Back in the truck, she asked, “Why did you leave so suddenly from Hakone?”
“I was frightened by strong feeling I have not experienced before. ”
“Were you ever in love—as a young man?”
“Only schoolboy love. Then came war and my illness, after that my time with Nakamoto sensei.”
Barbara stared past him out the window, wondering what Michi would think of their affair. She imagined her shocked face. But I didn't know, Barbara wanted to tell her, I had no idea. She looked at Seiji, the profile she'd come to know so well. Michi would have forgiven him everything, even the papers, if she could have seen the care he took yesterday, laying her to rest.
“Thank you for taking me to Mitaki Temple yesterday,” she said, “and for showing me where you and Michi-san grew up. I'll never forget that.”
“I wish I could forget,” he said.
They stopped once more, for lunch, then she went to sleep, her head against his shoulder, not waking until he touched her arm.
“We are here,” he said.
The inn was elegant and quiet. They were shown to a large room with sliding doors that opened onto a private garden. Their host—a shy man in glasses—said that dinner would be ready soon. Would they care to bathe first? He didn't look at Barbara. She wondered what Seiji had said about them. He must not have said there would be a Mr. and Mrs. Okada checking in.
There was no one else in the women's bath. She washed quickly, put on the hotel's cotton kimono, and went to join Seiji .
Dinner was served in a private tatami room separate from their bedroom. There was a procession of dishes she didn't recognize, most of them fish or plants of the sea, Seiji said. There were two cooked sea urchins; Barbara couldn't imagine eating one but Seiji carefully folded back the spiny skin and delicately ate the flesh with his chopsticks.
“I want to know everything about you,” she said. “What were you like as a baby?”
He laughed. “I cannot remember.”
“What's your first memory?”
“Some red striped candy at New Year's. And when I was not very old I remember I got in trouble for taking a schoolmate's lunch.” He laughed, then his face grew somber. Always I was hungry—it seemed there was never enough to eat during those years.” After a pause he said, “What do you first remember?”
“One thing is that fox woman scroll hanging on the wall of our living room. I used to stand on my father's lap and look at it. Even before I knew it was associated with Japan I felt some mystery about it. It seems that I was always drawn to Japan.”
“Did you find what you expect?”
“Not at all,” she said.
The futon had been laid out in their room. They sat on the tatami by the open door to the garden. There was a small pond shining in the moonlight, and the occasional startling sound of a bullfrog, like the loud plucking of a stringed instrument.
“There is a saying about frog in Japan, that frog says please return to this place.”
“We will,” she said.
They undressed in the moonlight and lay down on the tatami.
He pushed back her hair to kiss her neck. “Kirēkitsu.”
“Not kirēkitsu Barbara.”
“Baba-san.” He held her face and looked at her.”
“Seiji,” she said. “I love you.”
He buried his face against her chest.
“You love me too,” she said. “Don't you?”
“Yes,” he said in a muffled, agonized voice.
The next day they went to the beach. With wooded sheltering islands just offshore, the surf was gentle. They took off their shoes and walked along at the edge of the waves. Seiji spread out a blanket he'd brought from the truck.
They sat looking out at the water and islands. Barbara leaned against him and closed her eyes, listening to the sound of waves. “I wish we could stay in this moment forever,” she said.
A wave unfurled, spreading across the sand to their feet.
“I wish so too,” Seiji said. “But we cannot.”
“Why not?”
He laughed. “Always you say, why not.”
That night in their room she lay listening to the strident bullfrog long after Seiji had gone to sleep. In the middle of the night she woke to find him gone. He was sitting by the open door, smoking. She went to sit beside him. It was dark out now, with no moon, and the frog was silent. “What are you thinking about?” she said.
“Tomorrow you will leave.” He kissed her hand and put it inside his yukata, against his chest.
The next morning he drove her further up the coast to the town of Iwami Masuda to her train, which was already in the station. There were several people on the platform, so she and Seiji awkwardly bowed goodbye.
“Always I will remember Hāgi,” he said, in a low voice.
“We'll return someday.”
She got on and he stood outside her window, looking up at her solemnly. When the train began to move he lifted his hand. She kept him in her vision, watching until the train rounded a curve and he was out of sight.
As soon as the train left the small town, they were riding along the ocean, jade green with high waves crashing against jagged rocks. To the right of the train were rice fields, brilliant green, rice stalks blowing in the breeze. How beautiful the earth was, here in this moment. She caught sight of a small red torii in a field right beside the train; probably there were fox statues there too, a personal farm shrine. She thought of the fox woman scroll in her apartment; she'd gone all the way down the fox woman's path, deeper into Japan than her mother had ever been.
She turned back to the ocean and was gradually lulled to sleep. She awoke to the conductor calling out “Izumo, Izumo,” holding the “O,” a mournful, mysterious sound. Ko had been from what used to be called Izumo province, but she hadn't known there was also a town by that name.
They travelled on, the ocean no longer in view, but soon there was a broad expanse of water on the left. She asked the schoolboy sitting in front of her what it was. Lake Shinji, he said. It was the lake Michi's mother Chie had written about; Ko had lived by its shores. She was in their country now. Ko's. Chie's. Michi's. The light seemed different here: brighter, yet more ethereal.
The town of Matsue was just beyond the lake. Ko's home. She felt a ripple of excitement as the train moved slowly past the old houses, a canal lined with ancient pine trees. Except for the cars and telephone lines, it must look much the same as it did a century ago.
Yonago was a half hour beyond Matsue. Miss Ota and her niece Keiko met her at the station and drove her to a large house hidden from the street by a stone wall. Near the entrance was a Western-style room that looked like a scene from Victorian England: a horsehair sofa, velvet armchairs, old fashioned glass lamps with fringed shades, and a piano. Then there was a honeycomb of tatami rooms and at the far end of the house, the small tearoom where Barbara would be staying.
“How lovely.” Barbara looked around at the honey-colored tatami floor, the fresh flowers in the tokonoma. The paper doors were open to a shaded garden.
“Tonight we are having special dinner,” Keiko said. “My aunt's work is complete. We have been waiting for you to have our celebration.”
“Is it The Figure in the Tatami?” Barabara asked.
“Yes,” Miss Ota said, “I have finished off Mr. James at last.”
After her bath, Barbara went back to the main room for the celebratory dinner. Miss Ota's manuscript lay in the middle of the table; beside it was a bottle of decanted plum wine Keiko had made. Keiko's husband, Akihiro, a tall, ascetic-looking man whose face was transformed by a playful smile, toasted Miss Ota's opus, Mr. James, and Barbara, for good fortune in her travels. The children, Eiji, a boy of eleven and Yuko, six, stared at Barbara throughout much of the dinner, then Yuko put her doll in Barbara's lap.
“I think you are a member of the family now,” Keiko laughed.
Keiko went to put the children to bed and Akihiro excused him
self to make a telephone call.
Barbara and Miss Ota sipped Keiko's wine and looked out into the garden. It had grown dark; fireflies were blinking here and there in a slow, silent music.
“Miss Ota,” Barbara said. “I want to ask you something—about the writing Nakamoto left to me.”
“Yes, certainly.”
“She mentioned your visit to California—with great pleasure.”
“I am glad,” Miss Ota said with a little bow.
“I've been thinking about what you said—how you tried to help her find her relatives.”
Miss Ota nodded.
“Do you mind my asking what kind of records were you looking for? You mentioned displacement of Japanese Americans during the war. Were those records of . . . the camps?
Miss Ota cleared her throat. “Yes. But we found these closed to us.”
“Do you think they would be open now?”
“I am not certain. In any case, it is too late for poor Nakamoto.” She sighed. “I wish I could have been some assistance to her in this regard.”
“I'm sure she was just happy to have you with her and Ume in California.”
“I have done what little I could. It was a difficult time.”
“Did she ever visit you here? I was wondering if she'd ever been to Matsue, to look for Ko's home.”
Miss Ota shook her head. “She has intended to do so, but unfortunately the opportunity kept slipping past us.” She looked at Barbara. “You are quite familiar with the particulars of Nakamoto's history, I believe. This is all in the writing to which you have alluded?”
“Yes.”
Miss Ota was looking at her expectantly.
“Do you remember the tansu Michi-san left to me? It was filled with plum wine.”
“Ah yes, I recall Miss Fujizawa's distress,” she said, with a little smile.
“The writings that Nakamoto left to me were wrapped around those bottles of wine. They were New Year's writings—Michi's and her mother's.”
Miss Ota studied her a moment. “This is a rare legacy to you.”
“It's the most important thing that ever happened to me,” she said, with a catch in her throat. “One of the most,” she added, thinking of Seiji.
“By the way.” Miss Ota raised her cup. “This wine is made from Nakamoto's recipe. The years Michiko-san was in California she asked if my niece Keiko could make the wine for her. She did not like to miss a year.”
Barbara looked down at her wine. “Did you know that the recipe was originally Ko's? It was handed down to Michi by her mother but Ko brought it from Matuse as a bride. And here we are, drinking it.”
“It seems quite fitting,” Miss Ota said.
They drank a toast to Ko.
“I think we had better visit Matsue tomorrow,” Miss Ota said. “You can go there in Nakamoto's place.”
The next day Miss Ota, Barbara, and Keiko set out for Matuse in Keiko'scar. Miss Ota suggested they visit an ancient Inari shrine. ”You will be particularly interested, I think, Barbara-san, with your curiosity about our Japanese fox.” As they walked along a canal lined with pine trees, Barbara thought of Ko walking here; this was the place where Michi's story began. She paused, looking down at the reflection of pine branches and her face in the water. Michi would be glad she'd come. A legacy. She felt the words settle into her.
At the entrance to the shrine were several pairs of large foxes, then a long hill of steps up to the shrine. Both sides of the steps were lined with small fox figures made of dark weathered stone, tier upon tier of them. “Many years ago this was a most popular shrine,” Miss Ota said. “Each fox has been donated by a patron with some particular supplication.”
“You know that pair of antique foxes I showed you?” Barbara said.
Miss Ota nodded.
“They were in the tansu. I think they might have come from here.”
“Ah so desuka?” Barbara had never heard Miss Ota sound so thoroughly Japanese. She began to talk in Japanese to Keiko as the two of them went up the steps ahead of her.
There seemed to be thousands of the foxes. So much prayer and longing in one space. Barbara studied the small stone carvings as she slowly climbed the steps. Some of them were comic or wild-looking, almost all were weathered and dirty. Quite a few were broken, with missing ears, snouts, or heads. Any one of them might have been put here by Ko. She imagined a young woman in a red flowered summer kimono, her long black hair shining in the sunlight. Ko could never have guessed what would befall her in Hiroshima, or that she'd end up so far away, in America.
As Barbara went on up the steps, she reviewed in her mind the efforts Michi had made, looking for her relatives. The telephone books, the camp records. Maybe they were no longer sealed. One of Ko's sons had been in the army. There couldn't have been many Japanese— certainly not many Yokogawas—in the U.S. army. There might have been magazine or newspaper articles about Japanese soldiers, the irony of their situation, the difficulties. And the army would have records in Washington, only five hours drive from North Carolina. She could ask one of the investigative reporters at the Raleigh newspaper how to begin. Her mother might be able to suggest someone.
At the top of the steps she joined Miss Ota and Keiko. Keiko pointed out the hole in back of the shrine, where real and spirit foxes were said to nest. When Barbara leaned down to look inside the hole, Keiko pulled her back. “Do not have your nose bitten!” she said.
Miss Ota and Keiko started down the steps. Barbara lingered, stopping to look at the foxes along the way. There were little dishes of fried tofu in front of several of them; surprising, since the shrine didn't seem to be much visited or well tended. She bent to pick up a fox that had fallen over, in a puddle of water: a speckled grey fox, covered with slime.
As she set the figure upright, she heard a sound, a slight scuffling in the leaves. Something ran out of the bushes—a small animal, a mahogany-colored blur—brushed against her leg, and darted back into the shrubbery. She parted the branches with both hands, peering into the darkness. It had been a fox. A baby fox, a real one. Seiji would say she was superstitious, but it seemed like an acknowledgment, or blessing.
They had lunch at a small restaurant near the shrine, then drove away from Matsue along the coast where they were to stay the night at a hot spring inn on the beach. Barbara rolled down her window and breathed in the salt air. She thought about Seiji at Boso Peninsula, wearing his mask, and at Hāgi, sitting beside her on the beach. Without him she would have missed so much. Everything. Even this moment.
At the ryokan she and Miss Ota and Keiko were shown to a large tatami room they would be sharing. They stood looking at the ocean below them and enjoying the air that blew in through the windows.
A maid brought them cotton kimono and they went outdoors to bathe. It was an open-air bath in an area sheltered by large rocks and bamboo. Near the door of the ryokan were faucets, buckets, soap. They took turns washing one another's backs. Miss Ota had parchment-colored skin with prominent blue veins. She and her niece Keiko were so natural together. She'd never take a bath with her aunt or mother.
They got into the pool and sank to their chins in the scalding hot water. Barbara could hear the faint rhythm of the surf below them. It was sunset. The sky was streaked with salmon colored clouds and the moon had risen, a pale disk above them. “I think this must be paradise,” Miss Ota said.
Barbara closed her eyes. There was nothing but the sensation of her body in the hot water, the sound of the ocean, and her awareness of the quiet presences of Keiko and Miss Ota.
32
When Barbara returned to Tokyo there was a postcard from Seiji saying he was in Mashiko. He did not know when he would return, he said, there was much work to be done for Hamada. There was no mention of their time together, no hint of affection. It was his pattern, she reminded herself. After a week she called his house. There was no answer. A few days later she called again, then walked to Takanodai. His truck was gone and the pottery was closed.
When she went to the front gate and rang the bell, no one came. She felt a shiver of dread.
A week passed, then two. She rarely left the apartment building, waiting for him to appear.
Finally, in mid-September, soon after classes began, there was a call from him. His voice was formal, saying hello, asking how she was.
“I'm fine,” she said. “When did you get back?”
“A few days ago.” There was a pause. “My mother has been ill.”
“I wish you'd called. I've been worried.”
“Please meet me at Kamiya tomorrow night,” he said in a low voice. “I can explain.”
He was already at the restaurant when she came, sitting at the table beneath the Sharaku print. Apparently he'd been there awhile, drinking sake. They ordered food; he did not touch his.
Plum Wine: A Novel (Library of American Fiction) Page 30