Fog Island Mountains

by Michelle Bailat-Jones

  And he can’t help it, he has always had an interest in science and so he is placing a hand across his belly and wishing he could know what it all looks like, how are the organs touching and where are the growths, how much blood will there be, and will those tumors be big, and really, what he truly wants to know is what it all looks like right now, this instant, when his body is still intact, when not a single light particle has touched the tissues of his inner belly, and so what color is the pancreas when there is no one there to look at it? And then he smiles, not a real smile but a baring of teeth, because here is maybe the only time he will appreciate the power of a koan, here is the only paradox he will want to ponder for hours and maybe if he just thinks about it long enough, if he tries his hardest to sort this one out, maybe, just maybe, he’ll find that there isn’t anything to worry about after all.

  “Don’t you think it’s funny,” he is saying now, into the empty room.

  He likes the sound of his voice but he lowers his volume to a whisper in order to feel safer from the intrusions beyond his hospital door, and he continues on, saying everything he is thinking out loud until suddenly he is deep in conversation. With himself. With his wife. With his doctor. With God and Buddha and Nature. With his children. It’s all there and he is almost proud of the way that he keeps calm, at the questions he can ask without trembling, at the way the roll of words and breaths and pauses are covering this empty space of this afternoon. Yes, Alec, you are good at waiting…shōshō omachi kudasai.

  Soon enough he drifts away, he has said enough, he has ticked off the questions that will never have answers from his long fingers, shoved them beneath the folds of the little blanket on his lap and he can watch his television show again without really seeing it, just listening to the sounds of the Japanese words and the laughter of the game host in his plaid hat and his laughing eyes and the perfect faces of the young contestants with their shiny hair and glossy lips and this is all a comfort, this media perfection and the shouts of the audience when someone gets an answer wrong but has said something funny. This is his home. This is his home. This is his home.

  When the anesthesiologist arrives with a male nurse and a closed-down face, they do not speak to him right away, they take his temperature and examine the color of his eyes, but their busy silence is unnerving and so Alec smiles at them and says in his kindest voice that he is ready and they grunt—not unkindly—their agreement and so they help him onto a gurney and take him into a room for washing the germs from the skin of his belly, and the male nurse has the softest hands, his touch is like a caress, and Alec is amazed, nearly embarrassed, but then they are giving him a pill to relax him—although he is already far too relaxed, too willing to submit—and they ask him a single, simple question.

  “Nani mo tabete nai desu yo ne?”

  But he has heard another verb, a verb that sounds similar, he has heard something about being bundled up, or tying up, and he doesn’t really understand, so he tells them, “No, I have not bundled up, but will it be cold during the surgery?”

  There is uncomfortable laughter and Alec sees immediately that he has misunderstood the most simple of questions, because of course he was not allowed to eat before his surgery and they will want to be sure of this before giving him any anesthesia, and so, no longer relaxed but ashamed, because his Japanese is far better than this, he explains his mistake and everyone is relieved and there are jokes about putting his hair into a bun, what a lovely style for sensei, oh ho ho, and one of the men says, suddenly serious, that the women are lucky really, because this weather is so hot, and wouldn’t he love to get his hair off his brow, and suddenly we are all thinking about the storm because it is still coming, and those winds are picking up again, and it is now only a matter of hours before the typhoon will reach us here on Kyūshū.

  * * *

  Kanae holds herself at attention within the enclosed capsule of her car, speeding now along the wide freeway, away from our town, following the dark ribbon cut through the mountains of this volcanic island, through tunnels and over rivers, past the walls of trees and concrete built up to hold back landslides. She is escaping to the north, away from us and toward the ocean, toward Kumamoto, toward her daughter and her grandson, because this is a legitimate reason to keep herself away from Komachi today. The radio is on but Kanae is not listening—she is rigid, hands on the steering wheel, back so straight it has begun to ache, her eyes straining to see the next road sign, the next exit; they are few and far between but she is counting them one after the other and calculating the minutes between each possible exit as her car hums and races always forward, as far away from Komachi as possible, until she reaches the place she wants, Yatsushiro.

  But she is interrupted by the chirp of her cell phone and she must pull off and let it ring through because she is not going to answer this one, she is only going to stare at the name that has flashed across the display and then close her eyes, wait for the ringing to stop. And when it does she clicks through to get the message and Alec’s voice is nearly too strong, too real for her, but she listens, she has to, and she gets the whole story, she gets this word everywhere and now it is hers as well. There is more though and it’s his forgiveness, which is already too much, he knows that she is afraid and he admits that he is too, but he reminds her that he needs her, that she is being selfish, and here she hangs up quickly because all she wants to tell him is that her being selfish is beside the point, because he is the one going to leave her all alone.

  Yes, Yatsushiro, where the Kuma River leaks into the Yatsushiro Sea and she must slow down and turn to the right, still heading north but now on a smaller road, with the ocean off to her left somewhere behind the buildings, but the mass of it has changed the air here, she is no longer in the mountains, and she takes a deep breath and then another and all that salt water smell goes down too smoothly and she is greedy for it.

  Because here is her grandson and her daughter already, outside their little apartment building in this southern suburb of Kumamoto, and she is waving and honking her little horn, playing the hare-brained grandmother who is running late, and of course she was planning to come today, of course she is sorry, and yes, they should hurry up into one car to make it to the dojo on time. But first she must swoop up her little Jun and swing him around and feel the sturdy little bones of his arms and legs and try to keep the teeth away from her joy at the touch of his arms wrapped around her neck, but she can’t, she is squeezing him too tight and already he is wriggling away.

  “Shouldn’t you be with Dad?”

  “I won’t do anyone any good by sitting around the hospital worrying. They’re running tests. We’ll know more tonight what is happening.”

  As she speaks she must breathe quickly, as the bile rises in her throat again, as this ugliness inside her threatens to spill out and she pants slowly, rushing Jun into his car seat with her head down, her hands clutching at him, patting his hair, touching his cheek, wanting to steal away some of his innocence and health.

  “Well, you’re here, Mother—better get in. We’re going to be late. As usual.”

  Looking at her daughter now, looking outside of herself for the first time in days and there’s a surprise in this, the world filled with its own events. “You look exhausted.”

  Megumi laughs and says in English, “Ten points for Mum!”

  A family joke, a phrase Alec gave to their family when the children were young, when they’d managed some difficult task and he would lift them to the sky and shout, “A hundred points for you!” And then later, when they were in school and brought home good marks, the same phrase was trotted out and laughed over and only Megumi would turn their family joke into something sarcastic.

  “I am just worried. Are you all right?”

  “We’re all worried.”

  Only Megumi would turn her mother’s concern around and make it about something else.

  So they speak of nothing—of the weather and the pressure changes and the chance that the st
orm will come soon, of the rain they have predicted for the afternoon and that Kanae should be careful when she drives back to Komachi; they talk about Jun and his daycare schedule and about Megumi’s old car and whether it will last through the end of the year because it is sputtering about and threatening total breakdown.

  In this sideways, oblong way, this mention of decay, they have brought Alec’s illness into the car and Kanae can no longer breathe, can no longer think, can only roll down her window and stick her head outside and the shame rolls off of her as her stomach retches again but nothing comes out and the other cars are looking at her and Megumi is taking in a swift, angry breath and Jun is wondering out loud if Grandma needs a tissue.

  “Ken said it was serious,” Megumi says quickly, her words clipped and quiet.

  Kanae holds her breath. She stops time. She doesn’t blink. She doesn’t move.

  “Ken wants to move Dad to a bigger city. To a place where the treatments might be different.”

  “This is beside the point.”

  Thankfully, they are now pulling into the parking lot and herding Jun into the building with the other three-years-olds, each of them tottering beneath the weight of their practice kendōgi, and Megumi watches for a short while and Kanae is beside her, listening to the grunts and laughter of the children as they race across the mats and bow to each other and follow the instructions of their teacher with happy chatter and small physical feats.

  But Megumi is pulling her quickly outside, already holding a cell phone to her ear, already in conversation with her younger sister—and Kanae is frozen, picturing her middle child, her sweet and clumsy Naomi, whose eyes were blue at birth and only darkened to hazel, whose secrets are stashed away in her shy, guarded heart, whose fragility frightens them all.

  Kanae walks away from this conversation between her two daughters, walks into a space, just a few feet away, where what is happening to her belongs only to her; she steps past a low gate and into a playground and there she watches a mother and a child, watches the little boy poke his mother in the kneecap with a little stick, his eyes are mischievous and the mother is protesting, she is making a stern face, she is calling him naughty, but the little boy won’t be dissuaded, he is poking again and giggling and making up a story, and soon the mother is chasing him away, part of his story, laughing and happy, and despite the wind that is thickening around them all there is sunshine on this playground and Kanae hopes it will stay.

  Megumi is beside her again, a hand on her arm and Kanae is trying to keep what is happening under control.

  “Listen . . . Megu-chan . . . I . . . we still need to talk to the doctor.”

  “It’s Ishikawa?”

  Kanae nods.

  “Well, Ishikawa will know what is best, he is Dad’s friend, he will—”

  “Megu, there is no best.”

  But her voice is starting to sound hysterical and she closes it off, she silences herself and coughs, she turns back to this mother and her child, she turns away from her own child because she should never have come, she should have driven south this morning, caught a plane, left the country, left the planet.

  “What does Dad say?”

  Kanae is staring out at the busy road, counting the cars as they slide past her eyes, reds and whites and blacks, the glint of chrome in the tiny ray of sunlight still peeking through the darkening clouds, and are those the first drops of rain? Kanae says something to Megumi but she says it so quietly that neither woman can even hear what she’s said.

  But it doesn’t matter because Megumi, always impatient, is already back on the telephone, probably calling her brother or calling her sister again, making decisions, settling on the procedures they will all need to follow, and Kanae knows that her children will quickly take over her tragedy, they will push her farther than she wants to go.

  After Jun’s matches are finished, after they have eaten a quick lunch together at Jun’s favorite restaurant, after they have driven back to Megumi’s apartment and have started to say their good-byes, Megumi tells Kanae that they are all coming to Komachi the next day—Ken will come, but without his fiancée Etsuko, and Megumi will pick up Naomi on her way.

  “I don’t want Naomi to come alone. I’m not sure she can . . . otherwise I would come back with you right now.”

  They are saying good-bye and it is so easy, Kanae is thinking, this kind of good-bye, a smile, a wave, the assurance she will see them tomorrow; Kanae has wrapped Jun into her sweater like a cocoon and is dipping his head into the overgrown grass near the front door of the apartment and he is squealing with delight, he is fighting her embrace.

  “Tell Grandpa I’ve been practicing. I can outrun him. I have super shoes.”

  Kanae settles him gently onto the lawn and unwraps him while a ladybug crawls onto his elbow and she leaves it, wondering if he’ll notice the creature’s tiny feet but he is already jumping up, skipping over to his mother.

  “Are you okay in the house?” Megumi asks. “Do you want to stay here?”

  Kanae shakes her head. “I’ll get the house ready for all of you to stay tomorrow.”

  And she is getting into her car and waving good-bye, she is beeping her horn again and making a silly grin to her grandchild, like this is any other day of the week, any other day of her life, and as she drives off she feels a weight lifting off of her, just a breath of air, a lightness on the back of her neck—she has given herself a one-day reprieve.

  * * *

  The day ticks along, morning has passed on into afternoon, and now we are moving closer to evening and somewhere out over the ocean the winds have started pressing the storm toward us, we can feel it if we pay attention, a thickening in the air, a smell of heavy rain, and I am finished resting after my storytelling session, I am downstairs again and standing at the sliding glass door to the garden because she is here this evening, I am sure of it, and I am looking at the row of sugi, at the shadow and light that are fighting between each tree trunk because this is where she will sit when she comes, half-hidden in the tall grass and the bramble, her head straight and her ears pricked at attention. She’s been coming for as long as I can remember, this same fox, her auburn face now nearly white, and if I am calm enough, if I am quiet, she will let me come near her, and if you were to enter my garden at this hour, you might be surprised at the sight of an old woman with her hand settled carefully atop the head of a fox.

  You see, I healed her once a long time ago, healed her dislocated shoulder and sliced paw when I was only a girl and she was only a kit, and she is the only fox I have ever been able to heal, curious isn’t it, although I have buried a few and I have courted a few who were injured. I have tried to tempt them into my garden with food, but they never came, they prefer their own healing or their own death, and so she is the only one who accepted my healing, and she visits from time to time, the only way she can repay her debt, because everyone knows that foxes are very serious about gratitude.

  I’m waiting, I’m tensed, the light is moving across the grass and sliding toward the thicket of weeds I never bother to cut, and I’m afraid I will miss her—is that grass or the burnished gold of her coat?—so I open the door slowly, I take the risk, I step onto the porch and my whole body is tight with the thought that she’s here and that once again she’s come looking for me.

  But the wind is changing too quickly, rushing through the trees and echoing through the chimes strung up against the house, and there I see it, the white tip of her tail as she turns on herself and slips deeper into the forest, her thin legs jumping over pine needles and off away to her den or another field, and I can do nothing but push my disappointment into the sleeve of my sweater and hold it tight against my body until it has no room to breathe and it dies, suffocated, against the hot evening air.

  Kitsune. This half-god spirit. This messenger and cheat. So clever and so unattainable.

  Poets must know all the stories, Grandfather would tell me, stopping me at his desk on my way between household chores
or to tea-making lessons, and slowly, over the years, he told me all of them, of all the animals, of all the monks and farmers, of clever women and selfish sisters, of sad young men and brave warriors, of the spirits living in the trees and in the water, of the spirits one must never cross, and I never really knew which were his own stories and which were older than anyone, stories that have always existed. And among all these stories it must be said that Grandfather had a love for foxes, or maybe it was me, and maybe there were stories I knew were meant for me and me alone, stories that no one else could know but him and me, and maybe Grandmother knew them too, but we were not to speak of them together.

  Like the tale of the city man who helped a woman from a car on a dark night in summer, who helped her cross the street and into a restaurant, who joined her for a meal, who never again left her side—there was a marriage, there was a child, there were years of laughter—until one morning the woman grew ill, dangerously ill, and the man went to get a doctor even though she insisted he leave her to sleep it off, but he would not give her up so easily and when the doctor arrived, the bed was empty and the woman gone, and the only thing anyone ever saw was a fox racing through the front garden with a child’s doll in its mouth.

  Or the story of the farmer’s child who lived in a ruin of a home, a sad and poor child, who adopted a fox from the forest, who brought it bread and sweet beans and let it eat from her hand, who followed it one day and slept the night in its den and was already growing a tail when her father found her and dragged her away and put up a fence to keep her inside and to keep the fox outside, because it would not do to let such boundaries grow thin.

  And the last story, the only one of our secret stories that he ever wrote down, but with water on his brush and not ink, so although he’d written it, which meant that it was true, no one but me would know again how to trace out the moji on the paper, and this was about the little girl whose mother was believed to be a fox and luckily the girl had come out human although there was no telling what would happen to her later, to any of her children, so her family decided it was safer to keep their story a secret and the girl would become a woman who had never known a man’s touch, who was forbidden to raise her eyes to the bright ones that sought her out, and she grew up to be as wise as a fox-child should be and this was supposed to be enough, said my grandfather, this was supposed to be a worthy and fair exchange.