Yes. The lipstick had been precisely this shade.

This red.

One day as she walked the narrow path her husband had made through their garden, Yayoi came to a halt. September was half gone, and the leaves were starting to fall, mostly green and yellow on the black earth, but the leaf that appeared before her, leapt at her, was a lovely red.

It had been Lancôme, she was sure. She must have been about fifty years old when she bought it. Her father hadn’t been in his grave even a month, and for the first time in a long time, she had been wandering the cosmetics counters at a department store when it caught her eye. Not a garish crimson but a brick red, tinged with dark orange. As subdued as this fallen leaf, but cheerful in the way only red can be. Westerners would probably wear such a bright shade regardless of age, but she was Japanese and guiltily wondered if it wasn’t too flashy for a woman nearly fifty. And that guilt made her like it all the more. Afraid the shade might be discontinued, Yayoi bought several sticks then and there; though she no longer wore that color, she had perhaps brought a tube to their little mountain retreat, just in case.

She looked up, wondering what kind of tree had dropped such a beautiful red leaf, but Yayoi had been raised in Tokyo, and the tree was nameless to her.

I’ll ask Mr. Ishimura when next he comes, she told herself.

Mr. Ishimura was sent by the local Silver Human Resources Center, but before retiring, he’d been the garden manager for a large hotel, and he alone clambered up the tall trees to prune branches for her and her husband. They had him come work on the trees twice a year—once when they arrived from Tokyo and once right before they went back. If he happened to be free, he’d also come with the other gardeners to cut back the weeds.
Thereafter on her daily walks, Yayoi observed the fallen red leaves at her feet; as they dried, she took note of how the once-lovely red day by day darkened to gray. In the end, the leaves became ominous masses of crumpled black. It seemed to her like death itself had tumbled to the ground there. When she toed at a mass, it disintegrated with no resistance.

When had she stopped wearing that lipstick?

Her husband and companion of nearly half a century had passed away a month and a half ago. He’d had a stroke two years prior, paralyzing the right side of his body, and this year in June, another stroke had felled him. He’d been seventy-six, six years Yayoi’s senior. The pandemic was spreading globally, so they didn’t have a funeral for him, but when someone dies, there’s still so much to do. Yayoi sent out notice of his death, observed the forty-nine-day rites, and once things had settled down a bit, she put his urn in the back seat and fled Tokyo for their mountain retreat.

That had been mid-July.

He’d been a corporate researcher and, Yayoi thought, a good husband. Once he had his stroke, she again took up nursing, but he’d been able to walk with the use of a cane, and when she told him something funny, he laughed. Even after the stroke, his smile had remained unbroken, a flash of his youth from beneath his snowy white hair. Last year, when Yayoi had uneasily driven their car into the mountains, she had no doubt that they had many summers yet before them—her husband’s parents had both lived into their nineties, and so, she believed, would he. But now her husband was smoke, ash, and bone. In order to truly mourn her companion of fifty years, she felt it was best to be alone. At first, Naomi, her eldest daughter, had been worried about Yayoi all by herself up in the mountains, but because of the pandemic, Naomi eventually decided it was for the best: “Maybe it’s better that you’re not in Tokyo. Especially at your age.” But pandemic or not, Yayoi still would have wanted to hurry here, to surround herself with nature and mourn her husband.

As the days marched on, however, she found herself brimming not with mourning but with something like release. Sometimes she found herself setting out two rice bowls in the kitchen before she remembered and burst into tears, but the intervals between these incidents was growing longer and longer, and in their place the realization that at long last she was free to live her own life strengthened. This awareness meant that she no longer cried reminiscing over her husband—instead she wept as she thought back on her own existence. Her release led her to a question: what precisely had her life been up until now?

Yayoi’s day-to-day had not been an unhappy one. She’d never had to worry about finances, and she’d been blessed with a kind husband and capable daughters.
But when she looked back on it all, she’d been a typical woman of her generation—a life spent giving virtually all of her time to others, setting her own desires aside. It had started when her mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Yayoi had just started her final year of high school. Her brother, three years younger than her, was barely more than a child, and a boy besides, so he continue attending afterschool college preparatory programs; while Yayoi’s friends went to evening cram schools, she went to the hospital, holding the hand of a mother grown too thin, listening silently to stories from a mother grown talkative with the knowledge that death was near. If there was something her mother wanted to eat, Yayoi took a train to go get it.

“I’m sorry, Yayoi. How’s your schoolwork?”

“It’s fine,” she answered brightly.

After her mother died, Yayoi managed to get into an unremarkable university, but in those happy days, women were meant to marry, raise children, and care for their parents, so she never expected a career for herself. More than a few of her friends who worked hard to get into the most prestigious national universities still wound up on the same path as her. She’d enjoyed painting ever since she was a child, and the idea that she could be a painter had crossed her mind a few times, but that was like wanting to fly off somewhere on a fluffy summer cloud—a thought so flimsy she hesitated to even call it a dream.

Yayoi’s life continued, worrying after a father who’d lost his wife and a brother who’d lost his mother. She cared for them even after she married, even once she was raising two daughters. After her brother married and her father died, she took care of her grandchildren while her daughters pursued their careers. And once the grandchildren no longer needed her, she looked after her husband’s parents. Yayoi’s sister-in-law was the same age as her, but she’d led an unusual life for a woman of their generation, attending Hitotsubashi University, never marrying, and eventually becoming a high-level bureaucrat. When Yayoi considered how her sister-in-law’s days were spent grappling with difficult questions about Japan’s future, she couldn’t bring herself to ask for help in caring for her husband’s elderly parents. Once they passed, Yayoi had a few years’ vacation, but then her husband had the stroke, and her life of nursing began again.
He died just after she turned seventy.

“Seventy” was a problem, and not only because of how old it sounded.

In August, over the Obon holiday, her daughters and grandchildren visited—they ate the food Yayoi had prepared, played, made a mess, and then headed home. Perhaps her daughters had visited assuming it would ease the loneliness of their recently widowed mother. But after they’d gone, as Yayoi struggled to launder the countless dirtied sheets and fold them all by herself, she was left only with the exhaustion of being seventy.

She took to sitting out in a deck chair alone at night, gazing at the illuminated garden and sipping watered down whisky or bourbon. Wondering again what her life had been up to this point. And whenever she wondered, her view of the katsura tree in pride of place at the center of the garden blurred with tears. It became her nightly ceremony. Perhaps she lingered in the mountains through the deepening autumn drinking alcohol she’d never favored before because she wanted to spend the few years left to her walking a different path than the one she’d walked till now.  

In October, Yayoi called the Silver Center. This late in the season, whenever the wind blew the leaves fell so furiously they sounded like raindrops. She needed Mr. Ishimura to come and prune the garden trees before they grew bare. She always thought of him as a philosopher. Every visit, he carefully considered which branches to cut before climbing up to do his job, and he took special care with the centerpiece katsura. For it, he stood in the center of the deck, hands on hips, observing it with an expression she could only describe as philosophical, before deliberately beginning his climb. He clipped branches without any hesitation, but before long, he returned to the deck and considered the tree again—if he was displeased, he climbed up and trimmed more.

Her husband, watching him, once said, “He’s like a monkey.” He’d spoken with admiration rather than contempt, yet still in his comparison Yayoi sensed an arrogance particular to Tokyo-ites and thought it rude.

When she’d arrived at the mountain cottage this past July, she told the three men sent by the Silver Center about her husband’s passing. Those same three men came now. She prepared ten o’clock tea and chestnut yо̄kan for them, and when she brought it outside, Mr. Ishimura removed his mask to sip his tea and asked, “Do you miss him?”

Yayoi kept her mask in place when she answered. “Well yes, but he was much older than me. Nothing for it.”

“How long have I known you, now? I suppose it’s more than ten years.”

“How time flies.”

Their conversation was simple, ordinary, but at four o’clock after the men had loaded their mini trucks with all the trimmed branches, Mr. Ishimura came to say goodbye and asked, “You’ll be headed back to Tokyo soon?”

“I think I’ll stay a little longer.”

“Oh. Then I wonder if you wouldn’t like to have dinner together. In memory of your husband.”

Yayoi’s eyes widened. Come to think of it, she and her husband had often slipped him premium saké and other fine delicacies behind his boss’s back. One could say they already had a personal relationship.

The day before their dinner, Yayoi searched through the bottom of her makeup drawer. By some miracle, one tube of that lipstick, still in its packaging, appeared. For whatever reason—the black box perhaps—the lipstick still looked brand new. She took the tube from its box, removed the cap, twisted the bottom, and slowly that exquisite lipstick—the exact same red as the leaf—revealed itself. She’d bought it more than twenty years ago and yet it was as glossy and buttery as if she’d bought it just yesterday. Yayoi turned to the mirror and thrust out her jaw to apply the color, but at the last moment, she withdrew, twisting the tube and putting the lipstick back; she did a quick internet search on her desktop computer.

“Lipstick unopened expiration date.” Every website told her opened lipstick was good for a year and unopened lipstick was good for three years. According to them, the oils in the formula oxidized, which was bad for the skin. The most extreme websites explained it would be tantamount to eating poison. She realized virtually every website was run by a cosmetics company and they all said the same thing, which made her feel like she was being forced to read North Korean propaganda or something—the desire to rebel reared its head. How foolish. Who’d ever heard of anyone dying from old lipstick? Determined, she turned back to the mirror and applied the color to her lips, but then she couldn’t decide if it was too garish.

Over the phone with Naomi, she mentioned finding the lipstick in the drawer and immediately wanted to curse her own foolishness.

“I remember that red lipstick. It looked good on you, Mom. I don’t see why you shouldn’t keep wearing it.” Yayoi regretted saying anything the moment Naomi began speaking. She could already see with all the omnipotence and omniscience of a god exactly what lecture she’d be getting for the next ten minutes: People should be able to dress how they like no matter their age, they should enjoy life, and besides Japanese people think too much about things like “age appropriate,” and what’s more, people should be more concerned with how they want to present themselves and what they want to do and stop worrying so much about others. “Age has nothing to do with who you are. You could even take a lover if you wanted to.”

Naomi’s diatribe matched Yayoi’s predictions word-for-word. Exasperated, she pulled her cell phone away from her ear for a moment and thought. Naomi is pretty smart, but when exactly did she turn into someone so ready to profess so many cliches? One year after opening, three years unopened. The chorus of characters displayed on her computer monitor came back to her. Naomi, who got manicures in mismatched palettes of beige, brown, and navy, might be enjoying her freedoms, but she was no different than all those propaganda girls giving tours of Pyongyang.

If Naomi had been willing to dither a little alongside her mother, the conversation would have accomplished more, but maybe Yayoi had raised her wrong. She had a feeling her youngest, Satomi, would give the same answer.

“Yes, yes. Well, thank you. Talk to you later.” Yayoi tried to hang up, not even bothering to hide her annoyance, but Naomi kept talking.

“And you know, Mom, you’re still in good shape. You could volunteer or something.”

“Volunteer?”

“I mean, you’ve spent your entire life serving others, but it wasn’t really in service of the greater good, you know?”

Yayoi’s heart froze over, but she was so angry she couldn’t even make a retort, so she muttered a quick farewell and hung up. Then, alone, she cried and wailed like a child. She cried in her deck chair under the evening sky, and she cried in bed later than night. She had no idea how many tissues she ended up using.

At the local sushi restaurant, Yayoi didn’t remove her mask until their sashimi selection was placed between them. She took care in folding her mask so the lipstick blotted on the inside wouldn’t show, and when she looked up, she found Mr. Ishimura—dressed in a blazer instead of his usual work clothes—watching her closely. He seemed to realize something was different about her, though he couldn’t seem to place what.

Mr. Ishimura was taciturn, and as they pursued a tepid conversation, Yayoi realized she’d never been out to dinner with a man who hadn’t gone to college; she felt as if this too was the beginning of a life different from the one she’d led before, which cheered her a little. But her cheer was short-lived, and the conversation petered off when Mr. Ishimura’s expression sobered.

“Actually,” he took a measured breath before continuing, “I’ll be quitting Silver at the end of this year.”

“No,” Yayoi whispered, fearing she might burst into tears again.

I can’t believe even Mr. Ishimura is leaving . . .

The Silver Center technically forbid its workers from climbing too high in the trees, but in order to properly prune a tree, he of course felt compelled to reach the top. About three years ago, though, Mr. Ishimura told her, he started to think it was too dangerous for him to climb anymore, but he’d made an exception for their katsura tree. This year, however, even that had felt too dangerous. “If I fell, it’d cause you so much trouble.”
Yayoi tried to take comfort in the fact that even here Mr. Ishimura was putting her first, but she was already at her limit just holding back her tears. She hadn’t even asked him the name of the tree that shed the red leaves.

“Your husband must have been so happy, having a wife like you,” he said, staring intently at her.

She demurred and again became aware of her lipstick, wondering just how much of the color remained.

Mr. Ishimura continued, dropping his words one by one in the way only taciturn people can, staring all the while. “Even after his stroke, you were so kind to him. You two seemed to get along so well.”

Yayoi, embarrassed by her own awareness of her lipstick, said nothing, which Mr. Ishimura took as an invitation to continue. When he first visited their mountain cottage, he’d been impressed by the patient way Yayoi was speaking with someone on the phone—he assumed her mother-in-law—who was apparently in a nursing home in Tokyo. Mr. Ishimura thought the people around Yayoi must be so glad to have her in their lives. Yayoi remembered how her mother-in-law often called, but because the signal was weak in the mountains and because her mother-in-law was hard of hearing, Yayoi had to dash out on the deck and shout her side of the conversation from beginning to end. That’s how Mr. Ishimura had heard those phone calls.

Yayoi said, “My daughter thinks it was all a waste. She says I may have spent my life on other people, but it was only the people closest to me. She said it was meaningless.” Yayoi meant to sound like she was joking, but the wound was still raw and open, and the resultant anger and sadness jumbled together and egged her on.

Mr. Ishimura stared at her, unsure what to say, but eventually he spoke. “I’ve had the short end of the stick my whole life. My story’s not uncommon, though.”

He’d been the eldest son and started working early to help with household expenses so that his two younger brothers could go to college, but now they looked down on him for it.
“No matter how much society advances, I think there’s probably always going to be someone who gets the short end of the stick. I just happened to be that guy.”

And at his age, he didn’t envy the way his brothers had worked themselves to the bone in the concrete jungle of Tokyo until they could finally retire—Mr. Ishimura added that he had a feeling he was the happiest of the lot. He smiled softly, his expression tinged with the faintest irony. When they parted ways for the night, he gave her his phone number and told her to call him if she ever needed anything.

That evening, after she’d gotten home, Yayoi found herself crying facing the illuminated garden again, but her anger had evaporated. Her regret had evaporated. The sky was cloudless, and the stars shown all the brighter, and beneath them, the katsura looked even more majestic than usual. There was no wind, but the leaves glinted and spun in the light, falling still, making her simultaneously conscious of both the time that flows forward ceaselessly and the time that circles and cycles back—today will never return, but autumn will end, and spring will come again.

Should she buy a new tube of leaf-red lipstick? Part of her wanted to decide then and there and part of her no longer cared. Indifferent to her thoughts, the leaves of the katsura tree fluttered and flashed in the light, endlessly falling.

♦♦♦

そう。まさしくこんな色の口紅だった。

この赤。

ある日、夫が庭に造った細い散歩道を歩きながら弥生は足を止めた。九月も半ばになったせいで葉が落ち始め、黒い土の上に散ったのは緑や黄の葉が多かったが、ぱっと眼に飛ぶように入ってくるのは美しい紅い葉であった。

  あれはたしかランコムのものだった。買ったときはすでに五十近かったはずである。父親が死んでそう日が経たないとき、デパートの化粧品売り場を久しぶりにゆっくりと見て歩いていると眼が止まった。毒々しい真紅ではなく、濃いオレンジ色がかかった、煉瓦色のような赤。まさにこの落ち葉のような渋い色だったが、それでいて赤特有の華やぎがあった。西洋人だったら何歳になってもそんな色の口紅をつけるだろうが、日本人の自分にはすでに派手過ぎるのではないかという後ろめたさがあった。そして、その後ろめたさゆえに気に入った。同じ色がなくなるのを恐れ、思い切って数本買ったので、使わなくなったあとも念の為にとこの山荘にも持ってきたような気がする。

  こんな美しい紅い葉を落とすのはいったい何という木なのだろうと上を見上げれば、都会育ちの弥生にとっては名のない木でしかなかった。

  今度、石村さんに訊いてみよう。

  そう弥生は独り言を言った。石村さんは地元のシルバー人材センターが送ってくれる男の人だが、以前は大きなホテルの庭の管理を任されていたそうで、彼一人高い木によじ登って枝を切ってくれる。毎年東京から着いたときと東京に戻る前に山荘に入ってもらい、庭の木を整えてもらっていた。雑草を刈るときも、身体が空いていれば他の人と一緒に入ってくれた。

  その日から散歩するとき足もとに散る紅い落ち葉に気をつけるようになれば、葉が乾くにつれ、あんなに美しかった紅が日に日に黒ずんだ灰色へと移ろっていくのに気づいた。最後は禍禍しいしわくちゃの黒い塊となる。「死」そのものがそこに転がっているように見える。爪先で触れるともろく崩れた。

  あの口紅を使うのをやめたのはいつごろだっただろう･･････。
 
  半世紀近く連れ添った夫が死んでしまったのは一ト月半ほど前である。二年前に脳梗塞をおこし、右半身が不自由になり、今年の六月に発作を再発して急死した。弥生より六歳上で七十六歳だった。世界中に疫病が蔓延していたので葬式は出さなかったが、それでも人が死ぬとやることが多いものである。出すべき訃報は出し、四十九日も過ぎ、一応一段落ついたところで骨壺を車の後部座席に乗せて東京から逃れるようにしてこの山荘にやってきた。

  それが七月の半ばであった。

  会社の研究員だった夫は優しい夫だったと思う。夫が脳梗塞をおこしたあと弥生には人の介護をするという人生がまた始まってしまったが、夫は杖をつけば歩けたし、弥生が面白いことを言えば笑ってくれた。発作のあとも笑顔は少しもゆがまず、若いころの面影が白髪の顔を矢のように一瞬通り過ぎた。去年、弥生がこわごわと車を運転してきてやってきたとき、まだこの先このような夏が舞い戻ってくるのを疑わなかったのは、夫の両親が共に九十過ぎまで生きたので夫も長生きすると信じていたからである。それなのに今や夫は煙となり遺骨となってしまった。半世紀近く連れ添った人間をほんとうに悼むのは一人になるのが一番である。長女の直美は弥生が一人切りになってしまうのを最初は心配したが、「まあ、お母さんは東京を離れてたほうが安全かもね。歳だから」と疫病のことを思って勝手に納得した。弥生は疫病があろうとなかろうと早くここに来て一人で自然に囲まれて夫の死を悼んでいたかった。

  ところが、日が経つにつれ、夫を悼む気持よりも解放感のようなものがひたひたと身体を満たしていくのが感じられた。台所で知らず知らずに二人分の茶碗を出そうとしたりしてふいに泣き出したりすることはあったが、それも少しづつ間遠になり、これでようやく自分だけのために自分の人生を生きられるという思いのほうが強くなっていった。すると、夫を思い出して泣くのではなく、自分の人生を振り返って泣いた。弥生にとってその解放感は、今までの自分の人生は何だったのだろうという思いにつながった。
  弥生の人生が不幸だったわけではない。経済的に何の心配もなかったし、優しい夫にも優秀な娘たちにも恵まれ幸福だったとも言える。

  ただ、振り返れば、同年代の女の典型だとも言えるが、多くの時間を人のために割くうちに、自分を後回しにしてきた人生だった。それは母の子宮癌が進行しているのが発見されたときから始まった。弥生が高校三年になったとたんのことである。三年年下の弟は子供過ぎたし、それに男だったので進学塾に通い続けた。弥生は同級生が進学塾に通っているときに病院に通い、痩せこけた母の手を取り、死を前にして饒舌になっている母の話を静かに聞いた。母が食べたいと言ったものがあれば電車に乗ってでも買いに行った。

「ご免ね、弥生。それで勉強のほうはどうなってんの？」

「できてるわよ」

  弥生は明るく応えた。

  母の死後、どうということのない大学に進学したが、幸いあの時代、女は結婚して子供を産み育てて親を看取るもので、キャリアをもつことなど期待されていなかった。当時の女は、国立大学に進んだ優秀な級友でさえも、結局は弥生と同じような道を辿った人が少なくなかった。絵を描くのが小さいころから好きで、画家になれればという気持が胸をよぎったことは何度かあったが、ふわふわした夏雲に乗ってどこかへ飛んでいきたいような、夢と呼ぶのもためらわれるほど淡い思いでしかなかった。

  それからは、妻を失った父と母親を失った弟のことを気にかけながらの人生が続いた。結婚してからは彼らのことを気にかけ続けながら二人の娘を育てた。弟が結婚し、父が死んだあとはそれぞれ仕事をもった娘たちが産んだ孫の面倒。そして、孫が手を離れたころは夫の両親の面倒。夫の妹は弥生と同い年だったが一橋大学を出て独身を通して高級官僚になったという当時は珍しい経歴をもっていた。彼女が日々日本の将来という難しいことを考えてくれているのだと思うと、老人の世話を頼む気にはならなかった。夫の両親が死んでからは数年の休みがあったが、やがて夫が脳梗塞を起こし、再び介護生活が始まった。

  その夫も死んだとき弥生は七十を越していた。

「七十歳」というのは音の響きの問題だけではない。

  八月の盆休みには例年のように娘たちが孫を連れてやってきて、弥生が作った料理を食べ、遊び、散らかして帰っていった。娘たちは未亡人になりたての母親を訪ね、淋しさを紛らせてあげたつもりだったかもしれない。だが、彼らが消えたあと、洗濯機で洗った何枚ものシーツを一人で格闘して畳んでいた弥生には七十歳の疲れだけが残った。

  夜になるとデッキチェアに坐ってライトアップした庭を眺めながら薄く割ったウィスキーやバーボンを一人で呑むようになった。今までの自分の人生は何だったのだろう、とまた思う。そのうちに、シンボル・トリーとして庭の中心に植えられた桂の木が涙でぼやけてくる。それが毎晩儀式のようにくり返された。残された年月だけでも今までとは少しはちがう人生を歩みたいという思いがあって、こうして慣れない酒を呑んだり、秋が深まってもここに留まったりしているのかもしれなかった。

  十月に入ったとき弥生はシルバー人材センターに電話をした。今や風が吹くと葉が雨だれのような音を立てて落ちてくる。これ以上庭の木々が裸になる前に石村さんに木の姿を眺めながら剪定してもらうべきであった。弥生は石村さんのことを哲学者のようだと常々思っていた。どの木の枝も考え考え落とすが、よじ登らねばならないシンボル・ツリーの桂には特別の注意を払った。デッキの真ん中に仁王立ちになり、哲学的としか言えない表情でじっと桂の木を眺めからおもむろによじ登る。それから思い切って枝を落とし始めるのだが、再びデッキに戻ってもう一度眺め、気に入らないとまたよじ登って切る。

「猿みたいだな」

  その姿を見て夫が一度そう言った。悪気はなく、感心した声を出したのだが、弥生はその比喩に都会人特有の僭越を感じて、石村さんに対して失礼だと思った。

  今年七月に山荘に着いて、シルバー人材センターから三人の男の人が入ってくれたとき、すでに夫が死んだことは皆に告げてあった。今回同じメンバーが入り、十時のお茶と栗羊羹を出しに外に出れば、石村さんがお茶を手にし、マスクを外して訊いた。

「お淋しくないですか」

「しかたありません。年も離れてましたし」

  弥生はマスクをしたまま応えた。

「どれぐらいになるかなあ。十年以上はおつき合いさせてもらいましたよね」

「はあ。早いもんです」

  そのときはありきたりの会話を交わしただけだったが、四時になってそれぞれの軽トラックに木の枝を積んだところで、一人で帰りの挨拶をしにきた石村さんが訊いた。

「すぐに東京にお帰りですか？」

「もうちょっと居ようと思ってますが」

「それじゃあ、一度、ご主人を偲んで夕食でもご一緒できるでしょうか」

  弥生は眼を見開いた。思えば、石村さんには人材センターの所長には内緒で上等な清酒やら何やら折あるごとにこっそりと渡していた。すでに個人的なつき合いがあったとも言えた。

  逢う日の前日、弥生は化粧品の入った引出の底のほうを探した。すると、奇跡のようにあの口紅がまだ箱に入ったまま一本出てきた。箱そのものも色が黒っぽかったせいか、新品同様に見える。箱から取り出し、キャップを外し、本体の底のほうをぐるぐると廻せば、あの紅い葉とそっくりの色をした口紅が美しい形を見せて上に登ってきた。買ってから二十年以上は経つのに昨日買ったようにぬらぬらと艶やかである。鏡を前に自分の唇に塗ってみようといったん顎をつきだした弥生はふとそれを引っこめ、また同じところをぐるぐる廻して口紅を元に戻し、まずは机のコンピューターに向かってインターネットで検索した。「口紅　未開封　使用期限」。どのサイトに行っても開封後は一年、未開封の場合は三年と書いてある。油分が酸化して肌に悪いという。極端なサイトでは毒を食べるのと同じだという。よく見ると化粧品会社のサイトが多く、どれもみな同じことを言っているのがあたかも北朝鮮のプロパガンダか何かを読まされているようで、俄然反抗心が頭をもたげた。馬鹿らしい。古い口紅をつけて死んだ人の話など聞いたことはないではないか。ただ、意を決して鏡の前に戻って塗ってみれば、派手過ぎるかどうかは判断がつかなかった。

  自分の愚かさを呪いたくなったのは、直美と電話で話していてその口紅が引出から出てきたのを話してしまったときである。

「覚えてるわよ。あの赤い口紅、お母さんよく似合ったわよ。今からだって赤い口紅ぐらいつけるべきよ」

  直美がそう言い始めたとたんに後悔した。直美が次の十分間、どんな説教を垂れるかあたかも全知全能の神にでもなったかのように見通せたからであった。いわく、人はいくつになってもお洒落をすべきだ、人生を楽しむべきだ、だいたい日本人は年相応ということを考えすぎる、それよりも自分が一人の個人としてどんな格好をしたいか、どんなことをしたいか、それをまず考えるべきである。

「なにしろ、人間、年なんか関係ないんだから。いつかは恋人だって作ったっていいのよ」

  弥生の予想と寸分もたがわぬ言葉で娘は結論づけた。携帯電話を耳から離して聞いていた弥生は鼻白んで考えていた。頭も悪くないのに、どうしてこんな陳腐なことばかり偉そうにしゃべる子になってしまったのだろう。開封後は一年、未開封の場合は三年。異口同音にモニターに表示されていた文字の列が頭に浮かぶ。爪ごとにベージュや茶色やネイヴィーなど別の色のマニキュアを塗ったりして本人は自由を満喫しているつもりかもしれないが、平壌を案内するプロパガンダ嬢と変わらないではないか。
  これで少しは一緒に迷ってくれるような子だったら、もっと話しができたのに、自分の育て方がいけなかったのだろうか･･････。次女の里美も同じような反応しかしないような気がする。

「ハイハイ。わかりました。それじゃあね」

  弥生が憮然とした声を隠さず電話を切ろうとすると直美が続けた。

「それにね、お母さん、まだ元気なんだから、今後はボランティア活動なんてのもありうるじゃない」

「ボランティア？」

「だって、お母さんて一生人のために尽くしてたけど、社会性のない尽くしかただったじゃあない」

  心が凍てついたが、あまりの怒りに何も言い返せずに適当に電話を切った。そのあと一人で子供のように声を挙げて泣き続けた。星空の下のデッキでも泣いたし、ベッドに入ってからも泣いた。何枚ティッシュを使ったかわからなかった。
 
  地元の寿司屋で弥生がマスクを外したのは、刺身の盛り合わせが二人のあいだに置かれてからであった。内側に赤い色がついているのが見えないよう気をつけてマスクを畳んでから首をあげれば、ふだんの作業服の代わりにジャケットを着こんだ石村さんがしげしげと弥生の顔を見た。いつもとどこかちがうのは気づいたようだが、どこがちがうのかわからないのだろう。

  寡黙な石村さんとあたりさわりのない会話を続けるうちに、大学を出ていない男の人と二人切りで食事をするのが自分にとって初めてだということに思い至り、これも今までとちがう人生の始まりだと考えて僅かばかり幸せになった。だがそんな程度の幸せも長続きしなかったのは、会話が途切れたところで石村さんの表情が硬くなったからである。

「実は･･････」

  そこで一息ついてから彼は続けた。

「今年でワシ、シルバーをやめることにしたんです」

  そんな、と小さい声を出したあと、弥生はほとんどまた泣き出しそうになった。

  石村さんまで消えてしまうとは･････。

  人材センターでは高木に登るのは禁止されていたが、樹木を整えていると、どうしても上のほうの枝を切りたくなる。三年ぐらい前からは、そろそろ危ないと思ったので、弥生たちの桂しか登らないようにしていたそうである。それも今年は不安になってきた。
「落ちたりするとかえってご迷惑をかけることになりますから」

  石村さんは自分のことも考えてくれているのだと弥生は自分を慰めようとしたが、涙を浮かべないでいるのが精一杯だった。そういえば、あの紅い葉を落とす木の名前もまだ訊いていなかった。

「それにしても、ご主人は幸せでした。こんな奥さんがいて」

  石村さんは弥生の顔を見つめながらしみじみと言った。

  いえいえ、と謙遜した弥生はまだどれぐらい色が残っているかわからない口紅を意識した。

  石村さんは寡黙な人特有のぽつぽつした話しかたで弥生の顔を見つめながら続けた。

「ご主人が不自由になられてからも、あんなに優しく、二人で仲良くされて」

  口紅を意識したりした自分を恥じた弥生が黙っていると石村さんはさらに続けた。初めて弥生の山荘に入ったころ、東京のホームに入っている姑からだと思われる電話に弥生がいかに辛抱強く対応していたかにいつも感心していたという。こんな人がいてくれたら周りの人はどんなに幸せだろうと思ったという。そういえば姑は始終電話をしてきたが、周りの木が高くて電波が届きにくいこの山荘ではデッキに飛び出て、耳の悪い姑に聞こえるよう、大声で話さねばならなかった。あれを石村さんは聞いていたのだった。

  弥生は言った。

「娘には馬鹿にされてるんですよ。人に尽くしたって言ったって、自分の周りの人に尽くしただけだって。そんなの意味がないって」

  冗談のように言うつもりだったが傷口がなまなましく開いたままなのが見てとれる怒りと悲しみが綯いまぜになった調子になってしまった。

  石村さんは何とも言えない表情で弥生をじっと見つめたあと口を開いた。

「ワシなんか貧乏くじを引いた人生でした。よくある話だけど」

  長男だったので家計を助けるため早くから働いて二人の弟を大学にやれば、その結果彼らから見下されるようになっただけだと言う。

「でも、どんなに社会が発達しても、誰かは貧乏くじを引くことになるんじゃないかって、そう思ってるんです。それがたまたま自分だったんだって」

  それにここまで生きると、都会であくせくと働いてコンクリートだらけの町で定年を迎えた弟たちなど少しも羨ましくない、自分のほうが幸せだったような気がする、と石村さんはつけ足した。微かに皮肉を混ぜた笑みが嬉しそうに浮かんでいた。別れる前には自分の電話番号を渡し、困ったことがあったら連絡をするようにとも言ってくれた。

  その晩山荘に戻った弥生はライトアップされた庭を前にまた泣いたが、怒りはなくなっていた。後悔もなくなっていた。雲のない日で夜空の星がいつもより輝き、その下の桂もいつもよりさらに美しい姿を見せている。風もないのに桂の葉が表と裏に光を受けながら散り続けているのが、今日という日が二度とない流れゆく時と、秋が終われば必ず春が来る巡り巡る時とを同時に意識させた。

  あの紅い葉の色をした口紅を新しく買うべきかどうか。それを今決めてしまいたい思いと、どうでもよいことだという思いとがあった。桂の葉はそのような弥生の思いにはひたすら無関心にひらひらと輝きながら散り続けた。