Brazil-Maru

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  “Junko up there?”

  “Junko? She comes and goes. She has her own game going at her place, you know.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “Junko?”

  “No. Natsuko.”

  Mama Miyasaka smiled. “Well now, I’m not so sure. What with Papa sick like he was, and so many people only paying on credit . . . The people who talk big are the worst. We wait, but they don’t pay up. Old lady like me should be able to retire someday.”

  I reached into my pocket and drew out my bundle of cash. “That sort of thing is inexcusable, Miyasaka-san. What do I owe you?” I gave her the money.

  “They said you’ve changed. Is it true?”

  “Yes. A new man,” I nodded and waited eagerly for the news of Natsuko.

  Mama Miyasaka had heard that Natsuko had left São Paulo, that she might have gone traveling to Europe. Someone else thought Japan, but Mama thought not. No one had seen Natsuko for months.

  “Did she go alone?” I asked.

  But Mama maneuvered herself away with her money. “I wonder,” she said.

  Suddenly all the old smoldering fires were once again fanned into flames. I forgot about the New Hampshire breed and the generator and rushed about in a panic all over São Paulo to discover where and with whom Natsuko had gone. But all the old haunts housed people who were ready to test my rebirth. By the end of the day, the money was gone, and I had a new story for Taro Ōshima. “I have been looking at a new truck for Ichiro. It’s about time that we got him something decent. This is a very good deal. If I could put a deposit down to hold this until I got back to Esperança . . .”

  And Taro Ōshima wrote the check for what he assumed must be a deposit for a new truck.

  “Don’t worry, Ōshima-san,” I assured him. “We’ve got a big rancher in Santa Cruz behind us. I’ll be back next week with a check from him to pay you back.”

  So it went, back and forth, the Baiano signing checks over to Taro Ōshima, Taro Ōshima signing checks over to the Baiano, and me, Kantaro, spending all the money in between. In a short period of time, I had practically depleted the resources of both men; the fantasy, however, continued for many more months, even when the checks that reached the Baiano from Taro Ōshima no longer had funds to support them and vice versa. Taro Ōshima must have known of his situation before actually reaching zero, but he continued to foolishly believe in my boast of a rich rancher in Santa Cruz d’Azedinha for whom there were no limits. Also, Taro Ōshima had made a promise to God to abandon his thoughts of material wealth; perhaps this was his great test of faith. But when the Nibras Bank, with whom Ōshima had long banked, began to notice his climbing loans and bad credit, it did not take them long to find the real source of these debts.

  The Baiano, on the other hand, had made a great effort to keep track of my spending, and he knew exactly how much Taro Ōshima owed the partnership, and quite soon, it was a tremendous sum of money. “Who is this Taro Ōshima?” the Baiano asked. “I think you’ve got us into a fix, Kantaro. No more shipments to this man until he pays up! If he’s got so much money, he can pay it now. We can’t run on promises.”

  “Don’t worry,” I always said. “I will talk to him today. He’s an honest man.”

  One day the Baiano himself decided to see just who this honest man was. He wandered into a pleasant neighborhood in São Paulo called Aclimação where well-to-do Japanese immigrants had begun to build their homes. It was a brief meeting. Ōshima’s wife sat at her husband’s side and wept the entire time while Taro Ōshima’s oldest daughter interpreted everything. “My father has sold everything, all his trucks, the warehouse, even the furniture in his office. He has also sold a piece of land he owned in Santo Amaro. He is still in great debt. The only thing we have left is this house. My father realizes how indebted we are to you. He is so ashamed. He knows that it will not cover everything he owes you, but he is offering . . .” the girl’s voice faltered, “offering you this house.”

  The Baiano heard all of this in great shock. He had gone to São Paulo full of anger, ready, he said, to twist Taro Ōshima’a neck, to wring the money owed from Ōshima’s very body. He was ready to make his angry speech about the women and children at New World Ranch who had been cheated by Ōshima’s failure to pay. Instead, he left Ōshima and his house behind. “It is true, Ōshima’s house could have been mine,” the Baiano wrote to me in a letter breaking his contract with me, “but I did not have the courage. I am unable to understand how you, Kantaro, did have such courage.”

  The Baiano said that he then followed my tracks all around São Paulo. In some places, he was surprised to learn that his true name, Floriano Raimundo, was known to the proprietors; I had cashed his checks there, had left his name, saying, “Charge it to my patron in Santa Cruz.”

  He wrote, “I have begun the difficult process of selling my holdings in Paraná, my second ranch in Santa Cruz, all my cattle, my truck, jeep and farming equipment. Any profits to be realized from the next coffee harvest will certainly be lost to this folly. I have already emptied all of my accounts. But the most painful thing is that I will have to recall my daughters from São Paulo to end their schooling. . . I have been broken by this experience in ways that you can never imagine. This communication will end any further dealings with you.”

  I later learned that the Baiano was able to save his original farm and home, which was in his wife’s name.

  They say Haru returned to Esperança in less than a week. I never heard any of this until many years later. No one spoke of her absence, and Haru never talked of it. Even now she glares or looks puzzled whenever anyone makes reference to her having gone away. “What nonsense. I have always lived here. I have never been anywhere. Only twice I went to São Paulo to Takehashi’s place.” Where Haru went or if she even went with Yōgu, I don’t know. It was true that she had never been anywhere outside of Esperança except one or two trips to São Paulo. Occasionally she went into Santa Cruz d’Azedinha. She had been to Andradina, to Tietê, and even as far as Bastos, but these were short excursions and did not really count for much. My wife is a forceful woman in her own element, but she does not speak Portuguese beyond a very rudimentary and broken form of the language. Her life has always been on the land, caring for her children, her kitchen, and her garden. It would not have been an easy thing to venture out of our world. Maybe it happened. Maybe it is a lie. It is Haru’s only secret. Someone said that it was her only holiday, but women like Haru don’t take holidays. One thing I am sure of is that if Haru did go anywhere, she came back because she wanted to.

  That Haru was unable to leave seems natural enough, but I always thought that Saburo would approach me with his curt good-bye and stride away down a solitary road. Even Ichiro must have thought it would be for the best. But Saburo did not leave. He stayed because, for all his talk, he was weak. Perhaps Ichiro thought of himself as Saburo’s closest friend, but even from Ichiro, Saburo preferred to keep his thoughts to himself. It must anger Ichiro even now to think that he had not been aware of Saburo’s pain. Along with so many other events, Ichiro’s constant traveling had distanced him from people and life back at home. When he returned from delivering a shipment to São Paulo, he was more concerned about whether he might be able to see Akiko than in seeing his old friend Saburo. He did not even notice that Saburo had been losing weight or that his features had grown dark and drawn. “Emiru,” Saburo chuckled, “where have you been? Out trying to make money so that Kantaro can spend it on his personal dream? When will you ever learn?”

  I overhead them talking in the bathhouse.

  “We are in a bad way,” Ichiro nodded, tugging at his shirt and kicking away his shoes.

  Saburo sneered and repeated, “We are in a bad way. We are sinking!” Saburo laughed and slipped down deeper into the tub. “I am sorry I won’t be here to see it all come crashing down.”

  “How can you talk about it that way?”

  “What is there to do but talk about it? You have al
l turned your souls over to Kantaro. Is there anyone among this crowd with any guts, any guts to cut out this cancer?” Saburo looked at Ichiro sharply, his eyes dimming and burning through the bath steam. His words filled Ichiro with confusion and fear.

  “Why did you come back, anyway?” he demanded. “You never believed in any of this. What good does it do now to say that you were right?”

  “What good, Emiru. What good,” Saburo nodded sadly. “You are right. I have failed myself. Who am I to talk? The war brought me back here. I waited for it to end, but as you know, it never ended.” Saburo laughed again. “I had this idea that I could build a radio station. I talked to Kawagoe about it one time, but it was only an idea. He told me that we had no money to even think of such a project, and Kantaro never listened to me. He has only listened to Befu all these years. Chickens. All those ideas about breeding a pure form of chicken. Maybe he will succeed someday.” Saburo snickered and then broke into laughter. It was a hollow sound, Saburo’s laughter rolling around the big bathhouse.

  Ichiro did not know of his ideas and must have felt hurt that he had not known. He had to admit that even he had often thought that Saburo was an irksome sort whose only reason to live was to oppose me. I had always cast Saburo as a man without vision, a negative and pessimistic force running against the future. Perhaps it’s true that Saburo had a perceptive mind, but Ichiro was just as perceptive; and Ichiro had always been a forgiving sort. Saburo could not see without being cynical. For as long as I can remember, my brother had been angry. No one, except Hachiro Yōgu, had ever given Saburo credit for his angry energy. Perhaps he lived in my shadow, but who did not? Saburo did not know how to realize his talents. He wasted away in Esperança, his frustrations gnawing a growing tunnel through his body.

  Saburo lifted himself from the tub and nearly toppled over. I could hear the scuffle as Ichiro ran to secure him. “Sabu, what is it? What is this? You are skin and bones!”

  When Ichiro learned that Saburo was ill, he felt great anger, but Saburo was coldly passive. He shrugged weakly. “I can no longer eat. I’m starving to death,” he chuckled. “Starving in Esperança. Starving. Pretty soon you will all be starving,” he wagged a finger. “I’m dying, Emiru. That’s all there is to it. Everything I eat, I vomit. It’s no use. Forget it, Emiru. Forget it.”

  “Sabu! Fight! Fight back!” he insisted.

  Saburo pushed Ichiro aside and pulled a towel around himself, “Emiru, do me a favor.”

  Ichiro leaned forward.

  “Get out of here. Leave.”

  “Akiko—” he faltered.

  “Akiko, Akiko,” Saburo repeated. “Forget Akiko.”

  “I don’t care what they say. I’m going to take her away with me.”

  Saburo began to laugh. “Emiru. Open your eyes. Everyone knows but you.”

  “Knows what?”

  “She belongs to Kantaro. That’s why she went to São Paulo. Probably that Natsuko knew someone . . . to do the abortion.”

  Ichiro looked at Saburo with incomprehension. “No!” he screamed.

  “If it makes you feel any better, it wasn’t just Akiko. Haru gets up at dawn every day, and every day Kantaro sneaks into the girls’ dormitory, just like a rooster in a hen house. Where were you that day when Haru went running in the dorm shouting, ‘Kantaro! What are you doing in here?’ Everyone saw him jumping out the back window completely naked. That’s why the Horiis took their daughters and left. It wasn’t because of Jiro; Jiro was just following Kantaro, as always.”

  Foolishly, Ichiro raged, “You’re lying!”

  “Why do you think you’re put on that truck to run back and forth, back and forth? You’re like a chicken who lives under artificial lights day and night, laying eggs without rest. For you, there is no sleep, no rest, no night, no time to think or question what you clearly see. Everyone says that you have made great sacrifices. You think they are praising you, but you cannot see what they really mean.” Saburo teetered about and slumped on the bench, exhausted by his effort to talk. He said weakly, “I have thought of telling you this for a long time now, but you are like all the rest of them, so happy in your illusions. Maybe, there is something to all that. Maybe.”

  I had nothing to say about Saburo’s accusations. That Ichiro believed in Saburo’s words more than in my love for him pains me as he will never know. I took for granted that Ichiro was as a brother to me—the brother I did not have in Jiro or Saburo. He was better than many of us. Even now I see the question in his eyes. It haunts me. I failed him. It was not only Akiko; it was his faith in me. I see a fuzzy outline of the man Ichiro once believed in and no longer knew. He had thought that his tired mind played tricks with his old resolve, but now he knew that the pain he felt was real. Saburo had said so. I say so. From the time he lost sight of his birthplace and began to see his life unfold on this new land, Ichiro had seen everything.

  A month later, my brother Saburo died.

  The bank sold New World Ranch to José Santos, who immediately sent his executors out to sell off everything they could get a good price for. When people began to see the tractors, the incubators, our small herd of cows and the chickens go, it was impossible to believe in any sort of illusion about our future. Santos earmarked everything for sale; that which could not be sold immediately would be sold in a general auction. The date for the auction was announced and advertised all over the region, but before the auction, Santos got court orders to remove the invaders on his property. Invaders.

  I was not at the ranch to receive the signed court injunction that ordered us off the land. I was running around from bank to bank in São Paulo trying to find a bank with resources large enough to buy our debt. Suddenly I became convinced that Umpei Sawada and his bank were too small and inconsequential to handle our great project. The Bank of Brazil was interested. I thought that I only needed time. Meanwhile, Ichiro read and translated the injunction to Befu, who trembled with anger, snatching the document and ripping it up in front of the astonished official. The official looked at Ichiro and shrugged. “I don’t make the orders, you know. This is serious. They’ll send troops. You tell him. They’ll send troops.”

  The dentist Takehashi was there too. “Befu,” the dentist asked, “what shall we do? He said one week. We have one week.”

  Befu growled, “We are not going anywhere. We will never leave. We will all kill ourselves before that happens.”

  “What nonsense!” the dentist yelled. “No one is going to kill anyone. We have all heard enough of this talk. We are not children. We all know what this means. We have been led around like sheep for too long. It is time for us to take hold of our own lives.”

  “We will wait until Kantaro returns.”

  “Kantaro has lost his judgment and our trust. We can no longer trust him to make decisions.”

  “You are a traitor, Takehashi!” Befu yelled.

  “No,” Takehashi answered coldly. “We have been betrayed.”

  I know that Kōhei Takehashi and Ichiro Terada went to see the Baiano. I can see Maria das Dores at the door, barring their way, her teeth set and her eyes on fire. “Who is it, Dorinha?” The voice of the Baiano could be heard behind her. He came himself to the door and looked at Ichiro and the dentist. His eyes filled with sadness, but he spoke firmly. “Ichiro,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  Maria das Dores stepped boldly in front of her husband. “Yes, what more can he possibly do for you?”

  “There is an injunction against us. If we do not leave within the week, they say we will be forced to leave. We do not have anywhere to go.”

  I do not know why the Baiano acquiesced to their plea for help, but he did. I have to respect that man. “I will see this thing to the end,” he said. “I have to live with my actions, and I expect to live a long time. You may bring your people to live on my land. However, my only condition is that Kantaro Uno remain behind. He is no longer welcome here.” There was no explanation other than that. Takehashi and Ichiro heard hi
s decision. The three of them sat together, unable to speak. What did they think? None of them could put the blame on me alone. They too were responsible; they believed.

  That day, I left a meeting at the Bank of Brazil, satisfied that they were interested in my proposal. On a whim, I went back to my old house on that secluded and shady street. I had heard that Natsuko had returned from Europe, but I did not expect to see her there. I sat at the grand piano and ran my fingers along the ivory keys. A thin layer of city soot covered everything and soiled my fingers. Everything was as she had left it: the tidy doilies, the bric-a-brac, the books I had recommended she read, still neatly displayed and unread. And everything was covered with that film of city soot. I wandered into the kitchen and found an open bottle of French wine. I picked up the bottle and looked at its label. Where had I seen this bottle before? The wine within dispersed a fruity aroma. Even I who was not familiar with wine knew that this bottle had not soured but had been recently poured. Suddenly I remembered. The painter Takashi Inagaki had brought such a bottle home from his stint in Paris. He had arrived suddenly in the middle of the night, banging on the door and waking us from sleep. “I’m back! I’m back! It was wonderful. Get up! Let’s celebrate. Let me tell you about everything!” Inagaki had yelled.

  I snatched the bottle and ran up the staircase. Natsuko saw me there in the doorway, her eyes rounding with shock and her face flushing uncontrollably, as if my presence had enhanced her pleasure. I flung the bottle with a vengeance, the glass shattering against the wall and the French wine showering onto the bedsheets. I pounced on Inagaki, flinging him from the bed. The naked man sprang up wildly, bouncing about the bed and taunting me. I ran in a rage around the bed, but suddenly Inagaki’s foot caught me in the eye, an angry spur of light. I staggered backward, my hand covering my left eye. Blood running down my face, I flung myself down the stairs in pursuit of the painter, but Inagaki was gone. I turned to look back at Natsuko, who knelt in a naked slump at the top of the stairs. The memory of her flushing face mocked me, and I ran from the house.