The elderly Japanese couple was in
The Japanese gentleman stood peering through the window. Outside right under the first of the marble tables he saw a rat. The rat was hiding from the rain but at the same time it seemed to be glaring at him and showing him its teeth.
‘How dare this rat glare at me like that. I’m going down to kill it with my ninjato[1],’ he said suddenly.
‘Do you want me to go and do it with my kaiken[2]?’ asked the elderly wife from the rocking chair she had rested herself in.
‘No, it belongs to me. I’m not coming back without its head.’
‘Be careful with your kimono,’ she murmured from the insides of the chair as he closed the door on his way out.
The husband went downstairs. He passed through the lobby where the hotel keeper sat behind her desk drinking beer. She was a big German matron in a crimson silk dress, her muscular neck and massive biceps bulging under the fine fabric.
‘Gute nacht’, said the husband. He was impressed with the frau’s warlike appearance.
‘Schönes Wetter heute,’ she responded in a thunderous voice.
The husband did not speak much German but he thought that the hotel keeper was indeed very polite, so he turned to her and bowed reverently. Then he opened the door, took out his ninjato and prepared for combat. Suddenly he heard a flapping sound and at the same time felt a poking sensation in his behind. He turned around and saw the hotel keeper who had unfurled a large umbrella without measuring the distance and now was giggling with embarrassment.
‘Not get wet, you,’ she boomed and lifted the umbrella above his head.
‘Arigato,’ said the husband and they stepped into the cold rain outside. They reached the backyard where the toilets glistened mysteriously in the moonlight. The husband carefully examined the space around the tables with the shining ninjato ready in his hand, but the rat was gone.
‘Warum du out in rain?’ humbly asked the formidable frau.
‘There was a rat.’ said the Japanese gentleman and pointed under the first table.
‘Rat…rat…’ the hotel keeper started mumbling to herself, scratching her head.
‘Yes, a rat. I saw it from my window. It was hiding from the rain under that same table. It glared at me and showed me its teeth.’
He looked at the hotel keeper who by that point had become rather confused, a large raindrop hanging from her pale Aryan nose.
‘Go in...get wet...’ she said and smiled somewhat hesitantly at him.
‘Alright then,’ agreed the husband and reluctantly sheathed his ninjato.
They went back into the hotel lobby. The husband watched the hotel keeper as she folded the umbrella and violently shook it to get the water off. ‘Impressive woman,’ he thought, ‘gentle yet brave.’ He pressed his palms together and bowed reverently again.
‘Oyasuminasai,’ he said and went up to his room. He opened the door and saw his wife still crouching on the rocking chair. She was listening to haiku on her iPod.
‘Did you kill the rat?’ she asked as she removed the buds from her ears.
‘No. It was gone.’
‘Maybe it was struck by lightning. After all, the bold do receive their punishment.’
‘It was mine. Its head should have fallen under the infallible blade of my ninjato. Maybe I should have taken its miserable life with my shuriken the very moment I saw it from that window…’
His wife had resumed listening to haiku.
He walked up to the big mirror that hung on one of the walls and took off his pants. He carefully examined his thighs, his left buttock, his right buttock and his six-pack. Then he started tensing them rhythmically like a bodybuilder.
‘Do you think it would be a good idea if I wax my legs?’
His wife removed the earbuds again and, after a moment of consideration, replied ‘Only legs won't do. You should go for chest and back as well. Maybe there, too,’ and she nodded sagely at his loins.
The husband stepped back from the mirror and went to the window, peering through the glass into the mellow German night.
‘I want to be smooth. I want to be silky smooth. Like the silk of a kimono. Like the silk of the hotel keeper’s dress..’
‘What the hell..’ started the wife.
‘I want this rat’s head on a silver plate. It’s my duty to offer it as a gift to my brave ancestors.’
‘Why don’t you try some haiku?’
The husband still stood with his pants down in front of the window. He couldn’t stop thinking about the rat. The rat in the rain. The rat that had laughed at him and then ran away. The shame had almost covered him from head to toes when someone knocked on the door.
‘Wilkommen,’ he responded.
The door opened and there stood the formidable frau, the hotel keeper, in her crimson silk dress, bloody cleaver in one hand, slain rat in the other.
‘Entschuldigen Sie bitte,’ she said solemnly, ‘Rat!’
Bat on the train
ReplyDelete(review of Rat in the rain)
I want expensive shiny things. And I want a dog with funny ears, and someone to take care of it. I want chocolate, and noisy children to come with a ‘mute’ button. And if I can’t have that, I can at least have my own personal edition of Quirk et al.
If you think that has nothing to do with anything, I’m just going to remind you that Christmas is coming. AND it’s my birthday next month. Think about that!
Unlike my review’s title and introduction, Snezhana’s story does fit the requirements. I very much enjoyed this parody for the following reasons:
• There are a few very good parallels running between the original story and the parody – a small provincial German town as opposed to the original romantic Italian setting; a exaggeratedly stereotypical Japanese couple as opposed to a stereotypical American couple; a heavy, clumsy German matron as opposed to the smooth elderly Italian hotel keeper; a rat as opposed to a cat (we have to appreciate the rhyme there). Those parallels make for part of the humour and help us recognise Snezhana’s story as a parody of the original.
• Apart from the above-mentioned parallels, the stereotypes and exaggerations used to describe the settings and characters of this parody add to the humour of it. I enjoyed sentences such as: “The toilets were all vacant except for one, where the dim light filtering through the cracks in the wooden door betrayed somebody’s presence.”; “They reached the backyard where the toilets glistened mysteriously in the moonlight.”, etc.
• I also liked how German sentences are slipped into the dialogue, which is, of course, another parallel with the non-English lines in the original story. Here, however, the sound of the loud Frau’s German makes her seem polite to the Japanese gentleman. Imagine that!
All right, as I already said I really enjoyed this story. However, the part where the elderly Japanese man talks of shaving was a bit too much for me. It IS funny if you think about it in opposition to the American wanting to let her hair grow. But I think that in the original text this just adds to the character’s description – it is one more thing she wants, makes her sound spoilt and somehow childish. In the parody, however, the image of the Japanese gentleman is mainly built on some stereotypes such as pride and honour, he seems to be a modern-day warrior ready for “combat”, out to kill the rat which is deriding him, and all of a sudden, at the very end of the text he is thinking of removing his body hair. Which could be thought of as a symbol of his masculinity. There is no problem with the character being ridiculous but is this another stereotype? Belligerent, yet silky-smooth? It’s quite a sharp contrast, quite late in the story and doesn’t really seem to fit in with the overall behaviour of the character to me. Either that or I just don’t like that very image eww.
I have one further question: in the sentence “Beautiful marble tables were set in front of the toilets for the guests’ convenience.”, what kind of convenience are we talking about?
Aglika
Rat in the Rain Review
ReplyDeleteBy Mad
Ms. Bezus has won me as a fan with the stories she has produced so far. The latest one, this time a parody, is in no way inferior to the rest of what we’ve seen ... and smelled recently (Remember The God Naked!)
I like the parody for its plot and setting. The plot keeps to the original story , but the setting and characters are changed for what could be their perfect opposites to achieve comic effect.
One can recognise Bezus’ stylistic traits: “... a backyard equipped with fully functional authentic outdoor toilets dating from the early 19th century”, “The toilets were all vacant except for one, where the dim light filtering through the cracks in the wooden door betrayed somebody’s presence.”
Sentences like the above, though hardly reminding of Hemingway’s style, are where the actual appeal of the story lies.