Life Ceremony, page 3
“You’re old enough to know better, Kumi,” Mom screeched. “Just stop it!”
I grimaced. The three of us were having dinner together at an Italian restaurant. Mom and I had waited outside Kumi’s office and managed to grab her as she left work to bring her here.
“It’s all very well saying stop . . . but stop what?” she asked.
Mom was getting emotional, but Kumi kept her cool. What Mom seemed to be saying was that Kumi should be cured of being herself, which I agreed was over the top.
“I don’t think there’s any particular need for you to change, Kumi,” I told her honestly. “But I do think making other people eat your food is problematic. Even if some people understand your magical city of Dundilas, eating the food you make is another matter. It’s not like it’s exactly believable.”
“What do you mean, believable?” She looked at me calmly, aware that I was more likely to understand her than Mom was.
“When you eat the food someone makes for you, it means you believe in the world they live in, right? Even if people have fun hearing about your world, putting it into their mouth is another matter. I think food is all weird anyway, so there’s no way I can eat it unless I believe in it.” I pointed at the plate of pasta in front of me. “For example, this pasta with peach and coriander—since it’s made in a restaurant like this by a respectable chef, I can delight in eating it. If one of the local elementary school kids brought it in a Tupperware box, though, I’d probably think pasta with peach sounded disgusting and wouldn’t be able to eat it. It’s only when we believe in the person who makes it that we’re able to put weird stuff in our mouth.”
“You’re so matter-of-fact, aren’t you?” Kumi said to me.
“Maybe I am.”
The Happy Future Food that my husband and I ate wasn’t all that different from the magical city of Dundilas food. But the company at least made a good effort to be credible. I believed that eating meant being brainwashed by the particular world of the food, and I just couldn’t bring myself to ingest food from my sister’s unstable, fictitious world.
“Has your fiancé eaten your food, Kumi?”
“Keiichi? No, he hasn’t. He’s seen it, but he said there’s no way he could eat it.”
“You see?” Mom shouted. Mom being so emotional really wasn’t helping, I thought.
“Of course, the instinct to eat food that is safe is hardwired in us,” I told Kumi. “So what you have to do is try to convince everyone that your food is safe and that it’s wonderful too, even if it means lying. If you can manage that, I think I’d be able to eat it.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but I don’t think it’s possible. I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who truly believes in the magical city of Dundilas.”
I nodded, grateful that she was being so levelheaded. “Well, that’s true, I guess. So how about cooking something appropriate and safe, like curry or hamburger.”
“Because my boyfriend wants me to cook my food for them.”
“Eh?” I blurted out. “Are you serious? It was his idea?”
“It’s not like I offered, you know. I only ever eat food from the magical city of Dundilas at home. It’s just that Keiichi insisted.”
“Even though he won’t eat it? But why would he want you to cook it?”
She shrugged. “No idea. Maybe he wants us to split up.”
I tilted my head doubtfully. Thinking that my sister’s fiancé sounded like a nutjob, I stuck my fork into a bit of peach and pasta.
When I got home, my husband was making his usual drink, mixing the blue powder in a glass of sparkling water.
“Hi there!” I called. “Is that all you’re having for dinner today, too?”
“Yeah. It’s amazing, this stuff. Ever since I started drinking it, my body feels so light.”
“I see.”
I disliked the way the drink smelled of shampoo, so I’d never actually tried it. And what’s more, a month’s supply cost twenty thousand yen. One of us drinking it was enough.
“How was Kumi?”
I threw my bag down on the sofa and sighed. “Um, it looks like we’re going to be preparing that weird food of hers.”
“Really? Well, I guess she’s finished then,” he said flatly.
I looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, the engagement will probably be called off. She’s finished.” He even looked a little happy as he drank his blue drink. “What a waste, though. Just when she had the chance to lead a normal life. I told my colleagues at work about her, and they all laughed.”
“Really,” I said, for lack of anything better, and opened the fridge to get some water to drink. Inside were rows of Happy Future Food in packs. I took out some mineral water and drank it. What on earth was so different about my husband and my sister, I wondered.
So was there no hope for my sister? Probably not, from a conventional point of view. The reason my husband was so obsessed with eating Happy Future Foods was that he thought it was food for successful people. He was ingesting a fragment of a wonderful lifestyle.
I found that side of my husband amusing. The more expensive something was, the more he was taken in by it. I’d heard that a scam was more effective if the scammer asked for a million yen rather than a hundred yen, and looking at my husband, I had to conclude it was true. A yearning for “a higher level of living” was what made my husband drink that blue concoction. The pressure on our household budget was a concern, but for some reason I felt refreshed to see him happily drink it down.
The way my husband trusted the world and played up to it felt somehow pure to me. That was probably what I liked about him and why I married him.
The Sunday my sister was to cook for her boyfriend’s parents was a cloudless, bright day.
Her apartment was small, just one room, and our parents’ place was too far away, so it was decided that we would hold the party in my house.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, embarrassed. “Not only did I rope you into helping, but I even borrowed your place!”
I quickly answered, “No problem at all, don’t worry about it.” I was curious to see how her boyfriend’s parents would react.
My husband was out for the day at some sort of conference involving different businesses. It was probably just an excuse to get out of eating my sister’s weird food.
Kumi came over early in the morning, carrying bags full of provisions.
“Dandelions, fish mint . . . is this what we’re eating today?”
“Yep. The setting is medicinal herbs that grow in the magical realm.”
“What’s in this can?”
“That’s the setting of food sold on the black market in the underground arcade in the magical world.”
All my sister’s food had a setting, and even though I didn’t want to taste any of it, I was amused to see how she was always quick to elaborate.
“Look, are you sure it shouldn’t be proper food?”
She shot me a look. “What do you mean, proper food?”
“Like dishes with a name, spareribs or chicken stew or something.”
“So anything with a name is like proper food?”
“A name puts whoever’s eating it at ease, doesn’t it? Even a con man always gives his name.”
“Your theories are always too weird to be of help,” she said with a sigh.
“All right, then . . . anyway, let’s get going. Where shall I start?”
“First I want you to boil the dandelion flowers. See that orange juice over there? Bring that to the boil and put them in it.”
“Okay.”
My sister deftly got on with the cooking. She shredded the fish mint, put it into some flour, added some water, and mixed it up.
“What’s that?”
“The main dish.”
“Does fish mint grow in the magical city of Dundilas?”
“Yeah, lots of it.”
If she said so, then it must be true, I thought. I did as she said and emptied the dandelions out of the bag.
Just after noon, my sister’s fiancé and his parents rang the doorbell.
“My name is Keiichi Sawaguchi, Kumi’s fiancé. Pleased to meet you.”
It was the first time I’d met Kumi’s boyfriend, and he seemed pleasant, not at all the type of weirdo who would purposely get someone to cook dishes from the magical city of Dundilas.
“We’re so sorry for imposing on you today.”
His parents, too, were elegant and mild-mannered. His mother, Sachie, looked easy to get along with, her eyes crinkling at the corners when she smiled, and his father, Eiji, looked strong and rugged, but his manner of bowing was charmingly shy.
“This is my girlfriend, Kumi,” Keiichi said to his parents.
“Pleased to meet you,” Kumi said, bowing her head.
“I’m Kumi’s sister. Thank you for coming all the way here,” I said to them, bowing deeply at her side. “I’m afraid our apartment is a little cramped, but please do come in. My sister’s cooking is very simple, but we hope you will enjoy it.”
The Sawaguchis smiled. “Thank you.”
Sachie and Eiji sat on the far side of the table, with Kumi and Keiichi sitting opposite them. There weren’t enough chairs at the living room table, so I brought my husband’s work chair from his study.
After a short rest, Kumi and I went to the kitchen and brought the first dish to the table.
“What is this?” Sachie asked, peering curiously at it.
“The main dish, apparently,” I explained vaguely. “I’m not sure it’ll be to your taste, so please don’t force yourself to eat it . . . um, I have some barley tea ready here to wash it down with. Here are some tissues and some sick bags.”
“You sure are well prepared!” said Keiichi, smiling.
“And this?”
“Dandelion stems braided and simmered in orange juice. Underneath are meatballs stuffed with dandelion flowers.”
“Ah . . .”
Stories were fundamental to my sister’s cooking, more important than the flavor. She had told me all about this while we were cooking. The orange juice apparently represented the blood of a primitive monster, while the ground pork imitated synthetic meat sold on the black market in underground malls in the magical city of Dundilas. Dandelions grew profusely in the forests of the magical realm, and she’d often eaten them in her previous life.
I understood the images, but I couldn’t help thinking that as food, it looked pretty disgusting. Apart from anything, I had no idea where she had actually picked the dandelions and fish mint. If she’d picked them in the neighborhood, they must be covered in exhaust fumes.
It seemed the Sawaguchis felt the same way, for they just smiled without making any move to help themselves.
“Um, may I offer you something from our house too?” I said, unable to bear it any longer. “I don’t know whether it will be to your taste either, but you may want a break from such exotic food.”
“Well, er . . . um, thank you.” Sachie looked at me in evident relief. Perhaps she was not very good at maintaining appearances.
“Having said that, I haven’t prepared anything special, and only have things we always eat at home . . .”
“No problem.”
But their happy expressions clouded when I brought some Happy Future Foods to the table.
“Er . . . what is it?”
“Happy Future Food. It’s really good for you and has an antioxidant effect. It’s extremely popular abroad, so we buy it online.”
“I see . . .”
I laid out some cubes made from freeze-dried vegetables and some fruits powder salad with bright blue dressing. I’d selected items I’d thought were not too off-putting, but the Sawaguchis looked quite taken aback.
“Um, I don’t suppose there’s any plain steamed rice, is there?” Eiji asked timidly.
“Not white rice, but I do have some artificial rice made from a powder filled with antioxidants. Although it is a bit sour and something of an acquired taste . . .” I said, showing them the green artificial rice in a Tupperware box.
“Er . . . never mind,” Sachie muttered.
“Come to think of it, dear, you have some of those snacks with you, don’t you?” Eiji said, suddenly remembering.
“Oh, yes, you’re right!” Sachie nodded. “When Keiichi told us about this lunch, I got the impression that you liked unusual food. I guess I got the wrong end of the hook . . . but anyway, this is from the countryside round our way. I hope you’ll like it,” she said, taking out a paper bag containing various containers stuffed with grubs stewed in soy sauce and syrup. One jar contained what looked like small white caterpillars, and another jar held something similar but a little larger. Plus a plastic box containing what appeared to be grasshoppers.
There were so many delicious foods from the countryside, so why on earth did she have to bring three types of stewed bugs? I didn’t want to put them in my mouth, so I looked at my sister, who was sitting next to me. She apparently felt the same way, as there was an undisguised look of disgust on her face.
“Um . . . I’m afraid I’m not keen on sweet stewed things,” I said. “Er, I must say I prefer savory dishes . . .”
“Really?” Sachie said, looking disappointed. “They do taste good with rice, though . . .”
“They make an especially good snack to go with sake,” Eiji added.
“Ah . . .”
The spread on the table now included the dishes from the magical city of Dundilas, the high-quality pouches of Happy Future Food, and the various insects.
I really didn’t want to eat anything I didn’t normally eat, and I looked around at everybody’s faces to see that they all seemed to feel the same way and were sitting expressionlessly, drinking barley tea without making any move to eat.
“You see?” Keiichi said suddenly.
“Huh?”
“What do you mean?”
Everyone looked bewildered, but Keiichi ignored them and went on. “This is exactly what I wanted to see today.”
I had no idea what he was talking about and looked at my sister for help, but she too was staring at him openmouthed, apparently not understanding anything either.
“Everyone thinks the food other people eat is disgusting, and they refuse to eat it. And that’s the way it should be, as far as I’m concerned.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
Keiichi launched into a rant, gesticulating wildly. “What people eat is part of their own culture. It’s the culmination of their own unique personal life experiences. And it’s wrong to force it on other people.”
“Ah . . .” I said, pushing my chair back to avoid being hit by his long arms, which he was waving around as he talked.
“Even if I marry Kumi, I have no intention of eating her cooking. And there is absolutely no need for her to eat or cook the food that I or my parents eat. We each have our own cultures to live. There is no need whatsoever for us to cater to each other or merge into each other.”
Sachie frowned. “You might well say that,” she said, “but if you keep on eating like you do now, you’re not going to live very long.”
“That’s my business, and the decision is mine alone.”
I couldn’t help asking, “Er, so what do you eat, Keiichi?”
“Keiichi eats only sweets and potato fries,” my sister said.
Keiichi nodded emphatically. “Ever since I was a child,” he said.
“Really? Wow.” He was quite tall, and I was impressed that he could have grown so well on such an unbalanced diet.
“I love sweets and potato fries. If I have my own way, that’s all I’ll eat my whole life. I once lived with a fiancée, but it didn’t last long. She tried to force me to eat the same things as she did. Even though we had different cultures, she tried to disrupt my life as if that were normal. Even though we each had our own cultures! We argued every day and eventually split up.”
“I see.”
“I think it’s great that Kumi has her own independent eating habits. She never caters to anyone else. Nor does she try to impose her culture on anyone else. I think we can live happily together, with her eating what she wants to eat and me eating what I want to eat.”
“I guess that makes sense.” I was beginning to understand why Keiichi and my sister were drawn to each other.
“As a couple, Kumi and I will never eat what the other has cooked. And I want you to realize this too, Mom and Dad. In our house, if I’m eating chocolate cookies and pizza potato chips and Kumi’s eating her food from the magical city of Dundilas, it doesn’t mean that we’re not getting along. On the contrary, it’s because we love each other’s cultures. And if we visit you in the countryside at New Year’s or in the summer for Obon, I don’t want you forcing your food on her. Our eating habits are dear to us, and I want you to respect them and not interfere—”
Eiji had been listening to this lecture, frowning, but now he interrupted. “But look, Keiichi. Marriage is about two families coming together. It’s about continuing the culture of those families, isn’t it?”
Sachie restrained him. “That’s enough, dear. It’s what Keiichi wants. Deep down, I was hoping that your wife would carry on the food traditions of the Sawaguchi family, but I suppose that was quite arrogant . . .”
“Oh, really!”
Eiji glared at Sachie, but she continued quietly. “I mean, just look at this lunch table. It’s hell on earth! It’s all over the place. Until I got married, I’d always thought bugs were gross and it was normal to kill them and throw them away. I’d always thought bugs were garbage, but when I married into the Sawaguchi family, I was forced to eat them. When I think about that, everything on this table is garbage—all of it.”
“Sachie . . .”
“I don’t at all think I was wrong in carrying on your family’s traditions, dear, but just look at the wretched state of this lunch table! It’s not like in the old days, you know. Nowadays people will gladly tuck into all sorts of strange things. And if we merge our traditions with new ones like this, the food is only going to get creepier.”
