Kumiko was an ideal student, a country girl of
humble upbringing and simple tastes. She tried hard to please her parents, respect
her elders and do all hat was expected of her. A diligent student , Kumiko always did her homework, helped with housework and
made it a point to win the esteem and admiration of those she loved, or rather
she wanted approval more than love and this led her to a life of service.
When I met her, she was a high school
student. She was always the first in class at the beginning of each lesson and
the last to leave when the lesson was over. She always had a question after
class and often she would just chat if not question was forthcoming.
She was not a popular student among her
classmate, not because she was unfriendly or rude, but because they just could
not figure her out. She was different in a quiet way and her interest in
English made her aloof since the others students saw it only as a class subject.
For her it was a gateway to the future.
One day after class she confided to me that
she was going to study abroad in
I told here about their cold winters as a
way to dampen her enthusiasm but it only added to her excitement.
"Oh, I love cold winter! I hope we get a lot of snow so I can make
a yu7ki daruma!" He excitement at eighteen years
of age to make a snowman seemed childish and not very sophisticated but it was part of her
desire to be cute and good and charming
and lovable; and making a snowman in Wisconsin was part of the image she was
seeking. I could imagine the photo she would take and send home of her standing
behind a snowman looking like a figure from a Japanese coming book and showing
the two fingers of both hands extended in a peace sign.
She wrote to me several times from her
college and her enthusiasm was overflowing. Everything that touched her life
affected her deeply. She told me that she had become a Christian, that she had
found the Lord and he had transformed her life. He writing became Evangelical
and she had gotten involved with Church people. I was not surprised because I
knew that Kumiko wanted so much to belong and she was
so much of an outsider within her own country. Somehow she had found acceptance
in a foreign land which embraced her as one of their own.
In
a second letter she told me that she had changed her name from Kumiko to Kathy. "I know it sounds strange, but I felt
that Kumiko was difficult for people to remember but
Kathy is so easy and it just sounds better here?
I
didn't hear from here for quite a while and I just presumed that she was doing
well and applying herself to her studies with a new coterie of friends.
It was just at the time of the New year holiday that I heard from her again.
"I will be back in
When she called me just before the New Year we made arrangements to
meet. I was shocked at first because her voice was darker and her English so
much improved having been cleaned of its natural Japanese accent.
We
decided to meet at the coffee shop near the train station. She arrived on time
and my first impression was that of shock. I was not able to believe what I saw
before my eyes. Kumiko had changed. It was not so
much a change of exterior but a full metamorphosis. She had gained considerable
weight and had a plump look about her; undoubtedly one which was brought on by
a diet of junk food rather than mom's cooking. I had remembered her as a thin
young woman very much conscious of her weight. Suddenly that was no longer and
issue. She was by no means fat or obese but she was a rather plump young woman
who had found here way to MacDonald’s and Burger King instead of Veggie
Delight.
The other most distinguishable change was
her habit of chain smoking. She never smoked before she left
“Hello,
John.EShe said. Ï can call you John now. Is it o.k.? We don't have to be so
formal anymore."
"Sure Kumiko, no problem?
"Please call me, Kathy. That's Kathy with a K. It is so much easier
for my friends to pronounce."
"Sure Kathy, no problem."
Kathy had not merely changed, she metamorphsized.
She had gone through a complete turnaround. They went into shock. Was this the
daughter they had known as a child? Was this the pure and innocent one who
always was demure and tried to please her peers and elders.
Hardly.
As
we spoke in a coffee shop near the station she explained to me about the cause
of her transformation. She had met Jeff and he introduced her to life.
Jeff was one of her upper-class friends
whom she me at a party. He was immediately attracted to her soft and docile
personality. She was drawn to him by his biceps and the noticeable bulge in his
crotch.
They talk at the party until all the others had either danced their way
home or dissolved into the woodwork. Kumiko and Jeff
hit it off that night and became an item.
"Jeff taught me so many things about life." Kathy, ahemEKumiko said with tears in her eyes. "All my life I
tried to please others. But, Jeff told me that I should be free and live for
myself."
She then went on to explain how Jeff took her to his apartment.
"It was so messy,: she said, "I was
shocked that he could live in such a messy place."
It
had rained heavily that first night and Kathy decided to stay over with Jeff in
his apartment. When morning came she was a completely different person. So
changed from the innocent country girl she had been before. The innocence which
she carried with here from Japan was washed away in the evening's rain and when
the sun shone the next day her face was radiant and had a glow, that of lost innocence.
It
wasn't long before Kumiko moved in with Jeff, not on
her insistence but on his invitation. Her first task was to clean up his mess.
She knew that she could not live in an untidy apartment so she set to hanging
up clothes, dusting furniture and putting things in their proper place, cleaned
the bathroom, shined the tiles, folded the towels and threw out the garbage.
The apartment was so changed that Jeff commented, "Kumiko, you are the best thing that walked into my
life." It was Jeff's idea to change Kumiko’s
name to Kathy and she was baptized that evening with a bottle of Chianti.
"Jeff always like to eat cheeseburgers, but I realize he needed
more vegetables and fruit in his diet," Kathy continued taking a deep drag
on a cigarette.
So Kathy not only cleaned and maintained order in the apartment, she
also became the dietician and introduced a wide range of vegetables, fried,
boiled and sautéed, into Jeff's diet. She derived great pleasure in being so
attentive to his needs.
"I realized that making Jeff happy was
also a way to make me happy. I guess that's what is called love."
"I guess," I said skeptically.
Kathy's story went on and it took on the characteristics of a Harlequin
romance. Jeff and she went through the initial honeymoon period, followed by
tiffs and quarrels, then reconciliation and make ups. They quarreled mostly
about the management of the apartment.
"Kathy, you're too neat!" Jeff protested.
This would make her cry.
"Kathy, I'm tired of tofu and vegetables!" he complained.
This would make her sad.
But at night when it rained and the sounds of night descended upon their
intimacy all was forgotten as they merged into one.
Soon after Jeff introduced Kathy to cigarettes which moved from filters
to the ones you rolled yourself. Then from the ones you bought in convenience
stores to those you bought with care from the streets. Then came
alcohol moving from wine to higher spirits until the new image was complete.
Power is the ability to change others without being changed oneself and
Jeff had the power. Kathy was now vamparized.
Although she thought she had never felt such freedom before in her life, she
was a totally changed person.
When she returned to
"I thought by sending her to