by Hiromi Goto
“Guess what, Obāchan? I’ve been given the lead in our school operetta! I get to play the part of Alice in Wonderland and I have tons and tons of lines to memorize, but isn’t it great? I got the lead!”
“Iikocha!” She cupped her scratchy palm beneath my chin, her fingers curving along my cheek. I kissed her. Jumped up and ran into the kitchen.
“Mom! Mom! Guess what!”
“What, Muriel? I wish you wouldn’t slam the door.”
“I’ve been chosen to play the part of Alice in the school operetta!”
“Oh how wonderful!” Mom looked up from the accounts she had been doing and pushed her glasses up with her forefinger. She patted my shoulder awkwardly. “I’m so proud of you. You have such a lovely voice and now everyone will hear you sing. I have to call your father.”
“There’s a meeting for the moms tomorrow after school, okay?” I nibbled a piece of my hair.
“Of course, dear,” Mom said. “I’ll be right on time.”
Mom came right on time, with her going-out purse and pumps. She had done her hair in rollers, and the fat curls made her head look two times bigger than it really was. Her eyebrows were newly plucked and penciled in darker than the original colour.
“So good of you to come, Mrs. Ton Kasu. We are so proud of our little Muriel. Such a lovely singing voice, who would have thought?” Mrs. Spear beamed at my Mom. She tugged my Mom’s elbow and drew her to the side. She looked sideways, this and that, with the whites of her eyes, rolling, and lowered her voice into a whisper. I edged in closer.
“There is a matter of delicacy I want to speak to you about.”
“Of course,” Mom said, smiling.
“Well, it’s the matter of your daughter’s hair. You see, the part she is playing, you know the story of Alice in Wonderland, don’t you?”
Mom shook her head apologetically.
“Well, Alice is a story about an English girl, you know. An English girl with lovely blonde hair. And strictly for the play, you understand, Muriel will have to have blonde hair or no one will know what part she is playing. You simply cannot have an Alice with black hair.”
“Of course,” Mom nodded, to my growing horror. “It’s in the nature of theatre and costume, is it not?”
“Of course!” Mrs. Spear beamed. “I knew you would understand. I was thinking of a nice blonde wig. They make such nice wigs these days, no one will notice a thing. Why, they’ll think there’s a new child in school who is star material! You must be so proud.”
“We could dye her hair. I believe there are dyes that wash out in a few months or so. That way, Muriel can really grow into her role as Alice. She can live and be Alice before opening night!”
“Mrs. Ton Kasu! You are so cooperative. I wish my other mothers were more like you. Why I was just telling Mrs. Rogowski her daughter should lose at least ten pounds before the play, and she just up and left in a tiff. Pulling her daughter after her. Poor dear, when she was so looking forward to being in the play.”
I was horrified, Mom and Mrs. Spear chatting away and dye my beautiful black hair blonde? Me with blonde hair and living the role of Alice? In Nanton? What could my Mom be thinking? I would look ridiculous and stand out like a freak.
“Mom!” I hissed. “Mom, I change my mind. I don’t want to be Alice anymore. I’ll be the Mad Hatter, that way, I can just wear a hat. Or the Cheshire Cat! Cats have slanted eyes. That would work out. Mom?”
She just ignored me and chatted with Mrs. Spear, about costume and hair dyes and suitable diets for actors. On the way home from school she stopped at the drugstore and dragged me inside. To discuss the merits of hair rinse over henna with Mrs. Potts.
We had baked ham for dinner that night, because Mom was so proud of me. Dad just smiled and poured me a small glass of sherry. It was sticky and cloyingly sweet. I nodded and sipped and ate dry slices of meat with burnt pineapple rings. Obāchan in her chair by the door, her voice as constant as the wind. She would stick her head out now and then, and wink and smile at me from the other end of the hall. Mom and Dad didn’t notice her or pretended not to. They ate their chunks of burnt special-occasion ham and blackened pineapple garnish.
She never sat at the table with us, we never ate together. Obāchan had a tray of food brought upstairs for her to eat in bed. Long after we had finished our Jell-O and weak milk tea. But she hardly ever ate what Mom had cooked for her. Obāchan ate treats she had hidden in her dresser drawers and threw the dry meat out the window for the coyotes who waited every evening.
Mom excused me from washing dishes, just for this one time. I went upstairs, saying something about a headache, and heard Mom telling Dad it was because I was so excited. I went inside my room and didn’t turn on the lights. Lay down on my bed and watched the growing shadows creeping across the ceiling.
I shivered awake, the room all black and I didn’t know if it was today or tomorrow. I was lying on my bed with all my clothes on and the house was silent. Creaking. And I noticed it. A warm wetness beneath my bum. Oh god. . . I had wet my pants! I had peed my pants! I jumped up and flicked on the light. My powder blue blanket was stained all copper brown. Diarrhea? Shit my pants? What? Oh my god. . . it was blood. I was haemorrhaging. Dying. Bleeding to death. I unbuttoned my jeans and slid down the zipper. Thumbed my panties down with my jeans and stared. There was lots of blood. Certainly, it was too much blood. I didn’t know I was whimpering, standing there with blood plipping between my legs.
“Murasaki-chan? Dōshita! Sonna koe dashite?”
“Obāchan! Obāchan, I’m bleeding to death. Call Mom or the ambulance or something.” Started gulping back tears.
“Dore, misetegoran,” and she crouched beside me. I was frightened and didn’t want her to see, but she saw my bloody panties, the blanket on my bed.
“Yokatta! Yappari. Shinpai iranai yo. Tsuki no mono ga hajimattan da yo. Onna ni daijina, daijina koto yo.” She smiled gently, warmly, and I knew everything was all right.
“Oh,” I smiled through my tears. “Is that all.”
“Sōyū koto!” Obāchan took a clean pair of underwear out of my dresser and led me to the washroom. She helped me out of my bloody ones and set them in the sink. She rummaged in the cupboard and came out with a rectangular white paper wad. There was an adhesive strip down the middle covered with a strip of paper. She tugged it off and stuck the bandage in the crotch of my panties.
“Oh,” I said. And put them on. Obāchan turned on the tap, adjusting the hot and cold, once twice, three times, checking the temperature on the inside of her wrist. She gently took my hand and held my wrist beneath the flow of water. The temperature was so nearly that of my body I couldn’t tell if it was warm or cool. Only the sensation of water running on my wrist. Obāchan held the panties under the stream and the blood washed from the cloth like magic. Only a faint stain was left. She wrung it out and tossed it in the laundry hamper.
“Oide!” and took my hand again. I felt happy, I don’t know why.
“Obāchan, what’s going on out there? We’re trying to get some sleep you know. Have a little consideration!” Mom yelled from her room. Dad groaned, only waking up because she had been yelling across his head.
Obāchan and I, we giggled as we went into her bedroom. She hadn’t been asleep at all, her lights were on and there was silky paper with characters written in black ink.
“Whatchya writing, Obāchan? A letter or something?” I asked wistfully. Wishing that seeing was the same as reading. She shook her head and started digging in her closet where she had a huge pile of boxes stacked one on top of another. Pointed to one in the middle and gestured for me to get it out.
“Sure, no problem,” I muttered. “Mom’s going to have a conniption fit, whatever that is, if these boxes start falling down.” But I managed to get it down with little noise and opened up the four flaps. Obāchan hunkered beside me and lifted out Japanese newspapers, magazines, a few smaller boxes, and a cloth bag with something in it. She took the small
est box, covered in patterned paper and the little sack tied with string. Lifted the lid of the box and I peered inside, thinking of jewels and treasures. There was nothing inside except some beans. A burgundy-ish reddish bean with a small mark where the root would eventually come out. Then, she opened the cloth sack, folding the top back on itself so I could see inside. Roundish white seeds lay inside.
“Beans, huh,” I stuck my finger in the box to stir them around. “And rice. That’s nice, Obāchan.”
“Tada no mame to kome janai yo,” she said sternly.
“Sorry.”
She led me downstairs, the wood creak creaking beneath our feet and we shushed each other and giggled. Obāchan took the beans and soaked them in a bowl of tepid water. She held up two fingers.
“They have to soak for two hours, huh.”
I went upstairs to get my blankets and took them down to the large sink in the laundry room. Checking the temperature of the water on my wrist once, twice, three times to make sure it was the same as my body’s. The blood ran red into the water, making it a pretty pink. I hummed as I washed, until Mom stomped on the floor with her heel from her bedroom above. I could hear Dad moaning through the floorboards. I wrung out the blankets and hung them over the washer and dryer, puddles starting to form.
Obāchan sat at the kitchen table. She was sorting through the seeds of rice, picking out any that were slightly black or broken. I sat beside her and helped. I must have fallen asleep, and only woke up because there was a rich steamy fragrance in the air that I had never smelled before. Obāchan stood at the stove, filling two bowls with something from a pot. I went to the washroom and tidied my hair. Washed my face with icy water. When I came back, Obāchan was already sitting at the table, two bowls of rice in front of her. But the rice was different. It wasn’t white, but a rich purpley reddish colour and there were bean flecks here and there.
“Omedetō,” Obāchan reached, cupped my cheek, my chin, in the palm of her scratchy hand.
“Thank you,” I said, and bowed my head. Picked up my bowl of rice.
“Sekihan,” you say. “You eat it for other special occasions too.”
“Oh,” I am a little disappointed. I wanted it for women only.
“I can make it.”
“Really?” Beginning to perk up. “I would love to have some.”
“What will we celebrate?” you ask.
“Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.”
“What do you want to do while we soak the beans for two hours?”
“You have to ask?”
He taught flower arranging and the art of the Japanese tea ceremony for Calgary Continuing Education. His students were mostly women who could only take classes in the evenings. He didn’t make enough money doing this, so he worked as a night watchperson for extra pay. I delivered pre-dawn newspapers and we’d lie together when the days were bright and glowing.
I circled my finger on his smooth belly, tickled his feet with my toes. He was all sleepy and warm and the sun a fine thin comforter.
“I’d like to speak with your Obāchan sometime,” he said drowsily.
“You are. . . .”
But he was asleep.
“This is great,” I muffled, through sweet purple rice. “It’s almost as good as what Obāchan made for me, that one time.”
“So what are we celebrating?” he asked, scooping up another bowlful of sekihan.
“A love story.”
“Nani?”
“A love story. This love story right now. I’m not embarrassed. I decided that we could be a love story and be very proud about it,” I was feeling smug about my discovery. Of voicing it out loud.
“Does this mean we will be married?” he asked, serious.
“Of course not. ‘Love story’ and ‘marriage’ side by side would be an oxymoron. Why not linger in a love story? You would hate being married to me.” I confided, carefully trying to pick out some beans from my rice. Avoiding his face.
“My parents are coming to meet you in the fall,” he said, watching my eyes.
“Why?”
“Because, we’ve been living together. Because I write letters about you. Because they think we should get married and I think they’re right.” He was serious.
“Is this a proposal?” I asked, sad, angry, pleased all at the same time that my thoughts were jumbled and I couldn’t choose my words with care.
“Murasaki, I didn’t think I needed to ask. I thought this was a partnership for life.”
“Like Canada geese, huh? Like Mandarin ducks.”
“I’m not joking,” he said. He was getting angry, and I couldn’t blame him.
“I’m not either.” I stood up. Clattered my empty bowl in the sink.
“Then why are you here, why are you here right now, eating my rice and sleeping with me during the day?”
“Because I want to. And you want me to.”
“I just want you to commit yourself to us,” he said. “That’s what people do when they love each other, isn’t it?”
“I am committed to us.”
“Than prove it.”
“I’m committed to us at this moment. Right now. But if you keep bugging me about it, I might change my mind.”
“How can I trust you if you can’t make a commitment? This is a once in a lifetime relationship. It doesn’t get any better than this. We could live in a thousand lifetimes and never find something so special again. What more are you waiting for?”
“I’m not waiting for another lover, if that’s what you’re worried about. I just can’t commit my whole life to you. Especially if I don’t know what might happen next. If something bigger than just us comes into our lives.”
“But you do that every day,” he said, frustrated with my inconsistencies. “You commit yourself to what you don’t know every time you tell a story.”
“I’m committed to this love story right now. Can’t that be enough?”
“Everything you think of, you have to interpret as story. I’m not just a story. You’re not just a story. We feel and think and age and learn. If you hit me, it will hurt. If you leave me, I will cry. You can’t just erase those things.”
“I’m not erasing. I’m re-telling and re-creating.” I stood at the window, looking outside at the mugo pine you have been trying to shape.
“There’s no talking to you when you’re like this. You’re the hardest person I’ve ever loved.”
“Past tense?”
“I have to go out,” and he didn’t smile.
“Hey,” you say, “you’re mixing up the story with what’s really happening right now in our lives. I don’t know if I like that. I want to be able to separate the stories from our real lives. What we’re living right now.” You wash out the bowls, the rice cooker and hashi. You are anxious and the dishes clatter noisier than when you are content.
“You can’t. The words give the shape to what will happen. What can happen. I’m telling our future before it ever does.” I wander into the living room, touch the back of the couch, thumb a row of books, run a finger through the dust on top of the black stereo.
“But what if I don’t like the future you shape for us? What about my say in our future?” You are wiping your hands on a towel and your hair is tousled from frustrated fingers.
“When I’m finished my story, you can start another if you want. I will listen as politely as you have listened. At least, I’ll try to,” I amend.
“I don’t know if we should be messing around with our future. It might be unlucky,” you say earnestly.
“Luck has nothing to do with it. Well, maybe a little bit, but mostly, we hold the power to change our lives for ourselves. I don’t want to rely on fate.”
“What if—”
I put a finger to your lips and pull you to the floor. Rest your head in my lap and stroke your hair, the lovely lines in your widow’s peak.
“Trust me.”
I wiped the dishes he left sitting in the draining
rack and sat in front of the TV, even though it wasn’t on. Thoughts of gift horses and teeth and Mandarin ducks. Whatever they were. Funny how loving and pain are so closely tied together. When I was younger, I would have died to have thought I could find a man with a widow’s peak who could cook and love me with commitment. Me, who loved happy endings, despite myself. Henkutsu. The word lingered. Obstinately contrary. No, it wasn’t just that, though I couldn’t think of a word that described me better. Something tugged at my heart, my soul, that kept me from staying forever. Obāchan here. Obāchan now. Obāchan then and always.
“Tadaima,” he said, sounding tired. I was still sitting on the couch.
“Hi. How were your classes?”
“All right. I have a few students who show some promise. What are you doing?” He dropped down on the couch beside me. The bitter-green scent of flower stems seeping from his clothes and hands.
“Nothing. Thinking”
“What were you thinking?”
“It occurred to me. That I’ve known you since you arrived at the airport, but you’ve never taken an English class at the Y or anything. And you’re so fluent, I don’t even notice an accent when we’re talking together.”
He looked incredulously at me.
“But when I speak with you, I only speak in Japanese. Jibun de wakaranai no? Itsumo Nihongo de hanashiteiru noni. 呆れるよ。
Oh.
He leaned back, his head against the rim of the bathtub, and closed his eyes. She lingered, curling her fingers around his toes, and stroked the bottom of his feet with strong hands. He sighed. She circled his ankles, cupped the back of his calves with her palms, her knees tucked beneath her, straddling his feet. Smoothed hands slick with soap, up the back of his calves, circled his knees, along his thighs. She kneaded his legs with her powerful hands and he felt the tension seeping from his body. The breath hissed between his parted lips. She ran one finger up the skin of his inner thigh, stroked tender-smooth. He moaned. She smiled, and stretched a sure hand. Touch. The soft skin of a salamander. He sucked back his breath and held, sighed with dismay when she moved her hand away. Stretched her hand again. Touch. Touch. Salamander smooth. He held his breath. She lipped the skin of his belly, tongue stroking, bit softly his tiny nipples. Kissed him softly on his brow, his cheek, his eyes. She lifted her pelvis with a small motion, warm water lapping, the moisture in her hair, streaming down her face, breasts, moved her pelvis over him and tucked him deep inside. They rocked, slowly and gently, the water lapping around her thighs, his belly, they rocked and slid and he arched his back and she pressed, she pressed and hisssss of breath released. She laughed.