One Bird

by Kyoko Mori

  * * *

  Halfway to the church, I walk down the street in front of the train station. The neon sign is lit up above the jazz club Kiyoshi had pointed out to me. Green vines and purple flowers flicker on and off above the lavender door.

  “They don’t go to church anymore,” Kiyoshi said about Toru and Takashi, his face looking smug.

  How can you be so quick to pass judgment? I should have demanded.

  A faint tune is coming through the door. I take a few steps toward the music. Kiyoshi must be helping his mother clear the dinner table right now, while his father goes to sit alone in his study to look over his notes. I can almost feel the scratchy wool fabric of the couch where Kiyoshi and I will sit side by side. Every week, we sit in the same place, as if Pastor Kato had given us assigned seats.

  “My father was worried you might stop coming to church,” Kiyoshi said, “when your mother went away.”

  I wonder what my mother is doing this moment, so far away from me. I try to picture her sitting on the tatami floor of the embroidery workshop, her thumb and finger around a silver needle piercing a shiny silk fabric. She might be embroidering a flock of cranes on a bride’s gown, each stitch bringing out the luminous white glow of the wings. Whatever she meant by saying that she and Grandfather had the same God, I will never find out. I wasn’t able to tell her about my loss of faith even when she lived with me. How can I question her about her beliefs when we can only talk to each other through letters? She will never return to the Katos’ church to decorate the altar or to sing hymns or to listen to sermons. She is far away making beautiful designs on someone else’s clothing.

  Suddenly I feel so sorry for myself that I could cry. Taking another step toward the door, I almost stumble and fall over, like that sick crow trying to flap open his wings. I lean forward a little, eyes closed. The music is still going on inside. It sounds muffled and distant, like a faint music-box tune.

  With my eyes still closed, I remember Toru Uchida’s face in church, at the funeral service for his mother. We were singing the last hymn as Toru, Takashi, their father, and uncles were carrying the coffin down the aisle. Our voices went up higher and higher, trilling words about how great God is, how our hearts sing His praises. Mid-breath and singing, I caught sight of Toru’s face streaked with tears. He wasn’t even trying to stop or hide them. The moment our eyes met, my mouth clamped shut. I couldn’t sing any more. Soon, Toru was walking past me, and the two of us shook our heads exactly at the same time. I won’t sing the rest of the hymn, I was trying to tell him with my eyes, out of respect for you. I’m sure he understood. His eyes were saying, Thank you. I know it. That was the very last time I saw him. Though I looked for him after the service, his family had already left to drive to the cemetery, and he and Takashi took the train to Tokyo that evening.

  That moment in church was the beginning of what I know now. Because of what happened during that service, I started thinking that God either doesn’t exist or doesn’t care. It wasn’t just Toru’s tears. Pastor Kato had said in his sermon that we could not always see God’s plans. “Some people,” he preached, “are called upon to suffer on the hospital bed so that the pastor who comes to the bedside can witness to their families and the Gospel may be spread through their suffering.” My mother, who was sitting next to me with tears brimming from her eyes, winced when she heard those words; I heard her draw in a quick, small breath. The pastor was saying that Mrs. Uchida had suffered and died from cancer so that Mr. Uchida and his family could hear the Gospel. Even back then, I knew that was wrong—as wrong as singing about how great God was while Toru wept. How could I have kept on going to church since then, for five years?

  I step back and look at the blinking neon sign. Toru must be inside this bar, mixing drinks, listening to the music I can barely hear. He might not remember me, or he might not want to. I have changed a lot since we last saw each other, and he must have, too. Maybe he would not like me now, just as I no longer like Keiko, who was my best friend five years ago. But I want to believe that it isn’t always too late to start talking to an old friend. I am planning to see my mother in 1982, seven years from now, after not seeing her or talking to her at all except in letters. If I can’t get up the courage to speak to Toru now, I might as well forget about her, too.

  I put my hand on the door, lean with my shoulder, and push my way in. The door swings shut, leaving me in the dark interior of the bar. I panic for a moment, but it’s too late to turn back. I have to keep walking toward the empty counter.

  Above, the small ceiling lights remind me of the planetarium, where I used to sit long ago with my mother while a woman’s voice took us on an imaginary journey down to the Southern Hemisphere. That was our favorite part of the whole presentation—that long, imaginary trip. Our faces upturned, my mother and I leaned back in the dark, staring at the domed ceiling that flickered with the Southern Cross, Hydra, Centaurus—stars and constellations we would never see in our lives together, or apart.

  Chapter 5

  THE MAP OF LIGHT

  On the racks behind the counter, wineglasses hang upside down like melting icicles. The bartender looks up from the dishes he has been washing. For another second, I hear the whoosh of the water hitting the stainless steel sink; then it is quiet except for the piano solo from the stereo.

  Toru has grown tall and lanky. If we were to stand side by side, I would come up only to his chest. His face, except for being thinner, looks the same. His eyes are dark brown and long; he still has the thick eyelashes we used to tease him about. His left cheek, but not his right, dimples as he smiles and takes a step toward me.

  “You look all grown-up, with long hair,” he says, wiping his hand on the white apron he is wearing over his white button-down shirt and blue jeans. “The last time I saw you, your hair was shorter than mine. You were such a tomboy.” He extends his hand over the counter.

  “Kiyoshi Kato told me you worked here.” I shake his hand, which is warm from the dishwater. “I wasn’t sure if you would recognize me.”

  “I was just thinking about you this morning.” He lets go of my hand but keeps smiling. “Sit down. I’ll be right back.”

  Reaching overhead, he pulls down two of the wineglasses and tilts a wine bottle over them; the glasses bloom red against his white cuffs. He comes around the corner and brings the wine to the two women sitting at a table in the corner. The only customers in the bar, the women are wearing thin spring dresses and high heels. They must be twenty-eight or thirty, about the same age as Dr. Mizutani, though they look nothing like her. One of them pulls a cigarette out of her pack. Toru takes a lighter from his pocket and holds it out. The woman leans toward him, her head bowed over the flame. She says something I can’t hear. Toru steps back, a polite smile on his face.

  “Kiyoshi saw your brother at school,” I say when he comes back and stands across the counter, opposite my chair. “He said they were in the same gym class.”

  “I know,” Toru laughs. “I can just see the two of them together. I don’t know about Kiyoshi, but Takashi never stopped being clumsy. He’s not much of an athlete.”

  “Neither is Kiyoshi. I can still outrun him from his house to mine.”

  When we were children, Toru wouldn’t play a game unless he and I could be on the same team. We always won. At the beach, the two of us would swim out until our feet didn’t touch bottom. Treading the deep water, we taunted Kiyoshi and Takashi, who splashed around in the shallows. “Cowards, cowards!” we would shout, laughing while the waves crashed over our voices. All our three mothers waved from the beach, their faces tight with worried smiles.

  “Are you still a tomboy?” Toru asks.

  “I don’t know. I played volleyball on the school team two years ago, but I didn’t try out last year.”

  “Why not?”

  “I made a girl cry at the city tournament. She was the weakest defender on the other team. I had a very mean roundhouse serve, and I kept aiming it at her. She missed fo
ur in a row and had to be taken out of the game. I could see her sitting on the bench, crying. That was the last game I played. I quit.”

  “Because you made her cry?” Toru tilts his head.

  “Not just because of that. When she started falling apart after the first couple of serves, I never thought of stopping. I was happy. I kept thinking, ‘Great, one more point, one more point.’ That girl could have dropped dead right there and I would have kept aiming my serve at her. Everyone was glad—my coach, the other girls on the team. But I had to quit, because I didn’t like how happy I was to see someone falling apart.”

  Toru bursts out laughing and then shakes his head. “I really missed you while I was in Tokyo. I don’t know anyone quite like you.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “No, not at all.” He leans forward, his elbows on the counter. “When we were young and our mothers brought us together, I never liked playing with my brother or Kiyoshi. They were too young for me. But you were different—you were bright and quick. I could play with you.” His hair, which is parted on the side, falls over his left eye; he pushes it back with his fingers.

  The piano solo has stopped. One of the women walks up to the stereo, which is against the wall, and puts on another record. She walks back slowly, looking over her shoulders toward us while a big band starts playing a dance tune. On the table, both women’s glasses are more than half full.

  “Do you see a lot of Kiyoshi?” Toru asks.

  “I see him at church. We don’t go to the same school. You know he’s at Ashiya North, the same as your brother. I’ve been at our mothers’ old school since seventh grade.” I stop, suddenly worried about mentioning his mother. But Toru is still smiling.

  “So you and Kiyoshi aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend?”

  “Oh, no.”

  “You can tell me the truth.” He winks.

  My face feels hot as he continues to smile. “I’ve never had a boyfriend,” I tell him, “but if I did, it sure wouldn’t be Kiyoshi. No way.”

  “Why not? What’s wrong with Kiyoshi? Poor guy. He might be crushed to hear you say that.”

  “But I’ve known him all my life.”

  Toru raises one eyebrow. “So? Lots of people date and even marry their childhood friends.”

  “Not me. I don’t want to date or marry someone I’ve known since we were babies. I would feel like nothing new ever happened to me, like I made no progress from the beginning to the end.” I stop, embarrassed. I have known Toru all my life, too. I don’t want him to think I am being rude or stupid. “I don’t mean that people I’ve known all my life are not good enough for me, to be friends with,” I start to explain, my face feeling hotter by the second. I am throwing my arms around, waving my hands like a crazy, nervous person.

  Toru reaches out and takes my wrist. His long, thin fingers can easily go around my sharp wrist bone that sticks out. He squeezes my hand lightly and then lets go. “I was just teasing you,” he says. “I know exactly what you mean about not making any progress. I feel strange living with Father in our old house, after all these years. The house looks the same, we even have the same furniture, so it’s hard for me to remember that I’m grown-up now. Seeing the same person all your life would be just like that. I want no part of it, either.”

  The back door opens while I’m thinking of what to say. A middle-aged man saunters in, walking past Toru behind the counter to the cash register on the other end. Toru shrugs and goes to talk to him.

  On the big-band album, the brass section starts playing. From the way the man keeps glancing in my direction, I know he is talking about me. He doesn’t look like anyone I have ever seen—he is dressed entirely in black, his graying hair tied in a ponytail.

  “That’s my boss,” Toru says when he comes back.

  “I thought so.”

  Leaning over the counter, he whispers, “He doesn’t want you to stay here because you look too young. Don’t be insulted. He’s just nervous.”

  “I’m not insulted. I am too young. You have to be eighteen to be in a bar.”

  “I told him we were childhood friends and we haven’t seen each other for so long. So he’s letting me off for a while. Sunday nights are always slow. He doesn’t need me now.”

  At the other end of the counter, the man is reading the newspaper and paying no attention to us.

  “Do you want to go outside and talk?” Toru asks. “Or I can give you a ride if you were on your way someplace? What do you want to do?”

  I jump off the stool, though unsure of what to say.

  Toru is already taking off his white apron. “Let’s get out of here first and then decide. Come on.”

  As I follow him to the door, the two women look up from their drinks. Both are wearing bright red lipstick, their mouths carefully outlined and then filled in, the way children paint flowers or trees. The music grows faint as the door swishes shut behind us.

  Outside it is already dark. Toru points to a blue car in the parking lot, its paint chipped in places, the front fender bent in. “My grandfather’s old Honda,” he says. “I drove it back from Tokyo when Takashi and I came back. Grandfather is letting me keep it. He’s eighty and doesn’t see well enough to drive.” Opening the passenger’s door for me, he asks, “Were you on the way somewhere?”

  By now, Pastor Kato must be well into his lecture. Everyone is sitting in their usual almost-assigned seat—everyone but me. “I was,” I tell Toru when he comes around and sits behind the wheel. “But not anymore. I changed my mind.”

  He turns his head toward me, his eyes narrowed.

  “I was going to the Bible study meeting at church, but I don’t want to go after all. Not tonight, and maybe not ever again.”

  “Okay,” Toru says, shrugging his shoulders. “Shall we go for a drive then?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can we see our old school? I haven’t been there since I moved back.”

  “That sounds good. I haven’t been there, either, though I see it every day, up on the hill.”

  Toru puts the key in the ignition; the engine turns over with a noise like a dry cough. As we pull out of the parking lot and head north, he asks, “How do you like going to our mothers’ old school?”

  “I like it.” I picture my grandmother’s sour face. She has not given up though it’s April and I am still at Christian Girls’ Academy. At least once a week, especially if my father is home, she brings up the subject again and insists that I should transfer to Ashiya North next April. Sometimes Father changes the subject or placates her by saying, “We’ll talk about it some other time.” Other times he lets her talk on. I don’t know if he is ignoring her or if he is beginning to agree with her.

  “Is everyone as religious as our mothers were?” Toru asks.

  “No, not at all. We have chapel every morning before classes and Bible study twice a week, but most of the girls aren’t Christians. They and their families chose the school because it’s a good private school and we don’t have to cram for exams.”

  “I guess that’s how it was for our mothers, too,” Toru says. “They didn’t come from Christian families, either. They converted while they were going to school.”

  “That’s true.”

  “How about you? You still go to church, right?” Toru looks at me for a second and then turns back to the road.

  “I do, but it’s more out of habit. I didn’t get confirmed last Christmas when Kiyoshi did. I don’t believe in God anymore. I should just stop going to church.” I pause and peer at Toru’s face, wondering if he remembers how we both shook our heads in the middle of the hymn at his mother’s funeral. Maybe he is hearing that hymn trilling in the back of his mind right now, the echoed phrases praising God’s greatness. I want to tell him that my doubts began when his mother died and I saw him cry at the funeral. I want to let him know that I was offended by Pastor Kato’s sermon. But something—maybe some kind of respect—prevents me from saying it.

  We are at an
intersection. “I stopped believing a long time ago,” he says, turning to me. “Of course, that doesn’t stop me from waking up in the middle of the night in cold sweat, worried that God is going to punish me after all and send me to hell. But I get over that in the morning. Daylight makes a big difference.”

  The traffic light changes, and we proceed up the hill. The steep incline makes me lean against my seat, my shoulders tilted back as though I were somersaulting backward down the hill. A couple of backsliders, Kiyoshi would call us. I picture Toru and me tumbling down a long green hill toward a blue lake, laughing all the way while Kiyoshi stands at the top, his face worried and afraid at the same time. It’s just like when he and Takashi could not swim out to the deep water.

  In a few minutes, we pull into the parking lot of the school. After Toru turns off the headlights and cuts the engine, we sit looking down at our city. Beyond the coast, which is lit up, the dark water stretches out in the shape of a bow.

  “Our hometown,” Toru sweeps his hand in front of him in an exaggerated gesture.

  “Are you happy to be back?”

  Turning sideways, he leans back on the door so that he is completely facing me. “I don’t know.” A slight frown appears on his face—just a tiny wrinkle between his thin, arched eyebrows. “Takashi and I came back because Father wants us to go to college, get married, and settle down in this area, not in Tokyo. He doesn’t know that I’m not planning to do any of those things.”