The Snow Kimono (25 page)

Eventually, the car turned into a small side road. They pulled up in front of two
wrought-iron gates set into a high stone wall. The gates began to open. They entered
a tall, winding hedgerow.

A minute later, without warning, the car emerged onto an open forecourt. Mr Ikeda’s
house loomed over them. Against the afternoon light, the house appeared as though
it had been made from an enormous transparent ledge hammered into the side of the
mountain. The light seemed to pass directly through
it to illuminate the forecourt
below. She saw now that this ledge was, in fact, a huge terrace. The house itself
was set further back.

Then the driver was standing by her door.

Miss, he said, reaching in for her hand.

When she and her father alighted, Sachiko stood looking up to the house. It was even
more imposing than she had at first thought. The terrace now seemed to soar out into
the air above them, at once both impossibly light and impossibly heavy, as if it
was only the tension between the two that held it there.

The shadow of the mountain had already begun to spill down towards them. The interior
lights of the house were on. A long seamless wall of glass looked out onto the terrace.
Sachiko thought she could see someone standing against the window. It was no more
than a shadow on the glass. And then it was gone.

Her father, too, was gazing up at the house.

Mr Yamaguchi. Miss.

The driver had their bags in his hands. He turned towards the house.

They followed him up the stairs. When they reached the portico, the driver pressed
the button beside the door. They waited. The door opened and an old woman appeared.
She was small, her face thin, her sallow skin crumpled like paper. She had a smattering
of small dark sunspots on her cheeks and forehead.

Miss Sachiko, the old woman said. Welcome. We have been waiting for you. Mr Yamaguchi.
Please, come in.

She bowed a number of times, stepped aside, held her arm out.

My name is Ume, she said to Sachiko. But you can call me Ume-san. I will be attending
to you and your father.

She turned to the driver.

Did Mr Ishiguro tell you? she said.

Tell me what, Ume-san? the driver said.

That the Master has been called away unexpectedly. He will not be back until later
this evening.

Ume turned to Sachiko and her father.

I am so sorry, Mr Yamaguchi, Miss Sachiko, she said. Unfortunately, Master Ikeda
is not here to welcome you himself. He was called away at the last minute. He has
asked me to give you his apologies. I have prepared your rooms for you. If you would
follow me.

They followed the old woman through the long rectangular room that ran the length
of the terrace. Sachiko glanced across to where the figure she thought she had seen
earlier had been standing. But there was no one there.

In the middle of the room an island of armchairs floated silently on the polished
floorboards. Sachiko stopped to look out through the glass onto the terrace outside.
It was impossible to see the city below. Instead, in the muted afternoon light, beyond
the half-shadowed edge of the terrace, all she could distinguish, stretching endlessly
along the horizon, was a narrow band of sea, a band so dark and still it could have
been made of stone. Beyond this was the sky, vast and pale and empty.

She heard her father’s voice calling her from the far end of the room.

Sachiko? he was saying.

And she turned to follow him.

This is your room, Miss Sachiko, Ume said.

Ume switched on a lamp. A soft light revealed the room’s sparse furnishings. The
bedding had already been laid out. On each side of it were two old side tables. On
one, a shaded lamp. A low cabinet against the wall adjacent to the bed. White orchids
on a stone plinth.

Ume walked over to two screen doors opposite the bed. She slid these open.

Here, unexpectedly, was the garden. It stretched up the mountainside, the ragged
edge of which towered above them. The sky had turned a deep late-afternoon blue.
In the evening breeze, against the darkening silhouette of the mountain, the canopies
of the trees looked like masses of cloud drifting through the garden. She could hear
frogs calling. Near, then far. Running water. Somewhere, the repeated hollow tock-tock-tock
of a water clock.

It’s beautiful, Sachiko said.

Ume was watching her. Their eyes met. The old woman bowed, acknowledging what Sachiko
had said.

Do you have any questions for me, Miss Sachiko? Ume said.

No, I don’t think so, Ume-san, she said.

If you want anything, do not hesitate to call me, the old
woman said. All you need
do is press the buzzer. She indicated a bone-coloured button set into the wall beside
the door.

Thank you, Ume-san, she said.

I will leave you to recover from your journey, she said.

Then Ume turned to her father. Mr Yamaguchi, she said, if you would be so kind, I
will show you to your room.

Her father was still standing in the doorway to the garden. He seemed nervous, uncomfortable.
His suit seemed shabbier now, older than Sachiko remembered it.

When Ume went to the door and slid it open, her father followed her. He did not say
goodbye.

She heard their footsteps retreating on the polished floorboards. She heard another
door open, then close. Then she was alone, in the silence of her room, looking into
the darkening garden outside.

The long, slow sound of a foghorn, a sound so solid, so thick, that she seemed to
be suspended in it, reached out to Sachiko in her sleep.

Then she was awake, disoriented, confused.

She found herself sitting in a wicker chair on a stone terrace. It took her a moment
to recall where she was. Fragments from her day began to resurface. Ume-san. Being
shown her room. The car door opening. Standing on the gravel driveway looking up
at the house. The figure at the window. She and
her father floating through the trees
in Mr Ishiguro’s plush, unhurried car.

She must have gone out onto the terrace. Fallen asleep. The sky was a deep indigo
now. Beyond the balustrade, she could see the reflected sky-glow bloom of the invisible
city below. The distant growl of evening traffic washed intermittently up over the
balcony to her. She could hear the burred rumble of a truck braking; car horns sounding;
the quick gear-changing gulps of a departing lorry, like a swimmer swimming.

The sound of the foghorn returned to fill the air. The terrace reverberated beneath
her feet. She sat watching the light changing, feeling the air grow colder. She
pulled her cotton kimono more tightly around her.

She stood up. Walked to the balustrade. She looked out over the bay. In that strange
crepuscular light, the horizon line, so darkly distinct when she and her father had
walked through the long room, had disappeared. The sea and the sky had fused, were
now one. Looking down, she felt as though she was peering over the broken edge of
the world. Tiny toy boats hung suspended in the void. The vast white bow of a freighter
hovered impossibly above them. She watched it ascending into the sky. All at once,
the terrace, the house, and the mountain behind her seemed to pitch forward. She
had the dizzying impression that the world was about to topple over the balcony into
the abyss below. She reached out for the cold stone balustrade. The long, mournful
call of a foghorn reached up to her again.

Then came another sound, a voice, calling her name.

Sachiko…Sachiko?

She turned back to the house. In the long empty room, the lamps were already lit.
It took her a moment to locate her father standing at the far end. He was searching
for her.

Sachiko, he called again. There was a note of urgency in his voice.

I’m here, Father, she called.

He looked about as if her voice had come to him out of the air itself.

Here! she said again.

She stepped away from the balcony and ran to open the sliding glass door to the sitting
room.

Father, I’m here. I was out on the terrace.

I thought you’d gone, her father said.

But where would I go, Father?

He did not answer. He just stood there looking at her.

I went out onto the terrace, she said. I must have fallen asleep. I’m sorry.

She wanted to tell him about the changing light, about the horizon line disappearing,
about the boats floating in the sky. But the sun had moved on. The dark horizon line
had returned. The world had been cantilevered back into place.

Ume is looking for you, her father said. To prepare you for this evening.

Has Mr Ikeda returned? she asked.

I don’t know, he said. But it doesn’t matter. You must still get ready. Ume will
help you.

She found Ume waiting for her in her room.

I’m sorry, Ume. I did not mean to inconvenience you.

Do not concern yourself, Miss Sachiko, she said. I understand. Everything is so
new, so different. You will get used to it.

There was warmth now in the old woman’s voice. She was carrying a simple white bathrobe
on one arm.

The Master asked me to prepare your bath, she said.

Ume went to a column of drawers set into the wall. She pulled one open and lifted
out a dazzling white kimono. She laid it on the bed. Light undulated across its surface
as though it was a thing alive.

Sachiko recognised the material at once. It was the snow fabric she had seen at Ishiguro’s,
the one with the budding orchids poking through. She went over to the bed, picked
up one of the kimono’s sleeves. Felt its richness between her fingers.

Ume watched her turn back one of the cuffs.

Is this the kimono I’ll be wearing? she said.

Yes, Ume replied.

How strange, she said. My grandmother made this. She raised a sleeve to her face.
I remember this material from when I was a little girl. My grandmother loved it.
I can still see us spreading it out in the snow above our house. And then I saw it
again this afternoon, at Mr Ishiguro’s. They have only just started making it again.

She ran her fingers down the inner lining, across its perfect close stitching.

I don’t understand, Ume-san, she said. How did you…how did Mr Ikeda come to have
this? This particular kimono? You see, I’m sure this is a snow kimono my grandmother
made. Years ago. I would recognise her stitching anywhere, she said. Look at this.
Only my grandmother closes off like this. It is her signature.

You are right, Miss Sachiko, the old woman said. Your grandmother did make this.
Katsuo-san, Mr Ikeda, bought it a long time ago. When you were still young. He has
kept it in this drawer for you ever since.

What do you mean, Ume-san? Sachiko said. He kept it for me?

But now the old woman would not look at her.

Ume-san? What do you mean—he kept it for me?

The old woman still did not answer her. Instead, she bent and refolded the garment
on the bed.

Ume-san?

I cannot say, she said. Master Katsuo will explain. But you must promise me you will
never tell him what I just told you.