Sarah and her cousins had sprawled on the tatami floor, shrieking with laughter at Granny’s operatic performance. It was a bizarre anecdote. Neighbors here did not shout out to each other, or argue in public, or burst into song on balconies. Such activities were more in line with florid, excitable countries like Italy.
“Mommy did that, really?” Momoko gasped, and the image of gentle Mrs. Nishimura singing at the top of her voice made the girls burst anew into giggles. “She must have been really happy, to sing like that!” little Yashiko said.
Sarah turned off the shower and sat still, listening. This time, as an adult, she understood what she was hearing: a prayer, a pouring forth of something intense and mournful.
Now Pavarotti’s voice swelled in volume, reawakening her childhood remorse for her aunt. A random remark flashed through her mind: her mother (or grandmother) saying, “Let’s not mention this to Ma-chan. It’s just easier.” She was ashamed-partly on behalf of her mother and grandmother, but also for the eager way she had complied, proud of her place in their golden, laughter-filled circle.
Her remorse wasn’t just for her aunt. It was also for herself, for the change that had started when she hid the cream puffs behind her back. From that day on, she had followed the trajectory of that choice. Not that she regretted it. She had grabbed at life, as was her right; she had grabbed at a place in the sun. But she had always felt a vague regret for that side of herself she had left behind, that side akin to her aunt. Her memory of the winter day, when she and her aunt had held hands against the world, glowed with an innocent purity that seemed lost to her forever.
But with her mother gone, maybe things could be made right.
That day, for the first time, Sarah let go of a penance she had carried so long she had almost forgotten its weight. With a feeling of relief that was almost luxury, she felt herself relax into second place.
chapter 46
The radio was playing “Tea for Two” when Sarah emerged from behind the curtain. The informal eating area was fragrant with soy sauce and ginger, and a small plate of seasonal chestnut dumplings was waiting for her on the low table. In the kitchen, her aunt hummed along to the lively cha cha chas.
Taking off her apron, Mrs. Nishimura sat down at the low table to keep Sarah company as she ate the dumplings.
“Are these the tickets?” Sarah picked up the flowered envelope placed neatly beside her plate.
“Soh,” said Mrs. Nishimura.
Sarah peeked inside. The tickets, glossy and professional-looking, showed an unexpectedly high admission price. The title was printed in raised Chinese characters: “Songs That Got Us Through: A Wartime Retrospective.”
Mrs. Nishimura was eying Sarah’s untouched cup of tea. “Oh-do you not drink Japanese tea?” she asked.
“Of course I do!” Sarah felt a twinge of her old insecurity. “Auntie, don’t you remember?” She took a sip of the tea and, after a suitably appreciative silence, asked, “Are you a soprano?”
“No-I sing with a low voice,” her aunt replied. Mrs. Kobayashi would have given Sarah credit for an easy word like alto, considering it was a Western term to start with.
The large house was silent. The rice cooker bubbled in the kitchen.
“But your mother,” continued Mrs. Nishimura, “she used to sing with a high voice. A beautiful high voice. I can still remember her singing ‘Days of Yore’ at our middle school graduation.”
“Really? Tell me…” Now they were on secure ground. Sarah relaxed and listened with quiet pride. Even in death, her mother could fill up a conversational vacuum.
At one point she looked up and saw pity in the older woman’s eyes. It resonated sharply, even unpleasantly, for this was how she had always regarded her aunt. Now she realized, with dawning embarrassment, that her aunt was dwelling on her mother’s singing for no other reason but kindness.
“Auntie?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad you’re here for Grandma.” Sarah plunged awkwardly into the heart of the matter. “When she talks about you, her face lights up. She’s so happy. I’m glad, and I know Mama would be glad too.” Truthfully, she wasn’t completely glad. Not yet. It struck her that siblings everywhere must face such ambivalence, and she was thankful she had been spared this as a child.
“No one will ever be like your mother,” said Mrs. Nishimura. “But I’ll do my best to take care of your grandma while you’re away.” She refilled their teacups with a no-nonsense briskness that reminded Sarah, once again, of her own mother.
Later, sated with tea and dumplings, Sarah got up to leave. She had probably held up her aunt’s dinner preparations. Gathering up her bath bag, she maneuvered carefully around the low table so as not to poke a hole in the shoji panels behind her.
Her aunt walked her out.
“You must really love singing,” Sarah said as she followed her aunt down the hallway, past one fusuma panel after another.
“Aaa, I know,” said Mrs. Nishimura sorrowfully, as if admitting to a bad habit.
Sarah had a deep sense of futility. We’re family, she wanted to say. Don’t use such good manners.
They came out to the front gate. Darkness had fallen, though it was still early. The drizzle had stopped, and the air was sharp with the smell of wet pine. It was indeed warm for November; the typhoon in Hokkaido had altered the air pressure.
Sarah rolled open the slatted gate and paused on the stone step. A faint breeze wafted against her skin, still overheated from the bath.
Caught in the knobby branches of the Ichiyoshis’ pine tree, heavy with white light and almost touchable, was a full moon. “Oh, look!” Sarah said. “The moon.”
“Aaa, isn’t it pretty.”
They were silent awhile, looking up.
“I look at the moon a lot,” Mrs. Nishimura said, and a certain quality in her voice made Sarah take notice. “Like this, with the branches silhouetted on it. In traditional art, you know, the moon’s never bare. It’s always half-hidden behind branches or clouds.” Sarah knew the art to which she was referring. She, too, had been affected by those old Japanese tableaus, by the sorrowful beauty of a shining thing glimpsed, only partially, through a layer of impediments.
Halfway down the lane, she looked back. Her aunt was standing by the gate as she had since Sarah’s childhood, waiting to return her wave.
chapter 47
Mrs. Nishimura’s concert took place on a still, overcast Sunday afternoon. Sarah and her grandmother took a taxi to the matinee. Mr. Nishimura was working and Yashiko, having already attended the opening concert, had somewhere else to be. Mrs. Asaki was too old for these kinds of outings.
They sat quietly while the seats filled up around them. The orchestra made discordant notes as it warmed up. The audience was mostly middle-aged and older since the concert was a retrospective, held in honor of a songwriter who had written many of the classic tunes of the postwar period. War nostalgia was popular now. There was always something on television about a restaurant serving some wartime dish or a middle-aged person being tearfully reunited with a childhood friend from the occupation era. Sarah, who remembered how fondly her mother used to say “our generation, growing up after the war,” understood this need to look back.
She wondered what her mother would have thought of this state-of-the-art auditorium. She could picture her alert eyes looking about, taking in the high acoustical ceilings, the discreet spotlights built into the walls. “They didn’t spare any expense, did they,” she would have said, “but I still liked the small, dark building from my childhood.”
Not so long ago Sarah would have shared this thought with her grandmother, tossing out her mother’s name as if she were still one of them. But it felt unnatural now, even forced. She was beginning to like having her mother to herself, like a private talisman. Her grandmother had her talisman too, and the two versions would become less and less alike as the years wore on.