Chapter 4 Grandma’s Secret Umeboshi #2
“My eyes are getting blurry.” Removing his glasses, Iori gave his right eye a rub.
Although he was still in his thirties, he was always complaining that he couldn’t see small print clearly. He seemed to be having a hard time sifting through all the recipes.
Matsuko’s bookshelf was packed tightly with cookbooks. Scanning the books, I counted roughly three hundred. She even had folders filled with cuttings from newspapers and cooking magazines.
I was pretty certain that we had gone through everything. I even got Hozumi—he was tall enough for it—to check the top of the bookshelf, to make sure nothing had been shoved away, but all we found were some old cans of vegetable juice covered in dust.
“Maybe she didn’t keep a recipe of her umeboshi,” Iori said, shrugging.
“It’s possible. She made it every year, so she could have memorized it. Or maybe she threw it away?” Hozumi suggested.
“Should we take a break and go talk to Kimura, Momo-chan?”
Something didn’t add up. A strange sensation swept through me; I felt that I was overlooking something very important.
I grabbed one of the cookbooks that was within my reach and flicked through the pages.
Most of the books had sticky notes in them. She had also marked the text with a pink highlighter, and sometimes made her own edits to the recipes—she neatly crossed out certain measurements and added comments like make this two teaspoons.
She was really passionate about cooking.
Her approach was comparable to that of a diligent researcher, sparing no effort in her cooking. The Matsuko that I imagined was the kind of person who put all her energy in every little thing she made.
Could it really be true that she didn’t have a recipe for umeboshi? She had kept detailed notes of how to make nukazuke, jam, yuzu kosho seasoning, and even koji miso, so why not umeboshi?
Every day, Matsuko made umeboshi-filled onigiri for her husband, who worked tirelessly without ever taking time off. No matter the weather, he went into his shop, opened up the heavy boxes, and put the books up on the shelf. That umeboshi must have meant a lot to both of them.
“Isn’t it unusual that the recipe for something so special is missing?
” I asked. “Why would she keep a detailed record of everything except umeboshi? It doesn’t make any sense.
Umeboshi requires meticulous attention…I mean, I’ve never made them myself, but my grandma always said that the smallest difference in the amount of salt, or drying time, can change the flavor completely. ”
“So.” Iori brought his hand to his chin and deliberated for a moment. “Are you saying that she wanted to keep it a secret from her family?”
I nodded my head in reply.
If it was me, where would I hide a recipe?
Suddenly, a memory I had long forgotten came back to me. Around the time I started getting into cooking, Grandma had said these words to me:
“Listen, Momoko. No matter how much you love spending time in the kitchen, make sure you set aside one drawer to yourself. And don’t forget—that’s your space. Don’t you let anyone find it, all right?”
“I remember…”
My body started to move as if of its own accord. I walked over to the filing cabinet in the living room and, starting from the top, pulled each drawer open.
Probiotics, bandages, pens, nail clippers, ear pick. No, this isn’t the one.
“There she goes again,” Hozumi said.
“Err, Momo-chan, would you mind explaining to us what you’re doing?” Iori asked.
I spoke as I opened another drawer.
“I once heard that for many women, privacy becomes a foreign concept once they have kids. They share their bedroom with their family. Even if the kids have their own rooms, and the husbands have their own office, there’s no such thing as a mother’s room.
It’s hard for women to create a private space for themselves.
Eventually, even the mother herself becomes a thing that is shared.
And the portion of her time and energy that’s allocated for herself becomes smaller and smaller.
It’s important for women to try and consciously create a space that’s not shared with anyone else, no matter how small. ”
“It’s like that time when she told me she didn’t need her own room because she’d be spending most of her time with her kid anyway…” Iori said out of nowhere, mumbling to himself.
I turned toward him. “Huh?”
Snapping back to reality, Iori clapped his hands.
“Right! Hozumi, let’s help her look for the recipe.”
He rolled up the sleeves on his shirt and resumed searching for the recipe beside me.
It appeared that Kimura had been spending a lot of his time at the dining table.
On it were piles of books as well as his ledger, and a contact book listing publishers’ phone numbers.
I opened up a box file containing documents, though it was unlikely the recipe was going to be there.
It was full of thin strips of paper folded in half.
“What are these?”
There was text printed on each strip: the title of a book, the name of a publisher, and the price. They were the size of a bookmark. I was pretty sure I had seen them at the till of a bookstore.
“They’re what you call ‘slips,’ ” Hozumi said, poking his head out from behind me.
“You can find them inserted in most newly published books. They’re used to tally up the number of copies sold.
Whenever someone buys a book, the bookseller removes the slip from it and holds on to it.
It’s a handy way of tracking the books you’ve sold and how many. ”
“You sound like you’re a bookseller yourself.”
“Didn’t I tell you? I worked in a bookstore when I was a university student.”
“Ohhhhhh!”
“What?”
“It’s just very fitting. You’re exactly that type of guy.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Hozumi retorted.
He picked up the slips and flicked through them.
“I used to write notes on them,” he said. “Whenever I couldn’t find a notepad, I would use the slips instead.”
“Are you allowed to do that?”
“Technically, no. But sometimes I needed to quickly jot something down while on the phone, and there was usually a slip or two around.”
Iori called out abruptly. “Momo-chan. Hozumi. Come here!”
I looked up but couldn’t see him anywhere. The living room door was open.
“This way,” he shouted again.
Just outside the living room were traditional sliding doors. Iori popped his head out through the doors.
“Did you find it?” I asked.
“I haven’t checked yet.”
Iori told me to come in, and I entered the room.
It was a square Japanese-style room of four and a half tatami mats.
My nose started to tickle as soon as I walked in.
Judging from the musty smell, the room hadn’t been used in a while.
A thick layer of dust covered an ancient-looking massage chair.
There was a glass display case, and in it was a stuffed bird.
I accidentally locked eyes with it and shuddered.
“I thought this might be the secret place that she didn’t share with anyone else,” Iori explained.
I shifted my gaze to the direction he was pointing to find a traditional dressing table. It was pretty compact in size, slightly bigger than the width of my shoulders. It had a mirror and a few drawers. In front of it was an upholstered square stool covered in velour.
“A woman’s dressing table is something of a special place, isn’t it? Kimura would probably never go anywhere near it, either. What do you think? A good place to check for the recipe?” Iori posed hopefully.
Of course. How did I not think of this before?
A dressing table was where women would sit in front of the mirror, put on makeup, and switch themselves on. Then, once the children were asleep, they would sit here again, this time to unwind.
I brought my hand to the drawer.
This must be it. The recipe is here. My intuition is telling me so.
My throat was drying up. I swallowed, but I couldn’t feel anything. It was as if the back of my throat was closing up.
“I’m opening it.”
Tightly gripping the drawer, I tugged it toward me.
Just like in the kitchen, it was packed with stuff. A retractable lipstick, face powder, eyebrow pencil…but there was nothing that resembled a recipe.
“What about those?” Iori pointed to some smaller drawers.
I opened up all of the ones on the right-hand side. Still nothing.
“Damn, I thought this was a pretty good guess. Now we’re back to square one,” Iori said, vigorously scratching the back of his head as he set himself down on the stool. “What should we do now, Momo-chan?”
I thought for a moment, staring at Iori shrugging his shoulders.
I could have sworn that we were on to something. It even felt as though Matsuko was calling me.
So much for that “intuition” of mine. But I guess her children could have opened these drawers. She would have needed something better, a kind of secret storage.
Secret storage…
Secret storage?
“That…”
“Huh?”
Walking on my knees, I moved closer to Iori.
“What is it, Momo—”
“That!” I pointed at the square stool Iori was sitting on.
“Move over,” I said to him. “Some of these stools have storage space inside them.”
I grabbed the upholstered seat and lifted it. It was hollow.
“Aha. There’s something inside!”
“It looked just like a normal stool.”
I pushed the stool directly under the light and peered into the newly discovered square hole. I rubbed my sweaty palms on the thighs of my jeans.
Slowly, I slid my hand inside.
A notebook.
On its cover was a title, inscribed in that same beautiful handwriting I had seen on the fridge.
“It says Yasu…nari…”
Hozumi said, “I think it says Yasunari Notes.”
“Yasunari…” I said, exchanging glances with Iori and Hozumi. “That’s Kimura’s first name, isn’t it?”
I took a breath and looked upward.
“Matsuko, please excuse us for taking a peek. I just want to see if you’ve left the umeboshi recipe in here.”
I pressed my palms together and bowed to the notebook before swiftly turning the cover.
“This is…”
H15. 11.15
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