When was the last time I’d been in a man’s home, I wondered. What was this peculiar feeling it always gave me? The sense that this wasn’t my own home, it belonged to someone whom I still felt some distance from, and it was an unfamiliar space. But I also trusted that I was wanted here, desired. It was a feeling I could never get used to.
“Tea? Coffee?” Shintani-kun said.
“Could I have coffee?” I said, and Shintani-kun got out a bag from Maldive, where we’d met, which made me feel even more at home. He operated the coffee machine in a smooth, practiced way.
“I like the way you do that. Can I headhunt you for the bistro?” I said.
Shintani-kun laughed. “I feel like that would mean you’d get paid less, and, knowing how efficiently you work, I doubt I’d have anything to do anyway, so, no thanks.”
The town and the shop were a part of “us,” something we shared. It comforted me enormously to realize that all the while I’d just been muddling through life, day by day, Shintani-kun had been there, too, and something had been growing between us, at its own pace.
I drank my coffee, feeling relaxed, like I was visiting an old girlfriend.
Then Shintani-kun put on some CDs he wanted me to hear. Some of them I thought I might get to like, but when he played his favorite—the band he had mentioned before, who had played at his venue—I was honestly unimpressed. Having been spoiled when it came to quality music, I found their sound flimsy and their performance immature. But Shintani-kun seemed invested in the idea that they were going to make it big, so I said nothing, and pretended to listen attentively.
Now that I came to think of it, I’d never been with a boy I could be totally honest with. Most of the time, the pattern would be that I’d hold back from mentioning something, thinking it wasn’t really that important, and he’d insert his own assumptions into that space, interpreting things as he liked. I wasn’t sure whether this was just because we were still young.
I spotted a framed photograph on a shelf of Shintani-kun as a boy, along with his parents. In the background was a festival float, food and toy stalls . . . some kind of happy celebration.
“Which festival was this?” I asked.
“Suwa Shrine,” he said. “You turn down a street near the famous roast rice cake shop, and the shrine’s on the hill, and it has a big festival every year. Mom and I would go all three days, and when Dad got home we’d all stay out until late. It must be one of the biggest festivals in the area. I still dream about the view looking over the town from the back of the shrine. I loved that festival even more than the one at Nezu Shrine, even though Nezu is more famous,” he said.
“Your family was happy, then?” I said. Like mine? I thought. In the photo, Shintani-kun was flanked by his parents, wrapped in his dad’s arms, and looked as treasured as a little prince. “We’re both only children,” I said.
“Yes, that probably explains why us leaving home kind of caused our parents to act like they’d left the family, too. I mean, what happened to your family was more than you all growing apart, but that was what it felt like for us. But everyone has their own problems. In my family it was so gradual, it felt kind of inevitable,” he said.
“When I was a boy, we were really close. Living in the old shitamachi, entertainment was cheap, and we ate out a lot. Tonkatsu, Chinese food—nothing special. The main shopping street was down the hill from that shrine, and it was always full of people, and you could buy all kinds of food to take home. In the evening I’d walk down the hill holding hands with my mom. From the top of the stairs, the shopping street always looked like a festival,” he said.
It was nice enough listening to his memories, his stories about the neighborhood he lived in as a child. It was agreeable—but that was all I felt. I didn’t want him to add to the intensity of my life right now. I don’t think I’ll ever meet your mom, I thought despairingly. We’re probably going to sleep together now, but so what? What’s it going to change?
We were too young, and had too much ahead of us. There was no way we could stay this peaceful. I couldn’t help but think that our tepid, pleasant relationship would get blown away by the first storm that blew across our path, like what had befallen each of our families.
So let’s forget about families, and memories, and quit talking about things that take us forward like that, I thought, pessimistic. I didn’t usually think that way, but everything felt too distant, like too much work, too wholesome.
But just then, the music by Shintani-kun’s favorite band, which I’d dismissed earlier, suddenly started to sound beautiful, and the song’s melody surrounded me, sweetly, softly. I felt touched by the sadness of youth and the anguish of doomed love they expressed, and I was startled. It’s true, I thought, They’re talented, maybe they’ll succeed. I was impressed to realize that Shintani-kun understood music in his own way, albeit from a different angle than I did.
The momentary disillusionment I’d suffered about him melted away into the song’s magnificence.
The singer’s voice was idiosyncratic, but as gentle as could be, and seeped in through my ears even as I wallowed in cynical thoughts.
Perhaps he misinterpreted my silence: Shintani-kun picked that moment to suddenly put his arms around me and pull me to him.
Our first kiss was thus prefaced by incongruous feelings on my part, but even so, I was able to get a sense of Shintani-kun as a man, for the first time. I felt our bodies respond to each other. Whatever else was going on, we were after all dating, and I was brought back to the realization that desire was alive—that while my heart might be half dead, my body hungered unashamedly for the opposite sex.
After the kiss, Shintani-kun kept hold of me without saying anything. I heard his heart beating in his chest. There’s someone here, I thought, someone definitely here. Then in a flash, I recalled the bodies. It’s no good, I’d thought—they’re definitely dead.
I can’t do this, I thought despairingly. I’m not ready for love. I was on the verge of tears.
“Let’s stop here for today. I think it’s too soon for you,” Shintani-kun said.
“When you put it that way, it makes me want to prove you wrong,” I said, and smiled as I looked up at him, but my tears started to fall, in a pathetic and not at all attractive way, and I think my expression must have looked pretty bizarre, too.
“I’m not particularly interested in waiting. I’m a man, after all. But there’s no rush. The town or the shop won’t run away, and you’re not going to disappear,” he said, with kind eyes.
“Not a very lustful person?” I said.
“No, I’m a beast. I’m told I’m hard to keep up with, actually.” He smiled. It was a grown man’s smile. I couldn’t tell whether he was serious.
“Come stay the night soon,” he said, hugging me again. The palm of his hand pressed against my back suggestively, but I didn’t mind.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m fine—it’s not like I was raped, or anything.”
“No, I think what happened to you and your mom was even worse. I think you’d be justified in holding a grudge,” he said calmly. I was grateful for his understanding.
“I’m angry enough at that woman already. I’ve had a peaceful life, and I’ve never hated anyone like this before. When I think about her, my mind goes dark,” I said.
“I suspect you’d be justified in giving her even more of the blame,” Shintani-kun said. “I think you’re too generous.”
I wondered whether that was true.
Of course, there were times when I was overcome by hatred for her, but I’d reached a place where I could take a step back and acknowledge that she must have been through a lot, too. And in any affair, responsibility lay with both the people involved. Dad wasn’t an innocent victim. Plus, I’d never understand the reasons that had driven her to do it. My only guess was that not succeeding the first time might have given her a taste for it, but I had no intention of trying to look further into it. The brutal will to life that permeated my
body throbbed in anger, seeming to say it would rather die than have sympathy for such a thing.
SITTING AT A LOW table in a tatami-matted section of the Korean restaurant near Shintani-kun’s apartment, feasting on jjigae, barbecue salted tongue, and a selection of kimchi, and feeling relaxed, I brought up what was on my mind.
When we ate out, we always ended up with me picking at small dishes while Shintani-kun made short work of everything else. I’d be full at that stage, but he was only getting started. If we were ever to live together, I wondered, was he going to end up obese somewhere down the line? But seeing as we’d only kissed once, the thought had no immediate connection to reality. I still wasn’t even sure whether or not I was in love—that was how easily we’d ended up here.
“Hey, Shintani-kun?” I said.
“What’s up? Ready to move on to the galbi?” he said deadpan, looking at the menu, and I nearly laughed. I was pretty sure this was good breeding speaking, rather than a sign of a one-track mind.
“Earlier, you said something like I was nowhere near ready for a relationship. And, I was wondering whether that meant you were breaking up with me? Or even that we’d never been going out in the first place?”
“Wow, I think I would have felt pretty offended if anyone else had asked me that. But coming from you, I don’t mind at all. I wonder why that is,” he said.
“How should I know?”
“Yes, I don’t know,” he said, not joking. “That’s not how I meant it. I just thought it didn’t feel right. Wait, not like that—not that I wanted to split up.” He turned pink in embarrassment, which was endearing. “I just suddenly got this feeling that if we slept together straight away, you’d end up hating me.”
“I doubt that would happen,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll ever hate you, even if we have to break up. But that’s just because right now, I don’t have very strong feelings like about anything.”
“In that case, spend the night at my place next time. Because there’s no way I could stay at yours.” He smiled.
I marveled at the frankness with which he could talk about something this awkward, and realized he’d probably always had women in his life, and knew how to treat them. He was used to all of this. Why was he with someone as inexperienced as me? I wondered, and gazed at him.
The restaurant was full of families, and was run by one, too. The mother and the daughter-in-law in the kitchen, and the father and the eldest son at the front of house, called out orders to each other in loud but genial voices. The whole shop was like a big house, warm on the dark street.
Cocooned in its atmosphere, I’d temporarily forgotten my past troubles.
I had a boyfriend of sorts, and was getting along with Mom, and had some prospects at work—I guess I might be moving toward some kind of relative happiness, I thought vaguely. The feeling seemed to have been drawn up through me by the appetizing smell of grilling meat, the echo of ordinary conversations around us, and the peculiar freedom of a time of day when we forgot our daily worries and frustrations.
“Let’s get some lamb on the grill,” Shintani-kun said, carefree. “The lamb here is better quality than most you can get.”
“Leave it to me,” I said, and smiled. “I’ve been watching how Michiyo-san does it, to steal her secrets.”
We ordered some excellent lamb, and waited for it to arrive, and grilled our hearts out, and devoured it with rapt attention.
My soul was lapping up the happiness that suffused the whole experience. For the first time in a long, long while, I felt joy springing from somewhere inside me. I felt thankful. Thank you, Shintani-kun, for finding me—Even when I thought I wanted to be left alone, and invisible.
MOM WAS CHANGING, TOO.
Since getting a customer service job, she seemed to have suddenly started standing taller. One night, I saw her with a face mask on for the first time in months. And it was no ordinary face mask, but an expensive, luxury hydrating mask from Guerlain, which she’d used often in Meguro.
“Wow, nice, Mom. The look takes me back. Did you buy it?” I said.
“Oh no, I retrieved them from Meguro. The expiry date was coming up, so I had to hustle,” she said, easily.
So she was able to do that kind of thing now, I thought.
“You know, I’ve finally settled into this life enough to think about caring for my complexion. I may act like a student, but my skin’s middle-aged,” Mom said, and laughed.
“It’s a good sign,” I said.
“Yesterday I even splurged and went to the beauty salon. A upmarket, Madame-type place down the road, on the third floor above Tomod’s.”
“Wow, Mom, just like old times.”
“I went for the Miracle Face Shrinking Machine. Don’t you think my face looks a little smaller?” she said, proudly.
“Now that you mention it, your jawline looks trimmer, maybe,” I said. It was true that she looked cared for, somehow.
“Right?” she smiled. “Being frugal is well and good, but I think it’s important to do this kind of thing, maybe, oh, once every six months or so.”
“It suits you,” I said. “And it’s good you have a job now, too.”
“They’re all good people at the tea house,” Mom said, “and when we’re busy, the customers don’t mind waiting. Of course I don’t get along with all of them, but Eri’s always so steady, I can stay calm and be professional. All the other part-timers have been there long term, and the owner’s a great person, too.”
Mom never talked about Dad, but she wasn’t over him. I knew that. But I was still surprised by the strength she was showing in rising up and moving forward. While I was crying over things, or generally feeling down, I felt she was using the same time in a more decisive way. I wondered whether that was the difference between having lost a father and lost a husband.
ONE EVENING, A LITTLE while after that, when I happened to be off work and was home in my apartment, Mom came home and suddenly said she wanted to go back to Meguro to fetch the beauty contraption that generated “misted steam” and so we went back to the condo together for the first time in a really long time.
Seeing the place empty was tough, as I’d expected.
Even without bringing Dad into it, as soon as we unlocked the door and came into contact with its silent emptiness, I felt like I was diving down deep into a nightmare. Once past the entry, the house smelled the way it always had, and I recognized a shadow of a time when the place had been alive. But everything had stopped now.
Mom went in briskly, opening windows and switching on lights.
I went to what had been my room, and gathered a few cookbooks and novels. Then I got out some other books and summer clothes I’d accumulated while I was in Shimokitazawa, and stored them away in the bookcase and the wardrobe.
The whole time, I felt like something was chasing me.
I looked over to the piano repeatedly, hoping Dad’s ghost would visit, but he didn’t. There wasn’t even a hint of a presence. Everything was quiet and lifeless.
Had I really once lived here for so long? My fingers and my feet and my eyes all remembered the details of this condo, and I still knew its smells, the height of its doorknobs, how to rush down the hall without colliding with things, how to use the bathroom without switching on a light—all these stood out in my memory in sharp contrast, so familiar that I felt nauseous, but this space no longer belonged to me. The layers upon layers of accumulated memories had hardened into forms that stopped me from breathing in the present. When I looked at something, I saw it through a filter of hundreds of memories, which made everything darker, more layered, more intense. It’s like being inside a coffin, I thought. I understood all too well why Mom had felt stifled here on her own and had needed to move in with me.
Mom was standing in the doorway to my room, holding a handbag full of cosmetics.
“Hey, Yocchan? I was thinking of suggesting we go for some French food around here, like we used to, but I’m suffocating a little from al
l the memories in this place. I didn’t feel it when I dropped in alone, during the day, but with you here too I guess I let my guard down a little, and I’m feeling even sadder and more miserable,” she said.
I nodded, relieved.
“Do you want to head home and get curry instead?” Mom said.
“Great idea! Was it open today?” I smiled. Our favorite curry place was a well-known restaurant with a rustic, woodpanelled interior like a cabin in the woods, five minutes’ walk from our apartment.
“Yeah, I saw the sign was up, earlier. What will you have?” Mom said. “I’m going to go for the mushroom curry, today.”
“I think I’ll order the vegetable, extra spicy. A large portion,” I said, giving it serious thought. Somehow, my mood lightened.
“Why is that curry so good, I wonder?” Mom said. “I always finish all the rice, too. There’s so much sauce it almost spills off the plate, the abundance of it alone makes me feel rich and happy. Plus, you can really taste the gentle sweetness of all the vegetables that go into the sauce—no wonder the shop’s named after an eggplant!” she said, smiling. How long had it been since I’d seen her smile properly here, I wondered, touched. Her smile against the backdrop of the condo’s white walls felt like home.
“Okay, I’ll be over there doing some cleaning, so tell me when you’re done here,” she said.
“Will do,” I said.
It was an ordinary conversation, but it was a decisive moment for both of us—a sudden and unexpected desire to go home to Shimokitazawa, and turn down that particular alley, which led to that specific restaurant. To feel the recognition and relief at seeing the signboard standing out on the main street; to push open the heavy wooden door and enter the small, tranquil shop, which felt like the home of a good friend, and see the faces of the awkward and sincere waitstaff and the quiet husband and wife team who made such hearty curry, and feel safe.