Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder

by Asako Yuzuki

Kajii simply didn’t permit the people who wouldn’t accept her into her field of vision. That was how she was able to remain so full of confidence. The scent of camphor that clung to her was one unique to women who had only dated older, affluent men. The reason that Rika couldn’t feel any envy towards her, however much her blog flaunted her luxurious way of living, was that it all seemed to belong to a bygone age – wealth as a codified form of belief in the dominance of the rich and powerful.

Rika found it hard to comprehend falling head over heels with a person while also looking down on them. Rika found herself gazing at the blinds from which the light was streaming through. Maybe her father had been exactly the same as those men. He’d found fault in her mother’s execution of household tasks, told her constantly that she didn’t understand how the world worked, and mocked how cosseted she was. Yet when she had made to leave, he’d been profoundly perturbed.

‘Don’t you think that’s a disease of the contemporary age? It feels like these days our value is determined by how much effort we make on a daily basis. That matters even more than our results. After a while, the concept of effort starts to become mixed up with things feeling difficult, and then you reach the point where the person seen as the most admirable is the one suffering the most. I think that’s the reason people are so vicious towards Manako Kajii. She refuses to live that life, refuses to suffer.’

She had to do all she could, under her own steam, to make the small details of her life as rich and fulfilling as they could be. That way, she thought, things would feel less desolate, even if the outcome was the same.

She’s put on so much weight!”’ Kajii exclaimed theatrically, her eyes wide. ‘I was wondering what on earth it was you’d gone and done, and that was it! You’d put on weight. She said she was hopelessly worried about you. You’d left the world of reason behind. That sickened me to hear. Is the woman daft, or what? Being that upset about what happens to somebody else’s body! How can someone be so conscious of what shape another person takes, of the extent to which they’ve liberated their desires? It’s not normal to feel such anxiety about that. If you’re paying more attention to the form other people are assuming than what’s taking place inside yourself, it means something is seriously wrong with you.’

‘I don’t think I’m a lazy person, necessarily, but I’m not confident that I can maintain the effort needed to keep you and the rest of the world happy twenty-four-seven. I’m not young any more, and I don’t want to give myself up to other people for their consumption. I want to decide how I work and interact with other people based on what I think really matters.’