I got up and got out early, because I had quite a ways to go. I rode the subway downtown, transferred to the Hankyū line, and made my way west through Osaka, toward Kobe. At Nishinomiya-kitaguchi I discovered that even an ugly, utilitarian train station can inspire nostalgia: I passed through here every day on my way to and from school two summers ago. I discovered also that I’d allowed far too much time for my journey. I had over an hour to kill, and I knew that here was a better place to kill it than the tiny station at my destination, so I parked myself on a bench and finished the assigned reading for Hlawatsch-sensei’s Japanese history class the next day.
Then I boarded one last train, the local bound for Takarazuka, and got off two stops later at Kotoen for a fresh wave of nostalgia in the station and on the streets outside. Down the railway frontage road and a right turn at the elevated shinkansen track. Left at the end of the street, half a block–and there’s Host Dad waiting for me at the corner. He shakes my hand with a smile but no big to-do, and leads me up to the back gate of the Takada house. As ever, I have to go around to the front door (which is technically on the side of the house, if we reckon by orientation to the street); it opens, and there’s Host Mom, beaming, arms outstretched almost as if ready for a hug, but not really, because she’s Japanese.
I change into tiny slippers and follow Host Parents down the hall to the room that was mine two summers ago. Now it’s a bright and airy sitting room looking out on the front yard, most of which has been converted since my last visit into a simple but pristine rock garden, blinding white in the late-morning sun. I hand over the yuzu mochi to a gratifying round of impressed noises; we have some tea; my faltering Japanese gets the best exercise it’s had in almost two years.
Host Dad asks a question about my parents or something I don’t follow, so he disappears to retrieve something written to make reference to. It turns out to be a binder containing every card and letter and photograph I’ve sent them over the last two years, neatly arranged and preserved. This is so touching that I nearly lose my composure.
I’d told them over the phone that I didn’t need to be back to Kyoto until 9 or 10 at night, not wanting them to feel rushed; now I discover that they mean for me to stay absolutely as long as I can. They’d promised over the phone a tempura lunch, but now they tell me that Host Mom will cook that for dinner; right now we’ll go out for lunch. We walk to the station and they present me with a well-charged train fare card. We ride a few stops to some pricey-looking Hankyū-owned hotel, and dine there on sashimi and salad and a very up-market beef stew followed by a trip to the dessert bar.
On our way back to the house we stop at the grocery store in the basement of the building across the street from Kotoen station. Host Mom buys tempura ingredients and Host Dad decides that I should drink two tall cans of beer with dinner. I see a young woman wearing a shirt that reads:
MAYON
NAISE
IS THE
NEW CORE
We have more tea, and watch sumo on television. Just as I’m about to doze off in the warm afternoon breeze blowing through the sliding glass doors, Host Dad rousts me to accompany him on a walk around the neighborhood. We visit a pretty hilltop shrine I’d totally missed in the six weeks I lived here, and we stop by a schoolyard to watch half an inning of Little League baseball. I see an apartment complex named “Gleen Gables.”
I have time to do some writing on my laptop while Host Mom finishes making supper and Host Dad takes a shower, and then it’s tempura time. I’d remembered accurately: Host Mom cooks exquisitely. I tell the Host Parents how nostalgic the kitchen makes me: the little plastic soy sauce dispenser with the pale green cap; the plate with the little drawing of the sumo wrestler on it; the tacky wall clock that bleeps out a monophonic synthesized snatch of some classical piece I can’t name at the top of every hour. I’d forgotten about the pickles that Host Dad douses with Aji no Moto and soy sauce. I’d forgotten about the little dishes of potato salad on beds of lettuce with cherry tomatoes that Host Mom prepares beforehand and keeps in the refrigerator, plastic-wrapped, until serving.
We eat; I drink. They tell me about the week-long cruise around Southeast Asia they’ll take at the beginning of June. They tell me how happy they are to have me visiting, since mealtimes most often find just the two of them in the kitchen. I promise to come again soon.
The tacky clock reads almost seven and the dusk is well advanced, and I have a not-inconsiderable return trip ahead of me. Host Mom says goodbye to me at the door. Host Dad walks me back to the station and takes his leave there as unceremoniously as he greeted me in the morning.
I make good time back to Kyoto. I go to bed happy and thankful for this auxiliary family of mine, for this odd bond between people who can barely communicate across lines linguistic, cultural, generational–but who are kind and generous and doggedly loyal notwithstanding.
