of the sitting room. “Good evening!”
There comes an “oh!”-not an English “oh!” but a sudden guttural one of surprise, almost a gasp; movement follows, the pad of feet, and finally the appearance in the sitting room of a Japanese woman of about-ages are difficult to judge-thirty? Her face is slightly wrinkled at the eyes and on the forehead; that she is mature is the first thing I notice about her.
“Mr. Meadowes?”
“Yes, you are?”
“Kazumi Kato.” Her dark brown eyes twinkle; her red lips part revealing good, regular teeth, one of which, a side one, is gold. “Mr. Simpson told you about me?”
“No.”
She laughs nervously. “He so busy before he left for the States.” Her accent is American. “He must forget to say he ask me to look after till you come, and to show you everything.”
“You speak such good English.”
“No, I don’t. My English is very bad.”
“There’s one thing . . .”
“Yes?”
“How do you turn on the air conditioner? I tried and-”
“I show you.”
I join her by the machine and as she stretches up into the cupboard to connect the main switch her hair touches my cheek.
“I could never have found that.”
The machine begins to eject a cool blast.
“That’s better,” I say with feeling.
“Would you like me to show you kitchen?”
She is like an efficient housekeeper.
“Let’s sit in the cool for a bit. It’s terribly hot outside this little room.”
“Your fan in your bedroom, you can work?”
“Yes, thanks.”
We lapse into silence. I take surreptitious glances at her profile which, for a Japanese, is good-I realize it’s insulting to say “for a Japanese,” but what else can one say when most faces in this land are flat? Her nose turns up slightly and her nostrils are more elongated than is usual. Noriko’s nostrils are like little round holes in cheese. My wife’s? Trying to recall my wife’s nostrils, I look out of the picture window at a shrub and the lower half of a tree with short branches and big leaves. A brown leaf flutters to the ground.
“Premature,” I say.
“Pardon?”
“A reminder that autumn will come.”
“That tree paulownia tree. We make, chests and geta, the wooden clogs, from paulownia wood.”
She evidently doesn’t know that I’ve been five years in Japan. “Kiri in Japanese, isn’t it?”
“Ah, you speak Japanese?”
“Only a few words.”
“I think more.”
“No, really.” The fact is I don’t. I know enough to fool a foreigner, that is all.
After a long two minutes, Kazumi says, “Maybe you now feel enough cool?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“You like to see kitchen?”
I nod.
She shows me the stove, the pots, the pans, the cupboards, and while indicating the jars that contain rice, sugar, and so on, she notices that the two cookery books are missing. “Two books not here.”
“I took them upstairs to read.”
“Oh, I see.” She seems displeased.
“You know where everything is in this house.”
“I live here.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I mean I do not live here now. Before I live here.”
I go into the sitting room and lower myself onto the bench seat against the window, making the pane rattle, as it would in an earth tremor.
“You do not mind?”
I raise my eyebrows.
“You do not mind I look after the house while?”
“On the contrary, I am grateful to you.” I jerk a nod-bow, an infectious gesture caught from the Japanese. “Thank you very much.”
“Do itashimashite.”
A pause.
“Don’t you have a wife?”
“Yes, but she is in England looking after our daughter.”
“You have Japanese girlfriend?”
This is so unexpected that I answer truthfully, “Yes, in Tokyo.” I do not add that I am tired of Noriko.
“Aa, so desu ka?” An oft-repeated expression meaning “Is that so?” This is said with respect, for one has to be rich to maintain a mistress in Japan unless you are clever like me and run one on the cheap, exploiting the fact that she is genuinely in love. In any case, I am rich, fairly (or used to be, for who is rich today?)-not as rich as my wife, though, whose financial independence has often irritated me.
“You are English, then?” This is asked with a certain amount of surprise as most Japanese assume that foreigners are American. “You like some tea?”
“I’d rather have whiskey.”
“I don’t know if Simpson-san he left any-”
“I wouldn’t dream of drinking his. I brought a bottle with me. It’s upstairs.” I rise.
“I get it.”
“No, you get some ice.”
“Okay.”
When I return to the sitting room she is still in the kitchen, but in a few minutes she appears with a tray bearing a plastic ice bucket, two glasses with protective little socks round their bases, a jug of water, and a plate on which slices of processed cheese and canned pressed beef have been arranged in a neat circle.
“Chivas Regal,” she says with respect, after glancing at my bottle.
“A duty-free bottle. Like some?”
“Yes, please.”
Her eagerness surprises me for Japanese women do not usually drink; perhaps she has learned foreign habits from Simpson. I imagine that she does not come from a very high class family; bar-hostess stratum probably, but there is nothing wrong with that. She kneels in the manner of a Japanese wife and administers unto me. All very nice.
“Do you know Mr. Watkins? I must look him up.” I say this to make conversation. I am not in the least hurry to see him.
“Simpson-san know him well. I know him a little. You want I telephone Professor Watkins?”
“No, later. What about dinner? Would you like to eat with me?”
She looks down.
“I invite you out to dinner. Where shall we go?”
“Thank you very much. I must go my apato.”
“No need to do that.” The whiskey encourages me. “Why not spend the night? There are all sorts of questions I want to ask you: about milk, newspaper delivery, where the butcher and the baker are, the shops.”
“Simpson-san he buy most things in the market. It is-”
“Show me tomorrow. Let’s go and eat.”
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