Grotesque Read online

  “That’s no way to talk about your little sister!”

  Mother pinched my arm hard under the water. The pain caused me to scream again, even louder.

  “If that’s what you think, you’re the one who’s creepy!” she said, with palpable loathing. Mother was angry. She had already become Yuriko’s slave. By that I mean she worshiped her beautiful daughter. She was utterly intimidated by the fact that fate had given her such a lovely child. If Mother had admitted Yuriko’s creepiness to me, I wonder if I would have been able to trust her. But Mother’s outlook was different. I didn’t have a single ally in the family. That’s the way it looked to me when I was in junior high.

  That night there was a big New Year’s Eve party at the Johnsons’ cottage. Usually we girls were not permitted to attend the adult parties, but since we were the only children in the entire mountain resort that night, we were included. Yuriko, my parents, and I headed along the dark path to our neighbors’ house. Snow was falling lightly. The trip took several minutes, and Yuriko, who loved festive displays, skipped the whole way, kicking happily at the snow.

  Johnson was an American businessman who had not owned the cabin long. His face was handsomely chiseled, his hair a golden brown. He was the kind of man who looked good in a pair of jeans, like the actor Jude Law. But I’d heard that he had a few screws loose.

  For example, he took an ax and chopped down the saplings that had been planted in front of the bedroom window because, he said, they blocked his view of Mount Asama. He whacked a few miniature bamboo stalks off at the root and stuck them in the ground where the saplings had been, not even bothering to plant them properly. The community landscaper was furious. Johnson, of course, was delighted with the way the bamboo looked. I remember hearing my father scoff. “Well, leave it to an American to be satisfied with short-term remedies!”

  Johnson’s wife was a Japanese woman who went by the name of Masami. It seems she had met Johnson while working as a flight attendant. She was a beautiful and vibrant person, but she still found time to be friendly to Yuriko and me. She was never without her perfectly applied makeup or her humongous diamond ring, even when she was out in the middle of the mountains. She wore these like armor—behavior that struck me as downright odd.

  When we got to the party, I found that the Japanese wives had left the main room where the party was and were squeezed into the tiny kitchen, a habit I found peculiar. One by one they were bragging about their own cooking. It almost sounded like they were quarreling with one another.

  Occasionally foreign women would visit one of the families in the resort. When they did, they would sit on the sofa in the living room, conversing elegantly, while the white men stood around the fireplace drinking whiskey and speaking in English. It was weird to see each group forming such perfectly separate spheres. Only one Japanese wife would ever enter the circle of laughing men: Masami. She’d stand at Johnson’s side, and occasionally I’d hear the cloying trill of her high-pitched voice cut across the monotonous murmurs of the men.

  When we got inside, Mother immediately headed toward the kitchen, as if eager to claim a spot. The men called my father to the fireplace and handed him a glass of liquor. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so, at a loss, I trailed after Mother to the kitchen, squeezing my way into the circle of housewives clustered there.

  Yuriko latched on to Johnson, leaning against his knees as he perched in front of the fireplace. She was doing her best to play up to him. Masami’s diamond ring sparkled as it caught the glow of the fire and shot flecks of light across Yuriko’s cheeks. Just then I was struck by a wild fantasy. What if Yuriko wasn’t really my sister? What if she was really Johnson and Masami’s daughter? They were both so handsome. I can’t explain it clearly, but if it were true, I could accept Yuriko. Even her monstrous beauty would take on a more human dimension. What do I mean by human? Well, that’s a good question. I guess what I’m trying to say is that it would have made her ordinary, as if she were just a sneaky little pest, like a mole or something.

  But—unfortunately—Yuriko was the offspring of my own mediocre parents. Wasn’t that the very reason she had become a monster who possessed a too-perfect beauty? Yuriko glanced over at me with an air of self-satisfaction. Don’t look over here, you freak! I thought to myself. I had a sick feeling. When I lowered my head and let out a sigh, Mother shot me a sharp look. I imagined her saying from deep in her heart, You don’t look a thing like Yuriko, do you!

  Without warning I began to laugh hysterically. When I didn’t stop, the women gathered in the kitchen all turned to stare at me in shock. It’s not that I don’t look like her! It’s that she doesn’t look like me, isn’t it? This response, I felt certain, was the perfect counter to my mother’s statement. Yuriko’s existence had forced my mother and me to take up enemy positions. I laughed when I realized this. (I have no idea if my junior high school laugh was the same low laughter that Mr. Nonaka of the Sanitation Bureau referred to or not.)

  After the clock struck midnight and everyone toasted in the New Year, my father told Yuriko and me to head home by ourselves. My mother was still in the kitchen and showed no signs of budging. She looked so imbecilic I was suddenly convinced that, if she was clamped to the spot, she would be able to live forever right where she was. I was reminded of a turtle we’d kept in our classroom when I was in elementary school. It would always stretch its crooked legs out in the muddy water of its tank, raise its head, and sniff the dust-laden air of our classroom with a stupid look on its face, the nostrils in its big nose quivering.

  The mind-numbing Year Out/Year In TV show had started as I searched for my muddy boots from among the piles of shoes that had been cast off and scattered across the floor of the wide entry hall. When the snow melts, the roads up in the mountains turn to mud, so even foreigners followed the Japanese practice of removing their shoes when they came inside. My old red rubber boots were as cold as ice when I slipped into them. Yuriko started to pout.

  “You can’t call our cabin a cabin. It’s just a stupid old ordinary house. I wish we had a fireplace like the Johnsons’. That’d be great.”

  “Why?”

  “Masami asked if, next year, we could have the party at our house.”

  “Well, too bad. Daddy’s too stingy.”

  “Johnson was really surprised about that. He couldn’t believe we were going to a Japanese school. Why do we have to live like the Japanese when we look so different from everyone else? It’s just like he says. I’m always being teased and called gaijin and asked if I can speak Japanese and stuff.”

  “Yeah, well, no use crying to me.”

  I yanked the door open and stepped out ahead of Yuriko into the darkness. I don’t know why I was so angry. The cold air stung my cheeks. The snow had stopped falling, and it was pitch-black. The mountains were there looming over us, pressing in around us, and yet they had dissolved into the darkness of the night and were completely invisible. With no light but a flashlight, Yuriko’s eyes must have turned into those black pools again, I thought. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her. I became frightened just by the knowledge that I was walking alone through the darkness with a monster. I gripped the flashlight and started running.

  “Wait!” Yuriko shrieked. “Don’t leave me!”

  Eventually Yuriko stopped screaming, but I was too scared to turn around. I felt as if I were walking with my back to an eerie pond, and something was crawling up out of it and chasing me. Angry to have been left behind, Yuriko was running after me. When I finally turned around, her face was directly in front of me. I gazed slowly over the white sculpted features of her face, now illuminated in the light reflected off the snow. Her eyes were the only features I could not see. I was scared.

  “Who are you?” I blurted out. “Who the hell are you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re a monster!”

  That made Yuriko angry. “Well, you’re a dog!”

  “I hope you die!”