“Was Michi sometimes depressed here too—or was it just being in America?”
“Why do you ask this?”
“I was just wondering about—later—her death.”
He shook his head emphatically. “This is just some passing mood. It is difficult to be away from home country.”
She looked at him, sitting erect at the table.
“It's painful though, isn't it, to read about her sadness.”
Although he said nothing, she felt an agreement in his silence.
He bent over the paper. “To continue, Nakamoto says Ume does not like bright sun and squints her eyes against it. ‘One day we went to Tilden Park, very pretty place, with lake and such green grass I feel I am walking in a postcard. Together Ume and I rode . . .”’ He opened the dictionary, searching for a word, and showed it to her.
“Carousel,” she said, “merry-go-round. It's a children's ride.”
“I see. She writes, ‘Together we went up and down on the painted horse, but Ume cried and must be taken off. After I had quieted her, we took a walk along edge of park to lookout spot called Inspiration Point. There we had a fine panorama view of San Francisco.”’
“It's the picture!” Barbara picked up the photograph of Michi and Ume, the San Francisco Bay behind them, Michi directing Ume's gaze toward the camera.
“Inspiration Point,” Barbara whispered. She and Seiji leaned together, shoulders touching, to look at it. “I wonder who took this,” she said.
“Some passerby, I imagine.”
He read on in a quiet voice. “‘I told Ume that somewhere down below us lived her Great Grandmother Ko, though of course she cannot understand me.
“‘I worry very much for Ume, as she is not developing normally. She can speak only simplest words and has not yet learned her toilet habits, though she is five years of age. We visited respected doctor in San Francisco who tells me she is quite retarded. I do not like his cold word. He asked me questions about circumstances of her birth, but I cannot talk to American doctor . . .’” Seiji paused— “‘. . . about his bomb which has harmed her.’”
Barbara touched Seiji's arm. “It's all right,” she said. “You can read anything to me.”
“You will be very interested in the next part,” he said. “Nakamoto writes, ‘In past summer I gathered my courage to seek for Grandmother Ko.’” Barbara put down her pen to listen. “‘One day Ume and I took bus to area of San Francisco called Little Osaka and spent several hours in attempt to find Pine Street address written on Ko's envelope. Ume was very patient during our long walk, though several times we must stop to rest. Finally we came to the address, at some distance from Little Osaka. There is new brick house lived in by family named Smith. At first, I think must be some error.’ But Nakamoto says she has learnt that Japantown as it is called by Americans ‘shrank greatly after the war when Japanese returning from imprisonment camps found property had been taken in their absence.’”
Barbara asked him to read the part about Ko again. As she transcribed it, she thought of Michi at Kamakura, her wanting to guide Barbara to the sites of her mother. There had been no one to help Michi, no American who would have known what questions to ask.
“Let's read the next one,” Barbara said. “I have to know if she found her.”
He stretched. “I am rather tired.”
“You could skim it.” She got the 1953 bottle from the tansu and kneeling beside him, unwrapped the paper. “Just look at it,” she said, holding the page up to his face, “is she still in California?”
He read for a moment. “Yes,” he said laughing, “she is.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“You are not patient.”
“Patience is not my virtue.”
“What is your virtue?” he said, with a smile.
“Passion,” she said, embracing him.
“Kirēkitsu.” He let go of the paper to unbutton her dress, and they lay down on the floor beside the tansu, in the honey-colored light of late afternoon.
26
The following week it was scorchingly hot in Tokyo, and stifling in the Asakusa apartment. Barbara and Seiji went out to buy an electric fan, but it was little help, merely shifting the turgid air about and languidly riffling the edges of papers on the table.
Barbara took off her dress and sat down to work in her slip. Seiji looked taken aback, even slightly shocked, she thought, but she persuaded him to take off his shirt. She brought damp washcloths from the bath and as they read the next of Michi's writings they wiped the perspiration from their faces and arms.
“‘There is much to record this year,’” the 1953 paper began. “‘A visit from Ota sensei cheered us in November and we had many heartfelt talks and enjoyed cooking together our Japanese food. She is devoted to Ume, who takes to her as if she were grandmother.’”
Dear Miss Ota. Barbara could see her in her kimono, looking slightly out of place in an American kitchen, as she made chawan mushi custard for Ume.
“‘Nakamoto says when she told Ota sensei of her effort to find Ko she suggest we telephone to Yokogawas listed in telephone directory.’” Seiji read ahead silently, running his finger down the page. “She says she has already done this, to no luck. They make some attempts to search records in offices of the city, but are not successful.”
“Does she say what records? Some archives?”
Engrossed in the paper, he did not answer. “Next Nakamoto writes that she and Ota took Ume for an outing to Little Osaka in San Francisco where they had a lunch of soba noodles. Ota asked restaurant manager as we were leaving has she heard of Ko Yokogawa, a woman famous for haiku and tanka poetry before the war. She does not know her. ‘Many look at us curiously,“ Nakamoto writes, ‘and I am embarrassed by Ota sensei's British Japanese voice, although she means very well. Ota sensei wishes to make further investigation elsewhere in the area but Ume has become cross and I am glad to have that excuse that we must go.’
“‘Some weeks after Ota sensei's departure I have returned to Little Osaka alone and made discreet inquiries of elderly people whom I met on the streets and in shops. Finally . . .”’
“Yes?”
“‘. . . at one shop, Watanabe's dried goods, I am met with some success. Mother to store owner is there that day to arrange kimono. She says she did know Ko Yokogawa who was writer of poems!’”
Barbara gasped. “She found her!”
“Do not be too hasty,” he said. “Nakamoto says she was extremely agitated—like you,” he added, smiling at Barbara, “But she calmly says, ‘Are you certain?’ ‘Oh yes, she was very memorable woman, quite beautiful with heavy eyebrows and fine pale face. She worked at a boarding house with her daughter.’”
“Does she give the name of the boarding house?”
He shook his head. “She says Ko was known for her ability to predict the future as well as for her haiku and tanka.”
“I guess Michi-san inherited the gift for poetry from Ko,” Barbara said.
“Has she read her poems to you?”
Barbara started to speak, then stopped. The only way she knew about the poems was from the paper she'd had translated. “I was thinking she had,” she finally said. “We had many discussions about Japanese literature, including haiku.” That much was true.
He was watching her closely.
“Isn't it fascinating that Ko had an ability to predict the future? Since Chie herself felt that about Ko, even when she wasn't physically there.”
“Eh?”
“Ko predicting that the bomb would fall, and warning Chie to go protect Michi and Ume.”
He laughed. “Can you believe this?”
“Well—in a way.”
He shook his head, still smiling, and looked back at the page. “Most people in America do not like Ko's fortunes. The woman tells Nakamoto her predictions were always foreboding, with warnings of betrayal.”
“Ko probably felt deeply betrayed herself, by the Takasu family, so she wou
ld see betrayals looming everywhere.”
“Sometimes I think you are translator of this story,” he said with a laugh.
“Don't you speculate about what lies underneath what's written? Reading between the lines, we say in English.”
He shrugged. “I only read.”
“Well, read then,” she said with a laugh. “What comes next?”
“Watanabe tells Nakamoto that after the incident of Pearl Harbor, Ko and two of her children went to imprisonment camp somewhere in west—Idaho or Wyoming. Her oldest son joined army.”
“Which army?”
“American one. He eventually became interpreter for American soldiers in Pacific. This is strange turn, ne?”
“Very ironic. Michi's relative was fighting against her own husband.”
He nodded. “Nakamoto says she is shaken to learn these things and wants to verify, but says ‘It seems futile, as Father warned. I think I will never find her. Ko and her children are gone far from here, somewhere in the huge continent of America.’”
“Is that the end?”
“Yes.”
“I wish you'd say when it's the end. I'm sorry,” she said, shaking her head, “I'm just so frustrated.”
As Seiji went to return the bottle to the tansu, Barbara sat doodling in her notebook. She began to sketch a fox woman. Michi had to find her grandmother. Ko would be stunned at first; she had probably not even known that Michi existed. Barbara imagined Ko standing in silence—regal, betraying no feeling—then folding Michi in an embrace, the curtain of her hair falling around both of them.
She looked up. Seiji was still beside the tansu. “Is something wrong?” she said.
“There is one we have not seen.” He turned to look at her. “1945.”
“Oh. It's something very sad. I meant to show it to you, but . . .”
Her voice trailed off as he lifted out the bottle. She went to sit beside him. He laid the wrapped bottle on the tatami, untied the cord, took off the outer papers and the cloth wrapping. The exposed bottle lay between them. The only sound was the whir of the fan and the click as it turned from side to side.
“Again you did not tell me.”
“The time never seemed right. It's not as if I was trying to hide it from you.”
Seiji put the bottle away and closed the tansu.
“Let us go out for some cooler air,” he said.
Outside, the heat shimmered on the pavement, rising into watery looking mirages in the distance. They were grateful to find an air-conditioned teashop just off Kappabashi Street. Sitting at a table with their knees touching, they drank ceremonial tea and ate some fancy sweet cakes. Seiji lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. He seemed relaxed, his equilibrium restored.
“We're going to have a great summer, aren't we?” she said.
“Yes,” he said, smiling at her. “I think so.”
“After we finish Nakamoto's papers let's start work on something else. Maybe I really could write something about your ceramics—I'd love to give it a try.” The apartment was awfully small, she thought, but they could find a larger one. Not all the foreign teachers stayed on campus. Mr. McCann had his own place, no one seemed to know quite where. Tokyo was so large, it would be easy to disappear into it.
Walking back in the direction of their apartment they saw a fortune teller near the Askausa temple; she insisted they stop to have their fortunes told. Each of them chose a stick with a number on it; the fortune teller then gave them a sheet of paper with the corresponding fortune. Seiji's said that he was powerful and would be well known. There was no mention of love in Barbara's fortune, just the familiar Japanese prediction that she would find some object that had been lost. She threw it away and bought another fortune that said love would soon flower.
“You cannot do this,” Seiji said. “Only the first one is true.”
“No,” she said, “I just got the wrong one the first time. I'm surprised you'd be so superstitious.”
“But you are superstitious too—otherwise you would keep the fortune you do not like.”
They went down a street that specialized in butsudans, the ancestor shrines like the one Barbara had seen at Seiji's house. There were many small shops with shrines displayed in the window. As they stopped before one, Barbara thought of the picture of Michi-san on her butsudan shelf, youthful in her summer dress.
“Michi-san would be happy for us, don't you think?”
He gave a short laugh and turned away to light a cigarette. “Always you like to imagine,” he said.
They decided to go to a movie, a samurai film she couldn't understand a word of, but it was pleasant to sit in the cool theater with him. She took his hand. “An American custom,” she whispered. They sat throughout the movie with their arms and shoulders pressed together, their fingers interlaced.
After the film, they walked back to the apartment—stopping on the way for some barbecued chicken at a street vendor's cart—then went upstairs hand in hand. “I like this American custom,” Seiji said.
It was beginning to grow dark. “It's so peaceful here, isn't it? No aunts or Uedas to worry about.”
She thought he seemed distracted when they made love. Afterwards she lay with her head on his shoulder, drifting towards sleep.
“We must go now,” he said. “It is late.”
“Why can't we just stay here? We have to read the 1954 paper in the morning.”
“You must be discreet.”
“I can tell them at the college I've gone on a trip. Everyone travels in the summer.”
“I have my responsibilities at home.” He stood, and began to pull on his clothes.
She opened the tansu and took out the 1954 bottle. “Let's do it now then. I have to know if she found Ko.”
“I believe Nakamoto returned to Japan in next year, so I think she has never discovered her. There is no hurry. We can do next time.”
She felt a flash of anger. “Why do you get to decide all the time what we're going to read and when?” She took the paper off the bottle, jumped up, and thrust it at him. “Here. If you can't read it I'll find someone who will.” They stood glaring at each other.
“You would not do this,” he said.
“I would not want to. But I need to have this translated.”
He grabbed the paper and snapped it open.
“Be careful.” She reached for the paper, but he held it out of reach. He looked through the page, then said, “As I predicted, she does not find Ko.”
“Does she mention her at all?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what does she say?”
“She says last months in America very hard.” He gave a dismissive wave with one hand. “Very melancholy, cannot attend classes.” Another wave of the hand. “She left in disgrace without degree, still thinking of hopeless quest. All is as I said.”
“You've already said you said. Is there something more?”
“There follows something about return to Japan . . . we can read next time. You and Seiji. Watakushi. I.” He pointed to himself.
“Yes, you and me. I didn't mean what I said before. It just gets to me sometimes, the way you're always in control, deciding when to leave, what to read.”
“I cannot control that I must work. And when I read something you do not like, you become very angry. Boom.” He gestured upward with his hands. “You say you will find someone else.”
“I didn't mean that, honestly. And I don't really feel angry—just disappointed. But not disappointed with you.” She put her arms around him. He was stiff, unmoving. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I know I've been difficult. Let's not leave like this. Please, will you forgive me?”
He looked at her solemnly. “Yes, I can forgive.”
They were subdued as they drove back through Tokyo to Kodaira. He stopped at the gate of the college. Please don't go, she wanted to say, but it would only make things worse. It took him time to get over being angry; he needed to be alone.
They
met at the apartment two days later, on a Friday. She decided to take his favorite lunch, o-bento boxes of rice and broiled eel. That morning the tailor had called to say her new dress was ready. She stopped by on the way to try it on. It was flowered cotton with a becoming flared skirt. “I'll wear it,” she said, and put her other clothes in the suitcase she'd brought with her for the weekend.
Plum Wine: A Novel (Library of American Fiction) Page 24