The Plum Blooms in Winter

by Linda Thompson

  Every time she came home, Papa-san seemed a bit more withered on his futon, like a piece of drying fruit that lost more moisture each day.

  He took so little interest in things. Cut himself off from almost everything. Well, she needed him to take an interest in the brochure she carried in her bag. She needed his help with the plan. And besides, she’d like to see the old eager glint in his eyes about something.

  Anything.

  This would reach some part of him that was still himself, yes? He’d urge her on—she could hear his rasping voice already, reminding her of Confucius’ ancient words: “You mustn’t sleep under the same sky as your enemy.”

  But if she did it, what about afterward? If they caught her, what was Papa-san going to do? How could she risk leaving him to waste away alone, like the old beggar she’d seen at the station? A shudder ran through her at the memory of the man’s grimy hand pulling his ragged captain’s uniform around him.

  Avenging Hiro-chan. Caring for Papa-san.

  What kind of choice was that?

  She let herself into the smoke-blackened foyer. Saxophone riffs and drunken laughter filtered through the walls from the nightclub behind their building. The jagged rhythm of the jazz echoed the confused ideas jolting through her mind.

  His wretched coughing echoed down the staircase before she reached their narrow landing. Every cough ended with a horrible hacking sound she hadn’t heard before. A resonance like bits of lung ripping from the bottom of his frail chest.

  She charged along the hall and into their room, barely pausing long enough to kick off her shoes. She dropped the grocery bag just inside the door.

  He lay on his futon, wheezing, his face flushed and his body contorted with the coughing. Tanaka-san, their neighbor, knelt on a cushion beside him, holding a damp cloth to his brow. She looked up at Miyako and bobbed her a bow, her kind, round face crinkling with concern. “Konnichiwa. He’s had a bad day.”

  Papa-san fixed bleary eyes on her and croaked out her pet name. “Mi-chan.”

  “I’m here.” Miyako knelt by his futon, noticing again how his skin looked like rice paper. How she could see every vein in his hand. “Papa-san, you’ll be so pleased. I got a special bonus at the office, and I brought us a treat. Rice and ingredients for proper miso soup. No nasty sweet potatoes tonight.”

  He grunted, then dissolved into another fit of coughing. He pressed a handkerchief to his mouth. Blood speckled the fabric.

  She felt his forehead. More feverish than ever.

  Che! Papa-san should be in the hospital. If only she could afford it. But since the Americans had discontinued his military pension and closed the veterans’ hospitals...

  She bowed twice to Tanaka-san. “Arigato. Domo arigato. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”

  “It’s nothing. I’m happy to look in when I can. I didn’t like the sound of him today, so I stayed. I tried to give him his tea, but he wouldn’t take it.”

  Miyako scowled at him. “No tea, Papa-san? How do you expect to get better, ah? You know Doctor Furuta’s instructions. And the tea would warm you—it’s so cold in here.” If only she had an extra blanket. She slipped off her coat and bent to place it on him. Tucked the wool, soft with wear, around him, then stood and took a poker to the embers in the brazier.

  She turned to find his eyes on her. Her nerves always jangled with anxiety when he looked at her that way. Had she fixed her smeared lipstick?

  He could not know how she kept them in rent money. It would shame him to the core. Children had been disowned for less, and he might be stubborn enough to do it. After all the loss they’d suffered together, the thought of somehow going on without him was the most heartbreaking of all.

  “I’m sorry it’s so cold in here,” Tanaka-san said. “I didn’t have any coal I could spare, Mi-chan.”

  “Don’t mention it. You’ve done so much.” She rummaged in the grocery bag and pulled out a small sack of rice. “I brought you something too.”

  “From your special bonus, ah?”

  Miyako supposed Tanaka-san couldn’t help the wry tone in her voice, or the way her eyes lingered on Miyako’s tight skirt and snug sweater. Not the attire of an office lady.

  Miyako’s eyes sank to the floor. She often wondered whether the story she spun about her office job really fooled her sharp-eyed neighbor.

  “Well.” Tanaka-san’s voice sounded strained. “We’re very grateful. We go through our ration so quickly.” Tanaka-san shifted on the cushion and gave Miyako a pointed stare. “Are you going back out tonight?”

  Thursday. Her stomach twisted. She couldn’t stand the idea of leaving Papa-san so sick, but her best client, George-san, had her booked on Thursday nights. She had no way to reach him, and with rent due in two days, she couldn’t miss this date.

  “I almost forgot. My turn on the graveyard shift.” She dropped to her knees next to Papa-san. “I’m so sorry, Papa-san. You know I wouldn’t leave you tonight if I didn’t have to.” She looked at Tanaka-san. “If you could...”

  The lady’s eyes narrowed, but she gave Miyako a grim nod. “Hai. I’ll stop by after dinner.”

  “Domo arigato, Tanaka-san. Papa-san and I are deeply in your debt.”

  Tanaka-san sighed. “Happy to help where I can, of course. But I’d better get home to my own family now.”

  Miyako thanked her again and bowed her out of the room. She slid the door closed behind her and turned to Papa-san with a deep sigh. “So. How’s your chest?”

  “Not good. It hurts.”

  She pulled the handkerchief from his fingers and examined it. Splotches of greenish-grey phlegm joined streaks of blood. She pinned him with a stare. “You didn’t tell me you’ve been coughing up that stuff again.”

  A reluctant nod. His simple cotton housecoat had slipped off his bony shoulder, revealing a purplish patch of mottled skin. “What’s that on your shoulder? Did you hurt yourself?”

  “What? No. Stop your infernal fussing.” He clawed the housecoat back into place.

  She studied him, biting at her lip. That frail hand with its papery skin. She’d seen another like it earlier that evening. Dirt-encrusted knuckles clenching a worn captain’s uniform.

  What separated Papa-san from that beggar shivering on the pavement? She did. Nothing else. Leaving him for the night was hard enough. How could she risk being torn from him forever?

  Her first obligation was to the living. Hiro-chan would understand that, yes?

  A pair of spent incense sticks stood in a small glass holder on a shelf along the back wall—what passed now for their family altar. She looked at it and winced. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t discuss the gaijin flyer with him. Couldn’t ask for his direction when she already knew what he would say.

  She whispered to the ancestors, “Please pardon me.” Then, putting on the most cheerful face she could muster, she scooped up the bag of groceries. “I’ll go start our soup. And make your tea. That will help.” She collected her teakettle and the tin of dried herbs Dr. Furuta had prescribed and left for the kitchen downstairs.

  She had the room to herself—a relief since she was in no mood for neighbor women with their judgments. Or their chatter about husbands and children while she made a scant meal for two.

  She filled the teakettle from the stained sink and placed it on a burner. Measured the herbs into the pot: green tea, kudzu, hawthorn, turmeric. The herbal prescription wasn’t cheap. Her belly cried and her feet ached, but she worked carefully so she wouldn’t spill a speck.

  The music across the alley cranked up again. It was louder here than in the foyer.

  She raked and folded the rice until the water ran clear. Put the pot on the burner, took the spear of dried seaweed from its newspaper wrapping—

  And stared. Delham’s eyes met hers from the newsprint. The same photo as on the brochure. Destiny had put her brother’s murderer in front of her twice within an hour. What were the odds?

  This wasn’t chance. This was a m
essage.

  A tremor started somewhere above her wrist and moved through her fingers. Delham was coming within her reach, perhaps only this once. This was an opportunity to make her pathetic life count for something. To accomplish something noteworthy for the Matsuura name. An engraved invitation to greatness. Was she the kind of woman who’d turn it down?

  The music segued to a new piece with a driving bass beat.

  This thing had to be Papa-san’s choice. She needed to put it to him. If he asked her to do it, she’d find a way to drive it forward, inexorable as the bass beat pulsing through the floor.

  She carried the tea upstairs to their apartment. She poured it into a chipped cup, her hand so steady it surprised her. She stirred in a few drops of pungent oil to complete the prescription and brought the strong-scented cup to his lips.

  He made a face, but he drank, fixing red-rimmed eyes on her over the cup. “Arigato, daughter. How was the factory today, ah?”

  “It was fine. Orders are steady.”

  She turned from him and rummaged in the sack for the brochure. “I have something you need to hear, Papa-san. It’s important.”

  He listened well, looking more and more agitated as she read the Doolittle flyer’s words. “This gaijin bombed Osaka?”

  “Hai.”

  He lifted himself on a frail elbow. “So, the man who slaughtered my second son, ah?” A beat passed while he absorbed this. “He’ll be here next week?”

  “Hai.”

  “This is it, Mi-chan. Our opportunity. The one we’ve burned incense for.” He tried to push off the futon but collapsed again, coughing phlegm.

  She found a clean handkerchief and dabbed at his mouth. “Papa-san, you must be careful.”

  He rested a long moment, eyelids screwed shut, breathing labored. When he looked at her, his eyes were moist. “I wish Akira-kun weren’t...”

  At rest? With the ancestors? This was the first time he’d expressed regret at his firstborn son’s glorious death at sea—defending Japan during the raid that slaughtered his youngest. It was the first time he’d given voice to anything other than fierce pride that Akira-san’s life ended so early. Ended in a way that would surely see his spirit enshrined among Japan’s great heroes. She veiled her surprise. “Shh, Papa-san.”

  “So it’s you and me, Mi-chan. We two”—he took a shallow breath—“must not pause...”

  She finished the proverb for him. “...even to retrieve our weapons.” She knew it well. Confucius’ Five Classics, on the urgent duty to avenge a brother.

  If Papa-san had breath to speak, she knew he’d go on from there. She’d hear again how even women could achieve lasting glory for their families and themselves. He’d remind her of Yamaji, the handmaid who avenged her noble mistress after the lady had been forced to commit seppuku. Or the farmer’s daughters of Sendai, another famous pair.

  He no longer had the energy. “I’d take this on for you, Mi-chan,” he said in a rasping voice. “You’re no warrior, ah? But look at me.” A cough shook him.

  She wedged an arm under his neck and lifted his head and shoulders. “Shh, Papa.”

  His shoulders heaved two or three times. A moment passed before he was able to speak. “It’s all up to you, daughter.”

  “I know.” She glanced at the family altar. The firestorms may have consumed the warlike old portraits that once graced it in their ornate silver frames. But she didn’t need photos to sense the count and the general nodding their agreement.

  Something in her started to go soft as plum paste. “But Papa-san, what about you? What happens when—”

  He reached out to grasp her arm. “You won’t have to worry about me much longer.”

  “Don’t say that.” She forced the words around the thick spot in her throat. “You’re going to get better.”

  Neither of them believed it.

  Miyako hated herself for doing it, but at 7:45, she gave Papa-san one last tuck and forced herself to get ready. She picked out fresh clothes—a snug skirt and a fetching beaded sweater—and headed for the bathroom shared by the apartments on the fourth floor.

  She shimmied into the sweater, then pulled several bobby pins off the card. She clenched them between her teeth, took a lock of hair that framed her face, and twisted it around two fingers.

  She caught her own gaze in the mirror. Were those the eyes of an assassin?

  A week from Sunday, she’d know. If they weren’t the eyes of an assassin, they’d be the eyes of a failure—and a fool. A weak woman who betrayed her ancient bloodline, allowing it to die out in shame.

  But how to carry out the thing?

  She let out a long breath. It did nothing to loosen the coils of tension twined around her chest.

  She pinned the twisted hair along the crown of her head, doing her best to keep it a smooth roll. Papa-san’s words circled through her mind. We two can’t pause to retrieve our weapons.

  “What weapons, Papa-san?” she whispered at the mirror.

  The sisters of Sendai were Papa-san’s favorite example. But those girls had formidable help. Their samurai master gave them secret lessons in swordplay. Somehow, Miyako had been too busy scrabbling for rent money to perfect her skills with a katana. Nor did they own one now—she’d sold Papa-san’s heirloom weapon to pay Doctor Furuta.

  She opened her box of face powder and patted it on, building up the layers.

  How many days did she and Papa-san have to work out their plan? Seven to next Thursday, then three to Sunday night. Ten.

  Finally, lipstick. A fashionable blood red. She scooped up her coat and gloves and started out.

  Jiro. She was halfway down the stairs when it occurred to her she might encounter the boy in the alley again. The one who’d all but stopped her heart by reminding her so much of Hiro-chan. She turned and retraced her steps.

  Papa-san snored gently on his futon. She studied him, at peace for once, then gazed around the tiny room. She’d laid out her futon next to his so it would be ready when she came home. There was barely space to walk around them.

  That room contained all that was left to them. The firestorms had taken everything else.

  Everything.

  Still, it was better than any home Jiro had. Even if she did have to feed Papa-san sweet potatoes when she couldn’t afford rice. As long as she could be there for him, it was home enough.

  How much longer will that be?

  She took a sharp breath, then pushed the question from her mind. She pulled one of the hated sweet potatoes from the grocery bag, wrapped it in a scrap of cotton, and slipped it in her coat pocket. For Jiro.

  She reached the alley where she had met the boy and paused, searching the shadows for a glimpse of him. She even walked a few paces in. “Jiro?”

  No one there. The desolation she’d been holding back broke over her like a storm surge. She’d missed six years of love and laughter since they’d put the ashes of Hiro-chan’s broken body in the family grave.

  She turned from the alley, blinking away tears.

  Hiro-chan’s spirit cried from the heavens for relief. Papa-san’s would join him soon. This was worth any sacrifice she had to make.

  Chapter Four

  Saturday 18 April 1942

  Jiangxi Province, China

  Forty minutes—and about eighty precious gallons of fuel—after they missed Choo Chow Lishui, Dave’s headphones crackled to life. Smith reported from the greenhouse nosecone. “There’s a town down there, sir.”

  Vitty went at it again with the distress signal. “Mayday. Mayday.”

  A moment later Dave saw it too. A spray of lights peeping through the overcast in front of them. He looked over at his copilot. “This one better come with a landing strip. We’re out of time.”

  He yelled over his shoulder, “Where are we, Vitty?”

  “Somewhere near Nanchang, sir. Which means we’re still over Jap-occupied territory.” He gave the words “Jap-occupied territory” extra emphasis, as if he thought Dave might not c
atch the import.

  Watt arched an eyebrow at him. “We need confirmation we’ve got friendlies down there. Unless you like the idea of Japs all over us in a Yankee minute.”

  Dave snorted. “Vitty doesn’t know where we are. If he did, we’d have found Lishui.”

  “I reckon his guess is better than ours.”

  “I’m not so sure.” He pushed his aircraft into a screaming bank. “I do not want to ditch Payback.”

  She was his first command. And from the day they gave him his pilot-in-command stamp, he knew he was born for that left seat. If he lost Payback, would they find him another plane? “She’s been a trooper, and she still has plenty of fight in her.”

  They circled the town. The plane’s angling made the spray of lights swing in the dark below them, but there was no runway. No sign of an airfield.

  Vitty reported from behind him. “Still nothing, sir. Not a thing.”

  Watt leaned toward him. “We’ve got a few more minutes, Delham. Then we ditch, or Payback takes us right down with her.”

  There was no denying the man was right. “All right, Lieutenant. What do you say? Ten more minutes?”

  Watt’s eyes wandered to the fuel gauge. “Five.”

  “Five, then.”

  Watt gave him a grim nod. His lips moved again in silent, but clearly earnest, prayer. Of course it made no difference. The storm kept them socked in, knocking them around the sky, with little visibility below. Dave descended as low as he dared, given the uncertainty of the terrain, but he couldn’t get beneath the clouds.

  Five minutes crawled past. And still somehow ended too soon, with nothing looking any different.

  Watt fixed his eyes on him, resignation etched across his features. “That’s it.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “You giving that order or not?”