Hikikomori and the Rental Sister: A Novel (21 page)

The entrance looks like nothing, just a door of dark wood flanked by bamboo, but inside I step into an alternate reality of simple beauty, the long reception room bathed in soft amber hues and an overwhelming fragrance of wood. Encased in the black walls is crisscrossed bamboo, each piece at a slightly different angle to form a hypnotic geometry. Along both sides and at regular intervals between the bamboo geometry are floor-to-ceiling panels that glow golden from within.

The entry is silent but for the slight burbling of water. In the center of the room is a small fountain, water cascading over polished slabs of black marble, collecting in a shallow square pool. The water is so thin and clings so tightly to the slabs that it looks as though the stone is alive with shimmering skin. Megumi motions for me to remove my shoes.

From the balcony outside our room, I look across the valley at the towering, verdant mountain peaks. The smell of life rolls off the mountains, a breeze. No human sound can be heard. Megumi joins me at the railing. She touches the small of my back, gently. “Your turn,” she says. “Go change clothes. I’ll wait here.”

Folded neatly on a side table is a set of the clothes I’m supposed to wear for the duration. Looks like a thin robe of gray cotton, with blue brushstrokes forming abstract bamboo. And sandals, intricately carved and lacquered black and gold with braided thong. I do not understand, but I change into the clothes, trying to remember how Megumi looked in her set, identical but for size.

She giggles when she sees me walk out of the bedroom. “It’s not okay?” I say.

“It’s okay. Come here. You’re all disheveled.”

“It’s a robe?”

“Yukata. Bathing clothes. Not exactly a robe. You’ll understand later.”

She straightens my yukata, pulling it tight and crisp yet leaving it comfy.

“And this?” I say.

“An obi.” She wraps it around my waist and ties it properly for me.

She makes tea, which we sip out on the balcony as we listen to the birds call back and forth, tree leaves rustling in the breeze.

We walk together to the baths along a narrow downhill path of stones. Along the way she describes in detail the rules and rituals of the onsen. Making a mistake would be seriously offensive, she says, and we would be asked to leave. There is a women’s bath and a men’s bath. We agree to meet back in our room in no more than two hours.

“Good luck,” she says.

The locker room is empty, silent. I remove my yukata and obi and place them in a wicker basket. I grab two towels and step outside, into the clear air. How unreal it feels to be outside and naked. Here, already, I feel I am again who I was before.

In the steaming pool of water only one man sits. Asian, eyes closed, a white towel resting on his forehead. I sit on a stool at a faucet and fill the wooden bucket with hot water and pour it over my head and body. I pour liquid soap onto a nylon washing towel and lather and scrub every part of my body, as though my skin is covered with a layer of stubborn dry paint. The scrubbing takes a long time and I wonder if I am scrubbing my skin raw. I pour hot water over myself to rinse, then I start over, repeating the entire ritual two more times.

The heat of the bath scalds my skin, and I am light-headed. I might pass out. My blood is in shock. I breathe deeply, slowly.

Sunlight distills through the trees, glinting off the rippled water. The bath has no straight edges, its form dictated by the shape of the rocks surrounding it. The giant rocks are not just around the bath but inside it as well, three of them, their tops peeking out of the water like volcanic islands. Pungent mineral steam gives the air a prehistoric, primordial feel, and I am immersing myself in it, becoming part of it.

Just beyond the bath, surrounding it, are tall stands of bamboo. They creak in the breeze. My tears drip into the bath. They churn with the mineral water and evaporate into the breeze.

The other man who soaks in the pool pays me and my tears no attention. We are both alone, in our own worlds. I try to clear my mind.

Has there ever been such a thing as a shared experience, a shared life? Right now Megumi and I are sharing an experience: we are soaking in the onsen. We are naked. We can hear the same creaking bamboo. Were I to shout her name toward that fence, she could hear and respond. But we cannot see each other; we are in two different pools separated by a tall wooden fence.

I step out of the bath. Water falls off my skin and splatters against the stones. As Megumi instructed, I go back to a faucet and wash as I did before. I have never been so clean. My heart has taken on the pace of nature.

I slip back into the heat of the bath, a different spot this time, in the shade of some tall birch trees. I soak for a long time. The light striking the mountains has changed and is changing, subtly, slowly, no longer at full force. The sun is on its way down.

Twenty-four

The sliding doors are open, the sun has dipped behind the mountains, and cool air rolls into the room. The wind rustles the leaves. Dinner is served in their room. They sit across from each other at a low table made of carved wood. They don’t sit directly on the floor, but on zaisu, high-backed legless wooden chairs with silk cushions.

An elaborate dinner of fifteen courses and sake is brought to their room, course by course, over the next few hours. Megumi shows Thomas how to admire the plates and bowls and describes the food to him. He eats everything put before him, and drinks all the sake and asks for more.

After dinner they sit together on the balcony and have another drink. Across the valley the mountain is cloaked in black. Megumi can just barely make out the summit, but if she stares at it too long it disappears. The sake slides down her throat. “This place makes me miss home,” she says. Insects chitter and chirr.

“I was ready,” he says. “When I was finally face to face with death, I was ready. And now I’m not afraid. Not anymore.”

She reaches out and holds his arm, but says nothing. From the distance comes echoing laughter. It grows louder, then fades away. “C’mon,” she says, “we have to go to the onsen.”

“Again?”

“While we’re bathing they’ll make up our futons.”

The narrow path down to the onsen is cast in gentle moonlight. Strange shadows cross the stones. They walk in silence. When they reach the entrance she says, “Want to go together?”

“Into the onsen?”

“Yes.”

“It’s allowed?”

“There’s a family bath for men and women together.”

He nods.

“From the locker room one exit leads to the men’s, the other to the family. I’ll meet you out there.”

When he comes out, she is already sitting on the wooden stool, scrubbing, covered in suds. He sits on the stool next to her and begins washing. She smiles at him but then goes back to herself; she does not stare. In the moonlight there is little to see, just random glints of bubbles and skin. From time to time she can feel his eyes upon her naked body.

She rinses off and picks a spot facing the mountain silhouette and lowers herself into the water. There is another couple in the bath, sitting side by side. The man’s eyes are closed, but the woman is watching Thomas.

Thomas rinses off and walks over to Megumi. In the silver moonlight he makes no attempt at modesty. He lowers himself into the water, next to her, letting out a little grunt against the intense heat.

The birds are silent now, but a chorus of a thousand insects and animals rings out from the trees. At the far end of the onsen the little replenishing waterfall splashes. The water laps against the rocks and against her bare shoulders. Her heart beats fast.

“I used to think that people were frightened by my guilt, that their fear was what kept them away,” he says, “but now I know it’s much worse. Guilt isn’t frightening—it’s irrelevant. The world is indifferent to guilt. In the city there are so many people walking around, going about their day, indifferent to guilt, indifferent to my guilt. I guess they have enough guilt of their own, no need to deal with anyone else’s. Out here it’s the same. I’m up against the indifference of this vast nature. Who am I, what is my guilt next to that, next to the giant mountains and trees? These mountains see guilt and simply stare back at me as if to say, So what. My guilt has no release. My guilt is met with endless indifference, endless silence.”

It’s nearly midnight. The moon and its light vanish behind a solid bank of clouds. Here and there sit small lanterns, imparting a subtle wash of radiance over the water and rocks.

“I’m very tired,” Thomas says. “It’s hard to stay awake . . . too much sake and steam.”

The futons are laid out next to each other and folded down neatly. In front of him she takes off her clothes and crawls naked into the futon. He takes off his yukata. He has an erection. He gets into the futon and passes out instantly. She reaches over and puts her hand around his erection and squeezes. She slides her other hand between her legs, full of intentions, but she, too, falls asleep. Sake and steam.

She wakes in the morning to the sound of heavy raindrops slapping against the leaves of the trees. Thomas is not in the futon. She props herself up and rubs her eyes and spots him outside on the balcony, sitting in a chair, looking out at the rain, dressed in his yukata.

“Good morning,” she says as she hands him a cup of tea.

“Thank you,” he says. He smiles.

She sits in the chair next to him. “There was a certain kind of tea my dad would always pull out and drink when it was raining. A certain kind of sencha. He said it tasted best with a steady rain, and a steady rain looked better when you drank it. This isn’t quite it, but it’ll do.”

“It’s delicious.”

There is a wet chill, a cold bite to the air. The tea warms her hands and warms her insides. Clouds hang low over the valley, dissolving the mountaintops. From their perch halfway up the mountain, they are just barely underneath the cloud ceiling. If it were any lower, they would be swallowed up; their world would turn misty white.

“I never knew the sound of the rain could be so rich,” he says, “so beautiful. It woke me up. I came right out here, just to watch and listen.”

“We should get to the bath.”

“In the rain?”

“Haven’t you figured it out yet? Bathe, eat; bathe, eat. That’s all we do here. And it’s amazing in the rain. After drinking so much last night we both could use a good soak.”

They soak together, shoulder to shoulder in the rain. The water’s surface is pitted and rippled from so many raindrops. They are not alone. Two other couples, all sitting on the same side of the onsen, face out to the mist and mountains. She tilts her head back and lets the cold drops splash against her face.

During breakfast the rain stops. “The world is so small,” she says, just above a whisper.

“What do you mean?” He takes a bite of rice.

“We’re always looking for some sort of bigger world. Something bigger, better. Maybe this country is for me just one big bedroom, away from my family and my past. Maybe my brother withdrew to his room and you withdrew to your room and I withdrew all way across the ocean, all the way to New York. Maybe I’m just as stuck as you are. Maybe I’m hiding from the future.”

“Maybe we are.”

“No matter how big we try to make our world, in the end it’s just ourselves. We follow ourselves around everywhere.”

They bathe again after breakfast. Neither says much. The clouds burn off. Birds fly through the air. The sun is shining, but the day is not hot. When they return to their room, breakfast has been cleared from the table.

“This place is like magic,” he says. “Everything happens invisibly and perfectly.”

“Are you ready?”

“Ready for what.”

“We’re going to cut your hair.” His eyes open wide as she takes out a scissors. “I had them send up a pair. You can’t go back into the world with that ragged hair. They’d never take you.”

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“I figured out how to shave you, right? Let’s finish the job.”

She sits him down on the balcony chair.

“Oh wait,” she says. “I almost forgot. I got too excited to chop it off. Here, look.” She pulls out from her pocket a disposable camera. “I picked it up from the gift shop.”

“There’s a gift shop?”

“Of course. You can buy the plates and sandals and robes and all that. We need to take before-and-after pictures.” She snaps a picture before he has a chance to pose. She turns the wheel to advance the film.

“Take a better one.”

“Okay,” she says, “turn your head a bit.” She takes the picture. “Now another one, straight on. Thomas, smile. How about one of us together.” She crouches down next to him. She puts her head against his and extends her arm, pointing the camera back at their faces. “Think we got it?”

“Take another just to be sure,” he says. “I might have blinked.”

She smiles for the camera and asks if he’s smiling. “Okay, one more. Your last moment with long hair.” The shutter clicks. She sets the camera on the wooden side table. “Now let’s get you to the sink and get your hair wet.”

She wets his hair and drapes a thick, white towel over his shoulders, then goes back to the balcony chair and cuts his hair. She is meticulous. It takes over an hour. He sits still and looks out at the mountains rising up from the valley. She cuts in silence, concentrating. He says nothing. The breezes come and go, softly. Birds in twos and threes fly past. The air smells of soil, still moist from the morning’s rain. A pile of dark hair encircles his chair.