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.

On moving day, you left for Tokyo Imperial University from the Tomihisachō house, and the household’s jinrikisha man had been instructed by me to take you at the end of your teaching day to this Ōkubo house, where everything was already in its place.

You met for the first time the gardener who had remained with the property, and you gave him two young musa basjoo plants to add to the grounds. They were the only indications that you had been aware that a change of residence was taking place that day. “Wherever there is the most sunlight,” you wanted the gardener to know and I told him. “Their glossy leaves bring to mind the plantain trees of the West Indies,” you explained and I conveyed. The gardener nodded his head, but did not ask where the West Indies was in the world. His thoughts, as they should have been, were focused on where these plants would grow best in this corner of Ōkubo, Yakumo. The next morning, I asked the gardener whether these plants, once they matured, would bear fruit. “Yes, but they cannot be eaten,” he replied. “Bitter and full of tiny seeds.”