Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

In stark contrast to Naomi, Miki fit in naturally with Harue’s grandchildren.

“I wonder what mix of genes goes into the making of a child,” Yoko said with a guilty little laugh that turned into a faintly bitter one. “I mean, what happened to Masayuki’s genes? It’s as if they disappeared.”

Yoko took things seriously in her own way, and I think she tried to be a good mother. I saw her with Miki only while they were in Karuizawa, and as far as I could tell, she was making every effort to be neither too lenient nor overprotective. She was a far more conscientious mother than Natsue ever was. But as Miki got older, Yoko seemed at a loss how to deal with her. She had difficulty accepting that her own daughter blended in so easily with the Saegusa grandchildren. It would have been one thing if they felt strongly about each other, but aside from Nimbo, with whom Miki was romantically involved, her cousins didn’t seem to mean much to her except as young people of her own generation; yet she was with them from morning to night, always doing things with them, talking about silly things like hairdos, eyebrow plucking, ways of wearing socks, and what kinds of little purses, datebooks, felt pens to get … it seemed absurd even to me. For a girl in middle school to obsess about this sort of silliness was understandable, but seeing a daughter about to enter college so preoccupied with it—especially with Naomi around by way of contrast—was bound to be disheartening for Yoko.

“I wonder if it’s all my fault,” she said.

“I don’t know, I think it’s the times.” I never thought about such things; the words just popped out of my mouth.

“If that’s true, it’s sad …” Yoko paused in her folding, looking gloomy.

The Saegusa family that I first encountered with Uncle Genji was on the way out. Harue’s daughters ended up becoming several times more ordinary than she was; as for her granddaughters, as Harue herself declared, they were indeed “no different” from the mobs of girls you see on the streets of Tokyo. When Miki was little, I thought she would probably outshine her mother, but as she entered adolescence, though she was still the most energetic of them, there was little to choose between her and Mari’s and Eri’s daughters. I think my granddaughter Ami showed more promise, perhaps because she was never spoiled. Harue’s grandsons were pleasant enough, in the way of privileged young men brought up to be “cool” and carefree, but since many young men are brought up nowadays to be “cool” and carefree, it could hardly make them stand out.

The only person outspokenly critical of the third generation was Fuyue, who never married and had no children or grandchildren of her own.

“I don’t know,” she told me, “they just seem to get smaller and smaller. Only their bodies are big.”

“How true.” It was only around Fuyue that I could be so unguarded.

“They’re Nietzsche’s ‘small people.’ ”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“It’s from Thus Spake Zarathustra , which I read when I was studying Wagnerian opera. ‘Small people’ are small to begin with and become even smaller and lazier, less capable of understanding greatness. People doomed to extinction.” She went on with apparent enjoyment, “They’re her grandchildren, so in the end Harue doesn’t want to write them off. She’ll stand up for them, say how decent and sweet they are, when they haven’t got either brains or backbone. But nowadays even children with brains have no backbone anyway, so it’s all the same in the end …”

Was she right? Are young people today of a lesser breed than before, or do they just seem that way to people like us, without children of our own? I suppose I’ll never know the answer.

“Anyway, they’re all shallow.”

She said this with an odd kind of satisfaction.

CONSTRUCTION WORK ON the Long Island house ended in the autumn of that year. Yoko went to see the finished product in December. She stayed for around ten days and came back to Tokyo in the middle of the month—when the sound of “Jingle Bells” on every corner is at its most insistent—along with Taro, who had business in the city. Too excited to take a rest, she came rushing over to my apartment. Windrush was just wonderful, she said, beyond her wildest dreams. When you came through the front door, there was a high-ceilinged entrance hall, open all the way to the third floor. On the first floor, besides a drawing room, large dining room, small dining room, and so on, there was also a morning room where the eastern sun flooded in, a billiards room, and a library with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves covering the walls. A grand staircase led to the upper floors, with countless bedrooms. If you stepped outside and walked away from the sea, there in the middle of a Japanese garden was a teahouse, and going in the other direction, you came to the little chalkstone building that Masayuki had designed. That was the best thing of all, she said. It had a wide balcony with round white pillars from which you could look far out across the winter sea. Just to set eyes on that stretch of water, with its leaden shine, made her heart take wing, she said. And from there you could go down the steps and walk along the shore where the waves roll in and recede. She was ecstatic, her words tumbling out, quite unlike the Yoko I had last seen in Karuizawa.

“Masayuki’s design is terrific. The garden and everything.” Then she added, looking straight at me, “We absolutely want you to come over to see it in the spring, Fumiko. That’s what we said.”

Though the age of foreign travel had arrived long ago, I had never once set foot outside Japan. I didn’t have the courage to go by myself, and the idea of going with strangers on a group tour was unappealing. Yet, hearing her account, I felt a sudden urge to travel, to get out of Japan for once. It was ironic that soon afterward the whole thing came to an abrupt end.

YOKO’S DISAPPEARANCE CAME to light the day after Christmas, when Masayuki called me. He started to talk, then stopped, before mumbling, “It’s about the time he’d be landing, isn’t it?” He apparently had trouble saying the name “Taro” aloud. Taro had left for America the day before, Christmas Day.

“Yes, that sounds about right.” I looked at my watch. It was nine in the morning on December 26, which meant that in New York it was seven at night on the previous day, his scheduled arrival time.

“I’m very sorry to bother you, but do you think you could telephone him for me?”

The voice didn’t sound like the Masayuki I knew. Actually I had hardly ever spoken to him on the phone before, which may have added to the strange sense of disconnection I felt.

It seemed that he and Yoko had had some kind of row Christmas Eve. When he came home from the university the next day, she was gone. She had told the office people something about a sudden business trip, but Masayuki was convinced she had gone to New York, still angry with him. He wanted me to find out from Taro if he had heard from Yoko the day before, if she had said she was going to New York or had perhaps actually flown there with him.

His voice was tightly controlled.

An image came into my mind of two figures standing on a balcony with white pillars, staring out at a lead-gray sea in a strong north wind. For a moment the image took on a firm reality. Yes. That’s it. Yoko has finally left us and gone to New York. To be with Taro for good … I felt the air surrounding me become still. After hanging up, I called New York, only to find that Taro came on the line sounding like his usual self. He had just arrived. I sketched in the situation. He said he hadn’t heard from her. Then he asked, “Do you think she would ever do that—leave home, and come here to New York?” I could picture him standing stock-still while he waited for my answer.