Women On the Other Shore (15 page)

"Aoki-i-ins!"

Aoi looked up. Nanako was standing in front of the inn holding Shinnosuke's hand and waving her arm over her head. Their bronzed faces and arms and legs as well as everything they had on glowed with the orange color of the setting sun.

"Welcome back!" Nanako called, jumping up and down. "Mr.

Mano says he's taking us out for sushi tonight!" A multipart chorus of cicadas rose all around them.

Ryoko drove the girls to Imaihama Station in the car. Shinnosuke had grown quite attached to the girls in the course of the summer and burst into tears when they got out of the car. It made Aoi's eyes moisten, too.

"I hope you'll come again next year," Ryoko said, then briskly rolled up her window and drove off.

"That was abrupt," Aoi said as she gazed after the car.

They bought cans of juice at the station kiosk, got their tickets from the machine, and walked through the unattended gate onto the platform. The timetable revealed they had twenty minutes until the next train. Finding a bench, they sat quietly sipping their juice as they waited. A densely wooded hillside rose behind the opposite platform, and from it welled a cacophony of cicada voices charg-ing the air with sound. The crowds of vacationers had dropped off sharply after the Bon festival in mid-August, and business at the inn had been very slow for the past week. Now the station was deserted except for the two of them, and when they turned toward the ocean they could see that the beach so recently jammed with people was 114

quiet as well. The seasonal beach huts that offered food and changing rooms were being dismantled.

"Next week is school again already. I can hardly believe it," AM

said, stretching her suntanned legs out in front of her.

Nanako sipped at her juice and said nothing.

Aoi peered at her. "We should come back next year for sure, don't you think?"

"Uh-huh," replied Nanako in a mere squeak of a voice, smiling weakly.

Wow, thought Aoi,
I guess she's feeling pretty emotional. Maybe she
was hurt by the way Mrs. Mano drove o f f .

To try to cheer her up, Aoi dug into her nylon bag for the pay envelope Ryoko had given them.

"I think I'm gonna sneak a peek right here," she said impishly.

With an exaggerated flourish, she tore off one end of the envelope, blew a puff of air into it, and brought it up to her eye. "Hey, there's a letter of some kind."

On top of the small stack of bills lay a neatly folded piece of paper.

She pulled it out and spread it open to find Mickey Mouse eyeing her from the corner of a page filled with writing that looked like the clumsy effort of a child. It was from Ryoko.

Tikes, her writing's really messy! Well, let's see what I can make out.
Dear Aoi Narahashi and Nanako Noguchi.
I guess she couldn't remember our kanji—she spelled our names out.
It was only a short
few weeks, but thank you for all your help.
We
really enjoyed having
you with us this summer.
That's nice. As
you know, this is only the
second year since we opened the inn. What you don't know is that the
help we hired last summer ran off with the receipts.
No way! Is she serious?
Basically we were naive, and we did some pretty dumb things. It
being our first year, we really didn't know what we were doing. Anyway,
there was this big to-do, and the whole thing got straightened out in the
end, but it was a pretty upsetting experience. I lost my confidence and
didn't know if I could go on with the inn or ever trust strangers again.

My husband and his mother weren't big on the idea to begin with, so
I
got to feeling pretty unsure of myself. That's why this year I decided to
find some simple country girls.
She adds 'Sorryl' in parentheses and then says,
Even so, I'm ashamed to say I didn't trust you two at first "

Aoi glanced sideways at Nanako. She sat with her head bent and seemed to be listening, so Aoi read on.

"But now I'm just so grateful I found you two girls. You did a wonderful job. You were a hundred times, a thousand times more wonderful than you can ever imagine. I can't tell you how big a help you were
to me. I can't tell you how much you helped me get my confidence
back. I'm writing this letter because I wanted you to know that. Thank
you so, so much. Please come back next summer. Or even this winter.

Even if only for a visit and not to work. We'll all be looking forward to
seeing you again. Ryoko.''

That was the end, but Aoi continued staring at the page filled with awkward, schoolboyish writing for several more moments. She was replaying in her mind how Ryoko had said
I hope you'll come
again next year
and driven abruptly away, her eyes averted. And how Shinnosuke had been bawling his head off in the seat next to her.

Quickly, she slipped Ryoko's letter back into the envelope and stuffed it deep inside her nylon bag. "The train should be coming any minute now," she said, standing up. Nanako remained seated with bent head. "Are you done with your juice? I'll go throw the cans away."

Deep within the sound of the insects Aoi recognized the clear, piercing pulse of the green cicada. The trees on the hillside were still just as vibrantly green as when she and Nanako had first arrived at the beginning of summer, but that particular voice seemed to announce the approach of autumn.

A faint rumble rose in the distance and gradually grew nearer.

Soon a string of white railway cars came into view at the end of the 116

tracks that stretched straight f r o m t h e station. Standing at t h e edge of the platform, Aoi t u r n e d to h e r friend still sitting on t h e bench.

"Come on, Nanako. T h e train's here."

Nanako didn't move. T h e train clattered to a stop and its doors slid open. Aoi stepped inside. T h e passengers getting off were all obviously local people, not tourists. A middle-aged woman with a shopping basket. A grade schooler with a s u m m e r academy bag slung across his chest. O r d i n a r y folks f r o m nearby—like those they'd seen on the train w h e n t h e y left h o m e on t h e day they first came.

"Come on, Nanako! T h e next train's not for a whole hour! Hurry up and get on!"

Aoi leaned t h r o u g h t h e o p e n doorway a n d shouted, but Nanako remained as she was, not even looking up.

The conductor's whistle pierced t h e air, and Aoi hastily hopped back onto t h e narrow platform. T h e doors slid shut and t h e train slowly pulled out, leaving t h e two of t h e m behind. T h e people who'd alighted dropped their tickets in t h e box at t h e gate and scattered in their various directions.

"What's wrong, N a n a k o ? " Aoi stepped toward t h e bench in growing alarm at her friend's unusual behavior. "Are you feeling sick? Did you forget something? Was t h e r e something you wanted to tell Mrs.

Mano?"

Squatting in front of her like a m o t h e r before a small child, Aoi asked as gently as she could. Nanako just stared into her lap.

"Aokins?" she finally said as if it had taken every ounce of her willpower to squeeze it out.

"Yeah? What is it? You can tell me," Aoi urged, putting her hands on Nanako's knees.

Nanako raised her head and their eyes met. "I don't want to go home," she said.

"Well, duhhh, I don't want to go home either," Aoi retorted, starting to laugh, but Nanako cut her short.

117

"No, I don't mean it that way. I
really
don't want to go home.

I don't. I don't. I don't." A huge tear fell from her big, round eyes.

She took Aoi's hands and squeezed them hard. "I don't want to go home. I don't. I don't. I really, really don't want to go home," she repeated.

Aoi sat on her haunches in bewilderment, her hands still in Nanako's grip. She no longer recognized the girl sitting on the bench in front of her.
Who is this person? Why am I here? Why is
she clinging to my hands like this?
Baffling questions chased each other through her mind. She couldn't help thinking that her real self must actually be sitting on the train right now with the real Nanako, counting out the bills in their pay envelope.

The tears overflowing Nanako's eyes came rapidly now, creating damp stains on her knee-length shorts. Aoi watched as lopsided circles appeared one after another on the beige fabric. Her own hands were turning white in Nanako's fierce grip. Lifting her eyes, she peered under her friend's bowed head. The heavy shadow across Nanako's stricken face gave Aoi the sensation of peering into a deep, dark void. Into a black emptiness that offered no clue as to what might be hidden in its depths.

With a kind of shock, Aoi realized that she didn't know the first thing about Nanako. Ever since visiting her apartment that day, she'd had it in her head that she knew her friend through and through. Or at least she'd been telling herself that the Nanako she saw in front of her was one and the same as the real Nanako.

Always smiling. Gregarious as a middle-aged woman. Accentuat-ing the positive. Talking about what she liked rather than what she hated. Claiming to be unbothered if people snubbed her. Forgiving Aoi for keeping away from her at school. Thoughtfully suggesting they meet three stations down the line. Hanging out with her day after day, talking about everything under the sun. This was the Nanako Aoi knew. But perhaps none of these represented the real 118

Nanako. Perhaps the real Nanako was somewhere deep inside that mysterious void she had iust now glimpsed.

The shrill of the cicadas fell back for a moment as a breath of salty air brushed Aoi's face. Behind Nanako, the sea stretched out to the horizon, glinting like a sheet of glass in the sunlight.

Aoi dropped her eyes to the tearstains on Nanako's shorts. "All right, let's not go home," she said.

Somewhere in the distance she could hear green cicadas adding their voices to the chorus.

Lime scale and mold clung tenaciously to the plastic bath stool and refused to come clean no matter how hard Sayoko scrubbed. She wished she could try the mold and mildew cleaner she'd found under the sink, but that was forbidden; she was to use only the supplies included in her own cleaning kit.

The kitchen had looked no less horrendous when she'd poked her head in earlier. The grease-caked range top was thick with dust and hair. Dealing with the mess in there was Misao's job, and she was getting a helping hand from Noriko.

Sayoko decided to let the stool and its matching plastic washbowl soak a while longer in the warm water in the tub while she cleaned out the drain in the floor of the splash area. When she lifted the drain cover she found the opening below almost completely clogged with a mass of hair and slime. She set to scraping the gunk out with a chopstick.

Noriko's training for Sayoko and the Platinum Planet staff was slated to end in only a few more days. Shortly after the beginning of August, they'd graduated from vacant apartments to occupied units. Noriko determined in advance how many cleaners were needed, and sometimes Sayoko went alone, other times Misao or Mao or both went along with her. Either Noriko herself or someone else from her company supervised.

Today's client was an ordinary housewife who lived in a relatively new condominium. An affable, mild-mannered woman who looked about Sayoko's age, she was the sort of person Sayoko might run 120

into in the hallways of her own building. She'd asked them to clean her kitchen and bathroom.

When as usual they had followed Noriko into the apartment, Sayoko and Misao were stunned by the contrast between the impec-cable appearance of the woman herself and the abominable state of the rooms she had hired them to clean. Wearing a crisply starched blouse over a flower pattern skirt, she was the very picture of careful grooming, but her kitchen was a hellhole of garbage, grease, and food scraps, the washing area next to the bathtub was overrun by mold and mildew, and the toilet bowl was surrounded by thick layers of dust on the floor and practically black inside. Sayoko cast a surreptitious glance at Misao, who almost imperceptibly raised an eyebrow in return.

After going over with Sayoko what needed to be done in the bathroom, Noriko went to tackle the kitchen with Misao. As they set to work, the client warmly thanked them for coming and settled down in the living room with her little girl to watch a video. The child could not be far from Akari's age. They'd been parked in front of the TV ever since.

Sayoko wondered if the woman didn't ever worry. She and her daughter apparently spent their days cooped up inside watching videos, but wasn't she concerned about the effect an endless diet of such fare might have on her daughter's emotional growth? And how, exactly, had she managed to let things get this bad around the house without it bothering her? Didn't she know molds could be toxic? Had she ever considered that her precious little girl might touch something moldy while being given a bath and promptly put her fingers in her mouth?

Sayoko drew a thick, stringy clump of hairs from deep inside the drain. She flinched at the foul stench and quickly disposed of the glob in her waste bag before sprinkling their special cleanser over the opening. Lathering up her scouring pad, she got on hands and 121

knees and
attacked
the pink moid growing on the floor tiles. A bead of sweat rolled from her forehead to her temple and on down to the tip of her chin, where it paused for a second or two before falling to the floor.

Noriko turned to glare sternly at
Sayoko
the moment she and Misao settled into the back seat of the van. "Now listen, Mrs.

Tamura," she said, "I know you're a homemaker, too, and I can understand how disgusted you were by what you saw today. You might well wonder why a woman who spends the whole day at home can't pick up a cleaning rag now and then. But you can't let that show on your face. And another thing. Both of you. I don't ever want to catch you swapping looks like that again. You may think no one could possibly notice, but people can sense that kind of thing."