The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (61 page)

“No. I’ll go alone,” Aki said with a sharp finality. She saw the distress on Tamiko’s face, and softened. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

“It’s too cold to walk,” the housekeeper pleaded.

“I’ll be fine.”

Aki slid the front door open and braced herself against the shock of the cold wind. She looked back once and smiled to reassure Tamiko that all was well with her. Then she hurried out to the courtyard and through the front gate without looking back.

The wind was icy and her face numb by the time Aki reached the cemetery. Even her tears felt frozen. She walked down the stone path to the large, fenced-off plot Hiroshi had chosen, and where they would all rest one day. Now, there was only the tall, white marble
marker with Takashi’s name, followed by his birth and death dates written in bold, black characters. Aki stood before it and bowed. “Look what I’ve brought you, Takashi-chan.” She brushed away the leaves, opened the
furoshiki
, and carefully placed the fruit and food at the foot of his marker. Then she stood and bowed again. It calmed her to think that her mother, Noriko, and his great-grandfather, Yoshio, were watching over little Takashi. Sometimes, his spirit was so alive in her that Aki still felt the warmth of his small body in her arms. She sat down and laid her head against the cold marble and began to softly sing “The Lullaby of Edo” to him, the words lifted and carried away by the wind.

Kenji walked quickly down the alleyway, pulling the collar of his kimono tighter against the sharp February wind. He looked up at the darkening sky, which was sure to bring rain before nightfall, and shifted the package under his arm as he walked. Had his nephew Takashi lived, he would have celebrated his first birthday today. Kenji wanted to stop by the cemetery before going home. He recalled the morning he and Mika heard the news of Takashi’s death. If it hadn’t been Hiroshi’s choked voice over the phone, he might have thought someone was playing a cruel joke on him. A stunned silence followed before he was able to take a breath again. After he told Mika, she began to cry, her tears flowing translucently down her cheeks, and he couldn’t help wondering how he could capture those tears on a mask. She leaned against him, and he held her, smelling the lovely scent of jasmine, lilac, lilies; a bouquet of flowers in her hair. He made a pitiful attempt to console her.

“Maybe it was his time,” Kenji whispered.

He wasn’t prepared when Mika glared up at him with an angry look he’d never seen before. “What time? He wasn’t given any time!” She pulled away, her voice hard and final.

Kenji knew she was right, but it made him feel better to think otherwise. There were no guarantees in life. Wasn’t everyone given only a limited time on this earth? Like his parents? Like his
ojiichan?
But in his heart, he couldn’t understand the dictates of any god who would take a baby away from his parents so soon. And he couldn’t imagine how Hiroshi must feel, all the lost moments with his son. There was so little he could do to ease his brother’s pain. For the rest of his life, Hiroshi would wear grief like a scar, not unlike the one that marked his forehead; stricken and furious, helpless to save his child no matter how strong he was. Kenji remembered them as little boys, his brother the strong one, rock solid like the earth, while he was a leaf that could be blown away in the wind. Only Hiroshi protected him from nature’s forces. Now, he would do the same for his brother; open his arms wide to protect him from the coming winds.

By the time Kenji reached the cemetery, the world around him was steeped in gray shadows. The white marble of Takashi’s headstone stood out like a beacon. Around it were the neatly arranged food offerings that he knew Aki and Hiroshi must have left earlier. He bowed to his nephew, before he knelt to rearrange the offerings, placing them to one side. From the package he carried, Kenji pulled out the brightly painted wooden truck and placed it next to Takashi’s headstone.

The knock on her office door startled Haru. She didn’t expect any students and hoped for some quiet time to grade papers and study for her own final exams. It was hard to believe she would have her graduate degree in June, only three months away. Haru had no idea what she’d do afterward. Since the miscarriage she’d had difficulty concentrating. Now, the sudden interruption irritated her. She cleared
her throat and said abruptly,
“Hai
, come in,” without looking up from the paper she was correcting. The door whining open was another irritant she’d have to take care of.

“Haru-san, I hope I’m not disturbing you?”

She looked up at the sound of his voice, a knot instantly forming in the middle of her stomach, not knowing what might have brought him to Nara. “Hiroshi-san,” she said, surprised. She quickly stood. Then, “Is it Aki?” The loss of Takashi last year was devastating. Haru spent the weeks after his death taking care of her sister, who had retreated inward again. Haru eventually returned to Nara drained—grief a weight she could no longer carry, not for Aki, not for Takashi, and especially not for herself. She had hoped her work and teaching would provide distraction, but since she’d returned, even that didn’t help.

He bowed. “Aki-chan is as well as can be,” he said, trying to put her at ease.

“My father?”

“Tanaka-oyakata is fine.” He bowed again. “I’m sorry to arrive unannounced. I’m on my way to Osaka to meet with some sponsors before the
basho
there, and thought of stopping in Nara to see you.”

Haru never imagined seeing Hiroshi in her office at the university. He filled the already small, overflowing space that she shared with another lecturer with his sheer size, with the flowery scent of
bintsuke
, with his deep, steady voice. He was dressed elegantly in a dark kimono, standing awkwardly before her. There had to be something terribly wrong to bring him to Nara. “Is it Aki-chan?” she asked again.

He nodded and swallowed. “Since Takashi’s death, she barely says a word. She hardly eats and sleeps very little,” he said, his gaze turned downward, staring at the scuffed wood floor. “I’m afraid she’s drifting into her own world. I’m at a loss as to what to do.”

He appeared tired and defeated. There were dark bags under his eyes and he’d lost weight. She knew through her father that he’d returned to sumo and that things were still difficult with Aki. Haru sat back down in her chair. “What can I do?” she asked, more to herself than to Hiroshi.

Hiroshi sat in the chair across from her. “Haru-san, you’re the one
person Aki-chan has always felt the closest to. She’s the most comfortable with you. I see it every time you return to Tokyo. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think she needed you now.” He paused, took a breath, and the chair squeaked when he leaned back against it.

It was a kind of curse, she thought, but wiped it quickly from her mind. “Are you asking me to return to Tokyo?”

Hiroshi paused. “For just a short time, until Aki-chan is better.”

Haru looked down at her hands, feeling a tingling at her fingertips as they lay on top of the papers she’d been correcting. She turned and gazed out the window for a moment, out at the willow tree that she loved, already missing the sight of it. Tiny buds were just balancing on its limbs. She’d loved Nara from the moment she arrived and once dreamt of spending her life here. But after the miscarriage, everything had changed. Haru was no longer sure what she wanted. Even with an opening in the department, she hesitated applying for it. She’d go home to Tokyo in June after she finished her degree, and return to Nara when Aki was feeling better. It would give her time to decide what direction she wanted to take. She swallowed her thoughts and turned back to Hiroshi. “I won’t be able to return until the term is over in June.”

He stood up and bowed low to her. “I will always be indebted to you, Haru-san.”

“Aki’s my sister,” Haru said, looking up at him.

He smiled sadly.

She stood up from her desk. “Shall we take a walk? Perhaps I can finally show you our famous park.”

“It’s a beautiful day for a walk,” he said, smiling. “My train for Osaka doesn’t leave for another few hours.”

It made Haru happy to think she’d be in the park with Hiroshi. The great sumo champion would step into her realm and see how small they really were in the natural world. It would, at the very least, give him a glimpse into her life in Nara. Haru stood and steadied herself. She stacked the papers she was grading and grabbed her sweater. “Shall we go?” she said.

Over the years, Akira Yoshiwara had found ways to compensate for having only one hand. A vise secured on the table now helped him to keep the masks steady and in place, so that Akira could even chisel out some of the features one-handed. It meant more to him this second time around. He became so adept that it was even difficult for the actor Otomo Matsui to tell the difference between a new mask and an old one Yoshiwara had made.

Just after his fiftieth birthday a fever stirred inside of Akira Yoshiwara, unexplained warmth that made him feel as if his skin were too hot to touch. All through the week, he felt his temperature rise most keenly in the early afternoons as he worked on the masks. By evening, the October days would grow cool and windy. The fever ebbed and flowed and he knew he was ill, but dusted the notion off like wood dust during the moments he felt better. All his life, Akira had rarely been sick, even as a boy in Yokohama. He hadn’t felt this way since Emiko cared for him after the loss of his hand. A fever had taken over, and in his delirium, Akira forgot everything and only recalled his sense of release. Now, the thought calmed him. He wavered, and leaned against the worktable before he reached for a bottle of whiskey he kept atop the shelf. The sharp sting of liquid felt almost cool going down his throat, quenching the growing heat of his body. Akira looked up at the shelves to see the masks watching him and felt strangely at ease.

By the end of the week when Akira tried to get out of bed his body refused. The fever flushed through him as he lay back onto his damp sheets. Akira drifted in and out of sleep until he heard the door of the shop unlock downstairs. He trusted that Kenji would eventually come up to see why he wasn’t already downstairs with the door unlocked and the tea made. Finally, he heard Kenji’s footsteps, light and tentative on the stairs as they approached. He felt his fever rising, his body growing heavy. Akira didn’t wait for Kenji to knock
but called out for him to come in, though he wasn’t sure if he’d spoken the words aloud before he closed his eyes and slept.