Kanazawa, page 2
“I’m not throwing anything away. The machiya is a great opportunity, and eventually Mirai can teach ikebana there.” He had told them many times he was tired of teaching English—a subject his students cared nothing about, and on behalf of a department that forced him to bear more responsibilities every term. Here he was at thirty-six, already burned out on work he once thought he wanted to do forever. “Up until now, I feel like I’ve been wasting my life trying to forge a path forward.”
His mother-in-law said: “Well, you have to make a living somehow. Mirai can support you with her ikebana only for so long.”
His father-in-law made a disagreeable noise in his throat. “If you don’t move forward, do you propose to move backward?”
Emmitt held his gaze for a moment. How could he tell him it was a more interesting question to him than he might guess?
In a city as well-preserved as Kanazawa, Emmitt’s imagination rejoiced in his ability to touch the past. On the Japan Sea, Kanazawa was famed for its arts and crafts, gardens, and geisha districts, cuisine, and gold leaf—its traditions dating back to the first Maeda lord in the late sixteenth century—not to mention its annual snowfall. No longer denigrated as “the back of Japan,” Kanazawa had recently become one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations, and Emmitt considered himself lucky to have known it before it changed.
When he first arrived in Japan, the country’s foreignness had overwhelmed him, and he used to email his impressions of Kanazawa to friends in America. But most of them either ignored what he wrote or joked about it; they found it hard to understand why the city excited him. His parents had no interest in his life here, either, which was why, over time, their long-strained relationship had ground to a halt.
Mirai’s phone buzzed, and she lifted it from the table to read a new message. Emmitt saw it was from Asuka. She was in Tokyo to interview for jobs and visit her boyfriend, Shin, who had graduated last year from the same master’s program in art and design she was in.
“Tell her she’s missing her mom’s homemade cooking,” Emmitt said.
Mirai laughed. “She won’t mind. Last night she and Shin had dinner at Nodaiwa, in Azabu.”
“The famous eel restaurant?” her mother said, her eyes wide. “I didn’t know Shin was that rich.”
“He’s not,” Mirai said. “But that doesn’t keep them from eating at fancy places.”
The room fell silent in the way the snow was silent. Emmitt sensed something cold falling around him, which made him wish for its cessation followed by warmth. But Kanazawa winters were long and cold, and it wasn’t even the middle of February.
He glanced at the photocopied picture of the machiya on the table, admiring again the dark wood and latticed doors and windows in the front; the rectangular fabric divider hanging before the entrance, the character for “rice” billowing in the middle and advertising the family’s former business; the rows of black tiles on the angled roofs; the decorative stone lanterns scattered about the small garden; and the two-story white kura storehouse visible behind the short wall to the side.
The house was large and well located and dated back a hundred and twenty years to the late Meiji period—which meant more to Emmitt than to Mirai or her parents. To him, the machiya represented an earlier, more romantic era, a way of inhabiting a Japan that had nearly vanished. He and Mirai had been assured that no house of similar provenance would enter the market in downtown Kanazawa for another decade, and he didn’t want to lose this opportunity.
If their marriage lacked anything after five years, it was stability, and a commitment to place, they’d agreed, would strengthen it. Her parents often reminded him, as if afraid he might take Mirai far away one day, that Kanazawa had no earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, or nuclear plants on active fault lines, and thus was the safest place to live in Japan.
His in-laws had grown up in old-style machiya. Mirai and Asuka had, too, until their parents had enough money to tear theirs down and build a new house, which they did twenty years ago when Mirai was twelve or thirteen. The “new” house had noticeably aged. From the outside it looked like it needed a thorough cleaning and a few more layers of siding to make it appear sturdier. To Emmitt, it was merely an aluminum box with a door and windows. Too often, it seemed, that was what modernity meant in Japan.
When Mirai stepped into the kitchen to refill and reheat the sake carafe, Emmitt followed her. Lightly massaging her shoulders, he said, “You hardly ate tonight. Are you really that worried about the house?”
She forced a smile while watching the water start to boil.
“What is it?”
She shook her head and kept silent. Finally she said, “A sparrow got into our building today and flew into my classroom. I called the janitor to help catch it, and after five or ten minutes, out of frustration, he swung at it with a broom. I demanded that he stop, but the sparrow was already panicked and flying into the window. In the end it knocked itself unconscious against the glass. Only then could we take it outside. It came to after a few minutes and flew away. I filed a complaint about the janitor, but I doubt the school will do anything.”
Emmitt stopped massaging her. He waited for her to circle around to what he’d asked, but her anecdote apparently had nothing to do with it. “Why are you going on about a sparrow when I asked what’s bothering you?”
She removed the sake carafe and wiped it off. “Afterward I thought, ‘What kind of place is that to work?’” She paused and said, “For some reason I wanted to tell you.”
“You’re not thinking of quitting, are you?”
“Of course not. How can I now?”
Without waiting for a reply, she brought the carafe into the living room.
Her father was already on the sofa. He reached for the remote and increased the TV volume.
Emmitt was thankful for the noise. He was tired—not of being asked about the future, but of not being understood.
In a way he felt sorry for everyone. With Asuka moving to Tokyo, Mirai and he planning to move into their own house, he soon to quit his job, and his father-in-law struggling with retirement, changes were underfoot in the family he’d married into—perhaps more than it could deal with.
And yet for all their worry and lack of confidence in him, and their criticism over his ability to support Mirai, he felt in control of his life. It was a marked change from how he’d felt during recent terms at the university, and at times living under the same roof as Mirai’s family. He attributed his calmness to having found, finally, what was best for himself.
Mirai hovered in the doorway, staring at the snow outside.
Emmitt wondered what she was thinking.
2
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, MIRAI called Emmitt at work to say that Asuka had returned from Tokyo with news she’d been offered a position at a well-known design firm. With her classes now over, all she needed to do at the university was take part in a final art exhibition and attend her graduation ceremony. Her training period would start at the end of the month, earlier than that of other graduates in her class.
Although happy for her, Emmitt wasn’t keen on attending the party the family had decided to throw in her honor. He worried that her return and the celebration would prevent him and Mirai from discussing the machiya. They were to sign its lease tomorrow. Further complicating things, he’d just learned that for the last few weeks of the term he’d have to shoulder another class after a colleague quit without warning.
After getting off the bus in Korinbō, crowded with shoppers and tourists even late in the day and with it snowing, he entered the Daiwa department store just before it closed, as Mirai had asked him to buy a cake. In the supermarket downstairs, the only ones remaining were covered in bright red Valentine’s Day messages. He nearly bought one anyway, thinking his in-laws would get a kick out of it and he’d at least get credit for trying.
Instead of a cake, he bought a bottle of seasonal local sake. As a send-off gesture for Asuka it was passably appropriate, and certainly his father-in-law would be pleased.
After having the bottle gift-wrapped, he crossed the street through an underground tunnel to the Tokyu Hands store. Once outside again, he made his way to Kiguramachi Street. Among its bars and izakaya, he searched for the one where his family were celebrating.
Mirai spotted Emmitt entering behind a group of salarymen. She waved to him and pointed out his arrival to the others, who were seated at a low table.
People often said that Mirai and Asuka, despite their six-year age difference, resembled one another, but to Emmitt they were almost unrecognizable as sisters. Mirai was willowy and somewhat tall. Asuka was slightly compact, stood two or three inches shorter, and in her face took after her father more. But she was pretty, too, and her smile was quicker than Mirai’s, her lips set in a way that made her always seem amused, or at least glad to be around you. Mirai’s smile belied not only a greater seriousness, but also a certain guardedness he rarely saw in any of her family.
“Congratulations on your new job,” Emmitt said, walking to the table.
“I’m moving to Tokyo!” Asuka grinned and clapped to herself. “I can’t wait to show you and Mirai around when you visit.”
“You may be hosting us a lot.”
Mirai laughed and said, “Or hosting me, anyway. You’ve never been a big fan of Tokyo.”
“I feel about Tokyo how I feel about Los Angeles,” Emmitt said. “Not bad to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”
When Mirai didn’t answer, Asuka said, “You’re both welcome to come whenever you want. That way, I can count on you bringing me a steady supply of Okāsan’s cooking.”
Emmitt jokingly asked Mirai if she’d bought them tickets to Tokyo yet.
“Of course not. But Asuka did ask me to go to Tokyo to help her find an inexpensive apartment. She wants to start looking right away.” She hesitated before adding, “Otōsan’s giving her a monthly allowance. Her salary won’t be enough at first to cover her living costs, and she doesn’t want to take a company loan.” It seemed she couldn’t help adding: “He’s more generous than in the past.”
Sitting next to Emmitt, at the head of the table, her father didn’t say anything. Emmitt had never understood why he’d been stricter with Mirai.
The room was in the traditional Japanese style, with a small alcove in which a calligraphic scroll hung and local kutani-ware cups were aligned on a small wooden shelf. The room had tatami flooring and several tables generously spaced out, and its walls and ceiling were of dark-stained wood.
Most houses in Japan, even modern ones, had a traditional room similar to this. Mirai’s parents’ home had one, too. The smallest room in the house, it contained the family altar. Although Emmitt rarely had reason to enter it, he sometimes went in alone to lie on its tatami floor, redolent with the smell of incense that his mother-in-law burned there every morning. The only other times he encountered such rooms were in izakaya such as this, for the duration of a meal, or in traditional ryokan inns, which he and Mirai hardly ever stayed in.
The room’s simplicity contrasted with the disarray spawned by the busyness of his life, a far cry from the orderly, even poetical existence he yearned for. Not only did living in a traditional Japanese home strike him as ideal, but it also seemed a beautiful vision worth striving for.
He resituated himself on his knees and handed Asuka the paper bag he was holding. “Daiwa was out of cakes. I got sake instead.”
She raised her eyebrows at this, then handed the bottle to her father, who took it gladly.
Sitting back down Emmitt said, “How’s Shin?”
“He’s fine. He wanted to come back with me but couldn’t get away. He says he’ll probably get promoted soon, so he’s been happy lately.”
“Good for him.”
“I envy his spirit. I feel like I’m with a real adult around him.”
Emmitt smiled, wondering what she thought of him and the people in her family she’d lived with all her life.
Talk centered on Asuka’s plans for life in Tokyo. She was keen to live in Shibuya and was willing to pay half her monthly salary for a thirty-square-meter apartment. Emmitt sat on the edge of the conversation, unable to imagine paying half his wages for such small accommodations.
Mirai had once had similar big-city dreams, Emmitt knew, though for her the allure had been Kyoto. She had given those dreams up for him and he was grateful. Soon they would live in a house of their own and could start planning their own family. With a new high-speed Shinkansen line connecting Kanazawa to Tokyo, Kanazawa’s economy was thriving—a rare “bubble” in Japan these days. Even so, Kanazawa remained far more affordable than Tokyo, Kyoto, and other cities of comparable size.
Mirai’s excitement for Asuka showed in the questions she asked and the attention she paid her answers. If she was reminded of her father’s refusal to help her when, as a student, she needed money, she didn’t show it.
“You can live closer to Shibuya Station if you choose an old place with no shower or bath,” Mirai said, leaning toward Asuka’s phone, on which Asuka was scanning a map of the station area.
“What am I supposed to do, wash myself at the kitchen sink?”
Mirai waited for her parents to stop laughing before replying. “You can wash your hair there at the very least.”
Looking stricken by the suggestion, Asuka turned back to her phone.
“When I lived on my own,” Mirai said, “I went to the public baths every evening. If you did the same, you could have more space, be closer to the action, or both. And you need enough space to grow some vegetables. Tomatoes, if nothing else.”
“Do you think I’m moving to Tokyo to be a farmer?”
“You totally need me to help you,” Mirai said.
Emmitt thought how Mirai differed from her mother and sister. Unlike either of them, she made her own clothing and rarely used makeup. When he and Mirai dated, he’d been shocked to learn that as a college student she’d cut and sold her own hair. Since the family had never struggled financially, it had been difficult for him to understand her poverty then. Even now, Asuka and her mother were far freer about money.
The head chef delivered to the table a complimentary dish of grilled hatahata. He knew Mirai’s family by their long-standing patronage.
“It’s a migrating fish, so it seemed appropriate. When Ms. Asuka returns to Kanazawa, we hope she’ll migrate back to our izakaya.”
After thanking him, Asuka whispered to her mother that she couldn’t eat hatahata. Overhearing her, the chef apologized and returned to his kitchen, then brought back a small dessert. Asuka’s mother tried to shame her but couldn’t manage to without laughing.
Mirai’s father insisted that Emmitt drink with him. “Asuka leaves in two days, and you and Mirai will move out soon, too. I forget; is it said that bad luck happens in twos or threes?”
Not wanting to show that the prospect of moving excited him, Emmitt reminded him that the machiya was a walkable distance away. His father-in-law shook his head, clearly unconvinced.
Emmitt turned to see the old woman who owned the izakaya standing behind his father-in-law, where she flipped the calendar page from January to February. His father-in-law saw it, too. Since it was almost mid-February, he teased her about ignoring the passage of time.
“Winter is long here,” the woman said. “The days start to feel the same.”
“When you’re our age, it’s natural to cling to the past.”
“I guess that’s right.”
“By the way, what year is that calendar?”
The woman looked at him oddly. “This year, of course.”
“I wish it were fifty years old. It would take me back.”
Emmitt recognized that the calendar’s picture for February was of the local mountains in winter. “Hakusan,” he said and felt his father-in-law glance at him.
“What’s that?”
“In the lower right of the photo, the kanji says ‘Hakusan.’”
Emmitt’s father-in-law looked again at the calendar, as if seeking something in the snow-covered peaks. “Japan’s second-most-sacred mountain, inhabited by Buddhist and Shinto deities. Even the Man’yōshū, compiled 1,300 years ago, celebrates it.”
“At the time the monk Taichō first climbed it . . .”
Turning back to the table, Emmitt’s father-in-law dipped a slice of sea bream in soy sauce and lifted it to his mouth. “You know something about it, do you?” His tone wasn’t challenging so much as reflective and a little tired.
“Not as much as I’d like.”
His father-in-law chewed contemplatively. “I climbed Hakusan several times as a boy,” he said. “On a school field trip once, and then again with my family. Also, one time with a girl I liked before I met my wife. For some reason, I always climbed the mountain in July. I would have liked to go in autumn once.”
“After ten years here,” Emmitt told him, “I finally plan to climb it.”
His father-in-law seemed to think an invitation lay wrapped in his words. Shaking his head he said, “It’s too late for me. Though I’d like to visit it once more before I’m gone.”
Emmitt refilled his father-in-law’s glass, not to encourage such maudlin talk but to distract him from it.
His mother-in-law saw this. “Don’t overdo it. Tomorrow we have to help Asuka.”
The rebuke brought a smile to the old man’s face.
He tugged Mirai’s arm, interrupting her conversation with Asuka. “Are you climbing Hakusan this summer, too?”
Leaning into Emmitt she said, “Emmitt asked me to, but I won’t have time. I told him I’d massage his legs every day for a week when he got back. But only if he can prove he reached the top.”
“Always a catch . . .” Emmitt said.
Mirai smiled and returned to her conversation with Asuka.
