Mary Waters - The Favorites

Momoko and Yashiko’s side looked out over the back garden. Much of the view was obscured by the leafy branches of a huge persimmon tree. But Mrs. Asaki’s side, which faced the gravel lane, had a striking panoramic view. Sarah loved standing on her great-aunt’s balcony and gazing out over the tiled triangular roofs: some slate gray, others gray-blue, all sprouting television antennae like feathery weeds. Every so often, this somber expanse was interrupted by the imposing black sweep of a temple roof or the bright vermilion of a tall shrine gate. In the distance, against the green backdrop of the Kyoto hills, a cluster of tall commercial buildings rose up through the summer haze.

From this vantage point she could also look down directly into her grandmother’s garden, as Mrs. Asaki had done that first morning. It gave Sarah an uneasy thrill to realize how clearly visible everything was from here, right down to the pink comic book she had left outside on the veranda. Once Sarah saw her mother and grandmother outside in the garden, crouching side by side near the lilies and pointing excitedly at something in the dirt. She waved but they didn’t see her.

This view reinforced her feeling that the Asaki house was somehow incomplete, in spite of its large size and pleasant rooms. Its soul seemed to look out toward the Kobayashi house instead of inward unto itself. Of course, that might have been her imagination. But Momoko and Yashiko seemed to feel it too. “Big Sister, can we go play at your house now?” one of them invariably asked. Sarah would have preferred to stay. She liked the novelty of an unfamiliar household, and her aunt served frequent snacks. But she yielded to her cousins, whose mute urgency was like that of dogs straining at a leash. She felt, in some strange way, that she owed it to them.

“Don’t stay too long and become a bother,” Mrs. Nishimura called gently from the doorway, waving after her children, who had already broken into a run. And Sarah, lingering behind to return her aunt’s wave, felt once again that odd compunction.

There wasn’t much to play with at the Kobayashi house. It had none of the Asaki house’s amenities: no colored pencils or origami, no finches in hanging cages on the balcony, no ancient turtles floating in mossy stone vats. But when the girls stepped up into the kitchen vestibule and saw Mrs. Kobayashi and Mrs. Rexford doubled up with laughter over their tea or spiritedly gossiping in the kitchen as they chopped vegetables for the evening meal, they always felt they had arrived at the true center of things.

“They sure do love to come here,” Sarah remarked one day after her cousins had gone home. She had spent the last half hour watching them dart between her mother and grandmother, tugging on the women’s sleeves and crying, “Aunt Mama, Aunt Mama, guess what?” and “Look, Granny Kobayashi! Look what I got.”

“Why do they need your attention?” she asked her grandmother irritably. “They see you all the time. They live right here.”

“They’re only allowed to come over when you’re visiting,” Mrs. Kobayashi said.

Sarah opened her mouth, but her mother silenced her with a look.

During these early days, the girl observed many things. She saw that her grandmother never approached the Asaki house, not even to drop off flowers or food (the exception was formal holidays such as New Year’s or O-bon, when both families dined together). She saw that her grandmother never chatted for very long with Mrs. Nishimura unless Mrs. Asaki was also present. Mrs. Kobayashi showed a similar, though lesser, restraint around Momoko and Yashiko, which disappeared if they were all in a group.

But everyone else interacted freely. Mrs. Asaki came visiting-alone, without her daughter-on the pretext of paying respects to her ancestors’ family altar. She lingered afterward for a jolly gossip over tea and slices of red-bean jelly. And Mrs. Rexford had once stayed at the Asaki house for several hours, calling Mrs. Asaki “Auntie” and drinking beer with Mr. Nishimura, although she generally refrained from such visits out of loyalty to her mother.

Sarah wondered if Mrs. Kobayashi and Mrs. Asaki had set up these boundaries right from the start. Perhaps they had silently evolved over the decades. If that first morning was any indication, there must have been slip-ups. For how could such an arrangement not foster, on either side, countless small moments of sorrow and resentment?

There was an old saying: a well-bred woman thinks several steps ahead. “It’s like playing chess, ne,” Mrs. Rexford explained to her daughter. “Before you make a move, you have to consider all possible consequences.”

Usually the women’s strategies were simple. If Mrs. Kobayashi or Mrs. Rexford realized they were laughing too loudly, one of them might utter “Shh…” and jerk her head in the direction of the Asaki house.

Or they might say to Sarah, “Let’s not mention that we went out for sushi without them, ne? It’s just easier.”

“Why would they even care?” Sarah asked. “They do things without us, and we don’t mind.” Her elders merely looked at her with weary patience.

One day, to Sarah’s delight, the women announced they were taking her downtown for an afternoon of shopping. It was then that she learned how complex forward-thinking could be.

“Should I run over right now and invite Momoko and Yashiko?” Mrs. Asaki always invited her along when she took her granddaughters shopping. They had ice cream on the sixteenth floor of the Takashimaya department store, and they were allowed one item each from the Hello Kitty shop.

“Soh soh, run along and invite them,” urged her grandfather, who happened to be passing by on his way to the workroom. He carried a sheaf of sketches and his hair was rumpled. He was preparing for an upcoming jewelry exhibition.

Mrs. Kobayashi waited until he passed, then shook her head at Sarah. “Don’t listen,” she whispered. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” The two women exchanged wry smiles of exasperation.

“You mean they can’t come?” Momoko and Yashiko adored the French pastry shops and the department stores that lined Marutamachi Boulevard.

“It would be best if you didn’t mention it,” her grandmother said.

Sarah pouted as she and her mother stood in the parlor, changing into their downtown clothes. “Grandma’s stingy,” she complained.

Mrs. Rexford laughed. When the three of them reconvened in the family room, she told her mother, “We need to educate this child. She thinks you’re being stingy.”

“Ara maa.” Mrs. Kobayashi smiled indulgently.

Mrs. Rexford took to her task right away. “Now use your chess brain,” she told Sarah as the three of them put on their shoes in the vestibule. “What would happen if you invited the girls?”

“They’d be allowed to come. Granny and Auntie would say it was a lovely idea.”

“You’re absolutely right. They’d certainly say that.”

Mother and daughter stepped out into the lane and watched as Mrs. Kobayashi drew the curtains behind the glass panels of the kitchen door. She then rolled the door shut and locked it, even though Mr. Kobayashi was still inside.

“Let’s go this way,” Mrs. Kobayashi said. They headed toward the paved street, avoiding the gravel lane that passed right under Mrs. Asaki’s balcony. Their corner house was convenient for sleight-of-hand exits. The view from the Asaki house covered only the Kobayashis’ formal guest entrance, not the kitchen entrance around the corner.

“So if they came with us, what would happen?” quizzed Mrs. Rexford.

Sarah had no idea. She had never been good at chess.

“Don’t you think Granny Asaki would feel bad,” her mother said, “sitting at home while her grandchildren were out having a good time with their real grandmother?”