Sea Change
The insects were silent as I walked through the forest. Neither a hiss nor a croak could be heard over the trickle of the streams that ran through the peninsula. There was a stillness to the air. Even the water had slowed to a creeping drip in the undergrowth, while moisture, invisible and silent, seeped into the bark of the trees, rendering them black.
Above me the branches rustled, their remaining leaves so thin that I could see the sunlight shining through, illuminating the veins. We had been in Shimoda for two days but it felt far longer. Before we boarded the train Grandpa bought me new trainers; they were pink with rainbows on the side, but now they were encrusted with mud. Everyone had taken to buying me things, but I did not care for them. I wanted the familiar, a last trace of summer. I searched for what I knew – clusters of dark berries untouched by the birds, white flowers nestling beneath the ferns that sprawled in the depressions and valleys – but they were gone. Nothing grew. The ground was dense with fallen leaves, and soon the autumn fruits would wither back into the soil. Winter was coming, but not a winter like any of us had ever known; it was a winter during which the very wind would freeze.
I trailed my fingers along the trees as I passed. Their trunks glistened with moss and smeared an icy paste onto my skin, colouring my hands. I had spent a lot of time alone there that year, learning the paths above my home when no one was watching me. Now I was alone again.
I climbed up onto a ridge of rocks, their seams dyed rust-red with iron, and craned my neck beyond the trees looking for the torii that marked the entrance to the shrine. I paused, listening, waiting for the hum of voices in the air, the scrape of sandals on stone. The sanctuary was isolated, but it was then, at the end of the day, when everything else in the forest stilled, that people might be there.
The sun lowered in the sky, and I could smell frost sharp and clean on the air. In my short life there had never been snow on the peninsula, although people talked of a storm that had once frozen the sea and coated the rocky cliffs with white ice. It was a myth, a story, like the ones Grandpa told me. Only that day, I felt it would happen.
There were many shrines on the peninsula, down by the bays and on the beaches, with bright red torii perched on volcanic rocks far out to sea. They were popular; children ran and darted between the buildings while parents paid for prayer boards, ate ice cream and listened to the sound of the waves.
The place I sought was farther inland, in the heart of the forest. Few visited it. Sometimes people came to worship during the celebrations at New Year, but, even then, it was mainly frequented by the priests. A path had been cleared of branches and sodden leaves, and I followed its twists and turns, pushing against the clusters of bamboo that lined the way. The path glowed green, phosphorescent and shadowed, but only until I reached the clearing and emerged into the early evening light. The bridge always startled me with its beauty, the arching wooden planks spreading out before me, the avenue of trees waiting at its end, and beneath it all the ravine with rainwater rushing down over granite rocks. I could almost see the priests who journeyed across that bridge in their robes, praying as they crossed.
That year, as Mama and Grandpa had less and less time to play with me, I had ventured onto the hillside by myself. The shrine had become my secret, as places visited alone often do. I needed somewhere secret, a place where I might find peace and security, but that evening the woods of my childhood had changed. Summer was truly gone. I rubbed my hands together – they were freezing, encrusted with dirt and moss – and I thought of another story then, of the Yuki-Onna, a snow woman who appeared at first snowfall, clothed all in white, hovering just above the ground so as not to leave any tracks. It was said that each year as the new snow fell, every mother must be sure to guard her children, for if she did not keep them safe inside the Yuki-Onna would come for them and steal them away.
Alone and chilled on the hillside, heedless of the mud and wet leaves, I ran towards the shrine, but the stone buildings grew dark around me, shadows falling across the paving stones as the sun set. I entered the pavilion and crossed to the pathway that led up the hill, climbing up past the Inari’s stone foxes that waited there, red kerchiefs tied around their necks.
The path was straddled by a series of torii, donated by those who were grateful to the Inari for their success in business. I climbed up, passing beneath each vermilion gateway, past the brightly painted new ones with their patrons’ names clearly visible in the woodwork, past our own with the kanji for ‘Sarashima’ peeling away in the icy wind. I shivered as I emerged into the inner courtyard. The space was flanked by stone lanterns carved from volcanic rock. On special days, these were lit and each candle glowed before guttering in the breeze. I imagined what it would be like in the snow, white icicles suspended from the roof of the honden, a fine powder initially just dusting the tiles and then settling deeper, inch by inch, until everything was buried beneath a blanket of dense white, an empty clearing in the forest with lanterns burning long into the night.
In that moment I thought of my mother pacing the floors of our apartment in Tokyo, and I wondered what was happening to her. My father was away on a business trip, and I wondered what would happen when he returned, what would happen to me. Around me, the wind grew strong, chilling my cheeks until they burned, and the air was harsh in my throat as though I were swallowing ice. I pulled the sleeves of my jumper down over my hands; my skin was red with cold. The courtyard was much darker now – no lanterns had been lit, and I knew I would not find peace there, that I was not safe. I turned to go but as I did a priest stepped into the square. He moved to the water font where three bamboo ladles were set out over the flowing water. He picked one up and poured the cold liquid over his hands and face, rinsing his mouth. He did not flinch as he swallowed. I stood immobile, watching this figure gliding through the shrine; in his white robes he almost seemed to glow. Then he saw me, and at his startled cry I turned and fled.
It was late when I came in and Hannae was nowhere to be seen. ‘She’s gone to bed,’ a voice said, and I jumped, peering around the door to the dining room. ‘This cold is bad for her joints. I sent her to rest.’ My grandfather was sitting alone at the dark wooden table. In front of him was a bowl of soba, the steam rising in wisps from the flat green noodles and broth. There was a bowl for me too. ‘Come and eat, Sumiko. It’s still warm.’ I slipped off my shoes and joined him, settling carefully into my seat, trying to avoid the creaking in the wood, the sound of the rattan giving under my weight. I watched him and waited for his question.
‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’ he said finally. ‘I thought we were going into town together?’ He was angry, very angry, I knew. ‘When I tell you to wait for me, Sumiko, I need you to do as I say.’ His voice was hard but also so quiet that I felt ashamed. He had been frightened by my absence. I hid my hands beneath me. I had meant to wash them before coming in, but once I had begun to run through the forest, I could not stop. I had been afraid of the dark surrounding me, of the cold, of all the things I could not name.
‘Have you heard from Mama?’ I asked.
My grandfather sighed. I think he knew, had always known, that nothing, not even his reassurances, would help.
‘Sumi, you will see her soon. Everything is fine. There is no need to run around panicking. We are all right, aren’t we?’ He rose and fetched a warm wet towel for my hands and helped me out of my anorak. As he took the jacket from me, he leaned down and kissed my head. I bit my lip on all the questions I had for him.
Grandpa sat down with me and took a sip of his tea.
‘How long do I have to stay here?’ I asked.
‘I will call your mother tomorrow.’
‘I want to go home. I don’t want to be here with you!’
I had expected my last sentence to hurt him, but Grandpa just looked at me. He nodded towards my noodles cooling in the bowl. ‘Eat up, you must be frozen.’ He turned back to h
is meal, and I watched him spooning long strands of soba into his mouth. ‘These are the best things you can eat,’ he said after a while. ‘Do you see the length?’
I nodded, dipping my chopsticks into the soup.
‘Long life,’ my grandfather said, slurping up a few strands. ‘That is why these are eaten,’ he continued, ‘to preserve a long life. That is what we must pray for.’ As I took a bite, sucking the warm noodles down into my stomach, I followed his example and prayed for those I loved.
That night, perched on my windowsill, I saw snow begin to fall, pinpricks of white at first barely distinguishable from rain. I looked to the east, towards Tokyo, to where my mother would be. Then I got ready for bed and pulled the shutters closed. In a few hours the beads of moisture would merge into flakes of rime, frost would snake across my window coating it in ice, and when I woke in the morning, the ground would be blanketed white. I curled into my bed, pulling the sheets high, and as puffs of my breath crystallised before me, I closed my eyes tight.
PaterFamilias
The next day Grandpa tried again to reassure me. He said that he would talk to Mama and soon we would return to Tokyo, but I didn’t think so. I knew something was wrong.
When I heard the phone ring that night I crept downstairs. Grandpa was in his office and, thinking me safely asleep in my room, had left the door ajar. I slid down against the wall outside, sitting beneath the clock he had brought back from Europe. Its chimes drowned out the first part of the conversation, and I leaned towards the door, fearful of missing anything.
‘What are his terms?’ Grandpa asked.
I waited for what he would say next, but there was a pause as he asked my mother to hold on. I heard his footsteps and my entire body went still. I expected him to come out of the office at any moment and find me, but instead he put my mother on speaker phone so that he could pace in front of the desk.
‘Rina, are you there?’
‘Yes.’ My heart beat faster at the sound of my mother’s voice. She was near – so near; I wanted to talk to her. ‘He’s being coy,’ she said, and I jumped when my grandfather slammed down his fist in frustration. ‘Dad, don’t,’ my mother pleaded. ‘He’s just enjoying his position.’
‘Power you’ve given him,’ my grandfather snapped. I heard him take a deep breath and begin to pace again. ‘Where is he now?’
‘He went to Nagoya, to liquidate a real-estate portfolio, or so he said. I think he’s back in the office now, but he hasn’t come home.’
‘Hanging out in Roppongi?’
‘He’s just making me sweat, staying away, so we will make him a good offer.’
‘What does he want?’
‘I think the Ebisu apartment and a further sum in cash. Kaitarō has looked into his affairs.’ My mother coughed nervously. ‘This is what we both think.’
My grandfather paused. I could hear the scratch of his pen on paper. ‘How much cash?’ he said. ‘How much will he want?’ For a moment Grandpa paused. ‘Rina, even if we pay him, what is to stop him from coming back for more? And what about Sumi?’
‘I . . .’ My mother hesitated. ‘He must agree in writing to stay away from Sumiko.’
My grandfather laughed, a jagged sound, and I frowned. ‘You think that will keep him away?’
This time when my mother spoke she sounded exhausted. ‘We have to trust. I cannot . . . ensure this will go our way. If he agrees to an uncontested divorce and waives custody, that is the best we can hope for.’
‘He will extort us into the future,’ my grandfather said. ‘He can meet Sumi outside her school, turn up at weekends. He can make our lives hell. We will never be free of him.’ His voice was harsh, but I heard the depths of his anxiety there, perhaps even guilt.
‘I think,’ my mother said, ‘that he will stay away. He will have a new life after all.’
‘That isn’t enough, Rina. He is in debt, isn’t he?’
There was a silence on the line and then very quietly my mother said, ‘Yes.’
‘And the money his father and I gave you on your marriage?’
‘That has gone. I believe he over-invested during the bubble.’
‘I will need to see some bank statements before agreeing to the final amount,’ my grandfather said.
‘He won’t like it, but I’ll ask him.’
There was a pause and I heard my grandfather take another breath. ‘I’m sorry, Rina. I should have had him checked out, hired a PI.’
‘No—’
‘I should have,’ he said. ‘I should have looked beyond his family and our friendship.’
‘Dad’ – my mother spoke softly but there was steel in her voice – ‘it was my choice. I chose to marry him.’
My grandfather was quiet as he stood in front of his desk. Eventually he spoke. ‘Shall I draft the papers for you?’
‘Thank you. I’ll call when I have a better idea of the terms. I – I’ll see that he is reasonable.’
‘Okay, Rinachan. Stay strong!’ he exhorted her, and I blinked at his use of the phrase because it was normally something Grandpa and Mama said to me.
‘Thank you,’ my mother said, and I wondered if she was smiling.
‘This new man,’ my grandfather said. ‘You trust him?’
This time I could hear her smile. ‘I do.’
‘I’d like to speak to him.’
For a moment my mother paused; she waited and I waited with her. ‘Once the settlement has been agreed, we can talk about Kaitarō,’ she said. ‘How is Sumi? Is she okay?’
My grandfather sighed. ‘She’s nervous, got lost in the woods yesterday and frightened herself.’
My mother’s voice was pained, almost present with us in the house, and I felt a pulse of satisfaction. ‘Is she all right? Can I talk to her?’
‘Rina, she’s in bed. Let’s keep her out of this.’
‘Okay,’ my mother said, but I knew she did not agree. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘About the settlement—’
‘Yes?’ Grandpa said.
‘The research Kaitarō did on Satō is good. When I get him to the table it will be helpful.’
‘Does he love you, Rina?’
‘He does,’ she said.
Yoshi sighed, and I could hear the exhaustion in his voice when he spoke. ‘Then I had better meet him properly, hadn’t I?’
‘He is a good man,’ my mother said. ‘Different from Satō.’
‘I’m not sure that’s saying very much,’ my grandfather said, and I heard my mother laugh.
‘Dad?’
‘Yes, Rinachan?’
‘I’m glad you’re my father.’
‘Me too.’
‘You’ll kiss Sumi for me?’
‘I will,’ he confirmed.
There was a click on the line as my mother hung up. By the time my grandfather walked across the study, I had run up the stairs. I tiptoed quietly towards my bed, the darkness deep and impenetrable as I crawled under the sheets. Outside in the hall my grandfather stood very still, listening.
Rina and Kaitarō
Showdown
The cold swept through Tokyo that year, seeping into every corner so that the great glass buildings and skyscrapers seemed like an icy manifestation of it. Kaitarō stepped off the metro and into the centre of Roppongi. As a hangout for rich foreigners and businessmen, he didn’t have much cause to come here, but sometimes clients liked it, and the ambitious salaryman with entrepreneurial aspirations found it had benefits too. It was where Satō could be found these days, listening to everything anyone had to say.
Kaitarō walked into the lobby of a hotel and took the lift to the sky bar on the top floor. The place was packed, and they were letting in more women than men, but the guy on the door was a contact of his and let him pass. Satō was not hard to find; he was at one of the central tables with h
is work colleagues, a prominent place, somewhere to see and be seen.
Kaitarō strolled over to the bar. He signalled a waiter and asked him to deliver a message to Satō. ‘Tell him he’s got a phone call.’
He watched as Satō peered into the shadows and moved into his line of sight, greeting him with a nod. Then he gestured to the main doors and walked towards them. Satō excused himself from his table and followed. Kaitarō felt him catch up and turned just as the other man put a hand on his arm.
‘What the fuck do you want?’
‘I have some information for you.’
‘I don’t know how to say this any more clearly, but you’ve been fired, Nakamura. I don’t need you any more.’
Kaitarō looked at the heaving bar and the table of colleagues Satō had just abandoned. ‘Yet you come when I call,’ he said.
All around them, tall glass windows provided a sprawling view of Roppongi. Kaitarō glanced down at Satō’s hand where it had tightened on his arm. ‘Downstairs, I don’t want to be seen.’
‘Don’t you know when you’re beaten?’
Kaitarō reached inside his inner jacket pocket and extracted a pack of cigarettes. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you a smoke.’ Then he jerked his arm from the other man’s grasp and walked into the lift.
Outside they turned a corner and stopped in an alley between two hotels. Satō held out his hand for a cigarette, muttering as Kaitarō lit it. Narrowing his eyes, Satō took a drag and blew the smoke out into the air.
‘So you’ve got yourself a divorce form,’ Kaitarō said finally, ‘but you haven’t filled it in.’
‘I don’t need you, Nakamura. She’s doing what I want all on her own.’
‘This has to stop.’
‘She’s scared, isn’t she?’ Satō smiled, certain.
‘You haven’t got any evidence against her.’
What's Left of Me is Yours Page 19