The Briefcase

Spring Thunder

TAKASHI KOJIMA INVITED me to go on a trip with him.

“I know an inn that serves the most amazing food,” he said.

“Amazing food?” I parroted, and Kojima nodded. His expression was like an earnest schoolchild’s. When he was young, he must have looked quite adorable with a botchan haircut, I mused.

“Right about now, the ayu fish is probably in season.”

Hmmm, I replied. A classy inn with delicious cooking. That seemed like just the kind of thing Kojima would suggest.

“What about going to check it out, before the rainy season starts?”

Being with Kojima always brought to mind the word “grown-up.”

What I mean is, when Kojima was in elementary school, he was a child, of course. A suntanned kid with thin little shins. In high school, Kojima had seemed like a sprouting boy, on the verge of casting off his boyhood skin and becoming a young man. By the time he got to college, he must have been a full-fledged young man, the epitome of youth. I can just imagine. Now, having reached his thirties, Kojima was a grown-up. No doubt about it.

His behavior was commensurate with his age. The passage of time had been evenly distributed for Kojima, and both his body and mind had developed proportionately.

I, on the other hand, still might not be considered a proper grown-up. I had been very much the adult when I was in elementary school. But as I continued on through junior high and high school, on the contrary, I became less grown-up. And then as the years passed, I turned into quite a childlike person. I suppose I just wasn’t able to ally myself with time.

“What happens after the rainy season starts?” I asked.

“Well, we’d get wet,” Kojima replied succinctly.

“Not if we used umbrellas,” I said, and he laughed.

“Listen, I’m asking you to go on a trip with me, just the two of us. Did you get that?” Kojima peered into my face as he spoke.

“Ayu fish, huh?” I was well aware of the fact that Kojima was inviting me on a trip. I also knew that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to go away with him. But then why was I trying to dodge the question?

“They catch the ayu in a nearby river. And the local vegetables are also great,” Kojima said leisurely. Even though he knew I was hedging, he didn’t seem at all concerned; rather, his manner was calm and unhurried.

Kojima went on with his explanation: “Just-picked cucumbers, lightly chopped and dressed with pickled plums. Fresh eggplant, thinly sliced, sautéed, and then drizzled with gingered soy sauce. Cabbage pickled in rice-bran paste. Everything is just like home-cooked food, but the freshness of the vegetables really comes through.

“They’re grown and harvested in a field nearby, and prepared within the same day. The miso and soy sauce, they happen to come from a local storehouse too. I think a gourmand like you, Omachi, would really appreciate it,” Kojima laughed.

I liked the sound of Kojima’s laughter. I was on the verge of saying, Why not, let’s go, but then I didn’t. Ayu fish, huh. Fresh vegetables, I muttered instead, noncommittally.

“Let me know if you decide you want to go. Then I can make a quick reservation,” he said casually as he ordered another round.

We were sitting at the counter at Bar Maeda. This was maybe the fifth time Kojima and I had gotten together like this. A small plate was piled with sunflower seeds, and Kojima was munching away. I had snatched a few seeds myself and crunched on them too. Maeda quietly set a Four Roses bourbon and soda in front of Kojima.

Whenever Kojima and I came to Bar Maeda, I always had the feeling that I didn’t belong in a place like this. With its jazz standards playing low, its counter polished to a high gleam, its spotlessly clean glasses, the faint scent of tobacco smoke, and the perfect hum of activity—everything was flawless. It made me feel ill at ease.

“These sunflower seeds are good,” I said, taking a couple more. Kojima was drinking his bourbon and soda at a leisurely pace. I took a small sip from the glass in front of me. A flawless martini.

I set down my drink with a sigh. The glass was cold, its surface ever so slightly frosted over.

“THE RAINY SEASON is almost here,” Sensei said.

Right, Satoru replied. His nephew nodded too. The young guy was now a regular fixture at the bar.

Sensei turned toward him now to place his order, “Ayu fish.” The young man replied, “Yessir,” and withdrew to the back. The aroma of broiling fish soon wafted out.

“Sensei, do you like ayu?” I asked.

“I enjoy most fish, in general. Both saltwater fish and freshwater fish,” Sensei answered.

“Really? What about ayu fish, then?”

Sensei looked me in the face. Tsukiko, what is it with you and ayu? he asked, still staring at me.

Nothing in particular, I hastily replied, looking down. Sensei kept his eye on me for a bit longer, his head tilted to the side.

The young guy came out from the back carrying a plate with the ayu. It was served with a sour knotweed sauce.

“The green of the knotweed complements the fresh air during the rainy season,” Sensei murmured as he gazed at the fish.

Satoru laughed and said, Sensei, how poetic!

Sensei replied, It’s not poetic, it’s simply my impression. Using his chopsticks, he carefully broke the ayu fish into pieces and began to eat. Sensei’s manner of eating was always impeccable.

“Sensei, since you like ayu so much, why not go to a hot-spring hotel or someplace to eat it?” I asked.

Sensei raised his eyebrows. “I don’t need to go anywhere specifically to eat it,” he replied, lowering his eyebrows to their normal position. “What’s the matter, Tsukiko? You seem rather peculiar today, indeed.”

Takashi Kojima invited me on a trip, I almost blurted out. But of course I didn’t. Sensei was drinking his saké at a perfectly reasonable pace. Drinking and then pausing for a spell. He would take another sip, then pause again. I, on the other hand, was draining my cup faster than usual. Pouring and drinking, drinking then pouring. I was already on my third bottle of saké.

“Tsukiko, has something happened?” Sensei asked.

Reflexively I shook my head. Nothing has happened. Nothing, I said. There’s no reason to think something has happened, is there?

“If nothing has happened, then there should be no need to deny it so vehemently.”The ayu fish was already no more than just bones. Sensei nudged the delicate skeleton with his chopsticks. It had been picked perfectly clean. The ayu was delicious, Sensei said to Satoru.

Thanks, Satoru replied. I hurried to drain my cup. Sensei looked at the empty cup in my hand with a reproachful expression.

You’ve had enough for tonight, Tsukiko, he said gently.

Please leave me alone, I replied, filling my cup with saké. I drank that down in one gulp, having now emptied my third bottle.

“One more!” I ordered another from Satoru. Saké, he shouted curtly toward the back.

Tsukiko, Sensei said as he peered at me, but I turned my face away. “Well, you can’t take your order back now, but you mustn’t drink the whole thing,” he said in an unusually stern tone. As he spoke the words, he tapped me on the shoulder.

Yes, I replied quietly. The alcohol had suddenly hit me. Sensei, could you please tap me again? I said, the words a jumble in my mouth.

Tsukiko, you are like a spoiled child tonight, he laughed, lightly tapping my shoulder several times.

That’s because I am a spoiled child. Always have been, I said, reaching out to touch the ayu bones on Sensei’s plate. The soft bones were pliant. Sensei removed his hand from my shoulder and slowly brought his cup to his lips. For a moment I leaned up against Sensei. Then I quickly moved away. Whether or not Sensei noticed me leaning against him, he kept his cup at his mouth and said not a word.

WHEN I CAME to, I was in Sensei’s house.

I seemed to be lying directly on the floor in the tatami room. Above my head was the low dining table, and right in front of me I could see Sensei’s legs. “Oh,” I said as I sat up.

“You’re awake?” Sensei said. The rain shutters as well as the doors were open. The night air was streaming into the room. It was a little cold. I could faintly make out the moon in the sky, swathed in a thick halo.

“Was I sleeping?” I asked.

“You were sleeping,” Sensei laughed. “You had quite a good rest there.”

I looked at the clock. It was just past twelve midnight.

“I didn’t sleep that much, did I? It was about an hour.”

“To sleep for an hour at someone else’s house is plenty,” Sensei laughed anew. His face was redder than usual. I wondered if he had been drinking the whole time I was asleep.

What am I doing here? I asked.

Sensei opened his eyes wide. You don’t remember? The way you carried on, I want to go to your house, I want to go!?

Did I really? I said, lying back down on the tatami. I could feel the straw weave on my cheek. My tangled hair fanned out over the mat. I lay there, watching the night clouds roll by. I didn’t want to go on a trip with Kojima. The thought came clearly to mind. With the distinct feeling of the tatami weave on my cheek, I thought about the vague sense of discomfort I experienced when I was with Kojima—it was faint yet inconsolable.

“I’ll have tatami marks here,” I said, still sprawled on the floor.

“Where?” Sensei asked. He had come around the table to my side.

“Ah, I see. You’re really laid up against it, aren’t you?” Sensei said, lightly touching my cheek. His fingers were cold. Sensei seemed bigger to me. Probably because I was looking up at him from below.

“Your cheek is warm, Tsukiko.”

He was still touching my cheek. The clouds were moving fast. At times the moon would be completely hidden behind the clouds, then the next moment part of it would appear again.

I’m drunk, that’s why I’m hot, I replied. Sensei was trembling slightly. I wondered if he was drunk too.

“Sensei, what if we went somewhere together?” I asked.

“Where would we go?”

“Maybe a delicious inn where they have ayu fish?”

“I can get all the ayu I need at Satoru’s place.” Sensei pulled his fingers away from my cheek.

“Then what about a remote mountainside hot-spring spa?”

“There’s no need to go all the way into the mountains when the public bath around the corner is just fine.” Sensei was next to me, sitting on his heels with his legs folded under him. He was no longer trembling. His posture was perfectly straight, as always.

I sat up. “Let’s go somewhere, just the two of us,” I said, looking Sensei in the eye.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied, staring straight back at me.

“No! I want us to go!”

I must have been drunk. I myself could only half-understand what I was babbling on about. Although the truth was that I fully understood, my head seemed to be pretending I was only half-aware of my own words.

“Tsukiko, where on earth would we go?”

“We could go anywhere at all, as long as I’m with you,” I cried.

The night clouds were moving fast. The wind had picked up strength. The air was heavy with humidity.

“You’d better settle down, Tsukiko,” Sensei said lightly.

“I’m settled down enough.”

“It’s time to go home, you should go to bed.”

“I will not go home.”

“Don’t you think you’re being unreasonable?”

“I’m not the least bit unreasonable! What I mean is, Sensei, I love you!”

The moment I said this, my belly blazed with warmth.

I had screwed up. Grown-ups didn’t go around blurting out troublesome things to people. You couldn’t just blithely disclose something that would then make it impossible to greet them with a smile the next day.

But I had gone and said it. Because I wasn’t a grown-up. I never would be, not like Kojima. Sensei, I love you, I repeated one more time, as if to be doubly sure. Sensei just stared at me with astonishment.

THUNDER RUMBLED OFF in the distance. After a little while, there was a flash of light among the clouds. It must have been lightning. A few seconds later, thunder could be heard again.

“This strange weather must be a result of the strange thing you said, Tsukiko,” Sensei murmured, leaning forward from the veranda.

It wasn’t strange, I retorted. Sensei gave a wry smile.

“It looks like we’ll have a bit of a storm.” Sensei put up the rain shutters with a loud clatter. They didn’t slide very well. He also closed the doors. The lightning was flashing wildly, and the thunder was growing near.

Sensei, I’m scared, I said, going to his side.

“There’s nothing to be scared of. It’s merely an electrical discharge phenomenon,” Sensei replied quite calmly while trying to avoid my encroachment. I scooted closer to him.

The truth is, I’m very frightened of thunder. I’m not trying to make something happen between us, really, this is just about being scared, I said through clenched teeth. The thunderstorm was already quite intense, lightning flashes followed the next moment by rumbling thunder. And it had started to rain—the sound of it driving against the rain shutters was loud.

“Tsukiko?” Sensei peered at me. I was sitting beside him, stiff as a board, with both hands over my ears.

“You really are terrified, aren’t you?”

I nodded silently. Sensei stared at me solemnly, and then he began to laugh.

“My dear, you are a strange young lady,” he said, laughing gleefully.

Come over here, let me hold you. Sensei drew me close. He smelled like alcohol. The sweet smell of saké wafted from Sensei’s chest. Still sitting on his heels, he laid my torso across his knees and embraced me tightly.

Sensei, I said, in a voice that sounded like a sigh.

Tsukiko, he replied. His voice was extremely clear; he sounded very much like himself. Children think the strangest things, don’t they? Because anyone who is afraid of thunder is nothing more than a child.

Sensei laughed loudly. His laughter reverberated with the rumbling thunder.

Sensei, I meant it when I said I love you. I spoke these words as I lay atop Sensei’s knees, but he didn’t hear me at all—my words were lost amid the thunder and Sensei’s booming laughter.

The thunderstorm grew more and more intense. The rain beat down in torrents. Sensei was laughing. And here I was, bewildered, lying across Sensei’s knees. What would Kojima say, if he could see us now?

It was all somehow absurd. Me declaring my love for Sensei to his face, Sensei taking it rather completely in stride yet without responding to my declaration, the sudden outbreak of the thunderstorm, the increasingly oppressive humidity in the room now that the rain shutters were closed—everything seemed like it was part of a dream.

Sensei, am I dreaming? I asked.

It sure seems like it, doesn’t it? he replied merrily.

If this is a dream, when will I wake up?

Hmm, I can’t say.

I wish I didn’t have to wake up.

But if this is a dream, then we must wake up sometime.

A huge crack of resounding thunder immediately followed a bolt of lightning, and my body stiffened. Sensei rubbed my back.

I don’t want to wake up, I said again.

That’s fine, Sensei replied.

The rain beat down hard on the roof. I kept my body rigid atop Sensei’s knees as Sensei calmly rubbed my back.