Bicycle Days (31 page)

“Are you packed?” she said.

“Yes.”

She grunted.

Alec sat on a stool at the small kitchen table, drinking tea. He listened to the pulse of the washing machine from the nearby bathroom and watched her while she cooked, cleaned, and scrubbed. He lifted his feet so she could mop the vinyl floor
beneath his stool. Finally, she began to repeat herself. She cleaned the outside of the refrigerator door twice, looking not at the door, but into the bucket of soapwater.

Shrimp were frying. The red light on the electric rice cooker was lit. Mrs. Hasegawa bent straight from the waist, then squatted from the knees to pick up an invisible piece of food from the kitchen floor. Her housedress was new, white cotton with yellow and red roses printed on it.

Alec said, “Your dress is very pretty, Mother.”

She set down a plate of shrimp in front of him. “Eat,” she said, then quickly turned away.

He realized that she hadn’t looked at him. “The shrimp is delicious.”

She set down a wooden bowl of rice. “Eat the rice, too.”

Alec held up the paper with his address written on it. “Would you look at this paper, Mother? It’s important.”

“And drink your tea,” she said, her back to him.

He ate in silence for a while, watching her while she cleaned the top of the stove. When his rice bowl was empty, he groaned loudly and put his hand over his stomach.

“Mother …”

“Eat more.” She hadn’t stopped cleaning.

“I’m already full.”

“Eh! Full? Already?”

“Mother, why have you never let me help you with the dishes?”

She clucked loudly. “That is silly. You are a man.”

“I do the dishes at home.”

“Don’t you like my cooking?” she said. “Eat.”

But she had stopped cooking and cleaning for the moment. She stood by the closed window, looking out through it into the darkness, her hands dangling awkwardly by her side as if she no longer knew what to do with them. Her reflection formed in the glass, in spite of the room’s faint light, and Alec wondered if she was even trying to see anything behind it. And then the heat of
her breath fogged the picture and he couldn’t see her face anymore.

He stood up and walked over to her, holding the sheet of paper in front of him so she could look at it if she wanted to.

“It’s my address in New York,” he said finally. “It’s where I will be.”

He put the paper in her hand, and her thick fingers closed around it, lightly crumpling the edges. She turned away from the window, away from him, so that she faced the sink. With her free hand, she turned the water on and then off.

“I can’t,” she said.

She still held the paper in her hand, off to the side of her body as though she was afraid to get too close to it. The edges were moving, vibrating, and Alec realized that she was trembling. Her body was so low and solid. But she was trembling, arm to hand to paper, in the still light of the kitchen. He took a step closer, put a hand on her shoulder. He spoke as softly as he could.

“We can say it together. Slowly.”

She took a deep breath.

“It’s not so hard,” he said. “It won’t be as hard as you think.”

She looked at the paper in her hands but didn’t say anything.

“It’s my address,” he said again. “It’s where I will be.”

“But who will I cook for?” she said, and her voice was so soft he could hardly hear it.

“You will cook for your family. They love your food.”

“They do not eat as much as you.”

“I’m bigger,” Alec said.

Mrs. Hasegawa nodded her head at the truth of it. Alec watched her looking at the paper, the lines above her eyes deepening as she struggled to understand what he had written. He waited. She walked over to the stove and switched off the burner under the shrimp, then walked back to where he was standing.

“Shikushteen,” she said hesitantly in English. Then again: “Shikushteen.”

Alec smiled. “Yes, Mother. That’s perfect. Sixteen.”

She let out a quick breath of relief.

“Now try the next word: Grove Street. Sixteen Grove Street.”

“Gorobu Shtreeto.”

“Right. Sixteen Grove Street. Again.”

She was looking at the floor now, concentrating. “Shikushteen Gorobu Shtreeto.”

“New York.”

“New Yorku.”

“That’s perfect, Mother,” Alec said. “I love you.”

She looked at him then, for the first time all morning. He held his breath while he watched her walk to the table and pick up his breakfast dishes. She scraped the food into the trash can and organized everything in the sink before reaching over and handing him the dish towel.

“Shikushteen Gorobu Shtreeto. New Yorku,” she said.

Alec nodded. “I’ll dry,” he said.

T
he bus kneeled down to him with a sigh. Still waving, Alec climbed on backward. The whole family had lined up in a row to see him off, their arms moving side to side in unison like a chorus line. They had brought out their best clothes for him—starched and pressed outfits in somber tones of black, brown, and gray. Mrs. Hasegawa’s hair was even more voluminous than usual, and Mr. Hasegawa had clearly used an extra dose of his special tonic. The children had lined up according to age, though Hiroshi kept trying to squeeze in between the older two.

Alec reluctantly turned around, handed his ticket to the driver, and took a seat by the window. They had not stopped waving, and he thought their arms must be aching by now. Mrs. Hasegawa was wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. He studied her face while he had the chance, wanting to know it exactly.

The bus exhaled, the doors closed the passengers in. The
driver shifted into gear, and the bus lumbered into motion. Alec waved with his palm flat against the glass, like the wiper on a car. The bus made a slow arc around the hotel parking lot, turning out the exit and down the street. He craned his neck to keep them in view. Mrs. Hasegawa was waving with both arms now, a colored handkerchief clasped tightly in one hand, its edges swirling wildly above her head. Her arms danced for him as the bus moved farther and farther away. And then she was gone.

They were all gone. In their place Tokyo transformed itself as the bus slowly made its way through the central part of the city to the highway entrance. Above, the sun was stretching, its rays barely reaching down into the streets. Like noh masks, neighborhoods changed continuously in the confusion of light and shadow, trying on old, familiar expressions and making them new again. Along the narrower, less commercial streets, local shops were in the midst of the hectic morning business, having arranged their goods on sidewalk stands hours before. Housewives walked among the fresh fruits and vegetables, squeezing a tomato here, a melon there, talking to one another about local news or why the things they wanted couldn’t cost just a few yen less. An old man sold blocks of tofu from a window. Around him, the doors to pachinko parlors stood open, the electric lights and bells and clatter spilling out onto the quiet streets like a raucous invitation. A young man in a white paper hat and apron emerged from a soba shop balancing a tray of stacked dishes above his right shoulder. He hopped on an old bicycle and shot out into the morning traffic.

Alec watched him flow like water through the net of cars and pedestrians. He put his face against the window and thought how comfortable the man looked on his mad dash, how balanced and ready, his arm flexing like a sapling beneath the shifting weight of the tray. There was practice in his grace, but daring too, the bicycle weaving and dipping, the apron billowing and flapping, and him with his head held high, racing forward.

And then, suddenly, Alec was rising, rising up out of the city
as the bus freed itself from traffic and sped up the entrance ramp and onto the highway. Neighborhoods fell away beneath him, as if they themselves were masks, shed for the moment by a larger world of brilliant color and promise. And he knew that he was in it this time. Not passed by, not stranded, but out of himself and in it, this world, its pulse beating everywhere around him, calling him back, leading him onward.

The bus roared on. Japan snapped by his window.