“What does ‘nearly single’ mean?” Mariye asked, again shifting subjects.
“I’ll soon be officially divorced,” I said. “We’re in the midst of handling all the paperwork, so that’s why it’s ‘nearly.’?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t get divorce. Nobody I know has ever divorced.”
“I don’t get it either. I mean, it’s the first time I ever got divorced.”
“What does it feel like?”
“A bit bizarre, I guess. Like you’re walking along as always, sure you’re on the right path, when the path suddenly vanishes, and you’re facing an empty space, no sense of direction, no clue where to go, and you just keep trudging along. That’s what it feels like.”
“How long were you married?”
“About six years.”
“How old is your wife?”
“She’s three years younger.” Just a coincidence, but the same age difference as with my sister.
“Do you think you wasted those six years?”
I thought about it. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t want to think it was all for nothing. We had a lot of good times, too.”
“Does your wife think so too?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’d hope she would, of course.”
“You didn’t ask her?”
“No. If I have a chance, maybe I will sometime.”
Silence reigned between us for a while. I focused on the dessan, and Mariye Akikawa was lost in serious thought—thoughts about the size of nipples, perhaps, or divorce, or hornets, or maybe something else entirely. Eyes narrowed, lips tight, both hands tightly holding her knees. She’d shifted into that mode, apparently, as I was capturing her earnest expression on the white page of my sketchbook.
* * *
—
Every day, exactly at noon, I could hear a chime from down the mountain. Ringing from some government office, or maybe a school, to announce the time. When I heard it now, I glanced at the clock and finished drawing. I’d managed to complete three dessan during this first session. All of them pretty interesting compositions, each one hinting at something to come. Not bad for a day’s work.
Mariye Akikawa had sat on the chair in the studio, posing for me, for over an hour and a half. For the first day, that was enough. For someone not used to it—especially an active, growing child—posing for a painting wasn’t easy.
Shoko Akikawa had put on black-framed glasses and was seated on the living room sofa absorbed in reading her paperback. When I came in she took off the glasses and stowed the paperback in her bag. The glasses made her look quite intellectual.
“We’re all finished for the day,” I said. “If it’s all right, could you come again the same day next week?”
“Yes, of course,” Shoko said. “It feels really nice to read here. Maybe because the sofa’s so comfortable?”
“You don’t mind?” I asked Mariye.
Mariye nodded silently. I don’t mind, it meant. In front of her aunt she was totally changed, and had become taciturn again. Maybe she didn’t like when the three of us were together.
They got into their blue Toyota Prius and drove away. I saw them off at the front door. Shoko, sunglasses on, reached a hand out the window and gave a few short waves goodbye. A small, pale hand. I raised my hand in reply. Mariye tucked in her chin and stared straight ahead. Once the car had disappeared from view down the slope, I went back inside. The house seemed suddenly barren. Like something that should be there wasn’t anymore.
An odd pair, I thought, as I stared at the teacups still on the table. There was something peculiar about them. But what, exactly?
I remembered Menshiki. Maybe I should have taken Mariye out on the terrace so he could get a good look at her through his binoculars. But then I rethought that. Why did I have to go out of my way to do that, when he hadn’t even asked me to?
Other opportunities would present themselves. No need to rush. Probably.
31
MAYBE A LITTLE TOO PERFECT
That night I got a call from Menshiki. The clock showed that it was past nine. He apologized for calling so late. Something silly came up and I couldn’t get free until now, he said. I’m not going to bed for a while, I said, so don’t worry about the time.
“So how did things go today? Did it work out well?” he asked.
“It did. I completed a few dessan of Mariye. The two of them will be coming over the same time next Sunday.”
“I’m glad,” Menshiki said. “By the way, was the aunt favorably disposed toward you?”
Favorably disposed? What a strange way of putting it.
I said, “Yes, she seems like a very nice woman. I don’t know if ‘favorably disposed’ is the right term, but she didn’t seem particularly wary.”
I summed up what had taken place that morning. Menshiki listened with what seemed like bated breath, apparently trying to absorb as much detailed information as he could. Other than a couple of questions, he hardly said a word, and just listened intently. What sort of clothes the two had on, how they had arrived. How they appeared, what they’d said. And how I’d gone about sketching Mariye Akikawa. I told Menshiki all this, piece by piece. I didn’t, though, delve into Mariye’s obsession with the size of her breasts. That was best kept between us.
“It might be a little early, then, for me to show up next week?” Menshiki asked me.
“It’s up to you. I can’t say. I don’t have a problem if you come over next week.”
On the other end of the line Menshiki was silent. “I’ll have to think about it. It’s kind of delicate.”
“Take your time. It’s going to take a while to finish the painting, and there should be plenty of opportunities. Next week, or the week after that—either way’s fine with me.”
I’d never seen Menshiki so hesitant before. Quickly decisive and never wavering—that was the Menshiki I knew.
I was thinking of asking him if he’d been watching my house with his binoculars this morning. Whether he’d been able to observe Mariye and her aunt. But I thought better of it. As long as he didn’t bring it up, it seemed smarter not to mention that topic. Even if the place under surveillance was the house I was living in.
Menshiki thanked me again. “I’m really sorry to ask you to go to all this trouble for me.”
I said, “I’m not doing anything for your sake. I’m simply doing a painting of Mariye Akikawa. I’m painting it because I want to. I thought that’s how we decided things were going to be. Both the private and public reasons for it. So there’s no reason for you to thank me.”
“Still, I’m very grateful,” Menshiki said quietly. “In a lot of ways.”
I didn’t really understand what he meant by “a lot of ways,” but didn’t ask. It was getting late. We said a quick goodbye and hung up. But after I put the phone down, it suddenly occurred to me that Menshiki might be spending a long, sleepless night tonight. I could sense the tension in his voice. He probably had lots of things on his mind.
* * *
—
Not much happened that week. The Commendatore didn’t make an appearance, and my girlfriend didn’t get in touch. A very quiet week altogether. Autumn steadily deepened around me. The sky opened up, the air clear and crisp, the clouds like beautiful white brushstrokes.
I often studied the three dessan I’d done of Mariye. The different poses, the different angles. I found them fascinating, and suggestive. Though from the beginning I hadn’t planned to choose one of them to use as the preliminary design for the painting. The point of doing those three sketches, as she herself had said, was so I could understand the totality of this girl. To internally assimilate her.
I looked at those three dessan over and over again, intently focusing, trying to construct a concrete picture of the girl in my mind. As I did this, I got the distinct sense of Mariye Akikawa’s figure and that of my sister getting mixed into one. Was this appropriate? I couldn’t say. But the spirits of these two young girls nearly the same age were already, somewhere—probably in some deep internal recesses I shouldn’t access—blended and combined. I could no longer unravel those two intertwined spirits.
* * *