Maki Kashimada - Touring the Land of the Dead - Two Novellas

In any event, the place had been reduced to a cheap, five-thousand-yen-per-night health retreat.

It was quiet. She thought that she saw something move in the corner of her vision. She turned around to see Taichi flopped forward on the bed, still wearing his coat, unable to get up. He mustn’t have been used to keeping his balance while sitting on a bed. He didn’t like wearing a belt, so his trousers and underwear had drooped down, and she could see the gap between his buttocks. She lifted him up and took off his coat.

As she approached the window, the cold sea spread out before her eyes. It was quiet, and she had no difficulty making out the sound of the waves breaking against the shore. There were some pigeon droppings stuck to the window, but she didn’t care. It was only a five-thousand-yen room.

“I want to go to the salon,” she said, and Taichi nodded to her in silence.

She sat him in the wheelchair, and they took the elevator to the fifteenth floor.

The salon was empty. There was absolutely nothing in the center of the hall. At the back was a stage, with a percussion setup and a keyboard. The floor was still waxed and polished, but it didn’t look like it had been used in quite some time. How many high heels had once trodden on this floor? How many steps had been taken on it? Her grandmother wearing a dress, curtsying, and her tuxedo-clad grandfather taking her hand. Her mother’s family, with their exclusive membership, had brought along a minder to look after the children—he was the one who had shot the 8 mm film, her mother had told her. Her young mother was wearing a wide-hemmed dress, with a ribbon tied around her chest, her face glowing with pride as she watched the dance. Then there was her mother’s older brother dressed in short trousers, and her younger sister in an outfit that resembled a sailor-style school uniform. Her mother’s brother, watching the dance from a leather sofa, was brazenly holding a champagne glass. And her mother herself, wanting to take a sip, was trying to snatch it away. There was something impenetrably startling about their actions, but in the middle of that monochrome world they flowed silently, matter-of-factly. It’s a special day today! It’s finally summer! Her grandfather had had that kind of personality and so had probably let the children drink whatever they wanted. And her mother had surely thought of that as an honor. Her young mother, thinking that she was special. Thinking that she was one of the chosen few. Natsuko was overcome with vertigo, her heart filled with disgust. Just as it was all beginning to become too unbearable, a round rubber ring cut across her vision.

The wheels reflected clearly on the floor. Truly inorganic wheels. Not high heels, but Taichi’s—her husband’s—wheelchair.

“There’s nothing here,” he said, looking up at her.

Right. There wasn’t anything in the salon. Nothing at all. If there was anything there, it was only loss. The loss of her mother’s childhood joy.

Let’s take a dip in the hot spring, Taichi said innocently once Natsuko began to push the wheelchair. I’ve been looking forward to the hot spring—the hot spring, and dinner too. Maybe he had never experienced this kind of loss, the kind that never fully healed.

The wheels left long tracks on that cold floor, gleaming like the surface of a lake.

She pushed the wheelchair as far as the public bath on the first floor. I don’t feel like going in. I’ll wait for you here, she said, taking Taichi to the entrance of the men’s bath. The hotel staff will help me, so don’t try to peek into the men’s area, Natchan, he said. Taichi had no questions, no concerns whatsoever about her, about her reluctance to go in. He was always like that.

The hotel staff supporting him, he proceeded into the men’s area. Natsuko slumped down onto the sofa outside, her body going completely limp. Maybe it was because she had looked directly into someone else’s past—into her mother’s past. But the moment she was left alone, she was assailed by a sense of gratification quite at odds with her fatigue.

Taichi’s awkward footsteps faded into the distance. She sat motionless, listening to them grow fainter and fainter. Finally, the sound disappeared altogether, and all she could hear was the crashing of waves. The crashing of the waves, which should have been like the steady flowing of a basso continuo, grew louder as Taichi moved away, the quietude stealing up on her. It moved at walking pace, but surely, confidently. She could even make out something else, the sound of wan strips fluttering out of sight. And then she finally realized what it was—the sound of countless dresses hanging in the darkness.

She stood up and approached the partitioning screen. There was a tremendous number of dresses behind it. According to the sign, guests could borrow them to dance in the salon. But there was no one there. No woman standing in front of the screen for a photograph, nothing reflected in the mirror. Just the dresses, dusty, giving off some unpleasant odor. Could the dress that her grandmother had worn in the 8 mm film have been borrowed from here? Only the dresses of the women in the monochrome film were filled with color. They began to waft with perfume, and the crystals attached to them began, one by one, firmly, coolly, to take back their radiance. The past, again, crept up on the present.

The memories washed over her. That florid scene of out-of-fashion dresses called to mind a cheap hostess bar. Her brother, freshly employed, was ecstatic at having gotten his hands on his first credit card. He had always loved hostess bars. Let’s have some fun in town, he said, deciding just like that to take her out to a club.

The attack began late at night, after their mother had gone to sleep. “I’m so thirsty, I feel like I’m going to die,” her brother said. “Why don’t you buy a beer or something?” Natsuko asked. “I can’t. I don’t have any money. I’d have to use the card.” There was no stopping him, once he got like this. He would climb into a taxi and set forth downtown. There was only one path open to her.

No matter how much you drink, it won’t be enough . Maybe she should have said something like that.

Whenever they went out on the town at night, her brother would become obsessed with making her look pretty. Natsuko’s dresser was filled with clothes that he had bought for her on his credit card. He would grab her by the hand and take her out to a department store, make her try on all kinds of clothes that he would pick out, and then buy them for her. After she got changed, he would sit her in front of a mirror, comb out her hair, and spray a luxury-brand perfume on her neck. Then he would say to her: Natsuko, you are a woman, you know. If you would just make yourself look nice, everyone would pamper you. You might even find someone to take care of you and treat you special. But you don’t even do that. All you have to do is brush your hair neatly, like this, just once a day, he said as if trying to console her.

The two of them went into a dense alleyway lined with drinking houses, and were soon accosted by five or six hustlers. Natsuko felt ill at ease from the countless neon lights, her head spinning. After negotiating the price, one of the hustlers took them to the third or fourth floor of a mixed-residence building. It was the kind of place that one sometimes hears about where, if a fire were to break out and the emergency exits were blocked, countless hostesses and their clients would end up dying.

The two of them entered the club. Inside, there were women dressed in clothes of all different colors. Red, pink, purple, gold. The colors of the flames of women’s fighting spirits. Dresses that showed off the secret intentions of men and women alike. When the two took a seat, the women came to sit next to them. But as soon as they began to be treated like customers, her brother’s attitude toward her underwent a sudden change. He snatched away her bag, pulled out the envelope that contained her salary for the last month from her part-time job, and stuffed the notes into his own Italian-made wallet. All at once, he became suddenly loquacious. Waiter! he yelled, about to come out with some complaint or another. He always did that, no matter the situation. It’s too noisy in here, he cried out in anger. Then, for some reason that she couldn’t understand, he began to rail abuse at her in front of the hostesses.