Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

We met in a coffee shop in Shibuya, and no sooner had he sat down across from me than he bowed so low that his forehead grazed the tabletop and said, “We’ll take good care of you.” Nobody had ever said this to me before, and never did I dream anyone would. At the time, I let the words go by, but that night when I got back home I sat down without turning on the lights, put my elbows on the table, and cried. All the pent-up loneliness and frustration of the five years I’d spent working alone in Tokyo after leaving the Utagawas spilled over.

It was the second marriage for us both, so after my name was officially entered in his family register, we just had a simple ceremony at the house, attended only by the immediate family. Other than that, all I did was send out postcards announcing my marriage and change of address. I didn’t send one to Taro: I had no intention of seeing him ever again. Since I was his one remaining tie to Japan, I felt sorry for him, and I also felt guilty; but I had made up my mind not to become entangled in other people’s lives anymore.

The Shigemitsus, Saegusas, and Utagawas all sent unnecessarily generous gifts of money, but it seemed to me best at that point to end relations with them too and make a fresh start, so I sent only short thank-you notes. What was funny was that my husband’s family name was Tsuchiya, the same as mine, so that even after I remarried I could go right on being Fumiko Tsuchiya.

And so, after having spent the greater part of my life in Tokyo, I found myself back unexpectedly in the place where I grew up. The mulberry fields were gone, replaced by acres of lettuce—a vegetable that was in high demand after everyone in Japan began eating salads. Only Mount Asama was the same as in my childhood, shifting in appearance moment by moment. After setting out for Tokyo at Uncle Genji’s urging when I was a girl of fifteen, I found myself leading the same sort of life as if I had never gone anywhere. True to his word, my husband took good care of me. Where his first wife had been “Ma,” I was promoted to “Mother.” “Go ask Mother,” he would tell his sons whenever anything came up. On evenings when I’d concentrated too hard on my sewing, after the boys went to sleep he would rub my shoulders as I lay on the futon. Somehow he even thought I was pretty. Having got myself such a kind husband, I felt grateful, and yet in the morning light and the last glimmer of dusk, when I caught sight of Mount Asama, the knowledge that, after all that had happened, I had ended up back in my hometown tugged at my heartstrings. It felt as if all my years in Tokyo were for nothing. After a few months, those years started to seem not just wasted but unreal.

LOOKOUT POINT IN SAKU

Soon it was summer, and a postcard came from Fuyue. Since I was only a stone’s throw from Karuizawa, she hoped very much I would drop by after they arrived. But I had already resolved to cut my ties with them. Telling myself it would be enough just to phone them to say hello when the time came, I filed the postcard away in the back of my desk.

As it happened, they were the ones who phoned me. “Fumiko, we just got in!” Fuyue sang out in that party voice that all three Saegusa sisters had, and the next thing I knew Natsue had grabbed the receiver and was saying with even greater gaiety, “Fumiko, are you very busy? You live so close by now, you must find time and come on over just as soon as you can.” I mumbled something, and then it was Harue on the line. “Fumi, what are you up to this minute? Nothing so very important, I’ll bet. I’m right, aren’t I? In that case why not come over right now for a short visit? We’ll pay the taxi fare.” Mixed in with the gaiety was that domineering note so characteristic of her. The bright chatter and even the impetuosity and self-absorption were strangely comforting, bringing back a vivid memory of the time when I first called at their home in Seijo with my uncle Genji and the sight of those women looking so beautiful in the warm spring sunshine made my heart swell with emotion.

An hour later I was standing in front of the lava stone gateposts, looking at the two Western-style houses.

My husband and the boys were understanding, and our family’s shaky finances were a factor too. The next day and the next, I took the train to Karuizawa, and ended up helping out all season long, for the basic reason that the money in the envelopes I brought home came in very handy. The eldest boy, though good at schoolwork, had given up on going to college, but I wanted him to go, and since his father had discouraged him only to keep from burdening me, we had decided recently to do all we could to help him continue his education.

THE KARUIZAWA THAT I came back to with a fresh approach was special to all the summer inhabitants of the two villas. Harue’s family, having returned to Japan the previous spring, had summered in Karuizawa the year before, but this year Yuko was also back for a visit after graduating from Juilliard, and so for the first time in six years everyone from the two families was together again. That might have been one reason I was so keenly aware of the passage of time. The oldest members of the group, the senior Shigemitsus, had grown quite feeble, and members of the younger generation were needed at the afternoon bridge sessions to make up the numbers. The Demon was in her mid-seventies and she too had lost a lot of her pep, so the traditional English-style Sunday lunch which had always been held at the Shigemitsus’ place was now held at the Saegusa house instead. Not only that, but though Harue had once pooh-poohed everything to do with America, her stay in New York had made her a convert, and she switched to something called Sunday brunch , a light meal in the American style. In Harue’s absence Fuyue had taken charge, so I wasn’t treated the same way as before. “Fumi, you eat with us today,” Harue would also say, and I had my lunch or tea right at the table with them. Her generation was getting on, but the young ones were in the full flower of youth.

The happiest of those young people was Yoko’s sister Yuko, whose engagement was celebrated that summer in Karuizawa. Her father made a point of coming down for the occasion, even though for many years running he had taken to remaining behind in Sapporo, where he said the summers were just as pleasant. Yuko’s fiancé was the American she had fallen for soon after entering Juilliard. He was a cellist but also wanted to compose, and, while I don’t pretend to understand such things, he was interested in Asian music—Indian and Indonesian, but Japanese music as well. When he arrived in Japan slightly after Yuko, he was surprised to find that the Saegusa house in Karuizawa contained recordings of nothing but Western classical music. Harue and Fuyue grumbled about having to speak to him in English but agreed approvingly that he looked a little like the French actor Gérard Philipe, a heartthrob of their generation. Natsue wasn’t wholly content, since the daughter on whom she had lavished such affection and money would now be living permanently in the United States, but Yuko was so radiant with joy that she could hardly complain.

Yoko was the exact opposite, spreading an air of gloom.

“Fumiko?”

One afternoon she came to see me, choosing a time when I was off alone in the kitchen, having brought out the silver to polish. Most of it consisted of things the Shigemitsu family had kept hidden during the war, not donating them to the army, and had passed on to the Saegusa family.

“Have you heard from Taro?”

“No,” I lied. The moment I said it I felt a twinge of guilt as it crossed my mind that when I married and changed my address I had deliberately refrained from sending him a postcard. If he sent me a Christmas card this year, it would go back to him stamped “Address Unknown.”