Inside the bus, the Woman in the Purple Skirt was completely obscured by clumps of salarymen. From where I stood, I could catch a glimpse of only a portion of her head and her shoulder. One of the men was having a good sniff of the Woman in the Purple Skirt’s hair. She must still be using my “fresh floral”–scented shampoo. Maybe she’d washed her hair that very morning. Any day now, surely, she was going to run out of those samples. And what would happen then? Was her hair going to go back to being all dry and stiff again? She wouldn’t get anyone sniffing her hair then.
For a moment, a gap appeared around her head, and I managed to get an unimpeded view of her face. “Oh! Hello! So you take this bus too?” Would I ever get to say that to her? Would she ever say it to me?
But something else had caught my attention. From where I stood, unable to move, I spotted a grain of rice stuck to her coat. It was on her right shoulder.
It appeared to be a cooked grain of rice that was now quite dry and hard. Supervisor Tsukada had told her that she should eat a traditional Japanese breakfast; maybe she was now doing so. For all I knew, the piece of rice could have been stuck on her shoulder for days. I wanted to pick it off for her. But pressed up against all these people, I could hardly move my hand, let alone my fingers.
Inch by inch, as stealthily as I could, I stretched out my arm toward that grain of rice. But just as my fingertips were about to pick it off her coat, the bus leaned into a series of steep curves and lurched violently, first one way and then the other. Rather than picking off the grain of rice, my fingers ended up tweaking the Woman in the Purple Skirt’s nose.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt let out an odd sound.
“Ngha—!”
As quickly as I could, I withdrew my hand.
At the next stop, a whole load of passengers started to file off the bus, and I could now see that the Woman in the Purple Skirt had a fearful expression on her face and was looking searchingly at all the people around her. She must’ve been thinking: Somebody just tweaked me on the nose; which one of these people was it? Now she was glaring straight at me, with that same accusing look in her eyes. “It was you, wasn’t it?” But no, the next second she went straight up to the man next to me—a salaryman, judging by his gray suit.
“You just touched my bottom, didn’t you!” she said.
And then, pointing straight at him, she declared:
“This man just groped me!”
The man started babbling incomprehensibly, clearly upset. But he did not deny it.
The other passengers immediately pushed forward and formed a tight ring around him.
The driver, seemingly aware of what was happening, came to an emergency stop in front of the first police box he saw.
The doors of the bus opened, and the Woman in the Purple Skirt quickly got out. The man was dragged out by the other passengers. Then the doors closed, and the bus continued on its way. From the rear window, I watched as a policeman emerged from the police box. The Woman in the Purple Skirt was handing over the man she suspected of touching her.
And so that day the Woman in the Purple Skirt arrived two hours late to work. After the morning meeting, the staff were abuzz as they waited for the elevator to take them to the hotel floors. Well, that didn’t take long, did it—for her to go AWOL. Don’t expect we’ll see her again.
Supervisor Tsukada, however, insisted there must be some explanation.
“I just don’t think she would leave without telling us.”
“Really?” one of the older cleaning ladies said doubtfully. “You don’t think it’s the usual thing happening again?”
“No, I don’t. She’s just not the type to quit without a good reason,” Supervisor Tsukada repeated.
“I don’t think so either,” Supervisor Hamamoto said.
“Oh, so you agree, Supervisor Hamamoto?”
“Yes. She is giving the training her all.”
“It’s precisely the ones who give their all who suddenly quit!” This was from another older member of staff.
Supervisor Tsukada shook her head, adamant.
“No. When you’ve been on the job as long as I have, you can tell immediately, from the look in their eyes. This one’s a keeper. I’m right, aren’t I, Supervisor Hamamoto?”
“Yes, you are.”
“Hmm. I don’t know about that . . . ,” the other woman said.
“And anyway, she told us: ‘This job is really fun!’ Didn’t she? Supervisor Hamamoto? Supervisor Tachibana?”
“Yes, she did,” Supervisor Hamamoto said.
“She did,” Supervisor Tachibana confirmed.
“A group of us went drinking a couple days ago, you see,” Supervisor Tsukada explained. “Well, why not, we thought, seeing as only about a third of the rooms were occupied. Work was over by three. The four of us left work and went straight to that cheap kushikatsu bar by the station, for drinks and skewered meats.”
“The four of you?”
“Yes. Supervisors Nakata, Nonomura, and Hori were all off that day.”
“But what about Supervisor Gondo?” asked one of the older staff, her voice very soft, perhaps hoping I wouldn’t hear. “Didn’t she go?”
“Oh, come on. You know she’s a teetotaler!” Supervisor Tsukada replied. “It’s not fair to include people like that! It only makes them feel bad.”
“Yes, and anyway, Supervisor Gondo was off that day, too,” Supervisor Tachibana added.
“Was she? That’s odd. I thought I saw her.”
“Really? You’re imagining things, I think, Supervisor Hamamoto. Supervisor Shinjo was grumbling about having to do an inventory of all the supplies since Supervisor Gondo wasn’t around.”
“Oh, okay.”
“So anyway, it was in the bar that she told us. Straight up. ‘This job is really
