How to Be an American Housewife

by Margaret Dilloway

  “Does he change his mind a lot?” I asked. “How he thinks about things.”

  “Ah. Never.” Sumiko went off to wash Taro’s hands.

  “See?” Helena nudged me. “Never going to change. Mom, you’re the one who said I shouldn’t expect people to change. You married Dad expecting him to change and he didn’t. Take people for what they are, remember?”

  I remembered. “And yet, people do change, Helena.”

  “But we can’t expect it,” she prompted.

  “Are you going to throw everything I ever said back at me?”

  “Yep.” Helena grinned. “So let’s go see some stuff.”

  “I thought you didn’t like historical sites.”

  “I do, as long as you’re not lecturing me.” She leaned back on her black bar stool. “It’s nice here.”

  We looked out at the water. “Less crowded than a San Diego beach.”

  The only sounds were Helena clicking her chopsticks against the porcelain dish and seabirds cawing as they dove for fish. She swallowed. “Is it funny to feel homesick for a place I’ve never been before?”

  I had been feeling the same way. “No.” As much as I called her “my” Helena, she was her own person, by turns introverted and extroverted, coming up with observations it took me years to figure out. “Do you know you’ve amazed me every day since you were a toddler?”

  “Mo-om.”

  “Of course, sometimes it’s sheer amazement at your craziness,” I said as Sumiko returned.

  Sumiko pulled Taro-chan onto her lap. “Tales of Helena? Tell me.”

  We lingered over lunch, talking now of our life in America. I watched Helena speak about her grandparents and her plays and her last algebra test, her hands flying around in the air to illustrate her stories, Sumiko covering her mouth as she giggled. Helena and I were not athletes or superstars, we were us. And that was enough.

  TARO RETURNED LATE. Sumiko and I watched the news; Helena had already gone to bed, along with Taro-chan.

  Taro acknowledged us with a nod. “How are the gaijin this evening?”

  “They are family, not foreigners,” Sumiko corrected.

  “Hmmmph.” He clanged in the kitchen, returning to the table with a dish of food and a rice bowl. He wore slacks and a light-brown short-sleeve shirt, buttoned up.

  His serenity and dignity at church were completely at odds with the man sitting there, gobbling up rice grains and looking crotchety. “That was a lovely service today.”

  “Are you Christian?” He ate an unidentifiable piece of fish. It smelled like caramelized soy sauce.

  I paused, trying to think of how to explain what I was. I remembered the prayer I had made earlier. “I’m nothing, I guess.”

  “No one is nothing.” Taro drank water. “Is that how my sister raised you?”

  “No. She taught me what she could.” I braced myself for a join-my-church-it-will-save-you lecture.

  Instead he looked at the news, chewing.

  Sumiko excused herself.

  It was quiet for a while. I watched him. I wanted to give him Mom’s letter. No time like now. How can Taro the priest turn down my mother’s request?

  I went to my bag and got out Mom’s letter. I placed it on the dark lacquered table in front of him. “This is from my mother. I don’t know what it says, but I do know she wants you to respond.”

  His eyes fell to the paper. Silence.

  At last, he rose. “Suiko-chan”—he picked up his rice bowl—“it is very late. I will see you tomorrow.” He tucked the letter into his shirt pocket and shuffled off, his pant hems dragging, a very old man suddenly.

  When Americans pass on, most choose burial. To Japanese, this is shocking, since being cremated purifies the spirit and gets it ready for the afterlife.

  It may be possible to have your spouse or children obey your wishes for cremation. They could also refuse, and you may have to accept that now you are American in every way, even after death.

  —from the chapter “Turning American,”

  How to Be an American Housewife

  Eleven

  In the morning, Taro had already left, though I woke as soon as first light hit my eyelids. Taro didn’t return all morning.

  I helped Sumiko clean the house. Was Taro avoiding me on purpose?

  “He is at church today,” Sumiko explained. “He will return later.”

  “I’ll go see him.” After lunch, I left the others watching TV and walked the two miles to the church. The afternoon air was soft, not cool enough for a jacket.

  I arrived and immediately saw Taro’s silhouette on a bench under the tree in the garden where we had first met Sumiko. I walked up to him, my feet crunching on the crushed-gravel path.

  He did not look up, but shifted over to make room for me. “Suiko.” He swallowed hard enough for me to hear it. “I am too old to keep up these pretenses. Too old and far too tired.

  “I have been thinking about what my parents would wish. I have been praying to hear what they would say.”

  He shut his eyes. “My sister,” he whispered, patting his chest, “no matter what, she is still here.” With a soft crinkling, he took the letter out of his shirt pocket and unfolded the tissue-thin stationery. I watched him read, waiting, hoping he would translate it aloud. Nothing. He inhaled noisily, as though the gentle air itself pained him.

  “Wait here,” he said. Without meeting my eyes, he got up and went into the church. I sat, looking at the birds singing above, making futile attempts at identification. The only ones I knew were the delicate sparrows.

  Mom loved birds. She fed them the leftover rice from the pot, soaking it off and pouring it into the yard, sprinkling bread around every day. Until one died of harassment from the family cat, she would keep a canary in a cage, so tame that it would fly out and return every evening.

  “Suiko.” Taro had a package wrapped in plain white cloth, knotted together at the top. “This, you give to Shoko.” He put it on the bench next to me and undid the knot. Inside was a white shirt box, which he opened to reveal white material. He unfolded this to reveal a white kimono, pulling it aloft. White cranes danced across the material, barely discernible. “These are what Japanese dead wear.”

  I felt the blood drain from my head. Suddenly I was aware of the pressure of the wooden slats of the bench on my thighs, the scratchy tag on my shirt, Taro’s crisscrossed crow’s-feet embedded in his skin. “But why does she need that?”

  I knew why before he spoke. Of course I did.

  He tried to use a reassuring tone. “Your mother wants this”—he touched the package—“because someday she will need it. Everyone does, someday. It is blessed by her church.”

  I stared at the package blankly. But she had asked for this. She thought she was not going to make it through the operation. She expected not to survive.

  Taro rewrapped the kimono.

  My eyes filled. “She’s not going to die.” I sounded like a little girl, even to myself.

  Taro sat and gripped my shaking hand. “Ah, Suiko. I was tough. Too tough on Shoko.” He cleared his throat. “When Suki-chan passed, it was too hard. My wife before her. All of us dying, dying. Ever since the war, we’ve been dying.” He folded his other hand on top of mine, staring hard into the pond. “She told you that I hated Americans.”

  I nodded.

  “That is all?”

  “Yes.” I took my hand back and wiped at my eyes. “Is there more?”

  “If there is, it is not my story to tell.” Taro stood and offered me his hand. “Come, Suiko-chan.” He helped me up. “I would like to know all about your mother. What has she been up to these past decades?” He laughed and offered me his arm.

  “Can you tell me why she likes baseball so much?” I looped my arm through his.

  He lit up. “Oh, Shoko and her baseball. You know she was the best player for miles around. Could hit it farther and run faster than any of us boys. I was jealous.” We took a loop around the koi pond, then
headed home, walking unhurriedly.

  THE NEXT DAY, we decided to go see Nagasaki. I had been thinking about it ever since Yasuo mentioned it. Since before that. I had been thinking about Nagasaki my entire life.

  In American history classes, the teacher invariably wanted us to debate the effectiveness of the bomb. I always felt torn. Which side should I agree with? “If Americans no do bombs, the Emperor never stop,” my mother had told me when I was in high school.

  “But it was horrific,” I said to her.

  She shrugged. “Yes. War is hell, they say.”

  “Japan was about to pull out at the end,” I argued. “It was unnecessary.”

  My mother looked at me sternly. “Mommy American now, Sue. I got agree with America. Understand? Nobody gonna call me anti-American.”

  So in class I let the other students argue, shrinking into my desk, waiting for the discussion to be over.

  TARO OFFERED TO GO with us to visit Nagasaki. Rather, he announced that he was coming. “You’ll get there easier with me.”

  We slept overnight on the train. “On the way back, we will stop in Kumamoto. You must see the castle,” Taro told us.

  “Can we see Yasuo again?” Helena whispered.

  “Probably not.” I patted her arm.

  In the morning, we walked to the Peace Park. It was very clear out, but cool; around us people were walking to work or shopping, dressed in lighter spring clothes and sweaters, hoping the day would warm as promised. I expected there to be no vegetation, but of course it had grown back, the same way it did after fires, after wars. There were kids and dogs running around. It was a normal park to the casual observer.

  “On that day”—Taro stopped and breathed heavily—“there was an air-raid alarm in Nagasaki. They turned it off and said it was safe, so everyone was outside.”

  “Was there an alarm where you and Mom lived?” I asked.

  “No. Too far away. Here people thought the B-52s were only doing reconnaissance. You see, the government didn’t tell us how bad Hiroshima was. How horrible. They said it was a new kind of bomb, that we would be safe in concrete buildings or in our bomb shelters. And no one thought the Americans would do it again.”

  We arrived at the main area. There were red brick pavers set in a huge circle with grass growing in between. In the middle was a tall, shiny black granite pillar.

  Taro stopped. “This is it. This is where the bomb hit.”

  One hundred fifty thousand people killed or injured, the inscription said. The bomb exploded five hundred meters above this spot. Everything in the bomb’s path was annihilated.

  “The toll would have been greater,” Taro said, “if Nagasaki weren’t shaped like a bowl. But the poison got many more people than we know.” I knew he was thinking of my mother and Aunt Suki.

  I inhaled deeply. My lungs felt like razors against my rib cage. People walked by and I felt they were examining me, the American. But it was all in my head. They didn’t notice me at all, even as shame rushed up. I stared at the pillar.

  Helena took my hand. Her face was more solemn than I had ever seen it. “I don’t know, Mommy,” she said in a small voice. “I feel like we should say a prayer or something.” She sounded embarrassed even to mention it.

  “We can pray.” Taro took each of our hands.

  “Even if we’re different religions?” Helena was hopeful. “I mean, I don’t even have one.”

  “We’re all here.” He closed his eyes and began.

  WE WALKED THROUGHOUT all of the Peace Park. Statues donated by various countries dotted the landscape, all in a promise of “Never again.” The most famous one was the Peace Statue. It was a blue-green depiction of a man, designed by a Japanese sculptor, with one hand pointed up and the other horizontal; he looked neither Asian nor European, but both.

  “The hand up points to the bomb, the hand to the side means peace,” Taro explained.

  We stopped at a golden statue of children standing below an adult, who pointed behind to safety. “This way.” Taro led us to a stairwell.

  We walked through a hallway that brought us to a corridor formed of tall glass mirrored pillars stretched up into a skylight. Above there was water.

  “From above, this is a fountain,” Taro noted.

  We went around a corner. Victims’ names were inscribed on a wall. In another room, monitors showed photos of people who had died.

  As I looked at this, I couldn’t shake how far removed I felt from my comfortable life in San Diego. Or how different my mother’s life now was from her childhood.

  “I understand why you hated Americans,” I whispered to Taro. I had felt the same way in school when we were learning about the torture Japanese performed on American POWs, as though I were somehow responsible in my very DNA. Or learning about the Rape of Nanking. I would never be done doing penance.

  He drew himself up straight. “It is good that you bring your little one here,” he said simply. “Now let us continue.” He climbed the stairs without looking back.

  WE TOOK THE TRAIN to Kumamoto City to see the sights. Kumamoto Castle was tall and impressive, looking like three houses, each one smaller than the one below, stacked on top of each other, a Japanese wedding cake. Taro told us it was a reconstruction. “The wooden outbuildings are original,” he said.

  At its top was a lookout tower, with views to the city and the countryside beyond. “Mom talked about this castle, too,” I remarked to no one, leaning against concrete made to look like heavy stones. “Most strong castle in all Japan,” she would say, as if she had built it herself, showing me photos she’d taken years ago. “No one can break.”

  Beside me, Helena broke into a grin. “Look who’s here!” She danced forward to someone coming up the stairs.

  Yasuo. He looked chagrined as Helena pulled him forward. “I called him from the train,” she said proudly. “It’s his day off. Isn’t this great?”

  Taro glanced at him, then strode away to look at another part of the exhibit without a word.

  I wanted to chastise her, but restrained myself here in public. Later I would. “Yasuo.” I hugged him.

  Yasuo sighed. “Helena-chan, I wish you would have given me warning.”

  “Then it wouldn’t have worked at all.” Helena took Yasuo’s hand. “The view’s incredible from up here!”

  Taro was reading a photo display of the castle’s history. I tapped his shoulder. “I bet you know all of that by heart now.”

  He grunted. “Go on. I will see you at Sumiko’s house.”

  “No, don’t do that.” I got into his line of vision. “I’m not saying you have to completely accept Yasuo, but couldn’t you tolerate him for a few hours? For Helena’s sake?”

  Taro glowered. “Two hours, no more.”

  “And lunch.” I smiled, my heart skipping. “Don’t forget lunch.”

  “I must be in a dream world to accept this,” Taro grumbled. He held out his arm to me.

  Yasuo sat on a bench with Helena. He stood, looking worriedly at our faces. “Uncle.” He bowed.

  Taro hesitated.

  Helena got between them, her arms spread apart as though she were stopping a fight. “If you’re going to be mad, be mad at me.”

  Finally, stiffly, Taro bowed back. “I think they would like to see Suizenji Jojuen Park, don’t you?”

  Yasuo straightened. “Yes. That is my favorite place in the city. It was built by a feudal lord, Hosokawa Tsunatoshi, on the site of Suizenji Temple. It was made to look like Edo, the route from Kyoto to Tokyo, with a miniature waterway and mountains.”

  “Most impressive.” Taro headed for the stairs. “The original temple was built by Hosokawa Tsunatoshi in 1632.”

  LATE IN THE EVENING, we returned to Sumiko’s house. Yasuo had walked us all over Kumamoto City. After the gardens, he took us to the art museum, where he bought Helena a black hardbound sketchbook and pens in the gift shop. “So you can practice,” he told her.

  “She doesn’t need practice. She�
�s natural,” Taro corrected him.

  “Right. How do you know?” Helena rolled her eyes. “You’ve never seen me draw.”

  “I see you doodle all the time, even when you do not realize it,” Taro told her. “Everyone in our family is an artist. You are no different.”

  “Even my mother?” Helena looked at me.

  “Not for years.” I smiled ruefully. “Thank you, Yasuo.”

  Yasuo bowed, then picked up another sketchbook and put it on the counter to pay. “For you, Cousin.”

  “No, I couldn’t,” I protested.

  “I insist. To stretch your creative spirit, too.” Yasuo presented me with the sketchbook. “To remember our day out.”

  I hesitated again. Taro tsked. “It’s most impolite not to accept a gift,” he scolded.

  I took it and bowed, feeling awkward. “Thank you.”

  THIS SIDE TRIP had been more exhausting than the flight from America. I stretched out on my futon. Helena lay next to me, sketching away. “This is my sketchbook of Japan,” she said. “I’m writing down everything we did and trying to draw pictures, but they look weird.”

  “Try drawing from life first,” I suggested, turning on my side. “It’s usually easier.”

  I closed my eyes. Mom’s image danced across my eyelids. I wanted to tell her everything that we had seen.

  About her brother. Forgiveness.

  Helena had fallen asleep, the sketchbook splayed across her chest. I asked Sumiko if I could use her phone, then dialed our parents’ number.

  It was six in the morning there, so by now Dad should have been up, listening to his morning radio and having his hot chocolate. It rang ten times—no answering machine. My parents hated machines in general. Finally Mike picked up.

  He sounded funny; there was a delay across the ocean. “Just calling to see how things are going.” I did not notice I was balling my pants into my fist. “I have a number now.”