knew that they would be alone at the end of each other.
People later said that Suzy was the precocious thing who ruined the most celebrated marriage of academia. Damian Brisco, the foremost expert on East Asian art, and his wife, Yuki Tamiko, the renowned translator of the newest edition of The Tale of Genji . Some blamed a midlife crisis, how Damian, at forty-nine, seemed to have lost his head over a mere student at the expense of his career, which had been crucial for everyone, including himself and his marriage. The couple had collaborated on many groundbreaking studies. They were the authors of the three volumes of East Asian Art and Literature , which was the main text for every university’s Asian-civilization course. Most agreed that their marriage catapulted the field of East Asian studies, which up until their prolific partnership had been in a vacuum. Although it was Yuki Tamiko who held the chair position in the East Asian Department at Columbia University while Damian Brisco took an extended leave to work on the
fourth and final volume of the text, it was clear that any major decision had to pass through both. Their names were forever linked together, always in the context of “edited, researched, compiled, translated, written by Brisco and Tamiko.” Their joint lecture series on “Trekking Buddhist Art Through East Asia” was immensely popular, and their marriage admired by those in the field as the perfect union between East and West.
But Suzy knew otherwise. She had been one of Professor Tamiko’s advisees since the beginning of her junior year. Yet it was nearly impossible to get Professor Tamiko in person. Twice a semester, Suzy was supposed to meet with her to discuss her impending thesis, but so far, she had been greeted by a different TA each time, someone who seemed merely a few years older than Suzy herself, and rather flustered at having to advise anyone at all when his own dissertation lay forgotten somewhere between the hands of the university’s bureaucratic committees. She saw her in lectures, of course. Postwar Japanese Fiction was one of the few standing-room-only classes on campus, and even though Suzy had actually registered for the class whereas half the attendees seemed to be auditors, she was always stuck at the farthest distance from the podium, on which stood Professor Tamiko, whose profile seemed almost ethereal.
It was true that she was beautiful. Yuki Tamiko was stunning. At forty-nine, she had retained much of the delicate-boned, high-cheeked, ultra-slender, and immensely haughty girl whom Damian Brisco had met at Harvard when they were both freshmen. The coy-girl beauty might have long passed the woman, but there was something regal in its place, something strikingly soft and compassionate and yet impenetrable, edged by the vastness of her knowledge as she stood before the hundreds of eager minds and recited lines from Mishima’s The Sea of Fertility as though Western scholars had done the most unthinkable injustice by declaring Ulysses the ultimate fiction when the real thing
lay shrouded in this Japanese tetralogy, which cast its spell over everyone in the auditorium while she, Yuki Tamiko, towered from her highest ground, suddenly demure and fiercely competent. Everyone was at her mercy. The boys looked up at her with awe and admiration—Yuki Tamiko was not the sort of woman one dared to have a crush on—and the girls marked her every word in their spiral notebooks in red ink with double exclamation points, as though everything would be different now that they knew what they had not realized merely fifty minutes ago, when their literary scope lacked the passionate breadth of that remarkable woman up on the podium. Suzy, however, remained untouched. The lecture was perfect, and Professor Tamiko’s seductive banter mesmerizing, but Suzy felt somehow left out. There was a twinge of coldness that Suzy sensed in the older woman’s face, guarded by the finest words of
People later said that Suzy was the precocious thing who ruined the most celebrated marriage of academia. Damian Brisco, the foremost expert on East Asian art, and his wife, Yuki Tamiko, the renowned translator of the newest edition of The Tale of Genji . Some blamed a midlife crisis, how Damian, at forty-nine, seemed to have lost his head over a mere student at the expense of his career, which had been crucial for everyone, including himself and his marriage. The couple had collaborated on many groundbreaking studies. They were the authors of the three volumes of East Asian Art and Literature , which was the main text for every university’s Asian-civilization course. Most agreed that their marriage catapulted the field of East Asian studies, which up until their prolific partnership had been in a vacuum. Although it was Yuki Tamiko who held the chair position in the East Asian Department at Columbia University while Damian Brisco took an extended leave to work on the
fourth and final volume of the text, it was clear that any major decision had to pass through both. Their names were forever linked together, always in the context of “edited, researched, compiled, translated, written by Brisco and Tamiko.” Their joint lecture series on “Trekking Buddhist Art Through East Asia” was immensely popular, and their marriage admired by those in the field as the perfect union between East and West.
But Suzy knew otherwise. She had been one of Professor Tamiko’s advisees since the beginning of her junior year. Yet it was nearly impossible to get Professor Tamiko in person. Twice a semester, Suzy was supposed to meet with her to discuss her impending thesis, but so far, she had been greeted by a different TA each time, someone who seemed merely a few years older than Suzy herself, and rather flustered at having to advise anyone at all when his own dissertation lay forgotten somewhere between the hands of the university’s bureaucratic committees. She saw her in lectures, of course. Postwar Japanese Fiction was one of the few standing-room-only classes on campus, and even though Suzy had actually registered for the class whereas half the attendees seemed to be auditors, she was always stuck at the farthest distance from the podium, on which stood Professor Tamiko, whose profile seemed almost ethereal.
It was true that she was beautiful. Yuki Tamiko was stunning. At forty-nine, she had retained much of the delicate-boned, high-cheeked, ultra-slender, and immensely haughty girl whom Damian Brisco had met at Harvard when they were both freshmen. The coy-girl beauty might have long passed the woman, but there was something regal in its place, something strikingly soft and compassionate and yet impenetrable, edged by the vastness of her knowledge as she stood before the hundreds of eager minds and recited lines from Mishima’s The Sea of Fertility as though Western scholars had done the most unthinkable injustice by declaring Ulysses the ultimate fiction when the real thing
lay shrouded in this Japanese tetralogy, which cast its spell over everyone in the auditorium while she, Yuki Tamiko, towered from her highest ground, suddenly demure and fiercely competent. Everyone was at her mercy. The boys looked up at her with awe and admiration—Yuki Tamiko was not the sort of woman one dared to have a crush on—and the girls marked her every word in their spiral notebooks in red ink with double exclamation points, as though everything would be different now that they knew what they had not realized merely fifty minutes ago, when their literary scope lacked the passionate breadth of that remarkable woman up on the podium. Suzy, however, remained untouched. The lecture was perfect, and Professor Tamiko’s seductive banter mesmerizing, but Suzy felt somehow left out. There was a twinge of coldness that Suzy sensed in the older woman’s face, guarded by the finest words of
Similar Books
