The Floating Girl: A Rei Shimura Mystery (Rei Shimura Mystery #4) (15 page)

Seiko stood up.

“Where are you going?” I asked, realizing I’d tried to go too far with her, too fast.

“The toilet,” she said, but from the way she grabbed her handbag, I knew she was not coming back.

“Please, I’m sorry. I just want to talk to you a little longer—”

But there was no chance. She flung open the wooden front door and was gone.

I’d done it. I’d finally landed an on-the-record interview with a member of the
Showa Story
circle, but I’d also scared her off. What kind of success was that?

I used my credit card to pay 3,000 yen—about $28—for the two glasses of sherry and my iced coffee. The only perk was that in her haste to leave, Seiko had forgotten the comic book she’d been carrying with her. I slid it into my shopping bag.

“You’re leaving us so soon? What a shame,” the waiter said, watching me take the magazine. I guessed he’d wanted to look at it himself.

On the street, I located a bright green NTT pay phone and dialed Takeo’s cellular phone number. I’d decided to finally memorize it. Was this a sign of emotional commitment for me?

He picked up on the second ring. “Hi, Rei! You’ll never guess where I am.”

“On top of the roof?”

He laughed. “No. Driving back into the city for paint. My workmen are finishing the roof and I’m working on the interior. What are you doing?”

“Kicking myself.”

“
Heh?
”

“It means I’m angry with myself. I had an interview with Seiko, one of the members in the animation circle, and in my questioning, I managed to scare her off.” The telephone line beeped, reminding me that I had only a few units left on my telephone card. “Oops. I’m about to get disconnected.”

“Will you be at your apartment in an hour?” he queried.

“Yes. And I’ll see you after I’ve—” The phone went dead.

I made my way home on the subway, thinking all the while of how I could have handled Seiko better. When I got home, I went straight to the answering machine and saw a message light blinking. Hoping to hear Seiko’s voice, I instead got Rika’s, telling me that Mr. Sanno was excited about the direction the article was taking and wanted to speak to me the next morning at ten.

The
Gaijin Times
had taken over my life completely. I hadn’t seen a client on antiques business in days. There was a backlog of new people who wanted me to shop at the flea markets with them, and some old clients who wanted me to represent their interests at an auction in Kyoto. All I could do, really, was promise to come through with the things they needed after the article was done.

I made a few client calls and was just trying to get the apartment into a semblance of decency when there was a knock on the door. I opened it and Takeo walked in, wearing a paint-smeared T-shirt and jeans. He thrust a nicely wrapped box from the sushi shop down the street into my hands.

“I didn’t know if you’d had dinner.”

“I forgot to eat. No wonder I’ve been feeling so frazzled.”

“So, what happened?” Takeo went into the kitchenette and, after washing his hands, proceeded to lay the sushi in a pleasing arrangement in a rectangular dish.

“I met Seiko. She works at her father’s photocopy shop. She has a black eye and won’t say who hit her. When I asked, she ran out on me.”

“You’re thinking the killer hit her, and she just barely escaped?”

“No. Actually I really was thinking it was her father—they were having an argument when I walked into the shop. Of course, I don’t know. My invasive question scared her off. About the only thing I got out of the interview was the knowledge that she didn’t like Kunio very much, and that he’d had some direct contact with Dayo, the publisher of the commercial
Mars Girl
series.”

“That’s good information.” Takeo poured cold barley tea from the pitcher in my fridge. I helped him carry everything to the tea table. It was going to be a nice, light, high-energy meal.

“
Itadakimasu
.” Takeo said the customary word of grace and reached for a piece of salmon-topped rice.

“Do you say
itadakimasu
when you’re alone?” I asked.

“Of course. I’m casual in so many ways, but when it comes to food, I want things to be right. Somehow, saying it makes me feel connected to other people. Do you say it?”

I shook my head. “I do when dining with someone, but not when I’m alone.”

“Eating alone is depressing.”

“It can be. Actually, Seiko did something that I found really hard to do. She went to the Show a Boy club alone. That atmosphere is geared to packs of women, not individuals. Chiyo didn’t like Seiko’s being there, and in fact banned her. I want to find out what Seiko did that was so awful. And I have a
Showa Story
comic book to read that Seiko left behind in the bar. How’s that for luck?”

“I don’t know about luck. Maybe she left it for you on purpose.” Takeo still sounded morose. “I don’t suppose you need help with a translation of this one. Your reading skills are improving.”

“I’d really like to have your help with the translation.” I said. “But I’ve got to warn you—from my first glance through, this one looks raunchier.”

“I’ll suffer through it,” Takeo said, winking at me. His expression changed after he’d started paging through it. “I’m not sure how much of this you’re going to want me to translate. The words are just awful.”

“I’m going to transcribe everything you say. It’s just too hard otherwise.” I got out the notebook I’d been using for the article.

“Okay. Well, you take a look at it by yourself first.”

Takeo left the magazine sitting on my tea table, so I had to pick it up. Almost as if it were contaminated by something, I thought, opening the worn cover with care.

The story started during the war, about five years later than the period in which the previous
Showa Story
comic took place. Mars Girl was looking for a job in a factory so that she could help the family she was staying with. Within the first few pages, she headed off to search for employment wearing a fitted mid-calf dress her host mother had made from an old futon cover. Kunio had perfectly captured the period clothing style and the economic hardships of the time.

“This plot seems like the best one yet,” I said.

“Just wait,” Takeo said.

I wondered whether Takeo meant that the story was going to be even more fantastic. I happily turned the page and followed Mars Girl into an auto plant.

“Mars Girl is asking, “Are there any jobs available?” Takeo translated. “The foreman says, ‘You’re too delicate to work the machines. Go away.’ Mars Girl is thinking, ‘I’m tougher than most soldiers. If only he knew.’”

Dejected, Mars Girl walked with her head down from factory to factory. Either there were no places for her to work or she was not qualified. As I looked over the comic, I remembered my own first miserable job hunt in Japan. I was turned down from many places for a good reason, though; I couldn’t read. It was a problem that haunted me even now, making me dependent on Takeo for help with the article.

I read more. Mars Girl was standing before a military recruitment center with a banner across the door.

“Work… women… does it say ‘jobs for women’?” I asked. I was reading aloud as much of each line as I could, and asking Takeo to translate the rest.

“That’s right. And the next thing that happens is she goes into the place, is served a cup of tea, and is interviewed by this man… he is a major in the army. ‘There’s something foreign about you . . . are you from another land?’ the officer asks Mars Girl. ‘No, I’m Japanese,’ she replies. The thought bubble over her head showed her musing, ‘What else can I say? That I was born in outer space?’”

I smiled at that. I’d felt the same way so often during my time in Japan.

“‘Do you live with your mother and father?’ the officer continues. Mars Girl replies, ‘No, they’re dead. Right now I’m boarding with my aunt and uncle. I need to earn money for the household,’
“
Takeo read. “The officer says, ‘Very well. I have a good job I can offer you, but it involves traveling. Room and board are included, so you can send all your earnings home.’ Now Mars Girl is in a quandary. She’s afraid to leave Tokyo, because she believes she has been sent from outer space specifically to protect the way of life in her family’s neighborhood. She asks, ‘Do you mean I’d become a soldier?’ The officer laughs at her. ‘No, no. You’ll be a maid to the officers. We have some rest houses spread throughout Asia. The job would not be a long-term one, but it pays well, and you would have the pleasure of serving your country.’”

“What are Mars Girl’s political beliefs?” I asked Takeo.

“They’re never stated. Mars Girl’s thought bubble has the message, ‘It is my duty to help the host family eat. I must take this job.’”

The next several pages showed Mars Girl meeting other women placed on transport to the military job. All were young and malnourished. Some were Korean, I could tell from the traditional long-skirted costumes.

I turned the page and saw the rest house, a shabby villa overlooking the sea. It was perhaps the island of Okinawa, I guessed, from the palm trees. In the guesthouse, there were women working who wore the traditional batik dress of Okinawans.

“Why so many maids for one building?” I asked Takeo. “This has got to be one detail Kunio’s gotten wrong.”

The maids were taking in the new girls for orientation. They were told to disrobe, and here Kunio showed the women’s nudity. But instead of being lascivious, he showed how bone-thin and sickly the young women looked.

“The drawing here reminds me of the German expressionists who painted people showing the ravages of war. Like Kathe Kollwitz,” I added.

“I don’t know all the artists that you do.” Takeo sounded admiring.

“You grew up with a real Miro on your wall,” I said, remembering a painting I’d seen in his family’s Tokyo penthouse.

“Yes, but the only reason the painting’s there is because it has flowers. We’re limited to floral themes, haven’t you noticed?” Takeo sounded weary as he returned to translating the story.

“The girls are given thin robes to wear, and assigned to bedrooms. Each room has several dirty futons on the floor. When Mars Girl asks about the next day’s hours, an officer slams the door shut, locking it from the outside. ‘You shouldn’t be so bold,’ Mars Girl’s roommate cautions her. ‘We need to know when the workday starts, and we cannot work in such thin clothing as this. I want my underwear back!’ the feisty Mars Girl argues.”

“I think I know what’s coming,” I said.

“Yes, it’s about slave prostitution. It’s pretty hard to take.”

I turned the page, and I didn’t need Takeo’s translations anymore, because the action was so clear. Two soldiers arrived and spent a few moments deciding which of the female workers they’d take first. Mars Girl stepped in to defend her colleagues, but belatedly discovered that her special amulet, usually worn on a chain around her neck, was missing. Without the amulet, her superpowers were gone. She had just the strength of a woman, nothing more.

The crimes against the women unfolded in excruciating detail. It was typical for Japanese artists to show genitalia in exaggerated forms, so I shouldn’t have been surprised by the graphic details of these illustrations. I felt physically ill, though. The girls were so helpless against the soldiers, who were both violent and humiliating.

I pushed the magazine away and shut my eyes, wishing I could erase the pictures I’d just seen.

“It does turn out to have a happy ending. Mars Girl gets hold of some of the soldiers’ sado-masochistic tools and turns an erotic encounter into a bloodbath,” Takeo said.

I shook my head. “Didn’t this happen in the earlier comic that we looked at together? Mars Girl was raped then, too. You know, that’s the flaw in this series that I absolutely hate. If Mars Girl is a super-heroine who can beat up all these men, why does she get raped so often?”

“I wonder what Seiko thought of it,” Takeo said.

“That’s an interesting point. What if the inspiration for this story is somehow connected to her personal history? Maybe she had a great-aunt or someone like that who told her this story.” I shook my head. “This stuff about comfort women isn’t in history texts that college students would read.”

“Remember, it’s fiction,” Takeo said.

“What do you mean by that? Are you saying that you don’t believe the Japanese military kidnapped and violated women in the worst ways possible?”

“No, I believe those things happened. But this comic strip must be fiction. I mean, students wrote it. Not historians. And there’s something creepy about it. It’s not just supposed to make you feel horrified. It’s supposed to excite the reader.”

I shut my eyes to concentrate. He was making me think of something that had been said to me a while before. I opened my eyes again. “Nicky, when I met him, mentioned the sexually risky things Japanese women would do with him. I didn’t press him for details because I was so offended. I wonder now if he was talking about S and M or pretend rape.”

Takeo leaned over and ran a hand down my face. “Looking at this material probably makes you want to swear off sex forever. Or at least men!”

I smiled back. “You’re not like that. Come on, let’s forget about that.”

The last time, I hadn’t been in the mood to be touched because images of dead Nicky had been burned into my brain. But this night, I was ready for consolation. I kissed Takeo thoroughly, tasting the wasabi in his mouth, feeling the heat run through me. I was surprised when he backed off.

“I’m going back to Hayama tonight,” he said. “The house is just so much work.”

“You can’t go yet!”

“Well, I’d feel terrible driving off. I came to get the paint, check in on how you were doing, and go back. Really, Rei, that was the plan.” His eyes were widening, because I’d already pulled off my dress and was starting to unsnap my bra.

“I’m taking a shower,” I said, standing up and stepping out of my panties. “I think you need a shower as well. It will refresh you for your drive home.”

When I was bending down to adjust the water temperature to a pleasant warmth, I felt his hands on my hips. He was naked, as I’d hoped. I sprayed him with the handheld shower, and once he was clean, he turned it on me.

There was a different feeling to the sex; I didn’t know whether it was a subconscious reaction to the comic book we’d just looked at, but I found that I didn’t want to speak to Takeo, and I didn’t want soft caresses. I wasn’t technically rough with him, and neither was he with me, but we coupled with a force and speed that was different. While we were toweling off, I remembered the bathroom window was wide open to all the neighborhood. Our pleasure might have probably been broadcast all the way to the tofu shop. I whispered my embarrassment into Takeo’s ear, and he laughed softly.