for those readers who have not yet seen the two-part Kill Bill film by Quentin Tarantino, you might want to take a look at it before reading the title story of this volume—it will make your understanding of the novelette much clearer. And seeing some Coen Brothers films might not be a bad idea, either. But Kill Bill is sort of a must for understanding my homage to Tarantino...I mean, I even named my one female cat Beatrix Kitto. I’m that much of a fan of that film.
THE HIKIKOMORI’S CARTOON KIMONO
“...we have to answer the challenge of modernity: what is a kimono, or what will it become, if it ceases to be a thing worn?”
Kunihiko Moriguchi
(one of Japan’s pre-eminent
kimono painters) from:
“The Kimono Painter,” by Judith Thurman,
The New Yorker, October 17, 2005
I.
(Obi)
“The nail that sticks out gets hammered in.”
Japanese saying
It didn’t matter how many times Masafumi saw Harumi Ishii walk through the doorway of the autoclave room in the back of his employers’ tattoo parlor, his reaction was invariably the same: First, a sharp sudden intake of breath, not unlike his response to the initial visits of his rescue sister Mieko back in Japan, in his parents’ house. Back in Tokyo, the reflexive shortness of breath was understandable—there was a strange woman standing on the other side of his bedroom door, her bare knuckles touching the thin wood in a patient, persistent rapraprap, waiting with that trained politeness born of dozens of previous encounters with other men of his kind, those suffering from hikikomori, the withdrawal. Masafumi used to wonder, there in the comfortable, yet painfully familiar confines of the room he so seldom left for all those months, those years, if women like Mieko looked upon their jobs as a form of service, or as something more insidious, a means of forcing those who had chosen to withdraw form life, from society, and ultimately from unwanted responsibility to become a part of that hellish social miasma...simply because they, the rescue sisters (plus the occasional rescue brother), hadn’t had the self-reliance necessary to withdraw form life, as Masafumi and his fellow hikikomori had done with such ease, such completeness.
But no matter what he had thought of Mieko (with her school-girlish mini-skirt and bleached-to-coarse-orange streaks in her long hair, despite her three-decades-plus age), she had kept on coming, twice a week, to stand for hours at his door, knocking and imploring, begging and rapping, until her sheer tenacity eventually wore him down, and he’d opened his door—only a crack, just enough to take a quick glance at her—and simply asked, “What?” Not the Why? or the How? which he’d longed to ask (for he knew all too well that the Why? was cultural pressure, his country’s need for everyone to have a place, to be successful, to fit in, just as the How? was the result of his parents finally calling for the aid of a rescue sister to cajole him into leaving his room).
“Because I’d like to get to know you.” That was all she’d needed to say; as rehearsed as her words sounded, there had been something in her eyes, in the quirky flicker of a smile on her lips, which had been simply enough, at least then, to make him open the door just a bit wider....
But that was Mieko; as far as Harumi (she of the naturally brown-orange hair, worn in elaborate quasi-Incan khipus of braided, knotted and wooden-beaded gently swaying tresses, and the persistently minimal clothing) went, the second thing Masafumi would do was lower his eyes, their lashes forming a Capri-shell screen between him and the object of his fascination, as if this woman would be offended by his stare.
(As his boss kept telling him, “Kid, if she didn’t want people to look at her, why would she have had all that ink drilled into her hide? Or do her hair up in those coked-up dreads?”)
For her part, as usual, Harumi either pretended not to notice his persistent shyness, or didn’t notice him in any real sense aside from merely being aware that there was another space-taking, breathing form in the small room. True, she literally had her hands full of the wooden trays of momengoshi, that firm, well-drained “cotton” tofu which her employer had flown in daily from Japan, to be served an hour or so from now, after Harumi worked her magic wand across those waiting pliant creamy white surfaces. Masafumi was proud of himself for having learned that early nickname for a tattoo gun from one of his boss’ many repeat customers; on occasion, he would shyly remark about it while Harumi worked, and often, she would smile.
Setting the layered trays of momengoshi on the low table nearest the outlet across from the autoclave, she began peeling back the cheesecloth coverings, to reveal the waiting slabs of skin-solid tofu, uncovering one tray at a time, prior to picking up the small prefilled ink bottles which contained freshly squeezed yuzu juice and onion skin dye, and attaching them to the old, slow-vibrating tattoo machine Masafumi’s employer had given to Harumi for her exclusive use. After plugging in the tattoo gun, she turned it on, filling the small space with the insect-like drone of the quick-darting three-needle cluster.
The tired yet apt cliché, Only in America, spun around in Masafumi’s brain as he watched Harumi work: Without the need for a stencil spotted onto the waiting surface, she worked the business end of the wand-like machine over the tofu, leaving gently weeping sprays of pale, citrus-scented pigment on the smoothly gelid upper layer of processed bean curd. Her designs varied by her moods; today, Masafumi surmised that she was troubled, obviously agitated, judging by the wild waves-breaking-on-rocks choppiness of her design. Having finished one tray, she shoved it aside with a dismissive thrust of her lower left palm, moving her hand so quickly that the smooth-bottomed wooden tray nearly slid off the low table—until Masafumi put out both hands and stopped its momentum.
This time, Harumi did notice him; letting out a shuddering exhalation that smelled of cinnamon and cloves, she locked her hazel eyes onto Masafumi’s dark brown counterparts, and said, “You saved my ass—no way no how I could bring that back to the restaurant with tatami-mat lint on it. The chef, he’d know.”
Masafumi nodded.
Shutting off her tattoo gun, Harumi let out another sign, and went on, “Your boss, he wouldn’t want me smoking, in here...but when I’m done, you wanna join me for a stick? They’re clove, no nicotine—”
Masafumi started to shake his head, then mumbled, “I’ll stand with you while you smoke. I don’t.”
Harumi shook her head, and her intricately braided and embellished strands of light hair rustled and whispered, like the silk-on-silk sound of a woman wearing a layered kimono as she delicately stepped along a subway platform. A sound Masafumi has not heard in all the years he’d lived here, in this particular United State called Minnesota, yet the simple motion of this woman’s head brought it all back, so vividly....
“You are something else, you know that? Not many guys are willing to breathe in used air, but you...why am I not surprised that you would do it?”
(Over time, Masafumi had learned enough about the intricate nature of the English language to know better than to consider her questioning tone of voice to actually be a question. A yoko meshi thing, that inherent stressfulness of mastering, and not merely learning, another tongue.)
Harumi uncovered another waiting tray of naked tofu, and switched ink bottles on her gun, this time taking up the pale reddish-brown onion-skin ink she’d distilled herself, back in the restaurant down the block from the tattoo parlor. Watching her work the vibrating needles across the slightly yielding, flesh-like foodstuff, as the tattooed woman created starbursts of sunset-ruddy pigment, Masafumi found himself actually uttering a thought which had been coming and going in his brain each time he’d watched her work, “Why do you not do this in the restaurant? You...carry the trays here, then carry them back, while the gun stays—”
Speaking over the ear-numbing drone of the gun, she replied, “My boss and the other cooks, they can’t stand the sound. And some of the early customers, they can hear it, and it ruins the whole exotic dining experience. Now the inkjet printer they use to print the designs on the starch-paper, that thing’s pretty quiet, compared to this thing.