Alle’s First Mini: The Wedding Night of Eichi and Yui.

Eichi traded for Yui. He kept the yakuza man, Goto, in orange rinds and soba noodles, finding it eminently worth his reduction in food to be able to sleep, confident that Yui would kick him if trouble arose. They worked side by side for only a few days before she said, “This is not proper. We must marry.”

It would be four years before they could afford even the most modest of the new apartments the Japanese government was building in and around Tokyo. (The U.S. paid for a lot of the construction, as part of the terms of Japan’s surrender.) Yui and Eichi socked away the money while waiting for Yui to pass the legal age of consent: fourteen. Four years after their wedding day, Eichi escorted his bride into their single-room apartment: a washitsu (和室), meaning “Japanese-style room.”

Yui was deeply moved by the apartment Eichi had put together for them, including a sewing machine for her (in the diorama, you can see that she got to work the next day, making zabuton (座布団), literally: “sitting futon” — we might call them “floor pillows.”) Eichi also arranged for a large tansu (storage unit/cabinet) for lovely items — of which they had none.

After their traditional Japanese wedding meal — shrimp, and sea bream sushi made with red rice — Eichi and Yui moved the small pieces of furniture to the sides of the room, and pulled futon from the closets behind the sliding doors (shoji). In the morning, they rose and — as Japanese people do — folded their futon into the closet and pulled the furniture into “living room” position.

“Captures perfectly the scene created by troubled western young people wandering Asia in the pre-internet era. Carlie is a canny survivor, a vulnerable soul, and a fascinating character to watch as she stumbles towards healing. In urgent prose, Hall provides us with a compelling story that takes its place alongside backpacker classics such as The Beach, Losing Gemma, and My Life in Men.” — Zoe Zolbrod, Currency and The Telling.