He was wearing a fearless smile.
“Shigeki, I’m sure you’re the president of Tachibana Shoji by now, and Kanako—you must be having the time of your life, free to marry anyone you like. You’re over sixty now, so I really wonder if there’s any schmuck—excuse me, I mean commendable fellow—who’d have the nerve to propose to you.
“You people never took my feelings into consideration. Not once. That’s why I’ve made this videotape, as a record of my feelings. Can you understand that?
“The other day my stiff shoulders became abnormally painful, and on top of that I got a splitting headache. As you know, I’m no fan of doctors, but I got spooked enough to schedule a checkup.”
Taichi leaned in toward the lens, pulled the collar of his polo shirt with his right hand, and exposed a mole.
“Can you see that? They call it melanoma, or skin cancer. Apparently I had too much sunshine at sea. Doc told me I’ve got three months left, or half a year at most, I’m afraid.”
Taichi put a cigar in his mouth, inhaled deeply, and veiled the dread on his face with the smoke he exhaled.
“When death approaches, you get perspective and start to wonder about life. I was born into the Sakashita household, a poor fisherman’s family, and was the youngest of seven siblings. The eldest was a brother, but he was killed in battle when I was seven. He had just turned twenty, and I remember to this day how sad my mother was after his death. I didn’t know that a person was capable of crying so much. It seemed like all the water in her was going to be squeezed out through her eyes and that she was going to dry up in the end.
“Father began to drown himself in booze even though we were penniless, and he was no longer able to make ends meet from just fishing alone. So Mother began to work from morning to night, helping take care of the cows at a farmhouse. I always knew when she returned home because she stunk of cow dung. I didn’t want my friends to know about her shameful job, so I pretended that my eldest sister was my mother. But one day while I was playing with my friends, they encountered my real mother on her way home. I panicked and tried to flee the scene—but I couldn’t because that would have been all the more awkward. Then one of my friends picked up a stone and threw it at her, shouting, ‘You stink, you shit-soaked bitch.’ The others followed suit, one after another. And you know what? So did I. I picked up a rock and threw it at my mother.”
Taichi was speaking plainly as I struggled to understand what had gone through his mind during the stoning. But I couldn’t, I simply couldn’t. It was beyond me.
“My mother’s eyes looked so blank they didn’t seem to be seeing anything. I couldn’t believe they were the same eyes that had once shed so many tears, that had been so drenching wet with sorrow when my brother died—I still remember it well to this day.
“I thought she was going to get angry with me when we returned home, but she didn’t say a word. When I apologized, though, simply saying, ‘I’m sorry, Mom,’ my mother, who had been averting my eyes all the while, looked back, stared fixedly at me and said, ‘Taichi, if you hate being poor, if it makes you feel sorry for yourself, if it makes you want to go off the deep end and die, work and keep working more than anyone else. Become a rich man, you hear me? Go make it happen, son—go make your fortune.’
“At that moment I swore in my heart that I was going to get rich no matter what, but at the same time I also swore, more importantly, that by god, by hook or crook, I was going to restore dignity to my mother. I was going to see to it that one day I would stand tall and brag to the whole world, ‘This here is my mother, and I’m mighty proud of her.’ That was my dream and a way for me to make amends to her, to really say that I was sorry.”
The refreshing sea breeze had died down, and the atmosphere had changed into a damp and heavy one. I was hooked now, waiting to hear more from Taichi.
“Father died shortly after this incident, having shortened his life with more booze. I went on to finish junior high, which was when I left the sticks behind and headed for the city. I learned about Tachibana Brewery through the grapevine, joined the company, and began to work my butt off, squeezing out every yen I could make and then sending that money home. My older sisters died off, one by one, suffering from dysentery and malnutrition. I never hated poverty in my life as much as I hated it then.”
Taichi lowered his head and covered his face with both hands for a while. Was he crying? It seemed so, but when he faced the screen the next moment there were no tears in his eyes.
“Aren’t the poor allowed to live?”
His low voice, loaded with anger, was verging on a howl, but then he calmed down.
“One day I caught wind of my prospects of becoming adopted into the family as a son-in-law. I soared toward heaven then, happy that God had finally shined a light on the Sakashita family. The first thing that occurred to me then was to give my mother a call. Finally I was going to do what I had set out to do, introduce my mother with pride, with dignity. That had been my goal all along, the reason why I had been slaving away all those years. Do you understand? But Kanako’s father imposed a condition. He said, ‘Your family background can never come to light.’ Can you imagine? The disrespect of saying such a thing? Such audacity.”
I had been imagining Taichi to be the devil incarnate. But by all appearances, the man before me was a guileless and conscientious man. Anyone listening to the way he was talking about his feelings for his mother would have sympathy for him.
As I went on listening to Taichi, I began to feel suffocated. A raging pain in my chest suddenly overcame me. But I just turned myself to stone and stared at the TV and remained transfixed by the on-screen presence of my father-in-law.
“The Tachibana family wanted to hide my breeding. The reason why I was chosen as the bridegroom was because I no longer had any family ties except to my elderly mother. To them I was just a hassle-free choice, someone handy for keeping up appearances, someone who the family could pass off as the father of Kanako’s child. So I apologized to my mother again. You know what she said then? She said there was no greater happiness than seeing me do well and become an upstanding, honorable member of the Tachibana family. She said she was just glad to be alive to see this day. She said all these things with so much heart.
“The next thing I thought about doing was to show my mother her grandchild. I was the only surviving offspring of the Sakashita family after all. I wanted to have a child of my own.”
Taichi was staring into the distance now, as if to rummage through the memories of his distant past. “I thought perhaps I could finally help a small bit in setting at ease the spirits of my dead family members—to allow my father, brothers, and sisters to rest in peace. But Kanako rejected me. Don’t get me wrong, I was under no illusion that she loved me. But I couldn’t forgive her for ignoring me all the same, ignoring my manhood for all those years. When the old Tachibana died, I was sure my time had come at last. It was a long wait. Twenty years had to pass before I could make my mark in this world. Twenty years of silently enduring one humiliation after another.”
Taichi took a break, slowly exhaling a puff from his cigar and washing it down with a sip of wine.
“We had a hard time trying to get her pregnant,” he resumed. “I even went in for an examination to see whether anything was wrong with me. But it turned out to be Kanako’s fault. She’d had a hysterectomy—soon after she’d gotten married. Imagine how pissed off that made me. Can you?”
The hatred that had grown inside Taichi was like a thick accumulation of snow that had been falling lightly and silently for twenty odd years without a sound, without any scent, until one day he realized something very heavy and cold was piled deep within him. He may have tried to melt away the massive buildup of all that lingering snow, but there probably wasn’t anything warm enough inside him to thaw the icy bitterness of Kanako’s apathy. Was there ever such a person whose existence had been so utterly rejected?
For a while he looked up at the ceiling before c
ontinuing. “I tried to have a child elsewhere. But that dream didn’t come true. In the end it all seemed so useless, so futile. I kept asking myself what all the blood, sweat, and tears were for. Why did I build Tachibana’s company to the giant corporation it has become? Even more, talk about adding insult to injury, I lately came to know that Kanako’s been seeing Kei Nakahara, Shigeki’s real dad. How about that? The Tachibana family may finally turn out to be made up of genuine kinfolk after all, a true father and son team, biologically speaking. In that event, all my photographs, just like Sophie’s, will be cleared away and disposed of. If I know Kanako, that’s exactly what she’ll do. To that woman I’m just like Sophie, a nonperson, or persona non grata, as college-educated yahoos like you would say.
“I can deeply relate to Sophie’s desire to escape poverty. When you told Sophie to haul her ass back where she came from, she came to me to cry on my shoulder. She said she wanted me to find her a patron. She was desperate, I guess, delirious even, and quite frankly I don’t think she really even knew what she was saying and to whom she was talking. I refused her request and told her to go and have a nice long chat with you, Shigeki. For the record, there was nothing between Sophie and me. Sure, I’m not a fan of a brat like you, but I’m not a degenerate. I have my principles, and I don’t stoop so low just to hurt someone.
“Still, what a tragedy, eh? I never thought Sophie would end up like that. Poor girl played into Kanako’s hands. But Raiki—he’s one little guy she won’t be able to mess up the way she did Sophie. Don’t you agree?”
He stymied a laugh with another long drag off his cigar.
“Shigeki, you’re past your mid-thirties by now. I want you to take over. You’ll find everything you need in a Joto Bank safe-deposit box. It’s all there—the important documents, stock certificates, all those things. Here’s the PIN number: 8-8-2-3-3-9.
“My mother passed away peacefully last year at an old-age home. I’m told she was holding a photograph taken on board this boat. She’d been bragging, saying how I was the president of a company, and that I owned the boat in the picture. My dad had a boat, but it was nothing like this one. I guess it’s safe to say that I’ve managed to repay my parents a little.”
Did Shigeki keep returning to the boat to search for this information, the location of the safe-deposit box, the PIN number? That question took a backseat to what I realized Taichi had done in his last moments. He wanted the world to understand that his actions had been done in the name of being a dutiful son. He was sacrificing himself for his mother’s memory.
“I can’t spend the next half year waiting to die. I just can’t, you understand? That’s why I’ve decided to disappear. As long as my remains aren’t found, I’ll be designated missing. Legally, I won’t be dead for seven more years.”
He turned away from the camera and stared out the window, even as he began to speak again.
“You wouldn’t mind if I continue to exist in the Tachibana family for at least seven more years, would you?”
I was witnessing the sadness of a perpetually neglected man. His exit would not be easy for the people who’d wronged him.
“Well, time to die. Got to make it happen.… Must be time for bed for you too by now, my son.”
I heard that echo:
Help. Help. Somebody help.
Taichi stubbed out his now short cigar before slowly standing up and moving toward the deck. He moved offscreen, and I turned my head in the direction he had disappeared—toward the deck—and I saw Raiki hunkered down there, pouring his soda into the sea.
I imagined he was making an offering to Sophie, or maybe another one for his grandfather. Out of nowhere then, a wave crashed across the Kana from bow to stern, violently jostling her and washing Raiki off the deck.
SATO: ONE
“Raiki!” I dashed outside, screaming his name so loudly I thought my vocal cords might explode.
“Calm down, Mayu, calm down. You need to calm down,” I chanted to myself as I caught a glimpse of him adrift in the choppy sea. He was about fifteen feet away from the boat; both his hands were raised above his head. I grabbed a life ring that was hanging on the deck and hurled it toward Raiki. But the tide continued to pull him out toward the open sea.
I yanked off my jeans, not wanting them to weigh me down. I stopped thinking and just acted, stumbling over the railing, belly flopping into the water, feeling nothing. Raiki’s raised hands buoyed in and out of sight as the waves weltered.
As I swam toward him, it looked to me like he was washing his face, the way he did every morning. I understood then that he wasn’t afraid. I swam like mad, trying to narrow the yawning gap between the two of us, but then like in a nightmare, a wave swallowed him whole.
“Why are you taking him?” I shouted at Taichi. “Sophie, help him. Wake up! He’s your son!”
I’d lost sight of Raiki. I was panicking. I needed to find faith to carry on.
“What are you punishing me for, God?” I cursed. “What have I done? What has he done?”
The anger was making me brave, but my courage could not overcome my weakness and I could feel my body needing to shut down.
“Why must he suffer such a fate? Simone! You bitch! I know you hate me! Yeah, that’s right, I wanted you dead. That’s no reason to take away Raiki. You can’t do that, you just can’t. Don’t take him away, Simone, please don’t take him away. Take me instead. I don’t mind dying. Bring back Raiki.”
I was praying to Simone. It all seemed so hopeless now. For Raiki and me, the end seemed near.
(Help. Help, Jean. Help.)
Just as the echo seemed like it was filling me up like a weight destined to sink to the bottom of the sea, a light began to pull me up. It was the same light I used to see streaming through the stained glass in Jean’s church. A woman appeared, slender in frame with large black eyes, her raven-black hair unfurling in the blue emptiness of the undersea world. She carried Raiki and held him out to me.
I summoned all my strength and seized him. He was heavy, and I worried that I would lose him.
(Keep Shigeki safe.)
The last thing I remember was a life ring splashing near us.
SATO: TWO
I awoke in a hospital bed, and the first things my eyes made out were the faces of Raiki and Ms. Sato, and then the paper cranes all around me.
Raiki shouted with joy, and his voice was like a warm blanket that melted away any doubt I might have had about where I was and what had happened to us.
“I thought we were doomed,” Ms. Sato said, her voice quivering.
I turned to Raiki and said, “Thank god you’re safe. Were you afraid?”
“I wasn’t afraid at all,” Raiki declared with gusto. “I’d been dreaming of being lifted into the air on the back of a crane. She was all fluffy and comfy. Then you yanked my hand so hard that I woke up.”
It turns out that Ms. Sato had tried to reach me on my cell phone, worried about the sudden change in the weather. The phone just kept ringing and that’s when she contacted Shigeki. He took swift action, calling the harbor office and demanding that someone check the boat. The harbormaster reported back, having found my jeans and the deployed life ring. Shigeki called the local authorities to alert them to this emergency. Soon after that, I’m told, I rose out of the sea, holding a limp Raiki. My mind’s a blank about what happened after that. All I know is that the harbormaster saved our lives.
EPILOGUE
It is said that a newborn’s bawling is fine-tuned by nature to strike a mother’s nerves so that she springs to action to resolve the issue, no matter what. The capacity to annoy is hardwired into babies as an act of survival.
After I gave birth to Taiki, my life changed. This child’s happiness was my only priority. My maternal antenna was attuned to everything and anything related to Taiki’s well-being, ranging from everyday micro-concerns like eczema and the temperature of milk to even big-picture ones like saving the global environment.
After be
ing pulled out of the ocean, Ms. Sato sat with me in the hospital. She held my hand and sobbed, thankful for what I had done to save Raiki. Honestly, the first thing that came to mind right after Raiki fell into the sea was the fear that I would be held responsible. I was scared of being shunned by society and labeled “the stepmother who had let her stepson die.” I couldn’t let Raiki die. That’s why I had to risk my life. It was an act of self-preservation. I had to prove that the incident really was an accident, that it had happened while I had taken my eyes off the child. I had to prove my courage to myself before I could truly become a mother.
After watching the video, Shigeki cried. I believe that a layer of his loathing for his stepfather had been peeled off, that his hatred had somewhat mellowed. A sure sign of that appeared when it came time to name our son: he chose the “Tai” in Taiki to be the same character as the “Tai” in Taichi.
For Kanako though, the video was no big deal. It was all business as usual, “as though nothing had happened.” In fact after Taiki was born and we took custody of Raiki, and after it was decided that Shigeki would become the largest shareholder of the company, Kanako started to set out on leisurely trips with Ms. Sato. I never saw her fuss with her Venetian necklace again.
Now here I was with my son. At some point Taiki had stopped crying and had fallen asleep. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and I was about to nod off myself. But a question I’d been meaning to ask Shigeki came to mind: Did I remind him of Sophie? Is that why he married me?
I was convinced that the woman who brought Raiki to me underwater was Sophie. And I did resemble her.
Shigeki was watching TV, sprawled out on the sofa. When he saw me, he bolted upright and said, “Get over here.”
I sat next to him; he put his arm around me and drew me closer.
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