Written by Japan-resident David Joiner, Kanazawa is a novel that takes place in the titular city of Kanazawa, on the western coast of Honshu. It tells the story of Emmitt, an American who has lived in Japan for many years, and his wife, Mirai, and of their attempt to accommodate each other's vision of their future. Emmitt is enamored of traditional Japan and loves living in Kanazawa, a small city with a rich literary tradition, near to nature and the mountains and the sea. Mirai, an ikebana teacher, is drawn to the modern energy of Tokyo.
The novel explores their relationship and the relationship of Mirai's parents, with whom the younger couple share a home in Kanazawa City. All is not entirely well, but Emmitt does not know why, yet gradually the reader is let in on the secret that haunts the household, and the novel culminates in a reckless climb up a nearby sacred mountain and a possible encounter with an ancient, dangerous spirit.
The author set out to write, in English, a novel that resonates with what he understands as a Japanese aesthetic. An emphasis on human relationships, a suggestion of depth in closely observed surface details, precise conversations that show but do not tell, and the callouts to nature, history, and tradition to which Japanese readers' sensitivities are highly attuned—these are some of the characteristics of Joiner's prose that make a slow reading of Kanazawa so pleasurable and evocative.
In the following excerpt, Emmitt and Mirai are taking a trip to the nearby hot springs town of Shiramine. Emmitt had been looking forward to renting an old machiya—traditional house—in Kanazawa, but the deal fell through due to Mirai's reluctance. Now Emmitt is thinking he might like living in an old-style place like Shiramine, in the mountains and away from city noise and responsibilities. Mirai is not so sure, and so they argue.
Excerpt from chapter 9
On the following morning Emmitt and Mirai drove the thirty or so miles to Shiramine. Approaching where Kanazawa expanded outward, he tried to ignore the blight of new developments as well as older ones whose deterioration showed less their age than the poor quality and regularity of their construction. Kimura had recommended suburban properties like these as affordable alternatives to those in the heart of Kanazawa. Pockets of old machiya, kominka, and kura, cultivated garden plots squeezed between houses, and more and more open space—distant, water-filled rice fields, many with herons and egrets feeding in them—eased the strain on his eyes.
A range of low, fog-strewn mountains appeared, curving like a sickle, cutting away the last vestiges of the city. Eventually they came to a brick hydropower station and the steep narrow gorge on which it sat.
Mirai slept beside him, leaning against his arm. When they turned deeper into the mountains, she opened her eyes and looked around, as if she couldn’t imagine how they’d gotten there. . . .
The rain blew past, and their walk turned into a full day’s outing to the folk house museum, a tofu restaurant, a kominka café, an onsen they found after walking above one of the rivers in town, and an overlook where they fell asleep on wooden benches. They returned just in time for dinner.
As they passed through the lobby to the ryokan’s second-floor restaurant, a man at the counter stood facing the receptionist’s room in back. There was something odd about his appearance: His head was long and heavy, almost melon-shaped, and he wore a black yukata with a sleeveless brown haori jacket over it, not the white-and-blue ones the inn issued to guests. In one hand he held a walking stick. Spotting the whistle around his neck, Emmitt remembered having heard its piercing sound as he and Mirai were walking. Unexpected and unidentifiable, it had sent a shiver through him. Mirai, too, hadn’t known what it was.
Turning to them, his eyes were rolled up and only the whites of them showed. The man said, “Are you the guest who requested a massage before dinner?”
“He’s blind,” Mirai whispered.
“You must be looking for someone else,” Emmitt said.
As they were about to continue to the second floor, the receptionist hurried from the back room and told the man, “The guest is in the annex, not here. Room 204. He says he’s left the door open for you.”
Tapping his walking stick before him he made for the exit.
After the masseur crossed the street the receptionist told Emmitt and Mirai, “He makes his rounds every evening. He usually comes by three times before giving up for the night. He’s a self-taught musician, too, and quite a decent one.”
“What does he play?” Mirai said.
The woman laughed. “Not what most people your age care to hear, I’m afraid. He sings Noh librettos to the accompaniment of a hand-drum. He’s always ready if guests want to hear him. And he charges next to nothing.” The woman seemed to be making an offer on behalf of the blind man.
Mirai looked at the clock on the wall. “We’re going to be late,” she said, pulling Emmitt to the stairs. “Perhaps another time.”
* * *
They sat on the dining room’s tatami floor, loosening their yukata as they ate the dishes laid out for them. It relieved Emmitt to see Mirai relaxed.
Dinner consisted of local char, mountain vegetables, tofu, and a bottle of Manzairaku sake, brewed from Hakusan’s waters. The old woman serving them explained each dish and came back often to refill their glasses.
A clatter arose outside and lasted several minutes. It sounded like drumming, but without a regular rhythm. When Mirai inquired about it, the woman explained, “On moonlit nights otters climb the stone walls above the river and cause trouble at our inn. They used to chew the electrical wires here so that lights in the annex toilets went out. Now we put small drums out for them, and luckily they seem to prefer them.”
“That’s two things I didn’t know,” Emmitt said. “There are otters in the rivers here, and they know how to drum.”
“They’re only small gourd-drums,” the woman said. “It’s a kind of amusement for them. They’re not musical, as you can tell, but guests enjoy seeing it.”
Emmitt and Mirai said they would look for them later, but the woman told them they stopped playing after ten or fifteen minutes. Indeed they had already stopped. “By now they’ll be returning to the river.” After a moment she said, “Is this your first time in Shiramine?”
Mirai set her sake cup down. “I used to come here with my family when I was younger. But it’s my husband’s first time, yes.”
“What does he think of it?”
Emmitt answered for himself. “I like it here very much.”
“And what do you like about it?” She quickly apologized for the question, as if she’d been rude to ask it. “I’m curious why foreigners would like a place like this. There’s nothing much to do here.”
“I like everything about it.”
She turned to Mirai and said, “I suppose you would never consider living here, would you? Shiramine needs an injection of youth.”
Mirai smiled and shook her head. The woman laughed as if to recognize some absurdity behind her question.
An hour after dinner they took their white onsen towels and headed for the fifth floor, to the men’s and women’s baths.
Emmitt stuck his head inside the men’s changing room. “Except for the guest in the annex, we’re the only ones staying here. Let’s go in together.”
Mirai peeked inside the women’s changing room. Finding it empty she said, “There’s no one there, either.”
She followed Emmitt inside the men’s changing room. She checked the bathing area to make sure Emmitt hadn’t missed anyone, then undressed beside him. Together they entered the bathing room. They took turns washing each other, and after rinsing themselves they stepped into the hot bath.
The town and surrounding mountains were visible through a long window before them. Below, a car’s headlights illuminated the road as well as the houses on either side. As if from the mountain, a whistling pierced the window. A moment later they heard it again and Mirai groaned.
“That sound is creepy beyond words. I hope I don’t hear it in our room tonight. I won’t be able to sleep.”
“It’s part of Shiramine’s charm. Isn’t it better to think of it like that?”
She sighed and closed her eyes. “Today wore me out.”
For a moment he thought she meant she hadn’t enjoyed herself.
“Maybe the air in Shiramine is thinner than I’m used to.”
“We’re not that high up.”
“Does one need an excuse to be tired? Maybe I’ve been working too hard. . . .”
“That’s one reason I wanted to come here with you. It’s important to get away sometimes.”
“But I enjoy my work. It’s the most relaxing thing I can imagine doing.”
The mountains had left Emmitt feeling uplifted. If Shiramine were closer to Kanazawa, he could imagine living here. And if he were in Japan on his own, he might well want to settle down in a place like this.
“Was coming to Shiramine part of your plan for the next year?” she said.
“Seeing more of where we live is.”
After a short silence she said, “Why don’t I feel that need, I wonder? Perhaps I would in Tokyo.”
Emmitt didn’t reply.
“Living there would be enough for me,” she went on. “I wouldn’t feel I had to see every corner of the city.”
“Are you opposed to what I’m doing, then? I can’t figure out where you stand.”
“No, just as long as you’re moving toward a better situation than what you walked away from.”
She leaned into him. “It would be nice if the ryokan had an outdoor bath, don’t you think? I’d like to be with you like this in a darker place.” Holding him, she twisted to look behind them. Emmitt turned around, too, but he was certain no one had entered the changing room.
Despite her worry at being caught in the men’s bath, she reached across Emmitt’s thigh and started to touch him. At a voice calling on the street below she quickly pulled back, however.
“What is it you dislike about Shiramine?” he said when the voice disappeared. “Or is it just because you know I’m fond of it?”
“I like it here,” she corrected him. “But it feels dangerous. . . .”
“Shiramine?” He couldn’t imagine what she meant.
She stepped out of the bath. He trailed behind her to a hot water spigot and sat beside her.
“It feels dangerous,” she went on, struggling to find the words, “to embrace these things from the past. It’s not that I don’t appreciate them—as an ikebana artist, I think I appreciate tradition more than most people in Japan—but it feels like a pattern you’re following of going backwards. I don’t like experiencing that with you.”
“I see nothing wrong with how I am.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Emmitt. And I still love you. But I can’t help think that our happiness together—even at this moment—comes at the expense of living a normal life.”
“There’s nothing wrong with what I’m doing, either.”
She went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “Since what happened with the machiya, you’ve changed somehow.”
“What if I’m changing for the better?”
“I don’t think you’re becoming bad, Emmitt. But you’re unemployed. And you feel no urgency to find a new job. Can you not see how I might consider this . . . dangerous?”
“No,” he said. “We have savings, enough for me to figure out a different path for the future. I’m not hurting you. I’m not hurting your parents or your sister. I’m not hurting the environment. I just want a chance to find a better way to live.”
“What does that even mean? Is it more than just finding a new livelihood?”
“It’s more than that, yes. But I’m not sure how to explain it. I just want you to trust that I’m doing something that will benefit us both.”
She shut off the water and stood up. Stepping toward the changing room she said, “I just think there’s a less selfish way.”
“But it’s not selfish, Mirai.”
She dressed quickly and returned to their room.
When he got there it was cold, and the wall heater was preset to a temperature that seemed would never warm the room.
He opened the book he’d brought, but as if she didn’t see that he was trying to read, she turned off the light and burrowed under her blanket. They were quiet a long time in the darkness.
Emmitt looked out the window. If not for the stars between the clouds, and the light from the hot spring reflecting off the windows and roof tiles of the houses below, he couldn’t have discerned a thing. Even now he could barely distinguish the night sky from the forested mountains.
When the moon came back out, he looked down at Mirai, who already breathed as if she were asleep. A trail of moonlight divided her body into left and right parts. He wanted the light to slip further onto her face so he could study it. He liked to see her in these fleeting moments before sleep when her skin was scrubbed clean, her muscles were finally at rest, and the edges of her face seemed transparent. The movement of clouds dimmed the light on her face.
A moment later, the trail of light down her body was gone.