The Nakano Thrift Shop

by Hiromi Kawakami

  ‘So, the girls you dated in the past, what were they like?’

  ‘What were they like?’

  ‘Is there one you still think of fondly, or one whose name you don’t even want to hear?’

  Takeo was pondering it for a moment. Masayo had asked us to make a bank deposit transfer for her. There was a light drizzle, and the shopping district was deserted. This was the first conversation I’d had with Takeo in a long time.

  ‘Depends,’ Takeo finally replied when we were in front of the police box.

  The officer inside was staring at Takeo and me. Don’t have umbrellas, do we? Takeo said. I don’t mind, it’s barely raining anyway, I replied.

  ‘So, why don’t you answer my calls?’ I asked, once we were past the police box.

  Takeo was silent.

  ‘Do you hate me?’

  Still silent.

  ‘Are we not friends any more?’

  Takeo moved his head slightly. It was impossible to tell whether it had been a nod or a shake.

  Abruptly, I realized that I did love Takeo after all, though I didn’t know why. Despite not having given any thought to such feelings since he stopped answering my calls. I love him, like an idiot. Love is idiotic, anyway.

  ‘So, answer the phone!’

  Takeo was silent.

  ‘I—you know—I love you, Takeo.’

  Silence.

  ‘Do you not want this any more?’

  More silence.

  We were in front of the bank. Even though there was no one on the street, there were tons of people inside the bank. We got in line, and I held my tongue. Takeo was facing straight ahead. When it was our turn, Takeo and I stood awkwardly in front of the cash dispenser. Will you do it for me? I asked softly, and Takeo nodded. He performed the transfer much more smoothly than I would have imagined. My eyes were riveted on Takeo’s fingertips. His fingers were slender and elegant. I found his right little finger, the one missing the first part, the most beautiful of all.

  Once we had completed the transfer and left the bank, it was raining much harder. It’s a downpour, I murmured, and Takeo looked up at the sky.

  ‘Doubt there’s anything that can be done about it, I guess,’ I said in the direction of Takeo’s raised chin. Takeo still hadn’t said anything. Even petroleum is in limited supply, I thought, to say nothing of the terribly meager resources of my love. How could it be expected to sustain this level of silent treatment?

  We stood for a while under the eaves of the bank and watched the rain. It had developed into a storm.

  ‘I guess I, still, have a hard time, trusting people,’ Takeo said haltingly.

  This—he waved his right-hand little finger as he said it—because of this. Then he quickly drew back his finger.

  ‘Don’t lump me in with that horrible old classmate of yours.’ Despite myself, my voice sounded angry.

  It’s not that I put you in with him, Takeo said without looking up.

  ‘Then, what is it?’

  People scare me, Takeo said slowly.

  When Takeo said the word ‘scare,’ the fear that I had been feeling this whole week blew up inside me all at once. That’s because it is scary. I’m scary. Takeo is scary. Waiting is scary. Tadokoro, Mr. Nakano, Masayo, Sakiko, even Mr. Crane—they were all scary. Even more frightening was my own self. Guess that’s not surprising, though.

  I thought I would say all this to him, but I couldn’t. No doubt my fears were different from Takeo’s fears.

  The rain had not let up at all, but I started walking by myself. I was wondering how I would be able to make the love I felt for Takeo disappear. I felt as though, by falling in love with him, I had hurt him somehow. I hated the thought of that, more than I hated the idea of being hurt myself. Thinking I was making myself out to be such a good person, I had to laugh a little. The rain was torrential. I was quickly soaked, the water running down the nape of my neck. I narrowed my eyes to see past the wall of rain in front of me. The scene around me became blurry.

  Before I knew it Takeo was beside me. We were walking along, at the same pace, side by side.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, and Takeo looked puzzled.

  What are you apologizing for, Hitomi?

  ‘Because, I really do love you.’

  Takeo suddenly took me in his arms. Now the water was not just coming down the nape of my neck, but also running off Takeo’s body as it covered me, and I was drenched to the skin. Takeo held me in a tight embrace. I hugged him back, just as strongly. I thought about how what I felt for him now and what he felt for me at that moment must be totally and completely out of sync. Trying to imagine it made me dizzy.

  It started raining even harder, and there were rumbles of thunder. Takeo and I were just holding each other, without saying anything. There was a flash of lightning, followed soon after by a thunderclap that sounded very close. We pulled ourselves apart and started walking, our hands gently extended towards each other, fingertips touching every so often.

  Masayo scolded Takeo and me as we changed our clothes. Takeo put on a pair of Mr. Nakano’s jeans and one of his shirts, and I borrowed a flimsy dress that was for sale in the shop for 500 yen.

  The rain soon stopped.

  ‘Apparently the lightning knocked down a pine tree at the shrine,’ Masayo said as she made her eyes big and round.

  Before long Mr. Nakano returned. It was raining like hell! he said, staring at me.

  Please don’t look at me, I said, and Mr. Nakano laughed. That dress suits you—you should buy it. I’ll give you an employee discount. Takeo was at the front of the shop, wringing out his sopping wet trousers. He let out a little cry and we all turned to look just as he pulled a rectangle, about the size of a half-eaten bar of chocolate, out of the pocket of his trousers.

  ‘Your card,’ Takeo said as he came into the shop. The card we had just used at the bank for the deposit transfer was now sodden and tattered.

  Oh, no! Mr. Nakano slapped his forehead. Forgive me, Takeo said humbly. Forgive me, my voice chimed in with his.

  ‘Hey, you guys made up?’ Mr. Nakano asked, fixing his gaze at a point exactly in between Takeo and me.

  Yes, no big deal. Again we spoke in unison.

  ‘Weren’t you having a fight?’ Mr. Nakano asked again.

  Don’t be silly, it’s not as though they’re in elementary school, they don’t have fights. Do they? Masayo said crisply. Takeo and I both nodded vaguely.

  ‘I’ll take the dress,’ I said, turning to Mr. Nakano. Takeo casually drifted away from me and went into the back. I’m not going to call him any more, I thought. If things were really over between us now, I would be fine with it. But I also knew that I wouldn’t last. I was pretty sure that tomorrow I would still phone Takeo.

  ‘All right, I’ll mark it down to three hundred yen,’ Mr. Nakano said.

  I took the hundred-yen coins out of my wallet and placed them in Mr. Nakano’s palm. I recalled the way that he opened and closed his hand when he accepted the wad of bills from Mr. Mao. When I thought about the idea of spending the rest of my life like this—going through my days in a fog of anxiety and fear—I felt so depressed I could have laid down on the ground and gone to sleep right then and there. But, despite all that, I loved Takeo. When I scrutinized love, I still found myself in a world that felt empty. My mind wandered through these thoughts.

  My body, chilled and wet from the rain, had finally warmed back up and, feeling the urge to say something but unsure of what, I just stood there, fingering the faded pink fringe that was glued to the belt of the dress.

  BOWL

  Mr. Nakano had screwed up.

  Not a business mistake. A screw-up with women.

  ‘You know what I mean? I’m thinking of tagging along with Kurusu to Boston.’

  Masayo and I looked up because Mr. Nakano had blurted
this out of the blue. The reverberations of Masayo’s show last month had lingered for a good while, even causing her to be somewhat manic, but just this past week she had finally grown quieter.

  Considering that Masayo had said there were too few dolls in this exhibit, the pieces she showed were quite accomplished. I know absolutely nothing about dolls, but I had been astonished by the profound expressiveness of several of her creations.

  Even Takeo had said, ‘Masayo has become quite the doll maker!’

  Do you think Takeo has been a little cheeky lately? Mr. Nakano chided with a laugh, but I hadn’t found any mirth in his words; instead I maintained a moody silence. Things between Takeo and me were still uncertain, even though more than a month had passed since that day in the thunderstorm.

  Recently Masayo had become absorbed in French embroidery. Whether it was cross-stitch, or making her chain or outline stitches, she had been meticulously embroidering classic patterns on throw pillows—a girl capering with her dog, a boy in knickerbockers playing the flute—like the kind you would see sitting on a sofa in the home of an elegant granny with perfectly coiffed fluffy white hair.

  ‘What do you use those pillows for?’ I asked.

  Masayo thought about it for a moment and then replied, ‘I don’t use them. They are purely for rehabilitation.’

  Having poured all her energies into doll making, Masayo said she had become ‘like a zombie.’ At times like this, according to her, there was nothing like rote tasks. Actually, the more intricate, the better, Masayo explained with an earnest look.

  Seems interesting, I said, peering over Masayo’s shoulder as she gave me a detailed lesson on the basics of French embroidery. That would make a nice place mat, wouldn’t it? she said, referring to the square of linen cloth on which I was stitching mushrooms of various sizes. One of the mushrooms was polka-dotted, another had a checked pattern, and yet another was supposed to be filled in with satin stitch.

  ‘What will you do in Boston?’ Masayo asked Mr. Nakano, as she held the embroidery needle tightly between her thumb and index finger and inserted it into the cloth.

  ‘Do you have the money to go to Boston in the first place?’ she pressed him for an answer.

  I have it, Mr. Nakano said, and then he started whistling. It was the tune of Rhapsody in Blue.

  ‘And why are you in such high spirits?’ Masayo said.

  Mr. Nakano stopped whistling. ‘But isn’t that an American song?’ he replied.

  ‘Is it a buying trip?’ Takeo asked. He must have come in the back door without my noticing him. The moment I heard Takeo’s voice, gooseflesh stood up on my arm. Lately this had been happening to me, almost as if it were a conditioned response.

  Right, right, Takeo, my boy. You are the only one who understands me! Mr. Nakano said in a lively voice. In response to being called ‘my boy,’ Takeo’s left knee seemed to twitch. Neither Takeo nor I were much good at making conversation, but our bodies were oddly sensitive. Figuring at least we had this in common, I set about filling in the checked pattern on the mushroom.

  ‘Kurusu, you know, says he found a great little-known spot for Early American things,’ Mr. Nakano said to Masayo, who was bent over her embroidery and didn’t even look at him.

  ‘Kurusu, you mean that shady character?’ Masayo said a little later. She turned over the cloth, tied a knot in the thread, and snipped off the end with a pair of traditional Japanese scissors. I liked the way Masayo held those scissors. It was like she had a small woodland creature playing in her hand.

  ‘I’m telling you, he’s not shady,’ Mr. Nakano said, pressing the button on the right side of the register. The drawer popped out with a ka-ching.

  ‘Tell me, sis—when did you start making such artistic dolls?’ he asked as he got two 10,000-yen notes out of the register and slipped them straight into his pocket.

  ‘Since always,’ Masayo replied, indignant at first, then her features softened infinitesimally.

  ‘This time, you know, I was really impressed this time.’

  You can praise me all you like, nothing will come of it, Masayo said as she pulled two strands of thread from the six-stranded skein of embroidery floss. Nothing will come of it but . . . And with that, Masayo’s critique also trailed off. I know how to handle my sister, Mr. Nakano had once said. It’s easy, so easy. And I guess he was right—Masayo was easy to handle. However, that did not in any way mean that Masayo was an uncomplicated person.

  Masayo and I silently devoted ourselves to our embroidery for a while. Behind me, I was aware of Takeo getting ready to leave. Once I became aware of Takeo’s presence, it felt as though there was a faint electric current running from him to me, and whatever part of my body that was facing him rippled like a shock. The moment Takeo opened the back door on his way out, it seemed as if the center of my back were being yanked with a thread, and when he closed the door, just like that, the line was disconnected with a snap.

  ‘Hm . . . enough already!’ I said. I set the embroidery linen on my lap and gave myself a good stretch. Hm . . . enough already! Masayo said. She sort of mimicked my tone.

  Please stop, I said, and Masayo laughed. But, I was just about to say, Hm . . . enough already, too! Masayo said, pouting her lips. I mean, really—enough already with this world! I said, now imitating her by pouting my lips. Ha ha ha, Mr. Nakano gave a hollow-sounding laugh.

  ‘Oh, my dear, you’re still here,’ Masayo said.

  ‘I’m going, I’m on my way, to Boston and wherever, I’ll soon be on my way,’ Mr. Nakano said in a strange, high-pitched voice, and he left.

  ‘That kid, he’s got another woman,’ Masayo said, as if she had been waiting to hear the sound of the engine through the back door to be certain Mr. Nakano had really gone.

  ‘What? You mean, Kurusu is a woman?’ I said with surprise.

  Masayo shook her head. ‘That’s not what I mean. Kurusu is an old man! Apparently this one’s name is Rumiko. Sounds like the name of a hostess in a bar, but I hear she’s a friend of Sakiko’s. She recently opened up a small shop on her own—she’s in the same business,’ Masayo informed me under her breath.

  But, then, what about Sakiko? I said as I recalled Sakiko’s face. A face as beautiful as a mask floating in the water.

  ‘Does Sakiko know about it?’

  ‘I think she does.’

  ‘How awful!’

  ‘Haruo can be really stupid!’

  ‘This is incredibly stupid, though.’

  But it wasn’t from Haruo that I heard about it, Masayo went on. At least, he’s not that much of a fool.

  ‘Then how did you find out?’

  From Rumiko, Masayo explained, with a dark look. You see, what’s doubly stupid—well, if you add in his wife, I suppose it’s triply stupid, or however many times stupid—you see, when you’re racing horses side by side, you shouldn’t be stupid enough to get involved with a horse who’s likely to tell the other horse how the race finishes—that’s where Haruo has really gone wrong! Masayo said, all in one breath.

  Horses? I murmured.

  Masayo thrust her embroidery needle roughly through the cloth, her face aflame. She must really love her younger brother, I thought to myself.

  Just at that moment, I felt the strength drain out of me as the embroidery needle slipped from between my fingers. Without dropping to the floor, the needle dangled in mid-air, still attached by the thread through its eye.

  ‘That’s why the kid brought up the idea of going to Boston.’

  ‘That’s why?’

  ‘In order to get away.’

  ‘Away from Sakiko?’

  ‘No, from all the women.’

  I see, I replied. Masayo wore a somewhat triumphant look on her face.

  ‘Mr. Nakano is a lucky man, isn’t he?’ I said. Masayo made a little exclamation, raising both of her eyebrows. O
nce again I took up the needle that I had dropped and started to sew outline stitches for the border of a mushroom. A dark green mushroom. I recalled Sakiko’s face again. Her expression was dreamy, but with a touch of melancholy.

  I hate men, I thought as I swiftly embroidered the dark green mushroom.

  The following week there were many customers, and we were busy from morning until night. Busy for the Nakano shop might not mean the same thing as busy for the greengrocer down the street—we were probably only a fraction as busy—yet there wasn’t a single moment for Masayo or me to pick up our embroidery needles.

  ‘Mr. Nakano, when are you going to Boston?’ Takeo was asking.

  ‘You know what I mean? Depends on Kurusu,’ Mr. Nakano replied, having gone into the back room. Takeo looked as though his question had been sidestepped as he stood absent-mindedly near the front door. A young man came into the shop and bumped into Takeo. He was a first-time customer. He glanced at Takeo suspiciously.

  ‘Uh, here,’ the young man said as he placed the newspaper-wrapped package he had been carrying next to the register. It was about the size of a few smallish roasted potatoes bundled up.

  ‘Haruo!’ Masayo called out. Mr. Nakano appeared, plodding in from the back room.

  With a cigarette in his mouth, Mr. Nakano watched as the customer opened the package. His ashes fell on the floor. The young man paused for a moment, glancing at Mr. Nakano with distaste.

  ‘Is that celadon?’ Mr. Nakano asked, paying no heed to the customer’s gaze.

  ‘It’s Goryeo celadon,’ he corrected him.

  ‘Ah, excuse me,’ Mr. Nakano apologized frankly. The young man’s expression became more and more displeased.

  ‘There are shops other than mine that are better at dealing with ancient things like this,’ Mr. Nakano said as he gently picked up with one hand the delicate, grey-green porcelain bowl that the customer had brought in. He then set his still-lit cigarette in an ashtray.