A Place to Belong

by Cynthia Kadohata

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  In the morning Hanako could smell soup as she entered the kitchen. Baachan rushed to the doorway to greet her. “You have good trip!” she said breathlessly. “I making you rice now!”

  Hanako loved the way you could always tell rice was cooking, and yet it had no smell. It was just one of the qualities about rice that made it different from every other food. “I’m so hungry!” she said.

  “We will see how long last this rice,” Baachan said. “If it last long, maybe next time we keep some butter and sugar.” She placed both hands on a rice bag, her eyes closed. “I feel spirit of rice!”

  “Can I try?” Hanako asked. Baachan removed her hands, and Hanako placed hers on the bag. But she didn’t feel anything, just a bag of rice. Still, that felt very good—it filled her with satisfaction.

  “Where is Papa?” Hanako asked. He hadn’t been in bed when she got up.

  “He still look job,” Baachan replied. “He don’t come home yesterday. But you eat now. Also, you feed everybody. I need leave. Your jiichan already left for field. I just wait for you to get up. I want to say good morning. But I cannot be late so much. Many thing to do in field. When I return later, I have surprise!” She looked at Hanako with an expression of fervor. In fact, she was beaming so hard, she looked almost crazy.

  The skirt! “Oh, Baachan!”

  “I go now. We will have fun later!” She left with one childlike skip before returning to her shuffling step.

  Hanako ran to the front door to watch her, headed toward the woods in the light drizzle without an umbrella. Would she catch cold?

  Then she sat at the kotatsu and ate rice and carrots in her pretty bowl. Her feet were toasty, and her fingers were cold. Mama came out and announced that Akira was running a fever. “Hana, will you make him ochazuke?” That was rice with green tea, with a topping or two, like seaweed or dried fish. They probably didn’t have any toppings here except for the grasshopper.

  Hanako hopped to her feet to boil water for tea. Green tea was very healthy; still, Akira didn’t usually get to drink it. He drank barley tea. So he must be very sick to get such special treatment. She put the ochazuke in her own special bowl with the gold cracks and took it into the bedroom with a porcelain spoon.

  Mama lifted Akira and held him up while Hanako fed him. His lids were very heavy, and sometimes his eyes fluttered shut. Then they would flutter open, and he would take another bite. He ate half the bowl before he closed his eyes, and Mama laid him back. Hanako loved taking care of him the way she had when he was a baby. She used to sit in the big chair, Sadie beside her and Akira in her lap, while Mama made soap in the kitchen or took a bath or cooked dinner.

  Mama spent the entire morning in the bedroom with Akira. Hanako had to leave because Mama was so intense when one of them was sick that Hanako could not stand to be there. Mama did not like it when Aki or Hanako got sick. It worried her so much that you could feel her worry no matter where you were, even if you weren’t at home. Sometimes she acted like they might die from a simple fever! She would stay up all night just because one of them had a very stuffed nose. “What if you suffocate?” she once asked when Hanako was congested. That didn’t make sense—Hanako would simply breathe out of her mouth. But when Hanako suggested that, Mama said, “What if you get something caught in your throat?”

  When Hanako left the bedroom, her mother was just sitting there kneeling and watching Akira like she was a statue, frozen in time.

  Hanako shook out the tatami, then cleaned up the kitchen. The house was very neat but surprisingly dirty. When she ran a damp rag once across a small section of the kitchen floor, the rag turned black. But then other parts were quite clean. Probably cleaning the floor was not a priority for an old woman who worked all day in the fields. Survival. Priorities.

  For Jiichan and Baachan, work was probably the number-one priority. Her grandparents had returned to Japan when Papa was nine, more than twenty-five years ago. Twenty-five years of working the fields as Baachan’s back warped and she grew old. Hanako wondered how it worked in Japan: Did you just keep working until you died?

  The kitchen grew dark and light again as the clouds covered and uncovered the sun. Then she heard the front door open—Papa!—and rushed into the living room. But it was the pink boy with his sister! She just gaped—they had walked right in!

  The boy looked just as surprised to see her. “I thought nobody was home!”

  Hanako couldn’t think what to say and could only come up with, “I’m home.”

  The boy quickly opened a package—quickly despite the injuries and scars on one of his hands. She hadn’t noticed before, but two of his fingers looked like they were sort of welded together. With a cry of triumph, he threw the cloth wrapping to the side and exposed a beautiful kimono, red and orange with white birds and white flowers. Other colors too. It looked expensive. “I was going to leave this! In case you had rice I could take. I wasn’t going to steal; I would leave you the kimono. It’s worth a lot.”

  The little one glared as if she thought Hanako was a bad person.

  Hanako did not know what to do. She thought of Akira and how hungry he got. And yet this little girl no doubt got hungry as well! But Akira . . . She hardened her heart. “We have no rice.” She hesitated. “I could give you carrots. You don’t have to give me anything in return.”

  The boy bowed his head, then raised it slowly, suspicion in his eyes. “No rice?” His eyes flashed angrily for a moment.

  “Mama!” Hanako shouted. “Mama!”

  The boy looked startled as Mama came out of the bedroom. “What is it?” Mama asked.

  “This boy—I was going to give him carrots. He wants rice, but I told him we have none.”

  “I will get the carrots,” Mama said. She looked angrily at the boy. “We have no rice!”

  While Mama went to the kitchen, he quickly wrapped the kimono up again. The fire left his eyes, and they turned pleading. “If you have rice, I would be so grateful! What is it that you eat every night?”

  “We eat many carrots,” Hanako said.

  The boy bowed his head sadly, but when he raised it, his eyes were angry again. This time the anger was hidden. But Hanako could see it, lurking behind his false smile. The little one was staring glassy-eyed into space, the way Akira sometimes stared. Hanako turned her face away because the child seemed so sad. She thought suddenly of the fake mochigashi. “I have more cakes for you!”

  But Mama had had the same thought! She came out with two bunches of carrots, as well as the cakes in a bowl. “Do you have somewhere to put these?” she asked.

  The boy did: his big pockets. He seemed quite excited, and Hanako thought of Jiichan saying that some children would be happy to eat these cakes. She worried briefly, because what if she and Akira became children like that soon? What if they ran out of rice and regretted giving away these cakes that tasted like nothing?

  The boy was looking around the house, at the walls and floors and kotatsu, then said bitterly, “It’s warm here.” He left then, without saying arigatō.

  “He came right in without knocking!” Hanako exclaimed. “I got scared.”

  Mama seemed worried. “That’s bad. . . . Still, he’s just a child. Not much older than you.”

  Hanako was feeling guilty now that she hadn’t given them just a little rice, or even asked him to stay and warm up. But Akira was calling, and Mama hurried to him.

  Hanako followed, kneeling next to her brother. When she felt his forehead, it was very hot. Worry blazed through her heart, and the guilt fell away. She would do anything for her brother, whatever she had to! She would not share with strangers. Not now or ever. They simply didn’t have enough. “Life is filled with facts,” she murmured. But the guilt abruptly washed like a big wave over her again.

  “Where did he get the kimono?” Mama asked.

  “He probably stole it,” Hanako replied. “Where else would he get it?”

  Mama pau
sed. “It’s not his fault. I would do the same for you, and more,” she said.

  Hanako did not know what “more” Mama would do, but she thought that the boy would also do whatever it was. For the little one. Hanako wept, blinked back hot tears of frustration.

  “But, Hanako,” said Mama. Hanako looked up. Mama’s face was hard, her eyes like stone. “You did the right thing. If it happens again, don’t forget that. You may cry. But don’t forget that you did the right thing.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  When Jiichan and Baachan came home, they ate quietly at the kotatsu with Hanako while Mama stayed in the bedroom. There was a pall in the house because Akira had hardly moved all day, except to wobble his head and groan softly. Mama had mashed up rice to feed him, but when Hanako had gone in to check, he hadn’t eaten anything at all.

  The soup that night was nearly the same as the first time: rice, carrots, carrot tops, and grasshopper. Everyone ate like they were starving. For some reason, as she ate, Hanako felt electrified by the grasshopper. It was like she needed to eat it very badly. She chewed the way she would chew something that actually tasted good. In short, she was very, very hungry, and maybe anything tasted good when you were that hungry.

  Then there was no more, just a big bowl’s worth left for Papa in case he came home tonight. After helping to clean up, Hanako decided to put on Mama’s coat—hers was still damp—and wait outside for him so they could have a talk when and if he arrived. She wanted to ask him if Akira would be all right, and maybe some other questions. She stood near the steps, trying to see. It was dark out—it must have been seven or eight. The world was completely quiet except for the ringing of the Fūrin—the Japanese glass wind bell—that hung in a tree. The front door slowly opened, and Baachan came out with a blanket. “It cold?”

  “Hai, arigatō gozaimasu.” Hanako wrapped herself up in the blanket.

  Baachan lingered and looked into the darkness. “Your father good man, neh? He miracle baby. I have when forty-two.”

  “Yes, he told us. He talks about you all the time.”

  “Oh? He say nice thing?” She laughed shyly. “I hope so.”

  “He says you were so pretty and petite.”

  “No, never pretty. What is . . . ?”

  “Petite. That’s when you’re small and slender.”

  “Oh, he call me skinny? I have talk to him about that!” But Baachan laughed and laughed, like she was having the best time she’d ever had. Her laughter washed over Hanako. Her parents loved her a lot, she knew that, but here with Baachan was something different. Her grandmother had just met her, yet adored her. She hadn’t done anything to deserve it; it was just there, in the air around them, like something shimmering. It made her feel like some kind of amazing person. It made her feel like being here in this bombed-out, impoverished nation was the best experience she would ever have in her life and like her hungry stomach was just an adventure.

  “No, not skinny!” Hanako replied. “Slender is like . . . well, it’s different from skinny. It’s good.”

  Baachan’s head dipped as if she was embarrassed by the compliment.

  “And he said you never yelled at him once, but you did scold when he misbehaved.”

  “Sometime he bad like any child. But I don’t yell at miracle baby. That bad luck.”

  “Do you have photographs?” asked Hanako.

  “I show you tonight!” Baachan said eagerly. “I have three. We save our money to get photograph three time when your father growing up.”

  Suddenly, Papa called out from the road, “Okaasan? Hanako? Why are you out here? It’s too cold!”

  “Papa’s home!” Hanako ran and hugged him. “We got white rice! First we got the butter and sugar, and then Jiichan sold it at the black market!”

  “Congratulations! Great work!” He picked Hanako up and twirled her around once. “Now, aren’t you going to ask if I found a job?”

  “Did you?”

  “I went to find an interpreter job, and I ended up in an office with the occupation army.” He lowered his voice. “I think they’re doing some illegal things. I know they are.”

  “Like what, Papa?” she asked as he set her down.

  “Some of the soldiers are taking items from the commissary to sell on the black market. They had me sell some cigarettes today.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out two packs of cigarettes. “They paid me with these. Maybe if I get a few more, we could get some fish, or something good.”

  “But, Papa, you told me once never to steal!” Then she thought of the boy, and of Mama saying, “I would do the same for you, and more.”

  “I will keep looking for a better job. But in the meantime, I will feed my children.”

  “Akira is sick,” Baachan said. “To feed him is more important than not to steal. I do not steal my whole life. For myself, I would starve first. But Akira must eat.”

  Papa kissed his mother gently on the top of the head. “He will eat.”

  As Papa and Baachan chatted, Hanako took one of the packs of cigarettes and smelled them. She had never held a pack of cigarettes before. Here in Japan, maybe this pack was valuable, like butter or sugar. She had heard a lot of people loved these things, and at times they’d been hard to get even in America. And yet the smell was kind of sickening; it made her head reel. Nevertheless, she cradled the cigarettes in her hands as if they were money. Actually, they were more valuable than money, probably like a lot of things were right now. Money was for places like America, places that war had not destroyed, places where people bought things at the market—organized places where people agreed that a one-dollar bill was just as valuable as a pack of cigarettes or a stick of butter. She thought about how in school she had learned that there had once been a civil war in the United States. Out in the field, after a battle in Kentucky or Virginia or Georgia, a dollar bill in your pocket would not be worth a can of beans. Neither would a hundred-dollar bill. When she was younger, she had asked Papa about that war, and he said he doubted it would be the last battle fought on American soil. “That’s the way of the world,” he said. “But I will keep you safe forever.” She had believed him, but thinking about it now, she suddenly no longer believed him. There were things in the world he could not protect her from, or Akira, or Mama. But he would do everything he could, she was sure of that. He would steal, and more, just like Mama would.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  They all went in to see Akira, but he was sleeping. Mama said he felt better, though. She couldn’t explain how she knew this. “I know my son” was all she could say as she sat cross-legged staring at him.

  They all cheered up a bit after that. But Mama remained in the bedroom as everyone else went out to the kotatsu. Papa gobbled up his soup, which must have been cold at that point. Baachan disappeared and reappeared with a weathered envelope. She sat next to Hanako. “Here my three picture.” She carefully opened the envelope. Her hands were tan and gnarly, and the top joints seemed as permanently bent as her back. She set three black-and-white photographs next to each other on the table with the bottoms of the pictures perfectly aligned. The first was Papa in what looked like a little army outfit, complete with matching cap. He was leaning on Baachan, and Jiichan was on the other side of him. Baachan’s back was straight, and her face . . . it was filled with joy. It made Hanako realize that even though Baachan was extremely happy that they were all together in Japan now, her face today had something sad in it. Even right this second. It made her quickly touch Baachan’s arm and say, “It’s all right.” Baachan looked confused, and Hanako said, “I mean . . . we’re all here together!”

  Baachan was looking at the picture again. “He six year old,” she said fondly. “He very attach to me.”

  “He so attach to his mother,” Jiichan said, joining them. “He attach to me too, but when he little, he attach most to his mother. He howl like a dog when she go to take bath, so she have to take him with her. She set him on f
loor while she take bath. I very serious. He sound just like dog in pain. Even he nine year old, he sit outside bathroom wait for her to finish.”

  “That’s not true!” Papa protested. “I don’t remember that.”

  “Don’t be embarrass you attach to your mother,” Jiichan said, chuckling.

  Papa chuckled too. In the picture his eyes looked large and gleaming.

  The next photograph was of Papa at about Hanako’s age now. “We take this photograph because he still boy, but we know he be man soon,” Jiichan said. “When he twelve, she cry all time because he grow too fast.”

  “He grow very fast,” Baachan said. “Very, very fast.” She wiped a tear away and gently patted the picture. “We think sometime maybe we get frame for these and keep on table, but then maybe I cry more if I see all time.”

  In the next picture the three of them were sitting down. “This right before he left for America,” Baachan said. She got teary again. “I proud of him, but I miss him too.”

  In the photograph Papa looked confident, and his eyes were gleaming here also. Baachan’s back was somewhat bent. That made Hanako so sad. She touched the first photograph, then touched Baachan’s arm again, and she said, “You’re pretty and petite, just like Papa said.”

  Baachan nodded her head in agreement. “All right,” she said. “All right.” Her eyes were alight, like she rarely accepted a compliment, but would accept just this one time.

  Jiichan was the opposite—Hanako already knew how much he loved compliments. Now she said to him, “You were the handsomest man in the world when you were young!”