A Woman's Nails Page 27

  Mie is waiting in front of the Nakasu Mister Donut. To reach her, I have to pass through a gauntlet of scouts and pimps and hostesses who try their damnedest to sweet-talk and coax you back to their bars. Some of the women, gorgeous and dressed to kill, can be quite persuasive.

  Mie is conservatively dressed. And yet, the beautiful curves of the body I loved last summer are not hidden. In her letter, she wrote that she had gained weight, but it doesn’t show. She is as lovely a sight to behold as ever and I tell her so.

  We chat a bit and she’s surprised by how much my Japanese has improved. Living everyday with the language as I do, I can’t see it growing before me. A year ago, it was barely able to stand, to take a few clumsy steps without falling. Today? Who knows? I have to take everyone else's word that it is getting better.

  Mie is alone. No escorts lingering a few steps away, waiting to be beckoned and introduced. No one to protect her from the past like before. Is she no longer afraid of it, has she buried me and made her peace?

  Mie takes me by the hand and leads me towards her friend’s snack.

  It was here in this neon Babylon almost a year and a half ago that Mie and I first hit it off. She brought me to a snack, where after several drinks she would get jealous when one of the hostesses became a little too friendly with me. She would suggest we go back to her place, and when we did, we would end up falling asleep, half naked in each other’s arms. We didn’t have sex that night—blasted as I was, I probably couldn’t have performed anyways. Besides, I knew she had a fiancé. It was just after telling me about him that we first kissed.

  Nakasu is still a wonderland for me, a brash, gaudy, sexist Never Land of sorts. Memories of that first night there with Mie will always be tied to the island. It was the first place in Japan where I tasted happiness.

  We walk along Nakasu’s main drag, a narrow two-lane road clogged with taxis and black Benzes with tinted window. Tough men mill about in dark suits and sunglasses, protecting their eyes from the screaming glare of the neon lights and temptation. Hostesses dressed to kill eye me playfully, invite me to join them for a drink. It’s hard not to turn your head and stare at them, as beautiful as water to a man who’s been lost in the desert. Mie squeezes my hand gently, reminding me that she is my date for the night.

  The snack Mie take me to a simple affair, long and narrow with a counter that can only accommodate about ten customers. Behind the counter is Mie’s friend, called, as the proprietress always is, “Mama”, and another hostess. Unfortunately neither is much of a looker.

  Can’t have everything.

  We sit down, and after the usual introductions and an exchange of business cards, an ice bucket, a bottle of Suntory Hibiki and two tumblers are placed ceremoniously before us. Mama then fixes us up with two whiskey ‘n’ waters.

  I give Mie an abridged version of the penny opera I’ve been living since we last met, sparing her the ugly details of my love life.

  “I’ve decided to quit,” I say.

  “Well, with a boss like that, who could blame you?”

  “I’m surprised I’ve hung around this long.”

  “What did your boss say when you told her?”

  “Oh, I haven’t. Not yet,” I say. “Abazuré has threatened so many times to sack me right there on the spot, I have half a mind to do the same: you know, just up and walk out on her.”

  “Peador, you wouldn’t!”

  “No, I wouldn’t. But it’d give me immense satisfaction to see the look on the witch’s face.”

  “What are you going to do about work?”

  “Work’s the least of my problems, Mie. I'll manage somehow . . . I always do. Things might be tight for a while, but I’ll be so much happier not having to deal with those . . . those awful women anymore. Besides, I’ve wasted enough time already.”

  “Wasted?”

  “Yeah, wasted.”

  We sing the old karaoke favorites, syrupy ballads, which transport us back to the middle of last summer when we were so much in love. Mie places my hand on her thigh and holds it there like she used to. It’s still warm, as if I had never stopped holding it. After several more whiskey ‘n’ waters, and a rousing rendition Bobbie Caldwell’s Heart of Mine—shite though it may be, I sing it like I mean it—Mie leans into me, rests her head on my shoulder. I always loved the fragrance of her hair, the way it would linger on my pillow days after we’d slept together, the way it filled my nostrils and filled my soul. There it was again, just like old times.

  After a few happy hours soaking neck deep in this blissful tub, Mie tells Mama to put the bill on her company’s expense account.

  “I wish I could do that,” I say.

  “Anytime you want to drink here, Peador, it’s on me,” Mie says. I’m almost tipsy enough to believe her.

  Outside the bar, Mama thanks us for coming and bows deeply as we step into the elevator. When the door closes, Mie kisses me gently on the cheek. I’ve felt deflated for so long that it doesn’t take much to put the wind back into my sails. I take her into my arms and kiss her on the lips. Though we haven’t pressed any buttons, the elevator jerks into motion. When the door opens, a middle-aged man with a cheap toupee finds us in an embrace. Seeing us, he says, “Solly, solly,” and staggers back a few steps, allowing the elevator to close. I push the button for the first floor.

  Out on the street, as we walk towards a long line of cabs, I expect Mie to tell me she is going to call it a night and I don't know how it will affect me to watch her disappear from my life again. Will I be heart-broken? Will I be relieved? Or a little bit of both, emancipated but alone?

  “That was fun,” I say. “Thanks.”

  Mie asks if I have to work tomorrow.

  “Yeah, I do, but not until three.”

  “You want to go somewhere else?” she asks.

  I take her hand and pull her into the nearest cab and we are off to Oyafukô.

  4

  Sitting at Umie’s counter, knocking back imo shôchû on the rocks. It isn’t my first choice of emotional lubricant, but I’m more than happy to keep pace with Mie.

  She asks me if I’ve heard from my former co-worker and next door neighbor Ben.

  “Not in a while. He wrote me a short letter about two months ago, but didn’t have much to tell me as always. Gary and he are still looking for jobs. Seems like nobody has jobs. I must say, though that he does have the neatest hand-writing.”

  Mie laughs because Ben’s dainty penmanship is just one more thing reinforcing what we always suspected. “Has he . . .?”

  “No, not yet,” I say. “Every time a letter from him arrives, I think, ah hah! This is it. This is the one.”

  “I wonder if he’ll ever admit it.”

  “Who knows?” I shrug. How long can someone as obviously gay as Ben remain cooped up in the closet?

  We reminisce about last summer and how much fun it was. The three of us, Ben, Mie and I traveled to the Usa Jingû shrine and then on to the hot spring resort of Beppu. Ben tortured us the whole way with his off-key humming. Mie would put a Chagé & Aska cassette in the deck and he’d keep on humming even though he didn’t know the songs. We laughed at every turn, and were occasionally silenced with profound awe. No matter how things ended up for Mie and me, there is no denying what a wonderful summer it was and I would gladly pawn my soul in order to turn the clocks back twelve months and relive it.

  Mie rests her head lightly on my shoulder and tells me she misses those days. I tell her I miss them too, even more than I miss . . . more than I miss the States.

  Shortly after Mie and I had become serious, her roommate commented over dinner that I somehow belonged here. Mie had just dumped her fiancé for a foreigner fresh off the boat and she didn’t see anything strange in it. Who knows what she was really thinking, though? All I knew was that I, too, had felt that I belonged.

  “I was really happy then,” I say and she nods.

  There is an impulse to apologize for past mistakes, but I know that
the past is the past, and no matter how fondly we reminisce about the good times or how deeply we regret the bad, the past will never stop being anything but gone and out of reach. Just enjoy the moment, I have to remind myself. I hold her hand even more tightly.

  I still love Mie. Still love what she once meant to me, especially how she delivered me from the isolation and loneliness I had been feeling in those first few months. I still want to be with her, to spend moments like this beside her, to hear the sound of her voice, and feel the warmth of her body against mine. I still want to touch her soft skin with my lips. I still want to make love to her. For the first time, though, I understand and accept that it is truly, irreversibly over.

  As I’m ordering a second round of shôchû, Hiromi walks into the bar and sits down at the corner diagonally from us. Hiromi is, as always, stunningly beautiful, but tonight, wearing a low-cut black dress, she exudes a sex appeal that raises the mercury several degrees.

  Programmed as I am, I cannot help but look at Hiromi. She smiles back at me and, leaning over the counter towards me, reaches out to take my hand.

  “Who is this?" Mie asks, rankled by the girl’s playful flirtation.

  “A friend,” I say.

  “Thinks she’s sexy, does she? Well, she’s got small tits!”

  Saying that, Mie does something that surprises me: She pulls her top down slightly to reveal her own cleavage. Not many women can give Mie a run for their money in the breasts department. Where my ex-girlfriend is a major-leaguer, the others play T-ball.

  “Urara will be here soon,” Hiromi says to me. “She’s sad because you haven’t called yet. She’s been waiting by her phone every day.”

  “Who’s Urara,” Mie asks coldly.

  “A girl I know.”

  I never would have expected Mie to be jealous. What does she have to be jealous about after all? She's the one who left me. Twice for that matter! She’s the one getting married in a few months’ time, while I remain as single as ever. None of the women I’ve been with come even close to filling the hole Mie left. They have all been too small, with characters that never quite filled the presence that Mie was in my life last year. Nearly a year has passed and I am just barely managing to get by, one lonely miserable night at a time.

  Mie finishes off the imo shôchû, orders another. Half way through the second glass, the tension seems to dissipate some. She rests her head on my shoulder, and with my hand in her lap she begins to talk for the first time about last year.

  It had been hard to say good-bye to me, she says. That’s why after leaving me the first time she ended up returning a few weeks later. But when she did leave me for good—the day she left me standing in front of my apartment making me think that she would be back in a week's time—she cried all the way back to Fukuoka.

  She wanted to turn the car around, to be with me, but she was too afraid. There were so many uncertainties, so many barriers we would have to cross. Tetsu, on the other hand, was stable, boringly so, but, after so many years of ups and downs, it was stability she longed for most.

  When she looks up at me, there are tears in the corner of her eyes. “I’m sorry, Peador,” she says in English. “I’m so sorry to have hurt you.”

  A rush of pain breaks against my chest and I could almost cry myself.

  “I’m sorry,” she says again.

  “I’m sorry, too.” And I am. Sorry that I couldn’t have been stronger and more reliable for her. Sorry that she couldn’t have found confidence in her love for me at the time. Sorry that I lost her before I understood what a truly lovely a person she was. “I’m so goddamn sorry, Mie.”

  Just as I’m apologizing, Urara comes into Umie and seeing me calls out my name. Ascending the steps, she huffs playfully about how disappointed she is that I haven’t called. Then, she notices Mie and falls silent. It’s awkward to say the least.

  Mie sits up, looks at Urara and releases her hold of my hand. “I better be heading home,” she says.

  I pay for our drinks, then start to make our way out. As I pass Urara, she asks when we can meet.

  “I'll be right back,” I say. “Wait for me here.”

  Urara begins to ask me another question, but Mie is beating feet towards the exit.

  “She’s an old girlfriend,” I say. “She's getting married soon. Look, I’ll explain everything to you later. Promise me you'll wait.”

  “I promise.”

  “Thank you,” I say and kiss her quickly on the cheek.

  Mie is clear across the street by the time I emerge from Umie. I hurry after her, and grab her hand just as she is about to duck into a taxi.

  “I have to go home, Peador,” she says. “You can go back to your girlfriend.”

  "She’s not my girlfriend,” I say. “I want to be with you just a few minutes more.”

  “It’s over. You know it. I know it. We can't . . .”

  “But . . .”

  “Bye, Peador,” she says, kissing me softly on the lips. “I’ll never forget you, Peador.”

  “Mie?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll always love you.”

  She starts to cry and turns to enter the cab. As the cab starts to pull away, I jump into the taxi behind it and tell the driver to follow Mie’s cab. It’s a long, expensive drive, but I can’t help myself. I have to do this. The taxi moves along the same route that Mie and I took so many times before when we were dating. All the landmarks are still fresh with memories, made fresher still by the smell of Mie’s perfume on my clothes.

  As we approach the Mikasa River, I see some kind of lights flowing gently down the river.

  “What’s that in the river?” I ask the driver.

  “Lanterns.”

  “Lanterns?”

  “Yeah, families of the deceased put the lanterns on small wooden boats to see the souls off. You’re not really supposed to do it anymore. Pollutes the river and all. But people still do it anyway.”

  “It’s a nice custom,” I say as we cross the river.

  When Mie’s cab stops In front of her condominium, I tell the driver to pull over. He does, stopping the meter.

  “I’m not getting out, just yet,” I say. “Wait here a moment.”

  I watch Mie through the rear window of her cab; watch her as she pays the driver. The door opens and she steps out. She doesn’t have the posture she had only hours ago, there is a hint of defeat weighing down on her shoulders. She looks tired.

  Mie steps towards the entrance of the condo, pauses a moment to foost through her bag for the keys. Finding them, she steps into the building, and I know that is this is the very last time I will ever see her.

  I will always love you, Mie. Thank you.

  With tears flowing down my face, I tell the driver to take me back to Oyafukô.

  About the Author

  The eleventh of thirteen children (bloody Catholics!) Aonghas* Crowe is an author, freelance writer and translator, and blogger. Originally from Portland, Oregon, he currently splits his time between Japan and Lebanon. His other novel, Rokuban—No.6, is also available on Amazon’s Kindle. You can follow Crowe on Twitter at @AonghasCrowe or at his blog http://www.aonghascrowe.com.

  *Pronounced “Ennis”

  * * *

  [1] Many foreigners who have any experience in Japan will be struck by the oddness of the name, Abazuré. It is not an actual surname, but rather a somewhat obsolete Japanese word that means “a real bitch” or “a wicked woman”. I have taken quite a lot of license in creating Japanese names for this novel, such that many of them have a hidden meaning.

  Incidentally, I have also added accents to some Japanese words so that those who are not familiar with the language will be able to pronounce the words correctly. Rice wine, for example, is written saké, rather than sake.

  [2] An eikawa is a private school at which “English conversation” is taught as opposed to the grammar-heavy textbook English taught in most junior and senior high schools. Until about the mid 90s many
teachers of English couldn’t actually speak English. With the introduction of ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers from English-speaking countries) at most schools throughout Japan and changes to the curriculum, the ability of both teachers and students has improved remarkably.

  [3] Where mailboxes were once chock-full of these “pink flyers” or “pink handbills”, they are fairly uncommon today. The Japanese used to be much more tolerant of—or, rather, Japanese women were expected to put up with considerably more—nudity and sexism in the past. There is very little nudity on TV anymore and postcards featuring pictures of naked women in sexually explicit poses no longer litter public phone booths and restrooms the way they once did.

  [4] Chu-hi is a high ball made with shôchû mixed with juice or a sweet soda. Unlike kô-rui shôchû (“Grade A”), such as imo shôchû (made from sweet potatoes) or mugi shôchû (made from barley), which can have a strong flavor and smell, the shôchû used in these chu-hi drinks, known as otsu-rui (“Grade B”), has been distilled multiple times removing most of the flavor and smell.

  [5] A kôan (pronounced “koh-an”, not like “Cohen”) is, according to The New Oxford American Dictionary “a paradoxical anecdote or riddle, used in Zen Buddhism to demonstrate the inadequacy of logical reasoning and to provoke enlightenment.” One of the more famous kôans is “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

  [6] Literally, “sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry . . .”

  [7] Barker is another one of those unfortunate names foreigners can have. Barker is pronounced in Japanese as Bahkah or Baka, which means “idiot” or “fool”. I once had a Chinese teacher whose husband’s name was pronounced in Japanese as Chiketsu which sounds like “bloody arsehole”.

  [8] Kaisha means company.

  [9] Literally, Martial Arts Hall. This is not the same Budôkan made famous by Cheap Trick’s live album.