Brazil-Maru

by Karen Tei Yamashita

  Karasumori went somewhere with Kanzo in the truck to find granite. While he was away, Fuyuko had sex with Kantaro. After I take my bath I sometimes go around to the other side of the bathhouse to watch the girls through the high window. I have a rock I step up on to see. One day Kantaro saw this, and now he comes to look too. He’s tall and doesn’t need the rock. We just look. The girls know we look; they can see our eyes. They know it’s Kantaro, so they pretend we’re not there. Anyway, Fuyuko was there squatting on the tiles washing her black hair and rubbing soap all over her body. She is darker now from the sun, but her breasts and buttocks are white like the soapsuds. The girls hurried to leave, but Fuyuko stayed a long time. She sat in the hot water and closed her eyes. Kantaro and I waited for her to stand and step out of the tub. The water spilled around her body. I imagined it was her sweat. Kantaro followed her from the bathhouse. I followed too. Fuyuko did not close her shutters. I could see her looking at me through a mirror on her table. She was looking. I was looking. We all came at the same time. Fuyuko doesn’t mind anymore when I watch her dance, and she never closes her shutters now.

  When Karasumori got back, he started picking with his tools on his granite. All day long, picking, picking. I sat around once to watch. So did the little kids, but he told us all to go away. He says chips of rocks can fly out and hit us. I can’t tell what he’s doing, but I sketched it anyway. He picked all day at one piece until he made a hole. At night, Karasumori and I always masturbate. Fuyuko watches us in her mirror.

  Kōno and Kantaro had a long conversation. After that, Kantaro told everyone that Kōno and Hanako were to marry. Kōno’s big forehead and big ears got very red. Kantaro said that Kōno, like my old man and the other old-timers, has found a place to die. He said it all again about not being a contract for an ordinary man, about courage and vision. Kōno puffed up, even though it is Hanako who is pregnant.

  So Kōno and Hanako got married. Fuyuko and the girls danced on the new stage. Karasumori gave Kōno a wedding present. It was a granite boat, an ark he said. You know that story about Noah gathering all those animal couples. I thought about all those animal couples having sex in the boat while everyone else got drowned. Karasumori came up while I was looking at his boat. He snickered through his teeth that I probably was not on the boat.

  While everyone was eating and drinking in front of the stage, Hatomura and Akiko went walking away together. Kantaro saw them leave the party and went after them. I could see that Hatomura’s face was a smooth happy circle from drinking a little beer. He didn’t seem so shy, and he was even holding Akiko’s hand. Kantaro rushed after them. He yanked Akiko away and told her to leave. Then he slapped Hatomura across his moon-shaped face. Even though Hatomura is tanned from working in the sun now, Kantaro’s hand left a red impression. Hatomura asked what he had done, and Kantaro said Hatomura had destroyed forty years of history in one day.

  Tsuneo saw everything. He was with a group of youth drinking beer. They had drunk a lot by now. They all came in a group behind Tsuneo, who asked Kantaro why he’d done this. Tsuneo said, “Masao Hatomura is my teacher. I can’t allow him to be offended this way.”

  Kantaro yelled, “This is none of your business!” Then he turned to Hatomura, “Stupid teacher! Get out! Get out!”

  Tsuneo protested, “Stop, Uno-san! What are you doing?”

  Kantaro started to hit Hatomura again. Tsuneo picked up a piece of wood, came from behind Kantaro and hit him across the back. Wham! Wham! By this time, my old man and the others came running and threw themselves on Tsuneo to protect Kantaro. Kantaro fell to the ground but he yelled, “All of you! Get out of here. Tell everyone to go back to the party!”

  Hatomura ran away and stuffed his baggage into the car of one of the outside guests. The guest agreed to take Hatomura to the bus station.

  Yae found Kanzo and said, “Now you must go with me.”

  Kanzo shook his head. “You are crazy,” he said.

  “You must go.”

  “I can’t.”

  Yae was angry.

  “Yae-chan, I believe in all this!”

  “You are a fool! What about me?”

  “I love you,” Kanzo said. “Don’t go.”

  “You do not love me,” Yae cried and ran away.

  Hatomura got into the car and sped off. Yae ran like crazy to meet the car before it turned down the main road. Only I saw her disappear into the forest to meet the car on the other side. No one but Kanzo and I knew that Yae had left with Hatomura until it was too late.

  By nightfall, Kōno was very very drunk. Nobody was interested much in Kōno’s wedding. Instead, everyone was whispering about how bad Hatomura was. The women were saying how he was a pervert and how Kantaro had caught Hatomura trying to force himself on Akiko. As for Yae, they said poor Yae must have been forced or tricked into leaving. It was a good thing that bad man had left. Who would have thought he was so bad? Just like Shiratori, he couldn’t be trusted. The men said it was just as well that Hatomura left. He was weak anyway.

  In the middle of all this gossip, Kōno got up and proposed a toast. He said, “To Kantaro, who tricked me so well.” Then Kōno fell across the table, his big red forehead plunging into the giant cake. Haru jumped up and pulled him out. She was mad because she had spent all day baking and decorating that cake.

  That night, Hanako with her big belly got on top of Kōno, but he rolled over and vomited. On the other hand, Fuyuko and Akio Karasumori had sex for the first time in weeks. Meanwhile, I could hear Kantaro yelling at Jiro, ordering him to get his daughter Yae back. I went over to Hatomura’s old room. He had left a pack of cigarettes there. I smoked one cigarette after another. By dawn, I could make smoke rings.

  CHAPTER 19:

  Liberdade

  They all got their way. They made me go away. My mother Ritsu must still be back there crying, crying.

  I am living here in São Paulo in the Bairro Liberdade with Shigeshi Kasai the newspaper man. They found me a maid’s closet in the back of the house. The closet can exactly fit a small cot and nothing more. I open the door and climb onto the cot. Then I close the door, and I am surrounded by four walls—it’s a small tomb. There is a narrow levered window near the ceiling, but the glass has never been cleaned so I can’t see out. Even if I could see out, there is nothing to see but the wall of the house next door. I did not imagine that houses could be built so close together, one against the next. People in this city live like termites.

  At night I climb in here and watch the moths spin around the lightbulb. This is how I spend the long nights. I have been squatting on the bed and drawing pictures on the wall. I am starting near the doorway and moving slowly to one corner. It is the mango groves, always the mango groves.

  I hear them talking. Kasai’s wife Teru is saying that all I do is sleep all day. Get him a job, she is saying. Take him to the newspaper office and make him work. Kasai has a better idea. Get him a job with an artist, he says. Genji can work as an apprentice. If he wants to be an artist, he should see what it’s like.

  I finished drawing the mango groves all around the walls of my tomb. Kasai came to look at my drawing, squinting through his thick glasses. The maid wanted to wash it all off, but Kasai said no. I thought the maid should have washed the walls off, since I had nothing to do at night.

  Then I found out that their son Guilherme can’t sleep at night like me. He watches television. There was never any television at Kantaro’s. Too bad. We sit there in the dark watching the moving pictures, the gaijin laughing and crying and kissing and killing. Only they do everything in gray.

  Kasai took me to see Ogata, who agreed to take me on because Kasai is his friend. Ogata knows Kantaro from long ago. He says those were different days. “We were younger.” Then he asked me if I remembered Inagaki. He smiled. He said did I know that Takashi Inagaki was in New York? Inagaki has a studio there. Did I know Inagaki taught his wife Natsuko to paint too? Now she is selling her work in New York also. Maybe she makes
more money than Inagaki. Wouldn’t Inagaki be interested to know that he, Ogata, had inherited Inagaki’s old pupil. He laughed.

  Then he asked about that sculptor Akio Karasumori. Didn’t Karasumori want to teach me sculpture? He said that Karasumori was here in the city trying to get a gallery to sell his work, but the gallery already had lots of Japanese pots, and besides, they were shipping direct from Japan some granite stuff by a Japanese who’s famous already. Who’s Karasumori anyway?

  Ogata said, “These young upstart Japanese come here and think they can teach us something. I am a pioneer here. Struggled for years, farming, driving a truck, everything to get to where I am. Guys like Inagaki and me know what it is to suffer for art. If Karasumori wasn’t good in Japan, he’s no good here.” Ogata looked mad. Then he said, “Is it true Karasumori’s wife is beautiful? I heard he followed her to Brazil.”

  To get to Ogata’s studio, I have to take three buses. Three times already I have taken the wrong bus. The buses are crowded with stinking gaijin; I can never understand what they are saying. I can’t get off the bus and have been all over the city, trying to get back to Kasai’s. The first day, I never got to Ogata’s. The second day I was late, and Ogata wasn’t there, so I left. Ogata called Kasai on the telephone to complain. Kasai said Ogata had to be more patient; I couldn’t talk or read Portuguese, he said. What did Ogata expect? I didn’t even know how to use the telephone; it was a miracle that I even got back to the Liberdade.

  So finally I am working at Ogata’s. Ogata wakes up early and meditates, he says. Then he paints before the street gets noisy. He paints for four hours and then eats his breakfast. Then he goes out to do his business and comes back for lunch. He takes a nap every day after lunch for one hour. Then he meditates again, paints for five hours, and then it’s supper. This is Ogata’s schedule every day, no matter what day it is. Ogata’s wife said that he goes to sleep every day at the same time, wakes at the same time. He must even shit at the same time every day. You can set your clock by him.

  When Ogata goes out to do his business, I’m supposed to be working. First, he said, sweep the floor. Then wash the brushes. Then stretch this canvas. Every day, it’s something like that. Finally I asked him when am I going to paint. He said painting is a way of life. It requires strict discipline. Something like that. So every day I sweep the floors. Sometimes I do it twice just for the heck of it.

  For this I get some money at the end of the week. I looked at the money and wondered what I would do with it. I never had money before. I took this money and got all these boxes of cigarettes.

  Ogata complained to Kasai that all I ever do is smoke. He says he isn’t paying me to smoke all day. I think he is paying me to sweep up my cigarette butts. He says I’ll never be ready to paint. I don’t have any character. No discipline. Kasai said Ogata should think of me as a challenge to his way of thinking. He was too rigid. He needed to see life through my eyes. Ogata laughed.

  Ogata won’t have me back. He said I almost burned down his studio. It happened when he was out doing his business. It was a cigarette butt. It got mixed in with the rags and the alcohol. I couldn’t put the fire out. It burned Ogata’s two most recent paintings. Ogata’s wife came running in and threw water over everything. She told Ogata that I was just standing there watching his paintings burn. Ogata told Kasai that I did it on purpose.

  Kasai’s wife Teru is saying again that all I do is sleep and smoke and watch television. All day long in my closet sleeping and smoking, she says, or all night smoking and watching television.

  Then Guilherme came to talk to me. He asked me if I wanted to go to the university with him. They don’t want me to sleep and smoke, so I went. This university is not what you think. Not like Shiratori’s or Hatomura’s classes. More like a big club. They sit around and talk. They talk and smoke and talk. I just practice blowing rings. Guilherme’s friends were all impressed by this. They keep talking about big changes. About Brazil. About the future. About action. About the people. Always about the people. What people? I asked Guilherme about this. He said that I am Brazilian, that I have to start living in Brazil. Esperança was not the world. The Liberdade was not the world. I was the people.

  Kasai took me to the newspaper office. That’s where I saw Hatomura. Hatomura was there with his moon face putting little pieces of type into a big plate. Kasai must have given him this job. Hatomura was surprised to see me. I told him they got rid of me too. I offered him a cigarette. He asked me did I hear from anybody at Kantaro’s? Did I hear from the youth? What about Tsuneo? I said no. I asked him about Yae. He told me that Yae had found a way to go to Japan. I wondered if Kanzo knew this. I asked Hatomura why he didn’t go back to Japan too. He said he had other plans. It must have been that old three-year plan. I wanted to tell him that in three years, Akiko would be three years older, and she wouldn’t go to Japan anyway. She wasn’t like Yae.

  I thought about Yae going to Japan. Shiratori talked about Japan. He said that they lost the war. What is Japan? Just like Esperança, I thought. Just like this Japanese bairro, this Liberdade. But Guilherme said this is not Japan. This is Brazil. You are Brazilian, he said. I wondered if Yae would ever come back. My old man never went back to Japan, so maybe Yae will never come back to Brazil.

  Next, Kasai got me a job in Urashima’s grocery. Urashima’s is just two doors down from the newspaper office. I’m supposed to be there when the sun comes up and pull the produce off Urashima’s truck. So far, I never get there that early. Urashima complained to Kasai. Kasai asked Urashima if he would want me to work at night, since that is when I seem to be awake.

  Urashima has a big family. They all work in the store. They all seem to have something to do. They all know what they have to do. All day long, they run around doing something. They look at me smoking and say, “What are you doing?” I can’t figure out what I should do. At least I know it’s not weeding. What do they want me to do? Sometimes they tell me to sweep the floor. Sometimes to stack things on the shelves. When I break something, they get mad. I dropped a box of apples; they rolled all over the place, out the door, into the gutter. Urashima yelled at me. “Those came from Argentina! Very expensive. Now they’re all bruised. I can’t sell bruised apples.” He made the apples cheaper and sold all of them.

  At lunchtime, I leave Urashima’s store and go to see Hatomura at the newspaper office. If I give him a cigarette or one of Urashima’s bruised fruits, he will tell me something new. He told me he saw Kōno before Kōno went to Japan. Kōno and Hanako have a baby now. Kōno waited for the baby to be born; then he wrote his mother, asking her to send him a ticket to Japan. Kōno said he is going to Japan to explain things to his mother. Hatomura says Kōno will be back in a few months. Kōno promised Kantaro that he would return. Kantaro made Kōno promise to die in Esperança.

  Guilherme sometimes comes to the store after work to get me. I go with him to the university. Guilherme is some big shot at what he calls the Academic Center. He spends all his time there, writing things and printing copies of them on a machine. I turn the handle on the machine. Then we go to some corner and pass the stuff out.

  Hatomura got a letter from Kōno. It says that Kōno met up with Yae. Yae is working as a waitress in a coffeehouse in Tokyo. Kōno has decided to stay longer in Japan. He says he discovered a new breed of chickens that he wants to bring to Kantaro’s place. Something about bringing the future. Kōno thinks like my old man. They think chickens are always the future. But then, maybe Kōno and Yae will never return.

  I went with Guilherme again to the Academic Center. We picked up these papers and took a bus to the Praça República. It was packed with what Guilherme calls “the people.” There were just a lot of stinking gaijin. There were so many, they spilled out onto the streets and blocked the cars and trucks. Someone was yelling into a bullhorn. Meanwhile, Guilherme and I just kept passing out the papers. I ran out of papers, so I tried to get a smoke in. Then, I saw them coming, rushing out of cars. Guilherme saw them
too. He threw the papers away and ran into the crowd. The police were all around. People started to push. I couldn’t tell what happened. I got punched in the stomach with a stick. People started to run. The voice in the bullhorn was screaming. Then, there were shots like firecrackers and the air stank. My eyes stung. I wanted to vomit. I ran around looking for Guilherme. I tripped over something and fell. When I looked, there was a woman beneath me. Her dress was soaked in blood. I stared at the blood coming from her neck and her chest. It was not like television. I do not have a good imagination. I could never imagine this. Finally, I saw what happens when something pierces human flesh.

  When I got back, I vomited all night, but Guilherme never came home. Teru kept asking questions. What were we doing? Where did we go? We were there at the Praça República, weren’t we? Did we want to get killed? Kasai went out to look for Guilherme, but he came back alone.

  The next day, the police came and asked questions. I was in my closet sleeping. Guilherme still wasn’t there. The police left.

  For a week I watch television at night by myself. Still no Guilherme. Kasai can’t sleep either. Teru cries at night. Kasai watches television with me now. Then, in the middle of the night, there is this scratching at the door. It’s Guilherme. All night, they talk together in the kitchen. Teru makes a lot of food. Kasai says he knows what it is like to run. He had to run away during the war. He gives Guilherme a lot of advice.