A Certain Mr. Takahashi. Ann Ireland
the other’s shallow breathing.
Last winter, Colette came to New York to visit. Jean had cleared the weekend and planned it start to finish-but Colette wanted to go off on her own. She’d leave the apartment dressed in something she’d just bought on West Broadway, something with wide shoulders, and not come back till early morning. She said she needed to explore on her own, find her own piece of the city. Only on the final night did they curl up on the sofa over steaming mugs of cocoa, Colette pale from lack of sleep, and talk like old times. Colette spoke of Nelson, whom she intended to marry. “What if he’s the wrong guy?” she kept asking, then started to laugh. “You’re supposed to know, Jean.” No wonder she was confused, with Yoshi just left in some penthouse apartment, towel wrapped around his waist, smooth chest glistening with sweat.
Colette reaches into an inner pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “Want one?”
“No, thanks.”
“Good for you.”
Jean watches as Colette inhales, only the lit tip visible in the darkness. Her movements are as natural as if she needed the smoke for breathing. She looks like a young guerilla, darkly handsome like the Middle-Eastern soldiers on the six o’clock news. Does Yoshi find her exotic? Innocent?
“Did you get a chance to look at the garden?” asks Colette.
“A little. It was nearly dark when I arrived. What do you think of the house?”
“I like it,” says Colette. “Hopelessly bourgeois, of course—but it’s got style. It’s like one of those Mobius strips: the outside’s inside and the inside’s outside.”
Jean nods. Maybe she should smoke. It looks so intense and reflective.
“What do you make of the secret announcement?” she asks. “Dad just smiles and taps his pipe.”
“I know,” snorts Colette. “We’re supposed to keep guessing. But I’m not that curious.”
“Neither am I,” says Jean quickly, then adds, “Maybe they’re going to announce that after all these years they’re not married and we’re illegitimate—”
“And now that they’re getting older they’ve decided to tie the knot,” completes Colette. “Not bad. Dad just became a Canadian citizen.”
“I didn’t know that!”
“I only found out by chance. He’s so damn secretive — and ashamed.” “Ashamed?”
“For capitulating after all these years.”
“Why didn’t I hear about this?”
“You’re away.”
“So are you!”
“Not so far.” Colette curls one leg under the other.
Jean begins to feel a new wave of resentment. Sucked in already. That familiar sensation that they’re all so fragile, a nest of thin-shelled eggs under attack.
“Have you missed me?” asks Colette suddenly. The cigarette drops to the ground.
“What a question!” Jean means to leave it at that.
But Colette’s eyes remain fixed on her, daring her. Now she could say something. Colette is aching to confess, begging for it. Any simple line will do-“Have you seen ’Him’ lately?”
No. Why should she make it easy?
“I always miss you,” says Jean. Her tone is stiff as new skates. “I’m always looking and can’t believe you’re not in the next room. Isn’t that silly?”
“Not silly at all.” Colette looks away.
They listen to the low crash of waves. Jean’s head buzzes with excitement.
“Yoshi’s going to be in Vancouver,” she announces. She doesn’t dare look at her sister.
“That’s right,” says Colette carefully. “For a record signing.”
“Are we going?”
“Going where?”
“To see him, of course.”
“No.”
“Why not?” She’s pressing in now, cornering her.
Colette seems to decide. “I don’t think we should dig up the past. Let it lie. We’re different people now. So’s he.”
“Exactly why it would be interesting.”
“You don’t understand, do you?” accuses Colette.
“Understand what?” Jean fakes innocence.
Instead of replying Colette slips off the rock. “Let’s go up to the house and make some tea. It’s getting late.”
Jean follows Colette’s rapid tread up the rickety log stairway. It’s a fast pace in the darkness, and Jean has to hurry just to keep her sister’s outline firmly in sight.
“How’s Nelson?” asks Jean, spooning honey into the steaming mug.
“Fine. As usual.”
They are sitting in the breakfast nook. The house is quiet at last. Girdling the kitchen wall is a belt of copper pots, shining like armour. Jutting up the centre is a giant butcher block armed with knives and cleavers in descending order of size. It has taken ten minutes to locate the tea kettle.
“What’s he working at these days?”
“He’s still with the Third World Echo.” Colette pauses and takes a sip from the mug. “They’ve made him editorin-chief.”
“And are you still working for them?”
“I am”-Colette puffs out her chest-“Circulation Director, Community Liaison Officer, and Production Manager of the Third World Echo.”
“No kidding!”
“It’s not a big operation,” allows Colette. “Our subscription base is maybe three thousand, and we do another thou at newsstands.”
“Didn’t you once say they tapped your phone?” says Jean. “Have you been raided?”
“No,” scoffs Colette. “We’re not threatening, yet. But Nelson’s got ambitions. He’d like to try controlled circulation—like Homemaker’s.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“Not at all. Just because it’s never been tried … Anyway,” Colette finishes lamely, “we’ll see.”
“Why didn’t he come?”
“What-out here?” Colette looks astonished.
“Is that so outlandish?”
“God, yes. He’d feel trapped. He married me, not the whole family.”
“Sure, but—”
“We’re not a couple that does everything together, if that’s what you mean.”
Jean didn’t mean anything in particular, so she just nods.
Picture of Nelson with his goatee, then later the bushy Castro beard and bandanna. Flash of Nelson (from a recent Polaroid snapped at Colette’s twenty-third birthday) shaved clean with cropped hair and a dreamboat smile. Always facing directly into the camera, radiating white teeth and confidence.
“What about you?” asks Colette. She reaches her hand across the table and touches Jean’s. “New York still agrees with you?”
“I like it there,” admits Jean, pulling back. “It surprises me that simply living in a place creates a life — a home.”
“Really?” Colette looks unconvinced. “Of course, you’re going