Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

“What?” she yelped. “I told him to come here!” She tore off as fast as her legs would carry her. The white cardigan that matched her sister’s looked even whiter in the fog.

I watched from a little distance as Yoko took him by the hand and tried to pull him back into the garden, but he shook her off. She slowly flushed red. Uh-oh, here come the tears, I thought, and sure enough, she started to sob like a little child, digging her fists in her eyes. Perhaps because he knew I was watching, Taro stared balefully into empty space and let her cry.

I had my time off then, from late afternoon till noon the next day, but I gave it up to go back with Mrs. Utagawa and Taro to Oiwake. Harue’s husband, Hiroshi, drove us: he had just bought a new car called a Nissan Bluebird, which had only recently come on the market, and which he wanted to try out whenever possible. Even with Harue in the car there was still room for one more, and after what had happened that day, I couldn’t bear to see the two of them return to Oiwake alone.

Hiroshi, in the driver’s seat, had Harue next to him, with Mrs. Utagawa, me, and Taro in the back. We could have put him between us, but he had so few chances to ride in an automobile that I wanted to let him sit by the window—a gesture that backfired.

There was still daylight, but waves of thick fog kept rolling in. The ride felt strangely unreal, as if we were weaving in and out of clouds. When we got to Middle Karuizawa the fog started to thin out a bit, and the tension inside the car eased off as well.

Harue turned around and said to Mrs. Utagawa, “They tell me the boy was in Manchuria. Is that right?” She had apparently heard other things about Taro from Natsue as well. Her face was lively with curiosity. Only politeness kept her from asking about his being an orphan with Chinese blood in his veins. “He really is a wonderful helper,” she said. “Clever too.”

Something in her tone brought Mrs. Utagawa swiftly to his defense. “More than just clever. He does very well in school.”

“You have simply got to bring him back again. The houses are so old, with so many things that need doing! Really, I would love to have him come and stay with us for a few days.”

“Well …”

“You know what I think?” she said, turning to her husband at the wheel. “It would be nice if a boy like him could caddy at the golf course, don’t you think? Dress him properly and he would be perfect.”

“Absolutely,” said Hiroshi. “There’s nobody else around here but old farmers’ wives, in those baggy work pants they wear—no good at all!” He craned his neck to look at Taro in the rearview mirror.

The three of us in the back seat didn’t know what it might mean to “ caddy ,” but the tone of the conversation made us squirm.

By the time we reached Oiwake, the fog had disappeared and we could see Mount Asama, stained purple in the last rays of sunset. The sight of the mountain was somehow reassuring. Soon now it would be just the three of us again, I thought, feeling the strain of the day begin to ebb. But the final insult to Taro was yet to come.

When we pulled up in front of the house, Mrs. Utagawa, who was seated on my right, got out first, while I bent over to pick up the bundles at my feet. Taro on my left grabbed the handle for rolling down the window, pushing and pulling with both hands as he tried with all his might to open the door. I realized his mistake just as Harue turned around in the passenger seat to see what was happening.

“Goodness, the boy doesn’t know how to open a car door!” Twisting her mouth to one side, she managed not to laugh, but the car seemed to ring with high, mocking laughter.

AFTER SUPPER TARO took two neatly wrapped packets of money out of his pocket and showed them to us. They were from the Shigemitsus and the Saegusas, and each one contained a fifty-yen bill. Back then, fifty yen for a bowl of hot noodles would have seemed steep, so this was no mean tip for a schoolboy. Mrs. Utagawa seemed in two minds about it, but she told him, “Why don’t you set it aside so you can have some spending money when you want it?”

That was the first money Taro ever earned.

He stared at it on the table with a look of concentrated ferocity.

After he’d gone inside the shed, Mrs. Utagawa changed into her night yukata and began brushing her teeth with some old-fashioned tooth powder. She spoke half to me, half to herself. “I had to take him along. I couldn’t see leaving him alone here to fend for himself.”

What had she expected to happen when she took Taro with her? Perhaps she thought that if he was going to come to Oiwake every year, he would have to visit Karuizawa sooner or later anyway, so he might as well get it over with right at the start. That reasoning probably led her to take him with her.

As I went around the house closing the rain shutters for the night, I looked in on the shed, where the lights were off. I knew that didn’t mean Taro was asleep. I could see him in my mind’s eye, a scowl on his face as he stared up into the darkness. The next day, I went back to Karuizawa by myself only to find Yoko running around playing with the others, the events of the previous day apparently forgotten.

MRS. UTAGAWA’S NEXT visit to Karuizawa was for Sunday lunch in the week of the Bon festival. She didn’t bring Taro: although Takero was in Oiwake by then, he had some sort of pressing deadline for a manuscript, so he stayed at the cottage too. She arrived alone.

As soon as Harue caught sight of her, she asked, “Where is the rickshaw-puller’s boy? Has he gone back to Tokyo already?”

“No, he’s still here.”

“Oh, good. Make sure you bring him with you next time, will you?”

Natsue chimed in. “Yes, do! Remember how high he climbed, without getting scared? We’ve been saying we’d like him to come back and wash all the windows.”

Mrs. Utagawa tightened her lips. Evidently she had left him behind on purpose, and he had not objected. That afternoon Yoko was scheduled to come back to Oiwake with her grandmother and stay ten days; knowing this must have made a difference.

It was decided in advance that I too was to go to Oiwake with Yoko that day. I would spend the night there, and after making sure that everything was all right, go back to Saku for a three-day visit to my family. Plans then escalated. As long as the three of us were being driven over, why not take two cars, with the Shigemitsus in one and the Saegusas in the other, so all the children could see the Oiwake cottage too? The decision was made on the spur of the moment and led to some arguing among the adults about who should go and who should stay. We were supposed to get an early start and arrive in Oiwake around four-thirty, but by the time we piled in and set off, it was already later than that.

I rode in the Shigemitsu car, with Masao driving. We arrived first and parked on the side of the road. Masayuki jumped out and ran down to the gate. Taro, who had been counting the minutes until Yoko’s arrival, had never imagined that any other child would jump out of the car—much less the very one who had been so much on his mind. In a flash, he moved in front of the gate and stood with his arms spread wide, barring the way.

Dumbfounded, Masayuki blurted out, “Hey! This isn’t your house!”

He said this in an authoritative, grown-up way, being now in his first year of middle school. He could not have had any idea what profound significance his words would later take on. It was probably the first time he had ever spoken to Taro, but he’d seen him in Karuizawa and knew from the Saegusa sisters’ conversation what sort of child he was. In his surprise, the words must have popped out of his mouth.