Hopeful Monsters

by Hiromi Goto

  A waft of mould, incense. She practically smacked into the stranger’s back.

  “Oh!” Emiko clucked. She glanced up. Who could possibly be walking more slowly than she was?

  The figure was bundled overly-warm for chinook weather. An industrial work coat with a fake wool collar was pulled high around the neck and chin. The person trudged, back slightly bent, hands crammed into deep pockets. A red-brown toque over coarse grey hair. Walking stiffly, with slightly bowed legs, crab-like, her steps were quick and jerky. Oddly, she didn’t seem to cover much ground.

  Her, Emiko thought, though nothing would give any clue to the person’s sex. The clothes looked mannish, but the bow-legged steps reminded Emiko of her aging mother. Must be an immigrant, Emiko thought, uttering a small cough so that the stranger wouldn’t be startled by her coming up from behind. Emiko quickened her steps. The brown slush splashed up on her sweatpants, but she was curious to see the stranger’s face. She must be the new neighbour. Arms swinging brisk and straight, Emiko trotted with pinched feet. Turning her head slightly to her left, she strained toward the stranger’s shoulder. Trying to get a good look. She stepped faster, craning, breath coming in little puffs. How could she stand to be bundled like that, Emiko wondered. She must be from a hot country.

  Emiko’s right foot shot out forty-five degrees, her left knee gave out, and she shrieked, landing smack in icy slush, her bottom simultaneously soaked and bruised. Mouth flapping up and down, she was uncertain if she ought to laugh or cry. How embarrassing! Falling just like that, like a middle-aged person. Emiko shook her head for the stranger’s benefit, then raised her eyes to look for a hand extended in aid.

  But none was offered.

  Emiko quickly looked over her shoulder. The hunched-up jacket was scuttling away, going back where she came from, hands still plunged in pockets.

  “Oh!” Hot tears burned inside Emiko’s eyelids. She held her forearm over her eyes and had a bit of a cry until her wet behind prickled numb and itchy. Emiko stiffly pushed herself up, bottom raised like a toddling child. She was soaked through and her clothes a mess. Well, she thought. Well, it was time to wash her sweatpants anyway. When she was upright, the heel of her right boot flapped uselessly and she almost turned her ankle. Emiko’s lower lip wobbled. Pressed her forearm over her eyes then shook her head with determination. She would go home. Bathe. Eat a little lunch.

  Kelsey looked up from a plate of bright orange macaroni and cheese. Her childish mouth turned down and her nose wrinkled.

  “You’re a mess!” she scolded. “Isn’t Mommy a mess, Daddy?” Kelsey beamed at her father.

  Gordon clumsily stood up. The chair fell backward as he rushed to Emiko, his hands outstretched. His pale face bloodless.

  “What happened? Are you okay? Did someone –”

  Emiko jerked her arms out of Gordon’s grip and stepped away from his concern. She plunked down on the top stair and tugged clenching boots off swollen feet.

  “I just slipped,” she muttered. When she stood, there was a brown heart-shaped smear on the pale green linoleum.

  “Look!” Kelsey giggled. “Mom pooped her pants!”

  Blood pumped upward into Emiko’s head though she couldn’t say, later, exactly why. But the boot with the flappy heel was in her hand and she threw it at the back door, fracturing the glass, cracks zigzagging outward in a pretty pattern.

  There was a denseness in the air, forcing Emiko to pant. She turned to look at the people in her kitchen.

  The child gulped, sobbed. The orange of macaroni inside her mouth.

  Gordon ran to his daughter and scooped her up in his strong arms, shushing, murmuring into her auburn hair. His eyes burned Emiko’s face with something she’d never seen before.

  How curious, Emiko thought, as she descended the stairs to the laundry room.

  “We’re going away for a little while,” Gordon called to her back in his reasonable voice. “I’m taking Kelsey and we’ll stay at my mom’s. You call us when you want to talk.”

  Emiko gave a little wave without looking back, but Gordon had already carried Kelsey to her bedroom.

  The basement was cold and a metallic stench hung in the air. Emiko looked quickly over her shoulder. The hot water tank squatted on the concrete. Small balls of dust and hair moved ever so slightly in the currents of air. The doorway to the adjoining room was closed. What was behind it? Nothing. Just silliness.

  Emiko, teeth clacking, peeled wet clothing off her body, shoving everything in the washer. Naked, she looked down at her jiggling belly, the inverted pucker of her scar. She fingered the old pink weal with her forefinger. Kelsey had come into this world, bawling, headfirst. But Ta – but the other had to be cut out. She shuddered, shook, arms clamped her soft middle. Her gut heaved and a thin stream of yellow shot from her mouth. The acid burn of bile in the back of her throat. She stared at the yellow splatter on the concrete. Emiko shuffled to the filthy basement shower, arms still holding her stomach as though she carried something precious.

  The blast of hot water soon filled the small bathroom and Emiko stood beneath the spray, mouth open. The water tasted sweet and she swallowed though she knew that there were unhealthy things in the hot water tank. Eyes closed. The pounding of the spray pierced like needles and tore into her flesh, flesh that softened, ripped open rotten and stinking. Emiko shut the knobs and flung open the smelly curtain. The small room was filled with steam and the after-roar of the water rang in her ears, like the voices of people calling from across a river.

  There was no towel hanging on the rack. Emiko walked upstairs, leaving wet puddles on the steps. Kelsey and Gordon were gone. The kitchen, Emiko noted, was still a mess. Lunch and breakfast dishes, both, but she was heated down to the marrow and for this she was grateful. Movement. Just beyond her periphery. She ducked, as if dodging a rock thrown. She scrabbled around, forearm holding in her sagging breasts, but it was only someone walking through the frame of her kitchen window. Emiko scuttled to peer out the glass. The back of an industrial overcoat. Bow-legged crab-walk. Her again! Emiko was certain that it must be the new neighbour Hal had mentioned. Horrible, horrible person!

  Emiko stared until the stranger’s back was obstructed by Hal’s fence.

  Why hadn’t the stranger helped her? In fact, the woman must have pushed her down! She had been attacked! The world was a terrible and dangerous place. Emiko shivered, her belly and bottom jiggling, and she ran, crouched, to her bedroom.

  Emiko crawled into her nest of blankets. Unwashed sheets smelling slightly sweet with an animal musk. Emiko curled up and closed her eyes. Her stomach squeezed on itself, a gurgling protest, and she clasped both arms over her soft belly. Her tongue tasted sour inside the hole of her mouth. No food could possibly pass there. Her stomach rumbled. Perhaps she could eat her tongue, feed herself with her own body and eliminate the element that tasted bad in the first place.

  Emiko’s eyes burned grainy dry.

  There was a stillness outside that sounded of falling snow.

  If only on that day.

  If only, that day, she had sat at the kitchen table for a few seconds longer.

  If only she had gone to sleep a few moments earlier the night before.

  What would have happened if she’d spent more time on her hair?

  If she had made pancakes instead of toast, the entire day would have been different, a few minutes changing the course of the future by taking a bath instead of a shower or making the classroom treat in the morning instead of the evening before or talking on the phone with her mother for longer than she’d planned or deciding to wear a shirt with buttons instead of a pullover sweater, she’d be living five seconds later and it would have changed the course of her life only she’d – that day would –

  If she’d never left Japan none of this would have come to be.

  Did every action in her life come to this place?

  What if –

  What if it had been Kelsey instead. . . .

&
nbsp; What kind of mother was she?

  It was with a weary surprise that Emiko woke. Her head thick with unrestful sleep, a cry slipped out of her mouth just as her eyes opened and she wondered at the noise. Did she sound like that?

  The street lamps shone a cool orange through the curtains and the red light flashed from her answering machine. How had she slept through the ringing? Emiko pursed her lips. Whatever the message, she didn’t want to hear it. What she needed was a cup of tea. Emiko pulled on a T-shirt and corduroy pants. Woollen socks. She didn’t look at the back of her wooden chair. Left her room, ripe with the smell of old sweat. A whisper of sound down the length of the hallway. The floorboards creaking beneath her weight.

  The moonlit night cast odd shadows in the kitchen and Emiko avoided looking at the humped shoulders of the chairs. The loathsome refrigerator. Light, however, would be intolerable. Emiko blinked and blinked, a growing pressure building behind her ears. What was wrong with them? Now the syrup from breakfast and the macaroni from lunch were glued to plates, stink of milk heavy and sour. Blood thudded inside her ears. Emiko yanked the garbage next to the table and ripped the top off. Shoved the plates, cutlery, cups into the bin.

  “There! There! There!”

  The moon shone through the window. More than half. Less than three-quarters.

  Tea, Emiko panted softly, she had come in to get some tea.

  Her stomach clenched. A shiver of icy breath skated down her arms, her neck. A distant roar, chinook-warmed and relentless, the shadow of pine boughs rippled darkness in the moonlit room. Emiko cupped her hands around her elbows. So cold. How could it be? She peered at the thermostat, but it was almost twenty-five degrees Celsius. Was it broken? Emiko breathed and the condensation crystallized around her face. She stared in wonder, breathed in deeply, then blew out, a slow steady frozen stream that clouded her vision. The facets of ice seemed to hang in mid-air and she stared with a strange wonder at the brilliance in the tiny shards.

  Her bedroom door squeaked as the furnace whooshed a small vacuum of air. And the creak creak of the loose hardwood in the hallway.

  “Mommy?”

  Emiko spun around. Oh! Her fingertips covering her trembling lips. She reached for the light switch but snatched back her hand. Darkness. Only the dark would call her back. Please.

  A cry, forlorn.

  “OhgodpleaseTara!” Emiko whispered fierce. It was all a mistake. A joke. A lesson and Emiko had learned. All was forgiven. Nothing was irreversible.

  Emiko sank to the hardwood, arms outstretched. “Oh, baby. My best girl,” she called, hot tears filling her eyes. An ache in her chest, her breasts. So familiar, a mother never forgot. She held her arms outstretched and shuffled in a slow circle. “Come here, my little kitten.”

  “Mommy?”

  Outside! She was outside!

  Emiko burst through the back door, the cracked glass breaking into shards beneath the palms of her hands. Jagged edges scraped up the soft skin of her forearms, but all Emiko could feel was warmth trickling, dripping off her elbows.

  Where was she? Where?

  “Tara, honey. Mommy’s here. You come home now,” Emiko cajoled. She ran about the backyard, the soak of slush and snow turning into mud. Her socks slipped and she fell to her hands and knees. Noticed the inside of her arms. The blood. The bad blood.

  “Oh please,” she gulped. “Come home.”

  A mewling cry.

  Emiko held her breath.

  The sound rose, angry, a hissing crescendo, a yowling spate screeching, howling.

  “Huh, huh,” Emiko panted.

  Cats! Hal’s goddamn Siamese cats, oh god, just cats. Emiko laughed. Choked.

  She would kill them.

  She squeezed wet snow and mud under her palms and threw it against Hal’s fence. “Shut up!” she screamed, the dark handfuls splattering on the pale surface. “Shut up!”

  A sudden movement behind her. Emiko spun around.

  A hunched figure scurried away from the slats of her fence, scuttling up the alley with jerky bowed legs.

  Emiko’s eyes narrowed. It was her! Now she was spying! Who did she think she was staring into people’s yards in the middle of the night? Silently, she rose from the muddy ground. Dashed across the lawn and down the dark lane.

  The stranger’s legs clattered, jerked up and down, limbs strung on string and Emiko splashed through dark puddles, feet numb with cold. Churned gravel and ice beneath her toes. Closer. Panting. She ran, arm reaching out. The air silent. The alley stretched long and skewed the line of naked poplars into a distorted horizon. The electrical lines plunged downward into the sky. Emiko panted hot, her heart thudding blood in her ears, slower, louder. Stretched her hand across the gap, squeezed a handful of the overcoat.

  “Stop!” Emiko burst. Blood hot in her breath. Emiko jerked back, rough, and the stranger stumbled. Didn’t turn around.

  Emiko shook the woman’s coat, but the stranger did nothing. Didn’t turn to confront the person who held her, only jerked her legs up and down, trying to scurry away.

  “What do you want?” Emiko hissed. “Why were you spying?”

  The stranger said nothing. Feet splashing in a frenzy.

  Why didn’t she fight back? Emiko thought furiously. Why didn’t she say anything?

  “What’s the matter?” she yelled. “Don’t you speak English?” She shook her angrily. “Don’t you?” Emiko released her grip and the woman almost stumbled to the ground. But she caught herself and clambered forward. Emiko grasped her arm through the thick material and tried to yank her around so she could scream in her face. But the stranger spun quickly away, refusing.

  “Look at me!” Emiko sprayed. “It wasn’t my fault! I don’t know who told you! I couldn’t see her! Do you understand? It was a mistake. She was playing in the alley!”

  Emiko clung. The woman jerking from her gaze. If only Emiko could see her face, she could convince her. Please. Emiko’s nails gave way beneath the rough material of the coat and as several flipped backwards, she screamed. The stranger broke from her grasp and scuttled in the opposite direction.

  Emiko ran after the foreigner and darted in front of her, grabbed both arms. She began shouting into her face.

  Stopped.

  The woman.

  Somehow she had turned around before Emiko had grabbed her, because Emiko held not her forearms, but her elbows. She was staring at the back of her head.

  “Stop it!” Emiko hissed. “You face me!” Furious, Emiko yanked her around, never letting go of the heavy jacket, she clasped and released handfuls of cloth, back to elbow, elbow to the front lapel, but when the stranger had been turned 180 degrees, Emiko was still staring into the back of her head.

  The hair on Emiko’s arms, her neck turning to water, no, Emiko mouthed, no, how could this be?

  Emiko spun the woman around, she must see her face. Faster and faster, Emiko spun the stranger, desperate to catch up, sobbing, her tears streamed into saliva, gulping to hold down her heart. But every way she turned her, the woman had no face.

  She had no face.

  Emiko dropped her shaking hands. Mouthing words without sound. She watched the stranger clatter away on puppet-string legs, walking away as she would always walk away.

  Emiko turned and ran back toward her house. The alley churned mud and the fences were unfamiliar. She ran in her torn feet, the cold clinging to her limbs growing heavy with exhaustion. The alley stretched with a dreamy paleness and she ran, the ground slipping away from her steps, the fences unfurling slowly and eternally, her gasps and sobs becoming thinner and thinner.

  “Emee-ko!”

  For a moment, she didn’t know what the sound meant.

  “Emee-ko!”

  She stopped and stared blankly.

  Hal’s white face peered over his back fence into the alley. His small eyes pouchy with sleep, his mouth hanging slightly open. “Oh my god!” He unhooked the latch of his gate and stumbled toward her.

  Emiko
looked down at her hands. Her inner arms were torn from elbows to wrists, blood caked dry and brown. Heat pulsed dimly in several fingers. She turned her hands around to stare at the missing fingernails and the beauty of the raw flesh speckled red and white. She could see. The sun had risen and the night was in someone else’s heartbeat.

  “Oh god, girl! You’re okay. You’re okay.” Hal grabbed her and gave her a little shake. He opened his arms to enfold her, the scent of baby powder mixed with sour brine stench rising from his housecoat.

  He smelled so bad, Emiko thought dimly. And her mouth dropped open to wail.

  “There, there,” Hal patted her head. “You cry now. You just let it all come out.”

  Emiko shook her head inside the stinking warmth of his humanity. Oh god! She had been so close. So close.

  “M-m-my face!” Emiko gasped, shuddering with terrible fear. She sobbed, raising her tattered hands.

  “Shhhh,” Hal shushed, his small blue eyes earnest. “Your face doesn’t have a mark. It looks right fine, don’t worry your pretty head about that.”

  Emiko wailed even louder. The pain would last a very long time.

  Camp Americana

  “I’m not one to complain, but the Canadian stewardesses are much older than the ones on Japan Airlines. It just doesn’t seem as safe. It’s not about how attractive they are, you understand, but whether or not they have the strength to open the hatches and carry people out if need be. But then, what do I know?” Masahiro crosses his arms and stares at his middle-aged son.

  Osamu automatically bobs his head.

  “It’s my turn!” Jennifer hisses in English at her older brother. She begged for a raccoon-skin Davy Crockett hat at the last gas station and now she never takes it off.