I gazed out where she was looking, between the hills and toward the ocean. “Yes,” I said, “it was a wonderful time.”
“Do you ever wonder,” she said, “what might have happened if we had lived our lives differently?”
And at first I thought she was referring to professional choices, my leaving Moran and her staying with his company. Then I thought she was referring to my lifestyle as a young man, the parties and liquor and women. Then I thought of Ashley Tyler’s death and all the events that preceded and followed it. But finally I came to think that she meant something else entirely, something my mind had often circled around but had always declined to embrace. “There is no use,” I began, trying to find the right words, “in wondering what might have been.”
“Indeed. But perhaps I speak not merely of what might have been, but of what may someday still be.”
I glanced at her briefly and found her eyes searching my face. Her hair was tied back into a neat bun and she wore a silk Western blouse and long skirt. And in this simple, unmannered outfit, she looked more lovely than a thousand gilded starlets. “I am far past the age of dreaming,” I said to her gently. “I am an old man now, simply living out his days.”
We were silent for several minutes. Two birds were calling to each other plaintively from opposite sides of the garden, and the wind was softly rustling through the trees. “Mr. Nakayama,” she began again, finally, “why did you stop working?”
I turned to face her. “You know why, Miss Minatoya. You know very well. Certain circumstances made continuing very awkward.”
“But that only limited your career in film. You still could have worked in the theater.”
“I was fine, I didn’t need money,” I said. “I bought property, and with rents and investments there was enough to last me through several lifetimes.”
“I’m not talking about your livelihood. I’m talking about the work. What about the work? You could have had a whole new career. Certainly you would have been welcome in my company. It’s tragic that your talent went unused.”
I shook my head and stared up at the trees, trying to find the calling birds. “I am flattered that you think so much of me, Miss Minatoya. But I had no interest in returning to the theater.”
“You mean, after having been such a star in the movies, the theater was no longer enough?”
“No, I didn’t say that. I simply would not have been fulfilled. My ambitions had always been of a larger scale.”
“Perhaps that’s true,” she said after another silence. “But perhaps your ambitions were so large that they could never be fulfilled. You never married either, never had children.”
“That’s hardly fair. You have a lovely house and a successful career, but no husband, no family, no children. You speak of me, Miss Minatoya, but you are really no different. You are equally alone in the world.”
She shook her head. “I may have no family, but I am far from alone. And unlike you, it wasn’t my choice to remain unmarried. I did want to have a husband.” Now she looked at me directly. “But it was not in my power to make that happen. And there was no one else I wanted to marry.”
She continued to look at me, and I turned my eyes away. The implications of what she’d told me lay heavily on my mind, and there was no proper way to respond. “This tea is delicious,” I said to her finally. “Did you have it sent from Japan?”
I felt her eyes on my face, the weight of their disappointment. “Yes,” she said, “it came from Shizuoka.” And in that brief moment, all the tenderness had gone from her voice.
We had a few more strained exchanges, and it was clear we would not return to our former ease. After another twenty minutes or so, I prepared to take my leave. Hanako reiterated her interest in having me work with her company, and I said I would consider it, although we both knew that I would not.
At the door, she bowed deeply, a formal parting. “Goodbye, Nakayama-san,” she said in Japanese.
“Goodbye, Minatoya-san,” I responded, following her lead, and then I turned and walked slowly away.
And as I drove down Highway 1, retracing the route I knew so well, my mind ventured back to another exchange with Hanako, at the Pasadena Playhouse thirty years ago. For it occurred to me that the moment when I greeted her backstage; when I stood speechless and astonished by the power of her work—that moment could describe my entire life. I didn’t keep my silence, I realized now, because I did not know what to say. I kept my silence because words would have diminished what I felt, and the strength of those feelings confused me. And now, when it was many, many years too late, I mourned this inability to speak my own heart, as well as the empty decades that have followed. For it seems to me now that I have been reliving that moment through all the long years of my life. It seems to me that I have always been standing there with joy within my grasp, wanting to reach for it, but forever holding back.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
November 4, 1964
This bar, the Oak Grove Pub, is only three blocks from my town house, but I have never had occasion to stop here until tonight. It is a dark place with wooden interiors, as its name would suggest, with a clientele of plainly dressed, middle-aged people who are all clearly regular customers. I have walked by the green door many times—it is usually propped half-open—and wondered
