Plum Rains

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  Which is what she would tell Sayoko-san. Nothing had happened. Only bad traffic and too many people, Angelica would say. Always too many people, Sayoko would agree, neither of them mentioning that the people who were taking more than their share of what destiny intended belonged to two categories: immigrants, and the elderly. Bound together by need and by chance.

  “Not like the old days,” Sayoko would say.

  “No, not like the old days,” Angelica would answer pleasantly, bolstered by what she knew for certain—the old days were never as good as anyone pretended—and determined not to take offense.

  2 Angelica

  “You left me!” Sayoko said when Angelica hurried into the condo, just steps ahead of the deliveryman, who had been waiting in the foyer. “And it was too noisy!”

  “That was your wrist monitor making all that noise,” Angelica said calmly. “I was calling you. Do you remember? We showed you how to answer it.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll show you again.”

  “It doesn’t work.”

  “It does work. We’ll practice.”

  “Anyway, it’s too tight,” Sayoko said, as she often did, but then she settled down, curious about the deliveryman and his white boxes.

  Angelica hurried into the bathroom to get an anti-inflammatory from the medicine cabinet for her knee pain. In Japan, where nearly a third of the population was over seventy-five, she was often treated like a young adult, but back home, where people still died of heart trouble, diabetes, pneumonia, and liver failure in their forties, fifties, and sixties, she’d be considered on her way to old age, with the everyday aches and pains to prove it.

  Tap water running, she could just make out the sounds of the deliveryman and Sayoko chatting. When Angelica returned to the living room, Sayoko said, “They brought me a new nurse, in those boxes.”

  “I don’t think a person would fit in those boxes,” Angelica said, trying to correct without causing offense or further agitation. “Not even a short person like me. It must be a birthday present. For your hundredth birthday. That’s in just about a week, do you remember?”

  “Of course I remember my birthday.”

  “How many days until your party?” Angelica asked. She was trying to remember herself, but Sayoko seemed to think it was a malicious quiz.

  “I don’t have to know. If I sit in my chair and do nothing, it will happen whether I like it or not.”

  “Ten days. That’s when it is.” Angelica closed the calendar on her phone. “And it will be very special.”

  Angelica pushed Sayoko’s wheelchair to the center of the room so she could watch the deliveryman tap a digital device against each of the five boxes and then kneel down to open the first. Angelica stood behind the chair, curious as well, braiding the old woman’s long white hair, which the relief nurse hadn’t bothered to re-braid after Sayoko’s late-morning nap.

  “He said it was a nurse,” Sayoko said, gesturing to the deliveryman.

  When Angelica didn’t refute the claim a second time, Sayoko changed tack. “I was going to be a nurse, you know. Before the war. They came to recruit me.”

  “You were a very young girl when Japan went to war,” Angelica said. “And very pretty, I’m sure.”

  She coiled the braid into a neat bun, noting that Sayoko flinched as she pinned the hair at the nape of her neck. Sayoko had always been a flincher, easily startled. Angelica touched her every day: strategically, therapeutically.

  “They made promises,” Sayoko said, with less determination. “I was a quick learner, they saw that in me. It made sense they would want to recruit me.”

  Perhaps it sounded unbelievable now, even to Sayoko herself—as if she’d allowed half-remembered scenes from some romantic movie to embroider new patterns over her own unreliable memories. The head nurse at Angelica’s last job in a Tokyo nursing home had believed that delusions should be discouraged. Angelica didn’t always agree. Some enjoyable illusions were harmless. And others, the particularly persistent ones, even if they weren’t entirely accurate, seemed to surface for a reason. When an older person clung to some idea about the past or stumbled suddenly upon a long-lost memory, it often seemed like a story they needed to tell themselves, whether or not the story was true. As far as Angelica could tell, Sayoko had never worked a day in her comfortable life. Maybe she liked to imagine that she had, or almost had. Maybe we all like to invent heroic identities for ourselves or those we love.

  “Sweet potato,” Sayoko said, out of the blue.

  “That’s what you’d like to eat now? Are you hungry?”

  “No, sweet potato. There.” She was staring at the logo on the side of the largest box.

  Angelica was used to Sayoko spouting nonsense, as she assumed this to be—though one could never tell. This week, Sayoko had enjoyed an unprecedented run of lucid days.

  “I’m not saying it is a sweet potato,” Sayoko added crossly. “It just looks like one. The shape there: the island of Taiwan.”

  Now Angelica recognized the island’s outline with its stubby stemlike bottom.

  “And the characters say ‘Made in Taiwan,’” Sayoko said.

  Angelica confirmed: the Chinese characters were only slightly different from the Japanese, and yes, Sayoko had been able to read them.

  “That’s right,” Angelica said. “How do you feel?”

  “How should I feel?”

  “It doesn’t make you dizzy, reading those characters?”

  “Dizzy?” Sayoko asked scornfully. “Not at all.”

  So, she had forgotten, then, about last month’s complaint: that reading text made her head swim. She’d had a house call from an eye doctor, who informed them that she didn’t need surgery, and good thing, since Sayoko had snorted at the mention of any procedure. No one believes in simple eyeglasses anymore?

  It was a cognitive issue, the doctor had assured them, though since she refused the simple, safe nanodiagnostics he offered, he couldn’t provide more detail. Further deterioration was to be expected.

  Or not, Angelica thought now.

  Sayoko’s cancer was gone and despite the biomarkers, her Alzheimer’s symptoms had not progressed.

  Sayoko actually seemed heartier and more clear-minded than when Angelica had signed on for her first six-month contract, nearly a year and a half ago. At the time, Ryo Itou had warned her that it might not be the best job for an independent live-in nurse, since his mother’s health appeared to be failing.

  “Is there a reason you don’t use short-term agency nurses instead?” Angelica had asked.

  “There is.”

  Itou-san had been candid about his mother’s refusal of implants and tracers, and even of simpler, decade-old alert systems. For every monitoring technology she rejected, Sayoko’s digital documentation had become spottier, making her a liability and harder to care for, since nurses were trained to follow rigid protocols designed around implants and somatic monitoring.

  In addition to Sayoko’s resistance to new technology, she had become increasingly resistant to socializing as well, Itou found it important to explain so that Angelica would have a complete portrait before committing. For years, Sayoko had seemed guarded even with her few friends, preferring to maintain casual acquaintances with a circle of older women rather than become intimate friends with even one or two. But at least she’d had these friendly acquaintances, who would occasionally meet up for light exercise or art classes at the adult daycare centers the government had established, converted from old school buildings that were no longer needed. But the meet-ups had dwindled in the last few years. First, because Sayoko tired of the flower arranging and calisthenics, and second, because the few women she liked or at least tolerated had started dropping off—in some cases, very suddenly.

  “But that part is as it should be,” Itou had said. “Pin p
in korori.”

  Yes, Angelica was familiar with that cultural ideal: Live long, die short. Be spry, then die quickly and painlessly. In her experience as a nurse, she knew it wasn’t quite that easy in practice. Even a rapid decline toward the end of a physically healthy life could be more difficult than families and the elderly themselves realized, especially when that end was complicated by loneliness.

  “What do you think gives your mother her ikigai?” Angelica had asked Itou. “What gets her up in the morning?”

  “If I knew that, I’d know everything. She is stubborn, that’s certain. I doubt most depressed people are so long-lived.”

  “You would say, then, that she is depressed?”

  Itou wouldn’t answer directly. Perhaps he’d felt it was improper for him to do so. “Then again, they say the person who won’t let go still has some work to be done—something to settle, something to do or say. I’ve always felt she is waiting for something, but for what, I have no idea.” He laughed. “Perhaps she is only waiting for me to get my next promotion.”

  From a different man, the last comment might have sounded arrogant, putting himself at the center of his mother’s emotional world. But Angelica sensed he was just changing the subject in order to protect his mother from further prying.

  Despite everything, Sayoko was doing well—perhaps better than her son took the time to notice or had the emotional reserves to appreciate. The treatments she had accepted had proven astoundingly successful. Her health was proof of what many Japanese people hoped for and what some, more quietly and pragmatically, feared: that generations to come would taste immortality. Less poetically, they might, at the very least, live expensive, highly monitored lives well past 120.

  In the quiet living room, the unpacking of the mystery boxes continued. Angelica’s phone vibrated again. It had begun buzzing as she neared the Itou family condo, so she’d assumed all the messages were related to the delivery. Yet messages continued to stream in.

  Even though she’d refused the electronic communication of the kenkobot’s results, they were probably instant follow-ups from the mobile exam: We wish you a healthful long life and invite you to visit us online for lifestyle education. Will you please rate your experience?

  When Angelica tried to pull up the messages, she could see the senders’ names and a few words of preview text, but she couldn’t read the full messages, as if they were somehow locked. She couldn’t tell if she had failed to update her chat app, if she had filled her phone’s memory, or if the phone was simply worn out. Later, she would update essential apps and delete the unnecessary ones, study her data usage, and tinker with her settings. For now, she had a visitor in the house.

  Pausing from his unpacking, the deliveryman, gray-haired but with an unlined face, held up a small scanner so Angelica could sign optically. She’d been trained as a nurse to look at people’s faces whenever possible, but with deliverymen it was always, over here; the red light; look up; blink; try again.

  This deliveryman was patient, at least.

  “You’re helping with the orientation?” he asked.

  “Orientation?”

  He took a traditional paper business card from his pocket and presented it with both hands, bowing. Angelica had learned the etiquette of receiving cards: take with pleasure, hold, study, never put away too soon. In this case, her examination of the card was no mere performance, but rather a sincere process of scrutiny. His name was printed, last name first: Suzuki Kenta. And his title, not simple deliveryman at all, but technician. For what company? Curiously, the card did not say.

  She watched the technician lift a white cube out of one box and an egg-shaped object out of another. Angelica kept looking for something bigger and more rugged: parts to an upgraded wheelchair, she hoped. Sayoko was attached to the old one, but Angelica knew it had to be replaced and that Sayoko would be happier in the end—more willing to go out to Ueno Park, less afraid of the busy intersections that took too long to cross with Angelica pushing and straining from behind.

  “I can’t assemble anything,” Angelica said, worried she’d misunderstood the technician’s words.

  He chuckled without looking up from the box he was peeling open. “No, no. We assemble. You shaperon.”

  Was that a Japanese word? French?

  “While they get to know each other,” the technician said.

  “What do you mean, get to know each other?”

  “It’s no trouble. The unit does the work.”

  She knelt down on the floor, Sayoko in the wheelchair on one side, watching, the technician with his boxes on the other.

  “I don’t think Itou-san ordered this,” Angelica said.

  “We have his approval to deliver.”

  “My employer isn’t fond of gadgets. Did you see the entry table?”

  The technician hummed under his breath, occupied.

  “Where you took off your shoes?” Angelica persevered. “That’s where Itou-san leaves his work devices. Past that fusuma,” she pointed toward the sliding screen that separated her employer’s bedroom from the living room, “you won’t find anything but paper, cotton and wood.”

  “My son has a record player,” Sayoko interjected.

  “Do you hear that? A record player.”

  The technician smiled without looking up. “Very hip. My son has one of those.”

  “My son loves music,” Sayoko added. “He played the violin as a boy. Not well, because he didn’t practice enough. Later the other noisy thing—the clarinet. It never sounded right.”

  They were getting away from the point. Angelica said, “And Sayoko-san here, she’s old-fashioned.”

  “Aren’t we all,” the technician muttered.

  “No, I mean, officially. She’s registered as old-fashioned, with the Federal Senior Register and the Department of Health. It gives her special rights.”

  “Oh, I’m not here to take away anyone’s rights.”

  “Please stop until I talk with Itou-san,” Angelica pleaded, watching as the thing took shape beneath the technician’s capable hands. “I’m certain this is a mistake.”

  “In one hour, a machine,” he said without looking up. “In one week, a friend. Like it says on the box.”

  “Is that what it says on the box?” Angelica asked, squinting. She searched for any sign of the manufacturer or a product description, so she could figure out what the thing was and whether there was any reason to be wary of it. No, she corrected herself. She was already wary of it. A friend? What she wanted to find was enough product info to help her locate the reviews and complaints—one could always find complaints—that would justify getting rid of the thing altogether.

  “There.” The technician pointed to the characters, just below the image of Taiwan that had first captured Sayoko’s attention. The friendly slogan, followed by the Chinese phrase Sayoko had deciphered: “Made in Taiwan.”

  Angelica knew little about robotics, but she did know that most robots, aside from those manufactured in Japan, came from South Korea. Especially the social models. But something had changed: she remembered hearing that Korea had been the undeniable leader in the mid-twenties, but then business had quieted down. So maybe they weren’t pioneers anymore, or maybe no country was. The entire social robotics evolution had come to a strenuously negotiated halt.

  Late last year, Itou-san had been moved up from the Robotics Industry Office of the Manufacturing Industries Bureau, to the ministry’s Technology Policy Bureau. After the promotion, Itou had spent the next month reciting Korean phrases under his breath, preparing for a slew of meetings. He had gone to Seoul at least once a fortnight. Then he’d suddenly stopped going, as if a relationship had been severed. After that: busy again, but suddenly practicing Chinese and booking trips to Taipei. There had to be a link. Some new trade contact must have sent him this thing. But that didn’t mean it couldn’
t be sent away.

  “I’ll message Itou-san,” Angelica told the technician, “but he’s traveling. It may take some time before he gets to it. I don’t think you should open anything else. It will only be returned.”

  Sayoko gave Angelica a stern look. “It’s mine. You said it’s a gift. I want to see.”

  The technician nodded and rotated the white, elongated sphere to show them the android’s unilluminated face.

  A slit for a mouth.

  Translucent visor over two slits for eyes.

  Smooth bump of a nose.

  All of it hard, inert, toylike. So that was it, Angelica thought: a child’s toy, or an elder companion, the simplest of appliances—something to read the news aloud, announce the weather, and issue reminders for people Sayoko’s age, who forgot over and over and wore out the patience of real human beings. The most rudimentary form of AI; isn’t that what they called it? The appearance of cleverness and utility, but really a curio, something to be shown off for a few days and then left in a closet, next to an abandoned stationary bicycle.

  And yet Angelica felt the tingle of stress across her scalp again, a sense of the ground growing unsteady beneath her feet. If it were only a toy, she wouldn’t feel this sense of foreboding. Simple elder companions and entertainment-oriented appliances came ready-made. They did not require extensive assembly and testing.

  The technician exchanged a satisfied smile with Sayoko before resuming his duties, fitting together the robotic head and its torso-like main cube, one hand over to a small tablet to key in some code, then back again to caress the glossy surfaces.

  Angelica had once taken Sayoko to visit a friend in a nursing home. When they’d arrived, the elderly patients had been taking turns petting a robotic seal, more than willing to lavish attention on an unconvincing, inanimate object—turn-of-the-century technology that didn’t impress Angelica and barely held Sayoko’s attention for three minutes.