Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

“I guess in that case there was no point in cooking up all this stuff for breakfast.” Yusuke held up a piece of blood-red meat, impaled on a fork.

Kubo pointed out that they wouldn’t get a plate of good beef like this at a crowded barbecue and have time to enjoy it, so it was just as well. Then, concentrating on cutting up his own meat, he said, “You’re invited, by the way—want to come?”

“You bet.”

Prompted by his resolution of the evening before, his response was almost too enthusiastic. Kubo looked up briefly in surprise, then gave a toothy grin. “A bunch of neighbors are coming too.”

“Great. I just wonder, though—can you even have a barbecue in this weather?”

Ever since he got up, the sky had looked ominous. A fine rain was already falling.

“This’ll clear up in no time,” said Kubo reassuringly, adding that even if it didn’t, there were large eaves over the deck, so there was no need to worry. For a while they chatted about this and that: each other’s work, friends from high school and what they were up to, movies they’d seen recently. Finally Kubo bragged at length about what an easy conquest the little sister had been, and then the meal was over. He must have noticed that Yusuke had been distracted all week, but he seemed unwilling to probe. Perhaps he was being discreet. His not asking where Yusuke had been till all hours the night before suggested that he sensed something out of the ordinary was going on.

The rain stopped after noon. The sky outside the window suddenly brightened, and raindrops glistened on the trees like glass beads. As if waiting for this moment, the telephone rang. Kubo’s voice was even more animated than it had been the other day when his sister-in-law called. Must be the younger sister, Yusuke thought.

“Right, okay, be over as soon as I can. Sure thing. See you.”

Her father was out golfing again with Kubo’s brother. Her mother, sister, and she would be making all the preparations for the barbecue, but if Kubo was free she wanted him to come over and help out.

“So what do you want to do?”

“You think I should go too?” Yusuke wasn’t sure. Since the weather had cleared, he wanted to go back for the bicycle. Having failed to say anything about staying up late listening to the woman in Oiwake the night before, naturally he had failed to say anything about leaving the bicycle there either.

“Doesn’t matter. There won’t be all that much to do, really.”

“In that case, maybe I’ll hang around here for a bit and go over later in the afternoon.”

He felt guilty, as if he were sneaking off to a secret rendezvous. How he had become so preoccupied with his visits to Oiwake he couldn’t explain even to himself.

TAKING THE BUS and train would waste too much time—there was only one bus an hour—so he went by taxi. Before he got out of the cab, he saw Taro Azuma sitting in a garden chair on the porch. His pulse quickened. After all he’d heard from Fumiko, he felt as agitated … as if he’d come to see his own lover. He’d meant to say goodbye to her before riding off on his bicycle, but now it occurred to him that what had actually brought him here might have been an urge to see Taro again.

As the taxi turned around and sped off, Yusuke nodded and said hello. He felt himself turning red. Embarrassed and annoyed by this, he explained in a consciously casual way, “Came for my bike.” He looked toward the bicycle parked by the porch. “I rode over yesterday, and it rained so hard I left it here and went home by car.”

The man remained seated and looked at Yusuke with slight surprise, eyes narrowed. Now that he came to think of it, they had met only once before, that time he’d stumbled into this place late at night. The last glimpse he’d had of him was the back of his white shirt as he ran up the hill, trying to chase after the little ghost in a yukata . Day after day since that time, Yusuke had spent hours enthralled by the story of his life, but it was entirely possible that the man barely remembered his face.

On the porch table was an old-fashioned tin bucket that held a dark bottle of wine. The man was holding a glass by its stem, its shallow bowl filled with a clear pink liquid. He must have had more than a few glasses already, but he didn’t look at all the worse for wear; he merely seemed to be quietly enjoying the summer breeze. Yusuke found himself staring at him just as he’d done on the first night. The man’s eyes, which had seemed at odds with the world back then, now seemed more at peace.

He worked up the courage to ask, “Is Mrs. Tsuchiya here?”

“Mrs. Tsuchiya …” With a slight, inexplicable smile, the man echoed her name before explaining that she had left for the Prince Hotel around noon to see his lawyer and then must have been trapped by her acquaintances in Karuizawa.

Although Yusuke had come expressly to see her, learning that he couldn’t do so came as a relief. After what he had heard in the Mampei Hotel the night before, Fumiko was no longer the same woman to him. Nor was he the same person who had sat listening to her talk. But he was the only one who knew. To behave in front of her as though nothing had changed while she remained unaware of any difference struck him as somehow wrong—almost a crime.

The man was studying him with interest, unlike on that first night. Was it because he was wondering how much Fumiko might have told him? Or was it because he, Yusuke, had had that encounter with Yoko’s ghost? He stared back, remembering that Taro had been sleeping out in the shed ever since.

Taro proceeded to talk without shifting in his seat. Apparently a youngster like Yusuke wasn’t worth getting up for.

“As a matter of fact I just got here myself. I haven’t seen her yet today.”

“I see.”

Yusuke realized that Taro hadn’t stayed in the Prince Hotel the night before to escape the three sisters’ fury; it was to avoid the full impact of Fumiko’s reaction to what she would hear from them. Looking up at him from the bottom of the steps, he repeated for no reason, “I see.”

He felt reluctant to leave. But he had no idea what to say. The man just looked down in his direction. After an awkward silence, he had no choice but to say goodbye.

“I’ll be going back to Tokyo tomorrow, so please tell her I said hello. This is my address in Tokyo. Would you mind telling her to get in touch if she feels like it?”

It happened as he mounted the steps to hand over his card. The man looked at him and suddenly smiled. Gesturing with his glass at the ice bucket, he said, “Since you’re here, why not join me in a glass of champagne?”

Apparently a little while ago he had bought a case of champagne at the local liquor store, and since they were selling old-fashioned saucerlike champagne glasses there he had bought two, meaning to share a drink with Fumiko when she returned, but she was taking so long getting back that he had finally started by himself. Indeed, another glass of the same shape was sitting on the table. Hearing the word “champagne,” Yusuke was reminded of that other rich man, the one in Minamihara who had thrown an extravagant party, but this dark bottle in the tin bucket, with the summer green garden around them, was the picture of cool serenity.

“Pink champagne.” The man poured pale bubbling liquid into Yusuke’s glass, one side of his mouth twisting in a smile. “It’s for special celebrations, so I bought some for the hell of it.”

Yusuke spent the better part of an hour with him. Filled with an intoxication that had little to do with champagne, he felt as if he were afloat on a cloud. Assuming that Fumiko would already have talked about it, without any preamble the man began speaking haphazardly about life in the United States. Not about his own life, but about the country itself. He stared straight ahead as he spoke, looking at the trees instead of at Yusuke, while the latter secretly studied his face. He listened as if under a spell. The man’s words didn’t register on him in the usual way but seemed to pass along a different route into an unexplored part of his mind.