Fumiko only answered with a grin and was heading back toward the kitchen when something outside caught her eye.
“Oh, the delivery van is here with the boxes.”
Yusuke caught a glimpse through gaps in the hedge of a green-and-beige truck approaching the house.
“Oh, the cigarettes! The cigarettes for the driver!” cried the eldest sister from her chair, grasping the head of her cane.
“Oh, what shall we do?” said the middle sister, in a girlish fluster.
“We talked about buying some this year but we forgot again.”
“Fumi, do we have any sweets or something that we can wrap up and give to him? Or should we just put some money in an envelope?”
“We don’t need to give him anything,” Fumiko called out to calm them down on her way into the kitchen. “He might not even be from this area. Lots of people these days don’t smoke anyway. Besides, delivery people don’t expect little gifts like that anymore.”
Fumiko must have given the deliveryman instructions at the service entrance, for a man in a cap came up to the front pushing a handcart and started unloading boxes onto the porch. Yusuke went out to help carry them inside the house. Before long, the eldest sister emerged, cane in hand, and positioned herself near Yusuke, watching him work.
“It’s so kind of you. We would be most obliged if you would stay for brunch.”
The words were polite, but the manner was commanding. The old lady was naturally quite a bit shorter than Yusuke, yet he felt she was somehow looking down on him.
“Well …”
“Besides, we would be grateful if you could help us open up the boxes.”
It only took him five minutes, using a box cutter, to open everything and arrange the boxes against a wall of the dining room, where they wouldn’t block the way. The trio thanked him in unison. He followed the youngest into the kitchen to wash his hands. By then, everyone seemed to assume that he would be staying for brunch.
When he returned to the parlor, the eldest sister had reinstalled herself in her armchair. The middle sister now stood before the mirror over the fireplace and, peering up at her reflection, was retouching her coiffure with her fingertips while turning her face now to the right, now to the left, as if trying to ascertain the exact curvature of her own nose. Yusuke also paused in front of the fireplace, though not too close to her, and studied the color photograph on the mantelpiece.
With a black ribbon tied to its black frame, it was a funeral portrait of an uncommonly good-looking man. At first he thought it might be the son of one of them, but there was something about the expression on the face that was quite unlike any of theirs. Moreover, none of the women seemed to be consumed with grief. Instead all he could sense from them was a certain strain. No, “strain” was the wrong word—it was something more in the way of defiance, as though they refused to mourn.
On the wall next to the fireplace, he noted a group of black-and-white photographs framed in silver. The pictures showed some beautiful young women hiking in the mountains, sitting and chatting in a shaded garden, dancing in the parlor. One had them walking down the main street, with its many signs in English, holding white parasols. In another they were riding horses down a lane lined with tall larch trees. Repeatedly, the same young, noble-looking man appeared in those pictures. There was even a profile of him with some sort of wind instrument, seated among some foreigners playing violins and a cello. Even when smiling, there was a melancholy about him which made his already handsome face almost painful in its beauty.
This was the man who had died, Yusuke thought. But then he realized that, while the black-and-white photos on the wall were from half a century ago, turned sepia and beige, the person in the color portrait did not look fifty years older than the one in the faded pictures. Struck again by that odd sense of being caught in a time warp, Yusuke took another look at the group of old photographs.
The eldest sister’s voice rang out: “When we were young and gay. Lovely, weren’t we?”
She had turned around in her chair, apparently watching him as he looked at the pictures.
“Yes,” Yusuke replied, with a little smile. Though well aware that he was expected to offer some gallant compliment, he lacked the experience to deliver one.
“Natsue, would you mind putting some music on?” she said, not forcing further praise from him.
The middle sister, apparently named Natsue, was checking her reflection in her compact. She closed it and turned to look directly at Yusuke. “I wonder if you’d care to tell us what kind of music you’d like to listen to.” Yusuke, meanwhile, was remembering with amusement that the woman on the telephone, the youngest, was called Fuyue. With Natsu meaning summer and Fuyu winter, they had already covered half the four seasons.
“Anything is fine with me,” he answered.
“Really?”
“Anything but Maria Callas,” the eldest cried out from her armchair and continued: “Not while we’re eating—save Callas for later.”
“Then how about some Mozart, Harue? Last year we listened to Mozart the day we arrived here, didn’t we?” said Natsue, who was slowly making her way toward the other corner of the room.
Now that he had learned what the eldest sister’s name was—Harue—he silently went over them in order: Harue (Spring), Natsue (Summer), and Fuyue (Winter). He tried not to smile at the seasonal progression of their names, albeit without Fall, and wondered what Chinese character they used to write the final syllable e in each name. Only later did he learn from Fumiko that it was the character for “picture.”
The three sisters who had looked so similar to him were beginning to separate into individuals.
As he returned to his armchair, middle-sister Natsue pulled a record album off a shelf and, reading from the cover, called out, “How about this one? It’s the Piano Concerto number 14.”
Harue, the eldest, turned in her chair and looked back at her.
“I don’t know that one. Who is the pianist?”
“Serkin.”
“Rudolf Serkin?”
“Yes, Rudolf.”
“That’ll be fine.”
“But we might have this on one of the CDs that Fuyue brought with her.”
“I’d rather listen to the record. I prefer the sound.”
Taking the record out of its paper sleeve, Natsue grimaced. “Look at all this dust,” she said, and reached for a felt dust cloth. Her glossy scarlet nails stood out against her white fingers as she cleaned the disc. Yusuke, who only had CDs, hadn’t seen this done for years.
“What happened to his son Peter Serkin? Is he still playing? Do you know?” asked Harue, directing the last question at Yusuke.
Just then, Fuyue, the youngest, called in from the porch, “You’re pronouncing the name as if he was German. You have to say it the American way. He’s American, you know.”
Although this didn’t answer Harue’s question, no one chose to take the conversation any further, and Yusuke was released from having to expose his ignorance on the subject. Before long, he could hear the sound of a piano mingling with an orchestra. Only half listening, he sat and thought how strange it was to be in an old Western-style house, waiting to share a midday meal with these elderly ladies. Never in his life could he have imagined being part of this scene himself. He felt as though his real self was watching all this wide-eyed from outside, while someone who had taken his form was sitting in the armchair.
Perhaps because the music had begun, everyone grew quiet. To Yusuke their silence seemed a luxurious indulgence, something from a different age. While the sound of the piano filled the high-ceilinged room, summer light and summer breezes came through the lace curtains. Imperious Harue was keeping time, tapping the armrest with her fingertips. Back on the couch, Natsue was curled up with her eyes half closed.
Yusuke took a deep breath in this unaccustomed atmosphere and then plucked up the courage to ask something he’d been itching to bring up.
“Is Mr. Azuma a
relation of yours?”
Abruptly ceasing to tap time, Harue frowned, not having any idea at first whom he was talking about. Natsue opened her eyes and said, “He means Taro.”
“Taro? Why didn’t you say so? We never call him by his family name!” After a sardonic laugh, she snapped: “We most certainly are not related to him. Why, he is the nephew of a rickshaw man who worked for my younger sister’s husband’s family.”
Natsue promptly corrected her. “No, no, no. He is the son of the nephew of the rickshaw man.”
“You’re both wrong! He is the nephew of the nephew of the rickshaw man,” Fuyue informed them, pausing to stick her head through the arch as she walked toward the porch, salad bowl in her hands. They all let out a peal of laughter.
“I’m so confused!” Harue exclaimed, theatrically bringing both hands to her head of white hair. “But you’re right—he is the nephew of the nephew of the rickshaw man.”
Fuyue shook her head in exasperation and disappeared onto the porch.
Lowering her hands, Harue looked up and said to Yusuke, “We lived in New York for some time because of my husband’s job. This was many years ago, before every Japanese started traveling abroad. And who should arrive in New York just when we were about to come back but Taro! As if it were his turn, you see.”
“Really?”
With an arch smile on her face, she said, “What’s more, he got a job as a chauffeur for an American family. So the descendant of a rickshaw-puller becomes—a driver! Rather amusing, don’t you think? When I first heard about it, I thought there must be something in the blood!”
“Harue! The things you say!” Her sister wriggled on the sofa.
Yusuke asked, “Is he really all that wealthy?”
“Well, he started out without a penny to his name, of course, but over the years he did become very successful. I’m sure that it wasn’t all aboveboard, either, knowing him.”
Picking up on his skeptical expression, Harue, her eyes sparkling, drew in her chin and said gleefully, “He doesn’t look like a millionaire, does he?
“No, he doesn’t. And the Oiwake cottage is pretty modest too.”
Her chin still tucked in, she looked at her younger sister, and they shared an odd little giggle together.
“Somehow, he doesn’t really look very Japanese either,” Yusuke went on, remembering the man’s dark, luminous face, and its intensity.
“You think so too? See, see!” Harue exclaimed victoriously, and then, raising her voice, cried out to her youngest sister, “Fuyue, this young man …” Apparently unable to remember his name, she turned to him. “I’m sorry, what was your name again?”
“Kato.”
“Yes, yes. I do apologize. So, Fuyue, Mr. Kato here says that he doesn’t think that Taro looks Japanese either.”
She was speaking loudly enough to be heard on the porch, but there was no answer. Fuyue seemed to have gone elsewhere. Harue now turned and repeated the same thing to her other sister. The latter leaned forward and said to Yusuke in a low voice, perhaps to prevent Fumiko from overhearing, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but Taro isn’t Japanese.”
“Really?”
“His father wasn’t Japanese.”
“So he’s from a mixed marriage?”
“A mixed marriage?” Harue repeated incredulously and then burst out laughing as if he’d said something quite ridiculous. “My dear, it’s nothing as proper as that! He was repatriated from Manchuria after the war and his father was—how shall I put it?—one of those Chinese aboriginals.”
“Chinese aboriginals?” Yusuke asked, puzzled.
Natsue edged in. “You know, like the Takasago tribe. But I suppose young people nowadays have never heard of them.”
“You two are both way off the mark. You’re just confusing him,” said Fuyue as she walked in from the porch, a reproving look on her face. Just back from the garden, she held a bunch of lavender in one hand and garden clippers in the other. “ ‘Takasago’ is what we used to call the aboriginal people of Taiwan,” she remonstrated. Turning to Yusuke, she explained, “Taro’s father is thought to be from an ethnic minority in mainland China. It’s just an old rumor, though.”
“I see,” he replied, adding, “Now I understand,” in an effort to convince himself.
Just then, a strange, deep clanging sound echoed through the house. Yusuke started, but the old women were apparently anticipating it. They all stood up at once and declared, “Finally!” “I’m starving!” “I could eat a horse!” Only later did he find out that there was a bronze gong hanging from the eaves, which Fumiko had struck.
AS THEY MOVED out to the porch, Yusuke was preoccupied by the words he had just heard: “rickshaw man,” “Manchurian repatriates,” “Chinese aboriginal.” These ghosts from socially divided, prewar imperial Japan swirled around in his head; terms that the copy editors in his firm would have marked as potentially “offensive” to present-day readers, so eager had Japanese society become to purge and bury their recent past, so averse had the culture become to the idea that life as we live it never has been and never will be altogether fair. Behind these words the image of Taro Azuma’s face came and went. He felt something vaguely taking shape from among the bits and pieces he had heard, and would have liked to bring it further into focus, but the three sisters, suspecting nothing of his thoughts, went about their business, pouring tea, passing around a basket of bread, serving salad, and persistently trying to draw him into their chatter.
Eventually, he left off his musings and took to just observing them, politely giving almost monosyllabic answers when needed.
It was strange to think that they were the same generation as his own two grandmothers. It wasn’t only that his grandmothers were more conventional. It somehow seemed extraordinary that they all grew up around the same time, breathing the same air, in the same country. Both his grandmothers now wore Western clothes, except on special occasions such as weddings and funerals, yet their clothes were quite different from any worn here. His mother’s mother also had bread for breakfast rather than rice, but the meal was nothing like this one. What’s more, even if they happened to have dressed in exactly the same way or sat down to exactly the same food, they would still be as far removed from these people as they had always been: their backgrounds were so very different.
At the center of the table, a blue cut-glass vase held the lavender that Fuyue had picked, casually arranged. The food itself was like what he had seen served at the Oiwake cottage, but here everything looked more lavish, no doubt because of the elegant tableware. The teapot and teacups were so fragile he felt they might shatter in his hands. The handle of the silver spoon in the sugar bowl was so thin it could easily have snapped in two. He spread the starched linen napkin with a delicate lace border on his lap, but couldn’t bring himself to use it.
Though not far from the Karuizawa Ginza, the place was peaceful, as if they were several hillsides away. Now and then there was a brief shower, filling the air with its sparkle; the maple leaves above the porch glistened in response.
After passing him a jar filled with a jam made of something called rhubarb, Harue, the eldest, asked, “Do you often visit your friend’s summer house?”
“No, this is my first time.”
“Is it your first time in Karuizawa as well?”
“Yes, it is.”
“How do you find it so far?”
The question had no agenda, being as neutral as a question about the weather, but it was posed in the haughty tone peculiar to her. Once again he felt he was being interrogated.
“Well …,” he stammered as he was spreading the unusual brown jam on a slice of bread. All three of them stared, teacups in midair. He knew he ought to say something.
“It’s very nice and cool. And I like all the trees too.”
Harue chuckled. “Since it is your hostess demanding an opinion, you have no choice but to praise it, do you?” With a shade more seriousness, she added, “Karuiza
wa has changed quite a lot. Everything’s become so convenient, though convenience is not what places like this are supposed to provide, is it? And the resort area just keeps expanding. You never used to see houses with chain-link fences around them, but now you do. So vulgar … Things have changed.”
Yusuke nodded periodically to show he was listening with interest. He knew that he was not holding up his end of the conversation, but the old lady probably didn’t expect much from someone his age in any case.
When Harue was finished, Natsue, the middle one, chimed in. “Also, you see the name Karuizawa being used even way past Oiwake. Can you believe it, that far away?” She made it sound as if Oiwake were at the other end of the world.
“Is that so?”
“And you must have noticed how full of tourists this area is?”
“Yes, indeed,” he agreed, though he was one himself.
“Did you by any chance walk down the main street?”
“Yes.”
“And wasn’t it dreadfully crowded?”
“Yes, it was pretty bad.”
“They come swarming in,” Harue declared with disgust.
With a dimple in her plump cheek, Natsue continued, “This week especially—one can hardly walk, it gets so very crowded. I have no idea what kind of sightseeing they think they can do here, do you?”
Fuyue, the youngest, explained: “These days they mostly come to shop, not to sightsee. They drive here in their cars, buy a few things, and then go home. They don’t even stay the night.”
“Exactly,” said Harue in her imperious way. “That’s why you see so many Gunma license plates. From Gunma, it’s only a day trip. And the way those people speak! Such a heavy accent!”
Fuyue let out a little laugh. “Harue, you must be imagining things. Everyone speaks standard Japanese nowadays.”
“Well, I suppose you’re right about the younger ones.”
“Young people have changed, haven’t they though?” said Natsue. Being the most feminine of the three, she also spoke in the most genteel manner. “They are now much prettier too, no matter where they are from.”
“That may be so,” Harue took over again, “but I’m sorry to say that when they come with the older generation in tow, that’s the end of it. They can give themselves airs, but just look at their grandparents. Their faces tell you that they speak in that horrid dialect.”
A True Novel Page 21