the modest widow

by hiromi suzuki

The best brand to smoothly shell the finished boiled eggs is to buy them from Queen's Deli. Boil the eggs in a saucepan for 7 minutes and 20 seconds, then leave them in cold water for 10 minutes, and they will be half-cooked, like a golden aurora heralding the dawn from among the clouds. She works as a concierge in the university student dormitory at the foot of the mountain, but both the building and the land in the first place were left to her by her dead husband. She ties her black hair into a neatly braided topknot every morning.  It is a rumour in town that her chic appearance is a remnant of her youth as a geisha, and that her chignon now in her middle age is an artificial hair bun.

“Please tolerate my grumpiness. Lads.”

After the rainy season, adventurous local children come to the dormitory backyard and the Orthodox Church to steal loquat berries. The meeting house cum residence next to the church is half flooded by marshland, the priest and his family take naps with the shutters closed during the weekday to avoid the humidity and heat. The widow bakes pound cakes to replace the Koliva eaten at weekend Panihida. She plans to make extra with plenty of nuts and dried fruit to also please the boarders who remain in the dormitory during the summer holidays. She feels guilty for using margarine instead of butter, which has increased in price.

'A mousse? Made with margarine? Unthinkable!' 'Margarine? Your uncle will be furious!' And then one's eyes are opened, one's conscience becomes more pliable, and margarine is a delicious food, tasty, digestible, economical, useful in all circumstances. The moral at the end is well known: 'Here you are, rid of a prejudice which cost you dearly!' It is in the same way that the Established Order relieves you of your progressive prejudices. *

“Madam, I found this propped up in the lift.”

A young janitor, who calls himself Cricket, hands her a shoehorn.

“Not a shoe, just a shoehorn. When I pressed the open button, the buffalo horn stood alone on the floor soaking wet. From the sudden rain in the last night. Ha-ha-ha!"

He has taken a leave of absence from the college across the mountains he attended until six months ago to help out in her dormitory. Whether he has been drinking or simply feeling hot, Cricket laughs as he uses an 'uchiwa' to blow wind across his flushed face.

“Could you make pound cakes to sell at the stall, Madam?”

Cricket asks, staring at the summer festival notice printed on one side of the round paper fan in his hand.

“I would appreciate it if you knead the butter and flour before baking the dough. You have strength. You are a brave man. Lad.”

Even though saying that, she cannot escape the guilt of secretly throwing margarine into the bowl.

What does it matter, after all, if margarine is just fat, when it goes further than butter, and costs less? What does it matter, after all, if Order is a little brutal or a little blind, when it allows us to live cheaply? *

'Bon Dance', a Lantern Festival Dance to welcome the dead is held on the grounds of an antenna factory, which has been in existence since before the WW2, in a small town every summer. That night, only the turret with many hanging lanterns illuminates the night sky. Men and women, young and old, dressed in 'Yukata', summer kimono, gather to seek the light, lured by the nostalgic rhythm of 'Taiko', Japanese drums. Are they also dead or alive, and can only those who dance feel reality in their uncertain bodies?

Here we are, in our turn, rid of a prejudice which cost us too much in scruples, in revolt, in fights and in solitude. *

“Tolerate my grumpiness, Madam.”

In the corner of the corridor at the ground floor, Cricket is present at the nighttime inspection of the lift. In the distance, a firework signals the end of the festival. Soon, darkness will return to the town.

“He was just a suitor.”

The widow murmurs after picking up a shoehorn on the fire escape staircase. The dead put on their respective shoes and return to the heavens riding on the lift. 7 minutes and 20 seconds to evaporation, and after 10 minutes of cooling, a silver mist heralds the dawn from among the clouds.

Quotation:

*Operation Margarine (Roland Barthes Mythologies, 1957 / Translation by Annette Lavers)

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BIO: hiromi suzuki is a poet, fiction writer, artist living in Tokyo. Her writing has appeared in 3:AM Magazine, RIC journal, Berfrois, Minor Literature[s] and various literary journals on-line.