Masako Togawa - The Lady Killer

He was wearing a trilby, tipped back slightly, and the buttons of his overcoat were undone. Throughout the proceedings, he kept his hands thrust deeply into his pockets. He was posing as a correspondent of The Times of London. This was his third meeting with the girl, Mitsuko Kosugi, for he reckoned she would be a tough nut to crack and was taking his time over her. However, he had to be back in Osaka by Christmas Eve, and so tonight it was now or never; he must shoot at all costs. He therefore kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye, working out how best to proceed.

Mitsuko was looking out over the nighttime city, which seemed to be hung with jewels. Her eyes were sparkling; she wore no makeup and her face was blemished in places. Her face was thus somewhat unrefined, but by contrast her body was marvelously mature; there was a green, hard unripeness about her that appealed greatly to Honda. She was only nineteen; it was some time since he had enjoyed a woman so young, and he was determined not to let her escape.

He had met her at the Western Art Museum at Ueno, where she was sketching a muscular male statue. It was Ichiro’s custom to visit museums two or three times a month, as he found them fruitful hunting grounds. He admired her work and then introduced himself to her as a foreign correspondent. They went to the museum tearoom together, where he drank his tea and ate his cake in a clumsy foreign manner, and he discovered that she was on a long vacation and so was able to persuade her to show him around Tokyo. She agreed, and on the next day she had taken him, not to the famous historical sites or scenic areas, but to the Kabuki theater and on a bus tour around cabarets in Yoshiwara and Akasaka. Tonight they had eaten mudfish and were now visiting Tokyo Tower.

He listened raptly to her explanations, but at the same time could not help staring at the pretty conductress when they went on the bus tour. She had a full bosom and pert buttocks; he didn’t mind at all that the conductress was conscious of his gaze. At the Kabuki theater, he tested Mitsuko’s reaction by resting his hand on her knee. She ignored the action, fixing her attention on the stage. Was this her way? he wondered. To pretend that nothing was happening, however much a man took advantage of her body? The thought tantalized him.

And then, suddenly, he had tensed and muttered “Disgraceful!” in English.

“What is it?” she asked, gazing anxiously into his face.

“Oh, nothing,” he replied in genuine embarrassment. The reality was that the memory came back to him suddenly of a theater in America where he had lusted for a white woman in black tights. Why did this memory suddenly strike him in the Kabuki theater? And what had come over him to yearn for that white woman—too ascetic a life during his studies, perhaps? But wasn’t it, after all, natural to entertain such desires at that age? Of course it was, he thought, and calmed down. Why remember a thing like that now? He smiled reassuringly at her.

“Nothing,” he repeated.

A little later, he got his hand on her knee again. He had slid his hand a little way up her thigh, relishing the sensation of unfulfillable lust…

And now here they were on Tokyo Tower, and the group of schoolgirls over there had finished with the telescope and they could use it. The girls walked off, speaking in some provincial accent, and he led Mitsuko to the telescope. There was nobody else around.

“Care to have a look?” he asked, putting his hand in his pocket and taking out a coin.

“Oh, yes! I wonder what we’ll see!” She ran to the telescope, and Ichiro followed her and slipped in a coin. He put his hand on her shoulder and brought his face close to hers as if to share the viewing with her. Her faint shudder as she became aware of his hand on her body gave him a thrill. Three minutes passed, and with a click the lens was closed. He placed his lips on her cheek, and she did not move. He twisted his head, trying to find her lips with his, and she neither resisted nor collaborated. And then, suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he detected a movement. Was someone watching them?

He froze his posture and watched. It seemed that the movement had come from behind an illuminated tank full of tropical fish. But if someone was watching, they must have realized that he had seen them and withdrawn into the stairway behind, for all he could see now were the fish swimming under their mercury light.

He kissed the girl, still keeping careful surveillance on the fish tank, but there was now no sign of anyone there. Perhaps it had been some high school boy. He felt embarrassed and withdrew, leaving Mitsuko gulping air, the saliva showing in her mouth. He kissed her again, and his attention wandered from the fish tank and concentrated on the sensations at the tip of his exploring tongue. There was another movement, but it was just another couple like them looking for somewhere to be private together. He clasped Mitsuko more firmly and kissed her again.

On the way down, the lift was full of country people. Just as the doors closed, he once again had the sensation of being watched, but he could see no one.

They hailed a taxi at the entrance. He sat close to her and put his arm around her and kissed her furtively, but was interrupted by a taxi, which came up close behind them and stayed there, its lights flooding the back of his cab, forcing him to desist lest they be noticed.

They went to a bar, and then to a beer hall. In the noisy beer hall, several drunks peered at them curiously, and they moved on. They went to Shinjuku, to another bar, and then to a sushi shop, by which time he had forgotten all about his feeling of being shadowed at Tokyo Tower—indeed, he was already three parts drunk, and she was beginning to show signs of the alcohol. She did not usually drink much, but tonight he pressed drinks on her, and she proved to have a stronger head than he had. It was already 1 a.m., and he felt unsteady on his feet.

“Let’s go to a hotel,” he said.

But, to his surprise, she resisted his invitation firmly. So he called a taxi and told it to take them to Asagaya, the area of Mitsuko’s apartment. At that, she seemed to relax, and snuggled up to him in the back of the car. Perhaps, after all, he would get a shot at her; perhaps she would invite him back to her apartment.

And so it turned out. When the taxi dropped them, she asked, “Like to come in for a bit?”

He followed her down the narrow alleyway, with stepping-stones set in the dirt. Her flat was in a two-story building second from the entrance to the alley.

“Sorry—you have to take off your shoes. It’s a Japanese house,” she said to the Times journalist.

There was a large shoe cupboard in the entrance hall, with separate compartments for each of the occupants—some thirty in all, it seemed. She opened the compartment marked “Kosugi” and gave him a pair of slippers.

“This is how my name is written. This character means ‘small,’ and this one ‘cedar.’ Interesting, isn’t it, our way of writing.”

Ichiro Honda nodded and gazed in a fascinated manner at all the names, playing the role of a foreigner fascinated by the Japanese characters. The names were written in a variety of ways, some on grubby slips of paper, one with a large inkblot half obscuring the name. He ran his finger down the row as she explained the meaning of each name to him. His finger came to rest on the newest nametag of all.

“Obana. ‘Little tail.’ Funny name, isn’t it? She’s new here. Room 209—now, whose place did she take, I wonder?”

There was something familiar about this to Honda, and he thought hard as he went up the stairs but couldn’t bring it to mind. He completely forgot, in his fuddled state, that this was the name of the key-punch operator who had committed suicide.