Your August letters were delivered to the Tomihisachō quarter at the western fringe of Tokyo, where the house of Koizumi, upon its arrival in this city, had been growing in numbers, under the eaves of yet another rented dwelling. How I rejoiced when your letters arrived at this house instead, Yakumo.

“According to the maps, the house is in Ōkubo village, just west of Tokyo’s city lines,” I had told you when I first found this property. “It is small and will need more rooms added, but the gardens are old and established. They have seen life, as you say, Husband. There is a bamboo grove at the back, and, Husband, I heard a bush warbler singing there.”

Do you remember your response, Yakumo?

“Do you have money?” you asked, not looking up from the page that you were writing.

“Yes,” I replied, hard and sharp, not echoing the playful tone of your question.

You looked up and saw a plain woman’s face staring back at you, and you saw in those straight lines a warning that you should put down your pen and listen.

“Good!” you said, “Tell me more, Sweet Wife.”

“Husband, all the houses in the village are in the old style. There are no Western buildings there yet,” I said.

You nodded your head, and soon the decision to purchase this house was made.

But once the work on this Ōkubo house began, you did not want to hear anything more about it. You claimed that you only knew “a little about writing,” and everything else was my domain. Your only two requests were for a writing room where your high desk and chair could face toward the west, your favored direction, and for a heating stove to be installed therein. I made certain that the writing room, to be constructed as part of the new wing, would be situated far from the front door and away from the boys’ rooms. I asked the builders to fit your writing room with clear glass, in addition to the shōji, so that the colder months would never again cause you discomfort, Yakumo. The room, I knew, also had to be “cozy.” I suggested that a Western rug, which you said was called an “Oriental” rug, could be placed atop the tatami to achieve the desired effect, but you rejected the idea outright. The rug is here now, Yakumo, and it is cozy as I thought it would be. I inquired about the cost of building more bookshelves, which I told the builders should be confined to the writing room, as the rest of the house would remain in the Japanese style. At first, the builders wanted to hear these instructions from the master of the house. These men were afraid that I had no mind of my own or, if I did, I would change it. You refused to visit this house until the work was completed, Yakumo. “A waste of time,” you dismissed, with a wave of your hand and a kiss on both of these cheeks. So, these men, all of them, had to adapt and to obey this woman’s every word or not be paid.