Plum Wine: A Novel

Chapter 1

4 3 4 1 T he chest arrived on a grey afternoon in late January, three weeks after Michi-san’s death. Barbara sat huddled at the electric table in her six-mat room, eating peanut butter washed down with green tea and reading student quizzes on original sin. It had just begun to snow, white petals floating haphazardly up and down, as if the direction of the sky were somehow in question. She kept glancing out the window, thinking of Rie’s refusal to turn in a paper. Michi-san would have consoled her about Rie, and advised her what to do. If only Michi were here: a thought that had lately become a mantra. As she took another spoonful of peanut butter, there was a knock at the door. She extracted her legs from beneath the warm table and jumped up. Junko, Hiroko, and Sumi, the students who shared a room downstairs, had talked about dropping by. Barbara’s apartment was a mess—she hadn’t cleaned in days—but it was too late now. On the kitchen radio, Mick Jagger was lamenting at low volume his lack of satisfaction. She left the radio on; the girls were “becoming groovy,” as Sumi put it, about Western culture. Outside the door, instead of the three bright student faces, was a small, formal delegation. Miss Fujizawa, president of Kodaira College , gazed at her beneath hooded eyelids. Beside her was Mrs. Nakano , the English department head who had hired her last year in Chapel Hill. Behind the women were two of the college workmen, Sato and Murai. They all bowed and said good afternoon, the women in English, the men in Japanese. Clearly they intended to come in. Barbara mentally scanned her rooms; she could ask them to wait just a minute while she scooped up the dirty clothes. “We are sorry to disturb you,” Miss Fujizawa said. “Professor Nakamoto has made you a bequeathal.” “A bequeathal?” Barbara glanced at Michi-san’s apartment, catercornered from hers across the hall; for the first time since Michi’s death, the apartment door stood open. “A sort of tansu chest. Not a particularly fine one, I’m afraid.” Miss Fujizawa nodded toward the small chest that stood between the two workmen. “This note was appended to it,” she said, handing Barbara a slender envelope. Inside, on a sheet of rice paper, was one sentence, in English, “This should be given to Miss Barbara Jefferson , Apartment # 6 Sango-kan, with best wishes for your discovery of Japan. Sincerely, Michiko Nakamoto.” Barbara stared down at the precise, familiar handwriting. It was almost like hearing her speak. “Apparently you were held in high favor,” Miss Fujizawa said. “There were few individual recipients of her effects. May we enter?” “Yes, of course. Please. Dozo.” Barbara backed down the hall to the kitchen, where she turned off the radio. Miss Fujizawa, leaning on her cane, led the procession to the back of the apartment. Mrs. 4 4 4 4 5 4 Nakano, ruddy-cheeked with a cap of shiny black hair, was next, followed by the two men who carried the tansu chest between them. The chest was small, three-drawered, a third the size of Barbara’s clothes tansu. She recognized the plum blossom designs on the tansu ’s hardware, the dark metal plates to which the drawer pulls were attached. “It’s the wine chest!” she called out, following them down the hall to the tatami sitting room. The workmen had placed the tansu between her kotatsu table and chest of drawers. “Wine?” Miss Fujizawa and Mrs. Nakano said in unison. The women bent to pull open the top drawer. Miss Fujizawa began an intense consultation in Japanese with Mrs. Nakano. Barbara did not understand a word, but the tone of dismay was clear. Michi-san had told her that while Japanese men may drink a great deal, it was frowned upon for women of a certain class, and especially the women of Kodaira College. A little plum wine—umeshu—was acceptable , however, considered beneficial for ladies’ digestion. “It’s just umeshu,” Barbara said. Over Mrs. Nakano’s shoulder, she could see the row of bottles. Each one was wrapped in heavy rice paper that was tied with a cord and sealed with a large dot of red wax. On the front of each bottle was a date, written in ink with a brush and below it, a vertical line of calligraphy , perhaps the date...