It’s this apartment that the Woman in the Purple Skirt leaves when she goes to work. I have an idea, you know, that the people in the shopping district assume she doesn’t work. And to be honest, that’s what I too thought. A woman like that, I said to myself—I bet she’s unemployed. That’s what I assumed. But I was wrong. The Woman in the Purple Skirt is employed. How else would she be able to afford her cream bun or, for that matter, her rent?
But she doesn’t work full time. Sometimes she is working, sometimes she is not. And her workplace seems to change over and over again. She’s had a job at a screw-making factory, a toothbrush-making factory, an eye-drop-bottle-making factory . . . The jobs all seem to be for just a few days, or at most a few weeks. She’ll be out of work for a really long time, then suddenly be employed for a whole month. I’ve written down her work record in my diary. Last year, in September, she was working. In October she didn’t work. In November she worked for only the first half of the month. In December she was working, but for only the first half of the month. This year, her first job started on January 10. In February she worked. In March she worked. In April she didn’t work. In May, apart from the annual Golden Week holiday, she was working. In June she worked. In July she worked. In August she worked for only the second half. In September she didn’t work. In October she worked on and off. And now, in November, it seems she is out of work.
When she does work, it is always at a job that involves getting up at the break of dawn and returning late in the evening. She comes straight home, obviously shattered, without stopping off anywhere to get something for dinner. If she does have a rare day off, she stays shut up inside her apartment.
Nowadays, I catch sight of her constantly, at all times of the day: sometimes in the park, sometimes in the shopping district. While it’s difficult to keep tabs on her every minute of every hour, from the look of it I’d say the Woman in the Purple Skirt is in good health. And if she’s in good health, you can be pretty certain she’s out of work.
I want to become friends with the Woman in the Purple Skirt. But how?
That’s all I can think about. But all that happens is that the days go by.
It would be weird to go up to her and say “Hi” out of the blue. I’m willing to bet that in her entire life the Woman in the Purple Skirt has probably never had anyone tell her they’d like to get to know her. I know I haven’t. Does anyone ever have that said to them? It seems so forced. I just want to talk to her. It’s not as if I’m making a pass at her.
But how do I go about it? I think the first thing to do would be to introduce myself formally to her—in a way that wouldn’t feel too forced. Now, if we were students at the same school or coworkers in the same company, it might be possible.
So here I am in the park. I am sitting on one of the three benches on the south side. The bench nearest the park entrance. In front of my face I’m holding yesterday’s newspaper. I picked it out of the garbage can a few minutes ago.
The bench next to the bench next to mine is the Exclusively Reserved Seat. On the end of it is a magazine of job listings, the type available for free at any convenience store. Less than ten minutes ago, the Woman in the Purple Skirt was making her purchase in the bakery. If I know anything about her daily routine, she always drops by the park on days she goes to the bakery. And sure enough, just as I finish reading an entry in the advice column about a man in his thirties in the second year of a sexless marriage wondering if he should get a divorce, I hear the sound of her footsteps.
Hm. That was quick. I peer over the top of my newspaper. It’s a man dressed in an ordinary gray suit. So it wasn’t her after all. On second thought, the sound of his footsteps was quite different. He trudges past me, letting the soles of his shoes drag along the ground, seemingly exhausted, and then plops himself down on the bench in the far corner.
Very likely a salaryman from some office in the city, out paying courtesy calls to potential clients. I notice he carries a black briefcase. Let me guess. Having traipsed into every remotely promising shop in the shopping district with not a single taker, he is now going to take a snooze in the park on the sly. There are five benches total in the park (three on the south side, two on the north). You can always tell the ones who are first-time visitors by the bench they choose. I felt sorry for him, seeing how exhausted he was. But tough luck. It was time to get him to move.
I approached him to explain the situation, but he just glanced up at me with a look of menace in his eyes. Even so, a reserved seat is a reserved seat. Rules are rules.
