10.03.07
gajin
Just under the surface of my skin I could feel something. Hard. Small. A little ball hiding under my skin, making it rise, shiny and agitated on my forehead. Of course I squeeze it. Out comes this little thing that had been in my body; dirt, or old skin, or whatever it could have been I was glad it was out. I stared at it. There is a pleasure in pushing these things out of your body, making it clean again.
I smashed it between my fingernails. The hole it left in my skin was bleeding now, bright red blood. Clean blood.
At the photo shoot they would be upset, they wouldn�t have any foundation dark enough to cover it up. I read once that a Buddha of a woman was so pale that her skin was nearly mottled blue. She was delicate, small, fine of bone, low of voice. Reading that, I thought, I must be getting paid for something other than beauty.
What did it mean after that first man had given his card so that months later my face would be shining above the crosswalk in Shibuya? It meant that as I went down those long escalators to the subway men would stare at me, turning their heads as they went. They just wanted to look, just to be sure that they�d seen right. It meant that women would look too, but only for a moment. Then the corners of their lips would drop, and then they�d smile a sharp smile, stomping by in heels.
It also meant that from time to time I would find myself walking into a room full of slivers of girls getting dressed together, the tiny curve of their childlike breasts flashing at me before being covered in silk, in cashmere, in gold and perfume. It looked tiring. I was too tired already.
So on days like today I dressed alone. Slowly. In the photos I always appeared in the center, this dark thing surrounded by pristine angels or fairies or something. They paid me well, I told myself. Before shoots I could walk underneath the big wooden gate of the temple and have the sun shine down on me. I could spend the day walking along these scared graveled paths, crushing the stones and nuts beneath my feet. I could spend my nights standing in the lighted square of Shinjuku, watching the male prostitutes paint their faces and primp their hair before going out.
The older women I had seen sometimes walking along the gravel paths with lacy parasols in the summer. They would have their gloves on, their wide brimmed hats, and their husbands docily walking behind them. It couldn�t have been too long ago that these women were kept out of the light, prized for their paleness. It couldn�t have been too long ago that those wide brimmed hat would have had floating veils and their parasols would have been carried for them. They would have only just barely smiled with blackened teeth behind the gauze. It couldn�t have been too long, I thought looking at these women, that being dark meant you were one of those working outside in the light of the Japanese sun cutting down fine rice for their plates.
What must they think of me then? The only thing that would ever blacken my teeth would be the tar seeping between my lips from a burning cigarette. Surely, that too was wrong somehow.
�Otsukareta sama!1�
The shoot was over. The girls began to leave the room, shedding their glittering dresses and sliding into jeans and t-shirts before they hobbled out the door. I waited for them before I moved to leave, sitting still with the smell of tobacco curling from my fingertips. Down came the lights. Away went to makeup, the clothes, the food. Everything was ferried away by new, quiet hands, until there was only the photographer and I in this suddenly empty white room. His shadow fell over my skin.
�Lets get a drink,� he said. Below the ball of my foot, the cigarette hissed.
When we entered the nomihodai2 the night had only just begun but already, in a corner there was a group of business women laughing at each other with high-pitched squeals, each one of them just as pink as the skin of a peach. Even now, they covered their mouths with their hands, hiding their teeth. Besides the businesswomen and us there were two groups of young Americans, obviously excited to drink all they could afford. The glistening seedpods of salted edamame were piled up in the centre of their table, sometimes garnishing a drink, sometimes falling down a young girl�s shirt before she screeched with embarrassment.
They made me remember my first nights in Tokyo; gulping all the sake that I could in three hours, tottering back though the slick buildings of the city in my too expensive shoes and short skirt. In those days too, little children would stop and look at me with eyes open wide in fright.
�What do you want?� the photographer asked me, bending to take off his shoes.
�A Moscow Mule,� I said.
The drinks came quickly, went quickly, pilled up around our table like a fence between us and the rest of the smoky bar. Through the glasses I could see vague figures moving, dancing like the shades of ghosts in the foam. Salted onions, salted edamame, came to us too, making us thirstier. Mugs of water rested on the table, untouched, ignored for the next bottle of sake. Then, the businessmen began strolling in. Arm in arm. Happy. Boys just pulled from high school, so they only had to change from a uniform to a suit to become real adults.
�What do you want?� the photographer asked again.
�Another Moscow Mule�
�Mosucou Myuru, mou ippon!3�
The waiters were young and looked at us with their eyes drooping. They were tiring of us, and the Americans too, because each time they came, setting down four mugs, we ordered more. By now, the room was hot, and you could see the stinking sake as it floated in the air. It was hazy with mist and we began ordered only cold sake as we began to sweat in the chattering room.
�I had never seen anyone like you before,� he said as we bounced against the cheap plastic lace of the taxi seat. I was growing tired and the strength in me disappeared so that I was resting against his chest. He told me I was exotic as he dragged his fingers over my lips. He dug his fingers into a handful of my hair and left it there. I fell asleep like this.
At four in the morning, the sun comes out. The curtains had not been shut and through the windowpane the warmth of the new day lay flat against my cheek. I woke.
There was something heavy on my chest, keeping me from moving. It was the photographer. He was spread out on top of me, still rosy pink from sake and the sweat of exertion. I didn�t remember anything. The sun continued to warm me and I realized, with his arm awkwardly entwined in my legs, that he was still touching me. I pushed him.
�Get out.�
�N..Nani?4�
�Get. Out.�
I pushed him again, off of the bed. He didn�t know where his clothes were then, neither did I. I didn�t care. I remember him trying to clutch to my bed sheets, but I wouldn�t let him have those either. Those were mine anyway. I pushed him towards the door.
I heard a woman screaming. Things were being thrown at him. A hairbrush hit his head and he ran down the stairs of the apartment. I wished that he had only somehow managed to trip over the banister. I wished I would hear his screams then, growing fainter and fainter until they simply stopped.
I heard the front door slam. Then the sound of flesh hitting pavement.
The vomit came then. Acidic and burning the back of my throat, only clear liquid because I was only throwing up alcohol. My mouth tasted sour, of salt and edamame before my stomach clenched again and the vomit came. I remembered this feeling. I breathed. Again it came.
I remember crawling to the toilet on my knees and resting my face on the rim there, breathing the scent of piss before my mind was covered in fog.
When I woke, in the mirror I was puffy. My cheeks had bloomed outward, and my lips, dry, were cracked and bleeding from my screams. I thought I saw bits of vomit still lingering there, and I closed my sticky eyes to scrub it off until I would have been red. On my forehead, again, was that little pimple, angry and white against my skin. Its pus flew, clinging to the mirror when I squeezed it. It began to bleed.
�I�m leaving this fucking country,� I said.
It felt good.
shi-ou-sama at
