“Ne, Grandma, it’s not as if you need looking after. I mean, you’re still walking around wearing heels.”
“Exactly! I plan to stay independent as long as possible,” said Mrs. Kobayashi. “I overhear those women at the bathhouse, the ones who live with their children. And I can guess what’s going on with Granny Asaki, even though she puts on a public face…It’s a secure life, to be sure. But secure doesn’t mean easy. Human nature being what it is, it’s best to think twice before putting yourself at someone else’s mercy.”
Sarah liked this about her grandmother: the worldliness that surfaced at unexpected times.
“I suppose moving out there is the smart thing to do,” continued Mrs. Kobayashi. “It’s not as if there’s any other…” She gave a little sigh.
“But you want to stay near Auntie Masako, don’t you.”
“Yes. I think…I think she’d like me to stay. I mean, she’s never asked me outright. But I want to be near her anyway.”
“But Granny might not die for a long time. She’s really healthy. She’ll probably live to be a hundred.”
“Yes, I know.”
Sarah imagined the women’s future: chance meetings in the open-air market, brief stolen moments over a bit of grilled eel or liver. She had been here long enough to see that for all their new closeness, there was little change in their day-to-day routine.
“It doesn’t seem like enough,” Sarah said. “You hardly even see each other, or talk, or anything. It just doesn’t seem fair.”
“It’s not fair,” said Mrs. Kobayashi. “But it’s enough.”
“Oh, Grandma.” Sarah felt a great sadness. “Why can’t you spend more time together? Those old boundaries can’t possibly matter now. You’re her mother.”
“I gave Granny-san my word. After she’s gone-”
“But what if you die first?” Sarah’s voice rose in spite of herself. “Granny’s had all those good years. You and Auntie didn’t have any. It’s not right.”
Mrs. Kobayashi shook her head stubbornly. “I don’t agree,” she said. “And I know your auntie feels the same way I do.” Sarah, sensing that gap of generation and culture between them, knew it was a lost cause.
“It’s like a love affair,” she marveled. “A sad, beautiful love affair.”
Her grandmother nodded. “Romance isn’t just between men and women,” she said. “It’s a state of mind, I suppose. It may be beautiful but it comes with pain. And sacrifice. Not just for yourself, but for others around you. I’ve often thought that being in love is bad for a family. It’s much less risky when people merely love. There’s a big difference, you know.”
Sarah sipped her tea, pondering this.
“I’ve been in love all my life,” said Mrs. Kobayashi.
“Your whole life?”
“My whole life. It’s the one part of me I always protected.”
Growing up, Sarah had thought of her grandmother’s charisma only as it related to her mother. With her mother gone, she could see her grandmother had a force of her own. It wasn’t the social magnetism of her mother. Nor was it the fetching femininity of her aunt Tama. Her grandmother’s charisma went deeper, somehow, than those surface attractions. She made people feel something of the magic and purity and passion that were still possible in this world.
“I admire you,” Sarah said impulsively. “I do. Not many people are brave enough to give up security for love.” Her vehemence made them both laugh. She felt her sadness lift, replaced by a girlish kind of optimism.
“Your mother, she had that quality too,” said Mrs. Kobayashi. “That’s why we got along.”
Sarah, remembering, nodded. From somewhere outside in the rainy afternoon, there came the muted pee-poh pee-poh of a passing ambulance.
“And you got a chance to experience it. But your auntie, she never had much opportunity for romance.”
“Not until now,” Sarah said.
“That’s right,” said her grandmother. “Not until now.”
chapter 44
After her tea, Sarah slipped her sock-clad feet into an old pair of geta and clopped over to the Asaki house. A drizzle made pinpricks of sound on her umbrella and on the surrounding garden foliage. She lingered in the lane, breathing in the smell of rain and leaves and wet wood.
Alerted by the sound of the garden gate rolling open, Mrs. Nishimura came to meet Sarah at the door. “Go right on up, Sarah-chan,” she said. “Granny’s waiting for you. I’ll bring up refreshments a little later.”
Sarah climbed the old-fashioned stairs, which were exceedingly steep and made her feel as if she were climbing a stepladder. She planted her hands firmly on the step above her-partly because there were no handrails, only wooden walls, and partly because her socks had no traction against the aged, slippery wood. Dangerous, she thought. But no one in this family, young or old, had ever had an accident.
Emerging from the dark stairway onto the landing, Sarah slid open the fusuma panel and found her great-aunt hunched over a kotatsu near the glass panels. All around her, strewn on the tatami floor, were drifts of persimmon leaves. Each year she collected them from the tree in the back garden, while they were still pliable enough to wipe clean with a moist cloth. This she did painstakingly over a period of weeks-she had little else to do-and when they dried out completely, she crumbled them in tins to use as medicinal tea throughout the year. “It’s excellent for a woman’s health,” she always said, though the tea was so bitter no one else would drink it.
“Sarah-chan!” Mrs. Asaki put down the leaf she was wiping. “Come in, come in!”
Reverently, Sarah stepped over the threshold. Nothing had changed since her childhood: the thick fusuma panels inlaid with green seaweed; the view from the balcony, now shrouded in mist; caged finches hanging in a corner. The shoji panels had been pushed aside and the spacious room pulsed with a white, watery light.
“Come, come,” cried the old woman gaily in her singsong accent. “Don’t mind the leaves, just step around. Come, sit down.” In old age she was hunchbacked, with a body as frail and insubstantial as a child’s. But her spirit was as game as ever. She still dyed her hair the old-fashioned way, using some kind of dried plant sold by Chinese herbalists.
Mrs. Asaki now lifted the edge of the kotatsu quilt for Sarah to slip under, as if holding open a door. Sarah acknowledged this with a smile and a half-bow of thanks, feeling a sudden rush of love for this old woman who had filled her earliest memories with nursery chants and games. “Granny,” she said. “I’m so happy to see you healthy and thriving each time I visit.”
“Tell her hello too,” Mrs. Asaki replied. “Tell her that when all this rain passes, I’d love to pay my respects to the altar.”
There had been several such moments lately, for Mrs. Asaki was losing her hearing. But she was a proud woman, too proud to say “What?” She faked her way with aplomb, and only occasional slips betrayed the effort with which she hid her infirmity. Sarah never let on that she knew. She merely spoke as little as possible, relying on smiles, nods, and comments that were easy to lip-read.
She reached for one of the albums lying on the kotatsu in preparation for her visit. Mrs. Asaki picked up her persimmon leaf and commenced wiping. They sat in companionable silence while the finches ruffled their feathers and pecked contentedly at their feed. Every so often Sarah slid the book toward her great-aunt and remarked, “So pretty!” or “Auntie was so cute!” Her great-aunt gave a pleased cackle and replied: “That was a high school field trip.” Or, “That was two years after I got married.”
Here was a photograph of Mrs. Asaki as a young woman: tall, unrecognizably beautiful, standing under a tree. She wore a white fur draped around her neck and down the side of her silk kimono. She had grown up in the rural outskirts of Kyoto, the daughter of a town mayor. Despite this unremarkable pedigree, she had married into a fine old family in the city on the strength of her looks. In this picture she was tilting her head demurely to the side, but her sloe-eyed gaze held that gleam that beautiful women have when they know they’re invincible.