by Kyoko Mori
“So have you thought about it?” she asks me in a cheerful voice.
I nod.
She tilts her head and waits for me to go on.
“I can’t,” I say. “I can’t give a speech about Pentecost, Miss Yamabe, because I don’t believe in God.”
Miss Yamabe doesn’t say anything for the longest time. She sits there, her face completely blank, as if she is trying to hide her shock. Maybe she is wishing that I am playing some stupid joke on her.
“I am not joking,” I tell her. “I have lost my faith.” I look down, avoiding the eyes of the girls in the photograph.
“Is this—” Miss Yamabe falters. “Is it because of your mother?”
I don’t answer.
“I know it’s none of my business. I only want to know because maybe I could help.”
How could she help me? I am not sick or poor or in trouble. I don’t want to be helped in the way she means, which is to have my faith back. But I can’t tell her that. It would be rude.
“It isn’t because of my mother,” I reply, “or any one thing.” There is nothing more to say, so I rise from my chair. In the photograph, Mrs. Uchida’s face reminds me of Toru. He has always looked more like his mother than his father. I wish it were already Sunday and I could sit in his car, telling him about my troubles, including this one. If I told him that Miss Yamabe looked like a koala bear, he would laugh, and that would make me feel better. “Megumi,” he would say, “I don’t know anyone quite like you. You are so funny.” I won’t mind about his being in love with someone else. At least I’m the only person who knows about it, the only person he has trusted with his secret. If I’m not his girlfriend, I am still his best friend, and that is important. Sitting in his car, I would feel our words filling up the empty space in the dark, our good thoughts about each other floating in the small distance between us. But it is only Friday, and I am in Miss Yamabe’s office, having given her the shock of her semester or even the whole school year.
I turn my back to her and head for the door.
“Wait,” she calls me back.
I turn around.
“I want you to give it a chance,” she says. “I don’t want you to give up on faith.”
I stand there saying nothing.
“Everyone has moments of doubt,” Miss Yamabe explains. “Especially at your age, there are all kinds of things that seem confusing, that make you doubt God’s existence. I can imagine.”
I nod, being polite.
“I was lucky,” she continues. “I came to faith much later in life, in my twenties. I haven’t been tested very much. All the same, I understand. There are moments when nothing seems fair, and a person starts questioning God.”
“Miss Yamabe,” I say, “it’s more than just moments.”
She nods vigorously. “Of course. Of course you wouldn’t base an important decision on a few moments of doubt. You are smarter than that, I know. Even so, you might change your mind again someday. Isn’t that possible? God may make things clear to you. Don’t you think so?”
I don’t. How can God make things clear to me when he doesn’t even exist? The first few days after I quit going to church, I was half-waiting for something to happen—I thought God might kill all my baby birds or make me fall down the stairs, to punish me. Nothing happened. Now more than ever I know that he doesn’t exist, just as I know that my grandmother Kurihara is really dead. Right after she died, because she lived far away and I did not see her more than once a year, I kept on feeling as if she were still around and I could call her on the telephone. I would see something, a certain kind of pottery or kimono, and think, Grandmother would like that, and then have to remind myself that she was dead. But after a while I got used to the idea. I knew it to be true. It’s the same way with God. There are times when I think he’s around, too, but then I realize, as clearly as I know about Grandmother, that this is not so. What is the good of explaining such a thing to Miss Yamabe? She means well. She is worried about me—just like Mrs. Kato, who came to school the day after I told her and left a note taped to my locker. In the note, Mrs. Kato said that she loved me and that I could come to her house anytime, whether I believed in God or not.
I try to smile at Miss Yamabe. “I suppose it’s possible that I will change my mind,” I tell her. It isn’t a lie, exactly. It is possible, like being hit by lightning on a clear day or winning an overseas trip in a raffle—not at all likely, but all the same, not impossible.
“Good,” she says. “You will come and talk to me anytime you want to talk about your faith, won’t you? I only want to help.”
The way she looks at me, her beady eyes shining earnestly, I want to run away. Still, I say, “Of course, Miss Yamabe. Thank you.” When she says nothing more, I open the door, step out, and close it behind me very quietly. But as soon as I am a few steps down the hallway, I sprint to my fifth-hour classroom.
* * *
In the classroom, a girl named Reiko is talking to Mieko and Noriko. My two friends glance at me when I come in; their faces look worried. I haven’t told them why Miss Yamabe wanted to see me. I shrug and smile, letting them know that I am all right, while Reiko goes right on talking. After feeding the birds and then sitting down, I listen to her story about the boy she sees on the train every morning.
“I think about him all the time,” Reiko says, turning to Mieko to smile. “I know he goes to your brother’s school because he wears the same uniform. All your brother has to do is to ride on the same train just once. Then I’ll know his name.”
Mieko sighs. “How am I going to explain that to my brother? If I say, ‘Please ride on the train with me so you can tell me the name of the boy who always stands by the door. My friend has a crush on him,’ my brother will think that I have a crush on him myself and am using you as an excuse.”
“But I can’t come and explain anything to your brother. I don’t know him. He’s your brother, not mine.”
“Are you going to ride on the train with them?” Noriko asks.
“No,” Reiko shrieks. “On Monday, I’ll quietly point out the boy to Mieko. Then on Tuesday, she can ask her brother. I’ll take a different train. I would die of embarrassment if he noticed me pointing him out to another boy.”
Mieko shakes her head. “There is no guarantee that my brother knows this boy.” She takes a deep breath, puffs out her round cheeks, and slowly blows out the air.
“But he can find out,” Reiko insists. “Once he sees which boy I mean, he can ask around if he doesn’t already know him.”
“Great,” Mieko says. “You want my brother to go around asking about some boy—saying to his friends, ‘My sister’s friend has a crush on this boy, and I was wondering what his name is—.’”
Noriko bursts out laughing, her whole bean-pole body shaking.
“It’s not funny,” Reiko pouts. “What would you do if you were in my position, Mieko? If I had a brother who might know a boy you had a crush on, wouldn’t you ask me?”
Mieko is stumped, because she is kindhearted. Furrowing her forehead, she thinks hard, her little button-mouth scrunched. I know she will go home and ask her brother, who will tease her about it for a long time.
“But Mieko would never have a crush on a boy she only sees on the train,” I suggest. “Not everyone is like you.”
Reiko turns to me with a big frown.
“It’s true,” I insist. “I don’t see how you could really like this boy when you’ve never talked to him. You have no idea what kind of person he is. All you know is what he looks like.”
“I can tell by seeing him every morning. He is intelligent and considerate. I know it.”
“How? Just by the way he stands next to the door? That’s ridiculous.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Noriko making a face—her lips drawn down and eyes rolled up. Now you’ve gotten her started, she is trying to caution me. Shut up before it’s too late.
But it’s already too late. Reiko taunts, “What do you know, Megumi? Y
ou’ve never had a boyfriend.”
“So what? That doesn’t mean I don’t know what is reasonable and what is not. It isn’t reasonable to like someone you don’t know. I don’t like half the people I know. I can’t imagine liking—much less falling in love with—people I don’t even know.”
“You can’t imagine falling in love because you’re just a kid,” Reiko says.
“We are the same age,” I point out. “I’m no more a kid than you are.”
“Age has nothing to do with it. I consider you childish because you’ve never had a date. You’ve never liked a boy, and no boy has ever liked you. That makes you a kid.”
“You don’t know anything,” I snap back. “My best friend is a boy—a boy I grew up with.” I stop, realizing that I mean Toru. Six months ago, I would have said the exact same thing and meant Kiyoshi. It would have been a statement of something obvious, just like saying “Today is Friday.” I wouldn’t have felt the sudden rush of worry and happiness I feel now, mentioning Toru even though I haven’t said his name. I’m staring into the air the same way Toru did after saying Yoshimi’s name in the park, telling me about his secret love. So much has changed since six months ago, when Kiyoshi was my best friend. I pity Reiko for thinking that I am just a kid, when she is herself a silly girl who has a crush on a stranger. Instead of saying anything more, I shrug my shoulders.
“If Megumi doesn’t have a boyfriend, it’s not because she can’t have one,” Sayuri, a girl who’s been listening, chimes in. “My older brother saw our class picture from last year and pointed her out. ‘That’s the best-looking girl in your class,’ he said. ‘If she weren’t so young, I’d want to date her.’”
“Your brother said that?” another girl asks, immediately beginning to giggle.
Reiko shakes her head and gets up to find a different seat. I wish Sayuri hadn’t said anything about her brother, though she was only trying to defend me. I don’t like the idea of some strange boy picking me out of the class picture, his fingernail hovering over my face.
The bell rings, and Mrs. Fukushima, our writing teacher, comes in.
“I have an announcement,” she says. “We’ve read all the essays that were turned in for the time capsule contest. Somebody from this class is one of the ten finalists. The other nine girls are in eleventh and twelfth grades.” The way she looks right at me, I know what she is going to say. All the same, my heart beats a little faster as she continues, “Megumi, congratulations.”
Mieko reaches across the aisle to ruffle my hair; Noriko, who is behind me, pats my back. Everyone applauds, even Reiko. Mrs. Fukushima explains the next stage of the contest—an outside judge will be invited to read the ten essays. I am happy for a while but I know I won’t win. My essay was all about myself, my family, my mother’s going away. I’m sure the judge will think it too personal, just like everyone except Dr. Mizutani’s father thought my peace essay was. So I don’t dwell on the the contest. Instead, I begin to feel bad about having spoken so angrily about Reiko’s crush. If Reiko wants to fall in love with a perfect stranger, it is her business. Why did I have to get so mad at her for that? Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut? Even if someone is being silly, my mother used to tell me, I shouldn’t go out of my way to point it out and hurt their feelings—because being silly, unlike being inconsiderate or unkind, is harmless. I guess she was right. I wish I had said nothing at all.
* * *
Dr. Mizutani is waiting in her red truck in the parking lot. I wave good-bye to Mieko and Noriko, put the birds in the truck, and then climb in.
“The sparrows look wonderful,” she says, peering in at them. “In a few days, if the weather is good, we can put them in the outdoor cage. They can practice flying and eating on their own.”
“With that crow?”
“No, in the other cage. That crow is a little too big and mean for them. Most birds get along fine with each other, but I don’t trust him. Maybe we can let him go in a week or two, anyway. His leg is almost completely healed.”
We have been working with the crow, getting him to grasp our fingers with his toes and slowly bending and stretching the hurt leg, which is a little thinner than the other one. His tailfeathers are growing back uneven and scruffy but getting longer all the same.
“That crow will be all right,” Dr. Mizutani says.
“Not like this bird,” I point to the pet carrier that holds the grosbeak.
“Don’t take it to heart, Megumi,” the doctor says. “You’ve kept him alive this long. That’s quite an accomplishment, even if he doesn’t live to leave the nest.” She smiles. “Besides, he might still make it. He may be a little younger than the sparrows; not all birds develop at the same rate.”
“Like people?” I ask, remembering how Reiko called me a kid because I have never had a boyfriend.
“I guess,” she says. “Though with birds it has something to do with species or seasons. Sparrows usually have several hatchings through the summer. These babies,” she says, pointing at the sparrows’ carrier, “are probably from the very first brood. They’ll take a long time learning to fly and eat, compared to the birds born later in the summer. The later birds grow up much quicker.”
“Because they know there’s less time left before fall?”
“Maybe. Or else the mothers lay better eggs because by late in the summer they’ve been eating better food. I don’t know.” She laughs. “I want to think it’s because of the mothers. With most birds, the fathers look better, so I want the mothers to be important in another way.”
As we drive onto the highway, I tell her about my fight with Reiko. “I don’t know why I was so bothered by her stupid crush. It’s none of my business. But she made me so mad; she was so silly.”
Dr. Mizutani shakes her head. “That’s the curse of being an intelligent woman, Megumi. You can’t stand silly women.” She shrugs, her mouth turned down at the corners. “I used to be the same way—still am. I can’t stand to see women being giggly and stupid and incompetent. It burns me up. I feel like saying to everyone, ‘All right. What you see before you is a very foolish woman. But please, please pay attention. We are not all like that. Some of us are intelligent, me for instance. I would never giggle in front of you like that. Please make note of it.’ I could go on forever like that.”
I remember walking downtown with Keiko, who kept giggling, whispering, and playing with her hair. What Dr. Mizutani says is true—I didn’t want everyone to think I was like Keiko.
“I think I lost a friend a few years ago because she started acting silly. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t forgive her.”
“I understand.” The doctor nods. “I know all about that. When we were in college, most of my friends started pretending to be frivolous and dumb. School was too difficult, they said; they were tired of studying. They skipped college classes to take cooking lessons and to go out on dates. One by one, they got engaged and stopped coming to school. They were busy buying clothes and planning their weddings—they did just enough work to squeak through the last classes. I felt quite out of place, my nose buried in science books. I had no interest in getting married back then. I wanted to be a famous scientist, not someone’s wife.” She falls silent and concentrates on the road, a deep frown between her eyebrows.
I watch her serious face and wonder what happened to those friends. Did Dr. Mizutani have to stop being friends with them, as I had to with Keiko? But Keiko is just one person. To have no friends from school is something different. Though my mother was always cordial to the neighborhood women, she would never have confided in them the way she did in Mrs. Kato and Mrs. Uchida. Nobody my mother met later could take the place of the women she had grown up with. Watching Dr. Mizutani drive, I wonder if she has any special friends.
* * *
On Sunday after I come back from Dr. Mizutani’s clinic I open the first letter my mother has sent me there. The sparrows are still with me because it has been raining for the last few days. Before I unfold the l
etter, I pull open the door of their pet carrier. Hesitating for only a second, the sparrows fly out and circle the room, their wings making whirring noises like wind-up toys. While I read the letter, they flit around from wall to wall and perch on the windowsill just as the waxwing used to.
Dear Megumi:
I am glad to hear that you are well. I am sending this letter to Dr. Mizutani’s office, as you requested.
I hope you will visit the Katos now and then, even if you have decided—for now—not to go to church. Mrs. Kato is worried about you. She would like to see you regardless of your feelings about church or God. Back in January when she drove me here, she promised to watch over you, to do anything for you. Please go and see her from time to time. It would make both you and her feel better. And Kiyoshi, too. You two have been close friends all your lives. It would be a shame to lose your friendship.
As for your not going to church—Megumi, I wish I were there to talk to you. Not because I want to change your mind or convince you of God’s existence and love, but because a person who is grappling with doubt needs a friend. Yuko Uchida’s death tried my faith very much, too. If Mrs. Kato and I hadn’t been able to talk to each other, we might have lost our hope and faith. We were fortunate to be friends with each other, and also to see how Yuko herself never doubted God’s kindness. She showed great courage in the face of death, in the uncertainty of having to leave her two children.
Megumi, if you will let me, I will pray for you. More than anything else, I hope that God will comfort you and give you happiness, though I also pray, of course, that your faith will be restored. Perhaps this is wrong of me, but I would rather that you be happy, even more than that you believe in God. I know Mrs. Kato feels the same way. Both she and I will love you always, regardless of your feelings about God.
My father sends his love. As you know, the anniversary of my mother’s death is in two weeks. It’s hard to believe that she has been gone three years now. My father plans to invite my mother’s two sisters, their children, and a few of the neighbors for a small gathering to remember her.