Grotesque Read online

  “What’s so funny?”

  I heard an angry voice behind me. Kazue was standing beside the water fountain staring at me. She’d been watching me for some time, I realized, and the realization left me feeling mildly irritated. I couldn’t help but picture a scraggly tree when I thought of Kazue.

  “It’s got nothing to do with you. I was just remembering something funny, that’s all.”

  Kazue wiped the sweat from her brow and said with a glum look, “You were sitting there talking to that girl Mitsuru, and the whole time you were staring at me and laughing.”

  “That doesn’t mean we were laughing at you!”

  “Well, I don’t care if you were. It’s just that it makes me angry to think that someone like you would make fun of me!”

  Kazue spit the last words out with particular venom. Realizing that she was ridiculing me, I replied with earnestness, disguising my true feelings with great skill. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. We were not ridiculing you or anything of the sort!”

  “Oh, it just makes me furious. They’re so malicious. So childish!”

  “Did someone do something to you?”

  “It would be so much better if they actually did do something to me.”

  Kazue slammed her racket against the ground with surprising force, sending up a cloud of dust that coated her tennis shoes, covering the white laces with dirt. The students sitting along the bench turned to stare at her but then just as suddenly returned their gaze to the ground. Most likely they had no interest in the conversation between two such nondescript gymnosperms (Kazue was also of the somber pine or cedar species, unable to produce flowers). After Kazue had glared at the other students on the bench with pent-up hostility, she asked me, “Do you plan to join a club? Have you decided?”

  I shook my head silently. I’d dreamed earlier of being involved in club activities, but once I saw the way things really were at the school, I reconsidered. It wasn’t so much that I minded the petty demands senior members of the clubs placed on their juniors; that was a given in any club. But here the clubs weren’t strictly hierarchical. They had a complicated inner structure that ran along vertical lines as well. There were clubs for the inner-circle students, clubs for the orbiters, and clubs for everyone else.

  “No, I live with my grandfather so I don’t need to participate.” Without thinking, these were the words that popped out of my mouth! My grandfather and his friends took the role of upperclassmen, and helping him with his handyman job was my extracurricular activity.

  “What do you mean by that? Explain yourself,” Kazue said.

  “It doesn’t matter. It’s nothing to do with you.”

  An angry look swept over Kazue’s face. “Are you saying I’m just fighting for the sake of fighting? Getting worked up over nothing?”

  I drew my shoulders in and shrugged. I’d had enough of Kazue and her persecution complex. On the other hand, if she’d already figured out that much, what point was there in asking the question?

  “What I’m trying to say is why does the school have to be so unfair? It’s so sneaky! They’ve already picked the winner before the game’s even been played!”

  “What are you talking about?” Now it was my turn to ask.

  “See, I wanted to join the cheerleading squad. I turned in my application and before they’d even looked at it they turned me down, just like that. Don’t you think that’s wrong?”

  All I could do was stare at Kazue stupefied. She was so clearly clueless when it came to both herself and the school. She folded her arms across her chest in a sulky pout and glared at the water fountain. A steady stream of water was bubbling sluggishly out of the faucet.

  “The spigot’s loose!” she shouted angrily.

  But she was the one who’d forgotten to twist the tap shut.

  I fought back the urge to laugh at her. Not yet adults ourselves, we sought to protect ourselves from potential wounds by turning the tables on our perceived aggressors and being the ones to launch the attack. But it grew tiresome being a constant target, and those who clung to their injuries were surely not destined to live long. So I worked on refining my maliciousness and Mitsuru worked on her intelligence. Yuriko, for better or worse, was imbued from the start with a monstrous beauty. But Kazue…Kazue had nothing to cultivate. I felt absolutely no sympathy for her. How can I put this? To get right to the point, Kazue was supremely ignorant, insensitive, ill prepared, and utterly outmatched by the harsh realities that confronted her. Why on earth didn’t she notice?

  I’m sure you will once again feel compelled to note that my assessment is particularly brutal, but it’s true. Even if you allow for the fact that she was still immature, there was in Kazue a violent insensitivity. She lacked Mitsuru’s attentiveness, and she did not have my kind of heartlessness. In the final analysis, there was something about her that was fundamentally weak. Kazue did not harbor any demons; in that sense she was similar to Yuriko. They were both at the mercy of whatever came their way, which I found terribly predictable. I wanted more than anything to plant a demon in their hearts.

  “Why don’t you lodge a complaint?” I said to Kazue. “Why don’t you talk about it during homeroom?” The instructor in charge of homeroom didn’t do anything but take attendance and go over the day’s schedule. There was hardly any point to having a homeroom. And it would be very uncool for a student to instigate a debate on some topic and try to get some kind of consensus. But Kazue leaped on my suggestion with alacrity.

  “That’s it! What a good idea. I owe you one.” Just then we could hear the chimes signaling the end of the class period. Kazue walked off. She didn’t even say good-bye to me.

  I was relieved when Kazue left, and I felt lucky to have gotten through the tennis lesson without having to do anything but chat. The gym and home economics classes at Q High School for Young Women were pretty lax. The instructors only paid attention to those who were eager to be involved.

  That was the pedagogical doctrine of the teachers at Q High School for Young Women: independence, self-reliance, and self-respect. Students were encouraged to do whatever they wanted because only they had responsibility for their own growth. Rules were lax and much was entrusted to a student’s own sense of self-determination. For the most part, almost all the instructors were themselves Q graduates. Having been nurtured in the pristine purity here, the pedagogical doctrine they preached was anything but abstract. They carefully instilled in us the belief that all things were possible. A wonderful lesson, don’t you think? Both Mitsuru and I secretly clung to this teaching. I had my maliciousness and Mitsuru her intelligence. Together our good points stretched and grew, and we nurtured them and struggled to stand on our own in this corrupt world.

  • 3 •

  It was early one rainy morning in July when the phone call came announcing my mother’s death. I’d finished making the lunch I was going to take to school and was just starting to prepare breakfast. Toast and jam with tea. I had the same breakfast every morning.

  My grandfather was on the veranda talking to his bonsai, as was his habit. In the midst of the rainy season the bonsai tended to attract both bugs and mold, so they required particular attention. Grandfather was so busy dealing with them—heedless of the rain—that he didn’t hear the phone.

  Once the butter melted on the hot toast I had to begin spreading the strawberry jam. It was important for me to spread the jam so that the black seeds were evenly distributed, but I had to be careful not to let the jam drip over the edges of the toast. Timing was everything because it was also essential that I dunk the Lipton’s tea bag into the cup twice and then remove it. I was very busy with my preparations, so I called out angrily to my grandfather when I heard the phone.

  “Aren’t you going to answer?”

  My grandfather turned back to look at me from over his shoulder. I pointed to the telephone.

  “Get the phone. If it’s Mother, tell her I’ve already left for school.”

  The