The Makioka Sisters

by Junichiro Tanizaki

  The two sisters in question, though they had said nothing to each other, had both been gloomy in the knowledge that they would one day have to hear the argument the old aunt now brought. With their sister frantically busy getting ready to move, they should have gone to Osaka to help her without being asked, and the fact that they had stayed away so studiously—and the further fact that, even when Yukiko was called to Osaka, Taeko had found it convenient to be busy, had shut herself up in her studio, spending only her nights in the Ashiya house, while Tsuruko was there, and had been careful not to go to Osaka at all—these facts suggested a scheme to forestall the attack and to make it known that they would prefer to stay where they were.

  It was a matter of which she would speak to no one else, Aunt Tominaga continued, but why did Yukiko and Taeko so dislike being in the main house? She had heard that they did not get on well with their brother-in-law. Tatsuo, however, was not at all the sort of man they seemed to think him. He was quite without malice. The only difficulty was that he was the son of an old Nagoya family, and he tended to be overly proper. If the two sisters were to leave the main house and stay in Osaka, it might lead to talk and reflect on Tatsuo’s name as head of the family. And Tsuruko would be in a difficult position, caught between her husband and her sisters. The aunt had come to Sachiko because she thought the latter might be clever at making the two see the light. Not, of course, that anyone would hold it against Sachiko if they refused to go even after she tried to reason with them. They were both grown women, old enough indeed to have married long ago; and if they said they would not go, one could not lead them off like children. Aunt Tominaga had discussed the problem with Tsuruko, however, and had concluded that Sachiko’s arguments would be the most effective. She hoped Sachiko would do what was to be done.

  “Yukiko and Koi-san are both away?” The aunt used pure Semba speech.

  “Koi-san is so busy that she rarely comes home.” Sachiko too was led into the old dialect. “Yukiko is here, though. Shall I call her?”

  Sachiko suspected that Yukiko had fled upstairs when she heard the aunt’s voice, and that she would be timidly awaiting the verdict. From the head of the stairs, Sachiko could see through the reed blind a huddled, forlorn figure on Etsuko’s bed.

  “Aunt Tominaga has finally come.”

  Yukiko did not answer.

  “What will you do, Yukiko?”

  Although it was autumn by the calendar, these last two or three days had been as hot as the worst of the summer. And the room was badly ventilated. Surprisingly for her, Yukiko had on a one-piece georgette dress. She knew that she was too thin to wear Western clothes, and even in summer she preferred the strictest Japanese dress; down to the wide, binding obi. Perhaps ten days each summer were quite unbearable in kimono, but even then Yukiko wore Western dress only in the daytime and showed herself only to the family—and not to Teinosuke if she could avoid it. When he did catch a glimpse of that slight figure in Western dress, he knew that the day had been an unusually warm one. At the sight of the almost startlingly white skin on the fragile arms and shoulders, and of the shoulder bones pathetically clear through the dark-blue dress, he felt as though a cooling draft had swept over him.

  “She says she wants you to go back to Osaka tomorrow, and on to Tokyo with Tsuruko.”

  Yukiko said nothing. Her head was bowed, and her arms were limp as the arms of a cloth doll. Her bare foot rested on a large rubber ball, which she now and then rolled a little in search of a cooler spot.

  “And Koi-san?”

  “She says that Koi-san can stay behind to finish her work, but that she will have to go later. That is what Tatsuo wants.”

  Again Yukiko was silent.

  “I imagine she thinks I am holding you back. She has really come to argue with me. I hope you see how difficult this makes things for me, Yukiko.”

  Sorry though she was for Yukiko, Sachiko resented the implication that she was keeping her sister as a sort of governess. Perhaps people were saying that by contrast with the sister in the main house, able to take care of all those children, the sister in Ashiya had to have help with even the one daughter. Perhaps Yukiko too felt that Sachiko was under obligation to her. If so, Sachiko’s pride was damaged—after all, she was a mother. It was of course true that Yukiko helped; but Sachiko would not be entirely lost without her. Yukiko would in any case some day leave to be married. Since Etsuko was a child one could reason with, she would no doubt come through the first loneliness, and she would not wail as forlornly as Yukiko possibly hoped. Sachiko had meant only to console this unmarried sister. She did not mean to resist Tatsuo. It seemed reasonable, then, to send Yukiko back now that the main house had summoned her; and it would be good to show Yukiko and the world in general that she was something less than indispensable.

  “Suppose you go back for a while. Make Aunt Tominaga look successful.”

  Yukiko said nothing. She knew that with Sachiko’s position so clear, she had no choice.

  “But of course we can have you come again. Remember the picture Mrs. Jimba sent? I have done nothing about it, but you might have to come back for a miai—we can always find some excuse.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can say you promise to go back to Osaka tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Suppose you brighten up, then, and come downstairs.”

  Sachiko talked to Aunt Tominaga while Yukiko was changing into a cotton summer kimono.

  “Yukiko will be down in just a minute. She says she understands, and she promises to go back. It might be a good idea not to say anything more.”

  “Good, good. I have been a success, then.” The old lady was in high spirits.

  She must stay for dinner, said Sachiko. Teinosuke would be home very shortly. But Aunt Tominaga thought it more important to tell Tsuruko the good news. While it was a great pity that she had not seen Koi-san, she hoped Sachiko would pass on her message. She started back to Osaka after the wont of the afternoon heat had passed.

  Yukiko left the next day, with the most routine of farewells, as if she would be back in no more than a week. The three sisters being in the habit of using one another’s kimonos, Yukiko had brought only a thin summer kimono and a few changes of underwear to Ashiya with her. She had a novel in her hand, and there was but one small bundle for O-haru to carry to the station. Etsuko, who had been playing in the Stolz yard at the time of Aunt Tominaga’s visit, was told that Yukiko was going to Osaka to help Tsuruko and would be back very soon. She did not cling to the departing Yukiko quite as stubbornly as usual.

  There were eleven in the party that left froin Osaka station: Tatsuo, Tsuruko, their six children (the oldest was thirteen), Yu-kido, a maid, and a nurse. Sachiko of course should have been them off, but she knew that Tsuruko would disgrace them by bursting into tears. Teinosuke went by himself. A guide was posted in the waiting room from early in the evening, and among the hundred well-wishers were old geishas and musicians who had been patronized by Sachiko’s father. Though perhaps not as impressive a gathering as it might once have been, still it was enough to honor an old family leaving the family seat. Taeko, who had kept her distance to the end, ran up to the platform just before the train pulled out, and, taking advantage of the crowd and the excitement, escaped after only a word or two of farewell. Someone called to her as she walked toward the gate.

  “Excuse me, but I believe you are one of the Makioka girls.”

  Taeko turned around. It was O-ei, an old geisha famous for her dancing.

  “Yes, I am Taeko.”

  “Taeko—which was Taeko, I wonder.”

  “The youngest.”

  “Oh, Koi-san. How you have grown. You must be out of school by now.”

  Taeko laughed. People were always mistaking her for a girl graduate of perhaps twenty, and she had learned not to correct them. But it amused her that O-ei should have made the mistake. Back in their Semba days O-ei, already well along in years, had visited them so often that the Maki
oka daughters all called her by her first name. Since Taeko had been perhaps ten at the time, some sixteen or seventeen years before, O-ei should have known that she was no school girl. Still it was true that the dress and hat she had chosen that evening made her look especially young.

  “And how old are you, Koi-san?”

  “Far from as young as you think.”

  “Do you remember me?”

  “I do indeed, O-ei. You look exactly the same.”

  “You flatter me. I am an old, old woman. And why are you staying in Osaka?”

  “I persuaded them to leave me with my sister in Ashiya for a while.”

  “It will be lonely with the main house gone.”

  Taeko said good-bye to O-ei and started for the gate. She had not gone three steps when someone called to her again.

  “Taeko?” This time it was a gentleman. “Remember me? Seki-hara. It has been a long time. We’re all very pleased that Makioka got himself promoted.”

  Sekihara, a college friend of Tatsuo’s, worked for a Mitsubishi-owned company. Unmarried at the time Tatsuo was adopted into the Makioka family, he had often called on them. Later he married and served for some years in London, and he had returned to the main Osaka office several months before. Taeko knew that he was back, but it was eight or nine years since she had last seen him.

  “I noticed you a few minutes ago, Koi-san.” Sekihara immediately slipped from “Taeko” back to the familiar “Koi-san.” “It’s been a long time.”

  “How many years has it been, I wonder. It is good to have you back, in any case.”

  “Thank you. I was sure it was you on the platform, but you looked too young.”

  Again Taeko laughed her practiced laugh.

  “Was that Yukiko on the train with Makioka?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish I’d had a chance to speak to her. You’re so young, both of you. Pardon me for saying so—but when I was abroad I’d think of the old Semba days, and I was sure both of you—Yukiko, and you too—would be married by the time I got back. I was very much surprised when I heard from Makioka that you were still single. It was the strangest feeling—as though the last five or six years hadn’t happened. I know it’s rude of me, but I did have the strangest feeling. And then this evening I had another surprise. There you were, both as young as the last time I say you. I could hardly believe my eyes.”

  Taeko laughed.

  “I mean it. You’re still girls, and we shouldn’t be surprised to find you single.” Sekihara’s eye wandered admiringly from the hat down to the shoes. “And where was Sachiko tonight?”

  “She stayed away on purpose. She thought it would embarrass everyone to have them weeping over each other.”

  “I did notice that Tsuruko had tears in her eyes. It was very charming.”

  “Everyone laughed and asked why anyone should weep at going to Tokyo.”

  “Not I. It was good to see after all these years how a real Japanese lady behaves. You’re staying here?”

  “I have a little work to finish.”

  “I hear you’ve become an artist. I always knew you had talent.”

  “The English have made you over, I see.”

  Taeko remembered that Sekihara liked his liquor, and she suspected that he had had a little already this evening. She made her excuses when he suggested a cup of tea.

  23

  September 18

  DEAR SACHIKO,

  Forgive me for not writing. I have been much too busy these last few days.

  Tsuruko managed to keep back the tears while we were in the station, but once we started the dam broke, and she hid herself in her berth. Then Hideo began to run a fever. He said his stomach ached, and he went off to the toilet every few minutes. Tsuruko and 1 hardly slept the whole night. To make things worse, the lease to the house was canceled at the last minute by the landlord. We heard of it the day before we left, but we could not change our plans, and have had to move in with the Tanedas. You can imagine how it is for them, having eleven of us pour in on them at once. We called a doctor for Hideo and found that he had intestinal catarrh. Yesterday he began to feel a little better. Everyone has been looking for a house, and we have finally found one in Shibuya, three rooms upstairs, four rooms down, no garden, fifty-five yen a month. It was built to rent, and I can imagine the sort of place it is. I do not see how we can all live in such a tiny house, but we are a nuisance to the Tanedas and have decided to take it, even if we have to move again soon. We move on Sunday. The address is Owada, Shibuya Ward. We are to have a telephone next month. It is a healthy location, I hear, and it is convenient for Tatsuo, and for Teruo, who has been put in a middle school.

  I wanted you to know at least how we are. My best to Teinosuke, Etsuko, and Koi-san.

  As ever,

  YUKIKO

  P.S. It feels like autumn this morning. How is the weather there?

  In Ashiya too the coolness of autumn had come overnight. Sachiko and Teinosuke were facing each other across the breakfast table, Etsuko having left for school, and it came to Sachiko, who was reading of Japanese carrier-based raids on Swatow and Chao-chow, that the coffee in the kitchen smelled better than usual.

  “It is autumn,” she remarked, glancing up from the paper. “Does it seem to you that the coffee smells stronger this morn-ing?”

  Teinosuke muttered something. He was lost in the newspaper. O-haru brought in Yukiko’s letter on a tray when she came with the coffee.

  Sachiko had just been thinking of Yukiko, in Tokyo some ten days now. She quickly tore open the envelope. Even the handwriting—the letter had obviously been scribbled off in a spare moment —suggested how busy her two sisters were. The Tanedas were the family of an older brother of Tatsuo’s, a man who Sachiko knew worked in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Sachiko had met him only once, at her sister’s wedding more than ten years before, and could hardly remember his face. She was sure that Tsuruko knew him little better. Tatsuo, who had been living with the Tanedas for a month, was with his own family, but how difficult it must be for Tsuruko and Yukiko, forced in a strange city to impose themselves on a senior branch of the Taneda family. And as if that were not enough, one of the children was ill.

  “From Yukiko?” Teinosuke looked up from the paper and reached for his coffee.

  “I can see now why she has not written. They have been having a dreadful time.”

  “What is the matter?”

  “Read it.” Sachiko handed the three sheets of paper to him.

  Five or six days later they received a formal printed note announcing the change of address and thanking them for coming to the station. After that there was silence. Otoyan’s son Shōkichi, who went to Tokyo to help with the moving, visited Sachiko immediately after his return to Osaka on Monday. He reported that the moving had proceeded smoothly; that houses for rent in Tokyo were far less elegant than in Osaka, the sliding doors in particular being shabby and cheap; that downstairs in the Shibuya house there were a two-mat room,1 two four-and-a-half-mat rooms, and a six-mat room, and upstairs only a four-and-a-half-mat room and an eight-mat room; that, since the mats were the smaller Tokyo measure, the eight-mat room was no better than a six-mat room in Osaka or Kyoto; that it was thus a cramped little house indeed; that it was fresh, bright, and new, however, and, with a good southern exposure, far healthier than the dark old Osaka house; that, though there was no garden, the neighborhood was full of parks and mansions, and in general seemed quiet and dignified; that in a busy shopping district but a few minutes away there were several movie theaters, which fascinated the children and made them actually glad they had left Osaka; and that Hideo had recovered and was starting to a near-by primary school this week.

  “And how is Yukiko?”

  “Very well. Mrs. Makioka says that when the boy was ill Miss Yukiko was better than a nurse would have been.”

  “She has always been good. I was sure she would be a great help.”

  “The sad thing, though, is
that with such a small house Miss Yukiko has no room of her own. They use a room upstairs both for the boys’ study and for Miss Yukiko’s bedroom. Mr. Makioka says they will move into a larger house as soon as they can. He says this is unfair to Miss Yukiko.” Shōkichi liked to talk. He lowered his voice and continued: “Mr. Makioka is very happy that Miss Yukiko is back, and wants to see that she stays. He is doing his best to please her, that much is easy to see.”

  Sachiko thus knew what was happening in Tokyo. From Yukiko there was no word, however. Although Yukiko did not make letter-writing quite the chore Tsuruko did, still it was not easy for her. She was letting herself be as bad a correspondent as ever. With no room of her own, she probably found it difficult to collect herself for the effort of writing.

  “How would it be if you were to write to Yukiko?” Sachiko suggested to Etsuko one day.

  Etsuko chose a picture postcard, a photograph of one of Taeko’s dolls. Still there was no answer.

  “Suppose we each write something,” said Teinosuke. It was some twenty days later, on the night of the autumn full moon. Everyone thought this an excellent idea, and after dinner Teinosuke, Sachiko, Taeko, and Etsuko gathered near the veranda of a Japanese-style room downstairs. The traditional moon-viewing flowers and fruit had been set out. When O-haru had ground the ink, Teinosuke, Sachiko, and Etsuko each composed a poem. Taeko; who was not good at poetry, did a quick ink wash of the moon coming through pine branches.