A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding by Jackie Copleton Page A

don’t want to know. Apartment 15.’
    I told the driver to take me to Mitsubishi, and the smells and calls of the traders collecting excrement for the hillside farmers gave way to the stench of metallic smoke that belched from the brick factories of Kenzo’s workplace. The receptionist cast curious glances at me when I delivered my note to Kenzo. My husband and I made an odd pair to many. They did not see what I loved in him and they could never know what he saw in me. I wrote the directions to Yuko’s location and under the address I added, ‘Bring my daughter home.’ I handed the girl the message and left.
    When Kenzo returned with Yuko an hour or so later she ran to her room, eyes bloodied with tears. He wentto the cabinet and poured a drink. He walked to the window, kept his back to me. His voice was flat, as if it came from a place where emotion had been drugged. He said he had done what I had told him to do. He hadn’t knocked, he hadn’t politely waited, he had entered the room unannounced, he had found them together as planned. He paused and took a drink. ‘While I waited for Sato to dress, there was an empty bottle of sake on the windowsill. I thought when he came through from the bedroom I could break the glass, drive that bottle into his neck, hurt him. That’s what a father should do for this affront, yes? But I couldn’t. What kind of man does this make me?’ I told him Sato was the moral coward, not us. Why should Kenzo punish himself when the doctor was the one in the wrong? He shook his head. ‘We did a bad deed today, wife. How can Yuko and I be the same again? How can this family be the same again?’
    I went to him and put my hand on his shoulder. ‘All pain passes, eventually. We’ll get through this moment. We’ll be a proper family again. What we did, we needed to do. I’m sorry for the hurt it caused, but I’m not sorry for the outcome. Did he agree to our demands?’
    Kenzo nodded yes, finished his drink and said he should get back to the office. I watched him leave and made my way to Yuko’s room. She was sitting on a window seat, her body twisted away, statue-still. ‘I don’t want to talk, Mother.’ I knelt down by her feet. ‘I must tell you this then I’ll go.’ I told her the arrangement made between her father and Sato had been one of mutual understanding. I told her the doctor had been in agreement. He wantedto safeguard his marriage and reputation; Kenzo and I wanted to protect her from the scandal. There must be no more contact, none. He had promised to leave the city. She looked at me then, anger and hate in her eyes. This I could stand as long as she was safe. I continued speaking. The arrangement suited everyone. In time, she would see this. Any disgrace for the family had been contained. We did what we had to do. ‘How did you find out?’ I reached for her hand and she flinched. ‘The drawing, Yuko.’ She started to cry and begged me to leave her alone. So I did.
    We all tried to erase that afternoon from our memories, but the humiliation burned longest for Yuko and her father, perhaps indelibly. I believed Yuko and Sato’s abasement was necessary. I needed Kenzo to see what kind of man his former friend was. He needed to witness the depravity of the doctor, and what better way than to put the evidence in front of his eyes? Yuko must be ripped from Sato. How else could we drive him away if any one of us clung to some romantic notion of him? All these years later, I dared not face what Yuko had written about the day but this cowardice forced me back to the page.
    â€˜I cannot stand the thought of Father standing there in the doorway. He could not look at me, only Jomei. He stared at him with an expression of bewilderment and fury. I tell myself he saw only a brief sketch of us, just the outlines of our bodies. I tell myself he could not colour in the detail, the