Kumiko put her head down on the table. I felt as if the air in the room were gradually thinning out.
I don't know what to say, I said. I cant explain it other than to ask you to believe me. All right. If you want me to believe you, I will, she said. But I want you to remember this: I'm probably going to do the same thing to you someday. And when that time comes, I want you to believe me. I have that right.
Kumiko had never exercised that right. Every once in a while, I imagined how I would feel if she did exercise it. I would probably believe her, but my reaction would no doubt be as complex and as difficult to deal with as Kumiko's. To think that she had made a point of doing such a thing-and for what? Which was exactly how she must have felt about me back then.
Mr. Wind-Up Bird! came a voice from the garden. It was May Kasahara.
Still toweling my hair, I went out to the veranda. She was sitting on the edge, biting a thumbnail. She wore the same dark sunglasses as when I had first met her, plus cream-colored cotton pants and a black polo shirt. In her hand was a clipboard.
I climbed it, she said, pointing to the cinder-block wall. Then she brushed away the dirt clinging to her pants. I kinda figured I had the right place. I'm glad it was yours! Think if I had come over the wall into the wrong house!
She took a pack of Hope regulars from her pocket and lit up. Anyhow, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, how are you? OK, I guess. I'm going to work now, she said. Why don't you come along? We work in teams of two, and it'd be sooo much better for me to have somebody I know. Some new guy'd ask me all kinds of questions-How old are you? Why aren't you in school? Its such a pain! Or maybe he'd turn out to be a pervert. It happens, you know! Do it for me, will you, Mr. Wind- Up Bird?
Is it that job you told me about- some kind of survey for a toupee maker?
That's it, she said. All you have to do is count bald heads on the Ginza from one to four. Its easy! And it'll be good for you. You'll be bald someday too, the way you're going, so you better check it out now while you still have hair.
Yeah, but how about you? Isn't the truant officer going to get you if they see you doing this stuff on the Ginza in the middle of the day?
Nah. I just tell em its fieldwork for social studies. It always works.
With no plans for the afternoon, I decided to tag along. May Kasahara phoned her company to say we would be coming in. On the telephone, she turned into a very proper young woman: Yes, sir, I would like to team up with him, yes, that is correct, thank you very much, yes, I understand, yes, we can be there after noon. I left a note for Kumiko saying I would be back by six, in case she got home early, then I left the house with May Kasahara.
The toupee company was in Shimbashi. On the subway, May Kasahara explained how the survey worked. We were to stand on a street corner and count all the bald men (or those with thinning hair) who walked by. We were to classify them according to the degree of their baldness: C, those whose hair might have thinned somewhat; B, those who had lost a lot; and A, those who were really bald. May took a pamphlet from her folder and showed me examples of the three stages.
You get the idea pretty much, right, which heads fit which categories? I wont go into detail. It'd take all day. But you get it pretty much, right, which is which?
Pretty much, I said, without exuding a great deal of confidence.
On May Kasahara's other side sat an overweight company type-a very definite B-who kept glancing uneasily at the pamphlet, but she seemed not to notice how nervous this was making him.
I'll be in charge of putting them into categories, and you stand next to me with a survey sheet. You put them in A, B, or C, depending on what I tell you. That's all there is to it. Easy, right? I guess so, I said. But whats the point of taking a survey like this? I dunno, she said. They're doing them all over Tokyo-in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Aoyama.
Maybe they're trying to find out which neighborhood has the most bald men? Or they want to know the proportions of A, B, and C types in the population? Who knows? They've got so much money, they don't know what to do with it. So they can waste it on stuff like this. Profits are huge in the wig business. The employees get much bigger bonuses than in just any old company. Know why? No. Why?
Wigs don't last long. Bet you didn't know: toupees are good for two, maybe three years max. The better made they are, the faster they get used up. They're the ultimate consumer product. Its cause they fit so tightly against the scalp: the hair underneath gets thinner than ever. Once that happens, you have to buy a new one to get that perfect fit again. And think about it: What if you were using a toupee and it was no good after two years-what would go through your mind? Would you think, OK, my wigs worn out. Cant wear it anymore. But it'll cost too much to buy a new one, so tomorrow I'll start going to work without one? Is that what you'd think?
I shook my head. Probably not, I said.
Of course not. Once a guy starts using a wig, he has to keep using one. Its, like, his fate. That's why the wig makers make such huge profits. I hate to say it, but they're like drug dealers. Once they get their hooks into a guy, he's a customer for life. Have you ever heard of a. bald guy suddenly growing a head of hair? I never have. A wigs got to cost half a million yen at least, maybe a million for a tough one. And you need a new one every two years! Wow! Even a car lasts longer than that-four or five years. And then you can trade it in!
I see what you mean, I said.
Plus, the wig makers run their own hairstyling salons. They wash the wigs and cut the customers real hair. I mean, think about it: you cant just plunk yourself down in an ordinary barbers chair, rip off your wig, and say, Id like a trim, can you? The income from these places alone is tremendous.
You know all kinds of things, I said, with genuine admiration. The B-category company type next to May was listening to our conversation with obvious fascination.
Sure, she said. The guys at the office like me. They tell me everything. The profits in this business are huge. They make the wigs in Southeast Asia and places like that, where labor is cheap. They even get the hair there- in Thailand or the Philippines. The women sell their hair to the wig companies. That's how they earn their dowries in some places. The whole worlds so weird! The guy sitting next to you might actually be wearing the hair of some woman in Indonesia.
By reflex, I and the B-man looked around at the others in the car.
We stopped off at the company's Shimbashi office to pick up an envelope containing survey sheets and pencils. This company supposedly had a number two market share, but it was utterly discreet, without even a name plaque at the entrance, so that customers could come and go with ease. Neither the envelope nor the survey sheets bore the company name. At the survey department, I filled out a part-time workers registration form with my name, address, educational background, and age. This office was an incredibly quiet place of business. There was no one shouting into the telephone, no one banging away at a computer keyboard with sleeves rolled up. Each individual worker was neatly dressed and pursuing his or her own task with quiet concentration. As might be expected at a toupee makers office, not one man here was bald. Some might even be wearing the company's product, but it was impossible for me to tell those who were from those who weren't. Of all the companies I had ever visited, this had the strangest ambience. We took the subway to the Ginza. Early and hungry, we stopped at the Dairy Queen for a hamburger. Tell me, Mr. Wind-Up Bird, said May Kasahara, would you wear a toupee if you were bald? I wonder, I said. I don't like things that take time and trouble. I probably wouldn't try to fight it if I went bald. Good, she said, wiping the ketchup from her mouth with a paper napkin. That's the way. Bald men never look as bad as they think. To me, its nothing to get so upset about. I wonder, I said.