“What?” he called back. I could see him opening the lid on the rice cooker and peering inside. “Shit! You didn’t even make any rice.”
“Sooooorry!” I called back. Not that it was my job to make rice, but I didn’t mind a little apologizing, seeing as how he was going to make dinner.
“How about pasta? I’m totally starved, and I’m not too good at making rice.”
“Pasta’s fine,” I said.
My brother is a pretty good cook. He doesn’t have much of a repertoire, but the few things he makes are tasty. Mom’s a good cook too. She even went to cooking school way back when, and I guess my brother picked up some stuff just by watching her. He’s a quick study. In fact, he’s pretty quick at everything.
First, he peeled and crushed a knob of garlic. Then he seeded a hot chili and chopped it up fine, took some bacon out of the freezer and unwrapped it. Next he cut up an eggplant, dumped it in a dish, and put it in the microwave. After he’d finished chopping an onion, he put a frying pan on the stove, heated some olive oil, and tossed in the garlic. Next came the chili, the bacon, and the onion. When all that had been frying for a few minutes, he added the eggplant, which had been softening in the microwave, and cooked it some more. Finally, he opened a can of tomatoes, mashed them up, and added them to the pan. Salt, pepper, a few tablespoons of stock, a drizzle of soy sauce. And a pinch of sugar to finish it off. Then he turned off the heat and let the sauce cool. While it was cooling, he boiled a pot of water and put the pasta in. When it was just about done, he turned on the burner and reheated the sauce. After draining the pasta, he added it to the pan and warmed it all up. Voila!
As I lay there on the couch, I found myself following his progress with my nose. The smell of the oil heating in the pan, the fragrance of frying garlic. And finally, the unmistakable smell of tomato sauce wafting in from the other room. It smelled good! In fact, I knew it was good, since he made this spaghetti a lot.
Whoa.
Just as my mouth was starting to water for real, the phone rang. Brrring, brrring, ring, ring, ring, ring.
“Telephone!” I called.
“You get it,” he called back from the kitchen.
“I can’t. I’m weak from hunger!”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he shouted. “You’re in there, you answer it.” But as he said this he came into the living room. He really is well trained.
While he was answering the phone, I got up and went into the kitchen. I got out some plates and began serving the pasta. This was a job I could manage.
Up close and personal, the pasta smelled even more delicious. And really garlicky. Not that I objected. It really was mouthwatering, and my mouth really was watering. A man should know how to cook. As I was dividing up the pasta between two plates, I started hearing what my brother was saying in the other room.
“Really? Are you serious?”
Serious about what?
“That’s terrible,” he was saying. “Is she okay?”
Is who okay? Mom? Had something happened?
No, it couldn’t be Mom. If something had happened to her he wouldn’t be standing there asking if the guy on the other end of the phone was “serious.”
Then who? Or what?
“Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “Try to keep everybody calm. Okay, right. I know, but…okay. But that’s where you’re wrong. They’ve got nothing to do with it, really…Don’t say stuff like that. Don’t talk about who’s going to take responsibility. Nobody’s really responsible in a case like this…I know, but you don’t really know what’s going on, so don’t get all excited. Wait till we know more about it. We can figure it out later…For now, just let it slide. Wait a bit…”
The line seemed to go dead, and my brother stood for a moment staring at the receiver in his hand. Then he set it back in its cradle.
“Idiots,” he muttered.
Who or what?
“What?” I said.
“What? Oh, nothing.”
“Who was that?”
“A friend.”
“Did something happen? To Mom?”
“What? Oh, no, not that kind of friend. It was about the Yoshibas. You know, the people who had all that trouble. The Round-and-Round Devil.”
“I know, but what happened? What’s up now?”
“It only gets worse. Mr. Yoshiba just committed suicide.”
“No, that can’t be right.”
“I’m afraid it’s true.”
“It’s not. I just saw him.”
“Saw who?”
“Mr. Yoshiba.”
“Really? Where? Why?”
“I went to the playground today, and he was there.”
“Alone?”
“No, I went with a friend.”
“Not you, Mr. Yoshiba. Was he alone?”
“Oh, no, he was with his wife.”
“Really? But how did they seem?”
“What? What do you mean, how did they seem?” Shit! They were fucking their brains out, right there on the bench, but I could hardly tell my brother that.
“What time were you there?”
“In the park?”
“Yeah, in the park.”
“A little after three, I guess.”
“Three?”
“But you’re serious? Mr. Yoshiba really killed himself?”
“It looks that way. They said he hanged himself in their bedroom.”
But how could he have? He must have gone straight home. Could he really be dead?
“I don’t get it,” I said.
I didn’t. And I’d lost my appetite too. No way I could eat pasta now.
Or at least that’s how I felt at that moment—a natural enough reaction. But in the end, I ate, and it was delicious. I was thinking about all sorts of stuff while I ate, so I can’t say I enjoyed it as much as I usually did, but I still managed to put away a big plateful, zuru zuru musha musha! Yum. My brother ate his too. Neither of us said much, but the TV was on so it wasn’t dead quiet.
When we were finished, we changed the channel to our favorite comedy show, Downtown, but we didn’t feel much like laughing. Natural enough. I’m not sure how other people react to stuff like this, but
