'd never survive from one month to the next.

Somebody says, 'What do you think of this, boss?' and she hops right on board without even thinking. Maybe I shouldn't talk about my elders like this, but she's just so totally haphazard. I think in the end it comes down to never having had a proper job. I know because I spent five years working for a big publisher. I see stuff all the time where it's obvious she doesn't have a clue."

Sayoko noticed their reflection in a mirror on the wall. Her small but sturdily built companion sat across from her with dark stains under her arms and her makeup blotchy from perspiration. Sayoko herself had stringy locks of hair clinging to her scalp like strands of seaweed, and her bare face looked wan and sickly.