The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (28 page)

More than a year had passed since Akira arrived at the village of Aio with no idea how long he would stay. He’d rented the room behind the small sake shop that was now closed, and emerged only for food and to take long walks into the mountains through the late summer and fall, when the leaves blazed an angry orange-red. The village survived on its trees, the residents making wood charcoal and taking it down to the larger town of Oyama. Akira liked the idea of coming to a place were wood was of such importance, just as it always was for him and the masks. He began to read and draw again in both pencil and charcoal—the mountains, the tall pines with the sloped roofs peeking through. He felt like an art student, with the freedom to do as he pleased, discover what he would. The masks faded in and out of his thoughts; the one unfinished
Okina
mask he’d taken with him was safely tucked away under his bed with his chisels. He couldn’t bring himself to finish it, because then what would be left for him to do?

It was on one of these walks his first winter there, late in 1944, that he had met Kiyo. Snow was falling. He looked up at the pale gray sky and the white blanket that covered the mountains, and pulled his coat closer. Was this mountain village, nestled high above the world with its steep-roofed houses that resembled praying hands, enough to keep him sane until the war ended? Could he live out a year or more hiding in such a solitary place?

When he heard the dull crunch of snow, he turned and saw her standing there, a thin girl of nine or ten, with long hair. In the freezing wind, she wore only a dark cotton kimono and
tabi
socks with her sandals. She stood at a distance and watched him with curiosity.

“Why are you always by yourself?” she asked.

The question rang through the cold, clear air and startled him.

“How long have you been watching me?” he asked. His breath drifted out like smoke.

“Long enough to know you’re always by yourself,” she answered, without any shyness or restraint. The girl’s focused gaze didn’t turn away from him.

Akira was amused. “Some people enjoy being by themselves.”

She eyed him closely. “There aren’t many visitors to Aio who stay. Why have you stayed?”

He laughed out loud at her directness, so unlike other children he’d known. He thought of Kenji and how shy he’d been the first time he took him back to the shop.

“I enjoy it here in Aio,” he answered her. “And I’m not totally alone, I have a cat.”

The girl took a step forward and bowed slightly. “Then, if you’re staying for a while, my name is Kiyo.”

He bowed low and with great ceremony. “And I’m Akira Yoshiwara. And now that we’re no longer strangers, I think you should go home. Do your parents know you’re out in the cold without a coat? You must be frozen.” He glanced down at her feet.

Kiyo looked away. “I’m used to the cold.”

They both turned their heads at the scraping sound of a door sliding open in the distance. Before Akira could say anything else, Kiyo whispered,
“Sayonara,”
and turned to run back toward one of the old
pitched-roof houses, disappearing inside so quickly he wondered if she had really been there. From the stone chimney, a great billow of smoke rose up into the sky.

Afterward, Akira saw Kiyo on his walks several times a week. She sometimes waited for him, but all they did was exchange a few words and she disappeared again, or she walked with him a short distance before turning around and heading home. He began to look forward to seeing her. He loved her quick questions that enlivened his long silences. Then one day in March when he came up the dirt road, he saw her standing beside the house with a slender woman, dressed in a plain brown kimono, her long, dark hair pulled back.

Akira bowed upon reaching them.

“Akira-san, this is my mother, Emiko,” Kiyo said.

He bowed again.

“I have heard a great deal about you. I hope Kiyo-chan hasn’t been bothering you,” Emiko said and bowed.

“Not at all.” Akira recognized the eyes as soon as he looked into them. No longer bent over a wooden box, a scarf around her head, she appeared younger and quite attractive. “The turnips,” he said.

She looked down shyly. “I wondered if you’d remember.”

Akira smiled.

“I wanted to thank you for being so kind to Kiyo. She can be quite talkative.”

“It’s a pleasure to have her as company,” Akira said.

“I told you,” Kiyo piped up. “I told you he doesn’t mind.”

Emiko shook her head at her daughter and invited Akira in for tea. Inside the steep-roofed house, he was reminded of pictures in a book of fables from his childhood. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, a large, open room with high rafters came into focus. Emiko followed his gaze and said, “They used to house silkworms in wooden boxes up on the rafters a long time ago. The heat from the fire rose and kept them warm, before wood charcoal became more lucrative.” She hurried to the
irori
, the large hearth in the middle of the room, and set more wood on the small fire. In its tentative light, Akira glimpsed the sloping thatched roof above the rafters, the smoke-darkened wooden walls, and the spare furnishings.

“Have you lived here long?” he asked Emiko. Kiyo had disappeared to a back room.

“The house has been in my husband’s family for more than a century.”

Akira turned away from the blackened kettle hanging on its rusty hinge above the sparse fire. Flickering flames made the lines of Emiko’s face waver between young and old.

“My husband has been dead for several years now,” Emiko went on, “and it’s difficult to keep up …” Her voice faded.

“I’m sorry.”

Emiko bowed her head. “Forgive me, I’m feeling sorry for myself. The war has been difficult for everyone.”

Akira nodded.
“Hai,”
he said softly.

As they sat in silence, the smoke made his eyes water, his throat close. He looked up, glad for the ringing voice of Kiyo as she thumped back into the room.

From that day on, Akira was often a guest in that house, and in the spring of 1945, he helped the widow Emiko and Kiyo run their small farm, chopping wood, planting turnips and carrots, and harvesting whatever they could. Although they were safe from bullets and bombs, they suffered from the winter cold and gnawing hunger that left the entire village listless. The land, either parched or frozen, grew miserable turnips and carrots, weak and small but edible. Once in a while, Emiko went down the mountain to trade turnips at the dry-goods store for miso or a half-cup of rice. One afternoon in mid-March, she returned with the news that firebombs had destroyed much of Tokyo and killed more than one hundred thousand people. Akira was stunned. So many lives lost, while there he was, tucked safely away in the mountains. He hoped that Kenji and his family had somehow survived.

Throughout the spring and summer, bombs continued to drop. More deaths than Akira dared to think about. In August, Japan surrendered and was soon occupied by American soldiers. But by the time
autumn came again, Akira wanted no part of the occupation, just as he hadn’t wanted any part of the war. Even if he could return to Tokyo without repercussions, what of his old life was left for him there? Aio was a forgotten place, which suited Akira just fine. At least in Aio he had Emiko and Kiyo, the widow and her daughter, and he was content to know that he helped them in small ways. It wasn’t exactly happiness, but something close enough to it.

By the end of April, the courtyard was alive again with colors Haru had never paid attention to when she was young. Now, it was her favorite time of year; blooming shades of green, purple-blue lilies, pink azaleas, the yellowish green unfurling of buds. If Haru were to look back and search for the defining moment when she came to love the mysteries of plant life, it would be just after the firestorm, with the world around her desolate, mirroring just what she felt inside. All she saw for months and months were shadowy tones with a black edge, as if she’d gone color-blind. The air was filled with gray ash that found its way onto every clean surface and into every crevice. Like an endless winter, the lifeless sky reflected a blanket of dingy snow that covered the ground. There was so little Haru could do, and so little hope left. She knew it was exactly what grief looked like.

Still, every day after the firestorm Haru went outside, a scarf covering her face and mouth, her hands bandaged, hoping the world might have returned to the way it was. In her mind, she played I See, a game she and Aki had played as small children.
I see a cat
she began, which was followed by Aki’s
I see a cat with black, black eyes…I see a cat with black, black eyes and a long, bushy broom tail…I see a cat with black, black eyes and a long, bushy broom tail that sweeps the floor…It
went on and on until Aki couldn’t remember any more and became silly, or gave up, her attention already focused on something else.

Haru looked at the devastation around her.
I see a world covered in
gray ash. I see a world covered in gray ash with flecks of white bone. I see a world covered in gray ash with flecks of white bone of all those who will never rise again …
She walked around the sumo stable seeking signs of life, thinking in her twelve-year-old mind that not until she found it would she believe things could return to normal.

Several weeks after the firestorm, in April, she spied a thin green stem between two cracks in the courtyard pushing its way up toward the light, a tiny speck of color in an otherwise sullen world. Stabbed by the surprise at her discovery, she felt a fragile connection to the green speck—if a living plant could rise from the ashes, then her hands would heal, Aki would be okay again, and their father would rebuild his sumo stable. It wouldn’t ease the grief of losing her mother, but it seemed like a promise that life would continue. It was all Haru needed; a thin thread of hope that filled her with joy.

Since the occupation, all sumo tournaments had been canceled, but when the weather warmed and the May days grew brighter, Hiroshi received a note from Tanaka-oyakata inviting him to the Katsuyama-beya. Hiroshi and his
ojiichan
tried to keep track of the sumo news that trickled out to the public through the radio or neighborhood gossip. Grand Champion, Yokozuna Futabayama had officially retired in 1945. Hiroshi’s grandfather shook his head angrily when the Kokugikan, the national sumo stadium, was taken over by foreign troops and renamed “Memorial Hall.” Its offices were now used for administrative personnel and the arena turned into an ice-skating rink.

Hiroshi reasoned the invitation was the
oyakata’s
way of thanking him for finding his wife’s body after the firestorm. Still, he was excited to see the stable. He tossed and turned all night and awoke late to a faint hum of voices rising from the kitchen. He unfolded the dark blue raw silk kimono that had once belonged to his father and fingered the three white wood sorrel crests. His
obaachan
had given it to him to wear on special occasions. At nineteen, Hiroshi had finally
grown into the kimono. It was still loose around the stomach, but it now fit his shoulders and its length was right.