The Snow Kimono

by Mark Henshaw

  In the photograph, Mariko’s dress glows in the late afternoon sun. I am standing next to her. My right hand is resting on her shoulder. She has a small scar there, like a tiny map of Japan, which she does nothing to conceal. Katsuo is standing off to one side.

  I used to look at this photograph from time to time. And every time I did so, I could see why Katsuo had fallen in love with Mariko. With her half-smile, her self-possessed gaze, Mariko was extraordinarily beautiful.

  I told Fumiko that this was Sachiko, her mother. Who had died in childbirth. It was a lie, but a small lie, one which she seemed happy to accept.

  On the other hand, she never once questioned the monstrous lie that lay dormant just below the surface of our lives, the lie that I was her father, a lie that I knew would come back to haunt us. But by then, her childhood memories, if they had ever existed, had been erased.

  Occasionally, little things would even conspire to reinforce this deception. Once, I remember, we were eating our evening meal when Fumiko—she must have been twelve at the time—turned to me and said: Do you remember, Father, how some months ago I said I had noticed that in the afternoon the shadow of our apartment building climbed your office tower, and that on the day of my birthday the corner seemed to pass right through your window? And you said, well, in that case it would have to pass through your window twice in one year. Do you remember?

  Yes, I said.

  I glanced up. Fumiko’s eyes were wide with excitement.

  Well, she said. You were right. I’ve been watching and I’ve worked out that tomorrow it’s going to pass through your window once again.

  You mean to say you’ve been watching my window all this time?

  Well, no, she said. Not really. But a month ago I noticed that the shadow had begun to move back across your building.

  I went to go on with my meal but when she didn’t continue I realised that we were playing a familiar game, only now the roles had been reversed.

  Go on, I said smiling.

  Well, remember I said how strange it was that the shadow should pass through your window on the very day of my birthday. I said it must mean something. You said it wasn’t strange at all, it was just a coincidence.

  Yes, I said.

  Well, it’s tomorrow, she said. Tomorrow it’s going to happen again.

  I must have looked puzzled.

  Tomorrow! she said.

  She looked at me with her eyes bright, as if she were stating something obvious.

  Tomorrow it’s your birthday. Don’t you see, Father? So it must mean something, after all.

  Father. As the day of Katsuo’s release drew near, each time Fumiko said the word I had so longed to hear it was like a blade being plunged into my heart. It astonished me how often she said it. Father, could we go to the markets? Father, shall I pour your tea? Father, there’s a letter here for you. And each time she said it, I was reminded again of the lie my life had become, and of the inevitability of what lay ahead, the moment when I would have to tell Fumiko the truth. About our life together. And who her father really was.

  Exactly three years to the day that Fumiko had reminded me of the shadow passing down my building, the day of my birthday—it made me wonder whether Katsuo had planned this, it would have been so characteristic of him—the letter which would undo my life finally arrived. Fumiko was fifteen, just two years younger than Sachiko was when she died.

  After years of vigilance, its arrival caught me completely by surprise. As I knew it would. Every morning I used to go through my mail expecting it to be there. You cannot imagine what that did to me. How much my walk to work was coloured by the expectation that today would be the day it arrived. How it—this waiting—tortured me. Perhaps, I hoped, there would be another solution: Katsuo might die in jail, he might disappear as he had done in the past, he might relinquish her. In my heart, however, I knew that there was no escaping what was about to unfold—it had been written into both our lives years before.

  And now, on the morning of my fifty-fifth birthday, here it was.

  I had taken the bus to my office instead of walking. It had been raining and I was eager to finish the article I was writing.

  I began working as soon as I arrived. At ten, Mrs Akimoto, my secretary, brought me my mail. It lay bundled up in the tray on my desk. I looked up some minutes later to see the thin sharp edge of a pale-blue envelope projecting slightly from the pile. I sat looking at it, this edge, refusing to believe what I knew I was seeing. And seeing it, I felt as though a vice was closing about my chest. I reached out, picked up the bundle. My hand was shaking. I could barely breathe. I undid the piece of string that bound the bundle together. I retrieved the envelope, held it up to my face.

  I recognised his handwriting immediately, the characters still beautiful, still perfectly formed. And yet, the more closely I looked, I could see, here and there, an unmistakable tremor, a momentary loss of control, as if death were already stalking him. This observation shocked me. I had never thought of Katsuo growing old. I had been aware of my own decline. But Katsuo. I had always thought of him as young, immutable.

  I could not open it. Not at first. I left it all day. I spoke to Mrs Akimoto. Cancelled all my appointments. She had seemed perplexed. At one point, she knocked on my door. I was by the window, looking out over the city, thinking that Fumiko would be home from school by now. Then she knocked again. When she opened the door she was holding a number of files in her arms.

  Is everything all right, Mr Omura?

  I saw her glance at the unopened letter lying on my desk.

  Yes, thank you, Mrs Akimoto, I said.

  Is there anything I can get you? she said.

  No, I’m fine, I said. Thank you. Have Ryuichi call me tomorrow, will you.

  Eventually, I sat down at my desk. I reached into my drawer, drew out my letter opener. I inserted the blade under the flap of the envelope. A thin blue curl, like a tiny breaking wave, began to unfold along its edge.

  The writing paper took my breath away. A gift from me years before. I had no idea he had kept it—the texture so beautiful, the grain so fine, the irony so perfect. So characteristic. I could see him planning all of this. His foresight was, as always, so cruelly precise.

  The letter was exactly as I had expected.

  My dear Tadashi,

  I have known for some time that it was you who took Fumiko in. I had always hoped it would be. I want you to know—I bear you no malice.

  And then, the words I feared.

  I would like to see my daughter. I think only of her. Indulge an old man, your one-time friend, this one wish.

  How many times had I imagined seeing those words? Imagined Katsuo writing them? I think only of her, I think only of her…

  This would be how my world ended, I thought. I would be alone, with everything over, all questions answered. And Fumiko, my beloved daughter, would be gone.

  As I put the letter down, I felt a death-like chill pass through me. Without Fumiko, my beautiful, beautiful child, life meant nothing to me.

  That night, walking home through the crowded streets alone, I wondered what I
would do. We were supposed to go to Kamakura the following weekend to watch the kites. It had become a yearly pilgrimage. We always enjoyed ourselves. I could not tell her about Katsuo before then. It would have to wait, even though it had already begun to crush my heart.

  So, Fumiko, I said during our evening meal. Are we still going to Kamakura?

  We don’t have to, Father, she said. Not if you don’t want to. We have been so many times before.

  And we lapsed into silence, falling back into our own separate worlds, hers with its unknown future, and mine with its inescapable past.

  Chapter 7

  WE went to Kamakura in any case. I carried the viewer—we had taken it every year since I had made it for her—and my collapsible chair. Fumiko carried the mat, as she always did, and our basket of provisions. We went to our favourite spot overlooking the beach.

  But I was not myself. I was preoccupied with how to break the truth to Fumiko. I could not think of anything else. I decided I would tell her later that evening, when we returned home. She, for her part, seemed to have picked up on my mood. I caught her glancing at me from time to time. I could not bring myself to meet her eye.

  We sat without speaking for most of the afternoon, me in my chair, with Fumiko on the mat a little way in front of me, her hands around her knees. She had worn her hair up. Her neck was exposed, her earlobe faintly translucent against the sun. A wisp of dark hair kept fluttering beside it in the wind. The sight of it was more than I could bear.

  I do not know whether I dozed off or whether I was daydreaming, nor do I know what brought me back to myself. Perhaps it was a shout from the beach, or the sound of thunder in the distance. Whatever it was, when I next looked up, hours had passed. The beach below was in turmoil. Fumiko lay curled up asleep. Behind us, a tremendous storm had begun to build. Already a dark underbelly of cloud had spilled over the mountains and was beginning to loom over us. The light had begun to change. It was growing darker by the minute.

  All around us, people were packing up, folding rugs, reorganising picnic baskets, running this way and that. Some were already leaving, carrying their hastily collected belongings under their arms. The vendors and their carts had already gone. On the beach, the kite flyers were urgently hauling in the few remaining kites. I could see their arms working. Near them, anxious parents were trying to shepherd half a dozen children together who had strayed onto the beach. Somewhere a man was calling, A-ki-o, A-ki-o, his voice all but lost in the thunder that now rumbled towards us across the narrow plain.

  I watched a lightning bolt dance crazily along the mountain tops. It was alarmingly close. Then another. I looked down and saw the light flicker across Fumiko’s face. Almost instantly the thunder detonated above us with a tremendous buffeting thump. I felt the ground shake, as though the earth itself were recoiling. A sharp metallic smell permeated the air. People were beginning to run. The storm was upon us.

  Fumiko, Fumiko, I said. I leaned down, shook her shoulder. She sat up, dazed. Hurry. There’s a storm coming, I said. We have to go.

  The storm broke just as the train pulled out of the station. It was already dark. The rain came slashing down. Fumiko and I sat huddled opposite each other in the crowded compartment. I remember the train gathering speed. I remember a level crossing flashing by, rain-swept windows lighting up, the warning bells rising and falling. A dimly lit station appeared, was gone.

  Fumiko was staring into the darkness outside, her head rocking back and forth as the train sped on towards home, and the moment that awaited us there.

  We took a taxi from the station to our apartment. It was still raining when we pulled up. We held the straw mat above our heads as we ran along the rain-soaked path towards the entrance.

  I no longer remember what happened next, the exact order. But I can still feel the twisted knot in my chest. I can see us in our living room. The curtains are open. The rain has stopped. The glistening city lies spread out below us in the clean sharp air.

  Fumiko has changed. She is wearing a simple dark-blue cotton kimono. She is seated opposite me, drying her hair. In her lap, there is a book.

  A teapot rests on the stand in front of us. My cup sits beside it, still full, untouched. Fumiko puts down her brush, reaches for hers.

  Fumiko, I say.

  I hear my voice. It sounds strangled. I hesitate. The blood is hammering in my head.

  I have to talk to you, I say. There is something I have to tell you, something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time…

  I look at her. She sits watching me.

  But the opportunity never seemed to present itself. Now… now there is no choice, now it’s too late.

  I thought that, once I had begun, the words would tumble out. But I was wrong. Barely had I begun to speak when my nerve failed me. Where did I begin? With Katsuo—her real father? Sachiko—her mother? What had happened to her? Did I tell her first that I was not her father?

  I fell silent. I stared at my hands, my grotesquely intertwined fingers, while all the complicated events of my life swirled around and around in my head.

  You must understand, I said.

  Now, more than ever, I felt ashamed of what I had done. How could I have lied to Fumiko, to my child who was not my child, for so long?

  I stopped.

  It must have become obvious to her that I could not go on.

  It’s all right, Father, she said. She opened the book in her lap and pulled out an envelope.

  You see, she said. He wrote to me as well.

  Why won’t you tell me? she says.

  It’s not up to me, I say.

  I had no idea how much time had elapsed. Fumiko was still sitting opposite me. Katsuo’s letter was open beside her. She had been crying.

  Not even why he was in jail? Not who my mother was? Is it so terrible?

  I can’t.

  Why can’t you? You should have told me years ago who my father was. It would have changed everything.

  How could I tell her that that is what I had feared most.

  I tried, I said.

  I told her that it had crossed my mind that Katsuo might die in jail. What would have been the point in telling her then? No one knew except me. No one had ever found out. No one had ever asked any questions. Why risk destroying the happiness we had built together?

  Because it was a lie, she said. A lie.

  Katsuo’s letter to Fumiko was different from the one he sent me. I no longer care what people think of me, he said. Whether what I did was right or wrong. I have paid a terrible price. But you are still my daughter. I would like to see you. I ask nothing more.

  What happened after this, over the next few days, I don’t remember. Katsuo was due to be released the following week. In his letter to me, he had made one request: the first person he wanted to see as he walked out of the prison gates was Fumiko.

  I offered to accompany her to Osaka. She refused.

  She booked the ticket herself. Her train departed from one of the small outer-suburban stations. She agreed to let me take her there. It was late in the afternoon when we arrived. Knots of people had gath
ered on the platform, waiting to board. The weather had turned cold; the warmth of the day had gone. Now a pitiless wind had sprung up. It buffeted us, first this way then that. It would die down for a while, then come back to howl and snap at my coattails. It was so strong that I had difficulty maintaining my balance. Fumiko’s small suitcase lay at my feet. I remember turning away from the wind, my eyes watering. Squinting behind my glasses. Reaching up for my hat. I recall looking off into the distance. I walked a few paces to relieve the stiffness in my legs. I tried in vain to light a cigarette, but each time I put the cupped match up to my face the flame was instantly extinguished.

  The station master stuck his head out of his watch post, looked up and down the tracks. I felt like a man awaiting his own execution.

  Fumiko came to stand beside me, sheltering her face with the collar of her coat. An image of her as a three-year-old came back to me. It was the afternoon we had gone to see Sachiko’s grave. She was dressed in her coat and fur hat, and we were standing on the old Togetsu platform.

  The whistle blew.

  I have to go, Fumiko said.

  I stood awkwardly before her. I could not believe that this moment had finally arrived. I am ashamed to admit it, Inspector, but I stood there silent, not knowing what to say.

  Goodbye…Father, she said.

  She stooped to pick up her suitcase. I went to help.

  It’s all right, she said. It’s not heavy. I can manage.

  I struggled to find the simplest words.

  Goodbye, Fumiko. I—

  But what I was going to say then, if indeed I was going to say anything, was lost, cut off by another shrill blast from the train whistle.