by Kyoko Mori
* * *
The bruise Yuki had gotten on the stairway in May when she tried to save her clothes from her stepmother had turned out to be a bad sprain. For two weeks, she had had to swim laps in the pool instead of going to her track practice. She was given a lane to herself against the wall. Yuki had to close her eyes and turn her head when the boys on the swim team passed her. Often, she swallowed water and gagged. Every time that happened, she remembered falling down the stairs. She could see her stepmother’s arm shoving at her. One afternoon, standing in the pool and coughing, Yuki decided to remember and draw the clothes her mother had made for her. She was afraid that all the things that had happened to her in the last three years might crowd up her mind and erase her memories about her mother, the way you could record over something by mistake on a tape recorder.
From that day on, Yuki began making colored-pencil drawings of the clothes her mother had sewn and embroidered for her. She kept the sketchbook locked inside her desk. Working at her summer job at the city library, she had carried a small notebook in her back pocket to write down the things she might suddenly remember during the day. One afternoon, a dress she had forgotten about came flying out of nowhere into her memory while she was shelving books. It came to her with its ruby red sleeves open wide, the row of buttons shining down the front. She could hardly wait to go back to her room to draw it. When she was done with the clothes, she made sketches of the tea set, the glazed plates, the white goblets, and the other pottery pieces that her stepmother had thrown out. Her friends and even her art teacher might laugh at her if she told them, but she didn’t want to forget anything.
* * *
The colander was half full. Yuki looked at her watch. She had been gone for five minutes now. She thought it was unfair of Miss Sakaki to make her come back in ten minutes. If someone else had volunteered, Miss Sakaki wouldn’t have been so strict. Even the fastest group would need at least twenty more minutes to prepare their food.
Yuki knelt down and scooped up handfuls of pine needles off the ground. Their smell reminded her of the delicious mountain air she and her mother had eaten. She put the pine needles on top of the maple leaves. There were three minutes left. Yuki got up and started to walk quickly past the gym toward the main building, careful not to spill the leaves.
The concrete path she was on wound around the biology lab at the southwest corner of the building. Yuki slowed down. From the window, she could see the jar of frogs on the teacher’s desk. She stopped and veered off the path toward the outside wall of the lab. Standing among the prickly bushes planted thick against the building, she looked inside. The lab was empty, but the desk had already been prepared for the fifth-hour class. Along with the jar of frogs there were microscopes, scalpels, and scissors laid out in neat rows. From where she stood, she couldn’t see the frogs closely. They were stacked up inside the jar. All she could see was their muddy brown color.
Yuki went along the wall, pushing at the windows. The fourth one slid up.
She put her colander through to the windowsill on the other side. Then, scratching her legs in the bushes, she clambered up and crawled through into the lab. She left the colander on the sill and went straight up to the desk.
There were at least twenty frogs in the jar. They were sprawled so closely on top of each other that she couldn’t count them toward the bottom. Some were flattened against the glass. What she noticed most was how large they were. Each of them was larger than her fist.
She lifted the lid off the jar. The smell of formaldehyde gagged her.
It wasn’t exactly the same smell that she remembered from her mother’s funeral. Still, it reminded her of standing outside the crematorium while her mother’s body was burned. Black smoke came out of the chimney and a sick, salty smell filled her lungs. Afterward, she had to go inside with a small group of relatives. The fire had shattered the bones. They were broken in bits, all of them as small as teeth. According to the Buddhist custom, the bones were to be gathered into a small urn, which would be kept in a temple. The others, all grownups, were completely silent as they picked the bones. Yuki tried to hold her breath as she grasped her long tongs. Her insides ached as though she was holding in something that had sharp edges.
Even though the smell of the frogs was different, it choked her throat in the same way.
She put the lid down on the table and turned away to take a deep breath. Then, holding that breath, she picked up the jar with both hands and walked to the window she had come through.
The jar was heavy. She had to hurry. Her heart was pounding from the lack of air. She leaned out the window, flung out her arms, tipped the jar upside down, and held it there. The dead frogs fell out of the jar into the space between the wall and the bushes. She put the jar back on the windowsill, breathed, and looked down. Nobody could see the frogs under the bushes. She was light-headed. Her chest hurt.
Her colander was still on the windowsill. Her eyes rested a moment on the bright red of the maple leaves, the slender curves of the pine needles.
Quickly, she took the empty jar to the nearest sink and turned on the faucet. The steam from the hot water made her face tingle. She washed the jar, dried it with a white apron that hung on the wall, and reached for the colander.
It was absolutely quiet in the hallway. If she hurried, no one would see her. She emptied the leaves into the jar. The smell of the pine needles tickled her nose.
Moving silently, Yuki got the lid from the desk, washed and dried it, and put it back on the jar. The maple leaves and the pine needles had filled the jar almost to the top. She placed the jar carefully in the center of the desk among the scalpels and the microscopes. Then she took the empty colander and walked to the window, crawled through, and sat for a moment balanced on the edge, swinging her legs. She looked right and left. Nobody was in sight. First, she tossed the colander, which landed on the edge of the concrete path. The next moment, she pushed off with her arms and jumped out. She landed neatly on her two feet beyond the bushes and picked up the colander. Then, grasping it like a baton, she sprinted toward the woods for more maple leaves like clustered flames, pine needles that smelled of mountain air. Her ten minutes were long since used up. Miss Sakaki would fail her for today’s assignment. Still, she would return in time to fill the tables with color. She began to smile as she ran.
10
THE GOLDEN CARP
(August 1974)
Her father was sitting in a black swivel chair at his desk. Yuki went into the study and stood behind him. He turned to her, holding out a white envelope by one corner.
“I was asked to give this to you,” he said.
The envelope had her name on the front without an address. On the back, Yuki found her aunt Aya’s name written in ink. Her heart beat a little faster. She had not seen Aya since her father’s wedding. She waited for her father to dismiss her so she could go and read the letter, but he said nothing. He was frowning. His fingers kept tapping the arm of his chair.
“Is there anything else?” she asked him.
“Are you going to read the letter?”
“When I’m alone.”
Her father sighed. “As you wish,” he said.
She was about to turn around, to leave, when he added, “Your aunt put that letter inside her letter to me and sent it to my office.”
Yuki nodded. Though she wrote to her aunt and her grandparents once a month, she never received letters from them. The only letter she had gotten from her mother’s family in the last five years was a wedding invitation, two years ago, from her youngest uncle, Saburo. Her father had handed it to her at dinner, already opened. “Send him a telegram to congratulate him,” he said. “Tell him you’re sorry you can’t attend. I’ll give you the money.” “No, thank you,” Yuki said. “I’d rather write to him.” Her stepmother put down her rice bowl. She said, “Be sure to show the letter to your father before you send it.” “No,” Yuki said. “I don’t show my letters to anyone.” Her stepmother got up a
nd walked out of the kitchen then. She went to the living room and slammed the door. Her father waited a few minutes and followed her. Yuki went upstairs without finishing her dinner. He must have apologized to her stepmother, but he didn’t insist on seeing Yuki’s letter. He never mentioned it. Opening the invitation, Yuki concluded, was more her stepmother’s idea than his.
“You don’t have to read the letter in front of me or show it to me,” he was saying now.
“Of course not,” Yuki said. “Aunt Aya sealed the envelop and put my name on it because she meant it only for me.”
“That’s right,” her father said. “But you don’t have to be so angry about it.”
Yuki said nothing.
“You should be happy,” her father continued, “because your aunt is getting married and I’m letting you attend the wedding.”
Yuki stood still, trying not to show her surprise.
Her father grasped the chair arms with both hands. “I know you blame me for not letting you go to your uncle’s wedding,” he said.
She shrugged. She had nothing to say.
“But I don’t owe your uncle a favor. Your aunt Aya is different. She took care of you for a year. I’m obligated to her because of that. I have to let you go to her wedding so our debts can be even and I won’t owe her anymore. Do you understand?”
Yuki shrugged again. “I understand that’s how you think about it.”
Her father shook his head.
“May I go now?”
“The wedding will be in February,” he said, “at your grandparents’ house. You may stay there overnight.”
Yuki looked back at her father from the doorway. “If I understand right,” she said, “I don’t have to thank you for letting me go. You are paying back my aunt rather than doing me a favor.” She stepped out into the hallway without waiting for his answer.
As she closed the door of her room and sat down at her desk, she could hear her father leaving the living room and walking toward the kitchen. Soon, there were two voices—her stepmother’s shrill nagging, her father’s low mumble. Though she couldn’t hear the words, they sounded like they were having an argument. Her stepmother must be upset because her husband was letting Yuki attend the wedding and he had not insisted on seeing her letter. Yuki waited until the voices stopped and then opened the envelope. The blue sheet inside was folded in three. She unfolded it slowly.
Yuki, her aunt had written in black ink. I hope you are well. I look forward to your letters every month though I do not write back out of respect for your father’s wishes. I am enclosing this letter in the one I’m sending him. I hope he will make an exception for once and let me see you.
I am getting married in February to Mr. Kimura. I know you will remember him. We want you to be at the wedding at your grandparents’ house because we would never have met if it had not been for you. You brought us together that time Mr. Kimura came to my house to see you after he heard about your mother. He and I have gone on seeing each other since then, once every month when he came to Tokyo to see his daughter. Now, we have decided to be married. I will be moving back to Kobe with him after our wedding.
I am very anxious to see you, as are your grandparents. I hope your father will decide to let you come, or at least show you this letter. I want to see you face to face and tell you much more.
Be well. Your aunt, Aya.
Yuki read the letter over and then put it back into the envelope. She locked the envelope into her desk and then sat staring at the falling dusk.
Mr. Kimura, she thought; I can’t believe it. And they think it was because of me.
* * *
The first time Yuki saw Mr. Kimura, she was ten. It was a Saturday in early June, almost at the end of the first term of school. Yuki had spent the afternoon with her neighbors, the Shirakawas, while her mother went to the class reunion of her grade school. At dusk, Yuki was sitting in the Shirakawas’ kitchen when she heard a car stop in front of her house. She said good-bye and ran out to the street.
Instead of the shiny black cab she was expecting, Yuki saw a small white car. Her mother was sitting next to a man. They had turned off the headlights but the engine was still running. They were talking.
Yuki went up to the passenger’s side and tapped on the glass. Her mother turned to her and smiled. She was wearing a white linen dress and a lavender scarf. After the man cut off the engine, both of them stepped out of the car.
“How was your reunion, Mama?” Yuki asked, taking her mother’s hand and swinging it back and forth.
“It was a lot of fun,” she said. “Yuki, this is my friend Mr. Kimura. He and I went to school together. He gave me a ride home from downtown.”
Mr. Kimura held out his hand. “Hi,” he said as they shook hands. “It’s very nice to meet you.” He smiled, looking right into Yuki’s face. She smiled back.
“Did you have a good afternoon?” her mother asked.
Yuki shrugged. “So-so,” she said. “Mrs. Shirakawa started changing her baby’s diaper in front of me. I was embarrassed, so I went in the other room.”
“Oh, Yuki.” Her mother was laughing. “Did you have dinner?”
Yuki shook her head. “No, I said I wasn’t hungry.”
“Why was that?”
“Mrs. Shirakawa was making some soup with oysters. I think maybe they were alive when she put them in the soup. She said she soaked them in water all day so they would spit out any sand they might have eaten.”
“So you decided to skip dinner.”
“I wasn’t being rude. I wouldn’t have eaten live oysters at anyone else’s house either, so I wasn’t insulting Mrs. Shirakawa in particular.”
Her mother and Mr. Kimura glanced at each other. Mr. Kimura was trying not to laugh. His mouth kept wanting to turn up at the corners.
“What do you think?” Yuki asked him. “You don’t think I was rude, do you?”
“No, no,” Mr. Kimura said. “I probably wouldn’t have eaten oyster soup either.”
“See,” Yuki said to her mother. “I’m going in the house to make myself a tomato and cheese sandwich. Can I make you one?”
“No, thank you. I had dinner at the reunion,” her mother said.
“How about you?” Yuki asked Mr. Kimura. “Would you like a sandwich?”
“No. I also ate at the reunion. But thank you all the same.”
Her mother looked at him and hesitated a second. Then she said, “Would you like to come inside and have some tea with us?”
“I would love to, but I don’t want to intrude on your husband on a Saturday evening.”
“My husband isn’t home,” her mother said.
“He doesn’t come home till very late,” Yuki added.
The three of them walked into the house in silence.
* * *
“So you are in fourth grade,” Mr. Kimura said to Yuki while they were seated at the kitchen table.
Yuki put down her sandwich and nodded.
Mr. Kimura smiled at her mother. She tilted the teapot over his cup.
“When your mother and I were in fourth grade,” Mr. Kimura said, “we stood side by side every morning at assembly because we were the shortest kids in our class.”
“Really?” Yuki said. Even sitting down, Mr. Kimura was tall and thin. He was wearing a light green cotton shirt.
“I have grown since then.” He laughed. “But in fourth grade, your mother got me into trouble.” He stopped a moment, nodded at Shizuko, and then continued. “Our fourth grade was a few years before the War. There was already a lot of talk about how our country should send soldiers to occupy China. At school, the principal made speeches about the greatness of our empire and unveiled the picture of the emperor. We were supposed to close our eyes and bow to the picture. The teachers told us that the emperor was so holy that even looking at his picture would blind us. But your mother didn’t believe them. She looked at the picture one day, poked me in the elbow, and said, ‘Look, he has such a funny nose.’ E
veryone heard her and assumed that I was looking too.”
Her mother was smiling.
“Were you?” Yuki asked Mr. Kimura. “Were you looking?”
He shook his head. “No, I was a coward compared to your mother. I was afraid.”
“It wasn’t that I was brave,” Shizuko protested. “I knew our teachers were lying to us. Someone, a photographer, must have taken the picture. Surely he had not lost his eyesight for that. So I wanted to prove the truth. That’s why I looked. Still, I was surprised that the emperor looked so ordinary. Only, he had a funny, thin nose. If anything, he looked silly.”
Mr. Kimura turned from Yuki to Shizuko. “I thought about you on the day the War ended, when the emperor made his speech on the radio and said he was only human, we were wrong to worship him. I was in high school by then and getting rebellious. I heard the speech at home with my family. My parents and my older sister were crying. All I could think of was what you had said in fourth grade about his nose.” Mr. Kimura narrowed his eyes a little, remembering. “By then, your family had moved back to the countryside. I was disappointed to think that I would never run into you again.”
“I’m sure you weren’t really disappointed.”
“Yes, I was. I was very disappointed.” Mr. Kimura turned back to Yuki, who had been eating her sandwich as quietly as possible. “Your mother was the brightest student in our class,” he said to her. “We all admired her very much.”