Grotesque Read online

  “What’s with the bag?”

  “I bought it.”

  Didn’t she tell me the last time we met that she had no money? And there I’d stupidly split the bill with her like I had to dole out charity. With the money she spent on her Gucci bag, I could have bought at least ten of the bags I was carrying. I wanted to chew her out but I just nodded.

  “That’s nice. You look well.”

  “Thank you. I’ve been feeling a bit more settled.” Mitsuru smiled slightly. “The last time I saw you I was a nervous wreck. I think I’ve grown more accustomed to being back in society, but for a while there I felt like Rip Van Winkle. Everything was so different. The neighborhood had changed, prices had gone up. Every part of me was aware of how different things had become in the six years I’d been away. Actually, I went to visit Professor Kijima at his dormitory last week. We talked about all kinds of things, and I felt better after that. I’m going to start over.”

  “You saw Professor Kijima?”

  Why, I wondered, did Mitsuru’s cheeks suddenly redden?

  “That’s right. I thought about the letters I lent you and began to feel so nostalgic that I decided to go see him. He was delighted. We walked together through the woods of Karuizawa. It was freezing, but I was overwhelmed to realize there really are such warm people in the world.”

  I was shocked. I stared at Mitsuru, as she sat there blushing, and pressed the packet with Professor Kijima’s letters into her hand.

  “Professor Kijima’s letters,” she said. “Did you read them?”

  “I read them. But I can’t make much sense of them. Are you sure he’s not senile?”

  “Why? Because he couldn’t remember your name?”

  Mitsuru was perfectly serious—which made me even more annoyed.

  “That’s not why.”

  “I told Professor that I showed you his letters, and he seemed to grow concerned for you. He was afraid you’d think badly of him for writing the things he did. He’s worried that you’re depressed over what happened to Yuriko.”

  “Well, I’m not! Even if I am just Yuriko’s older sister.”

  Mitsuru released a long sigh. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but you’ve been warped for as long as I can remember. I feel sorry for you, I really do. I wish you could pull yourself out from under whatever spell Yuriko cast over you. Professor Kijima said what you were suffering was nothing short of mind control.”

  “Professor, Professor…you sound just like a broken record. Did something happen with the two of you?”

  “Nothing happened. But his words touched a chord in my heart.”

  It sounded like Mitsuru was in love with Professor Kijima, just like she had been in high school. There are people who make the same mistakes over and over without ever learning. I couldn’t take any more of Mitsuru, so I turned around and faced the front of the courtroom. Zhang was being led into the room, sandwiched between two guards, his hands in manacles connected to a cord around his waist. He looked over at me timidly and quickly glanced away. I could feel all the others in the courtroom staring over at me. They didn’t want to miss the showdown between the victim’s family and the assailant, and I didn’t want to disappoint them. I glowered at Zhang for all I was worth. But Mitsuru interrupted me. “Look over there,” she said as she grabbed my arm. “Look at that man.”

  Annoyed, I turned to look. Two men had just claimed empty seats in the spectators’ gallery. One was fat, the other a handsome youth.

  “I wonder if that’s Takashi Kijima.”

  Takashi Kijima had the same perversely precocious look that I had despised. But what was mortifying was that he was still so attractive and youthful. His body was long and slender: snakelike. And his head was small, compact and nicely shaped. His face had delicate lines, and his nose was high and thin, reminding me of the blade of a finely honed knife. His lips were fleshy, the kind girls would surely find sexy and swoon over. Right, girls like Kazue Sat. But surely he was too young. Besides, Kijima was never quite as attractive as this boy. I could hardly take my eyes off him. When the judge entered the courtroom, I looked back at the men again and stared at them.

  The man I took for Kijima held a duffle coat that he had folded neatly. When we had to rise for the judge, he got to his feet clumsily. After everyone else had taken their seats again, he still stood there, staring into space. The fat man had to grab him by the arm and pull him down. The bones in his shoulders and the muscles of his chest that I could detect through the simple black sweater he wore were perfectly balanced. He was at that age caught between childhood and youth where he was growing like a young tree. His face was lovely—the features as becoming for a woman as they were for a man. The shape of his dark eyebrows was beautiful, a perfect arch as if formed by hand. No, this wasn’t Kijima. I was certain.

  “No, now that I look at him carefully, it’s not Takashi Kijima.”

  “It is. It’s Kijima. It has to be,” Mitsuru whispered in my ear after the courtroom had quieted down.

  “There’s no way Kijima would be that young. Besides Kijima always looked much more disagreeable.”

  “No, not him, the fat one!”

  Startled, I almost fell out of my chair. The man had to be close to 220 pounds. If I carved some of the fat off his face, I might be able to find a likeness to Kijima in there somewhere. The trial had begun but I was too busy trying to look at the men behind me to pay attention. Besides, the focus of the hearing today was Zhang’s upbringing and background, and the deliberations were so boring I thought I would die.

  “I was an excellent student in elementary school. I was born intelligent.”

  How could he sit there in front of everybody and brag about himself like that without the slightest embarrassment? I couldn’t take much more of this. While trying to stifle a yawn, I thought about Takashi Kijima sitting behind me. How had he gotten so ugly? He looked like a completely different person. He’d changed so much, I wanted to call up Professor Kijima and let him know what had become of his son since he saw him last. That’s what I’d do! I’d take a picture of him and send it to his father with a letter.

  When the hearing ended for the day and Zhang left the courtroom, Mitsuru let out a shallow sigh, her shoulders dipping slightly.

  “Sitting through these procedures is more difficult than I thought. It makes me remember my own trial. I never felt more naked, more exposed, in all my life. Listening to the questions that the defendant was asked today brings it all back. My entire life history was spread out for all to see. I felt I was hearing about someone else, someone entirely different from me. It was strange. Once I realized that people were dying during those initiations, I was too afraid to do anything to help them in their final moments. Let karma have its way, I thought. Yet when my own time came, I was so terrified and trembled so badly I couldn’t even stand up. I was a doctor, trained to save human life. How was I able to do something so cruel? My trial continued amid great confusion. The only thing that got me through was my mother, who came with a group of other believers. When she entered the courtroom, we exchanged glances. Very subtle. But in her glance I understood that she was telling me to be strong, that I did nothing wrong. I was judged there in that courtroom, before the whole world, but I scarcely saw anyone but my mother.”

  “So are you saying you feel no remorse?”

  “Not that. What I’m saying is, everything was confused. It was like a TV drama.”

  I held up my hand in an effort to put an end to Mitsuru’s convoluted tale of tangled emotions. If I wasn’t careful, Takashi Kijima was going to get away. I wasn’t interested in him so much as I was in the youth with him. I had to speak to him. Why are you with Takashi Kijima? You rarely find such handsome boys. Was he Takashi Kijima’s son? If not, who on earth was he? I was consumed with curiosity. If he was Kijima’s son, no matter how hateful Kijima might be or how ugly he’d become, his worth in my eyes had just skyrocketed. And Mitsuru looked like she still had more to say.

&nbs