capitalism.txt

Eriko

Osaka, Japan

Income: $8.62 p/h

Debt: $12,000

"Hello, Eriko! How's it going?"

"I'm...ano...I beg your pardon?"

"How's it going? How are you?"

"Oh! I'm...ah, fine thank you. Pleas-ed, to meet you."

"Pleased to meet you too. Please take a seat."

"Yes."

The new teacher Hannah has red cheeks and yellow hair; she's almost like a doll. I'm shocked, a little embarrassed to be in front of her. An American girl, eating corn and beef all her life. And such breasts. Wow. I'm like a little girl next to her. But they tend to get fatter as they age, perhaps. I would have trouble keeping the weight off too, surrounded by such abundance. She finishes every morsel on her dinner plate, for sure.

"Please, tell me about yourself."

"Ahh, a, my - se..lf introduction?"

"Yes please."

"I am called Eriko Satoyama and I'm fifteen - "

"Fifty? Five zero?"

"Yes, I'm fifTY four years old. I was...born in Nagano Prefecture. I live in Osaka in Mino City. My job is a, a house wife."

Not anymore, of course. But these things need to be kept quiet. I don't know how to say them in English anyway. My heart nearly rips under the pressure of the things I have to keep hidden, but knowing this somehow makes it ache a little less.

The convenience store uniform itches under my sweater. It's warm in here, and the shameful sweat is dripping and pooling on my skin. I'll stink like an ape. The customers will walk out, disgusted by the stench from the filthy old grandma at the till. They won't let me change in the store's toilet so it's all their fault. But they'll fire me anyway and then I'll be back to searching the adverts. I don't want to give these lessons up.

"Are you married or single, Eriko?"

"Yes, I married."

"I'm married. See what I'm writing? Married is an adjective - keiyoushi - and it comes from marry, a verb. So try one more time, please?"

"I'm married."

"Perfect. What job does your husband have?"

"He...doesn't have a job now any more. He...nan tte iu ka na...stopped to work already. Because, he is old now."

"Ah, he's retired. Here's another example of a verb becoming an adjective - "

When a verb becomes an adjective, it has to change. Complicated, but I vaguely remember from high school. My retired husband. My fired husband, my redundant husband, my robbed of a pension by the collapsing company husband. My disgusts me whenever I touch him husband.

I must have shivered at some point here. It's only natural. I wash and wash the futon, on the rare occasions he gets out of it, but I can never wash the smell out of it; sharp sweat and crusty flakes of skin, eating into it like acid. He's shrinking away, rotting from the inside. I'm glad I have a night shift scheduled after this lesson; even the hellish journey on the late train pressed ass to loin with salarymen breathing sake fumes into my face, even eight hours on my feet will keep me away from him a little longer.

"And do you have any children, Eriko?"

"No, I don't. Do you have any children, Hannah?"

"Ha ha, no. I'm too young! I only left college last year. I don't even have a boyfriend, you know."

"Oh, I don't know. I left college only...thirty four years before. Ha ha."

"Thirty four years ago, yes. And what did you study?"

"I study...studied...ano, I don't know. Don't remember. Not big things. Eeto ne. Type."

"Typing?"

How far can you go before you hit all of my sore spots, Hannah? Yes, my education was a joke, yes, my job was to pick up a husband. Are you going to ask me about the one room apartment I live in now, out in the rice fields? Turn round and write something on the board, so I can see your beautiful full buttocks again. I long for your hand to touch mine, or for those breasts to brush against my arm. I'll get so wet the customers will smell me. I really am a filthy old grandma I suppose. It's fine. I've spent too long hiding it from myself. Thank you, Kenji, for not giving me any children.

"And what did you do last weekend, Eriko?"

"I came to the store for shopping - "

"Went to the store to shop, uh huh. Did you buy anything interesting?"

"Food only. Do you think, ah, Japanese food is delicious?"

"Oh, yes. My favorite is tonkatsu curry!"

Of course. Eat well, Hannah, you're growing. I don't want Japan to shrink you. I hope you have a happy life here. I hope you don't get so lonely you try and open your heart to me, a half-comprehending stranger. It would be cruel to wish for that, just because I have idle dreams of being near you, feeling your exquisitely formed body beneath my fingertips. You're new and fresh and exotic, and I'm giving too much of myself already to do anything but take and use. Just like a man would.

Fu! Listen to me talking as if I'd ever been to bed with a woman. Such irony. By the time I realize and accept it and stop hating myself, I'm too old for anyone to want. Enough. This is dangerous. Perhaps a new teacher would be better. I'll tell them I want someone more experienced.

"Well, looks like our time's up, Eriko! See you next week. Don't forget the homework!"

"I don't forget! Have a nice...evening.  Thank you for teaching to me."

Perhaps I can do it on the train, on the ten-thousand-to-one chance I get some privacy. No, better to do it at my counter, hiding it behind the cash register and hurriedly pausing whenever there's a customer. It'll pass the time.

Then home, then wake the creature up, watch him turn his thin, scabbed neck and the head with its papery scalp. Take his thin, withering hand and squeeze it. It feels foul to the touch, but even after all he did,  I can't hate such a pitiful thing anymore. More done to than done. Pick up the bucket three quarters full with his vomit, that comes up in great greenish flows every few hours, and empty it into the toilet. Measure out his pills; Epivir, Zidovudine, Viracept. Then lie down beside him, the only soft space in this eight tatami mat room.

Poor Kenji; was it your fault your wife is a pervert? Was it your fault you never got used to the feel of a condom, and you handed over our  savings bit by bit to woman after woman after woman? I still wonder who she was, that one. Maybe it was here in Japan, maybe it was Thailand, maybe it was even the time the firm flew you to San Francisco. You were so happy that day. I wonder what she's like, the woman you caught it from.