Rain Song (13 page)
Night surrounds me. The fish tank’s fluorescent beam is the only light on.
I sit close to my fish in the darkened dining room and watch the clownfish glide through the water. They are so safe in their contained paradise where all of their needs are met. They never harm each other. Never speak words that can be misunderstood. There are no secrets between them.
If only humans were this simple.
Heaviness sets in my heart, making walking to the computer painful. The computer’s screen lights my face and the keyboard, but the rest of the living room is shrouded in darkness. The clock on the bottom right-hand side of the screen says it’s midnight. One in the afternoon of the next day in Japan. Harrison is teaching an English class right about now.
I am not Lizzy, the brave soul from the past who ventured to meet the man of her dreams. I am a wimp. I am my father who won’t get help with his neuroses. I have red hair and freckles like him; we are two peas in a pod. My mother was the adventurous one—it was she who convinced my father to make the plunge and apply with the mission board to become medical missionaries in Japan. Her determination, zest, and faith were enough for both of them.
So I’ve been told.
I step outside and sit on the brick step in front of my house, viewing the sky. The heavens host clear, glittery stars tonight. I find the brightest but am too sad to wave to Mama.
I imagine Mama, her hair pulled back and a smile on her face as she and Father take off from California on that large ship to Yokohama, Japan.
Dreams
, the night sky seems to say.
What are yours?
And all those teachers from the past, their voices crowd around my ears, “Where do you see yourself five years from now?”
Where do I see myself ? In Mount Olive? Safe and secure? Plagued with questions? Unable to face the part of my past that lies on the other side of the ocean?
Ducee’s word rings out over my lawn. “Risk.”
I see Harrison, smiling in the picture. Kind, warm, blue eyes that go along with his comforting words sent in email messages. Can I trust him?
Can I trust that God has put him in my path to help me?
A breeze blows, rustling the nearby leaves. It makes me think of the lines in the old hymn, “In the rustling grass, I hear Him pass. He speaks to me everywhere.” Ducee says that was one of Mama’s favorite hymns and that she often quoted from it.
I smile and wave to Mama.
Back inside, I sit on the fuzzy, uncomfortable desk chair. As my aquarium hums, I slowly hit the letters on the keyboard to form my words.
“I am coming to Japan.”
I read this sentence aloud to my fish seven times before pressing the send button.
Once I’ve sent the message to Harrison, my shoulders relax, free from the weight that burdened them.
I’m too excited to sleep; I take out the Windex and paper towels and buff all my mirrors until they shine like every star in the Big Dipper.
I remember a sermon Pastor Donald preached years ago on the theme of what trust looks like. It was a while ago, and I can’t recall all his points or Scripture references, but I did get one thing out of it: It’s scary to trust a God whose face we have not seen. That’s why we need faith, faith to travel the unseen. And when we think we have no faith, we can ask for it. Even the gift of faith is supplied by God.
It all made sense to me as I sat listening to him that Sunday morning. It was winter, the heat was on, and my toes were toasty. I knew a lunch of barbecue was coming up at Ducee’s.
Living his sermon when the days are damp and the heat doesn’t work and food is bland because I’m sick with a cold is another story. Why, even God’s chosen, the Israelites, had trouble with faith. Except for those mentioned in the book of Hebrews.
I’ve often wondered if I’d lived back in Old Testament times, if my name would have been recorded thousands of years later in the book of Hebrews. Would my name be in that New Testament book, recorded right next to Abraham and Moses? Even the prostitute Rahab got her name in this worthy portion of the Bible.
Then I laugh.
You are a gutless one, Nicole. You have never watered your gift of faith. It is so small; it’s still a seed in the ground.
———
Summer vacation has hit and the plans for the reunion are in full force. I am still on the planning committee, so to speak, even though I don’t plan on being present at the festivities.
Ducee tells me this can be our secret. Giggling like a little girl, she says she’ll drive me to the airport in her truck for my scheduled flight. Then she tells me she’ll make a good excuse for why I won’t be at the reunion. “Leave it up to me,” she adds with a broad smile. “Remember Lizzy. It is going to be just peachy. Yes, yes.”
Sometimes I think Ducee confuses my trip across the ocean with a walk in the local park.
———
Iva calls to talk about the reunion. She is still pleased that Ducee has agreed to cucumber sandwiches. “We did it, Nicki.” She laughs and coughs at the same time. “We did it.”
Then, without missing a beat, she says she thinks we all are going to die at the beginning of the next year.
“Why?” I ask. I chew a nail and wonder if I could just for once in my life let my nails grow so that they can be tapered and painted for my trip. That way, when I throw up on the plane, at least my nails will look nice holding the air sickness bag.
“Two thousand,” says Iva.
“Two thousand what?” Certainly not linen napkins. We are only expecting two hundred tops at our reunion.
“The year.” She chokes, clears her throat, and adds, “I read in the
Tribune
that our country isn’t prepared for the next century.”
“We aren’t?”
“No, the computers will cause us all to blow up.”
“Really?”
“Nicki?”
My aunt sounds sad, so I answer with gentleness. “Yes, Iva?”
“I really did want to see the year two thousand.”
“Me, too.”
“Ducee says it will be fascinating to write two-oh-oh-oh on a check.”
Except that all my checks have the numbers nineteen followed by a line already printed in the right-hand corner where the date is written. What will we do in the year two thousand when we don’t need the ones and nines? Use White Out? Will the bank accept that?
“Nicki, you have a computer, don’t you?”
“Yeah . . .”
“I’d get rid of it. Before it has a chance to blow up and kill you.”
Well, if we aren’t going to live but another half a year, I might as well just go for it. Get on that plane, flash those painted nails, hold that air sickness bag, and fly across the ocean. It would certainly be better to leave the earth this way than being blown up by my computer.
———
I have no idea what kind of flowers Mama liked, so I have brought her a calla lily from Flowers by Deena. True, Ducee says she liked purple lilacs, but I never heard Mama say from her lips what her favorite flower is. And what can I believe? For years I thought Sazae was a present from Mama, and look where that led.
At The Meadows, I wait for the cemetery’s maintenance man to move his riding lawnmower away from this side of the land. Then in my clearest and strongest voice, I say to Mama’s name on her gravestone, “I’m going, Mama.” I step closer. “Oh, I may hate it there. But I’m going.”
I listen, hopeful for something that will let me know she hears me. It is a still day, and the only noise comes from the lawnmower over by the pine tree.
I continue, “Mama, I am really heading to Japan. Father doesn’t want me to go.” My knees feel weak. Why did I bring Father into this? I try again. “I have to go. For me. Remember Harrison? He must have been a nice kid. I must admit I’ve grown quite fond of him. I think that if there is any chemistry between us, I could fall in love with him.” I pause to comprehend the words I’ve just told her. “Scary, huh?”
I brush away a pinecone and sit beside the grave. Who cares if the freshly mowed grass stains my shorts? I have to start letting some things go. “Am I crazy? Crazy like Aunt Lucy?” I ask.
Mama knew Aunt Lucy. She stood there as her aunt painted her distorted eyebrows in the family portrait. She knew what Aunt Lucy’s soft skin felt like and if the mints she chewed covered the heavy odor of liquor on her breath. All I have of this relative are stories. What if the stories aren’t true? Perhaps Great-Aunt Lucy was the sanest of the bunch and it’s the others who are crazy.
I steady my voice and say words that come from the deepest part of me. “Mama, there is just so much more to learn. I can’t do it here. I have to get in the same ocean as Harrison in order to find out. I want to walk along the streets of Japan and see what you saw.”
I touch the stem of the lily and take a breath. “I’m going, Mama. And if the plane crashes or I die in it from claustrophobia after inhaling the same stale air for thirteen whole hours, well, then . . .” I lift my eyes toward heaven. “I’ll see you soon.” I rest both hands against her engraved name. It is warm from the sun. I stretch my fingers as though I am pushing my fingerprints into the stone.
Sighing, I take a thin, light blue ribbon and a pink ribbon from my pocket. Deena at Flowers by Deena cut the strips for me without asking why I needed them, which was considerate of her. Explaining about a dead sibling would have been difficult for me to do.
Slowly, I tie both delicate ribbons to the flower’s stem. These are for the baby—blue for boy and pink for girl—my unborn brother or sister.
Harrison told me Watanabe-san had been asking about the baby and he, at first, thought she was referring to me. After my question to him in my email message, he asked the older woman during a visit to the nursing home, “What about a baby?” She broke down in tears and said Michelin-san was pregnant, just three months along, and what a shame the baby died with her. Watanabe-san’s outburst brought in a few nurses. Then she was wheeled away to calm down with a cup of
ocha
.
I hate to think this woman was so distraught all because of me and my need to know the past, but Harrison told me not to worry. “She may cry, but she also smiles often when she recalls her years of being your family’s maid. She said those years were some of the best. Until that terrible night. She’s never gotten over that night your mother died.”
———
It’s never easy leaving the cemetery, but the maintenance man makes it a little easier today as he cranks his lawnmower up a notch. Perhaps that’s just as well. There are things to do during this summer vacation.
My passport may arrive in the mail today, as well as the plane ticket Harrison found for me at a discounted price. First I am to fly from Raleigh-Durham to Atlanta, where I’ll have a threehour layover, and then on to Detroit. At this airport, which is so huge it can make you crazy, or so I am told, I’ll wait for two more hours. At last, with a belly filled with Dramamine, I am to hop on a plane for Osaka. And fly for thirteen hours.
Nonstop.
Just like that.
The whole plan makes me queasy, but in all reality, I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do than spend two weeks in Japan with Harrison and Watanabe-san.
Of course, I still hope for that instant
Star Trek
beaming-meto-Japan method. Maybe someone will discover how to implement this way of travel before I step onto a plane. It is almost the year 2000, after all.
I still am not sure I can actually go through with this, but the truth is, I’ve gone too far now to go back. It’s as if I was once happily swimming in one stream, but a warm current suddenly caused me to turn and change my direction. I was a fighting fish at first, not wanting to be transported to anything different and unusual. Now I’m enjoying this new current, even though I know that down the stream, I may be faced with some disappointing waters. I know because this is life, life with its fleeting moments of happiness.
As I whisper good-bye to Mama, words ring in my mind as they have so many times before at this place. Words that will forever live inside my heart.
I miss what we could have had together.
Harrison made reservations for me to stay at a
ryokan
, a traditional Japanese inn with futons laid out to sleep on the
tatami
floor. “Breakfast at these is usually steamed rice and fish with a bowl of
miso
. I’ll make sure the fish is deheaded before your tray is served. And if it gets too bad for you, you can bring out the granola bars. They do still have those in the U.S., don’t they?”
He said that he’d like to take me to Nagano to see the mountains and to Hiroshima to see the peace museum. He asked where else I’d be interested in going.
I hate to sound naïve, but I have no clue. I suppose seeing Mount Fuji is important, and Harrison agrees we could take the
shinkansen
—what we Americans call the bullet train. I ask him if this train is like riding on the Charlotte Speedway. He has no comment.
“Actually,” he writes, “I may be biased, but the city where you and I were born is the best Japan has to offer. It’s a great combination of the traditional Japan and the modern. I’ll get us tickets to see a local Kabuki play. Or would you rather see Noh?”
I reply with, “It’s all Greek to me. You choose.”
After that reply, I think I’d better educate myself. I take Mr. Vickers’s advice and tour the Internet. Just by typing in “Japan” and “Kyoto” at Google, I am led to beautiful color pictures of temples, shrines, ponds, gardens, and mountains. The cherry blossoms look exceptionally delicate, like cotton candy floating on tree limbs.
One site shows rows and rows of decorated folding fans and another pictures of flags in the shape of carp, strung on bamboo poles. The caption under the photo of the billowing carp flags reads, “Koinobori.” These carp are flown on May fifth, which is Children’s Day in Japan.
May fifth is also my birthday. I’ve lived all these years not knowing I was born on Children’s Day, the day carp fly in the air.
With eagerness to learn, I read until my eyes itch from the light of the computer screen. I amaze myself. I am not the girl of yesterday, avoiding all things Japanese.
———
As I enter the house from a short outing to Friendly Mart, the phone is ringing with fervor.
“Nicole?” The voice of my stepmom is never cause for celebration.
“Hi, Bonnie.” I muster a cheery tone, or at least try to.
“How are you?” Her tone is dull, like a knife that is useless in the drawer.
“Pretty good. How are you?”
“Your father says you are going to Japan.”
I’m tempted to put down the phone or pretend I can’t talk now. “I am.”
“Well.” A significant pause. “Well.”
Is this it? Is this all she called to say?
“Be safe.” It is a command.
“I will.”
“He doesn’t think you should go.”
I know, I know.
“However, if you must, please be safe.” She sounds like a recording.
And why wouldn’t I be safe, I almost say to her. Isn’t basic safety high on everyone’s list? Do we wake in the morning vowing that today we won’t be safe? That instead we’ll purposely drive recklessly or jump into the middle of oncoming traffic? “Of course,” I tell her.
“Japan was hard for him.”
I rub my scar as I cradle the receiver between my ear and my shoulder. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Speaking of safe, Father and Japan are not safe topics.
“Just be careful. He wants you to be careful.”
“Okay,” I say. The word sounds empty all alone, so I enhance it by adding, “Tell him that I said thanks.” I don’t ask if he can come to the phone, because I don’t want to hear any excuses of why he can’t talk to me, his only living child.
“Bye,” I quickly toss out and am ready to hang up.
She tells me to have a good night, and then once more with urgency, “Be careful. Be sure to be careful.”
I stand staring at the phone, wondering what possesses her to act so strangely. It has to be from living with Father. She chose this life; she continues it.
Some days I think she’ll snap, ending up at the mental institution in Butner. Other days I imagine her squeaking out of the house in Richmond just before her sanity completely disappears. I wouldn’t be shocked to get a postcard from her, written in her loopy style of penmanship—the kind that puts circles instead of dots over the letter
i
. “Hi Nicole, I’m in Tahiti. I’ve left your father.”
It wouldn’t surprise me. How can she put up with a man who eats sardines from a can and watches TV all day long?
———
Now that Harrison doesn’t have to continue to convince me to take the plunge and fly to Japan, and now that I have many questions about my past answered, I tell him it’s his turn.
“My turn?” he writes. “Am I going to like this?”
I say most people do. The average person likes the limelight, enjoys getting to talk about a subject of vast importance—him or herself. “I hope it’s not too nosey to ask,” I write one evening as my fish swim and I sprinkle salt on grits, “but are you happy that you grew up in Japan? Was it worth it?”
He is intrigued by my last question and replies with a long message.
Was it worth it? I assume you mean being away from my peers in America and missing out on Hershey bars, apple pie, and Chevrolets. Was getting the experiences of
unagi
at the hole-in-the-wall restaurant, being submerged into another language, and taking an
ofuro
every other night worth the trade-off? Good question.
Japan held my childhood. I don’t know what growing up in America would have been like.
At eighteen, after a childhood in Japan, I came to the U.S. for college. Then I went to graduate school and got my Ph.D. in English. After that, I returned to Japan to live. Why? There are many reasons, but I think the biggest one was because life in America, my own country of citizenship, was too strange to handle. I am clearly a foreigner here, often the only Caucasian in the room or train station. I know my place here—considered an alien because I am not from Japanese parents, yet so familiar with this country because of having lived here for twenty-six years total. I choose to be the foreigner here instead of the foreigner in America. Many don’t get it, but since I have lived for so few years in the U.S.A., I feel that country is alien to me. I am more familiar with Japan and its customs. It is home.
I don’t know if this makes sense to you.
My younger sister lives in New York City now and has immense cultural shock. Her husband works near Times Square and she fears taking the subway to meet him for lunch.
Used to crowds in Osaka and Tokyo, she says New York crowds aren’t familiar.
She was always the “celebrity child” in Japan. With her blond hair and blue eyes, the Japanese asked her to pose for English language school posters and brochures. In America, especially in New York City, she is a dime a dozen. No one stops her on the street to ask if she’ll teach English or tell her she’s beautiful or comment on how long her legs are. She is another face in the crowd, and she is having a hard time adjusting to this. As an American in Japan, it’s like the horns blow and the red carpet is rolled out wherever you go. The only people who ask her for attention in the city of New York are the beggars on the street corners. In time, she may get used to it all.
We like to act like we had the life of ease and fun. Deep down, there are so many insecurities and worries. I wouldn’t trade my upbringing in Japan for anything. It is who I am. But that doesn’t mean it was without difficulties.
I’ve written a lot. You may want to be careful when you think about asking me a question like that next time. I may never stop. Thanks, by the way, for asking.
I read his response many times. Then I print it on sheets of copy paper. Even though I don’t fully understand where he is coming from, I am honored that he took the time to share his thoughts with me. Perhaps when I actually get to Japan, I’ll comprehend better how he feels.
I can’t wait to meet him. Again.
———
Being female, I don’t know what to wear. I’ve never understood other women who complained about their lack of nice clothes or clothes that fit. Just put on a pair of jeans and sweatshirt and go wherever you need to go. That
was
my attitude. Who needs loads of clothes?
How things can change. I’ve spent the last hour trying on all my sundresses—all two of them—and three pairs of faded jeans, one khaki skirt, T-shirts, and a skirt with a ruffle that was probably passed down from Aunt Lucy. I feel like a frumpy old schoolteacher. That is not the image I want to give Harrison when he greets me at the Osaka airport.
My savings account tells me I have one hundred sixty-two dollars to spend on clothes. I check out a flyer from Julianne’s on Main Street. How convenient, it’s having a sale this week.
The sky is a shiny blue without a cloud in sight, and the summer sun beats down on me with all the heat it can muster. It is summer in the South.
Thank you, God, for a working air-conditioner in my car.
Inside the cool car, before backing out of my driveway, I step on the brake and laugh. Throw my head back and let a laugh start in my stomach and work its way out of my mouth, just like Uncle Jarvis does. Then I laugh at the sound of my own laughter.
It is the sound and feel of sunshine and waterfalls mixed together on a beautiful southern day.
The Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I am going to the land of the rising sun.
———
I don’t shop much. The few times I have gone to the mall, after about an hour, I’m bone-tired. Forget standing over racks of seasonal clothes, I just want to be home on my comfortable sofa in a pair of worn jeans and my tattered Mount Olive T-shirt with a mug of tea. It seems like trying on clothes and looking in the store’s dressing room mirror should be fun. Aunt Iva considers it a treat. Perhaps because she has long legs, so clothes look good on her. Sometimes I am able to admire the way a dress or pants fit and feel like a model, albeit a short one. Those are the few-and-far-between times. Usually, I’m mortified that the mirror could do such an injustice and make me look so awful. Once I do make the tedious decision to buy the particular dress, I wonder if I’ll wear it five years from now (another way the five-year plan haunts my life) and basically get my money’s worth out of it. All this wondering makes me sit even longer in the dressing room and debate.
While in the dressing room at Julianne’s, I listen to other shoppers trying on clothes.
“Oh, Susie,” one says in the stall next to me, “do you think these shorts make my butt look big?”
“Well . . .” I hear Susie suck in air. “Well . . .”
I figure if there is a slight hesitation and no immediate, “Oh, of course not! Your butt isn’t big at all. I wish my butt was as small as yours,” then really, it is time to forget those shorts.
Susie continues with, “I like the color. Everyone needs a pair of pink shorts.”
“Really?” A pause. She is probably studying herself in the full-length mirror. A turn to the left, a glance over her shoulder at her reflection, and then a slight twist to the right. “Okay, I’ll get them.”
Her mistake. She will not get her money’s worth out of those shorts, regardless that they are the color pink and everyone needs a pink pair of shorts. Because, sure as the sun, she’ll get home and realize too late—“Wow, I knew my butt was big, but not this big!” And the shorts will either go in the Goodwill section of her dresser or she’ll return them to the store two days from now. If she’s remembered to hold on to the receipt.
I know I won’t buy shorts today. Harrison says that only children wear shorts in public in Japan. Showing too much skin is taboo.
After Susie and her friend leave the dressing room, I stand. The dress I have selected to try on has vertical green and black stripes. As I slip it over my head and look in the mirror, I smile. The colors glow a little against my pale skin. Twirling around, I feel thinner than I have in years. Then I scrape my heel against the door and muffle a moan. Rubbing my heel, I peer once more into the mirror and manage another smile.
“Hello, Harrison,” I say to my own reflection, practicing for when I see him at the airport.
I imagine him smiling back, eyes filled with light and warmth, and maybe he’s even thinking, “Wow, she looks good in that dress!”
My heart feels as if it will pop out of my chest. I decide then to purchase the dress.
———
As I pull into my driveway, I’m ready for some lunch and a glass of iced tea. Shopping not only makes you tired, it makes you hungry.
I make a glass of instant iced tea. As I add three ice cubes, I’m glad Ducee can’t see me now. She’d be shocked if she knew I used iced tea mix. She always makes fresh tea from distilled water and tea bags. She instructs that the key to dissolving the sugar is to add it while the tea is still hot, right after the tea bags have been removed. Then to stir the mixture
emphatically
. I like watching her, at barely five feet tall,
emphatically
spinning a silver spoon around a glass pitcher. Sometimes the pitcher looks bigger than she does.
She plans to make ten gallons of iced tea for the reunion’s Saturday picnic.
It is going to be hard to miss the reunion. I wish I could be in two places at one time. I have never missed a reunion, except for my short years in Japan.
As I drink my iced tea, I note that right now in Japan, it’s four in the early morning. Harrison is sleeping in his futon on the straw floor. Much of the time when I think of him, he’s asleep.
The ringing phone breaks into my thoughts.
“Hello?”
“Nicki? Oh, Nicki.” Iva is out of breath.