“Oh, please!” Mrs. Rexford protested, laughing. She dismissed the compliment with a languid wave of her hand, as she had been doing all morning. But this woman’s bluntness caused a frisson of awkwardness to pass between mother and daughter. For Sarah knew what no one, not even her grandmother, fully understood: the truth of how things were in America.
“Is it true you once beat up a bully?” asked the second customer, a vacant-looking young woman in her twenties.
“Oh yes!” said the old woman. “That’s a true story. I know, because it was my very own boy that was being picked on.”
“Once a success, always a success,” chimed in the poultry vendor, who had come over with some fresh boxes from the back. “You’ve done us proud.” The little group beamed at Mrs. Rexford, their eyes shiny with approval.
On that note, they headed home. They passed a small tea shop, the last outpost before the street turned residential. Inside the display window was an assortment of skewered summer dumplings arranged on lacquered trays.
Sarah glanced at her mother. There was a pleased flush on Mrs. Rexford’s cheeks, a glint in her eye, as if she had just come away from a party held in her honor. She caught her daughter’s eye, then looked away.
“I guess the shopping took a little longer than usual,” she said. She said this with a sheepish kind of dignity, and Sarah felt a rush of pity. Or maybe it was guilt: she, with her petty teenage cruelties, had been responsible for many of her mother’s difficulties in America.
“Did it?” Sarah said gently. “I didn’t notice.” They walked on in silence.
The last time she had felt this sort of pain for her mother-the kind that made her stomach feel sick-had been almost a year ago. Mrs. Rexford had made German coleslaw for Sarah to bring to her school potluck: an authentic recipe with caraway seeds and vinegar. Hardly anyone at school had touched it, preferring the more familiar mayonnaise-covered potato salad. On her way home, Sarah had dumped the uneaten remains in the grass. Her mother, greeting her at the door, had seen the empty serving dish and cried, “Why, they ate it all!” and her happy expression had haunted Sarah for days.
What did it matter, she now asked herself fiercely, if her mother wasn’t a queen bee on both continents? How many people were that lucky?
Sarah herself had never been a queen bee anywhere. But these days her status was rising. The neighbors’ admiration and affection for her mother flowed over onto her with little distinction between them. Even in her own family, Sarah belonged-if only partially-to her grandmother’s inner circle, for no other reason than lineage.
Even though she knew she was merely basking in her mother’s glory, the effect was heady. It was like the time when she was a little girl and her grandfather had carried her on his feet while dancing a waltz. In that moment she had understood, for the first time, how it felt to move through space with elegance and authority. “Soh soh, that’s right,” her grandfather had chuckled. “Soh soh, see? Your body knows it.”
Lately there were moments when Sarah found herself gliding through daily life with uncharacteristic confidence and entitlement, just like her mother. It was surprising how easy it was, how natural and right it felt. During such moments she felt a glimmer of hope that her true personality had been in hiding all these years, just as her mother’s had been, and the whole world was opening up before her.
chapter 10
They were halfway home when they met Mrs. Nishimura coming from the opposite direction. She held a parasol of pale blue linen in one hand and a woven straw basket in the other. The three stopped in pleased recognition. “You both look so nice!” Mrs. Nishimura said.
“So do you, Auntie,” said Sarah. Her aunt wore soft pink lipstick and a sundress of the same general shade as her parasol. Under the blue-tinted shade her face looked delicate, almost translucent.
“Ma-chan!” exclaimed Mrs. Rexford, her eyes still animated from the marketplace encounters. “Listen: go to Hachi-ya as soon as you get there. They’re having a sale on prayer incense-the good kind. And it’s going fast.”
“Really? Good thing you told me. We’re almost out.”
As they stood chatting in the street, Sarah became aware of a problem. Inside her string bag, clearly visible if anyone glanced down, was a box of cream puffs. It had been laid right on top so as not to get squashed, and it was wrapped in the distinctive blue paper of Ushigome Confectionery.
The problem consisted of several parts. On a simple level, Mrs. Rexford hadn’t bought enough to share with the Asaki household. If her aunt knew about the cream puffs, she and the girls might expect to receive some that evening.
On a more complex level, Ushigome Confectionery was far more expensive than the store where they had bought the Nishimuras’ cake on the first day. No expense was being spared for the Rexfords’ visit-the best cuts of meat, the most expensive fish, gourmet-quality desserts. Mrs. Nishimura, who was Mrs. Kobayashi’s daughter too, had never had any such fuss made over her. Of course there were logical reasons for this. But there was a fundamental inequality here, one that mustn’t be flaunted. Imitating the sleight of hand she had observed in her elders, Sarah casually shifted the basket behind her back.
Her mother shot her a look of approval.
That glance, coming on the heels of Sarah’s remorse for her mother, triggered in her a burst of happiness.
Later, she would look back on this moment as one of the turning points of the summer. For it was the first time she had actively colluded against her aunt. Even in her happiness she was aware of crossing an invisible line of allegiance, leaving her auntie on the other side.
The lane that passed through the weavers’ neighborhood was narrower than the lanes at home and covered with asphalt instead of loose gravel. Although seemingly deserted, it resounded with the gat-tan, gat-tan of wooden looms from the houses on either side. These were the poorer dwellings, lacking the buffer of gateways or garden entrances. They were packed so closely together that they gave the impression of being one continuous building, broken up only by individual roofs.
When Sarah and her mother passed the open windows, many of which were lightly barred with old-fashioned bamboo, the general clatter resolved itself into individual rhythms. In one house, it was slow and uneven. In the next house, the pace was fast and furious; someone was probably speeding through an unpatterned section. This lane was extremely narrow, almost claustrophobic with so much noise and so many miniature potted plants lined beside each door. The two of them, walking abreast, took up its entire width.
Then Sarah felt her mother’s hand slip into hers.
She stared straight ahead, unable to look. Her mother’s hand was warm and slightly calloused, and it held hers with the close, familiar grip she remembered from childhood. Sarah thought of the woman in the shrine, singing to her toddler in that tender voice. A strange burning started in her eyes, a slow treacherous swell in her throat. She widened her eyes so that no tears would spill.
They walked hand in hand through the cacophony of the looms. A straggle of wild grass, still lush from the rainy season, had pushed up through a crack in the asphalt. Its detail refracted sharp and clear through the moisture in her eyes.
“This little lane,” said her mother, “is the best barometer of Japan ’s economy. I tell you, it’s so accurate you don’t even need a newspaper.” She said this nonchalantly, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
“Ng,” said Sarah.
“Think about it,” Mrs. Rexford continued. “When women have extra spending money, what’s the first thing they do? They show off to their neighbors. They attend expensive tea ceremonies. They send their daughters for lessons in koto or classical dance. And what do all these activities require? That’s right, kimonos and sashes. And who weaves the silk? People like these.”