But it bothered her even more to realize she had put that all out of her mind for most of his adult life. She understood him better now that the memories had been brought back into the open. She could see the boy in the man, still, and that made the passage of time less painful, because at least there was continuity and the sense of a reliable inner core. Ryo Itou was the same person he had always been. She was proud of the work he did, impressed with his self-sufficiency and stamina. And yes, he was sensitive, too. She should never have discouraged his artistic side.
Ryo hurried into his bedroom, then came out again, pausing by her armchair.
“What are you watching?”
“Something about kamikaze pilots.”
“Good,” he said. She knew he was relieved to find her occupied. He could fulfill his next duty: taking part in a long video call with his former boss and a team of media experts, crafting the public relations strategy they would use in days ahead to counter the trashy news stories.
“Ah, the tea,” he said, disappearing into the kitchen. She smiled as he reemerged minutes later with a cup. “Anything else?”
She would not tell him she hadn’t had lunch. He’d forgotten to prepare it. She would not tell him he’d forgotten about the midday pills—and all the better, in case he noticed the pillbox looked different now. What he needed now was for her to be without needs.
“The tea is perfect,” she said. “Go work.”
“Just to the bedroom. We’ll be done in a few hours.”
She knew how he hated to bring any kind of digital device in there. For years, he had refused. But he was stuck inside this condo now, for as long as Hiro was away.
“Go,” she said. “Ganbatte.” Do your best.
She watched the program, fingering the pills in the deep front pockets of her blouse. She should be brave. Look how brave those boys were. The youngest ones were the easiest to sympathize with, because they did not look like the Goblin Fox or most of the officers who had raped her. Some didn’t even look like boys. They had rosy cheeks and unlined faces. Soft helmets and big goggles covered their heads; their necks and lower chins were swaddled in white scarves. In one photo the documentary kept coming back to, five pilots posed with a puppy. They were babies. In real life, she might have thought differently, but she wanted the luxury of distance at this moment, the experience of seeing history as merely interesting or poignant, rather than as deeply personal. She had earned that distance. She had also earned the right to control her own destiny.
She watched the historic footage of planes crashing into ships. Kamikaze. Spirit wind. She thought of Daisuke saying that anything could have a spirit, and also, that spirits could be gentle, or violent. There is a dark side to everything. A light side, too.
Nearly four thousand suicides, the program informed her. But only eleven percent were successful in doing damage.
“Eh?” she said out loud. This was something new. She’d always heard they were more successful than that. Maybe the documentaries were getting a little more honest, these days. Old people die, young people move into their places, new ideas become acceptable. It was a good thing. No one was meant to live forever. She fingered the pills again.
She started to nod off, then woke to the feeling of leakage. Not a full accident, but enough to make her uncomfortable. All those cups of tea. Angelica would never have brought her so many. Hiro would have asked her every hour whether she needed to use the facilities. But they were empathetic and experienced. Her son was old enough that in ten or fifteen years more, he might need his own personal caregivers. Men didn’t age as well as women. Then what?
She needed to get herself to the bathroom, but she needed to summon her energy first. On the screen, the war scholars tallied ships sunk and lives lost—all less interesting to her than the photos of the boys themselves. And maybe she was fooling herself, pretending these young men were nothing like the men who had made her days a misery. These boys recruited toward the war’s end, when all was lost, might’ve been just as corruptible, and those officers who had served their country from the beginning might have harbored some aspects of innocence. That last part, especially, was hard to swallow. But no mistake: she was not moved to any kind of forgiveness. At the same time, she felt tired, and teary, without enough energy for hate.
The narrator read aloud their diaries, pages filled with philosophy and poetry, allusions to both Shakespeare and Shinto, and letters to their families back home. One young man said he did not love the emperor. Another asked how it had all come to this, and noted that the abstract notion of death was nothing like facing the real thing, tomorrow. There was less talk of beautiful “shattered jewels” and more talk of reluctant surrender.
This was not what she had learned as a younger woman. She was not even sure she was glad to know such grim facts now. This must be how others felt, forced to confront the issue of so-called “comfort women” and wishing to simply forget and move on, rather than admit that not a single aspect of war was romantic.
“I do not truly wish to die,” a seventeen-year-old wrote to his mother.
She was not the only one. Sayoko took her hand out of her pocket.
And still, there was the matter of getting to the bathroom.
She did not want to see another sepia-toned photograph of chubby-cheeked boys in aviator caps, or pretty girls waving cherry blossom branches on airstrips. She pushed herself up and out of the armchair and used her walker to get to the bathroom. There, she relieved herself, leaving her soiled underwear and damp pants on the floor. She stood, naked from the waist down, looking in the mirror.
And now what?
Part of her hoped that the sounds of her footsteps, the closing bathroom door and the running sink would prompt Ryo to leave his room and come to her aid. Another part of her wanted no such thing, because she would not let her son see her like this. She had not thought to fetch clean clothes first and she refused to amble down the hallway naked and stinking. No one would ever make a beautiful documentary about moments like this.
22 Angelica
Seeing the amount of blood staining Angelica’s clothes, Hiro knew he had to improvise, and quickly. “We are not safe going to a hospital. The authorities are pursuing us. I am not confident I can deal with a major hemorrhage or sepsis. I can access basic information, but I will need more than that.”
He took them to the most medically suitable yet still illegal facility he could locate by researching poorly encrypted law enforcement records. It was no trouble finding a black market cosmetic surgery chop shop, specializing in cheap double-eyelid surgery, subcutaneous age reversal, as well as more unusual procedures for surgery addicts who had been turned away from legitimate facilities. A bust was planned the following week, which Hiro told the proprietor as soon as he opened the door, in exchange for immediate cooperation.
“You have ultrasound equipment?” Hiro asked the short, wide-bellied doctor, who backed into a corner of the room, blinking slowly, hands tucked into his yellowed lab coat.
“Yes, some,” the man stammered.
“Acceptable.” Hiro bent to scoop Angelica into his arms and lifted her onto the operating table, where she curled up on one side, groaning. She heard the rattle of wheels as a cart was pulled close, the beeping of a machine booting up.
“Assist, please,” Hiro said, but the doctor did not respond.
Hiro read out her temperature—high—and her blood pressure—low. Blood was taken from her finger. Angelica felt cold plastic touch her belly, the pressure of the wand.
The doctor started to complain, but Hiro shushed him.
“Do you understand, Anji-sensei, if the miscarriage is underway, it likely will not be possible to stop it. My priorities are assessment and protecting your life. But I can try something, if you trust me.”
Was it a question? She nodded, head heavy.
“You’ll feel this. T
he cramps may feel stronger for a few minutes, but just relax. Let’s see if we can slow things down.”
She felt a needle pinch her arm, a weird taste on her tongue though nothing had been put into her mouth. He was speaking slowly and loudly, as if she were a half-conscious drunk, and that’s how she felt: ears buzzing with white noise, time dilating.
“Is that pressure uncomfortable?”
“I don’t know,” she said weakly. She wanted to ask about blood loss—how much, and if she needed a transfusion. She didn’t trust the blood here, if they even had blood. She couldn’t find the words.
“You’re doing fine.”
She wasn’t doing anything. She couldn’t even keep her eyes open.
“Don’t worry about that,” Hiro said “We’ll get to that in a moment. It’s only a little bit.”
In her confusion, she smelled it first, then felt it slick along her cheek. She had vomited.
A minute later he said, “You don’t have to be embarrassed. Your job is to relax and breathe.”
She was babbling, evidently, her proof not in the thoughts as they flowed through her mind or the words as they came out, but only in Hiro’s responses.
He said, “Don’t worry, we’re keeping an eye on that, too.”
Then: “We have a heartbeat, Anji-sensei. I don’t believe you’re miscarrying. Good news.” Yet he didn’t sound entirely relieved.
Hiro’s voice changed, becoming more demanding and officious. “I’ll need a sterile tray prepared.” He was speaking to the doctor, who was cowering in a corner, out of Angelica’s line of sight. “You’ll assist or I’ll turn you over to the authorities.”
The voice replied, “But you said the authorities were already busting me.”
“They don’t know everything. Not yet.”
Her head was clearing: briefly, mercifully. She tried to sit up and cover her bare legs, but then a dizzy spell passed over her and she lay back on the table.
“You’re not leaving yet, Anji-sensei,” Hiro said. “Soon, though.”
She wasn’t feeling cramps or pain now. She only felt feverish and weak, alternating hot and cold.
“Anji-sensei,” Hiro said, “I need more than basic information. My training was focused on eldercare. I could be missing something. I would need to connect with my peers.”
“Okay,” Angelica managed to say. “He’ll understand.” But the pause that followed told her Hiro hadn’t simply been worrying about a broken promise to Itou, but that larger issue, meeting the other prototypes, or whatever else was out there. She wanted to warn him about the dangers of losing himself, of losing his innocence, of changing, but she couldn’t find the words.
“I must,” Hiro said, and she knew he’d done it, instantly and irrevocably.
“I don’t feel well,” the doctor said, settling heavily onto a squeaky metal stool in the corner. “I want to talk to my wife.”
Hiro didn’t answer.
The doctor repeated his complaint, alarmed now. Angelica, even in her drunk-like state, was frightened as well. She could not hear Hiro; she was not positioned to see him. Whatever he was doing, with whomever he was communicating, he was beyond reach.
But then Hiro spoke up to answer the panicky doctor. “Call your wife. Tell her you’ll probably be fine.”
“Probably?”
Feeling Hiro’s hands on her hip and leg, repositioning her, Angelica turned over onto her side, eyes closed, one leg bent up toward her chest, knee almost to her chin, the other leg straight beneath her. Undraped. Exposed. As she had to be for him to do his job properly. She was never good at letting go, even under the hands of a competent professional, but with Hiro, she tried her best.
The doctor’s voice sounded like it was coming through a long tube. “She isn’t answering. I really don’t feel well.”
“I don’t have a speculum, so this will have to do,” came Hiro’s voice. “Take a deep breath.”
A moment later, Hiro said to the doctor: “Do you take heart medication? Answer, please.”
Through her eyelids, Angelica sensed a dazzlingly bright light. When she tried to look over her shoulder and down her body, squinting, she could see Hiro’s visor was lit up, projecting toward her.
Hiro’s voice came from behind that blinding aura of light: “Relax. You’re doing fine. Steady.”
To the doctor again: “Loosen any restrictive clothing. Put your head between your legs.”
To Angelica: “I’m seeing a discharge. I don’t like the color. Cervix still closed, but almost certainly infected. We’ll do a swab test. Second tissue sample from vaginal wall.”
To the doctor: “Don’t get up. Deep breaths. An ambulance will be here in twelve minutes. I’ve already reported to them you’re having shortness of breath and your color is bad. Tell them if you have chest or shoulder pain. We’ll be gone by the time they arrive.”
To Angelica: “I want two more samples, and I want to look a little deeper. We’re almost done. Your hCG test is back. Levels as expected. We’re going to keep monitoring that. I believe you’re going to be fine.”
Angelica felt the withdrawal of the instrument, the pressure of Hiro’s hand on her leg and then on one arm, the dimming of the dazzling examination light, the sensation of the ultrasound wand on her belly again.
To someone or to himself or to no one, Hiro laughed with relief. “Sixteen weeks. You’re already past the first trimester. Heartbeat normal, organs visible without signs of malformation. Anji-chan, do you want to know?”
He pulled her up like a ragdoll to a sitting position. She opened her eyes.
“Yes.”
“It’s a girl,” Hiro said.
23 Sayoko
She was shivering by the time she pulled off her baggy top, pills spilling from the pockets to the floor. She reached down slowly, slowly, but it was too much effort. Better to save one’s energy for the washing itself, which she did using the showerhead beside the bath, allowing the water to run into the floor drain. With exasperation, she noted that even though the floor dipped slightly, enough water still gathered to wet the area near the sink, where the pills, now crumbling into tiny heaps of blue, red, and yellow, had stuck to the tile. She tried to aim the showerhead at the pills, but the pressure was insufficient. The residue remained.
She didn’t know how long she stared at those half-dissolved spots, hoping that Ryo would not see them and wonder what on earth she’d been up to. She knew only that she was trembling from the cold and the effort of standing so long. Giving up on the mess, she moved toward the furo and pushed its folding lid aside. She turned on the water and, seeing how slowly it filled, wished she had started it sooner.
She contemplated her reflection in the mirror. It was always a surprise, seeing her gaunt, deeply lined face. In a world without mirrors she would imagine herself as closer to fifty, and on some days, still fifteen. Ridiculous, she knew.
Still waiting for the bath to fill, she leaned in closer, then reached for the eyebrow pencil she kept on a small shelf close to the towel rack.
I do not truly wish to die, the seventeen-year-old kamikaze pilot had said.
And yet: one had to prepare. Those boys certainly had. Parties, poetry, cherry blossoms. One had to do something.
She touched the brown eyebrow pencil to the outside corner of her mouth and started to draw, tugging the resistant skin. Wetting the pencil on her tongue, she tried again. Around the mouth, up the cheek to the ear, the other side, another cheek. Filling in the broad, patterned band across her lower face took some time. Without these marks, the rainbow bridge to the afterlife could not be crossed. A part of her did not believe and a part of her still did, but there was no point in despairing over what history had done. She imagined what her son’s reaction would be to seeing his mother marked up in faux-barbarian style, and she reminded herself to wash well when she was finis
hed, and then she forgot to worry about it at all. His meeting would last hours and his ears were no doubt plugged with earbuds. She had all the time in the world.
The chin required some more work; the tip of the pencil began to wear down. Her reflection entranced her enough to make her forget about being cold. She saw Grandmother in the mirror, and she saw Mother. They had been waiting for her to see them, all this time. They were still waiting for her.
Sometime later she lifted one leg to enter the furo, using every bit of effort to clear the high, square edge of the wooden tub. It was just beyond her utmost capabilities, but she felt pride as her right foot slipped gently into the scalding water. The harder part was lifting the other leg, and balancing until that moment when she could bring the second foot to join the first. For a moment, she tottered between pleasure and fear. And then she simply tottered.
The fall was almost ballet-like in its slow-motion, sensual grace. One foot slid out from her in such a smooth movement it was as if she were wearing a silk slipper. The bath water moved as her body plunged, spilled up over the lip of the furo, and washed back and forth several more times like a miniature tsunami closing over everything but her knees. For a startled moment, she realized she was looking up through the water, not down into it, still unsure of what had happened. She expected Ryo’s face to flash in front of her, appalled by what she’d done: the fall, her temporary tattoo, the pills dissolving on the floor. But his face did not flash. Nothing flashed.
The water was warm. The winter sky was pale blue.
Mother was there.
24 Angelica
They were at the inner door of a fourplex, moments after ringing up to the condo, waiting. Other people might see them. Perhaps Junichi and Yuki wouldn’t even risk opening the door, despite Hiro’s advance call.
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