Mary Waters - The Favorites

Over the years, the women’s faces and even their bodies had evolved to reflect their different personalities. Mrs. Rexford’s confident posture, and the hint of muscle in her arms and calves, were natural extensions of her personal strength. In contrast, Mrs. Nishimura was less substantial, almost ethereal. She had a physique more suited to traditional kimonos: narrow, sloping shoulders; a walk that was an unobtrusive glide, as opposed to her cousin’s firm, decisive stride.

When it came to faces, Mrs. Nishimura wore one basic expression: one of pleasant, attentive cooperation. It was a classic “outside face.” Every well-bred person used it at some point, usually on formal occasions or with strangers. Westerners, who were its most frequent recipients, assumed-understandably, if incorrectly-that this Japanese veneer of politeness was a permanent condition. And with Mrs. Nishimura, that may indeed have been the case. One always sensed in her a certain emotional reserve, even in the most casual situations.

Mrs. Rexford was the opposite. Among her Ueno neighbors, she frequently dropped her mask to show spontaneous reactions: affection, enthusiasm, gossipy fascination. In truth, these flashes of emotion were not always so spontaneous or genuine. But Mrs. Rexford, blessed with surer social instincts, understood the value of judicious lapses in etiquette. Since childhood, she had used this technique to downplay her achievements and make herself more approachable. Since this familiarity was used from a position of power, it gave the flattering illusion of inner-circle acceptance.

“I’m so sorry about the girls,” Mrs. Nishimura now said in a voice as gentle as her face. Instead of standing squarely within the doorway, she peered around the sliding door in the pose of a hesitant intruder. “Bothering you, right in the middle of your breakfast…”

Mrs. Rexford laughed and waved away the apology. “Anta, don’t be silly! Children will be children!” she cried, throwing an affectionate look at the girls. “Ma-chan, how have you been?”

Mrs. Nishimura decided to scold her daughters anyway. “Kora,” she admonished them softly. Momoko and Yashiko grinned with guilty embarrassment.

“Come up and have some tea!” said Mrs. Kobayashi, already pouring out an extra cup.

Mrs. Nishimura stepped up into the small vestibule. She still wore the short bob of her college photos, parted on one side and pinned with a barrette. There was a sheltered, almost virginal quality about her, emphasized by a pale pink blouse with a Peter Pan collar. As a child Sarah had subconsciously registered the shades and shapes that, like abstract art, made up her “auntie”: the round bob above the round collar, the pastel clothing against the whitish cast of Japanese cosmetics. These combinations struck a deep chord of recognition within her, like the sound of the pigeons earlier that morning.

Once again, the currents in the house altered. Although it was relaxed and intimate, there was now a slightly guarded quality that hadn’t been there before. It was as if two identical masks of kindness had dropped over Mrs. Kobayashi’s and Mrs. Rexford’s faces.

They all sat cozily around the low table, ignoring the uncleared breakfast dishes. Now the conversation no longer included the children but circled among the adults. Sensing this, Sarah and Momoko began talking to each other in low voices.

“Mama and I are coming over to your house later,” Sarah said. “We’ll probably bring French pastries, or maybe a cake.”

“What kind? Do you know yet?”

“I’m not sure-we still have to go to the bakery.”

“What are you doing later? Do you want to come up and play in our room?”

Little Yashiko, who had sidled over to sit beside her big sister, murmured that she had once tasted lemon custard cake, and she had liked it.

Having thus reestablished their friendship, the three girls were content to fall silent and eat chocolates out of the tin, all the while following the adults’ conversation.

“…a mere toddler! He was kicking that ball, running after it, kicking it, running after it, so excited…” Mrs. Kobayashi was reminiscing about one of their neighbors’ sons, a young man who had recently moved to Berlin to study under the famous conductor Seiji Ozawa. “Laughing and drooling, with that soccer ball practically up to his knees…”

The children shrieked with laughter. Mrs. Nishimura rocked with mirth, demurely covering her open mouth with her hand.

“And he went right on going, out of sight!” Mrs. Rexford chimed in. “Just vanished over the horizon, like in some surrealist movie! You should have seen those little legs working, choko-choko-choko…” Mrs. Rexford and Mrs. Kobayashi worked well as a team. Their chemistry was so bright, it seemed to suck the air right out of the room.

They were all laughing so much that no one heard the footsteps on the gravel or the kitchen door rolling open. Suddenly Mrs. Asaki was standing in the doorway, smiling. “Good morning!” she chirped, in that singsong cadence of Kyoto old-timers.

There was a moment of surprised silence before Mrs. Kobayashi and Mrs. Rexford jumped up from their cushions. Even Sarah felt somehow caught in the act. “Ara, Granny-san!” Mrs. Rexford protested. “Sarah and I are supposed to visit you! We were waiting until ten o’clock!”

“We’re so embarrassed!” added Mrs. Kobayashi, even though it was Mrs. Asaki who was clearly breaking the rules.

With both hands, Mrs. Asaki waved their words away. “Maa maa, everybody so formal!” She laughed. “What does it matter? We’re all family!” Here the old woman cocked her head, like some coquettish bird, and appealed to Sarah-“Ne?”-as if the two of them were the only sane people in the room. Sarah, unable to keep from smiling in delight, agreed with a vigorous nod and an “Nnn!”

“Wait! Let me heat up some more tea,” said Mrs. Kobayashi, rushing across the tatami and down the wooden step. The kitchen, which was an extension of the vestibule, stood on a lower level than the rest of the house. The architecture was a carryover from a bygone era when women had done their cooking away from the main house, in lean-tos or covered porches.

“No no, don’t bother on my account.” Mrs. Asaki climbed up onto the tatami and looked around at everything with her bright eyes.

Mrs. Rexford was waiting for her in an open space away from the others, seated with legs folded beneath her and fingertips pressed to the floor. “Sarah!” she hissed in her obey-me-now voice. Sarah scurried over and assumed the position next to her mother, self-conscious because everyone else was watching with interest.

Mrs. Rexford bowed first, barely giving Mrs. Asaki enough time to get down on her elderly knees. She had a finely trained bow that put the older lady’s to shame, and she was fully conscious of this advantage. Mrs. Kobayashi, unlike her sister-in-law, had a background of rigorous training in formal etiquette associated with the high arts, and she had ensured that her daughter received this same training. Mrs. Rexford’s skill was evident in the way she pulled back her shoulders and arched, catlike, to the floor.

“My mother, my daughter, and I,” she said, shifting into a refined, inflectionless tea-ceremony voice, “live perpetually in your debt.” She timed her bow so that its lowest point coincided with the end of her sentence. “With your gracious permission”-here she lifted her head from the floor and paused, then slowly began rising back up-“we remain indebted to your kind regard during this coming visit”…she straightened up to a sitting position for full effect, fingertips still poised on the floor…“and for many more years to come.” She bowed once again, this time in silence. She knew it intimidated Mrs. Asaki to be faced with such a display of formality, and this knowledge somehow compensated for the fact that her flustered mother was down in the kitchen, scrambling to put together a pot of company-quality sencha tea.