My face, on the other hand, was pretty average. I had a round, low nose that took after my grandfather’s. My lips, which were like my grandmother’s, were plump, but thanks in part to the paleness of my skin, the overall impression was bland, so that sometimes even I looked in the mirror and was reminded of a blank postcard. What was more, my face lacked cohesion, because the right eyelid had one fold and the left had two. I’d had a boyfriend or two who’d told me they liked the way I looked, so I wasn’t unhappy with my face, but now that I was married and had fewer reasons to put on makeup, my likeness to a blank postcard was perhaps more noticeable.
I couldn’t imagine anyone thinking we resembled each other. So why had I felt that we did?
Out of nowhere, my husband said he wanted to go on a short vacation.
That day, my brother, Senta, had come around after work to repair the refrigerator he was going to post on an online auction for us. I had been watching him as he put down some sheets of newspaper, laid out the tools he’d brought, and tackled the task.
I turned toward my husband in the living room, surprised. “Where’s this coming from?”
“I mean, we haven’t gotten away in a while.” My husband looked totally relaxed, highball in hand. We’d talked about ordering in some pizzas once there was some progress on the repair, but he’d gone ahead and started drinking “to tide him over.” He had no compunction about proclaiming that he had no interest in doing anything as tedious as rewiring household appliances. I guess he’d embraced his nature as the youngest of his siblings, because he showed no hesitation in taking advantage of kindness, even if it came from his younger brother-in-law.
Senta didn’t help matters. He could have stood up for himself more, but there was something about him that almost volunteered for the position of junior partner. It went so far that, because my husband would call on him for every little thing, my brother and I saw a lot more of each other now than we had before I was married.
“San,” my husband said from the couch, “do you remember Uwano? I brought him here once.”
“The one who looks like a monkey? He put up that bookcase for us.”
A few months after we’d been married, my husband had gotten it into his head that he wanted rows of shelves that went all the way up to the ceiling, and he had roped in his coworker to help. I guess he hadn’t yet felt comfortable enough then to ask Senta.
“That’s the one. Well, he says he just bought himself a brand-new camper van.”
“He went for it, huh?”
“Yeah. But he’s too busy to take it out.”
“Right.”
“So, you know, he says it’s a pity to leave it lying around, and he just wants someone to enjoy it.”
“Who’s going to do that?”
“Me.”
“Uwano doesn’t want to drive it himself?”
“He’s too busy. That’s why we decided I should take it out instead. Weren’t you listening to a word I said?”
“Can just anyone drive a camper van?”
“I guess so,” my husband said.
“Senta, do you know if that’s true?” I asked.
“I think all you need is a regular driver’s license,” he answered, working a fine brush that looked like a nail polish applicator. After multiple coats, the specialized adhesive would build up so that the repair would be undetectable to the untrained eye.
Last week, when I’d checked over the refrigerator to see whether we’d be able to sell it, I’d discovered two cracks in the seal around the door. Senta had told me they were fixable, so I’d asked him to do it. Now, seeing the way he knowledgeably laid out the professional-looking tools for the job, I couldn’t help but think, as his older sister, that he should be training as some kind of craftsman instead of trying to make it as a film director.
“How many people can it take?”
“It’s a six-seater. It even has a toilet and a shower,” my husband said proudly, as though the van were his own. “So I was thinking, if you like, Senta, why don’t you and Hakone come along too? There’s enough space.”
“Wow—really? I’ll just check with Hakone,” Senta said.
It was obvious he was trying to rope in Senta to take care of the parts of camping he didn’t want to bother with.
“Great! I think we should head for the mountains, you know?”
“Are you thinking you’d bring the grill?”
“Of course. We’ll put up hammocks, take it easy. Have some beers.”
Once they’d enthusiastically painted this manly picture, Senta said he’d finished covering the cracks in white paint and was going to wait for it to dry. We ordered pizza.
“I don’t know why, but I’ve been feeling drawn to the mountains lately. To nature,” said my husband, who’d been rooted to the couch the entire time. “Just all of a sudden. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
I recalled that the last time we’d been in a bookstore, he had in fact glanced through a field guide to wild plants.
“Sounds like you’ve been working too hard,” Senta said.
“Right. Could be.”
“Have you been putting in overtime?”
“Overtime? Yeah, I have.” My husband was licking cheese off his fingers while nodding.
“What is it you want to do in the mountains?” Senta asked, sipping his cola.
“I really don’t want to do anything. Just relax, zone out.”
“Isn’t it something?” I said, reaching for a slice of the quattro formaggi. “No one would guess this was the same guy who couldn’t make enough fun of outdoorsy people just a little while ago.”
“Maybe it’s a midlife thing. Remind me how old you are now?”
“How old am I now again?” My husband turned his bulging eyes toward me.
“Why don’t you know your own age?”
“I can’t be bothered to work it out every time. This is why you need to remember things like this for me.” Having said everything he wanted to say, and apparently eaten his fill, my husband went off to take a bath.
Senta polished off the remaining pizza, including what my husband had left, and went back to work on the refrigerator. I halfheartedly started moving the plates to the dishwasher.
It was the beginning of July.
I’d thought this would finally mean the end of the rainy season, but the humidity only rose, joining forces with the heat, and the weather became even more uncomfortable.
Unusually, my husband, who’d planned to go in to work over the weekend, said he had canceled and invited me to go out for food.
We were on our way back from a local lunch place, where we’d eaten a plate of soba noodles with grated daikon and yam, and a chicken-omelette rice bowl. Three things happened more or less at the same time. My husband, who’d been walking swiftly ahead, said, “Oh,” and stopped short; a woman who’d been crouched down by a utility pole said, “Why!” and stood up; and, from my vantage point behind the two of them, I had a nasty premonition. I suspected my husband had been caught trying to spit out phlegm by the side of the road, as he had a habit of doing. I nervously approached them, and saw the woman was holding a dustpan and a brush. Her expression was thunderous, beyond what I’d expected, and I was considering walking past as though I had nothing to do with the situation when my husband, turning around, appealed to me for help. “San, can’t you do something?”
“What happened?”
“Just get over here.”
Hesitantly, I joined him and the woman, who was watching him sharply from behind her glasses. She looked about halfway between me and my mother in age.
“This woman,” said my husband helplessly, still standing right in front of her, “even though I’ve explained that I didn’t, she insists that I looked right at her and spat on the ground. You can set her straight, right? Tell her I’d never do something like that?”