Inheritance from Mother by Minae Mizumura

Author:Minae Mizumura
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2017-05-01T16:00:00+00:00

By the time the train pulled into Hakone Yumoto, the end of the line, it was almost completely dark outside. The station, which had evidently undergone renovation, was now shiny and new, with escalators, bearing little resemblance to the run-down place she’d been to with her mother years before. This could be any station in central Tokyo, she thought. Only when she stepped outside did she encounter the lonely night scene of a hot-springs town with few people stirring.

A cold drizzle had begun to fall.

She and her mother had gone from the station to the hotel by taxi but, according to the hotel home page, if you took a bus to a place called Moto-Hakone Port, a shuttle bus would come to pick you up at a port “where a pair of colorful sightseeing cruise ships lie at anchor, decked out like Caribbean pirate ships.” Looking up at the drizzle, she went to the bus stop and checked the timetable. The next bus was due in less than five minutes. A young woman with hair dyed reddish-brown was already waiting under the roof of the bus shelter, shoulders hunched.

Five minutes went by, and still no bus appeared. Mitsuki looked up from her watch to see an elderly couple, probably from the same train she’d been on, come struggling up with bags in tow, one large and one small. They were dressed well enough, but something in their faces and figures suggested a lifetime of hardship.

The old wife looked at the timetable. “Oh no, Papa, we missed it.”

The old husband replied, “Well, I warned you not to go to the bathroom at the station.” He did not sound accusatory.

The mildness of his tone must have been what prompted Mitsuki to speak up. “I’ve been waiting several minutes. The bus simply hasn’t come yet.”

They looked at her in evident surprise. She was wearing a black winter beret, tilted at an angle, and a woven coat that her slightly taller sister had given her reluctantly, saying, “Somehow this looks better on a shrimp like you.” She also had on high-heeled boots. Even her turn of phrase must have marked her as someone from a different world.

The old couple thanked her effusively, bowing from the waist like a pair of windup dolls.

Finally the bus arrived, and after the reddish-haired young woman got on, Mitsuki gestured to the couple to board ahead of her. They wouldn’t hear of it and only went on bowing. She felt awkward preceding her elders, but rather than prolong the moment with endless exchanges of politeness, she gave up and climbed aboard.

The bus tore recklessly along the twisting mountain road. The old couple sat huddled shoulder to shoulder. Local people got on and off. Eventually the young woman got off too.

After nearly forty minutes, the electronic sign at the front of the bus read MOTO-HAKONE. Mitsuki remembered that her destination, Moto-Hakone Port, was one stop after that. As she looked at the red lettering, thinking how confusing these place names were, the old couple hastily pushed the buzzer and got off, with many a bow in her direction.

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