A Tokyo Romance by Ian Buruma

Author:Ian Buruma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

Anzu in the dressing room of the striptease theater

We took the train to Kawasaki, an industrial slum inhabited by poor Koreans. The streets were shabby and smelled of fermented cabbage and open sewers. But the laws were looser than in Tokyo, hence the many strip clubs and sex shows. Our destination was called Yamashita Paradise, misspelled as “Paradize” in flashing neon lights. A young man with frizzy permed hair and tattooed eyebrows, a not uncommon look among low-ranking yakuza, ushered us inside. Since this was not a kinpun show, there was no need to be covered in gold paint. For my number with Anzu, the female half of Dance Love Machine, all I needed to wear was a tiny scarlet jockstrap. Anzu, in a minuscule bikini bottom of sparkling silver, told me not to worry about a thing. She was a skilled modern ballet dancer as well as a Butoh performer. She would do all the work. All I needed to do was to catch her in my arms at the end of the dance.

The stage felt clammy. There was a smell of stale beer and cigarettes. I could hear the men in the audience chatting loudly but could not see them because of the colored spotlights shining in our faces. Tom Jones began to sing “It’s Not Unusual,” I struck up a manly pose, a bit like Charles Atlas in the bodybuilding ads, and Anzu started her sinuous dance around me. Everything seemed to be going fine; I felt almost relaxed. I could get used to this kind of thing. Alas, relief can turn to complacency in seconds. My attention flagged just at the wrong moment. Anzu flung herself into my waiting arms, Tom Jones sang his last notes (“It’s not unusual to find out that I’m in love with you, whoa-oh-oh-oh”); I was taken by surprise and made the only mistake I could possibly have made: I dropped her onto the stage floor.

There was no booing from the audience—just a stunned silence, which was worse. It was as if my embarrassment filled the dark void, like a ghastly miasma. Nothing was said in the dressing room, as we hastily put on our clothes for the trip back to Tokyo. Once again I apologized to Anzu in the train. She smiled thinly. I never performed in a cabaret again.

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