“Look at the little darling!” cooed Mrs. Asaki, cradling Teinosuke in her arms. “Look, Yo-chan. This is your baby brother.”
They sat down to a simple meal of noodles and broth, garnished with nothing but seven-spice, chopped chives from their garden, and three slices each of hard-boiled egg. “There’s no meat,” said Mrs. Asaki. “I’m sorry…”
“It tastes fine,” her brother insisted. “It tastes like Japan.” His voice choked up a little. “It’s good to be back. It’s so good to be back.”
Mr. Asaki cleared his throat irritably. “You should have worn something else,” he said. “We don’t need a constant reminder of our humiliation.” Everyone looked at Mr. Kobayashi’s belted khaki uniform with its stiff standing collar.
“Yes, sir.” The young man gave a half bow of apology. “Of course.”
They lingered over tea in the parlor. Little Yoko retreated to a corner, where she played quietly with the flat Chinese marbles her uncle had brought her.
Masako, who had been napping in a nest of floor cushions, began to stir. “Here,” said Mrs. Asaki, handing Teinosuke to her sister-in-law. She hurried over to pick up the baby girl, who was parting her tiny mouth in a yawn. “Two babies in the house!” she marveled to the group at the table. “What good fortune!”
Teinosuke was all sharp angles, with none of Masako’s plumpness. His oblong skull was bald but for a layer of fuzz. It was like holding a tiny, querulous old man. Mrs. Kobayashi set him free on the tatami matting and he crawled slowly under the table, like a dying insect.
“How precious!” said Mrs. Asaki. “He’s crawling!” She bounced her daughter-to-be on her lap, and Masako gurgled with joy. Mrs. Kobayashi hated to admit it, but her sister-in-law had a knack with babies. Her own child wouldn’t even miss her when she was gone.
“This is a good cigarette,” said Mr. Asaki, exhaling slowly.
“Have another, sir,” said Mr. Kobayashi. The men inhaled with deep satisfaction as if, now that the war was over, the worst was behind them.
Mrs. Kobayashi felt hysteria rising up within her.
“Yo-chan,” she said quietly, “come sit at the table.” The child came willingly, clutching her marbles in one hand and dragging her floor cushion behind her with the other. She hesitated as she approached, as if sensing the force field of her mother’s emotions.
“Put the cushion here,” said Mrs. Kobayashi, patting the floor beside her.
While everyone continued chatting, she rested her hand on her daughter’s back where no one could see. She ran her hand up and down over the small shoulder blades. The child smiled up at her, with a soft look in her eyes that was exactly like Shohei’s.
Mrs. Kobayashi’s hysteria subsided a little. I can do this, she thought. I’m getting through it, one minute at a time. She forced Masako out of her mind. Over and over she stroked this small person beside her, the only person whom it was safe to love.
Afterward, she and her husband-to-be went for a short stroll to Umeya Shrine. They chatted pleasantly of China ’s history, of people they knew in common, of the crayfish she and Mrs. Asaki had caught in the Kamo River. At one point he cleared his throat. “I know I can’t fill my brother’s shoes,” he said. “But I’ll do my best for you and Yoko.”
“I’m in your debt,” she murmured demurely.
He said nothing about the child she was giving up. For this she was grateful. During their long marriage, it would never come up between them.
Growing up by the sea, Mrs. Kobayashi had heard tales of tsunami as tall as skyscrapers, looming over villages for several moments before crashing. Life’s destructive force, said the grownups with hushed reverence. So heartless, it’s majestic.
That night she lay upstairs in the Asaki house with a sleeping child on either side. There was a faint roaring in her ears. She thought of villagers looking up at a wall of water, a split second before their annihilation.
This new life ahead, this feudal arrangement straight out of history books, had been beyond her ability to imagine. But now, for the first time, she saw how it would be. It would be ordinary. That was the shock of it. They would eat noodles and play with babies and talk about the new restaurant on the west side of town. No one would acknowledge the brutality of it. No one would even notice.
How would she survive? She had no inner resources; she had been rich and pampered all her life. What defined her? Nothing but frivolous memories from her old life. Picnic parties in the mountains with friends from work…the first time Shohei had asked her to tea…one lovely evening when she had glimpsed a star through a hole in her oiled paper umbrella…little Yoko taking her first steps, in a pair of pink kidskin shoes.
Sometimes, if she remembered hard enough, the old romance and possibility and joy bubbled up in her once more like ginger ale.
If this feeling was all she had left, then she would curl her whole being around it. Like a barnacle, she would hold tight while the tsunami crashed over her. I will protect my core, she thought. I will not become a hard, bitter woman.
chapter 35
After that rainy-day incident, what was the right way to act? There was no rule of etiquette to follow. It was as if a large stone had dropped into their pond, and no one dared move until the ripples died down.
Mrs. Nishimura and Mrs. Kobayashi occasionally crossed paths at the open-air market. They paused for a brief chat, as usual. But they never lingered, and they never walked home together.
Mrs. Nishimura went about the busy life of a housewife. Each morning she woke at sunrise to prepare breakfast before her husband’s long train commute. Her breakfasts were less elaborate than those at the Kobayashi house, but as long as Mr. Nishimura had his miso soup and his bowl of rice, he was happy. His underlings, he told her, ate hurriedly prepared, overly sweet breakfasts like toast and jam. “How could something like that possibly hit the spot?” he said, shaking his head and taking a deep, long swallow of broth. Mrs. Nishimura was touched by his awkward gratitude.
Afterward she saw him off, standing by the outer gate just as her own mother had done decades ago. But Mrs. Nishimura, being of a different generation, gave a cheerful wave instead of a formal bow.
Then it was time to head indoors for the second breakfast shift. Mrs. Asaki and the girls were not picky eaters, so she served modern fare like butter and toast or healthy-if nontraditional-fresh vegetables such as tomatoes and lettuce. There was plenty of hot rice left in the cooker. And if the leftover miso soup was slightly bitter after a second heating, no one minded. In fact, her mother ate most of it. Although Mrs. Asaki gamely ate the same dishes as her grandchildren, she supplemented them with old-fashioned condiments like miso soup or pickled vegetables.
One morning, a week after the incident with Mrs. Kobayashi, the household was finishing breakfast. Mrs. Nishimura was already in the kitchen, packing the girls’ lunches for school. After this many years, she had it down to a science. Half of each oblong container was packed with rice, still warm from the cooker and topped with an umeboshi in the center (this combination was called the Japanese flag). The remaining space was filled with an assortment of okazu, or side dishes. Today they consisted of sweetened egg loaf left over from breakfast, miniature sausages, sliced green peppers, sweet kabocha pumpkin stewed in soy sauce (from yesterday’s dinner), a dollop of expensive mattake mushroom preserves purchased by Mrs. Asaki, and sliced oranges. Each item was separated by strips of jagged green plastic that resembled grass. A perfectly fine lunch, though nothing like the lunches the Kobayashi children used to bring to school. Mrs. Nishimura still remembered those: shredded meat glistening with mouthwatering glaze and sprinkled with sesame seeds; cabbage leaves shaved as fine as baby hairs; homemade Chinese steamed buns, each with a different filling.