However, it would have been more true to his character to write to me, no matter what the situation.
During this dearth of Tanaka’s letters, my parents overheard from my younger sister that I was moping over a collection of love letters. “We would like nothing more than to see you married, Yoriko-chan,” they told me one night at dinner. Then Mama and Papa scrutinized my face, unconsciously as one, seeking something there to confirm their most desperate hope, that their odd, eldest daughter had at last found a prospective husband. Crushed by Tanaka’s silence, I could only answer their unvoiced question with silence of my own.
I returned to Tokyo for the August Bon Festival. Although Tanaka’s unspoken rejection still stung me, I decided to don my summer kimono and forget him in the fireworks that would explode over the student commons. That night, armed with saké, I stood slightly apart from my colleagues and watched multitudinous flowers bloom in the sky.
Purely by chance, my gaze left the sky to wander the crowd. At the edge, I saw– impossible! My heart leaped in my chest, and adrenaline burst in my veins. Wisdom born of disappointment warned me not to go to him, but still my heart compelled me beyond the edge of the crowd to Tanaka.
“It has been a long time.” He smiled in greeting as though we had never left one another.
My mouth hung open as questions fought to be voiced. Where had he gone? Why had he not written? In the end, the only word I could get out was, “Sensei.”
He sighed heavily. “Will you walk with me, Shinhada-san?”
I had thought my heart beat fast before, but the previous pace was but a crawl. Was it possible that nothing had changed between us? Or was something about to change?
I followed Tanaka into deeper darkness. There he bowed. “I regretfully admit that I have not written to you in a very long time with no explanation.”
Sensing that he had more to say, I remained silent.
“My dear friend died this summer. His name was Suzuki, Hiroto.”
“I’m sorry.”
“He lived in Sendai. Unfortunately, I had to attend his funeral right after I returned here. The trip was very long, and I spent many days with his family. Do you know what claimed his life? Karoushi. They found him in his cubicle. He had fallen out of his chair.” Though Tanaka’s voice resonated with emotion, it was no longer raw grief. Time had tempered it into something else, a powerful experience.
“How terrible,” I whispered.
“It is. I am grateful every moment to be in this profession that allows me to escape to the Heian period.” Tanaka’s voice fell so low I could barely hear him. “Such a terrible tragedy would never happen then. But…” He cleared his throat and wiped at his eyes. “It is past. Shall we return to the others? Tonight it is almost as though the Heian period has returned.”
I agreed. Before we left, Tanaka appraised my kimono, deep purple iris on a blue background. “Your kimono suits you,” he said.
That entire night, I smiled. In a small way, things had changed between us, but for the better.
Though I had no classes with Tanaka this semester, we still managed to meet. The muggy evening weather made strolls unpleasant, so we drank tea instead. One night, Tanaka suggested we forgo the coffee shop for a small restaurant near the campus. Puzzled, I agreed with a shrug. At the restaurant, to my great surprise, Tanaka ordered a pitcher of heated saké.
“What’s this for?” I said.
“A toast to endings.” When Tanaka poured the first cup for me, I realized his wedding ring was missing. Though I tried to be covert about my discovery, he sensed my eyes on his hand. “Kirika and I married too quickly, I suppose. In the end, we simply did not understand one another.”
I poured some saké for him, and the two of us drank in silence. The rice wine burned bitter in my mouth.
When we finished drinking, Tanaka escorted me to my dorm, which he had never done before, even when we parted in the dead of night. Perhaps the saké made him forget himself. We paused before the doorway, just like the myriad couples who shared their goodnights here. Suddenly I came aware of his subtle cologne and the warmth of his skin. “Goodnight,” Tanaka said, as tenderly as though we were lovers. From the barely-checked yearning in his eyes, I half-expected him to pinion me to his chest and plunder my mouth with a kiss to make the Heian courtesans blush. Yet our parting that night ended no differently from its predecessors; it culminated in nothing.
Thoughts of that night kept me preoccupied all through class. I wondered if Tanaka really had been about to kiss me. If I closed my eyes, I could smell his cologne and taste the saké in my mouth. The only explanation I could think of was that it was too soon after his divorce for such things, that he would come around in time. My conflicting feelings led me to his office that afternoon.
Tanaka hummed as he straightened his desk, his melancholy toasts of yesterday forgotten. At the sound of my footfalls, he turned. “Ah. Shinhada-san. I hoped you would come.”
His smile made happiness quicken the beat of my heart. “You did?”
“Yes,” he said. “I found your present from Kyoto this morning; it was lost before. It’s not much, but here it is.” The crinkly paper and the gift beneath it fit comfortably in both my hands.
“Thank you!” I smiled down at the gift, wondering what this first present between us could possibly be. Tanaka came closer, and the inevitability that precedes an embrace drew us together like a strong tide.
“Good afternoon, Tanaka-kun, Shinhada-san.” I stiffened. Sato! Somehow he had sneaked up behind us.
“Sato-sempai.” Tanaka bowed low. “What brings you here?”
“I have important news for you.”
“Oh?”
“Not only that, you’re one of the first to know. The official announcement isn’t until next week.”
“How did you manage that?” Tanaka said.
“I have friends in many places.” False humility ill-disguised Sato’s smirk. “As one interested in the Heian period, you, too, may find this intriguing, Shinhada-san.” Though Sato’s face was all open friendliness, I did not trust him. “Kyoto University is collaborating with Tokyo U for a symposium on classical literature. If you compose an especially good paper for it, you may get selected to conduct a temporal comparison of literature with a team of professors.”
“Interesting,” Tanaka said. “There usually isn’t money for such studies.”
“How they dredged up the grant for it remains a mystery to me,” Sato said. “In any case, if you are selected, you’ll spend an entire year in Kyoto. It is a great opportunity for your career and for you, Tanaka-kun, seeing as you are half-stuck in the Heian period even now.”
Tanaka’s eyes lost their dreamy state. “Why, that is valuable information. Thank you very much, Sato-sempai.”
“Yes, of course. I thought first of you, Tanaka-kun.”
There was no denying that Sato’s announcement had essentially brought Tanaka’s dream to life. But after our talk last spring, I trusted him less than an assassin with his hands behind his back.
Initially I expected Tanaka to turn his attentions from me to his paper. However, passion for both drove him to four hours of sleep, five at the most. I insisted that he not spend so much time with me to focus on the paper that was so important to him.
He responded that I inspired him. Spending the evening with me enabled him to write with vigor the entire night. I wondered if hope and inspiration had deluded him. For all those months, his pronouncements never wavered. My modern ear wondered if he was all right. My Heian ear, however, heard passion and perhaps love.
Despite the time we spent together, we never spoke of the gift he had gotten me: a silk fan. The design showed cherry blossoms around the edges, floating through a crystal-blue spring sky. Beneath it, strolled a dancer from the Heian period. Though she faced downward, I had the feeling she possessed enough beauty to not be upstaged
by the scene. Yet, I felt no words were necessary in this case.
Tanaka and I never spoke of his feelings or our need to be together. Some nights, even when we had not planned to meet, I found myself loitering outside watching the moon or breathing the crisp autumn air. Then, as though I had summoned him with a secret letter, he would appear. We could finish one another’s sentences. One would think at this point, there could be no more discussion of Heian, that we had plundered that era of all conversation-worthy topics.
It was just the opposite. The more time we spent together, the more we had to say. And the farther autumn progressed, the less time we had to say it.
Sometimes, I tried to convince myself I could not fully express my affections for Tanaka because to do so would jeopardize his dream. Often, I could not make do with this self-imposed constraint and agonized just what it was he wanted. He seemed happy in his strange unacknowledged relationship with me. Yet, this semester was a stage of static. His parting was not yet imminent, which made these days the one time that such disparate interests, as my love and his desire to go to Kyoto, could serve one another.
The farther we progressed through autumn, the more I had to tell Tanaka, until each hour away from him filled me to bursting. In desperation, I tried to believe that our feelings would burn out like the violent flames of a sudden fire. Instead, Tanaka’s inevitable departure bound us tighter