Satisfied with her monologue, Granma slowly descended from her chair and ambled out of the kitchen. A moment later the sound of the TV blasted through the house. Tomiko sighed and began piling the dirty dishes. Then she ran her fingers through her hair and rested her chin on her fist.
Smiling, she asked Mitsuo, "Tell me now. You have a girlfriend, right?"
"Where did you get that idea?" he countered, in surprise and embarrassment. He blinked a number of times, feeling a strange sensation each time he did so.
"You have to get married some time. Go ahead, tell me about this girl you're going to marry. You shouldn't be hiding that sort of thing from your mother."
"There isn't anyone. That's the truth!"
"All right, all right." Tomiko's face flushed as though she had come straight out of the bath, and she smiled pleasantly. Her eyes, however, were all business. Her gold tooth glinting, she asked, "What would you say to omiai?"
Mitsuo squirmed. Omiai is a formal meeting between an eligible man and woman, arranged by a third party. He raised his eyes but found he couldn't bear his mother's gaze.
"She's the daughter of one of the men on the construction crew. She went to the same agricultural high school you did, and now she's working at a gas station. She's three years younger than you, and a real prize. She knows about this messy business your father is involved in, but she doesn't mind.
"She's heard you're a hard worker. She'll know for sure once she meets you. I told her father I'd give him your answer tomorrow. What do you say? Or are you thinking of enjoying the single life a while longer?" She spoke slowly and carefully, as though she were a doctor probing a tumor.
Mitsuo sniffed. "I guess it can't hurt to see what she looks like."
"In that case, I'll tell them it's on. You've got nothing to lose, you know. If you don't like her, that's the end of it. I'll back you up." She nodded and narrowed her eyes.
Mitsuo gazed at his mother's sunburnt lips. He picked up the earthenware teapot and poured some of the contents into a rice bowl. Brown bubbles frothed and dispersed. He rubbed his face with his palms, and the smell of tomatoes invaded his nostrils.
An idea occurred to him. He hesitated, but when he finally spoke it was with force. "How about helping me ship out the tomatoes?"
"Why are you asking me that? You know I've got the road construction job."
"The hell with that! You're a farmer, and farmers work the fields!" Mitsuo surprised even himself with the vehemence of his outburst. Tomiko shrank into her chair. "Koji came and helped me today, and he's not even family. Just come for two days, that's all. One call to your foreman and it's done."
"I've never worked in a hothouse. What do you do? Do you think I could do the work?" She nervously twisted and untwisted her fingers on the tabletop.
"Farm work is farm work. I figured the hothouse would bring in just a little money, but it'll make us ten times as much as working normal fields. You can't make anything waving flags on asphalt."
She nodded in agreement and slunk from the kitchen. A moment later Mitsuo heard her shout, and the volume on the TV quieted to a near-normal level. She picked up the phone, dialed a number, and said, "Yes, would you tell him I won't be able to make it tomorrow? Yes, and my son agreed to the omiai. Let's set it up. Right. Thank you. Good night." The phone clicked on the receiver. Mitsuo stood up.
He hadn't driven his Corolla for a week, but the engine started right up. He revved it repeatedly to spread the oil over all the moving parts. He released the clutch with his foot still on the gas, and the car lurched forward, snapping his head backward.
Soon he was at Koji's. The house was nearly identical to Mitsuo's, having been designed and built by the same architectural and construction firms. Mitsuo's father had spent a great deal extra on fine woods to distinguish his house from his neighbors, but they'd all ended up using the very same lumber. The construction firm had done well by the village. Once the boom ended, the company built a magnificent three-story structure for its own office.
Koji was in an old-fashioned, slanting barn. Just to stand in it made Mitsuo feel nostalgic. Koji was tying threads around the bottom of a bottle. He poured kerosene over the threads and lit them with a match, creating a ring of fire. Then he lowered the bottle into a bucket of water, bottom first. Steam rose and the bottom cracked away.
Koji snapped his fingers. "Know what I'm making?"
"Yeah, a bottomless drink." Mitsuo picked the separated bottom out of the bucket. The glass had rippled, rainbows spreading between each ripple.
"It's an invention of mine, made just for poaching carp. If we use a regular hook and line, they'll splash about so much we'll be discovered. But if we run the line through this bottle and pull 'em in, they won't be able to move at all. Great idea, huh?"
"You're really gonna give that a try?"
"Beats getting caught."
Mitsuo raised the hood of the Corolla. The reek of gasoline went straight to his brain. The hood of Koji's Skyline was muddy, and onions poked out from the grill, suggesting that Koji had rambled through an onion patch on his way home from town. Mitsuo attached jumper cables to the battery terminals of the two cars and waved to Koji, who sat in the drivers seat of the Skyline. Koji turned the key, and his engine roared into life.
Mitsuo stashed away the cables and said, "I'm feeling edgy, I don't know why. Let's have a race." Energy pulsed through him, and he needed to release it somehow. Koji waited for Mitsuo to place his hands on the steering wheel, then launched the Skyline out on the road. The two cars sped along the narrow lane, one right behind the other. Sparks flew from Koji's muffler. The outlines of the apartment complex rose faintly in the night sky. Every single room was illuminated.
Mitsuo dropped the Corolla into second and the engine screamed. He and Koji dueled on a straightaway, then split off at the apartments. They leaned on their horns to let the other know his own location. Windows opened, and residents stepped out onto their balconies. Mitsuo zigzagged triumphantly through the complex, still riding his horn. No doubt someone would be calling the police right now.
He steered toward the industrial park. The road was wide and the roadside dark. Both drivers floored the gas. The candy factory where Mitsuo had worked was fully lit. It operated round-the-clock in shifts. The glare from the windows flew behind them as they sped past. Mitsuo decided it was time to head back. He wasn't in the mood to try to outrun a patrol car.
Rain came down in sheets, and through it the apartments appeared distant and gray. A line of umbrellas waited in front of the bus stop. With the arrival of each bus, the umbrellas were folded and swallowed up as the passengers stepped aboard. The windows were entirely fogged, and Mitsuo knew that the riders inside would be suffocating. One bus had just left, but already another colorful line of umbrellas appeared at the stop. Raindrops splattered on the asphalt, reminding Mitsuo of flower petals.
Mitsuo loaded his tomatoes on a flatbed truck and dropped the load off at the co-op. Driving home, his arms and shoulders began to ache from the steering wheel vibrations. His rubber rain gear protected him from the elements but caused him to sweat profusely. As he passed the apartment playground, he saw it had been submerged by pools of water. The swings and concrete animals appeared to stand in a swamp. The water continued coming even though there was no longer any river to carry it away. As Mitsuo drove along, the water sprayed off to either side. He felt as though he were navigating a boat.
Turning into the hothouse, he quickly stripped off his rain gear and heaved a sigh of relief but shivered as his sweaty clothes met the air. The rain continued to pound on the vinyl. It was like being inside a drum.
Part