by Asha Lemmie
That’s what I am to Europe. A curiosity at best, something to be fawned over like a newborn. But beneath that, they deem me inferior. I could never have married one of their men. I could never have had his children.
I am a fool.
Mama warned me. I wouldn’t hear it. But I hear it now.
The worst part is that it wasn’t she who broke me. I broke myself.
I don’t think I will ever be happy again.
* * *
February 1st, 1935
I am to be married. His name is Yasuei Todou. He is thirty-three and apparently still unmarried because he has no money to speak of, so none of the other noble girls will have him, and he is too proud to settle for someone newly made.
This is good for me, as he is in no position to turn down a cousin to royalty. Mama will give him a fortune to marry me. Enough to overlook any whispers that he is getting a secondhand bride.
Still, he has an old name and a manor house in Tokyo. The rumor is that his father was a drunk and a gambler and they have nothing left but the house and the name.
Mama says he has good prospects and will be sure to rise. Whatever that means. She will pull her strings, same as always.
She has given me a miniature photograph of him. He is certainly serious-looking. He is not handsome but he is not ugly, so I suppose it could be worse.
I do wonder what he is like. I’ve never met him. But then I’ll find out soon enough.
We’re getting married tomorrow.
There was a wedding dress already laid out on my bed the day I arrived home.
I have no choice. As it turns out, I never had a choice at all.
* * *
February 12th, 1935
My husband has just left my room. I can still smell his sweat on me.
He is mercifully quick about it. There’s that, at least. It took him a full week after the wedding to manage the deed. He hates me, I think, though he is too proper to say so to my face.
I have all the time in the world to write, he gives me nothing to do. I am not allowed to have friends over. If I had any friends in Tokyo, I imagine this would distress me. There are barely any books and I have no allowance yet, so I cannot buy more.
There is not even a piano here. I have asked for a music room.
He says he will consider it if I give him a son.
I doubt he will get any living sons from me. My grandmother could not manage it. My mother could not manage it. And they were penitent, desperately penitent to a foreign God. They did everything in their power to lift the curse on our boys.
I have lived all my life as a sinner.
I will probably give him a three-headed girl. And then I won’t get my music room.
* * *
March 28th, 1935
I have missed my course.
I pray for a dead child.
It would be a mercy. Poor girl. Poor, damned girl.
* * *
September 8th, 1935
It’s been a long time since I have had the strength to write.
The baby will come in December or January. They say I am past my dangerous months and that a healthy child is sure to be born. I feel so tired all the time that I would lay no bets on it.
Mama has sent me an endless amount of teas and tonics to drink. She says she has had a priest and a shrine maiden bless them, that they will give me a healthy son.
One of them smelled like blood. I wonder how many peasants she had sacrificed to make it.
Luckily, my husband thinks she is mad and forbids her from sending me anything else. His mood has improved considerably and I am allowed a small allowance now. He is having a library put in for me.
He doesn’t read. All he does is smoke and play chess by himself.
The doctor says from the way I am carrying that it’s a boy. I am sure my mother threatened to have his family skinned alive if he said otherwise, though, so I do not allow myself to be hopeful.
I will never allow myself to be hopeful again.
“Little madam!”
Nori jumped and almost slipped from her perch. She dug her heels in and stuck her head out from between the leaves. Ayame was looking up at her.
“I’ve been calling you, my lady.”
Unseen, Nori slipped the diary down the front of her blouse.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear.”
Ayame frowned. “You’re up too high. Your brother would not like it.”
Nori swung down, expertly navigating the grooves in the wood where she could fit her feet. She spent half her life in this tree; she trusted it more than anything. Except Akira.
Once her feet hit the ground, she gave Ayame her best smile.
“But we won’t tell him, will we?”
Ayame sighed. “My lady . . . I wish you would not take such risks.”
When did you grow to care for me so much?
“I’ll be careful,” she promised. “What did you need, Ayame-san?”
The servant shuffled her feet. “Obocchama has asked to see you.”
Nori blinked. “What? Why?”
“He didn’t say. He won’t say.”
She sighed. Akira never sent for her; he simply showed up. For him to send Ayame did not bode well. “Why do you look so terrified?”
Ayame’s face was pale. “He’s in a mood, I’m afraid.”
She felt her stomach turn over. Akira had said three words to her all month. He hadn’t even bothered to take her to the festival for her sixteenth birthday; she’d gone alone.
Something was clearly bothering him, but Nori had been too afraid to ask what. Apparently she was about to find out.
“Where is he?”
“He’s in the study, my lady.”
Nori handed Ayame the diary and headed off without another word. There was no point delaying a storm. If she had to face one, she would face it head-on.
She took off her shoes and took the shortcut through the now unused room that had once been used to house the family shrine.
Even now, she could see the spot where she’d nearly died. The servants had replaced the mats, but beneath that, the floorboards were discolored. The bleach had removed the stain from her blood, but it had left its mark. If she really tried, she could smell the sharp scent of her fear. She could still feel that raw desperation buried somewhere just beneath the surface.
It seemed like so long ago now that she’d had no one.
But it wasn’t. She would never forget any of it; every person she’d ever met was seared into her skin like a brand.
Sometimes she looked in the mirror and thought it was nothing short of a miracle that she still drew breath.
She tapped lightly on the door to the study and heard the sound of the violin break off. She recognized the song. It was Schubert’s “Ave Maria,” one of the first things he’d ever played for her. He’d often told her he didn’t favor it.
“Come in,” he said.
She went inside, closed the door, and waited. Akira looked her up and down in that infuriating way he always did. His nose wrinkled.
“Why do you always look like you’ve been living in the woods?”
She had no rebuttal. She was covered in dirt and leaves, with scuffs on her arms and bruises on her knees. Her blouse had a wine stain on the front. Her hair was a lost cause; she would need to have Alice see to it later.
“Gomen.”
“And you stink.”
She winced. “I’m sorry.”
Akira crossed his arms. “We need to talk.”
Nori felt the pit of her stomach fall out. Her knees began to buckle.
“About?”
He took a deep breath. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was gathering his courage.
“I have to go away.”
She sighed with relief so strong she could almost weep with it. “Oh, God. You scared me. Just that, then. Where are you going this time?”
Akira did not meet her gaze. “Vienna.”
“Austria?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
This was the core question. He never left her for more than two months, three at the most. He’d taken only four trips in the last two years. She had been dreading this moment, but she was prepared.
Akira still did not look at her. “Nine months. Maybe more.”
She folded like a paper doll. Only his quick reaction stopped her from falling to the floor.
“Nori—”
“No.”
“But it’s—”
“No.”
“Sit down,” he urged, gripping her elbow. “Sit down before you fall and crack your head open.”
The world was spinning. She felt the blood rush to her temples. “You can’t go.”
“Nori, just listen.”
She dropped to the floor, and her grip on his collar meant that he was pulled down with her and forced to look into her pale, horrified face.
“You can’t leave me alone with him,” she whispered, too low for him to hear.
“What?”
Why don’t you see me?
“You can’t fucking leave for nine months!”
He gasped. “Where did you learn that word?”
She pushed him with all her meager strength, and he fell back.
The strings that had held up for so long, as she was passed from one puppet master to another, had finally snapped.
“I lived in a whorehouse, Oniichan, I know how to swear,” she blazed. “I know many things, though you give me credit for nothing.”
He stared at her blankly. She had never seen him at a loss for words. But it did not last. His face darkened.
“You don’t know anything,” he hissed at her. “I have received an invitation from the foremost concert violinist in Europe. He wants to train me, Nori. He wants to take me as his pupil. This is the pinnacle of my ambitions, this is beyond them. I have to go.”
She clenched her fists. “What about me?”
Akira was incredulous. She had never raised her voice to him before. “Nori—”
“What about me, damn it?” she cried.
Her brother got to his feet and brushed himself off, as if that would remove the lint and everything else that was beneath him from his presence.
“What about you?” he said coldly. “You have servants to look after your every want. No one beats you here, no man will lay a hand on you. You are fed, you are clothed in the finest silks, you have a playmate in the form of that stupid girl. I have remained in this miserable country day in and day out for you. In a few years I’m going to marry some spoiled bitch just to keep our grandfather from skinning you alive and wearing your flesh as a shirt. I’m going to give up my music, my traveling, my dreams of touring Europe forever. I’m going to take up the reins of this cursed family of ours and try to make a world where bastard children are not murdered in their sleep. And now I want something for myself—nine months—and you rage like a child.”
Her eyes filled with angry tears. “That’s not fair.”
“It is exactly fair,” he corrected her. “You’re a child. And a fool. And I’m not your father, for God knows he could never be bothered with you.”
She felt a swift pang of agony. She found her feet and held out her hands, as if she could stop what must inevitably come next.
Akira’s eyes were harder than she’d ever seen them. There was no tenderness in them, none at all. His well of patience had finally run dry.
“And of course, we know that I’m not Mother,” he scoffed. “Seeing as you ran her off already.”
A hush fell over the room. Even the clocks stopped their ticking.
She went perfectly still. Akira’s eyes widened; his mouth opened like a fish gasping for air. He took a half step towards her.
Nori picked up the glass vase on the table beside her. She looked at it, looked at him. He blinked.
And then she threw the vase squarely at his head.
He dodged but barely. It shattered on the wall behind him.
She laughed.
“Have you lost your mind?” he whispered. He put a hand to his temple where the vase had grazed him.
Nori contemplated this for a moment. “Maybe,” she said, bending down to pick up one of the whiskey glasses that Akira kept stacked neatly on a shelf near the door. “As far as I’m concerned, I am long overdue.”
She threw the glass. Akira yelped and ducked behind the couch.
“NORI!”
She picked up another glass. This one was heavier than the first—it must have been part of the expensive crystal collection that Akira had inherited from his father.
“Stop it!” Akira cried. “Not that one! For God’s sake, Nori, it’s an heirloom.”
She shrugged and felt her blouse slip off her shoulder. She had lost so much weight that almost nothing fit her anymore.
“Mother left because she was terrified,” she said. “And miserable. And because she had a song to sing, and our grandmother and your father jammed it right back down her throat until she was suffocating on it. She couldn’t breathe. She could never breathe . . .”
She should have been unnerved by the way her voice sounded, but she couldn’t feel anything anymore. She wasn’t even angry. Just numb.
“And that wasn’t me,” she continued. She could feel the emotions she’d ignored for so long spilling over. “That wasn’t my fault. Everyone has always blamed me, but it’s not my fault . . . and now you . . . you too, Oniichan . . .”
Akira’s eyes were fixed on her.
She felt her fist close on the glass. Vaguely, she heard it shatter, felt the shards dig into her palm. A warm rush told her she was bleeding, and it felt like freedom, like that terrible, wonderful moment when she’d thought that she was forever past her pain.
“You were all I had,” she whispered.
Is this what it comes down to in the end, Mother? Do we all end up alone? Dancing figurines in a music box, moving, but never going anywhere at all?
Her brother’s face changed. He was pale and shivering, but once his eyes fell on her blood, his strength appeared to return to him.
“Ayame,” he croaked. He tried again with a stronger voice. “Ayame!”
Nori looked down at her hand. There were three large shards of glass sticking out of her palm and two smaller ones between her thumb and forefinger. The cuts weren’t particularly deep, but it looked bad.
But it didn’t hurt. Her emotion spent, she sank to the floor.
She sensed a flurry of movement at the door, some rushed words. Akira said something to Ayame twice before she finally left.
Nori wrapped her hand in her blouse.
Akira knelt in front of her with the medicine kit at his side. His hands were shaking as he tried to open the tin lid.
“Give me your hand.”
She didn’t move.
Akira reached for her. “Nori, give me your hand.”
Her head was throbbing. She didn’t have the energy to fight him anymore. She did as she was told.
Akira’s face was a funny green color. He picked up a pair of tweezers and started to pull the largest shard out of her palm.
Nori winced but did not cry out. She watched with a kind of macabre fascination.
Akira cursed under his breath. “Look what you’ve done. What’s wrong with you, Nori?”
She looked away. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”
He touched the side of her face, and against her will, she met his gaze. Something inside of her stretched and broke at his touch.
“Are you okay?”
She fe
lt tears starting to fall. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“That isn’t what I asked you.”
She choked on a tiny sob. “Oniichan . . .”
Akira hesitated. “I know you think I don’t see you,” he whispered. “But it isn’t true. I just don’t know what to say to you. I have never been able to protect you the way I wanted. And I’m not . . . I was never meant to take care of anyone. I’m not built for it.”
Nori shook her head. “You have done more than enough.”
He sighed. “You know, when they told me about you, I wanted to hate you. It would have been so much easier for me to hate you. I never understood why Mother left, and then they told me about you and it made sense. I blamed my father for years, but then he died and I had no one to hold my anger. No one to put it on. And then they moved me to Kyoto and I found you.”
She bowed her head.
“But then I saw you and you looked . . . so much like her. And you were such a frail little thing, I just couldn’t do it.”
He plucked the next shard of glass from her palm, so quickly that she didn’t have time to cry out.
“You’re a lot like her too, you know,” he continued.
Nori didn’t dare breathe. Akira never talked about their mother this much.
He met her eyes. “You terrify me, Nori.”
She nipped her lower lip. “But . . . how?”
Akira’s eyes were shining with unshed tears. “I don’t think she ever had a happy day in her life. She was beautiful and she smiled often, but she always seemed sad. She used to sit me at the piano beside her, you know, and she’d play . . . she played remarkably well. And then when she’d finish, she would smile for just a moment and it was . . .” His voice cracked. “It was the only time it was real.”
His cleared his throat. “She adored me,” he confessed. “And I tried . . . I tried to make her happy. I started playing the violin to make her happy. And . . . then one day, she kissed me on the forehead, told me I was her world. And then she was just gone. And my father would never talk about her. For the next eleven years, I never knew . . .”
