Grotesque Read online

  “You look well,” Zhang said, breaking into a smile.

  “Really?”

  I opened my trench coat as wide as I could. I wanted to seduce Zhang. “I’ve been hoping to run into you.”

  “Why?”

  Zhang brought his hand up to my cheek and stroked it softly. I quivered. Be good to me. I flashed back to that rainy night. But I wasn’t going to say those words again. I hated men. But I loved sex.

  “I’d like to do a little business,” I told him. “What do you say? I’ll give you a good price.”

  “Three thousand yen?”

  Zhang and I started walking. I keep a record of the men I have liaisons with in my prostitute’s journal. But the marks that I’ve used in my journal tonight are in reverse order, aren’t they? They’re backwards. This time I’ve marked Arai, WA, instead of the foreigner, with a question mark. This indicates those men with whom I will probably not have sex again. In other words, it marks the men I think are rotten.

  Zhang and I linked arms and walked from one dark alley to the next. Past the kitchen assistant, who threw water at me and told me to get lost; past the man who told me no one does that anymore, when I tried to exchange beer bottles for money; past the sake shop owner who treated me callously; past the convenience-store clerk who refuses to say a word to me, even though I’m constantly buying stuff in her store; past the punks who shine their flashlights on me and burst out laughing when I’m in the empty lot having sex. I wanted to shout at them all, Look at me now! I’m not just some street-corner whore, some bottom-feeding slut. Here I am walking for all the world to see with a man who was waiting for me in front of the Jiz statue. A man who is good to me. I am the sought-after, the desired, the capable: the queen of sex.

  “We look like a pair of lovers!”

  I squealed in delight. I’m with Zhang. I’m an employee of G Corporation. My article won a newspaper prize. I’m the assistant office manager. How come I was never able to get by without saying all these things? Was it simply that I wanted to say them to customers? No, it was more than that. I had to say what I said because if I didn’t I would feel they were making fun of me. I had to be the best at everything I did. It was important to me as a woman. And that made me want to show off. I wanted men to watch me, to appraise me. Moreover, I wanted them to approve of me. That was me in a nutshell. In the final analysis, I was really just a sweet girl who needed approval.

  “What are you mumbling about over there?”

  Zhang peered at me. His eyes were wide and awash with uncertainty.

  “I was talking to myself. Could you hear?” I asked Zhang, surprised by his question. But he just shook his balding head.

  “Are you feeling okay? I mean, mentally?”

  Where’d he get off asking such a question? Of course I was okay! Nothing wrong with my mental abilities! I got up on time this morning, boarded the train, changed to the subway, and worked like an aggressive career woman in one of the biggest corporations around. At night I transformed into a prostitute sought out by men. Suddenly I remembered the argument I had had earlier with Arai and stopped short. I’m a company employee day and night. Or is it that I’m a prostitute night and day? Which is it? Which one is me? Is the area in front of the Jiz statue my headquarters? Then was the Marlboro Hag the chief of operations before I took over? That thought amused me so much I burst out laughing.

  “What are you doing?”

  Zhang turned around to stare at me as I stood there laughing. When I looked around me, I saw that we’d arrived in front of Zhang’s apartment building. I put my hands on my hips and declared, “Tonight, I’m not doing a whole host of men!”

  “Don’t worry, none of them want to sleep with you anyway,” Zhang said. “No one but me, that is.”

  “Do you like me?” I asked Zhang, reeling with excitement over his last words. Say it! Say it! Say, “I like you.” Say, “You’re a good woman. You’re attractive.” Say it!

  Zhang didn’t say anything. He fished around in his pockets.

  “Where are we going? To the roof?”

  I was afraid the roof would be too cold. I leaned against one of the walls and looked up at the night sky. But then, if Zhang was good to me, I wouldn’t mind the cold. Suddenly I was seized with doubt. What did it mean for a man to be good to you? Did it mean he’d give you lots of money? But Zhang didn’t have money. More likely he’d try to haggle over the ¥3,000. Was it something that you felt, then? But I was afraid of feeling. I mean, for a prostitute it’s supposed to be about work.

  “Did you hear what I just said?”

  Zhang walked past his apartment building and stopped in front of the one next to it. It was a peculiar building. There was a bar in the basement, and I could see orange lights leaking out onto the asphalt from windows that were at street level. When I peeked in the windows, I saw customers seated with their drinks, their heads about level with our feet. The building was three stories tall, but it looked to be only about as high as a two-story building. The top of the basement windows were at street level, and the first floor started just above that. The boisterous noise coming from the basement bar seemed oddly incongruous with the quiet loneliness of the surrounding buildings. I found it a little unnerving. Even though I’d come to Zhang’s apartment any number of times, I’d never once noticed this shabby apartment building that was right next door.

  “Has this building been here all along?” I asked.

  Zhang looked taken aback by the dim-wittedness of my question. He pointed up to the top of the building.

  “It’s been here all this time. Look over there; that’s my room. I can see this building from my window.”

  I looked up to the fourth floor of the other building and could see two windows that opened out above us like eyeballs. One of the windows was dark, the other was bright with a fluorescent lamp.

  “You’ve got a direct view.”

  “That I do. I can see if someone’s in or not. The super of this building sometimes gives me a key to one of the apartments.”

  “Then, if I lived in this apartment, you would know exactly what I was doing at any given time.”

  “If I wanted to.”

  The idea made me happy. Zhang looked puzzled. He swung his head down. He stopped in front of the apartment at the end of the other shabby building—Number 103—and pulled a key out of his pocket. The apartment next to it was pitch-black. It didn’t look as if anyone was living there. It looked as if there were vacant units on the second floor too. Three grimy-looking mailboxes were tacked to the thin Sheetrock wall at the entryway. Above these was a sign that read GREEN VILLA APARTMENTS. Condoms and leaflets were strewn across the concrete floor. I shivered. The filth in the apartment foyer reminded me of the garbage on the roof of Zhang’s building and the stench of his bathroom. I sensed this was a place I shouldn’t see and shouldn’t be visiting. I shouldn’t do this.

  “Hmm, I wonder if I’m doing something I shouldn’t?” I asked Zhang, without thinking.

  “I doubt there’s one thing in the world that fits that category,” Zhang answered, as he opened the door.

  I looked inside. It smelled like an old person’s breath. It was pitch-black inside; the odor that greeted me seemed to have risen out of a vast emptiness. We could do it in here and no one would know, I thought to myself. Zhang left me standing there and disappeared into the darkness. It seemed he knew his way around. He’d probably brought any number of women here already. Well, I wasn’t going to let them get the better of me, I thought, as I slipped quickly out of my high heels, causing them to shoot off in both directions.

  “There’s no electricity, so watch your step.”

  Brought up to be a polite young lady, I turned around and straightened my shoes neatly in front of the entry step. The step was cool on my feet. And even though I was wearing stockings, I could tell it was covered in dust. Zhang was already sitting on the tatami in the back room.

  “I can’t see. I’m scared,” I called out in