Picking Bones from Ash

by Marie Mutsuki Mockett

  I only told Theo where I had been. He said, “I don’t want you to be in some Madama Butterfly opera, waiting for this man to come back to you.”

  “He’ll come back.”

  “Men are fickle creatures. Don’t you know your operas? I don’t want you to waste any energy on this American.”

  I told Theo that I was just fine and not the least bit heartbroken. But privately, I did wonder if I would ever see Timothy again.

  I was nervous that the Montmartins might suspect I hadn’t been to Japan at all. Instead, they misread my watchfulness as worry over my mother. Grief even. The time I had spent with Timothy acting as his interpreter had strengthened my language abilities. The family was surprised by how my “trip to Japan” had actually helped my fluency. While they were no more interested in me than before, the children, at least, did not pick on my French quite so much.

  My trip with Timothy also had the curious effect of improving my piano playing. I was nervous when I first sat down to play. But Professor Montmartin merely nodded: “Bon.” There were no more tantrums. He no longer questioned my ability to emote. He began to talk, instead, about which pieces I should play for my first jury, and which competitions I should enter.

  To the professor, I looked like a girl who’d suddenly come into her own as an artist. This was the goal my mother had been after for so many years. If she had suddenly come to Paris, she would have been proud of the result.

  Late at night I sat in my apartment and looked out over the city. On clear evenings, the gold moon shone bright against the blue-black sky. I thought about my mother’s stories about the mythical moon kingdom. I thought to myself that this life in Europe was most likely the closest I would ever come to being in a foreign place capable of bestowing magic on my life. How easy it was to lead a double life when you traveled abroad. Timothy had said he craved enlightenment. I craved the power I’d felt while we were traveling in Amsterdam, the sureness of knowing that I was a complete stranger with a special gift in an enchanted land.

  CHAPTER 5

  Where Unseen Things Are Hidden

  I tried to fold myself back into the ordered world I’d lived in before meeting Timothy. But my imagination wandered and I could not stop craving something grander and more elusive from the world. Music, suddenly, was not sufficient.

  But what to do?

  I remembered Timothy’s subtle and mocking question: “Did you plan on me?” he had asked.

  Throughout the fall, I struggled to concentrate. Mostly I was able to hide my inner battles and occasionally was able to convince myself that I still planned to play the piano until I was old and arthritic like Sanada-sensei. There were plenty of nights, though, when my sleep was interrupted by a dream involving Timothy, and I sat up in a sweat, wondering if he would come back, or if that adventurous path in my life had forever been abolished. I would need to learn to curb this craving. Fall turned to winter, and winter to spring, and still he did not come.

  Is anything worse than a broken heart? Once again, I was lonely in Paris. To anesthetize myself, I tried to empty out my feelings in music. Professor Montmartin was impressed. Soon, he said, it would be time for me to enter competitions and he expected that I had a good chance of placing. The news should have made me happy, but I found that it left me feeling profoundly empty. I wrote to my mother: could she come visit me? She sent back a card explaining that she still had her cold, but that I should not worry. One day, she promised, we would be together.

  Then one day that spring, I was walking home from class when I heard a voice behind me murmur in English. “Don’t you drink coffee anymore?”

  I tried to appear impassive. “I do not need help with my homework anymore. So I do not go to La Coupole with Theo.”

  “You know everything there is to know about music theory?”

  “No one knows everything about music theory.”

  Timothy smiled broadly and opened up his blazer. Peeking out of the inside pocket was a fat wad of French francs. He closed the jacket and continued smiling. A few people had seen this bold display of money and their attention unsettled me. Plus, Timothy appeared to have changed somewhat. He harbored a new confidence that seemed slightly alarming but also, if I were to be honest, attractive.

  “Your commission, Satomi,” Timothy murmured quietly. “Don’t you want it?”

  “It looks like lot of money,” I breathed.

  “Not that much. Minus your train ticket. Minus the plane ticket.”

  “Plane?”

  “To Japan,” he said. “The collector bought almost everything we picked out in Amsterdam. Not a fake in the bunch. Those were his exact words. You made me look good.”

  “I am happy for you.” I turned away and began to walk briskly. For a moment I heard only my footsteps, but then I heard his shoes slapping the pavement as he ran behind me.

  “Aren’t you happy to see me? Because I’m happy to see you!”

  “Five months,” my voice caught.

  “Baby.”

  But I pulled my hand away and my tears streaked across my temples as I ran.

  “Hey. Satomi!”

  I would not be distracted by this man again. Just recently, I’d come to feel relieved that he was gone from my life and that I could focus on my music as my mother had asked me to. “You,” I screamed, “are a bad person! You make promises. But you are sloppy. You live in phases!”

  At this, he pulled me into an embrace and I, still so lonely, so determined, relented.

  I led Timothy up the stairs to my little garret and made him a cup of tea on my hot plate. I prepared a plate of cookies I had bought the day before and kept on the windowsill to try to keep cool. He counted out my commission. It was the first time I had ever earned money.

  “We leave in two days, in case you were wondering.”

  “I didn’t say that I was going with you.”

  “But you will.” He grinned. “It’s lonely sleeping by yourself at night.”

  I turned away from him.

  “I know you’ve been alone,” he said softly. “I didn’t like it very much either.”

  “Where were you?”

  “I got sidetracked,” he said, bowing his head. “Look, I went to a party and got caught up with some people who were into some shit. Took awhile for the police to figure out who did what.”

  “Police!”

  “That’s why I didn’t say anything to you right away. I didn’t want you to worry. I came as soon as I could.”

  “I have to prepare for my juries,” I replied stiffly.

  “You told the professor you were going to Japan last time. This time you’ll be telling him the truth.”

  “I cannot fail my mother.”

  “Cannot fail,” he mimicked. “Jesus. You sound biblical.”

  No matter how many years have gone by, I have never managed to sound casual and natural in English. I am aware of my stiffness, of my complete lack of the jocularity that oozes so naturally from American mouths. Still, the teasing rankled me.

  “You have never made fun of my speech before,” I said.

  “It’s only a few days, Satomi. Easy cash. Anyway, isn’t travel romantic?”

  At the sound of the word romantic, my body hardened. At the same time, the idea of an adventure together intrigued me. “Yes, travel will be romantic, and then you will leave again for Priscilla, or someone else.”

  He came up behind me. “I’m not going anywhere. I would have come back even if it weren’t for the antiques I know we are going to find together.”

  I was silent.

  “We go to Japan, I deliver the stuff to the collector in San Francisco, and you come back for your juries.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I promise I’ll come back to you. And then I won’t go away again unless you go with me.”

  If one’s speaking voice can acquire an accent while one is overseas, I felt that my body had acquired nearly the same thing. I did not realize it in France, but I now
moved with a boldness and intention that I had not possessed as a young student. Not surprisingly, I was annoyed by the slowness with which everyone else moved in Japan and by the shyness of the other women my age. I hated the way they paused in front of vending machines, pretending to be unsure of what they wanted to drink. When they really were unsure of what they wanted to drink, why, I was all the more annoyed. How hard is it to decide whether you want tea, or Coke, or juice?

  Timothy had planned for us to go to Kyoto and Nara and, if there was time, the village surrounding Lake Biwa. To me these towns had existed only in textbooks and in samurai movies; I’d never actually expected that I would visit Kyoto itself and see the temples and the shrines.

  I learned then just how adaptable a person Timothy was, perhaps even more adaptable than I was. He’d already traveled so much by the time we went to Japan together he understood very quickly that to be comfortable here, he would have to behave differently. And learn he did, keeping his arms close to his body, checking to make sure that no one was behind him when he shifted his weight on a train, and pointing at things with his entire hand instead of his index finger. Years later, I realized just how competent a traveler Timothy had been when I observed other foreigners wandering around Japan, never quite adjusting to our rules or to our rhythms. He was a remarkably fluid person, though I never stopped feeling concerned when he wandered off by himself and I feared he was lost. It was only much later that I would learn what he was actually doing in those moments.

  The best stores were in little towns where some eccentric elderly man had a house stuffed with plates or statues or odd things that he knew were “old,” but whose purpose and value he might not understand. My very favorite thing we found in those weeks was a large red-and-white dish with a swirling pattern and some green turtles.

  I suppose I was also on edge during that trip because I had a deep fear that we would see someone I knew. Actually, it was fear mixed with hope. I’d been so homesick and lonely in Paris and now I was in my homeland, which I hadn’t expected to see for many months yet. It felt like cheating. And yet, I longed to see someone I knew. Several times a day I flinched at the sight of an elderly face I was sure looked like our old neighbor, or a priest I thought might be Masayoshi. Once I even thought I saw Shinobu. I knew the chances of encountering an acquaintance were slim. Who among my family or my school friends would be wandering around these small towns near Kyoto?

  Timothy urged me to call my mother. The call would be cheaper from here than from Europe, and as long as I made sure no other Japanese person burst in on my call, she’d never know which country I was phoning from, but would be pleased that I had contacted her. My guilt would be eased.

  I disagreed. I thought she’d be angry that I was wasting money on a call that had no specific purpose, but Timothy was adamant that phone calls didn’t require a specific reason. I could just call because I felt like it. I could tell her that I was homesick and that I missed her. So, armed with a handful of change, I found a bright-green phone in a train station.

  The phone seemed to ring a long time before someone answered. The voice on the other end caught me by surprise.

  “Chieko?”

  “So. You finally decided to call.” She sounded almost pleased with herself as she said this and her tone of voice alarmed me. Had she, or someone we both knew, seen me?

  I decided to play it cool. “I have to be quick. This is expensive, you know.”

  “You’ve had the letter for at least two weeks.”

  My heart was suddenly possessed by an allegro tempo. I took a deep breath to calm my blood, but my body wouldn’t cooperate. “Letter?”

  “Look, she died a month ago. We couldn’t wait for you. We had to have the funeral. If you come back now you can make the forty-nine-day memorial.”

  “You could have called!” I was shouting.

  “No one here speaks French. And anyway, what took you so long to read your mail?”

  I remembered the postcard I’d found from my mother on the floor of my room. I’ve had a cold.

  I told Chieko I would be there the following day.

  “That fast?” Now she sounded nervous.

  “Don’t worry if you haven’t managed to clean up the house, Chieko. Housekeeping never was your strength.” I said this just to be mean. Chieko had always been a model housekeeper.

  “I didn’t mean …”

  “Yes, that fast,” I hissed. “The modern world is a very fast and complicated place, but I doubt that someone like you would understand.” I slammed down the phone.

  Rice paddies bled into bamboo forests, and the jangle of the railway crossing alarm swelled and faded with the same Doppler effect that blurred the notes of honking cars. The familiar landscape rushed by. I saw the same faces on the train from Tokyo to Hachinohe that I’d seen since I was a college student, and I took on the same poised posture I’d always assumed on the way home: the talented girl just visiting the countryside for a mandatory reason after a spell in the sophisticated city where she belonged. I knew that my mother would not be there in the house waiting for me. But surely everything else would be the same. The countryside never changed. I, with all my experiences, was the only person to be different this year than last.

  I had asked Timothy to wait for me at the hotel while I went home. I didn’t want to include him in my family problems. I certainly would not be in a frame of mind to help him adjust to what would surely be a culturally confusing situation for him.

  I understood what Chieko had told me on the phone; my mother was dead and I would never see her again. But I was anxious and in a hurry, as though by arriving there as soon as possible, I might see my mother one more time, or might hear her tell me she was sorry not to have had time alone together. Just the two of us. It was illogical. The funeral and cremation had passed, but I rushed through every part of my journey as much as I could.

  I took a cab from the station to the house. No one came to the door to greet me. When I turned on the light, I saw that the entrance was stuffed full of aging flower bouquets, and a few new ones that had come in the past few days. I touched a card. “From the Hachinohe Golf Club,” it read. In the middle of the bouquets, seated on the ledge was the reproachful portrait of my mother. It wasn’t a photograph I recognized. It looked like it had been blown up from a smaller picture, perhaps from a group portrait, for it was blurry, as though she were peering out at me through a fog.

  I put on a pair of slippers. “Tadaima! I’m home.”

  I passed through several curtains of beads to the front room. The television was on, and I turned it off because no one was watching. I went into my room and reached for the light-switch cord dangling from the ceiling. When the light snapped on, it took me a moment to get my bearings.

  Most of the room was covered with white sheets. On one side, where I normally unfolded my futon, someone had stacked a series of boxes, two deep and three high. I lifted the cover of one and found that it contained toilet paper. My closets were filled with clothes I didn’t recognize, but from the dark, dour look of their tailoring, I guessed the skirts and blouses belonged to Chieko. Only my glass case of dolls remained untouched, though it appeared to me that two or three were missing. I set my luggage down and retreated back into the main wing of the house to look for something to eat.

  The refrigerator was empty. The family, I guessed, had gone out to a restaurant to eat and left the door unlocked in case I showed up. I opened the freezer. My mother had always cooked too much and put leftovers away in here.

  I found a plastic container with a strip of paper taped on it. “Seasoned rice,” it said. My mother would have made it in the fall. It was now April. Suddenly I didn’t care if the rice would be bad, or how old it was. It was something she had touched and I tore open the container and dumped the contents into a pan, then added a little water so it wouldn’t burn while I heated it on the stove.

  I ate the entire containerful. I didn’t want Mineko or anyone else to
eat the rice. If they’d ignored it all these weeks, then they couldn’t have appreciated how good it was in the first place. I thought about the previous fall and how my mother would have bought the ginkgo nuts and the mushrooms from the market herself, and eyed her collection of spoons as she measured out the seasoning. But I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t about to get myself into such an emotional predicament.

  Instead, I wondered how it would be best for Mineko to find me. Probably she expected me to wander around in my room, angry that I had been displaced. I thought about this for a few minutes and then decided to enjoy the kakenagashi, the natural hot spring water in the bathtub.

  An hour later, when I finally heard the door squeal open and heard the high-pitched voices of Mineko’s spoiled children, I had grown prunish and red from sitting in the water for so long. But the steam had the effect of hiding how swollen my eyes had become from crying.

  “There you are,” she said, standing in the doorway of the bathroom.

  “Didn’t it occur to you to knock?” I asked.

  “It’s my house.” She shrugged.

  “Nice house,” I said.

  “We’re leaving early in the morning for Akita for the memorial. So, if you don’t mind, I need to let the children take their baths so they can go to bed.”

  “Why Akita?”

  “That’s where Masayoshi and his wife have their temple.” She just barely emphasized the word wife.

  “Of course. About my room,” I began.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you expecting me to sleep there?”

  “There isn’t anywhere else for you to sleep, is there?” She smiled faintly. “I’m sure you’ll manage. You’re good at managing. You learned to very early in life.”