The two of them walked to the very end of the shopping street, with no one paying them the least bit of attention, and then headed toward the residential district, which was now swathed in darkness. And that night, the director stayed over in her apartment.
The following day was a Monday—the first Monday of the month. Which meant the hotel manager would attend the morning meeting.
“Ten bath towels, ten hand towels, five bath mats, ten sets of cups and saucers, five wineglasses, five champagne glasses, and three teapots.” The officer was reading from a notepad he held in his hand. He had an unusually stern look on his face.
“It’s not clear whether these items were taken by hotel guests, or whether they have gone missing within the hotel itself. . . .”
Here he paused for a moment and slowly scanned the room.
“And these are just the items from last month alone. I find it hard to believe that they’ve simply been misplaced. I can only conclude that someone has taken them home with them. Starting today, I’m going to require each floor’s supervisor and the individual room maids to carry a checklist around with them, and to take inventory for every room each time it’s cleaned. I hope I make myself perfectly clear.”
When the housekeeping officer departed, the staff immediately erupted in protest.
“What the heck is he implying?! It’s like he suspects us!”
“Overbearing twerp! What does he mean, take inventory each time? If he’s so worried, why doesn’t he come and inspect the rooms himself! Outrageous.”
“Truly. Anyway, why would anyone want to steal ten or twenty cups and glasses at a time? To use at home? I doubt it!”
“No way! Not those things.”
“The director is always bowing and scraping to that guy. That’s why that guy thinks it’s okay to be so condescending to us. . . .”
“The director is the older one, right? Why doesn’t he just tell him to shut up!”
“Oh, he’s never going to do that. Not the director. He’s got other things on his mind.”
“. . .”
“Hey, did any of you see? Those two have both taken the day off today. . . .”
“They did yesterday too.”
“Yuck! They’ve got nerve, haven’t they!”
“Do you know how much the director’s ‘little lady friend’ gets paid?”
“How much?”
“One thousand yen per hour. One thousand yen!”
“One thousand yen? That’s more than the supervisors get!”
“Is that true?” Supervisor Tsukada, listening in silence till now, leaned forward. “Is that really how much his ‘little lady friend’ is getting?”
The truth was far from clear, but before you could blink an eye, everybody was telling everyone else that the Woman in the Purple Skirt was getting one thousand yen per hour. This won her yet another batch of enemies, without her even being aware of it. As soon as word got out that she and the director were in a relationship, everyone had immediately stopped referring to her as “Hino-chan.” But now the entire staff, including the supervisors, started simply ignoring her.
One thing I can say about this line of work, though, is that if people ignore you, it doesn’t make much difference.
As a hotel maid who had completed her training, the Woman in the Purple Skirt had no difficulty finishing any job that was assigned to her, even if nobody spoke to her the entire day. There was no need, none at all, for her to have a chat with anyone over the course of the day. The Woman in the Purple Skirt went about her work with a total lack of concern on her face.
She maintained that expression when she passed other staff in the corridors, even if they were older. One time, I got a nice little surprise: I was waiting to get in the elevator when the Woman in the Purple Skirt came rushing out of it, and we almost collided. But she was holding in her hands a trash bag, which knocked against me, causing me to lose my balance and fall flat on my bottom. The Woman in the Purple Skirt didn’t even give me a glance, and she fled the scene without saying a word.
I pretended to be picking a fuzz off the floor, then regained my composure and got into the elevator. A sweet fragrance pervaded every corner. It was the scent of the Woman in the Purple Skirt. Supervisor Tsukada described the scent as “rotten bananas.” “You can always tell where the director’s little lady friend has just been—from the stink of her perfume!”
I assumed the director liked her to wear it. And it wasn’t only perfume that she had taken to wearing: nowadays she occasionally came to work wearing nail polish. Needless to say, this was against the rules. When Supervisor Hamamoto, who could not let this pass, told her to remove it, the Woman in the Purple Skirt simply left the room. The staff had been trying to give her the silent treatment, but it was beginning to seem like the other way around.
Incidentally, it wasn’t only that one night that the director stayed over at the Woman in the Purple Skirt’s place. He visited her after that too, several times. Sometimes he stayed the night after a date. Sometimes he would just pop over in his car after work. Checking my diary, I see that the week before last, on Monday, he stayed overnight. On Tuesday he didn’t go over. Neither did he go over on Wednesday. On Thursday, though, he went over, and stayed the night. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday he didn’t visit. Looking at this week, I see that on Monday he stayed over.
