The Pearl Diver

by Sujata Massey

  I am determined to cook correctly. Wilder-san says that I should buy this green already cooked in a can. I will do that next time. Sometimes I think Robert is so particular about cooking that he would like to cook himself! I am not complaining, of course, but it certainly is a surprise.

  Norie read on in Japanese, the intentness of her voice showing to me that she was as fascinated as I. Sadako’s letters were haunting, because even though they were written to her sister, it was clearly a one-way conversation: a monologue, stories told to which there was never a response. All the letters had been returned, unopened, to America, yet Sadako had resolutely written on.

  Dear Atsuko,

  You will be the first to know that I am going to have a baby. I can imagine how Mother and Father will feel about it, so please don’t tell them. Robert and I are very pleased, though it will mean a lot of hard work. We have finally been offered a house on base, which is a good thing, because it will save us money. Unfortunately, I’m not as strong to pack and move things. I don’t have a friend who can help me organize now that Wilder-san has been transferred to Kansas and Jones-san went back to Japan. You may recall me telling you that the marriage did not succeed with Mr. Jones. It was a big shame because she tried very hard to be a good wife. Robert says that he will ask some of his friends to help us move house. I hope they are friends who will speak politely. Some of the ones I’ve met say they can’t remember my name, so they call me Mama-san and laugh. It’s disrespectful, I told Robert. He told them to call me Sadie. I don’t like that either. We agreed that if we have a boy, he will name the child, and if we have a girl, I will name her. I can promise you she will have a good Japanese name, and I will make sure people know how to say it.

  After Norie read that particular letter, I tried to blink back the tears, but I couldn’t.

  “What is it, Rei-chan?”

  “It’s just—” I couldn’t tell her that the mention of the baby’s name made me think of my own lost, nameless child. “Will you read some more?”

  There were letters about the pregnancy and about the decision in the end not to move on base. There were letters about the birth and the first few months, brief windows into the intimate world of a mother and baby.

  Akiko sleeps well during the night, waking me only three or four times for milk. She falls back to sleep close to my heart. Her hair is becoming curly, like Robert’s; I love to tangle my fingers in it. I think her nose is quite like yours, Atsuko, and her eyes, everyone says, resemble mine. She can hold my glance for a very long time now, and I think she is beginning to smile.

  Sadako told her sister that while she always called Andrea by the name Akiko, Robert insisted that Andrea was the name on the birth certificate. Comments like these showed that the strains between husband and wife were growing. Sadako’s letters began to shift from adoration of the baby to complaints about her own fatigue, and about Robert’s increasing absence from the home. There was also a letter mentioning the return of the men who’d crashed their wedding party.

  I have asked my husband their names, but he said I wouldn’t be able to pronounce them. I think I could. My English is poor, but not so poor that I can’t learn a name. There are two of them, one black and the other white. They came to my door one afternoon, just after Akiko had fallen asleep. They wanted to wait for my husband to come home from work. I told them they could not wait inside since the baby was napping in the living room.

  They came in, though. They pushed right past me and sat down. They had come before; I had not told you much about it, but every time they’ve come, I’ve been frightened. There’s something between them and Robert. He won’t tell me what it is. Usually, they have ignored me, but that day, it was not the case.

  One of them noticed me glance at our telephone and laughed in an unkind way. It was as if he was warning me not to call anyone. The other man went over to Akiko’s crib and moved her blanket. I had been frozen in place, but that action made me move. I went to the crib and told them not to touch her, to get away. The man who had been standing over Akiko hit me so hard that I could not see anything for a minute. When I could move again, I grabbed up Akiko and ran into the bathroom and locked the door. It is a small lock on the door, and I am sure they could have broken it easily. They did not try that, but they did not leave. When Robert came home and asked where we were, they laughed. Robert convinced them to leave the apartment with him, to go to the bar on the corner. After they all had gone, I unlocked the door and came out.

  They had gone through everything, Atsuko. Opened every chest and closet and moved things all around. I realized that they had come intending to do this to the apartment. It didn’t matter if I was there or not. And surely, Robert had seen what they’d done, and they knew he, too, would be too frightened to report it.

  From my window I can see water. Remember how we used to swim together? Diving deep, reaching in the secret places to find the oysters with treasure inside. I was not afraid of the water then. I would rather have played there than gone to school.

  But this ocean, the Atlantic, frightens me. It tempts me, but I resist. Anyway, I know that you are not on the other side.

  There was one more letter.

  Dear Atsuko,

  I hope that you are well. As you know, things are becoming more difficult. I am looking for the answer to how I shall continue. It is clearly too dangerous here. I spoke to Robert about all of us leaving for some other place, but he said that would be against the law—he must stay and finish his duty. I told him then that he must report the men, but he said that it would be worse for all of us if he did that.

  I have thought of simply traveling home to Japan, but I cannot obtain a passport for Akiko without my husband’s signature. I know he won’t let her go, no matter how tiring he finds having a child. I think, too, that since you have not written back to me, it would be best for me to stay away. You are on my side, I know, but it would ruin your prospects if your elder sister appeared again with a half-American baby and no husband. I don’t know if three years is enough time for everyone to forget about me, but I hope that is the case.

  Three years since the wedding. It seems like it happened last month. I think about it, that day so full of hope. But even then, there were signs. Before the ceremony, the judge said he wanted to meet with me alone. During my meeting he said to me that I could change my mind if I wanted to, that there might be a way for me to stay in America without having to marry. I realized then that he thought I was marrying Robert because I wanted America, not the man. I replied that I was fine, that I wanted to marry. I thought he looked very serious, maybe displeased with me. Afterward, Robert told me that until recently it was against the law for black and white people to marry. I’m not white, I said to Robert. In the eyes of the law, he said, you are not black, and that is all that counts. But it’s not true, of course. I have lost my strength here. I still cannot speak English well. I still cannot drive. My world is this apartment. This child. And now, these men.

  I asked Robert about the men, and at last he told me the truth about why they come. He cried afterward and said that he thought I would hate him. No, I told him, I could not hate you. You did what you were told to do. After our talk, he slept well—better than he’d slept since Akiko was born. But I could not sleep. Now that I know the situation, I finally understand that the danger will always be around us.

  I would like to eat fugu, but I want to live. The next time I write to you, I hope that I will be able to say that I’ve made the right choice.

  The last few lines disturbed me. Why was she thinking about eating blowfish, which had a toxin inside its pancreas so deadly that even a trace amount could kill? Was the danger she talked about so overwhelming she was considering suicide by eating blowfish?

  “I don’t understand why she was talking about fugu like that,” I said. “I’m sure there was no blowfish available in American restaurants in the seventies. I can’t think of a place where it’s available now, even Bento. Jiro tol
d me he doesn’t have any supplier who can bring the restaurant really fresh blowfish, and he doesn’t trust any of the cooks to prepare it safely.”

  “‘I would like to eat fugu, but I want to live’ is a proverb, actually,” Norie began.

  “I should have known.” I looked at the proverb queen.

  “Yes, Rei-chan. It is something people say when they have trouble making a decision. Is it worth it to eat blowfish, which is so delicious—or not to eat the fish and know that you have avoided risking death?”

  “‘Should I stay or should I go.’” Just like the words to the famous Clash song that Hugh loved. “Look at the postmark on the envelope.”

  Norie took it in her hands. “June tenth, 1976. Is that a significant date?”

  “No, it’s October sixth,” I corrected her. Japanese and Americans wrote out dates differently. “She disappeared on October tenth,” I said. “This might have been the last letter.”

  The last letter. And in my mind, it seemed clear that she felt under threat, and was searching about for an escape plan, but one that was supposed to include Andrea.

  25

  Even after Norie and I put the letters away and went to bed, I spent most of the night trying to think the way I imagined Sadako had, all those years ago, as she looked for a place to go. Would she have hidden out nearby? No, I decided. She wanted to put as much distance as possible between her and the men she feared. She couldn’t return to Japan, as did other friends whose marriages had dissolved, because she had her daughter and no passport for her. Kansas, where one of her friends had gone, was a possibility. But if she couldn’t return to Japan because she didn’t want to abandon her daughter, why would she go to another place in America without her?

  It seemed as if morning would never come, but eventually, I must have fallen asleep because I woke to find Hugh, lying like a fallen redwood, on the far side of the bed. He must have come in after three o’clock, when I’d finally turned in. Now everything that had happened came back: his ultimatum, and my refusal to submit. I cast one last look at him and got out of bed.

  I would start looking for my own living space, maybe a place like Andrea had. I was no stranger to shabby neighborhoods. The difference was, in Japan you could find inexpensive neighborhoods that weren’t full of drugs. If I stayed in any major American city, I’d have to coexist with drug users, find a way to live with them in peace. But I’d never be able to have my parents visit, let alone Aunt Norie.

  I turned the shower on high, trying to pound away the revulsion I felt. Before I found a place, I needed money. I’d submitted my bills to Marshall, but had not gotten any payment yet. He’d said something about money becoming available after the restaurant had opened. I hadn’t pressed him, but now I realized that I had to do that, just as Andrea would have to press Detective Burns about the theft of Sadako’s papers.

  I was anxious to talk to Andrea about what I’d learned from Sadako’s letters. I had written down David’s telephone number the night before, but nobody picked up when I dialed it. Maybe they’d gone out for breakfast, or she was over at her apartment, waiting for the police.

  After breakfast, I worked on making a more clear-sounding English translation of the letters, searching for any meaning that I might have missed. The marriage was unhappy, but there was nothing spelled out about Robert Norton being a violent man. It sounded as if the men from his past were the suspicious ones. Maybe they were in a gang that Robert had tried to get out of, or they were blackmailing him. Sadako could have been killed as a warning to him not to get out of line again. If that was the case, he might not report it to the police, out of fear for himself and his baby.

  I also wondered about the abrupt end to the letters. I had her sister’s name and address. Maybe there were no more letters because she had returned, not because she’d died or moved.

  I knew now that we had to find Atsuko, the sister she had written to thirty years earlier. The letters had all been returned from the address in a village called Okita. I wondered if it was on one of the small islands that surrounded Kysh. I couldn’t find it on a map of the main island.

  I was just starting a Google search for it when the telephone trilled. I jumped. I picked it up, hoping for Andrea, but heard Kendall’s voice instead.

  “I hear you’re out and about again, honey. Good for you!”

  “You must have heard that I was at the restaurant yesterday,” I said.

  “Actually, Win saw you walking on P Street with your arms full of clothes. Did you find a good dry cleaner in that area, someone I should know about?”

  “Hardly. What was Win doing there?” If Win had been driving by when Hugh, Andrea, and I had been bent under the weight of her formidable wardrobe, why hadn’t he pulled over to offer some help—or at least say hello?

  “Oh, I’m sure he was checking out some real estate. That area is so up-and-coming it’s unbelievable.”

  “I was helping my friend Andrea.”

  “Who?”

  “She used to be the hostess at Bento, but right now she’s working in the kitchen.” I was surprised by my vagueness. I was becoming protective of Andrea.

  “If she’s the bitch who didn’t want to give my kids high chairs, I think you’ve got lousy taste. What does Hugh think of your new friend?”

  “It doesn’t matter what he thinks.”

  “Oops. Sorry, honey. Do you have time to get together for lunch today?”

  “Could we do it tomorrow? I have to stop in at the restaurant today—”

  “If you have to be at the restaurant, why don’t I meet you there? You’ve probably heard that Marshall and I have settled our differences and I’m on a mission to try out the whole menu before the Snowden dinner.”

  “Bento is a little bit rich for my taste right now,” I said.

  “Don’t you have a discount on meals there?”

  “Yes, but I haven’t even been paid for my services yet, so I’m feeling rather poor,” I said.

  “Actually, I’m feeling broke, too. What should we do, get a hot dog from a cart? Remember how we always wanted to get them when we were kids, but Grand said no because it was low class to eat on the street? But the times we got them, when she didn’t know, they were so good.”

  I smiled at the memory of those foot-long hot dogs eaten at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor back in my preadolescent, prevegetarian days.

  “What about a real Chinatown restaurant?” I suggested.

  “All the oil and rice!” Kendall groaned.

  “Let’s go to a Burmese restaurant, then. You can have a green-tea-leaf salad.” I’d been offended, and I wanted to get my way on at least one thing.

  We agreed on Burma and made plans to meet at one.

  After my conversation with Kendall, I went to Aunt Norie, in the kitchen. She had finished all the ironing and had now moved on to crocheting something tiny, out of blue yarn.

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, nothing.” She folded it back into her sewing bag.

  “It looks like a doll jacket,” I said.

  “It’s sort of like that, yes,” Norie said. “Now, if you have any holes in your socks, I can darn them for you—”

  “Don’t distract me. You’re making doll clothes for a Jizo-sama, aren’t you?” I stared at my aunt.

  “It’s a coat, actually,” she said. “I’m going to make a little hat as well.”

  “You must have guessed because we’re sharing a bedroom.” After I’d come home from the hospital, I’d been too weary to resume the charade of sleeping apart from Hugh. Besides, we weren’t having sex anymore—there was nothing going on to which an older relative might object.

  “It’s his apartment, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t you share?”

  “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable—”

  “I always suspected. But more important, I see that your belly aches. I can see by the way you touch it, the way you move. I am a Japanese, it is true. In our country, people don’t live togethe
r before marriage, but still, many fall in love and conceive babies unexpectedly. At least we have a civilized way to mourn the babies we lose. Your child deserves that.”

  I bowed my head. “I feel so terrible about it.”

  “I understand. You will feel desolate for a long time. But when you see your Jizo-sama statue at peace in the temple near my house, you will begin to stop hurting.”

  She must have forgotten that I was banned from the country. I said, “I’ll never see it.”

  “I’ll send you a digital photograph. I’ll be able to get the statue for you very soon since I hope to go home this week.”

  “Just to dress a statue?”

  “Not just for that reason. I’ve been thinking about Sadako’s letters, Rei-chan. We must speak to the sister, this Atsuko. You cannot do it because the government won’t let you enter. Andrea cannot do it because she speaks no Japanese. As you know, my current plane ticket is open return. I’ll fly back to Yokohama and pick up Hiroshi before going on to Kysh. I already called him last night. He’s in agreement that he needs a spring holiday for a change.”

  “It’s a great effort for you to undertake. It’s really something the Japanese police should handle, don’t you think?”

  “They didn’t succeed before, and they won’t this time, either,” Norie said briskly. “A woman-to-woman conversation is needed. Besides, Hiroshi and I have not been to Kysh. We shall visit the ceramics villages and bring home some lovely new ikebana containers for my hobby.”

  “I suppose that the sooner you go, the sooner you’ll come back.” A few weeks ago, I was frightened by the thought of putting Norie up for an endless amount of time. But now I had grown so used to her presence that I couldn’t stand the thought of her going.