Mary Waters - The Favorites

“I guess our mothers show love in different ways,” sneered one girl.

“Yes, I’ve noticed that,” said Yoko. “I’ve noticed who brings the fewest side dishes in her lunch box. I’ve noticed whose mother isn’t at the Temple of Wisdom, praying for her child, the evening before an exam. So when certain people talk big, they’re not fooling me.” And her knowing smirk had brought a flicker of anxiety to the aggressor’s eyes.

Why couldn’t Sarah, just once, stand up for her like that?

Mrs. Rexford felt a keen, wretched misery. Her daughter did not love her the way she loved her own mother. Mrs. Rexford had doted on Sarah with the same passion and focus that her own mother had lavished on her, but the results, like everything else she tried in America, had come out slightly skewed. “Can’t you think for yourself?” she would snap at her daughter. “Is everyone worth imitating except your own mother?” And that was how their fighting would begin.

The open-air market was at the height of activity. As usual on a Monday, housewives were out in full force. Parked bicycles cluttered the sidewalks, forcing the shoppers out into the street, where they wove in and out among the slow-moving cars. A small crowd was stooped over the fish market display. Now that the rainy season had passed, dispelling worries about food poisoning and mold, a large selection of raw fish had been set out on crushed ice. Thin wooden tablets, stuck upright into the ice, displayed prices written in black brushstrokes. On the pavement stood a row of blue plastic buckets, in which live fish moved in slow circles.

“Ladies!” called a middle-aged fishmonger from behind the counter, his eyes locked on the mackerel he was speedily filleting. “Haai-welcome! How about some nice chilled sashimi slices? Take a little home for lunch!” He cast his voice out over the street in controlled, far-reaching arcs of sound, as a fisherman flings out his nets. Its reverberation reminded Sarah of the So-Zen priests who came chanting each morning.

A young man working beside him, probably his son, chimed in. “Baby octopus! Cockles for clear soup! Everything fresh fresh fresh!” His energetic bellowing made up in volume what it lacked of his father’s practiced resonance. At the far end of the counter, a woman in a white frilled apron stood over an open grill of eel fillets, using two battered cardboard uchiwa to fan the fragrant smoke out toward prospective buyers. The provocative aroma of glazed soy sauce and sugar hung in the air and made Sarah’s mouth water, even though she had just eaten breakfast.

The housewives succeeded each other with quick, efficient footsteps that were at odds with their peaceful expressions. Mrs. Rexford wove through the crowd with nimble expertise, not bothering to look back. Sarah lurched after her mother, clutching her wicker basket and string bag and trying to avoid the sharp points of the women’s parasols.

The produce booths were crowded too. Sarah’s mother and grandmother usually made her wait on the sidewalk while they darted in to make fast, efficient transactions. Huge bundles of freshly picked edamame boughs were piled high on tables, the hairy pods still attached to the branches. Small green yuzu, or citrons, were in season but expensive. All booths featured carrots that were bright red instead of orange, a variety native to the Kyoto area. There were seedless kyuuri cucumbers, delicious when sliced and dipped in a mixture of Worcestershire sauce and sweet Japanese mayonnaise. “Let’s get some of those!” Sarah suggested.

“Do you hear that jingling?” asked Mrs. Rexford as they walked toward the pickle shop. “Isn’t it pretty?” The sound of countless tiny bells pervaded the street. It came from the stall owners’ money bags, which hung overhead from rubber cords. Working the abacus with one hand, a vendor would pull down the bag with his free hand when he wanted to withdraw or deposit loose change. Omamori-religious charms with little bells attached, sold at local temples and shrines-hung from each money bag. When the vendor released his bag after a transaction, it bounced up on its rubber cord, and the omamori bells-as well as the coins within-continued jingling for a minute or so until the bag stopped moving.

“It is pretty!” said Sarah.

“People call that the sound of prosperous commerce.”

After the street bustle it was a relief to enter the cool, restful shade of the pickle store. The pickle store wasn’t a stall like the others, but an extension of a private home. When the proprietor emerged from the back of the store to serve them, they caught a momentary glimpse of tatami mats and white floor cushions through the open sliding door. There was a timeless, prewar quality about this place, due to the blackened wall boards and the wooden shipping barrels stacked against them.

“Welcome back, miss,” the proprietor greeted Sarah. He was an elderly man with a thin strip of white cotton tied around his head, the traditional sign of a man ready and eager to work. “Remember how you used to stick your hand in the pickles when you were a little girl, before your mother could stop you?” Sarah giggled, embarrassed but also pleased that he had remembered. To hide her sudden shyness, she leaned over to inspect the lacquered display boxes. They held a large array of pickled items: long fat daikon radishes, cucumbers, scallions, lotus roots, Japanese eggplant, gourds, greens, seaweed. They lay limply within various fermented pastes, whose pungent aroma stirred up in Sarah some memory from her early childhood that fell just short of definition.

“Pickles are Kyoto ’s most famous commodity,” Mrs. Rexford informed her daughter, primarily for the shopkeeper’s benefit. “They’re a cultural treasure, you know, with all the subtleties of wine. Visitors from other cities always stock up on these to take home as gifts.” Sarah had received similar “lessons” in the presence of other vendors, for her mother and grandmother were skilled in the subtle flattery that resulted in spontaneous markdowns.

The proprietor beamed as he scooped up Mrs. Rexford’s order: sweet red pickle relish to serve with the curry Mrs. Kobayashi was making. “You both look very cosmopolitan today!” he said admiringly. “Simple elegance-now that’s what I like!” He too was good at flattery. But it was true that Mrs. Rexford and her daughter made a striking pair.

Mrs. Rexford wore a new blouse of lipstick red. Few other women could have carried off such an intense color. Sarah wore a wide-brimmed straw hat with a big green ribbon tied off-center beneath her chin. The green of the ribbon brought out the green-gray tints of her eyes. Naturally, Mrs. Rexford had chosen it. The girl hadn’t resisted. She had no clue as to what was acceptable in this country, and she trusted her mother’s judgment here as she did not in America. Yielding to her mother had filled her with a surprising rush of happiness.

During the course of their shopping, they ran into several acquaintances.

“I see you all the time with your mother,” one woman told Mrs. Rexford. “But I can never bring myself to intrude…you always look so close and intimate…”

“You’re far too polite!” scolded Mrs. Rexford.

“It’s so touching,” the woman continued wistfully, “to see the way you scrub each other’s backs at the bathhouse.”

Some women from the weaving class, whom Mrs. Kobayashi would have regarded with some social reserve, took this opportunity to draw near and chat.

“Do you live in San-Fran City?” they asked admiringly, looking them both over. “Do you wear trousers?” “Your girl’s grown so big…so pretty…”

With a wide American smile, Mrs. Rexford chatted back.