She gathered the lilies that lay beside her into a bouquet and carried them into the reception room, placing them in a vase on the tokonoma beside the photos of Misako and Kazuo, and one of Yoshio. Then she knelt on the tatami and bowed to them. Her words came easily now as she gazed up into their frozen smiles. She stood straight and returned to the low dining room table, where her paper and fountain pen waited. Fumiko lowered herself onto the cushion and began her weekly letter to Yoshio. If she set her thoughts down in words, they wouldn’t disappear. Where had she left off? There was so much to say.
Time
Time was running out. Hiroshi was forced to withdraw from the Hatsu Basho in January and the Haru Basho in March when his knee became tender and swollen again, just days prior to each tournament. Two weeks before the March tournament, he’d been officially demoted to the komusubi rank. According to the doctors and Tanaka-oyakata, his knee had healed and his exercise regimen of leg lifts and weights went far beyond what he was doing before his injury. There was no physical explanation as to why his knee swelled before each tournament. After the swelling went down the second time around, Hiroshi began training for the Natsu Basho in May.
A year had passed since Hiroshi’s injury and the death of his ojiichan. His grief found itself in sleeplessness, in the words stuck in his throat, in the swelling of his knee. Since then, time moved forward according to the tournament schedules and never paused long enough for him to catch his breath. Sometimes he actually heard his grandfather’s voice telling him to “slow down, life isn’t a race.” But wasn’t it in the sumo world? There were only so many good years. Hiroshi struggled hard to stay in shape, only to lose, instead of gain, weight. Now, on the eve of the May tournament, he knew that stepping back into the dohyo meant everything; if his knee failed him again, his sumo career would be over.
In the dressing room before Hiroshi’s first match, Sadao helped him to put on his silk mawashi belt. He felt the belt tighten around his crotch and wind tautly against his hips. They’d said very little to each other as they moved through the same routine they followed before each tournament. The boy bowed and handed him his book of poetry. He liked Sadao, who was reliable and intelligent, even if he remained cautious and spoke sparingly. He continued to work and train hard and Hiroshi hoped that in time he would relax and have some fun. A lost childhood was hard to recapture in a sumo stable, but he saw Sadao most relaxed when he stepped onto the dohyo, leaving the memories of his past behind.
Hiroshi didn’t have the patience for poetry today. Instead, he paced back and forth trying to keep his knee warm and flexible. The trick was to keep moving. Unlike before the last two tournaments, this time his knee didn’t swell.
A medley of voices had returned to him in a dream the night before; his ojiichan’s, low and raspy with age, like gravel in water. “You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. You’ll always be a champion.” He saw again his grandfather’s familiar smile. His obaachan looked on, worried, and said in a soft blanket of a whisper, “The sumo life is short. It’s the rest of your life that you must think about.” Hiroshi couldn’t imagine any other life than sumo. When he tried, there was only a feeling of emptiness in the pit of his stomach and the sound of dry leaves being crushed. Kenji, who sat across from him, appeared content and happy as he quietly said, “Don’t worry, you’ll fight again.”
Hiroshi walked down the hanamichi aisle and looked up to where he knew his obaachan, Kenji, and Mika were sitting. He couldn’t see beyond the glaring lights, but he knew they were there. He only wished his ojiichan were with them. When his name, Takanoyama, was called out, the audience roared as he stepped onto the dohyo for the first time in a year. The clay felt comforting against the battered soles of his feet. Hiroshi was nervous and his knee felt stiff as he moved through the opening rituals, a tight knot resisting every move he made. Slowly, it began to loosen with each leg lift and every squat. He suddenly felt in control of his body again. “Matta nashi,” the referee called out. It’s time. The words rang through Hiroshi’s head like a chant. It’s time to fight, he thought. It’s time to win this tournament for his grandfather. It’s time to rise up in the ranks and step toward his destiny. It’s time. His stare locked onto the eyes of his opponent, while all the noise seeped away except for the beating of his own heart. When his body sprang forward and slammed into his opponent, he felt all the pent-up fear and energy of the past year take over.
Traditions
Their marriage was to be without fanfare, a simple civil ceremony. It was what he and Mika wanted, even though his obaachan and Mika’s parents were unhappy about it. Kenji wasn’t interested in all the complicated wedding rituals. Theirs was a marriage of love, not defined or determined by a matchmaker and outdated customs.
“Wasn’t it the same for you and ojiichan?” he asked his grandmother.
His obaachan watched him for a moment. “We still waited and had a customary yunio. You of the younger generation might think it’s all nonsense, but an engagement ceremony with all the traditional gifts is a centuries-old tradition. Why do you and Mika-san think it should be broken now?” She poured him a cup of green tea at the low dining room table.
“Mika and I don’t need those things to know we’ll have a good marriage,” he said carefully.
“There’s nothing wrong with tradition,” his grandmother said, so softly that he couldn’t help feeling bad. Her gaze moved toward the reception room where the photos of his parents and grandfather sat on the tokonoma.
“No,” he said, trying to soothe her. “There isn’t. There’ll be more than enough for you to do when Hiroshi marries. The great Sekiwake Takanoyama’s wedding will be a public event,” he added. His brother’s successful comeback had made him an even more beloved sumotori than he already was.
“But Hiroshi’s wedding isn’t yours,” his grandmother said. “It isn’t so simple. The rituals are a symbol of your commitment. You act as if they’ll steal something away instead of adding to your life together.”
His grandmother’s gaze fell upon him. He could almost feel it burning into his skin. “Mika and I prefer to have a modern marriage,” was his only answer.
His obaachan sipped her tea and didn’t say another word.
Life was never simple. Kenji knew his was filled with contradictions. Wasn’t mask making for the Noh theater one of the most traditional Japanese art forms? He wasn’t deferring to Hiroshi or his grandmother as he might have when they were young; he just preferred to live his life as quietly and inconspicuously as he could. Marriage was between Mika and him, and he knew his grandmother would be speechless if she found out Mika was the one who had proposed to him.
They were returning from a Noh performance of Aoi no Uye, about the demon of jealousy tormenting Princess Rokujo. Kenji had been given his first big commission to make several of the masks, including the Hannya, the demon mask. Mika had worn a kimono that evening, orange-red with a beige wave pattern made of silk material from her father’s textile company. Afterward, they were walking back along the Ginza in Tokyo when Mika paused.
“Is something wrong?” he had asked.
She had looked him directly in the eyes. “Kenji-san, will you marry me?”
He thought she was joking at first, teasing him out of his seriousness. “Hai, tomorrow,” he answered, joking back—until something in the way she looked at him told him otherwise. “Hai,” he said again, without a moment’s hesitation. He felt the heat rise to his face.
Mika reached for his hand and didn’t let go all the way back to Yanaka.
His obaachan did insist on Mika respecting the tea-pouring ceremony in both households, and she gave Mika all the traditional gifts wrapped in rice paper—the dried cuttlefish, the konbu, or kelp for child-bearing, the long linen thread to symbolize their old age together, and the folded fan to represent growth and future wealth.
Poetry
Hiroshi entered his obaachan’s courtyard, the chimes setting off the familiar ringing
from his childhood. So often, he had entered to see his ojiichan sitting by the maple tree, his head tilted to the side, seeing through each sound. His grandfather always knew who stepped in. The memory made Hiroshi smile and a sudden longing rose up inside of him. His ojiichan’s presence wrapped around him.
Hiroshi knew his grandfather would be proud. He’d won twenty-seven out of the thirty bouts he fought during his last two bashos, regaining his sekiwake rank. He once more stood to be promoted to the rank of ozeki champion. Every night during a basho, Sadao brought him ice to wrap around his knee, hoping it would keep any pain subdued until the tournament was over. His injury was a constant reminder of his vulnerability, of how each small step could trip a person.
He looked up when he heard his grandmother move carefully down the steps of the genkan to greet him.
“Hiro-chan, I was just thinking about you,” she said, smiling.
Hiroshi watched his obaachan, who had become so thin and fragile since his ojiichan passed away. The bigger and stronger he grew, the smaller she appeared. Hiroshi instantly wanted to protect her, to recapture all the years he had been away training.
He and Kenji saw her more often since his grandfather’s death. They worried about her being alone. But she adamantly refused to live with Kenji and Mika, who had moved to a small house near his mask shop, while Kenji’s partner and sensei, Yoshiwara-san, lived in the rooms above the shop. “This is where I will always live,” his obaachan told him, her voice sharp and definite. He knew better than to ask again.
“I thought you might like some company,” he said, bowing low and then giving his grandmother a hug. She used to pull away quickly, excited with questions about the stable or upcoming tournaments. Now, she remained as light as a feather in his arms.
When his grandmother finally pulled away, she stepped back and watched him closely. “It’s about time you spent your free afternoons with someone younger than your old grandmother.”
“I can’t find anyone more beautiful,” he teased.
She shook her head. “You haven’t even tried.”
Hiroshi laughed. He wanted to tell his grandmother there was someone, someone he’d known since she was a little girl, who was still young, seventeen, almost nine years younger than he was, and his oyakata’s daughter. Instead he said, “When I find the right woman, I promise you’ll be the first to know. There’ll be time enough after the Aki Basho.”
But just saying her name made him pull at the collar of his kimono and wonder what she was doing at that moment. Hiroshi couldn’t say when it began, this distant courtship between Aki and him, perhaps the day a few years ago when he looked up at her window and glimpsed her peering down at him, half-hidden behind the shoji screen that covered her window. She stood motionless, with a flicker of innocence that only came with youth, a restlessness that was inherent, so different from her sister, Haru. He only wore a mawashi belt and felt naked. A noise, a dog barking, made him turn away. When he glanced back, Aki was gone.
At first, Hiroshi thought it nothing more than a coincidence, but in the days that followed, he felt her lingering presence at the window when he walked through the courtyard. Then again, her gaze was a constant shadow when he exercised his injured knee. He was always careful not to look up, not to frighten her away. Only a quick glance, a fleeting look—the skip of his heart—a momentary connection before it was broken like a string pulled taut and cut. Then she was gone, the black-pearl eyes and soft white of her cheek disappearing behind the shoji window. Over the months it became a dance, and he was reminded of his grandparents dancing at the Bon Odori, moving slowly around and around the circle, taking cautious, measured steps toward each other.
Aki was in her last year of high school and Hiroshi feared she might go away to study at a university like Haru. If so, she might be lost to him forever. Most evenings he stared up at her room, a light shimmering in the darkness, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, the faint outline of her shadow. If not, he restlessly wandered from one teahouse to the next pursuing other shadows.
“Something tells me you’ve already found the right woman.” His obaachan’s voice brought him back.
She was smiling, that knowing glance he’d seen ever since he was a little boy. He almost expected her to touch his cheek and tell him to go outside and play.
“How is it that you know so much?” he asked.
“Ever since you were a boy, Hiro-chan, I could understand you better by the expressions on your face than the words you spoke.” She laughed. “Don’t you think every face tells its own story?”
“Like a book?”
“More like a poem. If you study it long enough, you’ll soon find its meaning.”
He was always surprised by his obaachan’s ability to see through all of them, especially his ojiichan. Hiroshi followed his wiry grandmother into the house. He was mistaken. She was still as strong as she always was.
The Surprise
Haru rushed to her class, her books heavy in her arms, her cotton blouse wet against her back as she hurried across the square. She’d lost track of time reading in the library, and now her botany class had begun and she would have to sneak in quietly, again. Now in her third year at Nara Women’s University, Haru was certain that she wanted to study botany. It was the persistence of plants that had won her over, how they persevered under the most difficult situations. She thrived in their tenacity. She smiled to herself thinking how she’d told Hiroshi-san she would study science, even before she realized what she was saying. Perhaps her mind knew before her heart did. And what had he said—that science was full of surprises? He couldn’t know how right he’d been. Hiroshi seeped into her thoughts during the quiet moments. He was becoming quite the sumo star. The times Haru returned home to Tokyo felt different now. She’d begun to worry about her father, and especially Aki. While her father remained preoccupied with his work, her sister grew even more restless. When she’d asked Aki what was wrong, she only shrugged and said, “I can’t wait to grow up.” She hated school and couldn’t wait to graduate. But the biggest change Haru saw was in her sister’s appearance. Or did the distance simply make her see it more clearly? Each time she left and returned, Aki seemed to resemble their mother even more.
Haru slowly opened the door to the lecture hall, cringing at the sharp whine. A few students turned her way as she scrambled up the steps to a seat in the back row.
“Domo arigato, Miss Tanaka, for joining us this afternoon.” Professor Ito’s voice accosted her just as she reached her seat. She felt the eyes of the entire classroom on her.
“Sumimasen,” she apologized, the blood rushing to her head. “I’m very sorry to be late.” Haru bowed quickly, and didn’t dare look up at Professor Ito with his rumpled suit. She put down her books and slid into a chair.
For the rest of the lecture, she heard very little of what was being said, ashamed that Professor Ito had singled her out, even when another student rushed into the lecture hall after her with no consequences. For the first time since coming to Nara, Haru wished she were somewhere else.
“Miss Tanaka, I’d like to see you a moment after class,” Professor Ito called up to her as they were leaving. Haru rolled her eyes and stepped aside, letting the other students pass by. First, he embarrassed her in class, and now he wanted to lecture her more. She watched him bow his head to each of the departing students, thinking how his Western-style gray suit looked too large on him, noticing that his hair was already thinning on the top of his head, and that his dark eyes weren’t as penetrating as the other girls had remarked. The only thing she did agree with them about was that Professor Ito didn’t look older than thirty-five.
When the room emptied, Haru made her way down to him in careful, measured steps. He was putting the last of his papers into a briefcase and closed it just as she reached his desk.
“Ah, Miss Tanaka,” he began, looking at her from behind rimless glasses. “I was wondering if you’d be interested in assisting me in the class next te
rm. Mainly reading papers, checking notes, that sort of thing? It pays very little, but I believe you’re one of the few students who can actually comprehend what I’m saying.”
Haru hadn’t expected a compliment and a job offer. She held her books tightly against her chest as she ruminated over the question.
“You needn’t give me an answer now,” he added.
“No,” Haru blurted out. “I’d like the job very much. I’m very grateful for the opportunity.” She bowed low and rose to meet his gaze.
The Sakura Teahouse
Sho Tanaka drank down the green tea. The Sakura teahouse was quiet; it was too early for customers to trickle in and fill the rooms with their loud laughter and errant voices that grew edgier as more sake was poured and the night wore on. He liked the stillness of late afternoon, the emptiness of the banquet room as he sat alone at the long table. His thoughts fell into order and made more sense. It was at the Sakura he first saw Noriko, in this very same room where he still felt her presence. He grasped at memories that blurred around the edges, not recalling the exact words or the season in which they’d taken place.
Through the shoji window a slant of sunlight had fall across the tatami and the entire room felt aglow. He looked up when Yasuko-san, the mistress of the teahouse, entered wearing a dark cotton kimono. Toward evening, she would change into a colorful silk embroidered one and assume her hostess role. She’d known Sho since his sumo days, and Noriko even longer, since she was a young maiko who came from Kyoto to entertain at the Sakura. In many respects, she had been Noriko’s elder sister and had grieved as a family member at her death.
The Street of a Thousand Blossoms Page 30
