Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

WESTERN-STYLE SUMMER VILLA WITH TIMBER FRAME

The average age of those present was indeed quite advanced, and most were old women. The only men in attendance besides Yusuke were an elderly gentleman and someone who looked middle-aged. A young girl among them of high school age was evidently someone’s granddaughter.

“This is Mr. Kato.” Harue introduced him to people who she said were longtime neighbors. Yusuke was surprised she remembered his name. “He is an editor,” she said, and named his publishing house. “I happened to make his acquaintance the other day and insisted that he come today so we could have at least one young man among us. I quite forced him to say yes. He is staying over at Mitsui Woods in the house of a friend of his.” After introducing him smoothly like this, she tilted her head toward the porch.

“Now go and help yourself to a drink, young man.”

The girl they’d called Ami the other day was standing behind a deck table loaded with drinks. The other, younger girl was deep in conversation with her, leaning on the table with both hands. She might have been discussing future plans, for he heard something about the department of environmental design at such-and-such a university, but when she noticed him approaching she stopped talking, then backed away.

Ami’s blunt-cut black hair swung along her jawline when she returned his little bow.

“What can I get you?”

WESTERN-STYLE SUMMER VILLA WITH ENCLOSED VERANDA

A variety of bottles, along with cups and wineglasses of every description, were lined up in the sunlight. Before answering the question, Yusuke asked one of his own.

“Do you help out here often?”

“Yes, but usually only in the daytime.”

In the evenings she worked from five on in a restaurant on the Karuizawa Ginza, but today, as she was staying overnight here, she had asked a girl from the day shift to take her place.

“You’re staying overnight?”

“Yes. For baito like this I usually do. It’s just once or twice a summer, though.”

The familiar word baito , from the German word for “work,” Arbeit , had become student slang for “part-time job.” Without realizing it, he was scrutinizing her face. She was neither a country girl nor a city girl. She just had the intelligent face of someone who must always have done well in school. He wondered what this thoroughly modern girl who did baito here and saw those old ladies almost daily thought about it all.

Ami seemed amused, laughing as she asked again, “So what can I get you?”

“What do you recommend?” he countered, eyeing the bottles.

“How about some sherry?”

“All right then, a sherry, please.”

She picked up an old-fashioned piece of cut glass shaped like a miniature wineglass, then extended her arm and held it up to the setting sun. The laughter of a moment ago continued to play faintly around her mouth as she held the glass in her fingertips, watching it gather the sun’s last rays of light and scatter them in its facets.

Yusuke took the glass, filled now with amber liquid, and went back into the garden. When he sat down as directed next to Harue, she craned her neck and called in a loud voice, “Mr. Shirakawa!” The elderly gentleman in the other group turned his head. The golden retriever crouched at his feet turned its head too.

“Over here! You must come and sit next to this young man. He is from Kyoto.”

“Coming, coming,” said the gentleman in a comical way and got to his feet. “Wolfgang, komme,” he said to the dog in what sounded like German, and walked over, remarking loudly enough to be overheard, “Can’t disobey the royal summons,” before taking the empty chair on Yusuke’s right. “Sitz,” he said, patting the dog’s collar, and it crouched again at his feet.

Whatever line of work he may once have been in, he was clearly well trained in the social graces, smoothly introducing himself in a voice that retained the soft cadences of the Kyoto dialect. The name was Shirakawa, he repeated. Before the war he had become friends with someone called Ando at Kyoto University and had enjoyed an association with the Saegusa family ever since, one that now spanned half a century.

“Ando was always a bit of a hermit, living quietly away from the hurly-burly, while I was more of a hooligan, living right in the heart of Gion, with all those maiko and geishas around.”

Unsure who Ando might be, Yusuke made polite sounds as he listened, but soon figured out that it must be Yayoi’s husband Masao, who had taken the Shigemitsu name on marrying into the family. Shirakawa began to speak about his friend’s late son Masayuki, lamenting that while a useless old fart like himself lived on and on, someone as gifted as Masayuki had died before he turned fifty; the one blessing was that Ando himself had died first, sparing himself the sadness of outliving his only child. The conversation continued in this vein for some time.

Shirakawa spoke as if he imagined Yusuke to be on closer terms with the three sisters than he actually was.

“What shall we have next?” Harue suddenly leaned forward and addressed Shirakawa across Yusuke.

“Beg pardon?”

“Music, I mean.”

“Ah, right.”

Only then did Yusuke realize that the piano music had ended.

“Who was that playing the Liszt just now?” Shirakawa asked.

“An American, Russell Sherman.”

Natsue, seated next to her, craned forward and said with obvious satisfaction, turning her white-powdered face to Shirakawa, “You know my elder daughter is in San Francisco.”

“Yuko, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s right. This Russell Sherman is someone she particularly recommends. Someone admired by those in the know.”

“Aha.”

“His teacher studied with Schoenberg, they say.”

“Well, then. No wonder it was so good.”

Harue interrupted to ask if perhaps he would care to listen to one of his beloved Mozart concertos.

“No, enough Mozart for today. Rather than that, since it’s getting late, I’d say it’s time for your Callas, Harue.”

“Really?” She smiled slightly with pleasure. “It’s so noisy—you really don’t mind?”

“Of course not.”

“Then shall we listen to one Callas recording and then retire inside?”

“Great.”

“Something from La Sonnambula ?”

“That would be great.”

“Or maybe ‘Una voce poco fa’?”

“That would be great too.”

“Mr. Shirakawa!” she said in mock exasperation. “Is that all you can say—‘that would be great’?”

“Not at all,” he responded. “The screams of the Turandot princess are actually more grating than great!”

She laughed appreciatively. “Then shall we listen to Lucia for a change?”

“Nothing would please me more.”

While Harue called Ami over and gave her instructions about the next CD, Natsue spoke to Shirakawa. “People nowadays have become such avid operagoers, haven’t they?”

Harue picked up on this. “Absolutely! Even people you look at and think, that’s an opera lover? They are mad, mad, mad about opera, opera, opera.”

“And pay absurdly high prices for tickets to the ‘Three Tenors.’ ”

“Yes, so when you do go to a performance, all you see around you are the sort of people you want to tap on the shoulder and ask, ‘Excuse me, might you be looking for Koma Stadium?’ You know the variety hall, the one where country people ride in by the hundreds on chartered buses?”