Brazil-Maru

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  The other night, Shiratori saw me in the dark, and he called to me and asked me what I was doing. He probably saw me peeping through that slit in my old man’s barn where you can see the old cot where my mother and my old man do it. It’s one of my usual stops in the night. I told Shiratori that making the rounds at night is an old habit of mine. I didn’t tell him that I know how to see into every house and every building on this place. There’s no special trick to it. Anyone can hear everything through these wood walls. The brick houses are more difficult, but everyone leaves their shutters open in the summertime. Shiratori said so that was why I slept during the day and missed his classes. Then he said that I should go out and work in the fields like the others. Then I’d be tired and sleeping at night instead of wandering around. Shiratori spoke as if what I do at night was any different than what he does at night.

  Mizuoka came around today and told Kantaro that he has heard again from the Kojimas, who said that they have not received payments on their land for a half year. Mizuoka said, “I feel personally responsible for this situation.” He took his straw hat off and wiped his sweaty bald head several times.

  “It is not your fault, Mizuoka-san. We are having difficulties. Tell the Kojimas we need more time.”

  “I can’t do that anymore. I am going to have to, to . . .” Mizuoka had trouble saying this. He finally said, “To make these payments myself.”

  Kantaro looked grateful. He said Mizuoka was like a father to all of us. “This is very generous of you. And it will be easier because you understand our situation.” Paying back Mizuoka would be like paying back a family member. Kantaro told Mizuoka not to worry.

  Then Mizuoka said, “I have to remind you again that you are also behind in your payments to the cooperative. Some people are beginning to talk.” He wiped his bald head again.

  “Befu is working on a new strain of chickens. He is working day and night. This takes time. When this new strain comes out, we will be making a lot of money selling hatchlings. We will pay you back for everything.” Kantaro sounded very sincere.

  Mizuoka seemed to understand. He stopped wiping his head and stayed for dinner. He listened to Kimi’s students play the piano after dinner. Then he and Shiratori got into a discussion about this old dead writer Shiratori has been trying to teach about lately. Shiratori says it’s important because Kantaro’s place was founded on something he said. It’s very boring.

  I see Shiratori and Akiko sometimes together after classes. They walk out somewhere and come back. During the day Shiratori is painting a portrait of Akiko, but at night, he goes back to that other stuff.

  I decided to paint a portrait of Kantaro. Kantaro himself thought this might be a good idea, so he agreed to pose. Shiratori told Kantaro that this would be a good exercise for me. I have a portrait I did of Kantaro a long time ago. At that time, I also did a portrait of my old man. They were younger then. Befu’s face now looks older, but it’s the same face. If you compare the portraits of Kantaro, his face is not the same. Kantaro cannot understand this; he doesn’t like this new portrait.

  I wonder if Akiko still thinks about Ichiro Terada. I saw him the other day. He got married to Takehashi’s daughter Reiko and has two kids already. Akiko is getting old. No one else has noticed this thing with Akiko and Shiratori, even though all the aunties suspect that Kimi Yōgu has won Shiratori over for one of her daughters. They don’t suspect Akiko because they figure she’s too old already—more than thirty. They are all resigned to losing Shiratori to Kimi, except for Haru, who is still trying to push her daughter Hanako on Shiratori. Haru doesn’t like it when she can’t get her way. I think Shiratori made a bad mistake. Haru will be watching.

  I have been following Shiratori and Akiko. Today they disappeared into the tall corn on the far north edge. I followed them several miles, but very silently, smelling their trail like a dog. They never knew. They have a special place hidden in a thicket, but sometimes they cannot even wait to get there, and they fall into the corn and roll about without thinking. Once they got going on an ants’ nest, and before you knew it they were swatting ants from their thighs and buttocks. Shiratori must have come home with a big rash on his poor penis. That put an end to their rolling around for a few days. Now they are more careful, inspecting the ground first. Afterward, they can lie there in the corn for hours, talking and watching the sky. Mostly, Shiratori talks about his home and his brothers who came home as ashes in funeral boxes from the war, about his mother and father who both worked in the mines, about how he wants to go to America, about how he will take Akiko with him, about how they will travel all over the world. He is a good dreamer. Akiko nods, but sometimes she asks him why he can’t just stay here, forever. Akiko is a good dreamer too. I want to butt in and tell Shiratori that Akiko doesn’t have the guts to go anywhere without her mother. But Shiratori must be blinded by all the light. If he would pay more attention to all that work he does at night, he would see that his vision is better at night. He thinks he has discovered light. He even thinks he has rediscovered Japan. Maybe he means that because we missed that war my old man was so anxious to fight, we sort of got preserved, pickled in miso until Shiratori came and dug us up. Akiko thinks Shiratori should just burrow down and get pickled with the rest of us.

  Mizuoka came over to tell us that Momose-sensei had died in Japan. Mizuoka shared a letter with us. It says that Momose’s last wishes were to be buried in Esperança, so Momose’s wife will be coming here to bury her husband. Mizuoka has to make all the arrangements for Momose’s wife and the funeral. This is going to be a bigger deal than when Momose came when he was alive. Momose’s wife has never been to Esperança. Mizuoka is afraid she will be shocked at the sort of place her husband wants to be buried in.

  Mizuoka looks really old these days. His eyes look puffy, and even his bald head looks wrinkled. This cooperative he runs and all the other headaches of Esperança must be too much for the old man. Haru has been trying to make Mizuoka drink one of her teas for rejuvenation, but it’s about as effective as her genius medicine.

  Mizuoka is always wiping his head and talking about our debt to the Kojimas and our debt to the cooperative, and Kantaro is always telling him not to worry, that my old man Befu needs more time, that better times are in store for us, that God will grant us our daily bread, and so forth like that.

  I heard Mizuoka complaining to Shiratori about all these problems. Mizuoka said that Kantaro was the special son of Esperança, that Esperança is this place that was built because Momose said people were more important than coffee. In Esperança, they are always talking about how people are more important than coffee. It would be more accurate to say these days that people are more important than chickens or silkworms. Mizuoka says that Momose had a great dream for Esperança. Like my old man says, he and Kantaro had big ideas. Fate. That sort of thing. They didn’t come here like other Japanese to get rich and go back to Japan. This is silly when you think about it—we are so in debt we will never be able to go back. Maybe this is what Mizuoka means, that Kantaro has never worried about making money, only spending it. We have nowhere to go. We have to create that great civilization in Esperança because we haven’t any choice. I have been thinking about this idea that people are more important than chickens, but maybe my old man would disagree.

  Anyway, Mizuoka said that since someone like Kantaro could only have been created in a place like Esperança, Esperança was responsible for making Kantaro. Shiratori nodded like he understood, but he doesn’t understand. Mizuoka and old dead Momose want to take all the credit for themselves when Kantaro and my old man are the ones doing all the great civilization work. My old man says that, without us, Esperança would just be another Japanese settlement with just another director of the cooperative.

  Momose’s ashes arrived with his wife. She was wearing a blue silk dress, and her white hair had this perfect perm that one of the girls had tried once on Haru. It didn’t work, and Haru almost became as bald as Mizuoka. Momose’s
wife came over here and watched everyone take art lessons with Shiratori. Then she listened to Akiko and some other kids play the piano and sing. My old man took her over to the house to show her my paintings. She was very impressed. She said that Shiratori and I should start an art school.

  Kantaro talked with Momose’s wife about how he hoped more young Japanese students like Junichiro Shiratori would come to join us. She said she would take another letter from Kantaro back to Japan. Shiratori said he had several friends in Tokyo at the College of Art who might be interested. He would also send letters to them. Momose’s wife said she would talk to Shiratori’s friends.

  Mizuoka was back again after Momose’s wife left. He had to get contributions from everyone in Esperança to pay for the funeral and the party and the big marble stone they are putting on Momose’s grave. Everyone is mad at Mizuoka because they say that there was money in the cooperative put aside for this, and that Mizuoka has made a mess of things and owes the cooperative this money. Now that the party and all the bowing are over, Mizuoka has returned with his sweaty head asking Kantaro when he is going to start paying the cooperative back.

  Mizuoka finally got desperate about everything. I was sitting under the tangerine tree peeling tangerines when I saw him drive up in his truck. He got out, and I could see something bulging in his pocket. Kantaro was coming out of the outhouse, strolling sort of. Kantaro usually takes a nap after lunch; he was going to take his nap. But Mizuoka screamed from the truck, “Kantaro!”

  Kantaro turned around and walked over to see Mizuoka. Mizuoka was shaking, and sweat was seeping out from every pore on his face. His whole head was red as a tomato. Mizuoka said, “It isn’t because of the money. I’m not interested in the money. It is because I created you. I am responsible for creating you, and you are a monster! I have created a monster, and it is my responsibility to put an end to this thing.” He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Kantaro.

  Kantaro turned green, but then he saw that Mizuoka was shaking like crazy. Kantaro said bravely, “You are right, Mizuoka-san. You were my teacher, and I have been a poor student.” Kantaro knelt to the ground. “It is unforgivable,” Kantaro said. “Please kill me.”

  So Mizuoka, who couldn’t shoot anything if it were two steps in front of him anyway, lowered the pistol and began to cry. Mizuoka was babbling something about a camera and baseball which I didn’t understand. By then, my old man and Haru and everyone else ran out, and once again I missed seeing what happens when something goes through human flesh.

  Akiko and Shiratori aren’t being as discreet as they used to. I think Haru knows everything, and she is mad. Kimi will never stand up to Haru, but she is just as stubborn in a different way. I wish we could have seen some good fights, but Kantaro heard about everything, so he called Shiratori over. Shiratori said, “I want to marry Akiko.”

  Kantaro got so mad he smashed Shiratori across the face. “Get out!” he screamed at Shiratori. “Get out! I never want to see you again!”

  Shiratori couldn’t understand this reaction. He was so surprised he just stood there with his shoulders folded over.

  Kantaro yelled, “Thirty-five years! Thirty-five years! You have brought down thirty-five years of our history in this one blow!”

  This was even more confusing for Shiratori. What’s thirty-five? Shiratori’s not even twenty-five. He backed away.

  “Get out! Get out!” Kantaro kept yelling.

  So Shiratori packed his bags and put all of his nighttime paintings in a big bundle. The daytime paintings he left behind, except the portrait of Akiko. Kanzo came out and offered to drive Shiratori to the bus station, which is after all a long distance. Just before Shiratori got in the truck with Kanzo, I ran over with some old notebooks that Inagaki had left behind years ago. Inagaki had these notebooks in which he wrote all his useless theories of teaching art to common people. But I thought about “Life is art; art is life.” Maybe Shiratori would like it. “Here,” I told Shiratori, who looked like a fool. “Take this stuff. I’ve got no use for it. If my old man found this, he’d burn it.” I didn’t have anything else to give Shiratori, not that these things were worth anything. It was just the thought. Shiratori looked at me. He wanted to say something. Maybe he wanted to ask a question, but nothing came out.

  I thought that would be the last I’d ever see of Shiratori, but no, he walks his skinny body all the way back from the bus station. By the time he makes it back, it is the middle of the night, and no one sees him except me. I was at my post by the slit of light near my old man’s cot when I saw Shiratori tapping at Kimi’s door. Kimi let him in. She sneaked over to the kitchen and fixed him some rice balls and pickles. Meanwhile, Shiratori and Akiko ran out into the cornfields to their spot and rushed into each other for one last time. They both cried while they did it and couldn’t stop crying afterward. Shiratori kept saying that he would come back for her and made her promise to come with him when he came for her and that sort of thing. He told her he would find a way to write and would she write him. She nodded to everything. Then they walked back, and by then, the sky was getting light, and everyone would be up soon. So they hurried back and got Kimi’s lunch. Kimi cried too, but she didn’t try to make Shiratori stay. She knows better.

  I followed Shiratori down the road a bit, but after a while I got tired of walking. I let his figure disappear like a sliver. I had been following him and Akiko all this time for miles in every which direction, but there are limits. So I turned around and went back home to sleep.

  CHAPTER 18:

  New Blood

  Maybe it’s been two years already since Shiratori left. I think he wrote some letters to Akiko, but she would never write him back. She was too embarrassed by her poor Japanese, and besides, what was there to write? I wonder where he went. I could write him some interesting news now that the new blood has arrived.

  There are four of them. They asked about Junichiro Shiratori. Where was he? They expected him to be here still. Kantaro shrugged; he said something about being weak and causing trouble and a lack of vision. They all seemed to accept this answer. They laughed. “Shiratori was such a kid. Big ideas, but he could never sit still. Anyway, he always wanted to go to America.” They thought it was natural he didn’t stay long. They didn’t know about Akiko.

  Well, about these others: First, there is this round moon-faced character named Masao Hatomura. They say he writes movies. Someone suggested he could write a movie about Kantaro. Kantaro likes this idea. Everyone agrees that Kantaro’s life would make a good movie. Kantaro wants something in the movie’s final scene where we are all trudging down the road to Tanaka’s silkworm barn, just after we split up from the others, looking like the beggars that we were. Suddenly we all stop on the hillside overlooking Esperança, and there is a great purple sunset. Kantaro looks out into the distance. His face brightens. “Esperança,” he whispers. Something like that. If I had an imagination, I could paint that scene. Maybe Hatomura has a good imagination.

  Then there is this couple, Akio Karasumori and his wife Fuyuko. Karasumori and Hatomura are maybe thirty or so, but Fuyuko is very young, not even twenty. Karasumori is a sculptor and Fuyuko is a dancer. Karasumori is a quiet sort who mostly speaks through his eyes. They all smoke cigarettes, but Karasumori never stops. He likes to lean back and blow little circles into the air. He is always smoking. When one cigarette goes out, he lights another. There are small burns in his rough hands, and there are brown marks on his fingers where he holds his cigarettes. His teeth are spread apart and stained brown, so he does not smile much. Nobody knows what Karasumori’s work is like. He drew Kantaro some pictures of what he is thinking of doing. He says he needs granite to work. He brought some tools. Kantaro looked at the drawings and nodded. Karasumori asked where he can find granite. I was disappointed to discover that Karasumori needs granite instead of oil and canvas. Since Shiratori left, they haven’t bought any more paints.

  Then there is Yoshifumi Kōno.
Kōno has a large forehead and big ears. Even though he is only maybe twenty-three, you can see he is the sort to lose his hair at the top, so his forehead will get even larger. He hasn’t got any artistic talent, but maybe he has natural talent. He graduated from some farming school and was on his way to work for the Sarandi Cooperative in Campinas. But he met Hatomura and the Karasumoris on the plane, and they convinced him to come to Kantaro’s place to see what it was like before going to Campinas. He’s young and stupid, so he came along. He probably won’t be around long. He’s got a contract to work for Sarandi. They say he will make a lot of money, and nobody ever makes money here, since Kantaro says that is not what we came here to do.

  Fuyuko. I have never seen a woman like this Fuyuko. She has jet-black hair that is cut in very straight lines so that her face is in a perfect box. Her face is white, whiter than you ever see in Japanese women, especially compared to those here, who are always in the sun. It is as if Fuyuko’s skin has never seen the light of day. Then there are her lips, which she paints with lipstick the color of bright shiny blood. The first night they arrived, Fuyuko walked around instead of sitting with Kantaro and the others. She stared at everything, looking at each one of us like we were a bunch of ghosts. Suddenly she turned away and stood in the doorway and began to cry. Karasumori just glanced at her and blew smoke rings, but Kantaro stared for a long time. So did I.