A True Novel Read online

  “You know, you can pay it back monthly, little by little.”

  “I need to think about it.”

  Perhaps she’d been shy or just reluctant to face up to her financial straits. Ten minutes after that unenthusiastic reply, she called back and said with formal deliberation, “I’ve decided to accept your generous offer.”

  My motives weren’t really generous. If Nanae had a new car, she might be able to struggle on in the States awhile longer, I thought. I knew she had exhausted nearly all her options for making a living there, but, before confronting the question of what should be done about her, I just had to finish my novel—I prayed to heaven to let me finish it. Always the one to help around the house while Nanae practiced the piano, I had found my time and energy treated as common property, and that hadn’t changed. No one took my writing seriously. I myself could easily slip back into those old habits and stay away from writing—from what ought to be my calling in life—to deal with the muddle of daily life, too often trying to clear up the mess my family had become.

  On the day I left, Nanae drove me to Kennedy Airport in her new Accord, its engine purring softly.

  “Take good care of yourself.”

  “Yep. You too.”

  I had already agreed to teach at another university in the States and was going to be back in less than a year. Maybe that was why she didn’t seem terribly down about my leaving. Nevertheless, the years of struggling had left her with a sickly look. I got onto the crowded jumbo jet feeling both exasperated and wretched, unable to erase the impression of her wasted face.

  When I arrived in Tokyo, the first thing I did was visit my father. I couldn’t tell how much he was able to see or understand, but he turned toward me, smiled, and said he was glad to see me again. As he was no longer in the habit of wearing his dentures, his smile was toothless and vulnerable, like a newborn baby’s. I saw relief on my mother’s face.

  It wasn’t long before I published my first novel.

  THE NEXT PLACE I taught at was in the Midwest, at the University of Michigan. The town, Ann Arbor, froze all winter, and it was in the frozen heart of winter that I arrived. Though slightly outside the snowbelt, where the snow might be deeper, Ann Arbor had a winter more severe than any I’d experienced in my life. The university arranged for an apartment that was only a five-minute walk from the campus and just across the street from a little grocery store, so I didn’t need a car this time around. It was so cold, however, that I did need a down coat to cover me from neck to ankle, fur-lined snow boots, and big mittens. On my way to classes, I felt and looked like a penguin. No weekend walks that winter—and winter seemed to go on forever.

  Nonetheless, spring did arrive, on schedule. As soon as Easter break began, I flew to New York, mainly to see Nanae, who came to pick me up at LaGuardia Airport in her still shiny Accord. She seemed pleased that her little sister was in the same country again, though the accumulated fatigue that had struck me when we last parted was now even more pronounced. She complained of not feeling well. I suggested that she see a doctor, but she merely said, “Doctors cost lots of money here.” And so when Mrs. Cohen called to invite us over, the night before my departure, she grumbled about it at first: “Her house is way too far!”

  Mrs. Cohen was still on Long Island, but farther away from the city, in a larger house, where she lived alone with her husband, their two sons having grown up. He joined us for dinner that evening. As is often the case in America when men are present, the talk turned to current events. Despite her initial grumbling, Nanae made an effort to engage in conversation with Mr. Cohen about the Gulf War, the next presidential election, and so forth, to my own relief, since I could barely remember the names of either the places or the people involved, my only source of news being the radio I listened to while working in the kitchen. Soon Mr. Cohen heaved his enormous self up and settled in front of the equally enormous television in the family room to watch a basketball game. All at once the dining room became a cozier place and, with cups of green tea in our hands, we could have a relaxed, all-woman chat in Japanese.

  Mrs. Cohen said, looking at me as if I were some rare kind of animal, “Minae, I heard you published a novel. I’m so impressed!”

  I would have responded with some self-deprecating remark, as modesty dictated, if she hadn’t immediately brought up another subject.

  “Since you spend most of your time in Japan now, I’m sure you know the magazine Enterprise Japan,” she said, looking at me with some excitement. I told her, remembering the self-satisfied grin of some CEO or other on one of its garish covers, that I’d seen the magazine advertised in the subway. Apparently an Enterprise Japan reporter had visited Mrs. Cohen several weeks earlier and asked detailed questions about Taro Azuma.

  “You’re joking,” I burst out, refusing to believe the Azuma I knew was bracketed with the world of Enterprise Japan, however rich he might be.

  “No, I’m not. Can you believe it?”

  The magazine was putting together a special issue about Japanese who had succeeded abroad. Azuma was at the top of their list. The journalist had requested an interview, to be accompanied, he hoped, by a double-page spread of photographs, but Azuma had declined, so people who were acquainted with him had been approached.

  “It seems he’s the most successful Japanese businessman in America, though hardly known in Japan. They told me he’s made more money than Rocky Aoki—you know, the one who started the Benihana restaurants?”

  Even we knew who Rocky Aoki was.

  “Isn’t that something?” Mrs. Cohen asked with apparent pride, studying first my face and then Nanae’s. I couldn’t detect any of the slight resentment I’d last heard in her voice. She now seemed simply, even too simply, privileged to have known this renowned individual.

  “Yes, it really is,” Nanae agreed. I added that our father had known from the very beginning that he stood out from the rest.

  “From what I hear, he’s now worth hundreds of millions of dollars—and has been for quite a while,” she told us.

  The amount was too large to get our heads around, either in dollars or in yen.

  “What’s more, he’s started to spend his money,” she continued. “He bought a huge old mansion with lots of land. I can’t remember how many acres.”

  “Really?” we cried out together.

  Mrs. Cohen gazed at us happily. The place he had bought, it turned out, was one of the mansions on the Gold Coast of Long Island, not too far from the park where we used to have our company picnics every June. A wealthy industrialist from the city had built the house in the early twentieth century, but, as the property continued to change hands, both the house and the grounds had fallen into disrepair, and Azuma was now restoring them.

  I was mute with envy as I heard the story. Wealth was nothing but an abstract notion; a grand house on the Gold Coast, however, was painfully real. Why should someone like Azuma get involved in a project so culturally sophisticated—restoring a historic building? I may have been even more dismayed than envious, thinking of my cramped, ordinary apartment in Tokyo, with its four concrete walls always within arm’s reach. I remembered our standing next to each other on the edge of that same shore, gazing out to sea. That day, I had thought I was the one with a future; I’d even felt guilty about it.

  “They say the place is gorgeous, like something in the movies.”

  “No …!”

  “And he’s building an annex, close to the water.”

  “No …!”

  “And even a Japanese teahouse too!”

  Mrs. Cohen had heard all these things secondhand; it had been years since she last saw him. Her source was a Japanese cabinetmaker living in Manhattan who was helping to build the teahouse. Since the teahouse and adjoining Japanese garden were integral to the plan, he’d told her, Azuma had gone so far as to hire an architect from Japan to oversee the project.

  “Well, what do you say to all this?” Mrs. Cohen asked, clearly relishing the reaction sh
e was getting. I could see why she had been more insistent than usual in her invitation.

  “What can anyone say?” answered Nanae.

  “And he’s also started doing good works.”

  “How so?”

  For a couple of years, Azuma had been hosting a Christmas party to cheer up Japanese people who no longer had anywhere to go back to and were stuck in New York indefinitely, barely making enough to live on. What’s more, he didn’t limit the invitation to them but included people from other parts of Asia, hiring not only Japanese chefs but Korean and Chinese ones as well. Together they prepared such a feast that, after eating more than their fill, guests were encouraged to take food home with them.

  “He makes charitable donations too,” she told us, “so I guess he’s turned into a philanthropist.”

  “Now, that truly is something,” I said, sincerely impressed.

  Mrs. Cohen didn’t hesitate to correct my naive view of the world. “It’s more a sign that he’s joining the club of rich Americans.”

  Nanae’s eyes brightened. “Another thing rich people do is collect art.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Do me a favor, will you? Next time you see Mr. Azuma, tell him about my fabulous sculptures. Please?”

  “Of course, I will—if I ever see him again, that is.”

  “Tell him it’s a good investment.”

  “Sure.”

  THEN IT WAS time for us to head back to Brooklyn.

  Our return journey was much more cheerful, thanks to the wine we’d had and the stories we’d just heard.

  “I can’t believe we used to know someone who’s that loaded now.”

  “And to think Papa played a part in it.”

  “Did I ever tell you that he changed a lightbulb in my bedroom?”

  “No! You should’ve saved it as a souvenir!”

  Once we got out of the car, however, and started down the seedy sidewalk from the parking lot to Nanae’s loft, we were more subdued.

  While we were getting ready for bed, she seemed downhearted, perhaps because I was going back to Michigan the next day and wouldn’t be coming back before my return to Japan. I was brushing my teeth and Nanae was wiping mascara off with a Kleenex when she sighed, “And me, I’m only getting poorer by the day.” I realized that she was comparing herself to Taro Azuma, which seemed both funny and sad. I felt sorry for her—and for myself, burdened with her.

  IN MICHIGAN IT seemed as if spring would never come; then when it did, all too soon it was summer. One day I realized the cold was loosening its grip, and then overnight, the weather turned hot, with the sun whitening the concrete streets. As if to reward themselves for having endured such a long, harsh winter, everyone walked around wearing as little as they could get away with. I too wanted to reward myself, and put on a bright, snug-fitting little sleeveless dress and open-toed heels and proudly marched into town—a suitable way to say goodbye to my youth, I suppose, looking back on it now.

  On my way back to Japan, when I changed planes at O’Hare in Chicago, I called Nanae. There was time to spare, so we chatted for a while about nothing in particular. Then, just before we said goodbye, I asked, “Do you want to come back to Japan?”

  Having published my first novel, I felt willing to be more available. If my sister wanted to come back, I was ready to help. It was just possible that returning would open up new opportunities for her.

  Maybe she detected something different in my voice, for she sounded different herself. “That’s a possibility. I’ll think about it.”

  SEVERAL YEARS PASSED before I heard anything new about Taro Azuma. During that period, I managed to publish a second novel, yet my family absorbed so much of my energy that I felt as if that interval had stolen half my life. Nanae didn’t make up her mind for a while, but eventually when I repeated my suggestion, she gave in all at once and, with a burst of energy I’d never imagined she had, packed up her two cats and was back in Japan in a flash. Soon after, there arrived a large stack of boxes, a few pieces of quasi-antique furniture that she couldn’t bear to part with, and the Steinway, colossal for a Tokyo-size apartment. She would have been better off sleeping under it. She sold her loft in SoHo, the Accord, and the tools she used for sculpting, which left her with some money even after she paid her debts. Helping her find a suitable apartment took nearly one year; helping her find a way of making a living took nearly two.

  Then, when I finally got Nanae reasonably well settled in Tokyo, my mother fell ill and had to be hospitalized. The old age she had succeeded in keeping at bay caught up with her all at once. She came out of the hospital an old woman with white hair and a cane, her back bent—a cruel turn for someone who had been beautiful. Naturally, I had to take care of her as well. Until then, she’d been spending more than half her time abroad, as her boyfriend was again transferred, leaving the task of visiting my father at the nursing home to her daughters, principally me. She used to justify her behavior by claiming that this boyfriend, being younger, would look after her in her old age. Now she conveniently lost interest in him—and perhaps he in her—and decided to move near where I lived, saying, “Oh, I’m so lucky to have daughters to look after me. Men are so useless.” She said “daughters,” but we all knew she meant me. My mother and Nanae never got along after Nanae gave up her music. More resigned than indignant, I didn’t complain: I somehow knew all along that things would turn out like this. The backstage daughter now had to be the backbone of the family. Not long after this, my unhappy father died. I was the only one with him at the end.

  When it was all over and I was able, as if finally surfacing from underwater, to catch my breath, I realized how much had changed. Death had taken away not only my father but a whole stratum of those I’d always thought of simply as “the adults.” My peers by now were all thick around the waist and neck; the generation I had continued thinking of as children were taller than I was. Even Japan’s “bubble” economy had burst, and the country had entered what would later be called the lost decade, mired in stagnation.

  Time flew over me, its black wings spread.

  IT WAS AGAIN from Mrs. Cohen that I heard about Taro Azuma. The University of Michigan invited me back to give a lecture about my second novel; after my lecture, I flew to New York. When I called her from my hotel in Manhattan, she answered with a surprisingly young voice—“Oh, Minae, it’s you!”—and, on learning I was free that night, offered to pick me up in her car at my hotel. She chatted, hands on the wheel, telling me that her husband had had a mild stroke and that they now had grandchildren. Yet, like her unchanged voice on the telephone, she remained the same as ever, her brown hair cut short, her fingernails manicured and brightly painted. Time must have stopped for her.

  “New York has changed a lot,” she told me as she took me to Flushing, on Long Island. Immigrants had always come to this unprepossessing neighborhood, deprived though it was of trees or charm. Reflecting the recent influx of Asian immigrants to the East Coast, this part of Queens had become a second Chinatown, or rather Asiatown, its main street lined with restaurants of every Asian nationality imaginable—Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Thai. Mrs. Cohen took me to a Korean place with a huge parking lot, saying they served good food. The restaurant was also huge inside, with glaring fluorescent lights that reminded me of Japanese convenience stores. I couldn’t help wondering whether white people with lighter-colored eyes would need sunglasses to eat there. The heap of red meat they served on an enormous platter to two small women was a clear reminder that I was back in America.

  Conversation eventually turned to things connected with my father’s death about a year ago. Our family hadn’t held a formal funeral; we just asked people from his company to join us for the memorial service, forty-nine days afterward, when Buddhists believe the spirit makes its final departure from this world. I hadn’t seen these people for almost a quarter of a century. Their behavior and appearance suggested they had all led reasonably successful liv
es, which made me rueful, even envious as I thought of my father’s final years. I told Mrs. Cohen that I’d brought with me a picture of him when he was young, before he had even met my mother, and had taken it to Rockefeller Center, where I perched on a bench and pulled it out, as a way of showing him a view he himself had been proud to show his family. With Mrs. Cohen I was more talkative than usual, for I knew she felt sad about his death, in her own way.

  She put down her chopsticks and looked at me.

  “When I heard about your dad, I immediately thought of Mr. Azuma. Your dad helped him out quite a bit, and I thought he’d want to offer his condolences, so I tried to contact him.”

  I remembered the mischievous smile on my father’s round, bespectacled face when he told us that he’d suggested to him, “If they call you Dr. Azuma, let them.” While it was true that Azuma might be one of the few to genuinely mourn his death, he had not been among other acquaintances in the States we’d heard from after he died.

  “But, then …” She took a breath and continued hesitantly, “It turned out he’d disappeared.” She sounded incredulous herself.

  “Disappeared?”

  Yes, Azuma had abruptly dropped out of sight. The estate on Long Island that had stunned everyone when he bought it had already been sold. She heard rumors about his moving to California. People were baffled, stupefied. There wasn’t any nasty gossip, only various theories, but he had disappeared so completely that all conjecture seemed futile.

  I didn’t know what to think. I was so used to hearing the latest development in his success story from Mrs. Cohen and crying out in amazement, each time I returned to the States, that it never occurred to me that this pattern might stop.

  “But what about his work?” I asked.

  She had no idea. She had heard that he’d stopped working with his partner of all those years and was just managing the fortune he had made for himself. The U.S. economy continued to grow, and stock prices continued to rise while the rich were taxed less and less. Even if he didn’t actively invest, his worth could only increase.