by Hiromi Goto
That’s a lie. One of many, I suppose. Mom is a whole different story and one I can’t even begin to comprehend. Me sitting here and Mom sitting there and Obāchan out and about but hovering around my ears. Obāchan away when my words are born so I’m responsible for the things I utter. Better than being utterless. I learn slowly.
Funny how memory is so selective. How imagination tags along and you don’t know where something blurs beyond truth. If I said I was telling the truth, would anyone believe me? Obāchan would, of course. The truth of anything at that particular moment. What more could you ask for?
I was always hungry for words, even when I was very little. Dad, the man without an opinion, and Mom hiding behind an adopted language. It was no wonder I was so confused, language a strange companion. I never knew what I should do. If I should tie it up then ignore it, or if I should mould and shape. Manipulate language like everyone else around me. I never understood the words she said, but I watched and learned. And I begin my understanding now. Obāchan took another route, something more harmonious. Showed me that words take form and live and breathe among us. Language a living beast.
I’m not saying that the only sound in our home was the sound of Obāchan’s voice. There were times when we sat at the dinner table, when she went upstairs to get away from the smell of boiled beef. We’d talk then, Mom and I, and sometimes Dad would offer a word or two. It’s just that the things we talked about would never have the power to linger. “How was school?” and, “Pass the gravy boat,” were sad substitutes for my malnourished culture. But how to ask the questions if you don’t have the vocabulary to express them?
There were words in excessiveness when we sat in church. All those “Thous” and “Thees” and “manifestation,” now there’s a doozie for you! I even knew when I was little that their words were falsely weighted. That god was not a bellower, but light as motes of dust. That there wasn’t a definitive god but god-spirits living in everything I saw around me. In the wind, the snow, the soft earthly curves of the prairies stretching ever eastward. The sound of crickets thrumming, the whistles of gophers in the warmish spring and the shrieks of redtails, swirling high above me. The gods would never linger in pews stinking with selfish guilt. With all those wads of gum.
When Pastor Lysol was appointed to Mom’s church, he brought with him a whole new agenda. There was a Women’s Health League, what would he know about it? Men in the Eighties, no shit, unfortunately. Seniors for Saving and what I called Spill Yer Guts, my personal favourite. After the very young were sent downstairs to play with felt, Pastor Lysol would call on anyone to share.
“If during the past week, you have felt the hand of God touch your lives, please share with us, your family together in Christ. Come, there is no need to feel self-conscious. Your pain is our pain. Your joys, our joys. If there is anything you would like to say. Nothing is so shameful that God will not forgive. If you have sinned, come, confront your sin and, we, your brothers and sisters in the Lord, will share with you all our love. Come forward. Have no fear.”
He held his palms outward, in the posture a lot of people paint Jesus in. Spoke with a gentle voice, like a lamb with honey in its mouth. And everyone waited. That nervous sour anticipatory stink of people waiting to hear of sin. Degradation. Vicarious thrill of ooooh and aaaaah. Everyone shifted anxiously in their seats, turning around, glance here and there to see who would stand up. Spill their guts. It always made me feel quiggly in my stomach. How adults got their thrills in such strange and unnatural ways. But it didn’t stop me from turning my head around, waiting to see who would talk.
“I—”
All the heads swung around to the left, the far back of the room. It was Pastor Lysol’s wife! There was a murmur murmur then a sudden stillness.
“I—I——”
Everyone craned their heads, willing her to continue.
“Yes,” Pastor Lysol said kindly, like he thought Jesus would have. “Yes, don’t be afraid.”
“I have c-commited s-sins of the flesh!” she gasped. An intake of breath by the whole congregation sucked all the oxygen from the room and everyone started to pant softly. “I have felt the Devil tempting me. He c-comes to m-me when I am at my weakest and—and—”
“Have no fear. We are not here to judge, but to lead you in the ways of the Lord. We are your family and our love knows no boundaries. Speak, woman, and find peace with the Lord,” the pastor said kindly, like he was talking to a stranger and not his wife.
“The Devil makes me touch myself!” she spat out like a chunk of cancer.
Good lord! I thought. Good lord! She doesn’t need the church. She needs to listen to Doctor Ruth. Sex therapist extraordinaire and make sure you use a condom. Good lord!
“The Devil makes me feel so good, I can’t stop. He whispers in my ear, ‘If it feels good, it can’t be a sin, can it? Go on, it’s okay. Just do it.’ And I do! I do!” she wept. Everyone clucked their tongues in pity but some women were squirming in their seats with I don’t know what. A few people started to clap, but it petered out as it became apparent that it wasn’t quite the right time for it. The pastor’s wife’s sobs quieting down and she started hiccuping, wiping mucous from her nose.
“Oh Lord!” cried out Pastor Lysol. “Oh Lord, hear the words of Thine weak children! Have pity on these, Thy children of flesh, so susceptible to the call of their flesh. Our puny existence so moiled with transgressions we cannot hear the higher calling. Forgive the weakness of women. So little they have changed since the fall of Eve into earthly Sin. We can only turn to Thine eternal love and beg for forgiveness. Lord Father, please forgive that woman, and give her the strength to reach the purity of thought only found through Thine words. We beg of You. In Jesus’ name. A-men.”
The pastor’s wife glowed with the prayer she had earned and everyone appreciatively licked their lips. After the service was over, the leaders from the Women’s Health League circled around the pastor’s wife and congratulated her on her courage. There was a lot of talk during the Fellowship potluck that day. People stood around with their plates of raisin-turds-and-carrot-shavings encased in lime Jell-O dessert. They waved their plastic forks around and argued over how many points the pastor’s wife should receive for her performance.
At least Mom never joined that spectacle. I can thank the gods, not Greek, for that.
There are a lot of sad immigrant stories. Here’s another one.
The Herald Funny True Stories Contest
Second Prize Winner, Miss Janet Duncan
I’m an elementary teacher in south west Calgary. There are many children from different cultures in my class and I find myself learning so much from them. It’s a pleasure to teach and learn together.
This spring, there was a lovely new boy who had immigrated from Japan, with his family. His father was transferred to work in the Calgary office of Sanyo. Little Kenji, Ken, we call him, was quite shy, but he was really clever in mathematics. He learned very quickly, and his English skills were getting better and better all the time.
Well, we have show and tell at the beginning of each class, and Ken had declined from participating for several weeks. Then one day, he said he would like bring something to share with his friends.
Well, I was so pleased! I couldn’t wait to see what kind of treasure he would show us. I was thinking perhaps a lovely fan or a silk kimono or something. I just couldn’t wait.
Well, the next day arrives, and the bell has already rung and Ken is late. But I know he must be coming so I don’t start the class, even though it is already 9:15. I finally hear Ken at the door, but there is an awful odour even before I have opened it. My eyes begin to water. Ken bursts open the door and the reek rolls in like a tidal wave! All the children scream “Ooooooh!” and scramble to the back of the class.
Ken had brought a live skunk into the school!
“Cat. My new cat.” Ken was gulping. He must have been sprayed so badly that he couldn’t smell any more. The full grown sku
nk was curled around his neck in fear of all the noise and his tail was sticking straight up and down. We were absolutely paralyzed and Ken didn’t know what the commotion was all about and one enterprising young girl pulled the fire alarm. The children ran, screaming, outside and the whole school filed out. Ken came out with his skunk and the fire-men took it away in a net. My whole classroom had to be washed down with tomato juice.
When I got home that day, I wrote a letter to the immigration office to suggest they offer wildlife identification courses as well as the English lessons.
Ba dum Bum
Sure I have some white friends. Some of my best friends are white.
Ba dum Bum
“I must be a mushroom
Everyone keeps me in the dark
And feeds me horseshit”
Hyuck Hyuck. My boyfriend in junior high school bought that T-shirt for me on our three-week anniversary. All shiny decals, the slippery plastic kind that you sweat under when you are in direct sunlight. He was a cowboy. Still is, I suppose, heard he’s a foreman out at Whiskey Coulee Ranch and riding bulls in the summer. Funny how you can spend a whole summer making out with someone and never really know or like him. All you remember is the very first time you ever felt the skin of a penis beneath your fingers. That particular odour.
Having to work all summer at the farm. At least it was cool inside. At least it was moist. I loved the prairie wind, but the scuttle dry heat of grasshopper wings, brittle as the days were long, wasn’t a heat I loved. Even on my days off, when I knew it was my duty to lie in the sun and brown, slick with coconut-smelling oils, I didn’t last. Julie and Patricia lying outside for hours on end, cucumbers on their eyes. They evenly toasted their pale bodies into a glowing red. I hated it. How the sun glared off the pages in my books so bright I got a headache, and the stink of coconut. Leaving greasy fingerprints on my precious books and having to go through the ordeal of sitting up every five minutes to peel back a strap, tug the cup of my bikini to see if the skin beneath was lighter. Having to wait for the crunch of gravel in the alley, of the boys walking by and seeing us in our splotchy splendour. I would sit beneath the crab apple tree, hugging its shrinking shadows. So busy reading, I would miss any boys that bothered to walk by.
I wasn’t the only kid working at Dad’s farm. At least not during the summer. In the summer, students would come by looking for a job and I wouldn’t have to be the only kid working with all the adult regulars. Then, there’d be a couple of boys doing odd jobs. Maybe even get to learn how to drive the forklift if they were handy enough. A few girls would come out to pick mushrooms for some summer spending money, but they never lasted. The monotony, the dark, the tediously long hours. The strange trickling sound of Vietnamese conversation. So foreign and harsh to their ears, they couldn’t bear to stay. All the regular pickers placed bets on how soon they would leave. The world record was two hours. They laughed. Funny how I picked with them for so many years, but I never learned a single word. I would just turn my ears inward and pluck at my own thoughts. Or think of nothing at all.
I was picking mushrooms at my own particular pace, flicking my knife to slice off the stems and plunk plunkplunk plunk of mushrooms dropping into my buckets. I almost dropped my knife and fell off the bed I was perched on when a sudden hand grabbed my ankle. I shrieked. The boys snickered.
“What do you want?! It’s not three! You guys are supposed to be getting peat moss ready.”
“Don’t get your tit in a knot,” Bob said, and snickered again.
“Yeah, keep your pants on,” laughed Josh. “We just came to show you something.”
“What? It better not be one of those dead pigeons.” I hopped down from the third beds I was standing on and hunkered down with the boys. Josh held something in his hands, and at first it was too dark to figure out. I brought my light down. It was a salamander. I’d never seen one live before, never up close. All black and damp and moistly supple, the skin shiny tender of things that live in wet. I held out my hands.
“Let me hold it,” my voice filled with wonder.
“Ahhh,” Bob said, “aren’t you even scared of it?”
“Why?”
“You’re no fun at all,” Josh complained. “Come on, let’s go scare Joe.”
“No!”
“Fuck off, Murry-O. We can do whatever we want.”
“No. Give me that salamander.”
They were surprised, and I was serious. Bob and Josh just shrugged their shoulders, embarrassed. Josh dangled the salamander by the tail and dropped it on my outstretched palm.
“All right, all right!” they said. “Relax already. Have the stupid thing,” and backed out of the room, muttering “Women!” under their breaths.
“Where did you find it?” I yelled, as they left.
“In a bag of peat moss.”
I peered down at the salamander cupped in the palm of my hands. How could it have been in the peat moss when the peat moss came from west of Edmonton? How would it get there in the first place? I’d never seen a salamander before, despite all my summers of tadpoles, frogs, and garter snakes. Gophers and crunchy black crickets too. Where did the creature come from? Displaced amphibian. The salamander turned its head slowly, this way and that, the light too close, too bright for it to see. I lifted my forefinger and gently, gently, touched its back. Stroked. The salamander was soft. I had thought it was slimy, with its moistly gleaming skin. But it wasn’t. It was as soft as the skin on a penis.
“What are you doing, girl?” Joe asked.
I didn’t even hear him come in. I just slowly raised my hands so he could see what I cupped in my palms so preciously. He tipped my hands just a little, so the light from my lamp shone more directly, on the glowing salamander.
“Mmmm,” he said. “First time I see this in Canada.”
“Me too.”
“It’s very far from home, huh.”
“Yeah,” I nodded, something dawning. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
“There are salamanders in Japan too,” you say, on the far corner of the futon. You are lying on your back with your two legs V-ing upwards against the corner walls.
I lie in the middle, on my belly. Flicking lint balls with my forefinger.
“We can go out, you know. We can do something else. This isn’t a trap or anything,” you say. “You can stop any time you want.”
“No,” I flip around so I’m not driven to flick lint balls. Stare upward at the long strand of dusty cobweb floating supplely from the ceiling. “I can’t stop any time I want. But you can stop listening.” You sigh. Swing your feet down from the walls and roll into the middle of our futon. We cuddle together, our arms protecting each other. We huddle like thieves, like beggars. We huddle like lovers.
“No,” you say, “I can’t stop listening either.”
NAOE
Wind toss sting slash of snow, too soft a word for something this cold, this sharp. But I’m warm up in my belly with three cans of beer and salt lick taste the corners of my mouth. Ahhh, nothing like seaweed paste to make a body thirsty! I could sit here awhile, chase snow pellets with my eyes, but Chikishō! I’ve sat too long. Long enough already! And who will see me in this ditch? A ride won’t be offered if I’m not seen and which way should I choose to go? I could be going inside out for all I know, none of this natural instinct for direction. Kekkō, kekkō! At least my furoshiki is lighter now, I have that to thank. My life would be complete if I could smoke a cigarette. Twenty years between cigarettes is a little long. No matter! I’ll walk and walk and the wind will serenade me. I’ll walk and sing and laugh and shout. I’ll scrape my heel into the black ice on the highway and inscribe my name across this country.
The woman trudged through the sting of ice crystals, leaning forward into the slice of the wind. Her hands were clasped behind her back and she walked with the slow steady pace of someone who plans to walk for a long time. Now and again, a semitrailer roared by in a swirl of dust and snow, buffeting her slender bod
y. They either did not see her or chose not to. But she walked on, the snow squeaking beneath her boots, the wind howling about her ears. Beer, warm in her belly. The distance she travelled was meaningless in the vortex of ice and sound. She only set one foot in front of the other. Thought nothing of where, but turned outward her momentum to keep her surface warm. Steam rose from her body and billowed in a cloud around her. A pick-up truck caught her haunting figure in the glare of its high beams and braked slowly, slowly, red tail lights blinking, on the slick surface of the highway. It finally came to stop fifty yards ahead of her, and she jogged forward at the same time the truck started backing up. When she reached the cab of the truck, the door swung outward in a sweet scent of tobacco and horse sweat.
“Git’in, miss!”
Miss, no less! Ara ma ha! ha! ha!
“Musta froze right thru yer sense, walkin’ ‘bout on a night like this. Worryin’ yer folks ‘n such. T’aint my bizness, jist say so.”
Mattaku! Konnani akarui hito to au no wa hisashiburi da ne!
“Froze thru ta yer tongue I reckon. No need ta talk I ain’t no stranger ta silence, jist feelin’ a bit chatty, bin drivin’ nonstop fer a good stretch ‘n need ta loosen my tongue a whiles not that I’m ulwez this way but I figger y’all walkin’ by yerself might need ta be hearin’ a friendly voice. Sher, everybudy gits caught up with loneliness ‘n everybudy’s got some sad tale hangin’ ‘roun ther sleeves but I figger ther’s ulwez a loada sadness but that ulwez makes ya feel ixtra special when somethin’ good comes by yer way ‘n I guess I could offer ya smoke or somethin’, ya born in Japan?”
“Yes and yes.”
“I figger ya had the looka Japanese, ‘n knew yer lookin’ fer a butt, soon as ya got in the cab snuffin’ up the smoke, here, have one.”