by Kyoko Mori
“From here to Siberia is a very short migration for birds. This bird was born in Siberia. He’s already made the same trip at least once. But I want to give him plenty of time to find other waxwings. Birds migrate in flocks, not alone.”
Over the ocean, there would be no place to rest, nothing to eat for miles and miles.
“I don’t like to keep birds longer than I absolutely have to,” the doctor continues, “especially if they are alone. Birds don’t do well alone, not for long.”
“Why not?”
“They lose interest in living. I wasn’t very worried about this one, since he’s an adult and it was only going to be a week or two. But if I have just one baby sparrow or thrush, I can’t always get them to live. When they are all alone, some baby birds stop opening their mouths for food. They don’t want to eat or live. They just give up. I have no other explanation.”
The waxwing hops down from the branch to peck at a piece of melon. He swallows and begins to whistle again.
“You are not sad to see him go, are you?” Dr. Mizutani asks.
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m glad he’s better. I’m only worried a little.”
“What are you worried about?”
“How will he find the others?”
“Hear that? The way he’s calling? That’s how birds find each other. He’ll keep calling to the others, and he’ll listen for them, too. Besides, we’ll bring him to a place where other waxwings are likely to come. I know a good place.”
“I’d like to come along.”
“Of course. You nursed the bird. You have to be the one to let him go.”
* * *
I follow Dr. Mizutani on the narrow path through the woods that border our city to the north, where my mother and I used to walk. I have not been here since she went away. The loose dirt and gravel crunch under my feet. The air smells of pine needles and cedar bark, moss, and wet leaves from last fall. The waxwing is quiet inside the pet carrier, perched on a branch and looking straight ahead.
“Here,” Dr. Mizutani says when we come to a small clearing.
I set the pet carrier on the ground.
“See those?” She points to a dozen chokecherry trees about twenty yards away. The leaves have not come out yet. On the bare branches, last year’s cherries are left like small black bells. “Waxwings are nomadic, so they’re hard to predict. They appear out of nowhere, eat, and take off. But I’ve seen them every spring, eating those dried cherries. They’ll be here again.”
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me, I know these woods. Every week, I spend hours walking here. I must have seen almost every bird that came through here in the last five years.” She pauses, a slight frown on her face, and then goes on in a brighter voice. “Anyway, your bird is familiar with this area. He was probably flying around these woods before he came down the hill to our neighborhood and got hurt.”
“All right,” I tell her. “I’m ready.”
The doctor lifts the pet carrier onto a flat rock on the side of the path. “Go ahead,” she says to me. “You open the door and let him go.”
I unlatch the door and pull it open. The bird cocks his head as if contemplating the possibilities. After only a few seconds, he flies out and makes straight across the clearing toward the chokecherries. For a short while, I can follow him with my eyes as he soars from branch to branch, making his thin, lisping calls. I watch him until he flies out of the cherries and disappears in the cedars above. Without speaking, Dr. Mizutani and I head back, me carrying the cage and leading the way this time.
“Good job,” Dr. Mizutani says, coming up next to me where the path widens, closer to the road now. She lays her hand on my shoulder for just a second.
We don’t speak for a while more, till she says, suddenly, “I almost forgot to tell you. My father knows you.”
“I don’t think so. We’ve never met before.”
“Not in person,” she explains. “But aren’t you the girl who won an honorable mention for the peace essay contest last summer?”
“The one the city sponsored, back in August?”
“Yes. My father was one of the three judges. He was so impressed with your essay that he remembered your name, though he didn’t think of it till you were gone. He’s getting a little old. Your essay was about your uncle, he said.”
“He remembered that?”
“He was really moved by what you wrote. If it had been up to him, you would have won first prize. The other judges liked your essay, too, but preferred the two that discussed politics more directly. My father was angry at them for not seeing that your essay was much stronger, more sincere, for being so personal.”
Walking in these woods where my mother taught me the names of birds and trees, I think of her and her older brother, Susumu, who was killed in Manchuria during the Second World War.
“My mother still regrets his death,” I wrote in the essay. “The last time she saw him, they had a terrible argument. My mother was opposed to the war, while Susumu was determined to fight. They were both angry when they said good-bye. Now she will never be able to make peace with him. But what makes her sad, more than anything, is her belief that he died for a wrong cause.”
Listening to the sound of our footsteps, I remember the things my mother told me about the war.
“Soldiers in Manchuria did not spare the people there,” she taught me when I was thirteen. “They killed women, children, old men and women. They burned down villages. I can’t say that my brother never did anything wrong. He, too, might have killed someone’s sister, someone’s child or grandmother. At the very least, he must have watched other soldiers kill defenseless people. He didn’t try to stop them. That doesn’t mean that he deserved to die, of course. Still, it’s wrong to think of him as a hero. Your grandparents would be furious to hear me say these things to you. They insist that Susumu was just another victim of the war, like the people who died from the firebombs dropped in Kobe. But the Bible says the truth will make us free, and I believe that. Susumu was a soldier. He went to war, prepared not only to die but to kill. He was not like the firebomb victims, who were not soldiers, who never killed anyone. I wouldn’t be honoring my brother’s memory if I lied and made him out to be a hero or an innocent victim. Nobody is completely innocent in war—even those of us who stay home and support it or don’t oppose it hard enough.”
For a moment, I want to sit down on the path and cry. I have been unfair to my mother, thinking of her as a big liar. Just like Mrs. Kato, she liked to make believe that our family was perfect when it wasn’t. But when she pretended that Grandmother Shimizu was a kind person, that her own going away for seven years was like going on a vacation, she was just telling me what she wished she could believe. That is not the same as an out-and-out lie, and besides, she didn’t always pretend. She told me a big, painful truth about her own brother—he might have killed innocent people in the war.
Dr. Mizutani and I leave the woods and begin walking on the paved road, only a few blocks away from the clinic. Behind us, the cedar trees stand tall, casting shadows. My scalp prickles as if the dark green shadows were pulling at my hair. I have not said a word in a long time.
“I would never have written that essay without my mother,” I announce, trying to keep my voice even. “She taught me a lot.”
“That doesn’t have to stop.” Dr. Mizutani hesitates for a second and then adds, “I’m afraid this is none of my business. But why shouldn’t you be able to see her even if she doesn’t live with you?”
“My father and grandmother would never allow that,” I explain. “They say that my mother gave up the right to be with me when she decided to leave. She has already made her choice.”
The doctor shakes her head. “How could they say that? Your mother didn’t have much of a choice.” She is frowning; her voice has a sharp edge.
I shrug. What she says is true, but that makes no difference.
“Will your father and grandmother reconsid
er if you keep asking to see her?”
“No.” The doctor has no idea, I think with sudden irritation. She thinks my father and grandmother are normal, nice people like her parents. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. To be fair, she doesn’t know because I haven’t told her anything about my father or grandmother. Still, I can’t help being annoyed. I don’t want to talk about my family, with her or anyone.
“What if you absolutely insisted?” she goes on.
I shake my head and say nothing more, hoping that she will get the hint and drop the subject.
“I don’t mean to press,” Dr. Mizutani says instead, “but will you let me help you if I can?”
“Why?” I ask without thinking. It’s rude to ask people why they are offering to help. All the same, it is none of her business whether or not I see my mother. Maybe, being a doctor and having rich and kind parents, she thinks there is a solution for everything and she can help anyone. She’s wrong. My family is beyond help.
“Why do I want to help you and your mother?” she repeats the question.
I nod.
She hesitates for a second. “I was married once. I didn’t have children. But if I did, I wouldn’t want to give them up just because I wanted a divorce. That isn’t fair.”
I stare at her and nearly drop the empty pet carrier. With her eyes narrowed and her lips downturned, she looks serious, even upset. I remember her comment last week about not liking to cry in front of people or alone. I imagine her walking in the woods for hours by herself—just as my mother did last spring while I was at school; my mother’s shoes were drenched and muddy every afternoon from her solitary walks.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Dr. Mizutani says, trying to take a light tone. But her voice sounds shaky as she says, “It isn’t inconceivable, is it—that I was married?”
“Oh, no, not at all,” I say quickly, looking away from her. I don’t want to think that Dr. Mizutani ever cried herself to sleep or spent hours walking on a muddy path, feeling lonely.
“I wasn’t married for a long time,” she shrugs, finally managing a little smile. “Three months to be exact. I’ll tell you about it some time.”
I don’t know what to say, so I stay quiet. We keep walking.
Soon we are back in front of her clinic. I hand over the pet carrier. “Thank you very much,” I say, feeling stupid and clumsy. I turn to go.
“Wait,” she says. “I want to ask you something. I need some help. In a month or so, people will start bringing me baby birds. I can’t take care of them all. I need an assistant.”
“You’re asking me?”
“You won’t have to be here a lot. You can take the birds home and take care of them. If your grandmother doesn’t mind, that is.” She stops and peers into my face.
The way I’ve been talking, she must think I am a completely spineless person. “I don’t care what my grandmother says. What I do in my own room is my own business.”
“Good for you,” Dr. Mizutani beams, looking cheerful again. “I’ll pay you, of course.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
Pursing her lips, the doctor shakes her head in mock admonishment. “Never turn down money when it’s offered to you for honest work.”
“Okay.”
“It’s settled then.” She holds out her right hand. “I’m going to northern Japan for a few weeks to see the migrating birds. But I’ll be back. I’ll call you then.” She pauses and adds, with a big smile, “A lot of birds migrate through the forests and grasslands in the north. It’s a trip I love to make. I go every year. It’s fantastic to be in the woods, alone with flocks and flocks of birds. But it’ll be nice to come back and see you.”
“Thank you.” We shake hands before saying good-bye.
Watching her go into the house, I stop thinking about her walking in the woods in our city. Instead I imagine her driving up a narrow mountain path in her red truck. Alone behind the wheel, a map spread over the empty passenger’s seat, she would smile and hum a tune, knowing exactly where to find the rare birds.
* * *
The next day, Sunday, I take the commuter train and walk up the hill to my school. The teachers’ mailboxes, where I’m supposed to turn in my essay, are in the same building as the chapel. On the lawn in front, a crowd is gathering for the high school graduation. The girls who just finished the twelfth grade are wearing their best dresses, mostly black, navy, or dark red. Some of the fathers, wearing black suits, are smoking cigarettes. The mothers, in formal black kimonos with family crests embroidered on the back, are fussing over their daughters with combs and handkerchiefs. Though most of the girls will be going to Christian Academy College to study music or literature, they seem as excited as if this were their last day here. Their happy chatter is broken up once in a while by a few girls bursting into loud laughter or calling to one another.
I duck into the building in my gray T-shirt and blue jeans, drop the essay in Mrs. Fukushima’s mailbox, and run down the hill. The early forsythias and camellias are budding already, the buds appearing on leafless branches.
In three years, I will be at my graduation, the only girl without a mother. Grandmother Shimizu will never set foot here, not even for the ceremony. Until the very last day of my high school, she will nag me to change schools, to study for the entrance examinations to get into a national university. She hates Christian Girls’ Academy because she considers it foreign (it was founded by American missionary ladies at the turn of the century) and because my mother went here. Most likely, I will be all alone on my graduation day. My father will feel too awkward to come, the only unaccompanied father. He will say that he is too busy, that graduation is just a formality. He will spend the day in Hiroshima with his girlfriend, whom he can never bring to a graduation ceremony: My father, a rich and important person, cannot come to his daughter’s school with a woman who makes a living by serving whisky and sake. No matter how much he prefers Tomiko to my mother, he will still be married to my mother, if only in name: he believes—as does my grandmother—that people from good families don’t get divorced.
It makes me happy to think of my father’s girlfriend as someone not good enough to come to my school, much less to marry my father. But the satisfaction doesn’t last more than a few seconds. Maybe I am turning into a stuck-up person, just like Grandmother Shimizu. I have many reasons for disliking Tomiko Hayashi, but what she does for a living shouldn’t be one of them. She probably can’t do anything to change that. I don’t want to be like Grandmother Shimizu, who always looked down on my mother for coming from a family who used to be well-to-do before the war but became poor afterward. Though most people in the kimono business lost money after the war, Grandmother Shimizu always made it sound as if my mother’s parents didn’t work hard enough. Despising Tomiko Hayashi because of the bar is the same kind of unfairness. But how can I help but hate everything about her?
Walking past the gate of my school into a residential neighborhood, I envy all the families living in the houses I pass. Each house must have a mother, a father, one or two children. No one is as alone as I am.
Birds never do well alone, Dr. Mizutani said. Sometimes, a lone bird that falls out of a nest will just give up and die. Maybe I am like a lone bird. My mother and I were two baby birds in the nest, and now she is gone. I can think of her only in that way—as another helpless baby, not as a mother bird returning with food in her beak. If my mother wasn’t the mother bird, who would be? “God,” Pastor Kato would answer. He would remind me that we are all baby birds that God provides for: Not one sparrow falls, the Bible says, without God’s knowledge. But where is the comfort in that? If God knows about the sparrows falling, why doesn’t he keep them from harm? Maybe God isn’t there watching at all. I’ve been thinking that for a long time now.
Waiting for the train at the station, I remember another thing Dr. Mizutani told me: Birds can drown in the water in their own small mouths, as if a few drops of water contained a whole ocean. My m
other is a bird whose mouth has become a big sea of tears. She had to leave me to keep from drowning.
The train is coming. I hear it first—a slight whistle of vibration, then a rattle and a roar as the cars come around the bend and stop in front of the platform. As I rise from the bench and step into the nearest car, I am thinking of that waxwing, alone in the leafless chokecherry tree, making his sad cricket noise, calling to the others that he could not see. It is a long way to Siberia, and he cannot migrate alone. I wish I could have heard the call of the flock answering him. Though each bird’s voice is thin and sad, a whole flock would sound entirely different, their voices ringing like a huge chorus of tin whistles. It’s been a whole day since I let my bird go. Maybe by now he has found the others and is eating wild cherries, mountain ash, and oleaster berries, storing up strength for the migration. On the train, my eyes closed, I try to see him among a migrating flock. He will take the loneliness of my room on his long journey; each whistling note he makes will be a little of my sadness falling over the ocean, to be swallowed in the clash of the waves and the commotion of many birds flying.
Chapter 4
SOUTHERN CONSTELLATIONS
Mrs. Kato has decorated the altar with hothouse flowers—dark pink roses, blue delphiniums, baby’s breath, and asparagus ferns. The colors remind me of tropical fish, of blue and pink cichlids among green algae. Rising with the rest of the congregation to sing the communion hymn, I imagine the church filled with water instead of air. I am trying to breathe under a blue current while fish swim overhead, their bodies glittering in the sun.
Behind me, old men and women are singing half a beat slower than the organ’s accompaniment. Their voices quaver, thin and holy. Next to me, Kiyoshi’s tenor notes rise like perfect balloons of sound. Only two or three years ago, when his voice was changing, he croaked in a raspy whisper and mouthed the words in church without singing. Now his voice is better than before, lower but more resonant. My voice has remained high, reedy and childish as ever. I wish I were a boy—to be given a new voice at thirteen, like an important gift.
