Toyo

by Lily Chan

  The wrinkles on her hands grew like rivulets of water embedded under her flesh. The world began to divide itself up into before and after: this happened before she grew old; that happened after. She massaged creams into her hands and face, patted anti-ageing solution onto her skin.

  At a café, a jangle of women with smoked skin and wrinkled eyes sat in front of Toyo, their mouths opening in jaws of large teeth. Toyo eyed their short dresses, plunging necklines, freckled arms and chests, and the veins crawling blue up their thighs. She thought, secretly, that if she wore the dresses they were wearing, she would look better than they ever could.

  Her granddaughters started to dress in tight jeans and tops. She eyed their budding chests with disapproval; how would she protect them from the gaze of men? The girls were so petulant, so rude! Lily’s moon face was impassive. It mocked her in its white sullenness as she picked out their faults, correcting their posture and phrasing in conversation.

  The girls drew princesses and female warriors with tiny waists and thickly lashed eyes, their hair long and flowing. Women with heart-shaped faces and crystal eyes absorbing all the light. Women with coronets of hair and gems clustered on their necks. Women holding parasols and swords and handbags. Women with the indifferent look of the cosmopolitan businesswoman. Glass heels. Feathers and tiaras.

  Toyo felt restless with jealousy. The girls were at the brink of puberty. The mirror was unforgiving. She could not rationalise this restless feeling. If somebody asked her what she was feeling, she would say it was the heat, or the cold, or point to a variety of reasons. Having cloaked her secret fear even from herself, she could not say why she snapped at her granddaughters when they drew beautiful women: “You draw them because you, too, wish to be beautiful! Don’t you?”

  Back in Narrogin, the family planted snow peas in the furthermost corner of the property. They dug their hands into sacks of seeds, sprinkling them on newly turfed earth. Two weeks passed and tendrils nuzzled upwards like little green hairs, curling everywhere. When the pods emerged, the family plucked handfuls from the periphery, snapping them open to reveal the beans encased inside. However, they did not venture deeper into the field. It had become a kind of forest, dense with pods and leaves, and it seemed as if to step inside was to be lost, even though Toyo could clearly see the fence on the other side. Largely unharvested, the snow peas shrivelled up and left their desiccated offerings on the red-pebbled ground, metres of it, a carpet crackling under their feet.

  The intention was to create a small farm. Towards the northern end of the property, a dam yawned open in a quadrangle of creamy quartz and sand, a muddy sequin of water at its centre. They planted an orchard of apricot, plum, apple, fig and orange trees, separating the young saplings from each other like enoki mushrooms, a line of excited children with dirt-stained gloves and shovels scurrying up and down the paddock. Only the figs thrived, growing whiter and larger every year.

  Yet things began to disappear. The neighbour’s dog broke into the chick pen and wreaked havoc. Toyo found a trail of fluffy down strewn over the soil, corpses scattered like sacks of feathers, a handful of silent survivors perched on a low-hanging tree limb, blinking. The dog was a black mastiff. He fronted Toyo without a look of guilt, a chook hanging from his jaws, feathers flying around him. After a moment of contemplation he dropped his victim and loped off. He was as big as a wolf. But when she later tracked him down and saw him at the neighbour’s lot, wagging his tail and running with the children, he seemed so small, almost puppyish.

  She helped to dig a grave for the chooks, picking up the bodies in gloved hands. They felt light and heavy at the same time, their eyes shut tight against the inevitable. The children dug holes at the base of the chick pen, heaped the bodies inside like layers of autumn leaves, and packed the dirt in over the graves.

  The birds and animals they kept, the vegetables and trees they planted on this hobby farm – nothing stayed around for too long. Perhaps it reflected the lengthy times they spent travelling like nomads. A year in Adelaide, two years in the towns of Denmark and Albany, yoyo-like on pilgrimages to India, and finally rotating back to Narrogin, as if the town were the core, the heart.

  apple on my lips

  Upon graduating from Narrogin senior high, Hiroto moved to Perth to study pharmacy. Lily followed, after enrolling in law; they rented out a unit near Murdoch University. While Lily and Hiroto attended their lectures and tutorials, Toyo would shop, garden, clean and prepare dinner. She trailed back and forth from Kardinya shopping centre equipped with a little shopping trolley: cloth over a wire structure on plastic wheels, like a wallaby pouch.

  Toyo bought blocks of soft tofu, white and jelly-like swimming in a water marinade in plastic containers. If the water was not drained and replaced every day, the tofu would develop a pink blush, a sunset sheen of mould. She bought a gigantic Chinese cabbage, its white core frilled by little green crimped edges, as if a kindly grandmother had taken to crocheting the structure. Every time she pulled out the drawer for potatoes or onions, the cabbage was nestled alongside, still baby-fresh, until it became a kind of presence, brooding in its cradle. She turned the cabbage around and there was a big brown bruise covering its back, a mould which gave off a pervasive stink. It astonished Toyo that such a thing could exist: this half-pretty, half-ugly thing, harbouring rot like a secret. The milk, too, kept going off and she did not know why. Finally Yoshio replaced the fridge, carting up another one from Narrogin in his iridescent purple van.

  She cut fresh tofu into square blocks, served them to Lily and Hiroto with chopped spring onion, grated ginger, pickles and soy sauce. The kids liked to poke chopsticks through the square blocks of tofu until it resembled a die face, then pour the soy sauce into the holes and break it apart and eat it, a seismic deconstruction.

  Toyo said, “Don’t leave your chopsticks in the tofu. It is bad luck. It means someone has died, to stick them upright like that. They look like funeral incense.”

  At the mention of death her entire face would close up, her lips thinning into a straight line.

  Once a week she met Lily for lunch at Murdoch University, sometimes joined by Yoshio. They ate vegetarian at the food hall – a dish of steamed vegetables, fried noodles, curry, samosas. The university buildings were orange and red, stained by bore water emerging out of the sprinklers. There was a Japanese section of the library where she read magazines in the bowels of the basement.

  It was there that she and Yoshio found, astonishingly, a small entry on her father Takahashi Kouzo in Famous Japanese People. He was born in Sendai on Meiji 11. He trained and qualified as a veterinarian. He had been the president of the Haizhou Japanese Residents Association in China. He had founded and directed a number of companies; one was called the Toyo Food Corporation.

  She traced this entry, the small words squeezed into an abbreviated space, on rice-paper thinness, with a strange wonder. Had she been named after a corporation, or had a corporation been named after her?

  Lily began to wear mismatched socks, striped stockings, flower-patterned skirts and temporary tattoos. She applied cheap eyeliner and mascara purchased from Target that ran and smudged so she resembled a woeful panda. She began walking home from university with boys.

  Toyo was on the way to the supermarket and Lily drove right past her, a boy in the passenger seat, leaning his head towards Lily and chatting. Then they drove right past Toyo again, in the opposite direction, while Toyo was waving her hands about and shouting at them to stop. It was a humid summer afternoon and Toyo was sweating by the time she arrived at the unit, wheeling along her wallaby pouch of tofu and pak choy greens and milk and bread.

  “What were you doing? You didn’t stop for me,” she snapped.

  Lily was mute with contrition, the boy shuffling his feet behind her.

  But it was not only this absentmindedness which was worrying. Lily began to go out in the evenings. Th
e clock would show nine o’clock, ten o’clock, eleven, and Toyo would feel a frenzy beginning in her mind, a restless panic. It was not that midnight would transform her granddaughter into a pumpkin or a werewolf; it was that the night was dangerous. Her mother’s principles and rules had been elevated beyond an imprint; they formed aspects of Toyo’s own character.

  “When is she coming back? Has she called you? Has she sent a message?” she asked Hiroto again and again, until he snapped in irritation.

  In the middle of the first semester, Hiroto caught the flu and lay bedbound and sweating. Toyo wanted to feed him apples. She boarded the circle route bus but missed the stop and wandered the streets in search of the Fremantle markets. People pointed her towards various dead-ends. She felt sweat stream down her face and evaporate. Her stomach groaned in hunger. Two hours later she found the markets and bought a bag of green apples. She walked along the streets and looked desperately for a familiar landmark, the apples weighing on her wrist. An open-top car drove past her, then reversed and idled next to her.

  “Are you okay?” the driver asked. He was a young man with sideburns, huge sunglasses and a white singlet.

  “I’m lost,” she admitted. Loud rap music blasted from his speakers.

  “Where do you want to go?” She told him. He exclaimed, “Well, you’re miles from there! Hop in.”

  She shuffled in, stepped over bits of rubbish – empty Coke bottles, newspapers, Hungry Jack’s wrappers – and fastened her seatbelt. He turned the music down and chatted pleasantly as he drove. She stole glances at him. He was handsome behind the sunglasses and facial hair. His white arms were toned; they emerged from the singlet like branches, twisting and pulsing at the wheel. He was studying commerce at university. He had one older sister. He played soccer. Toyo relaxed.

  When she arrived home, she peeled and quartered the apples, sticking toothpicks into the white crescents. Hiroto refused to eat them. “I’m not hungry,” he said and fell asleep. Toyo looked in the mirror. Her skin was burnt red; her nose peeled. She was exhausted.

  She kept running over the incident in her head; the young man’s kindness almost made the whole day worthwhile. He had smiled when she said goodbye, and his smile was warm and genuine. Acts of unexpected kindness overwhelmed her. She expected courtesy as a matter of etiquette, but kindness rendered her hopelessly grateful, emotionally undone.

  “Come and visit me in Japan,” Toyomi offered, her exuberant voice crackling down the phone line. “You shouldn’t be at the beck and call of your grandchildren all day. Have a holiday.”

  the tourist

  Osaka had changed. The subway system branched out to new stations. People rushed by with tight masks on their faces, slicing the crowd apart with umbrellas wielded like swords. The youth reeked of perfume, and accessories hung from their bodies like musical chimes.

  On a crowded train a girl opened a small white suitcase, balan­cing it on her knees. She unfolded compartments of eye shadow, blush and lipstick, applied a ruby smear on her lips and curled her eyelashes ruthlessly. She powdered and creamed her face, lined her eyes and lips, plucked errant hairs from her eyebrows. Then she closed the case and began to push buttons on her diamanté-encrusted mobile phone. Toyo was shocked at the girl’s utter self-absorption.

  She felt like a tourist in her own city. Waiting at the city station for what seemed like hours, she watched the glittering, smokey pachinko parlour across the road. Rows of people sat at slot machines watching the silver balls dancing their way down the displays, chiming and pinging.

  When her daughter finally arrived, Toyo was hungry and tired.

  “What took you so long?” she began, but Toyomi’s rage was greater than her own.

  “I told you to meet me at the next station!” she hissed. “We searched all over for you!”

  Toyo couldn’t remember. It made her worry. But the first worry was encompassed by a second worry. Her daughter was angry. Toyo hated to make her daughter angry. The anxiety of remembering when and where to meet Toyomi made her feel sick. She lost her appetite and struggled to eat at restaurants and cafés. A pit had opened in her stomach as she had waited for Toyomi in the city, waited and waited, hoping that this was the right place at the right time, forgetting that she had written the meeting place on a piece of paper in her handbag. She had carried her salvation in her own arms as she scattered through the streets, longing for clarity.

  When Toyo returned to Narrogin she sat in her chair for hours. Looking in the mirror, she saw the restless face of a girl caked in make-up. She crouched on the carpet and sifted through photos of her visit to Japan.

  There was a photo of Toyo, Toyomi and her husband on the balcony of a restaurant, laughing. There was a photo of Toyo and Toyomi drinking coffee together in a café. There was a photo of Toyo at a reunion of her old friends in a sukiyaki restaurant in Osaka, their eyes shining with nostalgia.

  She sorted through these photos. She did not notice that her veins were beginning to show through her skin, how knobbly her wrists were. Toyomi’s anger sliced through her mind again and again.

  the lady

  The Lady in the red cardigan laid a pair of scissors

  a ball of wool

  a fork

  a die

  an ace card

  a twig

  a ribbon

  a rubber ball

  a plastic glove

  a pencil and

  a lolly

  on a silver plate in front of Toyo.

  “Look at these items,” she said. “Remember as many as possible because I’m going to put the plate away in a minute.”

  Toyo liked the Lady’s freckled smile and thin white wrists. They talked for a while. The Lady asked questions about her daily routine and her health and what she liked to do. Toyo talked about gardening and knitting. She liked to knit beanies and jumpers for her grandchildren.

  Then the Lady asked her to name as many of the items on the silver plate as she could remember. Toyo named five. She knew there were more, but she couldn’t remember them. She watched the Lady anxiously but the Lady merely smiled a white smile. Toyo looked down and saw white lint on her cardigan and began to pluck at it.

  pulling at the reins

  Toyo switched between craft enterprises with the manic energy of a hummingbird. Pyramids of wool, crochet needles and wooden carvings lined her house.

  In the weekly schedule of pottery class, shopping, walking and English class at the local community library, every moment was weighted with the anxiety that Toyo would fail to cooperate, that she would be disoriented and unable to find her way, that in her confusion would rise anger and irritation.

  Isolation gradually enclosed Yoshio and Shuying and their faces took on an inward, preoccupied look. Even when they were not engaged in Toyo’s care, they were reviewing her daily needs, preparing the towels, the food portions, the protein-rich drinks, her bathing, her toilette, tying these tasks in with their own schedules and obligations. The moat of language divided her from any respite carer; they feared Toyo would grow more confused if an English-speaking stranger appeared in her room.

  “Why don’t you hug me? Why don’t you emerge out of the photo in which you are always encased?” she said to her husband, white and illuminated in his youth.

  Yoshio read articles on the internet about naturopathic rem­edies and dispensed doses of gingko essence and special mineral water to Toyo. Every now and then he pronounced that she was on the road to recovery, that her mind was becoming clearer.

  On her granddaughter’s birthday, Toyo struggled to write a message on the card. She wrote Anabel and paused, wavering the pen. She wrote Congratulations in hiragana then paused again. She wrote her name in kanji, Toyo.

  “Why don’t you write I love you, Anabel?” Lily suggested, smiling.

  Toyo wrote l v then pau
sed, wrote an e, and tried to hide the card so nobody could see that she couldn’t spell love anymore.

  There was a certain aesthetic to the setting of the table for dinner that Toyo adhered to. She placed her chopsticks on top of her plate so they dissected its white sun. She arranged the dishes on the table according to colour and size. Blanched spinach garnished with sesame seeds was placed diagonal to the capsicum and pak choy stir fry, and squares of white tofu sat next to the pumpkin. Mounds of rolled sushi centred the arrangement, the carrots like sliced hearts pumping vivid orange and the avocado coyly peeking through rice. She fidgeted and shifted them around. This dish one centimetre right. That dish two centimetres left.

  “Let’s eat!” Yoshio exclaimed.

  “Oh, of course. Just a moment. Wait a moment. I’m almost ready. Almost there.”

  A white tissue suddenly appeared on the table and Toyo asked, “Where did it come from?”

  Everyone looked at her. She looked back at them. It had appeared on the table as if by magic.

  She folded up tissues and inserted them inside her sleeves for later use, so she could quickly flourish one like a white flag when one of her grandchildren began to sniffle. She chopped carrots and shiitake mushrooms and tofu and boiled the rice and mixed it all together with soy sauce.

  Lily refused to eat it and Toyo burst into her room. “How dare you not eat it! I took time to prepare this for you. How dare you!”

  The food split apart on her plate and merged back together again. The distance between the fork and her mouth stretched to the horizon and she watched the silver fork waver and float in the air, carrying a limp strand of udon noodle.

  Strange people touched her shoulders and said, “Good morning.”