A True Novel

by Minae Mizumura

  At that moment, the summer sun, which had been darting in and out of the clouds, formed a ring of gold around the old house. It was obvious that this old building would not be able to survive much longer amid the new houses encroaching on the neighborhood. Perhaps because it seemed to be breathing its last, the quiet house looked vulnerable and sad to him, and magically beautiful.

  He guessed that the woman who had telephoned the cottage in Oiwake was in one of the two houses: he could almost hear her affected voice, like a voiceover in a foreign movie, overlying the scene before him. He hoped to be taken into the older of the houses, but the one Fumiko headed toward was the nearer one, which had been renovated.

  They went in through the back door. After having him put the groceries down in the kitchen, she led him into a wide hallway filled with the scent of wood. She rapped on the heavy wooden door at the end of the hall and opened it. The hinges creaked, as in a scene from an old European movie.

  His eyes, unaccustomed to the dimness, could only make out a large casement window at first, its white lace curtains highlighted by the summer sun. Against the window, the dark shapes within stood in sharp contrast, like backlit photographic images. The room had a high ceiling and was designed in a formal Western style.

  Three slender women turned together to face Yusuke—not young women. If anything, they were older than Fumiko, possibly by nearly a generation. They all wore diaphanous summer outfits in different shades of white; with the sunlight shining through them, their figures seemed translucent.

  SERVICE ENTRANCE TO A SUMMER VILLA

  The women stood next to a fireplace, its stone darkened with soot. On top of the mantelpiece, along with a ceramic vase, a pair of pewter candlesticks, and an ornate golden clock, sat two small bundles, conspicuous because they were evidently the only new items on display. Wrapped in pure white cloth, the tips of them, where the cloth was tied, looked like rabbit’s ears. On the wall above, a large oval mirror hung tilted slightly downward, reflecting with odd brightness these rabbit’s ears. The moment he saw them, Yusuke guessed that the bundles held the urns of cremated remains about which he’d overheard Fumiko speaking that night. A photograph in a black frame stood next to them, too far away to be clearly visible.

  The old women must have been standing there talking when he entered the room. A pair of small valises stood on the hearth. Two of them, perhaps, had only just arrived.

  He took in other objects in the room, visible in the light filtering through the lace curtains: a large, old-fashioned sofa and armchairs upholstered in a heavy fabric; porcelain lamps with yellowed silk shades; a Turkish rug with a faded pattern; a cabinet in a somber brown that made the already dark room look even darker; several paintings in peeling gold frames; and an upright piano that had lost its luster.

  In order to push Yusuke farther into the room, Fumiko said from behind him, “Allow me to introduce Mr. Kato. He’s the one who answered the phone at Taro’s place the other night.”

  This caused a slight tremor of nervous tension in the women.

  Yusuke stood mute in the doorway, not knowing what to say—almost a caricature of a helpless young man. Fumiko added, to help him, “I ran into him just as I was coming out of Kinokuniya. I had quite a few bags, and he kindly offered to help me carry them home.”

  For a moment, there was silence, which only amplified the uneasiness in the room, but then one of the old women said in a composed voice, “We are most grateful to you, my dear.”

  She stood with a cane clutched in one hand. Her deft intervention had calmed everyone down, and what Yusuke took to be their normal pattern of life seemed to reassert itself. This, however, was not one he was accustomed to at all.

  He inclined his head in a small bow.

  The woman who had just spoken inspected him from head to foot as if assessing his worth. Yusuke, for his part, just stood there, nailed to the floor. After encouraging him to move farther into the room, Fumiko announced that she was going to bring them some cold drinks and vanished from the doorway.

  Another of the old women spoke up. “Yes. Please do make yourself comfortable. By the way, it was I who spoke to you on the telephone the other day.”

  He recognized the voice. She continued: “Forgive me if I sounded rude. Taro never answers the phone, so I was a bit taken aback when I heard a male voice on the line. This is my eldest sister, and that is the middle one.”

  Once again, Yusuke bowed his head.

  “We’re known as the Three Witches,” she added.

  He watched as laughter rippled among the three old ladies. Their air of fragile translucency came from their dress, their delicate figures—and, no doubt, their age. Though shy, nervous, and dazed, he was still able to recognize that these women were indeed sisters. In fact, they looked so much alike that it was difficult to tell them apart—at least, so Yusuke at first thought. They all had the same extremely fair skin; all had large eyes with double-fold eyelids, fine, sculpted noses, and delicate yet firm lips. And all wore makeup—a light layer of face powder and carefully applied lipstick—and had such a pronounced air of self-confidence that it would have intimidated most Japanese men. Never before had Yusuke met anyone of this kind, much less at so close a distance, and certainly not three at once. He found himself more flustered than he would have been around women his own age.

  The old ladies moved away from the fireplace and each took a seat.

  “How is your injury?” asked the youngest sister, perched on the sofa with its back to the window. She was the one with whom he had talked on the telephone. As she spoke, she motioned to an armchair across from her, inviting him to sit down. It seemed that Fumiko had mentioned his accident when she told them the story of how a stranger came to answer their late-night phone call.

  “Thank you. It’s much better,” he replied. The high-backed upholstered chair that was offered to him looked all the more daunting because its arms were worn from years of use. He hesitated to sit on it.

  “We were sorry to hear what happened.”

  “Thank you.”

  The youngest sister could have passed as middle-aged, had she dyed her hair. Neither her bearing nor her features were those of an old woman. The virile face, the jaw straight and determined, had a rather androgynous quality—she might have looked in the past like a beautiful boy, he thought. Occasionally a look of irony would flicker across her face. She was the only one who wore pants and a pair of glasses.

  Just then, from the armchair with its back to the fireplace, the sister who was introduced as the eldest and who spoke first firmly commanded, “Young man! Stop standing like a stick and come sit down with us.”

  Tapping the floor with her cane, she spoke with the authority of the eldest. Even her eyes and nose looked more imposing than those of her sisters.

  Yusuke felt as though he’d been scolded, yet, in contrast to her words, she was looking at him half-teasingly, eyes wide, perhaps having some fun with the young man in front of her. When their eyes met, Yusuke blushed. He took a few steps farther into the room and awkwardly sat across from the sofa where the younger sisters were. Watching, the woman’s eyes softened. Then she opened them wide again and said, “The cottage in Oiwake feels like a haunted house. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  She sounded disparaging. She also sounded mocking. Yusuke couldn’t tell whether she was making fun of the dilapidated little house or its naive young visitor.

  “That place used to be ours, you know,” said the middle sister, joining the conversation for the first time. She leaned against the arm of the sofa on the opposite end from the youngest one, both legs neatly folded under her. Below, sitting on the carpet, were a pair of bright-red sandals, the kind you’d usually see on much younger women.

  “Is that so?”

  This new piece of information took Yusuke by surprise, but so much else remained unresolved that he didn’t know what to make of it. It only confirmed his suspicion that these old women and Taro Azuma were somehow closely conn
ected.

  The eldest sister demanded in her imperious voice, “Tell me your impression of that man. Did you not find him strange?”

  “Well …”

  Three pairs of eyes looked intently at him. As he wondered what to say, the eldest abruptly turned toward her siblings on the sofa and murmured, “What was he thinking—coming back at a time like this? He did it on purpose, I’m quite certain.”

  The contempt in her voice was tinged with resentment.

  “Yes, at a time like this …,” the middle sister, who had mentioned her prior ownership of the cottage, repeated in the same tone. While her large eyes were just like her elder sister’s, her face was gentler and more appealing. With a dimple in one of her full cheeks, she had an air of unfettered femininity, despite her age. Even the white dress she wore, scattered with what looked like red poppies around the hem, was a bit girlish, and she had painted her fingernails and toenails with a scarlet polish to match the floral pattern. Yet her voice was so similar to her elder sister’s that, when she spoke, it sounded as if the other were repeating herself. All three spoke with that same theatrical enunciation of movie voiceovers.

  The youngest one peered over her glasses and said to him, “You know, that man you met—he’s a millionaire.”

  She pronounced the English word like an American. After translating it for himself, he replied, “Then he’s rich?”

  “Not just rich—very rich.”

  He thought of the decaying cottage as he’d seen it under the full moon—the dim hanging lamps, the rickety wooden furniture, the wood-framed windows that looked as if they’d let in drafts. He couldn’t help feeling skeptical about what she said.

  The eldest sister resumed her inquiry, her voice willfully exaggerating the sense of prerogative that must have characterized her long life.

  “Does he look a lot older?”

  This question was absurd since Yusuke had never met the younger version.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Did he have a lot of gray hair?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “How about his hairline?

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Is it receding? Going bald?”

  “No.”

  “And his belly?”

  Yusuke looked blank.

  “Did he have a paunch?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “He’s not getting fat, then?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “So he is still quite a charmer—unlike my sons-in-law, who are both fat pigs.”

  She laughed cynically at her own words. Then, as if to excuse her aggressive questioning, she added, “That Fumi never tells us a thing, so I have to ask you instead. No matter what I ask, she just smiles and doesn’t say a word. If I didn’t make a point of asking, we would never even know when he was back in Japan.”

  Just then, the middle sister declared with unexpected fierceness, “The man’s deranged.”

  She seemed alarmed at the tone of her own voice, and, perhaps in an effort to compose herself, let out a long sigh. Then she turned her head slowly toward the two small white bundles on the mantelpiece. The eldest sister’s face stiffened but she remained motionless in her armchair. The youngest one, led by the middle sister, turned her head too. Once again, the room filled with tension, just as when Yusuke arrived. No one said a word, as if a spell had been cast on them. The high ceiling seemed even higher, while, with the white light of summer outside, the interior seemed for a moment to sink further into shadow.

  At this point, Fumiko came into the room carrying a round silver tray on which tall, frosted glasses, brimming with some purple liquid, clinked with ice cubes—a refreshing summer resonance.

  “How about a glass of Karuizawa’s world-famous grape juice!” Sounding like a TV commercial, Fumiko seemed to chase the spell from the room. She held the tray toward Yusuke for him to take a glass. “It might not be cold yet.”

  “Fumiko, since the weather is clearing up, I’ve set the table out on the porch, as you can see,” said the androgynous sister. A glass in one hand, she stood up and walked into the adjacent dining room. The two rooms were separated only by an archway, so Yusuke could see a dining table from where he sat. Maybe that’s what people call mahogany, he thought as he studied the oval table’s dark, reddish-brown surface with its soft luster. High up on one wall was a small square window that lit the space almost like a skylight, and beneath it a large French window with the same lace curtains. On the matte stucco wall hung several paintings, slightly smaller than the ones in the parlor. Everything about the room was not only Western in style but also redolent of another era.

  Though hidden from where he sat, there seemed to be a door on the north side of the dining room that led into the kitchen. He could hear the youngest sister speaking with Fumiko through the open door. On the porch outside the dining room to the south was what looked like a table painted white.

  The eldest sister widened her large, penetrating eyes again and asked, “Where is your summer house?”

  “Oh, the place where I’m staying isn’t mine. It belongs to a friend—actually to his parents. I’m just a guest.”

  “I see. At your friend’s house.”

  Her voice had a ring of condescension to it. Then the middle sister took over the cross-examination, holding her glass with her little finger daintily lifted, swirling the ice cubes around so they clinked against the sides.

  “Is their house nearby?”

  “No, it’s in Middle Karuizawa.”

  “Oh.”

  Her voice had the same ring of condescension.

  “In the old days,” added the eldest sister, “that area was known as Kutsukake; they changed it to Middle Karuizawa, thinking it would sound better. Fools.” She made it seem as if Yusuke had had something to do with it.

  Reaching out to rest her glass on the coffee table, the middle sister asked, “Would you be in the Sengataki area, then?”

  Yusuke bent his head to one side. “I’m not sure what the area is called, but I think it’s something like Mitsui Woods.”

  The middle sister flashed a beguiling smile, the dimple appearing in her soft cheek. “So it’s one of the new developments. How lucky you are! That means the house is new too, doesn’t it? Not like our place, which is so very old. There is always something that needs to be fixed, no matter how much we do.”

  Yusuke, who lacked the worldliness to handle this sort of snobbery, mumbled a noncommittal reply.

  The middle sister continued, “You must be a college student, then?”

  “No, I graduated four years ago.”

  “From a university in Tokyo?”

  “No, Kyoto.”

  The eldest sister wedged herself in, saying, “Oh, so Kyoto University?” She sounded as if no other university existed in Kyoto, a city known for its many universities. He replied with a brief, honest yes, wondering where the conversation might have gone had he answered otherwise.

  The eldest one looked at him, her appraising eyes wider than ever, evidently a bit startled by his affirmative reply. At that moment, the youngest emerged from the kitchen and peered in from the archway, a large platter in her hands. “Well, well,” she said in an amused tone. “It’s a rare treat nowadays to meet a young person who’s gone to a respectable university.” The two sitting down smiled wryly.

  The youngest said, “Oops, sorry,” as she moved toward the porch, and continued in the same tone, “I suppose you’d rather forget about those wretched grandchildren for a while, now that they are away.”

  The eldest, a sour smile still showing on her face, watched her walk away, then turned back to Yusuke.

  “In the old days,” she began, her asperity giving way to a more composed expression, “we were surrounded by people who had graduated from schools that everyone knew—the Imperial University, or Keio, or Waseda—only the finest universities. But now, my dear, in our grandchildren’s generation, not one of them goes to a decent sc
hool. I just don’t know why.”

  Dismissing them with this comment, she pressed on. “Where do you work?”

  When he named the major publisher that employed him, it had the same effect as when he had admitted attending Kyoto University. Her eyes wide, she murmured words of approval. He was witnessing his own transformation into a person they found acceptable.

  Again, she gave Yusuke a thorough once-over, examining his face, his shoulders, and his chest as he sat before her. Apparently satisfied, she asked, “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

  “I thought I might go shopping.”

  “My dear, you can shop some other time. We are about to have brunch, and I would be delighted if you would join us. We will set a place for you.”

  Without waiting for his answer, she called out, “Fumi, Fumi!”

  Fumiko came into the dining room, wiping her hands on her apron, looking through the archway.

  “Did you call, ma’am?”

  “This young man—I’m sorry. What was his name?”

  “Mr. Kato.”

  “Yes. Please set a place for Mr. Kato.”

  “Well, of course. I was just doing that in here.”

  “What do you mean, ‘in here’?”

  “In the kitchen.”

  “No, no, no. Fumi, you mustn’t try to keep this boy all to yourself. You’re such a flirt! The young man will eat with us, out on the porch.”

  “Then the porch it will be.”

  Smiling, Fumiko stepped into the middle of the archway and told Yusuke on her own that he should accept the invitation.

  “Why aren’t you planning to eat on the porch?” the eldest asked.

  “Ami’s here today.”

  “Ami can join us too.”

  “No, no. There are no other young people here this year, and she feels rather uncomfortable when she’s alone with you ladies.”

  “Uncomfortable? Around us?”

  “That’s right, ma’am.”

  The eldest sister shrugged her shoulders.

  “She doesn’t like being around us old hags, eh? It’s not as if we’re going to eat her.”