When the Cherry Blossoms Fell (3 page)

Eiko read aloud. “The owner of the shipyard, Mr. Masumoto, is the building supervisor. I am one of the carpenters he is taking along.” Her mother stopped reading. Michiko could see her eyes scanning the words. Then she continued. “We will help to build a new hospital, along with,” she paused, “several small houses.”

“Several small houses,” Sadie added. “You know who they are for, don't you, Eiko?”

Eiko shrugged, folded the letter and returned it to its envelope. She placed it in the pocket of her apron.

She never reads the entire letter out loud any more
, Michiko thought.
She only reads bits and pieces to me. She has even stopped letting me read them on my own
. There were so many secrets and mysteries in their house these days.

Michiko thought about her goldfish's new home on the window sill. Where had the slim wood cabinet with the curved legs gone? She had loved to open and close the two big ivory knobbed wooden doors when the radio was not in use. Some of their beautiful hangings and paintings were no longer on the walls, and their cabinet of blue porcelain vases was almost empty. The camera had disappeared, and no one tried to find it.

Geechan took Michiko by the hand. The skin of his hands was paper-thin and the bones birdlike. He led her to the kitchen door and pointed to the cherry tree in full bloom. “We have only ten days,” he told her.

“Why only ten days?” Michiko asked.

“Cherry blossoms open all at once,” he explained. “In Japan, the petals last only ten days.”

“But that's in Japan,” Michiko protested. “This is a Canadian tree. It will bloom longer.”

Geechan sighed. “A cherry tree is a cherry tree,” he said, letting go of her hand.

Michiko decided to keep track of the days, the way they did at school. On the calendar, she drew a cherry blossom. She would draw a blossom each day the tree was in bloom.

She felt Geechan's hands on her shoulders. “What day will we have our
hanami?”
he said into her ear. She could smell his strange mix of soap and fish.

“What's that?”

“In Japan, people celebrate the opening of the cherry blossoms.” He opened his arms wide. “They have picnics under the trees.”

Michiko's eyes lit up. She turned to her mother. “May we have a
hanami?”

Her mother lifted her hands from the bubbles in the sink and wiped them on her apron. “We only have one tree,” she said. Then she smiled at Geechan.

“Let's have a picnic under the cherry tree,” Michiko pleaded. “Please.” She tugged at her mother's apron.

“I suppose I could make
sakura-mochi,”
Eiko said. “If
I could find the right ingredients.”

“I'll find what we need,” Sadie piped in. She sat with her feet on a chair, flipping through a magazine. “I know a few people still in business.”

This would be a very special picnic if her mother was willing to make cherry rice cakes. “Did you hear that, Hiro?” Michiko ran to her brother, propped up in his high chair by a purple pillow. “We are going to have a
hanami
.”

She looked into his bowl. Several toast fingers covered a floral design. Michiko grabbed the bowl and dumped out the toast. “Look,” she held it up. “It has a cherry blossom on the bottom.”

Hiro blinked. His tiny pointed chin quivered, and his round fat face turned red. He opened his mouth wide and howled. Two large teardrops popped on to his cheeks.

“Sorry,” mumbled his sister as she picked up the toast bits and put them into his bowl.

Hiro smiled through his tears. He clumsily picked up one of the fingers of toasted bread. “Ha,” he grunted and crammed it into his mouth.

“That's right, Hiro,” Michiko prompted him, “ha-na-mi, say it Hiro, ha-na-mi.”

Hiro crammed a finger of toast into his mouth and reached for another.

Geechan tapped the calendar. “Saturday,” he said. “Our
hanami
will be Saturday.”

That would be the eighth day of blossoms. Michiko looked out the kitchen window. A few petals lay on the grass. She ran outside and gathered them up.

On Saturday afternoon, Sadie and Geechan spread a futon on the grass beneath the pink blossomed branches. Her mother carried out a large pink china plate. Outlines of cherry blossoms, etched in gold, danced along the edge. They drank green tea from small cups shaped like lotus flowers and feasted on
sakura-mochi
, butter tarts and thin slices of sponge cake.

Geechan brought Happy outside, and Michiko fed him a few crumbs of cake.

“Now it is time for the entertainment,” Sadie announced. She daubed the corners of her mouth with a napkin, then she rose from her knees and straightened the skirt of her special occasion
kimono
. Sadie extended her hand to her father. “I bring you
Hanaska-jiisan
, the story of the old man and the cherry tree.”

Geechan pulled a red silk scarf from his pocket. He tied it around his forehead. From his other pocket he pulled a red tin flute.

Michiko's mother gasped. She pressed her fingertips to her lips and opened her eyes wide. She gathered Hiro onto her lap and pulled Michiko to her side. “We are going to hear a
rakugo
,” she told the children.

Sadie told the story in Japanese while Geechan played the flute. Eiko quietly whispered the translation in their ears.

Michiko watched her aunt's face glow as Geechan's fingers danced up and down the tiny holes of the flute. While her mother whispered, he made the flute sing.

First, Sadie told them of the miserable old man who sat under his cherry tree every day. Geechan played the
flute slowly then made a mean face. She told them he wouldn't allow anyone else to sit under the tree, even when it blossomed.

Then their mother said, “While eating cherries, the old man swallowed a pit.” Geechan collapsed into a fit of fake choking. Michiko and her mother laughed.

When he sat up, a small branch stuck out of his headscarf. Michiko understood that a cherry tree now grew from the top of the old man's head.

She listened carefully and guessed at parts of the story. “Everyone made fun of him because of the tree in his head,” she said to Hiro. Her mother nodded.

Then Geechan rose up. With great effort, he pulled the branch off and collapsed sideways.

“He pulled the tree out of his head,” Michiko said excitedly.

Geechan reached for a small bowl. He placed it on his head. He walked about the yard, balancing the bowl and playing his flute at the same time. Sadie danced about him, fluttering her fingers up and down around him.

“Auntie Sadie is showing us rain,” said Michiko. “Did the hole in his head fill up?”

Her grandfather sank to the ground. He put down his flute. He took the small glass bowl from his head and picked up the goldfish bowl. He walked about the yard holding the bowl with Happy on his head.

“The hole in his head became a fish pond,” Michiko's mother told her.

From behind the tree, Sadie took out a stick with a string. She dangled it over the bowl.

“She's pretending to fish,” Michiko shouted. “Did she catch it?” Her mother nodded. She placed her finger on her lips for a quieter ending.

Sadie removed the fishbowl, and Geechan jumped up. He pretended to be mean and angry. He felt the top of his head. His hand went down his neck and along his back. He slumped and rolled behind the tree.

Sadie put the fishbowl where he sat and told them what had happened in Japanese.

Eiko whispered, “The mean old man turned himself inside out trying to find his fish, until he ended up at the bottom of the pond. All that was left was water.”

Michiko and her mother clapped their hands. Hiro looked about and copied them.

Geechan came out from behind the tree and took a bow. Sadie folded her hands and sank to the blanket.

They sat quietly as the soft early evening breeze caressed their faces. A few petals floated onto the blanket. Hiro yawned. The breeze grew stronger. Suddenly they were in the midst of a flurry of white blossoms.

“
Sakura fubuki
,” Geechan announced. He held his hands out to let the petals slip through his fingers.

“That's right,” her mother said, “a cherry blossom snowstorm.”

“Looks like I can still bring down the house,” Aunt Sadie bragged.

Everyone laughed. To Michiko, it seemed as if the cherry tree were laughing too. Her only wish was that her father had been there with them.

Michiko felt like an overstuffed sausage. Sadie had insisted she wear as much of her clothing as possible to save space in their luggage. First, she put on her sleeveless sundress with the large pockets. Over it she wore a green plaid dress with puffy sleeves. Then she buttoned her long sleeved white cotton blouse over the top and stepped into her new navy wool skirt. When her arms went into the sleeves of her brown hooded coat, the shoulders bunched. She carried her blue straw hat with the white daisy by its elastic string.

The great black locomotive hissed and groaned as the stack churned out white smoke.

Eiko lifted the two cases at her side and moved towards the car in front on them. Michiko gripped her aunt's heavy paisley carpetbag and followed.

The conductor, the angular cheekbones of his face showing through his pale white skin, stepped down. His eyes narrowed as Michiko and her mother approached. He shook his head and held up his hand. With the other, he pointed down the track.

They walked past a few cars and stopped again. The
same thing happened. Each time they tried to board the train, someone moved them along.

Her mother gave out a long sigh. She glanced back at Geechan in his best black suit and tie, wearing his bowler hat. He could not walk fast, having insisted on carrying the large
furoshiki
. The great square cloth held their bedding. There was a brand new quilt inside, one Michiko's mother had worked on diligently since her father had left.

“Is something the matter with our tickets?” Michiko asked. Her mother gave her a tired look and didn't answer.

Finally, they found their train. It sat back from the others, off to one side. The rusty, peeling, old engine towed only four cars. Three were passenger cars. The last car looked like a large wooden wagon. It was for the baggage.

Only Japanese people were aboard, all sitting up straight, staring ahead.

Michiko stepped over the railway ties onto the black oil-stained gravel. She tiptoed to keep her shiny black patent shoes clean.

They mounted the stained wooden steps, just as the train's big iron wheels spun in place. It shrieked, puffed a billow of steam and jerked forward. Michiko stumbled and banged her knee. Someone caught her by the elbow and steadied her. Several people shuffled seats to let them all sit together. Michiko plopped down hard on one of the wooden benches just as the train moved forward.

“Where are we going?” Michiko asked for the third time that day. This was a very strange way to travel.
Usually they went on vacation in their father's car.

Eiko undid the pearl buttons of her pink wool jacket and took Hiro onto her lap. “To the country,” she said. She busied herself arranging Hiro. His hand reached for the grey grosgrain band of his mother's felt hat. She tucked one of his hands beneath her arm. The other she put under the blue satin trim of his blanket. “We will be near the mountains,” she added.

“Father's mountains?” asked Michiko hopefully.

“He's in a different part of the Rockies,” was the response.

“Why are we going away?” Michiko asked.

“The city is too crowded,” her mother said quietly. “We will be vacationing in a farmhouse. The fresh air will do us good.”

Sadie laughed. “That's a good way to put it, Eiko,” she said. It looked as if Sadie hadn't followed her own good advice. She wore a light silk dress under a green duster coat and carried a matching purse. Her hat looked like a spring garden.

“Sshh,” Eiko said, putting a finger to her lips. “No more questions. The baby is going to sleep.”

Sadie looked at Geechan. His eyes were shut. “Which one?” she whispered and winked at Michiko.

This time Michiko put her finger to her lips. Her Aunt Sadie was fond of making fun of people, but Michiko didn't like it when it was Geechan.

She turned to watch the station pass. Crowds of Japanese women and children waited at different points along the tracks as their train lumbered by. It puzzled
her as to why so many Japanese people were here. For some reason it made her feel sad. She pressed her face to the glass but pulled back. Dead flies scattered the sill.

Michiko gave a great sigh. She wished they didn't have to take this vacation. She didn't want to go to a farmhouse in the mountains. She wanted to go to Japan instead. She wanted to see the places her father and Geechan talked about, the places where they were born.

The train picked up speed, past the tall grey buildings, then it moved into a shadowy forest. Huge black-spined firs towered over the tracks. Clouds of sumac peppered with seedpods flanked the rails. The train wound its way along the rim of a gorge, and Michiko stared down into a small canyon laced with tiny waterfalls. She felt as if she were travelling through her storybook. Sadie and her mother closed their eyes.

Feeling hungry, Michiko dragged the carpetbag out from under her seat and pushed the wide wooden handles apart. As she opened the clasp, she felt someone watching her.

A frail woman stood next to her sleeping mother. Her small arms stuck out of the short sleeves of her blouse. Several long white hairs escaped from the bun at the nape of her neck.

Michiko lowered her eyes. The woman's tiny sandals and ankle socks gave her little girl feet. She looked up just as the woman smiled, displaying missing teeth and black gums. With a crooked finger, she stroked Hiro's cheek. Then she gazed directly into the carpetbag.