Grotesque Read online

  Johnson was convinced that I was crazy about sex and too stupid to do schoolwork. Just like Kijima’s son. Just like my sister. I normally never got angry when people made fun of me, but for some reason I suddenly felt like challenging Johnson. He’d spilled bourbon on the sheets and now they were stained with the brown liquid. Masami was going to have a fit, and it wouldn’t be Johnson who’d get in trouble but me.

  “I named the tortoise Mark, after you,” I told him.

  Johnson shrugged his shoulders exaggeratedly. “I’d rather be the snail. Let’s name the tortoise Yuriko, after a woman who lives off of eating men. I bet Kijima what’s-his-name would like to crawl into the aquarium and get snapped up by Yuriko. So why do you think Kijima has never tried to make it with you? Do you suppose he thinks you would sell yourself to a teacher?”

  “No, it’s because my manager is Professor Kijima’s son.”

  Johnson rolled over on the bed in great gales of laughter, clapping his hand over his mouth to stifle the sound. “So that’s why? Wow, this is just like some crazy soap opera!”

  It wasn’t that funny. After I’d advanced a grade, to Q High School for Women, I’d occasionally run into Professor Kijima. Whenever he saw me he’d greet me stiffly with a perplexed expression on his face. Just beneath his overly serious expression, I sensed a warm fear.

  It happened at the end of my second year of high school. When Professor Kijima caught sight of me, he waved me over toward him with insistent gestures. He was wearing his usual starched white shirt. The long fingers that clutched his textbooks were coated white with chalk dust.

  “I’ve heard something I’d like you to clear up. It’s my hope that you’ll be able to tell me it’s not true.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it concerns your honor.” Professor Kijima spoke bitterly. “I’ve heard rumors that you’ve been involved in very inappropriate behavior, that you’ve completely shamed yourself. I can’t believe what I’ve heard.”

  “What rumors?”

  Professor Kijima looked down to his side and bit his lip. The disgusted expression did not suit such a good-natured man. In the blink of an eye he’d turned into an entirely different man, a sexual man. I found him very appealing.

  “They say you’re taking money to sleep with other students. If it’s true you’ll be expelled. Before the school launches its own investigation, I wanted to ask you myself. It’s not true, is it?”

  I was puzzled. If I said it was a lie I’d probably escape expulsion. But I’d already had enough of the cheerleaders’ squad and the all-girl classes. Expulsion didn’t sound so bad.

  “It’s true. I’ve just been following my own path, doing what I enjoy doing. It’s my little moneymaker. Can’t you just leave it be?”

  Kijima started to tremble and his face reddened.

  “Leave it be? But you’re defiling the very core of your existence—your soul! You can’t do that sort of thing!”

  “My soul can’t be damaged by something like prostitution!”

  When he heard the word prostitution Kijima grew so angry that his voice shook.

  “Maybe you don’t notice it, but you’re defiled. Your soul is defiled.”

  “Well, Professor, what about your decision to moonlight as a tutor making fifty thousand yen for a two-hour session and using the money to take your family on vacation to Hawaii? Is that not disgraceful? Have you not defiled your family?”

  Kijima stared at me in blank amazement. How could I have possibly known about that, he seemed to be thinking. Clearly, he had no idea.

  “Well, it is a disgrace. But my spirit is still pure.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, I suppose because it’s like a reward for hard work. I work hard at my job. But I don’t sell my body, and neither should you. It’s wrong. You’re a beautiful woman. That’s not something you chose to be or something you had to work hard to become. You were fortunate enough to be born beautiful. But to live off of exploiting yourself defiles who you are.”

  “I’m not exploiting myself. No more than you are with your moonlighting.”

  “It’s not the same. In your work you hurt the people who care for you. They’ll stop loving you. They won’t be able to love you.”

  That was a new thought for me. My body is my own, why should anyone else think they owned it? Why should a person who loved me think he should be entitled to control my body? If love was that restricting, I was happy to live without it.

  “I don’t need anybody’s love.”

  “What an incredibly arrogant thing to say. Just what the hell kind of person are you anyway?”

  Kijima looked at his chalk-covered fingers in exasperation. His forehead was deeply wrinkled, and strands from his smooth hair slipped down over it. What startled me was the discovery that Kijima didn’t want my body, he wanted to have me. He wanted to know what was going on in my heart. My heart. This was the first time I’d ever met someone who wanted to get to know that part of me I never showed to anyone else.

  “Professor, is it that you want to buy me?”

  Kijima was silent for a minute, unable to answer. then he raised his head and said plainly, “No. I’m a teacher and you are my student.”

  But you know I’m stupid, so why did you let me into this school? I started to ask this and then stopped, startled. Here was a man who wanted what no one had wanted before: he wanted to get to know the inner workings of the doll-like woman who was me. Karl wasn’t interested in me; neither was Johnson. But Kijima’s father liked me for who I was. The realization left me feeling numb. I was touched. But being touched is not the same as feeling desire. And I didn’t exist without desire. If I didn’t exist, then what?

  “Professor, if you aren’t going to buy me, I don’t want you.”

  Kijima stared at me until his red face drained entirely of color.

  “Besides, your son is my pimp. Did you know that?”

  Kijima slipped deeper and deeper into silence until finally he drew in a deep breath.

  “No, I didn’t know. I’m very sorry.”

  Kijima bowed in apology and then turned and walked away. I watched his back as he retreated. I realized that he was going to have to expel both me and his son. I didn’t tell Johnson that part.

  In May, a month after beginning my senior year, I met up with Kijima, the son, outside the school gate. The navy-blue blazer of his school uniform was open, revealing a bright red silk shirt. He had a gold chain around his neck and was driving a black Peugeot. All were items bought on the sly from the money I’d earned. Kijima was born in April, so he’d just gotten his driver’s license.

  “Yuriko, get in.”

  I slipped into the snug seat alongside him. The girls on their way home from school glanced at us, their eyes flashing with envy. They weren’t jealous of the car or of Kijima and his flashy clothes. They were jealous because Kijima and I were able to enjoy ourselves so freely, both inside school and outside it. And at the top of the list of jealous girls was Kazue Sat.

  Kijima lit a cigarette angrily and took a deep drag before he turned to me and said, “What the hell did you say to my father? You bitch! We’ll probably get expelled, you know. They’re going to meet over the holidays and decide what to do with us. My father told me about it last night.”

  “Is your father going to resign too?”

  “He might.” Kijima turned away with a disgusted look. His expression was the spitting image of his father’s. “What’ll you do now?”

  “Well, I could get a job as a model. The other day a scout showed up and gave me his business card. And there’s always prostitution.”

  “Can I stay on with you then?”

  “Sure,” I nodded, staring at the girls who were walking in front of the car. One turned around and looked back at me. It was my sister. Bitch. She formed the words with her mouth without making a sound: bitch, bitch, bitch.

  Johnson all of a sudden climbed on top of me and started to strangle me. Stop!