by Asha Lemmie
They will be looking for me.
It is better for us all if they never find me.
James is tender towards me. He pats my firm belly and tells me to be of good cheer, that this child is a blessing and that I will get my son back one day soon. He really believes this. He still thinks we can get my son and get back to America and live a happy life once things have died down.
He does not know my family.
Good thing, for if he did, he would be dead.
* * *
July 13th, 1940
I have given birth to a little girl.
It was a long and difficult labor, and I was near death by the time it was finished.
Akira was much easier. Already, she is proving difficult.
James is besotted with her. He wants to call her Norine, after his grandmother, which I think is quite terrible.
Besides, this baby is a Kamiza. Though she is only a bastard, she too will have a part to play. She too will have a destiny that is tied to mine, that is tied to all my cursed family. I know it.
She will have a proper name.
I will name her Noriko, and we will call her Nori.
* * *
September 2nd, 1940
James is not well. He is growing too thin, and he has coughing fits that cause him great pain. Sometimes he coughs up flecks of blood, and I am terrified that he has caught some disease in that filthy hovel he was living in.
He laughs at me and insists that he doesn’t need a doctor. He has me bring him our daughter and he hoists her high into the air and tells her she is the most beautiful little girl who was ever born.
She cries more than Akira did, and she is difficult to feed. She is tiny, not big and strong as he was, and her face is always red.
She has a ridiculous amount of hair that I have no idea how I will manage.
But she does have lovely eyes. She has her father’s eyes.
It’s not her fault about Akira. This is what I must tell myself, this is what I will tell myself forever.
Poor little girl, it is not her fault.
I will do my best for her. Though I doubt it will be enough.
But she has her father. He loves her, and he loves me, and he is the best of men. I don’t have the same need for this diary as I once did. I have no need to keep secrets from him. Ours may not be a marriage in name, but it is a marriage of souls, and I am the luckiest woman in the world to have him.
Perhaps it will all come right after all.
* * *
January 28th, 1941
It did not come right.
He is dead.
James is dead.
He stopped breathing in his sleep, without disturbing me, without waking our daughter, who sleeps in the bassinet by our bed.
He died here, far away from his home, far away from his family.
The doctor says that his lung collapsed. There was nothing anyone could have done. There is no cure for the wasting disease he suffered from. Some live, some die, and nobody knows why.
But I know why. This is the price for my sin. This is the curse on my family doing its fatal work.
I bury the love of my life quietly, with only a priest in attendance.
It is so much less than he deserves. He was not a prince, he was not heir to any dynasty, but he was a remarkable man. He was kind. He was patient. He was better than I will ever be.
And now he is dead.
It is strange. I still love him. I think I will always love him, though he is dead and no longer here to love me back.
I could go back to my son. It is a horrible thought, but I could do it. He is too young to hate me yet.
I don’t know if my husband would have me, but my mother might insist. She might be desperate to save face. She might command him, as she commands everyone, and everything might be as it was before I fell in love.
I could go back.
If it weren’t for Nori.
James’s daughter, our daughter, the only thing I have left of him. The last child I will ever have, the child who will always remind me of her brother, the son who is lost to me.
I look into her face and I think she looks so much like me.
But I am determined that she will be nothing like me. I fought against my destiny, I fought against my place in the world, and now I am destroyed.
This girl, this poor girl, will know better.
I will teach her to obey.
I will keep her safe.
And, if I can, I will try to love her.
This will be my penance. Spending a life in obscurity with this child. I, who have been brought so low after being born so very high.
God forgive me. God pardon me for my sin.
For I never will.
So long as I live, I will never forgive myself.
* * *
Nori pressed the diary against her heart.
It was dark in the garden now, and the crickets were chirping. She sobbed quietly, letting the tears flow freely.
She had wanted her mother to be a monster.
It was easy to hate monsters.
And hatred was easy to feel.
This, all of this, was so much harder.
Wordlessly, Noah came to sit beside her. He wrapped her up in his arms, and she allowed herself to lean into his warmth.
Neither of them spoke for a long time.
Finally, Noah broke the silence.
“Do you feel like you know her now?” he asked quietly. “Your mother?”
Nori shut her eyes. “Yes.”
“And do you hate her?”
At once, she was back in the attic, asking Akira this very same thing. She clutched the fabric of Noah’s shirt to pull her from the memory.
“No,” she said honestly. “I don’t hate her.”
“Do you forgive her?” Noah asked, very softly.
Nori tried to speak, but her voice broke. All that came out was a gasping sob.
Noah was learning, for he did not ask her again.
* * *
After a few days, Nori started to return to her state of easy joy. The weather was fair, and it was impossible not to smile. She played games with Alice and the children; she spent the nights wrapped up in Noah’s arms, laughing until she cried.
A great weight had been lifted from her shoulders, one she had grown so accustomed to, she’d forgotten she was carrying it.
The past was written.
The future was just starting, and for the first time in years, it looked merciful.
She wandered around the garden, basking in the sunlight and breathing in the scent of freshly bloomed honeysuckle. Noah was back in Cornwall for the week, trying to track down his brothers.
“I won’t be gone long, my love,” he’d promised. He’d winked at her. “And I’ll bring you back that engagement ring.”
“I don’t need a ring, sweetheart.”
“Nonsense. It was my mother’s and I want you to have it. There is no other woman in the world who should. I’ll be home soon.”
Nori did not doubt him. The fear that had lapped at her heels for all these years was finally beaten.
It was a strange feeling, to be so wondrously free.
Bess found her sunning underneath a great oak.
“My lady,” she said, in her lilting country accent, “there’s a letter for you.”
Nori leaned up on her elbows. Nobody wrote letters to her.
“Thank you, Bess.”
Bess nodded and went back into the house. Nori could hear her shouting at Charlotte to get off the table.
Nori leaned back against the tree and inspected the letter in her lap.
It looked benign enough from the outside. There was nothing but the address and her name. No return address.
; She slid her pinkie finger beneath the seal and opened it.
Immediately, she felt the blood whoosh out of her body, as surely as if someone had sliced both her wrists.
Because the letter was written in Japanese.
Her vision swam. She felt a strong urge to retch and barely choked it back.
It was a long time before she could read the letter in her shaking hands.
Lady Noriko,
Please be informed that your honored grandmother, the Lady Yuko Kamiza, is dead. Your grandfather, Kohei Kamiza, is also dead, having died in 1959.
Your lady grandmother has assigned to you all of her worldly goods, as well as those goods previously belonging to your half brother. You must return to Kyoto immediately upon receipt of this letter to collect them.
If you do not return, we will send an escort for you.
It would be better for you to come peacefully.
Once you have done what is necessary, you will be free of us. You have our word on the souls of the ancestors that no harm will come to you.
We look forward to seeing you soon, at the estate in Kyoto.
You remember.
Sincerely,
The Kamiza Estate Trust
Her grandmother was dead.
A deep grief washed over her, not because there was any love between them, but because the last person in the world who shared her blood was gone.
She crumpled up the letter.
Every part of her wanted to ignore it. She had no desire to return to Japan, the country that had been so bitterly unkind to her. She wanted to believe that if she just pretended she had never received it, that all of this would go away. She wanted to believe that she had a choice.
But she knew better. She would have to go.
In just a moment, the fear had returned, wrapping her up in its dark arms.
Ah, my dear, she heard it whisper. Did you miss me?
* * *
“But why do you have to go?” Alice pouted. “The wedding is in three weeks!”
“I’ll be back before then,” Nori assured her. She swept some clothes into her suitcase in a disorganized heap. “I’ll fly there, collect my money, and come straight back.”
If she hurried, she could catch the very last flight out for the day. First class was never full. She wanted it over with.
“I could give you money,” Alice grumbled, “if you’d accept it.”
“One trip and I will never need a penny from you again,” Nori assured her. “I’ll be rich beyond my imaginings. And most importantly, I will be done with my family forever.”
But Alice was not convinced. “And is that the only reason you’re going?”
“Of course,” Nori said curtly. She tucked her hair up in a bun. It had grown out again and she could hardly manage it. “Why else?”
Alice hesitated. “You aren’t hoping for some kind of . . . acceptance?”
She scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. And in any case, the last person who could give it to me is dead. I hope for nothing but to collect my filthy blood money and be done with it.”
Her friend relented. “Well, you have certainly earned it.”
They shared a long embrace.
“Be careful,” she said fervently. “I don’t like you going into that lions’ den.”
Nori managed a smile that radiated a confidence she did not feel.
“But look now, Alice,” she said brightly. “I have become a lion too. The very last one, as it turns out. And so now I will be safe.”
June 1965
It was not until she was forced to sit still for so many hours that the panic truly set in. It was strange to hear people speaking her native tongue after all of this time. No one recognized her as Japanese, it seemed, with her tan skin and curly hair; everyone spoke to her in English.
After all of this time away, perhaps she had become a foreigner in truth. It took her longer than it should to read in Japanese, and though she could understand, she sometimes hesitated to find the right words.
Nori looked around at the wealthy businessmen and their wives, many of them happy American and European couples on holiday.
The war, it seemed, had finally been forgotten. Every country in the world had changed almost beyond recognition.
If she were a betting woman, she would lay money down that the Japan her grandmother had clung to so fiercely was finally gone.
In her travels, she had seen firsthand the culture war between the old and the new. The young people went around with long hair and short dresses above the knee, holding hands and kissing in public, while the old people gave them horrified looks. Though some had given her suspicious glances, most people had taken her money with a smile.
It seemed like that was the great equalizer after all.
She wondered what had happened to Kyoto, the city of tradition, the old capital.
She wondered if it would be any kinder to her than it had been before.
Her stomach churned, and she gulped down some seltzer water. It had been bothering her for weeks now, but that wasn’t unusual. Something always hurt.
In the empty seat beside her was Akira’s violin, secure in its case. She had been carrying it around with her for years, never letting it leave her side, though she never dreamed of playing it. She wouldn’t soil it. Not that too. She had done quite enough.
Tucked neatly inside her purse was her mother’s last diary, bound with her white ribbon. She wore her grandmother’s pearls, cold and heavy against her neck. And though she had never known her father, there was a sprig of white dogwood tucked into her hat. It was the state flower of Virginia, the place he’d left to come to Japan, where she had been born and he had died.
This was what was left of the family that might have been, in a kinder world than this. This was how she kept their ghosts close to her.
Nori fell into an uneasy sleep.
She dreamed of the faceless woman calling her name, of glittering broken glass stained with innocent blood, of fire and snow and light.
When she woke up, there were tears on her face. The plane had landed. Outside of her window, she could see the Japanese flag flying high.
And so she waited to feel it—that sweet familiarity that could only come from returning to the nest. The rush of warmth.
But she felt nothing.
When she loaded her belongings into the taxi and gave the driver the address, he gave her a startled look in the mirror.
“But that’s the Kamiza estate.”
She swept her hair back to reveal the shape of her face, her mother’s face.
“Hai. Shitteimasu. Please take me there.”
“It’s not open to tourists,” he told her, not unkindly. “If you want to see one of the old palaces, I can take you somewhere else, miss.”
She met his gaze. “Sir. I know very well what it is. I have come by invitation.”
He looked at her, truly looked at her for the first time. A spark of recognition lit up his face.
“You’re from here?” It sounded more like a statement than a question.
“I am,” she said quietly.
He smiled at her and said nothing else. That was one thing she had always loved about her people. They knew when to be quiet.
She looked out the window and watched Kyoto pass her by. It struck her that she had never seen the city before, not truly. So much of it had been kept from her.
And so she watched, with a keen fascination she had not felt in a long time.
She saw the charming cobblestone streets, the grand temples, the trees of deepest green and noble purple and scarlet red. She saw miko shrine maidens in their distinctive garb and children running around wearing overalls, all side by side.
She saw bright billboard lights and dimly lit candles at makeshift altars, with paper
prayers hanging above them. She saw street carts and gourmet restaurants, stray dogs and horses moving past one another in the street.
And she saw the water.
She rolled down the window, and the salty smell washed over her.
Nori realized now that there was no need to wonder which side of the culture war had claimed victory in her city.
Kyoto was Kyoto.
The car pulled over to the side of the road and stopped.
Before she could lose her nerve, Nori stepped out.
The house was exactly the same. It didn’t seem right. After everything that had happened, it didn’t seem right that it could remain so untouched.
The fear lapped at her heels. There was only one thing to do.
She handed the driver his fee and took her few belongings from his hands.
“Arigatou.”
He bowed very low to her. “Have you been away long, my lady?”
My lady.
She managed a tiny smile, but she knew her eyes were sad.
“Yes. I have.”
He bowed again. “Well then. Okaerinasaimase. Welcome home.”
* * *
This was her beginning.
Nori stood in the shadow of the great house with her feet rooted to the ground.
Absolutely nothing about this place had changed. But she had. She did not look over her shoulder; there was no merciless light to hold her in place.
Be brave.
There were only ghosts here now.
The gates had all been left open. She marched up the walkway, her head held as high as a soldier’s.
It was not until she raised her hand to knock on the front door that the wave of nausea hit her, so powerful that it could not be ignored. She turned to the side, doubled over, and retched.
Her eyes welled with tears, but she willed them back. She took her handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her mouth.
Her head swam, but she forced herself to stand up straight.
As she had learned to do so long ago, she gathered every last bit of her strength around her like a cloak.
