The old lady turned now to Mitsuki. “And who are you? A runaway housewife?”
“Something like that.” She added almost as an afterthought, “I do teach college part time.” She never felt comfortable saying this out loud, since she basically lived on her husband’s income and felt no particular calling as a teacher.
“What subject? French?”
“No, originally French, but now it’s English.”
“Oh no!” the old lady exclaimed. “Just as I feared. English is taking over the world.” She said this with some vehemence and then turned to Mr. Matsubara. “Your foreign language is English, I suppose.” She made it seem as if no Japanese person anywhere could be incapable of speaking at least one Western language.
“At work, yes,” he said, and then added bashfully, “But I studied French in school. And I spent some time at l’Institut Pasteur in Paris.”
“Mon Dieu!” The old lady put into words Mitsuki’s own astonishment. “Then we three represent the French contingent of long-term guests. This hotel has such an old-fashioned je ne sais quoi, we’ll fit right in.” She held up her glass in a toast: “Alors, à la vôtre!” With a jerk of her chin she indicated her grand-nephew. “I’m afraid he can’t speak any language.”
“Oh, come now,” said Mr. Matsubara. “He speaks Japanese.”
“Ah, but there’s where you’re wrong. His Japanese is atrocious.”
The young man smiled resignedly, apparently accustomed to this abuse, and again held his tongue.
The old lady looked from Mr. Matsubara to Mitsuki and back again. She seemed to be considering something. Finally she leaned forward slowly, the way old people do, and said in a lowered voice, “Pardon me for asking, but has either of you come here to commit suicide?”
DRAMATIQUE
Dumbfounded at the old lady’s query, Mitsuki looked over at Mr. Matsubara. Then for the first time the young man spoke up.
“Anyone who came here to off himself is hardly going to admit it, Aunt Kaoru.”
True enough, conceded his great-aunt. Still leaning forward, she tilted her head a bit to one side. “The bartender over there has a friend.”
Mr. Matsubara and Mitsuki rotated their heads at the same time and looked in that direction. The bartender seemed to register their attention.
A week or so ago on his day off, Kaoru explained, the bartender had gone down to Atami, the nearby seacoast resort, with some friends. When he happened to mention that a number of long-term guests would be converging on the hotel, one of his friends had commented, “Sounds a bit ominous. Wouldn’t be surprised if one of them dies in a murder or suicide.” The one who said this was a successful painter who, though usually hard at work painting houses, had a reputation as a psychic.
“ ‘What sort of person is this psychic friend of yours,’ I asked, and he said, ‘Someone perfectly ordinary, the sort who bleaches his hair blond and rides a Harley-Davidson.’ Now, I ask you, is that ordinary?”
The bartender had been bothered just enough by his friend’s prediction to mention it to the hotel’s assistant manager as a precaution. The assistant manager thought the idea was ridiculous, but in order to avoid responsibility in case something did happen, he mentioned it to the manager. Nothing can hurt a hotel’s reputation so much as guests committing murder or suicide. The manager too thought it was ridiculous, but just in case, he assembled the staff and instructed them to keep a discreet eye on the long-term guests. Small wonder that Mitsuki had felt she was being watched.
Naturally, the last thing they wanted was for the rumor to spread among the hotel clientele. But three days ago, just before closing time, Kaoru had been in the lounge having a drink near the bar and sensed the bartender watching her. Thinking it odd, she had summoned him over and demanded an explanation. She must have been relentless. The bartender was well schooled and at first wouldn’t say anything, but in the end he gave up and confessed what the psychic had said, with the stipulation that she must never tell any other guests, since he’d been forbidden to breathe a word of it.
“So you mustn’t let on that you know,” she concluded.
“Mum’s the word,” said Mr. Matsubara with a smile.
Since they had all looked at the bartender before beginning this conversation, he must have suspected that the secret was out. Wiping glasses with a towel, he glanced over their way from time to time.
Kaoru leaned back and began fingering her glass with large-knuckled fingers. “So I’ll tell you what I thought.” She looked from Mr. Matsubara to Mitsuki and back again. “I thought to myself, ah, the psychic must mean me.”
The young man made a slight face and looked away as if to say, There she goes again.
“I’ve become penniless, you see, and my number is up. That’s partly why I decided to come and see this place one last time. It’s my own version of Un carnet de bal.” She mentioned the title of an old French movie that Mitsuki’s mother also had been fond of, then paused a moment, apparently recalling the past. “All my memories here are happy ones,” she said. “If I did die here, I’d have no regrets.”
“And you think I would be the one to murder you,” the young man said with exasperation.
“Yes, I do. I have a bad heart. I’ve already had one attack.” She motioned to a small handbag lying on the coffee table. On her index finger was a large purple gemstone—an amethyst, perhaps. “I carry Nitorol spray, but if I ever had an attack and he took it away from me, that would be the end. I’d be history.”
Firelight cast a reddish glow on her pale face. The other three looked at her, preoccupied by their own private thoughts.
Still commanding the stage, she began to tell them the story of her life, fingering her brandy glass.
Kaoru looked at least eighty, Mitsuki thought as she listened. Anyone who had been around that long had seen a good deal of life. And she had been born into wealth; she belonged to the generation that had lived through the war, and she had spent thirty years abroad. Her story was bound to be more colorful than that of most Japanese.
Her family lost a fortune in the war, Kaoru said, but when her brother went to study in France as a boursier, there had still been enough money for her to go along, ostensibly to study painting. Eventually she’d moved in with an elderly White Russian, a painter who’d barely managed to escape to Paris by way of Japan. Even after he died, she’d wanted to remain in Paris and dabble in painting, so she persuaded her parents to continue sending her an allowance while she eked out a living with various part-time jobs. Besides doing interpreting and translating, she’d taught flower arrangement and tea ceremony to wealthy expatriate American housewives. Through one of them she came to know a fashion designer and took a set of photographs at a show of his that brought her some acclaim. By the time her parents passed away, she was able to support herself as a photographer.
“But living abroad is extremely exhausting.”
That, on top of the stress of her freelance work, had caused her to fall ill in her mid-fifties, and at long last she’d made up her mind to return to Japan, where she used her French to earn pocket money while slowly going through her small inheritance. Just when her reserves were running low, the stock market had plummeted. She wasn’t enrolled in the national pension plan, having lived so long abroad. All she had to her name was a condominium bought with her share of her parents’ estate, located near their old home by the Imperial Palace.
“I’m living there now, but it’s old and run-down. Still, the location is good, so if I ever did sell it, I could afford to go into assisted living. I won’t be around much longer in any case.”
She made a sardonic face and gestured at the young man. “But you see, to keep me from selling, Takeru here is after me to adopt him. Says he’ll take care of me himself.” If she were to drop dead of a heart attack tomorrow, her estate would be divided among her nieces and nephews, with very likely nothing left for him. “That’s why he follows me around like a shadow. Carries adoption papers and a
copy of the family register, and I don’t know what else. If I send it all off to the Chiyoda Ward office, that will be that.”
“But you’re afraid that the minute you do, I’ll murder you,” the great-nephew—Takeru—said matter-of-factly.
“Yes,” she said with equanimity. “Which is why the moment I heard what the psychic said, I thought, ‘Ah, he means me!’ ”
“A dramatic idea in keeping with the dramatic life you’ve lived.” Mr. Matsubara said this without a trace of irony.
“Oh, but my life has not been the least bit dramatique,” she replied, giving the word a French flavor. “I had every opportunity, but all I did was rush around. After years of living there, even Paris becomes simply a place to live. I’ve had my share of unhappiness, but then who hasn’t?”
Kaoru paused for breath before adding, “Not a living soul has any need of me. I might as well be killed off.”
No one said anything. Mitsuki listened with detachment, thinking of her mother and reflecting that nobody lives longer than those old people who constantly talk about dying or being killed. No one seemed to take Kaoru’s statement seriously, nor did she seem to expect them to.
Takeru took out a pack of cigarettes and, after silently requesting permission, lit one.
“But Aunt Kaoru,” he said, turning his head to blow the smoke away from the circle. “Killing someone isn’t all that easy. Committing the perfect crime is hard.”
Her reaction was swift. “If there was one thing you were any good at, that would be it, wouldn’t it?”
He pursed his lips to one side, not denying it.
“Oh, I’ve had enough!” she exclaimed. “At my age, keeping oneself alive is altogether too much trouble. I’d rather sell off the condo, use up whatever money is left, and then just drop dead in the street.” She reflected. “Then again, some people make a handsome donation to charity before they die. That might be nice, to do something decent for once in my life before making my exit.”
Mr. Matsubara, who had been leaning back in his chair, a glass of whiskey and water in hand, now leaned forward with enthusiasm. “Now, there’s an idea. Charity is very good.”
Everyone looked at him. He added a bit self-consciously, “As a matter of fact, there’s a JICA training institute near here. That’s a fine organization, I think.”
“What’s JICA again?” asked Kaoru.
“Japan International Cooperation Agency. An organization that offers aid to developing countries. They welcome private contributions.” Looking even more self-conscious, he added, “But then, who am I to tell you what to do? I myself haven’t taken any steps yet.” “Oh, but you’re young,” Kaoru protested. “Why would you?”
He seemed at a loss for words. A shadow crossed his face. Mitsuki felt tense and, perhaps sensing her tension, even Kaoru lost her usual playful expression.
Mr. Matsubara quickly recovered his cheerful demeanor. “Not that I have any money to speak of. But leaving it where it might do some good is worth thinking about, anyway.”
Kaoru murmured another protestation about his youth.
“Ah, but you see,” said Mr. Matsubara, still cheerful, “I’m a prime candidate for suicide myself.”
UNLOVED
Had he worked up the courage for this confession to strangers, knowing that Mitsuki knew about his bereavement? Perhaps his defenses were lulled by the dreamy air the lounge acquired when the shades of night descended and the everyday receded.
Mr. Matsubara followed up his pronouncement by explaining briefly that he had lost his wife to cancer in the spring, a shock made worse because a friend’s wife survived the same form of the disease. After that he had forced himself to go back to work but had lost all motivation, so he had taken some time off to visit this hotel, where two springs ago he’d come with his wife to see the azaleas, just before her condition took a turn for the worse.
“She liked the lake better than the azaleas.” His summation was simple and clear-cut, befitting a scientist.
There was a short silence, and then Kaoru gave voice to the thought wrenching Mitsuki’s heart. “You loved her very much, didn’t you?”
He demurred with the embarrassed smile the situation called for, and then, to deflect attention, looked at Mitsuki. “This lady recently lost her mother.”
“Goodness!” Kaoru turned to Mitsuki and peppered her with questions, apparently curious about the death of someone her own age. How old was she? What was the cause of death? Had she been living alone?
To keep the conversation from returning to Mr. Matsubara, Mitsuki answered each question in detail and concluded by saying, “But just because my mother got old and died doesn’t make me a candidate for suicide.”
“I suppose not.” Kaoru gave her a wan smile.
A memory flashed through Mitsuki’s mind of the day when her mother was cremated. On the way home, with the urn containing her mother’s still-warm ashes resting in her lap, she and Natsuki had agreed that no amount of celebration would be enough—though they were both too tired to do any actual celebrating. But out of consideration for Kaoru, another octogenarian, she kept this to herself.
“Very well then, we will remove you from the list,” Kaoru announced.
“What about him?” Mitsuki turned toward the great-nephew.
“Who, Takeru?”
Takeru spoke up on his own behalf. “Oh, I’ve been on the list since I was in my cradle.”
He was no dunce, Mitsuki thought. “What makes you say that?”
“I find living itself is depleting…don’t you?”
He said this in a tone languid enough to drain any listener of their will to live. His longish chestnut hair had a touch of curl. While spouting such world-weary lines, did he go to the sort of brightly lit glass-paneled salons Mitsuki didn’t have the nerve to set foot in and have people dye and fuss over his hair?
“Never mind,” Kaoru said. “Pay no attention to anything he says.”
For five more minutes they talked about nothing in particular. Then Mr. Matsubara looked at his wristwatch, and the evening was over.
That night after getting into bed, Mitsuki stayed awake with her bedside light on, her book unopened. Tetsuo’s emails receded, as did her surprise and pleasure at the chance encounter with Mr. Matsubara. The excitement of knowing that Kaoru too had been a frequent visitor at the villa her grandmother remembered so well slipped from her awareness, along with the psychic’s premonition that someone in their little group might commit suicide or be murdered. What echoed insistently in her thoughts was Kaoru’s remark, “You loved her very much, didn’t you?”
Mitsuki stared at the ceiling and at length said aloud, “My husband never loved me.” She said the words again, almost tenderly. “Never loved me.” Then she shook her head on the pillow and rephrased it. “Never loved me the way I wanted to be loved.” Perhaps for those few hours in the garret in Paris, surrounded by the flickering light of countless candles, he had. But not afterward. Knowing it was true, she had avoided articulating her awareness. Now each time the words left her mouth, set the air vibrating, and were captured as sound by her ears, the truth loomed larger, naked and unadorned.
No tears came.
How long had she known? She hated to admit it, but suspected she had dimly sensed the truth shortly after they were married.
It was on their honeymoon. She’d been standing by an inlet. They had decided to go to England and cross the Dover Strait by ferry, and on the way, they spent a night in the harbor town of Calais. The old city had been obliterated in the fires of war, but the harbor remained, and after an early supper they’d walked over to where large ferryboats lay at anchor, silhouetted against the twilight sky.
Tetsuo had stood with his chin slightly raised, studying the view alongside her.
Mitsuki had a vivid childhood memory of standing on a dock as a big dark ship glided out into the offing, watching as dozens of blue, red, and yellow streamers connecting those on deck with well-wishers ashore tor
e, one by one, in a lingering farewell. Her family had gone to see off an American couple returning home. She always wondered if they were the ones who had found that good-hearted host family for her in Paris. Did they take a steamship because the airfare was prohibitively high? Or did they prefer traveling by sea? In her mind only the streamers were brightly colored; the scene overall was like a frame from an old black-and-white newsreel.
She’d been so small that everything was hazy in her mind, but that must have been Yokohama Harbor. Remembering, she looked up at Tetsuo. “Do you know the song ‘The Hill Overlooking the Harbor’?”
“An oldie, isn’t it?”
“Yes, from right after the war.” Her mother used to sing it around the house, probably because it brought back memories of the park where she had often gone during her time at “Yokohama.” As Mitsuki looked at the great ferries lying at anchor before her, something made her want to sing it out loud.
“It goes like this,” she said, and started the first verse: “The hilltop where I came with you…” It felt good to sing out to the sea. Fortunately no one else was around. As she sang, she felt enveloped in the peculiar bliss of singing—the sense that, at least for that fleeting moment, the world is in harmony.
She was halfway through the first verse when Tetsuo quietly left her side and walked slowly off to the pier.
“The ship’s whistle sobbing, a flutter of cherry petals.” She sang on alone, watching his figure grow smaller.
Why?
That was the first “why” of her married life.
She herself was fond of hearing others sing at the chansonnier. Her past boyfriends had enjoyed hearing her sing. And Tetsuo was her husband—shouldn’t he listen gladly? Those precise thoughts had not come to her at the time, but she had felt a voiceless cry tear through her, like an echo from the bottom of a deep well.
Inheritance from Mother Page 24
