He studied her, smile slipping away. Serious as his expression became, she felt his approval.
Mr. Matsui bowed. “An admirable choice.” He arched a graying eyebrow. “Report to the girls’ bathroom, then.”
She returned his bow and hurried to her duties. For the first four or five steps, she felt proud of herself and grateful to Mr. Matsui. By the sixth step, all she could think about was cleaning toilets, and she began to wish she was the kind of person who would have accepted Mr. Matsui’s gesture. He had done it out of kindness, but if she didn’t like people being cruel or ignorant toward her because she was different, she didn’t think people should treat her better because of it, either.
The door to the girls’ bathroom swung open as Kara approached, and Miho came out lugging two bags of trash.
“Hi,” Miho said, stopping in the hallway. She made a face. “Listen, I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for running off yesterday. I didn’t want to leave Sakura on her own-”
“It’s okay,” Kara interrupted. “I understand. Or, I guess I do. As much as I can, since obviously there’s a lot going on around here that I don’t know, with Sakura and Ume and all of that.”
Miho started to reply, probably to apologize, but Kara held up a hand.
“No, no. It’s just an observation. I’m not upset about it. I’m new, and we don’t know each other that well yet. It’s okay.”
Miho looked unsure. “Really?”
Kara smiled. “Really.”
“So, what are you doing for o-soji? I’ve already got the trash, so
… oh, no. Don’t tell me you have toilet duty?”
Kara executed a deep, theatrical bow.
Miho laughed and shook her head at the same time. “Well, the good news is that after today, you won’t have to do toilets again for months.”
“The worst part is that I sort of volunteered for it.”
“What?”
“A long story,” Kara said. “I’ll explain later.”
She opened the bathroom door. Miho started down the hall with her garbage bags. The door had started to swing shut when Miho called back to her, and Kara propped it open with her hand.
“Yeah?”
“You only have a week left to decide what club you’re going to be in,” Miho said. “Miss Aritomo will be doing a presentation for new members at Noh Club today. You should come.”
Kara thought about it. She’d done some research online over the weekend about Noh theater, mainly because Miho had already suggested she join the club. Some of it seemed really interesting, though it sounded like a ton of work.
“Okay. I’ll come.”
Miho beamed.
Kara sat with Miho in the middle of Miss Aritomo’s classroom, listening to the art teacher talk about the Noh theater club. The woman spoke with contagious passion, eyes alight with a love for her subject. No wonder Dad has a crush on her, she thought. Petite and very pretty, Aritomo-sensei had a quiet intelligence and a bright smile, and Kara had yet to see her in an outfit she didn’t envy. Today she wore a simple white blouse and beige skirt, but the cut was so stylish that she looked like she’d just stepped off a runway.
Any time Miss Aritomo’s name came up, Kara’s father got a certain look in his eyes, a glimmer of a grin that he couldn’t hide. He might not even know how attracted he was to her, but Kara knew him too well to miss it. She’d seen him grieve and, though he had laughed a lot as well in the past two years, when things were quiet, he often got a lost, distant look in his eyes that she could never seem to erase. He might not think he was ready to fall in love with someone else, but every time she saw that glimmer in his eye, Kara made a wish that it could happen for him.
As for Noh theater, Kara found everything about it fascinating. As an art form, it dated back seven hundred years. The masks, the costumes, and the precision of the performances all seemed to her to reflect the magic and mystery that Japan represented in her heart.
Miss Aritomo had welcomed them all and seemed very pleased to see Kara, which made her feel good. She had spoken briefly about the origins of Noh theater and the respect that its greatest practitioners received, as well as the seriousness with which all those involved approached their work.
“In total,” Miss Aritomo told the gathered students, “there are only about two hundred and fifty Noh plays.”
Kara raised her hand. From the surprise on Miss Aritomo’s face, she realized she probably should have waited until the end of the presentation to ask questions, but her hand was already up.
“Yes, Kara?”
“I’m sorry, Aritomo-sensei, but didn’t you say that Noh theater had been performed for seven hundred years?”
Miss Aritomo nodded. “That’s right.”
“And there are only two hundred and fifty plays?” To her, it seemed like Noh theater could be no different from novels, with millions of stories to be told.
The teacher smiled. “It is a precise art form, not something that can be created quickly. But you are right to question the number. Over the centuries there were certainly many more, but still not as many as you might imagine. Only specific kinds of stories have ever been considered appropriate for Noh theater, so the number of works is naturally limited.”
Then she had shown them a long scene from a Noh play entitled “Aoi no Ue” on DVD, and Kara had watched, breathless. Like the limitations on form and story, the slow movements of the performers interested Kara a great deal. The skill involved impressed her as immense, similar to the discipline in ballet. What she had gleaned from a quick online search on Sunday morning did not begin to communicate the strange, dreamlike beauty of the actual performance, which in this case had something to do with exorcising the spirit of one woman from the body of another. It seemed most Noh plays had something to do with gods or monsters or spirits.
So weird, she thought, watching that ten-minute scene. In the U.S., ghost stories get no respect, but here, it’s high art.
While watching the DVD, though, Kara caught several members of the Noh club-boys and girls-sneaking dark looks in her direction. These weren’t soccer girls, obviously, since they were in the Noh club. It wasn’t Ume’s clique but other students Kara didn’t know yet.
She brushed it off, trying to ignore it, but the longer it went on, the more she began to feel unwelcome.
“One element of Noh theater that many find interesting is the solitary preparation of the performers,” Miss Aritomo explained toward the end of the presentation. “Unlike most theater, Noh performers work in private. The actors and singers practice independently, only joining all of their efforts together for the actual performance, which adds to the challenge but also introduces a spiritual, ritualistic element that we will discuss in future meetings.”
Something struck the back of Kara’s head. She grunted and turned around, even as she heard the ping of metal on the floor. A five-yen coin rolled a few feet and then fell over.
Someone had thrown it at her.
Several of the club members would not look at her. Others stared at her in curiosity or defiance, as if to say, What are you going to do about it?
“Kara?” Miss Aritomo asked, “Is something wrong?”
She considered speaking up but knew it would get her nowhere. Nobody would admit to having thrown the coin, and no one would tell on whoever had done it. She was an outsider.
“I’m sorry,” Kara said, bowing her head. “Something buzzed around my head. It must have been a fly.”
Miss Aritomo gave her an odd look. “All right. Let me know if any other flies trouble you.”
Again, Kara inclined her head.
When Miss Aritomo began to speak again, Kara risked a glance at Miho, who sat in the next row, one seat up. The quiet girl might not come to her own defense, but the glare she cast back toward the kids sitting behind Kara was withering. It made Kara feel a little better, but not much.
