Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

Then my father’s eyes began to fail; despite repeated surgery, he soon was nearly blind. My mother put him in a nursing home. She then quickly put our Colonial house up for sale, and, when the house was sold, handed my sister and me some money, warning us, “Remember, this is the last you’re getting.” She then went off to live with her boyfriend, who had been transferred to yet another part of the globe—a simpleminded fellow who would have led a predictable but peaceful married life if my mother hadn’t been trying so hard to make the most of her remaining years and vitality. This left my sister and me with my father in a nursing home and without a home to go to when the cash ran out.

The world outside had also changed with unexpected speed. Japan had been a poor country when we left but was beginning to be seen as a rich one. Americans got used to seeing Japanese tourists arriving in groups and spending wads of cash in fancy boutiques. Japanese expatriates in New York thought nothing of spending hundreds of dollars on a business dinner and walked down the streets of Manhattan as if they owned them. Only the most hopelessly backward of Americans still saw a domestic in every Asian. In Japan, employees no longer envied their colleagues sent to the States—yet the number of Japanese people living in America continued to grow, as it happened wherever Japan did business, impelled by the country’s economic expansion.

AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER took place at a time when this new prosperity was well under way. Nanae and I had spent the day together in New York for once, and decided to have dinner at a sushi place in midtown. The chef’s hearty greeting drew my attention to the counter, and there I saw Taro Azuma, dressed in a dark suit, just as I remembered him, talking jovially with an American, also dressed in a dark suit. Ten years had passed since I had seen him dancing to “Blue Moon.” Gone was the aura of deep frustration; he looked radiant, as if touched by an invisible light. He’d been back to Japan and seen the woman, though I obviously didn’t know it then. I just felt irresistibly drawn to him. At the same time I couldn’t help feeling crestfallen: in his presence, my own family seemed all the more woebegone. That he was the last person I’d ever dreamed could make me feel so small only made me feel smaller. I felt there was little left for my sister and me, not even much of a future, while he had everything.

It was odd that he, a man so rich, should be dining in a sushi restaurant we could afford, but perhaps he preferred to avoid the upscale sushi places, crowded with well-heeled expatriates who might know him. Anyway, now that the ugly rumors were fading from their collective memory, the Japanese in New York were starting to admire what looked like a rare success story.

We had taken our seats and I was about to point Azuma out to Nanae when I realized he had already noticed us and was walking over to our table, flashing a bright smile. It was the same disarming smile I’d seen years ago when he changed the lightbulb in my room.

He seemed to have filled out, which only meant that he was no longer too thin. The image of Taro Azuma that rumors had built up vanished in an instant, and I found myself facing the person I’d known as a young girl. The past ten-plus years might almost have been a dream.

He faced me, since he hardly knew Nanae.

“Minae.”

I was surprised that he should address me, a grown-up woman, without a proper honorific, as if I were still a girl. I realized later that Mrs. Cohen must have gone on referring to me as Minae when she gave him updates about our family, but at that moment I felt myself turning red.

“It’s been a long time,” he said.

“Yes, quite a while.”

“How is your father?”

“Not too bad.”

There was no point in telling him—someone who had moved out of our lives long ago—that my father was in a nursing home; that though he once couldn’t live without books, he had by this time probably forgotten how it felt to hold a book in his hand.

“I heard he was in the hospital.” He sounded matter-of-fact, though he looked searchingly at my face. I appreciated his concern, but I couldn’t bring myself to say more about my father to this man, with his aura of golden success.

“He’s been in and out.”

Seeing my reaction, he didn’t pursue the subject any further.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so out of touch.”

“I gather you’ve done very well for yourself.” When I was younger, I would never have been able to say something so direct. He shook his head, smiling his innocent smile again.

“No, no. But it’s a piece of luck to meet you here, so let me treat the two of you tonight. Please, order anything you like.”

“That’s very kind of you, but, really, we can’t.” It was my turn to shake my head.

“I insist,” he said and peered down at our faces, his shoulders in the dark suit almost as wide as the two of us huddled together at the small, square table. How would it feel to be loved by a man like this? To be looked after by someone like him? Suddenly my sister and I seemed wretched, having to count pennies on our day out in Manhattan.

I continued to refuse his offer, shaking my head.

He urged me with his eyes again.

“Well, if you insist, maybe you can offer us something to drink.” If I remained too adamant, he might think that even my father had turned against him because of his break with the company. I wanted to protect my father’s honor.

“But we’re not drinkers,” Nanae said, half jokingly, half in earnest, her eyes, framed by her long black hair, looking a little resentful.

Azuma looked at her, then at me, and said, “Well, then, how about an appetizer as well? A plate of sashimi?”

Nanae and I nodded yes in unison, all smiles. Now that I think of it, we must have looked absurdly happy. But we really were happy—beyond happy at the prospect of a platter of delicately sliced raw fish we wouldn’t have allowed ourselves to order, and happier still because the courtesy came from this stunning man in an impeccable dark suit. We felt special.

Nanae said in English as soon as he returned to the sushi bar, “Wow! He’s cool! He’s got style.”

“Yes, he does.”

Even before the drink came, I felt heady merely from being in his presence.

“And what a voice!”

“You think so?”

“It’s special. Nice.”

“Yeah, now that you mention it.”

“Did you see his fingers?”

“What about them?” The only fingers I remembered were the ones he used to change the lightbulb in my room.

“ So-o beautiful! Long and elegant.” Nanae had always been more discerning when it came to the fine points of men’s looks. She was gazing approvingly at her own long, slender fingers holding a cigarette. On one finger was a platinum ring made especially for her by a Polish man named Henryk—a former member of Solidarity, the trade union, who would be one of the last of her boyfriends. It contained a diamond so tiny you needed a magnifying glass to find it.

“He doesn’t look very Japanese,” she said.

“What does he look like then?”

“A Mongolian.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“He’s not fine-boned like a Japanese.”

“True.”

“I can just picture him galloping on a horse across the steppes.”

Azuma was explaining our special treat to the chef behind the counter, then gesturing toward us.

“But I wonder what the difference is between Mongolian and Japanese. In English, they use Mongolian to mean simply Asians, including us,” I said, prone to get hung up on the precise definition of words.

“You’re right.”

“ Mongolian and Mongoloid can be synonyms, can’t they?”