4. Bathhouse Girl

I was born in the old downtown area, where there were still lots of older row-houses, old style apartment buildings of only two levels, and old houses packed in.

Our local public bath was a typical bathhouse. It had been around for at least forty years, run by the same family who lived in quite a large apartment above the bathhouse. When I was younger, all the children in the neighbourhood would play together, regardless of age. This was common up until junior high school, because then we had club activities after school, but while we were in elementary school, we had our afternoons and weekends free.

From the time I was in kindergarten, one of the children I used to play with was Ayu.

She is the only child of the family that runs the neighbourhood bathhouse.

Ayu was a year older than me, but for a while we were the closest in age compared to the other kids, so she would call me ‘Haru-kun’ and I would call her ‘Ayu-chan’.

In the old days, houses didn’t have their own bathroom apart from the toilet, so many people relied on visiting the local public bathhouse. Even as people renovated and updated the older houses, adding in small unit baths and bathtubs, the public bathhouse remained popular with older people because of the social chance to meet and talk with each other. Sometimes, even though people had the bathtub at home, they would still prefer to make a visit to the bathhouse sometimes, because of the large spacious baths, the steam room, and the sense of nostalgia.

My parents’ house was one of the older types of row-house that is called a nagaya. When I was younger, they had a small bathroom added into the old storage area at the back of the house. It made the living room smaller, but it meant that we didn’t have to go to the bathhouse all the time. Even still, I ended up going fairly regularly while I was growing up, as the neighbourhood kids would sometimes get in for free if Ayu’s grandmother was on the counter, and in junior high school when I was in the baseball club, the team would sometimes go together on the way home after practice.

Because Ayu was a year older than me, we weren’t in the same school year, so even though we ended up going to the same junior high school, naturally we didn’t spend much time together. Once she entered senior high school, I hardly ever saw her unless it was in passing at the train station. I ended up attending an engineering high school, so our encounters decreased to basically zero after that.

After I graduated high school, I began working as an electrician’s apprentice while still living at my parent’s home. One evening after I came home from work, the hot water boiler in the bathroom wouldn’t work. Even though I was training to be an electrician, I wasn’t going to touch a gas appliance. My parents were away visiting my grandparents in the country for a while, so until they came back and figured out what they wanted to do, I decided to go to the bathhouse.

Although it was late, I threw some clean clothes into a bag along with a towel and some soap and shampoo and walked the few blocks over to the bathhouse. The sign out front was still lit and the noren curtain was still hanging over the entrance, so I guessed they were still open. I went into the entryway, put my shoes into a shoe locker and went into the male side.

I guess the bathhouse has a classic neighbourhood bath layout. There is a men’s side and women’s side, mirroring each other off a central wall that extends from the bandai - the raised counter where the duty staff member sits. They can usually see into each side of the bath, to make sure nobody passes out in the bath area or is doing something stupid in the dressing room. When I was a kid, more than once Ayu’s grandmother would holler at us boys. I remember once she came into the men’s bath and kicked out two boys who were having a sliding competition on the wet tile floor. There’s a privacy curtain though, to make sure that customers on the men’s side can’t see into the women’s side.

The changing area had lockers for people’s stuff along one wall, with a heavy-duty straw mat floor. In the corner was the old Pac-Man arcade table game I remembered from when I was a kid, although it was dark and silent now. There was the heavy metal scale with the sliding weights like the one in the health room at elementary school, and a long mirror along the wall. The mirror was printed with the phone number of some local businesses like a doctor’s clinic, tatami mat maker, and a barber, but it was so old that the phone numbers were a digit shorter than phone numbers now.

When I entered, I immediately recognised Ayu sitting at the bandai, but she didn’t recognise me at first. She had always been pretty as a little girl, but now as a young lady she was quite lovely. She had a long slender neck, and looked as if she could be a ballet dancer but for her good-sized chest. Her hair was long and pulled back into a comfortable ponytail, and her eyes seemed quite large. I wondered if she was wearing some kind of eye makeup to look like that.

“Ayu-chan, it’s me, Haru!” I said.

“Oh, Haru-kun! I haven’t seen you for years. Wow! You’re grown up now!”

Even though there was only a year’s difference in our ages, I guess she remembered feeling a lot older.

“Uh, yeah. You’re still open?”

“Yes. We’re open until midnight.”

I looked at the clock. It was about half-past eleven.

“Okay. So, are you working here now?”

“Only since last month. My father has been in the hospital for a few weeks, so when I finish my office job I come home and take over from my mother around ten.”

We made small talk for a few more minutes, then I went over to the dressing room. Nowadays, it’s usually only the elderly customers and long-term locals that still come to the public bath, so there were no customers at all in the men’s bath at such a late time. I opened a locker and put the bag with my clean change of clothes inside. I realised that Ayu was still sitting at the bandai. I could hear female voices from the other side, so I guessed there were customers in there. I felt a little embarrassed that my childhood friend could now see me undressing, so I kept my back to the bandai and quickly took my clothes off before wrapping a towel around my waist and heading to the bathroom with my soap and shampoo and with the locker key around my wrist.

As I opened the glass sliding door and stepped through into the bathroom, I realised that the bandai had a pretty good line of sight through to every part of the bathroom except for the steam room, but that the door to the steam room could be very clearly seen. I felt quite nervous as I soaped up and washed my body and hair. After I rinsed off, I got into the wide bathtub, making sure to get in with my back facing the glass door and the bandai beyond it. The wall between the men’s and women’s baths went almost to the ceiling but there was a gap of about half a metre before the big ceiling vents. I could hear two old ladies chattering while I soaked. After a while I felt quite refreshed but was still a little nervous as I got out of the bath and rinsed off.

I exited the bathroom into the dressing room and saw the bandai was vacant. I guessed the customers on the ladies’ side had finished and Ayu was over there tidying up. I took the opportunity to dry off and get dressed quickly without worrying about Ayu’s eyes. I had just finished dressing and started drying my hair when Ayu entered the men’s dressing room from the woman’s side and handed me a cold glass bottle of coffee milk.

“What’s this?” I asked. It was the same glass bottle type that we used to drink after a bath as kids, although at that time we usually just drank plain milk. I was surprised that the glass bottle hadn’t changed in all that time.

“Customer service,” she said with a small smile. Then she went into the men’s bathroom and rinsed and tidied up the bath stools and wash basin buckets. Meanwhile, I finished drying my hair and sat down on a chair in the dressing room to drink the coffee milk. I was halfway through the bottle of the cool, creamy drink when Ayu came in from cleaning up and sat down in front of me.

We talked for a while, catching each other up about what we had been doing over the years since we last met. I think it was the first time I’d spoken so much with Ayu since she graduated from elementary school. It was late by the time I went home.

Two days later, when I went at about the same time of evening, Ayu was on the bandai again. There were three other male customers when I arrived that evening, but by the time I finished in the bathroom, I was the only customer in the men’s bath. When I came out of the bathroom, Ayu was still sitting at the bandai - I guess there were still customers in the women’s bath.

As I turned away and dried my body in front of my locker, I felt Ayu’s eyes on me. I looked up at the mirror and was surprised to see her looking towards me. Then her eyes met mine through the mirror. She and I both looked away quickly, but she definitely would have seen everything as I dried off and changed my clothes. To be honest, the thought excited me a little. While I was drying my hair, the guests from the women’s bath left, saying goodnight to Ayu on their way out. Ayu came out from the bandai and brought me coffee milk again. We sat and talked while I drank it, but we didn’t say anything about what had happened earlier. Then I went home.