In the moonlight he saw she had put on some lipstick.
“According to tradition, today’s the day you light a farewell fire to see the spirits off again,” she said. “But Taro’s suddenly become superstitious and told me not to do it.”
With the toe of her shoe she poked at the foot of the posts, where just the other day she had lit the ogara straw in welcome.
“Anyway, he wants to be haunted, like you, apparently. He’s been sleeping in the shed ever since that night. Waiting for her ghost. Just crazy.” She laughed, before gazing up the narrow gravel track with a faraway look in her eyes, as if searching for the ghost.
“What about your friend?” she asked as Yusuke straddled his bicycle. “Will he be there for tomorrow’s high tea?” She seemed to take for granted that Yusuke would come.
“I somehow doubt it.”
The memory of Kubo’s face as he’d said, “Think I’ll bow outta that one,” brought a smile to his face. Watching, Fumiko understood, and gave a small smile of her own.
“All right. I won’t expect him then.”
Keys dangling from her hand, she returned to her car, which was parked inside, while Yusuke began pedaling up the rising gravel path. Soon the headlights of her car drew near, briefly lighting up his figure as he stood pressed into the shrubbery on his bicycle, before finally overtaking him and moving past.
WHEN HE GOT back to the summer house in Middle Karuizawa, there was no sign of his friend yet. Kubo didn’t get back till past midnight. Yusuke heard the front door open, then the refrigerator door open and close, the toilet flush and so on, but getting up to talk seemed too much trouble, so he just lay in bed. Soon he heard Kubo coming upstairs and moving around in the room next door. At some point, while Yusuke lay unable to sleep, he heard snoring. Was Kubo drunk? He’d never snored like that in high school. Yusuke tossed and turned, watching through cracks on either side of the shades as the sky grew lighter. That was the last thing he remembered before waking up at ten in the morning.
“So how come you slept later than me?”
When he went downstairs, Kubo was sitting on the sofa in front of the television with the sound turned off, his wet hair gleaming blackly as he turned to greet him. For someone just out of the shower, his face was puffy and slack. At last night’s party in Minamihara, just as predicted, there had been bottles of Dom Pérignon everywhere, bobbing in ice water, all you could drink. He got greedy, drank more than he should have, and so woke up with a splitting headache.
“Still, it’s up and at ’em again today.” Sitting on the sofa, he hit the back of his neck with the edge of his hand like a middle-aged man.
“How so?” asked Yusuke from the kitchen, putting the kettle on to boil.
“I’m scheduled to take the ladies out for a drive.” At the party he’d been making light conversation and before he knew it had agreed to drive to Onioshidashi Volcanic Park with his sister-in-law and her sister and mother. “While in the meantime my brother and his father-in-law will be playing a round of golf. Not fair!”
“Coffee or tea?”
“Coffee.”
Kubo turned off the TV, came over to the breakfast bar, and sat down facing the kitchen. He waited until Yusuke had poured two mugs of coffee to ask, “So, what were you doing yesterday?”
Yusuke sat down before answering: “Spent the whole day in Oiwake.”
“The whole day?” Kubo reached for the cream pitcher. “What, in the cottage where that maid lives?”
“Yeah.”
“You were there till nighttime?”
“Yeah.”
Kubo cocked his head dubiously.
“Listening to her tell her story.”
Kubo looked even more dubious. Yusuke put some cream in his mug and stirred the coffee with a soup spoon—he’d been unable to find any teaspoons—while he explained that it was a long story, that he hadn’t yet heard how it ended, and that someday when he’d heard it all he’d tell Kubo. Kubo seemed on the point of making a joke, but seeing the look on his friend’s face, he clamped his mouth shut as if he’d thought better of it. After sipping his coffee in silence he asked seriously, “So are you going to Karuizawa today for high tea or whatever with her?”
“Yeah, I think I will.”
“If you came on the drive with us, I’d make sure we got you back in time.”
“That’s okay.”
“Hmm.” Mug in hand, Kubo looked intently at Yusuke, then said without so much as a smile, “Whatever, man. Suit yourself.”
Kubo left before noon with the others. The plan was to stop somewhere along the way to the volcanic park and pick up some grilled char for lunch.
“What a perfect day for a drive!” The younger sister, a size slimmer than her sibling, made this comment to no one in particular as she drew her pink-sandaled feet inside the car. Yusuke, who had come out to see them off, glanced up at the sky. Directly overhead was the summer sun, baking the car roof. Where yesterday there had been a scattering of white clouds, today the sky was a deep, clear blue.
He went back inside and had another cup of coffee. Then he ran a tubful of hot water in the spacious bathroom where red crepe myrtle showed through the window, climbed in, and took a bath, carefully shaving his none-too-heavy beard afterward. Next he stir-fried the chicken he and Kubo had bought together at the supermarket the other day, first drizzling the chunks with olive oil and soy sauce, and ate this with bread from Asanoya for brunch. Even when he had finished washing the dishes it was still just a little past one. For once, time hung heavy on his hands. He was short of sleep, so a nap was in order, but he was in no mood to lie down again. He soon decided that he would spend the rest of the time until five, the hour designated by Harue, strolling around Old Karuizawa. Since the idea of working up a sweat on his bicycle was unappealing, and seeing that for the first time in his life he was going to a high tea, whatever that might be, he took advantage of the number on the wall next to the telephone, labeled “Matsuba Taxi,” to call for a cab.
The driver, at pains to point out that he was not a summer employee but a local, avoided the main road and took a shortcut that landed Yusuke at Kinokuniya supermarket in under fifteen minutes. Yusuke headed away from the crowds, off to the quieter, more distant areas. For over two hours he walked around from one summer house to another. He found himself searching for old Western-style buildings. There must be some somewhere, he thought, but managed to find only a few. When he did stumble on one, it was generally apparent that it had sat unused for years, the windows shut up and the yard choked with weeds. In his wanderings he covered quite a distance, as he eventually realized in dismay. He hurriedly retraced his steps, but by the time he found himself in front of the familiar lava stone gateposts, it was well past the appointed hour. The two Western-style villas stood side by side in the special, limpid twilight of a clear day.
WESTERN-STYLE SUMMER VILLA WITH BAY WINDOWS
On a day like this the famous Karuizawa mist would probably not invade.
When he went into the garden, he found a dozen people sitting outside in two groups on white wicker or plastic chairs. The trio of ladies from the other day made little squeals of welcome when they spotted him. Harue, the eldest, raised a hand in greeting and then lowered it straight to an empty chair beside her, pointing. Seated on her left was Natsue, the middle sister, wearing a broad-brimmed red hat. The youngest of the three, Fuyue, was in the other group, and waved when she recognized him, her bespectacled face all smiles.
Yusuke went up to Harue, who looked him up and down as she said, “Welcome! How lovely to have a young person join us. From the moment you came in, I could sense a difference in the air.”
Beside her, Natsue echoed the greeting: “Lovely to see you!” She stretched forward, dimpling beneath the red hat. Around her neck was a red silk scarf.
Yusuke looked down at his jeans. “Sorry I didn’t have anything better to wear.”
Without comment, Harue said, “We were just talkin
g about you. Fumi said you were coming, but when you didn’t make an appearance, we thought you must have run away after all.”
WESTERN-STYLE SUMMER VILLA WITH TIMBER FRAME
The average age of those present was indeed quite advanced, and most were old women. The only men in attendance besides Yusuke were an elderly gentleman and someone who looked middle-aged. A young girl among them of high school age was evidently someone’s granddaughter.
“This is Mr. Kato.” Harue introduced him to people who she said were longtime neighbors. Yusuke was surprised she remembered his name. “He is an editor,” she said, and named his publishing house. “I happened to make his acquaintance the other day and insisted that he come today so we could have at least one young man among us. I quite forced him to say yes. He is staying over at Mitsui Woods in the house of a friend of his.” After introducing him smoothly like this, she tilted her head toward the porch.
“Now go and help yourself to a drink, young man.”
The girl they’d called Ami the other day was standing behind a deck table loaded with drinks. The other, younger girl was deep in conversation with her, leaning on the table with both hands. She might have been discussing future plans, for he heard something about the department of environmental design at such-and-such a university, but when she noticed him approaching she stopped talking, then backed away.
Ami’s blunt-cut black hair swung along her jawline when she returned his little bow.
“What can I get you?”
WESTERN-STYLE SUMMER VILLA WITH ENCLOSED VERANDA
A variety of bottles, along with cups and wineglasses of every description, were lined up in the sunlight. Before answering the question, Yusuke asked one of his own.
“Do you help out here often?”
“Yes, but usually only in the daytime.”
In the evenings she worked from five on in a restaurant on the Karuizawa Ginza, but today, as she was staying overnight here, she had asked a girl from the day shift to take her place.
“You’re staying overnight?”
“Yes. For baito like this I usually do. It’s just once or twice a summer, though.”
The familiar word baito, from the German word for “work,” Arbeit, had become student slang for “part-time job.” Without realizing it, he was scrutinizing her face. She was neither a country girl nor a city girl. She just had the intelligent face of someone who must always have done well in school. He wondered what this thoroughly modern girl who did baito here and saw those old ladies almost daily thought about it all.
Ami seemed amused, laughing as she asked again, “So what can I get you?”
“What do you recommend?” he countered, eyeing the bottles.
“How about some sherry?”
“All right then, a sherry, please.”
She picked up an old-fashioned piece of cut glass shaped like a miniature wineglass, then extended her arm and held it up to the setting sun. The laughter of a moment ago continued to play faintly around her mouth as she held the glass in her fingertips, watching it gather the sun’s last rays of light and scatter them in its facets.
Yusuke took the glass, filled now with amber liquid, and went back into the garden. When he sat down as directed next to Harue, she craned her neck and called in a loud voice, “Mr. Shirakawa!” The elderly gentleman in the other group turned his head. The golden retriever crouched at his feet turned its head too.
“Over here! You must come and sit next to this young man. He is from Kyoto.”
“Coming, coming,” said the gentleman in a comical way and got to his feet. “Wolfgang, komme,” he said to the dog in what sounded like German, and walked over, remarking loudly enough to be overheard, “Can’t disobey the royal summons,” before taking the empty chair on Yusuke’s right. “Sitz,” he said, patting the dog’s collar, and it crouched again at his feet.
Whatever line of work he may once have been in, he was clearly well trained in the social graces, smoothly introducing himself in a voice that retained the soft cadences of the Kyoto dialect. The name was Shirakawa, he repeated. Before the war he had become friends with someone called Ando at Kyoto University and had enjoyed an association with the Saegusa family ever since, one that now spanned half a century.
“Ando was always a bit of a hermit, living quietly away from the hurly-burly, while I was more of a hooligan, living right in the heart of Gion, with all those maiko and geishas around.”
Unsure who Ando might be, Yusuke made polite sounds as he listened, but soon figured out that it must be Yayoi’s husband Masao, who had taken the Shigemitsu name on marrying into the family. Shirakawa began to speak about his friend’s late son Masayuki, lamenting that while a useless old fart like himself lived on and on, someone as gifted as Masayuki had died before he turned fifty; the one blessing was that Ando himself had died first, sparing himself the sadness of outliving his only child. The conversation continued in this vein for some time.
Shirakawa spoke as if he imagined Yusuke to be on closer terms with the three sisters than he actually was.
“What shall we have next?” Harue suddenly leaned forward and addressed Shirakawa across Yusuke.
“Beg pardon?”
“Music, I mean.”
“Ah, right.”
Only then did Yusuke realize that the piano music had ended.
“Who was that playing the Liszt just now?” Shirakawa asked.
“An American, Russell Sherman.”
Natsue, seated next to her, craned forward and said with obvious satisfaction, turning her white-powdered face to Shirakawa, “You know my elder daughter is in San Francisco.”
“Yuko, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right. This Russell Sherman is someone she particularly recommends. Someone admired by those in the know.”
“Aha.”
“His teacher studied with Schoenberg, they say.”
“Well, then. No wonder it was so good.”
Harue interrupted to ask if perhaps he would care to listen to one of his beloved Mozart concertos.
“No, enough Mozart for today. Rather than that, since it’s getting late, I’d say it’s time for your Callas, Harue.”
“Really?” She smiled slightly with pleasure. “It’s so noisy—you really don’t mind?”
“Of course not.”
“Then shall we listen to one Callas recording and then retire inside?”
“Great.”
“Something from La Sonnambula?”
“That would be great.”
“Or maybe ‘Una voce poco fa’?”
“That would be great too.”
“Mr. Shirakawa!” she said in mock exasperation. “Is that all you can say—‘that would be great’?”
“Not at all,” he responded. “The screams of the Turandot princess are actually more grating than great!”
She laughed appreciatively. “Then shall we listen to Lucia for a change?”
“Nothing would please me more.”
While Harue called Ami over and gave her instructions about the next CD, Natsue spoke to Shirakawa. “People nowadays have become such avid operagoers, haven’t they?”
Harue picked up on this. “Absolutely! Even people you look at and think, that’s an opera lover? They are mad, mad, mad about opera, opera, opera.”
“And pay absurdly high prices for tickets to the ‘Three Tenors.’ ”
“Yes, so when you do go to a performance, all you see around you are the sort of people you want to tap on the shoulder and ask, ‘Excuse me, might you be looking for Koma Stadium?’ You know the variety hall, the one where country people ride in by the hundreds on chartered buses?”
Natsue tittered.
“And the way they dress up is so awful, it lowers the tone of the theater.”
“I know!”
“I tell you, it is so off-putting, lately I would just as soon stay at home and listen to a CD.”
“Yes, much better.”
“That way you�
�re spared some ghastly sights!”
Shirakawa, who had been following the two sisters’ remarks with an indulgent smile, turned to Yusuke. “At this house and the one next door there was always live music, you see. Quite a luxury.”
Before the war it was chamber music; after the war there had been two top-level pianists among them, from two different generations, and along the way another young woman had taken up singing. That was Yoko, the one who later became Masayuki’s wife. That reminded him: it was over twenty years ago, but one evening Yoko had sung Lucia and it had been wonderful.
“She sang in moonlight, wearing a lovely white dress …,” he reminisced, the eyes behind his glasses staring back into the past. His voice too was nostalgic. “There’s an old saying in these parts that a girl who stands alone in the moonlight too long falls under a spell. I must say, that’s how she sounded when she sang that night.”
As he talked on, caught up in his memories, moment by moment the darkness deepened.
“I am sorry you had that inflicted on you,” Harue said, remembering too. “She should have chosen an easier, more Japanese piece, a ballad like ‘The white citrus flowers are in full blo-o-o-o-m.’ But she picked that instead. Lucia has to be a coloratura.”
“Yes, it is a coloratura role.”
“Well, she managed the easy bits well enough. She was sickly as a child and never had any lung capacity to speak of.”
“But her Lucia was marvelous.”
Natsue got a word in. “I did a bit of singing myself, you know, back when I was in school. I could hit a high A perfectly. I think it must be hereditary.”
Presently a soprano voice of richness and depth floated from the open windows of the parlor, resonating over the darkening greenery. All at once it was as if the entire scene before them was awakened by that voice, infused with unexpected life: the western sky, streaked with bands of pale gold and purple; the two houses, standing gray and disconsolate against that sky; the clusters of trees casting deep black shadows here and there across the ground. The same voice that brought everything suddenly to life also drew them into another, much deeper world—a world that was normally hidden, a world that stretched out into eternity. Yusuke, who had at first looked on with a sense of distance as everyone else sat listening, their faces intent on the music, found himself being gradually drawn in as well, forgetting the moment and the place, lending his ear during that unworldly stretch of time as if entranced. No one spoke. The singing could not have lasted ten minutes, but when it ended he found the darkness all at once grew deeper.
A True Novel Page 52