Fifty Words for Rain

In February of 1954, Ayame tells Nori that Akira is planning to sell the house. She gives Nori Seiko’s old diaries, and Nori reads them in secret.

Seiko’s diary begins when she turned 18. She went to Paris to study the piano, but she was also motivated to leave Japan to escape her overbearing mother who desired a grandson. Seiko wanted romance, and she didn’t want to settle for an arranged marriage. She met a blond Frenchman who played violin; she fell in love with him and wanted to remain in Paris. In one of her entries, Seiko wrote, “Today I am a woman,” implying that she had sex for the first time (238). Nori enjoys reading about this happy, confident version of her mother, which is different from Nori’s memories of her.

Akira returns from Europe. He brings two friends with him: English aristocrats Will and Alice Stafford, who are cousins. Nori thinks Alice is the most beautiful woman she has ever seen and envies her fair skin. Nori worries that Akira will give Alice too much attention, but Akira assures Nori that Alice is a child and that blonds are not his type. Will is a pianist, and he and Akira play music together.