Salmonella men on Planet Porno: stories - By Yasutaka Tsutsui Page 0,32

But I found that really loveable. So loveable, in fact, that I hated myself. I hated myself for finding my own child loveable. Partly out of embarrassment, I would even ill-treat him sometimes – telling myself, all the while, that boys are best treated rough.

As I opened the bathroom door, white plumes of steam wafted up from the bath tub. I lifted Shigenobu and plunged him in up to the waist. To check the temperature, you understand.

It was scalding hot. Shigenobu issued a loud scream and started to cry. When I lifted him out of the water, his lower body was lobster-coloured.

“Shigenobu!”

“Whatever’s the matter?!”

My wife and my mother came rushing up and peered at me through the open doorway.

“It’s nothing,” I pretended, laughing casually. “Just testing the water, you know.”

“How could you do such a thing?!” said my wife, picking the boy up. “There, there. Poor little thing. Look how red he is!”

“Mummy! Mummy!”

My wife hugged him tightly as he continued to cry. “Couldn’t you have tested the water yourself?!” she said, glaring at me with tear-laden eyes.

“Shut up! It’s a wife’s job to test the water before her husband has his bath. Fool!” I slapped her full on the side of her face. “Do you want me to sit naked in cold water so I can catch my death of cold?!”

My wife started to cry. My mother started crying too, and desperately tried to calm me as I stood there shouting and raving like a madman.

Luckily, Shigenobu wasn’t burnt. An ointment was enough to ease the pain. I got angry again at my own sense of relief. I was angry all the way through dinner. And the cause of my anger was obvious. It was this “phoney little happiness” of ours.

After dinner, Shigenobu and my mother went to sleep in the next room. Our apartment consists of three rooms, plus kitchen and bathroom, on the 17th floor of Block 46 in a massive housing estate. The rooms are all small. One of them is our bedroom, one is used by my mother and the other is our living room. Each room is filled with the most fashionable furniture. In fact, with a massive colour TV and a coffee table in the middle, there’s hardly any room at all in our living room.

I sat at the coffee table and peeled a tangerine as I watched a foreign film on TV. My wife sat next to me, sewing some clothes for Shigenobu.

“You know,” said my wife as I made for my sixteenth tangerine. “We could do with a new television, couldn’t we dear.”

“What – again?!” I said, looking at her aghast. “We’ve only had this one six months!”

“It’s the latest flat-screen type. I’m sure you’ll like it. It shows foreign films dubbed or undubbed at the flick of a switch.”

“Wow!” I said, opening my eyes wide. “That’s good. I’ve never liked these dubbed films. Let’s go for it!”

“Well, would you go to the bank tomorrow and complete the debit forms? Twenty-four monthly payments, five thousand yen a month.”

I couldn’t stand the thought of so much money leaving my account every month. But then, if there were other things we wanted, we could always buy them in instalments too. Most of the furniture in our apartment was bought in instalments, and we’re still paying for nearly all of it. We rarely need large sums in one go. As in many other homes, most of my salary is used up on monthly payments. If my mother suddenly kicked the bucket, we could even pay the funeral costs in instalments these days.

Rampant inflation of land and house prices has made it increasingly hard for people to buy their own homes – not just first-time buyers, but even people with a bit of money. Though actually, that isn’t such a bad thing. You work like a dog in the hope of buying your own home, all the while wondering whether house prices are going up faster than you can save. But in fact, you’re merely holding on to cash that’s gradually losing value with inflation. Forget it! It makes much more sense to use your whole income on monthly instalments – even with the interest payments. Salaries are going up all the time. If you can just forget how cramped your home is, you can eat good food and live a rich life, surrounded by high-class goods as well as the latest furniture and electrical appliances. Personally, I don’t completely agree with this trend. I