Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

By this time he felt he had fulfilled his obligations as a sightseer; he’d even paused several times to take pictures like a good tourist. He approached the commercial section of the main street, the so-called Karuizawa Ginza, from the higher end of the hill. The street, lined with traditional inns and tea houses serving sweets, had managed to retain a certain charm, with some buildings from the olden days. But before long he found himself swept up in a wave of tourists. As he shouldered his way down the gently sloping street, he noticed a crowd gathered in front of a bakery. He went in and bought a loaf of walnut-raisin bread, similar to the kind he had been served for breakfast in Oiwake the day before. Stepping out of the shop, he saw another crowd across the street, and, above them, an old wooden sign inscribed with traditional Chinese characters saying “Tsuchiya Photography.”

Intrigued by the name, since it was the same as that of the woman he’d met in Oiwake, Yusuke crossed the street and made his way into the throng. Shoulder to shoulder with other tourists, he looked into the store window where, displayed along with photographs of famous figures who had visited Karuizawa—writers, sumo wrestlers, singers—was a view of that same street taken at the turn of the century. Several Western women wearing long skirts were walking briskly down the street, while nearby a couple of young local women stood with their mouths hanging open and eyes blank, their kimonos tucked up short and babies strapped on their backs. Yusuke couldn’t help thinking how utterly unattractive they were. Yet next to that photograph was another of some exquisite-looking Japanese women of the same period, sitting in a hotel dining room beneath a magnificent chandelier with their hair swept up in elegant coiffures and looking remarkably like the beauties in old nishiki-e woodblock prints. Here, he thought, was refinement it would be hard to match anywhere in present-day Japan.

OLDEST CHURCH IN KARUIZAWA

As he resumed his walk, the street became even more crowded, mostly with people younger than he was. They trooped by en masse, picking through the carts of tawdry trinkets in front of many stores, making the scene look no different from shopping areas like Shibuya or Harajuku in Tokyo. Yusuke, who had never liked places where young people congregate, decided he had seen enough. He quickened his pace.

Sightseeing was not his only objective that day. He had come out to look for something to take to the mountain cottage as a small thank-you present. Yet, unaccustomed to buying such gifts, he had no idea what to look for. After crossing a traffic circle and reaching the Karuizawa branch of Kinokuniya, a well-known Tokyo food store, he realized he had reached the end of the Karuizawa Ginza. He wondered if he should stop and have lunch somewhere or, now that he was right in front of Kinokuniya, have a look inside.

Just then, two women emerged from it.

A middle-aged woman wearing a simple linen dress and carrying only her purse was in the lead, followed closely by a young woman weighed down by heavy grocery bags. There was something unusual about the younger one—her dark skin, large, round eyes, and a petite body whose shapeliness was emphasized by a bright, form-fitting T-shirt. She couldn’t be the older woman’s daughter as she didn’t resemble her in the least. The strange pairing intrigued him until it dawned on him that this must be a Filipino maid. He recalled reading an article in some magazine about Filipino women shipping out all over the world to work as maids, but he’d never imagined Japanese people being among those employing them, even though women here had given up this kind of work. If he had not met Fumiko, the idea that this young woman might be a maid would probably not have crossed his mind. As he gazed after them, thinking about the changes quietly taking place in his own society, another woman emerged from the store. She too was middle-aged and wore a stylish matching top and pants, but she carried her bags of groceries in her own two hands. No Filipino maid for her, he mused, and then was stopped short. It was Fumiko Tsuchiya.

He knew her by her face, tilted upward, brow furrowed. Even as she turned and walked away from him, he was certain it was her. Running to catch up, he called, “Let me help you carry those.”

She looked back with a guarded expression that changed as soon as she recognized him. “Well, well,” she said, “what a coincidence.”

Yusuke felt blood rise to his cheeks. She had mentioned that she would be in town today, and he had chosen this same day to go there himself. Without being fully conscious of it, he had been searching for her face in the crowds.

Yusuke reached out with his right hand.

“Let me carry those,” he repeated, his voice animated in spite of himself.

“You don’t mind?” She asked, looking up at him. Her eyes were no longer swollen from crying, and that stiff, impassive face was back in place. Even so, he could tell that she was pleased to see him.

After looking at the bags she was holding, she glanced at his bandaged arm.

“But what about your arm?”

“I can manage a few bags of groceries.”

“It’s more than you think.”

He didn’t know if she was talking about the weight of the bags or the distance they would have to walk. Yusuke reassured her and reached over to take hold of the handles pressing into her fingers.

Fumiko peered up at him after thanking him. “You probably haven’t had lunch, have you?”

“No, but I’m not hungry yet.”

“Good,” she said briefly, and then, apparently pressed for time, set off at a brisk pace. He assumed that they were headed for a parking lot, but instead she turned into a broad, shaded street lined with tall fir trees, where instantly it was cool and quiet. There were no other people, no cars.

“It’s the Bon holiday, so the town is packed. I prefer not to use the car when the roads are so crowded. But look at how much I ended up buying!”

The comment scarcely explained where they were going, but Yusuke didn’t press. He guessed she might be taking the groceries to the woman she had talked to on the phone that night in Oiwake. He imagined it would probably be worth his while if he just followed along. Maybe it had to do with the man he’d met. Beyond that, he had no idea what he was getting into. He sensed that Fumiko herself was aware of what he was thinking as she walked silently beside him.

The tree-lined street continued straight on for a while, and as the two walked along he caught glimpses of spacious gardens through the hedges. All of them were carefully tended, with hardly a weed or a fallen leaf anywhere; in many, a luxuriant emerald-green moss covered the ground like soft carpeting. Tall trees—white birch, oak, Japanese maple—shaded the moss carpets, and behind them stood villas, each quietly dominating its territory and reflecting various tastes. The area looked quite different from Oiwake, with its little cottages planted haphazardly in the woods, or from Middle Karuizawa, where he was staying, with its houses arranged in an orderly new development on a hillside. Here he saw, among the large villas, ordinary two-story houses and even modest bungalows too, but what struck him most was the way the new residences did not diminish the prevailing atmosphere of an opulence that had taken years to develop. Did that impression come from the line of tall fir trees that told how many years had passed since the road was built? Or from the attention paid by generations of owners, suggested by the emerald moss gardens just visible through the hedges? Or from the bits and pieces of knowledge about Karuizawa that he carried in his head?