Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

“Oh really?” my uncle replied, apparently accustomed to this kind of exchange. He looked up at the ceiling as if inspecting the quality of the construction himself. “You decided not to build a Western-style house?”

“What happened is that the architect told us that they’re no longer in vogue, that we should go for one of those modern things that looks like a square white box. Anyway, I didn’t want to live in a cake box, so I said make it Japanese-style. It’s only six months old.”

My uncle smiled and asked, “Is it one of your sons who’s in the place next door?”

“Yes, my eldest boy and his family.” It was unusually quiet that day because they had all gone to the zoo. Most of the time, he said, it felt as if they were living next door to an elementary school.

“On our way here, we walked past where your old house used to be.”

“Yes, the whole area burned down, so we ended up turning over the land to the tax man. But that was our home for a long time, and we didn’t want to move too far away. That’s why we bought this patch.”

“Certainly makes sense,” my uncle said, looking around the large living room and nodding understandingly.

“All of us survived, so I have no right to complain. But the fact is we lost everything we had.”

Mr. Ando, his face expressionless, told us that during the war he had secretly listened to Allied broadcasts and looked forward to their liberating Japan, but once they marched in, they confiscated all his property.

“The Americans are supposed to be anti-Communist, but the way they occupied this country, they might as well have been Reds themselves.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” my uncle affirmed without the slightest hesitation. Mr. Ando then told us about all the land the family had to give up because of property tax laws enacted after the war—land in valuable resort areas like Kamakura and Oiso. He also mentioned people he knew who had been purged from the civil service for their wartime allegiances, and others who had been sentenced as war criminals. These stories were the first I’d heard of anything like this, and as they poured forth one after another I had to struggle to follow what was being said. I was stunned but of course fascinated too.

“George, what have you been doing with yourself all this time?” Mrs. Ando asked when she came back into the living room, carrying a lacquer tray. My uncle told her briefly about losing his wife and daughter in the fire bombings, and explained that my father had died at the front as well. Mrs. Ando, her forehead wrinkled with concern, looked back and forth at the two of us. Her husband, though, didn’t sound all that sympathetic as he said, “So you’ve had a hard time of it too.”

Yes, was all my uncle said.

The fact is, Uncle Genji had managed to maintain his relations with people like the Andos because he knew his place. He understood that our taking an interest in the lives of those above us was taken for granted, while their taking an interest in our lives was a favor they were bestowing upon us.

“With you getting all that food at that American base, I feel reluctant to serve you what we have in our kitchen,” said Mrs. Ando as she offered us some thin slices of sponge cake. Uncle Genji took this as his cue to bring up the subject of a job for his niece.

“So what happened to your maids?”

“Today’s Sunday; ours has the day off. You see, she’s not a live-in maid like the ones we used to have.”

“They call them housekeepers now, not maids,” her husband volunteered.

“Oh yes, we’re supposed to call them housekeepers. I just assumed that we’d always have maids living with us.”

My uncle raised his chin slightly in my direction and said, “If I may make a suggestion, my niece might work out well in that position.”

After glancing at me, she shook her head a little and explained that not only was their house fairly cramped, but their daughter, whose husband had died of tuberculosis, was living with them. They could manage with one housekeeper.

My uncle, not one to be discouraged, suggested, “Perhaps one of your other sons or daughters?”

She replied that all of her children had one live-in maid to help them with their young families, and, the times being what they were, none of them was in a position to hire a second. She went on to explain who was who in her children’s families, counting them all on her fingers.

Before she could finish, her husband, who had busied himself with the cake and his cup of black tea, asked, “Do you remember our Masao? Our third son?”

Uncle Genji tipped his head slightly to one side as if trying to remember his face, then nodded, “Yes, of course.”

“Well, Masao married the Shigemitsus’ daughter. You remember Shigemitsu, the man who was with us then? He came back from London by way of Paris. Well, Masao took their family name when he married their daughter Yayoi.”

“Miss Yayoi? Shigemitsu’s daughter?”

His face suddenly came alive. It was as if he felt a sudden surge of warmth inside.

I wonder if I’m reading too much into my memories of that day. But I remember seeing that expression on his face, then feeling something shift inside me. I sensed that I was about to step into a new world, that my life was about to change.

Looking at Uncle Genji as he leaned forward in anticipation, Mr. Ando went on with his account.

“They got married not long before the war ended. Now they’ve got a child in elementary school, a boy.”

“I see,” said my uncle, the same animated look on his face. He stroked his chin with one hand, apparently pleased at the turn their conversation had taken. “The Shigemitsus, eh? That’s a name I haven’t heard for quite a while. What good news—that the two of them got married.”

“Indeed. They live in Kinuta.”

“Kinuta Village?”

“Yes, the Shigemitsus have a place there.”

“Is that so?”

“Mm. It’s still a bit like the back of beyond, I must say.”

Apparently, the Shigemitsu family had lived near the Andos before the war, but not long after the Odakyu Line was built, they moved out to Kinuta Village so their children could go to the Seijo Academy, a new progressive school. The area was renamed Seijo, after this school.

“Until recently, people there still walked around with paper lanterns for light, I gather. But the Shigemitsus have been there all this time. Became real Anglophiles, built a large Victorian-style house. Old Shigemitsu likes to pretend he’s an English country gentleman. The sad fact is, though, there’s not enough land for that in Tokyo, even out there.”

“True,” my uncle agreed, noting this new location on the map inside his head.

“You see, Masao is a bit of an odd one himself. He took a liking to the woods out in the Musashino Plain. It’s not to everyone’s taste, though. There’s nowhere to enjoy yourself. You’d end up sober in a place like that by the time you reached home after a night on the town.”

My uncle was stroking his chin again.

“I’d been wondering what became of the Shigemitsu family. I had no idea you were now in-laws,” he said, and then immediately seized his chance. “If no one in your family is looking for a maid, what about them?”

“The Shigemitsus?”

“My niece is quite capable for her age, and a hard worker.”

“How old is she?”

“Seventeen.”

“Just the right age,” he declared, after looking at me briefly. “But there must be lots of people looking for maids now. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding her a position.”

“That’s what one would think, but I want her to be in a respectable home, like yours, so she’ll get properly trained. It’s for her own good.”