by Allen Say
When I got home with the gifts I opened the music box, wound the spring and lifted the cover. A chill ran up and down my spine. The glow of fireflies, the snow on the windowsill ... It was playing "Auld Lang Syne," a tune the Japanese had adopted long ago as the farewell song, the song children sing at graduations. I thought of running back to the store to exchange it for some other tune. Anything but this. Sending that tune to Reiko was like sending a sick person a bunch of red camellias, the symbol of decapitation. Then the irony of it dawned on me and I burst out laughing; it was a perfect gift for her. I wrapped up the box and went to the post office to mail it.
Father brought his family to Tokyo a week before our departure. My stepmother had never been outside Kyushu, and Tokyo must have seemed like a foreign country to her. She looked exactly the way I remembered her, a calm and gentle woman. I was glad to see her. My stepsister was now five years old and she didn't remember me at all.
Father took me aside and whispered to me, "I'd like to see your mother before we leave."
That surprised me. After all, he was the one who had refused to see Mother in the past.
"Will you talk to her?" asked Father.
"I'll call her and ask," I replied.
"Tomorrow will be good. Ask her if she can have lunch with us. We'll meet her in Yokohama."
He was expecting me to join them, and I didn't look forward to their meeting.
Mother was surprisingly calm when I told her.
"Tomorrow?" she said, and there was a pause. I had a feeling she was checking her calendar. "Yes, tomorrow will be fine."
"Father wants to have lunch somewhere in Yokohama."
"That's a good idea. You know where Midori's is, don't you, the restaurant near the harbor? I'll meet you there at one."
Next day Father bought first-class train tickets and we sat in silence in a nearly empty car. Noticing my silence, he became talkative, pointing out some of the landmarks that had survived the bombings. I felt like I was being an accomplice—in what I didn't know.
Mother was waiting for us outside the restaurant when we arrived. They greeted each other with a slight nod and smiled. I looked at the harbor full of foreign ships, flying colored flags. Then my parents went up the staircase, and I followed them into a bright room with large windows that looked out onto the harbor. A waiter seated us by a window.
Father was the first to speak.
"Would you like a cocktail?" he asked Mother.
"If you're having one," Mother said and took out a cigarette. Before I could strike a match Father produced a gold lighter. Though there was no wind, Mother reached with her left hand and cupped the flame and touched Father's hand. I didn't know if it was an accident, but suddenly I felt like a child, having seen the scene so many times.
"It's amazing how many places I still recognize," said Father, lighting his own cigarette.
"This neighborhood wasn't hit too badly," said Mother. "But I don't think you'd recognize the area where I have my shop."
"How is your business?"
"I'm doing very well; I may open another shop in a few months."
"A partner?"
"Yes, I have a backer."
I thought about the man I'd seen with Mother, the tall man with an angular face.
"Well, here's to your success, and to Koichi. Captain Powers sends his regards." Father lifted his glass.
"A wonderful man," said Mother, looking out the window. "He gave me my first pair of nylon stockings, do you remember? He insisted I model them for him and I wouldn't come out of the bedroom."
Father chuckled softly, remembering. We had curried rice for lunch.
"What will you do in America?" asked Mother.
"The Powerses have rented a house for us. As for business, I have some ideas, though I won't know for sure until we get there. Perhaps import-export business of some kind; I have a few associates in Tokyo who are interested. Money is not a problem, for a while at least, and should I decide to continue with my pearl business, I have all my contacts. I want to assure you that Koichi will be well taken care of; his English concerns me a little, but he's young."
"Koichi does very well in school; he was at the head of his class," said Mother.
"Is that so? He didn't tell me," he said and gave me a broad grin. Whenever I'd done something well, it was a habit of Father's to claim that I'd taken after him but he didn't say it this time.
I noticed that my parents were avoiding calling each other by name, and when their conversation bogged down they talked about me. Mother and Father, leaning over the white tablecloth, made a handsome couple. And once they had loved each other, Father giving up his job in Kobe, Mother risking disinheritance, and they had run off to Yokohama. Now they were strangers to each other, and yet I was their child, the only thing they had in common; the rest was memories. Perhaps Mr. Kubota was right; maybe love does have its own seasons: It runs its course until it is dead.
I heard Mother thank Father for taking me to America, and we walked out into the bright afternoon sun. The three of us stood on the sidewalk for a while, not knowing what more to say. I didn't know whether to go with Father or Mother.
"If you don't mind I'd like to walk around the harbor," I said finally.
"And I have to be back in Tokyo." Father looked at his watch. "You will come to see us off, won't you?" he asked Mother.
"If Yoshiko-san doesn't feel uncomfortable," she replied. Yo-shiko was my stepmother.
"No, I insist that you come."
We parted, walking away in different directions. Mother turned to give me a smile, and waved. They were strangers to me as well.
***
I hired the same man Grandmother had hired when I had first moved into my apartment, and took everything back to her house—all but the sketchbooks. I was to spend the last few days at Grandmother's house.
"So you're leaving all this with me?" said Grandmother.
"You can always give them away to your trashman," I told her.
"I will do no such thing. I'll put them away so when you decide to come back they'll be the way you left them."
"Thank you, Grandmother. I might have to ask you to send something later."
"I know you're lazy, Koichi, but write to me now and then."
"Of course I will. In English or Japanese?"
"Don't be fresh. I don't want you ever to forget your own tongue."
"Japanese then, just so I won't forget."
"Good." She gave me a smile.
***
Michiko said nothing when I gave her the pin and a roll of my charcoal drawings.
"Won't you at least open the box and see what's inside?"
She hesitated, then unwrapped the small package.
"How lovely," she said softly and lifted the pin by the thin gold chain. "I'll always wear it, even when I sleep. But your drawings... If you ever want them back, you must write to me. You will write to me, won't you?"
"Yes, and you, too."
"I'll write to you at least once a month, I promise, and tell you all the school gossip.... And this is for you." She handed me a small velvet-covered jewelry box. I opened it and saw a large single pearl.
"Something from Father ... and me," she said. "It's not a cultured pearl; Father brought it back from the South Seas. I thought you could wear it with your necktie."
"Thank you. It's beautiful."
"Sei-san, when I write to you, would you mind if I address you as my brother?"
"No, I'd like that."
And with that we parted. She stood by the dog statue, holding the roll of my drawings with both hands, pressed to her body.
***
Three days before I was to sail, Sensei took me and Tokida out to a farewell supper in a restaurant modeled after a Japanese farmhouse, with a sunken firepit on the floor and waitresses dressed like farm girls.
"Where you're going may be the wealthiest country in the world, but you're not going to find anything quite so exquisite as this in America
," said Sensei.
"I thought you were going to take us to the loach place," said Tokida.
"I didn't want Kiyoi to suffer from indigestion on our last evening together," said Sensei. "Anyway, let's not talk about that now. Come, let's enjoy ourselves. Kiyoi, how long has it been since you first came to see me?"
"Going on three years, sir."
"Three years." He drew on his cigarette. "That makes me feel rather old. What did you think of us when you first came?"
"I thought you worked in a dingy place, sir. And Tokida scared me. He didn't say a word to me the whole time I was there, and I didn't think you were going to take me when you started to ask me about my parents."
"A dingy place." Sensei seemed amused. "And Tokida would've scared anybody in those days."
"You looked pretty weird yourself," said Tokida. "Barging in on us like that. That took a lot of nerve, but I knew you were scared. You were kind of jerky, looking around the room like you didn't know where you were."
"Let me say this, Kiyoi," said Sensei. "The minute I saw you I knew why you had come, and before I saw you draw I knew I was going to take you on. There was that strange look about you—a boy with his mind made up."
"Was I any good? I mean the horse you made me draw."
"I still have that drawing. One of these days I'm going to send it to you. You can look at it when you feel bad about your work, and you're going to laugh."
"Thank you for all you've done for me, Sensei."
"It is I who should thank you, and Tokida, for all the work you've done for me. I was contemplating retirement in a couple of years and letting you two take over."
He became serious.
"Kiyoi, you're going to have many masters in your life, and the most important thing to remember is to know when to leave them. Don't stay with one master too long; to do so is to limit your growth. Learn all you can from a master, and when there's nothing more to be learned, leave him; be ruthless. The only duty you have is to your art. Be true to your art. One day you too will become a master; then you must turn around and help those who seek your wisdom. One day you'll see that it's harder for the master to let go of a disciple. Remember, let your beloved child journey."
After that we walked the neon-bright streets of Tokyo as we had done so many times before. It was a beautiful city. At the train station Tokida switched his walking cane from one hand to the other and reached into his pocket.
"I almost forgot," he said. "Here."
It was the German razor his father had given him. I saw that he had spent some time polishing it.
"I can't take this," I protested.
"Take it. You're going to have to start shaving soon, take it. I'm going to buy a straightedge, and don't worry, I'm not going to cut myself."
"Thank you," I said and put the gift in my pocket.
"Well, this is sort of a temporary farewell then," said Sensei. "I won't come to see you off. I can't stand all the tape throwing and crying and all that. Stay well, Kiyoi, and write to us when you need to talk. We'll be thinking of you."
"Show them how good you are, Kiyoi. You're as good as anybody, I mean that," said Tokida, and gave me a big grin.
I stood at the ticket gate and watched their backs—Sensei in his long kimono, Tokida hobbling with his cane. Farewell, Sensei. Good-bye, Brother. I watched them until they disappeared into the crowd. I was glad they didn't look back. I was sobbing in public.
Next evening, toward sundown, I went to my apartment for the last time. The place was empty now, except for my sketchbooks. For four years the eel's bed had been mine, and I was leaving it without a trace, like a room in a cheap inn.
I took my drawings to the vacant lot next door and started a small bonfire. I tore the drawing pads and fed them to the fire and watched them burn. One by one the pages turned themselves in the miniature fire storm and nude figures, hands and legs and feet crinkled, went dark, then burst into flames. The fire made me think of my childhood. I thought about the house I was born in; it had gone up in flames. That was the end of something. And the end of the war marked something else. Then there was the divorce of my parents. Now I was leaving Mother, Sensei, and Tokida, and the country where I was born. It seemed there were many sharp breaks in my life. But the end of one phase meant the beginning of another.
In an hour's time all my drawings turned into ashes. I felt cleansed. I was ready to start a new life in a strange country.