And for another nice word, our narratives as we construct them are fungible, and much of our conflict as humans come from misunderstanding that very point. So we spend our lives defending chimera.
If this is true, What joy! What freedom!
And thus, what a lovely cornucopia of reason and fiction all the ages of our lives can be. So read on, for some versions.
—Candas Jane Dorsey, Edmonton, 2021,
author of Black Wine and ICE and other stories, and, forthcoming from ECW Press, the mystery series The Adventures of Isabel, What’s the Matter with Mary Jane, and He Wasn’t There Again Today
Clear Waters
C.J. Cheung
The deluge had begun two days earlier, the same day Hiroshi’s daughter, Shizue, called. She hadn’t been home for three years, but despite having to drive through the downpour on winding mountainous roads, she was coming for a visit.
And she said she had a surprise.
But Hiroshi had much more to do than prepare for her visit. The torrential rain made the river near his home rise nearly twenty-five centimetres beyond its bank, almost washing out the Shinto shrine that sat near the shore. The shrine stood taller than the roadside shrines common in Japan before the Collapse, and its upswept roof provided enough cover to keep the rain off his head and shelter the hologram of his wife who appeared and bowed whenever anyone approached. She was accompanied by two electronic candles and a small copper bowl filled with raw rice and red incense sticks.
Hiroshi spent two days erecting a sandbag barrier that snaked along the river’s tree-lined banks, but the water crept up and lapped against the makeshift berm. As Hiroshi dropped another sandbag on the wall, wiping rainwater from his salt-and-pepper hair, a voice came from upriver.
“I have come to assist.”
Hiroshi turned and his chest tightened. It was Karl, Tom Anderson’s android farmhand. An early model android, Karl would pass for human, but for the blue stripe on each cheek that crossed the silvery eyes all androids possessed.
Karl picked up a spade and began filling an empty burlap sack with sand.
“Thank you,” said Hiroshi, “but I’m almost done.”
Karl glanced at the makeshift barrier. “There are three more metres of wall to build, which could take you several more hours alone. You need help.”
Hiroshi sighed. Talking to an android was like talking to a trained dog. They were programmed to obey, not catch the subtleties of human speech. He would have to be direct. Hiroshi reached for the spade, catching the android’s clammy hand instead. Polymer and titanium. Plastic and dead. He shuddered at the touch.
Karl stopped digging and gazed at him. Was that a shocked look in his silvery eyes?
“I don’t want you. Go home.”
Karl released the spade, thanked him, and walked back upstream.
“Thank Tom for me, please.” Hiroshi watched Karl disappear into the trees, not knowing whether Karl heard him or not. Then he leaned over the berm, dipped his hands in the silty river, and let the fast current cleanse them. Tom was just trying to be a good neighbour. Hiroshi was sure he wouldn’t take offence, but he considered sending him a gift basket for his troubles.
“Abe-san.”
Hiroshi flicked the cold water from his hands. On the veranda, Mrs. Galang was beckoning him to come inside.“She’s here.”
Excitement swelled in his chest like a wave. Shizue was early.
He glanced back at his handiwork. The river lapped against the flood wall. Rainwater poured off the gables of his small shrine just metres from the barrier. Karl was right. There were still a few more metres left to build. Would the shrine be secure from the onrushing stream on the other side of the sandy wall?
Hiroshi couldn’t worry about such things at the moment. His daughter was home. He rushed inside, took off his shoes and peeled off the heavy, rain-slicked coat and put on his slippers.
Mrs. Galang sluffed a heavy cardigan over his shoulders and handed him a towel. “Do you think she will agree?”
He wiped his hair with the towel. “We’ll see. I’ll let her in.”
Mrs. Galang nodded and hurried back to the kitchen.
Hiroshi shuffled down the hall across the dark-stained wood floor, past shelves of porcelain geisha dolls in glass boxes, until he reached the front door of his compound and swung it open.
In the middle of the compound sat Shizue’s old electric Citycar, its windows fogged up.
Hiroshi strained to see into the car. What was going on? Why wasn’t she coming out?
The driver’s side door opened, and a young woman in shorts and a tank top stepped out. It was Shizue, all right, just standing there, gazing up at the sky, but Hiroshi almost didn’t recognize her. The shoulder-length black hair she had throughout high school was gone, replaced by a pixie cut. But it was the same silly girl, still standing in the rain.
Shizue twirled about, arms stretched out as if embracing the sky. She let out a whoop and a broad smile crossed her face.
Hiroshi smiled, remembering all the times she would dance for him as a child, twirling about in a flowery kimono like the little water sprite she was.
The passenger side door opened. A hooded figure stepped out of the car, unfurled a large red umbrella, and shielded Shizue from the rain. Too late, of course. She was already soaked to the skin.
She never mentioned she was bringing a friend. Hiroshi cursed himself for not clarifying when she called. Surprises were for parties and gifts, not unexpected guests. At the very least, Mrs. Galang would have to set another setting at the table and prepare another room.
The stranger was taller and had a larger frame. Boyfriend? Was her friend the reason she came home?
Shizue sprinted toward the front door, while the stranger opened the trunk of the Citycar.
“Papa-san,” she said as she slammed into Hiroshi, embracing him and almost knocking him into the entryway. He gave her a halting hug before she pulled back, torrents of rainwater dripping from her short, black hair, reminding him of that scrawny stray cat she’d brought home when she was seven years old.
Hiroshi wrapped the towel around her and gathered her into the entryway of the house. Shivering under the towel, Shizue slipped out of her wet shoes and into the pair of pink plastic slippers Mrs. Galang kept clean and dust-free, just for her.
The door closed behind the stranger, who folded up the umbrella and backed into the entryway.
“Papa-san,” said Shizue, “Please excuse my rudeness.”
Hiroshi stiffened. He should have expected this day. Three years away from home and she had to have made friends, perhaps other boyfriends as well. Would she ever tell him about them?
The stranger removed the hood. Blue stripes on his cheeks crossed his silvery eyes.
Shizue took the stranger’s arm. “Papa-san, this is Jin. He’s my boyfriend.”
The air in the house became abruptly thin.
“Surprise,” Shizue said.
Hiroshi led Shizue and Jin down the hall, slippers shuffling across the creaking hardwood floor. Jin spoke in whispers, commenting on how old everything seemed, while Shizue told him to be quiet.
Hiroshi opened the door to a makeshift guest room: a small office with rosewood furniture and a squeaky old cot squeezed between two overstuffed bookshelves.
Jin sluffed his backpack onto the floor with a thump.
“I’m sorry this may not be up to more modern standards of accommodation.”
Shizue glanced at him. “It’s fine, Papa-san.”
Hiroshi beckoned for her to follow, but Shizue shook her head. He pointed further down the hall. “Your room—”
“Is here, with Jin.” She glanced at Jin who was already unpacking. “Besides, he likes the floor. Says it’s good for his back.” She gave her boyfri
end a wry smile.
An icy coldness ran down Hiroshi’s spine. Boyfriend. He opened his mouth to insist that her place was her old room, that Mrs. Galang had prepared it for her, but he stayed silent. No need to start an argument before she’d even settled in.
Hiroshi nodded, turned, and shuffled back down the hall toward the kitchen.
Shizue and Jin chuckled in the office.
Three years. Had it been so long? Who had just walked into his home? She resembled his daughter in all but the hair. What other surprises lay in hiding behind that three-year wall of time?
He found Mrs. Galang in the kitchen stirring a pot of soup stock, adding dollops of miso paste.
“How is she?” she asked.
“Shizue is Shizue. We have a guest. His name is Jin.”
Mrs. Galant perked up. “A boyfriend? I’ll set another place at the table.”
“Don’t bother. Just plug him in.”
Before she could respond, Hiroshi stepped onto the veranda, shutting the door on intrusion. He sat on a padded wicker chair and leaned back, never taking his eyes off the rainstorm, the flood wall, and the river roaring just beyond it.
His wife loved watching the river flow by and seeing skipping rocks over the surface of a slow-moving stream. As a child, he’d amassed a small collection of skipping rocks, the smoothest and flattest ones he could find, and displayed them on a small table by his bed and kept them into adulthood. His wife saw them and chided him, saying the rocks weren’t meant to be kept. Their purpose was to be thrown. But Hiroshi knew, that once thrown, they were gone.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said. “The stone sinks to the bottom, the ripples on the surface disappear, yes. But the stone is still there. You can’t see the stone but water flows around it, affecting the stream’s path.”
Hiroshi sat on the veranda for a long time.
Mrs. Galang called Hiroshi. Dinner was ready, and his guests were already at the table.
He slid the door to the dining room adorned with a half dozen geisha dolls. An electric frying pan, half-filled with bubbling soup stock, sat in the middle of a low, cloth-covered table. Shizue and Jin knelt beside it on soft cushions, gazing longingly at the pan as Mrs. Galang filled it with fish cake, prawns, tofu, and cabbage; the fragrant scent of soup stock and miso wafted toward Hiroshi like a wave lapping onshore.
“I haven’t had Nabe in . . .”
“Three years,” Hiroshi said. “At least.”
Jin nodded as Shizue explained the dish.
“I didn’t know androids could eat,” said Mrs. Galang as she filled four bowls with heaping mounds of white rice.
“Yes,” said Jin. “We are self-lubricating.”
Shizue snickered as Mrs. Galang gave him a puzzled look.
“He means,” said Shizue. “He can eat.”
“Isn’t that what I said?”
Mrs. Galang began handing each of them a bowl of rice.
When Mrs. Galang handed Shizue her bowl, she waved it away. “Thanks, Liza, but I only want half.”
“Half? But you always—”
“Perhaps,” said Hiroshi, “Shizue is forgetting her manners after being away for so long.”
Shizue turned her gaze to Hiroshi. “I don’t mean any disrespect. I eat brown rice now. It’s better for you and more sustainable.”
“Oh? Some things change.”
“And some things stay the same.” Shizue beckoned to Mrs. Galang, and accepted the offered bowl.
Jin examined his surroundings, his eyes wide. “The dolls are beautiful. Where did you get them?”
“Japan,” said Shizue. “Imported, right?”
“Yes,” Hiroshi said. “Saved from the Collapse. Very valuable.”
Jin raised his eyebrows and nodded. “Does the river flood every year?” he asked. “There are a lot of sandbags.”
“Yeah, the stream seems pretty high this year,” said Shizue, scooping rice from her bowl onto a small plate. “And the rains, much harder.”
Hiroshi shook his head. Didn’t she think he would notice? “No worse than usual,” he said. “It’s like this every year. It will hold.” He gestured to the small pile of rice on Shizue’s plate and shook his head. “Mottainai.” What a waste.
Shizue’s eyes narrowed, and she let out a heavy sigh. “Fine.” She picked up the plate and slid the rice into the bowl with her chopsticks. A few grains tumbled onto the table.
Hiroshi clapped his hands. “Itadakimasu.”
Shizue and Mrs. Galang echoed him, but Jin looked confused.
“It’s a Japanese custom,” said Hiroshi. “You say it before you eat.”
Jin and Shizue exchanged glances, and ate in silence.
Finally, Hiroshi spoke. “How was school?”
Shizue shrugged. “I have one more semester before I take another four months in a work programme. If all goes well, I might be able to get a permanent job.”
“Doing what?”
“Artistic renderings of architectural designs, for sales brochures and stuff.” Shizue gestured toward the android. “Jin is an engineer at the company I’ve interned with.”
“It’s very good,” said Jin. “They pay well.”
“And how much did you make?” Hiroshi focussed on shovelling his rice.
“A good wage,” said Jin. “But I lived in the—”
“Shizue, I mean.”
Shizue hesitated. “It was an internship. I didn’t make anything.”
“You were a slave? How did you live?”
“You don’t understand, Papa-san. I didn’t work there for the pay. I worked for the opportunities, the doors it opened.”
“She has a very good chance of a return internship,” said Jin. “My boss really liked her work.”
“What kind of opportunities?”
“Weren’t you listening? I might be able to continue working with Jin at his firm.”
“Anywhere else?”
She shook her head. “No. Not at the moment. I’d have to continue freelancing.”
Hiroshi looked up from his rice bowl, squinting at her. “And how much does a freelance artist earn?”
Shizue glanced at Jin. “I make do.”
“What she is trying to say,” said Jin, “is that she is comfortable.”
Knight in shining armour, always coming to her rescue.
“What does that mean? Make do?”
Shizue dropped her chopsticks on the table. “Jin said I’m comfortable.”
“I heard.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Mrs. Galang piped up. “Anyone want more tofu?”
Hiroshi glanced at Mrs. Galang. Thank the gods for her, acting like a break wall against the oncoming tide. Hiroshi nodded and went back to digging through the remaining remnants of chicken and shiitake mushrooms in his soup.
Mrs. Galang poured a block of udon into the electric pan.
“I wondered,” said Hiroshi, “whether you would consider a change of scenery?”
“Where to?”
“Here.”
Shizue and Jin glanced at each other, and Hiroshi’s heart sank. He knew her answer. Not everything had changed. He could still peer through the veil she had erected these past few years and look directly into her heart, and her heart no longer belonged here. It belonged to the thing that knelt beside her.
Shizue looked down at her half-eaten bowl of rice and shovelled down another bite. “I . . . don’t know. Why?”
“I’m getting old. Mrs. Galang is soon to retire.”
Shizue shrugged. “Hire an android.”
“I want you.”
“Can Jin come with me?”
“He can visit.”
“Can he stay?
Live? With me?”
Hiroshi opened his mouth but words stopped in his throat. His stomach roiled at the thought of that machine living here with him.
“That’s what I thought,” said Shizue.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Perhaps,” said Jin, “some arrangement could be made—”
“Stay out of this,” said Hiroshi, not taking his eyes off his daughter. “This doesn’t concern you.”
Shizue slammed the chopsticks onto the table with a loud clatter and stood up. “This was a mistake.” She stormed from the room, slamming the sliding door behind her.
The Nabe continued to boil.
After dinner, the rain subsided, allowing Hiroshi to finish shoring up the berm against the rising river in the light of the lanterns on the veranda.
As he piled more bags on the flood wall, he mulled over the events at dinner. Let the storm subside. She would be much better if she had some time alone to be with her thoughts. In the morning perhaps, with a good cup of green tea, they might speak.
“Abe-san.”
Hiroshi turned. Jin was silhouetted against the light of the lantern.
Hiroshi picked up the spade and shovelled sand into a burlap sack.
“Abe-san?”
“I can hear you.” Hiroshi tamped the sand in the sack down before tying the drawstring.
“Excuse the interruption, but I thought I should let you know. We’re leaving.”
Hiroshi winced as if he were just struck in the chest by an hammer. No morning conversation. No time for reconciliation. How long before Shizue’s next visit? Years?
Maybe never.
Hiroshi put the next sandbag down and turned back to dig more sand. “Roads could be treacherous at night. It’ll clear by morning. At least stay the night.”
Seasons Between Us Page 2