‘I understand,’ the woman responded at long last and with seemingly immense sincerity.
‘NEXT STOP, OBAYASHI. OBAYASHI.’
The train announcement came on, and Tokié offered one more bit of unsolicited advice.
‘If I may suggest it, consider getting off at Obayashi. You look pale, and Obayashi is a lovely station for a respite.’
The woman tilted her head doubtfully but, taking in the recommendation of a woman with whom she’d just had such a candid exchange in the span of a single stop on the train, she nodded, and said, ‘I think I will do just that.’
The train slowed as it pulled into the station.
The doors opened, and a young couple boarded – looking overtly at her stark white dress, so conspicuous on a regular, local train.
Tokié’s granddaughter called after the woman in white who had just got off.
‘Miss, you forgot something.’
The woman’s shoulders shuddered. Perhaps she had meant to leave it behind. She turned back to retrieve the wedding favour bag.
She smiled stiffly, took the bag from the girl, and with a wave, got off the train again.
‘Such a pretty bride, wasn’t she!’
Tokié’s granddaughter gazed wistfully at the figure in white as the train began to move.
‘That was not a bride.’
Perhaps the reason for Tokié’s dry tone as she corrected her granddaughter had to do with a certain disdain for the real bride of the day.
‘A bride does not ride the train by herself. There was no groom, now, was there?’
‘Oh, you’re right!’
White is not only for brides. In historical dramas, a woman who performs the ox-hour shrine visit wears white. She too is there to lay a curse.
White can encompass celebration as well as malediction and malice. But perhaps it was not the time to share such information with her granddaughter.
‘Did you see her? That was crazy, huh?’
‘She was a looker, though.’
‘C’mon, d’ya really think so?’
The couple who had boarded the train when the woman had got off were standing by the opposite door and, sure enough, had started chatting about her, their comments genial but indiscreet.
‘She’s wearing what looks like a wedding dress, but she’s carrying a wedding favour.’
‘What’s so strange about that?’
‘Ugh, I swear, guys have NO clue how to behave at special occasions. It’s majorly tacky for an invited guest to wear white to a wedding. Especially a dress as fancy as that. Something’s gotta be up with that.’
This assessment by the girl in the couple was spot on, but Tokié preferred for her granddaughter not to hear their conversation. And despite how young she still was, Ami had noticed that the couple were discussing the woman who had just left the train. She sat quite still, pretending to be well behaved, while listening attentively to what they were saying. Even if she didn’t fully understand, soon enough she’d be able to guess that the girl in the couple was not saying nice things.
‘Ami.’
As soon as Tokié called her name, her granddaughter looked up. Apparently, even at her age, she knew enough to feel guilty for eavesdropping.
‘So, I’m thinking about getting a dog – what do you think?’
‘Wow, really?!’
The girl’s face instantly brightened. Tokié could tell from the sparkle in her eyes that both the woman in the white dress and the couple’s conversation about her were already forgotten.
It’s for the best. She’s too young to worry about stories like that.
‘I think you should get a Golden Retriever, Granny!’
‘Oh, Ami, I don’t have the energy to keep up with such a big dog. Better for me to get a smaller dog.’
‘You mean like the ones we saw today … a Corgi?’
‘That’s right, about that size. But I think a Shiba Inu might be nice.’
‘Ah, Shiba puppies are so cute!’
Her granddaughter’s love for dogs was so complete, she’d support whatever breed Tokié might suggest.
‘What about an even smaller one, like a Chihuahua?’
‘Well, personally I’d prefer to get a slightly bigger dog.’
After all, she did have the whole house to herself. Whereas a big dog might be too much for her, she’d prefer one with a bit more presence than a Chihuahua.
‘I hope you get one soon, Granny! Then I can help you out with dog walks!’
Tokié began a semi-serious enumeration of potential dog breeds, including explanations of whichever breeds were unfamiliar to her granddaughter, and these hypothetical dogs seemed to overwrite any memory of the weary-looking quasi-bride.
‘But Granny, if you love dogs, how come you’ve never had one all this time?’
The question caught Tokié off guard – she paused to ponder why herself. As a child she’d had a number of dogs, and once she was married they’d had their own house, so there hadn’t been any restrictions that would have prevented it—
‘Oh! Ah yes, that’s right …’
As she recalled the reason – completely forgotten up to this point – Tokié chuckled.
‘Gramps didn’t like dogs.’
‘What?’
Back in their day, love marriages were still rare. Tokié’s had been an arranged marriage – after being introduced by a matchmaker, she and her suitor’s feelings for each other had slowly grown fonder.
One day he gently asked, ‘Next Sunday, would it be all right for me to come to your house and introduce myself to your parents?’ Tokié had no reason to refuse. He was hard-working and good-natured, the kind of person with whom she could imagine spending the rest of her life.
And so it was that on the following Sunday, the man who would be her husband put on his best suit and, with a bouquet of flowers for Tokié in one hand and a bottle of fine saké for her parents in the other, he arrived at her home.
Her parents and brothers gave him a grand welcome, everyone standing at the front door and making a bit of a fuss over him. But there was someone who did not appreciate all this commotion.
The beaming smile on Tokié’s future husband’s face as he greeted them suddenly changed dramatically.
‘Yikes—!’
Oh, no – wondering what had happened, they turned to see that the family dog, a Kai Ken whose kennel was right by the entryway, had bitten him on the backside and remained firmly attached.
Though a banquet had been set up in the drawing room, Tokié’s future husband lowered his trousers in their sitting room – his best suit ruined (of course, fearing for their reputation, Tokié’s father would later pay him compensation) – where the doctor, on a house call, daubed the suitor’s backside with iodine tincture and remonstrated with the family about summoning him for a minor injury they could have treated themselves. Perhaps it was true that the family could have treated the injury themselves, but just who among them would have been the appropriate person to minister to the exposed backside of the young man chosen for their daughter, who had come there to ask for her hand in marriage? Later in their life together, Tokié would apply ointment to his bites and even haemorrhoids, but at that time, the couple had barely exchanged a kiss.
The suitor somehow managed to get through his proposal but since it was difficult for him to sit down, he beat a hasty retreat, hardly eating any of the feast. Tokié’s mother insisted on packing some of the food for him to take home but all in all it was a miserable experience.
Though before this, he may have been fine with dogs, he seemed traumatized thereafter and developed a fear of them (and certainly of the Kai Ken breed, a hunting dog with powerful jaws). If they happened to encounter a dog, no matter how small, he would squawk and hide behind Tokié.
And that was why, even after they had their own house, the prospect of having a dog never even occurred to either of them.
Over the last few years since her husband died, Tokié had been longing to have a dog – it was now or never.