book to me. I let it remain in my lap. In the depths of clear memory, my eyes attained the distance I imagined Tanaka’s wandered each day. “The bright full moon of the Eight Month came,” I began. Then I saw Tanaka’s eyes close, and I knew I spun the fabric of his dream. I gathered my courage to continue. “Genji stayed over at Yugao’s house. Towards dawn…” When I finished with the line “Viewing the outside together, they promised their never-ending love,” my classmates applauded.
After the class readings, Tanaka and I walked among the avenues of flowering cherry trees. For a long while, the only sound was that of our footsteps. Yet, his lips were parted as though he had something to say, but lacked the courage to utter it. “I composed a tribute to their beauty,” he said. “Would you like to hear it?”
“Of course.”
“The cherry blossoms bloom together,
But, seduced by song of the spring wind
Fly free
To solitary deaths.”
“That was beautiful,” I whispered. Yet the poem was reminiscent of his dark words from the week before, and I barely refrained from voicing my worry.
After hours of saké and karaoke that boomed through the quiet of evening, the Heian Literature class dispersed. Tanaka and I wandered the areas where their blankets had been. Now instead of people, mounds of trash sat beneath the trees, much of it pinker than the blossoms above.
Tanaka sighed. “There were still hanami in Heian times. But the aesthetic was better.” He smiled wryly.
I wondered if there were anything modern times had not managed to corrupt.
The week after the hanami, Tanaka and I continued to go to the coffee shop after class. However, neither of us had issued a conscious invitation since the first time.
One day, while the embers of Tanaka’s first cigarette faded in the ash tray, an enormous man in a brown suit entered with a young girl. I guessed she was a third year junior high school student at the most. She wore Calvin Klein jeans and carried a black Gucci handbag.
The waitress started to lead the strange pair to a table near the back. However, the man in brown stopped. “Excuse me, please. Might we have a table near the front? They are, without a doubt, the best.”
I gave Tanaka a questioning look. The best tables were in the back, overlooking the tiny garden with its rock paths, the curving footbridge over the miniature stream, and the Japanese maple that blushed red in the fall. There were many more sakura trees in the back as well. Front tables presented only a view of the boulevard and the students passing.
“Yes of course.” She motioned them to a table almost right next to ours.
For several minutes the man in brown spoke little, but his eyes kept sliding to Tanaka’s and my table, until I could feel the pressure of his stare like fingers on my shoulder.
I watched them out of the corner of my eye and wondered if he knew Tanaka. Finally, I whispered, “Do you know that man?”
Tanaka’s nod was barely perceptible. “Sato-sempai has been a professor in Japanese history for many years.”
“Who is the girl?”
Tanaka’s shrug confirmed my suspicions, and I scowled. Few people I knew openly condemned enjou kosai, but I had always considered it little better than prostitution. Determined to ignore Sato, I drew Tanaka into a discussion of paintings done from The Tale of Genji. Soon we forgot the pair sitting beside us.
The next day, I sat on a bench under the pink boughs of the cherry trees. A notebook lay in my lap like a dozing cat. I had come outside with the intention of penning some poetry if inspiration found me. If not, it was enough to dream in the sun.
For two years, I had tried to feign interest in the Premedical Honor Society. They met every Saturday afternoon for three hours. My finding a husband there was about as unlikely as my interest in the workings of atoms surpassing my love of the Heian period. Mama and Papa would be furious when they learned I had quit the honor society. But they would forget their anger if I made enough money after graduation, which I was certain to do. At the price of my social life, my grades were stellar. And money was what it ultimately came down to for them. Between a husband’s money, or money I had earned, it made no difference.
All afternoon, footsteps passed and paused around me. At one point, a strange feeling, as though I were being watched, compelled me to take true notice of my surroundings.
Sato, wearing a slightly darker brown suit, stood before me. Pouting, the girl clutched his arm.
“I saw you yesterday at the coffee shop with my colleague,” Sato said. His voice resonated with age, wealth, culture, and a university education. Nonetheless, it lacked the music that dreamers recognize in one another. “I wanted to introduce myself, but you seemed to be very deep in discussion. So I did not wish to interrupt.” I caught a whiff of expensive cigars.
Suddenly I was tempted to tell him to move along; he was interrupting my dreaming. Not that I could say such a thing to one of his age without being exceptionally rude.
“I am Sato, humble professor of the History Department. My specialty is the Meiji Period.” He bowed.
I rose, intending to banish him with the swift application of politeness. “I am Shinhada, Yoriko,” I said, making my own bow deep.
“It’s nice to meet you,” the girl said. The full light of day revealed her dyed red hair. Her scowl belied her light pleasant words. “I am Toyama, Reika.”
“The weather is very fine today,” Sato said. “Perhaps you will join Reika-chan and me for a walk?”
“I am sorry,” I said. “At the moment, I am rather busy.”
Reika’s face relaxed.
“Are you waiting for Tanaka-kun?”
Sato’s question caught me off guard. At the sound of my teacher’s name, my heart gave a little jump. “Yes,” I lied. “I thought I would compose a poem while I waited for him.”
Sato’s eyes shone dark with purpose. “Are the two of you in a relationship?”
I swallowed. Tanaka was still married, despite the problems he and his wife were having. “No,” I said at last.
Sato nodded his approval. “Reika-chan and I are very fond of karaoke. You must come with us some time.” Although I wore a modest skirt and blouse, his gaze sent chills prickling up and down my body.
“Karaoke is for children,” I said, forgetting myself.
“Would you prefer something more ponderous, like a day trip to a shrine? Honestly, Shinhada-san, how did you become so solemn? I thought all young girls were cheerful…like Reika-chan.” He sounded exactly like my parents. I bit down hard on my fury.
“Lighten up,” Reika said, but I could tell she didn’t mean it. If I were as dour as an old shrine maiden, all the better, so long as she could obtain the benefits of enjou kosai with Sato without interference.
“Tanaka-kun is a promising young man,” Sato said. “But so often, young lives go astray and come to nothing.” He caught a few cherry blossoms in his fat hand and crushed them. Then he and Reika were gone.
{****}
Sato’s question haunted me that entire term. Although Tanaka and I were together as much as ever, it was always in the sense of two dreamers. In all our meetings, the talks in the coffee shop, and the walks in the moonlight, we never touched once.
Like a poisonous growth, Sato’s question took seed within me. Always before, I had ignored my attraction to Tanaka. After Sato approached me, I started to wonder about Tanaka and his wife. Would they stay together? More importantly, how did Tanaka view me? Was I an intellectual equal? A nuisance? Or did he consider me, as I once supposed with innocent nobility, the answer to his dreams, one who could share them to the fullest extent another person could?
I wondered how it would be to press my body to his, for our hearts to beat against each another. Then thoughts of Sato overshadowed me. Despite the blight of my fear, I could not deny my painfully real feelings. Once I had believed tha
t passionate courtly love was confined to books. Now, I had found someone to whom I might reveal all of my soul and receive his full understanding.
The third Monday of July came, and Tokyo U closed its doors for the summer break. Normally I found the forty days after Marine Day all too brief for my tradition of going home to Chiba City and renewing relations with family and old friends. This time, I had a new habit that heaped years upon the mere forty days of summer break: checking the mailbox religiously. Tanaka had promised to write to me because he did not care for email. At the beginning of the summer break, his letters came every few days. Even this frequency could not mitigate the brutal odyssey we spent apart. I found myself reading his letters two or three times in a row. At the end of a drought, I would assemble his letters and review them chronologically, charting his progress.
Tanaka began his letters in Tokyo. As time passed, he took a brief holiday in Kyoto, too brief, he wrote. The summer humidity discouraged much exploration, though he had some photos to show me when we returned to the university. His last letters spoke of his regretful return to Tokyo U and the lesson plans he must construct in time for the start of the semester. After that letter, I heard nothing from him.
My daily trip to the mailbox, once so full of anticipation, became a certain dose of dread, followed by disappointment. I tried to console myself with the fact that as a new teacher, he was likely overwhelmed with work.
His Answer Page 2