Hearing this, my gloom deepened: I would be spending most of my waking hours with an uncommunicative old woman who suffered from migraines and a little girl who was not only sickly but bad-natured.
It was then time to start preparing dinner, and the two of us got up to work in the kitchen. Dusk had descended and it was getting dark in the house. I washed the rice in semidarkness. The running water on the tin-lined sink sounded forlorn. Even Mrs. Utagawa’s knife thunking monotonously on the cutting board sounded gloomy. Once in a while, she would put the knife down and go to talk to Yoko. I could hear the murmur in the surrounding emptiness. Back on the farm, I had spent plenty of evenings alone in the house with the rest of the family gone, but I had never felt as lonely and desolate as I did that evening.
But then Natsue came home, with Yuko in tow.
“Why is it so dark in here?” her voice rang out. Despite everything, I wanted to make a good impression. I hurried to the front hall, wiping my hands on my smock, and found Natsue stepping up into it. It was like the sun coming up. Yuko, wearing the standard red leather backpack of grade-schoolers (red for girls and black for boys), peeked out from behind her and offered a bashful hello. The dimple on her pale cheek looked just like her mother’s. With these two home, Seijo’s brightness revived again.
As Natsue made her way through the house, she turned on each and every light, from the entrance to the parlor to the kitchen. Her voice and glowing face dispelled the gloom. Though it was obvious Mrs. Utagawa didn’t feel altogether comfortable with her daughter-in-law, even she was visibly relieved to see her home. Yoko called out, “Mama! Mama!” from her futon. “Just a minute—I’ll be right there,” Natsue replied before emptying her string shopping bag. “Look what Grammy bought for us at Kinokuniya in Aoyama,” she said, pulling some meatloaf, croissants, and brioches out of the bag, like a magician taking one thing after another out of a hat, and putting them on the Formica table. “At long last, you can buy this kind of food in Tokyo again,” she said. Even on the base I’d never seen goodies like these. Shortly after Natsue mentioned that she expected her husband home early, he walked in the door.
Then it was time for dinner. Yoko’s fever had conveniently subsided with her mother’s return, and she appeared at the table, a red cardigan over her pajamas. Gone was the peevish child earlier; here now was an ordinary, skinny little girl with kinky hair. I assumed that I would eat separately from the family, but Natsue smiled and said, “Of course not! And besides, where else could you possibly eat in this little house!”
So I sat and ate at the same table with them. I was so nervous that I couldn’t offer more than the briefest answers to questions. At one point, when I referred to the elder daughter as “Miss Yuko,” both girls started giggling.
“Just call them Yuko and Yoko,” their father said, and, turning to his daughters: “All of the nannies have called you by your names, right, girls?”
The girls nodded in unison. Seeing them next to each other, I saw that they did look like sisters.
“My sister Harue is so very conservative in some things,” Natsue commented. “She was terribly upset when one of her nannies didn’t address her daughter with a ‘Miss.’ They’re like that in Seijo.”
“That was the old way, but times have changed,” was her husband’s opinion—he said it without any pomposity or self-importance. His straightforwardness impressed me, along with his calm eyes, looking through thick lenses. He might not be rich, but his turn of mind seemed to more than compensate for it. Later he told me that one of his most vivid memories from childhood was of the maids having to sit on the floor of the kitchen in his parents’ house when they ate. The kitchen floor was one step lower than the rest of the house, so it was freezing cold as well as hard; they always ate in stony silence. He told himself that when he grew up, he would never allow anything like that in his own home.
Sitting with this lively group at the table, the shock began to wear off and I decided that this might, after all, do for a while: I had no idea, of course, how long I’d actually stay with them.
I knew I was a bit stubborn—in my own way. Now that I know better, I realize I was lucky to have joined the Utagawa household in Chitose Funabashi. If I’d started at the Saegusas’ place in Seijo, I doubt I would have lasted two years. Being such a big family, the Saegusas worked their staff hard, even getting their Primavera pupils to pitch in. But it wouldn’t have been hard work that drove me away. In the Utagawa household, Natsue was just a pretty wife whose gaiety brightened everything around her, but back home among the Saegusas, she became one of them. And the Saegusas were a family it was best to keep at a certain distance: a month or two a year with them in Karuizawa was just about right for me. The difference between the two families showed up in little things—like how they addressed me. While Yuko and Yoko called me “big sister” or just Fumiko, the Saegusa girls Mari and Eri, imitating their mother, would refer to me as Fumi, the way people used to address maids in the old days. Also, the Saegusas made their maid eat in the kitchen, naturally. I hadn’t expected to be called “big sister” or to eat with the family, but, once I got used to it, it made me feel better. Little things, perhaps, but I feel I was lucky, though it took me years to really appreciate it.
I WAS TOLD I had a day off every two weeks. So, on the Sunday of my second week there, I left the house early and went to visit Uncle Genji. When I walked in, I was startled to find the woman who called him “boss,” wearing a kerchief around her head, cleaning the house and acting as if the two of them were an old married couple. She greeted me in her familiar husky voice. I went out onto the veranda and there was my uncle, puffing on a cigarette and reading the morning paper. Looking not in the least embarrassed about his new companion, he gave me a warm hello and asked about the Utagawas. He seemed a little surprised when I reported that their house was pretty ordinary—nothing like the Andos’ place in Koishikawa or the two houses we’d seen in Seijo. But when I told him I was getting a thorough training in housekeeping from Mrs. Utagawa, he was reassured. “While you’re at it, you’d better have her teach you how to speak properly. If you don’t, you’ll end up like her,” he said, tipping his head in the woman’s direction, “and you’ll never find a husband.” His girlfriend, though, seemed a good sort at heart. She busied herself making lunch, and, while we were sitting on the tatami at a round table, my uncle told me he was planning to set her up to run a restaurant in someplace like Tamachi or Shinbashi, and that he was going to quit the base as soon as they found a suitable place. He invited me to stay for dinner, but I said no. Instead I decided to navigate the train system and go back to Ueno station by myself.
It had been two years since I’d arrived at Ueno. It wasn’t that I was feeling homesick; I just wanted to revisit the place where I’d first set foot on Tokyo soil. After taking a look at the station, I walked over to Ueno Park and stood like a tourist at the foot of the famous statue of Saigo Takamori. In the afternoon light, there were various other young people drifting around; they looked as alone and at sea in the big city as I felt. The sad, thin figures reminded me of classmates of mine who, after coming to Tokyo, were probably working in textile mills, or a rubber factory, or maybe a soba or an udon noodle shop. I imagined the din of the factory floor, the greasy kitchens, the workers’ dormitories lined with hard, thin futons. I didn’t envy them. I envied the ones who had gone on to high school, which was less than half the class.
It was only then that I wondered why Uncle Genji hadn’t thought of sending me to high school. To a girl new to Tokyo he seemed rather prosperous. He could have afforded my tuition, or at least lent me the money. I didn’t know in what way my life might have been different, but a high school diploma would surely have allowed me more independence—let me stand on my own two feet. It was already my third year since graduating from middle school, and now with that woman installed in his house, I had no real thought of changing my life around. Yet just then, for the first time in my life, I knew what
it was to truly regret what I’d done—or, rather, hadn’t done. Why hadn’t it occurred to me to ask him to send me to high school when I first saw how well off he was? How could I have been so stupid? I felt wretched. And on top of everything was my disappointment that my uncle hadn’t thought of it himself.
After walking around the park for I don’t know how long, I finally sat down on an empty bench and watched the darkness encroach on the afternoon sunlight.
I had once had complete trust in my uncle Genji, but, sitting there, I realized it had faded. I could see that he didn’t know everything, and also that he was part of the old world. It became all too clear to me that because he didn’t have much schooling himself, he couldn’t imagine that a girl like me would want a proper education.
I remained lost in thought, regretting this and imagining that. I didn’t make a drama of it. I just felt bitter. For a girl the age I was, I was realistic—perhaps too realistic. And because I was realistic, I saw only too cruelly that given how limited my options were, there wasn’t much I could expect.
That evening was the only time I ever cried about not getting a higher education.
I got back to Chitose Funabashi later in the evening. Having never so much as entered a restaurant or cafe by myself, I walked past the soba shop in front of the station several times before I found the courage to actually walk in and order a meal.
It was nearly eight o’clock by the time I got back to the Utagawas’. They’d left the front light on for me. I opened the door, whispered “I’m back,” and slipped quietly into the main room, where Natsue, an apron tied around her waist like the badge of good wifehood, was clearing the dinner table. She said a friendly hello in her cheerful voice. From the children’s playroom, an extension of the main room, Yuko and Yoko, who were lying down on cushions and playing a game of some sort, stopped what they were doing to welcome their “big sister” back. Their father, Takero, was working in his study upstairs. Their grandmother was taking a bath. As Natsue dried the dishes, she asked after Uncle Genji, of whom she had fond memories. After a while, the older Mrs. Utagawa, having finished her bath, came in, a smile on her face. Everything was peaceful. I was suddenly filled with a sense of well-being, as if I’d found my way back to somewhere I was meant to be. The bitterness I’d felt as I sat in Ueno Park seemed remote. I think it was then that I made up my mind to settle down with the Utagawa family.
4
Three White Pebbles
BEFORE I GO into the rest of my time in Chitose Funabashi, I feel I should expand a bit on the three families—the Shigemitsus, the Saegusas, and the Utagawas. None of them are well known. Their family histories have no direct bearing on Taro’s story. All the same, slowly learning about their past—and how they got where they were—had a profound meaning for someone like me, though I cannot say the process wasn’t sometimes sad or painful.
In fact, learning about those families was my education.
I always knew there were some people in the world who were “privileged.” But you can know something without having any real understanding of it. Only after many long years of observing these people with my own eyes did I come to understand why they were the way they were. And only then could I understand myself, and, tracing it back, why my grandparents and my mother and Uncle Genji were the kinds of people they were. I gradually came to see that though we’re given only one chance to live our lives, we’re at the mercy of something larger than the abilities and personalities we’re born with, something that is beyond our control.
LET ME START with the two Seijo-area families, the Shigemitsus and the Saegusas. I only came to know their story so well because of the Shigemitsus’ maid, the Demon, who never tired of telling it.
In the Shigemitsus’ summer house in Karuizawa there was a north-facing room with a wooden floor where the maids had their meals. It was known by its English name, the servants’ hall. Every Sunday, the two families had a big meal together, which they also referred to in English as Sunday lunch, and when this was over, we maids got time off and went back to the servants’ hall, where we sat at the table and poured ourselves some green tea. There were three of us: the Demon from the Shigemitsus, Chizu from the Saegusas, and me from the Utagawas. The Demon and I would knit, while Chizu leafed through a weekly magazine. Generally, the Demon wasn’t talkative, but when we were alone together, she became quite a storyteller.
It turned out that she came from a farming family in Kagoshima, on the southern island of Kyushu. She’d worked for the Shigemitsus for more than thirty years, from the time when Yayoi’s mother married into the family. The Demon was unlike anyone I’d ever met: a combination of loyal retainer in a Kabuki play and maidservant in a nineteenth-century European novel. She also had the distinction of being the only maid who got to go with the Shigemitsus to London—she of course traveled separately on the ship, in steerage.
My first summer there, I couldn’t make much sense of what she told us. I felt she was disappointed that I wasn’t the enthusiastic audience she hoped for. Still, I was definitely a better listener than Chizu, who sat there, her heavy legs crossed, flipping through the pages of her magazine. And with each summer, the names of the places, schools, and companies the Demon mentioned made more sense to me. The more I understood, the more interested I became, so in the end I suppose I did become something of an ideal audience for her.
One thing the Demon emphasized first and foremost was that the Shigemitsus were socially in a different league from the Saegusas. According to her, the Shigemitsus belonged to the same social rank as the Andos—that family I was taken to when I wore stockings for the first time. The Saegusas didn’t count as a “good” family. Nor did the Utagawas, for that matter, but she was less critical of them, perhaps because they weren’t as close to the Shigemitsus and had no intention of climbing up the social ladder. “Those sisters want to be just like the Shigemitsus, down to the way they walk,” the Demon whispered scornfully. She resented not only the Saegusa girls’ social aspirations but their natural sparkle and talents too.
For the Demon, there were astonishingly few “good” families. The forebears of those “good” families had become prominent in the late nineteenth century, when Japan was modernizing: they had been involved in the founding of major enterprises, they had some experience living in Europe or the United States, and some had belonged to the peerage before the war. Their descendants still lived in only the best Tokyo neighborhoods, where daimyo and their retainers used to live in the olden days, and they all sent their children to the same elite schools. As a result, they knew who the other prominent families were, or were connected with them in one way or another. This exclusive set also seemed to share the experience of having lost a great deal after the war’s end, and of having their estates in Tokyo or a villa in some quiet location outside the city confiscated by the American authorities during the Occupation. People in any other kind of family were nobodies.
The Shigemitsus, whose forebears had for generations been chief retainers to the daimyo of the Settsu domain near what is now Osaka, played a major role after the Meiji Restoration. Yayoi’s grandfather was a managing director of Nihon Yusen, the most important shipping company then, as well as the Sanyo Railroad; and her father—who had studied economics at the Imperial University and spent two years at Oxford—joined the Mitsubishi Corporation, where he became head of the company’s London office. Yayoi’s mother’s side was even grander. One of her ancestors, a samurai of the Satsuma domain in Kyushu, gained recognition for helping to bring about the Restoration itself and, with the onset of modernization, founded several businesses, including Yokohama Bank. Her grandfather had achieved the rank of baron or something similar. Since then, her father had been a member of the House of Peers and sent all his children to Peers School. Every male in the family had become a prominent statesman or entrepreneur. Just listening to the family history was a little overpowering.
The Saegusas couldn’t hold a candle to them. As far as the
Demon was concerned, they were simply commoners: none of them had been involved in starting a major corporation, none of them had studied in the West, none of them had belonged to the peerage. The elder Mr. Saegusa, Grampy, was the second or third son of a sake brewer up north in Niigata. He graduated from the Tokyo Higher Commercial School and found a position at Tokyo Electric. After World War I, when he was still in his mid-twenties, he’d had sufficient business sense, with a fairly modest outlay of capital, to walk away with a handsome profit on the rice market. He made it through the Great Depression unscathed. Then, after making a killing on fertilizer futures, he started a company that produced canvas rice bags. All of his ventures went well. As for the sisters’ mother—a great beauty in her youth, apparently—her people were landowners in Niigata, and she met her future husband through local connections. Her parents themselves left Niigata for Tokyo, so she grew up in the capital and was a thorough city girl, having gone to a high-toned Christian school for young women.
“They’re new money,” the Demon sniffed. In the countryside where I grew up, sake brewers and landowners had real status; in her eyes, the Saegusas were nothing but upstarts. Only years later did it occur to me that the older aristocratic families—descendants of Heian nobility and Edo daimyo—might have looked down on the Shigemitsus in much the same way.
It was only because of being neighbors that the two families met. Both had moved to Seijo in order to send their children to the progressive school there. These days, Seijo is a fancy suburb full of movie and television personalities and real estate profiteers, but it was originally developed by high idealists who hoped to raise children with a sense of freedom, close to nature, so that, once grown up, they’d help bring a new Japan into being. These idealists moved all the way from the center of town out where there was no gas or running water, to a place where flickering fireflies and croaking frogs ruled the night. Of course, these pioneers not only had high ideals but also had the means to back them up.
A True Novel Page 30