Water Lily (16 page)

Your Asian woman will be hoping for security. You should tell her out your JOB and your HOME. There is no need to boast but
at the same time it is important for her to know that she is going to be looked after—remember she is giving up the security
of her own family and culture to be with you. The least you can do in return is show her that she will be provided for to
the best of your abilities.

He would wear his new tie. He would rub at his glasses to get them as clean as he could and he would practice some sentences
so that there was no danger of being tongue-tied.

I run the shop for pleasure more than anything else. Of course, making money is a pleasant bonus—and always a surprise—but
in the end it’s just what I enjoy doing. My house? It’s not huge. The third and fourth bedrooms are small, boxrooms really,
but it does me well. And I’ve got a small shed in the garden where I keep my terrible sketches and paintings, along with my
garden furniture.

He could try out some different ways of talking about him-self to make his successes clear without appearing immodest.

R
una moved around in front of the mirror, checking her image from different angles. No matter how she tried to lose all expression
from her face, she looked too intent to be Nanao. Even expressionless, there was something in her face that she couldn’t get
rid of, something that defined her as being Runa, a kind of hunger, she thought, or just plain badness. There was just too
much of herself spilling out from behind her eyes and through her pores. She moved to the back of the changing room to see
her face from a distance. Perhaps it wasn’t a question of too much of something, perhaps the strangeness was that something
was missing.

Nanao had once told Runa she would never be happy. “You want to have everything,” she said. Runa had laughed at the time.
Everything? If you thought there was a knowable “every-thing” in the first place, a finite number of things up for grabs,
then already your sights were too low. Wanting everything meant wanting nothing very much at all as far as Runa could see.
She tried to explain this to her sister but Nanao didn’t understand. She was trying out a new kind of mold killer at the time,
spraying the solution onto her bathroom wall, scraping pink and blue mold from the grouting as if it were the most interesting
thing in the world, hardly listening to Runa at all.

Runa continued to stare at the person in the mirror. Was there something of Nanao behind her eyes? Certainly it didn’t feel
strange to be called Nanao by the man who kept talking to her in English, who wanted to teach her. She smiled. He had no idea
that he would be teaching English to an English teacher. She felt bad lying. After all, he was just a sweet old guy who wanted
to talk. He probably had a daughter he missed, but nonetheless she would have to avoid him. It wouldn’t be hard. She was planning
to have a day doing what Nanao would approve of: keeping out of trouble. She had noticed that there was a communal bathtub
with a view of the sea. The bath in the love hotel had somehow left her wanting more and she couldn’t think of a nicer, warmer
place to be. Perhaps later she would be like Nanao and have some simple, pleasant conversations with strangers.

She stripped off her clothes, took a quick shower, put her hair up with a purple plastic clip she found on the floor. She
piled her clothes into a basket and slid it onto a wooden shelf next to another. The other basket contained quilted pyjamas
and fluffy socks. The bath was large and rectangular. An elderly woman sat in one comer with her head back, eyes closed. Runa
was about to step into the water when she noticed that the woman’s features seemed to be settling into a face that she knew
but couldn’t place. The face had a tiny nose and was flat, so flat, in fact, that you could only see it from the front; there
was no profile. Perhaps Runa remembered it from the port. It was a friendly, motherly face. The wrinkles around the eyes showed
warmth and humor. It would be good to talk to her, whoever she was. Runa climbed into the bath and the woman looked up, smiling
through the steam. The smile was enough to set Runa talking.

“I’m going to see my friend in China. I haven’t seen her for years.” She realized it was the wrong way to start a conversation,
talking about herself, being informative and direct, with-out any warm-up. But she hadn’t spoken properly to anyone for days
and just hearing her own voice sounded odd. Talking to the man didn’t count because she had only said a few words, they were
not in her language, and they were not a reflection of her thoughts.

“You must be excited.” The woman nodded gently as she spoke.

“Oh, I am. For years she’s been so far-off and hazy, and now that I’m getting closer to Shanghai, I can’t believe I’m going
to see her. She’ll be standing right in front of me, and we’ll talk to each other as if we’d never been apart.” She shook
her head. “It’s too much to believe.”

“It’s important to stay in touch with friends.”

“I promised her I would when she left Japan. But then I didn’t. She left in a hurry, you see and then I went off to university,
not that it’s any excuse but …” She stopped to cough. The muscles in her throat were beginning to tire.

“Had you known her for a long time?”

Runa swallowed and cleared her throat. “Just a few months. I suppose it doesn’t sound much but at the time we were inseparable.
It was my last year at high school and I suppose that’s an impressionable age. It is, isn’t it? She wasn’t a school friend,
though. I met her by chance in the street and we just knew we were going to be friends. To be honest, I’ve never had another
friend like her.”

“That’s a stressful age, university entrance exams and what-have-you. My son’s at high school now.”

“It is for most, but not really for me because I didn’t study much. I was supposed to be in my room every evening, working
hard but, you know, I couldn’t. I was alone in the house because my mother was in hospital—she was there for years before
she died—and my father and sister were looking after her. I wanted to help but they said I should study. They wouldn’t let
me help my mother. I hardly saw her till the funeral when, of course, it was too late.”

She stopped again, massaged her neck gently. She remembered the conversations where Nanao and her father thought they were
being so kind to her, saying that they could manage. “That’s right. They wouldn’t let me help so I used to go out after school.
There was a huge shopping center not far away and I always went there. I don’t know why. It wasn’t as if I ever had any money.”

The woman said nothing. She lay still in the water.

Runa was back at the footbridge. It was just a regular concrete bridge leading from a car park to the shopping center and
beneath was a busy main road. It now seemed a hundred meters high and longer than the width of any road. Runa used to rest
her arms on the railing and look out at the road and at the grey buildings on either side, piling up into the horizon. She’d
go home with dust or bits of old chewing gum stuck to her uniform.

She was there because she didn’t care too much about her exams. She knew that without much strain she would get into an average
university, and that would be fine. She had decided on English because there was always the possibility of being an exchange
student in Australia or California for a year and lazing on beaches. She imagined bronzed movie-star boyfriends and endless
sunshine.

All her friends were studying night and day, so Runa would head for the shopping center, the lights, crowds, piped music.
She wandered around looking at clothes and CDs. There was a bookshop with a large magazine rack and she would read her way
through the magazines, from teens’ to women’s, to celebrity gossip, economics, pornography, comic strips. When she had finished
she would go to the footbridge and look down on stick-people pushing carts, filling car trunks.

So she was standing there one afternoon, thinking about the day at school, the tedious lessons and the endless sitting and
listening that wore her out. As often as possible, she slept in class, just leaned forward over her desk and switched off.
In a pool of sunshine, she couldn’t stay awake. But when she was out of school, even as she passed through the gates, she
was fully alert and full of the late-afternoon air.

And then, Ping showed up.

She ambled along the bridge and stood next to Runa. Her long hair ruffled slightly in the breeze and thin, dry ends flicked
Runa’s face.

“Cigarette?”

“Thanks.”

Runa took one and lit it from the girl’s, hoping no one she knew would see her. It was only her second or third cigarette
ever. She would have to work hard not to cough.

“I’m Ping. I’m Chinese.” Ping smiled broadly. She had wonky eyebrows that made her smile seem crooked. Runa liked it.

“Nice to meet you.”

“What’s your name?”

“Runa.”

“I’ve been watching you. You come here all the time and just stand on this bridge like you’re a signpost or set of traffic
lights or something. Don’t you have anything better to do?”

“Not really.”

“You like it here?”

“I suppose.”

“I’m a student. I’m studying Japanese. Do you mind if I practice on you?”

“OK. But you don’t sound as if you need much practice.” “Oh, I do. We can go to a cafe and chat. I haven’t got any money though.”

“Do you live in Japan permanently?”

“Kind of. Not officially.”

“Just here to study, right?”

“Officially.” Ping took a drag of her cigarette and exhaled slowly, importantly. “I’m here as a student, but I get up to other
things.”

“I see.”

Runa didn’t see, but they began to meet every afternoon. Runa skipped school as often as she dared. Ping never seemed to have
classes at college. They wrote love letters together. Runa invented a boyfriend named Takayuki and wrote to him. They chatted
for hours. Runa couldn’t remember what they used to talk about, but there never seemed to be enough time together. They looked
around the shops together, trying on clothes and listening to pop CDs.

But neither had much money, and before long they were shoplifting the items they tried and it seemed so natural they couldn’t
believe they’d never done it before. Over a few months they had a collection of things they wanted—clothes and CDs—as well
as many that they didn’t but that were entertaining to steal: vases, a wok, a deckchair. A male shop assistant saw them trying
to leave his shop with a wedding dress and chased them until they dropped it and ran away.

They had both developed a taste for things they couldn’t afford, but after that were wary of going back to the shopping center
to steal, and that was when they started arranging dates with rich men. Runa had no idea now how they came to the decision—it
was certainly Ping’s idea—and soon they were catching trains into the city at night where they picked up men, promising sex
in return for a pair of earrings, tickets to concerts. They agreed that if an attractive man offered, they would have sex,
but that never seemed to happen.

One day Ping came to the footbridge to tell Runa that she was leaving. She hadn’t paid for or attended her classes for months
so her student visa was canceled and she had to leave Japan.

“It’s so unfair. I’ve learned much more by doing it my own way.”

“What are you going to do in China?”

“I’ve already worked it out. I’ve got a friend who gets Chinese people into Japan using fake conferences and stuff. I’m going
to work for him in Shanghai. My Japanese is good enough. I should have come here that way myself. I’m glad I didn’t go to
my classes, though. We had fun, didn’t we?”

“I’ll write to you. Give me your address.”

“You don’t have to. I haven’t been a good addition to your life.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that you would have done well in your exams if it weren’t for me.”

“I don’t care. It was my fault, too. I did well enough and I’m going to an OK college. That was all I wanted. We have to stay
in touch.”

“You’ll be going to university and making new friends. I’m not coming to Japan again.”

“Please give me your address and phone number.”

And Ping scribbled them onto a page in Runa’s math exercise book.

Finally Runa was on her way to finding out what had become of Ping. She took another look at the woman. She had closed her
eyes again and Runa scrutinized her face, the pores, the little hairs above her top lip. Was she, perhaps, the old lady who
had walked past the school when Jun and Runa were on the roof? But that was impossible because it was dark and Runa had only
seen her from a distance. Perhaps she was the woman cutting bamboo shoots the night that Runa ran away. Could she be? The
woman opened her eyes, saw Runa looking, and smiled. It was hard to tell. Runa registered what the woman had said: My son’s
at high school now. She looked too old to have a high school-aged son. But, if she was following Runa, who was to say that
she wasn’t Jun Ikeda’s mother? Jun had told her his mother was ill so she might have been old.

Now that she was far away, she found herself thinking of Jun more and more. She didn’t want to, but he was there. Even when
she was thinking about China and what she would do, Jun was still hanging around in the background, being thought about by
another part of her brain. No, it was still not love, just thoughts.

The woman watched Runa intently, listening and encouraging her to speak without saying anything about herself. It was strange.
Her eyebrows curved and tapered just like Jun’s, but she could not possibly be his mother. She wasn’t well enough to spy on
her son and follow his teacher to another country. It was a crazy idea.

Runa dried herself with a small towel, gazed in the mirror at her reflected naked body. It was perfect. Whatever was happening
around her, she was a beautiful young woman, sexy, intelligent, and independent. She could go as far as she wanted. She dressed,
loving as always the sensation of pulling clothes over her limbs, letting them settle on her curves. All wrapped up like a
present to herself, she unclipped her hair, shook it down her back.