Even Yoko, standing at a distance, seemed momentarily taken aback.
It was as if I was blushing inside, invisibly. I felt guilty, as though our life in Chitose Funabashi had been exposed, and something about it was shameful. With her drab kimono and her hair in a tight bun, Mrs. Utagawa had always seemed out of place in Karuizawa, but on that day, perhaps because she’d brought Taro with her, she looked like some old woman who had stumbled onto someone else’s property with a street urchin in tow.
Why did poverty stand out so much more back then? Taro was wearing a discolored, patched, short-sleeved shirt and black trousers that had become too short for him, so that between the cuffs and his canvas shoes his skinny bare ankles stuck out. That’s all there was to it, but he might as well have worn a sign around his neck marked POOR BOY.
What stood out more clearly still, however, was Taro’s own sense of inferiority. The moment everyone’s eyes turned his way, he seemed to read something in their gaze, and recognition that he was somewhere he didn’t belong, that he had no right to be here, was wretchedly apparent on his face. His discomfort was transmitted to Mrs. Utagawa, who must immediately have regretted bringing him along. On her old, strained face, a similar apprehension was no less apparent.
Harue and Fuyue, who were setting the tables on the porch, inclined their heads doubtfully and turned to Natsue for an explanation. Though surprised by the extra visitor, Natsue saw no need to take Taro’s inferiority personally and responded promptly, in a casual tone of voice.
“Oh, him? Well, you know about the old rickshaw man named Roku who lived behind our house? That’s his nephew. Or, no, it’s his nephew’s nephew. Complicated!”
While she was explaining that Taro was there to help Mrs. Utagawa in Oiwake, I watched Yoko leave the cluster of children and run over to the newcomers on her own. Then the Demon, who had been standing near the porch steps, went up to the pair with deliberate slowness, took the bundle Taro was carrying, and said something. Mrs. Utagawa looked more dismayed than ever.
“Oh really? How old is he?” Harue squinted at Taro from afar, appraising him. Told he was in the same grade as Yoko but a year or two her elder, she just repeated, “Oh really?”
The Demon shooed Yoko back into the garden and led Taro around to the service entrance. The sight of the shabby boy heading for the back door seemed to reassure everyone, and they all resumed what they had been doing. I went back into the kitchen from the porch just as he came in through the back door, led by the Demon.
There was a glassy, vacant look in his eyes, a look that I hadn’t seen for a long time. The poor child didn’t so much as glance at me.
That day, Taro was first made to wash his hands in the kitchen. Then, after waiting for a while on a chair in the servants’ hall, he had a Western-style meal with the rest of us staff. Apparently Mrs. Utagawa couldn’t bring herself to tell him that he might be eating separately from Yoko, a development that seemed to take him completely by surprise. Dining Western-style seemed to be equally surprising to him. The heavy china plates embossed with a design in burgundy red were a set the Shigemitsus had brought back from London for everyday use, and for Sunday lunch even we maids used them. The Demon saw at once that Taro, accustomed only to chopsticks, didn’t know how to handle a knife and fork. In a dry voice, not bothering to conceal her scorn, she gave him instructions: knife on the right, fork on the left, do as I do. Taro’s earlobes turned scarlet, but he meekly managed the knife and fork as told. The presence of a boy with a strained expression, who never uttered a word, put a damper on the lunchtime conversation.
Sometimes the silver bell would tinkle, and then Chizu or I hurried out to the porch. Depending on what was wanted, we might all get up and sit down again. A peaceful meal was never ours to enjoy anyway.
I knew that Taro was fighting the urge to run away, but I also knew that he had far greater self-control than most adults. Besides, it was unlikely that a boy like him would simply have come over here in high spirits, focused only on the prospect of seeing Yoko again. Having heard so much about Karuizawa from her, he was bound to arrive with worries and misgivings, full of imagined scenarios, wondering what that world was like and how he would be treated in it. But how could he ever have imagined the existence of something like this? The quiet fir-lined road, the imposing gateposts of dark stone, the two Western-style villas casting shadows on the moss garden—a world he had never seen or dreamed of, unfolding magically in front of him. And yet for his constant playmate, Yoko, this was a perfectly ordinary scene, one that she had known all her life. On top of the indignity of being made to eat elsewhere, that recognition must have tormented him. But because Yoko belonged to this world, he knew he would have to do exactly as the grown-ups told him if he wasn’t to be shut out altogether.
We ate in silence.
“Taro.” Yoko cautiously opened the door from the hallway. She must have escaped by pretending to go to the toilet or something. The Demon’s presence was intimidating, so she just stuck her head in the doorway without coming in. Her eyes were instantly drawn not to Taro’s face but to the food on the table. Only then did she seem to realize that we didn’t eat the same dishes as the family—that there was hardly any meat. The longer she stared, the redder she became.
“Come on out and play later, okay?” She shut the door behind her cautiously, as if she’d done something wrong.
Taro let nothing show on his face. The Demon had raised an eyebrow on hearing Yoko’s invitation, but since Taro made no response, there was nothing more to say.
Out in the garden after lunch, it was customary for the family to have some tea. The Demon and Chizu got up to prepare it while Taro and I began to clear our table. Neither of us spoke. Despite what Yoko had said, I didn’t feel comfortable about telling him to run along and play. I wondered what I should do with him as I stacked the dirty dishes.
Just then Harue came swooping in from the porch. “Hi! Mrs. Utagawa just told me I can borrow this boy of hers. He’s very handy, she says, and I can certainly use him. So many things need doing next door!” She signaled briskly for him to follow her, and opened the door to the hallway. Before I could catch the expression on his face, the heavy oak door closed behind them.
Oddly enough, I felt relieved, free of the dilemma I’d been in. Until then it had never occurred to me that this might happen—that after eating in the servants’ hall Taro would be used as the Saegusas’ servant, unable to play with Yoko at all—but now that it had happened, I saw that nothing could have been more natural.
Just as I started washing the dishes, including the ones brought in from outside, Yoko opened the door again. “Taro!” When she saw that he was gone, she turned to me with a puzzled look. “Where’d he go?”
“I think he went over to the other house to help out.”
“Help out?”
“That’s right.”
“Help out how?”
“I’m not sure.”
Yoko left, her head tilted to one side in puzzlement.
It was only around three-thirty when I went out to the porch to clear away the folding tables and chairs; but the sky had darkened suddenly, and like a wet cloak over my shoulders, the air was chill and damp. Before long the famous Karuizawa mist would creep up from the valley.
Out in the garden, the adults were sitting here and there in clusters, having cups of tea. There among them was Mrs. Utagawa, balancing her cup with some unfamiliarity as she chatted with Yayoi, a gentle person who often kept the old lady company, even though they had little connection with each other. Behind the tea-sipping adults, the children were getting ready for a game of tennis. I squinted but could make out only Masayuki and the three girls. Yoko wasn’t among them.
As I crossed the yard and went into the Saegusa house from the porch, an unexpected scene met my eyes. The big oval dining room table had been pushed aside, and under the hanging light fixture on the ceiling was the tallest stepladder I had ever seen. Standing on the very top of
that ladder was Taro, with both arms stretched above him. Predictably, at the foot of the stepladder was Yoko, gaping up at him. Harue stood off at a little distance with her arms folded, also looking up. She spotted me.
“Lightbulbs,” she said. “I’m having him change them for us.”
“I see.”
The ceilings were so high that for a long while they’d been putting off the business of replacing burned-out ones, and now Taro was doing them all, in order, from the attic down. After explaining this, Harue asked, “Is Mrs. Utagawa leaving?”
“No, ma’am, I just came to check on things.”
“Oh, good. You know, I can’t tell you what a help this boy of hers is! I am so glad she brought him.” Seeing me look at the tall stepladder, wondering where it might have come from, she added, “We keep it at the back of the garden shed. It’s so awkward, though, we hardly ever get it out.”
At that moment Natsue came in. When she saw Taro changing the lightbulb, she smiled, showing her dimple. “Well, how about that! Good for you, Taro!” Then she turned to her elder sister. “The fog’s come out and, brr, it’s cold.” She rubbed her arms. “I came for Yuko’s cardigan. I told her to get it herself, but she’s in the middle of a game of tennis. You two brought yours down together, didn’t you?”
This last was addressed to Yoko. In Karuizawa, the temperature often drops so quickly in the evening that a woolen cardigan or pullover is a necessity. Sweaters belonging to various people were scattered around the house and garden. Natsue herself wore a red cardigan loosely over her shoulders.
“Uh-huh.”
“Where are they?”
“On the sofa,” said Yoko, without taking her eyes off Taro. She was following his every move.
“Yours too?”
“Uh-huh.”
Her mother made a tsk sound and went into the parlor, coming back with a pair of matching white angora cardigans. She handed the smaller one to Yoko.
“I’ll go and get the other girls’ sweaters too, then,” said Harue, and started to leave the dining room. But she abruptly halted, as if struck by an idea, and turned to me. “You know, I’ll bet the house next door has lots of dead bulbs too. Since we’ve gone to the trouble of bringing the ladder out, would you ask O-Kuni about it for me?”
FOGGY POND
Needless to say, Taro ended up replacing all the burned-out bulbs in the Shigemitsu house too, top to bottom, under the Demon’s supervision. Perhaps out of fear of her, or because she’d grown tired of watching Taro at work, Yoko gave in to her mother’s urging and went outside, rejoining the other children. I returned to the Shigemitsu kitchen. As Natsue had said, fog was moving in. While Chizu and I dried the rest of the dishes, we watched from the kitchen as heavy mist swirled like a white veil in the gathering dusk.
Eventually we heard Taro and the Demon coming downstairs with that huge stepladder. I went into the dining room to find it set up under the chandelier. Just then, Yayoi happened to come in from the porch with Mrs. Utagawa, whom she had apparently decided to bring indoors, since even with her shawl on the old lady was getting cold. Yayoi’s eyes widened in surprise when she saw Taro climbing high up, on the Demon’s orders.
Mrs. Utagawa looked startled too.
Yayoi was extraordinarily sensitive. Hearing all about Taro from Mrs. Utagawa earlier might have had something to do with it, but when she saw him perched so high in the air, she seemed immediately to grasp how difficult his day had been. I saw her settle Mrs. Utagawa in an armchair in the parlor and then slip quietly upstairs. By the time she came down again, Taro was no longer in the dining room. She found us in the servants’ hall just as the Demon was pressing a bit of money into Taro’s unwilling hand, saying, “Here you go, a little something for your trouble.” Yayoi, who by this time was wearing a fluffy beige cardigan herself, had two more sweaters over her arm. As Taro started leaving the room, she went up to him and knelt down so that her eyes were level with his.
“I checked upstairs, and you changed all the old bulbs, didn’t you? I can’t believe how brave you are, climbing up as high as that! Thank you so much. I don’t know what we would have done without you.” She stroked his hair, probably wanting to give him a hug. For once unable to resist, Taro stood in a daze. She went on: “This sweater belonged to my brother who died. I could never throw it away, but it just doesn’t look right on my little boy. Would you wear it?” She chose one of the sweaters, moss green in color, and held it out to him in her small white hand. Taro stiffened. He gave her a good long look before breaking loose and fleeing.
Out in the garden was a boy his own age whose mother was this gentle, beautiful young woman; and the other sweater, the sky-blue one, was for that boy to wear. How much of this Taro grasped consciously at that moment, I don’t know. But sometimes in a flash, without even realizing, people understand something beyond their scope, and I imagine this was one of those times. He must have felt a stab of envy and longing, mixed with an instinctive animosity toward the boy.
Yayoi knelt there, astonished, holding the two sweaters. Mrs. Utagawa, having followed her into the servants’ hall, tried to apologize. Chizu had witnessed the whole episode with me, and her narrow eyes flashed in indignation: “Who does he think he is? The rude little scamp!” When I went to look for him, I found him leaning against the big stone gate, making lines in the gravel with the toe of his shoe—waiting, apparently, for Mrs. Utagawa to say it was time to leave.
White mist drifted around us.
Comfort from me would be no comfort at all, I knew. I went back, found Yoko watching a game of doubles, and whispered in her ear: “Taro is out by the gate, and he seems upset.”
“What?” she yelped. “I told him to come here!” She tore off as fast as her legs would carry her. The white cardigan that matched her sister’s looked even whiter in the fog.
I watched from a little distance as Yoko took him by the hand and tried to pull him back into the garden, but he shook her off. She slowly flushed red. Uh-oh, here come the tears, I thought, and sure enough, she started to sob like a little child, digging her fists in her eyes. Perhaps because he knew I was watching, Taro stared balefully into empty space and let her cry.
I had my time off then, from late afternoon till noon the next day, but I gave it up to go back with Mrs. Utagawa and Taro to Oiwake. Harue’s husband, Hiroshi, drove us: he had just bought a new car called a Nissan Bluebird, which had only recently come on the market, and which he wanted to try out whenever possible. Even with Harue in the car there was still room for one more, and after what had happened that day, I couldn’t bear to see the two of them return to Oiwake alone.
Hiroshi, in the driver’s seat, had Harue next to him, with Mrs. Utagawa, me, and Taro in the back. We could have put him between us, but he had so few chances to ride in an automobile that I wanted to let him sit by the window—a gesture that backfired.
There was still daylight, but waves of thick fog kept rolling in. The ride felt strangely unreal, as if we were weaving in and out of clouds. When we got to Middle Karuizawa the fog started to thin out a bit, and the tension inside the car eased off as well.
Harue turned around and said to Mrs. Utagawa, “They tell me the boy was in Manchuria. Is that right?” She had apparently heard other things about Taro from Natsue as well. Her face was lively with curiosity. Only politeness kept her from asking about his being an orphan with Chinese blood in his veins. “He really is a wonderful helper,” she said. “Clever too.”
Something in her tone brought Mrs. Utagawa swiftly to his defense. “More than just clever. He does very well in school.”
“You have simply got to bring him back again. The houses are so old, with so many things that need doing! Really, I would love to have him come and stay with us for a few days.”
“Well …”
“You know what I think?” she said, turning to her husband at the wheel. “It would be nice if a boy like him could caddy at the golf course, don’t you think? Dress him pr
operly and he would be perfect.”
“Absolutely,” said Hiroshi. “There’s nobody else around here but old farmers’ wives, in those baggy work pants they wear—no good at all!” He craned his neck to look at Taro in the rearview mirror.
The three of us in the back seat didn’t know what it might mean to “caddy,” but the tone of the conversation made us squirm.
By the time we reached Oiwake, the fog had disappeared and we could see Mount Asama, stained purple in the last rays of sunset. The sight of the mountain was somehow reassuring. Soon now it would be just the three of us again, I thought, feeling the strain of the day begin to ebb. But the final insult to Taro was yet to come.
When we pulled up in front of the house, Mrs. Utagawa, who was seated on my right, got out first, while I bent over to pick up the bundles at my feet. Taro on my left grabbed the handle for rolling down the window, pushing and pulling with both hands as he tried with all his might to open the door. I realized his mistake just as Harue turned around in the passenger seat to see what was happening.
“Goodness, the boy doesn’t know how to open a car door!” Twisting her mouth to one side, she managed not to laugh, but the car seemed to ring with high, mocking laughter.
AFTER SUPPER TARO took two neatly wrapped packets of money out of his pocket and showed them to us. They were from the Shigemitsus and the Saegusas, and each one contained a fifty-yen bill. Back then, fifty yen for a bowl of hot noodles would have seemed steep, so this was no mean tip for a schoolboy. Mrs. Utagawa seemed in two minds about it, but she told him, “Why don’t you set it aside so you can have some spending money when you want it?”
That was the first money Taro ever earned.
He stared at it on the table with a look of concentrated ferocity.
After he’d gone inside the shed, Mrs. Utagawa changed into her night yukata and began brushing her teeth with some old-fashioned tooth powder. She spoke half to me, half to herself. “I had to take him along. I couldn’t see leaving him alone here to fend for himself.”
A True Novel Page 40