“Women here aren’t free?”

“No, not really. In Japan women can’t do as many things as they would like.
It’s changing, but I’d like to see how things are in the West. Maybe we’ll go when
our child is a few years old.”

I wonder just how free everyone in the West really is, or whether it isn’t all
just like high school’s three castes:a couple of dozen winners, a couple of dozen
losers, and a thousand and fifty faceless nobodies. “These are the best years of
your life,” they said. I hope not. And the alternatives all seem to be wrong.

“You’re going to have a baby?”

“Of course!”

“Wonderful! When?”

“In October... Let’s have something to eat and go to the market.”

“Sounds good!”

The market is really every street in downtown Kasama. And Downtown
Kasama is only a short walk from our apartment on the outskirts of town. All
manner of things have spilled outside the stores to be set up on tables co-mingled
with tables holding items brought from elsewhere.

“You need to get a yukata, Morley-san”

“A what?”

“It’s like a kimono, but very informal and light weight for the summer.
Randy sometimes wears one at home in the evening when it’s really hot.”(He
usually wears a t-shirt and blue jeans, like me, I’ve noticed.)

“Well, okay. What do you suggest?”

“Here’s one that would be nice.”

It’s a folded square of cotton crepe with an abstract miniature check of blue,
white, and navy. When Yoshimi gives it a flick of her wrists, it unfolds to become
a kimono she holds up by its shoulders. Reaching upward, she keeps its hem just
above the ground.

page:

37

Japanby Morley Evans

November 21, 2000