Sensei and Ms. Ishino beckoned me for the umpteenth time. Right at that moment I happened to be facing in their direction as I tried to fix my windblown hair. I couldn’t help but catch Sensei’s gaze.
“Tsukiko, come over here with us,” Sensei said loudly. It was the same tone of voice that I recognized from the classroom in my high school days. His tone was different when we sat next to each other, drinking together. I turned my back to him, sulkily.
“You know, I had a bit of a crush on Ms. Ishino,” Kojima said blithely. His cheeks were now an even deeper shade of crimson.
“Yeah, Ms. Ishino was certainly popular,” I said, trying not to sound emotional.
“Ayuko was really crazy about her.”
“Yeah.”
“I guess that’s why I fell for her too.”
That was just like Kojima, to fall in line. I poured some saké into his cup. Kojima gave a little sigh and took a tiny sip.
“She’s as pretty as ever.”
“She is.” No emotion. Or so I tried to tell myself.
“It’s hard to believe she must be in her fifties.”
“You’re right.” Must not get emotional.
Sensei was engaged in a lively conversation with Ms. Ishino (of that I was sure, despite the fact that my back was turned to them). I no longer heard him calling my name. The sun was starting to set. There were numerous lanterns lit. The cherry blossom party grew merrier and merrier as here and there people were breaking into song.
“Do you want to go somewhere else for a drink?” Kojima asked.
Right next to us, a group of students who had graduated a few years before us started singing, “I used to run after rabbits on that mountain.”
Hmm, what do you think? I murmured. But the same moment one of the women’s voices rang out in a fine vibrato, and Kojima leaned forward, saying, What? I missed that.
What do you think? I repeated, loudly this time. He then pulled his face back and smiled.
“Now I remember, you always used to say things like that—‘What do you think?’ Or ‘I’m not sure…’ Was that right?”
“And then you say that with such conviction.”
You are convinced of your uncertainty! Kojima said amiably.
“Shall we go?” I said, drawing out the words.
“Let’s get out of here. Let’s get a drink somewhere else.”
It was completely dark, and the group beside us had finished singing the third verse of “My Hometown.” Every now and then, amid the cacophony, snippets of Sensei and Ms. Ishino’s conversation reached my ears. Sensei’s voice sounded somewhat more strident than when he spoke to me, while Ms. Ishino’s still had that familiar huskiness, although I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, only the interrogatives and inflections at the end of their sentences.
“Let’s go,” I said, standing up. I brushed the sand off the plastic sheet and carelessly crumpled it up while Kojima stared at me.
“Omachi, you’re a bit of a brute, huh?” he asked.
Yes, I am, I replied, and Kojima laughed again. He had a warmhearted laugh. I peered through the darkness in Sensei’s direction but I couldn’t see very well.
Let me have a go, Kojima said as he took the sheet from my hands and neatly folded it back up for me.
Where to? I asked as Kojima and I turned away from our places at the cherry blossom party and started down the stairs that led from the embankment to the street.
The Cherry Blossom Party, Part 2
TAKASHI KOJIMA TOOK me to a cozy little bar that was located on the underground level of a building.
“I didn’t know there was a bar like this so close to school,” I said, and Kojima nodded.
“Of course, I never came here when we were high school students,” he said earnestly. The bartender laughed at his comment. The bartender was a woman. Her hair, faintly flecked with gray, was smoothed back perfectly, and she wore a crisply ironed white shirt with a garçon-style black apron.
Kojima introduced her as Maeda, the owner of the bar, and as she set out a plate of edamame, she asked in a soft, low voice, “How many years has it been since you started coming here, Kojima?”
“Hmm, I came here a lot with Ayuko.”
“Ah, yes.”
That meant that he must have been a longtime regular. Because if he came here with Ayuko, then they must have been here before they had broken up, which meant that Kojima had been frequenting this bar for more than twenty years.
Kojima turned to me and asked, “Omachi, are you hungry?”
“I’m a little hungry,” I replied.
“Me too,” Kojima said.
“The food’s tasty here,” he added, taking a menu from Maeda.
I’ll let you decide, I said, and he turned his gaze to the menu.
Cheese omelet. Green salad. Smoked oysters. Kojima pointed at each of the items on the menu as he ordered them. Then Maeda carefully poured us each a glass of red wine from a bottle she had just meticulously uncorked.
Cheers, Kojima said, and in return I said, Cheers to you. Sensei flashed through my mind for an instant but I immediately chased his image away. Our glasses clinked. The wine had just the right heft and a subtle dusky aroma.
“That’s a nice wine,” I said.
Kojima turned to Maeda and said, “So she says.”
Maeda gave a slight bow of her head. “I’m just pleased you like it.”
Flustered, I bowed my head as well, and Kojima and Maeda both laughed.
“Really, Omachi, you haven’t changed a bit,” Kojima said, swirling the wine around in his glass and then tasting it. Maeda opened a silver refrigerator that had been built in under the counter and began to prepare the items that Kojima had ordered. I thought about asking about Ayuko—what she was doing these days, what kind of work she did—but since I didn’t really care to know, I decided against it. Kojima was still swirling his wine around.
“You know, lots of people do this—swirl their wine around—but I always feel kind of embarrassed when I see them do it.” I had been staring fixedly at his fingers as they swirled, and Kojima had followed my gaze from his hands to my face.
“Uh, no, that’s not what I was thinking,” I stammered, but in fact, I sort of was.
“Just humor me and try it yourself,” Kojima urged, looking me deep in the eyes.
“Really?” I said, swirling around the wine in my own glass. The aroma rose to my nostrils. I took a sip, and the wine tasted just the slightest bit different from before. As if there were no resistance. The flavor nestled right up, was perhaps a better way of putting it.
“What a difference,” I said, my eyes widening.
Kojima nodded vigorously. “See what I mean?”
“It’s amazing.”
I felt like I had entered into a strange time, sitting there next to Kojima, in a bar I’d never been to before, swirling wine around in my glass and savoring smoked oysters. Every so often, the thought of Sensei would flit across my mind, but each time, just as suddenly, it would then disappear. It wasn’t as though I had returned to my high school days, but neither did it feel like I was actually in the present—all I could say was that I had caught a fleeting moment at the counter of Bar Maeda. It seemed like we had ended up within a time that didn’t exist anywhere. The cheese omelet was warm and fluffy. The green salad was peppery. After we worked our way through the bottle of wine, Kojima ordered a vodka cocktail while I ordered a gin cocktail, and we were then surprised by how late it had become. I would have thought it had only just gotten dark out, but it was already past ten o’clock.
“Shall we go?” asked Kojima, who had grown somewhat taciturn.
“Yes, let’s,” I answered without thinking. Kojima had only barely mentioned the details of his breakup with Ayuko, and I couldn’t really remember what he had said. The ambience in the bar was no longer the crackling mood when they’ve just opened—by now the air was charged with a dense festivity. At some point, another bartender—a young man—had also appeared behind the counter, and the bar was humming with just the right level of activity. Kojima had apparently taken care of our bill without my noticing. I’ll pay my half, I said softly, but Kojima just shook his head gently, replying affably, “Don’t worry about it.”