The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (60 page)

The days passed like dark shadows, ghosts that lingered in every room. Months after Takashi’s death, Aki’s grief was still something tangible. Even now, she could feel his tiny body in her arms after she found him lifeless in his crib, cradling him, praying he’d just fallen into a deep sleep from which he would awake. She sang to him “The Lullaby of Edo” as she did every night.

But his body only grew colder, almost waxy to the touch, like a bad dream. Not until Hiroshi came into the room did Aki realize Takashi was really dead, and that she’d awakened to the real nightmare. For days after, the nursery rhyme she sang to him played over and over in her head. When she finally stopped hearing it, the silence filled every crevice of the house. It wasn’t the same as with her mother’s death, when Aki had had no voice. This time she chose not to speak; she was too frightened of what would come out if she did.

During the four months after Takashi’s death, Hiroshi watched helplessly as Aki grew increasingly remote from everyone and everything around her. She wouldn’t leave the house, fearful of the throng of reporters that waited for her outside the gates. Hiroshi tried to reason with her, his calm words growing steadily angrier, while she sat day after day, blank-faced, staring, his words vanishing into air. She had long ago stopped listening. As much as Hiroshi tried, he knew only Haru could find a thin thread of connection. But her life was in Nara now, and how could he ask her to return yet again?

As Hiroshi lay on his futon, a rush of blood colored his face when he thought of his behavior the night before. He’d drunk too much sake at the Sakura teahouse and returned late to find Aki sitting silently by the window in their room. Only this time he didn’t have the patience to put up with her silence.
“Talk to me!”
he had said, at first quietly, then growing in volume when she turned away and ignored him.
“Look at me!”
he demanded. He realized he was reduced to seeming childish when he grabbed her arm and practically lifted her from the chair. Hiroshi knew he was hurting her, but he wanted a reaction, any reaction. He was the grand champion and her husband, and Aki owed him a small gesture of respect; and still, she remained silent, looking at him with such blank indifference in her
eyes that a great roar rose up in him and he pushed her away, watching her fall to the mats, her shoulder hitting hard against the chair. She was as light as a feather, and it frightened him to think how little it would take for him to really hurt her. Hiroshi left the house and didn’t return until the next evening, wondering if she would still be there. He entered the house, embarrassed and filled with shame. His stomach lurched to think Aki might be gone, but there she was, sitting silently by the window as if nothing had happened.

In the early morning light, Hiroshi lay sleepless. His thoughts spun over and over. As
yokozuna
, if he could give strength and good health to all the other babies he carried, why hadn’t he been able to do the same for his own son? On the futon next to him, Aki lay quiet. He turned to see the purplish-blue bruises on her arm and shoulder, the fingerprints of anger. He realized then his grief was no better than hers—he had been compelled to strike out whereas she had turned inward. The bruises appeared like scattered islands and he leaned over and kissed her shoulder gently, her skin soft and warm against his lips. Aki turned slowly toward him, her hand rising up, and for a moment, Hiroshi thought she might slap him, but instead her pale fingers traced the scar on his forehead and came to rest on his cheek. When she opened herself to his embrace, he wondered if for just a moment they could forget their loss together.

Afterward, they’d come to an unspoken truce, the stare-down broken. Hiroshi moved through the house quietly, his steps as calculated as in the
dohyo
. He no longer wished for an awkward word or two. Like Aki, he preferred a silence that wouldn’t lead to any more hurt or misunderstandings.

Since Takashi’s death, Hiroshi had missed three tournaments. With the Nagoya Basho added in July, there were now six major tournaments held each year. Though he was secure in knowing he would never lose his
yokozuna
rank, Hiroshi knew that if he stayed away much longer, he would have to do the honorable thing and retire. But at thirty-two, he wasn’t ready to give up the
dohyo
. In mid-January, seven months after his son’s death, on a pewter-gray morning that felt too cold to snow, Hiroshi left the house with Aki still asleep.

It began to snow as Hiroshi entered the front gates of the Katsuyama-beya and he felt the strange sensation of stepping back into the past. In the courtyard, he glanced up at the window in which he and Aki had first begun their courtship. It was empty and quiet now. He hurried toward the stable to begin training for the Haru Basho in March.

Hiroshi pushed open the wooden door and the familiar stench of sweat and musk, the dank, earthy smells laced with the sweet
bintsuke
hair wax, rushed at him. All activity in the
keikoba
paused at his entrance. Tanaka-oyakata and Sadao were the first to welcome him back. A group of lower-ranked wrestlers already in the midst of practice stopped and bowed low. There were new, younger faces Hiroshi didn’t recognize and he searched for traces of greatness in each one of them. Who would be the next grand champion?

Thirty minutes later, Yokozuna Takanoyama stretched his tight muscles with the series of exercises he’d practiced every morning for the past thirteen years. The pain pulled at the back of his thighs as he leaned forward doing leg splits. He welcomed it all, as if the sheer physical pain could make him forget everything else. He’d lost weight and would have to train hard to catch up with all the aspiring
rikishi
. Tanaka-oyakata welcomed his return and watched from a distance, allowing him to train at his own pace. He sensed his father-in-law moved around the stable with a quick, busy determination to deaden his own sorrow at Takashi’s sudden death. When Hiroshi finished warming up, he stepped onto the
dohyo
, his feet touching the cool, smooth dirt for the first time in months. The memory soothed.

Following him onto the
dohyo
was Sadao, whom he’d chosen to practice with. Sadao was a
sekitori
now, thereby refuting the bow twirling superstition, and had risen in the ranks to become a good, strong wrestler. They moved quickly through the preliminaries and squatted down at the starting lines. Hiroshi felt a knot of anxiety in his stomach as his knuckles touched the dirt. He slowed his breathing, his gaze intent. The sudden impact of their bodies was quick and violent. Sadao’s blow to his chest was solid and hard, knocking the wind out of him. There was only a moment before the young wrestler’s next move, but Hiroshi’s instinct and experience kicked in. He moved just out of the way as Sadao charged, grabbing him in a headlock and forcing him to the ground before he knew what had happened. Sadao rose and bowed low to him.

Hiroshi would later replay those moments on the
dohyo
, when his mind was fixed on only his opponent and all other life had ceased to be. He was thankful for the respite; those moments of concentrated will that allowed him to forget. But in the midst of his small victory, Hiroshi learned that grief was an opponent he would never be able to defeat.

It was February again and the wind was blowing. It gusted through the house with a sigh as Aki lit a stick of incense and bowed to a photo of her baby son. Family photos filled the
tokonoma
as she knelt before them, but only Takashi had been granted so little time on earth. She bowed low to the ground and struggled in her grief to push her body back up, as if all the strength were drained from her. She relented and lay prostrate on the tatami, which was rough and cool against her cheek, the old grassy smell a reminder of when she was young and tumbling on the floor with Haru.

Time was playing tricks on her. Finally, eight months after the death of Takashi, on what would have been his first birthday, Aki
relinquished herself fully to the sorrow of it. While Hiro-chan returned to sumo, she had chosen to remain silent and alone most days. She knew it wasn’t healthy. She would have gladly traded her own life for that of little Takashi. At least she had made some memories in her twenty-three years, while he was never given the chance. Her tears came freely, silently, for all that might have been. She closed her eyes and the wind seemed to turn to voices, soothing her.

Aki put on a silk padded coat over her kimono, picked up the
furoshiki
in which she carried fruit, red bean cakes, and rice crackers to place at Takashi’s grave. She had hoped to leave quickly, before their housekeeper, Tamiko-san, had time to talk her out of going, but it was too late.

“Please, Aki-san.” Tamiko bowed. “Yokozuna Takanoyama will be home shortly. He asks that you wait for him to go to the cemetery with you.”

“Tell Yokozuna Takanoyama that I’ll be waiting for him at the cemetery.”

“Then I’ll go with you,” Tamiko said. Her voice rose in fear.