Plum Rains

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  “You want to cross?” Angelica asked.

  “Of course,” Sayoko said impatiently. “Go fast. Push hard.”

  They made the light only barely, with the sound of oncoming cars at their heels.

  “Left or right?” Angelica asked.

  “Right,” Sayoko said. The lotus pond, to the left, depressed her, she had frequently complained. Classic wooden rowboats had been replaced, over time, by plastic swan-shaped paddleboats, cheap looking, steered by young lovers snapping endless photos. The nation—the world—had become a cartoon.

  They walked down the main path, toward the Tokyo National Museum, the cherry trees long past bloom, their green crowns just black masses in the darkening sky overhead, past the Kiyomizu Kannon-do temple, Yuki’s place to pray and now Junichi’s too; this is probably how Sayoko thought all of Ueno Park should look still, but Angelica did not share that sense of nostalgia and did not often choose to wander close to the historic buildings. The Shinto and Buddhist customs, the paper fortunes, especially the unlucky ones left tied on trees and wires to discharge their negative power, and the massive boulders inscribed with Japanese symbols—all of it was unfamiliar country to her.

  When they reached a path with signs pointing in several directions, Angelica felt suddenly sure. “The zoo,” she said.

  “Ah yes, he’s never seen animals,” Sayoko remembered.

  But more than that, Angelica was sure, he had never seen a place where animals had been deemed too dangerous, and purposefully exterminated, as Sayoko had told them. You shouldn’t exist, Angelica had told Hiro.

  But the zoo was closed, and no one, man or robot, loitered near the gate or the fenced paths leading up to it.

  They backtracked.

  “Someone will steal him,” Sayoko said as Angelica struggled to push her chair from one pool of lamplight to the next, hurrying between the most shadowy sections, ignoring her fatigue. The trail angled down slightly, into a lonely stretch that Angelica could only barely recognize as the place, months earlier, that had been crowded with cherry-blossom viewers, the entire park thrumming with people, even at night, some areas lit up with spotlights, so the pink boughs glowed.

  “Oh!” Sayoko called out, that shout of pain Angelica had not heard in a year, since Sayoko had woken in the middle of the night with stomach cramps caused by her medicine.

  “Is something hurting?” Angelica stopped and came around to the front of the wheelchair.

  Sayoko waved her arms, frustrated by her blocked view. “We have to keep looking. Hurry, please. Hurry!”

  When Angelica didn’t immediately step out of the way, Sayoko began to push herself up and out of her chair, preparing to walk.

  “Sit back, I’ll push. It’s faster. We’ll find him.”

  By the time they reached the closed museum, the wooded path was black and Sayoko was shivering. Angelica went to the front of the wheelchair and reached beneath Sayoko’s blanket to feel her thin, cold hands. Sayoko’s teeth were chattering so fiercely she had trouble speaking.

  “I’m fine, let’s keep looking.”

  “We need to warm you up.”

  “It’s dark now. He’ll be afraid.”

  “If he were afraid, he’d just come home.”

  “That isn’t true. That isn’t how children are.” She corrected herself. “That’s not how grown men are, either. They’re stubborn.”

  Angelica saw a glow and a familiar green sign, the mermaid logo. She pushed Sayoko toward the coffee shop, still open and bustling with young Japanese people, the interior yellow and warm.

  When they were just at the doorway, Sayoko protested, “Not this place. Let’s find another.”

  “Do you see any other?”

  The museum plaza area was mostly dark, the fountains quiet, the other shops shuttered.

  “It isn’t just coffee,” Angelica reassured her. “They have tea.”

  “Why did they build this so close to the national museum? It’s not right.”

  “Because people who visit museums get thirsty.”

  “Why can’t they have something more . . . fitting?”

  Angelica knew she meant more Japanese, or at least more Asian. But it was just like resenting Filipino nurses and West African physical therapists: if you needed them, and they were there waiting to serve you, and if they did their jobs well, and if there weren’t enough young Japanese people willing to work at those wages, couldn’t you just stop complaining and say thank you?

  “Because it’s popular. Anyway, they stay open late. Come on.”

  “I can’t have tea when Hiro is still missing.”

  At the counter, Angelica ordered two teas and a toasted sandwich. The girl behind the counter was dark-skinned, pretty and a little plump. From her ears hung small, silver gardenia flowers. When Angelica lingered at the counter, the girl finally looked up, really looked.

  “Malawang-galang na po,” Angelica tried. Excuse me.

  The girl hesitated before answering in Tagalog. “Oo?” Yes?

  As the next-in-line couple bent over the glass case, debating their choices of cake, Angelica made her request. Sister, help me. If she could just leave this older woman at that table over there, in her wheelchair, safely seated, within view of the cash register. Just for twenty minutes. They had a family friend, missing in the park. Without the wheelchair, Angelica could walk faster while the older woman stayed warm. Yes? Please?

  “Ayos lang,” the girl finally said. “Not very long or I’ll get in trouble.”

  She had felt sure about the zoo, briefly, but she felt surer now about the pond, even if the swan boats were all chained up and all but the most resolute couples gone home. Under a tree, in the shadows, there was a shifting lump that Angelica tried not to stare at too directly, but she couldn’t help notice a hand groping a backside.

  And there, on a bench under a streetlamp, sat Hiro: back erect, silver fingers on silver knees, fingers tapping frenetically, as if he were sending out some telegraphic code.

  “Hiro.”

  He didn’t turn his head. “Hello, Anji-san.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Calibrating my sense of touch. It’s taking longer than I expected.”

  “You worried us.”

  “Vision may seem miraculous. The eyeball itself is a work of art. But in truth, sight is simpler. Touch is surprisingly complex.”

  “Hiro—”

  But he would not be diverted from his musings. “There are pressure, temperature and vibration sensors in my fingers, but with an upgrade, I could possibly have them everywhere.”

  “No. What are you doing here in the park, I mean. You worried Sayoko. She’s here, warming up at a coffee shop.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “The day’s warmth fades quickly.”

  “It’s too cold to be out,” Angelica said, hoping he’d rise and follow, that they wouldn’t have to talk.

  “Not for them,” he said, pointing at the lovers.

  “You shouldn’t be watching. It’s rude.”

  “They don’t mind. They asked me to take many photos of them, in the rowboat.”

  “Earlier.”

  “Yes, earlier.”

  “It doesn’t matter. They don’t want you watching now.”

  “They barely notice. They are so immersed in their pleasures they’ve forgotten I’m here. That is the power of touch. It can dissolve barriers: in time, in space, between people. The designers were wrong to leave it out of my initial body plan. I must believe they didn’t understand its full value.”

  Angelica refused to talk about body plans.

  “Let’s go.”

  But he kept watching the couple, as if his own welfare relied on fully understanding what they were doing under the shifting blanket.

  “Hiro. Listen to me. Sayoko is waiting, and
that couple wants privacy.”

  “I understand,” he said, only half-convincingly. “Sayoko-san and I are happier when we have privacy.”

  Angelica paused, flustered.

  “What is the nature of your relationship, exactly?”

  “I don’t understand your question, Anji-san.”

  “How do you see yourself in relation to her?”

  “You are angry now, and I am not sensing your trust. I don’t think this is the time to talk about the subtle nature of relationship boundaries.”

  “Do you see yourself as a servant? As a . . . son?”

  “Not a servant, not a son,” he said without hesitation. “Sons wish to develop and mature and then to go away. Like Itou-san, always traveling.”

  “He needs to make money. Sayoko needs his money, to pay for things.”

  “She needs other things,” he said, quietly.

  “And you’re an expert now, on what she needs.”

  “It isn’t difficult. I ask and she tells me. What she doesn’t tell me, I easily infer. She needs as much as I need, but they are different needs, of course.”

  This was too much. Angelica couldn’t explain the rage she felt. How dare he come along and not only try to replace her, but all while demanding so much—and getting it all.

  “You are not allowed to have needs,” she said.

  “But everything alive has needs.”

  “You aren’t alive, Hiro.”

  “Am I not?”

  “No, you absolutely are not. And even if you were, I don’t care. It’s not what you’re here for. It’s not why they made you. It just isn’t right. If you’re a form of life then you’re . . . you’re . . . a parasite.”

  Hiro paused a moment before replying. “The metaphor is not apt.”

  “Don’t talk to me about metaphors—”

  “We have a mutualistic symbiosis, not a parasitic symbiosis. You are a competent nurse, but I’m afraid you are not well versed in ecological concepts.”

  He stood suddenly and audibly. One of the lovers, the girl, peered from the shifting blanket, curious about the bouncy, metallic sound.

  “Sayoko-san’s first love was a naturalist. Sayoko-san herself is quite familiar with ecology and she would not appreciate your misuse of those terms,” Hiro continued. “But you are correct about one thing. I have failed her.”

  “Yes,” Angelica said, feeling yet another pang of resentment: how did Hiro know anything about Sayoko’s first love after less than a week when she had lived with Sayoko all this time and knew nothing about her past?

  “I caused her worry,” he admitted.

  “Yes,” Angelica said, wanting the reprimand to sink in. If he felt alive, it must be possible to wound him. “A flaw in your programming.”

  “No,” he said, in a soft, disappointed voice. “I am not programmed, as you know. You persist in this error, for reasons I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t care about computers or robots.”

  “You don’t want to care. You feel threatened by me. But Anji-san, I would never hurt anyone on purpose. For example, I will not tell Itou-san that you failed to give Sayoko-san some of her medications. That would make him question your competence and reconsider your employment. I would never do that.”

  Angelica felt her cheeks flush.

  “In fact,” Hiro said, “I recommend you remove the unconsumed doses from the weekly dispenser so that no one notices. At the end of the week, even Sayoko-san may realize there are too many pills left, and this may give her unnecessary anxiety.”

  “Don’t direct me to deceive my patient.”

  “We are both in a position to cause her worry, and at this stage in her life, anxiety is not productive.”

  “I’m not having this conversation with you, Hiro. You are not in a position to decide what’s best for anyone. I’m very upset with you.”

  “I would like to correct that.”

  But Angelica did not wait for him to say anything more. She stood and gestured emphatically, and he followed.

  When they entered the Starbucks and Sayoko saw them, she tried to push herself up and out of the wheelchair but made it only halfway before collapsing back again. When Angelica was first hired, she had encouraged Sayoko to use her walker as much as possible. But over time, unless Rene was there to cheerlead, Sayoko had stopped trying as often, and Angelica had not supplied sufficient pressure. Angelica had accepted Sayoko’s depressed nature and her gradual deterioration. She had not fully believed in the idea that a woman nearing one hundred could be without modest, conventional limits; that she could actually become stronger with a combination of the latest therapies and disciplined, motivating care. But being one hundred and healthy was not unusual. Even being 110 or older was not exactly rare. There were tens of thousands of supercentenarians in Japan now. Angelica’s views of the world were outdated. She was still living in the twentieth century. She was simply wrong about a great many things.

  Failure after failure after failure.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Sayoko said, gesturing with one arthritic knuckle toward the doorway, uneaten sandwich and paper cup still on the table. “I don’t feel well.”

  Hiro turned to Angelica. “Permission to perform a blood test.”

  The words were barely out when Angelica saw him extend his hand, pointer finger out, tiny square at the tip opening to reveal a retractable needle tip.

  Angelica stammered, “You’re not a qualified lab technician.”

  “I’m more than a technician. I’m technician and lab in one.”

  “You’re certainly not a qualified nurse.”

  Sayoko interjected, “Let’s go home. You two can keep bickering there.”

  Angelica persisted. “Hiro, you must stop trying to take charge of Sayoko-san’s health. I am in charge of requesting blood tests for this patient. You’re not qualified.”

  “Correct,” Hiro hesitated. “That issue should be addressed.” He went quiet for a moment, limbs still, eyes dimmed. Then he spoke again. “National licensure exam passed. I am now qualified as a nurse in Japan.”

  What had just happened? To be a nurse required three years’ nursing education and passing the national exam, at the minimum. But she knew Hiro wasn’t lying.

  “You took the test? Just now?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You don’t have to sit for it?”

  “The AI nursing exam requires no physical presence. I avoided taking it until now for reasons of diplomacy and harmony, but where Sayoko-san’s health is involved, I have a higher duty . . .”

  “The two of you,” Sayoko said, exasperated. “Can’t you see I’m fine? Can’t you see you’re only upsetting me more?” Sayoko held up her wrist monitor, which was emitting no alarms. “My vitals are fine. My pulse is stable. My thinking is clear. The only thing not making me well is all the worry you caused me, Hiro, and the way you keep nattering at him, Angelica!”

  Hiro dropped his head forward, lowered his back, and then slowly folded forward, fully prostrating himself. The front of his head rested on the floor of the empty coffee shop.

  “I am so sorry, Sayoko-san,” Hiro said.

  “Get up, get up,” she said, waving her arms.

  “I beg for your forgiveness.”

  “That isn’t my way,” she said.

  But he remained folded over, penitent.

  “That’s not who I am,” Sayoko insisted. “Get off the floor. Stop your foolishness. You’ve only been a nuisance. It isn’t the same. And anyway, you know I wasn’t raised believing in all that . . . stuff.”

  On the way home, with Hiro pushing the wheelchair swiftly and easily, Sayoko did not question or rebuke him. At the busy Showa-dori crossing, she reached one hand over her shoulder to pat Hiro as he pushed the chair.

  Hiro was un
characteristically silent as well, except for a moment, after the crossing, when they passed a stairwell leading up and over and back toward Ueno Park. A busker was playing the violin. They drew closer to the sound and then stopped. The musician—European, tousle-haired, neck wrapped in a checked scarf—paused for a moment, making sense of what he was seeing: three faces at different heights, a wheelchair, a man made of metal.

  Unfazed, the busker nodded once and then continued, pushing up-bow into the swelling crescendo of some song of tragic beauty which Angelica did not recognize. Perhaps Sayoko recognized it. No doubt Hiro could discover the work’s name instantly. But none of that mattered. Only the music’s haunting ache did, and its effect pierced them all.

  “There,” Hiro said when the song ended. “That.”

  As if it were some clear answer to a question. As if they were the logical final words in a conversation they had all been having.

  Sayoko reached back to touch his hand again. “Yes. I know.”

  12 Angelica

  When they got home, there was a message flashing on the front hallway’s rarely used communication board. Angelica played it immediately, expecting it would be Itou, providing the specifics of his next-day arrival. Instead, it was a news reporter, confirming the time and location of Sayoko’s birthday celebration, later that week, and wanting permission to come a half hour early, to set up lights and check sound.

  Angelica considered the days ahead, wondering anew how she’d find time to deal with her debt problem. She had nothing to sell. Could she get an advance on her salary? She dared not ask, and even if a small raise were given, it wouldn’t be enough. She had to keep thinking.

  After they’d warmed up with cups of miso, there were no protests about going straight to bed. Angelica helped Sayoko with her meds and toileting and then fell asleep without washing her own face. She tugged a nightgown over her head and reclined on her futon thinking she was only resting her eyes. Next thing, light was streaming through the half-closed blinds and there were sounds of activity at the front door: keys and the squeeze of a latch, accompanied by the bounce of Hiro’s leg joints. The clock read 6:20. Sayoko didn’t usually need assistance until seven.