UNDER THEIR SKIN  BY DINAH LEE KÜNG

Under their Skin
by Dinah Lee Küng
£10.99
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   The dragon flared its nostrils over its bristling snout. It unfurled its emerald scales with each muscle shift. Crenellated horns curved downwards over its ears. Unfortunately, its bloodshot expression was slightly cross-eyed so it resembled a demonic ram in need of glasses. Myopic or not, how ferociously would the tattooed monster resist his imminent extinction?
   “Eh, bien, Monsieur Shino. I confess I do love a professional challenge.”
   No question— the consultation of this stubby Japanese businessman at Dr Roman Micheli’s dermatology clinic was the most colourful point of what had been an otherwise drab Monday. The doctor refocused his camera on the hair-thin silver rings threaded through each of the patient’s nipples and snapped a wide-angle shot.
   Overeager to please, the Japanese grinned from his perch on the examination table at Chantal. He flexed his shoulders forward and back to better display his dragon’s menacing fangs with a shy, almost endearing pride. The nursing assistant suppressed a giggle.
   Roman arrested Shino’s calisthenics with a firm palm. “That’s not necessary, just relax. Now, please, lie down on your back and breathe deeply.”
   The thick-set man shifted his weight, crumpling the white paper covering the table. His clumsiness sent the hard little pillow tumbling on to the floor.
   “So sorry.”
   “Not at all, Monsieur.” Roman rescued the pillow from the floor and wedged it back under Shino’s head. He angled the man’s torso a few degrees to better face the camera. The dragon’s flaming breath spreading across Shino’s chest felt cool to the doctor’s touch.
   “Exhale, please. Good. Now please lie on your stomach.”
   What was this? Roman stepped back for a panoramic survey of Shino’s shoulder blades. This tattoo resembled a geisha in a kimono embroidered with golden chrysanthemums and peonies. But if it was a geisha, why did one of the silken sleeves reveal a man’s rippling biceps? Was this person — coral lips snarling downward at both ends, tangles of black hair tumbling to the waist, hairpins flying— a hermaphrodite or a transvestite? Its left hand gripped a thin, curving sword, poised to slash across the neck of a dwarfish devil cowering about ten centimetres above Monsieur Shino’s waist.
   The doctor adjusted the overhead lamp to deflect shine bouncing off the colourful skin. The half-man-half-woman’s eyes darted in Chantal’s direction, seemingly suspicious of the nurse preparing photograph labels with professional discretion.
   “Merci. We’re almost finished.” Roman ran off a last sequence of photos.
   The patient mumbled up from the pillow, “… that is Benten Kozo, famous thief disguised in woman’s clothes, caught stealing—”
   Frankly, Roman wasn’t interested one jot in Benten Kozo’s criminal record. More interesting was the vivid turmeric yellow of the kimono. He pressed down on the patient’s dorsal muscles to estimate dye penetration and commented, “The colour shading is most impressive.”
   Shino looked surprised. “First time you see work of Horijin? He is very famous Tokyo tattoo artist.” Awkwardly gesticulating backwards at his own spine, he said, “Hai! This tattoo of Benten Kozo was copied from ukiyo-e print—”
   “You can sit up, now, s’il vous plait.”
   The Japanese heaved himself into a sitting position with a grunt and continued: “— Master Horijin makes tattoo with sixty needles, bamboo handles tied with silk — all different — like a painter. He makes the skin come alive.” Smiling at Chantal, Shino rotated his left arm and concentric clouds pricked around the grimacing Benten Kozo began to swirl. Only then did Roman and Chantal notice that the Japanese sheltered an intricate spider’s web etched under each wiry armpit tuft.
   Roman noticed his assistant struggling with another outburst of titters. “Package up the camera, Chantal.” One must be firm with the staff, even with a pretty face. No patient in his clinic was laughed at, just as no medical challenge was spurned. People from all over the world brought their dermatological problems to Geneva for Dr Roman Micheli’s cool and professional attention. As a doctor, Roman was implacable, impartial and impeccable — three qualities that any patient could count on — even a Japanese shedding his innocuous grey jacket to reveal a Technicolor blockbuster of Asian icons.
   Already Roman’s trained eye was working like a prism to break the images into a range of hues — coal black, Indian red, persimmon, many blues, but fewer troublesome greenish tones. Too much cadmium in the reds to be healthy, he thought, although that very mix might be the Tokyo master’s recipe for a tin-white iridescence that was interfering with Roman’s photography.
   “High winds are a symbol of destructive path of Benten Kozo’s life.” The Japanese had stopped animating his frame to take a contemplative breath. He nodded at the window where rain gusts obscured the clinic’s view of Lake Léman two blocks beyond.
   “The use of colour is extraordinaire. Your master is to be felicitated.”
   Shino demurred, “No, no. My tattoos are very unimportant. Much better Horijin skins become gifts to museums. Hundred dead skins already in Tokyo University.”
   Roman froze, pen poised over his entry into Shino’s new dossier. “Preserved human body tattoos?”
   The affable Shino nodded.
   Roman refrained from asking whether Tokyo tattoo curators favoured drying or pickling and concentrated on the medical task in front of him. He imagined the lurid art of Shino’s body divided into a grid of square centimetres and mentally catalogued their appropriate pigment-specific laser rays to calculate, very roughly, the months or even years, it might take to remove Shino’s tattoos:
   Apart from Benten Kozo’s smoky-grey mane, there was the bizarre objet, plain and symmetrical — something like a cooking pot? — sitting equidistant just below his collarbone. Below the pot lay the coiling dragon accompanied by a golden carp, ridden in turn by a cherub as gleeful as a child on a rocking horse.
   A trompe l’œil apron of exquisite pleats draped the man’s hindquarters, while the turquoise, carmine and pus-yellow of a small cobra nestled in the crook of his back overlooked by some sort of horned demon clutching a bolt of lightning in his paw — all this no less startling than the very real lightning that danced across the lake of Geneva outside the clinic.
   Roman thought he had photographed it all, until he noticed the regular pattern of charcoal serpentine scales — an easy colour for the laser to disperse — decorating the man’s upper thighs and disappearing right up under the short hem of his gown.
   “There is more? Please lift the robe for a moment, s’il vous plait? Ah, ha, I see. Well, uh, merci.”
   At the sight of Shino’s genitals, Roman struggled to balance professional detachment with the necessary artistic appreciation.
   “Eh, bien. That is a first for me, Monsieur Shino, in over fifteen years of laser work. There may be complications when we come to that sensitive area.”
   Shino burst out, “Hai! Pain!”
   “Oui, Monsieur.” Roman rested one weary foot against the bottom rungs of the examination stool. “You are my first patient asking for such extensive removal.”
   “Tattoo bad for health, yes.” Shino wagged his head. “Ire-zumi legend say tattoo make life good. Life is shorter, hai, but more better. No woman can resist ire-zumi.”
   “Irezumi—?”
   “Ire-zumi, Japanese for ‘put ink into skin.’ Ire-zumi is the brotherhood of tattooed.”
   “How exciting. But despite these, uh, attractions of life in your brotherhood, you’re sure you want the tattoos removed?” Shino nodded, and Roman continued, “And you don’t even inquire about discomfort?” He indicated the length and breadth of Shino’s vivid body. “It is évident, non?”
   The Japanese jerked his square head like a mallet hitting wood. “Pain noooo worry.”
   “Well, we’ll see. Please dress, then take a seat in my office next door.”
   Roman switched off the overhead lamp and washed his hands for the thirteenth time that day. The mirror hanging over the chrome sink reflected dark stubble gaining on the hours.
   Shino made the usual sounds from behind the changing curtain — the zipping of pants, the jangle of belt buckle but was hardly a usual customer; the seasons brought their shoulder butterflies, buttock roses, motorcycle insignia and Sanskrit scribbles circling the forearms. By the time such tattoos reached Roman’s clinic, they were always regretted. Tattoo removals were the least challenging side of the Micheli practice, but undeniably each image came with a story, usually banal, and brought unmistakable gratitude when its tale had been laid to rest by Roman’s laser wand.
   Mon Dieu! Here was no mere story, but an entire, ambulatory bande dessinée! The stabbing torture this exotic foreigner must have endured to turn himself into a rainbow storyboard! How long had these tattoos taken to execute — three, four years? — long enough for any novelty or social caché in Monsieur Shino’s alien world to wear off before even his sexual organ was transformed?
   Why had he come to Geneva? And hadn’t Roman detected some fleeting hint of regret, some glimmer of hesitation crossing that nondescript face? Roman cut short his wonderings. He was as keen as ever not to let waiting appointments pile up outside. He wasn’t in the habit of examining patients’ hidden psychology overly much; he was trained to cure their skin anomalies, irregularities and eruptions; they betrayed more than enough inner psychology for Roman’s purposes.
   The homely Asian sat waiting in the office. In his shapeless suit and long-sleeved shirt, knees and feet pressed together, hands clenching his leather portfolio, Shino looked as hapless as a tourist accidentally separated from his package group. Roman clicked his ballpoint and perused the registration form.
   “You first sought treatment in Japan?”
   “Not so,” Shino nodded. “Company transferred me to Geneva. I learned French in Paris three, almost four years ago. Now I work here.”
   Roman decoded Shino’s block printing. “In publishing?”
   Shino smiled with an air of satisfaction. “Newsletters about Japanese banks and companies in Europe. Very profitable, subscription fees very high, though circulation very modest.”
   “I see. Well, it’s your blood circulation that concerns me. Let me explain. By emitting different wave-lengths, the laser pulses of different colours target different cells, or in your case, lock on to other pigment colours, and leave the healthy cells untouched. Rather like smart bombs, non? The pulse emits units of light at a density high enough to shatter the inks into microscopic fragments.”
   The Japanese man stared and nodded once.
   Roman persevered. “Your immune system then engulfs and digests these broken fragments, transporting them to the blood and lymphatic systems that remove debris from the body. You follow?”
   Shino shook his head, and said, “Hai.” Roman took this to mean assent.
   “Each area needs about six weeks between treatments to flush away the dye particles, so we see what’s left and pass over the area again. That means that even if we rotate around your body quite strategically, your case will require over a year. Also, given the natural tones of Japanese skin, you risk some loss of normal pigmentation if we laser too aggressively. And I must add, finally, that the more professional the tattoo, like yours, the harder to avoid scarring. Between twenty to forty percent of patients with densely placed organometallic dye pigments that deep see only incomplete removal.”
   Shino’s eyebrows drew together like two bristling caterpillars meeting in the centre of a lacquered plate. “Must be complete. Also, must be faster, please?”
   I can only do my best.” Roman glanced at his watch. Priority went to more urgent, medical cases. However, to speed things up they could start with an intense and broad band of laser light useful for various colours at once. “You forgot to enter your insurer, here.” Roman indicated an empty blank on Shino’s form.
   “Hai?”
   “Insurance, Monsieur. After I review the photos, I will send you the estimate by post.”
   ““Hawwww,” Shino’s mouth exhaled in a whoosh. “No, no insurance company. I pay cash.” He rose to present his calling card in cupped palms across Roman’s desk.
   “Between fifteen and twenty thousand francs, Monsieur? Reimbursement is not impossible. Your epidermis is full of too much cadmium to breathe properly—”
    Chantal rapped at the door. The last patient of the evening, an African diplomat whose tribal keloid scarring had got infected was turning restless.
   “Well then, arrange cash payments as you wish with Chantal outside.”
   The squat man bowed low in front of Roman’s desk: a person even shorter than Roman himself, an unprepossessing male who alleged that panting hordes of Tokyo females had lost all their allure. He was indeed a curiosity. “Dr Micheli, if you remove tattoo, cash cannot pay you back. I will owe you my life.”
   
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