Literary novel|Three Notes of Orange|Ryo Iwasaki

Three Notes of Orange

"Are you going to take them with you?"

She sounded rather disturbed.

"Of course! Some of them have put their addresses on the other side of the paper so that I can write to them.''

Without any word she left my side. I put down the stack of drawings on the nearby table and decided to go outside and play. I looked around for her in the bare house. She came out from an odd corner and tried to pass quickly by me. I saw that she was holding a piece of paper tissue and gathered that I would fare better by not following her.

"I'm going out!"

Instead of an answer I heard her blow her nose. I waited for a while.

"Don't be late."

It was in a strange voice, almost trembling. I did not like it and was glad that I made the right decision to leave the house.

My mother's disappearance was not as abrupt as the change of cook or driver who worked for us. I could not but notice such changes through different seasoning for the same dish and a different route to get to the same place. Unlike them my mother faded away. I know that it is a prerogative for the very rich people to have cooks and drivers in this country. I have tried a few times to explain that our way of living was what people around us also practiced. It was in vain, and I was branded a racist and neo-colonialist. I do not wish to go through that process again, especially if that requires me to disclose how little I had been affected by my parents' divorce. Why do I need to expose how strange I am, more than my accent shows? My elementary and high school classmates had all sorts of patchy background as I did, and we felt comfortable in that mélange. Occasionally we would have a newcomer in class who was so American, so British, so Australian, so German, or so French. The rest of us thought it was funny, and in a way, wrong.

I had learned my lesson. It is better to stay friends than to sleep with them, and I acted accordingly with Lauren. Many stay convinced that it is my intention to befriend with them with the goal to take them to bed. I am lucky that I do not seem to scare them with that possibility. On the contrary some appear to want to sleep with me. What I cannot figure out is whether they want recreational sex or become my official lovers. I agree with women that the first step in any relationship is establishing good friendship. What they tend to forget is that friends can be forever, but it is not possible to revert to friends after sleeping together. There is a story that I often feel tempted to tell, but seldom manage to. It has to be with the right type of women, the ones who are confident enough to be able to laugh when they hear it. Somewhere in the Middle East, a lord takes a 14 year-old concubine. His wife of twenty years or so is naturally not happy about it and when she is washing him in the bath, as she has done every night since their marriage, brings up the subject. 'I am no longer certain that I am a good wife of yours,' she says. 'You have always been,' he replies. 'Oh, but I heard that you have recently taken a very young woman,' she ventures. 'Is there something that I am not providing you with?' 'You provide me with all that I ... '