Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

The old ladies moved away from the fireplace and each took a seat.

“How is your injury?” asked the youngest sister, perched on the sofa with its back to the window. She was the one with whom he had talked on the telephone. As she spoke, she motioned to an armchair across from her, inviting him to sit down. It seemed that Fumiko had mentioned his accident when she told them the story of how a stranger came to answer their late-night phone call.

“Thank you. It’s much better,” he replied. The high-backed upholstered chair that was offered to him looked all the more daunting because its arms were worn from years of use. He hesitated to sit on it.

“We were sorry to hear what happened.”

“Thank you.”

The youngest sister could have passed as middle-aged, had she dyed her hair. Neither her bearing nor her features were those of an old woman. The virile face, the jaw straight and determined, had a rather androgynous quality—she might have looked in the past like a beautiful boy, he thought. Occasionally a look of irony would flicker across her face. She was the only one who wore pants and a pair of glasses.

Just then, from the armchair with its back to the fireplace, the sister who was introduced as the eldest and who spoke first firmly commanded, “Young man! Stop standing like a stick and come sit down with us.”

Tapping the floor with her cane, she spoke with the authority of the eldest. Even her eyes and nose looked more imposing than those of her sisters.

Yusuke felt as though he’d been scolded, yet, in contrast to her words, she was looking at him half-teasingly, eyes wide, perhaps having some fun with the young man in front of her. When their eyes met, Yusuke blushed. He took a few steps farther into the room and awkwardly sat across from the sofa where the younger sisters were. Watching, the woman’s eyes softened. Then she opened them wide again and said, “The cottage in Oiwake feels like a haunted house. Wouldn’t you agree?”

She sounded disparaging. She also sounded mocking. Yusuke couldn’t tell whether she was making fun of the dilapidated little house or its naive young visitor.

“That place used to be ours, you know,” said the middle sister, joining the conversation for the first time. She leaned against the arm of the sofa on the opposite end from the youngest one, both legs neatly folded under her. Below, sitting on the carpet, were a pair of bright-red sandals, the kind you’d usually see on much younger women.

“Is that so?”

This new piece of information took Yusuke by surprise, but so much else remained unresolved that he didn’t know what to make of it. It only confirmed his suspicion that these old women and Taro Azuma were somehow closely connected.

The eldest sister demanded in her imperious voice, “Tell me your impression of that man. Did you not find him strange?”

“Well …”

Three pairs of eyes looked intently at him. As he wondered what to say, the eldest abruptly turned toward her siblings on the sofa and murmured, “What was he thinking—coming back at a time like this? He did it on purpose, I’m quite certain.”

The contempt in her voice was tinged with resentment.

“Yes, at a time like this …,” the middle sister, who had mentioned her prior ownership of the cottage, repeated in the same tone. While her large eyes were just like her elder sister’s, her face was gentler and more appealing. With a dimple in one of her full cheeks, she had an air of unfettered femininity, despite her age. Even the white dress she wore, scattered with what looked like red poppies around the hem, was a bit girlish, and she had painted her fingernails and toenails with a scarlet polish to match the floral pattern. Yet her voice was so similar to her elder sister’s that, when she spoke, it sounded as if the other were repeating herself. All three spoke with that same theatrical enunciation of movie voiceovers.

The youngest one peered over her glasses and said to him, “You know, that man you met—he’s a millionaire .”

She pronounced the English word like an American. After translating it for himself, he replied, “Then he’s rich?”

“Not just rich—very rich.”

He thought of the decaying cottage as he’d seen it under the full moon—the dim hanging lamps, the rickety wooden furniture, the wood-framed windows that looked as if they’d let in drafts. He couldn’t help feeling skeptical about what she said.

The eldest sister resumed her inquiry, her voice willfully exaggerating the sense of prerogative that must have characterized her long life.

“Does he look a lot older?”

This question was absurd since Yusuke had never met the younger version.

“I don’t think so.”

“Did he have a lot of gray hair?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“How about his hairline?

“I’m sorry?”

“Is it receding? Going bald?”

“No.”

“And his belly?”

Yusuke looked blank.

“Did he have a paunch?”

“No, he didn’t.”

“He’s not getting fat, then?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“So he is still quite a charmer—unlike my sons-in-law, who are both fat pigs.”

She laughed cynically at her own words. Then, as if to excuse her aggressive questioning, she added, “That Fumi never tells us a thing, so I have to ask you instead. No matter what I ask, she just smiles and doesn’t say a word. If I didn’t make a point of asking, we would never even know when he was back in Japan.”

Just then, the middle sister declared with unexpected fierceness, “The man’s deranged.”

She seemed alarmed at the tone of her own voice, and, perhaps in an effort to compose herself, let out a long sigh. Then she turned her head slowly toward the two small white bundles on the mantelpiece. The eldest sister’s face stiffened but she remained motionless in her armchair. The youngest one, led by the middle sister, turned her head too. Once again, the room filled with tension, just as when Yusuke arrived. No one said a word, as if a spell had been cast on them. The high ceiling seemed even higher, while, with the white light of summer outside, the interior seemed for a moment to sink further into shadow.

At this point, Fumiko came into the room carrying a round silver tray on which tall, frosted glasses, brimming with some purple liquid, clinked with ice cubes—a refreshing summer resonance.

“How about a glass of Karuizawa’s world-famous grape juice!” Sounding like a TV commercial, Fumiko seemed to chase the spell from the room. She held the tray toward Yusuke for him to take a glass. “It might not be cold yet.”

“Fumiko, since the weather is clearing up, I’ve set the table out on the porch, as you can see,” said the androgynous sister. A glass in one hand, she stood up and walked into the adjacent dining room. The two rooms were separated only by an archway, so Yusuke could see a dining table from where he sat. Maybe that’s what people call mahogany, he thought as he studied the oval table’s dark, reddish-brown surface with its soft luster. High up on one wall was a small square window that lit the space almost like a skylight, and beneath it a large French window with the same lace curtains. On the matte stucco wall hung several paintings, slightly smaller than the ones in the parlor. Everything about the room was not only Western in style but also redolent of another era.

Though hidden from where he sat, there seemed to be a door on the north side of the dining room that led into the kitchen. He could hear the youngest sister speaking with Fumiko through the open door. On the porch outside the dining room to the south was what looked like a table painted white.

The eldest sister widened her large, penetrating eyes again and asked, “Where is your summer house?”