Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

The answer came promptly. “He wouldn’t like it.”

Once again, he imagined she must have gone over this many times in her head.

“I’ve no intention of going where I know I’m not wanted.”

Her expression was so disconsolate it was frightening. Yusuke found himself unable to speak. A chill, gloomy silence hung over them for a while, before she roused herself and said on a different note, “You must be starving!” There was a touch of gaiety in her wide-eyed look, perhaps something that had rubbed off on her from the Saegusa sisters over the years.

“Now that you mention it,” he replied.

“Would you object to a bowl of iced somen noodles on a rainy night?”

“Not at all.”

“It was so hot in the daytime today, I was sure it would be the same tonight, so I’m afraid I’ve prepared the ingredients already.”

“Somen’s good.” Looking into her bright, wide eyes, Yusuke found himself responding with matching enthusiasm.

“All right, then, I’ll boil some water.”

“Can I help?”

“First the water has to boil.”

THE TELEPHONE RANG just after she’d gone back into the kitchen and turned on the tap. He jumped, just as he had the other day, and somehow knew that it was Fuyue again. He got up to call Fumiko, but she had apparently heard it too. The sound of running water in the tin-plated sink stopped, and she came out, wiping her hands on her apron.

The call lasted less than a minute.

“That was Fuyue.” Fumiko frowned as she put the receiver back in its cradle. “Once she heard that Taro’s not here, she said she’d be right over, now, in all this rain.”

The glass doors showed only a reflection of the room’s interior lit by one dim bulb; the rain outside was now invisible. But the sounds—heavy drops pelting the roof, and wind sweeping through the trees and shaking the eaves—were so strong that he felt the presence of nature in a way he never did in Tokyo.

“It’s just not fair,” Fumiko muttered to herself as she turned on the porch light and drew the thin, faded curtains. Then, with a weary shake of her head, she began to clear the table. “Taro taking off to a hotel till tomorrow noon and leaving me here to deal with three hysterical grannies, all by my lonesome.” Her tone was joking, but the underlying dismay was evident in her frown.

She kept up a running commentary while she stacked the dishes. “They should just be grateful they got to use the place for a while longer—that’s how they ought to look at it, but they won’t. Once they realize it’s Taro’s doing, they’re bound to make a fuss.”

Yusuke looked at his watch. “Well, I’d better be going.” He needed to clear out before Fuyue arrived, and since he couldn’t just sit back and wait for the rain to stop, he’d have to ask Fumiko to call a taxi.

“Oh dear.” Her eyes widened in surprise. “Now, don’t say that. Please stay, won’t you? Your presence would be a buffer, so I’d really rather you were here.”

She seemed to mean it. Anyway, she would go and boil the somen , she told him, and disappeared into the kitchen with the stack of dirty dishes. After a moment’s hesitation he followed her to help out.

Later on, while they were having the thin noodles, served with chipped ice in glass dishes, Fumiko tried her best to act as if nothing were wrong, but she seemed unable to contain her apprehension. Yusuke could feel what she was going through and, without any desire to witness the approaching scene, sympathized.

THE SOUND OF rapping on the glass doors came just after Yusuke had laid down his chopsticks. Seated across from each other, he and Fumiko simultaneously held their breath and straightened up in their chairs. The rain had masked the sound of the approaching car. Yusuke, whose back was to the glass doors, got up and pulled the curtain aside, revealing a pale face—a face that stared back at him in astonishment. He slid the glass panel to one side.

“Take your shoes off inside the house,” instructed Fumiko, now standing beside him, “or they’ll get soaked.”

“Yes, okay.” Leaving only her umbrella propped up outside, Fuyue crossed the threshold unhesitatingly, her raincoat dripping. “I ran all the way from the car, and look at me!”

With that preamble, she turned straight to Fumiko and asked bluntly, “Did you know?” The look she gave her was probing.

“You mean about the land in Karuizawa?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, I knew.” She returned her gaze levelly. “At first I didn’t,” she said, and hurried on to keep Fuyue from cutting in. “But Yoko and Masayuki knew about it from the beginning.”

She said this as if their being in on the secret justified her having kept quiet about it. After one more searching look, Fuyue turned her head away, pressing her thin, well-shaped lips together—the shape was the same in all three sisters—and slowly began undoing the buttons on her raincoat. She handed the garment to Fumiko, who hung it on a wall hook by the glass doors before turning back to face her.

“When I heard it was a Dutch company,” said Fumiko, “the thought did cross my mind that Taro might be involved, since I knew he owned a company in the Netherlands. When he came back to Japan, I asked him, and he said yes, which is how I learned.” She broke off briefly before going on. Her tone was challenging, as if to fend off an attack. “But he told me not to tell any of you.” With that, she urged Fuyue to sit down and then disappeared into the kitchen, giving the other woman no opportunity to respond.

Fuyue sat primly on the edge of her chair. She apparently meant to take her leave quickly. Yusuke had sat down at the same time, but she seemed unaware of his presence. Looking withdrawn, she opened her purse, took out a handkerchief, and absentmindedly began wiping the rain from her hair. She wiped drops off her glasses too. Just as Yusuke was wondering whether he should get up and clear away the noodles, Fumiko came back carrying a cup of tea for her on a small tray. Fuyue slowly looked up into her face.

“That isn’t the whole story,” she said.

Something in her voice made Fumiko frown inquisitively as she set the teacup on the table.

“You really don’t know?” said Fuyue.

“Know what?”

Fuyue only looked at her steadily without answering.

“What are you talking about?” Fumiko asked again.

“What do you think happened to the land?”

“I don’t know.”

“He gave it away.”

“Really? To Miki?”

“No.”

That was enough for Yusuke to guess what was coming, but Fumiko seemed not to understand, a puzzled look on her face.

Fuyue said, “He gave it to you.”

For a second Fumiko’s expression remained puzzled.

“Along with the land here in Oiwake, he gave you the entire Karuizawa property.”

Fumiko said nothing. Her eyes all but bored holes in Fuyue’s face.

“The lawyer said there’s no reason to think you didn’t know about it all along. Then Harue and Natsue started saying that after all, you are not exactly what you make yourself out to be, which would explain it.”

Fumiko remained speechless. Finally she murmured, “I never had any idea.”

She sat down heavily, setting the tray on the table, and stared into space for a few moments before slowly burying her face in her hands. Her elbows were on the table and she was taking shallow breaths, her shoulders faintly rising and falling. Yusuke thought she might start crying, but she just went on breathing quickly.

For a while Fuyue studied her, off to one side. Her eyes revealed nothing. After a minute or so, still with her face in her hands, Fumiko said again, brokenly, “I never … had … any idea.”