Mama-San
By Bengman
When I first saw her, she was sitting slumped on the shadowed
inner stoop of the Aoi-So' Inn,gazing through heavy-lidded eyes at
the dirty white pug that lay by her knees. She wore a shapeless
grey cotton dress, white knee-socks, and a pair of worn pink felt
slippers with flowers embroidered on them; the entire ensemble
looked as if it had been purchased at the Japanese equivalent of
K-mart. There was something solid and inert about her, as if she
were a lump of soft clay, able to be molded and moved by external
forces but herself incapable of motion.
She lifted her head only slightly as I came through the slatted
exterior door, followed closely by the taxi driver with my suitcase in
his white-gloved hands. The dog, who looked to me like a white rat
with hair extensions, leapt smartly to his feet and began to yap as
if to say, how dare you trifle with my mistress, causing her to MOVE?
She herself simply looked at me, her sagging face expressionless.
The taxi driver grinned a toothy greeting at her and deftly slipped
off his shoes, stepping up beside her and carrying my bag through a
lace-curtained doorway to the hallway beyond. For my part, I stepped
across the shallow courtyard -- it was only two feet deep but as wide
as the entire house, open to the relentless sky, with two or three
scraggly bonsai trees spreading their stunted leaves in supplication,
and a plastic bottle of water heating in the glaring noontime sun
--then I was through the inner door to the sunken entryway, bordered
on one side by a set of small cubicles, some with shoes tucked away;
it made me think of a honeycomb, and busy Japanese bees storing away
shoes for the winter. On the other side there was a listing wooden
cabinet with an old-fashioned phone. Over the phone was a small
calendar with a tacky glossy photo of chrysanthemums in bloom, and a
shakily lettered sign: "Do not use phone. Mama-san." The interior
was lit, but dimmer than the outside, and I blinked as I introduced
myself in stilted Japanese. She grunted in response and spoke over
her shoulder to the taxi driver.
"Sutero, upstairs."
He replied cheerily from behind the curtains and, from the
sounds of things, set off down the hallway with my bag; I could
hear the creak of stairs somewhere within.
Meanwhile, she had turned her attention back to me, as I stood
forlornly in the entryway clutching my camera bag, and she began to
speak. She had a strong Kyoto dialect, and a way of speaking in the
back of her throat that made her syllables run together like melted
ice cream, but I did manage to catch the gist of what she was saying.
Apparently she was used to dealing with foreigners of no particular
language skill, because she punctuated every main point with a
summary in terse, accented English. So she spieled a bit about
shoes and dirt and such, then leaned forward an inch or so, like a
mudslide, and pointed at the entryway, where the taxi driver's black
loafers were lined up neatly with a few other motley pairs of gym
shoes and slippers that never made it to the cubicles. "Shoes off
here," she said firmly. She listed the curfew, when to check out,
the protocol for going out and about, and the payment schedule -- 2000
yen a night, not too bad -- then, "You pay now." A quick listing
of the amenities the Aoi-So' Inn had to offer: "Shower. Hundred
yen. Air con. Hundred yen. Kitchen next door." -- I wondered
at this, but she went on -- "Gas coins. Five for hundred yen. Washer.
Dryer. Three hundred yen." She waved at the hallway behind her, then
added in Japanese that I must on no account go where I didn't belong,
wherever that was. Then she looked me straight in the eye, leaned
forward with her hands folded in her lap, and said, "You call me
Mama-san."
Mama-san it was, and I handed over the money for my first night's
stay, ignoring the dog, who seemed mortally offended that I was being
allowed to stay -- if he'd had anything to say about it, none of my kind
would be allowed in the front door, but did Mama-san ever listen to him?
The taxi driver came back through the curtain, rubbing his hands, and
seated himself beside Mama-san. They had a quick conversation, too fast
for me to catch, at the end of which he stood and beckoned to me.
Mama-san jerked her head slightly. "He show room."
I followed him into the hallway, pausing in surprise at the other
end. It opened into a square garden, about four yards to a side,
complete with a gnarled pine tree, a stone basin of water, and a
conglomeration of mossy rocks and bushes. A walkway circled the open
garden, sliding doors currently open to the sunlight; a slight breeze
wove its way through the pine needles and into the house. In one corner
was an olive-green washing machine, its pipes set up to drain into a
patch of the garden where moss was especially thick; a dryer was
suspended from a wooden frame above it. There should have been a sense
of dislocation, I suppose, but instead the appliances seemed to blend
in with the landscape; I was struck by the expectation that someday the
moss would creep up their smooth metal sides until the washer and dryer
were just two more rocks in the garden.
The taxi driver went to the right around the garden; as I slipped
after him, I noticed that the walkway to the left was blocked by a door
with a magic marker sign that read: "Do not enter. Mama-san." Then we
were up the narrow carpeted stairs to the second floor; he showed me an
airy-looking tatami room, six mats, with a window that looked out on the
building next door (where the mysterious kitchen was?) and a low table.
A futon was heaped in one corner, and my suitcase stood like a tapestry
island in the very center of the smooth straw-colored floor.
The taxi driver smiled broadly -- I could swear his white teeth
glinted, like in a bad seventies flick -- said "Okay?" and at my nod
went back down the stairs, his stocking feet soundless so it seemed as
if a ghost were causing the creaking of the steps, or perhaps that
elusive wind. A moment later I heard his bright voice laughing and
Mama-san mumbling something in reply.
I wasn't quite sure what to make of the taxi driver. I had gotten
lost on my way to the Aoi-So' Inn, dragging my suitcase the wrong way
down Kuramaguchi Avenue. It wasn't until I reached the Kamo River that
I realized my mistake and headed back the way I had come. Even going
the right direction, though, I couldn't find the place. I called
several times during my odyssey, but there was no answer. Finally,
when I had just about given up hope, someone answered at the other end
-- but instead of the slurred woman's voice I had made my reservation
with (Mama-san, I know now) it was a man, his voice filled with the
cheeriness of someone who is required to be pleasant to people
constantly, and doesn't really mind. He said he'd come get me, which
threw me off a bit, but he wouldn't answer any questions and just hung
up the phone after learning my location. I'm not sure what I expected,
but it was certainly not an impeccably uniformed and gloved taxi driver;
he picked up my suitcase, grimaced companionably at how heavy it was,
and settled me in the back seat of his cab, a pristine Toyota with lacy
white seat coverings and tinted windows. He drove for about two minutes
-- we were that close. As he pulled up in front of the dingy white
building, its facade edged by clunky black bicycles instead of decorative
bushes, I asked him how much, and he shook his head. "I'm a friend," he
said, shifting to Park and stepping out to hold the door open for me.
Listening to him talk to Mama-san now that I was ensconced in my room,
staring emptily at my suitcase, I could sense the closeness, but it
seemed to me an odd sort of relationship.
"She knows a lot of taxi drivers," Kerryn was to tell me later, as
we sat in the kitchen drinking some oolong tea. "But that one's her
special friend. He comes in to visit almost every day." She rolled her
eyes a bit as she said that, stirring her tea leaves around with a plastic
spoon. Kerryn Love was one of the first residents of the house that I had
met, one of several foreigners living on a semi-permanent basis in the
annex where the kitchen was located. The kitchen, I had discovered, was
a smallish room with a table and chairs, a fridge, the gas stove Mama-san
had mentioned (with a hand-lettered sign proclaiming that the stove
operated on gas coins, which must be purchased from Mama-san, and by the
way, Mama-san was not going to clean up after us so we'd better do it
ourselves), and a thermos that Mama-san requested (by way of another
sign) that we keep always full of water for the convenience of the other
residents. It was also the only room with an air-conditioner that didn't
require money, so it was a fairly popular hangout, and the old-timers
were all eager to meet the new girl, even if I was only a short-term
visitor. Most of the "permanents" I met there were from various
English-speaking countries, in Japan to teach their native tongue; Kerryn
was one of two girls from Australia, who had taken to sightseeing with me
in her free time. I had trouble believing her name at times, it seemed
too AUSTRALIAN to be honestly Australian, but I couldn't see why she
would lie to me about it. In any case, we had taken to each other rather
well, with a hint of the clinging desperation of strangers in a strange
land.
I was traveling alone by choice and necessity, and for the most part
it suited me. I could do whatever I wanted and not have to convince
anyone else to, say, bop over to Toei Uzumasa Movieland and watch them
film bad samurai dramas. But Kerryn was more than willing to follow my
lead, on the premise that sightseeing on someone else's itinerary was
better than nothing, and it was nice to have someone I knew in my
pictures. In my first few days, I had taken to photographing random
Japanese tourists, just to liven up the rock gardens with some human
faces. (I also took a picture of the owner of the first ramen shop I ate
at, but that at least was a commemorative occasion. 15 cent Maruchan, or
even its more flavorful cousin Cup Ramen, is nothing compared to Real
Ramen, with sliced pork and green onions and mushrooms and freshly made
broth, steaming and glistening in a clean stoneware bowl... But I
digress.)
Anyhow, this particular conversation was prompted by an encounter I
had had with Mama-san that morning, the sixth day of my stay. When I
came down the stairs for my shower, she was sitting on the other side of
her "private" door; I could see her across the garden. She had on a
dress with maroon flowers and was fanning herself slowly, staring out at
the pine tree. I thought I could see her lips moving, almost as if
quivering with the breeze. I didn't want to stare, of course, but I
watched her out of the corner of my eye as I pretended to survey the day.
(Yep, it was hot and humid again. August in Kyoto is like that, I
discovered.) She didn't move an inch except for the movement of that
fan, that tremor in her lips, and the inconstant rhythm of her hand
stroking up and down her dog's flank. A short while later, when I was
dried and dressed and ready to head out the door, she came up behind me
as I was putting on my shoes in the foyer.
"Mama-san is going out today," she said abruptly. I had grown more
used to her voice by now, and, as if she sensed this, she had stopped
subtitling her own words. It struck me as a little bit strange that
she always referred to herself as "Mama-san," never "I" or "me." It
reminded me of a five-year-old, for some reason -- an impression
partially caused, I suppose, by the simple language she used with all her
charges. She went on. "The door will be locked today. You won't be
able to get in until I get back. Make sure you have everything you need."
"Okay," I said with a smile. "I'll be out all day myself."
She heaved herself slowly down to the floor, looking at me sidelong.
"Where are you going today?" I listed the tourist attractions I had
planned, some of the temples to the northwest, and she nodded in
approval. I thought about asking her where she was going, but she beat
me to it. "Mama-san is going to visit her friend today. Mama-san will
be back at three o'clock." The dog came up beside her, and she patted
the dog's head absently, her eyes focused somewhere just past the open
door. When she made no sign of speaking again, I finished tying my
shoes, left with a cheery "I'll be back," and headed over to the
kitchen next door. About fifteen minutes later, I saw the taxi driver
pull up outside the kitchen window, which made me ask Kerryn about their
friendship.
"Sometimes she'll go off on a trip," Kerryn continued with a slight
frown on her face. "She'll just call up a cab, usually that friend of
hers, and head off to Arashiyama, or down south of the city. If she's in
a good mood, she'll take one of us with her." She took another swig of
her tea, shaking her blond bangs out of her eyes. "One Sunday I was just
sitting here in the kitchen, and she came in looking for Sarah. She's her
favorite, I guess... Well, Sarah was out, and so she ended up taking me
with her to see the cormorant fishing on the river. She didn't say more
than a few words to me the whole time. It was really quite strange." She
paused for a long moment, thinking. "I think she's a little bit crazy."
"Who, Mama-san?" This was from Warren, who had entered the
curtained doorway during that last speech. Warren was English and
comfortably gay, with a goatee that was truly goatlike and curling brown
hair brushed back from a high forehead. He pulled a cup out of the
cupboard and filled it with hot water. "She's senile, I think. Both
her and that rat dog of hers." He stirred in some tea leaves and
reached up to turn on the air conditioning, then added thoughtfully,
"She doesn't like me very much."
"Maybe it's because of what you say about her here in the kitchen,"
Kerryn said in a half-teasing, half-disapproving tone. At my look, she
jerked her head towards one corner of the room; for the first time I
noticed the intercom that was halfway hidden behind a box of soba noodles.
"She listens in to our conversation," Kerryn shrugged. "We know for sure
because she asked Sarah to translate what someone was saying once."
I tried to imagine Mama-san sitting on the floor of her cramped
private kitchen, like a cotton-clad boulder, letting waves of
incomprehensible foreign voices wash over her as she fanned herself in
the heat. Did she try to imagine what her young tenants were thinking?
Or did she simply listen as if to music, or the chirping of pine crickets
heralding evening? Her face in my mind gave nothing away, and I turned
my thoughts back to the conversation.
"She's either looking for things to charge us extra for, or reasons
to evict us," Warren was noting cheerfully, obviously not worried by the
prospect.
"Oh, she's not that bad." Kerryn stepped over to the sink and began
to wash her cup.
"Probably not," he admitted affably. "But just the same, I always
make sure to get a receipt when I pay my rent, just in case she
conveniently forgets that I paid it."
That was something that had been bothering me, because despite her
insistence that I "pay now," every time since that first night that I had
tried to pay the rest of my bill, she had waved me off. "Mama-san
is tired now," she'd say. "You can pay later." I entertained visions of
her presenting me with a hugely padded bill on my last night there,
calling the police when I didn't have the money (having spent it all on
laserdiscs and the trashy goodies at the Hundred Yen Store) -- I would be
dragged out miserably by white-gloved policemen past the amiably
grinning taxi driver... I immediately vowed to make sure money changed
hands as soon as possible. And to get a receipt.
It seemed Mama-san was a prime topic of conversation, because she
came up again a couple of nights later, when we went out for cheesecake
and cappuccino. The place was named Papa Jon's, and they were like the
Baskin Robbins of cheesecake, with more than thirty flavors to choose
from and what is probably the best cappuccino I've ever had. It was
tucked around a corner next to an all-night video rental store named Ooh
La La, a five-minute ride on the black bicycles I had seen when I checked
in. Of course, I had no bike of my own, so I was given the dubious honor
of "pegging" with Warren. Most of the bikes I saw in Japan are equipped
with a rear-wheel axle that sticks out an extra five inches on each side;
you plant one foot on each peg, straddling the rear wheel, and hold onto
the shoulders of the pedaler. It sounds weird, and I sure as heck
wouldn't do it wearing a skirt, but it's actually quite exhilarating to
be standing, the cool wind rushing past your ears as you look around at
the overwhelming lights of nighttime Kyoto, freed from watching where
you're going, or thinking about where you're coming from.
Anyhow, there were six of us on this trip. Kerryn had opted for a
slice of Hazelnut Chocolate cheesecake and plain cappuccino. Warren did
the opposite, plain cheesecake with something called a Cafe Brazilia (and
no, you don't want to try pronouncing that in Japanese syllables -- I'm
surprised he managed to order it). There were two Canadians, Barry and
Nathan, who had gone for weird fruity cheesecakes with their Cafe
Mexicano and Cafe Crema, and an American named Joe, whose cheesecake
order I must confess I didn't hear, but it looked chocolatey; he drank
water. Me, I had gone for a turtle cheesecake and plain cappuccino,
because the funkier ones cost way too much for me to contemplate.
Joe bartended at a frightening place named "Bar Isn't It: Louisiana
Mama's," where (and I am, as Dave Barry puts it, not making this up)
twentysomething Japanese girls did line dances to American hip-hop
music. A few of us had gone there the previous night (yes, including me;
few Zen temples are open past five o'clock, and sometime's a girl's just
gotta get out and dance) and it was in discussing our trip that talk
turned again to Mama-san -- Barry said something about all those
uber-cute girls turning into Mama-san when they got old. Warren
shuddered dramatically, murmuring "there but for the grace of God..." I
asked Barry why, if that was the case, he was so interested in picking
them up, and he replied that he would never let them end up that way, and
so he was saving them from a fate worse than death.
Everyone laughed at that, then Kerryn pensively lifted a piece of
Hazelnut Chocolate on her fork, staring at it as if in meditation. "I
wonder what Mama-san was like when she was young." That silenced us, as
we all entertained our own visions of it. For some reason, I imagined a
round-faced five-year-old in a sunflower dress, playing with that
rat-dog, or one just like it. I saw her standing out in her garden, her
doughy hands held out to the sun, then skipping around the hallways, then
finally when she grew tired simply curling up in the hall with her dog,
her thumb close to her mouth but not quite in... I shook myself
and realized the conversation had gone on and left me behind. (Happens
to me a lot, I'll admit it.)
Kerryn was nodding at Warren. "Sometimes I wonder how she manages to
run the place. She just lies around all day. Once when I went to do
some laundry, she was asleep on the floor in the hallway. And I've seen
her turn away people at the door, when the main house is entirely empty,
just because she couldn't be bothered to deal with them that day. And
she can be so rude sometimes..." She shrugged. "But then again, it's
her house. She can do what she wants." With that the talk turned to
other matters, though my mind was now filled with an image of Mama-san,
the Mama-san of the present, lying there in the hallway, her fan drooping
like a lily onto her chest.
That image was fairly close to the way I found her the next day, when
I stopped in around noon to drop off some souvenirs I had found. She lay
on her side right on the stoop, snoring faintly; I took off my shoes as
silently as possible and stepped carefully over her short legs to get to
the hallway. Her dog, curled by her cotton-clad shoulder, yipped
sleepily at me, but by now he was used to my presence and mollified by my
having petted him once or twice, so he left it at that. When I came back
out a few minutes later, Mama-san was sitting as if she had never been
lying down, looking at the row of shoes by the stoop as her fan seemed to
wave itself. I greeted her awkwardly, a bit embarrassed at having woken
her, but she didn't seem to care. As I stepped past her and began to
retie my shoes, she spoke up. "Mama-san will be gone today. Mama-san
has to go to the doctor's."
I looked at her in concern, but she looked the same as always. "Are
you sick, Mama-san? What's wrong?" I said, sitting back for a moment.
She shrugged slightly, her head tilting sluggishly to one side.
"Mama-san's back hurts," she said after a moment, her expression not
changing an iota. There was a long pause while I tried to decide
whether she intended to add anything. Finally, I said something along
the lines of "get well soon."
She smiled at me, faintly, as if a thumb had smudged briefly at the
clay of her face. It was the first smile I had seen on her face, and it
made her into a different person in my eyes. I felt the tiniest bit
guilty about asking her for a receipt. I even, for a moment, felt a
small bit of liking for her dog.
"Thank you," she said tersely. There seemed to be nothing more to
say, and so I finished tying my shoes and was preparing to leave when she
spoke up again. "Where are you going today?" she said softly, her eyes
looking out into the street.
"I was going to take the Philosopher's Walk," I replied. "From the
Silver Pavilion down to Nanzen-ji."
"Ah," she replied. Then, in an even quieter voice, "Are you
stopping at the Eikando'?"
"I think so," I said cautiously, not knowing where this was leading.
"Ah," she said again. "There is a pine tree there." I waited for
more, since there were in fact lots of pine trees in Kyoto. After a
moment, she went on in a dreamlike voice. "This pine tree looks like
a normal pine tree, but if you look very closely, you can see it has
three needles to each leaf. Most pine trees only have two needles,
you see. It's one of the wonders of the temple. Three needles. It's
very rare." She suddenly focused her eyes on my face, and leaned
forward. "Very rare," she repeated, her eyes curiously intense. I
nodded a bit nervously, glancing towards the door.
She looked at me for a moment longer, then looked back down at the
shoes, lined up in a row. "Go," she said shortly. I wasn't about to
argue. But I did look extra carefully at every pine tree in the
Eikando', until I thought I had found the one she was talking about. It
looked so ordinary, not so much different from the tree in her garden,
but all the same I felt as if I were in the presence of something magical.
Two days later, I left the Aoi-So=93 Inn for the last time. It was
early in the morning, and when I slipped on stocking feet around the
garden and down the hallway, I could hear the soft sound of Mama-san's
snores coming from one of her private rooms. I had already paid my rent
and cleaned my room, so there was no reason to wake her, but as I put on
my shoes and walked out, sliding the door shut behind me, I couldn't help
but wonder what her real name was.
bengman *** "On the appointed day, I notice something amazing. When I
take a step outside the vacant lot, a meadow spreads out before my eyes.
And there are lots of horses and cows staring at me. Since when has there
been a ranch on Akane's street? -- Where the heck am I?!" -- Ryouga,
"Ittai koko wa dokonan da?"
