Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

Fumiko, intent on making her way back as quickly as possible, said hardly a word. Yusuke walked along, taking in the scenery unfolding to his left and right, wondering what awaited him. More than once there was a brief, light shower; the raindrops sparkled in the sunlight like scattered diamonds, making everything appear even brighter. They had not traveled far from the main street, yet it seemed as though they had already come a long way. At the next fir-lined road, they turned left and walked on until Fumiko at last came to a halt.

THEY WERE STANDING before a pair of gateposts made from large lava stones—remnants of Mount Asama’s repeated eruptions.

The gateposts were imposing. Embedded in one was a stone nameplate with SHIGEMITSU engraved on it, while the other had two similar plates, SAEGUSA and UTAGAWA. Each was covered with fine cracks; the gateposts themselves were also worn by time, giving the impression that they had begun to erode from the inside. Patches of weeds grew where stones were missing, and moss covered the rest of the rough surface like mold. Here also moss carpeted the yard, though this particular one seemed less well cared for, as if it were giving in to the forces of nature. A thick stand of trees towered over the property.

Fumiko said, “Here we are.”

Through the trees he could see two old houses, both in the nineteenth-century Western style of architecture, one nearer the gate and the other farther back from the street.

Yusuke paused, taken in by the sight.

He took a deep breath, and only then did it occur to him that he had not seen any Western-style houses like this during his walk with Fumiko. Not only that, he had hardly noticed anything that suggested the period when Karuizawa had first been developed.

Fumiko moved forward, but Yusuke stood still for a few moments, grocery bags in hand.

The two houses were quite similar. With their peaked roofs, both were three stories high, but they looked less grand than timeworn. The house farther from the gate seemed older. The other one had apparently undergone numerous minor renovations over the years. Its rust-red roof tiles and its window frames and shutters were all relatively new, and the light dusty-blue paint on the clapboard siding still seemed fairly fresh.

Yusuke’s eyes lingered on the more run-down house, with its faded tiles and siding.

At that moment, the summer sun, which had been darting in and out of the clouds, formed a ring of gold around the old house. It was obvious that this old building would not be able to survive much longer amid the new houses encroaching on the neighborhood. Perhaps because it seemed to be breathing its last, the quiet house looked vulnerable and sad to him, and magically beautiful.

He guessed that the woman who had telephoned the cottage in Oiwake was in one of the two houses: he could almost hear her affected voice, like a voiceover in a foreign movie, overlying the scene before him. He hoped to be taken into the older of the houses, but the one Fumiko headed toward was the nearer one, which had been renovated.

They went in through the back door. After having him put the groceries down in the kitchen, she led him into a wide hallway filled with the scent of wood. She rapped on the heavy wooden door at the end of the hall and opened it. The hinges creaked, as in a scene from an old European movie.

His eyes, unaccustomed to the dimness, could only make out a large casement window at first, its white lace curtains highlighted by the summer sun. Against the window, the dark shapes within stood in sharp contrast, like backlit photographic images. The room had a high ceiling and was designed in a formal Western style.

Three slender women turned together to face Yusuke—not young women. If anything, they were older than Fumiko, possibly by nearly a generation. They all wore diaphanous summer outfits in different shades of white; with the sunlight shining through them, their figures seemed translucent.

SERVICE ENTRANCE TO A SUMMER VILLA

The women stood next to a fireplace, its stone darkened with soot. On top of the mantelpiece, along with a ceramic vase, a pair of pewter candlesticks, and an ornate golden clock, sat two small bundles, conspicuous because they were evidently the only new items on display. Wrapped in pure white cloth, the tips of them, where the cloth was tied, looked like rabbit’s ears. On the wall above, a large oval mirror hung tilted slightly downward, reflecting with odd brightness these rabbit’s ears. The moment he saw them, Yusuke guessed that the bundles held the urns of cremated remains about which he’d overheard Fumiko speaking that night. A photograph in a black frame stood next to them, too far away to be clearly visible.

The old women must have been standing there talking when he entered the room. A pair of small valises stood on the hearth. Two of them, perhaps, had only just arrived.

He took in other objects in the room, visible in the light filtering through the lace curtains: a large, old-fashioned sofa and armchairs upholstered in a heavy fabric; porcelain lamps with yellowed silk shades; a Turkish rug with a faded pattern; a cabinet in a somber brown that made the already dark room look even darker; several paintings in peeling gold frames; and an upright piano that had lost its luster.

In order to push Yusuke farther into the room, Fumiko said from behind him, “Allow me to introduce Mr. Kato. He’s the one who answered the phone at Taro’s place the other night.”

This caused a slight tremor of nervous tension in the women.

Yusuke stood mute in the doorway, not knowing what to say—almost a caricature of a helpless young man. Fumiko added, to help him, “I ran into him just as I was coming out of Kinokuniya. I had quite a few bags, and he kindly offered to help me carry them home.”

For a moment, there was silence, which only amplified the uneasiness in the room, but then one of the old women said in a composed voice, “We are most grateful to you, my dear.”

She stood with a cane clutched in one hand. Her deft intervention had calmed everyone down, and what Yusuke took to be their normal pattern of life seemed to reassert itself. This, however, was not one he was accustomed to at all.

He inclined his head in a small bow.

The woman who had just spoken inspected him from head to foot as if assessing his worth. Yusuke, for his part, just stood there, nailed to the floor. After encouraging him to move farther into the room, Fumiko announced that she was going to bring them some cold drinks and vanished from the doorway.

Another of the old women spoke up. “Yes. Please do make yourself comfortable. By the way, it was I who spoke to you on the telephone the other day.”

He recognized the voice. She continued: “Forgive me if I sounded rude. Taro never answers the phone, so I was a bit taken aback when I heard a male voice on the line. This is my eldest sister, and that is the middle one.”

Once again, Yusuke bowed his head.

“We’re known as the Three Witches,” she added.

He watched as laughter rippled among the three old ladies. Their air of fragile translucency came from their dress, their delicate figures—and, no doubt, their age. Though shy, nervous, and dazed, he was still able to recognize that these women were indeed sisters. In fact, they looked so much alike that it was difficult to tell them apart—at least, so Yusuke at first thought. They all had the same extremely fair skin; all had large eyes with double-fold eyelids, fine, sculpted noses, and delicate yet firm lips. And all wore makeup—a light layer of face powder and carefully applied lipstick—and had such a pronounced air of self-confidence that it would have intimidated most Japanese men. Never before had Yusuke met anyone of this kind, much less at so close a distance, and certainly not three at once. He found himself more flustered than he would have been around women his own age.