Plum Wine: A Novel (Library of American Fiction)

by Angela Davis-Gardner

  “This will suit us exactly. You must take the train up the Japan Sea coast—it is a splendid view all the way.”

  Barbara said she would call from Hiroshima with the time of her arrival, then phoned Rie. Rie asked her to come on the 4th or 5th, before O-Bon on the 6th. This was the twentieth anniversary of the bombing, Rie said, so there would be large crowds. “My father has worried that you may not be comfortable. Our apartment is quite modest.”

  Rie seemed to be suggesting a short visit. They agreed she would arrive on the 5th, then she called the Wadas, “just to say hello.” She was grateful when they invited her to dinner the next night.

  Two days later, she went into Tokyo to get her tickets. When she returned to Kokubungi, she got off the train, stepped past a man urinating in the gutter, then walked past a row of small shops. She glanced into the pachinko pinball parlor. There was Seiji, playing a machine near the window.

  She stood watching him a long time. He did not move except to work the buttons and feed money in. She tapped on the glass. He stared for a moment, and came outside. His eyes were red and he smelled of beer.

  “Did you get my letter?” she said.

  “Hai.”

  “Why didn't you call me?”

  He looked down at the ground, shaking his head. “I have much shame. You can never forgive me.”

  “Maybe I can—if you give me back my papers.”

  He made a face and scratched the back of his neck.

  “I've got to talk to you,” she said.

  He looked up at her, swaying slightly. “Babala-san.”

  “You're drunk.”

  “I have much shame,” he said.

  “Let me walk you home.” She took his arm and steered him up the main street. Once they were at his house he couldn't refuse her the papers.

  They walked in silence. He stumbled once or twice, but she held him upright.

  When they came to the wooded area, she led him onto the path towards Takanodai. It was twilight in the woods. There was just room on the path for the two of them to walk side by side.

  “Seiji,” she said, “you know that Nakamoto sensei was very important to me.”

  He stopped to light a cigarette, his hands shaking, then indicated with a nod of his head that he wanted to sit beside the canal.

  They sat at the edge of the stream on hummocky grass. She looked down at the water, just perceptibly moving. “About Nakamoto...”

  “Nakamoto.”

  “She cared about me. I know she did, like a mother. That's why she gave me her tansu and family papers.”

  “She had anger with me,” he said. “Otherwise she would have given the tansu to me. Okada Seiji.” He pointed at himself.

  “I'm not going to argue about that any more. As I said, if you want to paint out those parts, like they did your history books . . . I can stand that . . . but I have to have the papers.”

  He shook his head.

  “Let's go get them now,” she said, starting to rise.

  He threw his cigarette into the water; it made a small hiss. “I do not have.”

  “Where are they?”

  He put his head in his hands.

  “What do you mean, you do not have? You didn't—destroy them?”

  “It could not be helped,” he said in a muffled voice.

  “Why?”

  He mumbled something in Japanese.

  “In English!” She pushed at his shoulder. “Look at me.”

  He raised his head, but did not meet her eyes. “There are personal references. Nakamoto and I . . .” He trailed off.

  “Nakamoto and you what?”

  He closed his eyes. “‘White cloud of feathers captured by trees, then two birds break free into the air.“ This haiku is describing Nakamoto and myself.”

  “That refers to Ume—a visit they made to the rookery.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Nakamoto and myself. For a time— we are together in intimate way.”

  “Intimate?” His features were indistinct in the dusk; it was as if he were fading from view. “What does that mean,” she whispered.

  “Like husband and wife—for a time.” He dropped his head into his hands again.

  She stared at him, then gave a short laugh. “I don't believe it.”

  He did not move.

  “She was so much older.”

  “Only by nine years.”

  “Michi-san? You . . .” For a moment everything went black, then her head cleared. She jumped up. “You used me. The only reason you wanted to be with me was to get those papers.”

  “No. We would be together in any case. Babala-san . . .” He reached for her, touched her leg.

  She kicked away his hand and stepped back. In the distance she could hear the traffic on the road, a steady sound like water. She turned, and ran toward it.

  In the taxi going back to Sango-kan, Barbara imagined smashing all Seiji's tea bowls and plates, even the haniwa, throwing them against the wall of the pottery shed, hearing them shatter. The precious Hamada bowl she'd save for last.

  When she got home, she opened the refrigerator, took out left-over food from the Wadas . . . pickles, bean cakes, a cream puff from the bakery below their apartment. She ate standing in the kitchen. Michi and Seiji, it was unbearable. There was peanut butter, almost half a jar. She ate it using one finger as a scoop. She took out a beer, Asahi, but could not find the bottle opener. Frantically she fumbled through the drawer, then dumped everything out in the sink. A coin rolled into the drain and lodged there. She started to cry, let out a ragged sound, then stopped.

  She walked into the sitting room and took Seiji's two tea bowls off the tokonoma, stacking them roughly one inside the other, then went outside, to the back of the building. Though it was dark, a moon had risen; she could see the trash dump clearly, and the telephone pole between the dump and the cryptomeria trees. Taking aim at the pole, she threw the first bowl. It hit with a satisfying crash. The other landed with a small thunk on the pile of garbage.

  There was a sound behind her. Mrs. Ueda was at her kitchen window, looking out at her; she must have just returned.

  Back inside, she tiptoed up the steps to her apartment and paced through her rooms. She snatched the picture of Michi off the tansu and stuffed it beneath some blankets in the chest. The roll of papers Seiji had tried to pass off as Michi's she put in a cupboard in the Western-style room, out of sight.

  There was a tap at her door, then another. “Barbara-san?” She went still.

  After Mrs. Ueda left, she dragged her futon away from the tansu into the sitting room and went to sleep.

  The sound of a blaring horn woke her. She went into the bedroom and looked out the window. Seiji's truck was in the driveway. He was outside the truck, yelling “Babala-san—Jefferson-san.” The horn was still blowing; for a moment she thought it was stuck. Then she saw a figure in the truck on the driver's side.

  She ran downstairs. Mrs. Ueda was already in the hall.

  “There is quite a going on,” she said.

  “Yes, I can take care of it,” Barbara said, and went outside.

  The car horn stopped. Barbara recognized Hiko in the truck.

  Seiji came weaving toward her. “Babala-san.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Come to Hiroshima,” Seiji said. “In Hiroshima, I can make explanation to you. Then you can understand me.”

  “I'm not ever going with you anywhere again—can't you understand that?”

  “O-Bon is next week. I will take Nakamoto sensei's ashes . . . we have talked of this.”

  “That was a long time ago. And I'm already invited to Hiroshima for O-Bon.”

  “I will find you.”

  “It's too late—just leave me alone.”

  Seiji glanced toward the door, at Mrs. Ueda standing there.

  “Go, please,” Barbara said, and ran back inside. She and Mrs. Ueda locked the door as the truck drove away.

  “You were right to
warn me about him.”

  Mrs. Ueda sighed and shook her head. “I am very sorry he has upset you.”

  “Did Nakamoto-san talk to you about him? Were they—in love?”

  Their eyes met. “He has caused her much grief,” she said.

  29

  Barbara could not sleep that night, even after several glasses of wine. In the morning she looked into the refrigerator: empty except for a bean cake wrapped in a paper napkin, and one cracked egg. Some of the yolk had dribbled out and crusted on the wire shelf. She didn't have the strength to clean it up.

  She sat down at her table with tea and the bean cake. On the bare tokonoma shelf were two small circles in the dust where Seiji's bowls had been. She could not keep her eyes from the empty space. Michisan's papers were gone. Erased, blank. She had to get away from here.

  During the spring holiday she'd spent one night at a Zen Buddhist temple in Kyoto that welcomed foreigners. The priest and his wife spoke excellent English; they'd invited her to return.

  She made the call; yes, there was a room, the priest's wife said; she could come that very day. She packed—enough clothes for the two weeks in Hiroshima and Yonago—then called a taxi to take her to the station.

  In downtown Tokyo, she changed her tickets. There was a seat on the new bullet train to Kyoto, leaving in thirty minutes; everything was falling into place. The train moved out of the city, sliding past ugly concrete buildings, factories, refineries. Soon they were going through flat green fields. In the distance was a line of dun-colored mountains. Suddenly the clouds above the mountains parted; Mt. Fuji hung in the sky like an illusion. Images of Hakone, the ski lift, Seiji's face close to hers, rose to her mind. She got up, stepped past her seat mate—a young woman crocheting a baby blanket—and went to the refreshment car where she spent the rest of the trip watching the blur of landscape on the other side of the train.

  At the temple she was shown to the same small tatami room where she'd stayed on her previous visit. It was only midafternoon but she got out the futon and lay down with one of the books she'd brought to re-read, Faulkner's Light in August.

  The next morning, before dawn, the gong for zazen meditation roused her. Tomorrow, she told herself, and fell back to sleep. At breakfast in the Zen study room, she met the other guests, two young American men from a commune in California. Both had recently burned their draft cards and were now seeking satori— enlightenment. One of them, bespectacled with a bad case of acne, consulted his volume of Schopenhauer during lapses in the conversation. The other, who had long hair and a slightly crazed look in his eyes, said he really grooved on this place, the whole scene.

  Barbara slept through meditation the next day too, and did not go out sightseeing, as she had planned. She stayed at the temple, drinking coffee and reading. Occasionally her mind strayed, touching on Seiji and Michi in sharp, hot flashes: the two of them together in the teahouse, in the small room inside the pottery.

  In the afternoon she took a walk in the temple gardens. The priest's wife had told her there were nightingales in the large bamboo grove, and sometimes foxes, but she did not see or hear signs of either. There was only the relentless drone of cicadas. If emptiness could be expressed in sound, she thought, it would be this cicada noise. Suddenly there was nothing in any direction but bamboo, green trunks tinged blue and orange. She was lost. She began to run, dodging through the thicket until she saw the temple roof, then fled to her room, to Faulkner: red clay, scrub pine, the landscape of home.

  After breakfast the next morning the priest came into the study center for an audience. A sweet-faced man in glasses, he had an air of infinite patience. He talked in a low voice to the young men, who told him they wanted to become disciples, novitiates.

  “Why do you desire this?”

  “To seek enlightenment,” the Schopenhauer reader said.

  “And what is enlightenment?” the priest asked.

  “Man, if we knew the answer to that,” the other one said, “I reckon we wouldn't be here.”

  “Ah, but perhaps you would,” the priest said, with a slight smile.

  “What is enlightenment then, Sensei?” the first man said.

  “The Zen master Dogen said that enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor the water broken. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.”

  There was silence. The men looked expectant, but when the priest said nothing further, they bowed, and quickly left the room.

  The priest turned to Barbara. “What do you seek?”

  “I just want to forget.”

  “To forget we must first remember.”

  “I remember all too well.”

  He studied her a moment. “You have much pain,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “The practice of zazen meditation can help you. Think of the painful thought, then let it flow out in the tide of your breathing.” Closing his eyes, he drew in a deep breath, and exhaled slowly through his nose. “Very simple idea but difficult in practice,” he said, looking at her again. “You must be patient. Even a moment of sitting can begin to free you from painful attachments.”

  The next morning before dawn Barbara took a place at the end of a row of monks in a cold dark room. After only a few minutes of sitting in the lotus position her legs and back began to ache. She had a long day ahead, going to Hiroshima. She should have slept instead. One day of this would do no good.

  The bell sounded, she drew in a breath. She thought of Seiji on the athletic field, holding out the raku bowl. For you, dozo. How excited she'd been, hurrying along the path by the canal to see him that first time, the smell of spring in the cold air.

  They had sat by the canal on that soft grass, he would not look at her. His cigarette hissed in the water. She heard Mrs. Ueda's voice: He has caused her much grief. She thought of Ume, her small head and large body, a thorn in Michi's heart. She raised a hand to her face. It was wet; she'd been crying without making a sound.

  In the taxi, going to the station, she stared out the window. All these people, each one so vivid—the woman in a white kimono, carrying an orange furoshiki, the businessman consulting his watch— she'd never see them again. On the train she bundled her coat against the window for a pillow. Forgive me, she imagined telling Michi, I should have guessed about Seiji. Now your papers are gone. Please forgive me, please forgive me, over and over, the sound of the words catching in the rhythm of the train until finally she slept.

  Rie and her father met Barbara at the station. “Very nice,” Mr. Yokohagi said, several times, bowing, “My daughter has been waiting.”

  “I am glad you have come, Sensei,” Rie said.

  They took a crowded streetcar to their apartment building in the middle of the city. Standing beside Mr. Yokohagi Barbara noticed a prominent wen on top of his head. She wondered if it was cancer, caused by radiation; Rie said he had not been well. She looked out at the square concrete buildings, the busses, the streets full of people. A different city was here before, replaced with this one. She thought of the photograph of her mother in Hiroshima, she and her guide tiny figures in front of the Kabuki theatre that was now gone. Seiji had known that theater, and Michi; Michi had probably been there many times. A headache started behind her eyes. They crossed one glistening river, then another. Along the riverbanks were enormous shrubs of oleander in bloom. The streetcar rattled over yet another river. “So many rivers,” she said. “We have seven rivers in Hiroshima,” Rie said, “all branches of Ota, which forms in the mountains.” She counted them off on her fingers. “From the east, Enko, Kyobashi, Motoyasu, Honkawa, Tenmagawa, Kawazoegawa, Koi.”

  Mr. Yokohagi leaned forward and, looking at Barbara, asked a question in Japanese.

  “My father wants to know your first impression of our city.”

  “It's pretty,” she said.” But strange.”

  Rie translated for her father, then said in a quiet voic
e, “Perhaps you can understand if you think of ‘unreal city,’ as Mr. Eliot speaks in his ‘Wasteland.’”

  The Yokohagis lived at the top of a drab apartment building. There was no elevator, so they climbed the six flights of stairs, Mr. Yokohagi running ahead with both of Barbara's suitcases. They went through a door onto a balcony, where there was a clothes line sagging with underwear and shirts. The Yokohagis“ apartment was at the end of the balcony.

  “Please welcome our modest home,” Mr. Yokohagi said. There was a hall, a bath on the left, a toilet on the right, then a large room that included a kitchen area. At the end of the apartment were two small tatami rooms. Rie put Barbara's bag in the room they'd be sharing, and left her to put her things in the closet and an empty tansu drawer.