Review: Tea with the birds

The story tells us about the life in Mortimer Street specialy about the life of a girl who moved into the terraced houses on that street. She describes the street as a place "busy without being comfortable", "crowded without being friendly" and a cold place, with "a reluctance to get involved". One particular thing about Mortimer Street was that despite the terraces being close together, people lived there like "birds in cages" closed in their own space, not caring about the others and not speaking to one anothers.

This girl was an outsider in a place where being an outsider was a crime. The coldness of the place was fine with her because she had spent two years in a psychiatric hospital and she was comfortable with privacy and silence. She didn't speak much with her neighbours and she enjoyed the peace and quiet of her little space.

One day someone moved into the flat opposite her. It was Mr. Juzo Tamaoki. He was a very silent and calm person, so the girl didn't have many problems with the new presence. There was just a problem which disturbed her and it was the fact that every early morning, there was a noisy delivery of vegetables for Mr. Juzo. This interfered with her sleep and it was the only thing that annoyed her.

Everything was curious about that man. One day he was waiting for her and without ever speaking to each other he invited her to his flat to drink some tea. It was the first person she felt comfortable in silence with. He then showed her his refrigerator and surprisingly it was filled with silent and colourful birds. These were the "vegetables" that were delivered every morning to Mr. Juzo.

After this, he left without saying goodbye and "a funny kind of woman" was the next occupant of the flat, a woman who didn't talk very much, as it was said. This didn't sound very pleasant for the girl as once it might have sounded and one night she inveted her new neighbour for a cup of Japanese tea that Mr. Juzo had left before leaving.

A brilliant short-story with a moral in the beginning: some people spend their lives looking down while others "dream of flying".