Grotesque Read online

  Kazue, looking flustered, rushed to her seat. I didn’t take my eyes off her.

  “Good morning, girls!” Hana-chan greeted the class with her rapid-fire, slightly nasal voice. She gazed languidly out the window. The rain was still pouring down.

  “They say it’ll clear up by evening. But I wonder if it really will….”

  Kazue drew in a deep breath and stood up. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. Hana-chan looked over at her in surprise. I stared at Kazue’s back, spurring her on with telepathic force. Do it! Say it! Finally, in a voice thick with phlegm, she started. “Um, there’s something I wanted to bring up for discussion. It’s about clubs.”

  Kazue glanced at me nervously, but I acted like I didn’t know what she wanted from me and rested my chin in my hand. Just then, the girls in the cheerleading squad rushed up to the front of the room. Kazue stared at them in disbelief. The girls lined up and, standing straight and tall. began to sing “Happy Birthday.” In no time at all everyone else chimed in. The girls leading the singing were almost all insiders, most of them having started together in elementary school. Hana-chan crumbled into gales of laughter.

  “How’d you know it was my birthday?”

  The cheerleaders began waving their pompoms and pulling party crackers, followed by clapping and cheers. At the sound of the crackers, Kazue sank back into her seat. A cute student with her hair curled up in a flip pulled a bouquet of roses out from behind her back and thrust them into Hana-chan’s hands.

  “Oh, I’m so thrilled!”

  “We all wanted to drink a toast to you, since you’re celebrating your fortieth birthday!”

  When had they made the preparations? I wondered. There they were, pulling soda cans out of a paper bag and handing one to each student. “Everybody, open your cans and let’s drink to Sensei! Happy birthday!”

  Some students were confused and wondered if it was really okay to drink in the classroom. But no one wanted to be a party pooper, so they all acted like they were having fun. I started sipping the soda, which fizzed on my tongue and made my teeth thick with sugar. Kazue grimaced with humiliation.

  “Sensei, say something!” Carried away with themselves, the students urged and cajoled.

  “Well, I’m just stunned!” Hana-chan hugged the bouquet of roses to her chest. “But all of you, thank you so much! Today I am forty! I’m sure I must look like an incredibly old lady to you. I also studied at this school, you know. My homeroom teacher—when I was in my first year of high school—was exactly the same age that I am today. I thought she was ancient, so I assume it’s the same for you. How distressing.”

  “You don’t look old!” one of the students shouted, and the class erupted in laughter.

  “Well, thank you! It’s really a privilege to have you as a class! Independence, self-reliance, and self-respect is a motto that will serve you well in the future. You are all blessed. But precisely because you are so blessed we can bring you up to be self-reliant and proud. So please, study hard and keep growing!”

  What an unbelievably pathetic speech. But it was greeted by applause and whistles, so loud that the teacher from the classroom next door poked her head in to see what was going on. But I knew that no one was really moved. Hana-chan was just being played.

  When I looked over at Mitsuru, she had her hands clasped in front of her breast and was looking at Hana-chan, her face wreathed in smiles. Sensing my gaze, she turned back to look in my direction and wrinkled her nose at me. I felt happy, as if Mitsuru and I were partners in crime. All Kazue could do was look on, her hopes for vindication cruelly dashed by the cheerleaders.

  When school ended that day I collected my things and headed outside. The sky was blue as far as the eye could see, as if the morning storm had never happened. I suddenly remembered that Yuriko would be returning to Japan, and I headed toward the station in a gloomy mood.

  “Wait up!”

  I turned around and saw Kazue thumping noisily after me. She was wearing bulky rubber navy-blue boots, and the students behind were poking one another with their elbows and laughing at her.

  “Hey, what happened today really ticked me off. You too, huh?”

  It would be more accurate to say I was disappointed, but I nodded without saying anything. Kazue thumped me on the shoulder. “So do you have to hurry home?”

  “Not really.”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, it’s my birthday today too.”

  Kazue had brought her mouth close to my ear. I could smell the dank sweetness of her perspiration.

  “Happy birthday.”

  “Won’t you come to my house?”

  “Why?”

  “My mother told me I could bring some of my school friends home with me today.”

  I was curious to meet her mother. On the day I learned of my own mother’s death I met Mitsuru’s mother, and now I had a chance to meet Kazue’s.

  “Please come! Just for a bit. I can’t tell her no one’s coming.” A look of pain spread over Kazue’s face, as if she was recalling what had happened in homeroom. Based on the little bit Kazue had managed to say before being interrupted, it was now common knowledge around school that she had tried to bring up the issue of the club discrimination. Here she was on the brink of becoming the next Mitsuru, the next target of torture, and she had no idea about Mitsuru’s bullying experiences. No sooner had this thought crossed my mind than I heard Kazue mention Mitsuru by name.

  “You’re good friends with that girl named Mitsuru, aren’t you? Do you think you could ask her to come too?”

  I was pretty sure Mitsuru planned to spend the afternoon studying. She’d left as soon as she could.

  “No, she’s already gone,” I replied curtly.

  “The really smart students are always busy, aren’t they,” Kazue said, her voice full of disappointment.

  “Well, get over it. She doesn’t like you anyway.”

  My lie silenced Kazue. “You don’t have to come either,” she said, looking at the ground.

  “No, that’s okay. I’ll come.”

  • 5 •

  We took one of the private railroad lines and got out on the outskirts of Setagaya Ward, at a station so small there was only one platform. Kazue turned down a residential street that looked exactly as I expected it would—quiet, peaceful, and lined with moderately sized houses. Although there were no expensive mansions to be seen, neither were there any clumps of cheap apartment buildings.

  Tasteful plaques graced the gatepost to each residence, and just beyond were small lawns. On Sundays the fathers in these houses would no doubt stand on those lawns practicing their golf swings while the sound of pianos wafted from the living room windows. I’d heard that Kazue’s father was a salary man, and I imagined he’d probably taken out a thirty-year loan to finance his house. Kazue stomped sulkily ahead as if she were annoyed to have me tagging along with her. But before long she started pointing out all the important landmarks along the way. “This is the junior high I attended; it’s a municipal school,” she said proudly. “Look at that old house over there, that’s where I took piano lessons.” Her tour through memory lane really got on my nerves.

  Having come to the end of the road, Kazue waved me over to the front of another house. “This is my house,” she announced triumphantly.

  It was a large two-story structure surrounded by a dingy gray wall of tani stone. The house was painted brown and the roof was covered with heavy tiles. The garden was planted thickly with shrubs and trees, the lot larger and more established than those of the neighboring houses.

  “What an impressive house! Is it a rental?”

  Kazue looked startled by my question. Then she thrust her chest out and replied, “We rent the property, but we own the house. I’ve lived here since I was six.”

  Diamond-shaped cutouts lined the stone wall, perhaps for ventilation. I peered through the holes into the garden, which was dotted with azaleas, hydrangeas, and other common shrubs. Potted plants were jamm