by Sachi Parker
Once, we were on a rare two-day layover in San Francisco—rare because I almost never flew into the United States; with my languages they liked to reserve me for foreign countries—but we were continuing on to Europe, so, for the time being, I found myself just a few hours up the coast from my mother’s home.
On a whim, I decided to visit her. I jumped on a Greyhound and headed down to Malibu. It had been so long since I last saw her there that I wasn’t exactly sure what her address was, and I didn’t have her phone number. For that matter, I wasn’t sure how she would react when she saw me. So it was going to be a complete surprise for both of us.
When Mom saw me standing on her doorstep, she registered immediate delight. “Sweetheart! How are you?” She threw her arms around me and gave me the biggest hug. “Come on in!”
It was as happy a welcome as I could have expected. There was none of the tension I associated with our previous encounters, dating back to…well, the hotel room in London when I was twelve years old and the air tickets had gone missing. All the distrust, the disapproval, the withholding—it all seemed to have disappeared. Absence had made her heart grow fonder.
She showed me around the apartment—so much had changed, so much had stayed the same. We sat on the sofa and discussed our respective histories. She told me about her men; I told her about mine. I showed her my stewardess outfit, and she was impressed.
Then we went out for a walk on the beach, just like when I was a kid. Mom found a sea urchin in a tide pool and stuck her finger into it. “Ooh!’ she squealed in surprise.
When we got back to the house, Mom pointed to the balcony. “See up there? That’s where I met them.”
“Met who?”
“The extraterrestrials. They landed over here on the sand, and then they came up on the porch, and we talked. They told me I was an Enlightened One.”
I nodded thoughtfully. We were having a nice visit, so I wasn’t going to spoil it by voicing any doubts about her sanity.
Besides, I wasn’t surprised by the revelation. Mom had always had an abiding interest in the otherworldly, ever since Dad had given her A Dweller on Two Planets. So, extraterrestrials in Malibu? Why not? What’s for dinner?
Mom prepared a perfect sirloin steak, with steamed vegetables over steamed brown rice. Actually I suspect the housekeeper prepared it, because Mom was no cook. She could just about boil water.
She could pour a good drink, though. She introduced me to a red wine from Chile that was absolutely delicious. “And only five bucks a bottle,” she bragged. She loved a good deal.
After dinner we laughed and told stories, and drank more wine, and enjoyed each other’s company. It was a truly pleasant day. I slept in my old room, listening to the ocean crashing against the shore—my old ocean, my old shore.
The only discordant note in the trip was that I was having my period at the time. I didn’t share this information with my mom. It was not something we talked about.
My very first period had occurred in the dorms of Charters Towers, when I was twelve years old. It came upon me in the middle of the night, and even though Mom had been preparing me for this moment since I was nine, when it finally arrived I had no idea what to do. The blood was streaming down my legs as I wandered down the halls in my white nightdress, searching for the matron. When I finally found her, I stood before her embarrassed and mortified. She looked at me stone-faced and handed me a bulky sanitary napkin and two safety pins. “Here you are, dear,” she said. “Off you go.”
Off I go? Where? To do what? I knew about the napkin, but what were the safety pins for? And what do I do with all this blood? I stumbled off to the bathroom in a state of panicky confusion. As I tried to wash the blood from my underwear with hot water (nobody had told me that cold water works better), the sanitary napkin fell off the sink and landed on the bathroom floor, collecting dust and God knows what on its surface. I took a quick shower and wiped myself off with the towel. As I was still bleeding, there was now blood on the towel. I washed the towel out in hot water, and then tried to dry myself again. More blood on the towel! Screw the towel. I tackled the dirty sanitary napkin. I managed to attach the front pin, but I couldn’t reach around to fasten the back pin. So I tried twisting the back of my granny pants toward the front for easier access, but then the napkin start twisting sideways, and I was still bleeding! I was almost weeping with frustration. Finally I stood out on the landing and called for the matron. She waddled slowly down the hall, and in her pleasant but brisk English way she attached the back pin for me. “Off to bed,” she said, dispatching me down the hall with a firm push. I wanted to crawl into a hole.
From this initial encounter, I came to understand that menstruation was a messy, private business, not to be addressed in the public square. I was always extremely careful to conceal my monthly condition from everyone. Luke’s outraged reaction to my used tampon had certainly reinforced this sense of female shame.
So when I was having my period now at Mom’s house, I did my best to hide it from her. Why burden her with such unpleasantness, and spoil a perfectly good visit? But as I was removing my clothes in her huge dressing room, Mom walked in. She spotted the stained panties in my hand—the flow had been heavy and clotted, it was not a pretty sight—and was remarkably unfazed: without a word she took the panties in her hand and went to the bathroom sink, and washed them out thoroughly—in cold water—working her fingers through the thick blood without any theatrics. I watched her from the dressing room, amazed. She was just taking care of business. She wrung the panties out and put them on a chair in the sun to dry, and then she said to me, “Go take a shower.” I don’t think I said anything—any sound would have been a violation of the moment. I took a shower, and when I came out she handed me a pair of underwear from her drawer, and a tampon, and I got dressed.
The entire transaction was so matter-of-fact and without pretense that it stunned me. Usually Mom created a big drama over the tiniest thing, but here she was sublimely restrained, and every moment was quiet, ritualistic, almost Japanese in its simplicity. It was a beautiful experience for me: the maternal validation of my own femalehood that I’d been unconsciously desiring for the last ten years.
Later that afternoon I took the Greyhound back to San Francisco. It had been a perfect visit with Mom, and as I rode up the coast, I thought to myself, I have to do this again—soon.
Chapter 9
La Vie Bohème
After four years at Qantas, it was time for a change. I can cite no particular deciding factor in this—not the apparition of Luke, nor the pile of poop nor the general rootlessness of the stewardess life. In fact, I was having a great time. There was no reason at all to leave.
So I did—and moved to France.
I’m not sure why. My affair with the malodorous Pierre had long since ended, so there was no romance drawing me there. Yet I didn’t want to stay in Sydney, I didn’t want to go back to Tokyo or Honolulu, and I loved Paris. I loved the French people, the French culture, and I especially loved French food.
I’d saved just enough money from Qantas to afford a small studio on the Left Bank—and when I say “small,” I mean tiny: there was a twin bed, a closet-size bathroom, and that was it. Crammed inside the bathroom was a toilet, a corner sink, and a cheap plastic stall shower. There was no kitchen to speak of, just a hot plate and an electric coffeepot. I couldn’t really cook there, which was ironic, because I think the main reason I’d moved to Paris was so that I could learn to cook.
I didn’t take any cooking lessons per se—too expensive—but I did take a job as a waitress in any restaurant that would have me. I figured, if I can be close enough to where they make this marvelous food, I’ll be able to absorb their culinary knowledge without paying a dime.
These were not gourmet restaurants, but little mom-and-pop storefront bistros and cafés. Simple and unpretentious, they turned out classic French fare—onion soups, ratatouille, roast chicken (ah, my favorite!)—for everyday diners wh
o had no idea how lucky they were. I watched the chefs at work in the kitchen and picked up many a savory tip just by keeping my eyes open. I also picked up a rich vocabulary of French colloquialisms and swear words.
During the year I spent in Paris, I was never at any one bistro for more than a couple of months. Perhaps owing to the restlessness bred into me as a stewardess, I liked to bounce from one place to another, looking for new friends and adventures. There were a lot of Japanese tourists in Paris in those days, so my felicity with the language put me always in demand, and I never had a problem finding a job.
Wherever I went, though, I found myself immersed in the world of food. I would get to work early in the morning to help the chef prepare, and go shopping with him at the open markets to pick out the best fruits, the best fish, the best overall ingredients. Then I’d spend the entire day at the café, watching the cooks put together their simple masterpieces as I flitted in and out of the kitchen. I’d be there fifteen hours a day, and the staff would become my new family.
Then, after a few months, I’d be done, and I’d look for another bistro. I just wasn’t the settled type. When I saw the movie Forrest Gump in 1994, I was startled to recognize something of myself in the title character’s constant searching for a place to land. Of course I wasn’t as out-to-lunch as he was—I don’t think—but I was, like him, always looking for the next box of chocolates.
Oddly enough, in that full year I spent in Paris, I had no boyfriends to speak of—and consequently, no sex. In Paris! It was a criminal waste of natural resources, agreed, but I just wasn’t interested. I did a lot of walking instead.
There was so much snow in Paris that winter. I remember the vendors hauling their pushcarts through the snow, peddling fresh warm crepes with butter, sugar, and lemon. My favorite was the crème de marrons, a delicious crepe filled with pureed chestnuts. Strolling along the cobblestones of the Left Bank in my beret, eating my hot crepe, I felt quite the quintessential Parisienne.
• • •
IT was in the midst of this cold winter that Dad and Miki descended on Paris—not to see me, of course. It may have been for business reasons, or maybe they just wanted to dine at Maxim’s. That’s what they would do on a regular basis: hop on a jet and eat their way around the world. It was surely just a coincidence that we were sharing the City of Light at the same time.
Nevertheless, when he found out I was in town, Dad invited me to join them at Maxim’s—which was fun, but very much on the superficial side; we all strained to be festive, and I found it difficult to look at Miki without picturing her in bed with Luke. I figured it would be a quick hello-goodbye-see-you-around, but as we left the restaurant, Dad invited me to stop by their hotel room the next evening.
I happily took this as a sign that Dad was reaching out to me. As with my mom, I hadn’t really seen much of him during my stewardess years. I was endlessly busy, of course, but I would have made time to see him if he’d ever proffered the invitation. He didn’t. I think my breaking up with Luke, his old business partner’s son, had annoyed and embarrassed him. Somehow, by saving my life, I had done something shameful again.
We would put that in the past now, though. I’d already reconnected with Mom, and now I’d do the same with Dad.
Dad and Miki were staying at the George V Hotel, right off the Champs-Élysées, one of the great five-star luxury hotels. I got there early in the evening. It was the classic dark and stormy night, the cold rain coming down in buckets.
I walked into the lobby—I’d been in some beautiful old hotels in the past, but this was the absolute, sumptuous peak—and announced myself to the imperious concierge at the desk. “I’m here to see Steve Parker.”
Once again the mention of my father’s name worked like a magic incantation. The concierge’s studied indifference vanished. “Ah, oui, Monsieur Parker! And you are…?”
“I’m his daughter.”
He was even more impressed. Suddenly I was somebody special, too. “Right this way, mademoiselle.”
He ushered me personally to the elevator. It was one of those old clanky elevators with the metal gate that pulled across. It had its antique charm, but tonight I preferred to take the stairs. The grand staircase was wide and spiraling, with plush carpeting. It was like walking up to heaven.
Dad and Miki were staying in the penthouse. This was yet another irony that escaped me at the time. Because I was living in a penthouse, too; the only difference being that mine was a hovel the size of a shoebox. Yet I never thought anything of that. I never questioned the fact that while I was living in bohemian squalor, a mile or so away my father was ensconced in outrageous luxury. This was just the way of things: I accepted it as normal. It was as if I felt that, with my record of false starts and abject failure, I deserved no better.
Maybe I even felt I didn’t deserve to take the elevator, and that’s why I took the stairs. Whatever the reasoning, it was a long climb, and by the time I got to the top floor, I was a little winded. Instead of knocking right away, I paused outside my dad’s hotel room door to catch my breath—which is why I was in the position to hear a conversation going on just inside the room.
It was Dad and Miki. I could hear them clearly, every word.
I sometimes wonder what would have been different in my life if I had taken the elevator that night and bounded right up to the door and knocked right away. If I had not overheard my dad and Miki talking inside, unaware of my presence in the hallway, I would have missed one of the pivotal moments in my life.
Dad was crying.
I had never heard him cry before. It shocked me—I can still remember the icy chill that shot through my body. The sound was alien, and devastating. If my father was crying, then something was terribly wrong, wrong with the life he had created, wrong with the world that I understood. He was a strong, confident man—he was Hemingway—and to show weakness was not merely out of character for him, but inconceivable. His cries that evening were awful to hear: raw and animalistic, the wail of some broken, faltering creature that was trapped and confused and twisted with despair.
“I don’t know who I am anymore,” he was sobbing. “I don’t know anything. I feel like I’m going crazy!” His voice was high and stressed, so unlike his usual smoothly modulated baritone. It was hard to believe it was my dad in there, but I knew it was.
Miki was trying to soothe him. She did not have a soothing demeanor, so her calming words sounded forced and slightly desperate. “It’s okay, Steve. I have you, I’ll take care of you, don’t worry, it’s all right…”
“No, I can’t keep this up anymore! I can’t do it!”
“Yes, you can, you can,” she insisted. I could hear that Miki was not just being supportive; it was terribly important for her own sake that Dad hold it together.
“Who am I?” he cried. “Who am I? I can’t remember any-more!”
“It’s okay…”
“No, it isn’t! No, it isn’t! Who am I?”
I listened with transfixed horror. I couldn’t knock now. They would know that I’d overheard.
I couldn’t leave, either. They might hear me walking away, and anyway, they were expecting me; I was supposed to be there.
I stayed and waited for Dad to calm down. He couldn’t sustain this howl of emotion much longer, and I have to admit, I was fascinated by what I was hearing. I had no idea what he was talking about—Who was he? He was my father, he was Steve Parker, he was the husband of Shirley MacLaine, he was a rich, successful businessman, that’s who he was—but I sensed in his anguish the first intimations of a secret life emerging, an alternate reality that I had probably always suspected but never dared recognize. Now all my doubts came swimming to the surface, and the pieces of an unsuspected puzzle were slowly clicking into place. It wasn’t totally clear yet; the answer was still out there, but those obsessively repeated phrases—“Who am I? I can’t do this anymore! Who am I?”—were pointing the way.
Who was my dad? What did he do? How did he
get to be where he was? I assumed I knew the answers, but when I thought about it now, there were many small gaps and great blank stretches unaccounted for.
I knew he wasn’t a totally honest man. He had lied to me more than once in my life—the last time on my birthday, when he told me he was in Italy and had faked the phone call, complete with Italian operator. Then there were all the other episodes, the lingering doubts and inconsistencies—the death of Mike Parsons, the loose diamonds in the front seat of the Jeep—all those shadows lingering in the back of my head.
As I listened to my father agonizing over his identity, I felt an uneasy pang of recognition. How often had I wondered the same thing: Who am I? Who am I supposed to be? Who did I become, instead of myself? Underneath the layers of Japanese humility and self-effacement, the docility beaten into me in Australia, the eagerness to please in my Qantas days, the malleable personality adapting to meet each new situation—underneath all that, who was the real Sachi?
It had gotten quieter in the room now, and it seemed safe for me to enter. I knocked on the door.
Things got even quieter, and then, after a pause, my father called out, “Be right there!” in his strong hearty voice. He needed a moment to compose himself, I suppose, and Miki had to get the room just right.
Finally the doors opened—into a huge, gorgeous space, with a king-size bed on one side and sofa and chairs on the other—to reveal Dad, himself again, whoever that was, looking suave and cosmopolitan in his smoking jacket. “Hey, Sach the Pach!” Miki looked frazzled, and gave me a stiff smile; in other times, I might have taken this for hostility, but now I knew she had just pulled my dad back off an emotional ledge, and her nerves were raw.