The Dream of Water

by Kyoko Mori

  I sit up in bed, suddenly too angry to keep lying down. My father didn’t even get dressed to greet me in the first place. He sat at the table with no shirt on so I had to see his hairy chest and his scar. Then he insisted that he didn’t have to stand on ceremony because I was his daughter, as though there was some closeness between us that did away with the visit’s awkwardness. Actually, when he said that I was his daughter, he meant that I was a person not deserving of a guest’s special treatment or respect. He didn’t mean that he loved me or that we were close in any way. Because he was my father, he implied, he had every right to embarrass me with his bare chest, his scars.

  I hold my knees to my chest. Above me, shadows of trees are swaying on the ceiling. The cats are running up and down the hallway. Even though I had expected every bit of my father’s behavior, I still cannot believe how rude he was, how hurtful. The message Mrs. Peterson left on Sylvia’s machine this afternoon was nothing by comparison—nor Paul kicking Jacques out of his house in the middle of the movie and telling him, in front of everyone, never to set foot there again. Their actions were simply thoughtless or eccentric. My father is in a league of his own when it comes to rude, insensitive, and strange behavior. My stepmother, too, acted with plain malice—saying hurtful things about my mother, my grandmother, how nobody would want to see me after all these years.

  If anyone else had behaved in the way Hiroshi and Michiko did, I would have been outraged on the spot, not later. I would have protested and defended myself. I would even have said some ugly things in return, expressing my anger right away. But with Hiroshi and Michiko, it’s different. What happened tonight is a repeat of our visit in New York. When I am with them, I don’t fully realize how angry I am. I get stunned into politeness, an icy, stiff kind of politeness that enables me, at least, to keep my dignity. I make inquiries about their health, thank them for their trouble, wish them well at parting even though I couldn’t care less about their well-being. When I talked to Kazumi on the phone, I was talking like family, without that stiff politeness. I knew that Hiroshi and Michiko were listening. I wanted them to hear the difference. That was how I was getting back at them, trying to be hurtful in my own way: I wanted Hiroshi and Michiko to know that they would never be family to me in the way Kazumi, Akiko, and my maternal relatives were.

  It’s possible, then, that I acted no better toward my father than he did toward me. I did nothing to hide my reluctance about visiting his house. When I got there, I immediately started talking like a stranger. I didn’t insist that he take my phone number over my stepmother’s objection. I did little to make conversation. More than likely, my barely masked indifference contributed to the bad feeling between us. Perhaps, rather than remaining icily dignified, I should have confronted him and said, “What is wrong with you? Why won’t you take me out to dinner? Why must you talk about me as if I were nothing more than an unpleasant obligation? You are supposed to be my father. You have no right to behave this way.” If I had said something like that, we would have been openly angry at each other. We would have been forced to be honest. There might then have been a chance, however small, of further discussions. If not, I would still have the consolation of having acted with honesty.

  My aunt Keiko told me yesterday that my mother’s problem was her retreat into silence: she should have confronted Hiroshi about his affair, his indifference, his reluctance to spend time at home. My mother had been too proud, too concerned about her dignity, to break the dishes in her house, cry, and protest. What I did tonight was no different. Maybe I was just repeating my mother’s mistake, her karma as Keiko would put it.

  In some crazy way, my father might even have been trying to establish a casual atmosphere, the mood of a family visit. When I arrived, he didn’t return my stiff greeting and instead asked for my phone number. He sat there exposing his tuberculosis scars to me. Even his taking a nap later could be interpreted as a gesture of casualness: since we were all family, he might have been trying to indicate, he could go lie down if he was tired. My insistence on formality, then, was the greatest insult I could have given.

  Still, I simply cannot make myself regret my behavior. How dare my father make these bizarre gestures of familiarity when, five minutes into my visit, he and Michiko were arguing about which one of them should take me out to dinner because neither wanted to? Every time we discussed the possibility of getting together, he mentioned how busy he was, as though seeing me were just business, a boring obligation. When he got up from the nap, he made it clear that he was riding with us only to help Michiko, not because he wanted to see me safely back to Sylvia’s house. He didn’t say it was good to see me; he didn’t even ask me how I was. So how could I take his “not standing on ceremony” as a gesture of true intimacy or affection? It’s just another manifestation of his wanting things both ways. Even though my father himself acts without warmth or affection toward me, he wants me, when it suits him, to act like family. He wants to pretend that we are a normal family who can be casual with one another. That’s just his version of not confronting the truth. I cannot accept that. Why should I blame myself for not wanting to behave like his daughter when he doesn’t treat me like his daughter in any real way?

  I have to keep remembering that I am a stranger to him now, that I have gone to live in a foreign country. In the life I have chosen for myself, I will never have to see him again, much less forgive him. My father is irrelevant to my life in the present and the future; forgiving him is not important. Why should it be up to me to force a confrontation with him that might, someday, lead to reconciliation when he keeps pretending that he never wronged me in the past?

  Perhaps I would have felt differently if I believed in a doctrine of forgiveness as Keiko does. Along the Philosopher’s Path this afternoon, countless bodhisattvas have stood over me, extending their many arms in consolation or forgiveness as the gold clouds of transcendence swirled at their feet. At least for a while, they made me long for the all-encompassing forgiveness that goes beyond personal pain or grudges. But in the end, the quietness of the bodhisattvas, their gray-stone halos and carved jars of salve, are foreign to me. I cannot enter that gray world of stone and learn impersonal peace.

  Exhausted by my thoughts, I lie back down and try to sleep, thinking of the swallowtail caterpillars eating in the dark. If you are very quiet, my mother might have said in one of the bedtime stories she told to help my brother and me fall asleep, you can hear them eating, impatient to grow, bringing down their green house every night with their hunger. I wonder what other images my mother might have had as we lay on our futons, our heads half covered with quilts, eyes slightly open to see her face as she read or spoke, peeking at her even though she kept telling us: Close your eyes now. It’s time for sleep.

  Purple Orchids

  There used to be a cherry tree in front of my grandfather Tatsuo’s house. Though the tree was outside the concrete walls that surrounded the house, its pale pink petals and red stamens shed on the patio inside. In April, my aunt Akiko had to sweep twice a day because Tatsuo could not stand the clutter of petals. Tatsuo wanted everything spotless. Once, in front of me, he told my stepmother that he had avoided our house during my mother’s life because my mother did not sweep the floor properly: the hems of his pants got dirty from the accumulated dust. Michiko repeated this remark to me whenever she had the chance, in case I had forgotten.

  The tree has been cut down, leaving a knee-high stump. Everything else is the same: the walls with jagged pieces of glass stuck on top, the heavy wooden door painted dark brown, my grandfather’s name on the plaque above the door. When I ring the bell, a dog starts barking inside. Though my brother told me about the dog, I cannot believe that Tatsuo actually allowed it into his house. When my brother and I lived here after our mother’s death, Tatsuo often threatened to take our dog Riki to the pound. Every afternoon when I came home, I was afraid that the dog might be gone. Riki was lost, though it was a year after my brother and I had moved back
to our father’s house. My stepmother used to take him off the chain at night to run loose, so he wouldn’t bark and bother my father. Our house wasn’t fenced in. One night he ran away and did not come back. My brother and I never wanted a dog again.

  I can hear footsteps on the other side of the wall.

  “Ran-chan, be quiet,” Kazumi is saying. “Come here. I have to tie you up.” The chain rattles. She must be putting it around the dog’s collar. Kazumi opens the door and stands behind it, smiling, wearing a white apron over her green T-shirt and black pants. Her hair is shoulder length, just as it was when we were younger. She used to be a little taller than I, but we are almost exactly the same height now. Behind her, the dog rears up and is pulled back by the chain.

  “Come in. It’s good to see you. Don’t mind the dog. He just barks.”

  “It’s good to see you, too.” I step into the patio.

  “You’d better go see Grandfather right away. He’s waiting in the drawing room.”

  I follow her into the house, through the kitchen, down the hallway, into the drawing room where Tatsuo used to scold me and lock me up afterward. As before, the room has a long couch, a glass-top table, and two stuffed chairs. I am not sure if the couch and the chairs are the same old ones or their replacements.

  Tatsuo is sitting in one of the stuffed chairs, a black cane between his knees. He raises one of his hands from the handle and points at the couch. Kazumi goes back to the kitchen.

  “Have a seat,” he says to me.

  I sit down. Across the glass-top table, Tatsuo looks much smaller than I remember. He used to be one of those old men who tended to be fat, whose balding head was shiny with grease. Now his body shrinks away from the starched white shirt and gray dress pants, especially around the collar and the waist. It’s as though someone had let out the air from a balloon.

  “How is your health?” I ask.

  “Ever since that heart attack,” he replies, touching his chest as if I might not know where his heart is located, “my health has been very delicate. But I am doing my best to hang on.”

  I nod. The last heart attack he suffered was seven years ago. He was taken to the emergency room where the doctor on duty called a heart specialist. That specialist happened to be one of my mother’s cousins—the older brother of Takeshi, whose suicide two years before my mother’s had led my father and Tatsuo to believe that my mother’s family was mentally unstable. Keiko told me these details. It’s one of the things she attributes to karma.

  Kazumi comes in, carrying two glasses of iced tea on a tray. She sets down the glasses on the table, mine first and then Tatsuo’s, treating me like an important guest. Tatsuo doesn’t thank her or even glance in her direction. She turns to go.

  “Kai-chan,” I call her back, using her childhood name. “Sit down with me.”

  She looks toward Tatsuo, who still says nothing.

  “I’m sure Grandfather doesn’t mind.” I move over on the couch to give her room.

  “It’s a hard time for our family,” Tatsuo says as Kazumi sits down. “Your aunt is in the hospital. Her health has never been the same since that afternoon she and I went looking all over Hiroshima for her brother Tsuyoshi. It was only a day after they dropped the atomic bomb. We didn’t know there was radiation left in the ground. What a misfortune. We had no idea the bomb would affect all of our health for years to come.”

  “My mother’s doing very well,” Kazumi whispers. “Don’t worry.”

  Tatsuo ignores her and goes on. “At least your father was healthy. He wasn’t affected by the bomb, having been in Kyoto. But now he has intestinal tumors. He’ll be in the hospital for nine weeks.”

  “I didn’t realize it was such a big operation,” I say, a little surprised. “He acted like it was nothing. He didn’t say he would be staying so long.”

  Tatsuo sighs. “Hiroshi has no appreciation or gratitude. He takes his health for granted. He showed no concern when I had that heart attack.”

  Again he lays his hand over his chest. He talks on and on about the medications he is taking, the shortness of breath he experiences. When he stops, nobody talks for a while. Soon Tatsuo dozes off while sitting straight up, his fingers clasped over the cane.

  Kazumi turns to me and shrugs.

  “I was in Kyoto yesterday,” I tell her. “I thought of you at a temple. Remember playing hide-and-seek in the cemetery in Osaka?”

  “Yes. My mother still talks about it when we go there. She laughs about that stone you broke when you were pretending to be a ninja.”

  Kazumi is talking about the year I climbed on another family’s memorial stone while the adults were inside the temple, attending a service to honor our family dead. As I jumped down to attack my brother, the stone toppled over and cracked. Tatsuo had to pay to replace it.

  “He was pretty mad.” I tilt my head slightly toward Tatsuo. “He said maybe something bad would happen to me as punishment. That family whose stone I broke—maybe their ancestors would cause me to be hit by a car or fall and break my leg.”

  “Yes. That made your mother mad at him for trying to scare us. She told us not to be scared of dead people for they meant no harm. She said the family’s ancestors would be happy that none of us got hurt.”

  I take a sip of my tea. It tastes like lemon.

  “I’m glad you want to go to the cemetery,” Kazumi continues. “My mother and I brought flowers once a month until she got sick. We started doing that when I was in college. We like to remember your mother.”

  “Do you remember her very much, from when she was alive?”

  “Your mother? Of course.”

  “What do you remember about her?”

  “Beauty,” she says right away. “Everything she did was beautiful. Her embroidery, her flowers, even the food she cooked. When she made cold noodles in the summer, she cut the eggs and cucumbers and tomatoes into very thin threads and arranged them on top. When my mother made the same dish, she cut the vegetables any old way, sprinkled them on the noodles, and poured soy sauce over the whole thing. Your mother’s noodles were much prettier.”

  From the corner of my eyes, I can see Tatsuo still sleeping, his mouth slightly open.

  “Your mother was also considerate,” Kazumi adds. “When I came over to your birthday parties, she reminded you to pay special attention to me so I wouldn’t feel left out. The other girls were your friends from school. They were a year ahead of me, so I didn’t know them.”

  “My mother liked you a lot,” I tell Kazumi. “When our families got together, she always told me to follow your example and stay out of trouble. ‘Watch what Kai-chan does and do the same,’ she used to say. But I made you follow me instead and get into trouble. Later, my mother would ask, ‘Why are you so restless? Why can’t you be good like Kai-chan?’”

  “My mother always said I should be smart and quick like you. She wanted me to be more lively. I was too quiet and boring compared with you.”

  We laugh.

  “You always bragged about your mother,” Kazumi continues. “You said, ‘I’m a lot like my mother, so I’ll grow up to be smart and beautiful. I’m lucky.’ You said that a lot.”

  Tatsuo taps his cane on the floor. He is staring straight ahead. I can’t tell how long he has been awake.

  “How many years?” he mumbles. “How many years since Takako’s death?”

  “Twenty-one,” I tell him.

  “Hmm,” he says. “Poor Takako. She was a gentle person. She was a much better daughter-in-law than your stepmother.” He closes his eyes and dozes off again.

  “What was that about?” I ask Kazumi. I’m sitting in the same spot where he and my father told me that I could no longer see my mother’s family. A few months after that, Tatsuo said that my mother had tainted his bloodline with her mental instability and suicide. “She brought in bad blood” was how he put it. “I should never have allowed Hiroshi to marry her.”

  “Grandfather is old,” Kazumi says. “He only remembers
what’s convenient to remember.”

  Behind the chair where he is sleeping through my visit—just as my father did—the glass cabinet still holds his Ming vase, white Imari plates, purple crystal goblets. He has always collected expensive breakable things. The afternoon of my mother’s death, he did not rush over to our house, though Aunt Akiko was there twenty minutes after my call. Tatsuo came a few hours later, neatly dressed in a black suit. Getting out of the taxi, he did not say, “Poor Takako.” Instead, he looked me in the face and croaked, “Your mother has done a terrible thing.” So I feel a momentary urge to say to Kazumi, “His age has nothing to do with it. Grandfather was selfish and mean all his life.” But I refrain because Kazumi is the one who must live with him. I can only criticize him as much as she wants to, not more. If she wants to pretend or even believe that his thoughtlessness is due to his age, if that is what makes it possible for her to put up with living with him, then I have to respect that pretense or belief. To do otherwise, to embarrass her with what I consider to be “the truth,” would be rude and inconsiderate. I want to be polite to my cousin—not in the superficial way I was polite to my father but in a true sense—by being considerate and sparing her feelings. I smile and sip the iced tea. “This is delicious,” I tell her.

  It’s eleven o’clock. I have to leave for Kyoto to meet with a writers’ group Vince knows. He gave me money for the train fare and put me in touch with Peter, the American man at whose house we are to meet.

  “I’m going to a meeting in Kyoto” is all I tell Kazumi. How can I explain to her that I am meeting with four men I don’t even know, to talk about poetry? It’s like the rest of my life in the States. I don’t know how or where to begin the explanation. What I do now is so different from her daily life, from the life I would have led had I stayed here.