Japan Stories by Jayne Joso

Author:Jayne Joso
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781781725900
Publisher: Seren
Published: 2021-08-30T00:00:00+00:00

Kaori

I have told him we have to leave this house. He doesn’t understand. I hate it. I’m allergic to it. Its walls, its windows, the hallways, there’s something here and it is making me ill. He argues that we have just moved here. I tell him that it’s all the more reason to move again soon, before the children feel settled, before they are too attached at school, for they are bound to make friends quickly, they are wonderful and funny. They are kind. He reminds me that it took a long time to find such a big, elegant house. He reminds me I helped choose it. That I, in fact, chose and insisted upon it. Well, perhaps we don’t need such a big house. Did I say that it was elegant? Did I? Perhaps I did. Perhaps I was just being polite. I do that. We both do that I suppose. We are polite people. We have polite children. We live, we always live… wherever we live, for we move a lot, and internationally, for we are international, in a polite neighbourhood. In polite society. We are part, of polite society.

What I want is a piano. I still play. And I played professionally before becoming quite so polite. Quite so, married. He will get me a piano. I can have a piano room in fact, then I will be happy. I will have my ‘own thing’.

The piano arrived from Germany. It’s in my piano room. My own thing, in my own room. But the walls are the same walls, and the windows, the hallways, and the smell of the place, it doesn’t change. I open the windows to ventilate and to change the smell; he buys aromatic candles and incense. The children feel distant. They too, have their own thing, their own rooms. They have their own smell. And he, he has a smell.

He says I need a doctor.

I tell him, it’s the house.

Get a doctor.

I tell him, it’s the house.

And so, it is settled, we are moving. He’s online, contacting agents. We can afford almost anything so it ought to be possible and soon, I really couldn’t breathe anymore. In the meantime I would take a hotel room. There was a piano I could use in the lobby.

He has found somewhere. I will like it, it’s a little further out, the air will be less polluted, it has a garden. It is gated. It will be even safer. We will grow lavender.

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