To get away from that clinging gaze, Fuyue turned on her heel and headed down the corridor toward the staircase, hearing the woman’s shrill laughter behind her.
“So that’s how I know.” She was still swiveling the whiskey glass in her fingers. After the “elopement,” she’d been so worried about Yoko’s condition that she hadn’t had time to think about Taro, but she had assumed he went back to the Azumas. Everyone had been at such pains to keep the young pair from exchanging secret messages, the idea that Taro might be staying with Fumiko never crossed her mind. Once it became clear that he was in her apartment, however, it all fitted together: Fumiko’s more than usual reticence when she came to help at the hospital; her occasional guilty looks; the alacrity with which she left for home as soon as she was done with what she came for. That summer, Fumiko had stayed away from Karuizawa, using work as an excuse. To Harue and Natsue it hadn’t made sense, but to Fuyue it had. Then there was Fumiko’s phone call months later reporting Taro’s departure for the United States. After Taro had informed her about it, she thought she ought to let them know as well, she’d said, as if talking about a distant relative.
Fuyue had known Fumiko since she was seventeen, and over the years their relationship had developed more or less into a friendship. Besides being uncommonly bright, Fumiko was absolutely reliable. More than that, she was a woman of such moral integrity that Fuyue, with those two elder sisters of hers around, often felt embarrassed. The fact that for six months she had lived with Taro—slept with him—could mean only one thing.
“She fell for him. As he grew up, somewhere along the way she became deeply attached to him.” Fuyue paused, then added, “Which was hardly unnatural.”
And then he had gone off and left her.
The following spring, when Fumiko came to pay her respects in Seijo after Harue got back from New York, it was Fuyue’s first encounter with her in a year, Harue’s first in four years. As soon as Fumiko left, Harue had started.
“Did you see? That is a woman who has taken a lover, no mistake about it. And the look on her face has changed too. There is something positively degraded in the way she looks now—not like the Fumi I remember. You know, it would not surprise me one bit to find out she has a secret private life, the sort she can’t let on about to anyone.”
Fuyue understood then for the first time why the sight of Fumiko had made her so uncomfortable. “How long has she been this way?” asked Harue. “Hmm, I wonder,” Fuyue had said, pretending to have no interest, but deep down she was disturbed. When the “elopement” scandal first broke, Fumiko had still been her old self. In the period after Taro left, however, maybe loneliness had made her misbehave. Maybe, in the words of that woman in Evergreen Apartments No. 2, she had taken to bringing other “hunks” home. Suspicion grew in Fuyue’s mind. Again that summer Fumiko had stayed away from Karuizawa, adding to the impression that she was leading the sort of life that would make her want to keep her distance from them. Natsue, who came down from Sapporo for the summer, hadn’t seen Fumiko since the “elopement” and so didn’t believe it at first when Harue insisted that she was definitely “leading a strange life”—but after having it drummed into her, she began to change her tune. What could have come over her, a serious girl like that? It was, after all, a bad idea, letting a single girl live on her own in Tokyo. When she divorced, we should have taken her up to Sapporo with us. Heaven knows, we could have done with her help. Natsue started saying things like this, frowning as she did so.
So when Fumiko sent out a wedding announcement the following spring, and especially when they learned something about her new husband, the three sisters had rejoiced for her and for themselves as well. If she had agreed to marry a man who had spent decades working at the Miyota town hall, in other words someone as solid and far from any nonsense as a man can possibly get, she must have every intention of finally settling down. Moreover, since she would be living nearby, she might be able to come and help out in summer at Karuizawa again. And, as it turned out, when Fumiko responded to everyone’s pleas and returned to Karuizawa for the first time in three years, she had seemed refreshed, free of whatever had made her different from the young woman they had always known.
Harue’s dim suspicion that she might have had a relationship with Taro took shape more than ten years later, after his return to Japan. Her instincts in such matters were weirdly sharp. She based her theory on the observation that Fumiko had a subtle way of avoiding all discussion of Taro. Yet for years it was impossible to say whether she avoided the topic because of his involvement with Yoko or for some less mentionable reason, and probing into it was out of the question. Then today the lawyer had revealed that Taro had given the villas and land in Karuizawa to Fumiko, someone who wasn’t a close or even a distant relation. Such generosity was completely unwarranted, however you looked at it. Harue’s old suspicions had resurfaced, darker than ever.
“After the lawyer left, that proud sister of mine broke down. ‘So there must have been something going on between Fumi and that boy Taro after all,’ she sobbed. Since this wasn’t really anything to cry about, it just shows what a shock it all was to her.” Fuyue’s tone was sympathetic, surprisingly full of sisterly affection. “But it wasn’t only that …” She faltered for a moment.
“My sister may have her faults, but you know something, Mr. Kato? As we age, we all become much sadder, no matter what. You’re obviously too young to know, but it simply happens. When my sister heard that Fumiko was the new owner of the property, I suspect that all this sadness came welling up at once. She just couldn’t stop crying.”
Watching, Fuyue had been swept by the urge to tell them what she’d discovered that day twenty-plus years before when she visited Fumiko’s apartment.
“But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew Fumiko would not have wanted anyone to know—especially us—so I held my tongue. I too didn’t want my family to know about that side of her, either. But I was bursting to do it … which is another reason why I left the house tonight.”
At that point the oval-faced waiter came back and with a gesture toward Yusuke’s empty glass offered to bring him another cocktail.
Yusuke shook his head. Although he could hold his liquor fairly well, he wasn’t a heavy drinker, by choice.
“No more for me, either.” Fuyue, after downing the first whiskey in a quick series of gulps, had become so engrossed in her story that she had forgotten her second drink. The glass was still half full.
It was as if the waiter in passing had stirred the air around the table. Brought back to present reality, Fuyue looked at Yusuke again, and he returned her gaze. The dim light gave him the illusion that he was sitting across from a youngish woman. As he studied her face, pale and luminous against the black leather armchair, he thought he had been hasty in deciding that her two sisters were better looking.
She may have sensed something in his eyes, for a touch of bashfulness showed in her face. She changed her position, leaning back in the armchair so as to regain her adult poise before speaking.
“The one I feel sorry for is Taro.” She was looking at, or rather through, Yusuke, perhaps seeing in him the young Taro Azuma. “After all, when it happened, he would have been … what, nineteen. Only nineteen! Fumiko was nearly thirty and had experienced married life, so I would imagine it was she who seduced him. He, of course, would not have been able to resist. He then got in deeper and deeper until he was in over his head … But being who he is, he probably doesn’t see it that way. He probably blames himself, and Fumiko’s being in love with him only makes it worse.” She paused for breath, then murmured, “Poor kid.” A moment later she added, “Poor Fumiko too.”
Her thoughts then touched on the events surrounding Yoko’s death. “She could easily have resented Yoko—wished her dead—but instead she was so good to her, she put me to shame. And when she realized Yoko wasn’t going to pull through, she looked deathly pale herself.”
He found this painful to listen
to.
“Not being loved is agony.”
Fuyue seemed to be engaged in an internal debate, still leaning back and staring into space. Yusuke waited for what might come next, but nothing did. He watched as a middle-aged couple, probably married, came in and sat down on the sofa by the piano, facing the counter. After placing their orders they sat without talking. But it wasn’t a companionable silence. There was nothing the least bit cheerful in their mood. Each was looking in a different direction. The age-old question asked by the young passed through his mind: Why do people bother to get married?
“But it’s fine.” Fuyue’s voice broke in on his thoughts. She was looking straight at him. “The way things turned out, I mean. Coming into all that property might not make Fumiko happier. It might make her sadder in a way, but in another way it’s fine.” Her lips curved in a lovely smile. “After all, making a man like Taro feel guilty for the rest of his life over the way he treated her ages ago is quite an achievement for any woman, wouldn’t you say?”
Yusuke smiled despite himself.
Fuyue leaned forward and picked up her glass, gently sloshing the whiskey around. “The more I think about Fumiko,” she confessed, “the more confused I get. On the one hand, I feel wretched for her, but, then, you know what? I often envy her.”
As Yusuke looked at the pale face opposite him, he wondered just what sort of life this woman had led. Back when Noriyuki Shigemitsu died in the war, she was barely twenty. She must have made an attractive sight as she sat playing the piano for hours on end. Over the next fifty years, hers had surely been an enviable life, in ways her nosy sisters knew nothing about—far better than that of most Japanese women—and yet she often felt envious of Fumiko, she said.
Fuyue’s second glass of whiskey remained half full. She ordered a glass of water and then needed another to help clear her mind. She said with a laugh, “Isn’t this ridiculous!” then excused herself to go to the powder room, settling the bill on her way back.
“Do you drive?” she asked him.
“Not much. But I do have a license.”
“Then you drive yourself home first, will you? Better to lessen the risk.”
She had reverted to the businesslike manner she maintained when her sisters were around. She rummaged in her purse and handed Yusuke the car keys. They were on a silver holder the shape of a tiny harp.
BACK AT THE summer house in Mitsui Woods he found a note from Kubo on the kitchen counter. He was “zonked” from an afternoon of tennis, it said, and was turning in early. Looking at the slip of paper in the bright fluorescent light, Yusuke felt relieved that he wouldn’t have to attempt conversation with Kubo that evening. Relief was quickly followed by a pang of guilt. Some friend he was, taking advantage of Kubo’s hospitality while spending almost no time with him. True, Kubo was rapidly getting involved with the younger sister of his brother’s wife and probably didn’t care, but Yusuke still couldn’t help feeling bad about being so unsociable, his mind elsewhere even when he was with him. Tomorrow he would go back to Oiwake just to pick up the bicycle, and spend the rest of the day with Kubo. Making this promise to himself, he switched off the light. In any case, Fumiko’s story was now finished—and to top it off he’d even been made to listen to a story about Fumiko too. More tired than he’d ever felt before in his life, he clung to the railing like an old man as he quietly mounted the stairs in the semidarkness.
He got into bed, turned off the lamp, and lay staring up at the ceiling, feeling the nocturnal quiet of the mountain weigh on him, body and soul. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, he got up, threw open a window, and let the cool air pour in against his face. Outside, the quiet deepened. Yet as he listened hard, after a while, as if by magic, a faint sound came to him through the dark. It was the sound of misty rain on leaves.
That night he slept even more lightly than he had the past few days. His senses were tormented by dreams of two naked, sweating bodies intertwined. Sleek, pale flesh and glistening, brown, sinewy flesh vigorously pulled and pushed, opened and closed, pressed and was pressed in return. Hot breath seemed to brush against his ear. When he awoke in the night to an airless room, the back of his neck was coated with sweat.
IN THE MORNING Yusuke went downstairs before Kubo. Inspecting the contents of the still half-full refrigerator, he decided to cook something rather than let things go to waste, starting with the more expensive stuff, and took out some frozen beef fillets. The previous night he’d had nothing to eat but cold somen noodles, so a hearty meal in the morning posed no problem. He didn’t know Kubo’s plans but felt sure his friend would at least be eating breakfast at home.
By the time Kubo came down stairs, yawning, the salad and side dish of hot vegetables were ready, the bread was neatly sliced, and all there was left to do was pan-fry the meat he’d already defrosted in the microwave.
“Pretty fancy for breakfast.” After surveying the table, Kubo headed for the bathroom.
Yusuke called after him, “How do you like your steak?”
“Medium rare.” Kubo looked back and asked over his shoulder, “You?”
“Rare.”
“Really rare?”
“Yup.”
“Figures.”
What that might mean Yusuke had no idea. Kubo yawned again and disappeared into the bathroom.
Over the meal they discussed plans for the day. Apparently in the evening there was going to be a barbecue, using all the refrigerator leftovers, with Kubo’s brother and sister-in-law at her parents’ cottage.
“I guess in that case there was no point in cooking up all this stuff for breakfast.” Yusuke held up a piece of blood-red meat, impaled on a fork.
Kubo pointed out that they wouldn’t get a plate of good beef like this at a crowded barbecue and have time to enjoy it, so it was just as well. Then, concentrating on cutting up his own meat, he said, “You’re invited, by the way—want to come?”
“You bet.”
Prompted by his resolution of the evening before, his response was almost too enthusiastic. Kubo looked up briefly in surprise, then gave a toothy grin. “A bunch of neighbors are coming too.”
“Great. I just wonder, though—can you even have a barbecue in this weather?”
Ever since he got up, the sky had looked ominous. A fine rain was already falling.
“This’ll clear up in no time,” said Kubo reassuringly, adding that even if it didn’t, there were large eaves over the deck, so there was no need to worry. For a while they chatted about this and that: each other’s work, friends from high school and what they were up to, movies they’d seen recently. Finally Kubo bragged at length about what an easy conquest the little sister had been, and then the meal was over. He must have noticed that Yusuke had been distracted all week, but he seemed unwilling to probe. Perhaps he was being discreet. His not asking where Yusuke had been till all hours the night before suggested that he sensed something out of the ordinary was going on.
The rain stopped after noon. The sky outside the window suddenly brightened, and raindrops glistened on the trees like glass beads. As if waiting for this moment, the telephone rang. Kubo’s voice was even more animated than it had been the other day when his sister-in-law called. Must be the younger sister, Yusuke thought.
“Right, okay, be over as soon as I can. Sure thing. See you.”
Her father was out golfing again with Kubo’s brother. Her mother, sister, and she would be making all the preparations for the barbecue, but if Kubo was free she wanted him to come over and help out.
“So what do you want to do?”
“You think I should go too?” Yusuke wasn’t sure. Since the weather had cleared, he wanted to go back for the bicycle. Having failed to say anything about staying up late listening to the woman in Oiwake the night before, naturally he had failed to say anything about leaving the bicycle there either.
“Doesn’t matter. There won’t be all that much to do, really.”
“In that case, maybe I’ll h
ang around here for a bit and go over later in the afternoon.”
He felt guilty, as if he were sneaking off to a secret rendezvous. How he had become so preoccupied with his visits to Oiwake he couldn’t explain even to himself.
TAKING THE BUS and train would waste too much time—there was only one bus an hour—so he went by taxi. Before he got out of the cab, he saw Taro Azuma sitting in a garden chair on the porch. His pulse quickened. After all he’d heard from Fumiko, he felt as agitated … as if he’d come to see his own lover. He’d meant to say goodbye to her before riding off on his bicycle, but now it occurred to him that what had actually brought him here might have been an urge to see Taro again.
As the taxi turned around and sped off, Yusuke nodded and said hello. He felt himself turning red. Embarrassed and annoyed by this, he explained in a consciously casual way, “Came for my bike.” He looked toward the bicycle parked by the porch. “I rode over yesterday, and it rained so hard I left it here and went home by car.”
The man remained seated and looked at Yusuke with slight surprise, eyes narrowed. Now that he came to think of it, they had met only once before, that time he’d stumbled into this place late at night. The last glimpse he’d had of him was the back of his white shirt as he ran up the hill, trying to chase after the little ghost in a yukata. Day after day since that time, Yusuke had spent hours enthralled by the story of his life, but it was entirely possible that the man barely remembered his face.
On the porch table was an old-fashioned tin bucket that held a dark bottle of wine. The man was holding a glass by its stem, its shallow bowl filled with a clear pink liquid. He must have had more than a few glasses already, but he didn’t look at all the worse for wear; he merely seemed to be quietly enjoying the summer breeze. Yusuke found himself staring at him just as he’d done on the first night. The man’s eyes, which had seemed at odds with the world back then, now seemed more at peace.
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