“Em, well, I don’t think I made a ‘declaration’ exactly. . . .”
“You know, when she told me, I felt a sense of . . . how can I put it . . . intense personal joy. That’s right. Personal joy.”
“Director . . .”
“That’s right. I felt a kind of personal joy.”
As I eavesdropped on this conversation, I found myself feeling irritated. Not once had the Woman in the Purple Skirt mentioned that she’d had her nose tweaked.
Perhaps she thought the person who had touched her bottom had also pinched her nose? Well, it wasn’t him. It was me.
The next morning I took my place in line at the bus stop, having decided on a particular course of action. I would try tweaking her nose again. Yesterday so many people had come up to her. Hey, I heard some pervert groped you? You poor thing, that must’ve been awful! And each time someone commiserated, she replied: “Yes, I know! It was awful!” And: “Yes, I know! Some weirdo touched my bottom!”
As far as I could tell, she never mentioned, not even once, that her nose had been tweaked. I had tweaked it—I was sure of that. Or maybe it wasn’t actually her nose that I had tweaked. Had I tweaked someone else’s? It was unclear. Anyway, if things continued as they were, it would be as if something I’d done had not actually happened at all.
So I would do it again. And this time, much harder. I might dig my nails into the flesh on the top of her nose, and make her bleed.
The Woman in the Purple Skirt might fly into a rage, and then grab me and drag me off the bus. But I didn’t care. That would allow me to tell her who I was, and to apologize to her, and beg her forgiveness. And then we could become friends.
But despite my well-laid plans, that morning there was no sign of the Woman in the Purple Skirt.
After watching the 8:02 bus come and go, I sat down on the bench at the bus stop and continued waiting for her. The next bus would get me in late, but if that’s what it took, I could accept it.
By the time the next bus arrived, there was still no sign of her. Maybe it was her day off? Impossible, I thought, and quickly checked my diary. No, her next day off was Monday. Definitely not today.
I ended up waiting a full hour, but she didn’t appear.
Since I had missed the morning meeting, I did a quick check of the whiteboard in the office for the occupancy rate and list of nonbookable rooms. In the column for “Other Items” was a catalog of the previous day’s oversights, written in the director’s messy scrawl—“Room 210: Tea not replenished. Room 709: Bathtub not cleaned. Room 811: Window left unlocked.”—together with the usual stern warning: “NOTE: The figures for toiletries and amenities do not add up! Any items that go missing should be reported to your floor supervisor immediately!” After punching in, I took a look at the Woman in the Purple Skirt’s time card, and saw that she had arrived at 8:50 a.m. This was almost the exact same time that she had arrived on her second day.
What could this mean? If she hadn’t taken the bus, had she come by train? But she still would have had to board the bus to get to the train station. Had she taken a taxi? How much would that have cost—maybe three thousand yen? It was hard to imagine she had that kind of money just lying around. In which case, maybe she had walked to work? That would probably take a good two hours, and she would have worn herself out before the workday even began.
That day, however, she was even more energetic than usual.
When I peeked in on her, I saw her darting all over the room, cloth in one hand, little dust mop in the other.
“Quickly! Hurry up!” Supervisor Tsukada was saying. “Get every speck of dust!”
“Yes! Understood!” came the crisp reply.
This seemed to make Supervisor Tsukada only ratchet up the pressure.
“Five minutes left! Quick! Quick! Tomorrow you’ll have to do this all on your own!”
“Got it! Understood!”
That afternoon, in the final few minutes before the Woman in the Purple Skirt was due to go home, Supervisor Tsukada stamped her seal on a certificate, signifying that the Woman in the Purple Skirt had successfully completed the training.
This was her fifth day at work. It was unheard of for this to happen. Normally it took people a whole month, or two—and sometimes, for the slowest ones, half a year. Everyone, from the director to the other cleaning staff, was shocked.
As for what it meant for the Woman in the Purple Skirt, well, getting recognized as a full-fledged room cleaner in such a short time clearly gave a boost to her self-confidence. Beginning the very next day, she would be walking around with a master key dangling from her waist, giving her access to all the rooms. As she walked past me, she seemed very pleased with herself.
This was something that everyone on staff experienced, not just her: a definite air of relaxation—call it a lightness in their step—the very second they got that official stamp certifying they’ve completed their training. And it’s understandable. During training, their every move is scrutinized—they get told off, occasionally treated quite sadistically, made to do the same task over and over again till they get it absolutely right—so, not surprisingly, they become cowed. Their recognition as full-fledged employees means liberation—finally they can get out from under those supervisors. They can unlock the rooms, clean them, exit, and lock the doors—all by themselves. At last, they are in charge—of everything. In place of the pressure from all the responsibilities, the feeling of freedom must be exhilarating.
And sure enough, recently, some marked differences did seem
