When I announced that Akiko would be coming home and saw Ichiro Terada stunned with the sudden pain of anxiousness, I had some misgivings. The protectiveness I felt for Akiko cannot be explained. She was not my daughter. She was unlike any of my four daughters, who all resembled Haru—well, perhaps they also resembled me. They had our assertiveness: Haru’s pushy ways, my arrogance. They were boxy farm girls, husky and strong. They could lift bags of feed and load a truck high with large crates of eggs. Akiko had the same strength, but somehow it was arranged differently in her. All the girls of the commune lived together, slept together in one large dormitory cottage. This situation made me forget their parentage, and gave me the feeling that they all belonged to me. But Akiko was special from the moment she arrived with her family. Perhaps because Yōgu was no longer Yōgu, I adopted Akiko away from him for my own.
I tried to ignore Ichiro’s interest in Akiko as if it would simply go away. And yet I noticed that he could hardly contain his pleasure and woke several hours earlier to leave for the city. It was dark when he left Esperança, and he must have seen the sun rise in a golden glow that emanated from the place where Akiko was.
I left later, taking a small biplane to São Paulo, as had become my custom, and met Ichiro at the Sarandi Cooperative offices. I got into the truck. Usually Ichiro looked haggard from his long drive and ready for a well-deserved nap, but that day he was especially alert. I directed him through the maze of city streets to my secluded house on a shaded cul-de-sac near the Praça d’Árvore. I avoided talking about Akiko and said, “I won’t be returning right away, but there is something I want you to take back to Esperança on the truck. It is packed and crated at my house. There should be some men there now to help you put it on the truck.” When we pulled up, two men were squatting near the porch waiting, and Akiko ran out of the house to greet us. She must have seemed older and more mature, for Natsuko of course had made her impression on Akiko. And she must have seemed to have lost her ruddy complexion and to be much thinner. But I remember even now how her face lit up happily when she saw Ichiro; I remember that special glow of expectation and felt jealousy. “How I’ve missed you!” she cried. “How I miss everyone.” Those words must have spun about Ichiro gloriously, but I ignored his joy.
Natsuko came out at that moment, and I introduced her. “Since Akiko is leaving, this is my new housekeeper,” I said nonchalantly. Ichiro stared at Natsuko almost impolitely, and she in turn ignored him somewhat imperiously, directing the workmen as they carefully took the crate out to the truck for loading. She spoke in clear and perfect Portuguese, and this must have impressed Ichiro as he continued to stare at Natsuko. “Come on,” I cuffed him lightly on the side of his head. “What are you waiting for? Put this thing on your truck.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s a surprise,” Akiko interrupted. “Don’t tell him,” she cautioned me as she smiled sweetly. “You’ll see.” She was full of happiness.
Finally the crate was loaded onto the truck. Ichiro scratched his head in embarrassment and said to Natsuko, “I’m sorry, but I think I remember you from somewhere.”
Natsuko smiled and nodded, but it seemed impossible to me that Ichiro of all people, who never left Esperança except to deliver eggs, should have ever met a woman even similar to Natsuko. For a long time after, the thought puzzled me, but one day on one of his deliveries, I asked him about this. I remember what he answered: “It’s probably just a coincidence. I wondered about it myself. The other day I was looking through the albums of the photographs you took, the very first ones aboard the ship, the Brazil-maru. Remember?”
I nodded.
Ichiro continued, “There was a woman who came with this boy I met on the ship. His name was Kōji. In one of your photographs she is standing there in a group behind my friend. You can see for yourself. She is the very image of your housekeeper. Of course, how old was that woman then? A little younger than my mother,” he laughed. “She must be a grandmother now.”
I felt great surprise. No wonder they said Ichiro never forgot a face. Just like a camera, his mind took pictures of everything that happened.
Later, I rummaged through the photo albums and looked for myself, tried to remember. In the photo, the woman looked sad and distraught. There was some gossip about this woman, I remembered. Hadn’t she run away from home? She was discovered up in the officers’ quarters. The thought suddenly intrigued me that perhaps, just perhaps, Natsuko had been conceived somewhere out there as we rounded the Cape of Good Hope, as I displayed my Carl Zeiss box camera, and we made the last leg of our journey to a new world. Although we could not foresee the events of our lives in this world, it is true that we had brought with us everything, all the elements, all our cultural baggage, all our wisdom and all our faults, the very impetus to strike out in new directions and all the self-imposed barriers that might deter us from our purpose.
Akiko rode back to Esperança beside Ichiro. I saw the truck pull away and imagined what I did not know I could not prevent. I knew Akiko’s innocence to be complete and unspoiled, as complete and unspoiled as perhaps Ichiro’s. In this I felt jealousy and yet power. I was not such a fool, and yet indeed I was. Although I felt relief in Akiko’s return, I knew the ache of a yearning I could not extinguish in myself. I returned to the house full of my tremendous need, a rising fire groaning within me. I closed the door behind us and pulled Natsuko to the floor, pushing the image of Ichiro’s truck, of Akiko beside him and the piano hidden in that large crate, away.
CHAPTER 12:
Piano
Although the piano that I sent home with Akiko arrived somewhat out of tune, its arrival was the cause of much pleasure. Akiko’s grandfather came out to inspect the small upright that had, unknown to anyone, once belonged to Natsuko. I wanted to impress Natsuko with a more elegant piano, a baby grand, and I thought this upright would be a fine present to Akiko and the girls. Kawagoe had long ago, I suppose in a moment of despondency, sold his daughter’s piano. When he saw this replacement, he became tearful. Kawagoe ran chords up and down the keys with a flourish remembered from long ago, and Akiko’s friends from the chicken pens crowded around, passing their fingers over the wood, caressing the keys and asking a hundred questions about her life in the big city. The excitement over Akiko’s return and the arrival of the piano spread through the commune.
Ichiro must have felt happiest of all. Perhaps he thought himself responsible for bringing happiness to the commune, as if he himself had bought that piano for Akiko. Perhaps he reveled happily in the thought of his future with Akiko. He knew this was where they both belonged. And of course he was right.
The Baiano came in and out of the commune with his deputies, asking questions. I was surprised to see that he was devastated by the death of my father-in-law. He confessed to me that he considered Okumura his mentor and friend. He mourned Okumura’s death, but he cursed us all for our foolish war. “Damn fools couldn’t participate in a real war, so you have to go and make one up! Well, it’s not going to happen in my town. This has gone too far! We’re going to get to the bottom of this. I’m going to hang everyone responsible!”
The Baiano came with his interpreters and searched high and low. Everyone remembered the pots-and-pans salesman, but no one said anything. The salesman had disappeared, and no one ever saw him again. It was determined that Okumura had been killed by outsiders, members of the Shindo Renmei. There was a clandestine group, my friend Befu probably among them, who supported the Shindo Renmei, if not in action, then in words, but Okumura’s death could not be traced to them. But the Baiano was still not satisfied. When the matter of the Tanaka silk barn was investigated, the name of a young man in Esperança came up. This young man was only sixteen or seventeen years old, but he was held for questioning. I suspect the Baiano had a purpose in holding this innocent young man, whose mother wept and pleaded with the Baiano to no avail. The mother came to see me. I was now Okumura’s undesignated heir. She sobbed and insist
ed that her son was innocent, that she and others could testify to his whereabouts on the night of the fire. All of us felt sorry for the poor woman. That was when one of the Terada brothers, Kōichi, came forward and confessed that he and the salesman had thrown gasoline all around the Tanaka barn and set it afire.
This came as a great shock to all of us, but most of all to Ichiro. The Terada boys had all joined us at New World. There seemed to be an unspoken understanding among them, but probably Ichiro had never really talked to his brother Kōichi. Each of the brothers was very different, but they seemed to agree that this dream, this vision, was worth working for. Ichiro must have assumed that Kōichi thought as he did, but in fact, he did not know what his little brother thought about anything. He felt a great shame that he had not been a better brother to him. That night I saw the light in the dining hall where the older brothers—Ichiro, Eiji, Hiro, and Yōzo—all sat with Kōichi until daybreak, trying to make up for lost but irretrievable time. All night long the five of them sat in the dining hall and talked and argued about this thing they called Kantaro’s dream. Maybe it was the first time they really all talked about these things. Were they surprised to learn that Yōzo and Kōichi were both stubborn sorts, that Hiro was romantic, and that Eiji blamed Ichiro, the oldest, for everything? And what did they mean by “Kantaro’s dream?” Was it not also their own? They saw the dawn throw a soft pink light over the oil paintings of Inagaki and Genji and others on the walls, and Kōichi continued to argue that he had burned the barn for me, Kantaro, that he had acted not only from passion and commitment but from what he believed was a correct interpretation of my words and goals. Ichiro strained unconvincingly in his arguments. In Kōichi he must have seen himself not so many years ago, young and passionate and a believer.
The morning came, and Ichiro drove Kōichi to Santa Cruz d’Azedinha so he could turn himself in to the Baiano. Before they left, I saw Sei Terada run out from the kitchen with one bundle of food and another of blankets and clothing. I saw Kanzo, my first and only son, come out to see Kōichi leave. Kanzo and Kōichi were close friends, and I suspect Kanzo had known all along of Kōichi’s deed. Everyone looked at each other with speechless sadness. Kōichi confessed to Sei that he had known nothing about the plan to kill Okumura that night. He said that he would not have accompanied the salesman had he known. He was not sorry, though, that he had burned the barn, but he would never forgive himself that Okumura had been killed. He said that since that night he had not been able to look Haru in the face. He begged his mother to ask Haru’s forgiveness. He dropped his head, and Sei sobbed pitifully on his shoulder. After Kōichi left for prison, I noticed that she was never quite the same. Kōichi was her youngest and last son, and she had held him close for many years after her husband’s death. I, like many, felt a special love for Kōichi, the first of us who was born in Esperança, born in Brazil. We all saw him as forever a youngster, the true Emile in a New World.
Then my brother Jiro’s wife, Toshiko, died suddenly. Jiro had succeeded through Toshiko and his three children—gaining a measure of independence from me. It was not a great measure, considering that we were all dependent on the fruits of our collective labor, but it was something. When Toshiko died, Jiro groped around helplessly. It was no consolation to Jiro that his three healthy children remained; he had never participated in caring for them. Like all children on the commune, mine included, Jiro’s ran in great bands around the commune, cared for by the nearest mother at the moment. Jiro could hardly separate his own children from the bunch. When they came home at night to sleep in the room adjoining his, he was surprised to discover that they both resembled and reminded him of Toshiko.
Toshiko had fulfilled a special unknown place in Jiro’s life. She was a cheerful woman who liked to talk. She was generous and full of caring, and she went to such lengths to do the smallest thing to make Jiro happy. For the first time, Jiro had felt someone who was devoted to him. For such a long time, he had been devoted to me, never receiving anything in return except the acknowledgment of his devotion. Toshiko had made my brother feel, in his own way, important and loved. Jiro was, after all, a rather childish person, dependent on the guidance and instructions of others. Toshiko, in her loving way, guided Jiro through a series of functions, pushing him forward each morning toward his duty. Without Toshiko, Jiro seemed to lose his way. For days, he sat in his house and wept, and long after that initial mourning, he might be found sitting in the dining hall and suddenly bursting uncontrollably into tears. No amount of consoling or talk could bring Jiro away from his mourning. Jiro stopped going out to work and wandered around aimlessly looking for sympathy and stopping to talk with anyone who would talk about Toshiko. When Jiro had exhausted all of us with his mourning, he wandered away into Esperança and then into Santa Cruz d’Azedinha. On several occasions I sent Ichiro to find him in Santa Cruz at the corner bar. Ichiro had to enlist the help of the other customers in the bar to carry Jiro out. More than once, Jiro had drunk himself into a stupor. Once, Ichiro found him passed out in a pool of vomit in the dark alley behind the bar, and another time, he was found sleeping by the side of the road.
In between these bouts of drunkenness, Jiro had taken to terrorizing the young girls in the chicken pens, much after the fashion of Hachiro Yōgu. However, these attacks were not immediately discovered because Jiro, unlike Yōgu, planned clandestine attacks, snatching girls at the edge of the forest or near the tall stalks of flourishing corn. This produced a flurry of hysteria, after which someone was always sent to follow Jiro. The girls never ventured anywhere except in large groups. I knew that one family with two young daughters was appalled by this situation and used this as an excuse to leave the commune. The problem with Jiro gradually became a rather more serious one, for which no one except perhaps my mother Waka had any clear answers. My mother thought that problems of this nature were best resolved by marriage. Of course, she was right.
While Jiro’s problems went unresolved, Hachiro Yōgu’s reawakening took a new and astonishing turn. Yōgu remembered, or perhaps I should say revealed, his old attraction for my wife Haru. In the beginning, Yōgu stalked my daughter Mieko, who actually did resemble Haru somewhat in her younger days. Yōgu rushed into the women’s bath one evening. There was a sudden squabble of voices when Yōgu appeared. Yōgu had rushed in naked from the men’s bath and slipped on the wet tiles. Naked women scattered from the bathhouse while others pinned Yōgu to the floor. Mieko, wide-eyed, sank deep into the steaming tub, looking through the clutter of wet and naked bodies struggling with Yōgu’s flailing body. It was Haru who hustled in from the kitchen, her apron soiled with soup and grease, and pulled Yōgu out with that muscular grip known to every child in the commune. But before Haru pulled the naked man to his feet, she grabbed a basin of soapy shampoo water and tossed it into Yōgu’s dumbfounded face. Yōgu stared through the stinging soap suds at Haru, who was red with the anger of a protective mother. In that moment, I suppose Yōgu caught sight of some distant memory. Whatever it was, the memory was a potent one, and Yōgu grasped it hungrily. Little by little, everything was coming back. Haru. Haru. Yes, this was the woman called Haru. A smile of happiness spread over Yōgu’s face as she dragged him from the bathhouse. Before she could say anything, Yōgu looked at her full in the face and whispered the first words he had spoken since he had returned to Esperança. “Haru?” he asked. “Haru.”
Those around who heard Yōgu speak for the first time were astonished by this marvelous accomplishment. But my Haru, naturally, was unimpressed. She grabbed a towel off the body of one astonished girl and wrapped it tightly around Yōgu, tucking the end of the towel next to the wet skin of Yōgu’s stomach with a perfunctory jab and pushed Yōgu off. “Go,” she ordered. “Get dressed! Imagine—a grown man like you!”
But this was only the beginning. From that time on, Yōgu followed Haru everywhere. The only thing he could say for a long time was “Haru.” He seemed to use the word Haru indiscriminately for everything. Haru see
med to mean “yes” or “no,” depending on his expression. Haru also meant a great variety of food and drink. Haru was pain and happiness and laughter as well. Haru herself was both annoyed and pleased. At times she ignored Yōgu, shuffling quickly by with some task and ordering Yōgu to get out of her way. At other times, she went to great lengths to explain things to him. When I think about that old lady of mine, she was always that way. I never knew it. I took her for granted. Sometimes I wonder who I married and why. But Yōgu seemed to know.
One day I saw Haru open a big album full of old photographs, the photographs that I had taken with my box camera. She pointed at each photo, showing Yōgu the past he had forgotten. “Here you are. You with your pistol. Always the pistol. Don’t you hear people say you were wild? You are wild now, but you were always wild. Here, my father, old Okumura. Don’t you remember? He made you leave your weapons at the door. Here, you used to play baseball. Yes, baseball, just like the boys out there. You were the shortstop. Like little Masao. Yes. It’s true.”
Yōgu studied these photos with great interest. One day I saw him motioning to the pistol in the photograph and back to his own hand. He wanted one like the one in the photograph. Haru scoffed, “Those days are over.” But Yōgu did try his hand at baseball. The movements and the rules came back, and the old agility was more than apparent. All of us watched the old shortstop reappear before our very eyes. I felt great envy because, despite his real age, he seemed to be a young man again.
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