Kanazawa, page 12
“How would it overextend you?”
“I’m starting a handful of commissions from the ikebana school in Tokyo, and because of the school’s reputation I can’t refuse what they offer. That takes priority over what Mr. Matsumoto might ask me to do.”
“You’re already doing commissions for Koyo’s school?”
“I have one now, and I’m lining up others. Sometimes you have to turn away a sure thing to chase a greater but less likely success. Maybe this is how people change their lives.”
It was the first time Emmitt had heard her suggest she had a plan for changing her life.
As they walked down the path back to town, several folk houses came into view beyond the trees. They hadn’t been visible from the direction they had come.
“Walking through an old mountain town,” Mirai said, “I feel like we’re walking into an earlier time. I haven’t seen thatched roofs like those since I was a child and we drove through the countryside to visit my grandparents. They’re magnificent.”
Her enthusiasm surprised him.
In a few minutes they were back in the center of Shiramine.
When they returned to the ryokan they rang a bell atop the check-in counter. The woman they’d spoken to before hurried over from a rear room and handed them their room key.
“The men’s and women’s baths are on the fifth floor. And dinner will be served at six on the second floor. If your yukata robes aren’t the right sizes, please call me and I’ll bring you different ones.”
They went upstairs. The room felt worn, and it lacked amenities—only a small TV on a shelf in the wall. Although it had a low table, and two futons rolled up beneath the window, there was nothing but the tatami flooring to sit on, not even a floor cushion.
Mirai made tea from a thermos of hot water the inn had provided. While it steeped, they listened to the water under the town’s streets rush down and away from the mountains.
Mirai lay on the floor. “It’s going to rain,” she said. After a long pause, in which Emmitt thought she’d fallen asleep, she added, “I can smell it blowing over the mountains.”
The only thing he smelled was the room’s tatami and a woodiness either from the ryokan or from the cedar trees that dominated their view out the window. He wondered if someone in a house nearby had lit a fire.
“I don’t mind if it rains,” he said. “I brought a collection of Kyōka stories in case the weather turned bad. If you want to stay here, I can start reading it.”
“Let’s see more of the town before it rains. If possible, I want to find reminders of my family’s skiing trips.”
“I thought you were eager to try the tofu.”
“I am. But that’s what lunch is for. It’s only ten o’clock.”
When they got to the lobby, Emmitt asked for two more maps of the town.
“We already have a map,” Mirai said.
Meeting her glance he said, “In case your parents want to come back sometime. To see how it’s changed.”
THE RAIN BLEW PAST, and their walk turned into a full day’s outing to the folk house museum, a tofu restaurant, a kominka café, an onsen they found after walking above one of the rivers in town, and an overlook where they fell asleep on wooden benches. They returned just in time for dinner.
As they passed through the lobby to the ryokan’s second-floor restaurant, a man at the counter stood facing the receptionist’s room in back. There was something odd about his appearance: His head was long and heavy, almost melon-shaped, and he wore a black yukata with a sleeveless brown haori jacket over it, not the white-and-blue ones the inn issued to guests. In one hand he held a walking stick. Spotting the whistle around his neck, Emmitt remembered having heard its piercing sound as he and Mirai were walking. Unexpected and unidentifiable, it had sent a shiver through him. Mirai, too, hadn’t known what it was.
Turning to them, his eyes were rolled up and only the whites of them showed. The man said, “Are you the guest who requested a massage before dinner?”
“He’s blind,” Mirai whispered.
“You must be looking for someone else,” Emmitt said.
As they were about to continue to the second floor, the receptionist hurried from the back room and told the man, “The guest is in the annex, not here. Room 204. He says he’s left the door open for you.”
Tapping his walking stick before him he made for the exit.
After the masseur crossed the street the receptionist told Emmitt and Mirai, “He makes his rounds every evening. He usually comes by three times before giving up for the night. He’s a self-taught musician, too, and quite a decent one.”
“What does he play?” Mirai said.
The woman laughed. “Not what most people your age care to hear, I’m afraid. He sings Noh librettos to the accompaniment of a hand-drum. He’s always ready if guests want to hear him. And he charges next to nothing.” The woman seemed to be making an offer on behalf of the blind man.
Mirai looked at the clock on the wall. “We’re going to be late,” she said, pulling Emmitt to the stairs. “Perhaps another time.”
THEY SAT ON THE dining room’s tatami floor, loosening their yukata as they ate the dishes laid out for them. It relieved Emmitt to see Mirai relaxed.
Dinner consisted of local char, mountain vegetables, tofu, and a bottle of Manzairaku sake, brewed from Hakusan’s waters. The old woman serving them explained each dish and came back often to refill their glasses.
A clatter arose outside and lasted several minutes. It sounded like drumming, but without a regular rhythm. When Mirai inquired about it, the woman explained, “On moonlit nights otters climb the stone walls above the river and cause trouble at our inn. They used to chew the electrical wires here so that lights in the annex toilets went out. Now we put small drums out for them, and luckily they seem to prefer them.”
“That’s two things I didn’t know,” Emmitt said. “There are otters in the rivers here, and they know how to drum.”
“They’re only small gourd-drums,” the woman said. “It’s a kind of amusement for them. They’re not musical, as you can tell, but guests enjoy seeing it.”
Emmitt and Mirai said they would look for them later, but the woman told them they stopped playing after ten or fifteen minutes. Indeed they had already stopped. “By now they’ll be returning to the river.” After a moment she said, “Is this your first time in Shiramine?”
Mirai set her sake cup down. “I used to come here with my family when I was younger. But it’s my husband’s first time, yes.”
“What does he think of it?”
Emmitt answered for himself. “I like it here very much.”
“And what do you like about it?” She quickly apologized for the question, as if she’d been rude to ask it. “I’m curious why foreigners would like a place like this. There’s nothing much to do here.”
“I like everything about it.”
She turned to Mirai and said, “I suppose you would never consider living here, would you? Shiramine needs an injection of youth.”
Mirai smiled and shook her head. The woman laughed as if to recognize some absurdity behind her question.
An hour after dinner they took their white onsen towels and headed for the fifth floor, to the men’s and women’s baths.
Emmitt stuck his head inside the men’s changing room. “Except for the guest in the annex, we’re the only ones staying here. Let’s go in together.”
Mirai peeked inside the women’s changing room. Finding it empty she said, “There’s no one there, either.”
She followed Emmitt inside the men’s changing room. She checked the bathing area to make sure Emmitt hadn’t missed anyone, then undressed beside him. Together they entered the bathing room. They took turns washing each other, and after rinsing themselves they stepped into the hot bath.
The town and surrounding mountains were visible through a long window before them. Below, a car’s headlights illuminated the road as well as the houses on either side. As if from the mountain, a whistling pierced the window. A moment later they heard it again and Mirai groaned.
“That sound is creepy beyond words. I hope I don’t hear it in our room tonight. I won’t be able to sleep.”
“It’s part of Shiramine’s charm. Isn’t it better to think of it like that?”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “Today wore me out.”
For a moment he thought she meant she hadn’t enjoyed herself.
“Maybe the air in Shiramine is thinner than I’m used to.”
“We’re not that high up.”
“Does one need an excuse to be tired? Maybe I’ve been working too hard. . . .”
“That’s one reason I wanted to come here with you. It’s important to get away sometimes.”
“But I enjoy my work. It’s the most relaxing thing I can imagine doing.”
The mountains had left Emmitt feeling uplifted. If Shiramine were closer to Kanazawa, he could imagine living here. And if he were in Japan on his own, he might well want to settle down in a place like this.
“Was coming to Shiramine part of your plan for the next year?” she said.
“Seeing more of where we live is.”
After a short silence she said, “Why don’t I feel that need, I wonder? Perhaps I would in Tokyo.”
Emmitt didn’t reply.
“Living there would be enough for me,” she went on. “I wouldn’t feel I had to see every corner of the city.”
“Are you opposed to what I’m doing, then? I can’t figure out where you stand.”
“No, just as long as you’re moving toward a better situation than what you walked away from.”
She leaned into him. “It would be nice if the ryokan had an outdoor bath, don’t you think? I’d like to be with you like this in a darker place.” Holding him, she twisted to look behind them. Emmitt turned around, too, but he was certain no one had entered the changing room.
Despite her worry at being caught in the men’s bath, she reached across Emmitt’s thigh and started to touch him. At a voice calling on the street below she quickly pulled back, however.
“What is it you dislike about Shiramine?” he said when the voice disappeared. “Or is it just because you know I’m fond of it?”
“I like it here,” she corrected him. “But it feels dangerous. . . .”
“Shiramine?” He couldn’t imagine what she meant.
She stepped out of the bath. He trailed behind her to a hot water spigot and sat beside her.
“It feels dangerous,” she went on, struggling to find the words, “to embrace these things from the past. It’s not that I don’t appreciate them—as an ikebana artist, I think I appreciate tradition more than most people in Japan—but it feels like a pattern you’re following of going backwards. I don’t like experiencing that with you.”
“I see nothing wrong with how I am.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Emmitt. And I still love you. But I can’t help think that our happiness together—even at this moment—comes at the expense of living a normal life.”
“There’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing, either.”
She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “Since what happened with the machiya, you’ve changed somehow.”
“What if I’m changing for the better?”
“I don’t think you’re becoming bad, Emmitt. But you’re unemployed. And you feel no urgency to find a new job. Can you not see how I might consider this . . . dangerous?”
“No,” he said. “We have savings, enough for me to figure out a different path for the future. I’m not hurting you. I’m not hurting your parents or your sister. I’m not hurting the environment. I just want a chance to find a better way to live.”
“What does that even mean? Is it more than just finding a new livelihood?”
“It’s more than that, yes. But I’m not sure how to explain it. I just want you to trust that I’m doing something that will benefit us both.”
She shut off the water and stood up. Stepping toward the changing room she said, “I just think there’s a less selfish way.”
“But it’s not selfish, Mirai.”
She dressed quickly and returned to their room.
When he got there it was cold, and the wall heater was preset to a temperature that seemed would never warm the room.
He opened the book he’d brought, but as if she didn’t see that he was trying to read, she turned off the light and burrowed under her blanket. They were quiet a long time in the darkness.
Emmitt looked out the window. If not for the stars between the clouds, and the light from the hot spring reflecting off the windows and roof tiles of the houses below, he couldn’t have discerned a thing. Even now he could barely distinguish the night sky from the forested mountains.
When the moon came back out, he looked down at Mirai, who already breathed as if she were asleep. A trail of moonlight divided her body into left and right parts. He wanted the light to slip further onto her face so he could study it. He liked to see her in these fleeting moments before sleep when her skin was scrubbed clean, her muscles were finally at rest, and the edges of her face seemed transparent. The movement of clouds dimmed the light on her face.
A moment later, the trail of light down her body was gone.
HE AWAKENED FIRST FROM birdsong flowing out of the forest, and then, after drifting to sleep again, from the sun streaming through the thin curtains.
There was a quality to awakening like this that he wished he could experience every day. The morning atmosphere made him feel virile. He wrapped himself around Mirai, sensing that the air, or the altitude, or the sunshine—whatever the source of his new vitality—was present in her as well. He kissed her neck and shoulders, and then her mouth, and soon they were sliding off each other’s yukata, she with even more urgency than he. Atop the thick futon, washed in a blue-backlit glow from outside, they merged. A temple bell rang out as they climaxed together. The timing made them laugh.
They slipped into their bathrobes and went upstairs to bathe, this time in separate areas.
As he stepped into the bath and, through the window he faced, looked over the town in the morning’s swelling light, a possible way forward dawned on him. By the time he left the bath a new possibility consumed him—a paradox of moving forward in reverse—buying a second house prior to a first one. He expected Mirai to dismiss the idea, but if they could find an abandoned house in excellent condition that hardly cost anything to buy, then later, when they had more money, they might look for a permanent dwelling in the city. Shiramine seemed like a perfect place for a second home: Only thirty miles from Kanazawa, it was easy to travel to. And since Mirai might have already found a commission here, she could build on that if she wanted to. The thought drilled itself deeper inside him as he toweled off and dressed, but by the time he reached their room he realized the timing wasn’t right. He had no intention of acquiring a home in the mountains with how things stood between him and Mirai. Even so, there would be no harm in inquiring with Kimura about the possibility.
When Emmitt stepped inside the room Mirai was drying her hair. He was glad they had come to Shiramine and spent the night. He was glad, too, that she liked this small mountain town. It had been too long since they felt positively about the same things.
“What time is it?” she said.
“Not quite seven.” Unable to let go of the idea that had occurred to him in the bath, he ventured, “Isn’t it beautiful here?”
She lowered the hair dryer and thought a moment. “The air tastes good here,” she said, as if to herself. “And the sunlight has a different quality. It’s purer than in the city. It would be nice to come back one day, maybe in late summer or fall.”
Sunlight parted the clouds. It washed over Emmitt, warming him.
10
ON SATURDAY, ASUKA TOOK the earliest Shinkansen from Tokyo and arrived in Kanazawa at eight-thirty in the morning. Last night, she had called Mirai to say she and Shin had broken up. He still insisted on spending time with her, however, only to accuse her of never having been committed to their future. She’d said she needed to escape from the verbal abuse he kept heaping on her.
When she came through the front door, carrying a bag of small gifts as big as the daypack on her shoulder, her father had already gone walking. Emmitt told her not to expect him back until mid-afternoon.
“Is he training for the Senior Olympics?” Asuka asked, slipping off her shoes at the genkan. Laughing at her comment, Emmitt noticed that her face was thinner, and her clothes hung loosely from her frame. She had easily lost ten pounds since he last saw her.
“I dare you to ask him that when he comes home,” Mirai said. “He walks six hours every day, four in the morning and two after dinner. His feet have swelled, but it doesn’t stop him from getting his steps.”
Asuka looked around. “Where’s Okāsan?”
“She’s out buying fish. She’ll be back soon.”
They sat in the living room and Emmitt offered Asuka an open package of sweets from the coffee table.
“Where does Otōsan go when he walks?”
“He won’t say,” Mirai told her. “The rain doesn’t bother him, nor does this unseasonable heat we’re having.”
“The doctor must have instilled great fear in him at his last check-up.”
“Wait until you see him,” Emmitt said. “He’s lost weight from all that walking. He’s in better shape than I’ve ever seen.”
“Otōsan doesn’t seem to know what to do in his retirement. I feel bad I’m not here to help.”
“You’ve lost weight, too,” Emmitt remarked.
“Stress is unbeatable for losing weight.” She laughed unconvincingly.
“Enjoy your life in Tokyo and don’t worry about anything here,” Mirai said. “Once you marry and settle down, you’ll realize that now is when you were freest. You have a lot to look forward to.”
Given Asuka’s recent breakup with Shin, Mirai’s comment about marrying and settling down struck Emmitt as insensitive. Asuka, however, seemed unfazed. She got up and walked to the window. Looking out at the gray day, she seemed to be thinking she might spot either of her parents returning home.
