Ruined Map - Abe Kobo [83]
“They’re all color shots,” he said, lowering his voice and leaning toward me. “See there, the poses are different. They’re a lot hotter than the professional ones in magazines. The model might not be so good though. The legs seem too small for the body … sort of like an insect’s, aren’t they. But you certainly get the idea. You can just see a bit of hair there at the buttocks. Hair’s absolutely out for the magazines, they say.”
“Every picture’s taken from the back. Did you pick out only this kind?”
“I guess it was Mr. Nemuro’s taste. For some reason they’re all back views.”
“The model seems to be the same in them all.”
“Boy! That hair’s something. Looks like a horse’s tail.”
Indeed, the pictures had no narrative quality, that indirect suggestiveness of a professional’s work, and no penetrating analysis of the subject. As a whole they seemed flat—perhaps it had to do with the lighting or the shooting technique. And then the model always filled the picture to the same extent and the surrounding space was not made the most of. It was pointless to criticize such things, for the husband’s interest was doubtless more in the subject than in the composition. Nevertheless, there was some purpose to the six photos, a will to find something. It was not just some naked girl who had been snapped, but a model. Then, every photo was from the back, and though the various poses were different the chief point of interest was the back down to the hips, the buttocks to the thighs. The face, of course, never appeared. The back of the head with the hair falling down was half out of the picture, the face being completely hidden by the back as she squatted over. Tashiro’s criticism that the legs were short for the body and that they were like an insect’s was not, on close inspection, because of the model, but, I felt, a conscious distortion produced by the lens. Take, for example, the one that Tashiro said was like a horse’s tail. The buttocks were turned toward the camera in a posture as if for an enema, and the white backs of the two heels occupying the two corners of the photo were magnified in the greatest detail as if there alone a magnifying glass had been applied. The focus was not quite perfect, but even the pores could be seen. The single hand that was grasping the flesh of one buttock was so heavy-boned and ill-matching that it gave the illusion of being someone else’s—from the perspective, a man’s. It quickly narrowed and faded into nothing as one’s gaze followed it from wrist to elbow. Surely the effect of a wide-angle lens. Once he had decided on the purpose of the picture, being technically minded as he was, then this kind of effect would be relatively simple. But the purpose was the problem. I could interpret the picture as a desire to dissect the woman right out of existence. If it had been the brother’s work, I could have understood; but as it was the husband’s, I was at a loss. My client, at least, was not one to inspire such vengefulness. She was rather an enigmatic type, the opposite of physical, and a man would get pretty irritated in his effort to understand her. What in heaven’s name ever made the husband so enthusiastic about such work?
“What did you say the model’s name was?”
“Saeko. She says she’s twenty-one, but I’d make it twenty-five or six.” Pushing up his glasses, he spoke sharply: “Watch out! The waiter’s coming.”
I turned the stack of photos face down and raised my eyes. Directly across the open space outside, in the shadow of a pillar, a middle-aged man was squatting on his heels, absentmindedly looking around him. The hem of his overcoat touched the tile floor and was folded back: judging from the folds, the material did not seem cheap. The briefcase put down at his side suggested that he was a very ordinary office worker. The coffee was placed on our glass-covered table and the bill slipped under the cream pitcher. The man in the shadow of the pillar followed the randomly