Grotesque (49 page)

But Mitsuru, my dear, you are not yet forty. Your future lies ahead of you. You have awakened from the nightmare of mind 3 0 7

N A T S U O K I R I NO

control, and if you struggle to live an upright life from here on, never forgetting to pray for the souls of those whom you harmed and beg their forgiveness—7 am confident that you will be all right. If there is anything I can do for you, please do not hesitate to ask.

Dear Mitsuru,

You were the brightest student I ever had, and I never once worried about your future. To have seen the way you have stumbled, however, has urged me to reconsider the past. I feel responsible for your slide into criminality; my careless manner of teaching must be held accountable. I have determined that I shall repent alongside you.

To tell you the truth, ever since the religious organization you were affiliated with committed those crimes, I have hardly had a day free of turmoil. And then with the tragedies last year and the year before, I have had cause to grieve all over again. I am sure you are aware that both Yuriko Hirata and Kazue Said were killed. They say the same murderer is responsible. To think of the way they were both so cruelly murdered, and their bodies abandoned, is more bitter than I can bear. I remember them both so well.

Kazue Sato’s case has garnered particular attention, with headlines screaming OFFICE EMPLOYEE BY DAY, PROSTITUTE

BY NIGHT! She was such a serious student when she first entered my classes—and then to have her turned into fodder for the rapacious media! To think of how this must mortify her family makes me want to rush to her house and throw myself before her mother and apologize. My dear, I imagine you must be mystified as to why I might feel this way. But I cannot overcome the feeling that somehow I failed as a father—consider my eldest son—and as an educator.

We at Q High School for Young Women espoused an educational tenet that advocated selfsufficiency and a strong sense of self-awareness in our students. And yet, among the girls who have graduated from Q High School for Young Women, there are data to prove that the rate for divorce, failure to marry, and suicide is much higher than that in other schools.

3 0 8

G R O T E S Q U E

Why is it that girls who come from such privileged backgrounds, who are so proud of their academic accomplishments, and who are such excellent students must meet so much more unhappiness than students elsewhere? Rather than suggesting it is because the real world is cruelerfor them, I think it more accurate to suggest that we allowed the creation of an environment that was too much of a Utopia. Or, to put it another way, we failed to teach our girls the strategies that would enable them to cope with the frustrations of the real world. It is this realization that continues to haunt me, and the other teachers feel the same. We realize now that it was our arrogance that prevented us from coming to grips with the real world.

I’ve mellowed now that I have been living here in a severe environment, going about the mundane job of looking after a dormitory. The naked human is powerless against nature. As a scientist, I clothed myself with knowledge and believed that one could not live without the study of science. But now I realize that science alone is not enough. I suppose that when I taught school, all I taught was the heart of science; I am ashamed to think of it now. I wonder if there are similar teachings in your religion?

My dear Mitsuru,

I believe I need to rethink my approach to education. But when I finally came to this conclusion, I was well along in years and no longer actively teaching. I was retired—-forced to resign because of my own son’s delinquent behavior. My regret over my failure to realize this sooner has only deepened over the years, made more painful still by what befell you, my dear, and the horrible business with your classmates Miss Hirata and Miss Sato.

While tending to the dormitory I’ve also been busy with my life work of studying the behavior of the Kijima Tribolium castaneum.

T. Castaneum is a species of beetle, aka the Red Flour Beetle. I discovered a strain quite by accident in the woods behind my house, so I was allowed to give it my name. Being that I was the one who discovered the strain that now bears 3 0 9

N A T S U O K I R I NO

my name, it’s necessary for me to follow up with an appropriate study.

The behavior of a living organism is really a fascinating subject. If furnished with sufficient food and favorable living conditions, the reproduction rate of an organism will increase exponentially. As the rate of individual reproduction increases, the group population expands, as you well know, my dear. But if the increase in food supply is not commensurate with the increase in population, fierce competition will ensue among the population, at which point the birthrate falls while the death rate increases. Eventually this has an impact on the development, formation, and physiology of the organism—which is the foundation of physiology.

In my research on the Kijima T. castaneum, 7 discovered a mutation—a beetle with longer wings and shorter legs than the others. This mutation was clearly the result of the intensification of a sense of individuation. I believed that modifications resulted in the insects shape and structure so as to enhance its speed and mobility. I want to study this mutation, to verify it with my own eyes. But I doubt I will live as long as will be necessary to complete the study.

My dear Mitsuru,

I wonder if perhaps your religion—or Miss Hirata’s work in prostitution, or Miss Sato’s double life—is not an outcome of shifts in the structure and makeup of our populations. Is not this intensification of individuation—this heightened sense of awareness of self-—a result of the suffocating burden of being trapped within the same social community? It is from the pain this produces that we find changes occurring in our makeup and structure. Without a doubt the experiences that unfold are cruel and bitter. Perhaps it is not possible for us to teach about these bitter experiences. More likely it is impossible for us to articulate the findings we extract from our painful experiments in life.

As bright as you are, I am sure that even you are not able to figure out just what it is I am trying to say. Let me be more direct.

3 1 o

G R O T E S Q U E

When I first read about the Yuriko Hirata incident in the newspapers, I was just as shocked as I had been when I learned about your crimes. No, I was even more shocked.

More than twenty years had passed since Yuriko and my son were expelled from school. I remember that Miss Hirata’s older sister (I forget her name, but you must remember her; she was in your class, a fairly drab person) came to me and asked me what she should do about her sister, who was going off with my son to engage in prostitution. At the time I said, without even thinking, “1 will not tolerate this. Most likely we will expel them.”

If I am to be perfectly frank about what I was thinking at the time, it was Yuriko, rather than my own son, whom I was disinclined to forgive. I was feeling selfish, and my behavior was utterly unbecoming to a teacher. But as ashamed as I am to admit it, I am committed to describing things just as they happened. I am not trying to write a confession. But I realize that the decision I made lacked a basis in either pedagogical wisdom or prudence, and I deeply regret it now.

Ironically, I was the one who saw that Yuriko Hirata was admitted to the Q School system in the first place. Miss Hirata had just returned from Switzerland, and her scores on the entrance exam for transfer students were not good. Her marks in Japanese classics and mathematics were particularly low.

The other instructors all felt that she did not meet our minimum requirements, but I saw that she was admitted over their objections. I had a number of reasons for doing so. First among them was the fact that Miss Hirata was so beautiful she stole my heart away. I was a junior high school teacher, but even so I was not immune to wanting to have a pretty girl around to observe. But what was foremost in my mind was the potential of conducting a biological study of what happens when a mutant member of a species is introduced into a population.

I had dual motives in admitting her, but my plan backfired and cost me my job. I should have known better than to introduce such an abnormally beautiful creature into a population of her normal peers. To deepen the irony, it was my own son who served as Miss Hirata’s procurer, humiliating me with the 3 1 1

N A T S U O K I R I NO

filthy money he earned as a result. Now I am haunted all the more by the unsettling belief that it was my unreasonableness in admitting Miss Hirata and then seeing to her expulsion that led to her further depravity and ultimately to her death.

When I decided to expel Miss Hirata, I called her guardians, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, and spoke to them about it. Mrs. Johnson was furious, much more so than her husband; I remember her saying that she wanted to throw her out of their house immediately. I encouraged her to do so. I was angry with Miss Hirata. But no matter what she had done, she was still underage and should not have been held responsible for her actions.

Rather, the blame lay with the environment in which she was being raised. Even though I realized this, I was still unable to overcome my anger at the girl.

And her elder sister as well. I heard that after Miss Hirata was expelled, far from growing more lively, the elder sister turned more and more morose. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to say that I was responsible for creating the discord between them. The older sister entered this school by her own hard work. Only my curiosity permitted the admission of her younger sister, Yuriko. Human beings are not subjects in biological experiments.

The fate ofKazue Sato also weighs heavily on my mind. It is true that Miss Sato was the target of bullying while she was in Q High School for Young Women. I cannot help but conclude that the cause of this bullying was directly related somehow to the fact that Yuriko Hirata had been admitted into the school system. Because Miss Sato admired Miss Hirata and had a crush on my son, Miss Hirata’s older sister treated her terribly.

News of her behavior reached me, I’m quite sure, and yet I did nothing—pretending not to be aware of any of it. For Miss Sato, life at Q High School for Young Woman—a life she had struggled long and hard to enjoy—must have been a torturous nightmare. Believing competition to be an inevitable aspect of any population of species, I stood on the sidelines and watched.

Effort has nothing to do with the changes to structure and physiology that develop as a consequence of the intensifi-3 1 2

G R O T E S Q U E

cation of individuation. Indeed, it is futile. That’s because changes are carried out at whim. And yet I, as a teacher—no, the educational system itself—pushed Miss Sato toward this futility. She drove herself to work hard while at the university and again at her workplace, until she finally just wore herself down. Tragically, that’s when the change to her structure finally took place, and unfortunately it was a change that depended entirely on attracting male desire. That this change was diametrically opposed to our school motto of selfsufficiency and self-confidence is a consequence of my own selfish whimsy. I am convinced of this. If I had not admitted Miss Hirata into the school, Miss Sato might have completed her high school years without suffering from bulimia.

When population figures are low, individual life-forms learn to survive independently in isolation. When individuation intensifies, life-forms develop group survival strategies, changing in size and structure as they do. But girl students can’t help but feel that they can’t survive in isolation. The competition among them is severe. The basis for this competition is grounded in scholastic performance, personality, and financial security, but the greatest of these is physical beauty, which is determined entirely by birth. And here’s where things get very complicated. Some girls may be more beautiful than others when it comes to one aspect of their looks but will not pass muster when a different aspect is compared. The competition between them thus intensifies. I placed Yuriko Hirata into this mix: the super-beauty. I learned, after Miss Hirata and my son had been expelled, that even in the boys’

section of the school the competition she inspired was tremendous.

But I continued to close my eyes. That is to say, I left things to resolve on their own. I was the one who triggered the events that have unfolded over the last twenty years. Do you understand now why I say I feel responsible?

My dear Mitsuru,

I do not think even a brilliant student such as yourself escaped this battle. Perhaps you managed to stay on top because of a fierce effort. You were very pretty, and your 3 1 3

N A T S U O K I R I NO

grades excelled all others. But on the dark side of that bright offense, I know you were working tirelessly, weren’t you? And the power that urged you on was born of your fear of losing, was it not? The minute you forgot this fear, that was the minute you would fail to attain your goal.

I ignored this as well. And I call myself an educator! How I regret that I failed to offer anyone the kind of education that might have saved them from this “failure.” But it is all in the distant past. So many lives have been lost. And the years when you should have been laying a foundation for your maturity have been spent locked away in prison. How sad this makes me. I feel I should at least try to convey my sentiments to Miss Hirata’s older sister, but I regret to say that I cannot remember her name. Yes, that’s right, I can remember that even back then I was so entranced by Miss Hirata’s beauty that I was overcome with jealousy for my own son. How it shames me to admit it!

I cut ties with my son Takashi. I do not know where he is or what he is doing or even if he is dead or alive. Strictly through rumor, I learned that after he was expelled he continued in the same line of work. He is drowning in a sweet poison (making a living off exploiting women is the darkest of poisons), and I find it highly unlikely that he will ever be able to drag himself from the mire that claims him. My wife may have been in touch with him secretly for all I know. But he has not once tried to contact me. My anger was that great.