fuzzy-headed
recovering
then she picks up the empty glasses
did she call? I ask again
YiaYia puts down the glasses
comes to sit on the chair arm
leans close to me
and whispers
no, but I imagine she’s doing just fine
so don’t stress about it
I’m not stressing! I say
where’s Toby?
she rises and arranges a basket
of patchwork coasters
at a friend’s for dinner
which doesn’t seem fair
because right now
post-migraine
I just want someone
from my lived-in-Japan family
not YiaYia
who seems to think migraines can be controlled
just by flicking a brain switch
some thoughts on
some thoughts off
who wants me to be active and involved
who was the one to introduce me to
the Newall Center where my Papou
spent two years before he died
who when she heard they needed
a new volunteer poetry helper
piped right up with
my granddaughter writes poems!
meaning those verse scribbles
I’d write on her birthday cards
she thinks everything will be fine
if I just join groups
she thinks everything will be fine
if I just meet more Americans
and she thinks everything
will be fine in Japan
that it’s better we’re not there now
during the recovery
and she thinks
everything will be fine
in our family
but I think
she has a strange idea
of what’s fine
I think she doesn’t know
how much it hurt to leave
how much it felt like
abandoning Japan
and I think she doesn’t know
how strange it is to live
without our father
and I think she doesn’t
know what my mother is feeling
about having her breast lopped off
and I think she doesn’t
know what it’s like to be the daughter
wondering do I carry those genes, too?
my migraines started
three days after our move
my mother says I need
a strict routine
YiaYia sews me a lavender pillow
and says to avoid chocolate
my father emails me articles
one of an exhibit of paintings
by migraine sufferers that show
the dark hole of blindness
and the crescent
of zigzagging
triangles
just like mine
Toby doesn’t say anything
after my migraines
just asks if I want a bath
to feel like I’m home in Japan
but Toby’s not here now
so in the armchair I
pull the scarf over my head
and hide inside
YiaYia sighs
pats my arm
picks up the glasses
and goes into the kitchen
I was at the international school
where I’d transferred for grade 9
from Japanese school
I was in English class
when it started
a tremor
that grew
Mr. Hays had taught in Japan
only two years so I shouted at him
and at Ryan and Keizo
who were playing tough
“surfing” the quake
get under the desks!
this isn’t normal!
the building rattled
shelves, books, cupboards clattered
stuff crashed and fell
I thought the walls would give
I thought the windows would shatter
and I was glad
I’d worn my boots
they’d keep me warm
if the school collapsed
on and on
the building
bumped
creaked
swayed
clanked
while under the desks
we clutched hands
Sophia on one side of me
Yohei on the other
with the principal’s voice on the loudspeaker
now it’s slowing, wait, here’s another tremble
stay calm, stay calm, it will be over soon
but it seemed like forever
later as we waited
in our classrooms
aftershocks jolting
power came on
network was up
but cell phones
were down
from a school computer
I blast-emailed Mom, Dad, Toby, Madoka
YiaYia, Gram, Gramps, cousins—
big quake, I’m at school, everyone here okay
not knowing who would see my message
or when
trains were stopped
people were stuck
I couldn’t get back to Kamakura
and finally was dismissed
to walk with Juulia to her house
where I translated Japanese TV news
for them while her mother followed
Finnish and English news online
and where we watched in disbelief
as tsunami waves engulfed
the Pacific coast of Tohoku
I tried calling Madoka in Kamakura
whose grandparents, cousins
aunts and uncles
all live up north in Miyagi
near the sea
I sat on Juulia’s sofa
stone still
holding my head
hoping those relatives had all
run
fast
near midnight I reached
Mom and Toby in Kamakura
their power and heat finally on
Dad staying the night in Tokyo
and right away I asked
but Mom said no
Madoka’s family
hadn’t heard any news
seeing those waves blast away
seaside towns that looked like ours
towns that could have been ours
towns I’ve visited
with Madoka . . .
I hardly slept
all night
I rose
when I finally heard
someone else up at dawn
and joined Juulia’s father
in stunned silence
in front of the TV
midday on the day after
Mom came by car to get me
and back in Kamakura
I went straight to Madoka’s house
to help them try to make contact
to help them wait for news
/>
Dad got home that second night
by train, bus, walking
and on the third day we learned
that Madoka’s grandparents
survived
her cousins were safe
but later we learned
the first floor of her grandparents’ house
was ruined
one cousin’s school
was gone
one uncle’s fishing boat
was gone
one uncle’s factory
was gone
one aunt’s sister
was gone
one uncle’s wife
was gone
and the list
of gone
went on
and on
in late April, Dad and I
Madoka and her father
packed a van full of supplies
cleanup gear and two used bicycles
and drove north to Miyagi
at her grandparents’ house
the waterline
was above my head
a car stood on its nose
between the kitchen wall
and a neighbor’s wall
another had bashed down a shed
and four were crumpled
against a broken utility pole
the garden was littered
with splintered chairs, a drum
shredded mats, plastic crates, clothes
a urinal and dresser drawers
trees crusted with mud
were hung with trash
tangled in string
and weighted with dead fish
Madoka’s Jiichan, her grandfather
pried open the door to his house
and we peered inside to furniture
heaped, overturned
reeking and stuck
in oily salty sludge
but at least they still had a house—
a couple streets away
the waterline hit two stories
and beyond that
all the way to the sea . . .
there was only rubble
we dressed in rainsuits and boots
helmets, masks and goggles
and worked our way inside
shoveling muck into bags
lugging bags out
Madoka and I were a team
taking turns bag-holding
muck-shoveling
picking out rotting fish
removing broken glass
teams of men hauled out
soaked tatami mats
and ruined appliances
we shoveled sludge from floors
then from under floors
from behind the toilet
from inside kitchen cabinets
we salvaged
dishes, pots and pans
jewelry, photos, unopened bottles of sake
we discarded
furniture, futons, clothes, books, shoes, papers
phones, place mats, curtains, stuffed animals
during lunch or breaks
sometimes Madoka and I
wandered the deserted neighborhood
among growing mounds of debris
we’d greet
whoever we saw
stop to talk
offer help
or just listen
once we found two girls
leaping onto and off
bent and broken
washed-up cars
wearing
no gloves
no masks
no boots
so Madoka and I led them away
to a cleared patch of asphalt
found some stones
and started hopscotch
first the long spiral snaking kind
we learned in Japanese preschool
then the kind like a double-crossed T
I learned in Vermont
at night
in the tent we’d pitched
in a little park on high ground
I wrote by lantern light
some of the words people said to us
and some of the things
I couldn’t believe
we’d seen
we worked dawn to dusk
and on the fourth day
Madoka’s grandmother
came from the evacuation center
to view the house
and the changed neighborhood
stoic, tough
she’d come to join the cleanup
but when she saw my yellow rainsuit
greasy with sludge
my gloves foul black
she fell against my shoulder
and wept
even you, Emma-chan
even you are here to help
in June Mom and I returned for a week
to help Madoka’s cousins
and her grandparents’ neighbors
still shoveling
still cleaning
still bagging
and heaping debris
and in August I went up with Madoka
for what should have been two weeks
of helping all around
her grandparents’ town . . .
and that’s where I was
when I got the news
about Mom
about our move
out of Japan
I had to leave Miyagi
return early to Kamakura
help with packing, sorting, storing
could only drop by
the international school
as classes were starting
could only drop by
a volleyball practice
at my old Japanese school
to say my good-byes
one minute my head was full of tsunami cleanup
with plans to visit Miyagi each school break
one minute I was a member of student council
with fund-raising plans for two adopted Tohoku schools
one minute I was headed back to teachers who knew me
a coach eyeing me for varsity volleyball
and a Model UN conference in the Philippines
one minute Toby was finishing summer homework
for his second term at Japanese middle school
after all-summer practice with his baseball club
one minute we thought the earthquake
was the only thing
to turn our lives upside down this year
but the next minute
Mom’s mammogram
changed everything
the next minute
she’d gone back to the U.S.
for biopsies and MRIs
the next minute
she’d scheduled surgery
for September in Boston
the next minute
I was saying good-bye to
my school
our Kamakura home
our neighborhood
our cat Shoga
my new friends
my old friends
Madoka
and nearly the next minute
I was starting tenth grade
in a country I’d lived in only as a baby
in a state I’d never lived in
in my father’s mother’s town
without my father
without any friends
who speak Japanese
or know anything about Japan
except sushi, manga, anime
tsun
ami and radiation
and my mother
getting poked and sliced
and rearranged
Dad’s now based
at the firm’s New York branch
joining us here in Massachusetts
for appointments and procedures
then rushing back to work in Manhattan
while we remain in YiaYia’s town
where we came to live
in time for Mom’s first surgery
which then revealed
the whole breast had to go
this week my mother went down to visit my father
a getaway before the full mastectomy
her trip is only five days
but already it feels like weeks
I miss her
I miss Dad
I miss Madoka
I miss Japan
my heart is torn in two—
half here with Mom
and all she’s going through
half there in Japan
with Madoka
and her relatives
all coping
with so much gone
Saturday afternoon in YiaYia’s kitchen
Toby and I paint clay beads with tiny brushes
YiaYia wants us to decorate a bead each for Mom
The Language Inside Page 2
