A Woman's Nails (26 page)

Inhaling slowly and deeply, she extended her arms elegantly, pulling the bowstring back with her right hand, and pushing the bow forward with her left, such that the shaft of the arrow now rested against her
right
cheek. The old woman paused momentarily before releasing the arrow. The string snapped against the
bow with the “
shui-pap
” I ha
d heard before, and the arrow was sent flying majestically right on target. It fell ten yards short, landing in the grass
with a miserably anticlimactic “
puh, sut!
”

A small, nervous laugh snuck out before I could stop it. The old man at my side gave me a nasty look then went over to the woman who had just delivered the lawn a fatal shot and praised her effusively. She remained gravely serious
, bowed deeply, then bellowed: “
Hai, ganbarimasu!
”
  I'll do my best! All the other geriatrics there suddenly
came to life and also shouted: “
Hai, ganbarimasu!
”

When
the old woman had minced away, another man came out onto the platform and went through the very same stringent ritual. He ended up s
hooting his arrow into the bull’
s-eye of the target . . . two lanes away. He, too, was lavished with com
pliments by the old man, whom I’
d only just realized was the
sensei
, the
“Lobin Hood” to th
ese somber “Melly Men and Women”
, if you will.

A third man walked onto the platform with the very same gingerly steps and bowed as the others had in front of the
kamidana
. Standing with a similarly unnatural posture, he went through the movements before releasing his arrow. To my surprise, the arrow a
ctually hit the target. No bull’
s-eye, mind you, but close enough for a ciga
r. And just as I was thinking, “Now here’
s someone who finally shows a bit o
f promise,”
the
sensei
marched over and ripped the man a new arsehole. His form was apparently all-wrong. The poor bastard looked thoroughly dejected as he slinked off the platform.

5

“You know, it’s my patron saint’s feast day today,”
I said to Tatami as our bus approached.

“Your patron saint?”

“
Yes, Saint Peter. The
twenty-ninth is his feast day.”

“Feast day?”

“
Yea
h, it's a kind of memorial day.”

“For whom?”

“For Saint Peter.”

“Saint Peter? Who’s that?”

“My patron saint.”

“Your patron saint?”

“
Ugh, neve
r mind, it’
s not that important."
”

“Are you religious, Peador?”

“
Ha! Does the Pope
poop
in the woods?”

“I’
m sorry?
Poop
?
”

“No, no I’m not. Not at all,”
I said. If my strict Catholic upbringing succeeded in anything it was this: it had turned me completely off the faith. To this day, I remain a gleefully
recalcitrant, devout apostate. “
I just thought yo
u’d find it interesting is all.”

“I don't understand.”

“And neither do my parents.”

We had lunch in a small Malaysian restaurant in Nishijin, and, when we were finished dining on beef
satay
with a deliciously sweet peanut sauce, spicy chicken tomato curry and
nasi goreng
, Tatami asked me wh
y I had written her the letter.

Letter, what letter
, I thought. All I did was slip the girl a simple note inviting her out for lunch. Wh
y had I written? Because I didn’
t
want to have lunch alone i
s why.

Before I could answer that I hadn't really put that much thought into it, she began to dribble on melodramatically about how hap
py the letter had made her. She’
d been going through a difficult, sad period in her life, she explained but gave no details. Then, once more she
asked me why I had written her.

I still didn’
t have much of an answer to give her and was beginning to feel guilty for unwittingly leading her to believe differently. I had met a nice girl I was interested in becoming friends with. I wrote her a simple not telling her
so. What was there to explain?

“
I don't know, Ta
tami. I guess I just felt . . .”

“
But of all people, you wrote
me
. Have you written anyone else? No? See! So, why did you write
me
?”

“I, uh . . . I, just . . .”
All I could do was look at my reflection in the tabletop and smile defeatedly.

6

I went back to the
Budôkan
the following day to begin
k
yûdô
lessons in earnest, not so much out of a burning passion for the martial art itself as a consequence of an adherence to the Taoist doctrine of
wu wei
—t
he art of letting be, going with the flow: I'd got this far, and was curious where it might take me. It was a mistake, but I d
idn't know it at the time.

Wi
th Tatami, it wasn’t
much different. She phoned one night
and
launch into a series of apologies for the rudeness of calling.

“
This is
why people have phones, Tatami.” I’
d only had mine installed a few weeks earlier after buying the line f
rom an America who needed cash—
q
uick
. He didn't say so, b
ut I got the impression that he’
d knocked someone up and had to pay for the abortion.

“Yes, but . . .”

“Tatami, it’
s
quite al
l
right. I'm just . . .”

“
But, surely, you must be b
usy . . .”

“I’
m not busy
. And don't call me ‘Shirley’.”

“Pardon me?”

“
Tatami, I am not, I repeat,
not
busy.”

“You're not studying?”

“
Studying? No, no,
no. I’m just watching TV . . .”

“Oh, I’m so sorry to disturb you.”

“Tatami, you’re not disturbing anything. It’
s just the news and I ca
n barely understand it at that.”

“
I c
an call back later if you like.”

“No, no, no! What is it?”

“I’m sorry,”
she said with a nervous laugh, then started drilling with questions me about work, the situation with my co-workers, and so on. Then, just as
I expected, she started in with the letter business again: “Peador?”

“Yeah?”

“Why did you write me?”

I banged
the receiver against my head. “
Why are you making such a big deal out of nothing, Tatami? I liked you, so I wr
ote you a letter. End of story.”

“
Yes, but why do you
like
me? I think I'm just an ordinary, a very, very, typical Japanese woman. Why do you like
me
?”

God help me.

The woman was impervious. No matter what I said, no matter how I tried to explain that I'd found her amusing was interested in being friends, it always came back to:

“
But, I'm afraid I don't have a confiden
ce to be your ‘special’ friend.”

There was a pause, a silence which conve
yed more than all the words she’
d uttered in Japanese and Engli
sh until then. I sighed a long “ahhh”
like a tire gradually losing its air when it finally dawned me what she was trying to get at in that irritatingly circumlocutory manner of hers.

Before I could step on the breaks and bring this careening jalopy of ours to a screeching halt and tell her in no uncertain terms that I was not interested in her in
that
way at all, she began to repeat what she had said at the Malaysian restaurant about how happy my letter had made her.

“I have another ‘special friend’
, he is so gentle and kindly. I told you about him. I told you he is a gay . . . When he first told me, I felt so dirty and I cried for many, many months. I didn't want to see him again . . . But gradually, little by little, I came to accept him. I
accepted that he is a gay . . .”

“Gay.”

“
He is a gay
.
”

“He’s gay. I’m gay. We’re all gay.”

“Oh no! You’re a gay, too?”

“No! I’
m just trying to correct
your English, Tatami. It's not ‘a gay’, it’s just ‘gay’.”

“
Oh, I see, thank you. I accepted that he is a
just
gay.”

Somebody stop me before I
go and
strangle the girl.

“
And we have become
good friends,” she continued. “
You know, after he told me, I was very sad. I thought I could never have a chance to marry. I gave up and decided to open my own, very small, flower arrangement class and not marry . . . But then you wrote me and it made me
so happy . . .”

Dear Lord in heaven! No, no, no!

“I would like to be a ‘special friend’
for you
but I don't have a confidence.”

“I don't have confidence,”
I corrected out of habit again.

“Oh, you, too?”

“No, no, no. ‘
Have confidence
’. ‘Confidence’
is an uncountable noun so you don
’
t need the indefinite article ‘
a
’.”

“Pardon me?”

“Just ‘
confidence
’.”

“Oh, I see,” she said. “I would like to be a ‘special friend’
for you but I don’
t have a just confidence
.”

Agh!

Tatami went on and the more she spoke, the more I felt I was being drawn into playing the part of a frustrated suitor. No matter how absurdly remote fr
om the truth that was, I couldn’
t get a word in edgewise to unravel the myth she had so painstakingly spun like a cocoon around herself.

The truth was far more prosaic than her elaborate, b
ut cozy homespun fiction. All I’
d wanted was to meet people and make friends who could distract me from all the punishing gauntlet of
anniversaries of my time with Mie lined up. I didn’
t want to keep spending my days alone, brooding over past mist
akes and contemplating all the “what if’s”
that made me clutch like a drowning man at the impossible wish of going back in tim
e and undoing all my mistakes—s
aying yes when I had said no, turning left where I had turned right, breath
ing in when I had breathed out.

Yes, I wanted a girlfriend, wanted one so desperately I could barely see straight, but I never even toyed with the idea of Tatami becoming the one.
Why
did I write her? Because she was . . .
available
. Close to my age, somewhat fluent in
a just
English and, being a good gi
rl from a good family, she didn’
t have to fiddle with bourgeoisie things like
a job
, so she had oodles of time on her hands. Love or sexual attraction had
nothing
to do with it, yet here I was being told like a naughty lap dog to behave.

“Tatami, you . . . don’t . . . quite understand,”
I interrupted in vain. No, she was determined to make sure that what might have been should never be allowed to happen. She explained further how her father would never understand; he would rip the plant out by the roots rather than wait for any buds of a romance to appear on its branches.

“So,” Tatami concluded, “I'm afraid I canno
t give
you my phone number. You mustn’
t call me because my parents would never understand.
”