When they arrived home, Mrs. Izumi’s and Jun’s shoes were already lined up in the vestibule. “Welcome home!” called Jun’s treble voice from the family room. He was sitting at the table with his hands curled around a cold glass of sweet, tangy rice Calpis. “Mommy’s changing her clothes,” he said.
Sarah pulled down some blue-and-white floor cushions from the stack in the corner. The electric fan on the floor whirred gently, swiveling back and forth like a spectator at a tennis game.
Mrs. Rexford soon entered, followed by Mrs. Kobayashi bearing a tray with a large Calpis bottle and glasses. “The men went across the lane to see Uncle,” she said. The Asaki house had already finished its gravesite duties.
When everyone except Mrs. Izumi was settled, Mrs. Kobayashi said, “So did you have fun today, Jun-chan? Did you meet some nice people?”
Jun nodded, taking a noisy gulp of his drink.
“What did you all talk about?” Sarah asked curiously.
“Heaven.”
“Oh! That sounds nice.”
Jun nodded again, pleased to be the center of attention. “We’re all going there,” he said, as if discussing an upcoming vacation. Then, remembering something important, he turned to his grandmother with an anxious look. “Grandma,” he said, “Mommy says you don’t want to go to heaven with us.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, Jun-chan. But there are other reasons, you see.”
“Grandma, they told me I should ask you to come.” He widened his eyes, the whites so babyishly clear they had a bluish cast. “Because I don’t want you to go to hell, Grandma.”
“I’ll be just fine, dear. There’s no need for you to worry.”
“No, Grandma. Listen!” Jun’s brow puckered with the effort of trying to make her understand. “Listen! Hell is a really, really scary place. You won’t like it there. I don’t want you to go there, Grandma.”
Mrs. Kobayashi said nothing. She looked distressed; the lines around her mouth deepened until they looked like parentheses. She reached out helplessly and stroked her grandson’s crew cut.
Jun seemed baffled by his grandmother’s lack of sense. “How come you don’t want to go with us?” he persisted.
By this time Mrs. Izumi had returned and was standing in the doorway, watching her mother’s predicament with a smug expression on her face.
Mrs. Rexford looked over at her sister, and her lips compressed. A mighty force seemed to rise up in her, charging the room like air before a storm. Sarah had never seen this brutal, avenging side of her mother; back home, she hadn’t defended anyone but herself. Sarah remembered the stories of her mother as a child, protecting the weak on the playground.
“Raise your child any way you want,” Mrs. Rexford said. Her voice, though quiet, had such intensity and force that Sarah wondered for one crazy moment if her mother would stand up and hit her sister the way she had when they were children. “Raise him any way you want, but don’t you dare use him to hurt my mother.”
The sisters stared at each other for several minutes.
Then, surprisingly, Mrs. Rexford’s face contorted. “Mother,” she said, and suddenly she was crying.
Sarah and her aunt exchanged a glance of surprise and concern.
Mrs. Kobayashi got up and went over to kneel beside her daughter, running her hand up and down her back. “There, there,” she consoled, her face twisting in sympathy. “Shhh, now.”
Sarah felt a terrible sickness in her stomach. This was how her mother must have felt as a child.
Mrs. Rexford turned her face away from them, tensing her shoulders in an effort to stop her sobs.
At this point, Sarah and her aunt both remembered little Jun, who was sitting rapt, his mouth open with curiosity.
“I’ll take him,” Sarah whispered to her aunt. She stood up and held out her hand to the boy. “Come on, Jun-chan.”
“Big Sister, how come Aunt Mama’s crying?”
“I’ll tell you later. Let’s go, now.”
As she led him out of the room, she heard her aunt saying in a small, stunned voice, “Big Sister, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, both of you,” said Mrs. Kobayashi’s voice. “It’s all right, now.”
As Sarah passed through the dining room to the opposite end of the house, she came face-to-face with her grandfather. He must have come home early in order to get some work done. Like Sarah, he was heading for the opposite end of the house, with a sketch pad in one hand and a cup of cold tea in the other. He must have heard part of the women’s conversation, but it was hard to tell his reaction.
“Can we come watch you work, Grandpa?” she asked.
“Sure, sure,” he said, smiling.
Still holding Jun’s hand, Sarah followed her grandfather down the hallway to his accustomed spot on the garden veranda. Even in her agitation, she was aware of the pleasant coolness of varnished wood under her bare feet. The garden side of the house had an austere quality-perhaps it was the earthen walls or the formality of the dark wood-that required a certain mental adjustment, like entering a museum from a busy street.
Jun, active as always, immediately clambered down onto a pair of gardening sandals and trotted into the garden. Squatting down, he picked up an empty cicada shell. “Look, Big Sister! Come look what I found!” he cried, already forgetting about his Aunt Mama in the other room. Sarah found another pair of gardening sandals and climbed down after him.
They crouched together, searching for more cicada shells. Eventually Mrs. Izumi came out and joined her father on the veranda.
The two adults sat for a while in silence. Mr. Kobayashi lit a cigarette, and its scent wafted out into the afternoon air like a rich, comforting incense.
He cleared his throat and said, “It’s no use trying to change them, you know.” He spoke gruffly, for he knew he was intruding into women’s territory.
“I know,” Mrs. Izumi replied, a bit shortly. Again they were silent.
Sarah knew her aunt Tama had been his favorite as a child. The family albums were full of photographs of little Tama beaming at the camera, her gap-toothed smile playing up to her father behind the lens. Being his favorite should have been enough for her. But Sarah understood why it wasn’t; nothing else compared with the brightness that was her grandmother and mother.
“It runs too deep,” Mr. Kobayashi said, and an echo of private remembrance gave his words a strange resonance.
“I know,” Mrs. Izumi said again.
Sarah glanced over at her aunt. There was an uncharacteristic stillness about her, as if her coquettish energy had finally run out.
chapter 22
In the lull of late afternoon, Sarah knelt before the vanity mirror and practiced pressing her lips together the way her mother had done. Don’t you dare use him to hurt my mother. She felt a little thrill as her face, with its pointy Caucasian features, became transformed with authority and passion.
She was alone in the house, with nothing to do. The men had taken Jun to a baseball game. Her grandmother had gone to the open-air market at this uncharacteristically late hour to pick up something for dinner. “You mind the house,” she had told Sarah, “in case any of them come back.”
Mrs. Rexford and Mrs. Izumi had gone somewhere together. Wherever they were, Sarah knew, her mother would be treating her little sister with utmost tenderness. She knew this from experience; after a fight, her mother always channeled her heightened emotions into intimate revelations or optimistic lectures. Sarah never admitted it, but those winding-down sessions made her feel cleansed and very close to her mother.
She fiddled with the brushes on the vanity. Kneeling on the tatami floor, she slid open the drawer and rummaged halfheartedly through its contents: Shiseido cosmetics, bathhouse tokens, an old-fashioned wooden ear cleaner.
For the first time she missed Momoko and Yashiko. She hadn’t seen much of them since the Izumis arrived. They were being kept at home, out of everyone’s way, for traditional women all understood the
strain of hosting an in-law.
As matriarch of the Kobayashi clan, it was in Mrs. Asaki’s interest to support her sister-in-law. So the Asaki house was always open for company, as a sort of second home where the adults could go (although Mrs. Kobayashi never did) for a conversational change of pace. The children were encouraged to play there, and Jun visited often-he was fond of the snack tins under Mrs. Nishimura’s table.
Sarah thought back to those innocent hours she had spent playing at the Asaki house, safe from adult issues that didn’t concern her. Ever since she joined the ranks of her mother and grandmother, she had left behind that world of glowing shoji screens and warm tatami mats, the leaf-filtered light in the kitchen and crackers in tin boxes. And she couldn’t go back. She realized this with a twinge of sadness; it was like that magic land in Peter Pan, out of reach to children who had grown up. Not that anything was keeping her from going. But at this point it was too much trouble: thinking ahead to keep Momoko from being jealous, seeing her aunt Masako’s gentle face.
She thought of the times she had run freely to her aunt Tama as a child. “Where are you going?” she would say. “Take me with you.” She couldn’t imagine doing that now. It wouldn’t be right somehow, after the strolls she had taken with her mother-it would feel like a betrayal.
She glanced out through the open partitions at the laundry area, with its empty poles and lines. For the first time she noticed that summer had passed its peak; the sunlight had changed from hazy white to deep gold, almost amber. The late afternoon sun angled down in dust-moted shafts, reminding Sarah of stained glass. Accustomed to California sun, she was strangely affected by this aged, regretful light of a foreign longitude.
The kitchen door rolled open. Mrs. Kobayashi called out, “Tadaima! I’m home!”
“Welcome back!” Sarah called. She could hear the icebox door opening and closing in the kitchen. This was comforting after the strange, sad light outside.
By the time Sarah descended into the kitchen, her grandmother was standing at the counter and unwrapping newspaper from an enormous bundle of garlic shoots. A plate of thinly sliced raw beef lay nearby, its dark red an appealing contrast to the green of the shoots. As always, her spirits lifted at the sight of food.
“Can I help, Oba-chan?” she asked. Helping with the cooking was normally her mother’s job, not hers. Since only two people could work comfortably in the kitchen at one time, the women took advantage of this legitimate excuse to hold hushed, private conversations. “Put on your apron, Yo-chan,” Sarah occasionally heard her grandmother say, as if her daughter were still a child. “Yo-chan, are you holding your knife right?” Both women seemed to enjoy this.
“Maa, that’s very kind,” Mrs. Kobayashi now said. “Why don’t you get me the konnyaku and the fu out of the icebox. But put on an apron first.”
Sarah took down one of the aprons hanging from a nail on the wooden post. She tied the strings behind her with quick, efficient jerks the way her mother always did. It was like stepping into her mother’s body, and suddenly she felt shy.
Sarah’s relationship with her grandmother wasn’t as personal as her relationship with her mother. Since the two adults were so close, she was rarely alone with her grandmother. The girl loved her wholeheartedly but in the uncomplicated way of a child.
Emptying the gelatinous strands of konnyaku into a colander, she asked, “Did Mama used to cry like that when she was a girl?”
“No. Not at all. She was quiet…but you always sensed how protective she was, how strongly she felt things. I’m still surprised I gave birth to someone like that. Do you know the story of Benkei?”
Sarah nodded. Her mother had read her the story out of one of the books her grandmother had sent her. Benkei was a legendary vassal warrior, greatly feared for his brute strength and sword skills. He had earned a place in history for his remarkable allegiance to his lord, Yoshitsune. This allegiance had lasted right up to their deaths, when the two of them were cornered by enemies. Yoshitsune had died first, taking his own life. Benkei, mortally wounded from an arrow, stuck his sword into the ground and expired on it. From a distance his propped-up corpse seemed to be in a stance of readiness, so their foes were afraid to come any closer. “Even in death,” her mother had told her, “he protected his master. Nothing’s more admirable than that kind of loyalty.”
“There must have been a lot of Benkei in Mama,” said Sarah.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Kobayashi, “and it meant the world to me.” They paused while Sarah rinsed the konnyaku under the faucet and her grandmother chopped the chives with loud thuds of the knife against the cutting board.
“It was a hard time,” Mrs. Kobayashi finally said. “I’d lost my husband. I’d lost my newborn child. It felt like everyone was against me.”
“Except for Mama.”
“Except for your mama. Sometimes I used to go to the park where she was playing. And I’d beckon her over and slip a little something in her pocket. Like a bit of sweet potato, or a tiny rice ball with a pinch of umeboshi in the middle. The food was still rationed back then. Things were really tight.” She paused in her work, remembering.
“There just wasn’t enough,” she said, “for the other children.”
Perhaps to atone for today’s unpleasantness, or perhaps to distract the family from this evening’s O-bon foot traffic, Mrs. Kobayashi served sukiyaki for dinner. It was an odd choice. Sukiyaki was a winter dish, suggestive of old-world country folk huddled around a common pot. Setting it up required some effort. A gas hose had to be retrieved from storage. One end was attached to a wall outlet, the other end to a range built into the dining table (modern Japanese tables came equipped with such accessories). On this range, a shallow pan was kept simmering throughout the meal. They dropped in raw ingredients from a nearby platter, leaning over the steam to monitor for doneness before lifting it out into their private bowls.
“It’s kind of festive, cooking right at the table!” Sarah said.
“That’s why people eat sukiyaki at celebrations,” replied her mother.
“Let’s not worry about what’s seasonal,” Mrs. Kobayashi said to everyone at the dinner table. “With all of you living so far away, who knows when you’ll have another chance to taste your grandma’s sukiyaki?” Her husband gave a comical groan, fanning himself exaggeratedly. But he was quick to tuck in. The two men cracked one egg after another into their private dipping bowls. Little Jun, energized from his outing, recounted the baseball game in loud, happy detail.
“And then he hit a home run!” he said. “Pow!” He was wearing a new red baseball cap jammed on top of his old blue one. The men, too, seemed stimulated by their outing. They actually carried the conversation at the dinner table for a change, pausing every so often to wipe sweat from their faces with cotton handkerchiefs. Mrs. Kobayashi refilled their glasses with cold Kirin beer.
All of this, enhanced by the spectacle of sukiyaki bubbling on the table in the middle of summer, made for an unusually merry evening. Seven pairs of chopsticks dipped in and out of the pan like birds’ beaks, pulling out meat, onions, garlic shoots, tofu, konnyaku-all gleaming with fat and sugared soy sauce. Christianity was never mentioned. No one noticed the neighbors returning from graveyard duty, their footsteps slow and heavy on the gravel. By some magic force everyone’s tension had lifted, and the entire table seemed to float on a cloud of well-being.
As they ate, Sarah surreptitiously watched her mother and aunt. But they looked relaxed, even happy. They said little, laughing appreciatively at the men, who were joking about getting heatstroke at the dinner table. Mrs. Kobayashi pretended to be insulted, and the men grinned at her with their lean, handsome faces.
Mrs. Izumi lifted the teapot and refilled her big sister’s cup in an intimate gesture, accidentally spilling some drops in the process. Mrs. Rexford wiped them away with an ill-mannered swipe of her finger, glancing furtively at her mother as she did so. Mrs. Kobayashi didn’t notice. Both sisters giggled under their b
reath like naughty children.
Sarah felt sorry for her cousins, who were missing this dinner. Thinking of them reminded her of that strange regret she had felt this afternoon, when she knew she could never rejoin their world. She wondered if her mother had also known this feeling.
It was a fleeting thought in an otherwise golden hour. But in years to come, it would sadden her to remember two grown sisters giggling behind their mother’s back like the partners in crime they had never been.
Part 2
chapter 23
It was a sunny afternoon well into spring. Cherry petals, crisscrossed with bicycle tracks, littered the Ueno lanes like old snow.
Mrs. Asaki had come home from shopping downtown, dragging her tired feet through the dirty petals. She tapped on the Kobayashis’ kitchen door in order to drop off a package of seasonal grass dumplings. There was no answer. Gingerly, she slid open the door-the short curtain wasn’t drawn, so someone had to be home-and heard a strange keening coming from the family room. Slipping off her shoes, she stepped up onto the tatami floor.
Mrs. Kobayashi, seated at the low table, looked up with bloodshot eyes.
“Yoko’s dead…,” she said.
“Hehh?” Mrs. Asaki’s shopping bags, all five of them, hit the floor with a thud. She sank down beside her sister-in-law. “Yo-chan? Dead?!?”
“Sarah just telephoned.” Sarah was eighteen and in her first year of college. “Yo-chan and her husband were driving somewhere together, and…” Mrs. Kobayashi winced, as if talking hurt her.
“Was it an accident?”
“It was instantaneous…both of them.”
They continued to sit, at a loss for words.
It felt eerily similar to when Shohei had died in the war. Then, too, the news had come from afar. Like his daughter he had died in a strange land, suddenly and in his prime. Mrs. Asaki remembered young Mrs. Kobayashi saying, “I just got a telegram…,” with that same odd catch in her voice.
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