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  New Year's dishes: Traditional foods served at New Year’s time throughout Japan. These osechi foods vary from region to region and are prepared before New Year’s Eve so they will last through the holiday (until around January 3). They include kelp rolls, simmered black beans, mashed sweet potatoes with sweet chestnuts, candied dried sardines, fish cakes, and so on. Many people look forward to eating osechi at New Year’s, much as Americans and Canadians look forward to Thanksgiving turkey and pumpkin pie.

  Every year, after their family ate the traditional soba on New Year’s Eve, they would eat nothing but rice-dumpling soup and special New Year’s food, which had been boiled in soy sauce and sugar to keep it preserved, until the shops opened again on January 4 or 5. The soup and other dishes were tasty at first, but eating them three times a day for three days in a row soon made the boys long for regular food. Plus, the New Year’s dishes they liked the best—sweetened fried egg and candied chestnut—were always completely gone by the time breakfast was over on January 1. Kazuo couldn’t wait to have curry rice again, or a croquette, or even grilled fish.

  “Look, if you can just put up with New Year’s food for one more day, we’ll be back to regular food tomorrow,” Kazuo now coolly observed. Yasuo’s shoulders were slouched in disappointment.

  At home, Father and his coworkers had just left. In the living room, the smell of beer and whiskey hung in the air.

  “We’re back.” Kazuo and Yasuo took off their shoes and stepped into the room.

  “Hey, cheese and ham!” Yasuo instantly spotted leftover food on a plate on the kotatsu. “Okaasan, where did this come from?”

  “That’s so unfair! We go away and the adults eat all this good stuff by themselves,” Kazuo said. He beat Yasuo to the plate and ate some cheese.

  “Hey, Oniichan! I want some, too!” Yasuo grabbed some cheese of his own and shoved it into his mouth.

  “What are you two doing? That’ll be quite enough funny business on New Year’s.” Mother warned, coming out of the kitchen while drying her wet hands. She was wearing a special white apron over her kimono.

  “But Oniichan tried to eat before I did!”

  “Oh, be quiet. You’re the one who can’t stop talking and driving me crazy.” Kazuo lightly knocked his brother on the head.

  Mother frowned. “No more fighting, boys. Kazuo, you’re the older one, so you’d better set a good example. And boys, you may eat the cheese and ham. But I want you to sit down properly and eat it with these, not with your hands.” Mother handed them some small forks that were used to eat fruit.

  “I always have to be the one who gets in trouble,” Kazuo muttered grumpily. He quickly speared a thinly sliced piece of ham with his fork and brought it to his mouth.

  “This food was something we had set aside for guests,” Mother said. “I haven’t had any of it yet myself, and it was purchased with your father’s hard-earned money. So it needed to go to his visitors first.” She put the single remaining piece of cheese in her mouth.

  “All we get every day is rice-dumpling soup and New Year’s dishes. We like ham and cheese, too!” Yasuo said.

  “Be grateful for what you have, Yasuo. During the war, we got a single, tiny rice dumpling and a single tangerine on January 1. I remember wishing I could eat rice-dumpling soup and New Year’s dishes until my stomach was bursting! But we couldn’t have any special New Year’s dishes, and I was grateful just to have that rice dumpling and tangerine.”

  Oh boy, thought Kazuo. His eyes met Yasuo’s. Their mother was going to talk about “during the war” again. But just then they heard their father’s voice.

  “Hey, boys, you’re back,” he called. “What’s wrong with the three of you, looking all long-faced on New Year’s?” Father slid into the kotatsu.

  “The boys were complaining that they’re tired of soup and New Year’s food, and I was telling them how important it is to be grateful for the food they have,” Mother said. She stared irritably at Father, whose face was flushed from drinking with his friends.

  He shrugged. “Well, New Year’s food does get old when you eat it for three days straight.”

  “What’s this?” She scowled. “You’re taking their side now?”

  “Come on, don’t get upset,” he told her. “Today’s the last day of the New Year’s holiday, so why don’t we go to Shibuya or someplace for dinner? The department stores should be open by now.”

  “All right!” Kazuo and Yasuo jumped up, but Mother’s face was still angry.

  “Hold on, now. Here I am trying to teach the boys about gratitude for the food they have, and you come in saying let’s go out to eat?”

  “What you say is perfectly right, my dear. We mustn’t forget to be grateful for our food. But last year, I worked overtime practically every day and could never take these boys anywhere. It’s the last day of New Year’s. Surely we can do a little something special for them.”

  At first, Mother made no move to change her sullen expression. But Kazuo and Yasuo stared at her pleadingly. Finally, she nodded her head.

  Shibuya, now all decked out to welcome the New Year, was one of Kazuo and Yasuo’s favorite areas in Tokyo. Kazuo thought it was extremely modern and exciting. Four elevated railroad lines—the Kokuden, Ginza, Toyoko, and Inogashira lines—ran from Shibuya Station in four different directions. To Kazuo, Shibuya looked exactly like a city of the future you would see in science fiction shows on TV. But Mother, who had lived in Shibuya as a girl, complained that you could no longer see the old face of the city.

  Yasuo loved to see the bronze statue of the Akita dog named Hachiko outside of Shibuya Station. Years before, the real Hachiko had waited and waited here for his master to return home, even after he had died suddenly from illness. The story of the faithful Hachiko had been memorialized by the statue and was a favorite of Yasuo’s. So as soon as they left the west exit, Yasuo went bounding through the crowds to stand in front of Hachiko. The black-colored statue sat, as always, on a pedestal with its eyes trained on the goings-on in Shibuya. Kazuo and his parents could tell from behind that Yasuo was speaking to the dog. When he had finished, he gave a deep bow.

  “Yasuo, what did you ask Hachiko for?” Mother asked as Yasuo rejoined the family.

  “Huh? Oh, nothing,” Yasuo said.

  “I know. You asked for your chatter-itis to finally heal this year, didn’t you?” Kazuo said, poking fun at his brother.

  “I did not,” Yasuo said. He made a face at Kazuo. “Actually, I asked for a very nice older brother who would never tease and make fun of me.”

  “You’re going to get it now!” Kazuo said, acting furious and raising a fist.

  “Okaasan, help me! Oniichan’s picking on me!” Yasuo hid behind Mother.

  “Stop it this instant, you two. We’ll have no more fighting on New Year’s,” Mother said sharply. “Kazuo, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: You’re the older one, so no picking on your brother.”

  “You’d better shape up now, boys,” Father added. “We’ve come all this way to Shibuya for dinner, so put on your best behavior in front of other people. Got it?” It was rare for Father to warn them about their behavior. Kazuo and Yasuo nodded obediently.

  Kazuo and his family matched their pace to the slowly moving crowds around them as they walked. Yasuo held onto Mother’s hand and chattered on about all sorts of trivial things.

  Crowds at a Tokyo festival.

  “Okaasan, when you were little, did you like summer or winter vacation better? I like winter because we don’t have to do any homework. But school’s going to start up again in four more days, isn’t it? That’s really soon.

  “Okaasan, you were living in Shibuya, right? So did you ever meet Hachiko?”

  Yasuo was happy to be walking along holding Mother’s hand, Kazuo realized. Yasuo was finally getting to spend as much time as he wanted with Mother, who was often working.

  Kazuo stuck both hands into the pockets of his overcoat and walked al
ong silently next to his father.

  Soon, they saw the sign for a restaurant called Suzuran. Kazuo always ordered curry rice when they went there.

  Curry rice: A favorite Japanese meal consisting of a thick, sweet curry sauce over white rice. The sauce may contain meat like beef or chicken and vegetables such as onions, carrots, and potatoes. At restaurants the curry sauce is often served separately in a kind of gravy boat. Kids love curry rice. It is usually one of the cheaper offerings on a menu, so parents like it too!

  In Kazuo’s opinion, the curry rice at Suzuran was no ordinary curry rice. That was because the curry at Suzuran was served in a separate silver container, which Kazuo felt was very impressive.

  But the tables at Suzuran were all full today, and a line had formed outside the restaurant. Father went inside to see how long the wait would be.

  “An hour at the earliest, they said. Plus they have reduced hours for the holiday, so they’re closing at five thirty.” It was already four thirty.

  “Let’s find someplace else,” Father said.

  The family began to walk around Shibuya looking for another place to eat. But every restaurant was full. It wasn’t until the fourth place they tried, a small cafe far from the station, that they were able to get in. It was certainly not very clean. The plastic tabletops had cigarette burn marks here and there, and the chairs were round stools with cotton stuffing coming out of the cushions. Even so, perhaps because it was New Year’s, the restaurant was full of customers.

  Mother, Father, Kazuo, and Yasuo were shown to a table in a corner.

  “I wonder if this place will be any good,” Kazuo said anxiously to Father.

  “You know, sometimes it’s these holes in the wall that actually have the good food,” Father told him, smiling.

  But when he looked at the menu, his face registered dismay. “Special New Year’s Menu Today. Dinner: Curry rice or breaded pork on rice, 250 yen. Dessert: Soda water or ice cream, 150 yen.”

  Mother frowned, too. “My, this is expensive, isn’t it?”

  “Well, nothing we can do about it now,” Father said. “What are you boys going to have?”

  “Curry rice,” they both answered without hesitation.

  “Really? Well, then, why don’t we all have that,” Father told them and ordered four from the waitress.

  “What did I tell you?” Mother complained to him after the waitress had left.

  “Now, now, it might be good curry. Let’s wait and see what they bring us.”

  No matter how disgusting or expensive this curry rice might be, Kazuo and Yasuo were certain it would taste better than the rice-dumpling soup and salty-sweet dishes they had been eating for days. They nodded at their father’s words.

  But Mother continued to grumble as Kazuo looked again at the menu and tried to imagine what the “Special New Year’s Menu” curry rice would be like.

  If the curry was special for the holiday, it should have a lot of meat in it. And the rice and curry would probably be in separate containers, so he could pour the curry sauce a little at a time from its silver vessel onto the rice. But as Kazuo was daydreaming about the food, the bustling restaurant suddenly went quiet.

  He looked around.

  Sitting at the next table, which had been vacant until a moment before, was an older couple.

  At first glance, they looked like a typical husband and wife in their sixties. Both had white hair. The man wore a light brown suit with a necktie, and the woman wore a two-piece winter dress. But when Kazuo gazed more closely at her, a soft “ah” escaped his lips. Then he instantly looked down at his lap, embarrassed.

  The woman was cradling a doll, a large doll about the size of a two-year-old child. Its cloth face was stained, and its hair, which was closely cropped like a boy’s, had lost its luster and shape. It was dressed in a white cotton outfit, like real toddlers wore, and it even had on a thick, light green overcoat.

  Kazuo had seen similar couples on trains and in restaurants. They were often in their sixties, like this couple, and the wife would be holding a doll the size of a real baby. Her husband would be sitting quietly beside her. Kazuo knew that these were couples who had lost a child in the war.

  When the child had died, either in battle or in an air raid at home, the shock had caused psychological harm to the wife. The husband had given her the doll as a way of calming her. To the woman in the restaurant today, the doll in her arms was the real child who still lived in her memories.

  As his parents were doing, Kazuo behaved as though he hadn’t seen the couple next to him. The gentleman quietly ordered curry rice for two from the waitress. Soon, the conversations in the restaurant started up again. Father and Mother dropped their argument and began to talk about how business was looking for Father’s company this year. Kazuo drank his water, working as hard as he could not to glance to the side. Then he turned toward Yasuo to see if his brother had noticed the doll. He’d assumed that Yasuo would also be carefully looking away from the older couple at the neighboring table.

  But he was wrong.

  Instead, Yasuo was gazing with deep interest at the doll in the older woman’s arms.

  “Oi, Yasuo, you better quit it,” Kazuo said softly, pulling on his brother’s sweater.

  Yasuo looked back at Kazuo.

  Father also noticed Yasuo staring at the doll. “By the way, Yasuo,” he asked abruptly. “What is your resolution for this year?”

  “Huh, resolution? What’s a resolution?” Yasuo turned toward Father.

  “A resolution is something you would like to work on this year. For example, studying thirty minutes every day so you’ll get better at schoolwork. Or practicing running so you can go faster.”

  “Mmm . . . I don’t know. I would like to have a dog,” Yasuo said finally.

  “It’s not like making a wish, Yasuo,” Father told him, smiling. “It involves something you want to work toward and be able to do.”

  “Umm, I’ll tell you later,” Yasuo said, looking back at the couple next to them again.

  “Yasuo, you mustn’t stare all around you that way,” Mother said in a soft but firm voice. “Nobody likes to have people watching them while they eat.”

  “Your mother’s right, Yasuo,” added Father. “In this kind of place, the most important thing is to be polite and wait patiently for your food. Do you understand?” Kazuo thought that Father and Mother probably wanted to explain to Yasuo why the grown woman next to them was clasping a doll so lovingly. But they couldn’t do that now, while the couple could hear them.

  Yasuo’s such a baby, Kazuo thought as he sipped water from his cup. He doesn’t understand the concept of considering people’s feelings.

  Soon, their curry rice was brought out. The moment he saw it, Kazuo was disappointed. First, the curry was not in a separate container after all, but had been ladled directly onto the rice. Second, nowhere in the curry was there anything that looked like meat. Third, the dish did not even give off the pleasant aroma of curry.

  “Let’s eat up before it gets cold,” Father said, picking up his spoon.

  They all brought the meatless curry to their mouths silently. The only sound was the scrape of their spoons against their dishes.

  Rice-dumpling soup and New Year’s food would have been much better than this, Kazuo thought.

  “Yasuo!” Mother whispered.

  Kazuo looked at Yasuo.

  His brother had stopped moving his spoon and was staring at the doll.

  “Say, ma’am?” Yasuo suddenly addressed the woman next to them.

  Kazuo was stunned. So were his parents. And they were all terrified that Yasuo was about to ask one simple question: “Why are you holding that doll?”

  “Say, ma’am,” he said again. “What’s your little boy’s name?”

  For a moment, everybody froze. That was the last thing they had expected Yasuo to say.

  The woman, whose face had been as empty and expressionless as a Noh mask, blinked in surprise. “Hi
s name?” she echoed. Her voice sounded tender and fragile.

  Noh: Classical Japanese theater. The stage is bare, with just a pine tree painted on a wood-panel background. There are only a few actors, each wearing a long robe and usually a stylized wooden mask. The pace is slow, and the themes tend to be religious and tragic, compared to Kabuki, which is much more flashy and full of rich humor and adventure.

  “Yes, his name.” Heedless of the woman’s bewilderment, Yasuo began to chat. “My name is Yasuo. Yasuo Nakamoto. And the person next to me is my older brother Kazuo, and here are my father Koji and my mother Yoshiko. We all have names, see? So I was wondering what the name of your little boy is.”

  “My boy’s . . . name . . . ” murmured the woman. She gently stroked the head of the doll held to her chest. Then Kazuo saw her smile. “Toru.”

  “Oh, Toru-kun, I see.” Yasuo repeated her son’s name and went on to say that he was a second-grader at West Ito Elementary School and that he liked math and science but hated social studies and music. Then he continued talking about all sorts of other things.

  Father turned to the woman’s husband. “I’m so sorry. Our son is a real chatterbox.”

  “Not at all, there’s no need to apologize,” the man said quietly. A faint smile played on his lips. “Indeed, I should be thanking you. It has been a very long time since I have seen my wife look happy.”

  He gazed at his wife as she listened to Yasuo.

  “We don’t have many opportunities to talk to people, even when we go out. I suppose everybody thinks they should leave us in peace. For my wife, having your little boy talk to her is a real treat. I must thank you.” The man took a drink of water from his cup.

  “Did you lose a son in the war?” Mother asked hesitantly.

  “Yes, our boy died in the fighting at Guadalcanal. He was an only child, who we were blessed with after years of waiting, so the official notice of death came as a great shock to my wife. Somehow we’ve managed to keep going for these twenty years. Now, when I look at my wife, quietly living within her memories, I get the feeling she might be a lot better off than I am.”