Kitchen

Kitchen Summary | Part 1, Kitchen Summary

Two different, yet similarly themed titles comprise Kitchen, Banana Yoshimoto's debut literary effort. The first, the titular Kitchen, is the tale of Mikage Sakurai, a girl who, having recently lost her grandmother and having no other living relatives, moves in with the Tanabe family; Yuichi and his transsexual 'mother'. The second story chronicles the suffering of a young woman, Satsuki, after her lover is killed in a car accident.

Three days after the funeral, Mikage is still trying to come to terms with loss of her grandmother. She is listless, inconsolable and has moved her futon into the kitchen, the one place she is able to find peace; the hum of the refrigerator, she says, keeps her from thinking about her loneliness. The kitchen, she confesses in the opening line of the book, is the place in the world she likes best.

One afternoon she is visited by Yuichi Tanabe, who invites her to come stay with himself and his mother, Eriko. He gives her directions to their apartment and asks her to come around that night at seven. Though she barely knew him, Yuichi Tanabe, she remembers, had worked part-time at a flower shop her grandmother had frequented and he had often helped carry her purchases home. So too, he had helped a great deal with the funeral arrangements, seeming at the time almost more distraught about her grandmother's death than Mikage herself.

At the apartment that evening, she falls in love with the kitchen and Yuichi again asks her to move in with them. Just then, Eriko arrives, greets Mikage and apologizes, saying that she cannot stay because the club where she works is very busy. Mikage is stunned by Eriko's beauty who expresses her hope that Mikage will stay the night. Yuichi offers to drive her back to the club and leaves, telling Mikage to watch TV or something until he gets back.

On his return, Mikage tells Yuichi that she's never seen a woman as beautiful as his mother, and he admits that she has had plastic surgery, and that, in fact, she used to be a man - his father, Yuji. His real mother had died when he was still little. Yuichi's father, he reveals, was taken in by Yuichi's mother's family and that his father and her had grown up together. They eloped, married, and after Yuichi's mother died, Yuji quit his job, had the operation and bought a nightclub.

Mikage expresses her gratitude to Yuichi for allowing her to stay, and that night, sleeping on the sofa next to the kitchen, she is, for the first time since the funeral, at peace. The next morning she awakes to find Eriko in the kitchen, busy contemplating ordering take-out. Mikage offers to cook instead. It is midday by the time they eat - cucumber salad and soupy rice with eggs. They speak openly and Eriko tells Mikage that she is a good kid, that having her around truly makes her happy and that she should stay with them and not worry about anything. Mikage is deeply touched.

Mikage gave herself permission to be lazy until May. During that time she continued working at her part-time job and would clean the house, bake cakes and watch TV. Slowly, her spirits began to lift. She was happy. One day, back at her old apartment to take care of her remaining things, she receives a call from Sotaro, her ex-boyfriend, and they decide to meet.

Sotaro had always loved parks and the outdoors and so they meet in a large coffee shop near the park, as they had often done while dating. He tells her that he's heard she's living with Yuichi and says that it's the talk of the university. Also, Yuichi's girlfriend, upon hearing the news, had slapped Yuichi. On the way home they walk through the park where Mikage points out the Tanabe's apartment, and before they part she wonders if he has any feelings left for her. His eyes, she decides, reveals he does not.

That night, Yuichi returns home carrying a large box. He had bought a word processor and insists that Mikage type change-of-address cards. While they work, she asks Yuichi about his being slapped by his girlfriend. He makes a joke about it and the conversation strays off subject.

Mikage sees in him a deep sadness and thinks of how Sotaro told her that Yuichi's girlfriend, despite having been going out with him for a year, felt that she didn't understand the slightest thing about him. Mikage decides that she has to move out. Just then, Eriko arrives back home, carrying a juicer she had just bought and a moving-in present for Mikage - a glass decorated with a banana motif. She is touched, almost to the point of tears.

The following day she clears out the last of her stuff from the apartment and pays a visit to the landlord. Sitting in his office drinking tea, as she had often done as a child, she feels strange, suddenly keenly aware of just how old the man had become. By the time she leaves the apartment it is already evening.

On the bus home she sees a grandmother and her young granddaughter, and despite her best efforts not to, she starts to cry. Embarrassed, she gets off the bus and, hiding in an alley, sobs uncontrollably. Above her, the sounds of a busy kitchen can be heard and this lifts her spirits. At home, in bed, she dreams that she is back in her old apartment, scrubbing the sink. Yuichi is with her, cleaning the floor. They take a break and drink tea and Yuichi tells her not to move out from the Tanabe's place. Then, as she washes the tea things Yuichi starts to sing a song. She joins in and they sing together. Suddenly, she starts, and worries that they may have woken her grandmother. Yuichi suggests that they stop at the ramen stand in the park.

It is two o' clock in the morning when she wakes and fetches a glass of water from the kitchen. Yuichi comes into the kitchen and says that he is hungry and wants to make ramen. Mikage mentions to him that he wanted ramen in her dream too. He is flabbergasted. He too, it appears, had the same dream.