Mrs Ryoko

We surpassed the cliff a few minutes later, and the city of Senzuru came into the picture below us.

The day was gloomy, everything in hues of grey. It was my early glance at the world outside Yoroido, and I did not think I would miss much.

I could see the thatched canopies of the city around an inlet, amid pale hills, and beyond them, the metal-coloured sea smashed with splinters of white.

Inland, the geography might have been attractive but for the caravan, paths ran across it like a wound.

Senzuru was particularly a dirty, smelly town. Even the ocean had a horrible odour as if all the fish in it were decaying. Around the legs of the wharf, chunks of vegetables bounced like the jellyfish in our little bay.

The yachts were scratched up, some of their woods crushed; they looked to me as if they had been battling with one another.

Yukiko and I sat a lengthy while on the wharf until at duration Mr Hiroki summoned us inside the Japan Coastal Seafood Company's headquarters and directed us down a long hallway.

The hallway could not have scented more strongly of fish bellies if we had even been inside a fish. But down at the end, to my awe, was an office, beautiful to my nine-year-old eyes. Inner the entrance, Yukiko and I stood in our bare feet on a wet floor of stone.

Before us, a stride led up to an outlet wrapped with tatami mats. Probably this is what influenced me so; the elevated flooring made everything look grander.

In any case, I assumed it was the most wonderful room I had ever seen—though it makes me giggle now to assume that the department of a fish supplier in a small town on the Japan Sea could have made such an appearance on anyone.

On the outlet sat an aged woman on a cushion, who rose when she saw us and descended to the rim to organize herself on her knees. She was aged and cranky-looking, and I don't assume you could ever encounter anyone who fidgeted more.

When she was not rubbing her kimono, she was dabbing something from the nook of her eye or scuffing her nose, all the while moaning as though she felt very unhappy there was so greatly shivering to be done.

Mr Hiroki said to her, "This is Akemi-chan and her senior sister, Yukiko-san."

I gave a small bow, to which Mrs Ryoko reacted with a nod.

Then she gave the massive sigh she had given yet and started to snatch with one hand at a coarse patch on her neck. I would have preferred to peer away, but her gaze was fixed on mine.

"Well! You are Yukiko-san, are you?" she said.

But she was still glancing right at me.

"I'm Yukiko," said my sister.

"When were you born?"

Yukiko however appeared sceptical about which of us Mrs Ryoko was talking to, so I retorted for her.

"She is the year of the cow," I said.

The aged woman reached out and stroked me with her fingers. But she did it most uniquely, by fiddling me many times in the jaw.

I realized she implied it as a stroke because she wore a gracious look.

"This one is somewhat beautiful, isn't she? Such extraordinary eyes! And you can see that she is smart. Just look at her forehead."

Here she whirled to my sister again and said, "Now, then. The year of the cow; is fifteen years old; the planet Venus; is six, white. Hmm . . . Come a little closer."

Yukiko did as she was told. Mrs Ryoko started to assess her face, not only with her stares but with her fingertips. She spent time scanning Yukiko's nose from several angles, and her ears.

She squeezed the lobes several times, then groaned to signify she was done with Yukiko and twirled to me.

"You are the year of the monkey. I can tell it just staring at you. What a big deal of water you have! Eight, white; the planet Saturn. And a very elegant girl you are. Come closer."

Now she continued to do the same thing to me, squeezing my ears and so on. I kept speculating about how she had scraped at the coarse patch on her neck with these same fingers.

Immediately she got to her feet and got down onto the pebble floor where we stood. She took a while getting her awry feet into her zori, but finally swerved toward Mr Hiroki and gave him a peek he appeared to comprehend at once, because he left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Mrs Ryoko loosened the peasant shirt Yukiko was scraping and discarded it. She moved Yukiko's breast around a little, stared under her arms, and then turned her around and peeked at her back. I was in such a state of surprise, I could hardly bring myself to stare.

I had seen Yukiko's nudity before, but the way Mrs Ryoko dealt with her body appeared even more outrageous to me than when Yukiko had clenched her bathing cloth up for the Yoshiro boy.

Then, as if she had not done sufficiently already, Mrs Ryoko pulled Yukiko's pants to the floor, glanced her up and down, and turned her around to face the front again.

"Step away from your pants," she said.

Yukiko's face was more troubled than I had discerned it in a long while, but she strode out of her pants and left them on the moist pebble floor. Mrs Ryoko grabbed her by the shoulders and placed her on the platform.

Yukiko was bare; I am certain she had no more understanding of why she should be squatting there than I did. But she had no time to contemplate about it either, for immediately Mrs Ryoko had put her hands on Yukiko's knees and lay them apart.

And without a moment of reluctance, she entered her hand between Yukiko's legs. After this, I could no longer draw myself to supervise.

I guess Yukiko must have restrained, for Mrs Ryoko gave a scream, and at the same time I heard a wild smack, which was Mrs Ryoko smacking Yukiko on the leg—as I could explain later from the red imprint there. In a minute Mrs Ryoko was finished and told Yukiko to put her dress back on.

While she was adorning, Yukiko gave a big whiff. She may have been sobbing, but I did not dare look at her.

Next, Mrs Ryoko came directly at me, and in a minute my pants were down around my knees, and my shirt was pulled off me just as Yukiko's had been.

I had no breast for the aged woman to push around, but she peeked under my arms just as she had done with my sister, and twirled me around too, before placing me on the forum and yanking my pants off my legs. I was scared of what she would do, and when she struggled to part my knees apart, she had to smack me on the leg just as she had smacked Yukiko, which made my throat start to scorch from holding back my tears.

She put a finger between my legs and gave what I felt like a pinch, in such a way that I yelled. When she told me to clothe again, I felt as if a barrier must realize when it's standing in the way of an entire river.

But I was scared if Yukiko or I began to weep like little children, we might look awful in Mr Hiroki's eyes.

"The girls are active," she said to Mr Hiroki when he entered back into the room, "and very acceptable. Both of them are untouched. The senior one has far too much wood, but the younger one has a nice deal of water. Beautiful too, don't you think? Her senior sister looks like a peasant beside her!"

"I am sure they are both beautiful girls in their way," he said.

"Why don't we discuss it while I stroll you out? The girls will stay here for me."

When Mr Hiroki had shut the door behind them, I bent to see Yukiko squatting on the edge of the platform, staring upward toward the ceiling.

Because of the mood on her face, tears were fused along the roofs of her nostrils, and I gush into tears myself the moment I saw her distressed. I felt myself condemn her for what had transpired and dabbed her face with the edge of my peasant shirt.

"Who was that terrible woman?" she said to me.

"She must be a seer. Maybe Mr Hiroki wishes to understand as much about us as he can . . ."

"But why should she stare at us in that awful way!"

"Yukiko-san, don't you get it?" I said.

"Mr Hiroki is intending to obtain us."

When she heard this, Yukiko started to flicker as if a bug had trudged into her eye.

"What are you saying?" she said.

"Mr Hiroki can't accept us."

"Father is so aged . . . and now that our mother is ill, I guess Mr Hiroki is concerned about our future. There won't be anyone to look after us."

Yukiko stood, she was so disturbed to hear this. In a minute her eyes had started to blink, and I could see she was difficult at work ready herself to assume that nobody was going to take us away from our tipsy house.

She was squeezing out the things I had informed her in the same way you might squeeze water from a leech. Slowly her face began to loosen up again, and she sat down once more on the rim of the forum.

In a moment she was staring around the room as if we had never discussed it at all.