The Favorites (11 page)

I
n
the lull of late afternoon, Sarah knelt before the vanity mirror and practiced pressing her lips together the way her mother had done.
Don’t you dare use him to hurt my mother.
She felt a little thrill as her face, with its pointy Caucasian features, became transformed with authority and passion.

She was alone in the house, with nothing to do. The men had taken Jun to a baseball game. Her grandmother had gone to the open-air market at this uncharacteristically late hour to pick up something for dinner. “You mind the house,” she had told Sarah, “in case any of them come back.”

Mrs. Rexford and Mrs. Izumi had gone somewhere together. Wherever they were, Sarah knew, her mother would be treating her little sister with utmost tenderness. She knew this from experience; after a fight, her mother always channeled her heightened emotions into intimate revelations or optimistic lectures. Sarah never admitted it, but those winding-down sessions made her feel cleansed and very close to her mother.

She fiddled with the brushes on the vanity. Kneeling on the tatami floor, she slid open the drawer and rummaged halfheart
edly through its contents: Shiseido cosmetics, bathhouse tokens, an old-fashioned wooden ear cleaner.

For the first time she missed Momoko and Yashiko. She hadn’t seen much of them since the Izumis arrived. They were being kept at home, out of everyone’s way, for traditional women all understood the strain of hosting an in-law.

As matriarch of the Kobayashi clan, it was in Mrs. Asaki’s interest to support her sister-in-law. So the Asaki house was always open for company, as a sort of second home where the adults could go (although Mrs. Kobayashi never did) for a conversational change of pace. The children were encouraged to play there, and Jun visited often—he was fond of the snack tins under Mrs. Nishimura’s table.

Sarah thought back to those innocent hours she had spent playing at the Asaki house, safe from adult issues that didn’t concern her. Ever since she joined the ranks of her mother and grandmother, she had left behind that world of glowing shoji screens and warm tatami mats, the leaf-filtered light in the kitchen and crackers in tin boxes. And she couldn’t go back. She realized this with a twinge of sadness; it was like that magic land in Peter Pan, out of reach to children who had grown up. Not that anything was keeping her from going. But at this point it was too much trouble: thinking ahead to keep Momoko from being jealous, seeing her aunt Masako’s gentle face.

She thought of the times she had run freely to her aunt Tama as a child. “Where are you going?” she would say. “Take me with you.” She couldn’t imagine doing that now. It wouldn’t be right somehow, after the strolls she had taken with her mother—it would feel like a betrayal.

She glanced out through the open partitions at the laundry area, with its empty poles and lines. For the first time she noticed that summer had passed its peak; the sunlight had changed from
hazy white to deep gold, almost amber. The late afternoon sun angled down in dust-moted shafts, reminding Sarah of stained glass. Accustomed to California sun, she was strangely affected by this aged, regretful light of a foreign longitude.

The kitchen door rolled open. Mrs. Kobayashi called out, “
Tadaima!
I’m home!”

“Welcome back!” Sarah called. She could hear the icebox door opening and closing in the kitchen. This was comforting after the strange, sad light outside.

By the time Sarah descended into the kitchen, her grandmother was standing at the counter and unwrapping newspaper from an enormous bundle of garlic shoots. A plate of thinly sliced raw beef lay nearby, its dark red an appealing contrast to the green of the shoots. As always, her spirits lifted at the sight of food.

“Can I help, Oba-chan?” she asked. Helping with the cooking was normally her mother’s job, not hers. Since only two people could work comfortably in the kitchen at one time, the women took advantage of this legitimate excuse to hold hushed, private conversations. “Put on your apron, Yo-chan,” Sarah occasionally heard her grandmother say, as if her daughter were still a child. “Yo-chan, are you holding your knife right?” Both women seemed to enjoy this.

“
Maa,
that’s very kind,” Mrs. Kobayashi now said. “Why don’t you get me the
konnyaku
and the
fu
out of the icebox. But put on an apron first.”

Sarah took down one of the aprons hanging from a nail on the wooden post. She tied the strings behind her with quick, efficient jerks the way her mother always did. It was like stepping into her mother’s body, and suddenly she felt shy.

Sarah’s relationship with her grandmother wasn’t as personal as her relationship with her mother. Since the two adults were
so close, she was rarely alone with her grandmother. The girl loved her wholeheartedly but in the uncomplicated way of a child.

Emptying the gelatinous strands of
konnyaku
into a colander, she asked, “Did Mama used to cry like that when she was a girl?”

“No. Not at all. She was quiet…but you always sensed how protective she was, how strongly she felt things. I’m still surprised I gave birth to someone like that. Do you know the story of Benkei?”

Sarah nodded. Her mother had read her the story out of one of the books her grandmother had sent her. Benkei was a legendary vassal warrior, greatly feared for his brute strength and sword skills. He had earned a place in history for his remarkable allegiance to his lord, Yoshitsune. This allegiance had lasted right up to their deaths, when the two of them were cornered by enemies. Yoshitsune had died first, taking his own life. Benkei, mortally wounded from an arrow, stuck his sword into the ground and expired on it. From a distance his propped-up corpse seemed to be in a stance of readiness, so their foes were afraid to come any closer. “Even in death,” her mother had told her, “he protected his master. Nothing’s more admirable than that kind of loyalty.”

“There must have been a lot of Benkei in Mama,” said Sarah.

“Yes,” said Mrs. Kobayashi, “and it meant the world to me.” They paused while Sarah rinsed the
konnyaku
under the faucet and her grandmother chopped the chives with loud thuds of the knife against the cutting board.

“It was a hard time,” Mrs. Kobayashi finally said. “I’d lost my husband. I’d lost my newborn child. It felt like everyone was against me.”

“Except for Mama.”

“Except for your mama. Sometimes I used to go to the park where she was playing. And I’d beckon her over and slip a little something in her pocket. Like a bit of sweet potato, or a tiny rice ball with a pinch of umeboshi in the middle. The food was still rationed back then. Things were really tight.” She paused in her work, remembering.

“There just wasn’t enough,” she said, “for the other children.”

Perhaps to atone for today’s unpleasantness, or perhaps to distract the family from this evening’s O-bon foot traffic, Mrs. Kobayashi served sukiyaki for dinner. It was an odd choice. Sukiyaki was a winter dish, suggestive of old-world country folk huddled around a common pot. Setting it up required some effort. A gas hose had to be retrieved from storage. One end was attached to a wall outlet, the other end to a range built into the dining table (modern Japanese tables came equipped with such accessories). On this range, a shallow pan was kept simmering throughout the meal. They dropped in raw ingredients from a nearby platter, leaning over the steam to monitor for doneness before lifting it out into their private bowls.

“It’s kind of festive, cooking right at the table!” Sarah said.

“That’s why people eat sukiyaki at celebrations,” replied her mother.

“Let’s not worry about what’s seasonal,” Mrs. Kobayashi said to everyone at the dinner table. “With all of you living so far away, who knows when you’ll have another chance to taste your grandma’s sukiyaki?” Her husband gave a comical groan, fanning himself exaggeratedly. But he was quick to tuck in. The two men cracked one egg after another into their private dipping bowls. Little Jun, energized from his outing, recounted the baseball game in loud, happy detail.

“And then he hit a home run!” he said.
“Pow!”
He was wearing a new red baseball cap jammed on top of his old blue one. The men, too, seemed stimulated by their outing. They actually carried the conversation at the dinner table for a change, pausing every so often to wipe sweat from their faces with cotton handkerchiefs. Mrs. Kobayashi refilled their glasses with cold Kirin beer.

All of this, enhanced by the spectacle of sukiyaki bubbling on the table in the middle of summer, made for an unusually merry evening. Seven pairs of chopsticks dipped in and out of the pan like birds’ beaks, pulling out meat, onions, garlic shoots, tofu,
konnyaku
—all gleaming with fat and sugared soy sauce. Christianity was never mentioned. No one noticed the neighbors returning from graveyard duty, their footsteps slow and heavy on the gravel. By some magic force everyone’s tension had lifted, and the entire table seemed to float on a cloud of well-being.

As they ate, Sarah surreptitiously watched her mother and aunt. But they looked relaxed, even happy. They said little, laughing appreciatively at the men, who were joking about getting heatstroke at the dinner table. Mrs. Kobayashi pretended to be insulted, and the men grinned at her with their lean, handsome faces.

Mrs. Izumi lifted the teapot and refilled her big sister’s cup in an intimate gesture, accidentally spilling some drops in the process. Mrs. Rexford wiped them away with an ill-mannered swipe of her finger, glancing furtively at her mother as she did so. Mrs. Kobayashi didn’t notice. Both sisters giggled under their breath like naughty children.

Sarah felt sorry for her cousins, who were missing this dinner. Thinking of them reminded her of that strange regret she had felt this afternoon, when she knew she could never rejoin
their world. She wondered if her mother had also known this feeling.

It was a fleeting thought in an otherwise golden hour. But in years to come, it would sadden her to remember two grown sisters giggling behind their mother’s back like the partners in crime they had never been.

I
t
was a sunny afternoon well into spring. Cherry petals, crisscrossed with bicycle tracks, littered the Ueno lanes like old snow.

Mrs. Asaki had come home from shopping downtown, dragging her tired feet through the dirty petals. She tapped on the Kobayashis’ kitchen door in order to drop off a package of seasonal grass dumplings. There was no answer. Gingerly, she slid open the door—the short curtain wasn’t drawn, so someone had to be home—and heard a strange keening coming from the family room. Slipping off her shoes, she stepped up onto the tatami floor.

Mrs. Kobayashi, seated at the low table, looked up with bloodshot eyes.

“Yoko’s dead…,” she said.

“Hehh?”
Mrs. Asaki’s shopping bags, all five of them, hit the floor with a thud. She sank down beside her sister-in-law. “Yo-chan?
Dead?!?
”

“Sarah just telephoned.” Sarah was eighteen and in her first year of college. “Yo-chan and her husband were driving somewhere together, and…” Mrs. Kobayashi winced, as if talking hurt her.

“Was it an accident?”

“It was instantaneous…both of them.”

They continued to sit, at a loss for words.

It felt eerily similar to when Shohei had died in the war. Then, too, the news had come from afar. Like his daughter he had died in a strange land, suddenly and in his prime. Mrs. Asaki remembered young Mrs. Kobayashi saying, “I just got a telegram…,” with that same odd catch in her voice.

Mrs. Asaki’s grief for Shohei had been intense, for the siblings were close. After their mother died, she had cared for him like her own son.

Now she said helplessly, “It’s a terrible thing. A terrible thing.”

Mrs. Kobayashi nodded.

If only she would cry, thought Mrs. Asaki. In the old days, her sister-in-law had trusted her enough to cry in her presence. Together they had sobbed over Shohei’s death. It was the first time Mrs. Asaki had felt close to her. Until then, she had secretly resented this young woman who had captured her brother’s heart so easily and completely. She wasn’t proud of her feelings, and luckily Mrs. Kobayashi never suspected.

Mrs. Asaki’s dislike went deeper than just Shohei; she had felt it in her gut the first time they met. Her sister-to-be had worn a Western dress of sky blue, with a purple sash and a small bunch of violets pinned dashingly at the base of her V-neckline. She had an air—not arrogance so much as a kind of bright self-satisfaction, typical of girls who had been sheltered all their lives.

“What a fashionable dress,” Mrs. Asaki had said.

“Oh, it’s just cheap fabric…I’m embarrassed, seeing the beautiful kimonos here in Kyoto.” It was a perfectly correct response, but her expression belied the words.

Mrs. Asaki, confined to the Kyoto area all her life, had never
had met anyone like her. She had never visited a dance hall. She had never worked outside the home. Every morning she followed her husband out into the lane, where she sent him off to work with a deep formal bow. Every Monday, he discreetly slipped her an envelope containing the household allowance for the week.

For the first time, the older woman had a dim sense of what she had missed: an unfettered, independent youth in which she might have tried out her own powers. Her envy was like physical pain. This would have surprised her Ueno neighbors if they had known, for in their eyes Mrs. Asaki’s beauty surpassed anything the newcomer had to offer. Locals compared her to the popular actress Sono Fujimoto, for they both had a doe-eyed beauty and drooping distinction. She was admired by men and women for her graceful way of sashaying in a kimono that made her look liquid, almost boneless.

That was a long time ago.

“I think I’ll lie down for a bit,” Mrs. Kobayashi said.

“
Soh. Soh,
of course. Would you like me to pull down some coverlets for you?”

“That’s very kind, but there’s really no need.”

Reluctantly, Mrs. Asaki took her leave. She hurried home to break the news to her daughter, the shopping bags banging against her legs.

Only then did she wonder what this might do to the carefully calibrated balance between the two houses.

In the Ueno neighborhood it was often said that Mrs. Asaki and her daughter made a picture-perfect pair. “Never a cross word between them,
ne
…,” they said with wistful sighs. “So respectful of each other—a pleasure to see.” One housewife had remarked, “They’re so polite. You’d almost think they were in-
laws.” Only a careful observer would have noticed a certain thinness of flavor in their relationship, not unlike their cooking.

No one was more conscious of this than Mrs. Asaki herself.

How it started, she could not have said. She was better at acting than at reflecting. At any rate the process had been so gradual as to be invisible, like the growth of a child.

There was a time, decades ago, when Masako had been like any other child, with eyes only for her mother. Those early years still glowed in Mrs. Asaki’s memory for their simplicity, for their lack of the emotional ambivalence that would haunt her in later years. One of her favorite memories was the day she had taken little Masako to Umeya Shrine for her traditional Seven-Five-Three Blessing. She could still see it: a crowd of children aged seven, five, and three, dressed up in their best kimonos and tottering about in their shiny new slippers like bewildered little dolls. And among them was her precious Masako, the only girl to wear a tiny white fur wrapped around her neck over her pink silk kimono. Mrs. Asaki had sewn the entire outfit herself, sacrificing the last of her prewar finery.

And it had been worth it. “Look, Mama, I’m
pretty,
” little Masako had breathed, eyes shining as she reached up to pet the unaccustomed fur with the clumsy, reverent fingers of a five-year-old. And Mrs. Asaki had known a moment of keen joy.

That night at the Asaki house, dinner was subdued. Cooking was out of the question, so Mrs. Asaki phoned in a sushi order for both houses. The delivery boy had just come by on his bicycle, balancing on one hand a precariously high stack of lacquered wooden boxes. As usual, only the women and children sat at the low table. Mr. Nishimura didn’t come home until almost 9:00
P.M.,
a typical hour for a salaryman in middle management.

“I doubt if she’ll have any appetite,” said Mrs. Asaki. “But the sushi from Hideko is her favorite. If she can swallow even one or two bites, that’ll be better than nothing.”

There was a murmur of sympathetic agreement around the table. With guilty expressions, Momoko and Yashiko tried to eat more languidly. But it was hard, for sushi from Hideko was a rare and delectable treat.

“Probably Grandpa Kobayashi will make sure she eats,” said Momoko.

Mrs. Nishimura wasn’t eating much—just three pieces of sushi on a condiment plate—but that was normal. As a proper traditional wife, she ate just enough to tide her over until it was time to eat with her husband.

“I’ll go over first thing tomorrow,” Mrs. Nishimura said. Her eyelids were puffy. “She needs help in the kitchen, and the parlor has to be set up with the white cloth and everything, for when Sarah-chan brings home the ashes.”

She said this dispassionately but Mrs. Asaki, her antennae sharpened over the years, caught the hint of eagerness that still brought a bitter taste to her mouth. Their history was made up of such moments: her daughter irreproachable in her behavior, she jealous and wounded but unable to find fault. It was frustrating because on some deep, fundamental level, she knew she was being wronged.

“
Soh,
that’s a good idea.” What else could she say? With a tragedy like this, boundaries went out the window. She wished she could help Mrs. Kobayashi herself, but this was a job for a young, able-bodied woman.

“She could use the help,” Mrs. Asaki continued. “At least until her real family gets here.” As a subtle reminder, she put the faintest of emphasis on the word
real.

Mrs. Nishimura busied herself realigning the condiment
cruets in the center of the table: soy sauce, chili oil, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, sesame salt. After some time had passed she picked up the teapot—“Some more tea, Mother?”—and refilled her cup with a filial gesture. Something about the patient droop of her neck gave Mrs. Asaki a pang of remorse. She knew her daughter felt guilty, had always felt guilty, for not cleaving to her the way she should. To compensate, she treated her adopted mother with such kindness and politeness that it alienated them even more. There was nothing to be done for it. The heart wants what it wants. If circumstances were different, Mrs. Asaki would have sympathized with her dilemma.

She drank her tea. She was grateful, shudderingly grateful, that her own Masako was safe and alive. Even now she could hardly wrap her mind around this awful news. What irony: her own child was alive and Mrs. Kobayashi’s wasn’t. There was a story she had heard around the neighborhood: a man had donated a kidney to his sick brother, then died of complications while the sick brother went on to thrive with the kidney that wasn’t his.

Should the sick brother have given the kidney back?

No, she thought, biting into a slice of red tuna. It was rich and fatty on the tongue, the freshly ground wasabi warming her sinuses.

“Poor Sarah-chan,
ne
…,” Yashiko remarked to the table at large.

“
Soh,
poor Sarah-chan,” agreed her grandmother. “Think how lucky you are, both of you, that your mother’s right here beside you. It’s a sad thing indeed when a daughter takes her own mother for granted.”