The Street of a Thousand Blossoms

by Gail Tsukiyama

  Fumiko pushed open the wooden gate and marveled at the size of Hiroshi’s beautiful garden. The paved walkways were lined with sakura and pine trees and stone benches nestled between the trees, providing a quiet spot of beauty and a cooling shade. A small stream trickled down through rocks into a large pond shaded by a large pine tree, and over it was a bridge constructed from beautifully aged wood and iron braces. Against the fence were rows of black bamboo. Irises, azaleas, and peonies bloomed in spring, the garden ablaze with color. It was a testament to Hiroshi’s success as a sumo and a businessman, though Fumiko paused in the quiet garden and thought it unfortunate her grandson spent so little time enjoying the garden himself.

  The great yokozuna was away more than he was home, whether at tournaments or sponsor-related dinners and travel. If he were to sign on with his latest offer, the Mitsuki Tire Company, he would have to travel even more. Marriage was difficult enough without having to spend so much of it apart, and she wondered now if it affected Aki more than anyone realized.

  The housekeeper, Tamiko-san, answered the door and bowed low when she saw that it was Fumiko. She ushered her into the reception room and hesitated before she went to summon Aki. When she returned, it was to apologize and tell Fumiko that her mistress couldn’t be disturbed at the moment.

  “Nonsense!” Fumiko said. She paused for just a moment and looked around the elegant room with its silk scrolls and expensive vases sitting in the tokonoma. Then just as quickly, she walked past Tamiko and up the stairs toward Aki’s room.

  “Please, please, she’s very busy,” Tamiko repeated, following her.

  Fumiko had been in the house many times before. Hiroshi had bought the house just after they married and she still wondered why he needed so many rooms. She stopped at Aki’s room and rapped on the shoji door. Without waiting for an answer, she slid it open. She’d never been in their room before and hadn’t expected to be greeted by such darkness. The windows were still shuttered and the large room was hot and airless. Tamiko mumbled something, bowed, and quickly excused herself.

  She kept her voice calm and firm. “Aki-chan, I’ve come to speak to you about Takara.”

  As her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, she saw Aki kneeling quietly at the other end of the room, dressed in the same cotton yukata robe she must have slept in. When she didn’t answer, or glance her way, Fumiko walked over and knelt in front of her. She reached out and stroked her cheek. “Aki-chan, what is it that you’re hiding from?” she asked gently.

  For the longest time, they remained silent until Aki looked up at her, tears filling her eyes. Fumiko leaned forward and took her into her arms. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Your baby needs you now.”

  Aki didn’t pull away and said flatly, “Takara-chan is better off without me.”

  “How can you say such a thing? There’s no one more important to her now than you.” Fumiko smiled, tried to keep their conversation light and focused.

  Aki pulled away. “I’m afraid …”

  “We’re all afraid, even after our children have grown and gone. It’s part of motherhood. Children are more resilient than you believe them to be, Aki-san.”

  “Then why isn’t Takashi still here?”

  For the same reason Misako wasn’t, she wanted to say. Don’t you think I’ve asked myself all the same questions? Instead, Fumiko reached for Aki’s hand. “Once in a while, life plays tricks on all of us. You have a lovely daughter who needs you now. You mustn’t dwell on the past.”

  Aki bowed her head. “Hai,” she whispered, in a voice so small Fumiko leaned forward to hear it. She felt Aki’s hand slip away from her own as the young woman stood, slowly and unsteadily, and bowed low to her.

  Ice Needles

  The fall semester ended in December. Tokyo was very cold when Haru stepped down from the train for the holidays. Her father had written of the heat wave during the summer and fall, which she could hardly believe now. The air was sharp and stinging, what she and Aki used to call “ice needles” when they were little girls. She smiled now to think how the winter wind left their faces raw and flushed as they ran down the Ginza during the holiday season before the war. The air carried the smoky scent of roasting chestnuts and she looked forward to drinking ozoni, a New Year’s soup that contained mochi, the sticky rice pounded into soft cakes, chicken, spinach, daikon, potato, and carrots. She remembered the crowded street of shoppers, the blur of lights, and the chorus of sounds and horns that excited them as their mother’s voice rose above it all to warn them, “Don’t wander too far away.”

  Here she was, home again.

  The train arrived late, and the usually bustling station felt too quiet in the dark of night. It held a hollow feeling that made her shiver now as an adult, and part of her longed for the warmth of her early childhood, of Aki’s sticky hand clinging to hers.

  Haru wasn’t expected back until tomorrow morning, but at the last minute she decided to take the night train instead, with no time to let her father know. After teaching the semester in Nara, she had traveled to Kyoto for a few days’ research before returning to Tokyo for the New Year’s holidays. She had secured a position as a full-time lecturer in the botany department at the university. For the first time in her life, Haru looked down at the palms of her hands and felt free and happy. If she looked long and hard enough, she could almost see the faint lifelines emerging through her thickened skin.

  Haru looked up when she heard the hurried footsteps of someone behind her. The click-clack, click-clack came closer and echoed off the high ceiling of the station, something she’d never noticed before, because it was always muffled by the daytime noise and crowds. For a moment, she wished for the crowds and chaos that daylight brought, not the few passengers who scattered like ants into the darkness. It was something she’d never felt in calm, quiet Nara. The footsteps grew closer then passed her by. She smiled at her own silliness. Haru drew a breath and walked out of the station. Having finally arrived in Tokyo, she discovered her tiredness was overtaken by the excitement of seeing her family, especially little Takara. She hailed a cab and gave directions to the Katsuyama-beya.

  Each time Haru returned home, the stable appeared smaller than she remembered. The courtyard was lit with lanterns that gave off a hazy glow. Though winter, it was still crowded with a shadowy plant life, an array of shrubbery, the bamboo and pines, the branches of the sakura tree that reached out and now blocked the view of the house as she entered the front gate. She remembered the courtyard barren after the firestorm, burned hot white by the heat and wiped clean. She had waited day after day for any signs of life to reappear, and when they did, she had felt a sudden flush of happiness move through her.

  “Haru-chan! Is that you?” Her father’s voice floated out into the night.

  “Hai,” she answered.

  He stepped down from the genkan to greet her, dressed in a dark cotton yukata robe. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming earlier?”

  Even in the muted light, she saw the joy on his face, a face that had aged since she’d last seen him, the welcoming shine of the light off his pale, shaven head. “I only decided at the last minute.” She smiled.

  He took Haru’s suitcase and led her back into the house. It, too, felt smaller when he slid the door closed behind them. Once inside, the floating presence of her mother surrounded her for a moment. And then she was gone.

  “You might have telephoned from the station,” her father added.

  “It’s late,” Haru said. “I thought you might be asleep already.”

  “I don’t need much sleep these days,” he said.

  “Perhaps you were just waiting up for me, after all.”

  Her father laughed. “I believe so.”

  They stood a moment in silence, which was broken when Haru took off her coat and turned toward the kitchen. “I’m going to make some tea for us.” Her father picked up her suitcase and headed down the hall toward her old room.

  “Haru-chan, I�
��m glad you’re home,” he called out.

  “So am I,” she answered.

  In the kitchen, Haru felt at home again. It was the one room she felt comfortable in after her mother died in the firestorm. Unlike his office, in the house her father was a meticulous man and everything was as neat as when she’d returned to Nara, so many months ago. He looked tired. Even far away in Nara, she’d heard his concern for Aki between the lines in the letters he wrote to her, always careful to keep from suggesting she return to Tokyo again. In turn, she wrote to Aki religiously every week, though this time, her sister rarely wrote back. Haru let herself believe that Aki was busy with Takara, that she’d gotten over this bout of depression and all had fallen into place. Was she so wrong to want a life of her own? The blood rushed quickly to her head. She took a deep breath and reassured herself that she’d see Aki tomorrow and there would be time enough to speak in the days to come.

  Haru sprinkled tea leaves into a pot when the hot water boiled and let it steep. Her father shuffled back down the hall and stood in the doorway just as he had done when they were little girls doing their schoolwork in the kitchen, while her mother prepared dinner. “My three stars,” he used to call them. She remembered peering up at the night sky and wondering which star he thought she was. Now, her father standing in the doorway and the long-ago memory it conjured up comforted her.

  The next morning Haru had just finished her breakfast when she heard voices in the courtyard. She hurried into the genkan and slipped into her sandals to see that it was Aki and her wet nurse carrying a bundled-up Takara. Her sister’s appearance frightened her. Aki was so thin. In the nine months since the birth of Takara, her sister looked like a different person, hollow-eyed and skeletal. The kimono she wore had been hastily put on and without much thought, the brown obi mismatched against the blue and green flower patterns. Her hair wasn’t properly combed. Not until Aki bowed and impulsively threw her arms around her did she feel any resemblance of this person to her sister.

  “I look a mess,” Aki whispered into Haru’s ear. Her breath was sour, her voice high and tight, as if it might shatter like glass.

  Haru held her tight then gently pulled away, happy her sister was at least out and communicating. “You just need to put on some weight, that’s all.”

  Aki forced a laugh. “I wish that were all I needed,” she said.

  “Well, now that I’m back for the holidays, we’ll work on fattening you up.”

  Aki brightened. “I’ve been waiting for you to come home.”

  She sounded like a young Aki again. “You’ll be fine, you’ll see,” Haru said, smiling. Her words rose into the air and seemed to vanish like smoke.

  Haru turned to the nurse and her little niece. Takara was a beautiful child, with large, inquisitive eyes and fair skin like her mother. She saw traces of Hiroshi in her eyebrows and around her mouth. “And look at you,” she said. Haru took the squirming child in her arms and hugged her tightly. Another little star. Takara looked at her and calmed in her arms. A few moments later, she laid her head on Haru’s shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  28

  Past and Present

  1962

  Kenji walked quickly down the alleyway to meet Hiroshi. It was a warm fall day and the passageways in mid-afternoon were still manageable. It was before the teeming crowds could make the walk to the old bar near his obaachan’s house a stop-and-go process that he found increasingly unbearable.

  Ever since Takashi’s death, Kenji had tried to meet Hiroshi at least once a month. More often than not, one of them had to cancel. This time, Hiroshi asked that they meet at the old bar his ojiichan used to frequent, a place Kenji took for granted no longer existed. He assumed it had closed down during the war. He hadn’t thought to ask his eighty-year-old grandmother what had happened to it. After his ojiichan died, the bar had in many ways died along with him. But there it was, a piece of the past right in front of him; small and run-down as he always remembered it, the faded wood and stained shoji windows unchanged. Anywhere else but in Yanaka the smallest ember during the firestorm would have set it ablaze. He stepped through the door and the familiar dim, damp, bitter smell confronted him. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, to see that Hiroshi was already waiting for him.

  “Hiroshi-san, I had no idea the bar was still here,” he said, walking toward his brother.

  Hiroshi smiled. “I passed it for the first time in years last month. It reminded me of ojiichan.”

  Kenji looked around the empty room, at the sticky table near the bar where his grandfather and his friends had sat for so many years, and to the corner bar stool where he perched, watching them. He heard again their low, gruff voices and their laughter as they teased and argued. They had been a comfort in his loneliness back then. “Is there anyone here?”

  “She’s in the back. She should be out any minute.”

  Kenji sat in the chair across from his brother. “How’s Aki-san?”

  Hiroshi shrugged. He looked older, even in the dim light, the pale scar on his forehead strangely noticeable. He was dressed in a dark silk kimono, still every bit the famous sumo, strong and impressive. How could he not have aged, with Aki unwell and Takara to care for? He heard her sister, Haru, had returned in June and once again proved indispensable.

  “Takara?”

  “Growing.” He smiled.

  Kenji felt a stab of jealousy. She was a beautiful little girl. A woman emerged from the back room, middle-aged and tired-looking in a soiled cotton kimono. On a tray she carried two beers and a plate of edamame. It was far from the elegant geisha houses his brother usually frequented.

  “I ordered for us,” Hiroshi said. And then, “Aki seems to be getting worse. She hardly says a word.”

  Kenji drank from his beer. “She’ll get better again,” he said, though he wasn’t sure he believed it.

  “It seems a long time ago, the life we had here.” Hiroshi looked around. “Simpler.”

  Kenji glanced at the lone bar stool in the corner, heard again the low drone of voices that had blanketed his loneliness. His brother had no idea how many hours he’d spent in the old bar. “It wasn’t really,” he said. “Everything seems simpler from a distance.”

  Hiroshi shrugged and unconsciously fingered the slight rise of his scar.

  He looked tired—no, sad, Kenji thought. The moment of jealousy had disappeared and in its place was the love and admiration Kenji had always felt for his brother. He wasn’t in any hurry; he could stay and talk to Hiroshi for as long as he needed to.

  Shadows

  Aki dreaded the shadows that hovered over her, leaving everything in darkness. As the fall days shortened, the nights lengthened and she knew when the shadows were waiting by the stillness in the air and the breath they stole away from her, a squeezing, suffocating hand around her neck. She had long ago quit fighting them outwardly, and tried to remain as quiet and still as she could. That way the shadows might miss her; leave her alone when they saw she had very little life left to take. Aki sat now in the quiet semidarkness of her room, and felt the air begin to stir again.

  Outside, in the garden below, she heard Haru asking, “Takara-chan, what kind of tree is this?”

  Aki leaned toward the window, the warmth of the sun grazing her cheek, and saw her eighteen-month-old daughter, arms held out at each side for balance, as she walked toward her aunt: dark-eyed, full-lipped, round-faced, shiny black hair that gleamed with youth as she tumbled toward Haru.

  “Kae-de,” Takara said. Maple. Her voice sounded like a bell.

  “Hai!” Haru clapped her hands. Happiness.

  A small pinprick of envy pinched Aki in the arm. It should be her down in the garden, holding out her arms to catch the weight of her daughter, pulling her close. But Takara was happy and healthy this way. And she couldn’t trust herself yet. Something could still happen to Takara. Just like Takashi, who died in his sleep, sleep death, death. Aki looked away, knowing that it was al
so Haru’s just reward to have Takara. She’d given up everything she’d worked for in Nara to stay in Tokyo and care for them.

  Sometimes, Aki fell asleep on the tatami mats trying to fool the shadows. Occasionally, she would dream of walking through a tall, wooden gate to a small house surrounded by light. She raised her hand against the glare and stepped into the beautiful garden filled with maples and willows, azaleas, Japanese quince, and irises that stood straight up in shades of blue-purple, reaching for the sunlight, the moonlight. She walked through the thick, fragrant garden, surrounded by sounds, the rustling in the grass, the hum of life buzzing around her legs, and up the stairs to the veranda where she waited for Hiroshi and Takara, knowing they were coming, filled with happiness, bursting with it.

  Adrift

  Haru put little Takara down for her nap, stroked her cheek, and waited until she fell asleep. She was still surprised at how easily she had adapted to caring for her. Like the plants she studied, Takara grew toward the light, while Aki retreated from it. Haru knelt by the futon and watched her niece as her breathing grew measured and calm and she drifted off to sleep. She imagined the child her own.

  During these quiet moments of the day, Haru worried about Aki, whose bouts of silence and depression lasted longer with each episode. The doctors couldn’t seem to help and Aki refused to leave the house. Lately, Haru had another worry; she’d heard rumors that a young geisha had captured the interest of Yokozuna Takanoyama. Was Hiroshi so foolish as to think the press wouldn’t hear about it? When she finally couldn’t stand it any longer, Haru confronted Hiroshi as he was walking out of Takara’s room.

  “Are they true?” she asked. The words came out more abrupt and accusing than she intended.