Villain a Novel (2010) (13 page)

At night the atmosphere in the hospital changed. There was a heaviness, a sadness in the air, a total absence of anything cheerful or happy.

That evening, Miho Kaneko sat down on a bench in the waiting room and started flipping through a magazine she’d brought from the hospital recreation area.

It was not yet eight p.m., but the light in the outpatient reception desk was off and the worn-out benches in the waiting area were illuminated only by the remaining fluorescent lights overhead. The waiting area was so small it was hard to believe that during the day over a hundred people crowded in, waiting their turn.

With everyone gone now the only things left in the waiting area were the benches and the color-coded arrows painted on the walls indicating the different wings of the hospital. The pink arrow for the ob-gyn wing, yellow for pediatrics, light blue for neurology. Under the fluorescent lights, the arrows looked colorful and out of place.

A patient would occasionally hurry down the hall to go outside to smoke. At nine the front door was locked and they couldn’t go outside to the designated smoking area. So out they went for the final smoke of the day—patients pushing IV poles, some holding colostomy bags in one hand, some leaning on canes, others in wheelchairs. One man past middle age, and a young man, probably from the same ward, were discussing baseball as they made their way outside. A woman in a wheelchair was talking to her husband on a cell phone. Each of them, each with his own illness or injury, headed out into the cold for the final smoke of the day.

When she turned to look farther down the hall, Miho saw, as she had on other nights, an old woman with dyed red hair, seated in front of the large TV that was left on during the day. A baby carriage was in front of her. She was just sitting there, doing nothing, though occasionally she’d rouse herself to rock the baby carriage and speak gently to the baby boy inside. “Hmm? What is it?” she asked him. Inside the baby carriage was a boy with polio. He was a little too big for the frilly carriage, and his twisted hand stuck out of it.

The old woman came here every night at this time. She sat here, speaking to this boy who couldn’t respond, stroking his painful, twisted body.

Miho figured the ward that housed the boy must be filled with young mothers. She didn’t know the story, but she decided that the red-haired old woman must feel uncomfortable among them, so she brought the boy out here to the hall every night.

Miho sat there, turning the pages of the magazine and half listening to the voices of the patients going out for a smoke, and the voice of the old woman soothing the boy.

It was a glossy women’s magazine, and she was slowly reading through each page of a report on the marriage of an actress and a Kabuki actor. She’d read about a third of the article when the nurse in charge of her case rushed out from the elevator and approached her. “Ah, Miss Kaneko,” she said, and Miho nodded a greeting.

As she approached, the nurse noted her magazine and said, grimacing, “It’s hard to read a magazine on the ward, isn’t it.”

“No, not really. It’s just that spending the whole day on the ward gets a little depressing.…”

“Did Dr. Moroi talk to you this morning?”

“He did. He said that if the test results are good, I can be released on Thursday.”

“That’s wonderful. You look so much better than when you were first admitted.”

Two weeks ago Miho had a fever that lasted three days. She’d just opened her own little diner and couldn’t very well take time off, even though she knew she was pushing herself too hard. Soon afterward she’d suddenly collapsed, and fortunately a regular customer was at her place and called for an ambulance.

The diagnosis was overwork. She was also on the verge of getting pneumonia, the doctor told her. Her diner was small, but still she’d overdone it. She’d finally been able to open her own place, something she’d always wanted to do, and now had to close it just two months later. Miho couldn’t believe her luck.

The nurse stood up and went over to the red-haired old woman.

“You’re lucky, Mamoru, that your grandmother’s always with you.” The nurse’s gentle voice as she spoke to the boy in the baby carriage echoed in the still waiting area. As if replying to her, the motor of the vending machine kicked in with a groan.

Miho closed her magazine and stood up to return to her ward. Just then the automatic front door slid open, the cold air rushing in, and
she casually glanced over, expecting it to be some patients coming in after their final cigarette. Instead, it was a tall young man with dyed blond hair supporting an old man who was walking gingerly inside. The faded pink warm-up clothes the young man wore went well, oddly enough, with his blond hair. He was staring at his feet as he walked. He had his arm under the old man’s armpit, supporting him, and it was clear the old man was leaning on him heavily.

As she casually watched the two of them, Miho went over and stood in front of the elevator. She pushed the Up button and the door opened right away. She was planning to wait for the two men coming in the entrance. She went inside the elevator and pushed the Open button and the two of them appeared again from the shadows of a pillar. And that’s when she realized who it was.

Miho hurriedly lifted her finger from Open and stabbed the Close button. The door slid shut. Just before it did, the young man had started to look up and she’d seen his face. There was no doubt about it. The young man supporting the older man was Yuichi Shimizu. As the elevator started Miho instinctively edged backward, her back bumping against the wall.

Two years ago, when Miho had worked at a massage parlor, Yuichi had come there almost every night, always asking for her.

The parlor, which was in the busiest shopping district in Nagasaki City, had just opened. There was a game center on the first floor and a river just across the street. On the street along the river, girls who worked at the cabaret clubs stood outside, dressed up as sexy nurses and high school students, trying to induce men passing by to come in. It was that sort of neighborhood.

Yuichi never asked her to do anything weird, but in the end it was because of him that she quit working there, feeling as if she were fleeing. The only way she could explain it was to say that she was frightened by him. If pressed to explain how he frightened her, she could only say that it was how very ordinary Yuichi was, despite the kind of establishment he was patronizing.

When the elevator reached the fifth floor, Miho walked back to
her ward, casting nervous glances behind her. All of the visitors had left and of the six beds, three lined up on each side of the room, only Miho’s had its curtain open.

Miho headed to her bed and quickly pulled the curtain shut. From the bed next to her she heard the elderly Mrs. Yoshii, asleep already and snoring. Miho sat down on her bed and told herself,
There’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing to be afraid of
.

The first time Yuichi Shimizu had come to the massage parlor was, as she recalled, a Sunday. The parlor opened at nine a.m. on weekends, and at this time of day they could mostly expect married men who had slipped out of the house on some excuse. That morning Miho was running the parlor with just one other woman, an Osaka native who was already in her midthirties.

As always, after the client had chosen the girl he wanted from the photo list, the manager called Miho. She’d just gotten to work and hurriedly slipped into an orange negligee and headed for one of the rooms.

Five identical rooms were on one corridor, and when Miho opened the door to the tiny, two-mat room furthest back, she found a tall man standing there. Miho smiled and introduced herself, then guided the awkward young man to the bed, where she had him sit down.

Clients who came at this time of day usually started by sheepishly explaining why they were there. The most common explanation was that they had worked the whole night through and hadn’t caught a wink of sleep. Miho didn’t care one way or the other, but men who came this early in the morning were invariably apologetic.

Yuichi sat on the bed, looking nervously around the cramped room as if to confess that he’d never been in a place like this before. Following the training manual, Miho invited him to take a shower, but he said, in a forlorn vice, “But I’ve already taken a bath.…”

Yuichi didn’t appear to be one of those clients who wanted a girl to touch him when he was dirty, and indeed he smelled as if he’d just stepped out of the shower.

“I’m sorry, but those are the rules,” Miho told him.

The shower was in a tiny bathroom, so cramped that if two people were in it their bodies couldn’t help but touch.

Miho asked him to take off his clothes, while she touched the water to make sure the shower was the right temperature. When she turned around, Yuichi was still wearing his underwear, his thighs pushed tightly together. He looked around the tiny room as if he didn’t know where to rest his eyes.

“You’re going to take a shower with your underwear on?”

Miho smiled at him, and after a second’s hesitation, he quickly pulled his briefs off. His penis caught in the elastic and slapped against his belly.

Miho had had a lot of older clients recently. Although she knew that this wasn’t the type of business where you could choose your customers, and that she would just have to get used to it, she was starting to get fed up with this life, with all these men who could only get it up after a tremendous effort on her part.

Miho took Yuichi’s hand and had him stand under the lukewarm shower. The water slid down his shoulders to his chest, wetting his almost painfully erect penis.

“Are you off work today?” Miho asked as she scrubbed his back with a soapy sponge. He was tense and she was hoping this would help him relax.

“Or maybe you’re still in college?” she asked, rinsing the bubbles from his back.

“No, I’ve got a job,” Yuichi finally replied.

“You must be into sports. You’re so muscular.” Miho didn’t really care, but had to keep the conversation going.

With barely a word, Yuichi just stood there, staring at her hand, looking terribly serious.

When Miho was about to touch his soapy penis, Yuichi quickly twisted away from her. His penis was pulsing, as if a single touch was all it would take for him to come.

“Don’t be shy. That’s the kind of place this is.” As Miho smiled, half fed up, Yuichi suddenly grabbed the showerhead from her and rinsed the rest of his body himself.

She wiped him dry with a bath towel and sent him on ahead into the room. One of the rules was to make sure to wipe clean the entire bathroom after using it. After cleaning up the bathroom she returned to their room and found Yuichi, towel still wrapped around his waist, standing there, his clothes in his hands.

“Are you from Nagasaki?” Miho asked. She’d never asked a client anything private before, but the words just slipped out.

Yuichi hesitated a moment, then told her the name of a town outside the city that she’d never heard of.

“I only moved here a half a year ago, so I’m afraid I don’t know much about the area.” At her words, Yuichi’s face clouded over slightly.

Miho guided Yuichi to the bed and had him lie down. She removed the bath towel and there was his penis, looking like a coyote off in the distance, head raised and about to howl.

Truth be told, she was sure he would be a one-time-only client. After they came out of the shower, it took only three minutes for him to finish up, and though Miho had suggested that there was enough time left to do it again, Yuichi hurriedly slipped on his clothes and left.

Even for a first visit to such a place, he didn’t seem to enjoy himself much. He hadn’t even waited for her to wipe him off, and appeared eager to get away. Still, two days later he was back again, asking for Miho without even glancing at the folder of other girls’ photos. The manager called her, and when she entered the room she found him seated on the bed this time, as if used to the place. This was a weekday evening and the massage parlor was crowded.

“Oh, you came back!” She smiled pleasantly, and Yuichi gave a slight nod and held out a plastic bag to her.

“What is that?” Afraid that it might be some weird sex toy, Miho cautiously accepted the bag. As soon as she did she let out a shriek, for the bag was warm.

She was about to toss it aside when Yuichi muttered, “It’s
butaman
, pork buns. The place where I bought them has the best ones.”

“Butaman?”
Miho made an effort not to throw it aside. “For me?” she asked, and Yuichi gave a slight nod.

On occasion she’d received presents from other clients, but when they were food it was the usual cookies and chocolates. Getting hot food was a first.

Miho looked a bit stunned, and Yuichi asked, “What, you don’t like
butaman?”

“No, I do,” Miho replied.

Yuichi took the bag from her and opened it on his lap. For a second he seemed to be looking around for small plates to use, though it was highly unlikely a tiny room in a massage parlor would have any.

As soon as he ripped open the plastic bag the hot, meaty, yeasty odor filled the windowless room. Through the thin walls they heard a man’s vulgar laugh.

After this he came back three days in a row.

According to the manager, when Miho was off duty Yuichi didn’t choose another girl, but instead walked away, shoulders slumped in disappointment.

Miho had no idea what it was about her that kept Yuichi returning. The first time she’d just done the usual things to him and hadn’t made him particularly satisfied. But then two days later, here he was back again, looking totally unconcerned, with a bag of hot
butaman
as a present.

In the cramped room the two of them ate the
butaman
. Their conversation never went anywhere. To Miho’s questions, Yuichi gave only short, evasive answers, and never asked her anything himself.

“Are you on your way home from work?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Your job’s nearby?”

“We work in all kinds of places. Construction sites.”

Before he came to see her Yuichi always stopped home and took a bath first.