Novel "Cafe Nagoritan" (4)

4. Chili Beans Dedicated to Father

Nursing homes have a distinct smell. A smell where cleanliness and filth are mixed. The smell of dryers, the smell of boilers, the smell of disinfectant, and the faint, lingering smell of excrement.

Of course, it is certainly a place where hygiene standards are maintained. However, a smell that is periodically overwritten and seeps into the building itself never completely disappears. The nursing home where my mother stays had a unique facility odor that could be called a "disinfected stench."

Born between an American soldier and an Okinawan, my mother only knew her biological father through photographs. When she desperately tried to find him in her own way, she discovered that he had passed away shortly after returning to his home country. Later, through a series of coincidences on the internet, she miraculously managed to reach one of her father's relatives. He was her father's cousin, a very distant relative, but my mother said she traveled to the United States with a single-minded desire to meet him.

Initially, my mother had intended to vent her pent-up anger and all her feelings. But after the long, long apology from her father's cousin, when she saw the elderly man in a wheelchair—who was surely faintly related by blood—shedding tears and saying, "I am truly happy to have found such a dear relative," she said she could do nothing but hold his hand and cry.

My mother herself had a happy marriage and raised me, her only daughter. Perhaps it was after she was widowed by my father, whom she had been with for many years, that she became increasingly irritable. I was worried and suggested we live together, but she wouldn't listen, saying she had to "protect the house." It was in the midst of this that the incident occurred one day.

My mother, having complained to a clerk at a local supermarket that they didn't have the product she wanted, flew into a rage, grabbed the clerk by the collar, and lost control of her bladder. It was a panic state brought on by dementia.

I cannot forget the terrified expression on my mother's face when I was called by the police to pick her up. She looked so haggard that it felt as if her entire face and figure had shrunk a size smaller.

"Emiko...?"

"Mom, what happened to you...?"

"It was scary... it was so scary..."

My mother, who had been brave even at my father's funeral, broke down and sobbed loudly. It was as if a different soul had entered her, and she was sobbing like a child. As I held her trembling body, all I could manage to say was, "It's okay now..."

My mother was weeping so hard she could barely breathe. Was it the intense sorrow radiating from her body? Or was I driven by my own unbearable feelings? Tormented by intense emotions that could have been either grief or anger, I somewhat forcefully made my mother stand up. I bowed my head repeatedly, apologizing over and over, and we left the room as if fleeing. And then, I realized that the time had finally come.

Even now, I come to this nursing home once a week to see my mother. Diagnosed with severe dementia, my mother treats me like a stranger. Still, when we meet and talk, my name sometimes comes up. On days like that, I feel as if I've drawn a lucky fortune.

"You're so young."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, with your round face..."

My mother cupped both my cheeks and smiled, as if she were doting on a baby.

"When you were much smaller, I used to change your diapers."

Feeling like she was half-right and half-wrong, I looked into my mother's eyes and felt that they weren't focusing properly. A beautiful full moon seemed to be floating in her eyes. Perhaps her cataracts were progressing. Maybe she couldn't even see my face clearly because it was blurry. My mother had various diseases progressing, but her strong legs, built from years of working in a cafeteria, remained, and she had already escaped from the home twice. I had heard rumors that if you have strong legs and dementia, your care level is considered high. Perhaps that was why my mother was able to be admitted so smoothly.

"Since you've come all this way, hey, you should have some soba too."

"Mom, did you make soba?"

"Yes, I'm a soba shop owner, what are you talking about!"

"Oh, that's right, you worked in a cafeteria for a long time, didn't you."

"Well, I do stock the noodles, but the broth is top-notch. I make it with plenty of care."

"That's something to look forward to."

"Oh, my, where was the kitchen again?"

"It's on the first floor. Come on, let's go together in the elevator."

When my mother worked at the cafeteria, she would often bring home leftover noodles. The ketchup-flavored yakisoba she made by stir-frying them with ingredients was a staple dinner in our house. It wasn't from Naples in the pasta country of Italy, but made in Nago, the city of Okinawa soba, so we called it 'Nagoritan.' Ever since my late father, who never hesitated to make a dad joke, came up with that name, it had stuck in our family.

Thinking back, I feel like my mother had a somewhat sophisticated sense when it came to seasoning. It must have been what you'd call an American taste. She would go to base open-house events, learn American seasonings, and then buy the ingredients to try making them herself. The bitter melon garnish I later put on the 'Nagoritan,' the signature dish of the cafe I opened with my husband, was originally my mother's idea. It's a combination that surprises you for a moment, but it matches perfectly. My mother's culinary sense often shone in moments like that.

Among the many dishes my mother was good at, her chili beans were especially exquisite. It was my father's standard style to drink awamori with shikuwasa squeezed into it while having that as a snack. Thinking about it now, I'm surprised that the combination was, in a sense, a Mexican one, like tequila and tacos.

My mother hated pressure cookers and would never use them. No matter what kind of stew she was making, she used a battered, old pot and would turn off the heat just before the ingredients lost their shape. She often said she preferred dishes where you could properly taste each individual ingredient rather than a flavor that had become a single, unified mass from hours of simmering.

That's why the beans for my mother's chili beans were always diligently cooked using a regular pot. When I was a child, I don't think I liked the mushy texture of those beans very much. You could taste the sweetness of the beans themselves, and it was properly spicy but not too hot. I suppose I had to grow older to understand the deliciousness of my mother's chili beans. It was only much later that I learned she used plenty of Okinawan ingredients like island chili peppers and island garlic, and that she added many authentic spices like cumin and coriander. We used it like a pantry staple, putting it on bread, using it as a topping for taco rice, or as a base for the next day's curry.

I feel like my mother's cooking, whether it was chanpuru or anything else, often had a ketchup or tomato flavor. There were always empty tomato cans rolling around next to the trash can in our house, and the pencil holder next to the phone was one, too. For my birthday and such, she would often make me Napolitan, which she seemed to have tasted at a cafe on the mainland, or pizza toast on thick-sliced bread.

As soon as the elevator opened, my mother peeked into the nursing staff's office.

"Is it not time for dinner yet?"

"Oh, Kiyo-san, it'll still be about another two hours, won't it?"

It seemed that the purpose of 'going to the kitchen to make Okinawa soba' had already slipped from my mother's memory, and it had been rewritten to waiting for dinner. When the female staff member spotted me, she gave a slight bow. Of course, she was used to dealing with the anxieties of residents with dementia, and she responded to my mother with a smile. It might have been a professional, practiced smile, but to me, it looked like a very good expression, one that was plastered over a wealth of caregiving experience and daily fatigue.

"Well then, Mother, I'll be heading home now. Make sure you eat properly and get plenty of sleep. I'll come visit again."

I took my mother's hand and held it with both of mine. For a fleeting moment, she looked as if she were wondering, 'Now, who was this person again?' But as if to hide that realization, she gave me a pleasant smile and squeezed my hand back with a firm grip.

Some time ago, during a meeting at the care home, a staff member told me something.

"I want to see my father, even if just once."

Apparently, she sometimes starts crying in the middle of the night while saying that. At the time, I explained my mother's background to the staff member for the first time, and it made me feel a bit somber. But that evening, while I was making our dinner, a thought suddenly occurred to me. Perhaps the reason my mother's cooking was so stylish wasn't just because she was a good cook or had a refined palate.

"To suit the taste of a father she had never met..."

Could it be that a feeling akin to longing was hidden deep in her heart? And perhaps the reason she frequently attended base open house events was because she held a faint hope that she might be able to meet him.

Diligent beans, a ketchup flavor, and the secret ingredient: thoughts of a father she could never meet.

When I thought that, I felt that no matter how well I made chili beans, I would never be able to match my mother's cooking.