The Kitchen God

I tried peeling the kitchen wall with my fingernails, but that didn't work, so I pressed hard with my fingers and a flake of the "stucco," which is what I call it, fell off.

- HIROMI KAWAKAMI

I don't know if it's really stucco or not, or even what stucco is, precisely, but I like the snappy sound of the word, and that's good enough for me.

I popped the stucco into my mouth. Then I chewed and chewed until, finally, I was able to swallow it.

Once you dislodge the first piece, the rest is easy. Over and over, I stripped flakes of stucco from the crumbling wall and ate them.

"You shouldn't be eating that!" said a voice from under the refrigerator.

That had to be the kitchen god.

A kitchen god is small, has three faces, and lives in the dark corners of the kitchen. The first time I saw one, I screamed, which earned me a scolding from my mother. That was before I started first grade. My mother then was younger than I am now.

"You must never be scared of the kitchen god, or neglect him, either," my mother said.

Were kitchen gods common, I wondered. Did they inhabit other people's kitchens, too? My mother never instructed me to keep my mouth shut about ours; nevertheless, I didn't breathe a word about him to Ayaka, who lived next door, or to my cousin, Shō.

I'm a grown woman now, but in all these years I haven't told a soul about the kitchen god. After I got married, I moved into this company apartment with my husband, but it didn't take long for a kitchen god to show up. This kitchen god, however, was unlike the one I had grown up with: the three faces were different, as was the sound of his voice, and its cadence.

"He's here," I told my mother.

"He's present, you mean," she said sternly.

"So, they're everywhere," I said.

"You mean, they are present everywhere."

"It seems they're present everywhere."

"Yes, they are present.

"My mother lowered her voice. "It's because you have the right attitude, Izumi," she said.

"Attitude?"

"Yes, kitchen gods only inhabit the kitchens of women who display the proper attitude."