Three weeks passed with me doing my best to forget the “Oh!” woman and the bizarre idea she somehow implanted in me that my grandmother was the one who sang beside her. Who lets such an idea in, with its forbidden and underlying sexuality, without also wanting to poke his eyes out? Oedipus, perhaps, but not me! So I got busy casting it out.
On a brighter note, I answered Emi in a way that seemed to satisfy her, by saying that what I loved was doing things together, the two of us, like exercising and writing down vocabulary words - even having her show up, unannounced, at my door. She did that often after she got my reply, chatting away about who knows what - a television show, her favorite sumo wrestler, whether or not a certain entertainer was Korean? - finally asking if I still had her note. When I opened my novel to show it to her, pressed between the pages, she said I could keep it, though I think her first intention was to throw it away.
Then one day, two cards plus a thick manila envelope appeared in my cubby at school. One of the cards invited me to Kaori’s doll exhibition, the other to the school’s annual firefly viewing weekend. I was about to open the envelope when Bill came in.
“Annual firefly viewing?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said, “that means we do it every year.”
Bill was on his own, Melinda having left for her grandfather’s funeral in New Orleans.
“Old Mr. Sugiyama has a farmhouse way out in the country,” he said. “We go there on Saturday, eat and drink, watch the fireflies that night, then come home the next day. Do that a couple times and you know you’re in Japan. Talk about your esoteric. It makes cherry blossom viewing seem like a contact sport.”
Bill and I had stayed wary of each other since our first encounter, but we’d gone to Mountain Cabin the night before, to support Melinda who was deeply shaken about her grandfather. And now we were friendly enough that when he saw my other invitation he took it.
“Kaori’s exhibition?” he said. “Why didn’t I get an invitation? Does it say plus one?”
It was time for class - Melinda’s had been cancelled for the night - so I raised my eyebrows at him, put the invitations and the manila envelope back in my cubby, and went to talk about the nature of luck with my Mitsubishi students. Since abandoning Ken down at Mississippi State, at the end of each class we decided on a topic for the next one, and “the nature of luck” was tonight’s. When suggesting it, Mr. Sato said that of everything in the world luck was the most enigmatic, for people knew it existed, felt it was bestowed on some and not on others, yet no one knew how. After parsing the meaning of “enigmatic” and “bestowed,” his classmates agreed with Mr. Sato. Who knew how good luck or bad luck came about, sometimes only once, sometimes for a lifetime? Was God playing favorites or was it accidental? Either way, we had learned that it should not be sneezed at in an earlier class.
Thus far, our topics had been “The Beauty of Imperfection” - did big feet on an otherwise perfectly proportioned human body enhance its beauty or detract from it? - and “Is Reincarnation Real?” with me coming close to mentioning the “Oh!” woman’s ghostly singing partner.
Our subjects were complex but we kept our discussions simple, and they seemed to be going well. When I walked into class, however, I was surprised and disappointed to find that Ichikawa Yuki wasn’t there. I showed my surprise, but managed to cover my disappointment by asking whether it was our bad luck that she wasn’t there to give us her opinions, or her good luck that she didn’t have to hear ours.
Mr. Nomura insisted it was our bad luck, because Ichikawa Yuki’s opinions were valued by everyone, but others weren’t having it, especially Mr. Sato.
“Ichikawa Yuki’s opinions are often silly,” he said. “And she has too many of them.”
“Her opinions are not silly!” said Miss Arai, but Mr. Sato only smiled.
“Of course they are,” he said. “Plus, she often takes men to task simply because of our gender. She doesn’t like admitting our superiority of thought.”
That nearly caused Miss Arai to run across the room and strike him with her “Ken” book. “Inferiority, you mean!” she sputtered, but her lack of English fluency forced her to stop.
Mr. Sato had been the class instigator in other conversations, too. I didn’t exactly like him, but his value in making my class go well was undeniable.
“It is your good luck that Ichikawa Yuki isn’t here to hear your insults, Mr. Sato,” said Mr. Nomura. “It is also our bad luck, for I don’t think you would cast them in her presence, thus denying her the evidence we have just seen, that you are a bully and an ignoramus.”
Mr. Nomura’s voice was calm, but his neck bulged out and his hands shook, while Mr. Sato chortled. “I cannot be a bully if all I’m doing is pointing out the obvious,” he said. “And how can I be an ignoramus when I have a Ph.D. from Todai?”
“Fool then,” said Mr. Nomura.
“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit,” Mr. Sato said.
The two men sallied back and forth for another five minutes, and for another forty-five Mr. Nomura’s classmates took over, battling Mr. Sato to a draw.
When class ended, Mr. Nomura waited until I completed my nightly ritual of seeing everyone off, then he asked to have a word with me outside. Since my Takashimaya class had also been canceled, due to their company’s annual staff appreciation party, I could hardly refuse, though I feared he would say that if I allowed Mr. Sato to continue, he would drop out. As we walked into the evening, however, me carrying my two invitations and that thick manila envelope, he said only that he was sad, and asked if we could get a drink before he told me why.
Fine, I thought, but I’m not paying for it.
We walked through an alley and into a bar called Crazy Horse, its logo an American Indian with a tomahawk. When Mr. Nomura said, “I’m unlucky in love, Cornelius,” I began to understand that Mr. Sato’s insults were the farthest things from his mind.
“I’m unlucky in love, but I did everything correctly. I involved my parents, her parents, a nakodo to carry out the formal negotiations. I gave the nakodo a detailed medical history so her family would know about my good health and my life in Hitachi before I joined Mitsubishi.”
Our beers came fast since the place was empty. Mr. Nomura drained his and called for more, his elbows in the beer he already spilled. I hadn’t yet tasted mine, for I wanted to say what I said next without any sadness in my voice. “You fell in love with Ichikawa Yuki at work, then tried to propose to her through a matchmaker?”
“At work and in your class. We had coffee with the matchmaker, and though I talked too much, unlike at work where she speaks normally, the entire time Ichikawa Yuki said only ‘um’ and ‘eh,’ except for when she asked how I liked your class and told me how much she loved it.”
“She said she loved my class?”
Sadness I could repress, but not a smile.
“Last night I grew tired of waiting for the matchmaker, so I called her directly at her dormitory. Miss Arai answered the phone, which I guess is somewhere down an outside hallway. She said that Ichikawa Yuki was in, and went to get her. After waiting for five minutes I shifted the telephone to my left ear, then back to my right after five minutes more. I counted ten such shifts before I put the phone back in its cradle.”
“You waited for nearly an hour? So that’s why she wasn’t in class tonight. It really is your bad luck, Mr. Nomura.”
This time I made sure that he couldn’t see an opposite emotion on my face.
“Not only was she not in class tonight, but she will never come again,” he said. “Ichikawa Yuki quit her job at Mitsubishi and now I must quit, too, because of the shame I have caused. You heard Mr. Sato? Well, at work he is that way, too, whenever he gets the opportunity.”
I finished my beer and ordered another one. All of this was terrible news, but I kept talking as if he were a friend in need of advice. “But your behavior wasn’t shameful. Why not wait? Mr. Sato will get interested in tormenting someone else.”
He looked up at me out of a bent down head. “I could live with ten thousand Mr. Satos, but she believes I shamed us both.”
“Let me get this straight. You let Ichikawa Yuki know that you cared for her in an acceptable way. You contacted her parents, had coffee with her and a go-between. When you called her dormitory Miss Arai answered and went to get her. She didn’t come to the phone, and now both of you are quitting your jobs?”
It was like the Cliff Notes for a Japanese version of Romeo and Juliet, for the fundamental enigma of Japan.
“Yes. I showed no strength of character. I was drunk when I called. I should have relied on the go-between. Impatience is not a virtue. I should have waited until the cows came home.”
Ah, that Bill… “Could Miss Arai tell you were drunk from when you called?” I asked.
“She could not. I was very polite to Miss Arai.”
“But if all this happened last night, how do you know she quit her job? Just because she didn’t go to work today or come to class tonight?”
He hadn’t told me that she didn’t go to work, but I knew I was right.
“I know it because when I went to the executive dining room at lunchtime, to apologize for the call and withdraw my marriage proposal, Miss Arai told me that Ichikawa Yuki was moving back to Ichikawa, just as her name has always dictated she would do one day.”
“So she hasn’t quit her job or gone home yet?”
We both heard the urgency in my voice.
“Did Miss Arai speak to you again? Did she tell you any more before class tonight?” I asked.
“No, Miss Arai was embarrassed by my humiliation. And Miss Arai is not a person who talks out of school.”
“Miss Arai doesn’t gossip?”
“Yes, she does not.”
“Then there’s still time to talk her out of quitting and going home. And you shouldn’t quit either, Mr. Nomura. You should get on with your life and let Ichikawa Yuki get on with hers…”
I paused before adding, “What if I talk to her? If she shows up at work tomorrow I’ll go there, and if she doesn’t I’ll go to her dormitory. All you have to do is call and let me know where she is.”
If that seemed as disingenuous to him as, in fact, it was, he was kind enough not to show it.
He simply held up his third glass of beer and said in the saddest of voices, “Okay, Cornelius, why not?”
*****
Emi rattled my door at six the next morning, then waited while I got into a T-shirt and sweatpants. She’d asked her parents for sweatpants when she first saw mine, but so far they hadn’t found any. So I gave Melinda ten dollars when we saw her off at Mountain Cabin, asking her to bring Emi some when she returned from her grandfather’s funeral.
When I opened my door and went out to get my sneakers, Emi was shadowboxing in the hallway, bobbing and weaving, beating her imaginary opponent with uppercuts and jabs. My inclusion in her family’s exercises, had been her idea - she wanted me fit enough to marry when she got old enough - but I’d been welcomed by everyone.
Before she knocked, Emi’s father had been on my mind, for the manila envelope I received contained the manuscript of the next few volumes of his “Ken” books, with a note asking me to proofread them. And I’d stayed up late into the night getting started. My students would be interested to know that Ken was losing some of his Japanese optimism, that his American life was wearing him down. In the first new volume he ventured off around the South to be labelled “four-eyes” in Memphis, pushed out of a bus line in Birmingham, and called a “Jap” in Jackson. Without explanation, Mr. Sugiyama included “four-eyes” and “Jap” among the idioms listed at the end of the volume, defining one as “a person who wears glasses,” and the other as, “short for ‘Japanese.”
With five of us in it, the Sugiyama’s yard was so full that I had to put my mat against its back fence, affording me a view of Fritz’s window but not much else. As before, Fritz stared out of it, his elbows on its sill, his palms supporting his head. The person nearest me, Emi’s mother, Etsuko, asked, “Do you think we should invite him to join us?” without looking at Fritz or me. I thought she wanted me to say no, but Emi saw him, too, and shouted, “Yodelayhee, Fritz. Come on down!”
Fritz leaned farther out of his window, his face like Scrooge’s on Christmas morning.
“Scrunch over, Mama,” Emi said, when Fritz ducked back into his room. So Etsuko came closer to me until our legs touched from hip to ankle. It was the first intimate physical contact I’d had with a woman since I left England, if you didn’t count the “Oh!” woman’s terrible hand, and the softness of it, the electricity of skin against skin, nearly made me cry out. Natasha once told me that touch led to feeling and feeling led to love, that we bring love up through the senses, not the other way around. I hadn’t understood her then, but I did now.
Fritz got to us in no time, to squeeze in between Etsuko and me, letting his hairy leg replace her soft one. I felt like I had been pushed out of line in Birmingham, Alabama. Still, I managed to reach for the sky on Emi’s grandpa’s orders, up on my toes, down to touch the ground, up again then down into deep knee bends. We all did two sets of ten, followed by two sets of pushups and sit-ups and jumping jacks. And then we ran in place for twenty minutes.
When we finished, everyone exhausted, Emi’s dad went in to bring out green tea and sembei, Emi and her mother sat on a narrow wooden structure that passed as their back porch, while Fritz and I stayed where we were.
In the beginning, though I’d thought she was pretty, I hadn’t noticed how deeply beautiful Etsuko was. I had simply assigned her the roll of the second sister from my novel, that of a wife and a mother and a person who got things done. Now, however, watching her there with Emi, her ankles surrounded by socks folded precisely as Emi’s were, I saw what Natasha would have called the furtive nature of her beauty, for she was simply beautiful without scale. After my experience with the “Oh!” woman I had stopped playing the game of trying to make my novel come to life, yet it occurred to me that, just like with Emi’s unparalleled mother, my novel’s “Sachiko” had a loyal husband and daughter, so might I still allow myself a bit of magical thinking, while refusing to consider that the “Oh!” woman truly might have been singing alone?
While I was having these thoughts the Sugiyama’s phone rang. It was Mr. Nomura calling. Sunny Hive had no phone, so the Sugiyamas were kind enough to take everyone’s calls. It was a bit like having a phone down the hall, as at the dormitory where Ichikawa Yuki lived.
When Etsuko called me, however, I went to answer it right away.
Endnotes…
Does the opening paragraph of this episode solve the problem I caused in Episode 8 when I let the “Oh!” woman tell Cornelius (much to my surprise) that she sang the Mahler piece alone? I hope it does, but does it? Please let me know.
“Yukiko”, in the novel Cornelius is reading says only “eh” and “um” when meeting her prospective husbands, too. One of her suitors also calls her at home and waits for nearly an hour for her to come to the phone before hanging up in anger. My hope is that these parallels will work, whether my readers know the other text or not, without me having to stop to explain it during the course of the drama.
You may have noticed that when Etsuko’s body touches Cornelius’s during morning exercises, it represents his fourth titillation, his fourth momentary love. First the “Oh!” woman when she’s singing from her window in Episode 1; then Ichikawa Yuki in her various fabulous kimonos; then Kaori, the maker of sexy dolls; and now Emi’s mother, Etsuko, whose beauty, he notes, is “quite simply without scale.” My goal here is to stage these occurrences without making Cornelius seem like some fickle butterfly, flitting from one pretty flower to the next. His “crushes”, as we used to call them, must be sincere, his search for love authentic.
I'm not sure if the detail about Yukiko saying "oh" and "um" was in your first posting or if you went back amd added it later as I'm playing catch up here, but I caught it and made the connection between Yukiko and Yuki's behavior on the date with the matchmaker (not to mention the use of a matchmaker as in the novel) right away.
I love how grandpa is leading an exhausting exercise regiment. My experience with elderly Japaneae people leading 6 am exercise programs growing up solely consisted of "Rajio Taisou" (Radio Exercise) a warm up of an exercise regiment and nothing to really do more than warm you up for the day. It's an old (not sure how old) National exercise program in Japan. Children are often forced to join the elders of society in this ritual rite of passage early in the mornings during summer vacation as I was made to.
The Fourth Titillation: Let us hope that it's Etsuko who next says, "Okay, Cornelius, why not?"