Mary Waters - The Favorites

“I could never get Masako to come close to me,” she said.

Only during the June rainy season did one notice how many hydrangea bushes there were in the Ueno neighborhood. Normally they were invisible, tucked into corners or overshadowed by more imposing greenery. But now, against the backdrop of wooden houses sodden black from the rain and the vibrant green of surrounding foliage, the clusters of pink and blue and lavender glowed with an eerie intensity. Their litmus hues leapt out at Mrs. Nishimura’s eye as she walked through the lanes beneath her umbrella.

She was coming home from choir practice. Choir always left her with a euphoric afterglow. It was only when she sang, her voice cleaving the air in powerful arcs of sound, that she felt something rising up within her that was equal to any glory the world could offer. Today they had practiced “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” for an upcoming concert, and its inspired strains had echoed through her head during the bus ride home.

Now that melody faded as she attuned herself to the outdoor world: the intimate hush of the lanes, the somnolent drip, drip, drip as light rain made pinpricks of sound on the umbrella and on the surrounding foliage. Bach’s grand surges didn’t fit, somehow, with the peaceful domesticity of these lanes. Mrs. Nishimura was content to leave him behind in the practice hall.

As she breathed in the warm, earthy smells of wet wood and moss, a more fitting melody stole through her head-a child’s ditty synonymous with rainy days. It was about your mother waiting for you after school with an extra umbrella because it was unexpectedly raining. She hummed it under her breath: pichi pichi chapu chapu (that was the sound of splashing water), lan lan lan.

It was a catchy tune in its own way, and just as hard to get out of her head. It was from a past time, a past generation. The lyrics mentioned janome-traditional umbrellas made of heavy oiled paper-which conjured up old-fashioned images of mother and child walking home past frogs croaking in the rice paddies. But certain things never changed: even in Mrs. Nishimura’s youth, whenever it rained unexpectedly there had been a cluster of Ueno mothers standing outside the school gate, holding plastic umbrellas for their children. She remembered that split-second moment of concern, shared by all her classmates: Did my mother come? But she had never truly worried, for her mother was there each and every time.

When her own daughters were small, Mrs. Nishimura, too, had waited outside their school gate (umbrellas with pictures of Ultraman and Lion Man were popular with the boys; for the girls, manga heroines such as ballerinas or stewardesses). As they walked home she had sung the rainy-day song to them, just as her own mother had sung it to her. They paused often to inspect the hydrangea bushes: as small children all knew, their broad leaves attracted snails when it rained.

Ara ara, the song went, see that poor child soaking wet, crying under the willow tree. I’ll give her my umbrella, Mother, and you can shield me under yours…

Ever since learning of her own adoption, she had identified strongly with that abandoned child under the willow tree. But oddly, it hadn’t taken away from her memories of early childhood. That feeling of being safe and cared for was still clear in her mind-of walking beside her mother and looking out at a wet, dreary world from beneath the tinted shade of a red umbrella. She still had a child’s distorted image of the rainy lanes, surreally barren of anything but the pink and blue hydrangea blooms that had pierced her young mind with the beauty of their colors.

She approached the snack shop. Mrs. Yagi, clad in her work apron, was standing under the awning and counting out change to a tall man pocketing a pack of cigarettes. The shopkeeper gave a quarter-bow in her direction, and Mrs. Nishimura returned it with a smile without breaking stride.

Before turning into the lane, she passed the Kobayashis’ long wooden wall with the hinged vendor door that opened out onto the street. Nowadays no one used these doors, with their uncomfortably low lintels, except to put out trash on collection days.

Behind this wall was the Kobayashis’ kitchen. Every so often, if Mrs. Nishimura walked very close along the narrow cement ditch, she could hear the faint thuds of a cleaver against the cutting board. As a child, playing here on the street, she and her playmates had sniffed appreciatively as unfamiliar smells wafted out into the lane: Chinese aromas of garlic or ground peanuts, a whiff of Western tomato sauce. Back then, before the modernization of Kyoto, such dishes had been redolent of the exotic. Mrs. Kobayashi’s ingredients were common enough-she shopped at the open-air market just like everyone else-but she combined them in unusual ways. “She grew up in a port city,” the neighbor women said. “She has high-level tastes, that one.”

Mrs. Nishimura turned the corner into the narrow lane, feeling instinctive relief at the familiar crunch of gravel under her feet. For as long as she could remember, this k’sha k’sha sound had signaled home.

She paused before the Kobayashis’ kitchen door. She had been planning to ask Mrs. Kobayashi a question. The Asaki household was replacing their hallway lights; would Mrs. Kobayashi like to add her order to theirs and save herself the hassle of carrying those long, unwieldy tubes? Mr. Nishimura could install them at the same time, and then old Mr. Kobayashi wouldn’t have to use a stepladder.

But on this overcast day there was no glow of electricity behind the frosted glass panels. This meant Mrs. Kobayashi wasn’t in the kitchen or even the dining room. She must be in one of the formal rooms beyond.

Mrs. Nishimura hesitated. There was an unwritten rule among Ueno housewives: it was permissible to drop in briefly, unannounced, if the lady of the house was in the kitchen. Domestic chores did not count as private time. But if the housewife had climbed up into the house proper, it would be inconsiderate to barge in.

She would go home, then, and telephone instead.

Almost three years had passed since Mrs. Rexford’s death, and life on this lane was back to normal. Mrs. Kobayashi’s health was greatly improved. It had taken time, but those skittering lights in her eyes had disappeared and she no longer sat down at odd times to rest. “Sometimes,” she told people, “it feels like she’s still alive in America somewhere.”

Mrs. Nishimura, too, was back to normal. She occasionally recalled, with a cringe of embarrassment, her botched overture in the vestibule. But mostly it was as if it had never happened. After all, the older woman didn’t seem to remember; there had been no hint of awkwardness, not even a slight distance. Maybe she hadn’t heard it. So, while Mrs. Nishimura hadn’t exactly forgotten, the hurt and resentment had faded from her day-to-day thoughts.

After all, such feelings were nothing new. For much of her life they had slid in and out of her mind like slow, dark fish, often disappearing for months at a time. But they never broke the surface; they were nothing like those hungry koi one saw in traditional restaurant gardens, the kind that erupted from the water with mouths gaping and hard bodies sticking straight up into the air. No, her fish were a quieter sort. They were bottom dwellers; they made no sudden moves. In rare moments, when things were slow, she let them rise up and circle about. But most of the time, there were better things to do and she went on about her business.

“Do you ever get angry?” her best friend in college had asked. She was the only person outside her family with whom she had discussed her adoption.

“Yes…,” young Masako had replied thoughtfully, “but not in the way you think. Not in a way that’s really personal.”