15



This Could Be the End of the Line
(May Kasahara's Point of View: 3)

*


Hi, again, Mr. Wind-Up Bird.
Last time, I got as far as telling you about how I'm working in this wig factory in the
mountains far away with a lot of local girls. This is the continuation of that letter.
Lately, it's really been bothering me that, I don't know, the way people work like this
every day from morning to night is kind of weird. Hasn't it ever struck you as strange? I
mean, all I do here is do the work that my bosses tell me to do the way they tell me to do it. I
don't have to think at all. It's like I just put my brain in a locker before I start work and pick it
up on the way home. I spend seven hours a day at a workbench, planting hairs into wig bases,
then I eat dinner in the cafeteria, take a bath, and of course I have to sleep, like everybody
else, so out of a twenty-four-hour day, the amount of free time I have is like nothing. And be-
cause I'm so tired from work, the "free time" I have I mostly spend lying around in a fog. I
don't have any time to sit and think about anything. Of course, I don't have to work on
weekends, but then I have to do the laundry and cleaning I've let go, and sometimes I go into
town, and before I know it the weekend is over. I once made up my mind to keep a diary, but I
had nothing to write, so I quit after a week. I mean, I just do the same thing over and over
again, day in, day out.
But still- but still- it absolutely does not bother me that I'm now just a part of the work I
do. I don't feel the least bit alienated from my life. If anything, I sometimes feel that by
concentrating on my work like this, with all the mindless determination of an ant, I'm getting
closer to the "real me." I don't know how to put it, but it's kind of like by not thinking about
myself I can get closer to the core of my self. That's what I mean by "kind of weird."
I'm giving this job everything I've got. Not to boast, but I've even been named worker of
the month. I told you, I may not look it, but I'm really good at handiwork. We divide up into
teams when we work, and any team I join improves its figures. I do things like helping the
slower girls when I'm finished with my part of a job. So now I'm popular with the other girls.
Can you believe it? Me, popular! Anyway, what I wanted to tell you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, is
that all I've been doing since I came to this factory is work, work, work. Like an ant. Like the
village blacksmith. Have I made myself clear so far?
Anyway, the place where I do my actual work is really weird. It's huge, like a hangar,
with a great, high roof, and wide open. A hundred and fifty girls sit lined up working there.
It's quite a sight. Of course, they didn't have to put up such a monster factory. It's not as if
we're building submarines or anything. They could have divided us up into separate rooms.
But maybe they figured it would increase our sense of communal solidarity to have that many
people working together in one place. Or maybe it's just easier for the bosses to oversee the
whole bunch of us at once. I'll bet they're using whatchamacallit psychology on us. We're


divided up into teams, surrounding workbenches just like the ones in science class where you
dissect frogs, and one of the older girls sits at the end as team leader. It's OK to talk as long
as you keep your hands moving (I mean, you can't just shut up and do this stuff all day long),
but if you talk or laugh too loud or get too engrossed in your conversation, the team leader
will come over to you with a frown and say, "All right, Yumiko, let's keep the hands moving,
not the mouth. Looks like you're falling behind," So we all whisper to each other like
burglars in the night.
They pipe music into the factory. The style changes, depending on the time of day. If
you're a big fan of Barry Manilow or Air Supply, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, you might like this
place.
It takes me a few days to make one of "my" wigs. The time differs according to the grade
of the product, of course, but you have to measure the time it takes to make a wig in days.
First you divide the base into checkerboard squares, and then you plant hair into one square
after another in order. It's not assembly line work, though, like the factory in Chaplin's
movie, where you tighten one bolt and then the next one comes; each wig is "mine." I almost
feel like signing and dating each one when I'm through with it- But I don't, of course: they'd
just get mad at me. It's a really nice feeling to know, though, that someone out there in the
world is wearing the wig I made on his head. It sort of gives me a sense of, I don't know,
connectedness.
Life is so strange, though. If somebody had said to me three years ago, "Three years from
now, you're going to be in a factory in the mountains making wigs with a lot of country
girls," I would have laughed in their face. I could never have imagined this. And as for what
I'll be doing three years from now: nobody knows the answer to that one, either. Do you
know what you're going to be doing three years from now, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? I'm sure you
don't. Forget about three years: I'd be willing to bet all the money I've got here that you
don't know what you'll be doing a month from now!
The girls around me, though, know pretty much where they'll be in three years. Or at least
they think they do. They think they're going to save the money they make here, find the right
guy after a few years, and be happily married.
The guys these girls are going to marry are mostly farmers' sons or guys who will inherit
the store from their fathers or guys working in small local companies. Like I said before,
there's a chronic shortage of young women here, so they get "bought up" pretty quickly. It
would take some really bad luck for anybody to be left over, so they all find somebody or
other to marry. It's really something. And as I said in my last letter, most people quit work
when they get married. Their job in the wig factory is just a stage that fills the few years' gap
between graduating from high school and getting married- kind of like a room they come into,
stay in a little while, then leave.
Not only does the wig company not mind this; they seem to prefer to have the girls work
just a few years and quit when they get married. It's a lot better for them to have a constant
turnover in workers rather than to have to worry about salaries and benefits and unions and
stuff like that. The company takes somewhat better care of the girls with ability who become
team leaders, but the other, ordinary girls are just consumer goods to them. There's a tacit
understanding, then, between the girls and the company that they will get married and quit.
So for the girls, imagining what is going to happen three years from now involves only one of
two possibilities: they'll either be looking for a mate while they go on working here, or they
will have quit work to get married. Talk about simplicity!
There just isn't anybody around here like me, who is thinking to herself, I don't know
what's going to happen to me three years from now. They are all good workers. Nobody does
a half-baked job or complains about the work. Now and then, I'll hear somebody griping
about the cafeteria food, that's all. Of course, this is work we're talking about, so it can't be
fun all the time; you might have somebody putting in her hours from nine to five because she


has to, even though she really wants to run off for the day, but for the most part, I think
they're enjoying the work. It must be because they know this is a finite period suspended
between one world and another. That's why they want to have as much fun as possible while
they're here. Finally, this is just a transition point for them.
Not for me, though. This is no time of suspension or transition for me. I have absolutely no
idea where I'm going from here. For me, this could be the end of the line. Do you see what I
mean? So strictly speaking, I am not enjoying the work here. All I'm doing is trying to accept
the work in every possible way. When I'm making a wig, I don't think about anything but
making that wig. I'm deadly serious- enough so that I break out in a sweat all over.
I don't quite know how to put this, but lately I've been sort of thinking about the boy who
got killed in the motorcycle accident. To tell you the truth, I haven't thought too much about
him before. Maybe the shock of the accident twisted my memory or something in a weird way,
because all I remembered about him were these weird kinds of things, like his smelly armpits
or what a totally dumb guy he was or his fingers trying to get into strange places of mine.
Every once in a while, though, something not so bad about him comes back to me. Especially
when my mind is empty and I'm just planting hairs in a wig base, these things come back to
me out of nowhere. Oh, yeah, I'll think, he was like that. I guess time doesn't flow in order,
does it- A, B, C, D? It just sort of goes where it feels like going.
Can I be honest with you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird? I mean, really, really, really honest?
Sometimes I get sooo scared! I'll wake up in the middle of the night all alone, hundreds of
miles away from anybody, and it's pitch dark, and I have absolutely no idea what's going to
happen to me in the future, and I get so scared I want to scream. Does that happen to you,
Mr. Wind-Up Bird? When it happens, I try to remind myself that I am connected to others-
other things and other people. I work as hard as I can to list their names in my head. On the
list, of course, is you, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. And the alley, and the well, and the persimmon tree,
and that kind of thing. And the wigs that I've made here with my own hands. And the little bits
and pieces I remember about the boy. All these little things (though you're not just another
one of those little things, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, but anyhow ... ) help me to come back "here"
little by little. Then I start to feel sorry I never really let my boyfriend see me naked or touch
me. Back then, I was absolutely determined not to let him put his hands on me. Sometimes,
Mr. Wind-Up Bird, I think I'd like to stay a virgin the rest of my life. Seriously. What do you
think about that?
Bye-bye, Mr. Wind-Up Bird. I hope Kumiko comes back soon.