Made In Japan

Chapter 3

‘Clear-voiced cuckoo,

Even you will need

The silvered wings of a crane

To span the islands of Matsushima’

−Matsuo Bashō, The Narrow Road to the Deep North

The front door opened before her hand left the chanting, electronic bell. Perhaps the woman always watched for visitors. She was slight, a good head shorter than Hana and as agitated as a bird that does not own the pavement. Her greeting seemed lost in the effort of removing her housecoat.

Hana ignored the temptation to step back and call after the taxi but steeled herself to walk into this stranger’s house. It smelt savoury but was not unpleasant. The hall was spacious with a large central staircase of thin matchstick bannisters, empty but for a stainless-steel clock in a plastic mahogany case and from the curling rug at the doorstep, it was shabby. But she managed to hide her disappointment; find a smile and make appreciative noises as she surveyed the gallery landing, the empty walls and tired decor. Her own home was such a contrast to this, decorated with bolts of indigo and woodblock prints, brush-stroked scrolls, thumb-printed pottery and hand-painted china; a densely rich homage to Japan.

There was an unease behind the woman’s welcome. Maybe her appearance or the stain across her jeans was to blame? Her middle-aged Japanese host was tiny, and had pulled her thin hair across her scalp into a bun.

With forklift arms the woman communicated Hana should leave her case in the hall.

She was concerned that the lined and tired older woman should not lift it for her and it troubled her that she did not know how to say as much.

‘Noru desu.’ I am Noru. The aged woman slapped her bony breastbone and traced a legible greeting across the warm evening air. The enormity of the language barrier added to her jet lag. She would have so many questions – and she felt so ill-equipped to ask.

The house was silent but for a TV down the corridor as Noru took off on a tour of the lodgings. Hana trailed behind like a dependent child rather than a paying guest.

As they peered into the bathroom, Noru jabbed at the wood-lined bath, then at the shower head, positioned a foot from the floor, and she paused, lending some significance to a pair of plastic sandals by the door.

Hana had no idea. Should she wear slippers in the shower? From the back of the house came a short dry cough. As if attached by an invisible line, Hana followed on to the foot of the stairs where it was made clear that she should remove her shoes before she took to the first step. Was she was just another clueless foreign guest?

Her hot feet left damp prints on the first step and she was covered in embarrassment. As they reached the utilitarian beige of the upper floor, the smell of sour grass became overpowering. What was to be her room was off the open landing. Behind a thin door, with a quick yank of a grimy light cord, Noru showed her two single beds that were suddenly illuminated in all their plainness and just as quickly returned to gloom. It seemed clean enough.

A twin room. Assuming no one else arrived to use the other single, it would suit her fine. She thanked Noru, knowing she could not ask about the twin beds and the distance between them grew larger than just the language barrier.

Outside on the galleried landing, Hana took a seat on the tan leatherette sofa. She watched Noru drawing green tea from a giant floral flask on an old linen chest and accepted it though she had drunk plenty on the flight. It was easier to acquiesce.

‘Gohan.’ We eat. Noru tapped at her watch and then turned for the private section of the house, heading in the direction of the coughing below.

Alone, contemplating a pair of prints on the opposite wall, Hana was too tired of sitting and too weary to stand. Mount Fuji and a giant wave. She had finally arrived and all expectation was turned on its head. The volcanic cone of Fuji sloped smoothly towards a deep dusk-blue where a small fishing boat charted the choppy waters of the lake below.

Well, she rallied, she had brought her walking boots with her and could hike the Fuji trail to the top if she chose. If Tom could have come too she’d have felt more adventurous, but maybe scaring herself a little was a good thing.

The bitter tea, just the colour of the matting, felt acidic on her empty stomach and she regretted giving away her airline meal. And as a hollow emptiness descended on her, she tried to dismiss it as jet lag.

She could phone home. No, she should not phone home. Not now, not yet. All those years before, her mother, at pretty much the same age, had arrived in Tokyo, knowing no one either. And if she was honest she did know one person – the guy from the plane and with Noru that made two.

Her head fell back on the sofa and she bit into the rough side of her cheek. Her mother must once have loved Japan but it had obviously been a complicated affair as there were such huge blanks in the story. They had never come when her mother was alive: they had never had the resources; it had never been practical.

Now that her mother had gone, questions had begun to appear. Long-buried questions. Now she felt a fool for not asking, but then again she had been forced into accepting this and it had only now begun to irritate her.

Chapter 4

‘The events of human life, whether public or private, are so intimately linked to architecture that most observers can reconstruct nations or individuals in all the truth of their habits from the remains of their monuments or from their domestic relics’

−Honoré de Balzac

Hana sipped at the bitter tea. You really had to know how to ask the right questions. Her mother had hidden behind a memory that she would never share. She had cradled it like a burn to the hand and Hana had learned early on not to bring it up. Consequently it had proved a very successful way of avoiding the truth – which left Hana up against it now, up against that generational amnesia that protected the past and, at worst, buried it.

She really must find the teahouse. As her mother had described it, it lay etched on her mind, sitting in temple gardens, over an ornamental lake in one of the most tranquil places on earth. Working on that building and helping with the construction design, had been for her mother an exquisite project. On the rare occasions she had mentioned it she looked wistful, lost, and, when pressed, she would clam up, or ramble on about the way it was built.

This Zen teahouse had become a kind of monument to her and so Hana had brought from home the dog-eared Japanese map, folded into inconvenient ribbons and covered in nothing but kanji characters. The task of finding a major tourist site would be an achievement let alone an insignificant retreat in the middle of nowhere but the guy from the flight, Ed, might help.

With thoughts of freshening up she reached the hall, where Noru materialized, flapping her apron and motioning towards the bathroom at the back of the house. Once the door bolt was secured, she finally stepped out of her jeans. Peeling away the clothes she had first put on in London began the transition. You hadn’t arrived, she thought, until that moment when you remove the flight-worn souvenirs from the start of the journey. The deep wooden bath was already full of water and, ignoring the short shower hose, the slippers and the ashtray, she got in and sank into the hottest water she had ever braved. Soaping away the collected hours of arm’s-length intimacy and the Tokyo dust, she suspected she was breaking another house rule but who knew what it was.

Replacing the medicinal soap, she sank back for a blissful moment and remembered the London Fields Lido where she had first learnt to swim. She must have been about ten. This place prompted memories she hadn’t raised for years, as if, as Ed had said, she was travelling back in time. Her mother, with careful consideration, amid the shouts of pleasure or was it terror around them, had removed the floats from her skinny arms and let her go. Shoulder deep she had felt herself sinking, but her mother, beside her then, had watched her struggle to the edge, to safety. It was never going to be easy, but she had clung to that mantra, and as they walked home hers was strawberry-ice success and they shared the sweet melt line running all the way to her elbow.

The steaming bath threatened to overwhelm her and, having added more from the cold tap, she sank below the water line. She held her breath until it was not quite comfortable, then, expelling bubbles in punishing, controlled bursts, she finally let it all go, turning the water into a rolling boil above her head. It was the first time, she realized, that she was angry. She missed her mother and she was angry with herself for losing her. Now she was actually here she knew she should have asked more questions, demanded answers. She had so little go on.

Radiating more heat than a power plant, she stepped out, and realized her fresh clothes were in her bag. She tried to pull on her jeans but her clammy skin made it impossible and so she threw on a cotton robe she found on the back of the door. It smelt distinctly male and, ignoring a slight revulsion, she threw it on in favour of running to her room in a tiny towel.

As discreetly as she could she lugged her bag across the floor, battling to keep the loose yukata robe closed, intent on getting past unseen. She wasn’t sure but it was as if she had displaced someone from beyond the bathroom window vent.

She lay on the bed gazing beyond the weight of her exhausted eyelids, until suddenly energized she searched though her hand luggage for Ed’s card. And she searched again, only to find it missing, and, with vigorous frustration she realized she had probably already lost it.

On her way down she could hear more coughing. As if on cue Noru appeared as Hana descended the stairs. She ushered her into the dining room, waved a tea towel in the direction of a chair and hit the play button on some plinkety-plonkety Japanese folk music, then left.

There were five places laid at the table. It was difficult to judge the size of the house. As she waited for the other guests, her eyes ranged over the few effects in the room. A small CD collection included ten copies of the same album from a cute girl band and beside the potted cactus was a range of English football mugs. She supposed they belonged to a teenage boy, but this impression was quickly dispelled when an approaching shuffle announced the laboured arrival of a really old man. Could it be Noru’s father? Anticipating the difficulty he would have seating himself, she got up to help him to his chair and, with the arrogance both accrued in old age and naturally excused by it, he sat down at the head of the table and ignored her. Saucepans clattered in the kitchen.

‘It is my first trip to Tokyo.’ He ignored her, and she chose to turn up the volume. It didn’t matter that he wouldn’t speak English ‘My mother lived in Shimoktazawa in the eighties. For over a year.’ He could be deaf. ‘My mother, Naomi,’ she said again, for her own benefit.

He turned his head slowly as if to do otherwise would startle him and snorted down his nose, shaking his head his up and down in what could have been recognition.

‘Ukai,’ he said, introducing himself by tapping a bony finger to his chest. He had the tanned, desiccated face of a smoker. His wheezy laugh was lost in a fit of coughing that immediately brought Noru back into the room.

Hana recognized the look on her face, that look of spent patience, which must remain unvented and often accorded to the very old, the infirm, or the long-term ill.

Noru fell on him, rubbing and thumping the base of his back and drawing vigorous circles over his chest.

‘So da ne.’ She comforted him as you would a young child. No wonder she looked exhausted, this nurse and housekeeper.

‘Can I help?’ Hana was unsure at first whether she had made herself understood. But her offer was turned down graciously and she turned to look at the becalmed old man as Noru left him as she attended to the cooking. His rheumy eyes shone with his exertions and he looked at Hana directly.

‘Na-o-mi,’ he said. She could swear he said it, under thin breath. Just a copycat word? She could not ask another question for fear of bringing on another bout of asthma and so they sat in an uncomfortable silence animated only by his laboured breathing and the ticking of a cuckoo clock. The displaced German clock, like her, seemed to have lost its cultural way and migrated east. Did she have any better reason for being here? Contemplating the wizened figure at the head of the table, age itself looking like a wrong turn, she dropped her head with the thought that at least her mother had been spared this.

Chapter 5

Waiting for the evening meal took her back to the goodbye supper with friends. Tom had given a Japanese Kanpai toast and they had shared a bottle of sake Sadie had brought. They had found some shakuhachi flute music and talked of geishas, She had promised them all armfuls of manga comics.

Now she was here it was a sour joke. Moist amethyst and livid yellow pickles sat curling beside some dried fish. Noru fussed about serving them but eventually joined them at the table. At least the dinner was offered in small portions and she would manage the rice out of politeness.

Slipping the paper chopsticks from their sheath she broke them apart, whittling at the loose splinters before she began to eat. This prompted an exaggerated reaction from Noru, who exhaled in voiced panic.

‘No. No,’ Noru burst out shaking her head like an old turkey bird. Looking to the old man for his reaction to her carelessness. Noru could not begin to tell her what custom she had offended. Self-consciously Hana picked at the sticky rice and the air-conditioning unit cooling the back of her neck joined forces with her jet lag to bring her close to tears. They didn’t intend to make her feel so unwelcome, she knew that, and she forced a smile.

There were still two empty places laid at the table and she longed for a diversion. Just then doorbell went and Noru got up. Hana heard an American voice in the lobby, apologizing.

‘Yeah. Sorry it’s late. No, I won’t eat. Just going straight to sleep, thanks.’

Piles of dark unruly hair and a girl with olive skin appeared in the door and Hana noticed the energy in the house had changed. After an exchange of smiles, the girl said, ‘I’m Jess. Dead tired so I’ll see you later. I’m gonna head up.’

‘Bikyhikibiri!’ a man’s voice boomed from the back of the house.

As the diatribe continued Ukai turned his milky eyes towards Hana, followed by Noru and then Jess until she was the focal point of everyone’s stare.

‘You washed with soap in the bath?’ Jess whispered.

Hana nodded.

‘They never do this here.’ She was matter of fact; she was obviously not new to the house. ‘We share the water.’ It was not good news.

Hiding in the shadow of the doorway clutching a towel, a bare-chested man in his thirties appeared, rattling on in complaint until Noru’s response sent him into retreat.

Hana remembered the bathrobe and winced. Moments later he returned wearing a fresh cotton yukata gown over his heavy frame. He was newly shaven and his damp skin shone.

‘Kombanwa,’ he said to the room, acknowledging the girls before he sat down heavily beside old Ukai, and began again a low, gravelling rant.

‘Night,’ the American said. ‘See you tomorrow.’

She seemed very much at home and very content to leave Hana with the growling man who must, she assumed, be Noru’s son.

Noru deferentially placed sticks of startling luminous fish and sticky rice in front of the young man and it had a beneficial effect.

He turned to look at Hana as if she reminded him of someone.

‘So, welcome to Tokyo. I am Tako. You met my mother and grandfather?’ He had once got lucky with a gap year student.

His dark hair was wet and he looked like an overgrown cuckoo. It was no surprise that Noru was stretched, cooking for two generations and guests.

‘Hana, right? Japanese for flower.’ He smiled benignly like a prince appeased. ‘Ukai can write your name in kanji alphabet sometime.’ He jabbed his chopsticks at the old man enthusiastically, revealing his bare chest beneath the yukata and a lurking breastplate tattoo.

‘Thanks.’ Who would refuse such an offer?

‘You know Chelsea?’ he asked, pointing at the line of football mugs.

‘Yes.’ It was drawn out and unconvincing. The Chelsea she knew was a place where her grandparents had lived until she’d gone to senior at the City of London School for Girls. They would take her to St Luke’s playground off Sydney Street, and then, later, on those Sunday-lunch visits she and her mother were obliged to make, they would go to the Physic Garden. When she was older she would meet friends at the Goat pub, before trekking home to East London. Chelsea did not mean a football club to her and he could see that.

‘So, you are gonna see the sights, right?’

‘And lots of temples.When I find them.’

This sent him ricocheting to be of assistance. He retrieved a map and laid a hand on it ceremoniously as if it might be a passport to friendship. Opening it at his end of the table he strategically identified the areas marked and then promptly dashed it away, clearly having an Einstein moment.

‘I myself can show you.’

Too fatigued to give him anything but a lukewarm response she hesitated. ‘Thank you.’ Should she say it? ‘Very much.’

‘You are British. British and –’ he paused ‘– British Asian?’

This caught her off-guard, for while she was used to people turning over guessing stones – the game had long since ceased to irritate – but she had assumed foolishly, that possibly they might get it right here in Japan.

‘Japanese.’

‘So. I see,’ he said, more winded than intrigued.

Had she expected to walk off the plane and fit in? Outside there was just enough light to see the old wooden house opposite through the heavy dirt on the insect netting. Could she belong here? Idly, she prodded the pink seafood round the bowl with her chopsticks.

‘Chelsea is my club,’ he continued beaming indulgently and she tried hard to reciprocate the smile. For some reason nothing fitted. Perhaps she might be happier in a different homestay? She wouldn’t jump to a rash decision, but tomorrow she could look at different places to stay; maybe the American could suggest one.

She made her excuses and was sorry for not managing to eat what they had presented. She could sense their disappointment but, at the noise of her chair, as she pushed her seat back under the table, they broke from their disenchantment and wished her goodnight.

‘Oyasuminasai,’ Noru chimed with her son.

Upstairs in the twin room the American girl, despite the humidity, was hidden under a floral sheet. Hana’s room was now their room. She had, considerately, left the light on but the air-con was off and there was no remote control. The solution hung pendulously over her bed. She climbed gingerly on to the bed base and reached for the switch until the girl stirred.

‘Hospital soap,’ she mumbled sleepily.

She would leave it tonight.

As Hana closed her eyes thoughts of home drifted in. Tom would be at lunch now. It was only yesterday he had seen her off from the platform in Paddington and brought her case all the way, in an unusually generous gesture for him. He had given her The Pillow Book as she stepped onto the train. It was only as he receded with the station that the realization she was leaving him behind had hit. She had hoped for larger assurances that he would miss her; she wanted him to say it would hurt and preferably badly. She wanted him to work on what she meant to him until her return. But he was not demonstrative; he could be needy and that display of affection was entirely different, veering as it did towards his own requirements, not hers. Did she trust Sadie with him? How could she begin to taunt herself and so soon when she felt so very off-centre already? She would be away for nearly two months and to begin counting the days was a poor start. A poor start. A poor start.

She fell asleep with unexpected ease.

Chapter 6

Populationof Tokyo : 37.8 million

The next morning, bending over with the curvature of the earth, time prodded at her ribs, calling for a start to the day that was much too early. But she was used to broken sleep. For a while, when her mother had been ill, her own sleep patterns had been affected and she had wandered around the house at odd hours, drying the last of the cups on the draining board or aligning cookery books. Since she had gone, Tom could wake to find her tidying or cleaning as if she had a responsibility to keep her mother’s flat more pristine than it had ever been, as if she might walk in unexpectedly and find Hana was coping okay; that it was all under control.

Her damp bedclothes clung and on waking in the half-light her mouth felt dry – could she safely drink the water here? In the single bed beside her, Jess, the American girl, was still asleep. Hana could hear birdsong, loud birdsong, in the heart of the city. Wide awake but unable to move from the bandage of sheets, she willed her roommate to surface but she was no more compliant than she had been the night before. So Hana lay a little longer, planning her day. She would find the teahouse at the temple. She had read of the wooden structures and the Buddhist temple Asakusa Jinja, and the Shinto shrine at the Meiji Jingu. She would head at some stage for Kyoto, which, though high on her list, would be a push to afford.

Finally Jess stirred and pulled herself up to sit against the wall, crowned in a bird’s nest of hair. She looked across at Hana with dark circles under her eyes.

‘Coffee!’ Her arms stretched as she broke away from the deep sleep of her first night. ‘It’s good to be back.’

Back from where? Hana wondered but didn’t yet say it.

Jess stretched some more.

‘This is the best place in Tokyo,’ she continued, as if to someone else.

Hana blinked back at her as if a strange creature had joined the room. The best? This was hardly believable and she couldn’t bring herself to agree even out of politeness.

‘Bit of shouting last night,’ Hana contended

Jess nodded.

‘Bikyhikibiri. Bikyhikibiri.’

‘Which—’ Jess looked over a virtual set of glasses professorially ‘—translates as pubic hair. Don’t leave it in the bath.’ She waved any concern away and giggled.

Hana’s lips soured.

Jess was laconic but friendly and gave Hana the facts quickly: she had been working up north on an aid project and had come back down to Tokyo for a few weeks before returning to Seattle. Though younger than Hana she was a seasoned traveller, happy living out of a rucksack for months. It was the second year she had come to the homestay and the formula worked well for her.

Jess put her arm round her in a welcome squeeze. ‘I’m back in Tokyo to make some good money. And you? Why are you here?’

Hana began a vague meandering on the cultural attractions of Tokyo but Jess cut her short.

‘You’re part Japanese, right? And you chose my favourite homestay?’

Hana nodded and then broached what was uppermost in her mind. She lowered her voice confidentially. ‘I am going to have to change homestay.’

‘Great, then I get the room to myself.’ Jess was deadpan and Hana wondered whether she should take her seriously. ‘No, you’ll like it here. The family goes out of their way to help. Why leave when you just got here?’