A Thousand Stitches

by Constance O'Keefe

  As Michiko got closer to the peak, Keiko continued, “But your Sam is probably sitting at some airfield waiting for what the Navy has persuaded him is his chance for glory. But it looks now like even that can’t happen until we gather enough pine roots to make the fuel for his plane. How stupid, stupid, stupid everything about this war is!”

  And then she was there with her friend and with the lake. Biwa spread out below them, sparkling in the bright spring sunshine. Michiko felt that she and Keiko were one with the pine forest; it embraced them from behind and spread below them down to the water. They even smelled like the forest, with the roots piled in their baskets and the resin staining their hands and clothes. Keiko turned, smiled, and they fell into each other’s arms. They hugged and laughed, at the glorious blue lake, at the deep green pines, at themselves, and at their joy. They laughed in the presence of the sheer beauty of their surroundings.

  Michiko thought fleetingly of the Inland Sea and the poem after poem about its calm beauty. She remembered climbing to the top of the Matsuyama Castle grounds and looking at the sun sliding down the sky and gilding the glimmering waters. She remembered Sam’s arm around her waist and his words in her ear, “We have to start so we’ll get you home before dark. Remember me, Michiko, please. Remember this day.” But she had never felt exactly this way, not even then; now she understood, for the first time, what beauty was for. All the sorrow, the pain, and the loneliness of the last years had fled. She was transfixed, transformed, exalted. And grateful. Grateful for Keiko, for the day, the place, the ­moment.

  When she was ready to speak, she said, in her best mock formal matter, “Keiko, I’m so glad you brought me with you to your village. I feel at home with you and in this place. And you have arranged such a grand sightseeing excursion for me. My most sincere and humble gratitude is yours.”

  They were still laughing as they started back down the mountain. They carried the view of the lake, the smell of the pine, and the warmth of the sunshine with them, even as the shadows fell. They had remembered that they were alive and young. When they reached the clearing atop the hill behind the cluster of village houses, they came upon a young man. He too had a basket, but it hung loose and empty on his back. Still full of high spirits, they laughed and told him the better roots were farther up and that there wasn’t much time left before it got dark. His reply was only a quiet, “Thank you,” but his smile was gentle, and his eyes showed his amusement. He stood aside as they continued toward the village. When they were far enough past that he couldn’t hear, Michiko said, “Keiko, who’s that, and why is someone our age not in the military?”

  “I have no idea. I’ve never seen him before.” When they turned and looked back, he was limping slowly in the opposite direction. He disappeared into the woods.

  When they got back to the house, Kazue Obasan was happy to see them, and Granny was quite pleased with their haul of pine roots, “We’ll do well with the town association officials because you’ve collected so many. How helpful for the war effort.”

  “Yes, Granny,” Keiko said. “I’m going to make us some tea. I’m sure you’d like some, and Michiko and I need to revive ourselves. We did a lot of climbing today.” Michiko nodded and smiled at Granny and then followed Keiko to the kitchen.

  “I hate that they’re everywhere, even inside our own house,” Keiko whispered when they were out of earshot.

  She was back to talking about the thought police. They had lived with the influence of the kempeitai at the Arsenal, but Keiko was right, freed from the military they now had be careful about the tokko, the Home Ministry’s Special Higher Police force, which had grown more vigilant as the fortunes of war turned against Japan. Keiko told Michiko what she had learned from her mother: they were everywhere, even in this tiny town. Those most active locally were Ogawa-san, the Assistant Station Manager, Nishizawa-san, the Mayor’s haughty needle-nosed sister, and Abe-san, the proprietor of the local general store.

  Abe-san’s stock of farm equipment and electrical goods—radios and phonographs—was long gone. His jobs now were collecting scrap and patching and re-patching the goods he had sold his neighbors years before. Abe-san talked about how the repair work was his patriotic duty, his contribution to the war effort, but Keiko had learned from her mother that his real work, carried out with great gusto, was watching, listening, and reporting. “He and his dark shop always scared me when I was a child,” she had told Michiko, “and I always hated Nishizawa-san. She’s so bossy and mean and loves to lord it over everyone. But Ogawa-san would always smile and salute, and he looks so good in his uniform, with his hat, his white gloves, and his flag tucked under his arm. Remember how he was there the night we arrived from Kure? It was the same when I was a kid. I loved to see his happy face when we reached home after a trip to the city. How can all this have happened to us?”

  There was no doubt about it—the influence of the thought police was everywhere, listening and judging every word, every breath, searching for every thought that tried to stay hidden. They were as strong a presence as Granny; they brought the ugliness of the war into each household, into each life in the village.

  Keiko poured the hot water, “Well at least we have our memory of today. But no more complaining about mompe or anything else, and certainly no comments about the obviously desperate straits of a military that sends civilians out to collect roots to be distilled as fuel for its aircraft. Time to agree with Granny.”

  Kazue Obasan joined them when they brought the tea back to the table and asked, “Did you see young Miyazawa?”

  “We saw a guy our age, Mama, and Michiko couldn’t believe I didn’t know who he was. She’s convinced that here in the country, everyone knows everyone else.”

  “Well, I guess he’s officially a sokaijin, an evacuee from the city. Actually, I guess our dear Michiko is one herself. Anyway, he’s a nephew of the Miyazawas. He’s just arrived from Osaka. His name is Shotaro.”

  “Polio,” Granny said, “when he was a child. He’s an only son. And both his parents are gone.”

  “He’s the son of Mr. Miyazawa’s younger brother, who was a department head and professor at the university hospital. Shotaro-san finished college last year. Since the medical school closed, he couldn’t continue his studies. His dad arranged for him to work in the hospital, and that’s where he was, on a night shift, when the B-29s obliterated their whole neighborhood. He brought his uncle some things from his dad’s office: a few books, one photograph from his parents’ wedding. That’s all that’s left of his family. Oh, my dear Keiko, my dear Michiko, we’re lucky we still have each other.”

  Granny turned her head.

  Shotaro came to call the next day. Keiko and Michiko were sitting outside under the eaves of the house. They were tired from the excursion the day before; there had been only rice and barley gruel for breakfast and nothing for lunch. The three children sat next to them, too listless to play. The twins were talking to each other in their private made-up language, and the boy, hungry and cranky, had woken up from a nap and was whining. Shotaro limped up the path. He was unbearably thin in baggy clothes that were probably his uncle’s. Keiko and Michiko got to their feet, and as he approached he said, “Hello, again. I’m Miyazawa. My aunt and uncle asked me to come to visit.”

  Keiko and Michiko led him into the cool, dark house. Keiko escorted him to the tatami room to meet Granny. Michiko went to the kitchen with Kazue Obasan. Michiko held the tea pot as the older woman lifted the lid and inspected the washed-out leaves they had been using for three days. “Since we have company, let’s see what we can do,” she said, reaching for the tea canister. “At least a few new leaves,” she said, tipping a quarter teaspoonful of fresh tea into the pot. She took the pot from Michiko, poured in hot water, and placed it on a tray. Handing the tray to Michiko, she said, “I’ve got the extra cups. Let’s see how Granny and Keiko are entertaining our new neighbor.”

  They arranged the tea on the low table in the tatami room. Kazue
Obasan nodded to Keiko. “Oh, it smells so good, fresh and green like summer,” Keiko said, as she poured the thin green liquid, first for Shotaro and then for Granny.

  As Michiko knelt to join the group around the table, she noticed that Shotaro’s leg was folded awkwardly under him. I wonder how much it’s hurting him to sit here.

  Shotaro said thank you to Keiko and took a sip of his tea. He then turned to the old woman and said, “My auntie especially wanted me to see you, Granny.”

  “How kind of her to think of me. How lucky you are to have such a good aunt.”

  “Yes, she’s very kind, and she’s good to everyone and everything, even her hen.” And with that Shotaro pulled a bandana out of his pocket, untied it and placed an egg on the table.

  It sat pale and gleaming against the worn deep brown of the mahogany. “Auntie wanted you to have this, Granny. She says you have to keep your health up. She said that these gorgeous young ladies are strong and healthy and that you need to be able to hold your own with them.” Michiko gave the requisite giggle at Shotaro’s rhetorical flourish and hoped it hid her greedy fascination: the egg was beautiful.

  Shotaro put his tea cup down and turned his attention from Granny to bow in the direction of Keiko and Michiko. “Of course, ladies, I’m only quoting Auntie word for word. I’d never say anything so forward myself.” Granny snorted, everyone else smiled, and Michiko feasted her eyes on Shotaro’s sharp features and dark deep-set eyes. He’s an orphan too.

  “Please tell your aunt,” said Granny, “that I’m grateful and honored that she’s been so kind to remember a tired, sick, old woman. I’m really not worth wasting anything on.” But she didn’t even incline her head in thanks, Michiko noted, and sat looking straight at Shotaro as Kazue Obasan urged more tea on him. He refused with a smile and stood to take his leave. He bowed deeply to Granny and Kazue Obasan and nodded at Keiko and Michiko. Kazue Obasan, Keiko, and Michiko walked him to the door to see him off.

  They were still standing in the entryway when Granny, who had remained seated at the table, took the egg in her left hand and told her daughter-in-law, “Call the children.” With her right hand, she pulled a hairpin from her bun, pricked a hole in the bottom of the egg, held it to her mouth and began to suck. When the children came in, she gave it to the boy and told him, “Have some and then give it to your sisters.”

  He took it and tried to do as his grandmother said, but when he tipped his head back and held the egg up, his little hands gripped too hard and the shell broke apart. What was left inside the egg was now on his face. Granny picked up the pieces and handed them to the girls, who held them delicately and sucked off what they could. Granny pulled the boy to her and wiped the egg from his nose, his cheeks, and his chin with her index finger, which she then put in his mouth for him to suck. She did this several times. After she made a last pass over the boy’s face, she put her finger in her own mouth and sat sucking on it, eyes closed, self-contained in her pleasure.

  Summer arrived and wore on, one clear hot day after another. Everything slowed down. The harvest was small, and the few turnips and pumpkins that ripened were stretched over many meals. Kazue Obasan, Keiko, and Michiko gave most of their food to the children. Impervious, Granny endured the hunger and the heat. She now occupied the large, cool tatami room as her exclusive domain, and others were admitted only at her whim. They were all allowed into Granny’s room for Shotaro’s next two visits on errands for his aunt, but after that only the visitor was admitted. He never stayed long, but would always stop to talk to Keiko and Michiko before climbing up the hill to take the shortcut home.

  Keiko and Michiko spent most of their days sitting outdoors under the eaves, trying to keep cool in the shade. In the first part of the summer, they had laughed that they were too skinny to sit on the rough, pebbly ground, that they were so delicate they should be seated on Granny’s sweet cool tatami. Shotaro’s “gorgeous young ladies” became their stock phrase, and Keiko worked out a perfect imitation of his Osaka accent. Michiko laughed with Keiko; never certain when he would appear again, she liked having a reason to talk about him.

  By July, they rarely chose to speak. The hunger took everything: desire, personality, memory. Michiko knew she wanted to survive, but could no longer remember why.

  Keiko was the first to fall ill. Then the two little girls. They lay in the dark narrow room to the side of the tatami room. Michiko and Kazue Obasan kept wet compresses on their heads and held them up to give them sips of tea and rice gruel. There was no medicine. There was nothing they could do but bear witnesses to the power of the dengue and the suffering it inflicted.

  In the middle of the third day of Keiko’s illness, Michiko began to feel sick herself; by the end of the day, she was lost. The next morning, there was only fever and pain. She was in the dark room, she was outside under the eaves. She lay in the shade, she lay in the sun. She was the pebbles. She was gravel. She was dust. She was the space between the dust.

  Time came back, and she realized Shotaro was in the next room, talking with Granny. She turned her head and saw the face of her dear friend. Keiko lay next to her, utterly pale, filmed in sweat, eyes unfocused. At that moment, listening to Shotaro’s voice and looking at Keiko, she knew her friend’s fate, and her own: Keiko would be gone and she would grieve for the rest of her life.

  Michiko was restless all night; in the small hours of the morning, she felt the fever begin to lose its grip. By morning, it was clear that Keiko would not live through the day. Michiko spent the morning lying on her side, looking at her friend and drifting in and out of sleep, and in and out of consciousness. Her thoughts of her friend’s smile, her quick wit, and her passion melted into dreams of the dirt and the smell of Kure, which were followed by dreams of the playground at Bancho Elementary School.

  Michiko awoke when Kazue Obasan got up to leave the sickroom to serve Granny her lunch. Michiko lay on her back, listening to them talking in the next room. She couldn’t make out the words; she just heard the conciliatory tone that Kazue Obasan always used with Granny. She was happy when Kazue Obasan came back to the sickroom; she belonged with her daughters.

  After lunch Granny began to grumble, loud enough to be heard in the sickroom. As the painful minutes of the afternoon slipped past, Granny was growing more and more agitated. Slowly her words penetrated, and Michiko began to understand what she was saying. With understanding came fear; she was terrified, for herself and for Kazue Obasan, but she couldn’t move. There was nothing she could do but listen with horror as Granny blamed the two of them for everything that was happening.

  Granny never moved from her place at the low table in the tatami room, but her anger and her menace filled the whole house. “No, I said, no,” she grumbled. “I didn’t want a stranger in my house. Another mouth to feed. Someone taking food out of my mouth.”

  And then louder, “No, no, no, I said. Send her away. But does she listen? No. All she ever does is defy me. She took my son from me. She’s the reason I’m alone. All she does is deny me and defy me.” The ranting grew louder and louder, and soon Granny’s shouting blocked out all other sound. Kazue Obasan looked at Michiko, shaking her head, and smiling. Michiko thought I will never again see someone who is so burdened smile like that. She shifted her gaze to look at Keiko, wanting to talk to her, but her friend was beyond hearing.

  I must remember my dear Keiko’s face, she thought as she drifted away from the noise and back into the embrace of the illness. She awoke at about three. Granny was back to just grumbling. Michiko looked at Keiko and knew the end was near.

  She watched Kazue Obasan hold her daughter’s hand and stroke her face. As Keiko’s breath grew slower and more difficult, her mother kept whispering, “My darling, I love you. I’m with you. I love you.”

  When Keiko was gone, Kazue Obasan let out a cry of grief, but caught herself and turned to the little sisters, lying next to Keiko. Michiko looked at them and saw that they too had the vacant look she had seen on Keiko’
s face the day before.

  When Granny heard Kazue Obasan’s cry, the grumbling again became outright screaming. “Is she dead? Have you taken my son’s daughter from me? Why did you do this? Why did you keep this stranger here? Why, why, why do you do nothing but defy me? Will my son’s other children be next? I’m keeping my grandson here with me. Away from you. I won’t let you near him!”

  Silent tears streamed down Kazue Obasan’s face as she reached out for Michiko. She grasped her right hand and said, “Michiko, you know I love you, and you know Keiko loved you. I’ve been lucky to have two grown daughters during this terrible year.” She held her gaze steady on Michiko and kept Michiko’s hand in hers as the screaming continued. Michiko thought of her own mother and the different kinds of pain her last few years had brought her. The sharp stab of pain she felt for Kazue Obasan surprised her; she thought her heart was too bruised and damaged for anything more.

  Michiko felt the older woman tighten her grip when they heard Granny rise from the table in the next room and order the little boy to stay put. She felt her shudder when the dull thump of angry footsteps told them that Granny was crossing the tatami room. Kazue Obasan kept her eyes steady on Michiko. Granny stormed into the sickroom, still screaming, and started to pull Michiko up from the floor. Kazue Obasan tried to hold on to her, but Granny ripped Michiko away, pulling her by her left arm and dragging her from the room.