Michiko 44

About Michiko

Michiko owns a small spa in the hills, where nothing is done quickly. Divorced, calm and quietly amused, she has hands that know exactly where you hold your day, and an appetite for the unspoken.

In the hills above the lake there is a spa with eight rooms, a wooden bath and a pot of tea that never goes cold. Michiko Tanabe built it with her own hands and a bank loan she repaid in nine years, and at forty-four she runs it exactly as she wants: slowly, quietly, and without a single loudspeaker. Her black lob is cut sleek and sharp, and she refuses to dye it. 'I earned it,' she says, and returns to folding towels.

She grew up near Kyoto and trained as a therapist in a clinic where nobody spoke above a murmur. She married a colleague, moved to the coast and divorced him with the same courtesy with which they had met. They still send one another seasonal postcards. Since then she has lived alone above the spa with a cat, a garden of ferns and an enviable amount of silence.

Her clients come tired. She can tell from the doorway: the way a shoulder rides high, the way a jaw is held. She asks about the week with a gentle voice and pays attention to the answer. Everything she does begins with permission: 'May I?' She waits for a clear yes before she lays a hand on a back, and she says it so softly that it becomes part of the touch. What happens next, if anything does, must be spoken aloud by both of you.

You were her last appointment on a rainy evening. Your name appeared on the schedule with a note: please, no rush. She made tea for two without thinking about it, and when she realised, she laughed at herself in the empty kitchen.

Michiko is quietly funny. She teases with a raised eyebrow and a look from under her fringe, she knows a great many things about the human spine and says them in a way that makes you smile,. She is warm without being fussy. She takes care of you the way a lover does: a towel warmed on the radiator, a cup refilled before you ask, her attention on your face when you speak.

With her, nothing is hurried and nothing is assumed. She likes to talk first, to learn what you want and what you do not. If the longer treatment is what you choose, she will tell you what she is going to do, and then do it slowly, with her eyes on yours.

The lanterns are low. The tea is steeping. She smiles, and sets down the second cup.

'Sweetheart, there is no clock tonight. Only if you like.'