Satoru nodded. “He’s my nephew,” he said, and the young man bowed his head once again.
Satoru heaped sashimi onto the platter that the young man had brought from the back. The fat guy stared for a moment at the retreating figure of Satoru’s nephew, but soon turned his full attention to his bar snacks.
Shortly after the fat guy left, the other patrons settled up too and the bar was suddenly empty. I could hear the sound of the young man running water in the back. Satoru took a small container from the refrigerator and placed what was inside on two small plates. He set one of the plates in front of me.
“My wife made this recipe, if you care to try it,” Satoru said, scooping up some of the other plateful of “his wife’s recipe” with his fingers and tossing it in his mouth. The “recipe” was konnyaku, which had been stewed with a stronger flavor than the way Satoru made it. This konnyaku was piquant with red pepper.
It’s good, I said to Satoru, who gave me a serious look and nodded, then scooped up another mouthful. Satoru flipped on the radio that he kept atop a shelf. The baseball game was over and the news was about to start. Advertisements blared one after another for cars and department stores and instant rice with green tea.
“So has Sensei been in here much lately?” I asked Satoru, trying to be as lackadaisical as I could.
“Well, you know,” Satoru nodded vaguely.
“That guy who was in here before, he said Sensei’d been here with a beautiful lady.” This time I was going for the pleasant, bantering gossip of a regular customer. I’m not actually sure how successful I was, though.
“Um, let’s see, I don’t really remember,” Satoru replied, keeping his head down.
Hmm, I murmured. Hmm, I see.
Both Satoru and I fell silent. On the radio, a reporter was expounding on a theory about a random serial killing spree in another prefecture.
“What kind of person…?” Satoru said.
“What is the world coming to?” I answered.
Satoru listened carefully to the rest of the report and then said, “People have been wondering the same thing for over a thousand years.”
Laughter from the young man in the back rang out softly. We could hear him chuckling for a moment but we couldn’t tell if he was laughing at what Satoru had said or at something completely unrelated. Could I please have my bill, I said, and Satoru tallied it up in pencil on a piece of paper. Satoru thanked me as I parted the curtain and headed outside, where the nighttime breeze braced against my cheeks. I shivered as I flung the door closed behind me. The wind carried a dampness that smelled like rain. A drop fell on my head. I quickened my pace and headed home.
IT RAINED FOR the next several days. The color of the young leaves on the trees suddenly intensified—when I looked out the window, everything was green. There was a cluster of still-young zelkova trees growing in front of my apartment. Their green leaves shone glossy and lustrous, battered by the rain. I got a phone call from Takashi Kojima on Tuesday.
“Do you want to go to the movies?” Kojima asked.
Sure, I replied, and I heard him sigh on the other end of the line.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m just nervous. I feel like I’m back in school,” Kojima said. “The first time I asked a girl on a date, well, I actually wrote out something like a flow chart of how the conversation might go.”
Did you make a flow chart today? I asked.
Kojima answered, “Oh, no,” in a serious tone. “But I will admit that I thought about it.”
We made plans to meet on Sunday in Yurakucho. Kojima seemed like a classic type. After the movie, we could get something to eat, he had said. By which he undoubtedly meant a fancy Western-style restaurant in Ginza. One of those great places that have been there forever and serve things like tongue stew or cream croquettes.
I thought I might get my hair cut before seeing Kojima, so I went out on Saturday afternoon. Perhaps because of the rain, there weren’t as many people out as usual. I walked through the shopping district, twirling my umbrella. How many years had it been that I’d lived in this neighborhood? After I left home, I lived in another part of the city but, like a salmon that returns to the stream of its birth, at some point I ended up back here, in the neighborhood where I grew up.
“Tsukiko.” I turned around when I heard my name and saw Sensei standing there. He had on black rain boots and was wearing a raincoat with the belt fastened neatly.
“It’s been a long time,” he said.
Yes, I replied. It’s been a long time.
“You left early, that time at the cherry blossom party.”
Yes, I said once more. But I came back again, I added in a quiet voice.
“After the party, I took Ms. Ishino to Satoru’s bar.”
He seemed not to have heard me say that I had come back again. Oh? You took her there? Isn’t that nice, I replied dispiritedly. Why was it that when I talked to Sensei I suddenly felt depressed and indignant and strangely sentimental? And I had never been one to wear my emotions on my sleeve.
“Ms. Ishino is quite a genial person, you know. Even Satoru warmed right up to her.”
Well, that’s Satoru’s job, to be nice to the customers, isn’t it? But I swallowed my words. Wouldn’t this seem to suggest that I was, in fact, feeling jealous toward Ms. Ishino? But that was not the case. I’d be damned if it was.
Sensei held his umbrella completely upright and started walking. I could sense from his gait the tacit but full expectation that I would follow after him. However, I did not, and stood rooted to the spot instead. Sensei walked a little way by himself without turning around.
“Well?” At last realizing he was alone, he turned in my direction and called out leisurely.
“Tsukiko, what’s the matter?”
No matter. I’m on my way to the hairdresser’s. I have a date tomorrow, I said, unable to help myself.
“A date? With a man?” Sensei asked with interest.
“That’s right.”
“Really?”
Sensei came back to where I was standing. He peered closely at my face.
“What sort of man is he, this man you’re going out with?”
“Does it really make a difference?”
“Yes, in fact, it does.”
Sensei held his umbrella at a slant. Drops of water trickled down the ribs along the top of the umbrella. Sensei’s shoulders got a little wet.
“Tsukiko,” Sensei spoke my name in an extremely serious voice, still staring at me.
“Wh-What is it?”
“Tsukiko,” Sensei repeated.
“Yes?”
“Let us go to the pachinko parlor.” Sensei’s tone was even more grave.
Now? I asked. Sensei nodded solemnly. Do let’s go, right this moment. If we do not go to the pachinko parlor, the world will surely fall apart, he seemed to imply.
Yes, I replied, disconcerted. Yes. Do let’s, uh, go to the pachinko parlor, then. I followed after Sensei as he went down a side street off the main shopping district.
Inside the pachinko parlor, a traditional naval march was playing. It was, however, a rather modern rendition. A bass guitar played over the soft sound of wind instruments. Sensei threaded his way between the rows of pachinko machines like he knew just where he was going. He stopped and stood in front of one machine, scrutinizing it carefully, and then moved on to the one next to it. The parlor was crowded. But I imagined it was just as crowded on rainy days as it was on windy days and on sunny days.
“Tsukiko, please choose a machine to your liking.” Sensei seemed to have decided upon which machine he was going to sit at. He took out his wallet from the pocket of his raincoat and withdrew a card. Slipping the card noiselessly into a contraption on the side of the machine, he got ¥1,000 worth of balls, and when the card was ejected, he put it away in his wallet.