Underground (30 page)

I was furious. I remembered the unpleasantness I had felt back
in high school. I was just outraged. I’d changed high schools, but I still had some pride in the old place. I couldn’t believe any graduate from Rakunan could do such a terrible thing. It was such a shock, a real letdown.

I’m still keeping an eye out for news of him. I just want to see what they’ll do with him, how far his so-called sincerity goes.

I was born in Kanagawa [southwest of Tokyo], but we moved to Yokohama [south of Tokyo] when I was in elementary school and I’ve lived here ever since. I went to school in Yokohama, worked in Yokohama. I’m a Yokohama girl, so of course I love the place. Last year when I had my baby, I spent a long time at my in-laws’ up in Nagano. The air was much cleaner, a complete change of environment, which was great and all, but when I got back here I was so happy I cried.

Most of my friends are here in Yokohama. Friends from high school, from work, skiing friends, we all go back ten years … Friends really helped me a lot. They’re all married now, but still we get together from time to time and have a barbecue or go bowling or something.

When I left high school, I went to work for the Yokohama Savings and Loan as a clerk. I left soon after I got married. Before that I lived with my parents. I’m an only child, but I was always arguing with them, especially with my dad. Over stupid little things, really. “You said this.” “No, I never said that!”
(laughs)
I was pretty selfish. I’m living with Dad now, but we don’t argue anymore.

I met my husband skiing. Another girl at work had a boyfriend working for Japan Tobacco, and he just happened to bring him along. This was in February 1991.

My husband was really into skiing. I’d only begun to ski at 20, so I was nowhere near his level. Still, I’d go skiing maybe five times a season. Though my parents didn’t want to let me go. They said it was too dangerous
(laughs)
. They were so overprotective. I had a curfew until I was 25. Had to be home by ten
(laughs)
. Sometimes I’d get back late and find myself locked out, so I’d end up sleeping at a friend’s house. Thinking back on it I suppose I was pretty bad. Now that I have my own child, I know, you get angry because you care.

My mother died of breast cancer four years ago. It spread all over her body. Dad stopped working to stay by her side. It was hard on him, I know. But even then, he and I, we were arguing the whole
time. I feel terrible about it now, but at the time I just couldn’t help it. On the other hand, it’s because we argued so much then that we can get along together now

My dad tells me I’ve changed a lot. Mellowed a bit. Maybe I’m more of an adult. Asuka’s the big reason, probably. I look at the baby and even if I’m worked up I have to smile.

As first impressions go, my husband didn’t seem like much when he was skiing. No charm whatsoever. He wore glasses behind his goggles. I tried talking to him, but it was like, “What’s with this guy?” He was so unfriendly. He was just so wrapped up in his skiing he couldn’t be bothered with anyone else. He couldn’t rest unless he was skiing in front. He barely spoke.

But in the evening when we went out drinking suddenly he changed completely, I mean, he really opened up, even told jokes. He was like a different person. We stayed at the ski resort three days, but we never got close personally, though I guess we were attracted to each other.

To be honest, when I first met him, I instinctively felt: “Here’s someone I could go out with, maybe even marry.” It was like, well, a woman thing. So I thought, “Might as well give him my phone number.” I was pretty sure of myself
(laughs)
.

We were both 26 and we both drank a lot: beer, whiskey, sake, wine, you name it. He really liked having a good time.

We saw each other a lot after that ski trip. He was living in a single men’s dorm in Kawaguchi, so we’d generally meet somewhere in the center of Tokyo. We often went to the cinema, saw each other every week, and if possible at weekends, too.

Yeah, it really seemed we were made for each other. Like it was fate or something. We courted for a year and never once was I bored.

He mentioned marriage to my dad even before saying anything to me. He said to my dad: “I’d like to ask your permission to see Yoshiko socially with the understood intention of marriage.” Of course I liked him and all, but the two of them talking among themselves like that before I knew anything about it really got on my nerves.

We were married in June the following year. My mom had died that February and we were in mourning, so we put off the wedding
until then. I guess I really wanted to wear a wedding dress and everything. We planned to live with my dad in Yokohama after getting married. We didn’t want to leave him all alone … it was my husband who suggested it. So he ended up commuting from Yokohama to Oji, two hours each way. Every day, he’d leave the house
at
six in the morning. I was fighting with Dad the whole time then and my husband always had to settle things between us. He had it hard. He’d come back home at
11:00
or
12:00
at night, dead tired.

We lived with Dad for ten months, then we moved to Kita-senju. Japan Tobacco happened to have some company housing there, but that now put me an hour and a half away from my job in Yokohama. After a year of commuting, I was worn out. My husband said, “Why kill yourself like that? You do what you want.”

So I became a housewife. Three meals a day plus afternoon nap? Not bad if you ask me
(laughs)
. You can watch TV all day. I’d never watched daytime TV before, so at first I was—
happy!
And by July, I was expecting. Kita-senju was a nice place to live. Lots of shops, near the station, and the company housing was spacious. I had friends there too.

In November 1994, my husband got transferred from Oji to the main plant in Shinagawa [closer to Yokohama]. Then he had to work on-site at the new head office they were building in Toranomon [central Tokyo]. The building was scheduled for completion in April 1995 and he had to look after installation work and construction. He was an electrical specialist, so he was in charge of the elevators and lighting and air-conditioning systems. I could tell he was happy to get away from desk work.

He’d come home and tell me about his day over a beer. That was the best part, hearing him talk about the company, about his colleagues, like, “There’s this guy who’s this or that, what do you think I should do?” He usually joked most of the time, but at work he could concentrate, real serious, just like that. He was so reliable.

Both of us wanted children. We wanted about three. Especially me, probably because I was an only child. I was so overjoyed when I found out I was pregnant. We settled on my daughter’s name before she was born. I heard it in a dream. I dreamed this child was running off somewhere and I was chasing her, calling out that name. I
couldn’t remember it myself, but my husband told me he heard me shouting, “Asuka! Asuka!”

We hardly ever quarreled. Still, I was irritable while I was pregnant. I’d get at him for the most trivial things but he just took it all in his stride. He usually just laughed it off. He was such a kind person. He seemed to get even kinder before he died.

If he got home from work and the cooking had gone wrong he’d just say, “It’s all right, I’ll get takeout.” He even asked around at work about what I should be eating during pregnancy. He really cared for me. And when I had morning sickness and could only eat sandwiches and grapefruit jelly, he’d always buy them for me on the way home from work.

The Sunday before March 20 we went shopping together. Something he’d ordinarily never do.

It was raining that morning so we slept in, but it had cleared up by the afternoon so I said, “Let’s go shopping,” and for once he said, “Fine.”

We went to buy baby clothes and diapers, stuff like that. My belly was already big by then and I had a hard time walking, but the doctor was always telling me: “Move! Move! Move!”

After that we ate dinner. He was eager to go back to work the next day. He’d taken Friday off, but the April I office completion date was looming and it was preying on his mind. Also that particular Monday they had a welcoming party of some sort, which he was looking forward to.

He always got off at Kasumigaseki on the Hibiya Line to go to the Toranomon office. He’d generally get up at
7:00
and leave heme by
7:30
. That day he got up really early, around
5:30
. Usually I didn’t have time to make him breakfast, but the night before he’d said: “On occasion, it’d be nice to be pampered and woken up to a real breakfast.” “Well, if that’s what he wants,” I thought, and I forced myself to get up early and cook for him. He just seemed to crave a little pampering.

I’ve never been a morning person, I usually forget breakfast. And he wasn’t a morning person either, so it was always “Never mind,” up and out the door at the last minute, catch a quick bite on the way to work. But that morning I set two alarm clocks, got up bright and
early, made toast and coffee and fried eggs and sausages for him. He was so happy he shouted: “Wow! Breakfast!”

It was as though he had some kind of premonition. Besides saying he wanted me to make him breakfast, I remember him saying something like, “If anything ever happens to me, you know you have to hang on in there and fight.” It was right out of the blue, caught me completely off guard, and I asked him, “What makes you say a thing like that?”

It turned out that at the new office there would be a shift system, so he’d have to sleep over for two nights. There’d be days he wouldn’t be coming home, so he wanted to make sure I could handle things on my own. But then if he stayed over two nights, he’d get three days off and that would give him more time with the baby, which was a pleasant prospect.

He left the house around
7:30
. I understand he caught the
7:37
Hibiya Line train departing from Kita-senju. I sent him off, washed up, then puttered around a bit before settling down to watch the
Morning Wide Show
. Across the TV screen they ran subtitles: “Such-and-such happened at Tsukiji Station,” but I didn’t worry because I thought he said he commuted by the Marunouchi Line.

At
9:30
a call came from the company saying, “He seems to have gotten mixed up in this mess. We’ll call back later.” Then ten minutes later, it was, “He’s been taken to Nakajima Hospital. We’ll fax you the details so you can get in touch directly.” So I called them up, but they were in total confusion. “We can’t even keep track of who’s here,” they said, and hung up. So all I could do was be patient and wait.

It was just before
10:00
when the call came: “It looks pretty bad, so come to the hospital as quickly as possible.” I was getting ready to leave when the phone rang again with the message: “He just died.” I think it was his boss. He was saying, “Keep calm, Mrs. Wada, keep calm!”

Well, leaving the house was okay, but I had no idea where I was going. I didn’t even know which subway line to take. Both the Hibiya and Marunouchi lines were canceled. I went to the taxi stand at the station, but there were about fifty people lined up. “This is no good,” I thought, so I made straight for a cab company nearby. All the cars were out on call. They radioed, but I waited and waited and still
nothing came. Luckily the man at the cab company spotted a taxi sitting empty over by the train crossing, so I took that.