21st Century Literature

Blue Demon by Kaori Ekuni

(An excerpt) Translated by Emi Shimokaw

Shoko is still on the phone---unusual for her. True, she wasn't the one doing the talking, and she'd probably have hung up a while ago if she could have. Shoko hated the phone.

"You should call her," Kon used to tell me,and in the beginning I called Shoko pretty often. When I say in the beginning, I mean when I first met Shoko and we started seeing each other. Before we got married,obviously. According to Kon, all women were secret agents in the employ of the telephone company. But whenever I spoke to Shoko on the phone, she always sounded irritated.

"Maybe we should to talk about this phone thing,"she said one day.

"What phone thing?" I said, looking down at the ten-yen coin I was holding in my hand. It was a rainy night,and I was calling her from a phone in some bar with a wild west theme.

"I mean, don't feel like you have to keep calling me all the time." she said .

"Anyway, you don't really like talking on the phone either, do you ,mutsuki?"

I had to admit she was right. " No. How did you know?"

I looked over at Kon,who was sitting at the bar drinking with his back to me.

I vowed then never to heed his theories about women again.

"Wanna drink?" A glass was thrust in my front of my face. Shoko's long phone conversation have come to an end and I had-n't noticed.

"What's this?"

"it's called a silver streak---gin and kummel."

It was clear like sake. I took a sip just to be polite, and gave it back to Shoko.

Receiving the glass, she savored a mouthful,swallowed it slowly,and smiled with contentment.

"Seems Mizuho is having mother-in-law problems."

"Oh?"

Mizuho was Shoko's best friend from high school. Her one and only friend,

according to Shoko. Cheerful and lively, Mizuho was so wildly different from Shoko that the few times I had been pretty engrossing.

"I guess most mother-in-law are impossible,"Shoko said. Then she added,

"In our case,she's really nice" with such sincerity that I felt a little bad.

At long last the gay son, who had happily vowed to die a bachelor,had come across a women to his liking. It was only proper that his mother should be really nice to the women for agreeing to a sexless union and becoming his wife. Shoko leaving me was my mother's idea of disaster.

"The business of medicine involves trust,"my mother to remind me.

"Being single forever isn't good for your reputation.

Suddenly,a cushion came flying across the room and hit me in the face. I looked up to find Shoko sitting on the sofa, her lips drawn tightly together in to straight line.

"Your not listening."

Shoko's always quick to start throwing thing around.

"Sorry. We were talking about Mizuho, right?"

"Yeah, and tomorrow I'm supposed to go over to her place. I might be a little late.

Is that fine?"

I siad it was fine. "Want me to pick out around nine?"

Shoko shook her head and looked me straight in the eye.

"Why don't you go see Kon for a change?" Her tone was serious, as if we were