to feel like superior beings.”
“Thanks for ruining it,” I said.
She shook her head. “Haven't you figured it out yet?” she said. “Yes, dear… No, dear… whatever. It's always an act. The women here work with what they've got. It's just a different angle.”
“So, despite appearances, they're no different from the women back home?”
“And what are we like?”
“You want an example?”
Durban nodded. “I can take it.”
“OK… A man goes to the doctor and brings his wife along. He has a checkup. Afterward, the doctor calls her into the office. He says, ‘Your husband is extremely sick, and his fragile state is compounded by huge amounts of stress. If you don't follow my instructions explicitly, he'll die. In the morning, you have to let him sleep late. When he gets up, you have to fix him a good breakfast. Do not stress him out with chores. At lunch, make him something really delicious. Let him sleep in the afternoon. For dinner, cook something special again. Be nice, friendly, and for God's sake don't load him up with your own problems and concerns. The name of the game is to reduce his stress levels to zero. If you can do this for just one month, your husband will regain full health.'
“In the car going home, the husband asks his wife, ‘So what did the doctor say?'
“She replies, ‘You're gonna die.' “
Durban laughed. “Yep,” she said. “That's us.”
A tune from a well-known musical began playing in her jacket pocket. Durban pulled out her cell, then excused herself to answer it, turning toward a plate of raw salmon brought to us earlier by a fembot.
“This place one of your favorites?” I asked when she snapped her cell shut and put it in her pocket. I wasn't sure what I liked least, the food or the entertainment. I chewed on something cold and rubbery, which, come to think of it, was also a suitable metaphor for the music.
Durban nodded. “One of my regular haunts. It's cheap and it's authentic Tokyo. You ever eaten jellyfish before?”
“Never,” I said.
“You have now.”
It squeaked between my teeth like a piece of inner tube as I chewed. “Actually, it's not bad,” I conceded. “Have some. Show me how it's done.”
Durban shrugged and picked a few strands out of the bowl with disposable chopsticks. What I wanted more than anything was to spit my mouthful out and go find a hamburger. The sake was good, though, and it killed the taste of the cuisine. Maybe that's why they served it. I reached for the flask.
“No, no—you never pour your own sake. It's bad luck,” said Durban. I switched cups and filled hers instead. She drank it down, perhaps a little too eagerly.
I said, “Don't think much of jellyfish either, eh?”
“Busted. More, please.” She held out her cup. I topped it up again. “It's the one thing on the menu that makes me gag.”
I picked up a napkin. “Do you mind?” I asked.
“Go right ahead,” she said.
I spat the jellyfish into the napkin, then rolled it into a ball.
“Sorry,” she said. “That was a bit of a test.”
“How'd I do?”
“You passed.”
A couple of businessmen beside us were tucking into a lobster pinned to a slab of wood. I saw its front legs move. They picked at it with their chopsticks while it tried in vain to escape. I lost whatever appetite I had left.
The guy doing over “Hard Day's Night” left the stage to wild applause—I guessed because he'd finally finished. “So, what about your boyfriend?” I asked Durban. “Is he going to be joining us?”
She studied me for a moment. “Boyfriend? A, how do you know I'm not married? And B, how do you know who I was talking to?”
“In answer to A, while you're wearing a ring on your wedding finger that suggests you're married, the finger next to it bears the indentation of a ring recently removed. I'd say you've been asked by someone to baby-sit me and you've shifted the ring across to your wedding finger in case I turn out to be creepy and you need an excuse to hurry on home. As for B, and I admit this one's a stretch, that cell ringtone of yours, the tune ‘The One That I Want' from the musical Grease? Just a guess, but, given the title of the song, I'd say that you've downloaded it especially and assigned it to a caller group of one. As I've just established you're not married, that one has to be your boyfriend.