Cherry Blossom Baseball

by Jennifer Maruno

  Mrs. Morrison’s sandwiches had thick slices of pink ham with homemade mustard pickles. There were tiny tomatoes and radishes from her garden. Michiko bit her lower lip to hold back the tears. No longer would they visit the flower-filled farmhouse on the outskirts of town that smelled of cabbage and apple pie. After eating, Michiko reached into the hamper for the wax paper package of oatmeal cookies but drew back her hand in surprise.

  “What’s wrong?” Eiko asked.

  “Something’s making a scratching sound,” she said, “like a mouse.”

  “I hope not,” her mother said. “We’ve just eaten the food.”

  Michiko lifted the hamper and examined the bottom. “There’s no hole,” she said. When she placed the basket back on the floor, both heard the sound of a tiny mew.

  “She didn’t!” Eiko exclaimed as she pulled out the rest of the wrapped packages. A small white box punched with holes had the words “Happy Birthday Hiro” written across the top.

  “Looks like she did,” Michiko said as took out the box and undid the string that held the lid in place. She put her hands into the box and pulled out the tiny black-and-white kitten with a white drop on its nose.

  “My baby,” Hiro said as he scrambled across the seat.

  The kitten wiggled from Michiko and jumped to the windowsill. Hiro’s face lit up.

  “Maybe she didn’t pack it,” Michiko said. “Maybe it just jumped in.”

  “And tied the string around the box afterward?” Eiko asked with a shake of her head. “She knew what she was doing.” She removed a small jar of milk. “She packed dinner for it as well,” she said with a small laugh. “Only Edna would think to do that.”

  The porter knocked on the door to turn their seats into beds.

  Eiko swooped at the kitten, but it didn’t want to give up its freedom, and it scampered to the windowsill. “Catch it,” she whispered to Michiko, “they may put it off the train.”

  Michiko threw Hannah’s blanket over top of the small animal and held it tight, hoping it wouldn’t mew. When the porter left, she let it slide to the floor. Michiko filled the bottle’s lid with milk and put it on the floor. The kitten crept closer with a rumbling purr.

  Hiro moved to the pillow on his bed and lay down to watch. The kitten clambered up to him, nuzzled into the hollow of his arms, and went to sleep.

  The steam whistle blew from the front of the train. My life, Michiko thought, as she lay in the top bunk, is just like this train, always moving.

  ARRIVAL

  As the train pulled into the Toronto station, Michiko was dreaming that a photographer had asked her to pose as star pitcher for the Asahi baseball team. “Look at that,” Clarence was saying, holding the paper up for all to see. Then George King picked up a crayon, grabbed the paper, and gave her buck teeth, a moustache, and horns. Michiko moaned and opened her eyes to a tunnel of darkness lit by yellow electric bulbs.

  Not far from their railway car, her father waited on the platform in a pair of green working trousers and laced-up boots. She waved to him from the window, and he broke into a wide smile. Michiko scampered down to the station platform. He came to her, holding out his arms. Even though he was thinner, he felt solid and muscular.

  Union Station was full of bustle and noise. Michiko could smell cinnamon biscuits, coffee, smoke, and perfume all at once, as her family walked through the cavernous space filled with long slants of early morning sun. They passed people waiting on long wooden benches that reminded her of church pews. She followed her little brother’s eyes up to the huge brass wall clock and the balcony overlooking the marble concourse. Good thing Dad has a firm grip on his hand, she thought. He’d be up those stairs in a moment. Her father’s other hand grasped her mother’s elbow as they followed the signs to the street. Two policemen watched them as they neared the exit. One of them touched the gun on his hip, as if he was making sure it was still there. Michiko held her breath and looked up at her father’s dark chocolate eyes. They sparkled with pleasure, giving no sign of worry.

  Michiko felt the rush of excitement from the crush of bicycles, buses, and streetcars when they exited the station. The smell of exhaust made her nose twitch. Beyond the entrance’s granite columns, Michiko marvelled at the wide cement sidewalks, tall buildings, and church spires. Everything was so much bigger than what they’d left behind. All of the cars on the street seemed new. People fluttered about like flocks of birds, buying newspapers, gathering at bus stops, and hailing taxis. Michiko guessed this was the way it would be in Ontario and smiled at the thought of her whole life being bigger and busier.

  Their new employer waited against the front fender of a long grey sedan, filling his pipe. He struck a match and then sucked on the stem to get it going. He held it for a moment and then exhaled a mouthful of smoke. A sturdy man with a ruddy complexion, Mr. Downey had large blue eyes with baggy skin beneath and bushy brows above. Seeing them arrive, he stepped forward to shake her mother’s hand. “Hello, welcome to Ontario,” he said in a deep but pleasant voice.

  Hiro jumped behind his mother’s skirt.

  Sam took the front seat of the car, which smelled of tobacco smoke and pine air freshener. Michiko knew he wouldn’t speak Japanese out of respect for his employer. The English words he occasionally mispronounced were like music to her ears.

  The car wound its way past government and commercial buildings. Then they drove through streets of small red-brick houses, set close to the sidewalk with gardens full of geraniums and chrysanthemums. Vines crept up the sides of houses and grew over hydro poles. The car picked up speed when Mr. Downey turned on to a two-lane concrete road.

  “It’s a brand new road,” her father told them, pointing out the small blue-and-yellow sign topped with a crown, “named after the queen.”

  Michiko glanced up at the double-armed light standards that separated the lanes of the highway. “Big lights,” she said to Hiro.

  “Not now,” her father told them. “Blacked out for war.”

  “They said there’d never be enough cars to warrant a road like this,” Mr. Downey added, “but there’s traffic all the time.” And he was right. Cars, trucks, even canvas-covered army vehicles passed them on the opposite side of the grassy boulevard.

  Michiko admired the large, sprawling houses that sat beneath the shady trees growing beside this new concrete road. Eventually the city passed. Green fields and small stands of trees surrounded them. After pointing out a jam factory, an asparagus farm, and a mushroom barn, Mr. Downey slowed to a stop at a set of lights. He turned to them in the back seat and said, “I normally don’t go home this way, but I need gas, and this way you will get to see the main part of town.”

  “Thank you,” Eiko said as she rearranged Hannah, who was sleeping on her lap.

  Mr. Downey turned off the highway and followed the gravel road into the gas station. As they waited for the attendant to fill the tank, he explained. “This part of the country is blessed with two magnificent harbours. The locals tie up at Bronte Harbour.” He pointed out the coffee-brown river between high brown banks. “When we cross the bridge, you’ll be able to catch a glimpse of something really big.” He slowed the car down to give them a chance to see the large container ship that he called a “laker” tied up in the creek.

  Michiko thought of Clarence’s little red rowboat. At least he won’t have to hide it, like Uncle Ted did. I wonder if George will go fishing with him.

  Mr. Downey pointed out the Gregory Theatre. “Always plays the top movies of the day,” he said. “They also host stage productions, if you enjoy that sort of thing.”

  Michiko craned her neck to see the marquee. Too bad Aunt Sadie isn’t here, she thought as she rolled down the car window. She put her head out in anticipation of a real street of stores and wasn’t disappointed. A church spire dominated the landscape of the downtown, and hydro poles towered over the three-storey brick buildings with colourful awnings that lined the long, busy main street. A five-and-dime store stretched the
full length of a block. Next to it was Brown’s Shoe Store. Michiko smiled. There may be a chance of getting running shoes after all.

  At the corner, a sign reading TOBACCO hung over a window filled with glass containers and wooden pipes. Hiro clapped and pointed at the life-sized statue of an Indian chief in full headdress, clutching a handful of cigars. Everywhere there were advertisements for goods and medicines. Coca-Cola advertisements were painted on sides of buildings, standing in front of the stores, and in windows. Michiko counted three hardware stores and two restaurants. Dark sedans, with their noses to the sidewalk, filled both sides.

  “Can we stop?” she asked.

  “It’s Saturday,” her father said, “no place to park.”

  “What about there?” Michiko asked as they passed a large brick building with a deep green awning. It had no cars in front of it.

  “Only if you have police business,” Mr. Downey said with a laugh. “And if you park there without permission, you will have.”

  Sam laughed long and loud at what Mr. Downey said.

  Michiko felt her face redden at her father, who was trying too hard to please.

  The car slowed for a few seconds as Mr. Downey waved his arm at the small white stone building with the large number of bicycles in the rack beside the door. “If you like to read,” he said, “that’s the library.”

  Michiko was impatient to see where they would be living, but the main street moved farther and farther away. As they drove on, the shops disappeared altogether, and the number of houses dwindled. She slumped back into her seat and crossed her arms. “I thought we were moving to Oakville,” she said in a low voice.

  Eiko shook her head and put a finger to her lips.

  Before long, the car turned down a road where several cows, all pointed in the same direction, stood behind a fence, their tails twitching in a continuous, swinging motion. Across the road, beside a sign marked DOWNEY, a wooden wheelbarrow filled with buckets of vivid red gladioli splashed the road with colour.

  “Flowers are for sale,” Sam turned in his seat to explain, “on honour system.”

  Michiko could tell the farmhouse they approached would be nothing like Mrs. Morrison’s, with the broken fence that barely kept the meadow away, the flaking house paint, and string of ants that often wandered across her counter. Mr. Downey’s neatly trimmed front lawn was the size of a baseball field. In the distance she could see a large barn and a shed surrounded by fields of bright, blooming gladioli.

  The smell of freshly cut grass surrounded them as they stepped out of the car.

  A walkway of worn bricks led from the main house to two small bungalows right past one of the biggest vegetable gardens Michiko had ever seen. She knew everyone in the ghost town had to slash away the crabgrass and thistles in order to plant a small patch of land. From dust to dawn, they bent over the hard, cracked soil weeding, hoeing, and carting water from the ground tap at the end of each street. But not one of them had a garden like this! If only Geechan could have seen this.

  Mr. Downey removed the pipe from between his teeth and tapped it out against the car’s back fender. “A small creek runs across the back of the property,” he said. Then he pointed to the fields. “Everyone calls it a hundred and fifty acres,” he said, “but it is really one hundred, forty-seven, and a half. You’ll keep that little secret, I am sure,” he said with a smile. “Hope you like apples,” he added. “The trees in the back are all Spies.”

  What did he just say? Michiko had been so busy thinking about the gardens back home that she wasn’t paying attention. What did he say about spies and secrets? She looked at her mother and father, but they didn’t seem concerned.

  Mr. Downey pointed out their new house and then touched the brim of his fedora, leaving Sam to show them inside.

  Their little wooden house was not as big as Michiko had imagined. It was as if someone had taken the apartment from the drugstore and placed it on the ground. Its flat cement platform also served as the porch, with one step directly onto the grass.

  As they entered the kitchen door, the smell of freshly painted walls greeted them. The house was clean, but its scrubbed stillness felt hollow.

  Michiko breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of the fat porcelain faucets on either side of the kitchen tap. Thank goodness they wouldn’t have to pump water as they’d had to at the farmhouse in the ghost town. When the well froze, Michiko had had to drag water from the lake. She shivered at the thought of it.

  A small, yellow-topped, metal table with four padded chairs stood on a floor of beige linoleum. Her mother removed the fly swatter from the table and placed it on the ledge of a window. The curtains hung from a thin wire.

  A calendar that read “With Glad Compliments of Downey’s Flower Farm” and a picture of a huge basket of gladioli hung on the wall. Beside it was a photo of Joe DiMaggio, clipped from a magazine.

  “Look,” Sam said. He put down the suitcases and walked to the tall wooden box against the wall. “We have an electric ice-box!”

  “You mean refrigerator.” Eiko corrected her husband with a wide smile and opened the door. A loaf of bread sat next to a brick of butter and a block of cheese.

  “We have electric stove, too,” Sam said, pointing to the range. The wire rack standing on the burner told Michiko they would be able to have toast.

  Eiko pulled down the oven door and peered inside. “This will need a good clean,” she said with a grimace.

  Her father switched on an ugly brown radio with dusty grooves that radiated around the speaker. It sat on the counter beneath the white, paint-thickened cupboard doors. “Look, Hiro,” he said, turning it around for him to see the tubes of red filaments. “We can get stations from the USA!” He turned the radio back and fiddled with the dial until he found a baseball game.

  Hiro smiled.

  “Is it allowed?” Michiko asked. For so long, radios had been forbidden to the Japanese.

  Her father patted her on the head. “Everything is okay here,” he said. “No worries.”

  They moved into the large front room. Eiko walked around, touching the mismatched furniture with the tips of her fingers. A large sofa covered in dark brocade held the shape of people who had sat in it year after year. A squat table with clawed feet stood between two upholstered chairs in front of the window. Eiko drew back the stiff beige curtains, and the room flooded with sunshine. Finally, she smiled.

  The main bedroom held a double bed, a large six-drawer dresser, and a wardrobe. Eiko opened the wardrobe to reveal several empty metal hangers. A faint musty odour came from its rose-papered walls. Eiko opened the drawers of the bureau and sniffed. She removed the sheets of newspaper used for lining, crumpled them into a ball, and handed them to her husband.

  The next bedroom had a crib and small cot. Michiko walked into the last room that had a single bed and sighed in relief. This room had a bookcase and a small table with a wooden chair.

  Sam tapped the table. “Good place to study,” he said with a grin. The movement made the goose-necked lamp wobble.

  The bathroom was at the end of the hall. Except for the pink and white kitchen, every room in the house was pale green.

  Their first meal was a bowl of tomato soup and a cheese sandwich.

  “You’ll be taking your lunch to school,” Eiko said as she pushed a piece of paper and pencil toward Michiko. “Help me do a shopping list.”

  No one even suggested Japanese food.

  DEAR CLARENCE

  Michiko lay quietly for a moment in the warmth of her new bed, listening to the morning sounds of a closing bedroom door, the flush of the toilet, and the gentle murmur of her parents talking. She rose, dressed, and went to her window, surprised at the absence of mountains. The view that stretched before her seemed to be nothing but sky and field.

  A man in a black wool sweater, black corduroy trousers, and gardening boots was raking leaves. Curly black hair peeked out from the back of a cap pulled down over his ears. His hands were as thick a
nd wrinkled as an old tree stump. The man stopped raking and looked up into one of the trees, revealing a large black moustache that made Michiko giggle. The skin crinkled around his eyes, and all his fierceness disappeared. Whatever the man saw in the tree made him smile.

  Michiko craned her neck to see what was so amusing, but she couldn’t. Her attention went to a slight woman in a faded housedress and headscarf walking toward the man. She carried a basket filled to the brim with tomatoes. The morning sun caught the heavy gold cross that hung from her neck.

  Michiko’s mother had told her another family lived and worked on the farm. Mr. Palumbo did the same job as her father, while his wife took care of the garden.

  Michiko glanced in the direction of the vegetable patch. Near the wooden gate was a standpipe with a coil of hose. Beside that was a large green watering can. Most people thought gardening was an easy job, but Michiko knew how hard Geechan had worked on his tepees of beans, lines of carrots and onions, and rows of tomato plants. He had to hoe, water, pull weeds, and tie up stragglers. He even rose before the sun just to pick off slugs with his chopsticks.

  Michiko turned from the window to the small table that served as her desk. Next to her jar of paper flowers was a stationery set from Sadie and Kaz, Clarence’s blue box, and the sketch pad and package of coloured pencils Mrs. Morrison had given her.

  She had three thank-you notes to compose. Michiko knew her mother’s expectations, and it wasn’t polite to delay in writing one’s appreciation. She pulled out the chair just as Hiro raced into her room and threw himself on her bed, face down.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Mrs. Morrison’s gone,” came the muffled reply.

  “What did you say?” Michiko asked.