After the Bloom

by Leslie Shimotakahara

  “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

  “Kaz’s mother was an incredible woman. She could have saved him. She was a woman so innocent and pure she never even wanted to get married.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  His face tensed up. Lily worried she’d overstepped, trod on too-intimate territory.

  “I met her on the first trip I made back to Japan, after I’d graduated from med school. I went in order to find a wife. The baishakunin from my hometown had sent me photographs of picture brides.”

  “And you selected Kaz’s mother.”

  “Not exactly. I wanted to meet the women in person. I wasn’t about to just choose a wife from a photo and send her a ticket to America.”

  “What was it like going to the matchmaker’s studio?”

  “Horrible. All the women I’d selected were decked out in their best kimonos, their faces painted white, like geishas. Not one had a face that touched my soul.”

  “Did you find another baishakunin?”

  “No, I’d had it with the old ways. Figured I’d just stay a bachelor for the time being. Then the next morning, as I was walking down the street, a wisp of whiteness caught my eye: a young woman in a simple white dress. She was passing out rice cakes to homeless men and she looked at each dirty face with such gentleness, such love in her eyes. In Japan, beggars are very ashamed; they kneel with their foreheads pressed to the ground. But this girl — Fumiko, I’d later learn her name was — insisted they sit up and eat with dignity. Perhaps she took pity on them because she, too, came from a group that had been hated for centuries, the Kakure Kirishitans. Hidden Christians.”

  “Christians were hated in Japan?”

  “For over three hundred years. Whole communities were rounded up and their ears chopped off. They were made to repent or march hundreds of miles to their place of execution.” The doctor shook his head, like he couldn’t imagine the horrors. He talked about how this only attracted more converts as the religion was pushed underground. Fumiko’s family came from a sect of Hidden Christians who’d secretly worshipped in their homes for generations. “Of course, I didn’t discover any of this until later, after I’d gotten up the nerve to actually talk to her.”

  Warmth spread across Lily’s chest as she watched the doctor’s face soften and glow. “How did you manage that?”

  The doctor told Lily how the next day, he’d caught sight of the girl again. She was wearing the same white dress, this time with a veil over her head, pulled back such that he could glimpse her face. He trailed her for many blocks until they reached the edge of town, where a wooded area began. He followed her deep into the densely packed trees, clambering over rocks and boulders, and he tripped on some giant roots, nearly killing himself. Always that slip of translucent white, like a moth’s wings fluttering before him.

  At last, he came to a clearing. There were rows of benches where people were seated while more people stood or perched on rocks around the edges. A small choir was gathered in front of the shrine; several priests and nuns were milling about greeting people. The girl in white was at the front with a cluster of people whom the doctor was later introduced to as her family. Several other ladies also had on white veils, including her twin sister, Haruko. As the doctor hung back, one of the priests began leading everyone in Hidden Christian prayers. “Orashio, as they call them. A soft, strange chanting in garbled Latin. The scene touched my heart and I knew that this was the woman I would marry.”

  Lily thought about how the doctor must have looked that balmy morning in the glade, the sun refracting from the lush leaves, sending flecks of verdant light across his excited cheeks. The girl in white, the girl of his dreams, at the centre of all this beauty and strangeness. Even now, all these years later, his face shone at the memory. Love. Yes, this is what love looks like, Lily thought, and she wanted to draw closer to him — impulsively, desperately, like a moth to a votive.

  She thought about how her own parents had met; though, their marriage couldn’t have been more different. In her earliest memories, she’d always been aware of her mother’s brittle moods and deep unhappiness: she’d never wanted to come to America as a picture bride; she’d never wanted to marry a man double her age — a dry cleaner no less. The matchmaker had duped her into it. She’d never adjusted to life away from home. Lily remembered watching her mother standing bewildered in her bedroom, her skirt falling down to her knees, as she struggled with the buttons. Clothes in Japan didn’t have buttons, and her fingers would never get used to the awkward motion. Lily had begged her to learn English and turned up the radio full blast in hopes that the English words would sink into her brain, but it hadn’t done any good. Her soul just faded away, lost in the memory of some distant koto music….

  Whenever she thought about her mother, she felt herself slipping, her chest lurching, the ground loosening beneath her feet. The same feeling she’d had as a child, crouched under the kitchen table. It started gently with just a taunt — Can’t this woman get anything right? Can’t she even learn to cook pasta? — but then his hand unfurled in a slap and tightened into a fist. The thud of flesh against flesh, followed by her mother’s soft, stoic moaning. The beatings always seemed to be set off by some failure on her mother’s part to assimilate to American culture. Didn’t she realize that the porcelain plate with Eleanor Roosevelt’s picture in the centre was meant for hanging on the wall, not eating from? And was it really so difficult to learn to use a knife and fork?

  Lily would curl into herself and pray that the release of violence might bring out her father’s relaxed, jovial side. Perhaps afterward her mother would clean herself up and her father would ask whether they wanted to go to the ocean for a picnic. The brisk air, the salty sting of tears. Gulls plunging and ascending across the horizon. The ocean scene somehow seemed to wash clean the situation, allowing Lily to forget what had just happened. So during the onslaught of violence, Lily learned to grasp on to these images and anticipate their purifying, lulling effect as she hid under the table and rocked on her haunches.

  After her mother had left, her father’s drinking got worse, and the rumours spread by women in the community became more vicious by the day. Girls in Lily’s class were no longer allowed to associate with her. Your mother’s not coming back. She ran off with a man to Japan!

  Her mother was rumoured to have met her lover on the ship that carried her back to Fukuoka. It was supposed to be just a visit to her ailing father. But that visit had turned into a lifetime of separation.

  How different her mother’s life might have been if she’d married a man like Dr. Takemitsu. How different Lily’s own life could have been, too.

  Things got worse. Late at night, her father would stagger around the house calling out for his wife, commanding her to fetch another bottle from the basement. Lily tried to soothe him by bringing whatever he asked for, and later she’d help him out of his clothes as he flopped onto the bed like a dead whale. Some nights he’d throw his sweaty arms around her and at first she thought he was just trying to get his balance, but it soon became clear there was a darker intention running through his body. “My little cherry blossom,” he called out, pulling her closer, his words slurring, “you always were so much sweeter than your mother….” She giggled to pretend it was all a joke. By tomorrow he’d sober up and everything would be just fine.

  His moods only became more turbulent, however. While preparing dinner, she sensed his eyes following her backside, watching her every move.

  Her head felt muddled because she wanted to please him, and if that meant replacing her mother — by cooking his favourite meals, by rubbing his feet — she was willing to try. The more she tried, the more he demanded when he’d come into her room late at night. She didn’t want to trust her memories…. That stale breath wafting down her neck in torrents, those callused, apelike hands making her go all soft and buttery, and she knew that what he was doing
to her was horrible and disgusting and she wanted it to stop, yet she couldn’t afford to enrage him.

  Gauzy white curtains hung across her bedroom window. She slept with the window open that summer when she was ten, when it happened a lot. The night breeze caught the translucent fabric and whipped it through the air, making her think of a tormented ghost, and she was able to imagine that it was her — it was her ghost whipping up a frenzy and flying up to the ceiling and billowing outside.

  “Everything all right, Lily? You’re awfully quiet.”

  Blushing, she prayed the doctor couldn’t see into her polluted mind. This man — so gentle, so wholesome, so good — appeared before her as everything her own father had never been.

  “What my son needs is the influence of a good woman.”

  “A good woman?”

  “I’ve seen how Kaz looks at you and follows you around. He’d listen to you. You could help him.”

  “What are you so worried about?”

  “Kaz’s always hanging around those boys. The troublemakers.”

  “Oh, he isn’t close to them.”

  “Don’t delude yourself. I’ve seen them together.”

  “He’s just a friendly guy. Friendly to everyone.”

  “If anything happens, I want you to know you can come to me. Anytime. I would be grateful, Lily-san.”

  She nodded, caught off guard, unsure of what exactly he was asking of her.

  “In fact, I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me what’s going on with my son, from time to time.”

  “You want me to … spy on Kaz?”

  “I want you to look out for him. He doesn’t have the best judgment, you see.”

  As she nodded again, heat rushed over her face, warmed by the doctor’s bright, approving gaze.

  Five

  “Don’t you think it’s weird he’s paying so much attention to you?” Audrey sat on the upper bunk, bare feet dangling down, all too close to Lily’s nose. “I mean, what makes you so special?”

  “He’s a doctor, okay? I wasn’t feeling well. He took care of me. End of story.”

  Aunt Tetsuko peeked around the curtain, eavesdropping, as usual. “Audrey’s right. People’ll start talking, ne? I don’t want you hanging around the hospital. Understand, Lily?”

  “But the doctor said he’ll get me a job!”

  “Fat chance.” Audrey wiggled her toes.

  “Think you’re too good to work at the net factory now?” Aunt Tetsuko sneered. “Got better things to do, like get ready for beauty pageants? Maybe you should pack your gear and go live in one of the other barracks, with all the other beauty queens!”

  Let them mock her all they wanted. Lily didn’t care. The doctor had asked for her help, and she’d given her word. The sense of being bound to the Takemitsu family washed over her in waves of comfort and belonging.

  Grabbing a sweater, she pushed past her aunt and headed for the door. Crouched behind the barrack, she watched the jackrabbits leap by in the sunset. Their dark buff fur, lightly peppered, blended into the brush. If it weren’t for their creamy underbellies and pink, fairy-wing ears, they’d vanish completely.

  But it was their ears that made them attuned to predators. Even the babies had amazing survival instincts, born fully furred, their eyes wide open. No need of familial protection at all.

  One evening, in line outside the latrines, Lily ran into her old friend, Kaoru Inouye. “It’s wonderful to see you, Kaoru.” They embraced.

  “It’d be better running into you out in the real world. But still.” A small, forced laugh, hands on ample hips.

  “Did you just arrive at Matanzas?”

  Kaoru nodded. She said she’d been transferred from another camp in order to be with her father.

  “Did you see me in the last pageant?”

  “I didn’t make it out — had to work that day — but I heard all about it.” Kaoru stared at the ground, drawing a spiral with the toe of her boot, setting off a small whirlwind.

  No doubt they’d drifted apart in recent years, but Lily was surprised by her friend’s cool, unimpressed manner.

  “So where do they put a girl like you to work here, Lily?”

  “The net factory. For now. You?”

  “Outdoor maintenance.”

  No wonder Kaoru was in a dour mood. Lily had seen the girls out all day in the blistering heat, sweeping up trash and lugging around heavy equipment. “Maybe you’ll be transferred to another job one of these days?”

  “Huh. Not likely.”

  Things had been so different when they were little. They were all just Japs, back then. Chubby legs charging back and forth as they walked quickly — and then ran — trying to escape the shower of pebbles and taunting voices of the white boys gathered behind them. The stones getting ever closer. Chinky chinky Chinaman sitting on a rail! Along came a white man and chopped off his tail!

  How fast they ran through the labyrinth of garbage-filled alleys. They scurried into the basement storage room beneath Kaoru’s father’s store, rapid as mice. By then, tears were running down Lily’s cheeks. Kaoru, by contrast, had an air of toughness. A little sumo wrestler.

  “Don’t those idiots know we’re not Chinks?”

  “We’re Americans,” Lily whispered.

  Kaoru’s eyebrows sprung up, yet her toughness melted into a fragile sheen. Kaoru wasn’t an American. She’d been born in Japan.

  It hadn’t made much difference when they were kids. Now, on the other hand, Lily sensed something guarded about the way Kaoru looked at her.

  “Are you all right, Lily? You’re kind of pale.”

  “I haven’t been feeling so well. The heat.”

  “Oh, Lily, so kirei. The pretty, delicate one.”

  Vaguely aware she was being mocked, she said nothing.

  “Be careful about the friends you’re keeping. Kaz Takemitsu, he’s a slick one.”

  “And you’re some expert on romance?”

  Kaoru’s face flinched and Lily wished she could take it back. They waited in silence and by the time their turns came, they might as well have been strangers.

  Maybe Kaoru was right, though. Some days, Kaz barely glanced at her as he grabbed a seat at a table on the other side of the mess hall, immersing himself in the bright gazes and giggles of so many other girls. Lily wondered what he saw in them, whether they possessed some vital energy or shining kernel of beauty that she lacked. She tried to convince herself that she was his favourite. His father had appointed her as such.

  Other times, however, he’d wink at her, as if they shared a special, inner secret. He’d sit down across from her. The ebb and flow of everything around them — snot-nosed babies crying, trays of muddy food drifting by, the sea of dirty faces — all of a sudden none of it seemed real. With Kaz there in front of her, their knees nudged against each other, they might have been a couple of lovestruck American kids on a date at the town diner.

  He might not be aware of how much he needed her, but it was only a matter of time.

  And then, one day, after Lily had eaten lunch all by herself, Kaz intercepted her outside.

  “Hey, there.” He squeezed her hand, lowered his voice. “Let’s meet up later, okay?”

  “Meet up? But … where?”

  “The aqueduct. Meet me there tomorrow night after curfew?”

  Her heart sped up. The aqueduct was one of the few secluded places where young couples could sneak off for a snatch of privacy and long, hungering kisses in the twilight. But after curfew? “I can’t, Kaz. Are you out of your mind?” How on earth did he expect her to sneak past Aunt Tetsuko and the night guards? What kind of girl did he think she was, anyway?

  “Relax, you. I just want to spend time with you away from everyone, away from the craziness of this place.” He explained that the guards on duty tomorrow night were known to i
ndulge in a boozy poker game. So it wouldn’t be too difficult to sneak out.

  Despite her indignation, excitement blossomed inside her. So Kaz had fallen for her. He wanted to be alone with her after dark.

  A moonlight rendezvous. She imagined them hiding in the aqueduct together, as though the land itself had opened up its secrets, drawn them deep into its sinuous troughs and crevices. The brush of his lips, the drumbeat of her heart, his hands running through her hair….

  It was crazy — was she actually thinking about going?

  “I can’t, Kaz.”

  “You can. Tomorrow night, I’ll be there waiting.”

  At dinner, she hardly ate a thing. She masticated a mouthful of rice, not touching the soggy brown stew. When Jimmy, her little cousin, asked if he could have it, she passed her plate over, but Aunt Tetsuko shook her head.

  “You have to eat, Lily. You’re getting so thin.”

  “That’s how the judges like it.”

  Aunt Tetsuko sighed, like she didn’t have the heart to speak her mind. “You want to keep fainting?”

  Fainting, sleeping, dreaming: in truth, these states of unconsciousness were more pleasant, or more tolerable at least, than the lucid world.

  Her real life was about to begin tomorrow night, if only she could muster the nerve.

  What if she got caught, though? What would she say? She pictured herself sweating and stammering lies. These days, more folks than ever were being plucked out for interrogation and some never returned. It didn’t take much to be labelled a bad apple.

  The next day was particularly sweltering, unbearable. By noon, after weaving hundreds of scraps through the giant spiderweb, Lily’s fingers were about to fall off. She closed her eyes and thought about Kaz: their meeting that night hovered before her like an island of escape, a cool mirage.

  At lunch, Mrs. Okada sat down beside her. “Why does the food here look like dog food?”