Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

The window-washing wasn’t even half done when night began to fall and it was time for him to leave, so the next day he got up early and took the bus to Karuizawa by himself. It took him all day to finish. As usual, Yoko scampered back and forth, but with Mrs. Utagawa absent, there was no one to be concerned about her comings and goings, and I doubt if anyone noticed but me.

There in the highlands, by the end of August, autumn winds begin to blow, and from that year on, that became our cue to close up the summer houses in both Karuizawa and Oiwake. Once we were back in Tokyo, the daily routines of life got under way again.

WIND AND FOG, pine and birch, horned beetles and stag beetles, slowly rotting windowsills and dirty stucco walls, stairs that creaked with every step, the smell of wood burning in the fireplace, the clink of delicate china teacups on saucers, the laughter of a bevy of lovely women—to Yoko, Karuizawa was a place where these were familiar, established things. But for Taro, Karuizawa could only symbolize a closed world into which she might one day disappear, removed from him before he knew it; a world that he would never belong to or make his own. For as long as he could remember he had lived in darkness, and then Yoko had suddenly come and lit up his life, like a fairy. The fear that she might as suddenly vanish must always have been there. But from the time he set foot in Karuizawa that summer, what had been a vague dread turned to clear alarm.

When summer ended and he went back to the city, Taro naturally began to look on Seijo as Tokyo’s version of Karuizawa. Just as in Karuizawa, there was in Seijo a pair of neighboring houses inhabited in the same way by the same people, among them the boy Masayuki. And so naturally enough, on Saturdays when Yoko went there for her piano lesson he could no longer see her off with an easy mind. One time he came up with the idea of using the money he’d earned in Karuizawa to board the train and see her all the way to Seijo, but Yoko had a fit. “No, don’t! I don’t want you to!” He sneaked on board a different car anyway, which was fine, except that when he stepped off the train at Seijo station, she caught sight of him and was so mad that she took the next train back.

What kept him from feeling too wretched was that Yoko was less drawn to that other world than he feared; she seemed surprisingly content with her life in Chitose Funabashi.

Proof of this was not long in coming. A Keio University student who lived nearby began coming over to tutor Yoko, and in due course she was safely accepted into Seijo Academy’s middle school and began commuting there by train—but only for the first few days did she take the trouble to stop by the Saegusas on her way back, out of sheer novelty. After that she generally came straight home to Chitose Funabashi after school, and so life went on largely as before. She must have come back in part to keep her grandmother from feeling lonely. As for Taro, who can say whether she acted out of consideration for his feelings or because rather than be ignored in Seijo she preferred to come home and be pampered by him? Ever since that summer in Karuizawa, she seemed to understand in her own fashion that the time she spent with Taro was somehow unallowable, and yet she seemed happy to let it continue. “Today Grammy’s baking a cake,” she might say when she set out, to explain that she’d be dropping by the Saegusas later on, or she would telephone—by then there was finally a telephone line in Chitose Funabashi—to say she was there and would be staying till nighttime. “Sorry. I’ll come back with Mama and Yuko.” About Masayuki, whom she saw now and then, she talked in the same awed tone as ever. Yet she never seemed to feel any more at home in Seijo than before. Taro was a determined boy, and so I’m sure he thought a good deal about all of this at the time, but he found no cause for further distress or jealousy.

In any case, considering what happened later, it seems a miracle that those peaceful, humdrum days lasted right up to the day that Mrs. Utagawa died. As the two children grew up, they stopped romping around the house. Even in fine weather they would sit on the sofa and talk—though Yoko did most of the talking. At other times, they would sit reading something from the Girls’ Library of World Literature or the World Literature Series, or play records from her father’s collection. Any vocal music, whether in Italian, German, or French, Yoko followed by reading the lyrics included inside the cardboard sleeve, singing along heartily as Taro listened in some embarrassment. The Utagawas had resolutely resisted television, but after they went and bought a set once Yoko was in middle school, she and Taro would sometimes watch a show as well. A television set was one thing the Azumas had bought early on, so for Taro it was nothing special. He couldn’t wait to turn it off, in fact, but during the first couple of months, Yoko would sit mesmerized, mouth open and eyes glued to the screen. She used to mimic the hit song “Tokyo Dodonpa Girl,” flouncing around the room; every time the line “Dodonpa!” came up, she would take a big step forward, then one to the right, then one to the left, just like the singer onscreen, with Taro rolling about on the floor laughing. Now and again one of the young Primavera staff taught her some proper dance steps too, and she would try to teach Taro what she had learned. It used to drive her to weepy hysterics when he just stood there like a sack of potatoes. Also, at some point, the two of them took over the responsibility of looking after the garden from the aging Mrs. Utagawa. When they went outdoors together, they tried to avoid any local middle school boys who were sure to tease them—one more reason why they continued to visit the vacant lot across the street, with the abandoned house and air-raid shelter surrounded by clumps of pampas grass. Sites like this were fast disappearing from the neighborhood, so it was a special place.

Things continued, therefore, much as usual. Takero went on staying late at the university and Natsue went on spending most of her time in Seijo. As for Yuko, the older girl, she took after her father as she matured, becoming increasingly serious. Even after she came home from Seijo she would practice the piano until as late as she could without disturbing the neighbors. When Eri and Mari went on to Seijo Academy’s high school, Yuko auditioned for the high school attached to the prestigious Toho School of Music, met their demanding standards for technique and ability, and was accepted. That, however, did not change her routine. After class she took the bus to Seijo and stayed at the Saegusa house as she used to do, coming home with her mother in the evening. The Saegusas had another grand piano besides the one Fuyue used for teaching, and practicing on that was supposedly Yuko’s reason for visiting there every day. But Yuko knew that if she ever did come home early, she would feel out of place, and that it was more natural, all things considered, for her to spend time with her cousins. She and her sister, Yoko, lived in different worlds; while they never quarreled, neither did they ever seem to have very much to talk about.

O-Tsune kept a low profile in the house out back, ingratiating as could be, since the rent never rose and Mrs. Utagawa supplied her with a steady stream of handouts. Taro’s brothers had moved on to adult life, the younger of the two also finding a job straight out of middle school, which was probably why they lost interest in tormenting Taro. Mr. Azuma worked till late at night, so we hardly ever saw him.

Every summer Taro routinely accompanied Mrs. Utagawa to Oiwake, where there were always chores for him to do: going down to the main road to shop, doing the washing and hanging it up to dry, burning paper trash, burying kitchen garbage in a hole in the ground, raking leaves. Besides all that, he willingly sought other ways of making himself useful, and as the years went by, the old lady grew increasingly dependent on him. Yoko would spend the first two-thirds of her vacation in Karuizawa and the last in Oiwake: after losing her to Karuizawa for that period, Taro was always keen to have her all to himself in Oiwake. I was usually off in Karuizawa, so I don’t really know how the two of them passed the time, but apparently they went walking quite a bit. North of the main road was a trail marked as the Writers’ Path, and in front of Mount Asama was a smaller mountain, Mount Sekison, with a cemetery at its base. Here and there among the personal graves were stones in memory of meshimori onna , “food-serving women”—women who had ministered to travelers in the old post town inns. South of the main road was virgin forest stretching from beyond the irrigation canal all the way to the Miyota rice paddies, with groves to explore on foot. The remains of sparklers were always scattered in the garden, so they probably enjoyed watching them blossom like small chrysanthemums in the night air. Small birdhouses hung from branches too.