by Kyoko Mori
Going into the third lap, she thought, almost halfway through. This was usually the lap to relax a little, to save up for the last two laps, in which she would gradually surge so that she was running as fast as she possibly could in the latter half of the fifth lap. At least that was how she had always won. It seemed like a good strategy. Still, she had often won by only a very small margin, trying to shake off the other runners in the last twenty or thirty meters, hearing them breathing behind her till the last moment.
The two runners ahead of her were beginning to falter. Directly behind her, two or three others were running in step. She could hear their breathing, rather hard and loud already. She wondered if hers sounded like that to them. To herself, it sounded quite easy, much more relaxed than theirs.
The next moment, before she even knew it herself, she was speeding up. She quickly passed the two girls ahead of her, then realized that she had committed herself, perhaps too soon. There was a good three quarters of the third lap still left to go, then the fourth, and then the fifth. She would have to keep up the pace now and not let the others pass her back.
Several seconds later, coming to the end of the third lap, Yuki began to run as fast as she could. She kept listening to her own breathing, rhythmically repeating to herself, I’ll make it, I’ll make it, stifling about every ten steps the terrible recurring voice that said, You made a mistake, you’ll never finish.
By the time she was beginning the last lap, her shoulders hurt—sharp pains like knife points. She was breathing hard, very hard by now. Only another lap, she told herself. I can hurt for another lap. She no longer heard anyone behind her. She couldn’t tell if they were too far back or if the loudness of her own breathing and heartbeat had deafened her.
As she sprinted down the last straightaway to the finish, Yuki could almost see the black point of pain. She kept it in front of her, where she could squint at it and still not lose sight of the track, of the orderly parallel lines the man had drawn earlier, only by now not so orderly—fading in places even, a little crooked. To keep going when there’s no air, she thought. Is this how it was, Mama? Was it painful? More painful than this, far more painful. I can remember the smell of gas and you on the floor, not breathing, and Father saying later that you did not suffer, it did not hurt, did not hurt.
As she crossed the finish line, the black blur of her thought was replaced by the white blur of the uniforms of the other girls on her team. They were all surrounding her—she was leaning on somebody’s arm—and they were saying how she had won by a big margin, how she must have broken the record, how the others were way behind her. As her breaths slowed down and the pain spread through her body and then faded, Yuki stood alone on the grass and thought: I didn’t even look back; I didn’t know where the others were.
* * *
All the events were over by one thirty. There was a late lunch break while the results were being computed. The girls on Yuki’s team dispersed to find their families. Yuki ran toward the drinking fountain before anybody could ask her what she was going to do for lunch, would she care to join their family? Everyone knew that Yuki’s mother was dead, that nobody from her family ever came to the meets.
Yuki had not even brought lunch. In the morning, when she came down to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice, her stepmother had looked at her without a word. “I’m going to the track meet,” Yuki told her. “I’ll be back in the afternoon, not too late.” Her stepmother still said nothing. Yuki added hastily, “And I won’t need lunch. I can’t run and eat. It’ll make me sick.” After that, she drank up the orange juice and ran out of the kitchen. Her stepmother had said nothing at all. The last time her stepmother had really talked to her was more than a year ago. “Please don’t keep asking me so many questions about what you can do to help me,” she had said. They were in the midst of dinner and her stepmother had suddenly put down her chopsticks and turned to her. “If you have to ask, then there’s no point in it. What’s the use of having you help me clean if you can’t even tell when things are clean or dirty, if you have to ask? If you can’t do it without being told, then just try not to get in my way. And don’t talk so much all the time. I’ve put up with it so far because I heard that you were a very smart child and maybe smart children talk more than the not-so-smart ones. But I’m sick of it. I’ve really had enough.” Her stepmother then collected her dishes, put them in the sink, and left the table. Yuki had sat with her father, who went on eating in silence as though nothing had happened. Since then, Yuki and her stepmother never said much to each other.
Yuki ran toward the fountain. By now, her teammates would be climbing up the bleachers toward their mothers, who would be waving to them and saying, “Here you are. Look what I brought you for lunch. Hurry and sit down.” Yuki counted her steps, one, two, one, two, and repeated to herself, It’s nothing, I’m all right, it’s nothing.
She stopped in front of the fountain and took a deep breath. She realized that she was looking down at the long ponytail of the tall hurdler. She was bending over the fountain to drink water, and Yuki was staring at the back of her white neck. The next moment, the girl raised her head, looked back, and smiled.
“Always running into each other at drinking fountains, aren’t we?” the girl said.
In confusion, Yuki plunged her face into the stream of water. It was surprisingly cold. She drank fast, almost suffocating, and then looked up. The girl was still standing, waiting for her.
“I’m Yuki,” Yuki said. She swallowed hard. “Yuki Okuda. I ran in the 1,000 meters.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“I know,” the girl said. “I saw you come in first.”
“I saw you come in first too,” Yuki said. “Way ahead of the others.”
“I’m Sachiko Murai. Did you know my name?”
“No. But I’ve watched you.” Yuki felt her face turning red.
“I knew your name,” Sachiko Murai said. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I know some people who go to your school. They said that you were one of the best runners at their school even though you were only in eighth grade and this is your first year in track. Not only that, you’re very bright and you’re president of your class. You beat the boy who ran against you because your speeches were so good. That’s very rare, isn’t it, for a girl to win the election and become president of her class at a coed school?” Sachiko paused.
Yuki could think of nothing to say. She couldn’t even just say “Yes,” because it would sound like bragging.
“Anyway,” Sachiko continued, “my friends said that they admired you a lot because you’ve done so well in everything even though…” Sachiko fell silent. “But I shouldn’t say such a thing.”
“Even though what?”
“I really shouldn’t say.”
“I want you to tell me.”
“All right, even though your mother’s passed away and your father and stepmother never come to see you run or make speeches or anything. There, I’ve said it.”
Yuki considered this for a moment. Then she said, with a boldness that surprised even herself, “Are you sorry for me?”
Sachiko seemed to hesitate. “Do you want me to be?”
“No,” Yuki said firmly. “Never.”
“All right, then I won’t be.”
They walked together for a few minutes in silence, passing some families who were sitting on the grass with their picnic lunches. Young children were running around and laughing.
“So what are you going to do this summer vacation?” Sachiko was asking her.
“I don’t know,” Yuki said. She hadn’t thought of it till now—the long days without school, her stepmother silent in the kitchen, her father coming home and just nodding toward Yuki, not saying a word. Every day would be like the Sundays before she joined the track team, when she stayed home all day, cooped up in her room. She tried to find something to say. If I don’t, she thought, Sachiko will decide her friends were wrong after all and I’m stupid. But nothing came to h
er mind.
“I don’t live very far from you,” Sachiko said, “even though I go to the private school because both my sisters went there. That’s how I know the people who go to your school. I went to grade school with them. Maybe we can run together once in a while to stay in shape. Do you want to? You’re going out for cross-country in the fall, right? Maybe we can meet in Uzumoridai Park. You live near there, don’t you? I think I saw you running there once.”
“Yes,” Yuki said. She could only speak very softly. She wondered if Sachiko would mistake it to mean that she wasn’t enthusiastic about running with her. “I would like so much to run with you,” Yuki added, trying to control her voice. “I do live near that park, and I’m going out for cross-country in the fall.”
“Good,” Sachiko said. “Come with me then. I’m supposed to meet my mother for lunch where the azaleas are, near the parking lot. She probably has a pen in her purse, so we can exchange phone numbers.”
* * *
The woman sitting by the azaleas was smoking a long cigarette with a gold circle drawn where her fingers held it. Yuki would have guessed her to be Sachiko’s mother even if she had seen them separately. She was tall like Sachiko and fair. Unlike other mothers, who wore white blouses and dark skirts shaped like tea cozies, Sachiko’s mother was wearing a slim green dress and carrying a green purse made of cloth. She crushed out the cigarette against the bottom of the stone bench and dropped it on the ground.
“Mother, this is Yuki Okuda. She won the 1,000 meters and broke the record, just like I did at the hurdles.”
“Hello.” Mrs. Murai smiled. “I saw you. You looked so much smaller than the other girls. Someone sitting near me said that you were one of the few eighth graders who made it to the finals.” Mrs. Murai then turned away from Yuki toward her daughter. She reached out her hand and smoothed Sachiko’s hair with her long fingers. “Your hair’s all tangled up.”
“Is it?” Sachiko said absentmindedly. She shook her head impatiently under her mother’s fingers.
“You should have let me put it up. Then it wouldn’t have gotten so tangled. Turn around.”
“It’s not so bad as it is,” Sachiko said, all the same turning around for her mother.
Mrs. Murai took a brush out of her purse, pulled off the rubber band that was holding Sachiko’s ponytail, and began to brush her hair.
“Mother, you’re hurting my scalp. Don’t pull so hard.”
“Really, you ought to take better care of your hair.”
“But I don’t even want long hair. For all I care, I could cut it short like Yuki’s. Look at her hair, Mother. Isn’t it nice and simple? I’m sure it’s easier to take care of than mine. I’d like that.”
Mrs. Murai glanced back at Yuki. She seemed doubtful.
“I won’t hear about you cutting your hair,” she said to her daughter.
Sachiko looked toward Yuki and rolled her eyes, as if to say, You know how they are.
But I don’t, anymore, Yuki thought.
Finally, Mrs. Murai put the brush back in her purse and let go of Sachiko. “Leave your hair like that. You don’t have to tie it up again now, do you? I left our lunch in the car, so we’ll have to go get it.” She turned to Yuki questioningly.
Sachiko looked from her mother to Yuki and then back.
Her hair, Yuki noticed, was really down to her waist. It made her look slightly older than her age. Yuki noted exactly how much she looked like her mother—the long oval face, perfectly arched eyebrows.
“We wanted to see if you had a pen,” Yuki said to Mrs. Murai.
“Yuki and I are going to run together during summer vacation,” Sachiko explained. “We wanted to exchange phone numbers. You must have a pen in your purse, Mother.”
“Oh, I see. How nice.” Mrs. Murai began to rummage through her purse. “But I can’t find a pen,” she said after a while. “It’s very strange. I usually do carry one around.” She continued to look. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting like this. Your family must be wondering where you’ve gone. They must be so proud of you.”
“Mother,” Sachiko said. Her voice sounded alarmed, or possibly just embarrassed. Yuki could not tell which.
“What is it?”
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Yuki said. “I’d better be going.” She said to Sachiko, “If you give me your phone number, I’ll memorize it.”
“Are you sure?” Sachiko said. “But of course, you must have a good memory.”
“I’ll try, anyhow.”
“All right. It’s 25-3794—25-3794. Can you remember that?”
“I’ll remember.”
“It was very nice to meet you,” Mrs. Murai said, already turning away.
Sachiko shrugged, smiled, and waved. She began to walk beside her mother.
Yuki watched the two of them walking close together until she could no longer see them. Then she looked toward the stone bench where Mrs. Murai had been sitting. All around the bench, azalea bushes were in full bloom, some of them pale pink, the others bright, almost purplish pink. A long time ago, Yuki remembered, her mother had shown her how to pick an azalea blossom and pull off the calyx so that all the stamens came out and what was left of the flower was like a little trumpet. Then she would gently blow out the pollen that had scattered, and taste the inside of the flower with the tip of her tongue. Where the petals came together and narrowed like the mouth of the trumpet, there were spots of intense sweetness—so intense that her tongue tingled. Sometimes, the pale flowers were spotted bright red inside. These were the sweetest of them all.
Suddenly faint, Yuki sat down on the stone bench. Still repeating the number Sachiko had given her, rapidly, fervently, she remained for a long time gazing at the azaleas. She wished she could eat the flowers, thousands of pink trumpets, and suffocate with their sweetness.
6
SUNDAYS
(September 1971)
The first week of September had been unusually cool. On Sunday morning, Yuki put on a long-sleeved T-shirt over her shorts to go running. Her father and stepmother were having their breakfast in the kitchen. As she went down the stairs, Yuki could smell the tea and the salted fish her stepmother was cooking. She went out the front door and started running toward the park, where she was meeting Sachiko.
Along the road, the chestnut trees were heavy with green spiked balls. In a month, the balls would burst, and the pavement would be covered with shiny black nuts that cracked underfoot. Soon after that, Yuki would be running in cross-country meets every Sunday. The second term of school had started the week before. At the first cross-country practice on Wednesday, the coach had said everyone should take weekends off from running until the meets started. “Resting is as important as running,” he said. “You’ll be training every weekday after school. That’s enough running.” “But I run with a friend on Sundays,” Yuki said. “We’ve been doing it all summer.” “You should stop after this coming Sunday,” he said. “I don’t want you pushing yourself too hard and getting hurt or sick.”
It doesn’t matter, Yuki thought as she approached the white gate of the park. Sachiko would have started practicing at her school. Most likely, her coach would want her to rest on Sundays as well. Soon, they would be running against each other for the first time: they had been in different events in track, and last year, Yuki wasn’t on the cross-country team while Sachiko was winning and setting records. Maybe I won’t be very good anyway, Yuki thought as she entered the park and headed for the blue bench next to the drinking fountain.
It was nine o’clock, the time they had agreed to meet, but Sachiko was always a few minutes late. Yuki stopped by the bench and waited, jumping up and down to stay warm. She tried to think of a way to tell Sachiko that they should continue meeting every week—but what could they do together besides running? Yuki wasn’t sure. “To get together and talk” sounded silly or forward or both. Girls in high school or college sat in coffee shops for hours talking, but she and Sachiko were only in eighth and ninth gr
ades. “To go to a movie” wasn’t quite right either. Yuki sometimes went to movies with friends, but never with just one of them. Nobody saw movies with just one other person, except older girls on dates. It was hopeless. Even if she could think of something they might do together, she wouldn’t know how to bring it up in the half hour they would be running. She and Sachiko had run together once a week all summer and never done anything else except for drinking orange juice afterward at Sachiko’s house—and that was only the first few times they met, back in late June.
Yuki spotted Sachiko coming up the path in red tights and a white T-shirt, her hair done up into a bun. Sachiko waved; her palm flashed red in a fingerless glove. Yuki ran to meet her.
“Hope you weren’t waiting long,” Sachiko said, smiling.
“No, not at all.”
They left the park, which was at the bottom of a long hill. Above, houses were built along the flat east-west streets, with the north-south streets intersecting at a sharp incline. Yuki and Sachiko always took the same four-mile route. From the park, they ran five blocks west, went uphill a block, turned east and ran five blocks, then uphill another block to head west. They continued to weave back and forth on the flat streets, always going uphill at the end, until they were at the top of the ridge overlooking the city. The route had been Sachiko’s idea. “It’s good to run hills,” she said. “You can use different muscles that way.”
“So how was your first week of school?” Sachiko asked when they came to the end of the first block.
“All right,” Yuki answered. “I went to cross-country practice after school. We started on Wednesday.” She paused, wondering if she should mention not running on weekends. She glanced sideways at Sachiko’s face. A wisp of hair, gotten loose from her bun, fluttered up and down next to her cheek. No, she thought. Too soon. “How was your week?” she asked.