of all that stuff about devils; I believed that knowing anything about them was a form of possession. And then one day, Pam, who I knew from Connecticut — but she’s in Santa Cruz now — came up to me and said, ‘You’re a witch, you know.’
“And at first I just said, ‘No, no, I’m not.’ But she could tell. And she had her own coven. And then one night I saw my dead mother in a dream, and I could just tell she was in a very different place, but a good place. And that’s when I accepted being a witch.”
Siobhan smiled, and the day smiled with her.
“Anyway, now I’m in this really comfortable place in the countryside, and everything’s cool. Except that my Japanese roommate — she’s really into Stendhal and is going to France next year — has fallen in love with this young German boy who lives with us. Fell in love with him just for the way he washes the dishes. Plus, of course,” she said, eyes flashing, “there’s the whole Christmas cake thing. Keiko’s twenty-six.”
“Christmas cake?”
“You know. For girls.” I must have looked perplexed. “You don’t know about it? Maybe it’s something they only tell girls. Anyway, it’s this system they have over here; they even use the word, in Japanese,
Kurisumasu kēki
. You know how on the twenty-third of December a Christmas cake is supposed to be fresh and worth investing in, but by the twenty-fourth it’s getting kind of old? And after the twenty-fifth, it’s starting to get stale and no one wants it. Well, that’s how they think of women over here. Twenty-three is a good age to get one. Twenty-four is a little close to the deadline. And after twenty-five, forget it!”
“Which is why girls over the age of twenty-five often make a beeline for foreigners — that’s their only chance of getting married?”
“Exactly!”
As soon as I heard this, many things began to fall into place. For my initial sense that every foreign male here found some demure but passionate Japanese companion to dance attention on him had only been strengthened by some of the characters I had met in Kyoto. Everywhere I turned, I seemed to run into men who were in a kind of spell here, having not only met girls but dream girls who were the embodiment of everything they wanted in a woman. Lifelong bachelors began talking about marriage; newly wed husbands could not stop extolling the goddesses they had married; hardened Lotharios found themselves disarmed by girls whose innocence was touched by a hint of guiltless sensuality.
And though most Japanese women, I assumed, would still unquestioningly follow their prescribed course towards a Japanese husband, there was, by all accounts, a minority — and an increasingly large minority — who would do anything possible to find a foreign boyfriend, if only for a while, in order to get a taste, firsthand, of the glamorous foreign world they had seen on their TV screens. In the discos of Tokyo and Osaka, foreign men were currently as fashionable as Chanel shirts or Louis Vuitton bags, trendy accessories to be shown off to one’s friends. But even in less cosmopolitan Kyoto, foreigners were still agents of escape — like the crickets kept by Kawabata’s Kyoto girl Chieko, inhabiting “a separate realm, an enchanted land … filled with fine wine and delicious food from both land and sea.” The Japanese looked on foreigners, I sometimes thought, with the same awestruck condescension that we might bring to heavy-metal rock stars, secretly convinced that they are, at heart, somewhat vulgar and barbarous, yet undeniably seduced by the fact that they belong to a flashy, semimythic world of money, fame, and glamour. We look down our noses at Jon Bon Jovi, but invited to meet him, we jump at the chance.
In Kyoto, however, the attraction of opposites was especiallystrong, not least because this most conservative of cities, in one of the most traditional of all societies, attracted — indeed, because of its
“And at first I just said, ‘No, no, I’m not.’ But she could tell. And she had her own coven. And then one night I saw my dead mother in a dream, and I could just tell she was in a very different place, but a good place. And that’s when I accepted being a witch.”
Siobhan smiled, and the day smiled with her.
“Anyway, now I’m in this really comfortable place in the countryside, and everything’s cool. Except that my Japanese roommate — she’s really into Stendhal and is going to France next year — has fallen in love with this young German boy who lives with us. Fell in love with him just for the way he washes the dishes. Plus, of course,” she said, eyes flashing, “there’s the whole Christmas cake thing. Keiko’s twenty-six.”
“Christmas cake?”
“You know. For girls.” I must have looked perplexed. “You don’t know about it? Maybe it’s something they only tell girls. Anyway, it’s this system they have over here; they even use the word, in Japanese,
Kurisumasu kēki
. You know how on the twenty-third of December a Christmas cake is supposed to be fresh and worth investing in, but by the twenty-fourth it’s getting kind of old? And after the twenty-fifth, it’s starting to get stale and no one wants it. Well, that’s how they think of women over here. Twenty-three is a good age to get one. Twenty-four is a little close to the deadline. And after twenty-five, forget it!”
“Which is why girls over the age of twenty-five often make a beeline for foreigners — that’s their only chance of getting married?”
“Exactly!”
As soon as I heard this, many things began to fall into place. For my initial sense that every foreign male here found some demure but passionate Japanese companion to dance attention on him had only been strengthened by some of the characters I had met in Kyoto. Everywhere I turned, I seemed to run into men who were in a kind of spell here, having not only met girls but dream girls who were the embodiment of everything they wanted in a woman. Lifelong bachelors began talking about marriage; newly wed husbands could not stop extolling the goddesses they had married; hardened Lotharios found themselves disarmed by girls whose innocence was touched by a hint of guiltless sensuality.
And though most Japanese women, I assumed, would still unquestioningly follow their prescribed course towards a Japanese husband, there was, by all accounts, a minority — and an increasingly large minority — who would do anything possible to find a foreign boyfriend, if only for a while, in order to get a taste, firsthand, of the glamorous foreign world they had seen on their TV screens. In the discos of Tokyo and Osaka, foreign men were currently as fashionable as Chanel shirts or Louis Vuitton bags, trendy accessories to be shown off to one’s friends. But even in less cosmopolitan Kyoto, foreigners were still agents of escape — like the crickets kept by Kawabata’s Kyoto girl Chieko, inhabiting “a separate realm, an enchanted land … filled with fine wine and delicious food from both land and sea.” The Japanese looked on foreigners, I sometimes thought, with the same awestruck condescension that we might bring to heavy-metal rock stars, secretly convinced that they are, at heart, somewhat vulgar and barbarous, yet undeniably seduced by the fact that they belong to a flashy, semimythic world of money, fame, and glamour. We look down our noses at Jon Bon Jovi, but invited to meet him, we jump at the chance.
In Kyoto, however, the attraction of opposites was especiallystrong, not least because this most conservative of cities, in one of the most traditional of all societies, attracted — indeed, because of its
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