Kazue, looking flustered, rushed to her seat. I didn’t take my eyes off her.
“Good morning, girls!” Hana-chan greeted the class with her rapid-fire, slightly nasal voice. She gazed languidly out the window. The rain was still pouring down.
“They say it’ll clear up by evening. But I wonder if it really will….”
Kazue drew in a deep breath and stood up. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. Hana-chan looked over at her in surprise. I stared at Kazue’s back, spurring her on with telepathic force. Do it! Say it! Finally, in a voice thick with phlegm, she started. “Um, there’s something I wanted to bring up for discussion. It’s about clubs.”
Kazue glanced at me nervously, but I acted like I didn’t know what she wanted from me and rested my chin in my hand. Just then, the girls in the cheerleading squad rushed up to the front of the room. Kazue stared at them in disbelief. The girls lined up and, standing straight and tall. began to sing “Happy Birthday.” In no time at all everyone else chimed in. The girls leading the singing were almost all insiders, most of them having started together in elementary school. Hana-chan crumbled into gales of laughter.
“How’d you know it was my birthday?”
The cheerleaders began waving their pompoms and pulling party crackers, followed by clapping and cheers. At the sound of the crackers, Kazue sank back into her seat. A cute student with her hair curled up in a flip pulled a bouquet of roses out from behind her back and thrust them into Hana-chan’s hands.
“Oh, I’m so thrilled!”
“We all wanted to drink a toast to you, since you’re celebrating your fortieth birthday!”
When had they made the preparations? I wondered. There they were, pulling soda cans out of a paper bag and handing one to each student. “Everybody, open your cans and let’s drink to Sensei! Happy birthday!”
Some students were confused and wondered if it was really okay to drink in the classroom. But no one wanted to be a party pooper, so they all acted like they were having fun. I started sipping the soda, which fizzed on my tongue and made my teeth thick with sugar. Kazue grimaced with humiliation.
“Sensei, say something!” Carried away with themselves, the students urged and cajoled.
“Well, I’m just stunned!” Hana-chan hugged the bouquet of roses to her chest. “But all of you, thank you so much! Today I am forty! I’m sure I must look like an incredibly old lady to you. I also studied at this school, you know. My homeroom teacher—when I was in my first year of high school—was exactly the same age that I am today. I thought she was ancient, so I assume it’s the same for you. How distressing.”
“You don’t look old!” one of the students shouted, and the class erupted in laughter.
“Well, thank you! It’s really a privilege to have you as a class! Independence, self-reliance, and self-respect is a motto that will serve you well in the future. You are all blessed. But precisely because you are so blessed we can bring you up to be self-reliant and proud. So please, study hard and keep growing!”
What an unbelievably pathetic speech. But it was greeted by applause and whistles, so loud that the teacher from the classroom next door poked her head in to see what was going on. But I knew that no one was really moved. Hana-chan was just being played.
When I looked over at Mitsuru, she had her hands clasped in front of her breast and was looking at Hana-chan, her face wreathed in smiles. Sensing my gaze, she turned back to look in my direction and wrinkled her nose at me. I felt happy, as if Mitsuru and I were partners in crime. All Kazue could do was look on, her hopes for vindication cruelly dashed by the cheerleaders.
When school ended that day I collected my things and headed outside. The sky was blue as far as the eye could see, as if the morning storm had never happened. I suddenly remembered that Yuriko would be returning to Japan, and I headed toward the station in a gloomy mood.
“Wait up!”
I turned around and saw Kazue thumping noisily after me. She was wearing bulky rubber navy-blue boots, and the students behind were poking one another with their elbows and laughing at her.
“Hey, what happened today really ticked me off. You too, huh?”
It would be more accurate to say I was disappointed, but I nodded without saying anything. Kazue thumped me on the shoulder. “So do you have to hurry home?”
“Not really.”
“Well, to tell you the truth, it’s my birthday today too.”
Kazue had brought her mouth close to my ear. I could smell the dank sweetness of her perspiration.
“Happy birthday.”
“Won’t you come to my house?”
“Why?”
“My mother told me I could bring some of my school friends home with me today.”
I was curious to meet her mother. On the day I learned of my own mother’s death I met Mitsuru’s mother, and now I had a chance to meet Kazue’s.
“Please come! Just for a bit. I can’t tell her no one’s coming.” A look of pain spread over Kazue’s face, as if she was recalling what had happened in homeroom. Based on the little bit Kazue had managed to say before being interrupted, it was now common knowledge around school that she had tried to bring up the issue of the club discrimination. Here she was on the brink of becoming the next Mitsuru, the next target of torture, and she had no idea about Mitsuru’s bullying experiences. No sooner had this thought crossed my mind than I heard Kazue mention Mitsuru by name.
“You’re good friends with that girl named Mitsuru, aren’t you? Do you think you could ask her to come too?”
I was pretty sure Mitsuru planned to spend the afternoon studying. She’d left as soon as she could.
“No, she’s already gone,” I replied curtly.
“The really smart students are always busy, aren’t they,” Kazue said, her voice full of disappointment.
“Well, get over it. She doesn’t like you anyway.”
My lie silenced Kazue. “You don’t have to come either,” she said, looking at the ground.
“No, that’s okay. I’ll come.”
• 5 •
We took one of the private railroad lines and got out on the outskirts of Setagaya Ward, at a station so small there was only one platform. Kazue turned down a residential street that looked exactly as I expected it would—quiet, peaceful, and lined with moderately sized houses. Although there were no expensive mansions to be seen, neither were there any clumps of cheap apartment buildings.
Tasteful plaques graced the gatepost to each residence, and just beyond were small lawns. On Sundays the fathers in these houses would no doubt stand on those lawns practicing their golf swings while the sound of pianos wafted from the living room windows. I’d heard that Kazue’s father was a salary man, and I imagined he’d probably taken out a thirty-year loan to finance his house. Kazue stomped sulkily ahead as if she were annoyed to have me tagging along with her. But before long she started pointing out all the important landmarks along the way. “This is the junior high I attended; it’s a municipal school,” she said proudly. “Look at that old house over there, that’s where I took piano lessons.” Her tour through memory lane really got on my nerves.
Having come to the end of the road, Kazue waved me over to the front of another house. “This is my house,” she announced triumphantly.
It was a large two-story structure surrounded by a dingy gray wall of tani stone. The house was painted brown and the roof was covered with heavy tiles. The garden was planted thickly with shrubs and trees, the lot larger and more established than those of the neighboring houses.
“What an impressive house! Is it a rental?”
Kazue looked startled by my question. Then she thrust her chest out and replied, “We rent the property, but we own the house. I’ve lived here since I was six.”
Diamond-shaped cutouts lined the stone wall, perhaps for ventilation. I peered through the holes into the garden, which was dotted with azaleas, hydrangeas, and other common shrubs. Potted plants were jamm
ed in nearly every nook and cranny.
“Hey, you have bonsai too!” I blurted out without thinking. But upon closer inspection I saw that what I had taken for bonsai were nothing more than “poor man’s planters,” as my grandfather called them, just small potted marigolds, forget-me-nots, daisies, and other flowers you see lining the front of any old flower shop.
A woman wearing glasses was squatting down tending to the flowers, waving away mosquitoes as she pinched off the withered blooms.
“Mom.”
The woman turned around when Kazue called out to her. I stared into her face with curiosity. Her glasses were silver-framed, and she had the same coarse black hair as Kazue, cut in a bob that came to a point alongside each cheek. Her face was narrow and her features were more symmetrical than Kazue’s.
“Did you bring a friend?” She smiled perfunctorily, and the rim of her glasses leaped up over her eyebrows. She had a conspicuous overbite; wasn’t there a fish somewhere with that same kind of face? What, I wondered, would the father look like? Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to stick around until he arrived home.
“Make yourself at home.”
“Thank you.”
The mother turned back to her pots. Her greeting wasn’t particularly warm. Maybe she frowned on the idea of my turning up just at dinnertime. Maybe Kazue hadn’t told her she was bringing a friend home. Maybe it wasn’t even her birthday. Had Kazue lied to me? I wanted to ask, but before I could, she put her hand on my back and practically pushed me through the front door.
“Go on in.”
Kazue’s childish way of conducting herself was really getting on my nerves. Besides, I hated being touched.
“Want to go to my room?”
“I don’t care.”
There were hardly any lights on in the house. I smelled nothing to suggest dinner was ready. It was as quiet as a grave, not even the sound of a TV or radio. Once my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I could see that though the house was impressive on the outside, on the inside it was constructed with cheap veneers. Even so, it was extremely tidy. I didn’t see a speck of dust anywhere—not in the hall, not even on the stairs. And throughout the house wafted the smell of frugality. In living with Grandfather, I had already learned to scrimp and save, so I knew frugality when I smelled it. In this house, every corner reeked of it, and yet from somewhere also seeped a sense of lewdness. It was the devotion to frugality itself that was permeated with lewdness, as if the very effort applied to economizing was wanton.
Kazue started up the stairs ahead of me. They creaked. There were two rooms on the second floor. The large room above the hall was Kazue’s. Her bed was pressed up against the wall, her desk in the middle of the room. She didn’t have a TV or stereo set. Her room was spartan, like a dorm room. Here and there were scattered items of clothing. Her bed was also a mess, covered with a wrinkled futon quilt.
Textbooks and reference books were stacked roughly into her bookshelf, and she’d stuffed her gym wear onto one gapingly empty shelf. Kazue’s room was as cluttered and chaotic as her house and garden were trim and tidy. It suited Kazue to a T.
Completely ignoring me as I stood there staring around in disbelief, Kazue threw her school bag on the floor and sat down at her desk. There were memo cards stuck to the wall with slogans. I read them off in a loud voice:
“Only by your own power is victory possible! Trust yourself. Set your sights! Be a Q student!”
“I put them there after I did well on the entrance exam. I got in, so they’re a testament to my success,” Kazue said.
“Well, looks like you’re quite the victor!” I said, letting a hint of cynicism seep into my voice.
But Kazue just sneered. “I really worked hard, you know.”
“I didn’t write any peppy slogans.”
“Well, you’re weird.” Kazue focused her eyes on me and stared hard into my face.
“Why am I weird?”
“You do everything your own way.” She spoke each word with precision and left it at that. I wanted to get out of there and get home as soon as I could. I was worried about my grandfather and the shock my mother’s death had had on him. Why on earth had I come here? Regret swept over me.
I heard the sound of footsteps stealthily drawing near, like a cat climbing the stairs. Kazue’s mother called her from just outside the door.
“Kazue, dear. May I have a word?”
Kazue left the room and the two of them spoke in whispers in the hallway. I pressed my ear to the door to eavesdrop.
“What do you want to do about dinner?” her mother asked. “I wasn’t expecting company and I don’t have enough.”
“But Daddy said he’d come home early this evening, so I should bring a friend.”
“Oh, I see. Is she the one who’s ranked first in your class?”
“No.”
“Then what rank is she?”
Their voices slipped so low I couldn’t hear. Was that story about her birthday just a ruse? Had Kazue just wanted to show Mitsuru to her father? Had she tried to use me as the bait to lure Mitsuru over? I was of absolutely no value to this family, not being much of a student myself. Kazue’s mother tiptoed back down the stairs. It was as if she didn’t want to wake someone.
“Sorry,” Kazue said, as she came back in. Leaning against the door to close it, she added, “You’ll stay for dinner, won’t you?” I nodded without an ounce of shame. After their little powwow I was curious to see what kind of meal they’d produce for such an unwelcome guest as myself. Kazue started flipping through a reference book, looking ill at ease. The pages were marked up and nearly black with ink stains.
“Are you an only child?”
Kazue waved her hand at my question. “No, I have a younger sister. She’s studying for the high school entrance exams now.”
“Will she go to Q High School, too?”
Kazue shrugged her shoulders. “She’s not smart enough. But she tries so hard it would break your heart! Too bad she’s not as bright as I am. My mother always says it’s because she takes after her. But my mother graduated from a women’s college herself, so she only says stuff like that on account of my dad. She went to a really good women’s college. Still, I’m lucky to take after my dad, because he went to Tokyo University, the best school in Japan. What about your dad? What university did he go to?”
“I don’t think he went to a university.”
Kazue stared at me in stupefaction, just as I knew she would. “Well, what about high school?”
“Don’t know.” I had no idea what kind of education my father had had in Switzerland.
“Well, what about your grandfather then, the one you live with?”
“He didn’t even go to high school.”
“And your mother?”
“I think she only got as far as high school.”
“Then you’re their star of hope!”
“Their what?”
What could we possibly hope for? I cocked my head to the side. Kazue stared at me as if I’d suddenly transformed into an alien. Up to that point, I’m sure she thought we both shared the same desires. But Kazue was not the kind of person to care that other people might have different ideas.
“Well, you have to try your best, right? If you really, really try, you’ll make it.”
“Make it? Make what?”
“Why, success!” Kazue looked in confusion at the mottoes plastered over her wall. “Ever since I was in elementary school, I was determined to get into Q High School for Young Women. It’s just such a perfect school. If you apply yourself, and if you’re from a good family, you can get into Q High School and then you can go to Q University. It’s practically automatic. And if I can finish in the top ten in the class, I can get into the Economics Department at Q University. I’ll pile up a string of A-pluses, and then I’ll be able to get a job in a really good company after I graduate.”
“And once you enter a good company, what then?”
“What then? We
ll, I’ll work there, of course! Perfect, isn’t it? We’re living in an era when even women can work at whatever they desire. My mom came of age at a time when that wasn’t possible, so she wants me to do what she couldn’t.”
I heard Kazue’s mother call up from the foot of the stairs. Kazue left the room, and as she did I detected the sharp scent of chilled soba sauce. A few minutes later Kazue came back in carrying a tray with chipped paint, the kind a delivery service would use to carry prepared food. The tray was loaded with two bamboo-slatted plates piled high with soba noodles and two little cups of dipping sauce.
“Since you went out of your way to visit, we wanted to treat you to a feast. Mother just ordered soba for the two of us, so let’s eat here.”
Not exactly my idea of food for guests, but I didn’t say anything. I guess every household has a different concept of hospitality. I was reminded again of the miserliness that I sensed when I first entered the house.
Kazue went out and came back into the room clutching a chair with a pink cushion tied to the seat, the kind of chair that accompanies a student’s desk. It was probably her younger sister’s. Kazue had me sit in that chair. We lined up next to each other in front of her desk and began slurping down the noodles.
Suddenly the door burst open. “What are you doing with my chair?” Her sister, noticing me, hung her head timidly. Her eyes landed on the plates of soba and her face flashed with resentment when she realized there wasn’t any for her. Her face and body were a shrunken version of Kazue’s, but her hair was long and hung down her back.
“I’ve got a friend over. I need to borrow it for a bit. Don’t worry, I’ll return it when we’re done eating.”
“How am I supposed to do my homework?”
“I said I’d bring it back when we’re done.”
“You ought to eat standing up!”
The two of them squabbled without a glance in my direction. After her sister left, I asked, “Do you like your younger sister?”
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