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Ginza are the sorts of nitwits who look like they just climbed down from the pole in some disco, right? It’s like you were saying earlier: women who are serious about doing something with their lives avoid becoming airheads. The girls here are not only knock-outs, they’re all trying to make it as singers or dancers or actors. Hostessing in a place like this is actually a relatively wholesome way for a struggling artiste to support herself. You’d be surprised how hard it is to pursue a career in the performing arts without ending up in porn or nude modelling. I mean, do you have any idea how many women are calling themselves actresses these days? It’s an epidemic. Actresses everywhere you turn, and scarcely a face among them you recognise. It’s not as if we’re making many more movies than we used to, but the number of actresses has increased about a thousandfold. Truly a bizarre phenomenon, if you ask me. But it’s going to work to your advantage.’
        He was referring again to the audition idea. Aoyama was no stranger to auditions, having supervised a number of them for TV commercials and PR videos. Sitting in a studio, sizing up a row of fifteen or twenty swimsuit-clad hopefuls, he’d always found words like ‘slave trade’ and ‘auction block’ popping into his mind. Of course they weren’t slaves, but there was no denying that the women lined up on that little platform, posing in their bikinis, were trying to sell themselves. Buying and selling was the basis of all social intercourse, and the commodity an actor or model offered for sale was nothing less than her own being. Was it really all right, Aoyama wondered, to take advantage of such a system in searching for a wife?
        ‘What’s the matter?’ Yoshikawa said. ‘You’re not even drinking. What, you don’t like my sublime and brilliant idea?’
        ‘I’m not saying I don’t like it.’ Aoyama lifted his glass and took a sip. ‘I do have some reservations, though.’
        ‘But it’s the only conceivable way to meet your requirements! You worried about the money?’
        ‘The money’s one thing. What about the conflict of interest?’
        Yoshikawa nodded.
        ‘Point taken. But I’m not quite stupid enough to hold an audition just for you. That’d be fraud, after all.’
        ‘Fraud?’
        ‘Look. You could always take out an ad saying, “Wanted: second wife for successful 42-year-old widower”. But do you think you’d then get to choose from dozens of lovely and talented young ladies?’
        ‘No.’
        ‘On the other hand, we can’t audition women for some film we have no intention of making. That would be fraud by anyone’s standards. What I’m thinking is, we come up with an actual movie project. A love story, naturally. We need a leading lady, and she has to be a new face, an unknown. Early twenties to early thirties, say. Only aspirants with a solid background in some sort of classical training need apply. That’ll be an integral part of the story we come up with, that the protagonist is devoted to her art. So all your requirements are right there in the casting call.’
        ‘We’re actually going to make a film?’
        ‘I didn’t say that. There are dozens of film projects that fall through every year for lack of backers.’
        ‘But doesn’t that make it fraud after all?’
        ‘Hell no. There’s a big difference between holding an audition for a film you never intend to make and holding one for a properly proposed project for which you’re actively trying to come up with investors and a leading lady and a script.’
        ‘It’s possible we will end up making a film, then?’
        ‘The odds aren’t good, but you never know with films. In fact, with films, your chances are actually better if you’re just winging it.’
        ‘Really?’
        ‘No. But getting all tenacious never helps either. Until something changes about the