A Dictionary of Mutual Understanding

by Jackie Copleton

  ‘Back at the ferry terminal in the city, we stood by the water reluctant to leave the afternoon behind. Those hours had changed us, created an intimacy that was different from the one we had shared on the sand and the diving platform. We were different in each other’s company, exposed in a new light, a new way of being with one another. He asked whether I wanted to go home. I told him no. I wanted to stay with him longer. He considered this. “Won’t your parents expect you home?” Not for a few hours. We looked into one another’s eyes. No words were exchanged but they did not need to be. He knew a place where we could go. Did I want to go there with him? I felt as if electricity was coursing through my blood. I did not think of his wife, my age, our families. I could see only him. “Yes,” I replied. “I want to be with you.”’

  I stopped reading and stood up from the kitchen table. I did not want to go on. I knew what was coming, the inevitability of what she would next reveal. I walked around the kitchen, prodding canisters of rice and tea bags and coffee into alignment, replacing a dried cup on the mug tree. I stared back at the journal and saw once more Yuko bent over its pages, writing because she must. I made myself return to the page.

  Their taxi followed a maze of streets down to Chinatown. They passed through a red gate lined with a row of paper lanterns and arrived at an apartment block with a black, crumbling facade. Laundry hung on the balconies above their heads, street hawkers were selling vegetables on blankets on the cobbles and children dressed in little more than rags ran past them. While Sato paid the driver, an old woman emerged from the building. She smiled a toothless grimace and shouted, ‘Good to see you, sir. You’ve been missed.’ The woman wore a mustard kimono too small for her frame. ‘A nice new friend to visit.’ She nodded at Yuko and bared her pink gums in another smile. ‘What a pretty thing you are, aren’t you?’

  Yuko watched Sato deposit a bundle of money in the woman’s leathery hand and mutter his thanks. ‘Perhaps only then, as the woman with the whites of saliva around her mouth stared at me, did I truly understand what was about to happen.’ Sato held the curtain aside in the doorway. Yuko peered into the dark corridor and then looked at him and he raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you want to go inside?’ ‘I had come this far, despite my nerves; I could not go back now.’ She ducked beneath his arm into a hall grey with age and damp. ‘Hot today, eh?’ the woman said as they took the stairs to the top floor. Sato led her to the end room on the left. He pulled a key from his trouser pocket, opened the door and indicated for her to enter. Inside was a kitchen with a table and a square bath behind a wooden screen. To the left, someone had opened the paper sliding doors that led to the only other room. A faint smell of lily-of-the-valley hung in the air.

  ‘Jomei pulled out a chair and I sat down. He knelt and asked to check my injury. I did not want him to be a doctor here. “My foot is fine, Jomei.” He looked up, a frown on his face, not of anger but perhaps trepidation. I could not stop myself. I touched his face with my fingers, traced a path down his cheek. Still he held back, but I did not. My mouth was upon his and the sweetness of the connection stunned me. He dipped his head away. “Are you sure?” I looked around the room, at the patches of mould and a broken cobweb eddying in some unseen breeze, and then at him. He asked, “Is this what you want?” “Yes, Jomei. Yes, I want you.” With those words, he carried me past a stone sink through to the other room. Rays of sunlight slipped through the tears in the drawn blind. A futon lay flat under the closed window and a dresser, with a jug and bowl on the top, stood in one corner next to a long mirror, frosted with age. He called me Cio-Cio-san, his butterfly. I smiled at this. My poet, I said. He laughed gently. Your poet, he replied. Then he lay me down and started to undo my yukata.’

  I did not need to read about what he showed her in that room. I knew how intoxicating the physical contract they made that day must have seemed to one so young. She ended her entry that day on August 22 with this question and answer: ‘Is this love? It must be.’

  Such an easy, sloppy word to use, love, especially when you are sixteen. I had known the sharpness of that feeling when I was young, and as I read her diary all those years later, I realised I envied Yuko this moment. How despicable to be jealous of my dead daughter. I hated myself for this but I despised Sato more for such a selfish deed. His sense of entitlement and ownership of her infuriated me. He did not look beyond the present, at least not in those days. He thought only of his immediate pleasure. He would have given no consideration to the repercussions of that first afternoon in Chinatown. I was sure for him the discovery of Hideo was just another careless act of possession to satisfy his needs.

  Shame

  Haji: In her book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Ruth Benedict says that the Japanese live in a typical shame culture, which demands external sanctions for an individual’s good behaviour. Some people stress, however, that the Japanese have internal behavioural standards and a deep sense of conscience regarding personal conduct whether or not exposed to public scrutiny.

  I thought of the man’s invitation to visit him at his hotel. What would be the point of going to see this stranger? What good could come of talking about pikadon? Who wanted to think back on what the city had been and what it had become in the aftermath? Those shacks filled with the silent homeless, the US soldiers handing out bubblegum to the children, the patch of wild ginger that appeared one day in a field of scorched earth. Truth be told, I’m not sure I even wanted a grandson returned from the dead. I had so little time left. All those lost years where a relationship might have been established were long gone. Now the thought of a reacquaintance, all the questions and expectations, exhausted me. How could we not fail to disappoint one another? If this man was Hideo he would be a living reminder of all I had tried to forget by moving to America, by finding solace in the numbing welcome of alcohol. My weakness for liquor had embarrassed Kenzo, even if we mostly managed to keep my habits hidden from the outside world. I would often not remember the ‘bad episodes’ as my husband called them. Waking up in bed, unsure how I had ended up there, I would wait for his too gentle remonstrance as he brought me tea. ‘Why would you hurt yourself like this?’ or a harder question to answer, ‘Isn’t my love good enough?’ The spells had become worse over the years since his death, despite my promises to him when he was in hospital to ‘keep healthy’. I went to the kitchen and poured myself a whiskey with a drop of water.

  I walked through to the bedroom and slid open the cabinet drawer, retrieving two photograph albums. I took them to the kitchen and reached for the top one, the cream silk cover stained with brown circles of damp. Our life in pictures began on our wedding day. Kenzo looked impeccable in his dark ceremonial kimono, the black haori robe with the family crest, the undercoat belted with a white knot, the black-and-white-striped hakama that fell like trousers with seven stiff pleats, and finally his wooden zori on feet encased in white toe socks. My wedding kimono was made of white damask silk with peacocks woven on the fabric. The white represented my death as a daughter, my rebirth as a wife. I could be painted any colour my new family wanted. The long sleeves of the kimono would be the last I would wear as an unmarried woman. My hair was coiled in dark waves on either side of my face. A wide white hood covered my head to hide any horns of jealousy I might have before beginning this new life with openness and obedience. My face was thick with powder, my lips stained with safflower. In the black-and-white picture, Kenzo is distracted by something but my gaze is dead centre. The ceremony had been a small one, the guest list composed of his mother, his spinster sister, a couple of his colleagues and their wives and three university friends. The blessings when they came from the guests were effusive toward my new husband, politely reserved toward me. No one really understood where I had come from. As they ate trays of white and red rice cakes, I could hear the whispers, the glances. Kenzo had been reluctant to lie about my lack of celebrants but he agreed to tell the story of an old aunt who had raised me but was too ill to travel. O
ne other face was missing. The groom’s friends could not understand why Jomei Sato had not been invited.

  As I turned the album’s pages, passing through the years, I sipped from my glass. There were pictures of our home, secured by Kenzo’s job at Mitsubishi; Yuko as a baby, then as a child, and later she stood in her own wedding dress. Extraordinary how similar we looked. Kenzo had called us his cherry blossoms, but Yuko’s beauty was softer than mine. I rose up, already unsteady on my feet from the whiskey. I walked to the hallway and switched on a lamp next to the telephone. The mirror above the oval table reflected an old woman back to me, loose skin around my neck, a neat grey bob, lines where dimples had been.

  When younger, my hair had been sleek and long, worn high in buns or knots. When I moved to America, the extravagant styles and heavy make-up, those kohl eyebrows, they all seemed an affectation of a life that no longer existed. In the streets people would stare at me when all I wanted to be was invisible. I began to strip myself of adornments: first jewellery; then the powder on my face; next I dressed in the plainest of Western clothes, until finally one morning while Kenzo was at work, I took a pair of scissors to my hair, hacking off chunks with an elation I did not understand. My poor husband had tried his best to hide his alarm when he returned home. ‘What have you done?’ I told him I was too old for such vanity, I needed a more practical style. I patted one side, spoke in English. ‘You think I look ugly?’ He walked up to me and gave me a hug. ‘Never. It’s just unexpected . . . but modern, very fashionable, I’m sure. You look like a proper American.’ Not quite. Fewer people looked my way but I never managed to disappear into the crowd.

  The second album was full of pictures of Hideo, some taken by us, but many rescued from his parents’ home. My grandson in the park, at the beach in swimming trunks, dressed in a dragon costume, sitting on Yuko’s lap as they shared some smile caught by the camera. I stopped at one image of him standing outside Yamazato school, his cheeks so chubby despite the scarcity of food, that mop of hair, the bento box held in one hand, and in his other, a kite. I removed the picture from the triangles that secured each corner and read the caption written by Yuko: Hideo insists on taking his kite to school, April 11, 1945. The rest of the album was empty. We had other pictures taken in America but they were kept in another book, gathering dust for a different reason. Kenzo and I smiled in these snapshots of holidays taken in New York, or Niagara Falls, or cabins by lakes, but the cheeriness seemed too forced. The canvas was too wide, the cast of characters too few.

  Blue shadows crept across the room and I realised it was already late afternoon. I had not eaten all day, another promise to my husband that I was failing to keep. Kenzo had told me as he lay in his hospital bed, his arm bruised purple and swollen from an infection caught during his dialysis, ‘Remember to eat. When I’m gone –’

  I’d interrupted him, furious with his acknowledgement of what was coming. ‘You’re not going anywhere, you’re here and soon you’ll be back home.’

  He watched me smooth down his bedcover. ‘It’s time to face up to the possibilities.’ I begged him to stop talking this way and he took hold of my hand with his good arm. ‘Just promise me, Amaterasu, you won’t lock yourself away. I lie here at night and worry about you.’ I frowned, reminded him he was the one we should be concerned about. ‘Promise me, you’ll try your best.’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘I don’t want you sitting in that house, just staring at the walls.’

  I looked down at the bed as he wiped his face. ‘I promise you, Kenzo. I’ll try to be a good neighbour.’ I kissed his cheek, tissue soft but smooth despite the years, ran my hand through his still thick, if white, hair. ‘I love you, husband.’

  He closed his eyes, exhausted. ‘I know you do.’

  When he died, a line of women came to my door with kind words and meals in Tupperware. Kenzo had been popular, charming and involved. These women invited me on shopping trips and to keep-fit classes. I had tried to keep the promise. I went to bake sales with them and could only taste the Portuguese sponge cakes Hideo had loved in Nagasaki. I sat in saunas at the leisure centre and tried to follow their chatter but it only reminded me of the bathhouses I had loved in Japan. I knew how to fake contentment and so I managed to smile if people said hello and asked how I was doing. I held on to the word ‘good’ like an anchor and gave an impression of being busy. I was their project for a while, a curiosity, but when I declined an invitation, I saw the relief on their faces. I was a burden in their company and after enough months had passed we seemed to reach an unspoken, mutual agreement to stop the pretence of friendship. I felt disloyal to Kenzo, but I did not imagine him in some heaven shaking his head in frustration. In my world, there was no afterlife.

  All those days since spent alone had heightened my senses, made me attuned to the slightest change in my environment, and so when the security light outside my house clicked on, I knew no cat or passing dog walker had triggered the switch. I waited and then the bell rang, two shrill bursts in the hallway.

  Cultural Deviation

  Kiza: Particular types of deviations from the prevalent norm of behaviour sometimes irritate certain kinds of people and are called kiza (mind-disturbing). It is especially so when an act of deviation is perceived as the outcome of an effort to imitate patterns of another culture that is seen as higher than that of the community. This evaluation seems to apply most conspicuously to persons who are perceived to be obsequiously following Western patterns of behaviour.

  ‘I apologise again. Two visits in a day, I realise, is . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I didn’t handle the situation well earlier. I’m not sure how you deliver news like that?’ He shivered in the cold. ‘I didn’t realise how chilly it would be, stupid really, unprepared.’ He blew into his hands. ‘I promise I mean you no harm, but can I come in? Just for a moment.’ The whiskey was sour on my breath. I wondered if he could smell the alcohol. Maybe he would think it natural that I would dull the shock with a tipple? I needed to be careful; although my courage was reinforced, my judgement would be impaired. He pointed at the briefcase by his feet. ‘I have a parcel I promised to deliver to you. Then I’ll go.’ His voice sounded kind enough. There was a warmth to the intonation, despite the stiffness of its delivery.

  ‘From Natsu Sato?’ He nodded. ‘She adopted you, she said in the letter.’

  ‘She did. She was a good mother to me.’

  I looked beyond his shoulder to the tarmac street peppered with orbs of yellow from lamp posts. I could see no waiting taxi or rental vehicle. Curiosity and loneliness are terrible accomplices. ‘Please come in.’ I prepared a small lie. ‘I have plans later so I’m afraid we can’t talk for long.’ I took care to avoid slurring my words. He stepped into the hall, saw the light in the kitchen and moved toward the glow. In a panic I realised he would see the bottle I had left on the table. ‘No, not that way, let’s talk in the living room.’ I closed the door and pointed to the black rectangle that marked its entrance. ‘The switch is on the left. One minute.’ I walked to the bedroom, my stiff joints giving me the wide-hipped gait of a gunslinger. I pulled open the bedside cabinet drawer, where I kept a comb and breath mints. I freshened up and returned down the hall. He stood illuminated in his dark suit below the frosted glass and brass fittings of the ceiling lamp. His back was to me as he studied the contents of twelve identical black frames divided into three rows on the opposite wall. Kenzo had spent hours measuring out the gaps between the pictures with a ruler, pencil and spirit level. Here were more images of Nagasaki, of the family we had been. The photographs were our only homage to Japan among the Western furniture. The man glanced back and seemed too big for our room of moss-green walls, cream curtains, beige couch and pine coffee table.

  ‘These pictures are wonderful.’

  I walked up to his side and pointed at one. ‘The botanical gardens at Nomozaki.’ He nodded as he looked at Kenzo and me with Hideo and Yuko, all dressed in summer yukatas,
standing by a pond rippled with feeding koi, a picnic laid out on the grass. ‘And this is Shige, not long before he was shipped out.’

  ‘He looks good in the uniform.’

  I said nothing. Shige had been reticent about his war service but duty-bound to perform it.

  ‘Please sit down.’ I indicated for him to take the couch beneath the pictures. I switched on a lamp beside him and turned off the overhead bulb, which fell too harshly on those ridges of discoloured flesh and keloids. ‘Can I get you anything? Tea, or something else?’

  ‘Perhaps in a minute. I didn’t know if this would be convenient? I should have called. I’m just so glad to be here. You must have so many questions?’

  A beat before I replied, ‘And you too?’ He seemed to hunch into himself at this, his enthusiasm checked, and there was a stab to my gut, of what? Some half-remembered emotion I didn’t care to identify. I confess the gesture reminded me of my Hideo, so self-conscious, but I would not be so easily swayed. My next words were difficult to say and so I spoke them softly. ‘I think you should know, I went to my grandson’s school that morning. I saw the bodies.’

  He lowered his head, the way a shy person does, and this too was Hideo, perhaps, a hint of the man he might have become. ‘I know the statistics.’

  ‘We searched for so long. If we had thought for one minute Hideo had survived, we’d never have stopped looking.’

  ‘I understand. I’m sure you did everything you could. Your doubts are natural. Can I show you something?’ He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out his passport. I opened the document at the page with his personal details. Here was Hideo Sato, a teacher, born February 22, 1938. The birth date was correct but that didn’t make it right. I ran my finger over his photograph, the scars exposed under the flash of the photo booth. He wanted to know who he was. Maybe this man thought his request an easy one.