Kitchen

  Words, too explicit, always cast a shadow over that faint glow. Outside, night had come. The indigo-colored air was growing colder.

  Whenever we got in the car, he would always open my door first and get me seated before he climbed in the driver’s side.

  I mentioned it as we pulled out. “There aren’t many men who will open a car door for a woman. I think it’s really great.”

  “Eriko raised me that way,” he said, laughing. “If I didn’t open the door for her, she’d get mad and refuse to get in the car.”

  “Even though she was a man!” I said, laughing.

  “Right, right, even though she was a man.”

  With that, silence fell with a thud.

  It was night in the city. We watched the people come and go while we waited at the light: businessmen and office girls, young people and old, all beautifully aglow in the headlights. Enveloped in the silent cold, bundled in sweaters and coats—it was the hour when everyone was headed for someplace warm.

  Then it suddenly occurred to me—Yuichi must have opened the car door for that awful girl as well. Inexplicably, my seatbelt seemed too tight. I realized with amazement—oh! This must be jealousy. Like children when they first learn why people say “ouch,” this was my first experience of it. Now that Eriko was dead, the two of us, alone, were flowing down that river of light, suspended in the cosmic darkness, and were approaching a critical juncture.

  I understood. I understood it from the color of the sky, the shape of the moon, the blackness of the night sky under which we passed. The building lights, the streetlights, were unforgiving.

  He stopped in front of my house. “So,” he said, “be sure to bring me back something.” After this he’d be going back to that apartment, alone. Soon, no doubt, he’d be watering his plants.

  “An eel pie, of course.” I laughed.

  His profile was dimly illuminated by the streetlights.

  “An eel pie? You mean those coiled pastries? You can buy those at any food stand.”

  “Well, then . . . some tea, perhaps?”

  “Hmm . . . how about some pickled wasabi root?”

  “Really? I can’t stand the stuff. Do you like it?”

  “Only the kind with roe in it.”

  “Okay, that’s what I’ll bring you.” I smiled and opened the car door.

  Suddenly a freezing draft came blowing in.

  “It’s cold!” I exclaimed. “Yuichi, it’s cold, cold, cold!” I buried my face in his arm, gripping it fiercely. His warm sweater smelled of autumn leaves.

  “Surely it’ll be a little warmer in Izu,” Yuichi said, almost contemplatively. I kept my face pressed to his side.

  “How long did you say you’re staying?” he said, not moving. His voice resonated directly into my ear.

  “Four days and three nights.” I gently pulled myself away.

  “You should come back feeling a little bit better, and we’ll go out for tea again, okay?” He looked at me, smiling.

  I nodded, got out of the car, and waved good-bye.

  As I watched him drive off, I thought, I can’t say everything that happened today was unpleasant.

  Whether she or I were winning or losing, who could say? Who could know which of us was in the better position? The score couldn’t be determined. Besides, there was no standard of measure, and, particularly on this cold night, I couldn’t even hazard a guess.

  A memory of Eriko, the saddest one of all.

  Of all the many plants in her terrace window, the one she had acquired first was the potted pineapple. She told me about it once.

  “It was the dead of winter. I was still a man then, Mikage. A handsome man, even though my eyes were different and my nose was a little flatter. Because I hadn’t had the plastic surgery yet, you see? Even I can’t remember what I looked like anymore.”

  It was a summer dawn and the air was chilly. Yuichi was away for the night, and Eriko had brought back a customer’s gift of meat buns. As was my habit, I was taking notes while watching a cooking program I had recorded the day before. The blue dawn sky was slowly beginning to grow lighter in the east.

  “Shall we eat these meat buns? It was so sweet of him to bring them to me,” she had said, turning on the broiler and making jasmine tea. Suddenly she launched into the story.

  I was a little surprised. I had assumed she was going to relate some unpleasant incident at the club. I listened sleepily. Her voice sounded like a voice in a dream.

  “It was a long time ago, you see. Yuichi’s mother was dying. I was a man, and she was my wife. She had cancer. At this point it was getting worse by the day. Anyhow, because we loved each other so much, every day I went to be with her at the hospital. I foisted Yuichi on a neighbor. I had a job then, so I sat with her before and after work, every spare minute. Yuichi would come with me on Sundays, but he was too young to know what was going on. I had what you could call a desperate faith; I still had hope, no matter how little. Each day for me was the darkest in the world. I didn’t feel it so much at the time, but she was in an even darker place.”

  Eriko cast down her eyes, as if she were telling the sweetest of stories. In the blue light she looked thrillingly beautiful.

  “My wife said one day, ‘How I’d love to have some living thing in this room. . . .’ Living things were connected to the sun; I thought, a plant, yes, a plant. She urged me to get a big potted plant, one that didn’t require much care. I raced to the flower shop, overjoyed that there was something I could give her. A typical male, at that time I didn’t know benjamin from saintpaulia. I only knew I didn’t want a cactus, so I bought her a pineapple plant. It was a plant I could understand; it had little fruit growing on it and everything. When I carried it into the sickroom she looked delighted and thanked me again and again.

  “She was getting closer and closer to the end. One evening, three days before she went into a coma, she said to me, just as I was leaving, ‘Please take the pineapple home.’ To look at her she didn’t seem worse than usual. Naturally we hadn’t told her she had cancer, but it was as if she knew, as if she were whispering her last wishes. I was surprised and said, ‘Why? I can see that it’s withering, but wouldn’t you rather have it?’ But she begged me, in tears, to take it home, this sunny plant from a southern place, before it became infused with death. I had no choice. I took it in my arms.

  “Because I was crying my eyes out, I couldn’t take a taxi. It was colder than hell, too. That may have been the first time it occurred to me I didn’t like being a man. When I calmed down somewhat, after walking as far as the station and having a drink in a little bar, I took the train. That night the freezing wind whistled through the apartment. With no one there, it could hardly have been called a home. I trembled, holding the pineapple tight against my chest. The sharp leaves stuck my cheeks. In this world, tonight, only the pineapple and I understand each other—that thought came straight from my heart. Closing my eyes, as if against the cold wind, I felt we were the only two living things sharing that loneliness. My wife, who understood me better than anyone, was by now—more than I, more than the pineapple—on intimate terms with death.

  “Soon after that she died, and the pineapple withered, too. I didn’t know how to care for plants and had overwatered it, you see. I stuck it out in a corner of the yard, and although I couldn’t have put it into words, I came to understand something. If I try to say what it is now, it’s very simple: I realized that the world did not exist for my benefit. It followed that the ratio of pleasant and unpleasant things around me would not change. It wasn’t up to me. It was clear that the best thing to do was to adopt a sort of muddled cheerfulness. So I became a woman, and here I am.”

  I understood what she was trying to say, and I remember thinking, listlessly, is this what it means to be happy? But now I feel it in my gut. Why is it we have so little choice? We live like the lowliest worms. Always defeated—defeated we make dinner, we eat, we sleep. Everyone we love is dying. Still, to cease living is unaccep
table.

  Tonight, again, I felt the darkness hindering my breathing. In my heavy, depressed sleep, I battled each demon in turn.

  The next day was bright and sunny, and in the morning, as I was doing some laundry for the trip, the phone rang.

  It’s eleven-thirty, I thought. Strange time for a phone call. Puzzled, I answered it.

  “Aaaah!” screamed a high, thin voice. “Mikage, dear? How have you been?”

  “Chika!” I exclaimed. Although she seemed to be calling from a phone booth—there were loud traffic noises in the background—I had no trouble identifying the voice. It summoned up her image in my mind.

  Chika was the head girl at Eriko’s club. She was, of course, a transvestite, and she often used to spend the night at the apartment. Eriko had willed the club to her.

  Compared with Eriko, Chika was undeniably a man in appearance. But she (so to speak) did look rather beautiful when made up and was tall and slender. The showy dresses she wore suited her, and her manner was very gentle. One time, a little kid in the subway, making fun of her, lifted her skirt to take a look. She couldn’t stop crying. She was very sensitive. Much as I hate to admit it, around her I always felt like the masculine one.

  “I’m by the train station right now,” she said. “Can you get away? I have to talk to you about something. Have you had lunch?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well then, come to Sarashina, the soba shop, immediately!” Ever impetuous, with that she hung up. I felt I had no choice; I stopped doing my laundry and went out.

  I hurried through the neighborhood streets under the brilliant, shadowless light of high noon. I found the place among the row of shops in front of the station and went in. There was Chika, eating soba noodles with fried bits of tempura batter and wearing what is practically the national costume, a two-piece warmup suit.

  “Chika!” I walked over to her.

  “Aaaah!” she screamed. “It’s been so long! You’ve grown so beautiful, I can hardly look at you—wait, let me get my sunglasses.” Her warmth banished any embarrassment I might have been feeling. I only saw her untroubled smile that said to the world, “What have I got to be ashamed of?” In the presence of her brilliant face, a little bit of Chika rubbed off on me, and I ordered loudly, “Extra-thick noodles with chicken, please.” The waitress, bustling about in the noon rush, slammed a glass of water down before me.

  “What did you want to talk to me about?” I got to the point, slurping my noodles.

  Whenever Chika “had to tell me something,” it never amounted to anything, and I expected this time to be the same. But she whispered, gravely, “It’s about Yuichi.”

  My heart leaped with an audible thump.

  “Last night he came into the club saying he couldn’t sleep. He was feeling terrible. ‘Let’s go have some fun,’ he said. Don’t get me wrong, honey, I’ve known that boy since he was so-oo high. There’s nothing funny between us, we’re like parent and child. Parent and child, you know?”

  I smiled. “I know, Chika.”

  She continued. “I was surprised. I’m crazy myself and many times I don’t understand other people’s feelings, but . . . That boy has never, ever, let anybody see a weakness in him before, you know that. He was on the verge of tears, and that’s not like him. He kept insisting, ‘Let’s go somewhere.’ The poor dear looked so unhappy, I was afraid he might just waste away. I really wanted to be with him, but we’re right in the middle of getting the club back to normal. Everybody’s still pretty jumpy around there, and I couldn’t leave. I told him I couldn’t, so he said dejectedly, ‘I’ll go somewhere by myself then.’ I gave him the name of an inn I know.”

  “I see,” I said. “I see.”

  “I told him, just teasing, ‘Why don’t you take Mikage?’ I didn’t mean anything by it. He answered me, dead serious, ‘Aw, she’s going to Izu for her job. Besides, I don’t want to get her mixed up in my problems. Now that she’s doing so well and all, it wouldn’t be right to drag her down.’ Then it hit me—they’re in love. Of course, no doubt about it, you’re in love. I’m going to give you the address and phone number of the inn. Mikage, why don’t you go after him?”

  “Chika,” I said, “I have to go on a trip for work tomorrow.” I was in shock.

  I felt I understood Yuichi’s feelings as if I held them in my own two hands. Like me, but a hundred times more so, he had to get far away somewhere. He wanted to be alone, someplace where he wouldn’t have to think about anything. To escape from it all, including me. Maybe he was even thinking of not coming back for some time. I was sure of it.

  “What’s this about work?” Chika leaned toward me. “In a time like this, there’s only one thing for a woman to do. What’s the matter, honey, still a virgin? Or, oo-ooh, I get it. You two haven’t slept together yet?”

  “Chika!” I exclaimed, appalled. Still, a part of me thought, wouldn’t it be a better world if everyone were like Chika? In her eyes I saw reflected a far happier picture of Yuichi and me than was in fact the case.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said. “I just heard about Eriko and I’m still all confused, but it must be much worse for Yuichi. I have to be very gentle with him.”

  Chika looked up from her noodles, her face serious. “I know,” she said. “You see, I wasn’t working that night and I didn’t witness dear Eriko’s death. So in a way I still haven’t accepted it. But I knew the man. He came to the club all the time. If Eriko had only confided in me, I’m sure it could have been prevented. Yuichi is the same way. It’s such a shame. One night we were watching the news together, and that gentle boy suddenly said, with a frightening look on his face, ‘People who kill people should all be dead.’ Yuichi is all alone in the world now. Eriko always handled her own problems no matter what they were. He got that from her, and this is the dark side of that independence. It’s gone too far!”

  One by one the tears slipped down Chika’s face. When she began to sob audibly, “Wah. Wah.” everyone in the place turned to stare at her. Chika’s shoulders jerked spasmodically, racked with grief. Tears fell into her soup.

  “Mikage dear, I’m so miserable. Why do things like this have to happen? I can’t believe in the gods. We’ll never see dear Eriko again, and I can’t bear it.”

  I walked Chika, who was still sobbing, from the restaurant to the station, my arm around her tall shoulders.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. At the turnstile she slipped me a note with the directions to Yuichi’s inn and the phone number. She may be just a bar girl, I thought, but her knowledge of the right spots to press was impeccable.

  Deeply moved, I watched her broad back disappear.

  It was true that she jumped to conclusions and that her life was a mess—even her earlier stint as a salesman had been a failure. I was aware of all that, but the beauty of her tears was something I would not soon forget. She made me realize that the human heart is something very precious.

  Under the blue sky, inhaling the clear, sharp bite of winter air, I was overwhelmed by it all. What should I do? I had no idea. The sky was blue, blue. The bare trees were sharply silhouetted, and a cold wind was seeping through.

  “I can’t believe in the gods.”

  * * *

  The next day I set out for Izu as planned.

  With our small group—Sensei, several staff members, and a cameraman—it promised to be a pleasant trip. The daily schedule was not demanding. Yes, I thought, this is a dream trip. A gift from above. I felt I was being set free from the events of the last half-year.

  That last half-year . . . Until Eriko’s death my relationship with Yuichi had been laughing and carefree, but under the surface it had been growing more and more complicated. The times of great happiness and great sorrow were too intense; it was impossible to reconcile them with the routine of daily life. With great effort we each tried to find a peaceful space for ourselves. But Eriko had been the dazzling sun that lit the place.
r />   The experiences of the last months had changed me. In the mirror I could see only a trace of the spoiled princess I had been, the one who took Eriko for granted. I was so far from that now.

  Staring out the window of the van at the clear, sunny landscape, I realized how terribly far I had come. I, too, was dead tired. I, too, wanted to get away from Yuichi, to find some peace. Sad, but that’s how it was.

  That evening I went to Sensei’s room in my bathrobe.

  “Sensei,” I said, “I’m dying of hunger. Do you mind if I go out and get something to eat?”

  One of the older staff members, who was sharing a room with her, burst out laughing and said to me, “Poor Mikage, you didn’t eat a thing at dinner, did you?” The two of them were sitting on their futons, dressed for bed.

  I was starving. This inn was famous for a vegetarian cuisine consisting entirely of smelly vegetables I hate—I, who shouldn’t be a picky eater—so I’d barely touched a thing. Sensei smiled and said it was fine with her.

  It was past ten. I went back down the long corridor to my room, got dressed, and left the inn. For fear of getting locked out, I quietly unbolted the rear emergency door.

  The food at this inn had been hideous, but the next day we were planning to get in the van and move on. As I walked along in the moonlight, I wished that I might spend the rest of my life traveling from place to place. If I had a family to go home to perhaps I might have felt adventurous, but as it was I would be horribly lonely. Still, it just might be the life for me. When you’re traveling, every night the air is clear and crisp, the mind serene. In any case, if nobody was waiting for me anywhere, yes, this serene life would be the thing. But I’m not free, I realized; I’ve been touched by Yuichi’s soul. How much easier it would be to stay away forever.

  I walked for a while along a street thick with inns.