“I don’t think I’ll be here forever, of course. But I can’t see myself going back and living there, either,” she said.
“If only you could ask Dad,” I said. I meant it. If only we could get Dad’s blessing, we could sell the condo and think about things afresh. Because of the nasty aftertaste of the way he’d died, the place had become a kind of stifling mausoleum.
“You’re right,” Mom said. “Then I could feel more confident about things. But maybe it’s important to have this kind of period where we’re in limbo, too.”
That was a very adult way of looking at things, I thought.
“Fundamentally, all of the Meguro Madame lifestyle—the shopping, the lunches, the facials—is only trying to make up for an unfulfilled sex drive, or acting as an outlet for it,” she said.
“Mom, I can’t believe you’re saying this. It sounds too true it’s scary.”
“Because it is true,” Mom said. “But maybe Dad wanted one last shot at the real thing, too. He’d certainly been on good behavior until then, considering what other musicians can be like. I sometimes think he’d have been more suited to working in local government, or something.
“So the Madame life is kind of empty. Sure you can treat yourself to five-course meals, but in the end you’re just wasting your husband’s money. In my case it wasn’t Dad’s money, but it was my parents’, so same thing. You can collect good wine, but it’s never-ending. Pointless. Have it once in a while, and it’s wonderful. But otherwise, it’s empty. Because you’re trying to momentarily placate something which deep down is a spiritual hunger with irrelevant things. And when you get to my age you can’t even live very near your real friends, so you see them less and less,” she said.
“I was totally convinced you were loving that privileged lifestyle,” I said. “And I assumed you and Dad had settled into a different kind of phase of your relationship.”
As far as those things went, Mom had been picture perfect.
“I remember your skirts always used to be floaty, fresh from the cleaners, the perfect length, and you took your Hermès bag whenever you left the house. If there was a handbook for the Meguro Madame lifestyle that said Late forties, moderately fashion-conscious and moderately wealthy, dresses to avoid embarrassing her husband. Eats out at least once a week, French or Italian, and often goes to previews of art exhibitions by friends and acquaintances, well, that was exactly the kind of person you looked like from the outside,” I said.
“I feel like that’s going a little too far,” Mom said, “but I guess that was what I was aiming for.”
I suddenly wondered whether Mom had ever even owned a T-shirt before. She used to be tastefully made up even just to go to the local shops, rarely left the house with bare legs, and always had her hair freshly styled, tied back neatly, or lightly curled.
“I don’t know how I got that way,” Mom said. “I won’t blame Meguro, or say it was the influence of the moms at your private girls’ school. It was my own fault. I started out thinking I’d just have to look the part to get by, and before I knew it the poison had seeped in and changed me inside. Well, maybe calling it poison is going too far. More like I was so busy keeping up with daily life that I slacked off spiritually.
“I feel like people imprint on what they experience when they’re young, and then gradually grow into it. I don’t even know when I lost sight of it, it was so long ago. I meant to ask, doesn’t the actor Naoto Takenaka often eat at your restaurant?” she said, suddenly.
“It’s hardly mine, Mom, but he does. He’s pretty quiet, very polite,” I said, surprised by the direction she’d suddenly taken.
“I spotted him sitting at the bar the other day, and remembered. When I was a girl, I’m pretty sure I idolized his wife, Midori Kinouchi. She was the kind of woman I wanted to be when I grew up,” she said seriously.
“But you’re nothing like her,” I said, taken aback. I hadn’t had a clue. “You’ve really strayed from your vision. In more ways than one.”
“I know. I thought she was the prettiest, most beautiful woman. I had all her records, and even had posters of her up on my wall. I wanted to give Mr. Takenaka a big hug and tell him all about it, but I didn’t have the guts. Back when Midori got taken in by that good-looking musician Tsugutoshi, I saw it all on TV and just wanted to tell her, You’re making a mistake! Don’t go with him! Even though I can see why you’d want to!”
“Please don’t do that, Mom,” I said, genuinely worried. This new, liberated Mom was capable of anything.
“All those things that used to give me strength—I left them behind, one by one,” she said.
“No offense, Mom, but isn’t that a classic case of getting together with a guy and, maybe not losing yourself, but taking on too much of his expectations?” I said. “Being a Meguro Madame, the grown-up sex appeal, the proper etiquette—all that sounds exactly like Grandma on Dad’s side.”
“I guess I got manipulated by a mama’s boy.”
“Well, I think it was partly your fault for accepting it, too,” I said. “But I feel like the real you was probably a cute, boho kind of woman.
“Dad was always surrounded by rock chicks, but he always loved the elegant, powerful type, like Grandma was. He wanted you to be like that, and tried to raise me like a princess, too. And when that coincided with a period when he was earning big money, I guess you got sucked into it without even noticing,” I said, having quickly Googled Midori Kinouchi on my computer and found some old footage on YouTube. I felt a little flustered at her otherworldly cuteness. Mom was looking closely, too, at the teen idol who had apparently been her starting point.
“Where did I go wrong, when I could have turned out like this? And what am I supposed to do about it now? Go confront Mr. Takenaka, demand to know how I got to be so different from his wife?” Mom said.
“No idea, but I’m pretty sure that’s not the solution,” I said.
“I know that! Don’t get all flustered—like you thought I actually might!” said Mom, finally cracking a smile.
“I don’t mind what you do, but please don’t harass our customers. Mr. Takenaka’s a quiet kind of guy, he’d never show his face there again.”
“Your Chef Michiyo is a real gem, though,” Mom said. “I’m sure she must find it trying, deep down, to have the mother of one of her employees come in as a customer. But she never shows it. Even better, she doesn’t give me special treatment either, so sometimes I even forget you work there. Although that’s mostly because I tend to go in on days when you’re not working, and it’s that young man Moriyama-san there instead.”
“You’re saying you go in to the restaurant where I work, on days I happen not to be there?” I asked, surprised, since Michiyosan had never mentioned anything about it.
“That’s right. I sit at the bar and ask for a pot of tea and the fromage blanc. It’s the best. The crispy orange bits on top, do you make those?”
“Yeah. I put a batch in the oven whenever I’ve got time, during prep or before dinner service. But, wow. I had no idea.”
“It’s awkward to go in when you’re there, you know,” Mom said.
“I mean, as a customer, you’re welcome to come in any time,” I said. I’d gotten a lot better recently at letting things like this go when it came to Mom.
“We had some on our trip to Paris, with Dad, do you remember? Fromage blanc. Wasn’t that a great period for us as a family? I’m so glad we had that. We did the tourist thing and walked to the Deux Magots. And there really were two Chinamen up on the wall! After that, Dad dragged us to HMV, and then we went up the Arc de Triomphe,” she said, reminiscing.
“I remember. It was pretty tiring, climbing all those steps,” I said.
“It was wonderful looking down from the top at the streets stretching into the distance in all directions. I felt like Napoleon.”
“I have to say that sounds a little suspect, Mom, both historically and emotionally,” I said, laughing.
“
Do you think so? Does it matter, as long as it’s just what I think? Anyway, after that we went to a shop that sold Middle Eastern sandwiches, and ate them right there in the shop, even though it had no seats. And Dad said he’d never enjoyed so much garlic in a single meal,” she said.
“We had a lot of good times, didn’t we, as a family,” I said. Our memories of that trip were shimmering into being between us, along with the sensation of Paris’s cloudy skies. The three of us had really been there—had left our footprints on that foreign soil.
“No mistake about it,” Mom said. “If you want to look back at the bad parts, well, the end was the worst by far. Overall, it wasn’t that bad. Something went wrong, and we got thrown off course, and that’s how we’ve ended up here.” She smiled.
These conversations had become like rituals to us, recited like prayers.
We’d pull out a memory, and spend time in it.
Like rolling a piece of candy around in our mouths, we’d reminisce—about what we’d seen on a particular day in Paris, how we’d walked around its streets, what we’d talked about in the evening, the hotel room we’d stayed in—and breathe the memory in deeply. Then we’d come back to reality, and feel a little breathless.
I couldn’t help but wonder. How many more of these conversations would it take before we could move forward?
Mom and Dad might have had their differences, but they were supposed to grow old together, companionably. I was going to get married and keep working and also have children, and we’d all go visit Mom and Dad back in Meguro every once in a while. That had been the plan.
Was Dad still playing the piano in that big, empty room in the condo? Wasn’t he there, fixing himself some instant noodles? Had he absentmindedly pulled on mismatched socks like he often did? My chest felt tight with worry. Funny, when he was already gone.
He wouldn’t have come back to the apartment to haunt it, I thought, if he’d really loved that woman. But I knew that even mentioning her would make Mom’s expression tense and harden, just when she was reminiscing fondly, so I didn’t bring it up.
What must it feel like, I wondered, to have the man you’d lived alongside for so long go off and die with some other woman? The only grief I could know right now was the grief of having lost a parent. Mom, in turn, couldn’t feel what I felt at having lost Dad as a father.
Given the burden of the loneliness she had to carry, I felt proud of how she was spending her days here: making her way around the shops of Shimokitazawa, talking to people and making connections, as though she was falteringly putting together a new map for herself with each step. It was a strange way of doing it, but it made sense to me. I saw the way she kept her sights on what was real, not living too much in the past or looking too far into the future, and thought, What a fine woman.
THAT NIGHT, I DREAMED about Dad.
He was looking for something at the apartment. I’d gone back there for something or other, unlocked the heavy front door and pushed it open. The light was on inside, and I said, “Mom?”
The entry was lined with Mom’s shoes—Ferragamo, Gucci, and so on—as well as my Crocs, and Dad’s big Converse. I thought about how you could read the history of a family by the shoes in the entryway. A person’s shoes waiting there signified that they lived here, that they were still alive.
The light in the entry felt strangely bright.
It came from a small chandelier of Venetian glass that Mom had taken a liking to and splurged on. Its multicolored beams seemed to pierce my eyes.
There was a rummaging sound from inside the condo, and when I tried to peer in, Dad stepped quickly into the entry.
“Oh, Yocchan, it’s you,” he said. “I thought it might be Mom.”
“Isn’t she around?”
“No.”
“I think she’s in Shimokitazawa.”
“Shimokitazawa?” A cloud passed over Dad’s face, and he looked a little sad.
“What are you doing here yourself? I thought you said were going to be staying at the recording studio tonight,” I said.
“I was, but I couldn’t find it, so I came back to look.”
“For what?”
“My cell phone. Thought I’d give Mom a call.”
“Oh, your phone,” I said. I wanted to add, I’ll help you look, but I couldn’t make my mouth form the words. I desperately wondered why.
Wait, his cell phone . . . I had a feeling it was gone, but I couldn’t remember what had happened. The thought brought a lump to my throat. I wasn’t sure why, when I just wanted to help him find it, without worrying about why it was lost.
I looked down at my feet, feeling defeated and angry, and tears of frustration sprang from my eyes. All I wanted to say was Let me help, but I couldn’t make the words come out of my mouth. It was as though someone had their hand around my throat.
Don’t search alone, Dad, turn around and look at me, I thought. But he just kept looking for his phone with his back to me.
I woke up at dawn, feeling forlorn.
I wasn’t crying, but my hands were balled into fists under the covers.
Beside me, Mom was sleeping soundly. I saw the rounded shape of her back, and the line of her spine rising from it. Reassured, I went back to sleep.
IT WAS AROUND THEN that I met Shintani-kun.
I was getting used to the flow of life with Mom and the rhythm of work at the bistro. Enough that I was able to clear up after closing with a glass of wine in hand, or to remember what needed prepping for the next day’s service without referring to my notes.
“Are you still serving? I’m on my own. May I sit at the bar?”
When he stepped into the bistro—glasses, strong legs, somehow obviously a music fan but not punk or a rocker, fair-skinned, square jaw, well-dressed and clean, but on first impression somehow a little somber—I was sure, just for a moment, that it was him.
Dad? What are you doing here?
But when I looked more closely, the customer looked nothing like him. At a stretch, if I had to find a point of resemblance, the customer might have had a slouch that was slightly reminiscent of Dad’s.
“We’ll be taking last orders in ten minutes. Please take a table, if you’d prefer,” I said.
“Thanks, I will,” said the customer. It was his voice, I realized, that reminded me of Dad—resonant yet soft, and slightly hoarse. I wished he’d open his mouth again and say something else.
He ordered a glass of champagne and the pork rillettes with bread, and ate with almost swoon-worthy eagerness. Not mechanically, but heartily, and with obvious enjoyment. I’d never seen anyone eat so well, I thought. The only person who came close to eating with as much grace and fluency was the critic Kei Kurusu, whom they called the King of Epicures. Come to think of it, the customer resembled him a little, too.
He spent half an hour over his meal, and didn’t linger afterward.
When he said Thank you on his way out, I closed my eyes to savor the echo of his voice. A fine voice, I thought, a familiar-feeling voice.
As a customer, he certainly made an impression on me.
Coming alone to a place like this—he’s probably vetting it for a date with his girlfriend, I thought.
But the next time he came in, he was still alone. Like the first time, he arrived just before closing, and had a plate of couscous and a glass of red wine, and left.
How to express the attractiveness of the way he ate? It was like watching a tea ceremony. Each movement leading to the next, no gesture wasted. Not rushed, not dragging. But with a sense of forward motion.
My boss Michiyo-san thought so, too. The third or fourth time the customer came in, she said, “The way he eats is really satisfying. I mean, it’s pretty motivating to cook for.”
Leave it up to Michiyo-san, I thought, to keep tabs on what went on in the dining room even though she was in the kitchen most of the time. The customer usually had a glass of wine—red, white, or champagne—and a main course, with bread. He hardly ever went
for dessert, or tea or coffee.
Working in food service could be strange in that you were constantly watching people eat. After a while of doing it every day, I started being able to read someone’s appetite, or even their personality, in the way they ate their meal. I slowly gained a feel for the right time to approach a table, and the kind of service they might appreciate. At the beginning, I used to work my way down a mental checklist, but gradually, I found I could sense how my customers were feeling. Things like That person wants more water, or They’re not finished with that cup of tea, or I should offer them another drink.
I was smitten by the process of acquiring this new understanding.
The satisfaction of doing something over and over, by rote, until one day you saw something differently. It felt like working on listening comprehension in English class at school, and suddenly realizing you actually understood what was being said.
I knew, vaguely, that just as the world contained forces that nurtured and strengthened and created things, there were also forces that diminished them. And that even though there were equal amounts of both, the latter could sometimes seem more powerful.
But as a woman—I was no longer a girl, albeit still a fledgling—I had the power to ignore the force that diminished. To treat it as though it didn’t exist, in the same way I washed dirt off potatoes, or pulled weeds from the garden. I could use my body to keep tapping into the opposite force.
Each time Shintani-kun came to the bistro, I observed him, trying to figure out exactly what I found so compelling in the way he ate. I held the feeling close to my chest, a small pleasure to cradle.
Of course, the pleasure was entirely secret. If I ever told a customer, especially someone on their own, I love the way you eat!—chances were they’d never set foot in the restaurant again.
Shintani-kun often brought a book to read while he waited, but he’d close it as soon as his food arrived. I liked that too. As well as the way he always said Itadakimasu, quietly, before he started eating.
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