‘What happened to her mother?’ Masaharu asked, and immediately regretted it.
A dark cloud had come over Reiko’s face. ‘She died in an accident, too,’ the older woman said quietly. ‘Yukiho was in sixth grade at the time. Yes, it was in May, as I recall.’
‘A traffic accident?’
‘No.’ Reiko shook her head. ‘Gas poisoning.’
‘Gas?’
‘She put a pot on the stove and fell asleep. Apparently, the flame blew out, and she succumbed without ever waking. I think… she must’ve been very tired in those days.’ Her thin eyebrows drew together in sorrow.
Masaharu had heard of similar stories, though a switch in recent years to natural gas had dramatically reduced the chances of carbon monoxide poisoning.
‘I just wish it hadn’t been Yukiho who found her. To think of the shock that poor girl must have had.’ She shook her head, a pained expression on her face. ‘It was a tragedy.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. He realised he had probably already asked more than he should on the subject, but found that hearing the story had only piqued his curiosity. He debated letting the conversation die, but with Yukiho out of the house, this might be his only chance. Taking a sip of his tea, he quickly asked, ‘Was she alone when she found her?’
‘No,’ Reiko said, without looking up at him. ‘The door had been locked, so she had to go get the real estate agent to open it for her. They went in together.’
That must have been an unlucky day for him, too, Masaharu thought, imagining the man’s shock at finding the body, and realising the girl he was with was now an orphan.
‘I can’t imagine losing all of my family to accidents,’ he said.
‘None of us can, which is probably for the best. I went to the funeral and Yukiho was there, clinging to the coffin as though she could stop her mother from leaving, the poor girl. I’ve never heard her cry so loudly since.’ Reiko’s eyes closed as her thoughts went back to that day. ‘When I saw her there, I knew I had to do something.’
‘Is that when you decided to adopt her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did she have no other relatives?’
‘To tell the truth, I never spoke much to her mother, and was never that close to her family. But I saw Yukiho many times before her mother died. She would come by herself to visit me here.’
Masaharu wondered why Yukiho would go by herself to a relative’s house, especially one who wasn’t close to her mother. He was about to ask,when Reiko told him she’d first met the girl at an observance for her late father.
‘We only spoke briefly, but when she heard I was teaching the tea ceremony she seemed very interested. She asked so many questions that I invited her to come visit some time and see for herself. I think it was only a few weeks later that she actually came, much to my surprise. I hadn’t been entirely serious in inviting her, you see. It’s not many young girls who want to learn the tea ceremony. But she seemed genuinely interested and I thought I could use the company, living alone as I was, so I began teaching her, half for fun at first, you understand. She started coming every week, on the bus, all by herself. She would drink my tea and tell me about things that happened at school. In time, I came to look forward very much to her visits and missed her on the weeks she couldn’t make it.’
‘So she’s been learning the tea ceremony since elementary school?’
‘That’s right. It wasn’t long afterwards that she showed an interest in flower arrangement, too. She was watching me put together a vase and would occasionally help out with a flower or two. She even wanted me to teach her how to put on a kimono.’
‘Sounds just like finishing school,’ Masaharu said, smiling.
‘Quite right. Of course she was only a child, so it was a kind of play for her, I think. She even copied the way that I spoke. When I told her I was embarrassed, she said that if she only listened to the way her mother talked at home, her own language would be “lower class”, so she was visiting me to polish it up. Can you imagine?’
Several things were adding up for Masaharu as he listened. He now had an explanation for Yukiho’s elegance – the way she moved, the way she talked – so unusual for a high school girl. It impressed him that her refinement wasn’t forced on her, either. She’d sought it out herself.
‘Now that you mention it, she doesn’t really have a strong Osaka accent, does she.’
Reiko smiled. ‘Like yourself, I grew up in the Tokyo area. She seemed to like my own lack of an accent.’
‘I can appreciate that. I’ve never been very good at sounding like a local, either.’
‘I think that’s why she likes talking with you. She says she doesn’t want to catch a bad accent from the other people around her.’
‘Funny to hear that coming from someone who was born here.’
‘Well, she’s never been proud of where she’s from.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s too bad, I suppose.’
‘As long as she’s proud of who she is,’ Reiko pressed her lips. ‘That said, there’s something which does trouble me. She’s spent so much time with an old lady like myself, I worry that it might have sapped away at her liveliness. I wouldn’t want her to go wild, of course, but a little bit of spreading one’s wings is necessary. If you ever get the chance, do take her someplace. Try to get her out of her shell. She needs that.’
‘Me? Are you sure?’
‘I’d rather it be someone I can trust.’
He smiled. ‘Right, well, I’ll think of something.’
‘Please do. I think she’d enjoy that.’
Reiko didn’t say anything more for a while, so Masaharu took another sip of his tea. It was not a boring conversation – far from it. It was clear that her foster mother did not know everything there was to know about her daughter. Yukiho Karasawa was not as old-fashioned as Reiko seemed to think, nor as well behaved.
One event stuck out in Masaharu’s mind, something that had happened in July. The two-hour lesson was over and they were drinking coffee and chatting. Masaharu always talked about life at university at these times. He knew she liked to hear about that.
They had been talking for about five minutes when the phone rang. ‘It’s someone from some English speech contest,’ Reiko said, calling her to the phone.
‘Right,’ Yukiho had said, and gone down the stairs.
It was about time for him to leave, so Masaharu had finished his coffee and gone downstairs to find Yukiho talking on the phone in the hallway, a serious look on her face. A bit hesitantly, he waved to indicate he was leaving and she waved back, her expression changing quickly to a smile.
‘So Yukiho’s going to be competing in an English speech contest? That’s impressive,’ Masaharu said to Reiko when she saw him to the door.
‘If she is, this is the first I’ve heard of it,’ Reiko had said.
As per his usual Tuesday routine, Masaharu had gone to a ramen shop near the station and ate a late dinner. He was just tucking into some dumplings and watching the little television in the shop when he happened to look up and see a young woman walking quickly along the road outside. Masaharu stared – it was Yukiho.
There was something unusually urgent about her as she stepped out into the street and hailed a taxi.
It was already ten o’clock. Something must have happened, he thought.
Worried, Masaharu used the phone in the ramen shop to call the Karasawa residence. The phone rang several times before Reiko picked up.
‘Is something the matter?’ she asked, when she heard his voice. She sounded more startled than concerned.
Masaharu hesitated. ‘Um, is Yukiho there?’
‘Certainly, would you like to speak with her?’
‘What? She’s right there?’