Ginza

Ginza is the setting of Kawashima Masayuki and Yoko’s first meeting and the beginning of their relationship. The district’s gallery and nearby coffee shop frame a modest encounter that becomes the starting point for their courtship, Yoko’s disclosure of a past suicide attempt, and, eventually, their marriage.

The First Meeting

In early summer, six years before the present events, Kawashima and Yoko met at an art gallery in Ginza during an exhibition of sombre abstract works by the Russian-born French artist Nicolas de Staël. Although it was a Saturday afternoon, they were the exhibition’s only visitors. Kawashima carried a sketchbook under his arm, and Yoko opened their conversation by asking whether he was an artist.

They left the gallery together for a coffee shop with glass walls overlooking the Ginza crossing. Kawashima ordered a double espresso; Yoko had cheesecake and apple tea. The relaxed setting allowed the first encounter to extend into a conversation and a shared meal, while the sketchbook offered an immediate glimpse of Kawashima’s private artistic life.

From Acquaintance to Intimacy

After meeting in Ginza, they began seeing each other about once a week, going to dinner, museums, or films. Kawashima worked for a graphic design firm and drew in his spare time, almost exclusively making pictures of narrow roads at night. Near the end of that summer, he drew Yoko’s face from memory. When he gave her the sketch on their next date, she invited him to her apartment for the first time.

There Yoko told him that, about a year earlier, after ending a relationship with an older man from her company, she had swallowed a handful of sleeping pills and been taken to hospital. She asked what he thought of someone who would do that. Kawashima answered that he did not consider it a big deal, a response the narrative presents as sincere. Not long afterward, they moved in together.

Significance in Their Shared History

Ginza remains important as the point of origin for a relationship whose later milestones took place beyond the district. Kawashima and Yoko married a year and eight months after meeting there. Their first encounter is linked not to a dramatic declaration but to ordinary, particular acts of attention: Yoko examining his drawings, carefully removing a crumb from one, and Kawashima later drawing her face from memory.

The meeting also establishes an early contrast in their lives. Yoko’s disclosure brings the fact of her earlier crisis into their developing relationship, while Kawashima’s acceptance makes room for intimacy rather than judgment. In this way, Ginza marks the beginning of a bond in which personal histories can be revealed, and the first step toward the marriage and shared life that follow.