序章

1 January 2011

Steam filled the room as I sat motionless in the bath. Water that was almost too hot for me to bear came right up to my neck, with just my head sticking out above the surface. I had slid open the window that I was now facing and, through the orange glow of a streetlight, could see the snow falling silently onto the roofs of houses across the road from mine. This was my favourite place to be in winter. Temperatures falling to as low as minus ten degrees Celsius at night, and without central heating, I thought to myself that living in the north of Japan was tough.

New Year’s Day had been a typical one and my stomach bulged from all the food that Okāsan, my mother, had prepared and that I had eaten. When I spoke with friends at school about their New Year, I was often jealous of the size of their families and the liveliness of their celebrations. However, when it came down to it, I would not want to spend the time any other way.

Lost in my own thoughts, staring out into the night, I jumped at first when I heard the sliding door to the bathroom opening slowly. Once I saw the outline of Okāsan’s head peeking around the white plastic frame, I breathed a sigh of relief.

 ‘You startled me!’ 

‘Sorry Kimiko, I didn’t mean to scare you,’ Okāsan said. ‘It’s cold, isn’t it? Would you mind if I got into the bath?’

‘Of course, come in. It’s really hot in here!’ I replied.

Okāsan undressed just outside in the senmenjo changing area that contained a top loading washing machine and a fairly modern but well-used vanity sink unit and then stepped into the wetroom to get washed before joining me in the bath. It had been a while, probably close to six months, since we had last bathed together and I couldn’t help but notice that she looked thinner than before. For as long as I can remember taking notice of such things, her body had always been slim, her breasts small, her hips narrow – she was certainly not as curvy as some of the women that I watched in films on television – but the skin seemed to hang a little more from her frame as if the fat had just melted away.

She sat down on the low wooden stool in front of the shower unit and turned it on. I once asked her why hot water smelled different to cold and she told me she thought that it was something to do with minerals in the water giving off odours when heated up.  We were going to look it up on the computer but something distracted us that night and we didn’t get around to it.

I loved the way that she washed her hair; she gave it a real soaking to start with and then spent a long time working in the shampoo using her fingertips, moving in small circles from front to back and then side to side, always four times in each direction. Having done this, she rinsed and then carried out exactly the same movements using some coconut-scented conditioner. For the final rinse, she pushed all of her hair forward and let the water run over it whilst massaging away the little bubbles and soap suds.

As she lowered herself into the bath, the water level rose and some of it sloshed over the side and onto the wetroom floor before draining away. Her face flushed with the heat and it looked as though she had put on some of the rouge that she liked to dab onto her cheeks, especially during the winter when the cold bleached any colour out of her complexion.

‘Oh, that feels good!’ she exclaimed, rubbing the base of her neck, loosening the muscles. ‘This really is the best way to relax. Have you had a good day, Kimiko?’

‘It’s been great, thanks. The food you made was delicious,’ I said, thinking about all that I had eaten.

‘I’m glad that you enjoyed it,’ she said as she gently held my face in her hands to get a closer look at me.

‘Yes, I really did. Look how much I ate!’ I added as I stood up to show her my rounded belly, hard from all the rice, simmered shrimp, grilled sea bream, sweet black beans and pickled vegetables.

‘Wow, I knew that you were getting stuck in but I didn’t realise how full you had got! That makes me very happy to know that you still enjoy my cooking,’ she said patting my stomach.

‘It’s the best. I don’t know what I’d do without you,’ I told her as I sat down again in the water with a splash.

‘Oh well, at least I have my uses!’ Okāsan replied and started laughing.

I don’t know how long we were in the bath that night but by the time we got out our skin was all wrinkled, especially our fingers which looked like umeboshi pickled plums. I can’t even remember what else we talked about but that moment with her is a memory that sticks in my mind. It was the last ever time that Okāsan and I bathed together.