if you should become ill.”
“I am no longer a young man, Miss Anne,” he said. “But I am in good health, and I am very happy here with things just the way they are. What I thought I saw the other day was perhaps just something I remembered from an old story my father once told to me.”
“I’d like to hear it,” I ventured, and he glanced at me, perhaps to see if I was sincere or merely being polite. Convinced of my sincerity, he began the story, and right away, I could sense the magical quality of it.
“On a faraway island called Hokkaido, there are great cranes that are found nowhere else in all the world,” he began, warming to his story right away so that he spoke with more animation than I had ever seen before. “The story is about a lonely woodcutter who rescued a great crane that was hurt. And he nursed it back to health.”
Here, he paused and looked at me again, and he had the strangest smile on him, as if it didn’t quite know how to fit into his face.
“And the crane turned into a lovely bride for the woodcutter, through magic.” His words were almost breathless. And then he added, “It’s only an old story.”
“It’s lovely,” I said, quite truthfully.
“Well, I thought I saw a great crane in your garden that day.”
“One that turned into a young woman?” I asked cautiously.
“No.” Again, he smiled, and his cheeks quivered, as if they were surprised by it. “Just a great crane.”
“It was a blue heron perhaps?” I offered. “Or a whooping crane, of course? That sometimes happens.”
“Perhaps,” he said, once again wearing that very strange but lovely smile. Then he pushed back his chair, stood up, and bowed deeply to me. “And now, I thank you for the delicious tea.”
Well, after that, I’ll have to admit that I thought of us as friends a little. Because I’d invited him to take tea at my own table. And because he had told me that lovely story from his own childhood.
So the next morning—which was Sunday—I awakened early, thinking most distinctly that I really should give Mr. Oto more say-so about how the garden would be planted. Goodness knows, he never said anything right out, but I could tell he had other ideas about it.
In particular, when I told him how I wanted the new dogwood trees planted, he asked me, “In a row?” And I could hear the disappointment in his voice. But I was stubborn, as usual. So maybe I should listen to his ideas, at least. For after all, he was a gentleman of impeccable taste.
While I was lying there, thinking, I heard him walk past my window on the gravel driveway—on his way to the river to paint, as he always did on Sunday mornings.
Yes—a gentleman of impeccable taste!
Chapter Ten
When Mr. Oto arrived at the riverbank, Sophie was already there, painting and with the early sunlight in her hair and a breeze off the river lifting a loose tendril of hair at her temples.
Once, in a book Miss Anne had brought to him from the library, he had seen pictures of many great paintings, and now, watching her, he wished deeply that he knew how to paint such magnificent pictures. For surely, only such a painting could do justice to her.
While he stood there, she hesitated in her painting and then once again turned to look directly at him. Her round, pink face, the deep green eyes, the careless way the white, open-collared blouse lay upon her shoulders—all these things worked together so that his face tingled, as if he had been briefly burned by a flash of sunlight.
And once again, in the church, the singing began: “Love lifted me! Love lifted me! When nothing else could help, Love lif-ted meee!”
“Good morning,” she said. And there was more in those same words than had been in them on the weekday mornings.
“Good morning,” he answered, and moved forward as if the painting he would do were the only thing that mattered. And once again, he worked on the painting of Sophie as the magical Crane-Wife in the old fable.
After a few silent hours, Sophie gathered her paints and said, “I have to leave now. I hope you will come again next Sunday.”
Mr. Oto stood and bowed deeply, all the time placing himself between Sophie and his painting of her.
“I will come,” he answered simply.
Walking back home that day, Sophie carried his presence with her, somehow. So that she could almost feel him walking along beside her, saying nothing. But still, his clean-earth smell was in her nostrils and the sound of his quiet breathing, in her ears.
How strange! she thought.
The next Sunday, they met again and painted silently for hours, after which Sophie leaned back a little and turned her head ever-so-slightly toward Mr. Oto. It was a gesture—a new gesture—one that both of them would be able to accept as a signal for the end of painting and the beginning of speaking. For Sophie had decided that she no longer had to be the least bit concerned that he would intrude upon her reveries by talking too much, and once that concern was put to rest—strangely enough, it left a quiet space inside of her that she was ready to fill with his voice.
On that particular Sunday, however, Mr. Oto was deeply engrossed in creating the iris of the great crane, an eye that must be dark but that should not be so distinct as to belie the dreamy, almost illusionary quality of the crane. Black, he finally decided, was too abrupt. And gray would not convey the depth of the eye of such a symbol of love and happiness. Finally, he touched together with the brush a bit of the red and some of the blue, and the resulting deep purple of the crane’s eye was so perfectly the effect he wanted that he almost gasped.
“You must be very pleased with your painting,” Sophie offered, and Mr. Oto jumped a little, as if he had forgotten for a moment that she was there. And he could hardly tear his eyes away from the soft, deeply passionate gaze of the crane.
“I am pleased, yes,” he finally answered.
“May I see?” Sophie asked innocently.
“Oh, no!” The abject horror in his response surprised her “I mean...” He seemed to be as surprised as Sophie at the intensity of his words, and he glanced at her with deep apology in his eyes. Hastily, he blew upon the great, purple-hued eye to dry it thoroughly before he closed the art tablet.
“Please,” he began again. “It’s not worthy.”
“But I’m sure it’s very good,” Sophie said, somehow touched by his obvious embarrassment.
“Please, no.” Mr. Oto repeated those words and then no more. But his dark eyes were fully upon Sophie, unblinking and with something in them—a burning sincerity, or something. So that she pressed the matter no further. But she didn’t feel offended—not in the least. She, who valued privacy, also respected the same value in him.
Once again, when she arose to leave, he stood up also and bowed low before her, a gesture that both embarrassed and pleased her.
“I’m sorry about not sharing my painting with you,” he said.
“It’s perfectly all right,” she assured him. “After all, it’s your painting, to do with as you please. And I’m sure it’s quite lovely.’’
“Thank you,” he said. And he did not add, Lovely—but only because you are lovely.
Throughout the golden days of November, they met in that quiet and gentle way every Sunday, and in those few weeks, Sophie and Mr. Oto accepted the new routine their friendship had brought. Sophie passed by Miss Anne’s house nearly every day, she and Mr. Oto spoke their quiet greetings, and on Sunday mornings, they painted together by the deep and slow-moving river.
At first, they had spoken very few words to each other. But the silence between them was sweet—filled with the distant cries of gulls and the whisperings of the gentle wind in the live oak tree. And little by little, they began to talk, hesitantly and somewhat timidly at first, merely offering small comments about the angle of the sun and occasionally identifying migrating flocks of birds to each other—which reminded Mr. Oto that he had not yet seen the great crane again, that creature he had sought to find at the river and which, now, he had nearly forgotten
. Except for the painting.
But as Sunday followed Sunday, Mr. Oto and Sophie began giving bits of old stories of their youth to each other—exquisite, glimmering images of worlds they lived in before their acquaintance. So that Sophie could see him as a small boy, trying to catch the goldfish in the pond in the center of his father’s garden. And Mr. Oto knew Sophie as the little girl who loved to run back and forth under the crisp, white sheets hanging on the clothesline.
On the first Sunday in December, Sophie studied him quite openly and frankly, so much so that he felt the tips of his ears burning.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, anxious that she was not ill or perhaps angry with him about something.
“Oh, yes,” she fluttered. “It’s just...”
“Please go on,” he urged, wondering if something he’d said or done had disappointed or alarmed her.
But she smiled and shrugged her shoulders a bit. “Well, it’s just that I don’t know your name. Your full name,” she added. “I know something about what you were like as a little boy—because you’ve told me—but I don’t even know your first name.”
The burning tips of Mr. Oto’s ears began pulsating, and he felt ribbons of blushing heat running up his neck on either side.
“I am so sorry,” he mumbled.
“No, please don’t be embarrassed,” Sophie urged, and before she knew what happened, she reached over and put her hand on his arm. They both just sat and stared at that, and then she slowly removed her hand.
“My name...” he began, “is Grover. Grover Cleveland Oto.”
“Grover Cleveland?”
If she laughed, he knew that he would die. But she didn’t, even though she lifted her eyebrows a little quizzically.
“Like President Grover Cleveland?”
“Yes. Because of my father’s pride that his youngest son... me... that I was born in this country. That I am an American.”
“Oh, that’s lovely,” she murmured. Then she added, “If you’re the youngest son, they you must have older brothers. Were they born in China?”
“No. Not China,” he said, realizing that Sophie simply believed what everyone else in town believed about him. Even Miss Anne.
“Not China?”
“Japan.” How strange the word sounded to him.
“But everybody thinks —”
“I know,” he interrupted her gently.
“Why don’t you correct them?” Sophie asked.
“Because I do not want them asking questions about me,” he confessed. “I am a very private man.”
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” Sophie breathed. “Why, I’ve been as rude as can be, asking you all kinds of personal questions!”
“No!” He hastened to halt such an abject apology. “You are not like them. For you to ask is perfectly fine.”
Suddenly, he realized how relaxed and smooth the English words were rolling off his tongue. Exactly as in his daydream.
“Then may I please ask just one more?” Her voice had a playful lilt he had never heard in it before.
“Of course.”
“May I call you by your given name?”
“Given name?” He had never heard of such a thing.
“Your first name.”
“Yes. Please.” But he almost stopped breathing at the thought of the lovely Miss Sophie actually saying his name aloud.
“Grover.” Her voice was soft and melodic, like the faint lapping of ripples at the edge of a beautiful marsh deep inside him.
So that all the next week, he heard her voice over and over again, saying his name. And it was enough.
The next Sunday—December 7—Sophie sighed deeply only halfway through the morning and put down her brush. Mr. Oto looked at her where she sat gazing at the sky.
“I have never been able to paint the sky exactly as I see it,’’ she confessed.
“May I look?’’
“Of course,” she laughed. “I’m not timid!” She didn’t add, As you are. But he could sense her unspoken teasing. So that he smiled as he leaned just enough to be able to see her painting.
“It is good,” he pronounced genuinely, nodding his head. “What you have painted is very good.’’
“But it’s not the way I really see it,” she explained. “Because the sky that’s over where the river and the ocean come together is very beautiful—very different—in a special way. And I just can’t seem to get it right, on the paper.’’
Mr. Oto wiped his brush and put it away before he responded. “Perhaps,” he ventured, “that’s why it is so beautiful—because it is beyond capturing.’’
Sophie looked at him in surprise. “Maybe you’re right about that.” She laughed. “Maybe that’s what it is.’’ And to herself, she thought, How perceptive! And poetic!
Mr. Oto laughed with her, but a rusty kind of laugh, as if it were something that he had forgotten how to do—if, indeed, he had ever known.
“Some Sunday, perhaps we may walk over to the place where the river comes into the ocean and look most carefully at the sky,’’ he suggested.
Sophie hesitated. “Then would I be able to paint it?” she asked, very seriously.
“Perhaps not. But it would be a fine thing anyway.’’
“Yes,” she finally agreed. “It would be a fine thing. I’d like to do that.’’
Then, inexplicably, she looked full into his dark eyes. Mr. Oto, caught by surprise, could only gaze back at her. And neither of them looked away.
Once again, when Sophie walked home from the riverfront, she felt his presence go along with her, and she smiled, both at that and at the absolute beauty of the sunny, clear morning. The breeze off the river, with its satisfying aromas of earth and sky and water. Her footsteps in time with the cries of a white gull high overhead and all the world breathing with her.
What a dear, dear man!
Chapter Eleven
When Mr. Oto walked back to his cottage from the river that day, he moved as lightly as if he traveled only along a silent path deep within. For after all, she was speaking openly with him now. With ease. Looking full into his face. Talking about herself without hesitation. Even saying that they could walk together to where the river and the ocean met. It was more than he could ever have hoped for.
In the cottage, he propped up the nearly completed painting and studied it carefully. It was a good likeness of her, he thought. And the ease with which it had appeared! Almost as if it had leaped onto the paper, of its own choice. The image of Sophie sitting in the chair by the river, sunlight on her arms, and behind her—indistinct and dreamlike—the great crane stood with its wings extended and its soulful eye gazing at him.
“What is it you are saying to me?” he asked the painting. Asked Sophie. Or the crane. Or both. But only the silence of the quiet cottage answered him.
That afternoon, he sat outside in the sunshine, drinking tea and remembering over and over every single moment of a morning that had left him feeling—somehow, sad. But in a lovely and pensive way.
“Mr. Oto! Mr. Oto!” Miss Anne’s voice broke through the tea-golden, sun-washed blue sky of his thoughts. The muffled sound of her running footsteps across the garden on the other side of the wall.
Mr. Oto stood up immediately, because of a tone of distress, a note of urgency—perhaps even of fear—in her voice.
“Miss Anne!” he answered, clattering his cup onto the seat of the chair and running to meet her at the gate in the back wall. She was breathless from her unaccustomed lope across the garden.
“Oh, Mr. Oto,” she whispered. “Pearl Harbor —”
“Pearl Harbor?” he repeated senselessly, suddenly imagining himself and Sophie sitting together in the sunshine, while pearls washed up on lapping wavelets from the river and piled against their feet.
“The Japanese,” she sputtered. “They’ve bombed Pearl Harbor.’’
“Bombed?” He parroted the word, but even on his own tongue it made no sense.
“Bombed ou
r base in Hawaii. It’s terrible— a sneak attack! We’ll surely have war now!’’
Mr. Oto began to gain the full measure of the words. The Japanese... bombed Hawaii? But why?
“And,” Miss Anne was calmer now, but nonetheless serious, and she spoke slowly and with her hand on her chest. “One of the first things I thought about was that people will think you’re one of them!” She spat the word in disgust. “One of those nasty Japs! They won’t understand that you’re Chinese. I’m afraid, Mr. Oto!’’
I must tell her, he thought—because he knew full well that she thought of him as being Chinese. Everyone in town thought of him that way—except Sophie! Sophie knew about his ancestry!
That thought was a new and perhaps even more terrible shock than hearing about the bombing in the first place. Sophie! What would she think? Would she ever speak to him again? Would Sophie think of him now as nothing but a “nasty Jap”?
Miss Anne was still speaking, but he couldn’t hear a single word she was saying. He could only study her face and watch her tight, angry mouth moving amidst a roaring in his ears that blotted out everything else.
Sophie! I must find you and tell you that I am not one of those people who would do such a thing!
But how? Would she even speak to him? Would she hate him? Would she turn her face away from him?
Through his agonizing questions, Miss Anne’s voice slowly became audible again, but her words were like little feathers that simply floated down toward the horrible ache that filled the pit of his stomach and never quite reached it.
“I’m afraid for you,” she repeated. “People will be infuriated about this! No telling what they will do... Oh, I have to get back to the radio. I have to find out what’s going on.”
But still they stood, separated by the iron gate and with Miss Anne searching Mr. Oto’s face in a way he had never seen before. And he, for the first time, looked directly back at her with full, dark eyes that did not blink or turn away from her gaze.
Sophie and the Rising Sun Page 6
