Kitchen

“It’s the talk of the school. Don’t tell me you hadn’t heard?” he said, looking upset but still smiling.

  “I just didn’t know that you knew. What happened?”

  “Tanabe’s girlfriend—or should I say former girlfriend?—anyway, she slapped him. In the cafeteria.”

  “What? Because of me?”

  “Seems that way. But you two must be pretty cozy. That’s what I hear, anyway.”

  “Really? It’s the first I’ve heard of it,” I said.

  “But you’re living with him, aren’t you?”

  “His mother lives there too!” (All right, “mother” wasn’t strictly correct, but . . .)

  “What?! Don’t lie to me!” Sotaro said in a loud voice. In the old days I loved him for his lively frankness, but right now it struck me as obnoxious, and I was only mortified.

  “This Tanabe guy,” he said, “I hear he’s pretty weird.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I hardly ever see him . . . and we don’t talk much. They just took me in like they would a dog. It’s not that he especially likes me or anything. So I don’t know anything about him. And I had no idea about that stupid incident.”

  “It’s just that I often don’t understand who you like, or love, or whatever,” said Sotaro. “In any case it seems like a good thing for you. How long are you going to stay there?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, hadn’t you better decide?” he said, laughing.

  “I intend to,” I answered.

  On the way home we walked through the park. There was a good view of the Tanabes’ building through the trees.

  “That’s where I live,” I said, pointing it out.

  “How great—right next to the park. If I lived there I’d get up every morning at five and take a walk.” Sotaro smiled. He was very tall, and I was always looking up at him. Glancing at his profile, I thought, if I were with him, he would . . . he would grab me by the hair, force me to decide on an apartment, and pull me kicking and screaming back to school.

  I loved his hearty robustness, I thirsted after it, but in spite of that I couldn’t keep pace with it, and it made me hate myself. In the old days.

  He was the eldest son of a large family; without being aware of it he got his sunny outlook from them, and I had been drawn to it. But what I needed now was the Tanabes’ strange cheerfulness, their tranquility, and I didn’t even consider trying to explain that to him. It wasn’t especially necessary, and I knew it would be impossible anyway. When I got together with Sotaro, it was always like that. Just being myself made me terribly sad.

  “Well, bye.”

  From deep in my heart, my eyes asked the question: Before it’s too late, do you still feel anything for me?

  “Chin up, kid!” He smiled, but the answer was clear in his own eyes.

  “Okay,” I said, and waving, we parted. The feeling traveled to some infinitely distant place and disappeared.

  That evening, as I was watching a video, the door opened and there was Yuichi, a large box in his arms.

  “You’re home,” I said.

  “I bought a word processor,” Yuichi exclaimed happily. It had begun to occur to me: these people had a taste for buying new things that verged on the unhealthy. And I mean big purchases. Mainly electronic stuff.

  “That’s great.”

  “Anything you need to have typed?”

  “Yes, come to think of it.” I was thinking, maybe I’ll have him type up some song lyrics or something, when he said, “Right. Shouldn’t you be sending out change-of-address cards?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, how long do you intend to go on living in this huge city without an address or phone number?”

  “But it seems like a lot of trouble, considering I’m going to move and I’d have to do it all again.”

  “Fuck that!” he burst out, and then, softening, “Okay, just please do it.”

  But what I had heard from Sotaro was still fresh in my mind. “Yes, but don’t you think it’s a little weird, my living here? Doesn’t it cause problems for you?”

  “What are you talking about?” he said, giving me a mystified, stupid look. Had he been my boyfriend, I would have wanted to slap him. My own dependent position aside, for a moment I hated him. How dense could he be?

  I have recently moved. Please reach me at the following address and telephone number:

  Mikage Sakurai

  tel. XXX-XXXX

  XX Apartments, No. 1002

  XX Ward, XX 3-21-1

  Tokyo

  Yuichi gave me the above as a model, then, while running out copies (I should have known these people would have a photocopier stashed away), I began addressing envelopes. Yuichi helped me; he seemed to have some spare time tonight. Something else I realized was that he hated spare time.

  The scratching of our pens mingled with the sound of raindrops beginning to fall in the transparent stillness of the evening.

  Outside, a warm wind came roaring up, a spring storm. It seemed to shake the very night view out the terrace window. I continued down the list of my friends’ names, quietly nostalgic. I accidentally skipped Sotaro. The wind was. . . strong. We could hear the trees and telephone lines rattling. I closed my eyes, my elbows resting on the small folding table, and my thoughts skittered out to the row of shops along the now-silent street below. What was this table doing in the apartment? I couldn’t know. She about whom Yuichi had said, “As soon as she gets an idea in her head, she does it, you know?” must have bought it.

  “Don’t fall asleep,” said Yuichi.

  “I’m not. I really love doing this, writing change-of-address cards.”

  “Yeah, me too. Moving, writing postcards on trips, I really love it.”

  “Yeah, but . . .” I broached the subject a second time. “These postcards are going to make waves. Won’t you get slapped in the school cafeteria?”

  “Is that what you heard today?” He smiled bitterly. It gave me a start in its contrast to his usual smile.

  “Well then, isn’t it better to just be honest about it? You’ve done plenty for me already.”

  “Cut the crap,” he said. “You think this is the postcard game we’re playing here?”

  “What’s ‘the postcard game’?”

  “I don’t know . . .”

  We laughed. After that, somehow the conversation strayed off the subject. Even I, slow as I am, finally understood his excessive unnaturalness. When I took a good look in his eyes, I understood.

  He was terribly, terribly sad.

  Sotaro had said that even though she’d been seeing him for a year, Yuichi’s girlfriend didn’t understand the slightest thing about him, and it made her angry. She said Yuichi was incapable of caring more for a girl than he did for a fountain pen.

  Because I wasn’t in love with Yuichi, I understood that very well. The quality and importance of a fountain pen meant to him something completely different from what it meant to her. Perhaps there are people in this world who love their fountain pens with every fiber of their being—and that’s very sad. If you’re not in love with him, you can understand him.

  “It couldn’t be helped,” said Yuichi without raising his head. He seemed bothered by my silence. “It was in no way your fault.”

  “Thanks.” For some reason I was thanking him.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, laughing.

  I’ve touched him, I thought. After a month of living in the same place, at close quarters, I’ve touched him for the first time. In that case, I might end up falling in love with him. When I’ve fallen in love before, I’ve always tried to run it down and tackle it, but with him it would be different. The conversation we just had was like a glimpse of stars through a chink in a cloudy sky—perhaps, over time, talks like this would lead to love.

  But—I was thinking while I wrote—I must move out.

  It was patently obvious that the trouble between Yuichi and his girlfriend was my living here. As
to how strong I was, or whether I would soon be ready to go back to living alone, I couldn’t venture a guess. Still, I told myself, soon, of course, very soon—although telling myself this while writing my change-of-address cards could be considered a contradiction.

  I had to move out.

  Just then the door opened with a squeal of hinges, and in came Eriko holding a large paper bag. I looked at her in surprise.

  “What’s going on? What’s happening at the club?” said Yuichi, turning around to face her.

  “I’m going right after this. Listen, guess what I bought: a juicer,” said Eriko happily, pulling a large box from the paper bag. Unbelievable, these people, I thought. “I just came home to drop it off. Go ahead, use it.”

  “If you’d called, I would have gone and picked it up.” Yuichi was already cutting the string with scissors.

  “It’s no trouble, it wasn’t heavy.”

  In short order the package was open, and a magnificent juicer that seemed able to make any kind of juice was drawn out of it.

  “I hear fresh-squeezed juice gives you beautiful skin,” said Eriko, delighted.

  “It’s a little late for that at your age,” retorted Yuichi, not raising his eyes from the instruction booklet.

  The incredible ease and nonchalance of the conversation made my brain reel. It was like watching Bewitched. That they could be this cheerfully normal in the midst of such extreme abnormality.

  “Oh!” cried Eriko. “Is Mikage writing her change-of-address cards? This is perfect. I have a moving-in gift for her.”

  Then she produced another package, this one wrapped round and round with paper. When I opened it, I saw that it was a pretty glass decorated with a banana motif.

  “Be sure to drink lots of juice, okay?” said Eriko.

  “Maybe we should drink banana juice,” said Yuichi with a straight face.

  “Wow!” I said, on the verge of tears. “I’m so happy!”

  When I move out I’ll take this glass with me, and even after I move out I’ll come back again and again to make soupy rice for you. I was thinking that but wasn’t able to say it. What a special, special glass!

  The next day was when I had to clear out of the old apartment for good; at last I got it cleaned out completely. I was feeling very sluggish. It was a clear, bright afternoon, windless and cloudless, and a warm, golden sunlight filled the empty rooms I had once called home.

  By way of apology for taking so much time, I went to visit the landlord.

  Like we often did when I was a child, we drank tea and chatted in his office. I felt very keenly how old he had become. Just as my grandmother had often sat here, now I was in the same little chair, drinking tea and talking about the weather and the state of the neighborhood. It was strange; it didn’t seem right.

  An irresistible shift had put the past behind me. I had recoiled in a daze; all I could do was react weakly. But it was not I who was doing the shifting—on the contrary. For me everything had been agony.

  Until only recently, the light that bathed the now-empty apartment had contained the smells of our life there.

  The kitchen window. The smiling faces of friends, the fresh greenery of the university campus as a backdrop to Sotaro’s profile, my grandmother’s voice on the phone when I called her late at night, my warm bed on cold mornings, the sound of my grandmother’s slippers in the hallway, the color of the curtains. . . the tatami mat. . . the clock on the wall.

  All of it. Everything that was no longer there.

  When I left the apartment it was already evening.

  Pale twilight was descending. The wind was coming up, a little chilly on the skin. I waited for the bus, the hem of my thin coat fluttering in the gusts.

  I watched the rows of windows in the tall building across the street from the bus stop, suspended, emitting a pretty blue light. The people moving behind those windows, the elevators going up and down, all of it, sparkling silently, seemed to melt into the half-darkness.

  I carried the last of my things in both hands. When I thought, now at last I won’t be torn between two places, I began to feel strangely shaky, close to tears.

  The bus appeared around the corner. It seemed to float to a stop before my eyes, and the people lined up, got on, one by one.

  It was packed. I stood, with my hand on the crowded strap, watching the darkening sky disappear beyond the distant buildings.

  When the bus took off my eye came to rest on the still-new moon making its gentle way across the sky.

  My angry, irritable reaction to the jarring each time the bus lurched to a stop told me how tired I was. Again and again, with each angry stop, I would look outside and watch a dirigible drifting across the far-off sky. Propelled by the wind, it slowly moved along.

  Staring at it intently, I felt happy. The dirigible traversed the sky like a pale moonbeam, its tiny lights blinking on and off.

  Then an old lady sitting beside her little granddaughter, who was directly in front of me, said in a low voice, “Look, Yuki, a dirigible. Look! Look! Isn’t it beautiful?”

  The little girl, whose face epitomized “grandchild,” was in a very bad mood, perhaps because of the traffic jam and crowdedness. She said angrily, fidgeting, “I don’t care. And it’s not a dirigible!”

  “Maybe you’re right,” said the grandmother, smiling brightly, not at all annoyed.

  Yuki continued her whiny pouting. “Aren’t we there yet? I’m sleepy.”

  The brat! I, too, had acted that way when I was tired. You’ll regret it, I thought, talking to your grandmother that way.

  “Don’t worry, we’ll be there soon. Look, look behind you. Mommy’s asleep. You don’t want to wake her, do you, Yuki?”

  “Oh! She is, isn’t she?” Turning around to look at her sleeping mother in the back of the bus, Yuki finally smiled.

  Isn’t that nice, I thought. Hearing the grandmother’s gentle words and seeing the child’s face suddenly turn adorable when she smiled, I became envious. I’d never see my own grandmother again.

  Never again. I don’t care for the loaded sentimentality of those words or for the feeling of limitation they impose. But just then they struck me with an unforgettable intensity and authority. I intended to think them over dispassionately. Jostled by the motion of the bus, I was determined to keep that dirigible, so far off in the sky, in sight no matter what. But then, overpowered by their enormous weight, I found that tears were pouring down my cheeks and onto my blouse.

  I was surprised. Am I losing my mind? I wondered. It was like being falling-down drunk: my body was independent of me. Before I knew it, tears were flooding out. I felt myself turning bright red with embarrassment and got off the bus. I watched it drive away, and then without thinking I ducked into a poorly lit alley.

  Jammed between my own bags, stooped over, I sobbed. I had never cried this way in my life. As the hot tears poured out, I remembered that I had never had a proper cry over my grandmother’s death. I had a feeling that I wasn’t crying over any one sad thing, but rather for many.

  Looking up, I saw white steam rising, in the dark, out of a brightly lit window overhead. I listened. From inside came the sound of happy voices at work, soup boiling, knives and pots and pans clanging.

  It was a kitchen.

  I was puzzled, smiling about how I had just gone from the darkest despair to feeling wonderful. I stood up, smoothed down my skirt, and started back for the Tanabes’.

  I implored the gods: Please, let me live.

  “I’m sleepy,” I announced to Yuichi, and went straight to bed. It had been a prodigiously tiring day. But still, unburdened after my good cry, I slept like a baby.

  I had a feeling that I heard, in some part of my brain, Yuichi going into the kitchen for tea and saying, “What? Are you really already asleep?”

  * * *

  I had a dream.

  I was scrubbing the sink in the kitchen of the apartment I had cleared out of that day. Funny, but what made me feel most nostalg
ic was the yellow-green color of the floor. . . . When I lived there I had hated that color, but now that I was to leave it I loved it with all my heart.

  I noticed that the shelves and the wheeled kitchen cart were bare. But, in fact, everything had been packed away ages ago. Then I realized that Yuichi was there, cleaning the floor with a rag. I relaxed.

  “Take a break, let’s have some tea,” I said. My voice echoed loudly in the empty apartment. It felt large, very large.

  “Sure.” Yuichi looked up. I thought, to work himself into such a sweat scrubbing the floor in a house someone else is moving out of. . . that’s so like him.

  “So this was your kitchen,” Yuichi said, sitting on a cushion on the floor and drinking the tea I brought him from a glass (the teacups were all gone). “It must have been great.”

  “It was,” I said. I was drinking, tea-ceremony style, with both hands, from a bowl.

  It was as quiet as the inside of a glass case. Looking up, I saw that all that remained of the clock on the wall was its outline.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Around midnight, I think,” said Yuichi.

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s so dark outside, and so quiet.”

  “I guess you could say I’m fleeing by night.”

  “To continue what we were talking about,” said Yuichi. “Are you planning to move out from our place, too? Don’t.”

  I looked at him, puzzled. It wasn’t a continuation of anything we had been talking about.

  “You seem to think that I live on impulse, like Eriko, but inviting you was something I thought over very carefully. Your grandmother was always so concerned about you, and probably the person who can best understand how you feel in this world is me. I know that once you’re well again, really okay again, you’ll do what you want. But for now leaving would be wrong. You don’t have anyone but me who can tell you that. The money my mother has saved up from working so hard—that’s what it’s for, times like this. It’s not only for buying juicers!” He laughed. “Please stay with us. Relax!”