Shintani-kun said he had to go, so Mom and I walked him to the station, and then strolled back through the shopping street.
The year was nearly over, and the streets were still busy even though it was late in the evening. I got the impression that people were rushing around wanting to draw some kind of line under the year, to mark the transition into the new one.
“You’ll have some time on your hands from tomorrow; are you going to clean out the closet?” Mom said, smiling. “I’m kidding—you should take a break first.”
“I will, thanks. Hey, Mom?” I said, and then realized I didn’t know what I wanted to talk about. I eventually settled on, “What do you think of me and Shintani-kun?”
Mom looked at me for a second, and we walked on in silence for a little while. Her pointy boots clicked distinctly on the ground. When we got around halfway down the street, outside Sunkus, she finally said, “You seem like . . . friends who’ve slept together. No offense, but it doesn’t feel like you’ll get married, or anything major like that. Even though he’s great.”
“Right,” I said. It was the answer I’d been expecting.
I could tell Mom had answered carefully, knowing her opinion would carry a lot of weight with me, and I loved her for that.
“I’m sorry. To be pessimistic when you’re in the middle of your love affair,” she said sincerely, as though she was talking to a good friend.
“No, I was kind of thinking along the same lines,” I said. “Do you think I should come clean with him?”
“I don’t think you need to feel like you should do anything,” said Mom. “Like the old saying goes—kenka ryoseibai. Fight and you both lose.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s not what it means,” I said, laughing, “but I know exactly what you’re saying.”
Over the past few weeks, I’d been wrapped up in the things I needed to do to get through each day at the bistro, and put off dealing with the idea of it closing until it actually happened so that the end had come almost as a surprise. Toward the end, we were so busy that Moriyama-san had come in most days, which actually made the rush feel almost enjoyable.
Now that it was really over, I felt a little let down. Then, out of nowhere, I thought—If Dad hadn’t died, that woman would have found someone else to kill. Which means Dad saved someone from being her next victim. How hard might things have been if Dad had survived and the next person had died in his place?
For the first time, I truly understood what it meant for the customer from Ibaraki to have come to see me.
“Mom, there’s something I want to tell you,” I said. “Can we head to that fancy bar for another drink? My treat.”
“Sure. Is it about your love life?” Mom said.
“No, it’s about a lady who came by the shop a while ago,” I said.
“Okay,” Mom said. She probably knew from my expression what it was about.
WE SAT AT THE bar and ordered our usual cocktails garnished with seasonal fresh fruit, and I told Mom the whole story—how I’d met with Yamazaki-san, and been given the bag of salt by the customer who’d come to Les Liens and the talismans by Shintani-kun, and the things I’d discovered about that woman.
Once I’d unburdened myself, I realized my secret had been pretty trivial, and I’d been building it up into more of a problem than it was. Mom didn’t seem that upset either, only frowning occasionally.
Mom looked really beguiling when she furrowed her brow, and I thought that must have been how she’d looked when she was young.
“So, what do you want to do about it?” Mom said. “Go to that forest and make offerings, or give prayers, or something? Like in that book The Mourner?”
“I didn’t know you kept up with the latest best sellers,” I said.
“I have plenty of time on my hands,” she said, “even working part-time.”
“Anyway, I’m not exactly sure. But I’m wondering if we should,” I said.
“Sorry, but I’m not interested,” Mom said. “Because we’d be praying for that woman’s soul, too. Anyway, I haven’t accepted it all enough yet, so it would be a lie.”
“I thought you’d say that. So I just wanted to mention it,” I said, but my eyes started to tear up. It was strange, like being a child again. That I’d cry just because Mom had rejected me.
“I’m sorry, Yocchan. But I think we should agree to be separate on this,” she said. “I don’t actually hate her anymore. I feel like she won, but it was careless of me to let her steal him. And more careless of Dad to let her take his life. Still, that doesn’t mean I’m happy to put my hands together and hope she makes it to the afterlife.”
“Of course, that’s fair enough,” I said, wiping away the tears spilling out of my eyes.
“I need to stand my ground and do what’s right for me,” Mom said. “You’re the only one in the world I share this with. So if you say you want to go back to the forest, I won’t stop you. But I don’t want to, and I need to honor my feeling about that. I don’t think I’ll ever go. I’m happy with where I’m at now, thinking back on the nice memories or things I loved about him from time to time.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s not like I’m still a child and want you to come with me, or need you to kneel next to me so we can pray together. I’m prepared to keep on feeling conflicted about things. It’s just that Dad keeps calling me on the phone in my dreams, so I feel like I need to do something about it,” I said.
“Yeah, you should do what you think best,” Mom said. “I don’t mind, and I’m not against it. I just have no desire to go with you. I don’t want to do anything so clean, so neat. It’s healthier for me to keep hold of this quivering resentment.
“But don’t think I’m ungrateful. I don’t remember a lot about the early days, even though I tried to pull myself together. I felt like my mind had gone dark, and the days just passed me by. I know I leaned on you a lot, with moving in and everything. I can’t express how much of a support you were to me, Yocchan.
“Can you understand what it’s like to be abandoned like this? It’s pretty pathetic even as appearances go, but I’m not talking about that. People were kind enough to say Dad couldn’t have been serious about her, that he must have been manipulated into it. But that’s not the point. You despise yourself. You feel disgusting and unwanted, and want to disappear. Every time anything even slightly good starts to happen, you instantly see their bodies lying there dead, together. And then your mind starts conjuring up images of them getting into bed together, or drinking together, and you start to feel completely worthless, totally meaningless.
“When I was with you, Yocchan, that was the only time I could feel like I had any value in the world. I’m so glad we decided to have you. We’d kind of reached a dead end, Dad and I, and we talked about either calling it quits or starting over and having a baby, and we decided to try. I know it was absolutely the right decision. I can’t imagine life without you, you’re the most important thing in my life—that you’re safe, and you can live your life. It’s far more important to me than mine.
“But even after all that, I can’t go back there to the forest, with you and your pure feelings. I live with too much murkiness inside me to do that. I catch myself wishing he’d die, all the time. But he’ll never be deader than he already is,” she said.
I nodded and sipped my cocktail. The taste of fresh fruit spread over my tongue. This was all that being alive meant, really.
It wasn’t that I’d been a good daughter. There were many times I’d resented Mom, if only mildly, for having tumbled into my apartment and my life. I also resented Shintani-kun for wanting me all the time, and how I could work as hard as I liked at the bistro but it was never going to be mine, I could serve customers with all my heart but it wasn’t as though they were going to do anything for me, and nor would Michiyo-san marry me and secure my future career. I could easily have found reasons to believe that everything was futile, that I was being taken advantage of, losing out, sacrificing myself f
or people around me.
But something that Mom and Dad had given me had stopped me from doing that.
I felt that they’d somehow taught me, through their actions, to be proud of being loved.
They’d lived their own lives, true to themselves, even if that meant meeting a foolish end, or running away from home and moving in with their daughter. That kept me true.
Just then, gaze distant, glass in hand, Mom said something that made my hair stand on end.
“About those dreams? I have them, too. I know he wanted to call. It was the only thing on his mind when he died. I know it’s true, like I was holding it in my hand. And it wasn’t that woman he wanted to talk to, even though she was right there—it was us. So that’s enough, actually. It’s fine. It’s enough for me.”
THAT NIGHT, SUDDENLY RELIEVED of both the burden of keeping secrets from Mom and the pressure of not getting sick during the restaurant’s last days, I came down with a fever. It was a textbook case of so-called thinking fever—my temperature shot up, only to subside about three hours later.
I lay under the covers, sipping on water. Mom made me a hot drink with honey and lemon, and I drank it down, shivering. As the sourness made its way into my cells, I found myself strangely disturbed by the dirt on the old tatami mats. Things like that were more visible when you were feverish. Even so, I still didn’t want to go back to the spotless rooms of the condo. That had been our family’s home. That time was over.
“So I’m still in a Yusaku Matsuda phase. I’ll keep the volume down,” Mom said, and started watching A Homansu on the TV.
The young Satomi Tezuka looked like an angel to my fevered eyes.
The light from the TV dappling the dark room made me think of family vacations of old. I felt as though I was back in a room in a traditional inn, already asleep, while Mom and Dad watched TV lounging on the mat floor.
When I thought of that I started crying ordinary tears, probably for the first time since it had all happened. It wasn’t weeping, or wailing, or cursing, or suffering, or hate, or regret. They were tears that marveled that I wasn’t a child any longer, and lamented the time that had passed since I had been. They flowed and flowed on and on, endlessly.
Mom and I had got so used to each other crying wordlessly in that little apartment that she noticed me crying, and didn’t say a word. Neither cold nor hot, she was simply there in the same space, feeling for me.
When I realized that, I knew that I was happy.
It was a different happiness from the frivolous happiness of eating grilled meat with a newish boyfriend. I felt myself being accepted and forgiven and redeemed on a far more fundamental level.
I WOKE UP, LOOKED at my clock, and thought, I’m late! until I thought about it and remembered that the bistro no longer existed. I couldn’t believe I had nothing else to do until after New Year. It was as though my body still hadn’t caught up with the facts and wanted to go to work. Like I’d left a part of me somewhere.
Mom had gone out already, and I found some rice porridge in a pan on the stove. I wondered whether she’d made porridge because I’d been sick and crying last night.
The winter sky was clear and blue, and the wind was whistling though the air. The tatami mats shone in the white sunlight as though it had bleached them.
Savoring the sweet taste of the rice porridge, I looked down through the window at the now-darkened bistro, and felt conflicted. It wasn’t just closed—it was never going to come alive with customers again. In a few days’ time, contractors would come in to remove the equipment from the kitchen. Everything that could still be used was temporarily going to Michiyo-san’s parents’ house. Michiyo-san was heading off to France mid-January, and I was joining her in February. We’d made a date to meet up in Paris and start our journey off in an oyster bar. I had a few things to take care of until then—renewing my passport, getting my suitcases from the house in Meguro—but right now, I wasn’t thinking about any of it yet.
The sky was high, and I felt as though I might be able to float away into it like a kite.
I suddenly thought about going to Ibaraki. I’d take the salt, and the talismans, and make it there while it was still light. I felt like it might be possible on a day like today, when the sky was clear, and I felt empty.
I gathered what I needed, and texted Mom: Fever’s down. Heading to Ibaraki to give prayers for Dad. Planning to be back late tonight. Then I left the apartment.
I got to Tokyo Station and bought a ticket for the bus, and some rice balls and tea from the food court. I had fifteen minutes before the bus departed, so I sat on a bench and watched the concourse and the buses leaving for various destinations, and the quiet, meek passengers as they got on board, and suddenly felt so lonely I could hardly stand it. I didn’t know why, but I started crying, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I didn’t know what to do. No, I thought, I’ve got to pull myself together so I can get on the bus, but the more I thought, the more I felt the loneliness suffocating me. A strange sensation was coming over me, like I’d lost everything.
I’ll call Mom, after all, I thought, and got out my cell phone. I had a missed call. I thought it might have been Shintani-kun, but when I checked, it was Yamazaki-san. I called him back almost reflexively.
“Moshi moshi,” Yamazaki-san answered. Even in my panic, his voice seemed to calm me.
“I apologize for missing your call,” I said, politely, even though my voice was nasal from crying, and I was still swallowing sobs.
“I was wondering about the Ibaraki business. Since it was sunny today, I thought it might be a nice day for it. Oh, I’m not suggesting we go today, or anything, it just gave me the idea,” Yamazaki-san said, breezily.
“Let’s go today,” I said, crying. “I’m actually at Tokyo Station right now, and I’m about to get the bus to Suigo Itako. But I’m sad and I can’t stop crying, and I want to take someone with me.”
“Wait, you’re there now? And, crying?” Yamazaki-san said. “What about your mother?”
“She turned me down,” I said. “I couldn’t talk her around. She said no.”
I felt even lonelier, and the tears welled up, and I wept down the phone at Yamazaki-san. He didn’t say anything for a good few minutes while I just cried. Then, he said, “That’s fine, let’s go. I’m free today, and it sounds like fun. You’re about to get on the bus? I’ll drive, and catch you up.”
I was in awe. I said meekly, “Yes, I’ll wait. If we could keep in touch between Suigo Itako and Kashima, I think we should be able to find each other.” I had nothing more to lose.
“I think you’ll get there ahead of me,” he said.
“In that case, I’ll go to Sante and have a soak in the hot spring,” I said.
“Fine, I’ll look it up and follow the sat-nav. I’ll call you when I get there,” he said.
I was so impressed by his decisiveness that I felt a surge of admiration which felt very close to attraction. My heart, which had felt totally lost only a few minutes ago, felt warm, and I boarded the bus feeling hopeful.
I realized then that I’d desperately wanted Mom to come with me.
I’d assumed that once I’d passed the age of twenty, I’d gained the power to do everything alone. But I’d been wrong about that, and this just brought it home to me, again, that I still had a long way to go. The sense of failure, however, was a strangely comfortable one—the feeling of looking up and starting over again after pride and defensiveness had slipped away, and left me soft and crumpled on the ground.
The bus set off and joined the highway. I dozed off, and before long, we had reached the bus station at Suigo Itako. The last time I’d been here, I hadn’t taken in any of my surroundings, and remembered it as a desolate place, like a windswept field. But now I could. I saw the dry wind crossing the sky, far and high in the distance. I saw wide expanses of grass, with the occasional patch that shone gold. The view looked altogether different when I looked at it with a calm eye.
Fro
m there, I took a taxi to the spa where I’d arranged to meet Yamazaki-san.
The spa complex was just off the main road and faced out toward the ocean. Like a tourist, I put my luggage into a locker, and scrubbed myself among the local old ladies in the women’s bath, and then soaked in the spacious open-air hot spring to my heart’s content, watching the vast blue sky and the wild sea that lay distantly beyond the trees. It had been a while since I’d last seen anything this big and spacious, and I felt my heart open in response. I was glad I’d come.
I finally admitted to myself that this whole time, I’d been in a phase where I was more in love with Yamazaki-san than I was with Shintani-kun. The realization felt good. I was glad to know I was never going to like Shintani-kun enough to want to marry him. The way he hadn’t been able to wait that night was the best thing about him, and I was in no position to appreciate it.
If only he could have waited a little longer, I thought, things might have turned out differently. With all his experience with women, I simply hadn’t been able to trust him when it counted. I felt that if I let my body go ahead and get closer to him, my heart would get left further and further behind.
Trust Mom to understand, I thought. Why had she been watching Detective Story, anyway? The movie, to boot, rather than the TV series. The answer had been there all along.
I got out of the hot spring after an hour or so, and found a text on my cell phone, saying: I’ve arrived, but can’t reach you, so I’m heading to the bath. Let’s meet in the main hall.
I went to the main hall and lounged on the tatami mats, and was dozing off when Yamazaki-san came in fresh from the hot spring, as though we were family members who’d come here together.
“Hi, Yocchan,” he said.
From where I was lying, I looked up at Yamazaki-san’s big, round eyes, and found a safe place for me inside them. A strange calm took over me. In his eyes I saw a space I could enter easily into, which went beyond logic or reason. I hadn’t been wrong—it had nothing to do with how many times we’d met, what had happened, or what he’d done for me. I was attracted to this man, I thought. Even if he had a beautiful wife, and would never find out I had feelings for him.