A Woman's Nails (9 page)

Mieko then tells me that her own weekend was horrible.

“Really?” I say. “Why's that?”

“
Fin
ished dinner, my husband . . .”

“
After
dinner,”
I correct.

“What?”

“
After
dinner,”
I repe
at. “
Not
finished
dinner,
after
dinner.”

“
I see.
I see. Thank you.”
Mi
eko looks down at her notebook, studies what she has prepared for tod
ay's lesson, then starts over: “
Fi
nished dinner, my husband . . .”
I tap the surface of my desk to convey my irritation. The
message seems to get across. “Oh, I'm sorry,” she says. “
After
. . .
After
dinner, my husband . . . How do you say . . .
chidori ashi
?”

It's thanks to good old Mie that I know
chidori ashi
, literally
chicken legs
, means
stagger
. “
My husband
staggered
,”
I answer.

“What?”

“
Staggered
.”

Mieko
says she doesn't understand.

“
Your husband, he was drunk, right?
Yopparai
, right?”

“
Yes, very, very
yopparai
,”
she says, laughing.

“
Okay then, he
staggered
.”

“
Sutahgah . . .
?”

“Staggered.”

“
Sutahgahdo?
”

“
Yes, staggered. He
staggered
.”

“What does that mean?”

I feel like a dog chasing its own tail.

“What does that mean?”
she asks again.

“
Staggered? You're husband was drunk. He staggered.
Chidori ashi
.”

“
Yes, yes.
Chidori ashi
.
How do you say that in English?”

I
am
this
clo
se to going losing it. “
Chidori ashi
means
Stagger
.”

“Huh?”

“
Chidori ashi
equals
sutahgahdo
.”
This really is how they speak English here.

“
Oh, I see, I see. Thank you. Finished din
ner, my husband staggered . . .”

I am distracted by the distinctive whine of a 50cc motor. Going to the window, I look out and see the man with the cash, tooling noisily away on a cheap little scooter. When class has finished and the students have left, I ask Yumi who the guy was.

“He’s from the bank,” she says.

“
From the bank? On that dinky little scooter? And with all
that
cash?”

“Yes, today's payday.”

“He doesn't ever get robbed?”

“
Have you got your
inkan
?”
Yumi asks.

“
My
inkan
?”

“
Yes, your
inkan
. Have you got it?”

I tell her I don't. The stamp engraved with my name in
kanji
is back at the condominium.

“
I can't pay you unless you have your
inkan
.
I have to stamp this book.”

“
Here's a wild idea, Yumi, that I'll just throw out to you, see if you bite: How about I just
sign
the book.”

“
No, no, no. You must use the
inkan.
”

Good grief
.
“Okay, I'll bring it tomorrow.”

“What about your pay?”

“I'll just pick it up tomorrow.”

“
But I
can't keep that much cash here.”

“Cash? We're paid in cash?”

She says of course we are, making me feel like an idiot for asking. You can live for years in this country, study its language and culture, but you'll still be scratching your head every time you bump up agains
t their notion of common sense.

“
Can you go home and get your
inkan
during your break?”

This is not a suggestion, so after a quick lunch at an
udon
shop near Ôhori Park, I take the train all the way to the condominium, get my ever so important
inkan
, and return to the office two hours later where I stamp a little box next to my name in the little pay book and get a brown envelope containing a stack of the newest, crispest bills I've ever laid my eyes on.

Unfortunately, my custodianship over the money is temporary. A few days later, I give the entire amount, and then some, to a woman sitting behind the counter of a shabby little used bookstore a block from my workplace. My first month's rent, plus an amount equivalent to another four month's rent, which I've been told, is the
key money
--
fucking expensive keys
--plus one more month's rent for the
reikin
, a token of appreciation to the realtor, who in this case happens to also be the landlord and downstairs neighbor.
Thanks for nothing
.

When I asked my co-workers if I will get any of this
deposit
back, they cocked their heads and sucked air through their teeth. I took that as a
no
.

So, it's fine dining on stir-fried bean sprouts for the next four weeks: a small price to pay for not having to live an hour out of town in the middle of nowhere. What the hell was I thinking when I agreed to move there?

In the first few weeks alone at the condominium, I dozed off on the train and missed my station four times. Four times! The first time was in the morning on my way to work. By the time I woke up, I had traveled three stations beyond my stop. I had to scramble out of the train and run across the platform and catch the train going the opposite direction. Had I not been warned so unambiguously by Abazuré that were I ever late, I'd be fired immediately, I might have taken it in stride. Instead, I was pushing people out of the way, dashing through the turnstiles and sprinting like an Olympian all the way from the station to the office where I arrived panting and sweating, a minute to spare on the time clock. The guillotine came to an abrupt halt an inch from my trembling neck.

One evening as I was riding the last train home, I succumbed to such a deep, dream-filled sleep that I did not wake until the train had arrived in the neighboring prefecture! As it was the last train of the evening, I was left with two options: crashing for the night outside the station with the drunks or forking over five thousand yen--half a day's wages--for a taxi.

The third time, like the second, was on the ride home after a long tiring day of work. When I nodded off, the train was shoulder to shoulder with equally exhausted salarymen and office ladies who'd had the very life sucked out of them and were now staring vacantly before themselves as if at the smoldering remains of extinguished dreams. I was fully reclined and drooling on the seat, the contents of my grocery bags strewn on the floor, grapefruits and apples rolling about here and there like orphaned children when the conductor woke me. I was the only remaining passenger on the train, which had reached its final destination. The conductor helped me collect my scattered belongings and groceries. Had it been America, I probably would have woken to find myself stripped down to my underwear. I didn't have enough for a cab, so I had to hump it rest of the way to the condominium. An hour's walk in the rain without an umbrella, and loaded down wi
th a week's worth of groceries.

The following morning I overslept again, yet by the grace of God managed somehow to get to work in time to punch the clock But, by then, I'd had it.

2

The Friday evening class consists of three high school students and a
rônin
, a boy who didn't manage to get into the college of his choice and has decided to spend the year at a
yobikô
, a kind of cram school for students like him, and give it another shot next winter. I ask him where he wants to go, but he's hesitant to tell me. He's either too embarrassed, or just modest. I prod, I poke, I cajole, until he finally gives in. He wants to go to Waseda University. As it's one of the best private schools in the country, I say he must be smart. He replies that
he's not smart, that he's fat.

When asked what he hopes to study, he says he's not sure. He just wants to get into Waseda like his father. He tells me his father's fat, too. I wish him good luck and he laughs. Everyone laughs when I say good luck. Ten years will pass and people will still be laughing whenever the words good luck pass my lips and I still won't understand why.

One of the girls, a short roly-poly sophomore at a private girls' school, is excited about her up-coming school trip to Disneyland and
the northern island of Hokkaidô
. I ask when she's going, she says Tokyo. I ask her again, and she answers Tokyo Disneyland. I say “when?
” once more, and she tells me, “In Tokyo.”
Is she doing this to me on purpose?
Then, deliberately and very slowly, enunciating as clearly as I humanly can and giving the
n
extra stress I ask, “
When
are you going?”

She nods! She gets it! There's a big buck-toothed s
mile on her round chubby face! “
I
shee
, I
shee
,”
she
says. “Hokkaidô.”

I break out the chalk, write
WHEN
and
WHERE
on the board, stab at the
WHEN
causing the chalk to crumble in my hand and ask for the last time. She apologizes then answers that she's going in July. Progress! But wait, it's only April, why's she all fired up to go now? She says she can't wait to
go to Tokyo Disneyland to see “
Mickey Mouse ando
Donarudo
Ducku ando Poo.”
I tell her what
poo
means, then ask whose poo she wants to see, Goofy's? She waves her hand frantically before her face. She doesn't want to see Goofy's doodoo. She wants to see the bear. Oh, you mean Winnie the Pooh. She says, “
Yesh, yesh, yesh
,” and asks why on earth Christopher Robin would be so mean to call his bear
doodoo
. I shrug and say, “Maybe it sounded nice.”

She tells me she's sad to learn what Pooh's name means
.
I try to comfort her, telling her that she now has something funny to share with her friends at school tomorrow. She says she'll never tell them. Why not, I ask.

“
Because they'd be sad, too.
”

I ask her why they're also going all the way to Hokkaidô which is an hour-and-half-long flight from Tokyo and I'm told that they'll visit the city of Fukugawa to see Clark's statue. When I
ask
who this Clark
person is
, the
rônin
answers, “Boys be ambitious!”

All of the students nod thei
r heads collectively, and say, “Ambitious.”
The phrase rings a bell and I recall having read about the missionary and educator who founded a school in Hokkaidô over a century ago. The sophomore points upwards, imitating the statue. I ask her what Clark's statue is pointing at. She replies, the sky.

“What the hell
's he pointing at the sky for?”

She g
iggles and says she isn't sure.

I tell the girl she's lucky she isn’t a boy.

“Why's that?”

“
Because if you were a boy, you'd have to be ambitious and work hard. You're a girl. You
can take it easy and have fun.”

She shouts, “Yea! Yea!”

The poor
rônin
, however, hangs his weary head.

3

After work I squeeze onto a cro
wded train and head back to the
condominium. The worn out passengers hang loosely onto the overhead handles, swaying gently and bumping into each other like racks of beef, frozen and s
uspended from steel meat hooks.