Shizuko's Daughter

by Kyoko Mori

  Then slowly, Sachiko and her mother would stand up, come to her side of the table, and embrace her between them.

  “Your mother would be so proud of you,” they would say. “We’re proud of you too. You are a strong person.”

  Yuki would have been asked to stay for breakfast, stay the whole day to watch a movie or play games or go shopping with them downtown. She would be there right now. Sundays before cross-country meets would have been days to spend with them. She’d have gone to watch Sachiko at her flower arrangement lessons and play rehearsals.

  Yuki stood in front of her house. Her stepmother’s car was parked in front, lipstick red, a small dent in the front where she had hit a mailbox when her high heel got stuck in the gas pedal. That was two weeks ago. Her stepmother came home shaking, Yuki’s father holding her hand, and spent the afternoon in bed. Later, she complained about how Yuki’s footsteps upstairs had added to her headache and nausea. “You won’t even let me rest,” she said. “What do you do up there in your room anyway? What’s all that pacing about?” “Nothing,” Yuki said. “I read or draw pictures. Or I write letters and do my homework. That’s all. Nothing much.” Her stepmother screwed up her face as though everything Yuki said was somehow offensive. It didn’t matter if Yuki was telling the truth. Her stepmother always acted like she was lying.

  Yuki walked through the narrow space her stepmother had left between her car and the entrance. She opened the door, stepped into the dark foyer, and quickly glanced down the hallway. There was no one. Her father’s room was shut, with the sound of TV coming from under the door. Yuki took off her shoes and climbed up the stairs holding her breath, trying not to make any noise. She entered her room and closed the door. She changed her shirt, put on long pants, and sat down at her desk, careful not to scrape the chair legs across the floor. Outside the window, the sky to the north was full of small clouds that looked like fish scales. The sky’s changing, her mother would have said: it’s fall. Yuki opened her sketchbook to draw the sky. She sighed. After today, there would be five Sundays before the cross-country meets started.

  7

  YELLOW MITTENS AND EARLY VIOLETS

  (March 1972)

  Masa stepped into the kitchen in her gray kimono and turned on the light. Her granddaughter Yuki was sitting at the table, putting on and pulling off her yellow mittens. At seven in the morning in mid-March, the sun had not yet come through the two narrow windows. In the yellow light from the single bulb, Yuki’s red sweater and blue jeans looked unnaturally bright. Yuki did not look up from the magazine she had been reading in the dark. On the floor by her chair were her suitcase and the violets she had dug up by the river. Packed in plastic bags with air holes, the flowers reminded Masa of butterflies in a jar, their colors faded as though they had turned into bits of paper.

  “Up so early? The first bus won’t be here for two hours yet,” Masa said.

  “I know.” Yuki took off the mittens and put them on the table.

  “Do you want breakfast?”

  “No.”

  Masa went to the sink all the same and measured the rice and water into a saucepan, filled the tin kettle, and placed them side by side on the burners. The house still smelled of the incense from yesterday when the priest came to offer prayers for the third anniversary of her daughter Shizuko’s death. Only three years, Masa thought, and already Yuki acts as if she’s forgotten her mother and wants to forget us, too.

  She sprinkled a handful of tea leaves into the kettle and sat down opposite Yuki, who continued to read the magazine. On the table next to the magazine, Yuki’s yellow mittens looked awkward and crooked, one much larger than the other. Yuki had said that she had made them in a homemaking class at school. Masa wondered why she needed mittens in mid-March. It was warm outside; there were spring mums and early strawberries in the yard, violets and clover by the river.

  Yesterday afternoon while the guests were arriving for the ceremony, Yuki went out in her black dress to dig up the violets by the river. She came into the house with soiled hands; by then, the priest was already burning the incense. She had washed her hands and sat through the ceremony, her back absolutely rigid, her posture too perfect. Her face had shown no grief or regret, while the others, some of them not even relatives, had pressed their handkerchiefs discreetly to their eyes during the priest’s chanting. Now all the guests were gone and Masa was alone with Yuki. Her husband, Takeo, was still asleep.

  “Are you sure you don’t want breakfast?” Masa asked the second time.

  “I’m sure,” Yuki said, keeping her eyes on the magazine.

  “If you don’t like rice, I can borrow bread from the neighbors and make some toast.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’ll be starved by the time you are on the train,” Masa said. It was an hour’s bus ride from her village into the city of Himeji, and then a three-hour train ride from there to Yuki’s house in Kobe. Shizuko used to make that long trip every summer with Yuki. She called it “coming home” rather than “visiting.” “Yuki and I are coming home as soon as her school’s out,” she would say. Every summer back then, Yuki did something that the neighbors in the village would talk about for months. Masa thought of the afternoon Yuki had climbed up the chestnut tree and been too frightened to come down. The firemen from a nearby town had come and spread a net under the tree for her to jump into. Then there was the morning when Yuki had run clear through the glass screen chasing a dragonfly. She had come through with small scratches and cuts on one side of her face, her arms and knees, but nothing serious, nothing that had to be stitched up later, and in any case, she had continued running until she caught the dragonfly. And for days she bragged about having more scars than anyone she knew, just as she had bragged the year before about being the only child in the village to jump into the firemen’s net. That was Yuki as a child—cheerful and talkative. Everyone loved her in spite of the trouble she often caused. But she had changed, Masa thought; she had become quiet and moody. Masa had not seen her since her father’s remarriage.

  Masa took two thousand-yen bills out of her wallet and laid them on the table next to the mittens.

  “You’ll want to have lunch on the train,” she said to Yuki.

  “I don’t plan to and if I do, I have enough money anyway. Lunches on trains don’t cost this much.”

  “Then you can buy something else when you get back to Kobe. Get new mittens for next winter.”

  “I like these mittens. I told you I made them myself.”

  “They’re too large for you.”

  “I like them this way. Tight mittens cut off my blood circulation. Besides, she said she would buy me new gloves and I told her I didn’t want any. I couldn’t buy new ones with your money after that.”

  “So she’s good to you?” Masa asked.

  “Of course she’s good to me. What else did you expect? But what I like best about her is that she lets me do things on my own. I don’t like to be coddled. I like to be on my own.” Yuki paused and stared Masa right in the eyes. “And she and Father get on well. I think he’s happier now than he’s been in a long time.”

  Masa stood up and took the saucepan off the stove. She dished the first spoonful of rice into a small white cup used for the family altar and poured the tea into another. She placed the two cups on a tray and turned to Yuki.

  “Why don’t you take these to the altar?” she said. “You should burn another stick of incense and tell the spirits of our ancestors that you’ve come to say goodbye.”

  “I’d rather not.” Yuki closed her magazine and looked up. “There’s no one to say good-bye to.”

  Masa stared for a moment at the photograph of a model on the magazine cover. She was dressed in a red ski jacket and black pants. A tall foreign boy stood next to her, his large hand on her waist. The photograph looked flat, like a painted image.

  “You shouldn’t say things like that,” Masa said. “You’ll anger the spirits and they won’t watch over you anym
ore.”

  “You know as well as I do,” Yuki retorted, “that the spirits of the ancestors, even if such things really existed, couldn’t care less about whether I burn incense and tell them anything or not, and Mama, wherever she really might be, isn’t in that little black box.”

  “Of course she isn’t in the altar,” Masa said. “But the altar is there so you can show respect for all the past members of our family who watch over you day and night. That includes your mother’s spirit too, and you must show respect, especially for her.”

  “How can I respect someone who was cowardly enough to kill herself?” Yuki picked up the magazine and began to page through it quickly.

  Before Masa could think of an answer, the kitchen door opened and Takeo appeared in his short brown kimono and long brown underwear. If he had heard Yuki’s words, his face did not show it.

  “What time does the bus come?” he asked.

  “In less than two hours,” Yuki said.

  “Let’s have breakfast,” Takeo said. “There’s plenty of time.”

  “Everybody’s trying to make me eat,” Yuki said. “Don’t you see I’m just not hungry?”

  “I’m going to the yard to pick some strawberries,” Takeo said as if he hadn’t heard. “Are you coming with me?”

  “No. I don’t want to eat them. And if you’re going to make me eat them anyway, I’d rather not see them in the dirt. Maybe there are bugs on them.”

  “Suit yourself,” Takeo said. “You don’t have to see the berries until I wash them and put them on your plate.”

  Masa watched him as he picked up a colander and walked out the back door from the kitchen. Then she took the tray and went to the family room, where the altar was, leaving Yuki alone in the kitchen with her magazines, mittens, and violets wrapped in plastic.

  At the altar, Masa sat down and closed her eyes but could not pray. She thought instead of what Yuki had done on the morning before Shizuko’s funeral: she had stood by the kitchen sink, washing her hair over and over. She had said that her hair first smelled of gas, and then of cigarette smoke, and then of incense, that these smells would never come out. Shortly before the funeral began, in the house filled with strangers, Masa came across her granddaughter in the narrow passageway by the kitchen. They embraced, and the water dripped from Yuki’s hair onto Masa’s shoulder. Masa could still remember the cold, wet circle that spread on the shoulder of her black kimono and lingered all afternoon.

  My thoughts are troubled this morning. Grant me peace, Masa prayed to the spirits of her ancestors. She bowed her head and closed her eyes tighter.

  After a while, she opened her eyes, collected the cups with yesterday’s rice and tea, and replaced them. She lit a stick of incense and began to walk back to the kitchen. Already, the warm outside air was blowing into the house from the windows. It would be a humid spring day with a south wind. From the hallway, she saw a white flash of morning light as the back door swung open. Takeo’s tall figure blocked the light. Masa suddenly remembered what he had written in his diary, the small black notebook with narrow black lines and printed dates, on the day of Shizuko’s death: We are thankful for the peacefulness of her face. It was such an obvious remark. Thankful for the peacefulness, Masa repeated to herself resentfully as she stepped into the kitchen—why did he say “we”?—it wasn’t how she had felt at all; he had no business saying “we” without asking her. As she put the tray on the table, where Yuki was still reading her magazine, the bright red jacket in the photograph troubled her eyes. Masa reached toward the wall and flicked off the light. Sunlight was just beginning to stream into the windows. She blinked and looked toward the door just as Takeo tripped and began to fall forward. The colander flew from his hands, the strawberries scattering everywhere in a red blur. Masa started rushing toward him, but too late. Takeo hit the floor with a dull thump. The next moment, she and Yuki were both crouched over him. He lay on his stomach with his face turned aside.

  “Grandpa.” Yuki shook him by the shoulder. “Grandpa, are you all right?”

  Takeo didn’t open his eyes. His mouth was open slightly, and his breath made a faint wheezing sound.

  Yuki was on her feet. She bent over and touched Masa’s shoulder briefly. “Grandma,” she said. “I’m going for the doctor. Wait for me.” She dashed through the door, leaving it swinging, and sprinted down the dirt road away from the house.

  Masa put her hand on her husband’s neck. His skin was warm and wet from perspiration. His breathing made her hand move up and down, up and down. Takeo’s face looked flushed and red. Masa reached under him and loosened the belt he wore around his kimono. She shook him gently, but he remained unconscious.

  She ran to the hallway closet and returned with the first-aid kit. Kneeling over her husband, she opened the small black box. Inside, there was a jumble of bandages, cotton balls, tapes, bottles of Mercurochrome and peroxide, a pair of scissors. These are just for children, Masa thought; they’re no use. Takeo had gotten the kit in town a few years back, and he was the one who used it to tend to the minor cuts and scratches their grandchildren got on their visits. I don’t know what to do, Masa thought; I don’t know how to help him.

  She closed the box and put her hand on his neck again. His breathing seemed to have changed. He wasn’t wheezing anymore, but breathing quietly. Maybe this is nothing, Masa thought. He’ll wake up any moment now. But he didn’t, and his breathing seemed to be slowing down. Masa got up and hurried to the bedroom.

  Sitting down on the edge of the futon, she picked up the phone and then stopped. She didn’t know the doctor’s number. They hadn’t called doctors in years. Unlike Yuki, the grandchildren who visited in recent years had no major accidents. Masa and her husband had never had anything but colds that went away on their own. She rummaged through the drawer for the phone book and opened it. The book had the numbers from all the neighboring villages arranged in some way she didn’t understand. Finally, she found the doctor’s number and dialed. His phone was busy. She waited a minute to try again, but the phone book had fallen shut. She couldn’t recall the number. As she paged through the book again, her hands began to shake. Her heart was beating so fast it was hard to breathe. She imagined Takeo on the floor no longer breathing quietly but writhing in pain or choking. Her hands continued to shake as she dialed the number again.

  “Hello,” a woman’s voice said. “Dr. Takeda’s office.”

  “I need to speak with the doctor right away.”

  “I’m sorry. He just stepped out. Can he call you back?”

  “No,” Masa said. “This is an emergency. I need him right now. My husband is unconscious.”

  “Wait,” the woman said. “This is Mrs. Matsumoto, right? The doctor just left to go to your house. Your granddaughter was here. They went on his motorcycle.”

  Masa let out the breath she had been holding. She swallowed hard. She was gripping the phone, and her palm was wet.

  “Try and calm down, Mrs. Matsumoto,” the woman was saying. “They should be there any minute. Just wait for them. Don’t try to move him.”

  “All right,” Masa managed to say. “I understand.”

  “Will you be okay yourself?” the woman asked. “Are you sitting down?”

  Masa hung up without thinking and ran back to the kitchen. Takeo had rolled over onto his back. His eyes were open. She knelt down to touch his forehead. Just then, the back door swung open. Yuki and the doctor came in, both of them running. The doctor opened his bag and knelt on the other side of Masa. He was taking Takeo’s pulse, listening to his heart. Takeo moved his head and leaned on one elbow.

  “Don’t sit up,” the doctor said. “Lie still and take it easy.” He continued to examine Takeo, feeling his legs and arms, listening again to his heart. Then he looked back and motioned to Yuki, who was standing behind him. “Here, help me.”

  Together, the doctor and Yuki helped Takeo to his feet. They supported him between them, his arms around their shoulders. On the floor, the
strawberries were everywhere, most of them crushed. “Easy,” the doctor was saying. “Take it slow.” Masa followed them into the bedroom. They laid Takeo on his futon. His eyes were open. He squinted at them and then opened his mouth.

  “Don’t worry, you’re all right. You just fell down,” the doctor said. “Here, someone get a glass of water.”

  Yuki ran to the kitchen and returned with a glass. The doctor put his, arm behind Takeo’s back and helped him sit up. “Drink all of it. You don’t want to be dehydrated.” He handed the glass to Takeo, who took it, his hands shaking a little.

  Takeo finished the water. The doctor took the empty glass from him and handed it to Yuki, who set it aside.

  “Now, lie back down,” the doctor said, putting his arm behind Takeo and helping him ease back down on the futon. “You should try and sleep for a while. You need the rest.”

  Takeo closed his eyes. The doctor turned to Masa and Yuki. By then, Masa was sitting on the floor behind him, though she couldn’t remember when she had sat down. She edged closer to Takeo’s futon. Yuki reached out and held her hand.

  “He’ll be all right,” the doctor said. “He must have gotten dizzy from stooping in the sun and getting up to walk too soon, then coming into the house where it’s darker. It’s a humid day. He should be careful in this kind of weather.”

  “He’s not really hurt?” Yuki asked.

  “No, I checked his arms and legs. He might have a few bruises, but nothing broken. No cuts or scratches. He’s all right. Make sure he has some water to drink when he wakes up. I’ll come back in a few hours to check on him again.”

  “Good,” Yuki said. “Thank you.”

  Masa sat bolt upright, her hands and shoulders shaking. Yuki was still holding one of her hands. With her free hand, Yuki patted Masa’s back as though she had been the one who was sick.