He worked up the courage to ask, “Is Mrs. Tsuchiya here?”
“Mrs. Tsuchiya …” With a slight, inexplicable smile, the man echoed her name before explaining that she had left for the Prince Hotel around noon to see his lawyer and then must have been trapped by her acquaintances in Karuizawa.
Although Yusuke had come expressly to see her, learning that he couldn’t do so came as a relief. After what he had heard in the Mampei Hotel the night before, Fumiko was no longer the same woman to him. Nor was he the same person who had sat listening to her talk. But he was the only one who knew. To behave in front of her as though nothing had changed while she remained unaware of any difference struck him as somehow wrong—almost a crime.
The man was studying him with interest, unlike on that first night. Was it because he was wondering how much Fumiko might have told him? Or was it because he, Yusuke, had had that encounter with Yoko’s ghost? He stared back, remembering that Taro had been sleeping out in the shed ever since.
Taro proceeded to talk without shifting in his seat. Apparently a youngster like Yusuke wasn’t worth getting up for.
“As a matter of fact I just got here myself. I haven’t seen her yet today.”
“I see.”
Yusuke realized that Taro hadn’t stayed in the Prince Hotel the night before to escape the three sisters’ fury; it was to avoid the full impact of Fumiko’s reaction to what she would hear from them. Looking up at him from the bottom of the steps, he repeated for no reason, “I see.”
He felt reluctant to leave. But he had no idea what to say. The man just looked down in his direction. After an awkward silence, he had no choice but to say goodbye.
“I’ll be going back to Tokyo tomorrow, so please tell her I said hello. This is my address in Tokyo. Would you mind telling her to get in touch if she feels like it?”
It happened as he mounted the steps to hand over his card. The man looked at him and suddenly smiled. Gesturing with his glass at the ice bucket, he said, “Since you’re here, why not join me in a glass of champagne?”
Apparently a little while ago he had bought a case of champagne at the local liquor store, and since they were selling old-fashioned saucerlike champagne glasses there he had bought two, meaning to share a drink with Fumiko when she returned, but she was taking so long getting back that he had finally started by himself. Indeed, another glass of the same shape was sitting on the table. Hearing the word “champagne,” Yusuke was reminded of that other rich man, the one in Minamihara who had thrown an extravagant party, but this dark bottle in the tin bucket, with the summer green garden around them, was the picture of cool serenity.
“Pink champagne.” The man poured pale bubbling liquid into Yusuke’s glass, one side of his mouth twisting in a smile. “It’s for special celebrations, so I bought some for the hell of it.”
Yusuke spent the better part of an hour with him. Filled with an intoxication that had little to do with champagne, he felt as if he were afloat on a cloud. Assuming that Fumiko would already have talked about it, without any preamble the man began speaking haphazardly about life in the United States. Not about his own life, but about the country itself. He stared straight ahead as he spoke, looking at the trees instead of at Yusuke, while the latter secretly studied his face. He listened as if under a spell. The man’s words didn’t register on him in the usual way but seemed to pass along a different route into an unexplored part of his mind.
In the end Taro switched topics and started talking about Japan.
“Maybe because I don’t expect to come back here anymore, I often think about this country.” He stared with dark eyes at the garden, beyond which was a thicket with a dingy, abandoned cottage almost hidden by trees. Above it was a glimpse of sky, clear a little while ago but now once again heavy with low-lying clouds. “I never thought Japan would turn into the country it is now.” His voice was emotionless. “For one thing, I never thought it would be so rich.” His lips pursed for a second, then relaxed. “But somehow I thought it would turn out to be a better place, a more decent place than this.” His eyes remained fixed on the yard.
“I had a grudge against Japan when I was growing up, so I never hoped it would turn out better, but over the past fifty years I assumed as a matter of course that it would. Maybe it was the times. Without even knowing it, I believed in the future, I guess.”
Cocking his head in Yusuke’s direction, Taro told him that one of his own parents came from a Chinese ethnic minority. He continued, “When I was little, I was told once I was lucky not to be Japanese.”
He looked straight at him.
At the time, he had just felt happy that someone should have made this comment when everyone else picked on him for not being Japanese, and he’d thought no more about it, but lately he had started to think about the unintended meaning of the words.
“These days, I’ve begun to thank my stars that I’m not Japanese. Or not altogether Japanese, not in my DNA. That’s the way I feel now.” He laughed as if half joking.
Rather than taking offense, Yusuke asked an honest question. “Why? What’s wrong with Japanese people?”
The man took in Yusuke’s earnest face and seemed to hesitate.
Impulsively, Yusuke followed it up with another question. A word Fuyue was said to have used had stuck in his mind, and he asked, “Would you say they’re … a little shallow?” This was probably his own conclusion as well, after only twenty-six years of life.
“Shallow …,” the man echoed, before saying simply, “They’re beyond shallow. They’re hollow—nothing inside.” He brought the champagne glass level with his eyes and studied the bubbles in it. “Like these bubbles … barely there at all.”
Then, as if remembering something, he looked at Yusuke and said, “So, you’ve met the Three Witches, have you?” When Yusuke nodded, he explained that it was their house in Karuizawa that Fumiko had gone and got trapped in. “But there’s nothing hollow about those three, I have to say.”
He said this with a wry smile. Yusuke felt he was wrapping things up, so he got quickly to his feet and said he should be going. He had known he might be outstaying his welcome, but until then he’d been unable to move, as though chained in place. The man did not detain him but put his champagne glass down on the table and got up too. That was his way of saying goodbye.
Yusuke got on his bicycle and pedaled off. The seat was still moist from the previous day’s rain.
THE BARBECUE PARTY at Kubo’s sister-in-law’s villa started at dusk and went on till midnight, attended by an assortment of guests. The rich neighbor from Minamihara showed up too, though fairly late; he had come on from another party and his face was already bright red from drinking. Fortunately, it didn’t rain, so they trundled two enormous American barbecue grills out onto the lawn, and Kubo and Yusuke went to work flipping corn on the cob, char, and sweetfish on them. Kubo’s sister-in-law seemed a bit miffed that her little sister had stolen Kubo, but she was a good sport, and even while Kubo and the sister were flirting, she was all smiles, a conscientious hostess. It was past midnight when Kubo and Yusuke started for home, laden with foil-wrapped bundles of leftover goodies and a pair of flashlights provided again to light their way.
The sky, which had continually threatened rain yet produced no drops, still remained overcast, the moon barely visible through haze.
“Whatcha gonna do tomorrow?” asked Kubo tipsily, spinning his flashlight in circles.
“Do?”
“How you goin’ back to Tokyo, I mean.”
Yusuke, who had been planning to take the train back with Kubo, couldn’t make sense of the question.
“See, we could go by car.”
Two cars would be heading to Tokyo the next day—one with his brother, his wife, and their two children, the other with the wife’s parents and the little sister. Packed with things to bring back, neither car would have room for the two of them to ride together, but if they went separately, both could get back to Tokyo wit
hout taking the train. Kubo apparently wanted to accompany the little sister but couldn’t come right out and say so.
“I’ll take the train.” Yusuke didn’t feel like riding in either car.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.”
Whichever car he was in, he knew he would feel ill at ease, so he would rather travel back by train even if it meant standing all the way.
Kubo, knowing his antisocial tendencies, didn’t push the point.
“It’s only August, and listen to the racket those crickets make. You’d think it was already fall, eh?” Instead of describing circles with his flashlight, he was now training it on neighbors’ gardens along the way, as though hunting for chirping insects in the clumps of grass.
THE NEXT DAY when the two young men got up it was raining again. Fortunately, like the day before, from around half past ten the sun came out and blue patches in the sky quickly began to spread. Since the families intended to have supper in a service area along the highway, they would be leaving late in the day. With hours to kill, Yusuke and his friend took their time over brunch, then threw the sheets in the washer and ran the vacuum cleaner, only for the sky to darken again. The two German cars pulled in just as they finished closing the rain shutters. They said goodbye to each other, and Kubo got into the driver’s seat in his chosen vehicle. Yusuke accepted a lift to the station in the other, already cramped with Kubo’s brother, his wife, and the children.
At the station the wife got out to move into the front seat and said, “You don’t have a reservation, do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Might not get a seat then.”
“It’s all right; it’s a short ride.”
“Not that short—more than two hours, isn’t it?”
“I’ll be okay.”
Afraid she would insist on his riding with them, Yusuke edged away, backpack in hand, as he spoke. When he judged there was enough distance between them, he shouted out his thanks again and turned to go.
“Take care now,” she called. “See you again sometime.”
When he looked back, she was waving both hands like a young girl.
HE DIDN’T TAKE the Asama super-express back to Tokyo. Instead he bought a ticket heading in the opposite direction, on the local bound for Komoro. The train took a long time to arrive, and it was forty minutes later when he got off at rustic Oiwake station. There was a lone telephone booth with the number of Matsuba Taxis posted on it, but he didn’t want to arrive at the cottage in any obvious way. He had no excuse for going there. In fact, he hadn’t originally planned to go at all. Tucked in his backpack was his borrowed flashlight from the night before, which Kubo’s sister-in-law had said he needn’t bother to return, but even when he put it there he hadn’t exactly made up his mind. He just wanted one more glimpse of the cottage—one more glimpse of its residents. This desire had made him hesitate—he couldn’t just take off for Tokyo—and when he arrived at Karuizawa station, he’d just followed his instincts. Once in Oiwake, he set off with only a simple map and those same instincts to guide him, and after nearly an hour he reached Taro’s summer cottage.
HE CAUGHT THE sound as he drew near the gateposts—a dull, pounding sound. In the hovering dusk, the figure of Taro was dimly spotlit crouching on the porch. Yusuke did not go through the gateposts but stole past the cottage, weaving his way through the heavy growth of weeds and vines and finally stopping in the shadow of a row of yew trees that marked the former boundary of the adjoining lot. Some of the trees were thickly covered with hard-edged green leaves while others had lost most of their branches, so, depending on where he stood, he had a fairly unobstructed view. He craned his neck, held his breath, and looked in the direction the sound came from.
OIWAKE STATION
Some kind of large cloth was spread near the edge of the porch, and Taro was in front of it on one knee, swinging a hammer and making that dull sound. The railing prevented Yusuke from seeing what lay under the hammer. On the table behind Taro, he could see the tin bucket from yesterday together with the two champagne glasses and, alongside them, a pair of small white objects: the opened funerary urns. Only then did he realize that what lay under Taro’s swinging hammer were human bones.
Unaware of the intruder, Taro continued pounding away, but as the ashes had been divided to begin with, the amount must have been quite small. In no time the job was done. He laid the hammer down and sat in the chair looking dazed, staring at the pile of crushed bones. The sky still held the last light, and through the branches Yusuke could see that a pale moon had risen.
Just then a pretty woman dressed in black stuck her face out of the cottage—it was Fumiko. She had apparently been watching over his shoulder from inside and, seeing that the job was finished, disappeared for a moment and came out carrying a variety of items in both hands, all of which she set down on the table before moving toward where Taro had been hammering. There she knelt down and bowed her head, pressing her palms together.
For a time all was still.
From the moment the stillness broke, it was like watching a pantomime. When she had finished her prayers, Fumiko rose, looking solemn, and went back to the table where she put on a pair of white gloves she had laid there. Then she approached the edge of the porch and knelt down again. The first ashes that she scooped from the cloth were Yoko’s, apparently, since Yusuke saw her go and carefully set down a little red dish near Taro like an offering. Judging from its shape, the dish seemed to be a child’s plastic bowl. Next, Fumiko fetched a larger container, probably a glass vase, and set it too at the porch’s edge. The idea seemed to be to combine the ashes of husband and wife in that container, but they were evidently difficult to scrape into it. Eventually she picked up the spread-out cloth—a large furoshiki wrapping cloth patterned in arabesques. Wordlessly she signaled to Taro, and he stood up, also in silence, took the other two corners of the cloth in his hands, and helped her pour the ashes of husband and wife into the vase.
Once the task was finished, Fumiko turned her face away and flapped the square cloth in the air.
“I never knew bones had such a distinct odor,” she said.
For some reason Yusuke could hear every word with sharp clarity. Taro made no response. Yusuke could not make out his expression. He only saw him go and sit in the chair in the same way as before.
Fumiko went back into the house, holding the glass container in her arms. When she came out again she was carrying her purse and, in the other hand, a familiar-looking shopping bag. She went out onto the porch and continued down the steps, heading Yusuke’s way. He hurriedly withdrew his head. When Fumiko got into the car with the shopping bag, he understood what was happening. In her black dress she was going to Karuizawa for the ceremony of scattering the ashes. He wondered if she was wearing the black pearl brooch that Fuyue had given her.
Her car went up the narrow road without exposing Yusuke’s hiding figure in its bright headlights.
TARO SAT FACING the little red bowl.
He was dead still. The madder-red sun glowed in the western sky as though loath to yield its shortening life, while all around him, moment by moment, Yusuke could sense darkness rising as if from the ground. The mosquitoes in the shrubbery were more aggressive. Then all of a sudden Taro stood up. Carrying the red bowl in one hand, he strode down the porch steps and out to the middle of the garden. Yusuke, unable to escape, curled up behind a yew. Taro now stood there threateningly close to where he was—but his eyes weren’t looking at this world. Looking up, he hurled the contents of the bowl at the pale moon with all his might.
The dust of powdered bones flew in a misty swirl and came drifting down. Taro stood still in the moonlight with his eyes closed. As the fine white dust covered him from the head down, he never stirred.
THE FOLLOWING SPRING, Yusuke was chosen as one of the winners in the lottery for a green card, the U.S. permanent residency visa. Uncertain whether he ought to quit his job at the publishing house and move to Am
erica, he continued commuting between the office and the cheap apartment he’d been renting since he had first started working. Before long the trees were covered with budding leaves, and the smell of fresh greenery was in the air. A longing to visit Nagano again made him restless. As the leaves turned a deeper green, the lure became irresistible.
He left for Nagano in June, just before the rainy season set in.
Ten months had passed since that week the previous summer. He had waited for word from Fumiko, but none came. Assuming she preferred not to get in touch, he made no attempt to track her down in Tokyo. He undertook his trip without any hope or expectation of seeing her up there either: it was not the time of year she went to Karuizawa. But in the course of his daily commute to work, the events of that week were beginning to feel almost as if they had never happened, and the stronger this feeling became, the more anxious he was that he might be letting something precious slip through his fingers—something one was granted perhaps once in a lifetime.
At Karuizawa station he rented a car. The weekend traffic was surprisingly heavy; he realized that tourism in Karuizawa was not limited to the summer months. The two Western-style villas stood unchanged, no different from the way they’d been when he first set foot in their grounds. But whether the light was different or something in Yusuke’s mind had changed, he felt none of the deep attraction that had so affected him ten months before, though he was looking at exactly the same scene.
If anything, the memory of that summer seemed to retreat even further.
He turned onto Route 18, headed for Mitsui Woods, and dropped by the summer house belonging to Kubo’s parents. While he was at it, he visited Kubo’s sister-in-law’s place too. Summer arrives late in the mountains, and he had expected to see only the first green foliage, yet it all looked much the same as before—though, again, nothing moved him. He returned to the main road, headed west, and then took the narrow lane off to the left that led to the cottage in Oiwake. This was the track he had followed in his mind time and again since going back to Tokyo. Being pursued by the strains of the “Tokyo Ballad,” falling deeper under the spell of a fox or the moon as he pedaled along—how could he forget that first night here? But though the trees on either side remained the same, he felt none of that night’s mystery now.
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