It was early morning when she heard the first train. It was heading south, back to Hiroshima. The sun had pinked the already hot sky, and more travelers filled the waiting area. She thought about staying, continuing to search—you never knew who might have seen Donald—but what could she do now, even if she got a lead? She was already dangerously late—her morning shift was starting; the soldiers would know she wasn’t there. Even if she was willing to defy the military, she couldn’t leave Hanako and Tateishi-sama waiting. She had too many responsibilities.
She would return. Meanwhile, she reminded herself that Toshi was with his father. He wasn’t alone; he wasn’t an infant. And he wasn’t in Hiroshima, either. She had done what she needed to do to keep him safe. When Donald stopped running, she would find them. So she boarded the train, comforting herself with stealing glances out the windows long after it left the station, until the jolting and the swaying threatened to pull her into sleep. Her eyes were closed and the train was still a few miles away from their destination when she heard an explosion. She thought it was a factory nearby. An accident.
The train slowed. Then it stopped in its tracks.
Kei
It takes two hours for Hana to fall asleep after the tidal wave siren. In your quiet bedroom, as you wait, you imagine diving beneath the waves. Running toward them when they are still all blue and shiny, leaving the pounding white water behind. White water that will dump you on your head and hold you down so long you can’t breathe. You practice holding your breath. Swimming until your lungs might explode, until you reach the other side. Where your real family is waiting.
This time, without Hana.
It makes sense, perhaps, to leave her. Hana has always been happy being who she is, being the good one. Hana doesn’t have to be Kei.
It’s better for Mama anyway if she doesn’t have to deal with you.
How could she have said that? That afternoon, for a few hours, you were sisters together, waiting to be saved. Didn’t it feel good to know you could be anyone and anything might happen? Wasn’t it nice to have nothing to do but watch some barely dressed kids chasing each other over the rocks and pretend their mothers, passing out musubi and teriyaki, were your own? So what if the bay was the same lapping, lazy water as always? It could rise up. Not everything came with advance notice.
Liar, she said.
I didn’t—
Lie? Talking all along like she was there on the phone?
You thought she wanted to be there. You thought she felt the same connection and companionship you did. Didn’t she miss you, too? Hadn’t you bought her a treat with your own money? Why was her only pleasure in watching you screw up?
It’s your fault if she gets sick from this. She’s probably going crazy with worry and Arnie isn’t even here.
Hana’s breathing is even now. She hasn’t shifted for more than one hundred waves breaking in your mind. You sit up, test her. You’d wanted to go together, but there’s no point in wishing for the moon, as Arnie says. You’ll give her what she wants: She’ll be happier as the only child. She said as much this afternoon:
Kill yourself.
No one cares about you.
You didn’t think there’d be cars on the road this late, but their lights swing around the bends and over the rises. One by one. Easy enough to dodge as long as there’s something to hide behind. A couple of the lights catch you and slow down, but you wave them away. One car stops—a woman yelling, “Girl! Little sistah!”—but she’s going uphill, in the wrong direction. You duck into a driveway, as if you’re home, thanks very much, and wait behind a bush until her engine starts up.
And then there’s the truck, pulling in from the side just when you reach the first big intersection. You try to look casual. It’s full of boys.
“Like one ride?”
In the cab, some faces you’ve seen at the beach and at the high school across the street. None of the dog-boys from your school. You know the driver, or know of him. Eddie. Missy’s brother. Here he is at last: He has arrived in your story. He is the beginning of the end, but you won’t recognize that until it’s too late.
You could have made a different choice, but instead you nod. Jump in the back.
Eddie drives you all down to the singing bridge along the waterfront to see the big wave. It’s not the lonely, end-of-the-world scene you’d imagined. There are lots of spectators, and a few cops and some other guys acting like everyone has to evacuate, but Eddie is friends with some of them, or cousins, and they leave you alone. Once you’ve been informed, Eddie says, it’s not the cops’ fault if you get sucked out to sea.
—What’re they going to do, drag us back to bed? Then they’ll miss the Big Wave.
You’re only a girl, but Eddie keeps an eye on you. A girl with guts, he calls you, a word that echoes in your belly. It’s thrilling to be out here, but you don’t know what to say to these boys, or half of what they are saying to each other, and they know it, too, because they keep laughing. No worry, Eddie says when you blush. These boys are trouble, but they’re at home on the bridge. They are known. From the looks you are getting, people here know you, too, or maybe they’re judging you for the company you’re keeping. You’re wearing Hana’s clothes. You grabbed them by accident in the dark.
You ask Eddie if Missy and his parents are coming, but his response is to snort. “I have no parents.”
His gang looks approving.
Do I have parents? you wonder.
On one end of the bridge, a couple of volcano scientists have set up some instruments so they’ll be the first to know when the wave is about to arrive. It turns out, it isn’t due until midnight.
Time moves slow. Eddie and his gang are starting to roughhouse, shoving each other until they laugh and drift off, looking for something happening or maybe trying to stir it up. There’s talk of people gathering on the bridge near the boat harbor on the other side of town where the last big wave ran up and maybe even killed Charlene’s grandma, but that’s farther than they want to walk.
The natural world has its own clock, Arnie always tells you, and it’s much slower than man’s. Think erosion, evolution, continental drift. Be patient. But Mama’s natural world moves in quick time: the life span of new flowers open for the morning and fruit ripening by afternoon. That’s the clock you’ve always been in sync with. It’s not easy being out here without her, on tidal wave time.
The two boys with Eddie are gone now. He’s alone, scuffling his feet, casting his extra-long arms in an at-loose-ends dance. From here, far enough away that you’re not looking up the extra six inches he has on you, you can see he’s lighter than a man. Lanky, with elbows and knees that stick out and not a lot of meat on his browned body. You want him to look for you, to notice you’re gone. It must be your intensity, the way you’re watching him from the corner of your eye, that gets his attention.
Mama has told you it happens that way sometimes. Do you remember? That two people can connect just through their thoughts.
Eddie looks over. Waves, then cups his hands near his mouth. “Hey, Keiko—little Kei-ko!”
You thought he’d come to you. You didn’t expect him to yell your name across the bridge for everyone to hear. You scurry toward him, keeping your face turned to the water. He gets it when he sees you: You are in hiding. He says your name again but more softly when you reach him. More just for you. He stands beside you and leans his knees against the guardrail, looking at the ocean. You can tell he likes it that he has something on you, but his smile says of course he’ll never use it. It’s a secret to share. His smile says you should trust him, but you’re not used to trusting. This is the kind of boy Mama has warned you about all your life. The kind who skips class, drives up and down beach run and not just on the weekends. His friends break down classroom doors…
The trade winds off the water chill you, but the length of his body near yours is warm.
“Want a beer, little gutsy Keiko? We got some Luckies in the car.”
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br /> “I don’t—”
“The guys went already. I was looking for you. Waiting. You know. For you.”
And now he’s trying to guilt you, to pressure you, as Mama would say. You know this. You hated the sip you took once of Arnie’s beer and besides, you are waiting for the tidal wave that is going to change everything.
So why is it you want him to stay? To say it again, to sing it the way he does: Gut-sy lit-tle Kei-ko.
“Maybe…Later.”
He cocks his head. Sees your longing. There’s something in his lips that’s soft, the way they curl. But then he thinks better about saying anything. He walks backward a couple of steps, still facing you, still with the smile. A space opens between you. It pulls on you, and it’s everything you can do to stand there until Eddie turns and walks away.
As you turn your attention back to the wave, to the crush that is coming, you remember something you once heard Arnie say to Mama. Fearless is good, especially in a girl. At least she’ll never be at someone else’s mercy. He said it about you, but was it before this night, or after? Are you fearless now, saying no to Eddie, remembering who you are? Are you fearless facing the wave?
That night on the bridge, with Eddie gone, you feel alone for the first time. But of course, you’re not. There are others here waiting for the wave, all of them restless. No one expected this waiting. No one knew what to expect. You, for example, didn’t expect the people. People who might know you. People you might want to keep on knowing.
Left on your own, you realize you’re not prepared. You snuck out of the house, worried more about the floor creaking than grabbing a coat or a flashlight. The most reliable light, and the radio, are back with the scientists.
Arnie would know what to look for. Like what he said about the volcano: It has to build up, to get from the center of the earth to here. You never know where and when it will explode.
Arnie would know when the story was over and it was time to go home.
“Hey,” a man’s voice says from behind you. “Girl! Aren’t you…aren’t you one of Arnie Swanson’s little girls? Hey, is he around?”
It’s over. He knows who you are. Except it’s dark, so he might think you are Hana. You turn around. He’s a regular guy in a palaka shirt and Bermuda shorts. You don’t recognize him.
“I thought he wen—”
“Ah, yeah. No. Yeah, he’s—” You look around, pretending to be surprised that Arnie’s not exactly where you saw him last. “—here. He was just here.”
“Yeah?” He looks around, too, then back at you, waiting for you to produce your stepfather.
“Yeah, I—I better go find him.” You stay where you are, in case the man decides to tag along. If he’s really looking for Arnie, it would take only minutes for him to figure it out. The bridge is narrow, and not all that long.
“Yeah,” he says at last when you don’t move. “So. Tell him Ralph’s here. I’ll be around. Tell him come find me.”
It’s a trick you learned from Mama, and it works. Silence and stillness. Not rejecting, or trying to get away. Just not offering. It makes the other person feel uncomfortable. They can’t wait to leave, even without what they came for.
You should go home, before Mama and Hana find out you are missing. But you still have it in your head that the wave will come. All these people around you are waiting, too. Even if reincarnation was just a childish fantasy, the wave part is real. You’re suddenly sure: The wave is the part that will save you.
You keep glancing toward Eddie’s car. It’s too dark to see whether the boys are still here. Of course, a tidal wave doesn’t come on demand. It’s traveling from far away, getting bigger. The bigger the better for your purposes. Let nature take her time.
The scientists are talking about how there’s some water on Banyan Drive. Not a crest, a breaking tube as you imagine, more like a bathtub overflowing with a puddle as the result. You sit on the edge of their conversation, hoping for more, but the radio is saying the arrival time has been pushed back. If the wave is coming at all.
“They got three feet in Tahiti. That’s about what we got here. And what was ’fifty-seven? ’Bout three feet then, too?”
If this is all there is, if this is all the wave adds up to, then you’re in big trouble, you realize. In the cold reality that you actually live in, you snuck out of the house, people have seen you, and now you are caught.
“There she is! Arnie’s little girl. Is he back, doll? Which one are you, anyway?”
It’s Ralph again, with yet another guy. How can there be so many people who know Arnie, and why are they all looking for you?
His question rouses the scientists’ attention.
“I thought that’s who she was,” one of them says. “What’s he doing bringing his kid down here? And where is he?”
Which one are you?
If you’re not in trouble, Hana will be. You should have known this would happen. The town’s too small. Why didn’t it occur to you? It didn’t occur to you to bring a flashlight, always Arnie’s first line of defense. But what really didn’t occur to you is that the tidal wave might be so small there would be an after to live through, with all its consequences.
What a fool you have been with your silly stories! You could see only up to the wave’s arrival.
You are fading out of the light, away from Ralph and the scientists. If you go home now, if you can sneak in without waking Mama, maybe you can talk your way out of this one. Nothing’s sure. Maybe none of these guys will ever mention that they saw you, and if they do, you can just pretend.
You need to get home and back into bed before anyone else sees you. It’ll take you an hour walking uphill if you have to keep ducking to avoid the cars. You start up the smaller road that runs along the river. You’re an idiot, just like Hana said. She was right, as always. It was the stupid, nonsensical fantasy of a stupid, nonsensical girl who doesn’t know how to live in the real world. Now it’s midnight on the day that will be known as the day the tidal wave never came and you are in so much trouble. You have so far to walk and the road is so steep.
Behind you, the bridge you left: less than a man’s height off the river. The next one up the hill is the rainbow bridge. Concrete, arching between the trees and off the water maybe fifty or even a hundred feet. That’s what it feels like, anyway. There are people on this bridge, too, milling around, as bored and gullible as the ones you were waiting with.
You are pretty sure no one notices you as you cross the street. It’s so late. Home seems impossible, and already you just want to curl up under a tree and sleep. Or just wake up in bed and have this all be a nightmare. But it’s long after midnight, and that is even more of a fantasy than your dreams of reincarnation. Of being the one who could finally slow down enough to ask or wait or trust.
Your dream of waking up not-Kei.
You keep walking. So tired. To the center of your bones. Should you sit down? Go back to one of the main streets to hitch a ride? That’s when the shouting starts. The screams. It’s coming from town, and also from the rainbow bridge right beside you. You run toward the bridge, tripping on the concrete curb just as you reach it and start falling. Your leg and one hand and arm scrape, always scraping, as you go down.
No one helps you up. Everyone is jammed on one side, looking down, beyond town, at the bay. You push your way to the edge. From where you are, the hooting from the bridge you just left below carries.
“What’s going on?” Your eyes are adjusting in the patches of light from the handheld lanterns, the flashlights, and the streetlights.
There are policemen here, or at least there’s one, trying to get everyone to leave. “We gotta evacuate, come on, everybody, let’s go!” The people around you are shifting, not leaving. You are so high above the water, no one is really in danger here. You press yourself against the rail, bending your knees so you can’t be knocked over by the people around you. The lower bridge looks the same.
“What’s happening?”
The two men on either side of you jump all over each other now to answer. “Front Street’s flooded!”
“It wen ova’ da seawall!”
You can’t see much from here, especially not the seawall, which is a long curve of twenty-ton boulders far out in the bay. You’re trying to see the bandstand you and Hana sat in this afternoon. It’s close to the shore; it would be the first to get hit. You can’t make out the gray outline of the octagonal roof, but maybe the ground around it is glinting with water? Maybe the ground is higher, or the water is, you can’t be sure. The ocean is its usual dark self, sleeping on the other side of the streetlights. There are no huge white breakers signaling a big tidal wave.
“Hooo—” someone next to you breathes out. “Look da water.”
He’s not pointing at the ocean, but at the river far below you. From where you are, the bridge looks like it’s rising. The lower bridge, too, lifting up, away from the river. And then you realize: The water is dropping.
The first Chinese brother held the sea in his mouth—isn’t that the way Mama told it?—and all the little children ran out to gather fish.
You are running, heading back down the hill to the bay.
Hana
Sometimes, at night, I see myself. The scenery changes, the people; sometimes it’s Bree I’m talking to, sometimes Detective Lynch, or an ever-changing doctor in a white coat. It’s my sense of purpose that stays the same, my need to pick a direction as if forward motion can restore certainty in a world I otherwise could not bear. I have been diligent. I have sacrificed. I have chipped away at my own silences and faced down memories I hoped never to revisit. I have done everything for Kei that I am certain I would have wanted for myself.
I am surrounded by history. I relive every episode that comes to me, knowing that even if they never happened, they are becoming real. As wrong as they seem, there is truth in them. But with every memory I resurrect, there is another possibility: that I have been wrong about how things happened, and who is to blame for them.
Shadow Child Page 19