Michiko looked at her father leaning back in the chair with his eyes closed. When he slept he didn’t have the same ghostly look to his skin that her grandfather had. “Why won’t Geechan wake up?” she asked.
“He is in a very, very deep sleep,” her mother told her as she entered the room. She looked at Michiko as if she was carrying a very sad secret.
“I’m not going to talk to him then,” Michiko announced folding her arms across her chest, “until he opens his eyes.”
“You must still talk to him,” Sadie said, coming in behind Eiko. “He can still hear your voice.” She leaned over and kissed the forehead of the man in the bed. “Konnichiwa,” she said to him softly. “Are you in Japan?”
Michiko’s mother looked up at Sadie in surprise. “I was thinking the same thing,” she said with a sad smile. “I hope he’s in his old neighbourhood with all his school friends.”
Sadie placed her delicate hand on Michiko’s shoulder. “He’d always planned to take you to Japan,” she said. “He saved all his money in a cigar box. Geechan wanted you to know all about your culture and heritage.”
Michiko remembered the thin wooden box with the white owl on the top. Her grandfather used to show it to her, tap the top, and say, “One day we go Japan.”
She always dreamed about visiting the Land of Cherry Blossoms. She saw herself wearing a kimono, sitting on the floor at a low table to eat, and sleeping on a tatami mat behind a rice paper screen. Michiko wanted to see the mountain with the snow on the top that everyone drew and the crooked trees. But the stupid war got in the way and now Geechan wouldn’t even wake up.
“He missed our mother,” Sadie told Eiko. “He found her in you, but not in me.”
“He found himself in you,” Eiko told Sadie with a grin, “except for one thing.”
“What was that?” Michiko wanted to know.
“Yamato-damashii,” her mother and aunt said at the same time.
Sadie laughed out loud. Her mother hid her laughter behind her hand.
Michiko glanced at her grandfather looking for a reaction, but there wasn’t one.
“What is that?” asked Michiko, as Ted entered the room. “What is Yamato-damashii?”
“It means the true spirit of Japan,” her uncle replied. He crossed the room and placed his large weathered hand on top of the two fragile weathered ones. Then he turned to Michiko. “It was one of the things your grandfather and Sadie fought about over and over again.”
“That’s not fair,” Sadie said, turning to Eiko. “Ted fought with him too.”
Michiko’s eyes widened. This was news to her. She had never known a cross word to come between her grandfather and the three adults standing in the room. “You fought with your father?’ she asked in awe.
“Yes, we did,” Ted admitted. “Sadie and I had different dreams from the rest of the family. Especially Sadie. She only had only Canadian dreams.”
Sadie gazed toward the man in the bed. “When he was young he followed all the Japanese ways. The Emperor of Japan was like a god to him,” Sadie told Michiko. “He insisted your little brother be named Hiro, after the emperor.” She walked over to Geechan and smoothed his brow. “After mother died he tried his best to make sure we stayed Japanese.”
“Why didn’t you argue?” Michiko asked her mother, even though she already knew her mother seldom argued with anyone. She just turned blank and moved away.
“Your mother knew how to be Japanese at home and Canadian at school. She lived in two worlds,” her father said. “That is how it is with the oldest.”
“Why does it have to be one or the other?” Michiko wanted to know. “Why can’t we be Japanese and Canadian at the same time?
No one answered.
Late that night Michiko’s father and mother returned from the hospital. Hiro was asleep, but Michiko lay in her bed reading.
Her mother gave out great sigh as she lowered herself on to the end of Michiko’s bed. She took the book and folded Michiko’s hands into hers. With bright eyes, Eiko spoke in a strained voice, “Sleep carried Geechan to his place of comfort.”
Michiko nodded, she knew about his long deep sleep.
“He is there now,” she whispered.
At first Michiko did not understand what her mother was saying. Geechan was well enough to travel? Then a cold fear crept around her heart as she realized what her mother meant. The entire inside of her body went hollow. The hurt swelled within her chest and came out in a great heaving sob.
Her father pulled her to him tight. Then he pushed her back, held her at arm’s distance, and looked her straight in the eyes. “It’s better where he is, I promise,” he said in a soft, sad voice.
Chapter Fourteen
SAYONARA
Michiko put her feet on the cold linoleum floor and tip-toed to the window. The lacy frost on the glass shone like silver. Dense snow clouds covered the sky.
“It’s freezing,” she complained to her mother when she entered the kitchen. She couldn’t count the number of times the cold had awakened her by making her legs and feet ache.
But her mother wasn’t at her usual place in front of the stove. She sat on her bed, her back ramrod straight, staring at the wall. Her eyes sagged, her sorrow too deep for tears.
Michiko stood in the hallway with her arms about her waist. Her mother turned to her but didn’t get up.
“This is the best I could do,” Sadie said, entering the room holding two hats. “All I could find is some black feathers and netting.” Her sadness gave her face the look of a china cup.
Michiko had no fancy hat to wear. Her navy straw hat blew off the day they rode in the back of Bert’s truck. She had to be content with her mother’s head scarf over her toque.
“What about Uncle Ted?” she asked.
Sadie looked up from adjusting the netting. “I hope he makes it before the snow hits,” she said, furrowing her brow. “With all this wind, there will be huge drifts.” Sadie put the two hats down and took Eiko’s hand.
Michiko wandered into the kitchen and sat down to a bowl of cold porridge. Within minutes she washed her bowl, dried it, and put it back in the cupboard.
“He has to come,” Michiko heard her mother say. “He can’t miss his father’s funeral.”
“Ted will do the best he can,” Sadie assured her. “But he is a long way away. We don’t even know if Mrs. Morrison’s telegram reached the lumber camp.”
When Ted first told the family he was making shiplap, Michiko thought he was back to work in the shipyard. “Not ships,” he corrected her. “Shiplap is the rough wood siding they use for houses around here. But I’m going to convince them to branch out into windows and doors.”
Eiko’s eyes brimmed with concern. “Will it be safe to drive in this weather?”
By noon the snow smothered the street. The drift at the back door was so large they were unable to open it. They went through the drugstore to the front door, where a new hand-printed sign hung over the doorknob: CLOSED FOR FAMILE FUNERAL. Her father had misspelled the word family but Michiko wasn’t going to tell him. His cardboard MERRY CHRISTMAS sign in the window, spelled out in cotton balls, was perfect.
Outside Michiko lifted her little brother to her father’s decorated window. Green crepe paper draped the window like an awning. Red net stockings filled with candy lay against boxes of chocolate-covered cherries and peanut brittle. Small tinfoil Santa statues stood in the centre.
Tomorrow she would take Hiro to the General Store. In their window a mechanical Santa Claus moved up and down, holding a pickaxe. All around him lay candies wrapped in silver foil.
The family made their way to the church at the top of the street, leaving footprints in the white. “Look, Hiro,” Michiko said, sticking out her tongue. A fat snowflake floated onto her tongue. “It’s ice cream.” She held tightly to Hiro’s hand, allowing the adults to move ahead. Nothing would stress her mother more than an incident of bad behavior.
Two turkeys hung head
down in the window of the butcher shop. The sign below urged people to place their orders soon. Michiko thought about the deep layer of sawdust that covered the floor. At first she thought it was a wonderful way to freshen the shop’s sour air, until Clarence told her it was there to catch drips of blood. Michiko wrinkled her nose and stamped the sawdust from her shoes all the way home.
A crowd of people stood around the heavy wooden doors of the church, speaking in low murmurs. There was talk of her grandfather’s wonderful garden. Several came forward to shake hands with Michiko’s family. Clarence led a tall man in a grey overcoat by the hand to Michiko.
“This is my father,” he said to her with a crooked grin.
Michiko stared up at the tall man with grizzled ginger hair. He put out his hand and she shook it. Then he extended his hands to Michiko’s mother and father. “My boy talked a lot about the old guy,” he said, “may he rest in peace.”
The thunder of a giant logging truck pulling up to the church made everyone stop and look. Over his blue jeans, Ted wore a navy topcoat and fedora. He reached for Sadie’s arm. Michiko threw her arms about her uncle’s waist.
Michiko breathed in the smell of wood polish when they entered the small white church with the yellow diamond windows. On the altar a vase held a single white lily. The old reed organ stood to the right of the pulpit. Michiko was surprised to see Bert’s wife, Mabel, adjusting the sheets of music, wearing a black hat and coat. The minister wore a gold satin scarf with embroidered crosses.
Michiko flipped through the pages of the hymn book while the Mabel pumped the carpeted pedals. “Hiro,” she said, in an attempt to keep him occupied, “tell me the numbers.”
She pointed to the white cards in the wooden shield on the wall.
Everyone shuffled to their feet in order to sing. Mrs. Morrison’s voice rose just slightly over the others. She held the notes just a bit longer than the rest of the people singing.
Hiro glanced up as if he had just remembered something. He looked around and then slid out of the pew to the red-carpeted aisle. “Geechan,” he called out as if he was playing a game of hide-and-seek. “Geechan,” he called again, walking down the aisle.
Several women raised gloved hands to their mouths.
Michiko darted after him just as Mr. Katsumoto stepped into the aisle. He scooped Hiro up and flipped him onto his shoulder. Michiko followed them to the church basement. There Mr. Katsumoto flipped Hiro back down to the ground.
Her teacher pulled out the bench and tickled the keys of the upright piano.
“I didn’t know you could play the piano,” Michiko said in surprise.
“Keeps my fingers nimble,” he replied as he wiggled his fingers. “It’s good for baseball.”
Hiro ran across the shiny hardwood floor, skidded, and fell with a thump. Giant tears welled up in his almond-shaped brown eyes.
“Hey, little fella,” Mr. Katsumoto said, “want to gallop like a horse?”
Michiko took off her coat, then undid the buckles and stepped out of the rubber boots she wore over her shoes. “Watch, Hiro,” she said. “This is how.”
Mr. Katsumoto played while Michiko galloped around the hall. With a smile, Hiro copied. “We have a piano at home,” she called out across the hardwood space.
“It’s a good way to wear the little guy out,” Mr. Katsumoto said with a laugh.
“He’s not so bad,” Michiko explained. “But he does like to get into things.”
“Sort of like your Aunt Sadie,” he commented.
“Do you know her?” Michiko asked, stopping her gallop.
“All the teachers know each other,” he said, grinning down at the piano keys.
Michiko looked at the smiling, handsome man. Her grandfather would have been proud to have Mr. Katsumoto as Sadie’s boyfriend, a much better choice than the man-with-no-name.
Geechan’s walnut face floated into her mind. He had a way of smiling that lit up his whole face. She could just see him shaking Mr. Katsumoto’s hand, saying, “Come-gratulations,” over and over again, the way he misspoke English.
“Life goes on,” people kept saying to her over and over again. But if life went on, she thought, he’d be here right now.
A great grey sadness seeped into her heart. Geechan had been such a big part of her life. He stayed at their house when the government took her father away. He rode the train with them, carrying the quilt full of money. He chopped wood and pumped water at the farmhouse and planted their gardens. At bedtime he showed her Sode Boshi, the kimono sleeve in the stars. Michiko didn’t even get to say goodbye to her grandfather. A huge lump of tears filled her throat. People should be saying that death goes on. Geechan will be dead forever. She put her hand to her throat, making a strange choking sound.
Mr. Katsumoto stopped playing. “I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “It is such a sad time.”
Michiko nodded. The lump melted as tears streamed down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the cuff of her sweater.
Hiro raced to the piano and banged a few keys.
“Watch,” Mr. Katsumoto said to him. “I’ll show you how to play the galloping music.”
As Michiko’s family talked outside the church with Mrs. Morrison, Mr. Katsumoto surprised them all by carrying a sleeping Hiro toward them.
“Mr. Katsumoto played the piano!” Michiko exclaimed, “And he tired Hiro out.”
Her teacher extended a free hand to her father and mother. “Please accept my condolences,” he said. “He was a great baseball coach.”
“I wish he could have gotten to know you better,” Sam replied. “You were his hero.”
“I’m not going to join you for dinner,” Mrs. Morrison said in a wobbly voice. She put her hands on her chest as if to stop them from heaving. Her face was white and lined.
“We have already set you a place,” Eiko said, but Mrs. Morrison walked away, wiping her eyes.
Sadie, joining the group, caught her breath at the sight of Mr. Katsumoto.
“We don’t have to take her plate away,” Michiko said, looking at her mother in earnest.
Her mother took the hint. “Would you care to join us?” she asked Michiko’s teacher.
Mr. Katsumoto didn’t respond at first, busy transferring Hiro to Ted’s arms. “I wouldn’t want to impose,” he finally said, “under the circumstances.”
“It would be an honour to my father,” Eiko said. “He never stopped talking about seeing you win the Terminal League Championship.”
At dinner Mr. Katsumoto entertained them with stories of his days in road camp. “We sat at a long table of green wood with two benches,” he told them. “There were ten place settings, five at each side. Each of us had a tin pie plate and an enamel cup.”
Michiko, seeing her father nod at the description, stared down at her rice bowl.
“One man chopped the green tops off the carrots,” Mr. Katsumoto told them, “another put two on each plate.”
“We ate a lot of raw as well,” Michiko’s father said. “Once all we had to eat was a wedge of cabbage.
Michiko looked up in surprise. Her father seldom talked about the time he was away.
“I could put up with the poor food and the isolation,” Sam said. “The real torture was the blackflies.” He reached over and patted his wife’s hand. “My wife insisted I take a set of bed sheets.”
Michiko’s mother lowered her eyes in embarrassment.
“I used them to cover myself from the flies,” he said. “At least there were no rats.”
Michiko dropped her chopsticks.
Her mother rose from the table. “Thankfully we are all better off than that now,” she said as she lifted the cloth from the plate of small round cakes in the centre of the table.
“You should have been at our house for New Years,” Michiko said to her teacher. She closed her eyes and sighed. “Nothing tastes better than New Year’s mochi.”
“Aah,” said Mr. Katsumoto, “I often dream about those sweet red bea
n cakes.”
“It is so hard,” Eiko said, looking at Sadie, “getting the right ingredients.”
“But you’ve got a Christmas tree,” Mr. Katsumoto said. “I haven’t seen one in years.”
“We should put a Christmas tree up at school,” Michiko said, “for our class party.”
“What class party?” Mr. Katsumoto asked in mock seriousness.
“The one you plan on giving your students,” Sadie said with a large smile.
“Once I read a story about a family that had no money for decorations,” Michiko told him eagerly. “A spider heard them and covered the tree with beautiful cobwebs.”
“I try not to read too much these days,” Mr. Katsumoto said to Michiko’s surprise.
Sadie said in a soft voice, “I can’t imagine living with someone who didn’t read.”
“I didn’t say I don’t enjoy reading,” he replied. “With no books around, I get frustrated.”
“You can read all of my books,” Michiko said.
“Why thank you, Michiko,” Mr. Katsumoto said, “but only one at a time.”
Sam turned and spoke quietly to his wife, “Will you play the piano?
As the snow fell like petals from a cherry blossom, the Minagawa family sat with their guest and listened to her grandfather’s favourite songs of Japan.
Chapter Fifteen
SPECIAL DELIVERY
“What’s in the box?” Michiko asked her father.
He looked up from prying the lid off the wooden crate and shrugged. It took up most of the space at the bottom on the stairs. When he finally lifted the lid all they saw was straw.
“This really is a mystery,” Michiko’s mother observed. She put her hand out to stop Hiro from pulling out a great clump of yellow. “We need to unpack it properly,” she announced. “The straw will be good for the garden.” She shooed everyone back.
The first thing hidden beneath the straw was a cardboard carton labelled CONES.
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