by Meira Chand
With appropriate noises and more fussings, Geraldine left the orphanage, waving a hand from her car. Sister Elaine looked meaningfully at Eva.
‘I’ll go,’ Eva replied.
He had shut himself into a second floor storeroom. There were no locks on the door, and he had kicked Yoshiko Mori, who followed him into the room, tearing open the delicate skin of her shin. Even in the dark of the windowless space, his eyes were black as polished beans. In the bony sunken face Eva saw desperation, and knew he prayed as he picked his nose, crouching in the corner. Nothing would work but strategy, so she bustled in boldly and gave him a smile, and opened the cupboard above him wide.
‘Clever boy. How did you know you were supposed to come here, that this was the first place I would bring you? For they didn’t send much with you from Osaka, I expect they knew they were not your permanent home. You have had quite a number of homes, haven’t you? But here it will be different. This is your real home, and we shall be your family. The first thing we give you are some nice new clothes.’
He crouched, terrified, and did not move. He was a big, strong boy and looked older than his age, standing taller than the other children.
‘Now, this is one of the boys’ store cupboards. This side are T-shirts and this side are shorts. Everyone chooses their own things, what they like best. You may have three of each for everyday, to begin with. There will be something smarter for when you go out.’
He threw her a derisive look, but his eyes ran over the folded garments.
‘For your underwear and pyjamas there is not much choice. I’m sure you won’t mind. It’s all nice and new, but in another room. I’ll get those while you choose from this cupboard.’ Without a look she left him, switching on the light as she turned out of the room.
In the beginning, she remembered, it had taken so long with Akiko too. And there had been the same measured look in her eyes, the same terror jousting there. So that now such a look never roused Eva, but stilled her, and made her patience endless. Akiko too had run agitatedly backwards and forwards, her face smudged by fear and tears. But when she saw there was no escape, no hope, she became passive and would not eat. The third day it rained and rained, and in that deluge she had disappeared. Eva found her at last, sodden, awash with tears and rain, her voice worn thin by a darkness too dense to comprehend. Eva had carried her home, peeled off the wet clothes, wrapped the child in a blanket and sat her by an oil stove. The grey wet light of the room flickered and warmed and gave itself up to the glowing wick. And caught in that light the child’s soft skin was the petal of a small pink bud. Her eyes gleamed; painful and resonant in the tracery of her tiny face.
Her own. The thought had filled Eva. Her own. She knew it then, and bent to kiss the child’s hot skin. And at that moment in the firelight of the room it seemed they stared at each other out of a common emotion. But still it had taken much time before the child did not recoil, until there had been no more between them than a membrane of intuition. Her own.
Kenichi jumped at the sound of Eva’s step. His arms flailed above his head, trapped in the stubborn sleeves of a shirt, until Eva pulled it down. His hair was ruffled askew, then sprang again to its solid shape, like rice stubble after a harvest. He wrenched himself free, glowered and poked a finger up his nostril.
She had seen him first in the Osaka orphanage. ‘He’ll have to move on. It’s your turn to try,’ the Mother Superior regretfully stated. ‘It’s not often we fail, but we have so many here we simply haven’t the time he needs. But I must warn you, he is such a strong child physically, he inflicts quite a punch in a fight, as we know to our detriment.’
He had sat at a low table, no other child near him. The rest were in easy groups, thumbing comics, crunching rice crackers, absorbed in a battered, flickering TV, all except Kenichi. His exclusion was clearly upon his own terms. Hunched above the table, he glued matchsticks doggedly into the lines of an obscure shape. All his will and need lay curved in the line of his backbone. Eva looked at the mute bodies of the other children and felt instinctively, in this one child, a strange and angular agony the others did not have. If only she could reach it. Remembering now, Eva observed him silently, as he faced her grimly from his corner.
‘Is that the only T-shirt you want?’ She looked at his ribs, now emblazoned with a racing car. They had told her about him. He had survived a family suicide, several years before. His father went bankrupt and to save his honour shuttered the house, and turned on the gas. They still happened often in Japan, this kind of suicide. At first they thought Kenichi too was dead, stretched out beside his brothers. Instead he survived, the only one; they left him with his memories. And they blazed before him now, turning his eyes to a mackerel gleam. Eva approached him.
‘Shall we choose some others?’ But he shrank back to a small tight ball in the corner, crouched into the seams of the room. She knelt before him.
‘Or we can do it another time. We do not make you do anything here you do not want to.’ She said it gently and saw he was nonplussed. But his stance was already set. He sprang up and, pushing past her, ran from the room. She heard his feet spill down the stairs. From the window of the corridor she saw him emerge into the playground below, and settle to a lonely exile.
11
Sister Elaine closed her copy of St Augustine’s City of God, and replaced it on the shelf in her room, bare but for a bottle of cough mixture, The Gospels and her rosary. The night was black and silent, she could not sleep. From the open window came the sound of a cricket and the occasional frog. Across the road, from Eva Kraig’s garden, drifted the scent of pink night flowers. The night, the sounds, the stillness of it all, formed a ring about her, waiting and watching, until she wanted to scream. She clenched her hands, pressing her lips together to control herself, her teeth cut into her flesh. She got up and stood by the window. Spindly iron railings gleamed in the porch light, the moon left a path across the bay, like the luminous trail of a snail. Her thoughts blurred and were tossed back upon her by the night. She feared she would not survive its judgment.
Turning from the window, she knelt beneath the crucifix on the wall above the bookshelf. But comfort did not come. God only stared at her, rigid and static, still. How long, she thought. Dear Lord, how long will you leave me like this, abandoned? Three years. Three years. How much longer can I go on?
She had been a school teacher in Ireland, not far from the town of Killarney in Kerry, where she had been born. It had not been until her late twenties that she thought of the religious life. ‘I will go unto the altar of my God. Even unto the God of my joy and my youth.’ For she was still young, still full and brimming, that first year as a postulant. The ugly clothes, the frugal life, the dishes of plain lentils and the jugs of cold water, these things she hardly noticed. The sun, from the stained glass windows of the chapel, falling mostly on aged sisters imprisoned in bathchairs, on the rheumatoid knots of praying hands, did not depress. She was young, she was full for sacrifice.
‘But we shall have to see.’ The Novice-Mistress had stared inscrutably into her face. Yet a year later she was clothed as a novice, and three years later took her vows.
‘What do you desire?’ the bishop asked her.
‘Grace and mercy,’ she replied.
She received the veil and the wedding ring and the thrice knotted girdle of poverty, chastity and obedience. And still the mysterious bliss followed her through the echoing cloisters to her barren, whitewashed room. Until one day she woke and found God observed her and turned His face away.
‘The Dark Night of the Soul,’ said the Reverend Mother in a pleasant professional tone. ‘God does not hand Himself out like a free gift in a supermarket. I suggest a reading of St Anthony.’
St Anthony, St Basil, St Wilfred of Rheims, St James, and through the Liturgy of Hours, from Lauds until Compline. But each morning saw the same gritty wind cut about her on stone floors, a thin and shabby thing.
‘Aridity,’ the Reverend Mother conce
ded. ‘A case of aridity. A common enough thing, though the symptoms are painful, and hard to bear. The blackness can be appalling, you may have to prepare for a very long time. Even I myself ... but well ... those who survive gain a purer faith. Later you may think yourself blessed.’ Her voice was small and high, her face old and finely cracked, like ancient Chinese porcelain. She leaned forward kindly in her chair. From the window a cold winter light pushed between the soft pleats of her veil.
‘More often than not there is a reason, my child. Can you find none in yourself? It would be best for you to tell me.’ Pale eyes probed gently beneath wrinkled lids.
Sister Elaine hesitated. Outside, the world was bound by snow, the tall room was icy and echoing. She examined the whitewashed bricks of a wall and fought for a way to release it. For the memories moved in her raw and warm, but sealed tight still, imprisoned in her body.
They had let her go home when her sister Irene was killed, back to the farm in Kerry. They had brought her body back from Armagh, for that they knew would be her wish, to be buried in the green and peace of Kerry. In the old stone house the three coffins crowded the small front room, filling the air with the sharp scent of wood. The small boxes of the children lay either side of Irene, all killed in the senseless blast of an IRA terrorist bomb, on an innocent morning’s shopping. Irene and the little one died outright, shredded and charred; six-year-old Tom lasted the night. They sealed the coffins immediately, for these were not bodies, simply remains.
Before the three coffins her mind had stopped. She stared at the children’s. Such little boxes, such little boxes. No other thought would come to her. And then and there the words of prayer had dried upon her lips. But the family expected the comfort of her vocation; she had offered them smooth easy phrases that helped not a single soul.
She was a twin sister, there had been that special affinity between them. Why was it not me, questioned Elaine, tossing each night in the small house they had both been born in. Sun set the gorse ablaze through the day and filled the thick green meadows. Why? Why did she take one path in life, why was I spared in another? We were born as one, we grew as one. The thoughts ran through her head, until her mind was full of holes. Part of her body seemed ripped away and sealed in the box with Irene.
‘My child?’ The old face of the Reverend Mother pulled her back to the present.
‘My sister ... you know the way she died ... and the children ... so young and innocent ... for what purpose? I cannot accept it. And every day there are more ... it’s senseless ... I ...’ She stopped, her head thumping in sudden pain, words lost in a wave of bitter feeling.
‘Ah.’ The Reverend Mother sighed, and sat back sadly in her chair. But her words of comfort and wisdom passed flatly by Sister Elaine, unfolding no new dimension. The Reverend Mother watched her closely.
‘It would be best I think to take the course of action, dramatic action and demanding work. You must go away from here. We must help the Lord to heal you.’ She nodded under the cold light of the window.
And soon they had sent her here to Japan, and after six months in the Osaka mission, to Eva Kraig and St Christopher’s in Kobe. She had felt the Reverend Mother’s unseen sympathy, felt the support and taken new heart. And briefly there was an easing. Then the darkness once more engulfed her and lived with her day and night.
Now, in her small room in the orphanage, she dug the knuckles of her hands into her aching forehead. The seam of a floorboard pressed into her knee.
‘Dear God. Dear God ...’
But only the black angry eyes of the new child, Kenichi, glittered in her mind. She saw Eva Kraig’s smooth, fair-minded face taking its rational decisions, and the anger rose to her throat and struck like clappers in her mind. So that she trembled, her locked knuckles white with tension.
‘Please God. Please God, not this ...’
12
Eva Kraig took down the pillow book of the courtesan Sei Shonagon, and read idly its quaint lists of tenth century charm.
‘Unsuitable things: A woman with ugly hair wearing a robe of white damask. Ugly writing on red paper. Snow on the houses of common people. This is especially regrettable when the moonlight shines upon it.’
But the words only slipped before her and did not amuse. For her mind was still full of the morning’s reflection, a blade of light that slit the darkness of the night. She could not sleep, but sat in the chair listlessly turning pages.
‘Very dirty things: Slugs. The lacquer bowls in the Imperial Palace.’
She closed the book. Across the road in the orphanage the light in Sister Elaine’s room still burned. But about Eva the sleeping house made no sound. In the black night sky of the window she saw only the sinuous expression that had been in Kyo’s eyes. She put her head in her hands then, and thought of all the tomorrows.
It was no use, she could not sleep, she turned restlessly in bed. From far away the faint sound of the sea came to her, carried on the night. She got up and went downstairs. The house lay quiet about her. The moon sent long shadows off the trees across the deserted road outside and traced with grey light the graining of the corridor. The boards beneath her creaked. But the light was already on in the kitchen, filling the glass panes of the sliding door. Akiko sat at the table with a mug of hot milk and a biscuit.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said, but offered no reason.
‘Neither can I.’ Eva poured milk into a small pan, and when it had warmed sat down by Akiko. They did not speak, each involved with their thoughts; the woman, Kyo, lay heavy between them, unknown to each other.
Eva remembered then another night long before, when the old dog, Shiro, died. And the child would not sleep, but came down in the night, and Eva found her, distraught, beside the basket.
‘He won’t wake up. Is he dead? Is he dead?’ Akiko had sobbed. Eva covered the basket with a cloth and took the child on her lap, searching for a way to make death acceptable. The sob and tremble of the child’s body upset her deeply. She could not bear to see the hurt in Akiko’s eyes, and more than the hurt, the loss. For it was in that state the child had come to her, it was the first expression Eva had seen on her face. She had wished to protect her from it always. Now she feared the blood mother Akiko would regain would bring only a greater loss. Eva had not the courage to ask about the letter. She held the warm milk on her tongue and did not look at Akiko.
How can I tell her, thought Akiko, for her mind and spirit were torn in two. Across the table Eva sipped from the mug of milk. Whatever her thoughts, they lay hidden behind the calm exterior of her grey eyes, the serenity of her expression was rarely disturbed except by the warmth of her smile. But her eyes could read a silence, though her mind resisted as always quick judgments, assessing things clearly. Few people did not respond to her with liking or respect. Released from the severity of its daytime coil, her hair was gathered softly at her neck. Akiko watched and paused in the constriction of her own narrow thoughts, feeling a sudden rush of warmth. Without Eva, she knew, her life would have been a very different affair. The continuity, security and love Eva had always offered, would not have been found with the woman who now claimed to be her mother. She knew it instinctively. It was the touch of Eva’s love that had shaped her life so surely. She knew it and was grateful. And yet, the need to know more about her blood mother consumed her.
Twice, when she was a child, Eva had gone to America, and Akiko stayed in the orphanage. But each day she crept back to the house and stared through a window at the silent room inside, thick with an unfamiliar stillness. It was filled with Eva’s absence. She had never forgotten that dead look of the house without Eva. It had terrified her.
And again, the day after her tenth birthday, they had walked along the narrow beach, searching for sculptured driftwood and shells. They had gone a long way before climbing up to the road, and Eva had tripped there, falling back, hitting her head on some rocks. She lay unconscious, and terror filled Akiko. She is dead, she thought, and the world had stop
ped about her. Running to the nearest house, she brought them back to Eva. But she had known in that moment the depth of her love for Eva; no one could take her place. And yet now, the need to know her true origins devoured her, whatever it might bring.
‘Come, we had better go up,’ Eva said, standing. But at the door Akiko turned suddenly to hug her, feeling the comfort of Eva’s body, as she had when a child. Words of affection and gratitude came to her, but she could not form them. ‘Thank you for everything, always.’ It was all she could say.
‘Akiko.’
In the dark kitchen they stood still and close, unable to put into words the love that enveloped them both.
13. Friday
Arthur turned up the music. I shall not be defeatist, he thought. I shall not give in to negative thoughts.
‘One two. One two. A little more stretch, Mrs Greenly. Swing to the left, Mrs Dent. Lower, Mrs Tanaka.’ He roared to the Friday morning keep fit class he organised for the club. For immediately after they retired him at Murdoch and Hack, he sought to expand his numerous interests to pack the empty day.
‘Up down. Right left.’ He swung his arms about, feeling the flex of his own pliant muscles. The thin hard drop of piano notes filled the ballroom of the club and sweat trickled comfortingly down Arthur’s back. He always welcomed the issue of sweat, like a physical manna given up by his body in thanks for the care he relentlessly gave it. The more he sweated the more satisfied he felt, the more right seemed the day with himself, especially now in retirement. The daily servicing of his body had become the obsession of these six months. A day of missed exercise and depression descended.
He had come early that morning to the club, and in spite of the sudden change in weather, enjoyed his swim in a deserted pool and the spotting of rain on his already wet flesh. He swam sixteen lengths, then strode in for the class, light and fresh in T-shirt and shorts. He was proud of a physique younger men would envy. During warming-up exercise he surveyed the young women, over-fleshed and flabby muscled, and felt suitably superior. But he enjoyed the class.