The Makioka Sisters Page 4

  “What a child. I understand.”

  Yukiko was in fact delighted at these signs of affection. For some reason, Etsuko never clung quite so stubbornly to her mother, but Yukiko was not allowed to go out unless she accepted Etsuko’s conditions. On the surface, and indeed to Yukiko herself, her reasons for spending so much time in Ashiya were that she did not get along well with her brother-in-law, and that Sachiko was the more sympathetic of her older sisters. Lately, however, Yukiko had begun to wonder whether a still more important reason might not be her affection for Etsuko. She had not been able to find an answer when Tsuruko once complained that though Yukiko doted on Etsuko, she paid almost no attention to the children at the main house. The truth of the matter was that Yukiko was especially fond of little girls Etsuko’s age and Etsuko’s sort. The main house was of course full of children, but, except for the baby, they were all boys who could not hope to compete with Etsuko for Yukiko’s affections. Yukiko, who had lost her father some ten years before and her mother when she was very young, and who had no real home of her own, could with no particular regrets have gone off the next day to be married, but for the thought that she would no longer see Sachiko, of whom in all the world she was fondest and on whom she most depended. No, she could still see Sachiko. It was the child Etsuko she would not see, for Etsuko would be changing and growing away from her, forgetting the old affection. Yukiko felt a little jealous of Sachiko, who would always have the girl’s love. If she married a man who had been married before, she hoped it would be a man with a pretty little daughter. Even should the child prove to be prettier than Etsuko, however, she feared she could never quite match the love she had for the latter. The fact that she had been so long in finding a husband caused Yukiko herself less anguish than others might have supposed. She rather hoped that if she could not make a match worth being really enthusiastic about, she would be left here in Ashiya helping Sachiko rear the child. That would somehow make up for the loneliness.

  It was not impossible that Sachiko had deliberately brought the two together. When Taeko began making dolls in the room assigned to her and Yukiko, Sachiko arranged to move Yukiko into Etsuko’s room, a six-mat Japanese-style room on the second floor. Etsuko slept in a low wooden baby bed, and a maid had always slept on the straw-matted floor beside her. When Yukiko took the maid’s place, she spread two kapok mattresses on a folding straw couch, so that her bed was almost as high as Etsuko’s. She gradually began relieving Sachiko of her duties: nursing Etsuko when she was ill, hearing her lessons and her piano practice, making her lunch or her afternoon tea. Yukiko was in many ways better qualified to care for the child than was Sachiko. Etsuko was plump and rosy-cheeked, but like her mother she had little resistance to ailments. She was always running a high fever or going to bed with a swollen lymph gland or an attack of tonsillitis. At such times someone had to sit up two and three nights running to change the poultices and refill the ice bag, and it was Yukiko who best stood the strain. Yukiko appeared to be the most delicate of the sisters. Her arms were very little fuller than Etsuko’s, and the fact that she looked as though she might come down with tuberculosis at almost any time had helped frighten off prospective husbands. The truth was, however, that she was the strongest of them all. Sometimes when influenza went through the house, she alone escaped. She had never been seriously ill. Sachiko, on the other hand, would have been taken for the healthiest of the sisters, but her appearance was deceiving. She was in fact quite undependable. If she tired herself, however slightly, taking care of Etsuko, she too was presently ill, and the burden on the rest of the family was doubled. The center of her father’s attention when the Ma-kioka family had been at its most prosperous, she even now had something of the spoiled child about her. Her defenses were weak, both mentally and physically. Sometimes, as if they were older than she, her sisters would find it necessary to reprove her for some excess. She was therefore highly unqualified both for nursing Etsuko and for seeing to her everyday needs. Sachiko and Etsuko sometimes had real quarrels. There were those who said that Sachiko did not want to lose a good governess, and that when a prospective bridegroom appeared for Yukiko she stepped in to wreck the negotiations. Although Tsuruko at the main house was not inclined to believe the rumors, she did complain that Sachiko found Yukiko too useful to send home. Sachiko’s husband Teinosuke too was a little uneasy. For Yukiko to live with them was very well, he said, but it was unfortunate that she had worked her way between them and the child. Could Sachiko not try to keep her at more of a distance? To have Etsuko come to love her aunt more than her mother would not do. But Sachiko answered that he was inventing problems. Etsuko was clever enough for her age, and, however much she might seem to favor Yukiko, she really loved Sachiko herself best. It was not necessary that Etsuko cling to her mother as she clung to Yukiko. Etsuko knew that Yukiko would one day leave to be married, that was all. To have Yukiko in the house was a great help, of course, but that would last only until they found her a husband. Sachiko knew how fond Yukiko was of children, and had let her have Etsuko to make her forget the loneliness of the wait. Koi-san had her dolls and the income they brought (and as a matter of fact she seemed to be keeping company with a man), whereas poor Yukiko had nothing. Sachiko felt sorriest for Yukiko. Yukiko had no place to go, and Sachiko had given her Etsuko to keep her happy.

  To say whether or not Yukiko had guessed all this was impossible. In any case, her devotion when Etsuko was ill was something Sachiko or even a professional nurse could never have imitated. Whenever someone had to watch the house, Yukiko tried to send Teinosuke and Sachiko and Taeko off while she stayed behind with Etsuko. She would have been expected, then, to stay behind again today, but the concert was a small private one to hear Leo Sirota, and she could not bring herself to forgo a piano recital. Teinosuke having gone hiking near Arima Springs, Taeko and Sachiko were to meet him in Kobe for dinner. Yukiko decided to refuse at least the dinner invitation. She would be back for dinner with Etsuko.

  7

  “WHAT COULD be keeping her?”

  Taeko and Yukiko were at the gate. There was no sign of Sachiko.

  “It is almost two.” Taeko stepped toward the cab. The driver held the door open.

  “They have been talking for hours.”

  “She might just try hanging up.”

  “Do you think Itani would let her? I can see her trying to back away from the telephone.” Yukiko’s amusement suggested again that the affair was no concern of hers. “Etsuko, go tell your mother to hang up.”

  “Shall we get in?” Taeko motioned to the cab.

  “I think we should wait.” Yukiko, always very proper, would not get into the cab ahead of an older sister. There was nothing for Taeko to do but wait with her.

  “I heard Itani’s story.” Taeko took care that the driver did not overhear her. Etsuko had run back into the house.

  “Oh?”

  “And I saw the picture.”

  “Oh?”

  “What do you think, Yukiko?”

  “I hardly know, from just a picture.”

  “You should meet him.”

  Yukiko did not answer.

  “Itani has been very kind, and Sachiko will be upset if you refuse to meet him.”

  “But do we really need to hurry so?”

  “She said she thought it was the hurrying that bothered you.”

  Someone ran up behind them. “I forgot my handkerchief. My handkerchief, my handkerchief. Bring me a handkerchief, someone.” Still fussing with the sleeves of her kimono, Sachiko flew through the gate.

  “It was quite a conversation.”

  “I suppose you think it was easy to think up excuses. I only just managed to throw her off.”

  “We can talk about it later.”

  “Get in, get in.” Taeko pushed her way into the cab after Yukiko.

  It was perhaps a half mile to the station. When they had to hurry they took a cab, but sometimes, half for the exercise, they walked. People would turn to
stare at the three of them, dressed to go out, as they walked toward the station. Shopkeepers were fond of talking about them, but probably few had guessed their ages. Although Sachiko had a six-year-old daughter and could hardly have hidden her age, she looked no more than twenty-six or twenty-seven. The unmarried Yukiko would have been taken for perhaps twenty-two or three, and Taeko was sometimes mistaken for a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old. Yukiko had reached an age when it was no longer appropriate to address her as a girl, and yet no one found it strange that she should be “young Miss Yukiko.” All three, moreover, looked best in clothes a little too young for them. It was not that the brightness of the clothes hid their ages; on the contrary, clothes in keeping with their ages were simply too old for them. When, the year before, Teinosuke had taken his wife and sisters-in-law and Etsuko to see the cherry blossoms by the Brocade Bridge, he had written this verse to go with the souvenir snapshot:

  Three young sisters,

  Side by side,

  Here on the Brocade Bridge.

  The three were not monotonously alike, however. Each had her special beauties, and they set one another off most effectively. Still they had an unmistakable something in common—what fine sisters! one immediately thought. Sachiko was the tallest, with Yukiko and Taeko shorter by equal steps, and that fact alone was enough to give a certain charm and balance to the composition as they walked down the street together. Yukiko was the most Japanese in appearance and dress, Taeko the most Western, and Sachiko stood midway between. Taeko had a round face and a firm, plump body to go with it. Yukiko, by contrast, had a long, thin face and a very slender figure. Sachiko again stood between, as if to combine their best features. Taeko usually wore Western clothes, and Yukiko wore only Japanese clothes. Sachiko wore Western clothes in the summer and Japanese clothes the rest of the year. There was something bright and lively about Sachiko and Taeko, both of whom resembled their father. Yukiko was different. Her face impressed one as somehow sad, lonely, and yet she looked best in gay clothes. The sombre kimonos so stylish in Tokyo were quite wrong for her.

  One of course always dressed for a concert. Since this was a private concert, they had given more attention than usual to their clothes. There was literally no one who did not turn for another look at them as they climbed from the cab and ran through the bright autumn sunlight toward the station. Since it was a Sunday afternoon, the train was nearly empty. Yukiko noticed that the middle-school boy directly opposite her blushed and looked at the floor as they sat down.

  8

  ETSUKO was tired of playing house. Sending O-hana upstairs for a notebook, she sat down in the parlor to work on her compostion.

  The house was for the most part Japanese, the only Western-style rooms being this parlor and the dining room that opened from it. The family received guests in the parlor and spent the better part of the day there. The piano, the radio, and the phonograph were all in the parlor, and during the winter, since only the parlor was heated, it was more than ever the center of the house. This liveliest of rooms attracted Etsuko. Unless she was ill or turned out by guests, she virtually lived there. Her room upstairs, though matted in the Japanese fashion, had Western furnishings and was meant to be her study; but she preferred to study and play in the parlor, which was always a clutter of toys and books and pencils. Everyone dashed about picking things up when there was an unexpected caller.

  Etsuko ran to the front door when she heard the bell, and skipped back into the parlor after Yukiko. The promised gift was under Yukiko’s arm.

  “You are not to look at my composition.” Etsuko turned the notebook face down on the table. “You brought what I asked for? Let me see.” She pulled the package from Yukiko’s arm and lined up the contents on the couch. “Thank you very much.”

  “This was what you wanted?”

  “Yes. Thank you very much.”

  “And did you finish your composition?”

  “Stop. You are not to look at it.” Etsuko snatched up the notebook and ran toward the door. “There is a reason.”

  “And what is that?”

  Etsuko laughed. “Because I wrote about you.”

  “You think you ought not to write about me? Let me see it.”

  “Later. You can see it later. Not now.”

  She had written about the rabbit’s ear, said Etsuko, and Yukiko figured slightly in the narrative. She would be embarrassed to have Yukiko look at it now. Yukiko should go over it carefully that night after Etsuko herself was in bed. She would get up early to make a clean copy before she started for school. Sure that Sachiko and the others would go to a movie after dinner and be late coming home, Yukiko had a bath with Etsuko and at about eight thirty took her upstairs. Etsuko, a very bad sleeper, always talked excitedly for twenty minutes or a half hour after she was in bed. Putting her to sleep was something of a chore, and Yukiko always had to lie down and listen to the chatter. Sometimes she would go off to. sleep herself and not wake up until morning, and sometimes, getting up quietly and throwing a robe over her shoulders, she would go downstairs to have a cup of tea with Sachiko, or the cheese and white wine Teinosuke occasionally brought out. Tonight a stiffness in the shoulders—she often suffered from it—kept her awake. Sachiko and the rest would not be home for some time, and it seemed a good chance to look at the composition. Making very sure that Etsuko was asleep, Yukiko opened the notebook under the night lamp.

  THE RABBIT’S EAR

  I have a rabbit. Someone brought him and said, “This is for Miss Etsuko.”

  We have a dog and cat in our house, and we keep the rabbit by itself in the hall. I always pet it in the morning before I go to school.

  Last Thursday I went out into the hall before I went to school. One ear stood up straight but the other was floped over. “What a funny rabbit. Why not make the other ear stand up?” I said, but the rabbit did not listen. “Let me stand it up for you,” I said. I stood the ear up with my hand, but as soon as I let go it floped over again. I said to Yukiko, “Yukiko, look at the rabbit’s ear.” Yukiko pushed the ear up with her foot, but when she let go it floped over again. Yukiko laughed and said, “What a funny ear.”

  Yukiko hastily drew a line under the words “with her foot.”

  Etsuko was good at composition, and this too seemed well enough written. Looking in the dictionary to see whether “floped” might just possibly be an acceptable spelling, Yukiko corrected only that. There did not seem to be any mistakes in grammar. The problem was what to do about that foot, however. She finally decided only to strike out the three unfortunate words. It would have been simplest to say “with her hand,” but Yukiko had in fact used her foot, and she did not think it right to have the child telling a lie. If the sentence became a little vague, there was nothing to be done about it. But what if the composition had been taken off to school without Yukiko’s having seen it? Etsuko had caught her in an unseemly pose.

  Here is the story of that “with her foot”:

  The house next door to, or rather behind, the Ashiya house had for the last six months been occupied by a German family named Stolz. Since only a coarse wire-net fence stood between the two back yards, Etsuko immediately came to know the Stolz children. At first they would glare through the fence and Etsuko would glare back, like animals warily testing each other, but before long they were moving freely back and forth. The oldest was named Peter, and after him came Rosemarie and Fritz. Peter appeared to be nine or ten, and Rosemarie, exactly Etsuko’s height, was probably a year or two younger than Etsuko. Foreign children tend to be large. Etsuko and the Stolzes were soon great friends. Rosemarie in particular came over after school each evening, and Etsuko used the affectionate “Rumi” by which the German girl was known in her own family.

  The Stolzes had, besides a German pointer and a coal-black cat, an Angora rabbit which they kept penned in the back yard. Etsuko, who had a cat and dog of her own, was not interested in the cat and dog next door, but the rabbit fascinated her. She was fond of helping Rosemarie
feed it and of picking it up by the ears, and presently she was coaxing her mother to buy a rabbit for her. Although Sachiko had no particular objection to keeping animals, it would be sad, she thought, to have an animal die for want of good care. And of course they already had Johnny, the dog and Bell, the cat, and it would be a nuisance to have to feed a rabbit too. And there was nowhere in the house to keep it, since it would have to be penned apart from Johnny and Bell. Sachiko was still deliberating the problem when the man who cleaned the chimney came around with a rabbit. The rabbit was not an Angora, indeed, but it was very white and very pretty. Etsuko, upon consultation with her mother, decided that it would best be kept in the hall, out of reach of Johnny and Bell. The creature was a puzzle to Sachiko and the rest. Unlike a cat or a dog, it was completely unresponsive. It only sat with wide, staring, pink eyes, a strange, twitching creature in a world quite apart.

  This was the rabbit of which Etsuko had written. Yukiko was in the habit of waking the girl, helping with her breakfast, seeing that she had everything she needed for school, and then going back to bed herself. It had been a chilly autumn morning. Yukiko, a kimono thrown over her nightgown, had gone to the door to see Etsuko off and found the girl earnestly trying to make the rabbit’s ear stand up. “See what you can do with it,” Etsuko had ordered. Yukiko, hoping to solve the problem and see Etsuko off in time for school, and yet unwilling to touch the puffy animal, had tried lifting the ear between her toes. As soon as she took her foot away, the ear “floped over” again.

  “What was wrong with what I had?” Etsuko looked at the correction the next morning.

  “Did you really have to say I used my foot?”

  “But you did.”

  “Because I did not want to touch the thing.”

  “Oh?” Etsuko did not seem satisfied. “Maybe I should say so, then.”

  “And what will your teacher think of my manners?”