by Kyoko Mori
Miya smiles and then brings the fork up to her mouth with her left hand. She is eating in the way we were taught—using the fork in the left hand, the knife in the right, and never putting down either except to pick up the water glass or bread. I’m cutting up my spinach pakora with a fork in my right hand, eating like an American, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
“Both Shima-chan and Yamako were married a very short time and had no children,” Miya says, “so their divorces were simple. I hear Yamako is engaged now to someone from the hospital where she works. She’s a surgeon, and now she and her fiancé want to go into private practice together.”
Miya picks up her glass and sips the water.
Maybe things are changing after all. In high school, none of us had parents who had been divorced. We didn’t know any woman who had been married more than once, even if she had been widowed at an early age. When we went to college and studied with a professor who had been divorced and lived with her parents, we were in awe of her. “She was married only for a few months,” we used to whisper to each other, as though there were something almost romantic about her life. “She left her husband because she was unhappy.” Though this woman was only in her early forties and very attractive, we would have been amazed if she had gotten remarried, especially to a younger man.
“Everyone’s proud of you,” Miya says. “You’re a professor. You teach American kids how to write English.”
“I don’t think it’s so special.”
“I’m not surprised. You were always smart.” She breaks a tiny piece off her nan, steam rising from her fingers.
“So tell me about your tutoring jobs,” I ask.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” She shrugs. “You are a real teacher. I just help a few high school students who are having trouble at school.”
“That’s hard work. How many students do you have?”
“Five right now.”
“One at a time?”
She nods. “I have someone every night except Fridays and Sundays. Tonight is one of my free nights.”
“Do they come to your apartment, or do you go to their houses?”
“They come to my place after school and stay till eight or nine. My husband is pretty good about it. He doesn’t mind if I can’t cook dinner till they’re gone. If it’s really late, he goes out alone to eat so I don’t have to cook. He’s very easygoing.” Miya tears another piece off her nan. “Maybe it’s because we don’t have children.” She lowers her voice. “Because we can’t.” She smiles, the slight upturn of pursed lips that says, It’s okay, don’t worry. She takes a sip of water and adds, “When Machiko comes back from Tokyo to visit her parents, she brings her two boys. She’s planning to have another baby so she can try for a daughter. When I see her, I feel envious. Otherwise, I’m used to it.”
In college, when she worked part-time at a boutique, Miya put a small amount of money every month in a separate savings account. She said it was for her children’s college fund. How does she know that she’ll get married and have kids? I wondered then. What if she doesn’t meet anyone she likes? I was saving money myself, to go to graduate school. My plans included only myself while hers included other people—other people she hadn’t met yet. Now it seems so sad that she ended up not having children after all. I lift my glass and take a sip of water, wondering what to say without offering unwanted sympathy or consolation.
“We all have some expectations that don’t come about,” Miya says. She straightens out the coaster with her fingers so that her glass is sitting right in the center.
“Yes,” I add. “That’s how life is.” As I say this, I understand that such platitudes are meant to comfort without going into the painful specifics. If I lived here and saw my friends often, I would learn to say these things at the right time, without being prompted. Knowing how to offer comforting words without unnecessary intrusion would be part of learning to speak Japanese like an adult.
By the time we finish eating, all the other tables are empty. The waiter takes away our plates and brings two cups of coffee. I take a sip of mine and then add two sugar cubes. Even at an Indian restaurant, the coffee is Japanese—much too bitter to drink by itself.
“So are you busy this afternoon?” Miya asks. It’s almost three.
“No. I was supposed to have dinner with my stepmother, but I don’t have to. I have no particular plans.”
“I talked to Hitomi last week,” Miya says. “She wants to see you. Would you like to go to her house? She lives in Nishinomiya, close to my apartment.”
“That sounds good.”
“And tomorrow, can you meet Yoshiko, Hiroko, and me for a drink? It’s your last night.”
“I’m free in the evening.”
“Good. I was hoping it would work out. I already canceled my tutoring appointment so I can come. Is there anyone else you want to see?”
“How about Toshiko?” I mention one of the two girls I used to walk home with from the train station. Last I heard, she had gotten a master’s degree in philosophy. “Is she still in town?”
“She lives with her parents and teaches English at a women’s college in Himeji.”
“English? I thought her degree was in philosophy.”
Miya shrugs. “There were no jobs for philosophers when she was looking. Because most of her reading was in English, she got a job teaching basic reading courses.”
“Can we invite her?”
“Sure, and anyone else you’d like. I have a directory at home from the alumni office. Maybe you can look through that and see if there’s anyone else.”
We finish our coffee, pay the bill, and walk across the street to the department store. Miya stops in the aisles of the gourmet food section and says, “Let’s get a cake to bring to Hitomi.”
At the bakery counter, she points to a round strawberry cake behind glass. The clerk takes it out, puts it in a white box, and wraps it in glossy pink paper, finishing with a white ribbon tied into a huge butterfly bow. Miya hands her the money and then gives me the box.
“You carry it. But it’s my treat.”
She calls Hitomi from a pay phone before we go into the parking garage to find her car.
* * *
Hitomi comes to the door apologizing.
“I had to clean the bathtub while the boys were at school. I didn’t have time to change.” She is wearing old jeans and a faded blue T-shirt, her hair pulled back into a ponytail.
“Don’t worry. I’m not exactly dressed up.” I point to my denim shorts and purple T-shirt.
Outside, two men are standing on the neighbor’s roof, pounding nails and ripping out the roof-slates.
“Come on in,” Hitomi says. “The house is a mess. I have two boys in grade school. Did Miya tell you?”
I nod.
In the small kitchen, where we sit down around a dark brown table, I put the cake box in front of Hitomi.
“This is Miya’s treat.”
“A strawberry shortcake,” Miya says, “from Daimaru.”
“How kind of you. I’ll make some tea.” Hitomi jumps up from her chair to fill the kettle. After she turns on the stove, she opens the cupboard and rummages in there for a long time. Finally, she says, “I only have green tea, bancha, and Twinings English Breakfast tea. That’s not a very good selection. Wait, maybe there’s some more in the drawers.”
“Hitomi, why don’t you settle down?” Miya says. “Here, sit down. English Breakfast tea sounds fine. You don’t have to find anything else.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should make coffee instead. My tea’s no good.”
Miya sighs and turns to me. “Hitomi always gets this way when we come to visit. Relax, Hitomi. Sit down.”
In her chair, Hitomi pulls at her ponytail to straighten it. Even with the windows closed, we can hear the pounding and ripping from next door.
“It’s been such a long time,” Hitomi says to me, blinking. “I really wanted to see you.”
“I’m glad to see you,
too.” I say. She looks thinner than before, but otherwise, not that different. “Everyone looks the same.”
The three of us look at one another and laugh.
After a while, Hitomi pushes her chair back and goes to the glass cabinet to take out a teapot, three cups and three saucers, a sugar bowl, all of them thin white porcelain with tiny pink rosebuds. “I’m sorry about the noise.” She sits back down. “My neighbors are building an addition over the garage. It’ll be darker in here when they’re done.” She sighs, gets up to check the water again, and sits down. “I get nervous when my friends visit me. I’m so happy to see them. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Come on,” Miya scolds. “You make it sound as if we never visit you.”
“I know, I know.” Hitomi waves her hand in front of her face. “But I sit at home by myself all day otherwise. It’s a treat to have company.” She reaches out for the cake box. “Shall I open this now?”
“Go ahead.” Miya nods.
Hitomi unties the ribbon, rolls it up, and sets it down on the table. The ribbon unrolls a little, the outer circles of white loosening up, while Hitomi unwraps the paper without tearing it, smoothes and folds it up. Tightening up the rolled ribbon, she puts it on top of the paper, right in the center. Only then does she open the box and say, “The cake looks wonderful. Thank you. Would you like some?” This is the Hitomi I remember: meticulous and correct. She used to get mad at me for being sloppy and careless.
By now, the water is boiling. Hitomi gets up, measures the tea into the pot, and tilts the kettle over it. She sets the timer for three minutes. Immediately, I remember Mrs. Sakai, the home ec teacher, telling us we should brew tea for no more and no fewer than three minutes. Otherwise the tea would be bland or bitter.
Hitomi and I had big arguments in ninth grade because I hated Mrs. Sakai and considered her unfair while Hitomi thought she was wonderful. Hitomi and her cooking group were Mrs. Sakai’s favorites. They always got things done the fastest, with the least mess. Nothing my group did ever turned out. In our woks, vegetables would burn or be undercooked. Our bread rose too much and overflowed in the oven or else turned into fist-sized rocks. We burned the shells for our cream puffs so there were holes in the bottom. When it came time to stuff them, we turned them upside down and put the cream in. No-need-to-cut cream puffs, we called them. Mrs. Sakai flunked us for not having baked a new batch, to get them right. She said we hadn’t taken the assignment seriously enough. Turning the shells upside down had been my idea. Hitomi couldn’t believe that I would try to get away with such sloppiness.
When the timer goes off, Hitomi pours the tea into our cups, cuts and serves the cake.
“Is the tea all right?” she asks, sitting down.
“It’s great,” I say.
As we drink and eat, Hitomi tells me about her husband and her two boys.
“But you’ve gotten married, too,” she says to me at the end.
“Yes.”
“Remember you used to say you would never get married or have kids?”
“Well, I was right about one.”
She laughs. “You and I fought a lot in junior high school.”
Back then, we drove each other crazy with our differences, even in the way we studied. I refused to do assignments that I thought were stupid and as a result, almost failed a few classes. Even when I did all my work, my performance was always spotty, and this infuriated Hitomi, who did well in everything. “You are so inconsistent,” she yelled at me. “How can you almost fail your math test and get the highest marks in English and history both? You only study what you want.” In return, I accused her of being a perfectionist, a hypocrite, even.
“Sometimes I couldn’t believe we were such good friends,” Hitomi says. “I was mad at you so often. But when I heard other girls criticizing you, I got mad at them. I defended you, even though these girls were saying the same things I said to you.”
“I know. It was the same way with me.”
Miya, who seldom fought with anyone, sips her tea and shakes her head.
Hitomi looks at the clock as she gets up to clear the plates. “My children are coming home soon. I want you to meet them. They’re very fond of Miya, too.”
“We’ll wait for them and then leave,” Miya says, “because you’ll be busy once they get here.”
“It’s strange to have sons,” Hitomi says, “after growing up with only girls. I didn’t have brothers, and all my friends were girls. I didn’t even go out with any other boy. My husband was my first boyfriend.”
Hitomi was the first in our group to be engaged, in our sophomore year in college. By then, she and I never had arguments: we’d gotten more polite but more distant. One afternoon shortly after her engagement, we happened to take the same train home. She asked me what I had been up to. I said I was applying for a scholarship to finish my B.A. in the States, and that I hoped to be gone by the beginning of the following year. She told me about her fiancé, her Bride Training classes. Then she said, “Remember when we used to fight a lot? I think I was jealous of you. You were always so smart. I didn’t want to admit you were smarter than I.” We continued to talk about school and our other friends, smiling, speaking in quiet, polite voices. Her stop was before mine. After she got off and I continued to stand by the door, my eyes and throat hurt. I realized that I had been holding back tears. I wished she and I could have our big fights again. I wanted her to go on thinking she was smarter and better than I.
Now she turns to me and confides, “I had some trouble right after my second son was born. Seven years ago. Miya knows.” She nods toward Miya.
“I didn’t tell her anything,” Miya says. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to.”
“Are you all right?” I ask.
She tilts her head sideways and smiles. “I’m okay now, but I wasn’t then. I had a nervous breakdown. I couldn’t leave the house, not even to walk to the corner grocery store. I sat on the couch all day crying. Every morning, I begged my husband not to go to work. As he stood in the doorway ready to go, I would grab his arm and try to pull him back into the house. I was afraid something bad was going to happen to him if he went out. One time, I ran after him in the driveway in my pajamas and then passed out. After that, my mother had to come and stay with me for three months. I had to see a doctor.”
We are very quiet for a while.
“That was a long time ago,” Hitomi says finally. “After I was well again, I thought about you. I knew you had been through a lot, in the time before we were friends.”
“Hitomi, I’m sorry I didn’t know,” I say. That doesn’t seem enough. I want to hug her or take her hand, which is curled around her teacup. Her wedding band is a little loose. She must have lost weight since her marriage. I pick up and put down my cup, trying to think of the right thing to say. I know Hitomi meant my mother’s death when she referred to the time before we were friends. Though none of my friends at Kobe Jogakuin had known my mother, they had known that her death was an important fact about me. Now Hitomi is saying that, after her own trouble, she understood the pain I was carrying around back then. I want to thank her for thinking about me in that way, but I don’t know how to say that without intruding. Still, I want her to see I got her point.
“My trouble, too, was a long time ago,” I attempt, smiling just a little. “It’s something I’ll always remember. We’ve both been through a lot.”
Hitomi nods. We look at each other and nod again.
Soon after, her boys come home. Running around the house and rolling on the floor, they tell us that they are airplanes dive-bombing enemy ships. Hitomi asks them to settle down and show Miya and me their schoolbooks and toys. They stop running around just long enough to empty the contents of their knapsacks on the tatami floor, talking all the time. Miya and I get ready to leave so Hitomi can start supper. She walks us to the car, followed by the kids.
“I’m sorry I can’t go out with all of you tomorrow,” she says over the noise
of the construction. “But I’m glad to have seen you.”
“I’ll be back,” I assure her. “Stay well.”
As we drive away, I imagine her sitting in that kitchen day after day. It’s half the size of my kitchen. She doesn’t have much room to move around between the glass cabinet, the fridge, and the stove. I hope that the neighbor’s addition will turn out to be smaller, that more sunlight than expected will continue to come through her windows.
* * *
Miya parks her car in a small lot in front of a gray stone building. I follow her up the stairs to the third floor. “It’s very small. Don’t expect much,” she says as she turns the key and opens the door.
The room we walk into has a beige carpet, a brown couch, and a TV set near the door. On the opposite side, beyond a dining table and chairs, a doorway opens into a small kitchen. A narrow hallway connects the kitchen to the bathroom and the bedroom. The low ceiling is painted white.
“My parents-in-law own a big house in Osaka,” Miya says as we sit down on the couch. “They want us to move in with them. I know that makes sense, but I don’t want to give up this place, cramped as it is.”
“Of course. It’s your own place. Why should you give it up?”
Miya shrugs.
“You should never move if you don’t want to.” I realize that I am repeating Keiko’s advice.
“You don’t think I’m being selfish in wanting my own apartment?”
“No. I think it’s only natural.”
“Thanks.” Miya smiles and gets up. “I should get the directory before I forget.” She goes down the hallway to the bedroom and returns with a thick book with a blue cover.
We sit side by side on the couch, the directory open between us, looking first at the table of contents, which is arranged by years of graduation. Anyone who graduated from either the high school or the college of Kobe Jogakuin between 1935 and 1990 is listed. Miya finds the pages listing our graduating class from high school: 1975. Her name appears near the top as Miya Akatsuka. We are listed alphabetically according to our birth names; the current names, if different, are given in parentheses. Though I never sent anything to the alumni office, my name and business address are printed. I glance up and down the columns, remembering faces of classmates. In my mind, everyone is between eighteen and twenty.