Dear readers, this piece has come to me from the editorial assembly committee that you too have come to know and appreciate, if not love. In the interlude preceding this piece, you may find the motive force behind its publication. It appears to be a collection of episodes spanning the years 2006-2011, and finding an epilogue some time in 2016. Dedicated explorers might want to match the events with those found in other accounts, or in Mutou's own. Other than that, I shall hand you over to the inestimable 'R', who presents the following:
Mutou: Pavane
He was a very tired man, sometimes. This part of his life began in 2006, when his old life fell apart and only the school was left. How does one shape a story within the larger story, that spans ten years in fits and starts? He himself called it a ‘pavane’. Your editor looked the word up, and found it to be a medieval dance, slow and dignified.
This undistinguished person will tell that story for him, because he wanted it told. It gives me pain at this distance, because I would have wanted to comfort him, had I known all of this then. But I am only his editor, and this service of mine comes too late. So, from his own mouth, and with my understanding of the man, please accept these small fragments, bits taken from his many notebooks, pieced together with what little talent I have.
=====
I wake and it’s the day after the 2006 Spring Equinox, when winter’s hold on reality goes, and life is free again. But this morning I wake to a cold bed, because my bird has flown, and all warmth has gone with it.
“Michiko?” I whisper, looking up at the ceiling, not daring to look elsewhere. But the room’s emptiness mocks me. “Ko… ko… ko…” it echoes, in the silence of my head.
It’s been three weeks since the papers were officially filed and our marriage died across a scratched and battered government table. Settlements are simple in Japan. Her grief, my grief, a potent recipe for giving up at last. It hadn’t been more than three months since…
I get out of bed, my mouth thick from wasted whisky. I move across the smooth-worn wooden floor, to the window, to roll up the blinds and look out. It’s a very clear day, and I can see the mountainside from here. A beautiful day, the cool breeze drying the old tears on my face.
I don’t have to go into school, because the holidays are here. Another group of students has graduated; I will miss burly Nishida and shy Aikawa, practical Kugizaki and mad little Hirata. Every year I miss students, but the feeling goes away after a while. They have their own lives to lead. Why burden them with my own?
But I have work to do, I always have work to do. A good gardener visits his garden every day. Even if there is nothing in it worth seeing. You never know.
*****
I should have known it would be a mistake. It’s because of this damned place—my little desk, my class records, my student files—that I have lost the loveliest flower of Japan. Who names a woman ‘Beautiful Intellect’ unless they want her to attract the gaze of a stricken science teacher? Fate grants, and Fate removes. I cannot put my thoughts together. What use am I now, then?
On the day of the Spring Equinox, we Japanese sometimes go home to visit our families, renew ancestral ties, clean the graves and grave markers of our familial dead. This year, I’ve not bothered. Okinawa is too far for a drowning man, and my parents, already aghast at me marrying above my station, are now bitter in their mockery. Two families I could have had, and neither one is mine now.
“Mutou-san?” a soft voice inquires. “Still working?”
It’s one of those damn things. Rei Miyagi is my counterpart, the humanities coordinator for Third Year. Her career has shadowed mine, or mine hers. We’re like a dog and a cat of the same colour.
She’s a pretty girl, but that’s not what I need right now. Because when I look at her, I see a small thin faded version of my beautiful Michiko, whose chestnut hair filled the air with heat. Miyagi is nothing like that. The vision passes. Poor Miyagi. Poor me.
“Miyagi-san, sorry. Not working, really. Just putting things in order before I go away.”
That’s a half-lie. I don’t know where I’m going, or even if I’m going away. I am even thinking of dropping by the medical centre, to see if Kaneshiro is in. The new Chief Nurse has somehow become a drinking buddy. If it weren’t for this, how else would we cope with our daily burden of care?
“Ah, may you have a pleasant holiday. See you again when the new term begins!”
“You too, esteemed colleague.”
She smiles, dimpling. As she turns on her sensible heels, her black hair sways like a curtain. A last nod, then she gathers an armful of items, and leaves. In the shadows of the staff room, I suddenly feel empty. There’s no life in me.
*****
“You should get a girlfriend!” says my older friend. As usual, he dispenses advice in a way that makes it hard to tell if he’s joking or not. “It does wonders for your love life!”
The man’s such a teenager, even though he’s entered his fourth decade. Well-preserved. Looks younger, sometimes, than his once-in-a-while on-again-off-again lady. Looks younger than I do, most days. I envy him. He has the ability to laugh anything off, while being serious and professional inside.
My treacherous memory attacks. I can hear Michi saying, her cheeks burning with pale fire, “Yes, it’s always professionalism with you, isn’t it? You’re always better than others, a model teacher. I think you love your job more than you love me.” It wasn’t true, but I didn’t show her that till everything was broken and it was too late.
“So how about it?” Goro Kaneshiro asks. “Want me to ask Meiko, fix something up for you? She has a lot of pretty friends!”
“Hey!” I blurt out. “It’s too soon. Please.”
He looks at me, assessing, thinking. “Mutou, you’re right. It is too soon. My apologies. I had to know. I’m your friend, right?”
“Forgiven,” I say curtly. I’m tired, and I don’t have enough to keep being polite and human. “I’m sorry. It’ll take time.”
*****
Another day, another pile of marking. I can’t stand my job. So much for the young and stupid Mutou who wanted to be the best teacher in Japan. “Screw it,” I mutter to myself.
There’s the soft but awkward clearing of a young throat. I look up. Short black hair, tinted blue. Trendy glasses, titanium frames. I quickly stack papers and stand up as she bows. I bow back.
[Greetings, Mutou-sensei. I trust you are in good health?]
Still so formal, she is. Less angry, these days, but very driven to succeed. I remember having a terrible conversation with her father over the phone. Damn the man, he should be more encouraging of his daughter’s ambitions.
[Ah, Shizune. What can I do for you?]
[Now it’s second year. I want to run for Student Council President. Your advice is always much appreciated, respected teacher.]
I think she only calls me that because I was the first one to talk to her when she first arrived at Yamaku. I look at her with a sinking sensation. Of course she wants to do this. And of course, her rival would be my ex-wife’s niece, who has already asked me this question in her own polite, soft-spoken way.
I shake my head, lost in my own thoughts, and then suddenly realize that Shizune is watching me do this with a look of betrayal on her face. [No, no, I was shaking my head over some other matters. This old teacher apologizes for giving the wrong impression. I think you should do it. Your father would be proud of you.]
[He would just say it is an achievement but not a great one. Then say how much greater he was when he was doing that kind of thing.]
It is indeed possible to convey bitterness without speech. I try to convey encouragement without bias: [I am proud of all my students when they try to overcome their difficulties. I am happy when they succeed. My advice to you is to value people. To try to work with them.]
[What if they don’t want to work with me?]
This is stupid. In the jut of her determined chin, the set of her jaw, I momentarily glimpse a memory of Michiko. Why would that be? Am I going insane?
[Then you look at yourself, and you look at them, and you try again. Go for it.]
[Thank you, Mutou-sensei.]
[You are most welcome, Shizune.]
*****
A year later, after a minor promotion. A stormy and far too long meeting of academic heads, during which Arts Head Nomiya literally gets spitting mad and walks off. Our acting Vice-Principal, Mathematics Head Iwata, takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes tiredly. He gives an apologetic smile before getting up, bowing, and trundling off. We haven’t had a Foreign Languages Head for a year now, and Miyagi’s covering that as well as Humanities. Principal Yamamoto is off in a corner having stiff words with Japanese Language and Literature Head Koyanagi.
I have a headache. I open one weary eye to see Miyagi looking at me. “Mutou? Perhaps something to eat? You need to keep your spirits up.”
She has always seemed kind. But in her there’s a kind of steeliness that I cannot quite understand. At this time, though, I’m not thinking of that. I’m hungry, and the room is freezing cold in January.
“Ah, that is a good suggestion,” I decide. “May I perhaps have the honour of buying dinner?”
She smiles very slightly. She has one dimple. The asymmetry does not displease me as much as I would have thought. Because she is lean, she looks tall in her formal attire, but she is actually only about Shizune Hakamichi’s size. Except that she is perhaps in her early thirties, a career professional looking tired after a hard day’s work.
“I am honoured to accept.”
*****
We’ve had dinner a few times now, and I’m quite aware of the rumours floating around the staff room. One old carcass teaching literature to the First Years saw us having a meal and sniffed about it to Koyanagi, who ‘expressed his concerns’ to the Boss. So here I am, in the Principal’s room.
Yamamoto stares at me thoughtfully after we’ve gone through the formalities and sit down. I wonder if he is related to the wartime general of that name—huge bullet head, slightly paunchy, the feel of an honorable man who doesn’t want to do what he’s about to do.
I respect him for that. I haven’t been myself for a few months now, and perhaps I’m not the Science Head he expected me to be. I wait for the blow, the transfer suggestion, the replacement of my responsibilities with something less strenuous.
Instead… “Mutou, let me be blunt. I keep you because you’re smart. So do smart things. Get cracking on the new curriculum. Takamori couldn’t do it, you can. And if you are more than friends with any other senior colleagues, I don’t want to know about it in a bad way. We’re still Japanese, not English.”
He sighs deeply, places his hands on the table instead of waving them around as he’s been doing for the last minute or so. “Maybe you need to get married again. I don’t know. If you need to talk, come here. We talk. Okay? Everyone has bad times.”
I nod, dumbly.
“I care for my people. Not so good at talking, me. After you get out of my office, look sad, as if I scolded you. Then go talk to your… friend, because I’m not good with pretty girls. My wife and daughters hate my guts.”
He rises, waits for me to stand, dismisses me with a nod and a grunt. I feel grateful, but also a bit sad for him.
*****
It’s the first time she’s come home with me. I feel tense, anxious like a teenager. We’ve been discussing life, school, the arts, the sciences, tradition, myth, and our students. The list seems to get longer each time.
I wait for her to take off her shoes and don slippers. Almost sick with fear of the unknown, I escort her into my cold apartment, turn the lights on. It’s relatively neat, because my papers and books are all in the unused second bedroom.
“Thank you for the invitation, Akio. Hmm, you seem to be a good housekeeper, esteemed colleague.”
She still teases me that way. A formal touch, an informal joke. Her black hair falls down the nape of her neck now, covers her shoulders when she’s not tied it up. I don’t think she’s cut it shorter for months.
“Do take a seat, Rei. Let me pour you a drink.”
She nods, gracefully moves towards the sofa and very naturally curls her feet under her as she sits down—exactly where Michi used to sit. It sends butterflies through me. I quickly turn away, look for the Uigeadail that my elder niece smuggled over in January. The name and its flavour remind me of my companion—dark and mysterious, with hidden richness.
“With ice?”
“Just a little, not too much.”
The cubes clink in the tumblers. There isn’t much of this bottle left. On other nights in the past, I’d have saved some for the nieces. I apologise silently to them, wherever they are.
Rei looks curiously at me, as if I’ve said something. I’m quite sure I haven’t. But she turns a little and says, “It’s not my place to ask, so I apologise if I am at fault: what was she like?”
I follow her gaze. Damn, I’d locked the wedding photos up and hidden the rest away, didn’t want to look at them. But there’s one left on my spare working desk, near the big screen. It’s the one taken when we went skiing with Lilly and Akira in Hokkaido, almost a decade ago, now. In the frame, it’s still 1998: Akira is gawky, Lilly is chubby, and we are… happy.
“She was a beautiful woman, Rei,” I say. Sorrow is numbing me, and I am unable to censor my words. “I loved her very much. And then I lost her.”
“Your daughters?”
Right, all dressed up for the slopes, you can’t see their faces. Rei would recognize the top English student at Yamaku, otherwise. Even then, you could see those determined features, the look of a girl who can’t see but still wants to risk her life going quickly down a mountain. As long as her uncle is with her, she says, the memory coming alive in my mind.
“No, my… our nieces. A long time ago.”
I’m frowning, my nose blocked up as I blink angrily. I didn’t want to remember.
“Oh… I didn’t want to make you sad. I’m sorry. Old griefs, best left alone.”
“It’s okay.” We’re very private people, in Japan. Very few people know I’m... divorced. It’s an ugly, shameful word to me. Rei probably thinks Michi is dead. Sometimes, it feels that way. I heard that Lilly wept when she heard the news; Akira’s eyes were wet when she told me that. A favourite aunt, a favourite uncle—torn apart.
“I do feel bad. Perhaps it’s a good idea if you show me to the station?” Her skirt rustles briefly as she uncurls her slender feet.
No. Why is that a good idea? “No, no. Please let this unworthy person drive you home. I respectfully insist.”
“I respectfully accept. Thank you, Mutou, for a lovely evening.” Her dark hair flutters a little, like the wing of a sleepy raven.
I feel the moment slip from my grasp. And then it hits me. Up on Mount Aoba, where the little grave is hidden, is the reason why there can’t be another Michiko. At least, not for a long while.
“I’m sorry, Miyagi, very sorry.” She nods, an unfathomable expression on her face. We’ll remain colleagues, and nothing more.
Later that night, I find a message from AKA.Satou: [Dearest Uncle, if you need company, I’ll be dropping in this weekend. Aunt is fine. Love, AK. 2 Mar 07.] She knows it’s been a year, and that I’d want to know about Michi. There’s a reason she’s my favourite niece, I guess.
*****
“Bowling? You cannot be serious.”
It’s the first day of June in 2007. Fifteen months since I began my journey into the wilderness. They say that support networks are important, that the loss of a child, the loss of a spouse, these are important stressors. My network is thin, pathetically so. Miyagi and I still talk, but the barriers have gone up.
I haven’t shaved for a week. Yamamoto looked at my face this morning, shook his head, moved off in a different direction heavily and sadly like a ship leaving port. My mind is going, as the computer said in one of my favourite old films. That terrifies me.
“Of course I’m serious, trenchcoat-san. Meiko and I can’t keep going out on dates by ourselves! It embarrasses Emi! Come along. It’ll be fun, and we can drink that American root beer and eat hot dogs!”
Oh. It’s that bowling alley. My friend the Chief Nurse has rather unrefined tastes. I’m surprised his girlfriend puts up with him. Then again, she has an interesting sense of humour too.
“Sorry. I have a niece to entertain. She drops by every few months.”
“Aha! That’s a clever scam, you crafty fellow. That short-haired blonde is your niece? What a story!”
“You’ve seen Akira?” My surprise betrays me and creates confusion.
“It’s a nephew? I saw him one day when I was driving past your apartment. He seems rather feminine, if you don’t mind me saying so.”
It’s a common mistake, because my elder niece has a name that’s most often masculine in Japanese.
“No. She’s certainly female. Her sister is in 3-2 this year, Satou the class representative.”
“Ahhhh… silly, I should have made the connection. Bring her along, I’m sure a young lady her age is a good bowler. Bring them both along! And your other niece too!”
I’m not getting sense out of him. The words don’t quite fit.
“I shouldn’t be bringing a minor to such a place.” Too late, I realize he’s got access to the medical records. Lilly’s already eighteen.
“Ha! Even the youngest one isn’t a minor anymore. Hakamichi turned 18 in May, you terrible liar!”
Hakamichi? Shizune? What on earth? “What are you saying?”
“You cannot conceal such things from the Chief Nurse, the man responsible for providing for their healthcare needs, you know!”
I cannot conceal my puzzlement. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He frowns. “That’s not funny. Your ex-wife’s sister is Shizune Hakamichi’s mother, and you don’t know it?”
Bloody hell. Which sister? A pit has opened up at my feet. I didn’t know. Couldn’t have known. Besides, I know Shizune’s parents are divorced…
Lightning has struck twice in the same family. Oh, poor Shizune.
“No,” I whisper. “I didn’t know, and Shizune’s not to know I’m her uncle, if she doesn’t already know. They kept it from me for a reason, I’m sure.”
The look on his face would be something to enjoy, if I were in the mood. But I turn away as I say, “Fine. Let’s do bowling.”
Meiko and Akira get along well. Lilly is a surprisingly good bowler, it turns out. She hears the ball rolling, and even keeps score by sound alone. I suppose with hearing like that she can hear a pin drop. She and Akira take turns, doing about as well.
As for Shizune… many years later, I still occasionally mull over the sad fact that I never got to go bowling with my youngest niece.
*****
A few days later, I meet Hisao Nakai for the first time. I get his name wrong in class. But when I look at him, I see the fleeting reflection of a skinny but keen student from Okinawa. My first thought is: may he have a happier life.
He spends only nine months in Yamaku. He makes friends. But amongst all the many individual tragedies I hardly talk about, one of the saddest is this: that he falls in love with my niece Lilly, and she with him, and then she goes away. It is a matter that lasts perhaps three months; it will be a romance that is to last seventeen years.
The only person I ever really discuss it with is Akira. It’s a few months into 2008, and she happens to be in town on her birthday.
“Why couldn’t she just visit, Aki-chan? It’s ridiculous. Your family can afford first-class air travel every week, if necessary. What happened?”
My eldest niece, twenty-six years of age this day, looks at me over the rim of her whisky tumbler. “She’s a Satou girl, you know. We don’t give up. But if we let go, we don’t go back.”
After two years, it still feels like a slap. “Of course,” I say. Bitter, bitter.
She stirs, sits up a little straighter. “Aunt Michi never let you go, respected uncle. I think she blamed herself.”
“Ha. No, no. It was my fault. I’m not so proud I won’t admit it.”
Akira sighs, shifts a little within the shapeless old pullover she’s wearing. “Well, Lils loves you, uncle. It’s just that you’re Hisao’s mentor, and she believes that Hisao’s moved on. Or that he ought to. For her, it’s either life together or not—she doesn’t want to be flying in and out all the time. For me, it’s a bit different; I’ve never felt at home anywhere.”
“My dear niece, I’m sure you’ll find someone to make a home with.”
“It’s the curse of the Satous, uncle.” She downs the last dregs of her drink, carefully puts her glass down and looks into it. “If anywhere’s home these days, it’s your little apartment in Sendai, once or twice a year, not that monstrosity in Inverness.”
“You honour me, Aki-chan.” I mean it. Perhaps it’s also because she’s really my last link to her aunt, apart from our secret place up on the mountain. “You could always stay over in Saitama, surely.”
She looks up in surprise. “You know?”
“Yes.”
“Aunt Mayoi forbade the family from mentioning her relationship to outsiders. It’s made for much confusion, especially since Shizune and Hideaki look nothing like us.”
“And I suppose I’ve always been an outsider.”
She moves slightly closer, rests her right hand on my shoulder. “Uncle, it happened before you and Aunt Michi got married. Almost a decade before. I helped babysit Hideaki—Shizune’s kid brother, remember him? Never got along that well with Aunt Mayoi’s husband, though. He was clearly in the wrong, and he knew it.”
“Not for me to know, niece. After all, if it never was part of my life, it’s never going to be, best leave it alone.”
“Shizune’s very lonely, uncle. For a couple of years she at least had Lils, but it was hard, and then they had that fight, and then there was Nakai. You know what? She looks up to you, and she doesn’t even know you’re our uncle.”
“Well, I was her form teacher. Doesn’t say very much.”
“She used to fight her classmates, fight her father. But she told me you taught her to fight wisely, be a better person, be useful.”
“I did? I don’t remember. And maybe it’s best she never knows I’m her uncle.”
Akira swings one denim-clad leg over the other, prods me gently in the calf with her left big toe. A mischievous grin spreads over her face. “You’d be her favourite uncle. Hell, you’ve always been our favourite uncle too. Not that we’ve had much choice.”
“Best not,” I say, although it pains me. Somehow, I manage to smile back. “Best not. And you’re my favourite niece, so we’re even. Come, you need to get to the airport in time. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks, uncle. Try not to be lonely? Please? Or else I’ll have to keep flying back to Sendai!”
We laugh, but there’s a sting in the tail of that scorpion.
*****
“Hello, Mutou-san, Kaneshiro-san. A sad day, it’s been.”
“Hello, Miyagi-san,” Goro and I chorus softly, a little out of sync. It’s indeed been a sad day, which explains our formality. The crowd has yet to disperse after Saki Enomoto’s funeral. She was well-loved, by both staff and students; many tears have been shed, and some are still flowing.
In Osaka, it’s March 2009. The cherry blossoms are already falling. Her grave is littered with them. The school year has ended, but for Saki, all the years have gone, all at once. It has us depressed, each in a slightly different way.
“I’ll leave you both to it,” says Goro, quick as ever. “I’ve got a flight to catch, but only to Tokyo.”
“No, no, do let me give you a ride to the airport. Kansai or Itami?” Miyagi asks.
“Itami, but only if it’s really no trouble!”
“No trouble at all, colleague. It’s been hard on all of us, why make it harder?”
“You drove down?” I’m surprised; it’s a great distance, and the drive via Niigata can take twelve hours if you’re unlucky.
“Yes. I suppose I needed some time to myself, and there wasn’t anyone else in school when I left. You flew in?”
“With Nurse-san here, yes. Although I had no idea he wasn’t heading straight back to Sendai.”
“Well, after dropping him off, if you would like to accompany me back to Sendai, it would be appreciated. By the time I drive back, it will be long after midnight.” She looks seriously at both of us, not joking at all.
Oh. What the hell, I think. Goro Kaneshiro strikes again; he’s looking very pleased with himself. Although he might’ve had nothing to do with it.
“Ah, in that case, I can hardly refuse. Not that I would want to,” I add hastily. “Thank you very much for the kind offer.”
“Thanks!” echoes Goro. Later, as we drop him off at Itami, he adds, “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, children! Ha, kidding, that’s what I tell all the students when they’re off on a long journey in mixed groups!”
We can see the sun set as we crawl along the coast later, heading up to Niigata. It’s been a relatively quiet, reflective journey. I am glad she’s left me mostly alone with my thoughts, and so I am startled when she interrupts.
“If it’s not an inconvenience, Mutou, we’ll take a break at Niigata. There are a couple of things I need to do, and we can do with a rest. Stretch our legs, do the needful…” She risks a quick sidelong look at me.
“Ah, yes, of course,” I reply, unable to think of anything else to say. The sun gleams gold on her face and hair, a corona of dying light. She smiles briefly, already turning her attention back to the road. A quick signal, and she decelerates smoothly leftward towards the next ramp.
There’s a little park in the gathering dusk. I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to find it again, if I were to return. As we get out, she points silently to a service area, then says, “I’ll be a while. Please wait for me here if I’m not back by the time you’re done.”
“Do you need company, Miyagi?”
“Not at this time. Thank you.” She smiles again, but it’s a formality; something melancholy cloaks her expression, an almost desperate seriousness at the corners of her eyes. She tucks some stray dark hair behind the fine pale edge of her ear before walking away.
It’s deep evening by the time we swing onto the expressway east of Niigata to Iwaki. I’ve taken over at the wheel, glad to be of service. Miyagi sits silently, her navy-blue coat neatly buttoned and her hands folded on her lap.
“Mutou?”
“Mmm?” I spare some attention from the monotonous grind of driving safely on an expressway.
“My apologies in advance. May I take the liberty of asking a somewhat personal question?”
“You’d have to call me Akio to do that,” I jest weakly. In truth, we’re both pretty tired, and I’m not sure my mind is up to handling personal questions.
“It’s been a while,” she notes. “Let’s be Akio and Rei for at least the rest of this journey?”
Indeed. We’ve not used first names since she visited my apartment more than two years ago. Since then, we’ve been friendly colleagues, nothing more. Perhaps in another world we might have been lovers, if there had been a chance of love. But not in this one, of all the many. I glance at her, wandering what I’ll see.
She looks… hopeful? Could that be it? I don’t know. I’ve not looked at a woman’s emotions for a very long time. I think maybe I’ve nearly lost that ability.
“Rei…” Her name sounds awkward on my tongue, somehow. “Ah, what was the original question?”
“How does it feel, Akio, to have lost someone? Even if that was a long time ago?”
I ease my foot slightly off the accelerator. It’s good to slow things down when your mind is distracted. Or your heart. Michiko and I parted three years ago, but that wound has not healed well. To answer such a question is to court pain.
Carefully, slowly, I reply. “It doesn’t go away quickly. It still hurts, but not so frequently. And sometimes, with sudden intensity. Unexpected. Like at several moments today. Like… now.” With detached interest, I note my knuckles are white on the wheel.
“Oh! I’m… sorry to have hurt you.”
“No, it’s more like I hurt myself and it hasn’t healed.”
She shifts in her seat, and I can sense her looking at me even while I gaze straight ahead, watching traffic, anticipating movement, pretending that such things matter. At the back of my mind, I’m wondering what it’s like in Scotland.
“You… hurt yourself?”
“Forget it. Maybe I have expressed myself carelessly.” It feels somehow rude to say such a thing. Clumsily, I continue. “Have you lost someone too?”
If I could take my hands off the wheel and punch myself, I would. Maybe Goro will do it for me next time I see him. Stupid, Mutou, not tactful at all. But she answers anyway.
“Akio? My husband died eight years ago. We’d graduated, we got married, we had just a few months left but I didn’t know it. One day, he just went to Aokigahara… It’s why I moved from Niigata to Sendai.”
A bomb has dropped somewhere in central Japan. I feel blinded, as if my own sorrow has prevented me from seeing that of others. Am I so bad at seeing things? Was I always so useless?
“I… I’m sorry to hear that.” If Michi had died, I think it would have been much worse for me, no matter what. Then I realize that perhaps Rei still thinks my wife is dead. Could she not have discovered the truth by now? Maybe not.
“My… Michiko and I were divorced three years ago,” I say quietly, in the dim cabin of her car, across the narrow space that is so wide between us. It is a shameful thing to admit. But now I owe Rei something because she has revealed part of her own story. “I think it was mostly my fault.”
“Oh.” She struggles with words, doesn’t seem to find the right ones. From the corner of my eye, I see her hands move, as if trying to frame something that cannot be framed. Then she lets them drop. “Thank you for answering. I shouldn’t have asked. My earlier apologies, they are not enough.”
I want to say that it’s all right, but I can’t. It isn’t. And yet, it feels better that I’ve shared this with Miyagi. Rei, I correct myself. I find myself saying, “Maybe another time, when we both feel less tired. Thank you for being a friend.”
We look ahead into the night, as the lighting begins to change and the Tohoku expressway winds towards Mount Aoba. It’s early Sunday morning in Sendai.
*****
Our relationship has suddenly become something from a Kurosawa film, like a courtship between two very traditional and slightly terrified young nobles. Each night, I wake around 2 am. There’s a moment of disorientation, sometimes fear. I’m thinking to myself that if I ever love again, that too will be taken from me.
One night, I text her: [Rei, I miss you.] I sink back into bed, cursing myself for stupidity; 2.30 am, who’s awake except pathetic Akio Mutou?
[Miss you too. See you later.] — and just like that, I find it easier to sleep.
Is it a love affair, Mutou? That is what my professional self asks my emotional self. We can’t have that. She’s your fellow department head, the other heads will respect you less, and it’s not the right thing to do in a school.
But we can, if we’re discreet. Which we are, we think. That’s what lovers always think. They think if they leave school in separate cars, if they only meet outside the city, if they never do things obviously in public areas or the school, nobody will ever know. It takes a year for us to learn that this is never true.
*****
Maybe we should get married. And that is the most terrifying possibility of all, because she tells me that she never thought she could love again, and I tell her the same thing, and we look at each other, fearful that it might be true. Truth and fear, fear and truth—it is like some dance in the middle of some fairy-tale palace, after which something horrible comes to light.
This, says Yamamoto-san, is the only solution. Not in so many words, of course, although he is capable of that. Rather, he is uncomfortable about the whole thing, he praises our loyalty, our ability, our professionalism… before coming back again to this point about appearances. We’re Japanese—appearances are important. We’re teachers—it is doubly so.
It’s in that frame of mind, at the start of the 2010 school year, that I look down at a small girl, faintly reminiscent of my youngest niece—glasses, short hair that is brown but not midnight black, slightly scruffy. She looks anxious, sad, almost on the verge of panic. “Hello,” I say, “Can I help you? What’s your name?”
For some reason, she’s come to see me and I have no idea why. “Errm… Mutou-sensei?” She tells me her family name and that I taught her brother. Her own personal name is Sachiko.
“Oh? That young man! Yes, you do look a bit like him. Sachiko, did you say? What is it that’s on your mind?” I keep my smile bright, although my heart is sinking—will this young lady be as difficult as her notorious brother?—and my mind is elsewhere.
“I’m… I wouldn’t... Mutou-sensei, I don’t get along well with my classmates. Nobody wants to talk to me. I feel lonely.”
She is a lot like Shizune, but much more verbal, of course. I feel a bit of pity for her. In retrospect, it was the wrong thing to feel. I should have felt concerned.
“You’ll be fine. You seem a lot more presentable than your brother! How is he, anyway? And welcome to Yamaku.”
She gives me a pained little smile, stutters some courtesies and tells me a bit about her brother. I need to talk to Rei. The young lady seems to need to go somewhere else too, so what’s left of the conversation is perfunctory, very short.
I can’t remember how many days passed. Then there were sirens in the night, and in the morning, a covered body and a distant grave. Mutou, I say bitterly to myself, where was your professionalism? You could have helped her. Talked to her, taken her seriously, the way you did with Shizune. What people think of you is one thing; what you should do for your students is another. I remember Enomoto saying this: “We do what we can, with what we have.” And damn it all, that’s exactly what I’ve not done. What can I do now?
When the answer comes, it’s again about professionalism, but from a different direction. “Yamamoto-san told me that he wants me to replace Iwata as Acting Vice-Principal,” she says, as we sip tea on a cold November day.
“That’s great! You deserve it!” I smile, meaning every bit of that. Iwata’s being promoted to Acting Principal in another school.
“It’s only nominal. I’ll still be Head of Humanities. But…” she looks lost, suddenly.
“But? Surely you’re not thinking of turning it down? You’re more than capable!”
“Akio, the principal says that I’ll be on probation for a year. And I’m not to have anything to do with you, because it really wouldn’t be professional at all.”
With some alarm, I watch as tears well up in her eyes. She’s not one to weep easily; Rei Miyagi is as tough as they come. “What is it?” I ask, wondering.
“He started telling me about all the things people have been saying about us, the reports they bring to him. He said that he can’t have a VP who isn’t respected as a professional. And he sounded so beaten when he told me, that I couldn’t be angry with him. I wanted to tell him off for being such a sexist. Then he said that he’d told you something like that too.”
She swallows, and somehow, her eyes remain wet but do not overflow. “I’m still angry with him. But he’s right. His second choice for VP is you. You should take the job, and maybe we’re just not fated to marry someone else again.”
Oh gods. That’s stupid. I… we… There aren’t words to describe such feelings. In what other country would this be an issue? I don’t know. I’m only a simple Okinawa boy who had dreams too big for his skull. There are days that one regrets being Japanese, perhaps. It’s hard for an outsider to see how one remains Japanese despite that.
There’s time for one last kiss. And it is, indeed, the last. In the end, we’ve found ourselves. I’ve always been a teacher, and I have never stopped loving the people I’ve loved. She’s always wanted to make things work better, and she’s never forgotten the memory of things past.
Somewhere, despite the longing and the bitterness and pain, two people have helped each other discover life again. The short time we’ve had together has given us an unexpected reward: the strength to go our different ways alone.
*****
When Akio Mutou sees his vice-principal in the corridors of the school, they always greet each other warmly. Although they’re not as cool as quirky Nakai and fearsome Ibarazaki, students appreciate their friendly demeanour, their obvious concern for those under their care. They are professionals, the students decide, who know each other well. Rumour has it that… but nobody has ever seen such a thing.
The news comes on a day late in 2016. Vice-Principal Miyagi will be posted to Niigata to head a new school. She is well-liked—the assembled students happily line up to wish her well and offer their thanks and blessings. Nobody cares if for a moment, she seems to hold Mutou-sensei’s hand just a bit more carefully, just a bit longer. He’s the last one in the queue, after all. When she returns his bow and steps back, it’s like a signal for everyone else to clap, cheer, and say goodbye.
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Editor’s Note:
I have undertaken to obtain some form of agreement with the various surviving participants of these events as to what can decently be presented. However, any poverty of style and content is entirely my fault. I would like to express my gratitude for the kind assistance and encouragement of Shizune Hakamichi, Meiko Ibarazaki, Hanako Ikezawa, Goro Kaneshiro, Rei Miyagi, Akira and Lilly Anderson Satou, Michiko Satou, and as always, my late husband.
— R., Noda Research Institute, 2034.
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index | end
. Really enjoyed Mutou, his friendship with Goro was something to last the ages! Next up is Miki Miura! 
I think you're probably right!