by Kat Cameron
“I have to stay here for the orientation in Tokyo for the new teachers,” Kim continues, ignoring my lack of response. “I thought I might do some travelling in Japan. Use a ju-hachi kippu, you know, the tickets that allow unlimited use on the local trains.”
Her question turns into a reproach. I can leave, thanks to Abe-sensei. She’s stuck here. August in Japan. I’m happy to escape.
Turning, I see my reflection in the large window of the bar, wavering against the glass. Kim’s fuchsia top glows, the wine glass throwing off sparks of light.
Japan, a land of mirrors, endlessly reflecting back versions of itself. Lafcadio’s Japan, the world of cherry blossoms and ghosts, Kyoto temples and geishas, may be one reflection, but I’ve seen something else. In my luggage are ten strands of origami cranes, each string hung with twenty tsuru. I couldn’t reach that mystical number, one thousand cranes, my fingers not designed for the delicate work. The early cranes look like folded paper hats with uneven corners. I will drape the strands and the love knot I purchased in Kyoto over the stone on Jeff’s grave, light incense, and say good-bye. Maybe then I will not be haunted.
Pressure on my temples from the approaching storm. Behind the crimson symbol of the Daie department store, shining like a red button, the sunset is a blurred orange smear. Cigarette smoke drifts up the stairs. The air smells of gasoline, hot tar, spilled beer, overlaid with a whiff of freesias and roses. The rain starts, a few sprinkles, then falls in thick, warm ropes. Shrieks and laughter from the people caught out on the street as the rain drums on the iron stairs.
I have other pictures of Jeff and me, taken in the same booth. We had to get photos for our JET applications; we took four serious shots and then one set of four together. In one we’re mugging it up, making peace signs, sticking out our tongues, and squinting at the camera. The second is a blur; he was sitting down and I was turning so I could sit on his lap. A shot with both of us laughing, our faces side by side, black and white. We look like an overexposed negative, all contrast. In the fourth picture, we’re kissing. All I can see is the back of his head, my fingers like white ribbons across his neck.
The day before I leave, Little Yasuko and two other girls from my English club stop by my desk. It’s a school cleaning day, and they all look about twelve in their matching white and blue tracksuits, with their hair in pigtails. It’s hard to believe they’ll be graduating next March.
“I hope you have good visit with parents, Miss Elaine,” Fumi says. I’ve told the students I’m going home for a holiday. Sometimes I wonder what pictures my students have in their minds of my home, what 1950s Father Knows Best version of America. Or maybe they see a prairie town, buildings with false fronts lining the street in a Clint Eastwood western.
Little Yasuko hands me a small pink and gold box made of paper.
I stand up to accept the gift politely and bow. “Domo arigato gozaimasu.” Taking off the lid, I see a pair of red paper earrings, small origami cranes, attached to gold studs. The English club girls have frequently admired my changing earrings: gold hoops, silver stars, green four-leaf clovers. A magical selection. At Christmas, I alternated tiny snowflakes with flashing Christmas tree lights.
Checking the staff room to make sure none of the other teachers are watching, Fumi lifts a braid and shows me her own pierced ears. She’s wearing clear plastic studs to avoid detection.
“These are tsuru,” Yasuko instructs me. “Origami cranes. They will bring you luck.”
“Thank you very much. They’re lovely.” I hold up an earring to admire it. Each wing is precisely folded. Nestled in my palm, the tiny bird looks as if it’s about to take flight. “Would you like me to bring you some omiyage from California?”
The girls confer in Japanese, giggling, and then ask for posters of some boy band. I promise to buy each of them a poster and make a mental note to myself to buy a CD. Hopefully, the song lyrics aren’t too obscure and will adapt to a teaching plan.
Little Yasuko lingers by my desk for a moment after the other two girls leave.
“I hope you will have a good trip, Elaine-san. You will be happy to see your parents.”
I think for a moment. Perhaps I have learned forgiveness in Japan, the ability to move beyond my anger, at Jeff for dying, at my family for not accepting our relationship.
“When you see your family, you should say, O-sashiburi desu ne.”
“It has been a long time since I’ve seen them,” I agree.
She smiles that teacher’s smile. “Oh, very good.”
At the airport, I thread through the crowds, amazed at the number of gai-jin. In my small village, I’m a rare species, the only blue-eyed blonde. Here, I’m part of the herd. On my way through security, I deposit the departure tax, two thousand yen, into a green vending machine.
The dead travel with me. I have the love knot for Jeff’s grave. Lafcadio has been silent since I left Kyoto, since I began living my life in the present time, but sometimes I hear echoes of his voice. I bought one of his books, Writings from Japan, in a Tokyo bookstore; the archaic prose still weaves its magic.
The plane taxis down the runway. I look out the rain-splattered window and see the green trees, dripping water, the puddles on the tarmac reflecting the cloudy sky. The rain is easing off; it will be clear tonight. This is my favourite moment, the engines firing, the moment of anticipation as the plane leaves the ground.
NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Earlier versions of several of the stories have been published in journals and anthologies. Thank you to all the editors.
“Spirit Houses” in PRISM international
“Whyte Noise” in subTerrain.
“White-Out” in 40 Below: Volume 2
“Dancing the Requiem” in Prairie Fire
“Cutting Edge” in Paperplates
“Truth or Fiction.” The New Quarterly
“The Heart is a Red Apple” in NonBinary Review 6
“Variations on a Theme” in Lichen
“Gai-jin Ghost” in The New Quarterly
“Tasogare” in Prairie Fire
“The Eater of Dreams” in Descant
“Dancing the Requiem” won first prize in Prairie Fire’s Writing Contest 2018.
“The Apostles” won the Sir Charles G.D. Roberts Prize for Creative Fiction
“Zoonis County” is dedicated to Jeff.
The title and the poem (with translation) in “The Eater of Dreams” are from Lafcadio Hearn’s Kotto: Being Japanese Curios with Sundry Cobwebs, 1904, copyright Project Gutenberg.
Information about Canmore history in “How You Look at Things” is from “Canmore Miners, Canmore, AB” on The World of Lawrence Chrismas website.
Quotations from Lafcadio Hearn are from Lafcadio Hearn’s In Ghostly Japan. Boston, 1899, and Writings from Japan: An Anthology. Penguin, 1995.
Writing this book has been a long journey and I’ve been helped by many people along the way.
Thank you to all my friends in Japan. The JET crowd: Selena and Jim, Carmel, Komal, Adam, Greg, William and Annie, James, and Jane. To my students and colleagues at Chuo Secondary School and Mito Nikko, especially Miyakesensei and Marcella. And to my friends in Omitama: Liz, Pumpkin Lady, Fumi, and especially Tomoyoshi and Harumi (my Japanese obasan).
To my cousins, thanks for the Zoonis County years and the memories.
Thank you to the professors at the University of New Brunswick for creating such a vibrant space for writers. “Searching for Spock” owes its current shape to Mark Jarman’s suggestion of smashing two stories together. Thank you to all the fiction writers: Denis, Kelly, and Sean. And thanks to the PhD women — Robin, Lee Ellen, and Kathleen — for their fantastic camaraderie.
Thank you to Al and Jackie Forrie at Thistledown Press for believing in this book. I am so grateful to see these stories in print. Thank you to Harriet Richards for her impeccable editing skills.
Thanks to Kristy and Derrick, my first editors, who always suggested just the right w
ord.
Finally, thank you to my parents, my sister Kristy, and my brothers Stuart and Jon, for always supporting my writing dreams. And love to my Derrick, for his honesty, his humour, and his hugs.
KAT CAMERON was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of New Brunswick and has worked for two years as an ESL teacher in Japan. Her debut collection of poetry, Strange Labyrinth, was published by Oolichan Books in 2015. Her fiction, poetry, and book reviews have appeared in over fifty journals and anthologies in Canada and the United States, including The Antigonish Review, Canadian Literature, Descant, The Fiddlehead, Forage, Grain, Literary Review of Canada, NonBinary Review, Paperplates, Prairie Fire, PRISM international, The New Quarterly, Room, subTerrain, 40 Below: Volume 2, and Beyond Forgetting: Celebrating 100 Years of Al Purdy. Her poems have been shortlisted for the Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Award for Poetry and FreeFall’s Prose and Poetry contest. She teaches English literature and writing at Concordia University of Edmonton.
