A black and white print of a middle-aged man dressed in the garb of a Victorian academician. The Meiji elite had been quick to adopt the style. The two swords and the crest on the wall behind him signified his samurai heritage. And he did look an awful lot like Pat Morita.
Connor shook his head in wonder. “He’s the guy.”
“Told you. That means the other man in your dream must be your great-great-grandfather.”
“Why’s he showing up in my dreams?”
“Sammoh might have been at the cutting edge of societal evolution in his time, but I imagine he’d be pretty traditional by modern standards. If he wanted to get us together, arranging it with your great-great would be the honorable thing to do.”
“Did he know how to use those swords?”
“Probably used them to open crates of books. Or hocked the real ones and put some cheap knockoffs on the wall for show.”
“But you’re from an honest-to-goodness samurai family—”
“Cool, huh? Though whatever conflicts they got themselves into, I suspect the Ohs preferred to talk their way out of them.”
“The sword is the warrior’s right hand; his letters, the left. Letters in the poetic sense, of course.”
“Who said that?”
“Lord Hojo Soun of Odawara. I was there on my mission. This affinity between English and Japanese and teaching goes a long way back in your family. Like it’s bred in the bone.”
Elly gave Connor a curious look. “What?” he queried.
“It’s just that my Grandpa Packard says the same thing.”
Chapter 22
Last Call
T hat night in his dreams, Connor rode the Nankai line through the terraced countryside to Kudoyama. Up the hill from the station, two blocks past the Post Office, around the corner and down the alley, he stopped in front of the tavern. The curtain hanging over the entranceway was decorated with a sake kanji. He stepped inside.
“Aye, laddie!” a voice called out. Connor turned around. The speaker waved to him from one of the café tables. “Could use a third.”
He approached the table. A Stetson sat on the empty chair to the man’s right. Connor said, “You Connor McKenzie?”
“That’s me, son.” He spoke with a thick Scottish brogue. The Scotsman plucked the Stetson off the chair. “Take a load off.”
Connor set the furoshiki on the table—he still hadn’t managed to rid himself of the thing—pulled out the chair and sat down.
“Sam here’s dealing.”
Sametaroh Oh smiled a small, knowing smile and dealt five cards three ways. Connor picked up his hand. Four aces, queen high. No one had anteed or bet, so he laid the cards down on the table, face up.
“Well, hell,” his great-great-grandfather said. “No sense betting against that hand.”
The samurai scholar gathered up the cards, shuffled, and dealt again. This time Connor collected four aces, king high.
The elder McKenzie said, “A man’s got to wonder about the point of this game.” He gave the younger Connor a wink, tipped back in his chair, and laced his fingers together behind his head. The third round of cards slid across the table. As Connor went to gather up the cards, the Scotsman leaned forward, chair legs thumping hard on the floorboards. He said in a low voice, “’E’s dealing you nothing but aces, son. When ye getting in the game?”
Connor fanned the cards out in his hand. A royal flush, this time, in hearts. These guys weren’t subtle.
He sat on the weight bench next to the water heater and stared at the unfinished drywall. Working with Glenn had motivated him to tape and plaster the kitchen walls before leaving for Japan. He really should prime and paint them one of these days.
What’s the rush? Always the McKenzie question. Think it over, take your time, analyze, evaluate. And then ask for a second opinion.
All this dithering and second guessing must strike his ancestors as so much nonsense. Sametaroh Oh had established a family legacy during the dissolution of the Tokugawa regime and the burgeoning days of Japan’s Pacific empire. Connor’s great-great-grandfather journeyed six thousand miles from the windswept Orkney Islands to follow after a strange American religion with roots in the New World no deeper than his own.
These were carpe diem kind of guys. He wasn’t.
But the fact remained: he didn’t really have any decision to make. He possessed all the forensic tools a four-year education had bestowed on him, could dissect the syllogisms and factor down the transforms to their atomic constituencies. And it didn’t make a particle of difference.
What mattered was how often he turned to say something to her and realized she wasn’t there, how every morning he woke up expecting her by his side. He could no longer imagine living without the vibrant expectation of her smile, the light in her eyes, the touch of her hand, the intimate warmth of her body.
The only real question was: Why wait?
Connor went to the kitchen nook and ran a glass of water. It was Reading Day. He’d promised to pick up Elly at eight-thirty. He had the morning shift at the Center, and the rest of the afternoon to study for finals on Friday.
After lunch, Melanie came to the library to cram for the Japanese 301 final with Elly. At 3:50, Elly’s watch beeped. “Office hours,” she said in a librarian’s whisper.
Connor accompanied her to the JKHB and then camped out at the Center. When he returned to the TA office at five she was still busy with her students.
“Another half hour,” she told him. She collected him at twenty past. “What was your major when you first came to BYU?” she asked him on the way out.
“Engineering, like my dad.”
“That’s quite a shift, engineering to linguistics.”
“Left brain to right brain.” He traced a line across his skull from one ear to the other. “You didn’t go to the MTC, did you?”
She shook her head. “I was deemed sufficiently fluent.” At Ninth East she said, “It’s too nice to go in right away. Let’s walk through the park.”
They crossed the outfields and found a cool, shaded place on the slope beneath the cottonwoods. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. The life of the park played out before them as if on a giant, outdoor stage.
“I met your great-great-grandfather again last night.”
Elly smiled and squeezed his arm. “I thought maybe you did. I missed dreaming about you. What did he say?”
“He just dealt cards. My great-great-grandfather McKenzie was there too. He did all the talking. He didn’t like the way I was playing. I kept ending up with these winning hands, four of a kind, aces, right off the top of the deck. Finally he wonders aloud when I’m going to raise the ante.”
“I’m not up on my poker metaphors.”
“You know what Aunt Wanda says about McKenzie men, how it takes us forever to make up our minds—”
“You can’t make up your mind?”
“No, I’ve made up my mind. It’s deciding what to do next, which I suppose is the same thing. To bet the house, as the metaphor would have it.” He turned to face her. “I’m being obtuse. I know what they’ve been saying all along.” He looked into her wide, brown eyes. “I haven’t ever done this before,” he apologized. “So it’s going to come out all wrong—”
Elly raised her hand and pressed her fingers against his lips. “No,” she whispered, “not now.”
Connor froze. Then he nodded.
Elly averted her eyes, embarrassed by her cowardice. “I’d better go home,” she said. “Melanie is expecting me.”
Chapter 23
A Song to Sirius
I t was a lie. Melanie was, in fact, sitting on the couch flipping through her Kinesiology & Bio-mechanics PE text. A Sada Masashi CD was playing on the stereo. The room smelled faintly of reheated pizza, slightly burned.
“O-kaeri,” said Melanie. Elly mustered a lackluster “ Tadaima.” She dropped her backpack in the armchair. In the kitchen, she held a glass beneath the faucet and ran the
water cold. An incessant rattling drew her attention. Her hand was shaking so hard the glass was bumping against the side of the sink. She set the glass aside and forced herself to calm down.
The roaring in her ears died away. Music drifted back into her senses. She recognized the album, A Time of Zephyr Dreams. The last cut on the CD began.
In the song, a solo voice accompanied by acoustic guitar tells the story of a girl leaving home in the middle of the night, full of worry and a growing sense of distress. Outside the train window, she sees Sirius, the Dog Star, following faithfully along with her. She wants to speak to her father, but can only address herself to that distant, steadfast point of light.
Elly stood in the hallway between the kitchen and living room, leaned against the wall, and closed her eyes. As she listened to the music, she found herself repeating the same words: Papa, I never thought I’d love another person as much as I love you.
She felt the tears on her cheeks. She was crying and didn’t know why. It was ridiculous to weep over a simple folk song she’d heard dozens of times before without batting an eye, but she buried her face in her hands and sobbed. And then, almost ready to fall apart, she felt Melanie’s strong arms around her. Elly wept, it seemed, forever, until those deep reservoirs of loss and regret and longing had finally spent themselves.
Melanie gently let her go. Elly kept her eyes downcast, mortified at the emotions she’d unburdened on her roommate. When she’d at last gained some measure of composure, she gave Melanie an uncertain smile to reassure her that the worst was over.
“Elly, what’s the matter? I’ve never seen you like this before.” Elly tried to laugh. It came out as a wet snuffle. “I’m just being majorly premenstrual.” She took a breath, grew more serious again. “Connor was going to ask me to marry him. I wouldn’t let him.”
“This is a bad thing? Do you want to marry him?”
“No. Yes.” She shook her head emphatically, spilling tears out of the corners of her eyes. She nodded. “I want to, with all my heart I want to. I’ve wanted to marry him all along. It’s just that—it’s just that—” She felt the tears welling up again, so she breathed until that wave ran up on the beach and vanished into the damp sand. “I’ve never left home, Mel. I’ve been away from home, but I’ve never left. I didn’t think there was a difference. I’ve lived in so many places, but place isn’t what matters. I’ve always been aneki, the eldest daughter. But from now on I’m going to be okusan, Mrs. Connor McKenzie.”
“No, you’re going to be Elly Chieko McKenzie. Or Elly Packard McKenzie. Or Elly Packard-McKenzie with a hyphen.”
This time Elly did laugh. She said in a quieter voice, “Listening to that song, I suddenly realized that even half a world away, I hadn’t left home. When you marry in Japan, on the census, they move your name from your parent’s family register to your husband’s. Connor isn’t Japanese, but metaphorically—”
“That’s what weddings and receptions are for, silly. So they can play that song, you know, the one from Ephesians: For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife—” She hummed a melody
Elly didn’t recognize. Mel gave her a cross look. “Girl, you obviously haven’t been a bridesmaid often enough.”
“I haven’t ever been.”
“Then the first time’s the charm. You are going to marry him?”
“Of course I am.”
“If he hasn’t formally asked you, you still make him.”
Elly nodded. They hugged and Melanie said, “Remember what I told you before—no pining into your pillow. That’s what my shoulder is for.”
Melanie gave her another hug and returned to her studies. Elly went back to the kitchen and opened the oven door and found two slices of pizza left on the cookie sheet. After thirty seconds in the microwave, the pizza tasted just fine.
Chapter 24
The Lady Poet
C onnor repeated the mantra to himself: she didn’t say no. Still, that one small ray of hope couldn’t erase the fact that he’d been an idiot. Trusting the advice of a couple of century-old geezers wasn’t all that sane either.
C’mon, he lectured himself, you just don’t blurt out marriage proposals like that. You’re supposed to woo. That’s why the word’s been in the lexicon so damned long (usage noted before the twelfth century: Middle English, from wowen; Old English, from wogian).
Not to mention, his acerbic inner voice continued, if you’re going the direct route, get it out, man, in a coherent interrogative. Four words: an auxiliary, two pronouns, a verb, and a question mark.
Instead, he’d done a good imitation of road kill: Whap! Thump! It was disgusting.
Around eight-thirty he remembered that he hadn’t eaten and went upstairs and nuked some leftover casserole. A few minutes later, he caught himself standing at the sink, wondering what Elly was going to make for dinner on Sunday. Aunt Wanda insisted that she come over and Elly insisted on cooking every other meal in turn.
He watched the first ten minutes of the nine o’clock news, and then put on La Bohème. A tragedy about doomed love, yes, but like Shakespeare, Puccini could convince him that the world was a better place with a little tragedy in it. And since he didn’t understand more than a dozen words in Italian, it was easy to ignore the plot.
Except that he’d read the libretto, and when Mimi and Rodolfo sang O Soave Fanciulla (“Oh, beautiful maiden”), the most beautiful love duet ever written, he had to turn it off.
The last thought on his mind as he faded off to sleep: she didn’t say no.
He awoke without her, and being without her was wrong the same way he knew the world was round. They hadn’t made love since the night of Tanabata, but she was with him every night. Awaking rent apart the slender, silver thread binding their hearts and minds.
Connor sat on the edge of the bed, cold and alone, waiting for the sludge of sleep to drain from his skull. Deep in his brain, a thought flitted along a neuron. He tilted his head to one side, as if to trap it like an air bubble in a bottle. Paths. Something about paths, or roads, or a journey on a road. Walking, no, running—running along a road, a path. A waka—he could remember reading it, could picture the side of the page in the book it was on. But what was it?
A shower didn’t stir his memories, except to remind him that she hadn’t said no, which also reminded him that neither had she said yes—there being no squishy ground when it came to a Packard yes and a Packard no.
He was quite insane, he reminded himself. They’d been together barely two weeks in the real world. But he felt as if he’d known her for years. And somehow, counting backwards from the future past, he had.
He scanned his library. Basho, perhaps? Basho was a traveler, familiar with paths and journeys. But he didn’t think romantic when he thought about Basho. Sei Shonagon was the right era, though she was more an essayist. His Japanese Court Poetry text? A quick look and he put it aside. Not Genji, but a contemporary of Murasaki Shikibu? Think, brain, think. He should know this.
He didn’t have time to think. He had a phonology final in half an hour. He brushed his teeth and checked his backpack and left feeling like a person troubled by hard evidence of early senility.
Nobody was at the condo. Elly and Melanie had already left for their 301 final. He arrived at the JKHB at exactly eight. No time to sit around and fret. Professor Geary was ready with the exams and Connor was armed with his blue, medium-tip Bic. All the anxiety with exams was about the leading-up-to, not the taking. He could be induced to confess, under sufficient duress, that he enjoyed taking tests, zoning everything else out and channeling the contents of his brain into that Zen state for two hours (plus or minus).
He handed in the exam an hour and three-quarters later. Elly wasn’t in the TA office. She wasn’t at the library. But once he was there—he found Mitsutani’s Practical Guide to the National Language in the stacks and checked the literary timeline for the Heian Period. Starting with Murasaki Shikibu, eleventh cen
tury, he worked backward through the Fujiwaras, to Kyokai, Kukai, Komachi. Ono no Komachi. She was ninth century, not exactly a contemporary of Shikibu (that was Sei Shonagon). So where was his Komachi? He’d lent his Hirshfield translation to Aunt Wanda.
Knowing the who, he needed only five minutes to find the waka poem in an annotated collection. He jogged over to the bookstore and bought a card and headed back to the Writing Center. He practiced writing out the five lines before committing them to the card. The intensity of the moment focused his mind and the results were satisfactory.
He left the card on Elly’s desk and ran up the stairs and down the hall, just in time to deliver himself to Kusanagi Sensei’s examination.
Ninety minutes later, he placed the completed exam on her desk. She glanced at him and said with an air of inscrutable professorial nonchalance, “You’re dating Elly?”
That unexpected question left him stumbling for an answer. A good thing she hadn’t asked him before the exam. He mumbled an affirmative response.
“Oh,” she said. “Makoto thought otherwise.”
Returning from the Cougareat after a quick lunch, he remembered that Makoto was Oh Sensei’s first name.
Xiaojing stopped by the Writing Center for one last review before her TOEFL exam on Saturday.
Twenty minutes later he heard someone calling his name. He looked up. At the counter, Alicia gave him a “Who, me?” expression and pointed to her right. Elly stood just inside the doorway, a stack of exams clasped against her chest.
“Elly—”
She said in Japanese, “The question you asked me—that you were going to ask me yesterday—ask me again.”
Connor froze, a deer caught in the headlights. He’d never addressed another person using “marriage” as a transitive verb, let alone in Japanese. The words at last fell into place, the question sounding indelicately direct in his ears: “Elly, will you marry me?”
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