Plum Wine: A Novel (Library of American Fiction) Read online

  “Barbara-san was quite devoted to Nakamoto, however,” Miss Ota said. “I think she will cherish these few personal items.”

  “Thank you, yes I will, very much. Excuse me.” She took the kimono from Mrs. Ueda's arm. “I'll let you get to your bath, Miss Ota.” With a nod to Mrs. Ueda, she slipped past the two women and went quickly across the hall.

  She closed the apartment door behind her, then stood listening until she heard Mrs. Ueda leave. Her footsteps sounded wistful, going down the steps. It was selfish of her to hoard all these things.

  In the bedroom, she took Ume's clothes out of the package. She picked up one of the ribbons—brilliant red with a deep cross-grain— and ran it through her fingers; she could imagine Michi gently brushing her daughter's hair. She put the ribbon back on the pile. There was nothing she could part with.

  She held the nightgown against her. It came only to her waist. Ume must have been very young when it was made; maybe it was something like a christening gown. She traced the plum blossom embroidery with one finger. Ume meant plum. Michi-san must have named her for the trees she'd loved. Maybe Ume's death had caused her to lose all hope.

  Barbara carefully refolded the gown. The silence was oppressive.

  She poured a glass of wine from the most recent bottle and took a long swallow. From the wine chest she took an unopened bottle— 1939, the year she'd been born—broke the seal on the bottle, and unrolled the paper. The page bristled with rows of characters. Michi had composed this just about the time Barbara's mother was pregnant with her—or perhaps she'd already given birth. An excruciating twenty-hour labor, her mother had often told her.

  A couple of years later her mother had lost a baby, a stillborn boy. Her mother never talked about it but her father had told her, “Your mother was never the same after that. All the fun seemed to go out of her.”

  She unrolled the 1965 paper and studied it closely. Maybe Ume was mentioned on this page, since she had died during the year. Tears filled her eyes, bringing the calligraphy into sharper focus, for a moment creating the illusion that she could read it herself, if she tried hard enough.

  She finished the cup of wine and poured another. If Michi and her mother had met, Michi would have told her how Barbara was adjusting here. “I know you must worry,” Michi might have said, “I had a daughter myself.”

  5

  The campus festival was held in early February instead of the traditional time, in mid-fall; Miss Fujizawa had been away in October, chairing a national conference on women's rights. In spite of the following week's exams, the students had transformed the campus. Banners and kites hung from the buildings and there were stalls in the courtyards where the girls offered roast chestnuts, yakitori, and cups of tea.

  Barbara and her advisees in the English Club were to perform their scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream in the auditorium. Although Barbara was directing the play, Mr. Doi had chosen it, ordering, without consulting her, paperback copies of the version he'd edited. They'd had a tense little conversation about it in the mailroom. “An unusual time of year for A Midsummer Night's Dream,” she said. Her students had wanted to do Ibsen's A Doll's House. “Actually we have some disunity inside the play regarding time,” Mr. Doi said. “Does it take place in May or midsummer?” She confessed she didn't know. “You see! Moreover, we Japanese hang a winter scroll in summer and vice-a-versa. Contrast is part of our aesthetic.”

  In the dressing room Barbara changed into her Titania costume, a musty white wedding dress, then took her place on the stage, lying beneath a stylized Japanese pine the students had made of cardboard. Contrast was certainly going to be part of this performance, she thought. The set looked more Noh than Elizabethan.

  The stagehands were having some trouble with the curtain. Mr. Doi, in his King Oberon get-up of red bathrobe and glittery paper crown, worked frantically on the pulleys. The hum of voices beyond the curtain grew more pronounced. Barbara hoped Miss Fujizawa wasn't in the audience. She'd intimated that there were some prestigious guests expected for the student festival. Maybe—given her opinion of Barbara—she was touring them through the calligraphy and tea ceremony exhibits instead.

  Rie stood beside Barbara, ready to rush forward for her opening monologue. She was an overweight but enthusiastic Puck in her turned-up shoes, green fringed tunic, and pointed cap. A bizarre metamorphosis, Barbara reflected, given Rie's animosity to Western culture. “Only Christians of the West are afflicted with original sin,” she had written in her sketchy final paper. “In Japan we have no sin.”

  Finally the curtain groaned upward and shuddered to a stop. Rie skipped to the front of the stage. With a flourish of her arms and a deep bow, she said, “Welcome to this effort by the English Club. I, Puck, will do some summary of the midsummer mischief. Just recently our King Oberon has become angry at his Queen Titania because she was jealous of his flirting with other girls. To teach her a lesson, he has asked me, naughty Puck, to sprinkle confusion juice in her eyes.”

  Rie skipped heavily across the stage and bent over her, breathing hard. She straightened and said in a loud stage whisper, “Now Titania will love the next creature she looks upon. By coincidence, the rustic man named Bottom has recently been turned into an ass.”

  There was laughter as Hiroko, in wooden geta clogs, a Japanese workman's outfit, and the donkey ears, came onto the stage and began to sing.

  Barbara sat up and stretched. “What angel wakes me from my flowery bed?” She gasped and scrambled up when she saw Bottom; the audience howled as she pursued him around the stage.

  “We will now skip some part,” Rie said, “and the rustics will perform their play.”

  Barbara returned to her tree, for an improvised second sleep. The rustics, with Hiroko/Bottom as Pyramus, Chieko as Thisbe, and Sumi as the wall, began to act out the play of the ill-fated lovers in comic pantomime—the actual lines being difficult to deliver, and comprehend, in English. Barbara shut her eyes, listening to the movements on stage and to the ripples of laughter from the audience as Sumi opened her fingers as a chink for the lovers to talk through, and the lion bounded on and off the stage. The suicides were to be performed as ritualistic disembowelment, with a cardboard dagger and exaggerated, Kabuki-like gestures. That had been Rie's idea; the audience would understand this form of suicide, she insisted. Barbara hadn't wanted to argue with Rie. But now as she lay with her eyes clamped shut, she thought of Michi's empty pill bottle, her small dark face in the coffin, the folded glasses.

  There was a groan and thud, then uneasy laughter. Another death was coming. She put her hands over her ears, and the laughter swelled. She must be contributing to the comic effect.

  “You wake too soon, Queen,” Mr. Doi shouted. “Where is your cue?” He reached down to tap her forehead with his wand. “My Titania—think no more of this night's accidents than the vexation of a dream.” He stared at her a moment. “Your ass,” he whispered.

  “What? Oh—” She turned to the audience. “Methought I was enamoured of an ass.”

  “There lies your love.” Mr. Doi pointed at Bottom.

  Hiroko stood, rubbing her eyes. “The eye of man,” she began, “hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. This I will call Bottom's dream”—she held out her arms in a dramatic gesture—“because it has no bottom.”

  “There ends our play!” Mr. Doi shouted. The audience began to applaud.

  “Not yet!” Barbara said. “Here comes Puck!” She waved Rie back on, but the curtain was already descending.

  The stagehands, realizing their mistake, lifted the curtain part way. Barbara gestured for them to raise it further, and laughing, took Rie's and Mr. Doi's hands to bow for the applause. “You never know what mischief will occur, Mr. Doi,” she said, “on a midsummer night on a winter afternoon, which is actually the beginning of spring in Japan.”

  Before he could respond, Barbara hurried to the
dressing room. It was over. And she hadn't seen Miss Fujizawa in the front row.

  After changing out of the wedding gown, she went with Junko and Sumi to see the other clubs“ demonstrations. They toured the display of flower arrangements, then went to stand outside the door of the debate room.

  Rich McCann, Barbara's only American colleague at Kodaira, was leading a discussion on the Vietnam War. He had asked Barbara to stop by later because he might “need reinforcements.” Rie had already joined the Kodaira College debate club members seated on the platform, but she and the other girls sat silently while boys from their brother school, Keio University, squared off with Mr. McCann.

  The boys were clustered in the front row. One of them challenged the United States“ use of chemicals to destroy crops in North Vietnam. How could this be justified?

  Mr. McCann glanced toward Barbara; she gave a little wave and backed away.

  Junko and Sumi maintained a tactful silence as they continued down the hall. Once they'd asked her what she thought about the war; she had said she wasn't sure. Barbara thought of what Hiroko had said about Michi's opposition; she should ask Hiroko exactly what Michi's views were.

  They went into the calligraphy room, lingering before each scroll. “Did Nakamoto sensei make any of these?” Barbara asked.

  “No, only students,” Junko said.

  “I wish I could read them.”

  “In shodo,” Junko continued, “the characters may be changed according to the artist's intention, so a calligraphy scroll is not always easy to read, even for a Japanese person. You could make calligraphy, too, Sensei.”

  “But I don't know the characters yet.”

  “You could learn, one at each time. In calligraphy, innocence and desire are most important.”

  There was a line outside the door of the tea ceremony room, but the students insisted that Barbara go in with the next group.

  She was taken to the place of honor, on the right of the women performing the ceremony. One of them was stern and regal, with aprominent mole on one cheekbone. The other woman, white haired, was wiping the rim of a tea bowl with a cloth. Her head was cocked at a strange angle; she was blind, Barbara realized. These were the women she had seen at Michi-san's funeral. Beside her was a man wearing a short kimono jacket, loose workmen's pants and a white cloth tied around his head. When he turned, she recognized him, the dark, steady eyes that looked right at her; he was the son of one of the women. She smiled self-consciously, picked up her tea bowl and sipped from it. She did not look at him again during the ceremony. Afterwards, he was waiting for her in the hall.

  “Please forgive me to introduce myself,” he said. “I am Seiji Okada. Your play was very fine.”

  “Oh . . . you saw it?” They were standing in the middle of the hall, people flowing by them in both directions. “There were so many errors—a comedy of errors.”

  “I enjoyed very much. You were very excellent.” His face was composed, serious; he didn't seem anxious like most Japanese men, talking to her.

  “My name is Barbara Jefferson. I saw you at Michi Nakamoto's funeral, with your . . . aren't they your mother and your aunt?”

  “Yes.” He nodded.

  She wanted to ask which one was his mother, the blind or sighted woman. “Nakamoto sensei was my friend,” she said. “I understand she was your teacher?”

  “Yes, at one time. I have known her many years.”

  “I miss her so much. She was the only person here I could really talk to—in a personal way, I mean.”

  “I am helping some students with raku yaki. You know this form of pottery?”

  “Yes, though I've never seen it made.”

  “Perhaps you will come see the demonstration.”

  “I'd love to—where is it?”

  “You know athletic playing field? It is there.” He bowed, then walked quickly down the hall. His shaggy hair hung over the collar of his kimono jacket; he smoothed it back with both hands and glanced out the side window. She could tell he wanted to look back at her. She felt herself smiling.

  Junko and Sumi were standing nearby, whispering and eyeing her.

  “Which exhibit have you enjoyed most?” Junko said.

  “They're all fascinating.”

  “Have you attended tea ceremony before?” Sumi asked, giving Junko a sideways, dimpled smile.

  “No, but I've always wanted to—that was something my mother really enjoyed when she was in Japan in the 1930s.”

  “I think she must be very venturesome,” Junko said. “I admire her.”

  The girls invited her to lunch, but Barbara told them she needed to go to her apartment. She combed her hair and put on fresh lipstick, then took the back path to the playing field, so the students would be less likely to see her.

  The college workmen were tending a huge bonfire in the middle of the field; there was to be singing and folk dancing there tonight. Already a huge circle of snow had melted around the fire.

  The pottery demonstration was going on at a small, low-burning fire near the edge of the field. Barbara joined the onlookers as Seiji took a fired piece from the ashes and set it on a bench beside a row of other irregularly shaped bowls.

  “Would you like to try?” he asked, picking up a round lump of clay and holding it toward Barbara.

  “I don't know how.”

  “I will make for you.” He pounded the clay with one hand, then began to knead it. Barbara watched his hands as he worked, the strong fingers, the fingernails caked with tan clay. He shaped the bowl quickly, picked it up with the tongs, and held it in the fire until it glowed. Then he set it to one side of the fire, in the ashes, and spoke in Japanese to a young man, who took his place.

  Barbara moved to the edge of the circle and looked down at the finished bowls. He stood beside her. “Do you find these interesting?”

  “I'm very interested in pottery, but I've never seen anything so beautiful as these bowls.”

  “Ah so? I am very glad.” He bent over the bench and picked up a black bowl. “This is tea bowl like the one in today's ceremony. Please accept it as my gift.”

  “Thank you so much. Domo arigato gozaimasu.” She bowed. They looked at each other and smiled. In this light she could see the reddish tint in his hair, and the lines in his face; he was older than she had thought at first. She looked back down at the bowl; it made a satisfying weight in her hands, light but substantial. “The bowl is wonderful. It was so kind of you to give it to me.”

  “I am happy for meeting you,” he said.

  “And I also—for meeting you.” Suddenly nervous, Barbara looked across the field at the thick grove of bamboo. The tips were already green against the sky. “You said you have known Michi-san many years.”

  “Since my childhood,” he said in a quiet voice.

  “I'd like to talk to you about her sometime,” she said.

  “I would like this also,” he said. There was silence. Then he said, “You have a special interest in ceramic?”

  “Yes—in my home state there's a place called Seagrove where I used to go often. Their work is influenced by Asian design—that's how I first became interested in Japanese pottery.”

  “Ah. This is very good. Please come to visit my ceramic studio. It is on the way to Tachikawa, in Takanodai, next door to our small family restaurant. You may walk there, it is not far.”

  “I will do that.” Her voice sounded too formal. “Thanks,” she added, with a smile.

  “If you come to the fire this evening, I can give you a map,” he said, “Now I must return to raku.”

  Barbara took the tea bowl to Sango-kan, then went back to the classroom building and wandered through the exhibits, thinking of Seiji, his hands shaping the clay. She passed the tea ceremony room. The blind woman sat without moving, her head still cocked at that strange angle. The other woman, packing the tea things, gave Barbara a sharp glance. She bowed and retreated.

  That night Seiji found her by the bonfire. He had changed into a
black turtleneck sweater and jacket. “Please,” he said, handing Barbara a small card with Japanese characters on it. “The way to my house is on the back. You will come soon?”

  “Maybe next weekend?”

  “I will wait for you.” He bowed and turned abruptly, then hurried across the field.

  6

  It rained that week, washing away all traces of snow. On Saturday morning, when Barbara walked to Seiji's house, the Tamagawa Canal was swollen almost to its banks. The trees beside the canal were about to bud; in the distance their slender branches made a fine reddish mist.

  Barbara picked her way carefully along the muddy path. The woods were empty, with no sign of life, not even a squirrel darting from tree to tree; the only sounds were her footsteps and breathing.