Tomo

by Holly Thompson

  Izumi lost all confidence that she could remain on the branch at all. She felt wobbly and a little sick to her stomach.

  “Do I know you?”

  “No. I’m Hiromu. It was getting a little crowded down there and I thought I’d come up here for a while.”

  “Yeah, sure, okay.”

  “And you are?” he asked.

  “Izumi.”

  “Izumi,” he repeated.

  “I’ve seen you before though,” she said.

  “School. I’m in the ninth grade. A floor up from you. You’re the new girl, right? I’ve seen you throw a baseball with your brother. Impressive.”

  “Impressive for a girl?”

  “Impressive,” Hiromu corrected.

  “Because, you know, the word is I might really be a boy.”

  Hiromu laughed. “And was the person who said that blind?”

  Izumi didn’t know what to say. It sounded like a compliment. She began to swing her legs nervously, careful not to kick this Hiromu fellow.

  “I’ve always wanted to play baseball actually,” Hiromu continued, bringing the subject back to something less embarrassing.

  “Half the boys at school play, why don’t you?”

  He pointed over his shoulder toward the temple. “My dad’s the head abbot. I’m the oldest son.”

  And then it hit her where she’d seen him. Not from school. He was the boy who swept the stairs everyday. She felt at once relieved and a little bit frightened.

  “So no sports after school?”

  “I’ve got chores and lessons here.” He didn’t seem happy about this. She wondered how much of after-school life he’d missed out on.

  “Well, it sounds cool to me,” Izumi said. “Being a monk. Comfortable clothes, everyone leaves you alone.” Then she added, “So all this will be yours?”

  “One day.”

  “I bet you’ll miss the hair though.”

  Hiromu laughed so loud Izumi checked to make sure Mai and her buddies hadn’t heard. He ran a hand through his longish hair. “Yeah, I’ll miss the hair.”

  “Well, if you ever get some free time we can toss a ball around. I can teach you how not to throw like a girl.”

  “Hey, I can throw a ball,” the boy protested.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Izumi’s gaze returned to the couples on the mats.

  “Don’t let them get you down. Except for that stuff on your cheek you’re way prettier than they are.”

  Embarrassed, Izumi brought her hand up to her face and wiped. She had completely forgotten about the mud.

  “Hey, here’s a trick.” He held up his arms. “Pick a sleeve.”

  “What?”

  “Come on,” he said.

  The long pocketed sleeves of his jinbei swayed. It was very obvious something was in the left sleeve, the right one empty.

  “Left.”

  “Hora!”

  He pulled out a pink candied mini-apple wrapped in cellophane and tied with a bow.

  “I bought it down there,” he said. “I thought you might be hungry.

  “Pink?”

  “The man said it was strawberry flavored.”

  “A strawberry-flavored apple,” Izumi repeated. “What will you country folks think up next?”

  “We’re clever like that,” Hiromu said. “Go ahead and eat it if you want.”

  “Thank you,” she said, untying the ribbon and peeling off the clear plastic. Hiromu took the wrapping from her, folded it, and replaced it in his sleeve.

  “I didn’t know anyone moved into this town,” Hiromu said. “It seems when kids get old enough they just move away from it.”

  “Well, my father’s dead and my mom decided the best thing to do was to haul us all here to live with my grandparents.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It happened a while ago,” Izumi said. She didn’t know why she was telling the story. “I’m okay, though. My little brother too. Mom, on the other hand . . .”

  Hiromu listened.

  “Mom was the one driving when they got hit. It wasn’t her fault, you know.” Izumi realized she’d never actually told anyone the story before, never said it out loud. “An accident on the expressway. Rain. The truck in front of them slid or something. There were seven cars involved. Two deaths.”

  “Izumi.” He leaned over and lightly touched her hand.

  “It’s okay,” she said. She hadn’t meant to say this much.

  After a moment Hiromu spoke.

  “It’s not the same. I mean it can’t compare at all, but I don’t have a mom.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “She’s around somewhere. I guess the life of a monk’s wife is brutal,” the boy said. “She packed up and left when I was small.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “So I’ve been raised by a bunch of bald men who wear dresses and eat pickled vegetables for breakfast,” Hiromu said.

  Izumi laughed and took a bite of the strawberry-flavored apple.

  “Hey, this ain’t bad,” she said. “So how did you know I was up here anyway?”

  “Well, you’re here like every day.”

  “You’ve seen me?” She suddenly felt very dizzy. “I didn’t realize you were watching me.”

  “Not so much. It’s no big deal. I thought you knew. And actually I always thought you were watching me.”

  “I guess we’re even then.” She took another bite, thinking the entire situation slightly funny now.

  They sat in silence while Izumi finished her treat. Taka was probably worried about her, her mom furious. Izumi wished she didn’t have to go home at all.

  “What would have happened if I’d chosen the empty sleeve?”

  “Not empty,” he said.

  The boy reached into the deep sleeve and came out with a closed fist.

  “Open your hand.”

  He dropped something into her palm.

  “What is it?” She asked, holding it up in the dim light to get a better look.

  It was a carving of a monkey, long curling tail, small ears protruding from the side of its head.

  “It’s one of the animals from the tree,” she said. “How did you get it?”

  “My grandfather taught me to make them. We put them in the omikuji-fortune envelopes.”

  “And you also hide them in the tree?” Izumi questioned.

  “Tree? This tree? I don’t know anything about any tree.”

  Izumi squinted hard, but it was difficult to judge his face in the dark. He sounded as though he were telling the truth. Then she remembered that every time she had found one of the animals it had been the day after a really bad day. Had he seen her up here crying? Did he know she’d be back? Had he climbed up and hidden the tiny animals for her to find?

  “I love it,” she said, clasping it to her chest. “Can I keep it?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’ll make a set,” Izumi said, retrieving the bag and dropping it in with the others. “But . . .”

  “But what?” Hiromu asked.

  “It’s the last one.” Izumi said. “They were kind of my excuse to keep coming here.”

  “You don’t need an excuse to come here,” the boy said. “I mean it gets pretty boring sweeping those steps everyday.”

  “Really?”

  Hiromu nodded.

  There was a small sound like an exhale off in the distance behind her. Hiromu’s face lit up for a second and she could see him perfectly. He was staring right at her. He was beautiful. There was an explosion so loud Izumi screamed and nearly fell off the tree. The boy steadied her with both hands.

  “The fireworks show,” he said.

  She looked down and saw her scream had given her away. Mai and her friends were all staring up in her direction. Squatting Girl was pointing and whispering into Fox-face Girl’s ear.

  “Hey, I’ve got a better view over here,” Hiromu said. He was already on his feet, one hand on the trunk for balance t
he other reaching out to help Izumi over. She paused for a second, stood, and took his arm.

  Izumi stepped over, tensing at the blasts that reverberated in the pit of her stomach. Hiromu laughed and pulled her close as ash rained down through the branches and sprinkled their hair. Izumi thought she heard the quick voices of Mai and her friends in the silence before the next burst. And for a brief second she considered looking down and sticking out her tongue the way Squatting Girl had done earlier, but she let the thought pass.

  Instead she and Hiromu sat on the wide limb of the zodiac tree for another hour, not saying a word. Above them enormous sprays of green, gold, and red painted the sky, crackling as the colors faded away. And after every burst came the cheers and whistles and applause of the festival-goers below.

  One

  by Sarah Ogawa

  He looks up from his kneeling position on the gym floor, sweat pouring down his face. His eyes bore into mine.

  “You know, if you didn’t wear all that stuff, you wouldn’t be so hot,” I chide him.

  The captain of the kendo club grabs the towel out of his face mask and rubs his face vigorously, then his whole head. When he comes up for air he locks eyes with me again.

  “It’s better than body-conscious clothing that shows everything,” he says.

  By now this attitude is familiar, typical of most of the faculty and some students, too. We’re supposed to be grateful they even allow us to have a dance club. But right now my resentment has gotten the better of me.

  “If it’s too hot for you, maybe you should just pack it in.” There. Show him we’ve got attitude, too.

  “I’m just getting warmed up,” he snarls, and with some primitive grunts calls the whole team to attention. They don their headgear and rise as one, a troop called into battle.

  In a moment they raise their swords, and cries like those of dying birds fill the air. I wonder again how they can complain, calling our music “noise” when they create this cacophony that sounds like mass slaughter in an aviary.

  At the doorway I turn to bow to the gym—showing respect for the spirit of the place, not the people in it I remind myself—and see him at the far end, seeming to watch the practice but instead staring directly at me.

  My whole life I had lived in Detroit. Japanese was a language of domesticity used only at home, Japan a country where relatives would ply me with ice-cold tea and sweets that looked like jewels during the languid afternoons of summertime visits.

  But suddenly Dad’s company decided to bring him—and our family—back to Japan. Visiting this high school in Kyoto, we happened upon the kendo club training in the gym. Skimming over the floor, long robes hiding their legs, they seemed to possess supernatural powers. An enemy could never anticipate an attack, I thought on that first visit to the school. No one could tell the direction or strength of a strike until it hit. I was awed.

  Though my new school had no school uniforms and few rules, in those first days of classes the avalanche of Japanese language and textbooks filled with complex kanji closed in over my head. Everything was Japanese, even conversations with friends. I longed for even a glimmer of the life I knew in America.

  A few strains of Lady Gaga echoing through a seldom-used hallway was all it took. I joined dance club the next afternoon. The kids who claimed that dead-end hallway for practice space became my new senpai, “the honorable ones who had gone before,” eleventh and twelfth graders who had lived in New York, Nashville, Nairobi. Not everyone found them so honorable, with their low-slung pants and their pierced belly buttons, but for me they represented the hope that even I could survive here, my supposed homeland. “Overseas refugees” we call ourselves, only half joking.

  “The crows are gone. Let’s spread out!”

  With a word from a twelfth grader, everyone moves to fill up the space left by kendo during their water break.

  “Why ‘crows’?” I ask, following our team leader.

  “Those dark robes. And of course those horrible cries.”

  She changes MD tracks and says, “This is from my studio class.” She takes off, filling the open space. Her hands run down her body, across her stomach, then up and through her hair. Then her moves turn crisp, precise. She spins, then poses as the music ends.

  “Awesome.” I’m impressed. “Maybe we could use it for the school festival?”

  “No way. For one thing it’s my instructor’s choreography, and a few teachers would see it as too suggestive.”

  “You mean sexy?”

  “Yes, and then some. They think they’re giving us freedom here. We don’t have uniforms, right? We can drive motor scooters, right? But, truly, they are so conservative. At least from where I sit.” She sinks down next to the wall and takes a sip from her water bottle. “I fought it at first, upholding freedom of expression and that kind of thing. But in the end, I caved. Maybe that’s why I’m bucho”—captain. She smiles weakly.

  “So we screen our dances to protect their sensitivities?”

  She gives me a sidelong glance. “Girl,” she says suddenly in English, “I screen my dances to protect the club.” The kendo troops file back in and she gets up, somehow looking more tired than before the break.

  I grab the MD player and we move. “At least we don’t have to be told when to have a water break,” I say, tilting my head toward the crows.

  “Exactly. Thank God for small miracles.”

  The school outing in May is to the National Bunraku Puppet Theater in Osaka. “We’re going to see a puppet show? We’re in high school!” I exclaim as Mom helps me plot my train route.

  “It’s absolutely amazing. You’ll love it.” She smiles at me. “You have to dress up for the theater. It shows respect for the actors.”

  “But they’re puppets!”

  “You’ll see.”

  And I do. Dressed in black, the puppeteers stand in full view, dwarfing their charges. Yet as they infuse life into the puppets, they seem to disappear. The dolls become real people, with delicate fingers that clutch and unfurl, eyes that blink open and shut, and eyeballs that roll and sometimes cross in consternation.

  Being upstaged by an inanimate object strikes me as absurd at first. Yet as I get caught up in the story and literally stop seeing the puppeteers, I realize that their common focus and intent, their shared understanding as each takes charge of a limb or other body part of a single doll, enables them to work as one to create a being none of them could master individually.

  Afterward, moving across the lobby through the throng of students, I feel someone staring. Looking up, I see the kendo captain on the landing of the stairs above. He’s outright staring at me and doesn’t even look away when I see him. He’s smiling with his eyes. I look around, but it’s definitely me he’s pinned his eyes on. I look down at the dress covered with wildflowers that I chose, then up at him with a shy smile, all I can manage. He gives me a little nod.

  I wonder if he likes me. His friends pull him down the stairs and across the lobby and mine tug me in the opposite direction, saying something about photo print stickers that I don’t quite hear.

  An early typhoon hits us. Club is canceled. I stay in. E-mail people. Update my Facebook page.

  When it’s over—just some high winds and a heavy rain—there’s little damage, or so I think. I don’t anticipate the collateral damage.

  Back at school, we decide to add another dance practice day to make up for the ones we missed. I’m just signing up for it when he appears.

  Looking down at where I’m filling in “Dance Club” on the gym sign-up sheet, he says, “You can’t have that day.”

  I glance up. The playful smile I usually get is replaced by a steely set jaw.

  Never one to back down, I keep writing. “Just watch.”

  “We have to reschedule a practice match for that day. We need the gym.” He makes himself bigger the way boys do, moving his bulk so we’re almost touching. I don’t give an inch. The senpai put me in charge of reserving the gym. A
t least I can do this right. I sign our team name with a flourish of triumph.

  “Dance already has it. But we’d be willing to share.” I give him a winning smile.

  “Dance isn’t even a sport! You shouldn’t even be allowed to use the gym!” He practically spits the words at me. The sudden fury takes me by surprise.

  “Is that the issue here?” I ask in sincere innocence.

  He visibly struggles to get control of himself. He focuses on a spot in the carpet, shaking slightly, breathing hard. Just when I think he’ll slam a fist on the counter, he turns on his heel and leaves.

  Watching his back, a sense of unease comes over me, as though I’ve missed some point of social decorum. I look down the sign-up list for other days. His name is there for kendo: Jiro Mase.

  He stares daggers at me all week. I see him talking with the dance team coach, the dance team captain, but everyone defers to me on this issue, and apparently I’m the one person he’s not willing to talk to about it.

  Now I realize how special it felt to meet his eyes in the hallway. I try it a couple times, but it feels like a lie. I give up and just walk past him, staring into middle space.

  How can it be possible to miss him so much when I didn’t even know his name?

  The day arrives. They use their half of the gym. It’s pretty packed with the visiting kendo team, but they manage to get through their practice matches. Probably having never competed beside a dance club, the visiting coach keeps scowling at us.

  After practice I see Jiro outside the gym. He’s bowing low to the visiting team, apologizing profusely. After they’ve gone, the kendo coach lights into him. I can’t catch everything, but words like “irresponsibility” and “shameful” fill the air. Jiro stands there with his head down.

  I lug my bag over to where they’re standing. The teacher stops and looks at me.

  “I am to blame for all this. I’m terribly sorry,” I say in my best Japanese, thinking that if I just take responsibility and apologize for everything, I can save Jiro.

  “Just leave,” Jiro says out of the side of his mouth, still looking down.