Inheritance from Mother

by Minae Mizumura

  Their mother nodded in satisfaction—and then launched rapid-fire into a list of things for them to do: Cancel the newspaper and the twice-weekly meals Mitsuki had arranged to be delivered to her door. Tell the neighbor who helped her dispose of recyclable trash that she was in the hospital, and give her a box of cakes. Go back to the laundry shop to retrieve the sheets and give the lady there a box of cakes, too, to thank her for calling the ambulance. Get back two DVDs she had lent out—Nureyev’s Romeo and Juliet to a home helper named Shirakawa and Pavarotti’s Aida to “the flower-nutty man” at the beauty shop. Notify everyone who needed to be notified and tell them not to come see her in the hospital. Her bank seals were in the back of the refrigerator—Mitsuki knew where—in a red leather cosmetics pouch, one Grandpa Yokohama gave her years ago. Her passbooks were in a stack of towels under the sink, her cash cards in the cabinet by her desk. Also, she had several thousand yen tucked away in the pockets of her long silk coat, her half-coat, the cashmere coat with shoulder cape, a cheap raincoat, and various slacks and handbags. Go through them all and take the money out. And on and on.

  Clearly, she had spent the entire time they were gone pondering what she needed to tell them to do. She rattled on like one possessed, as if she knew that her already diminished faculties would soon fade away. Natsuki went on sorting and putting things away while Mitsuki scribbled notes.

  Then the surgeon stopped by, having heard that they were there. After making clear that he wasn’t the attending physician, he explained their mother’s situation. She had previously fractured her wrist, left shoulder, and left hip. Had she broken only the right hip this time, she could probably have gone on managing her cane with the right hand, but as luck would have it she’d shattered the right shoulder as well. He could give her a new shoulder using artificial bone, but she would no longer be able to support her weight with a cane. Not only that, the shoulder would be vulnerable to dislocation. She would need to walk with the aid of a railing.

  To demonstrate what he meant, the doctor grabbed an imaginary railing and pulled himself along sideways with a crablike gait.

  As Mitsuki listened, she mentally reviewed the layout of her mother’s room, wondering if they could put in a railing between the bed and the bathroom.

  “It might be a good idea to keep a portable toilet beside her bed,” the doctor said.

  Mitsuki flinched.

  “And since she’s getting on in years, the worst-case scenario is that she might be confined to a wheelchair. Keep that in mind—you might want to get started looking at nursing homes.”

  Things were progressing so quickly that Mitsuki found her imagination hard-pressed to keep up. She sensed her sister frozen in astonishment behind her while their mother, dark eyes opened wide, keenly watched. Mitsuki’s wish for her mother to die was abstract—tinged with poetry, even. By contrast, the words “portable toilet” had a stark reality that caught her off guard.

  After they saw the surgeon off, Mitsuki went over and knelt at her mother’s bedside. Slowly rubbing her mother’s upper arm, she repeated in her ear more or less what the doctor had said. There was no point in letting her own shock show, so she left out the part about being confined to a wheelchair. “It seems like you’ll have to walk by holding onto a railing. So he says it might be a good idea to put a portable commode next to your bed at night.”

  “A portable commode?” Her mother too was thrown off guard. “You mean a portable toilet? I won’t have any such thing in my room.” She glared up at the ceiling, incensed. “I won’t have it!”

  “He just mentioned it as a possibility, that’s all.”

  “Forget it! I. Will. Not. Have it. Period.”

  A HUSBAND SIPPING AGED SAKE

  “It just never occurred to me that she wouldn’t be able to use a cane anymore,” said Natsuki on the way to the station.

  “Same here.”

  “Wouldn’t it be easier if she just went into a nursing home? If you suggested it, she might go quietly. She always listens to you.” Her sister’s tone was resentful.

  “Maybe.” Mitsuki thought a moment. “But it’s too soon. Let’s give her some time.”

  Before parting at the station, they agreed to watch how their mother fared in rehabilitation and bring up the idea of a nursing home if and when it appeared definite that she could no longer live on her own.

  Mitsuki lived near a station on the Marunouchi subway line. She dragged herself home, sluggish from the day’s shocks, and as soon as she walked in the door Tetsuo appeared. She felt somehow that he had just got off the telephone—with the young woman, most likely.

  Unaware that she’d seen the pink tissue case, he addressed her normally. “So, what happened?”

  As she slipped off her shoes, Mitsuki gave him a brief run-down. Then she washed up and set on the dining room table the ready-made meal she’d picked up at a convenience store on the way home: hot rice topped with seasoned ground chicken.

  “You didn’t eat yet?” he said. “Shall I pour you something? A glass of light beer?”

  “Thanks, would you?”

  Tetsuo raised the thermostat a bit for her benefit, then went into the kitchen and took a can of beer from the refrigerator. For himself he chose a bottle of aged sake. Every evening they shared a nightcap.

  Normally she would have proceeded to tell him all about her mother’s condition, but with the tissue case haunting her thoughts she felt leaden, unable to bring herself to speak. If it weren’t for her mother, she might have gathered her courage and confronted him, sword aloft, but she wasn’t up to it. She sat at the table and picked up her chopsticks in defiant silence. Twice before she’d found him out, and each time he’d been seeing a woman older than him; now that she herself was getting on in years, it was painful to think that he was probably seeing someone considerably younger than she was.

  Oblivious to her train of thought, Tetsuo stood in the white, compact, tidy kitchen pouring amber liquid into a fragile-looking wineglass, one of a set they’d bought at an antiques fair. He wore an apron slung low around his hips, like a café waiter. He did have style, she had to admit. Compared with thirty years ago when they’d first met in Paris, he had more money now, and he dressed better. He’d grown up in the dowdy town of Toride, where his father had been the accountant for the sub-subcontractor of a home appliance plant run by his brother, Tetsuo’s uncle; but originally his parents came from farmers’ stock, way out in the country.

  When he first took her to the old homestead where his father was born, the floors covered end to end with frayed tatami mats of woven rushes, she’d felt as if she’d wandered into a Japanese folktale. The polish he’d managed to acquire despite those humble origins was a sign he had brains, never mind the nonsense he churned out for magazines and academic journals. He had physical stamina, too, which kept him from looking worn-out the way she did. It was only natural that some young woman would see him as a catch. All the more so since he’d be entirely open to being caught.

  Still, he’d be no one’s sugar daddy, she mused, eating her food and covertly keeping an eye on him as he got out a little something to go with the drinks. As he himself knew quite well, he wasn’t some cipher who could only attract women with money. And he wanted to move to a condominium in the center of the city, so he regularly saved money and purchased stocks even while continuing to indulge in pleasures like dining out, dressing well, and occasionally traveling overseas. Since they were paying off their mortgage with a low-interest loan, he hoped to use their savings for a down payment in the event that a suitable property came along. Mitsuki was glad to have cash on hand for reasons of her own: she wanted to be able to lend her mother money if it was needed. She had no complaints about her husband’s handling of their finances.

  “What a wonderful husband!” her friends all raved. “He even cooks!”

  To assume on the basis of a single tissue case that he was having an affair with a younger woman might be a stretch, yet she was strangely sure
of it. There was his past record, to begin with. And even granting that he was making a name for himself in the media, for the last six months he’d been away frequently and was often late getting home.

  When he joined her at the table, she said, “The words ‘portable toilet’ came as a pretty big shock to her.”

  “I bet they did, for someone as stylish as Noriko.”

  Her mother had always been known as a beauty. Now that she was a bent-backed, white-haired old lady, people had stopped calling her “beautiful” as they had done in the past and instead more often described her as “stylish.” It was true; her mother had gone on being stylish, extravagantly so for a woman of her means, and that she did so was symbolic of a lifetime spent chasing nameless dreams.

  “Hard to imagine a portable toilet beside that bed of hers,” he added pensively.

  Her mother’s bed was always done up with fancy linens—a definite extravagance.

  Her mother’s last trip to Isetan Department Store had been to buy new bed linens. Mitsuki had offered to pick out something herself, but her mother had insisted on coming along. She had always loved expeditions that gave her an occasion to dress up, a long scarf elegantly wound around her neck; and apart from the occasional restaurant meal, department store shopping was one of her last remaining pleasures. With that too on the verge of slipping away, she had asserted her maternal authority and demanded that she be allowed to select the sheets she herself was going to buy and use. Natsuki had tagged along partly for the chance to enjoy a sisterly chat, despite knowing what a trial it was to accompany their cane-tapping mother on a shopping expedition and be weighted down with purchases.

  Letting her cane dangle from her wrist by a leather strap, their mother had again taken advantage of one of the walkers provided for elderly patrons, leaning on it as she walked past dazzling displays of goods, her eyes gleaming with excitement. Isetan had always been her department store of choice.

  A few years back, when she first discovered a row of walkers at the store entrance, she had all but wept at such thoughtfulness: “Oh, would you look at that!”

  “There are lots of rich old people in Japan, Mother,” Mitsuki had pointed out drily.

  Mitsuki used her mother’s card to pay thirty thousand yen for a set of floral sheets and pillowcases. While certainly not cheap, for her mother this was by no means extravagant, either. She rejoined the others with a sense of relief, and they were all heading for the elevator when her mother came to an abrupt stop.

  Displayed before them was another set of floral bed linens. The design was completely different—more delicate, in hues of greater subtlety and sophistication—and the material had a satiny luster. Mitsuki herself could hardly tear her eyes away. But these cost well over twice as much as the others—nearly half her mother’s monthly pension.

  Faced with their objections, her mother had tightened her lips. “My bed is becoming the center of my life now, after all. Where’s the harm if I do pamper myself a little?”

  In the end Mitsuki had had to return the just-bought sheets and pay for the new set instead. Even though the clerk was looking on, she’d been unable to refrain from scolding in a voice that she knew sounded shrill and hysterical: “Mother, you’re not rich! You can’t go around spending this kind of money on yourself!”

  “Yes, yes.”

  Her mother owned many sets of fine bed linens. She had them professionally laundered and replaced them when they grew faded.

  Alongside bed linens splashed with flowers like an homage to spring, a portable toilet would lay bare the ugliness and sadness of old age.

  Tetsuo was slowly sipping the amber-colored sake, radiating the pleasure of a man who likes his drink. Mitsuki looked away and informed him that this year she wouldn’t be able to spend New Year’s at his parents’ house.

  This was perfectly true. Her mother was helpless, thrown into a new environment with precious little to celebrate. For the time being, Mitsuki would need to visit her every day. She also wanted to dispose quickly of the errands her mother had enumerated, delegating some to her sister. Besides, the shadow of that young woman loomed over her. Having to play the role of a happy little wife in front of Tetsuo’s family was the last thing she wanted to do.

  After a short silence, Tetsuo replied that in that case he would change his plans and leave a day early, on December 30. “That way you won’t have to worry about my meals and all. It’ll be easier on you.”

  The shadow of the slender young woman loomed larger.

  At some point they had begun sleeping in separate rooms, saying it was because they each had their work to do. That night as she lay in the dark with her head on her pillow, Mitsuki was haunted by an image. Rather surprisingly, it was the image not of a slender young woman but of her mother in a wheelchair.

  Old people in wheelchairs…

  On the way to and from the station she always passed through Silkworm Forest Park, built on the site of a former sericulture laboratory. In the park there was a statue of a silkworm moth with its wings outspread, but the only remnants of the days when silk had been the mainstay of Japan’s fledgling export industry were a pair of impressive brick gate pillars, a curving wrought-iron gate, and towering trees. In the daytime, on the path encircling the park she often saw old people in wheelchairs being pushed by a spouse, a daughter or daughter-in-law, or a home helper—the latter readily distinguishable by their gentle expressions and tones of voice.

  What she found shocking was the hollow, blank look on the faces of the wheelchair occupants. No, not blank—sullen. Though sunlight poured down and flowers bloomed year round, it seemed they lacked the energy to enjoy life’s bountiful blessings and felt only frustration as a result.

  Would it now be her turn to wheel her sullen-faced mother through a park?

  FINALLY SELLING THE LAND

  Twenty-four hours earlier, her mother had been able to get around with the aid of a cane or a walker, and Mitsuki had been unaware of the existence of a pink tissue case. Half dazed by how completely life could change in a day, she set off for the hospital. Tetsuo offered to go along, but she said it would be enough if he stopped by the next day on his way to Toride. She headed for the station, her mind busily reviewing what needed to be done.

  She went first to the hospital store. The day before, at the nurses’ station she had been handed a list of items her mother would need for her surgery and hospital stay. Disposable underwear. A mug with a built-in spout. Towels large and small—those she could bring from home; underpants and pajamas she intended to buy new. The ones her mother was now using had come from Isetan; if sent to the laundry along with her towels, they would have to be marked with a felt pen, which would be a shame—a desecration, almost.

  The hospital was large and so was the store, overflowing with such a variety of daily necessities that a person forced to shop only there for life could probably manage just fine. Just inside the entrance was the food corner, offering soy sauce, seasoned seaweed, pickled plums, instant miso soup, cookies and crackers, followed by toothbrushes, toothpaste, and cups. In the back were the more specialized items appropriate to a hospital store.

  Mitsuki looked at several sets of women’s pajamas before finally making up her mind to buy four. With that many on hand, even if a couple of them became soiled her mother would still have enough to get by. At more than three thousand yen apiece they weren’t exactly cheap, yet they were the sort of thing her mother never wore, sturdy flannel pajamas for solid citizens that fairly shouted, “Hello, pajamas here, at your service!” They came in aqua, pink, yellow, and lilac, each with a slightly different floral pattern, and were cheerful in their way. They were also light, soft, and warm, and the texture on the inside was pleasant to the touch. Satisfied, Mitsuki headed next to the female undergarments section.

  A man was standing there, clad in a dark suit. Not a young man. Something about his back, the angle of the shoulders perhaps, seemed fraught with sorrow. The very air seemed to congeal
around him.

  She hesitantly moved forward and he edged away to one side, apparently not wishing to interfere with her shopping. An echo of sadness hung in the air. She sensed that he wasn’t standing there in front of women’s undergarments at a loss, uncertain what to get, but rather had chanced on a place where he could come face-to-face with his sadness in grateful solitude.

  Regretting the intrusion, Mitsuki ran her eyes over a pile of undergarments in front of her, picked out six undershirts and six pairs of underpants in her mother’s size, and tossed them in her shopping basket. These too were solid white cotton things that fairly shouted, “Hello, underwear here, at your service!” She left, amused and sorry at the thought of her mother having to put on anything so prosaic.

  The man lingered in her thoughts. Some visitors, like him, were full of sadness—this fact, perfectly natural in a hospital setting, somehow chastened her. She took a deep breath before heading for the register.

  “You’re late!” her mother burst out the moment Mitsuki appeared.

  “Well, I had a lot to do before I could get here. People to contact, things to buy.”

  Her mother stared at her, her dark eyes flashing. When she got that look in her eyes, no good could come of it. Pretending not to notice, Mitsuki set down her purchases and began to sort through the various forms she’d been given at the nurses’ station on the way in.

  “Hospital Policy on Protection of Patients’ Privacy.” That needed only to be read, but the forms marked “Surgery Consent” and “Blood Transfusion Consent” would have to be signed and stamped with her seal. She couldn’t possibly write out her mother’s full medical history, so on that form she merely wrote “cardiac hypertrophy,” “autonomic dysfunction,” and “osteoporosis,” noted past fractures, and listed the medicines she and Natsuki had brought in the previous day.