“So this noise means Japan ’s really prosperous right now?” Sarah thought of the bells attached to the vendors’ money bags: the sound of prosperous commerce.
“Soh. The stock market and the looms move together. Every time. Remember that.”
Noon was approaching, and it was hotter than when they had first set out. Their clasped hands became damp with perspiration. Even Sarah’s bare arms felt moist. But she preferred this wet heat to the dry desert air of Fielder’s Butte, where the harsh, undiluted rays burned the skin. She felt loose and open to the world.
The heat had caused one of the houses to leave its sliding door slightly open, in hopes of catching a breeze. From within, mixed with the looms’ clatter, came a television’s tinny sounds of applause and merriment. Above the tiled roofs white clouds were shining, like explosions of giant popcorn. Happiness, like those clouds, hung just within their reach.
chapter 11
“Don’t forget,” announced Mrs. Kobayashi, descending into the kitchen. “Granny Asaki’s coming over after lunch to pay her respects to the altar.”
“I’ll put some new flowers in the altar vase,” said Mrs. Rexford. She stepped up into the dining room with a tray of freshly filled condiment bowls. “What do you think, Sarah-chan?” she said to her daughter, who was setting the low table for lunch. “Red camellias? Lilies are too tall. Or maybe a branch from the yuzu tree?”
Chan was an affectionate diminutive paired with children’s names, a word with no real equivalent in English. Hearing this endearment on her mother’s lips, after all the years of grammatically correct English, made Sarah absurdly happy. Suddenly shy, she avoided looking at her mother.
“Yuzu sounds nice,” she replied nonchalantly. “The baby fruits are so cute.”
“That’s what we’ll do then,” said her mother, unloading the tiny bowls for Sarah to arrange.
It was two days since they had held hands. A certain awkwardness still hung over them, like that of sweethearts after a first kiss. More than once Sarah had caught her mother watching her with an eager, open look.
Today Mrs. Rexford was in a playful mood. “Mommy,” she called down to Mrs. Kobayashi, “can’t Sarah and I have a little snack before lunch? We’re hungry. Please, pleeeze?”
Mrs. Kobayashi climbed up into the room with a shallow wooden vat of steaming rice. “Kora, what a lazy, spoiled child I’ve got!” she lamented. She shook her head with mock despair at the sight of her grown daughter lolling at the low table, sneaking a bite from one of the condiment bowls. “There’s a plate of sticky-bean cakes in the cabinet,” she said, relenting, “but you’ll just have to wait!”
Mrs. Rexford then turned to her daughter, who was watching the adults’ silliness with a look of wary uncertainty. “Let’s you and I raid the cabinet,” she whispered loudly, “when your grandma’s not looking.” Sarah’s eyes took on the look of a dazzled schoolgirl. Unable to come up with a response, she merely giggled at her mother.
“You two are hopeless,” Mrs. Kobayashi declared, descending the wooden step into the kitchen.
After lunch, Sarah carried the finished yuzu arrangement into the family room. The household altar stood atop a dresser. It was a black lacquered box, with two doors that opened out like a dollhouse. Inside, on shelves, were tablets that looked like miniature headstones, each bearing the name of a deceased member of the Kobayashi line. Some of these tablets were so old, no one knew anything about them. On the bottom shelf were a small white candle, a sand-filled ceramic bowl studded with green incense sticks, a set of prayer beads, and a miniature inverted gong resting on a silk cushion. There was a doll-sized cup for water and a doll-sized cup for rice. Each morning, when Mrs. Kobayashi cooked a fresh batch of rice, she saved the first scoop for the altar-or more precisely for her first husband. Sarah was often awakened by the chinnn of the gong-surprisingly resonant for such a small piece of cast iron-and the muttered sounds of her grandmother praying.
She placed the vase beside the miniature gong, then returned to the kitchen. Her mother was squeezing out a dishcloth and hanging it over a bamboo rod sticking out from the wall.
“Would you mind taking these flowers over to your auntie?” Mrs. Rexford nodded toward a plastic bucket in the kitchen vestibule. It was filled with yellow lilies, picked earlier that day from the garden.
“Wait,” said her grandmother, who was bending over the icebox. “Let me wrap them up first.”
“No, I’ll do that. Stay there.” Mrs. Rexford bounded up the wooden step into the dining room. “I’ll go find some newspaper.”
Carrying the armful of lilies-its scent redolent of wet newsprint, freshly cut stems, and spicy blooms-Sarah headed toward the Asaki house.
The Asaki property was large enough to have several gardens. There was a formal one in the back and another one in the front, and two narrow utilitarian gardens on either side. Sarah took the left-hand path, which led to the kitchen entrance. The air was heavy with the scent of hot flagstones and the mingled smells of foliage opening their pores to the sun. She brushed past a wall of hydrangea bushes that exuded palpable moisture, making the surrounding air almost too thick to breathe.
Her aunt stood framed in the kitchen window, washing dishes. The kitchen entrance was flanked by neatly tended rows of mitsuba, shingiku, and komatsuna. Mrs. Nishimura plucked these tender greens each morning for her family’s miso soup, and often she sent her girls to the Kobayashi house with extras.
“Good afternoon!” Sarah called out.
Her aunt looked up with a welcoming smile, then came to meet her at the door. The kitchen was laced with the sweet, meaty smell of shiitake mushrooms cooked in soy sauce, and the tang of vinegared rice. They must have had chirashizushi for lunch, Sarah thought. “How are you, Auntie,” she said, presenting the newspaper cone with both hands. “They sent you these.”
“Maa, how lovely!” Mrs. Nishimura reached for the flowers with hands still covered in wet rubber gloves. “How well they’re growing this year!” She held the bouquet away from her at arm’s length, as if planning an ikebana arrangement in her mind. Her face, alight with pleasure and gratitude, filled Sarah with sudden shame.
Ever since the cream puff incident had ensured her place in her mother and grandmother’s inner circle, she was aware of taking her aunt’s rightful place.
All through her childhood Sarah had believed adults were immune to certain types of pain, just as lobsters (according to her grandmother) were incapable of feeling boiling water. That was because adults had perspective. They understood why things had to happen; they didn’t take it personally the way children did. This belief had consoled her when she fought with her mother. Regarding her aunt’s adoption, she had assumed that a grown woman would be mature enough to understand the situation.
But recently she had begun to question this. She sometimes imagined herself as her aunt, living just a few houses away and watching her real mother dote on the daughter she had chosen to keep. How would she feel, living so close but unable to rummage for sticky-bean cakes in the Kobayashis’ cupboard, or even drop by unannounced for a cup of tea? She didn’t think she could bear it. It was a wonder that her aunt had, all these years. It was a wonder that everyone involved could go about their daily lives with such equanimity.
All of this stirred within her as she watched her aunt’s glowing face. “Tell them I said thank you!” Mrs. Nishimura was saying.
Sarah felt oddly like crying. “I have to go,” she mumbled. It was a relief to turn away. As she hurried past the hydrangea bushes she remembered seeing her own mother rush off this way after delivering something to the Asaki house. For the first time, she understood the contrition behind the two women’s painstaking complicity. For their happiness, like hers, had come at the cost of someone else.