Convenience Store Woman Read online

  “No, not really. Someone came for an interview, but I didn’t take him on. After what happened with Shiraha, I’d better make sure I hire someone we can use next time.”

  The manager often says “someone we can use,” and I wonder whether I’m someone we can use or not. Maybe I’m working because I want to be a useful tool.

  “What was he like?”

  “Oh, he was fine. But agewise … He’s already retired and had just left his previous job because of a bad back. And he said he wanted to be able to take time off work here too when his back was bad. It might be all right if I know in advance, but if I’m going to have him take time off at the last minute, I’m probably better off just doing the night shift myself.”

  “I see.”

  When you do physical labor, you end up being no longer useful when your physical condition deteriorates. However hard I work, however dependable I am, when my body grows old then no doubt I too will be a worn-out part, ready to be replaced, no longer of any use to the convenience store.

  “Oh, Miss Furukura, could you work this Sunday, just the afternoon? Sugawara has a gig and won’t be able to come in.”

  “Yes, I can do that.”

  “Really? That’s such a big help.”

  For now I was still a usable tool. Feeling a mix of both relief and anxiety, I said, mimicking Sugawara’s way of talking, “No, I’m trying to save money, so it suits me just fine,” and I smiled.

  * * *

  I only noticed Shiraha standing outside the store by chance.

  It was night, and a plump shadow on a corner in the deserted office district reminded me of a game I had played when I was little. I would stare hard at my shadow on the ground then quickly look up at the sky—and see my own shadow up there. I strained my eyes to see who this shadow on the wall might belong to. As I approached, I realized it was Shiraha, nervously huddled next to a building, trying to keep himself hidden.

  He looked as though he was waiting for the woman customer he’d been stalking. I remembered the manager saying how the woman always stopped at the convenience store on her way home from work to buy some dried fruit, so he’d hang around in the back room until that time.

  “Shiraha, next time they’ll call the police, you know,” I called out, making my way around behind him so he wouldn’t see me. He spun round, trembling so hard that I was quite taken aback. When he realized it was me, he frowned.

  “What the—? If it isn’t Miss Furukura.”

  “Are you waiting in ambush? Causing a nuisance for customers is the taboo of all taboos for a store worker, you know.”

  “I’m not a store worker anymore.”

  “Well, I am, and I can’t overlook this. The manager already warned you about it, didn’t he? He’s in the store now, so maybe I should go call him.”

  Shiraha straightened his back and stood up tall, looking down on me as if trying to intimidate me.

  “What can a corporate slave loser like him do? I haven’t done anything wrong. If I take a fancy to a certain woman, then I’ll make her mine. Hasn’t that always been the tradition between men and women, handed down since ancient times?”

  “Shiraha, you said before that the strongest men get the women, didn’t you? So you’re contradicting yourself.”

  “True, I’m not working at the moment, but I’ve got a vision. Once I start my business, I’ll have women flocking to me.”

  “Well then, wouldn’t the proper way be for you to do that first? Then you’d be able to choose from all those women running after you?”

  Shiraha looked down awkwardly. “Anyway, nothing’s changed since the Stone Age. It’s just that nobody realizes that. In the final analysis, we’re all animals,” he said, going off on a tangent. “If you ask me, this is a dysfunctional society. And since it’s defective, I’m treated unfairly.”

  I thought he was probably right about that, and I couldn’t even imagine what a perfectly functioning society would be like. I was beginning to lose track of what “society” actually was. I even had a feeling it was all an illusion.

  Shiraha looked at me standing there in silence and suddenly pressed his hands to his face. I thought he was about to sneeze, but then I saw drops of water dripping through his fingers and realized he must be crying. It would be awful if we were spotted by any customers I thought. “Anyhow, let’s go and sit down somewhere,” I said, taking his arm and leading him to a nearby family restaurant.

  * * *

  “Our society doesn’t allow any foreign objects. I’ve always suffered because of that,” Shiraha said, drinking jasmine tea made with a teabag from the drink bar.

  I was the one who had gotten the jasmine tea for him, since he didn’t make any move to get anything for himself. He just sat in silence, and when I placed it in front of him, he started drinking it without even saying thank you.

  “Everyone has to toe the line. Why am I still doing casual work even though I’m in my midthirties? Why haven’t I ever had a girlfriend? The assholes don’t even bat an eyelid when they ask whether I’ve ever had sex or not, and then they laugh and tell me not to include prostitutes in the count. I don’t make trouble for anyone, but they all seem to think nothing of raping me just because I’m in the minority.”

  I considered him one step short of being a sex offender, but here he was casually likening his own suffering to sexual assault without sparing a thought for all the trouble he’d caused for women store workers and customers. He seemed to have this odd circuitry in his mind that allowed him to see himself only as the victim and never the perpetrator I thought as I watched him.

  “Really?” I said, even wondering whether he made a habit of being self-pitying. “That must be hard.”

  I found society just as annoying as he did, but there wasn’t anything about myself that I particularly wanted to defend, so I couldn’t understand why Shiraha was taking it out on me like this. Well, I dare say life is tough for him, I thought, sipping at my warm water.

  I hadn’t added a teabag since I didn’t really feel any need to drink flavored liquid.

  “That’s why I want to get married and be able to live without them bothering me all the time,” Shiraha said. “I need someone with money. I have an idea for an online business. I don’t want anyone copying my idea so I won’t go into details, but ideally I want someone who can invest in it. My idea will definitely be a success, and when it is nobody will be able to moan at me anymore.”

  “So even though you hate people meddling in your life, you’re deliberately choosing a lifestyle they won’t be able to criticize?”

  Surely that was tantamount to accepting society wholesale I thought, surprised.

  “I’m tired,” Shiraha said.

  I nodded. “I suppose it is unreasonable to feel that way. If you can get them to stop complaining just by getting married, then that would be the simple and sensible thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

  “Don’t make it sound so easy! We men have it much harder than women, you know. If you’re not yet a fully fledged member of society, then it’s get a job, and if you’ve got a job, it’s earn more money, and if you earn more money, it’s get married and have offspring. Society is continually judging us. Don’t lump me together with women. You lot have a cushy time of it,” he said sullenly.

  “Well then, marriage won’t solve anything then, will it? Isn’t it pointless?” I said. But Shiraha didn’t answer and carried on talking heatedly.

  “I read history books trying to find out when society went so wrong. But however far back I went, a hundred years, two hundred years, a thousand years, it was always wrong. Even if you go back as far as the Stone Age!”

  Shiraha banged his fist on the table, spilling jasmine tea from his cup.

  “And so I realized. This society hasn’t changed one bit. People who don’t fit into the village are expelled: men who don’t hunt, women who don’t give birth to children. For all we talk about modern society and individualism, anyone who doesn’t try to fit in c
an expect to be meddled with, coerced, and ultimately banished from the village.”

  “Shiraha, you do like talking about the Stone Age, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t like it. I hate it! But we live in a world that is basically the Stone Age with a veneer of contemporary society, you know. Strong men who bring home a good catch have women flocking around them, and they marry the prettiest girls in the village. Men who don’t join in the hunt, or who are too weak to be of any use even if they try, are despised. The setup hasn’t changed at all.”

  “Oh,” I finally managed to say. But I couldn’t say he was completely wrong. It was probably the same as the convenience store, where it was just us being continually replaced while the store remained the same unchanging scene.

  This place really doesn’t ever change, does it? The words of the old lady in the store echoed in my head.

  “Furukura, how can you be so unfazed by it all? Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”

  “What? Why?”

  “You’re still in a dead-end job at your age, and nobody’s going to marry an old maid like you now. You’re like secondhand goods. Even if you are a virgin, you’re grubby. You’re like a Stone Age woman past childbearing age who can’t get married and is left to just hang around the village, of no use to anyone, just a burden. I’m a man, so I can still make a comeback, but there’s no hope for you, is there, Furukura?”

  Up until now he’d been ranting about people meddling in his life, yet here he was attacking me with the same kinds of reproaches that were making him suffer. His argument was falling apart I thought. Maybe people who thought they were being violated felt a bit better when they attacked other people in the same way.

  “And I wanted coffee!” he said petulantly, as if he’d only just noticed he was drinking jasmine tea. I stood up, went to the drink bar to pour some coffee, and placed it in front of him.

  “Ugh. The coffee in places like this is awful.”

  “Shiraha, if all you want is a marriage of convenience, then how about getting together with me?” I broached as I put my second cup of warm water on the table and took a seat.

  “What the—” he exploded.

  “If you hate people interfering in your life so much and don’t want to be kicked out of the village, then the sooner you get it over and done with the better, surely,” I persisted. “I don’t know about hunting—I mean, getting a job—but getting married will at least remove the risk of people sticking their noses into your love life and sexual history, won’t it?”

  “What the hell are you saying? That’s ridiculous! I’m sorry, but there’s no way I’ll ever be able to get it up with you, Furukura.”

  “Get it up? Um, what has that got to do with marriage? Marriage is a matter of paperwork, an erection is a physiological phenomenon.”

  Shiraha kept quiet, so I explained further. “You’re probably right about society being in the Stone Age. Anyone not needed in the village is persecuted and shunned. Ultimately, it’s no different from a convenience store. Anyone the store doesn’t need has their shifts reduced or is fired.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “To stay in a convenience store, you have to become a store worker. That’s simple enough, you just wear a uniform and do as the manual says. And before you say anything, it was the same in Stone Age society, too. As long as you wear the skin of what’s considered an ordinary person and follow the manual, you won’t be driven out of the village or treated as a burden.”

  “I haven’t a clue what you’re blathering on about.”

  “In other words, you play the part of the fictitious creature called ‘an ordinary person’ that everyone has in them. Just like everyone in the convenience store is playing the part of the fictitious creature called ‘a store worker.’”

  “But that’s painful. That’s why I’m so bothered by it.”

  “Shiraha, until just a moment ago you were going along with it, weren’t you? But when push comes to shove it’s hard after all? Well, I guess anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering.”

  Shiraha glared at his coffee, apparently with nothing to say.

  “But if it’s that hard, there’s really no need to go overboard. Unlike you, there are many things I don’t really care about either way. It’s just that since I don’t have any particular purpose of my own, if the village wants things to be a certain way then I don’t mind going along with that.”

  You eliminate the parts of your life that others find strange—maybe that’s what everyone means when they say they want to “cure” me.

  These past two weeks I’d been asked fourteen times why I wasn’t married. And twelve times why I was still working part-time. So for now I’d decide what to eliminate from my life according to what I was asked about most often I thought.

  Deep down I wanted some kind of change. Any change, whether good or bad, would be better than the state of impasse I was in now. Shiraha still didn’t answer and just sat there staring solemnly at the coffee before him as if a hole had opened in its black surface.

  * * *

  Eventually I stood up and said, “I’ll be off then.” But then Shiraha started vaguely muttering things like: “You know, now that I think about it …” And more time went by as he droned on.

  As his words haltingly came out, it became clear he was sharing an apartment but was in arrears with the rent and about to be kicked out. In the past, whenever he had to weather a situation he would go back to his parents’ house in Hokkaido, but five years ago his younger brother had married and the house had been converted for the two families to live in together. Now that his brother’s wife and their son were there, there was no place for him. Previously he’d always managed to wheedle money out of them, but his sister-in-law had apparently taken a dislike to him and he couldn’t easily do that anymore.

  “Since that bitch butted in, things have gotten weird. She’s a fine one to talk, living off my brother like a parasite and lording it over everyone. She can fuck right off!”

  He driveled on about himself, venting his pent-up resentment, and after a while I stopped listening and started looking at the clock.

  It was already nearly eleven. I was working the next day, and I was running the risk of being short of sleep on the job. And as manager #2 had told me, my hourly pay covered the basic requirement to condition my body so it was fit to take to work.

  “So, Shiraha, are you coming to my place? As long as you pay for food, you can stay there.”

  He didn’t seem to have anywhere to go and would probably drag the conversation out until morning here by the restaurant’s drinks bar if I let him. He started muttering “um …” and “well, but …” But I’d had enough and dragged him off back home with me.

  Once we were in the confined space of my apartment, I realized that he stank, as though he’d been homeless for some time. I told him to have a bath and pushed him into the bathroom with a towel and shut the door. When I heard the sound of the shower, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  He was in the bathroom for a long time, and I was falling asleep waiting for him when it suddenly occurred to me to call my sister.

  “Hello?” came my sister’s voice. It was barely this side of midnight, but she was apparently still up.

  “Sorry to call so late. How’s little Yutaro?”

  “No problem. He’s fast asleep, and I was just taking it easy. What’s up?”

  The vision of my nephew’s face asleep there in my sister’s house came to mind. My sister’s life was progressing. At any rate, a living being that hadn’t existed before was now there with her. Was she, like my mother, hoping for some change in my life? By way of an experiment, I decided to confess to her.

  “It doesn’t warrant calling you in the middle of the night, but … well, the truth is, there’s a man in my home now.”

  “Eh!” Her voice sounded like it had come out the wrong way, more like a hiccup. I was ab
out to ask if she was all right when she interrupted me, almost shouting in her confusion. “What, really? No kidding! Since when? What happened? What’s he like?”

  Overwhelmed by her onslaught, I answered, “Oh, not long. It’s someone from work.”

  “Ah, I see. Congratulations!”

  “Really?” I was a bit taken aback by her congratulating me without even asking for any more details.

  “I don’t know what he’s like, but it’s the first time you’ve ever said anything of the sort to me so, well … I’m so pleased for you! I’m behind you all the way.”

  “You are?”

  “And the fact that you’ve reported it to me, does that by any chance mean you’re already thinking about getting married? Oh, I’m sorry. Maybe I’m jumping the gun, here …”

  She’d never been this chatty with me before. Seeing how excited she was, it occurred to me that it wasn’t such a stretch to say that contemporary society was still stuck in the Stone Age after all. So the manual for life already existed. It was just that it was already ingrained in everyone’s heads, and there wasn’t any need to put it in writing. The specific form of what is considered an “ordinary person” had been there all along, unchanged since prehistoric times I finally realized.

  “Keiko, I’m so happy for you. You’ve been struggling for so long, but at last you’ve found someone who understands …”

  She was getting carried away with making up a story for herself. She might just as well have been saying I was “cured.” If it had been that simple all along, I thought, I wish she’d given me clear instructions before, then I wouldn’t have had to go to such lengths to find out how to be normal.

  * * *

  When I hung up, Shiraha was standing there looking lost.

  “Oh, you don’t have any change of clothes, do you? Use this. It’s the uniform from when the store opened. I was given a new one when they changed the design. It’s unisex, so it should fit okay.”

  Shiraha hesitated a moment, then he took the green top and put it on over his bare skin. His arms and legs were so long it looked a bit small on him, but at least he could close the zip. He only had a towel wound round his lower body, so I handed him some short pants I kept for wearing at home.