Brave Story

by Miyuki Miyabe

  He clapped his hands together, as if making a grand realization, then, looking up at the sky, Mitsuru began to laugh. Wataru stared at him, wideeyed. He’s crazy, and I’m getting mad.

  “What do you want with me?” Wataru asked. “Why do you always make fun of me?”

  Mitsuru, still chuckling, folded his arms again. He shook his head. “I never made fun of you.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “When?”

  “The other day. When I asked you about the ghost picture.”

  “Oh, that?” Mitsuru nodded. “Well, what you were saying didn’t make any sense. Sure, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. Yutaro said you weren’t a dummy, but when I talked to you, well, you seemed a little childish. It was funny.”

  “Then again,” he added, “Yutaro’s a bit childish himself.”

  Something about that made the bile rise in Wataru’s throat. He stood up from the bench. “Yutaro’s a good guy!”

  Mitsuru was still smiling. “Who said he wasn’t?”

  “You just said he was childish!”

  “Well, it’s true. Being childish isn’t bad, you know. Why, if it was, kindergartens would be the most evil places around!”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous.”

  “Oh? Is that what mommy and daddy say when they scold you?”

  “Mommy” and “daddy” were the last words Wataru wanted to hear that day. Mitsuru’s way of saying them only made it worse.

  “What do you know about my parents?” Wataru flew at Mitsuru. He swung a fist with all his strength and hit only air. The momentum sent him sprawling to the ground.

  Mitsuru stood with the tips of his sneakers directly in front of Wataru’s face. From this angle, Wataru could see how scruffy the shoes were. For a moment he wondered why this otherwise perfect guy chose to wear such cruddy old sneakers. But now was hardly the time to ask.

  Something had caught him in the stomach, and he couldn’t stand. He managed to lift his head and look up at his adversary. Mitsuru was no longer smiling.

  “Stay out of my way. You annoy me.”

  Then, in his calm voice from before, “I don’t have time to hang out with happy-go-lucky kids.”

  Happy-go-lucky? Who’s happy-go-lucky? Who’s a kid?

  If Wataru hadn’t heard him say that, it probably would have ended there. Mitsuru wasn’t his friend, like Katchan. He wasn’t a good guy, like Yutaro. Why should he tell him anything?

  But now, he had to. He lifted his face, grimy with the dirt of the temple grounds, and spat, “That’s my line. I’m not happy-go-lucky enough to hang out with a happy-go-lucky kid like you.”

  Mitsuru raised his eyebrows exaggeratedly. “Oh? That’s a surprise.”

  “Shut up!” Wataru put his hands on the ground and somehow managed to sit up. The side of his mouth tingled as though it had been cut. “You talk all cool, and look all cool, but you don’t know a thing. You don’t know…you know nothing about me. My dad left us last night, okay? So I’m not—I’m not what you—happy-go-lucky—I’m not a kid. Okay?”

  Wataru’s fatigue and overwhelming sense of defeat caught the words in his throat.

  “Left?” Mitsuru asked, calm as ever. “You mean he divorced your mom?”

  “Yeah. What else does it mean?”

  “So what?”

  The words hit Wataru like a pile driver.

  “Wha…”

  “I said so what. It’s only a divorce.”

  I don’t believe it.

  “He left me and my mom, he left us!”

  “And? You think being all sad and crying like that is going to help you find someone else to pick up the pieces?” Mitsuru scoffed. “Well, come to think of it, it might be one strategy.”

  Wataru was speechless.

  “In fact,” the boy continued in a conversational tone, “It might be a fitting strategy for you and your mom. People will sympathize. Yeah, they’ll come running in flocks. You’ll get so much sympathy, you won’t know what to do with it all. But you won’t get any from me.”

  Wataru merely sat, dumbfounded. He had nothing to say, no ready retort.

  Mitsuru looked at him for a moment, then looked aside, and glared at the ground. “Stay away from the building next door. It sounds like you’ve got enough on your hands. Just worry about that for a while. I live near here, so I’ll know if you’re hanging around. Got it?”

  Even after Mitsuru left, Wataru lingered at the shrine. It felt like some thing was sitting atop his shoulders, weighing him down so that he couldn’t stand. Maybe it’s a huge pile of trash. Debris from a world destroyed. Even when the whole world comes apart, somebody has to clean it up. Someone has to call the waste management company, get them to send out a truck. Somehow, he felt that no one would take on this particular job.

  “Hey, you there,” an old man called out. Wataru glanced over to see the shrine priest approaching. He was wearing the same outfit he always wore at the annual shrine New Year’s celebration: a white kimono with a light green hakama skirt. His hair was white. “What’s the matter? Did you fall?”

  Wataru was covered in dirt.

  “You’re bleeding! Are you on your way home from school? Did you get into a fight?”

  The priest came over and kneeled down next to him. “Are you alone?” he asked. Looking at the nameplate on his school bag, the priest continued, “Mitani? Eh… Wataru Mitani?”

  “Yes, that’s me,” said Wataru. “Say, can I ask you a question?”

  “Yes?”

  “This is a shrine, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “There are gods at a shrine, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You pray to the gods, right?”

  “I pray and I honor them, yes.”

  “What do the gods do when you pray?”

  The priest gave him a curious look.

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “I just do,” Wataru said roughly. “Because, the way I see it the gods are lazy.”

  The priest seemed at a loss for words.

  Wataru spit. His knee was hurting, but he didn’t care anymore. “How can someone who hasn’t done anything wrong be so unlucky? The gods must be lazy. They don’t care. Why pray to gods like that?”

  Standing, Wataru picked up his bag and ran. The priest of Mihashi Shrine looked after him, a worried expression on his face. Wataru never saw it. He never looked back.

  When he got home, Kuniko was there waiting for him. As soon as he walked through the front door she began to cry. This was real. It wasn’t a dream. He wouldn’t wake up. It wouldn’t go away. He saw his mother’s tears, and everything was painfully clear. Wataru would never cry again. He turned to stone—a little stone in the shape of a boy.

  Chapter 9

  Enter the Tank

  On Sunday, Grandma came up from Chiba.

  She didn’t ring the doorbell, but instead kicked loudly at the door with her foot.

  “Wataru!” she shouted. “I’m so sorry! It must have been a horrible shock for you when your father did what he did. But I’m here now, so everything is going to be all right. Don’t you worry about a thing. Is Kuniko here?” she asked, the words coming in a rush as she let herself in and took off her shoes. When Wataru’s mother stuck her head in from the living room, she received another shout. “Kuniko!”

  “What in the world is going on? My heart nearly stopped when I heard the news. Where is my fool of a son? I’ll find him and pick him up by the neck and drag him back kicking and screaming if I have to. Tell me where he’s gone.”

  “Mrs. Mitani…” Kuniko breathed, her shoulders slumping, looking more moved than happy. “Thanks for coming.”

  Kuniko stepped forward and took the bags from her mother-in-law. Wataru noticed that his grandmother’s face was bright red, and blue veins were standing out by her temples. She was in full-tilt anger mode.

  “Here I was thinking that Akira had finally decided to settle down and become a decent p
erson for a change, and there he goes again. Only now do I realize how remiss I was in raising my sons. One a vagrant over forty and still not married, and the other an incorrigible womanizer!”

  “Um…Mrs. Mitani,” Kuniko said, with a look at Wataru. Wataru was standing with his eyes opened wide, looking at his grandmother.

  “Of course, it’s not the kind of talk for a child’s ears to be hearing,” his grandma said in a loud voice, “but, Kuniko, you have to understand…”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Mitani.” Kuniko turned to Wataru. “Wataru, why don’t you go get breakfast at McDonald’s. You could invite Katsumi, if you like.”

  Wataru headed out the door, a crisp ¥1,000 bill in his hand. His head was spinning. It felt like a tornado had come through their house, leaving it in shambles, and while they were standing there, just starting to wonder how they were going to pick up the pieces, a tank had come crashing through their door.

  Wataru went down the stairs outside their apartment, and saw his uncle running up from the parking lot. Wataru called to him from the landing and his uncle stopped and waved—panting to catch his breath. “I came with your grandmother, but she got out of the car while I was looking for a space to park. I had to run to catch up with her!”

  Wataru sat down with Satoru on a bench in front of the apartment complex. His uncle was dripping with sweat. He looked pale.

  “After you went to school yesterday, I went home. When I told your grandmother what had happened, she demanded to leave for Tokyo immediately. We had to find someone at the last minute to watch the shop, and we left this morning before the sun came up.”

  “You look exhausted, Uncle Lou.”

  “You think? You don’t look so well yourself, Wataru.”

  Uncle Lou wiped his face with a handkerchief, and finally relaxed. “You okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I don’t blame you. Doesn’t make any sense. I would be surprised if you told me you were okay.”

  “Say,” Wataru said looking up. “Grandma called Dad a womanizer. What does that mean?”

  Uncle Lou looked like he had swallowed something bitter. “There she goes, blabbing about things she shouldn’t be talking about.”

  “Is Dad with another woman?”

  Satoru scrunched his handkerchief into a ball, and wiped his nose again.

  “Do you even know what that means?”

  “I think I do.”

  “You sure?”

  “I’ve watched Mom’s soap operas.”

  “Hmm. I guess you would have. Of course, that’s about all they do on television.”

  His uncle crossed his thick arms. Wataru did the same.

  “Did you talk with your mother yet? What did she say?”

  “She said she had a fight with Dad. And then she told me he was leaving for a while to get his head screwed on tight. There was no need to worry, she said. He would be home to patch things up soon.”

  “So, she didn’t say anything about a divorce?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “You didn’t tell her that we talked to your dad on Friday night when I brought you home?”

  “I did…but I didn’t tell her Dad said anything about a divorce.” Because I couldn’t say it. “Because I thought it would make her feel sad.”

  “Why’s that, Wataru?”

  “Because…it doesn’t sound like he’s thinking about changing his mind at all. But Mom thinks he might come back. For sure.”

  Uncle Lou nodded. “That’s probably true. And that’s all she said—that she and your dad were just fighting?”

  It was all so sudden, she had howled, wringing her frizzled hair.

  “Akira has always been that way. He keeps what he thinks to himself, and only says the bare minimum. It drives me crazy. Even the most important things he decides all by himself.”

  It was unusual for Wataru’s uncle to call his brother by his first name. When talking to Wataru, he always used “your father.” Wataru’s mom was the same way. Always “your father,” never his name. Wataru had the impression that, when you grew up, that’s the way the world worked. Everyone called each other by their role, never by their name.

  For adults, responsibilities and roles were more important than who they were. That was why Wataru did not want to grow up. It was so much easier being a kid. Free.

  “So, about your question,” Uncle Lou asked, looking at Wataru’s eyes. “What would you do if your dad loved another woman?”

  “What do you mean ‘if’? Isn’t that why Grandma’s so mad?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does Dad want to marry her?”

  “Get married?? Isn’t once enough?”

  “Say, why aren’t you married? I’ve always wondered about that.”

  Uncle Lou’s eyes went wide. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Everything, thought Wataru. What was marriage? Why did grown-ups get married? Why did they want to get married again, when they had already been married before? What made them want to do that?

  “Well, for one thing, I’m not very good with the ladies.”

  “Really? But there are lots of people uglier than you that get married…”

  His uncle smiled wryly. “You don’t go easy on a guy, do you?”

  Then, as an afterthought, he said, “I think it’s because I’m probably a coward.”

  “A coward? Does that mean you’re scared?”

  “That’s what it means.”

  “But that can’t be true. You’re brave. You’ve even saved so many people’s lives.”

  “That’s a different kind of bravery. Totally different.”

  Then he rapped Wataru on the head with his knuckles. “I’m just afraid that, if I got married, something like this would happen. That’s what scares me. That’s why I’m not married.”

  “‘Something like this’?”

  “I mean this—what’s happening right now.” He lifted his hands in a big sweeping motion. “Please don’t make me explain it.”

  “You mean like someone else?”

  “Yeah…but, Wataru, that’s not the only reason why some marriages fail. That’s not the only thing your mother and father have done wrong.”

  “Really?”

  Wataru asked a question that had been lingering in the back of his head ever since his father had walked out.

  “Then, it has something to do with me too?”

  Satoru stiffened noticeably.

  “Maybe I wasn’t a good enough kid, maybe that’s why my dad left.”

  Uncle Lou began rubbing his hands furiously through his hair. “Why is it always this way? I dig my own grave every time. I always say the wrong thing. Man, I’m so dumb.” He sounded as if he were on the verge of tears.

  “Uncle Lou…”

  “You haven’t done anything wrong, Wataru. Not a single thing. Your father’s the one who’s wrong here. Saying what he likes, walking out on you. The way he tried to leave was cowardly too. Trying to sneak away while you were out with me.”

  If I’m not bad, that means Dad is the bad one. He’s the coward. If I’m not bad, and my dad’s not bad, I guess that would make Mom the bad one. If neither of us is bad, then the one who’s bad is…the one who’s bad is…

  “Damn it! Who is this woman, anyway?” Uncle Lou spat, trying to get the taste of frustration out of his mouth. “I’d like to see her face. Then I’d like to hit it, really hard.”

  I know. She’s the bad one. The other woman.

  As they sat there in a daze, Wataru’s grandmother came hustling over from the elevator lobby. His mother was right behind her.

  “Mrs. Mitani, please, wait!”

  She was running and shouting at the top of her lungs. Wataru’s grandmother didn’t stop. Her round little body ran so fast it was like she was rolling. “Satoru! What are you doing just sitting there? Come on! Get the car! We’re leaving.”

  Uncle Lou stood up.

  “Leaving? Where?”

 
“As if you didn’t know! We’re going to talk to that fool, Akira. I’m going to dump a bucket of water over his head, and bring him home.”

  “I’d love to see you do that, but that won’t change a thing. We have to reason with him calmly.”

  Grandma roared, spitting fire from her mouth. “‘Reason’? I’ll show you reason! Chasing other women, leaving his wife—LEAVING HIS CHILD. That’s no son of mine!”

  “Mrs. Mitani…” Kuniko knelt before her mother-in-law. “The whole neighborhood can hear you. Please, be quiet.”

  Grandma got even madder—and louder. “Who cares what they hear? This is no time to be worried about appearances. You’ve always been that way, Kuniko. What do you care about privacy or propriety now? Do you even understand that you’ve been dumped? Can you just stand there and let some strange woman drag your husband into her bed!”

  “Mom!” Uncle Lou shouted. Stars flashed before Wataru’s eyes.

  Chasing other women—dragged into her bed?

  “Don’t speak that way to your mother!” Grandma was unstoppable. “Look at you, you’re as big as they come, and every pound of flesh on your bones is completely useless. Why didn’t you stop him when he was leaving?”

  Some people stuck their heads out over the veranda to get a better view of the unfolding family drama. His mother was crouched on the ground, holding her head in her hands. She was crying.

  “Mom, drop it for now, okay?”

  Uncle Lou grabbed his mother’s shoulders firmly, but when he saw the look in her eyes, he released her from his grip.

  “No good will come from hashing this out here in public.” Uncle Lou’s voice was kind. “Think of Kuniko and Wataru. We’ll go back to the hotel for now.”

  “I’m going to get Akira,” Grandma said stubbornly.

  “I’ll make sure that happens. Trust me, okay?”