by John Okada
They did not speak again until the car was beside the grocery store. It was Ken’s father who said: “Thank you for all you’ve done for us.”
“I did nothing. Ken did much for me. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”
“The family must know,” said the man. “I must go home and tell them that Ken is dead. It will be very difficult.”
“Yes.”
“Goodbye, Ichiro.”
He waved in return and watched until the car turned out of sight at the end of the block.
Finding the door unlocked, he entered the store and stood for a moment in the dark. He wondered at the complete stillness and frowned slightly at the stench of whisky. Slowly, he started toward the living quarters of the building. His foot struck a bottle and, when he peered over the floor to locate it, he noticed the several winding rivulets of water working their way across the boards and making shallow pools in the low spots. Perplexed, he traced the water into the kitchen and there, underneath the bathroom door, the flow was wide and strong and steady. His hand already reaching, for the doorknob, he suddenly felt the necessity of looking into the bedroom. He did so, seeing the pile of suitcases stacked neatly on his parents’ bed but no sign of his mother or father.
Frightened now, sensing the tragedy inherent in the stillness, he rushed to the bathroom door and found it locked. Angrily, he drove his shoulder repeatedly against the door, feeling it give grudgingly a tiny bit each time until the final assault threw him into the bathroom.
She was half out of the tub and half in, her hair of dirty gray and white floating up to the surface of the water like a tangled mass of seaweed and obscuring her neck and face. On one side, the hair had pulled away and lodged against the overflow drain, damming up the outlet and causing the flooding, just as her mind, long shut off from reality, had sought and found its erratic release.
Feeling only disgust and irritation, Ichiro forced his hand into the tub to shut off the flow of water. He looked at her again and felt a mild shiver working up his back and into his shoulders. Momentarily unnerved, he found himself thinking frantically that she ought to be pulled out of the water. With movements made awkward by an odd sense of numbness, he bent over to grasp her about the waist. At the touch of her body against his hands, it occurred to him that all he need do was to pull the plug. Calm now, he reached for the chain and pulled it out and over the side. He watched for a while as the water level fell, drawing her tangled hair with it until the sickly white of her neck stood revealed.
Dead, he thought to himself, all dead. For me, you have been dead a long time, as long as I can remember. You, who gave life to me and to Taro and tried to make us conform to a mold which never existed for us because we never knew of it, were never alive to us in the way that other sons and daughters know and feel and see their parents. But you made so many mistakes. It was a mistake to have ever left Japan. It was a mistake to leave Japan and to come to America and to have two sons and it was a mistake to think that you could keep us completely Japanese in a country such as America. With me, you almost succeeded, or so it seemed. Sometimes I think it would have been better had you fully succeeded. You would have been happy and so might I have known a sense of completeness. But the mistakes you made were numerous enough and big enough so that they, in turn, made inevitable my mistake. I have had much time to feel sorry for myself. Suddenly I feel sorry for you. Not sorry that you are dead, but sorry for the happiness you have not known. So, now you are free. Go back quickly. Go to the Japan that you so long remembered and loved, and be happy. It is only right. If it is only after you’ve gone that I am able to feel these things, it is because that is the way things are. Too late I see your unhappiness, which enables me to understand a little and, perhaps, even to love you a little, but it could not be otherwise. Had you lived another ten years or even twenty, it would still have been too late. If anything, my hatred for you would have grown. You are dead and I feel a little peace and I want very much for you to know the happiness that you tried so hard to give me . . .
Stooping over, he lifted her easily and carried her to the bedroom, where he laid her beside the pile of suitcases. Lingering a while longer, he brushed the damp hair away from her face and pushed it carefully behind her head. Then he made his way through the kitchen and into the store behind the counter to the telephone. He wasn’t quite sure whom he intended to call, but he realized that there were people to be informed. He thought of the Kumasakas and the Ashidas and he recalled having heard mention of a young Japanese whom he had known slightly at one time and who now was a mortician, cashing in on the old Japanese who were dropping off like flies. He tried to think of the fellow’s name and could only vaguely remember what the fellow looked like years ago in a faded pair of wide-ribbed corduroy trousers that stopped about three inches above ugly, thin ankles. Then he thought of the coroner and decided that he was the one to call. Having to look up the number, he reached overhead and turned on the light. He blinked his eyes at the sudden illumination and, as he did so, sighted the whisky bottle on the floor over against the vegetable stand, where he had kicked it. Wondering why the bottle had been so carelessly placed, he glanced about the store and saw the overturned apple box and, alongside of it, his father’s stockinged feet. Hurrying out from behind the counter, he examined the prostrate figure on the floor.
“Pa!” he shouted with alarm.
The father lay on his back with his face turned sideways, and a thin streak of spittle oozed out of the corner of his partly open mouth. He was asleep and snoring softly.
Grabbing the old man by the shoulders, Ichiro shook him vigorously. He stopped when he saw the eyes open lazily and regard him with drunken indifference. The mouth curved into a silly grin and, immediately, the eyes shut and the heavy breathing was resumed.
Furiously, he shook him again, pulling as he did so and bringing the body to a sitting position. The eyes opened once more and the mouth emitted several unintelligible grunts of protest.
“Pa, are you all right?” he shouted.
His father grinned and shook his head.
“Ma is dead. You hear me? Dead. Killed herself. Ma killed herself.”
He continued to grin, giving no sign of understanding. “Sick,” he mouthed thickly, “Mama sick. Papa sick. Ichiro good boy. Everybody sick.”
“Goddamn you, Pa. I’m telling you Ma’s dead.”
“Tell Taro he should come home. Mama needs him.” With that, he shut his eyes and let himself collapse.
Ichiro hung on for a moment and then let him drop. Angrily, he returned to the telephone and leafed through the book in search of the coroner’s number.
9
The funeral was held several days later at the Buddhist church up on the hill next to a playground. Ichiro sat uncomfortably in a small waiting room and listened impatiently to the talking of the men gathered around the table in the center of the room. His father sat with the men and, while appearing ill at ease in a navy-blue suit obviously new and purchased for the occasion, seemed nonetheless to be enjoying himself. When he spoke, he did so eagerly, striving to maintain an air of solemnity, but too often unable to suppress a pleased grin.
“Ya, ya, a good wife,” he was saying, “but she is gone and we talk no more about her. There is no use for tears.”
His protestations went unheeded, for they were gathered to attend a funeral and one was expected to say the right things.
“How many years, Yamada-san?” questioned respectfully a tall, thin individual who, playing his part to the full, had not smiled at all.
“Twenty-eight years, Noji-san,” replied the father.
“Such a long time. My wife and I have been together thirty-two years, but twenty-eight years is also a long time. How lonely you must be.” Mr. Noji sniffed loudly and poked at his eye with a soiled handkerchief.
“It is very sad indeed,” added Mr. Ashida, who sat by the window in a crump
led, gray suit, “but she has given you two fine boys. Two fine boys, indeed.”
Everyone turned and looked for a moment at Ichiro, who sat alone on a sofa against the wall. He squirmed uneasily and wondered if Taro would acknowledge the telegram which he had sent the day before after finally having hunted down the information that he was taking basic training in a California camp. When it finally came time to fill out the yellow form, all he had been able to write was: “Ma dead. Suicide.” Was there something more he should have written?
“Almost time,” said Mr. Kumasaka softly. As a close friend of the family, he was graciously handling all the details of the funeral.
Several of the men took out pocket watches or regarded their wrists and mumbled and nodded.
“Has everything been seen to?” queried a large man whose name Ichiro could not remember.
“I believe so,” answered Mr. Kumasaka, whose thoughtful look indicated that he was hurriedly running a mental check.
“The telegrams. You have someone to read the telegrams?” The large man, having suddenly recalled that no mention had been made of telegrams, was quite excited.
Mr. Kumasaka tried staring him down.
“Ah, I felt something had been overlooked. There is so much to do, so many details.” Equal to the occasion, the large man rose to his feet and beckoned to Mr. Ashida. “Please, Ashida-san, be so kind as to find someone. One of the younger people who are here. There is little time, hurry.”
Mr. Ashida started hastily out of the room, but got no farther than Mr. Kumasaka, who had stretched out a restraining arm. “There is no need, Ashida-san. There are no telegrams.” He looked up at the large man and repeated with a softness which was weighted with disapproval: “There are no telegrams.”
Flustered, the man dropped back into his chair. “Of course, of course. I was only trying to be of assistance.”
“It is just as well,” said the tall, thin one. “They are always the same. Someone reads telegrams at all the funerals and I do not understand them but I know they are the same. You pick them from a card at the telegraph office. I know because I have sent them. They have cards for any occasion—funerals, weddings, holidays. I have sent them myself. You go to the telegraph office and say I want to send a funeral wire and the woman gives you a card and there are maybe ten different ones on it and you simply pick the one you want. If it is a good friend, you pick the longest. If not so good a friend, you pick one of the shorter ones. Years ago, when my cousin’s youngest boy was killed by a train in Oregon, I went to the telegraph office and—”
“It is time, gentlemen, please.” The church attendant addressed them from the doorway.
The men filed out solemnly down the hall after the attendant. The father and Ichiro walked a few steps in the opposite direction and entered the auditorium from a side door which led them directly to the first row of seats, which had been reserved for them. As they took their places and glumly regarded the open casket only a few feet away, the priest sauntered across the stage with its lavish, gold-bedecked shrine and seated himself beside an urn-like gong. Without acknowledging the people present, he struck the gong several times and promptly proceeded to recite the unintelligible mumbo-jumbo revered by all the old ones present but understood by none.
The air was heavy with the smell of incense and, behind him, Ichiro could hear the fervent muttering of sacred words, the occasional sucking of breaths, and a distant sob or two. Sitting up straight, he could see the profile of her heavily-powdered, cold, stony face protruding above the rim of the casket. It was a nice casket, but he still couldn’t understand why his father had insisted on the four-hundred-dollar light-blue one when the two-hundred-fifty-dollar gray one would have sufficed. He hadn’t argued. The old man seemed to know what had to be done.
He felt his father turn slightly toward him and he met his gaze.
The round face oozed with insuppressible excitement. It had been that way ever since the news of the mother’s death had gotten around and the few close and many distant friends had crowded into the tiny store to offer assistance and condolences and to sit around and talk and drink tea and eat cookies and cake. Many were strangers whom he had no recollection of ever having met and yet they had filled the store during all hours of the day and night until this very evening. In the midst of it all, his father had been flushed without touching a drop, drunk with the renewal of countless friendships and elated by the endless offerings of sympathetic phrases. Women were constantly hovering over the stove, cooking meals for the bereaved and the mourning, scrubbing the floor, and making the beds and keeping the children quiet while the men ate and drank and smoked and talked endlessly. It had been quite a show and this was the final scene. If it all added up to something, he had missed it. He wanted very much for all of it to come to an end.
And, now, his father said excitedly to him: “Plenty people, Ichiro. A good funeral for Mama.”
He felt the disgust creep into his face, but the father had already turned away and was again sitting with head slightly bowed and shoulders softly slouched so that he must have presented a grief-filled figure to his audience behind him.
Bringing his chant to a close with a series of well-timed blows on the gong, the priest rose and faced the mourning flock. He bowed to the widower and his son and ran a rosary-draped hand contemplatively along the front of his black robe with the wide, gold-embroidered collar.
His shiny, bald head bulged at the temples, the pink skin stretched tight as if ready to burst. Small, black eyes peered out of a round, massive face that might have been frightening had one unexpectedly confronted it, but which radiated only understanding and generosity to those who viewed it and knew that it was the countenance of their good priest. His voice was pitched too high and, attempting now to speak as one mourner to another, had lost the resonance and rhythm with which the holy chanting had been done. What he did, virtually, was to announce the funeral, giving the names of the deceased and the immediate members of the family, and then, gazing sympathetically upon the grieving father and son, he offered them words of courage.
Ichiro squirmed, looking neither left nor right and feeling the presence of his father beside him like a towering mass of granite. After the priest, there were others who spoke, embarrassed old gentlemen in ill-fitting Sunday suits who had been requested to speak of the deceased. They were like grade-school orators with badly prepared speeches, agonizing the audience with futile gestures and excruciating pauses and hopefully offering shaky grins, which merely heightened the general discomfort. They said fine things about the dead woman in fine language which none ordinarily used but heard more frequently only because the number of funerals seemed to be increasing. And it was the large man who had caused the blunder about the telegrams who gave, in a fairly shouting voice, the biography of the deceased. As he shouted, Ichiro listened and, it was as if he were hearing about a stranger as the man spoke of the girl baby born in the thirty-first year of the Meiji era to a peasant family, of her growing and playing and going to school and receiving honors for scholastic excellence and of her becoming a pretty young thing who forsook a teaching career to marry a bright, ambitious young man of the same village. And as the large man transported the young couple across the vast ocean to the fortune awaiting them in America, Ichiro no longer listened, for he was seeing the face of his dead mother jutting out of the casket, and he could not believe that she had ever been any of the things the man was saying about her. Then he looked at his father, who was hungrily devouring each meaningless word of praise and was so filled by now with the importance of himself that he held his head high and smiled pleasantly for all to see. First, he felt sick and wanted to get out of there. Then, he had an urge to laugh, so funny the whole affair seemed, and he made himself turn back to look at his mother’s face to sober himself. And he kept looking at her until the service was over and the men from the mortuary in tails and striped trousers came up to clos
e the casket. They wheeled it slowly down the center aisle to the long, black Cadillac hearse waiting at the curb. He got into the limousine behind the hearse with his father and waited for other people to get into their cars. A uniformed patrolman waited alongside his motorcycle, impatient to get the caravan to its destination and earn his extra pay.
“Pa, I feel sick,” he said.
“Ya, Ichiro, but pretty soon. Not much more, now.” He was looking out of the window and acknowledging the bows of passing people.
“What’s next? I’ve had enough.”
“Not much. We go to the funeral parlor. Then a short service by the priest, put the casket in the oven, and then to eat.”
“Eat?”
“Yes, it is custom. We feed the people who were so kind as to come. It will be at the Japanese restaurant since home is too small. Everything is arranged.”
“For crissake,” he moaned, and at that instant he spied the face of Freddie hastening behind the limousine and cutting diagonally across the street to a parked car. He watched, seeing the little coupe billow forth a cloud of smoke, then begin to maneuver its way out of a tight spot. He jumped out of the limousine and raced across the street. Freddie was just getting ready to pull out into the street when he reached the car and jumped in.
“What the hell!” swore Freddie and, as quickly, was purposefully brandishing a huge pipe-wrench.
“It’s me. Take it easy.” He thrust his face closer.
Freddie blinked in amazement and repeated softly: “What the hell.”