The Makioka Sisters Read online

  Purposely neglecting to send a telegram, Yukiko left Tokyo on the Swallow Express. She changed at Osaka for the electric line and, lucky enough to catch a taxi in Ashiya, arrived at Sachiko’s just before six in the evening.

  O-haru met her at the door, took her suitcase, and saw her into the parlor. The house was quiet.

  “Is Mrs. Makioka out?”

  “She has gone over to the Stolzes’.” O-haru turned on the electric fan.

  “And Etsuko?”

  “They have all gone over to the Stolzes’ for tea—Koi-san too. They should be back any time now. Maybe I should go call them?”

  “No, never mind.”

  “They said they thought you might come today. Miss Etsuko has been excited ever since this morning. Shall I go call them?”

  “No, no, please. I can wait.”

  Yukiko stopped O-haru, who was already on her way to the Stolz house—they could hear children’s voices in the garden— and went out to sit in a birch chair under the terrace awning.

  From the cab window, the damage around Narihira Bridge had seemed worse than she expected, but here everything was as it had always been. Not a leaf was disturbed. In the evening calm, hardly a breath of air touched the garden. The heat was intense, and the quiet gave the light and dark greens of the foliage a special limpidity. The green of the lawn seemed to rise up and flow through her. When she had left in the spring, the lilac had been in bloom and the yellow yamabuki in bud; and now the Hirado lilies and the azaleas had fallen, and only a gardenia or two was left to perfume the air. Thick leaves at the fence half hid the two-storey foreign-style house next door.

  Near the fence, the children were playing train. Though Yukiko could not actually see them, she gathered that Peter was the conductor.

  “Next stop, Mikage. This train does not stop between Mikage and Ashiya. Passengers for Sumiyoshi, Uozaki, Aoki, and Fukae will please change to a local.” He had all the mannerisms of a conductor. One would not have dreamed that it was a little foreigner speaking.

  “Rumi, we will go on to Kyoto,” said Etsuko.

  “Yes, we will go to Tokyo.”

  “Not Tokyo. Kyoto.”

  But Rosemarie had apparently never heard of Kyoto, and no matter how often Etsuko said “Kyoto,” the answer came back “Tokyo.” Etsuko found this exasperating.

  “No, no. Kyoto, Rumi. Kyoto.”

  “Yes, we will go to Tokyo.”

  “No, there are a hundred stops on the way to Tokyo.”

  “Yes. We will be there the day from tomorrow.”

  “What did you say, Rumi?”

  Rosemarie had stumbled a little over the words; but Etsuko would have had trouble with “the day from tomorrow” in any case.

  “What did you say? That is not Japanese, Rumi.”

  “What is the name of this tree?”

  The leaves rustled as Peter started up one of the trees. It was on this side of the fence, but the branches trailed over into the Stolz yard. The children were always climbing from a foothold on the fence.

  “Aogiri,” answered Etsuko.

  “Aogfrigiri?”

  “Not aogirigiri. Aogiri.”

  “Aogirigiri.”

  “Aogiri!”

  “Aogirigiri.”

  Yukiko was not sure whether Peter was making fun of Etsuko or whether he really could not pronounce the word.

  11

  SUMMER VACATION had begun. Every day the Stolz children and Etsuko played together. In the morning and evening they played train in the garden or climbed the trees along the fence, but in the hot part of the day they were indoors, playing house when the girls were alone, playing war when Peter and Fritz joined them. The four would move the heavy armchairs and sofas about to make forts and strong points, which they then attacked with air guns. Peter was in command, and the others fired at his orders. The German children, even Fritz, not yet in school, invariably shouted “Frankreich, Frankreich” at the enemy. Sachiko and the rest, who at first did not know what “Frankreich” meant, were more impressed than ever at the thoroughness of German child-training when Teinosuke translated for them. It was something of a trial for the Makioka family, however, to have the furniture in the parlor always ready for war. If an unexpected guest arrived, the maids had him wait in the hall while the whole family worked at dismantling forts and strong points. One day Mrs. Stolz looked in from the terrace. Was this what the boys were in the habit of doing? she asked. She went away with a wry smile, but whether or not she scolded her sons, they showed no sign of mending their violent ways.

  In the daytime, Sachiko and her sisters generally turned the parlor over to the children and took their ease in the small Japanese-style room next to the dining room. Across the hall from the bath, and as a result often used for undressing or dumping dirty clothes, the room was dark and cave-like. Deep eaves sheltered it to the south, where it looked out over the garden. The sun was thus kept at a distance, and, with a low western window at floor level, and with a breeze passing through for the better part of the day, the room was generally considered the coolest in the house. The three sisters would fight for the place nearest the window as they rested there during the hot afternoons. Each year in the hot weather they lost their appetites, grew thinner, and began to suffer from “shortage of B.” Of the three, Yukiko, always slender, showed the loss of weight most clearly. She had had a stubborn case of beri-beri since June. Although one reason for her trip to Ashiya had been to try a change of air, the beri-beri only got worse upon her arrival. She was constantly being given injections by Sachiko or Taeko. The latter two were also suffering in some measure from beri-beri, and the chain of injections, one to another and on to the third, became a daily ritual. Sachiko had, early in the summer, changed to a one-piece Western dress cut low in back. From around the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth, Yukiko too surrendered and, frail as a cord doll, appeared in a georgette dress. Taeko, usually the most active of the three, had evidently not recovered from the shock of the flood. This summer she showed little of her usual energy. The sewing school was of course closed. Though her studio had escaped damage and she had no reason not to work on her dolls, she seldom went near the place.

  Itakura often called. Customers being few since the flood, he spent his time taking pictures for an album of flood-damage photographs. He wandered about with his Leica when the weather was ‘good, and he would appear at the back door in shorts, his face sunburned and sweaty, and demand water of O-haru. Draining a glass of ice water at one gulp, he would carefully wipe his shorts and shirt, white with dust, and march in through the kitchen to the little room where the sisters were resting. He had been at Nunobiki today, he would say, or Mt. Rokkō, or Koshigi Crag, or Arima Springs, or Minoo, and he would tell them in his own very individual way what he had seen, often illustrating his talk with photographs.

  Sometimes he would want to go swimming. “Mrs. Makioka, we are going swimming. Get up,” he would order as he came into the room. “You will ruin your health lying around like this.”

  When Sachiko gave an evasive answer, he virtually pulled her to her feet. It was no distance at all to Ashiya Beach, he would say; there was nothing like a swim to cure beri-beri. “O-haru, get out the swimming suits and call a cab.” When Sachiko wanted to take Etsuko swimming and simply did not have the energy, she would send the girl off with Itakura. Day by day he became friendlier, and his speech became freer and even a little rude. He took to opening cupboards without being invited to, and otherwise making himself objectionable, but he was redeemed by the fact that whatever they asked him to do he did without protest. And he was a most entertaining talker.

  They were enjoying the breeze as usual one afternoon when an unusually large bee flew in from the garden. It alighted first on Sachiko’s head, where it marched around in circles.

  “A bee, Sachiko, a bee!” screamed Taeko. The bee moved on to Yukiko’s head and then to Taeko’s, and back to Sachiko’s. The three of them, as good as naked, scrambled about the
small room. The bee followed them as if it were teasing, and when they ran screaming into the hall, it was with them.

  “It is after us, it is after us!” They ran on into the dining room, and from there to the parlor, where Etsuko and Rosemarie were playing house.

  “What is it, Mother?” The two girls were startled.

  The bee hit a window, and the clamor began again.

  Half for the sport, Rosemarie and Etsuko joined in. They dodged about the room as if they were playing blindman’s buff with the bee; and the bee, whether it was excited, or whether such is the way with bees, would start out into the garden and fly back into the room. The five of them fled into the hall again. In the midst of the confusion Itakura’s face appeared under the curtain at the kitchen door. He was ready to go swimming. He had on a straw hat, and, over his swimming suit, a cotton kimono, and he had a towel around his neck.

  “What is going on, O-haru?”

  “A bee is after them.”

  “Is that all?” The five sped past in a tight group, their arms high and their fists clenched as if they were training for a race.

  “Hello. You seem to be having trouble.”

  “A bee, a bee! Catch it, quick,” Sachiko called in a piercing voice as she raced on down the hall.

  The five mouths were open and the eyes shone, and the faces were strangely contorted.

  Itakura took off his hat and calmly chased the bee out into the garden.

  “I was terrified, really terrified. It was a very stubborn bee.”

  “But the bee was more frightened than you were.”

  “You are not to laugh. I was really terrified.” Yukiko, still panting, forced her white face into a smile. The beating of her heart, already agitated from beri-beri, was clear under the thin summer dress.

  12

  EARLY IN AUGUST Taeko had a letter from one of Yamamura Saku’s pupils saying that the dancing teacher was worse, and had entered a hospital near her home.

  It was usual for dance practice to be discontinued during the hot months, July and August, but this year Saku had not been well even at the June recital, and she had decided then to take a vacation until September. Although Taeko had not been without concern for Saku’s health, she had neglected to call because a trip to the teacher’s house, in the south of Osaka, meant several train changes. Always before it had served her purpose to go to the studio, and she had never visited Saku at home. But now Saku had developed uremic poisoning, and her condition was serious.

  “Suppose you go tomorrow, Koi-san. I will go later myself.”

  Sachiko was afraid those long trips to Ashiya in May and June might have brought on the new attack. She had thought at the time, as she noticed the pale, puffed face and the heavy breathing, and as she reflected on how, whatever Saku herself might say about keeping strong for her dancing, there was nothing worse for kidney trouble than over-exertion, that it might be better to put a stop to the trips. But Taeko and Etsuko were so enthusiastic, and Sachiko was carried away by the teacher’s own enthusiasm. She had let the matter pass. Now she feared that that had been a mistake. Planning to call in a very few days herself, she thought she should send Taeko as soon as possible.

  Taeko had meant to go in the cooler morning hours. There was a conference about a present, however, and there were various other matters to delay her, and she finally set out in the hottest part of the afternoon. When she came home panting at about five in the evening—she could not describe how hot that part of Osaka was, she said—she peeled off her dress, wet and clinging, and disappeared into the bath, naked but for a pair of underpants. After a time she reappeared in a large towel, a damp cloth around her head, and took out a gossamer-silk kimono.

  “You will just have to excuse me.” Throwing the kimono over her shoulders, she sat down with her back to her sisters and her naked bosom turned toward the electric fan.

  Although Saku always complained of not feeling well, Taeko reported, there had been nothing particularly out of order through July. Then, on the thirtieth, she had held ceremonies at her house to confer a professional name on a certain disciple. Saku was not generous about conferring names and thus accrediting her disciples as Yamamura teachers in their own right, but this time she made an exception. Dressing with the most solemn formality, for all the heat, she hung out the picture of her predecessor, the old head of the school, and with great dignity conducted the ceremony that had been handed down by her grandmother. The next day, when she went to pay a call at the disciple’s house, she looked more ill than usual; and the day after that, the first of August, she collapsed.

  The south side of Osaka, unlike these suburbs between Osaka and Kobe, was a jam of little houses, almost without trees. Taeko was dripping with perspiration by the time she managed to find the hospital, and there, in a room that faced west into the beating afternoon sun, the teacher lay with but one woman, a disciple, to watch over her. Though the face was not as swollen as Taeko had expected, Saku did not recognize her when she knelt beside the bed. The woman nursing her said that Saku recovered consciousness only now and then, that for the most part she was in a coma. When occasionally she became delirious, it was always the dance she talked of. The lady stepped into the hall as Taeko started to leave, about a half hour later, and reported that there was no hope. Taeko had guessed as much. Making her way home under the blazing sun, she knew what a strain it had been for the ailing teacher to make that trip every day—it was a trial for Taeko herself to go even once.

  The next day Sachiko visited the hospital with Taeko, and five or six days later they had notice of the teacher’s death. When they went with condolences, they had occasion for the first time to call at her house; and they found it an astonishing house— little better than a tenement—for a woman who bore the proud Yamamura name, and who almost alone handed on the dance tradition so much a part of old Osaka. There she had wrung out a miserable existence, a desperate existence, even. And was that not because she was a woman with little talent for making her way in the world, a woman whose conscience did not permit her to do damage to the old forms and make concessions to the fashions of the day? Her predecessor had been dance mistress to the geishas in the South Quarter, and had overseen their annual dance recital; but Saku herself announced upon succeeding to the name that she wanted no part of geisha recitals and the like. The gaudy Tokyo styles being in their heyday, she knew that if she became dance mistress to one of the geisha quarters, certain functionaries would interfere to make her adopt the new fashions she so disliked. This rigidness kept her from becoming a worldly success. She had few pupils, and she was not blessed with a happy personal life: reared by a grandmother, she never married, although there was said to have been a man who had paid her geisha debts. She had no children. No relatives were with her when she died. Only a very few people attended the funeral, at Abeno, in the late summer heat. Almost all the funeral guests went to the crematory next door, where they exchanged memories as they waited for the ashes. Saku had hated to ride in anything, and had particularly disliked ships and automobiles. Very religious, she made her visit on the twenty-sixth of every month to the Kiyoshikōjin Shrine, and she had made the “round of the hundred twenty-eight shrines.” In February each year, on the day that traditionally marks the beginning of spring, she visited the Jizō chapels in the Uemachi section of Osaka and offered a rice cake for each year of her age. She was most patient in explaining to her pupils the key spots in a dance, but she could also be demanding. She was very particular, for instance, about this passage from “The Salt Makers”:

  Come, a box-tree comb in your hair,

  And help me take brine from the tide.

  And at the verse about the moon and the two reflections, she insisted that the dancer think of the unreal moon in the brine buckets. Again, there was a passage from “The Curse”:

  I suppose you too will be sorry now. Think well on what you have done.

  The dancer, half kneeling, went through the motions of driving a nail, and
Saku required that the eyes express intense determination. Conservative and retiring, she yet felt that she could not sit idly by and see the Osaka dance overwhelmed by the Tokyo dance, and she thought the opportunity might come for her to take her dance to Tokyo. Her pupils planned to celebrate her sixtieth birthday by hiring a hall in the South Quarter and giving a really elaborate recital—it had not occurred to them that she might not live until her sixtieth birthday. Taeko, a relatively new pupil who had known Saku for but a few years, sat respectfully by with Sachiko and listened. She had hoped, as a favorite pupil, to receive a professional name in the Yamamura school, and the hope had come to nothing.

  13

  “MOTHER, the Stolzes are going back to Germany,” said Etsuko one evening after she had been playing next door.

  Across the fence the next day, Sachiko asked Mrs. Stolz whether Etsuko’s story was true. It was, said Mrs. Stolz. Her husband said Japan was at war. The Kobe office, almost no business. No business since the first of the year. They waited, hoping the war would end, they did not know when. Her husband thought about many things, decided to go back to Germany. Mrs. Stolz went on to describe how her husband had been in business in Manila before coming to Kobe two or three years before, and how they hated to go back to Germany now that he had established himself in the Far East. They had been very lucky to have such good neighbors, and all of them, and especially the children, were extremely sad at having to go. Mr. Stolz and the oldest son, Peter, would leave this month and go home by way of America. Mrs.

  Stolz and Rosemarie and Fritz would go to Manila next month and spend some time with a sister’s family, and return to Europe from there. The sister’s family too was returning to Germany; and since the sister was at the moment ill in Germany, Mrs. Stolz would see to packing and closing the house for them, and would take the three children back with her. Mrs. Stolz and the younger children would not leave for perhaps three weeks, but Mr. Stolz and Peter already had their reservations. They would leave Yokohama on the Empress of Canada late in August—so quickly had they had to make their plans.