"It wasn't easy," said Midori with a sigh, "growing up in a house where nobody gave a damn about food. I'd tell them I wanted to buy decent knives and pots and they wouldn't give me the money. "What we have now is good enough,' they'd say, but I'd tell them that was crazy, you couldn't bone a fish with the kind of flimsy knives we had at home, so they'd say, "What the hell do you have to bone a fish for?' It was hopeless trying to communicate with them. I saved up my allowance and bought real professional knives and pots and strainers and stuff. Can you believe it? Here's a 15-year-old girl pinching pennies to buy strainers and whetstones and tempura pots when all the other girls at school are getting huge allowances and buying beautiful dresses and shoes. Don't you feel sorryfor me?"
I nodded, swallowing a mouthful of clear soup with fresh junsai greens.
"When I was in the sixth-form, I had to have an egg fryer - a long, narrow pan for making this dashimaki-style fried egg we're eating. I bought it with money I was supposed to use for a new bra. For three months I had to live with one bra. Can you believe it? I'd wash my bra at night, go crazy trying to dry it, and wear it the next day. And if it didn't dry right, I h
ad a tragedy to deal with. The saddest thing in the world is wearing a damp bra. I'd walk around with tears pouring from my eyes. To think I was suffering this for an egg fryer!"
"I see what you mean," I said with a laugh.
"I know I shouldn't say this, but actually it was kind of a relief to me when my mother died. I could run the family budget my way. I could buy what I liked. So now I've got a relatively complete set of cooking utensils. My father doesn't know a thing about the budget."
"When did your mother die?"
"Two years ago. Cancer. Brain tumour. She was in the hospital a year and a half. It was terrible. She suffered from beginning to end. Finally lost her mind; had to be doped up all the time, and still she couldn't die, though when she did it was practically a mercy killing. It's the
worst kind of death - the person's in agony, the family goes through hell. It took every yen we had. I mean, they'd give her these shots -bang, bang, x"20,000 a pop, and she had to have round-the-clock care. I was so busy with her, I couldn't study, had to delay university for a year. And as if that weren't bad enough - " She stopped in mid-
sentence, put her chopsticks down and sighed. "How did this conversation turn so dark all of a sudden?"
"It started with the business about the bras," I said.
"So anyway, eat your eggs and think about what I just told you,”
Midori said with a solemn expression.
One weird thing after another came up that Sunday afternoon. A fire broke out near Midori's house and, when we went up to the third-floor laundry deck to watch, we sort of kissed. It sounds stupid when I put it like that, but that was how things worked out.We were drinking coffee after the meal and talking about the university when we heard sirens. They got louder and louder and seemed to be increasing in number. Lots of people ran past the shop,
some of them shouting. Midori went to a room facing the street, opened the window and looked down. "Wait here a minute," she said and disappeared; after which I heard feet pounding up stairs.I sat there drinking coffee alone and trying to remember where Uruguay was. Let's see, Brazil was over here, and Venezuela there, and Colombia somewhere over here, but I couldn't recall the location of Uruguay. A few minutes later Midori came down and urged me to hurry somewhere with her. I followed her to the end of the hall and climbed a steep, narrow stairway to a wooden deck with bamboo laundry poles. The deck was higher than most of the surrounding rooftops and gave a good view of the neighbourhood. Huge clouds of black smoke shot up from a place three or four houses away and
flowed with the breeze out towards the high street. A burning smell filled the air."It's Sakamoto's place," said Midori, leaning over the railing. "They used to make traditional door fittings and stuff. They went out of business some time ago, though."I leaned over the railing with her and strained to see what was going on. A three-storey building blocked our view of the fire, but there seemed to be three or four fire engines over there working on the
blaze. No more than two of them could squeeze into the narrow lane where the house was burning, the rest standing by on the high street. The usual crowd of gawkers filled the area."Hey, maybe you should gather your valuables together and get ready to evacuate this place," I said to Midori. "The wind's blowing the other way now, but it could change any time, and you've got a petrol station right there. I'll help you pack.""What valuables?" said Midori.
"Well, you must have something you'd want to save - bank, books,
seals, legal papers, stuff like that. Emergency cash." "Forget it. I'm not running away."
"Even if this place burns?"
"You heard me. I don't mind dying."
I looked her in the eye, and she looked straight at me. I couldn't tell if she was serious or joking. We stayed like that for a while, and soon I stopped worrying.
"OK," I said. "I get it. I'll stay with you."
"You'll die with me?" Midori asked with shining eyes.
"No way," I said. "I'll run if it gets dangerous. If you want to die, you can do it alone."
"Cold-hearted bastard!"
"I'm not going to die with you just because you made lunch for me. Of course, if it had been dinner..."
"Oh, well ... Anyway, let's stay here and watch for a while. We can sing songs. And if something bad happens, we can think about it then."
"Sing songs?"
Midori brought two floor pillows, four cans of beer and a guitar from downstairs. We drank and watched the black smoke rising. She strummed and sang. I asked her if she didn't think this might anger the neighbours. Drinking beer and singing while you watched a local fire from the laundry deck didn't seem like the most admirable behaviour I could think of.
"Forget it," she said. "We never worry about what the neighbours might think."