The Favorites (16 page)

W
hen
Mrs. Nishimura gathered up her handbag from the telephone alcove, her hands were trembling. Her ears registered no sound, as if she were underwater.

What had she done? Who could have guessed that today, of all days, would mar the long tradition between the houses, so carefully and faithfully upheld over the years? And her gauche outburst was as distressing as the act itself. Over the phone! In between talk of light fixtures and fish! It was nothing like the secret fantasies of her childhood. She had pictured a formal, civilized exchange in a parlor, like the one with her adoptive mother. She had imagined herself speaking with dignity and (since this was fantasy) sharing her deepest feelings with eloquence. Instead she had struck and run, like an ill-mannered child.

Aaa,
she was nothing like her sister Yoko.

But somewhere in the back of her mind—behind this feeling of shame, behind the dread of facing Mrs. Kobayashi again—there was a curious sense of…not anticipation exactly, but wonder. She had always believed there was nothing new to discover about herself.

How long she stood there she didn’t know. Her words seemed to echo in the empty hall as if she had screamed them. She hoped her mother, upstairs taking a nap, hadn’t heard.

From force of habit, she headed into the kitchen.

She was immediately aware of a dark outline behind the frosted glass panels of the kitchen door. Someone was outside on the doorstep, holding a dark umbrella. As Mrs. Nishimura paused, the figure tapped gently on the glass.

It was Mrs. Kobayashi.

Never, in Mrs. Nishimura’s lifetime, had she come to the back door.

In the split second before hurrying to open it, Mrs. Nishimura felt a relief so great that her knees almost gave way. Only then did she realize she had been waiting for this her whole life.

Her mother had come. This was what mattered, whatever might happen in the next few minutes. Her child had needed her and she had come, at the risk of meeting Mrs. Asaki and putting herself in an impossible position.

Mrs. Nishimura rolled open the door, and her mother’s eyes met hers with an expression so tender and regretful she had to look away. She noticed Mrs. Kobayashi wore socks on her feet and plastic gardening slippers; she must have been in a big hurry.

Reaching out her free hand, Mrs. Kobayashi drew her daughter outside onto the doorstep. Mrs. Nishimura stepped into a pair of plastic sandals lined up outside. She rolled the door shut behind them; even in this charged atmosphere, they were aware of Mrs. Asaki’s presence.

They stood beneath the hanging eaves, which extended far enough to shield them from the rain. Mrs. Kobayashi closed her umbrella and turned to face her.

“Ma-chan,” she said.

The rain was steady, not so much a force but a slow, languid dripping. The scent of loam rose up from the earth, mingling with the clean, sharp smells of ozone and greenery. It occurred to Mrs. Nishimura that smells were just as heady as music.

“I did a terrible thing to you.” Her mother’s voice had a quiet fervor, the same fervor with which she sometimes talked about Yoko. It surprised Mrs. Nishimura that she, too, could merit the same passion.

“I had a choice to make,” Mrs. Kobayashi said. “I chose wrongly. I’ve regretted it all my life.”

Mrs. Nishimura said nothing. She could not.

Mrs. Kobayashi began to talk—about wartime, about the occupation. She spoke quietly and steadily, not requiring her daughter to answer.

She talked of watching her grow up over the years. “Sometimes, when you were a little girl,” she said, “I’d hear you running past the house and you’d be sobbing, you’d call out, ‘Mama,’ and it took everything I had to stay put while you ran home to somebody else…”

With one part of her brain Mrs. Nishimura was taking in every word, knowing she would sift and resift through this for years to come.

But now that the moment had come, she found she couldn’t respond. That’s right, she kept thinking, you chose wrongly. War or no war, no one made you do it. It was your own choice. For the second time today, she felt a rise of anger.

But it wasn’t the sudden, wildfire anger of before. A legitimate space had been cleared, permission had been given, and now it was widening out, claiming its rightful territory with a sureness that felt like luxury. Her mother’s gentle remorse incited it even more, like an old-fashioned housewife coaxing the hearth with a paper fan and a bamboo blowpipe.

“At the time, I thought it was the right thing to do,” Mrs. Kobayashi was saying. Mrs. Nishimura had occasionally wondered if there was a private story behind that official version. Did people really offer up their children because of altruism? But of course they did. The history of Japan was one long story of sacrifice for the common good. Mrs. Nishimura understood duty. But a tiny part of her, the selfish part left over from childhood, still clung to the irrational question: How could you give me up? There was simply no answer for a question like that.

“I’ve always wanted to talk to you about it,” Mrs. Kobayashi said. “All these years, I’ve wanted to ask your forgiveness.”

It was unfair. Mrs. Nishimura wasn’t the one who had chosen wrongly. But now, at the peak of her resentment, she had to give absolution. She couldn’t do it. She wasn’t ready.

And now the full extent of her loss washed over her, all the self-pity she had never allowed herself. Like a wave, it crested. Her windpipe squeezed shut. She felt her face contort in the moment before tears came.

“Ma-chan, Ma-chan.” Her mother sounded as if she, too, was crying. Mrs. Nishimura couldn’t see; her eyeglasses had fogged up. She pulled them off with one hand and wiped at her eyes with the other. She could smell her own tears, a scent as primordial as the wet earth and rain.

She felt her mother stroking her back over and over, her hand warm through the thin cotton of her blouse. The comfort of it made her feel like crying forever. But eventually her sobs subsided. They stood side by side, gazing out at the rain falling on the hydrangea bushes and the sodden black planks of the fence.

“The whole time I was pregnant with Yoko, I was terrified.” Mrs. Kobayashi’s voice was faraway and musing. “But the sec
ond time, when I knew I was pregnant with you, I wasn’t afraid at all. I remember saying to your father when we left the doctor’s office, ‘I’m so happy. I’m really looking forward to having this one.’”

Mrs. Nishimura would treasure these words for years to come.

T
hat
night, Mrs. Kobayashi had a recurring nightmare. She was running lost through empty streets, searching in vain for the bomb shelter where everyone else was hiding. The streets were dilapidated, with ghostly forms floating in and out of slatted wooden doorways.

Mr. Kobayashi shook her awake, and as she came to consciousness she heard her own high-pitched moaning. “You were dreaming,” he said.

For a long time afterward, she lay listening to the rain splash against the cement floor of the laundry area. She thought of other nightmares she’d had over the years. More than once she had dreamed Shohei was outside in the night, standing silent in the lane. She couldn’t see him but she knew, as one does in dreams, that he was wearing a white suit like a Cuban musician. In her dream she would scream out, “Take me with you! Please! Don’t leave me here!”

Many times she had woken in the dark and realized, as if her brain was in slow motion, that she had given her child away.

Nighttime reminded her that life, at its core, was fraught with danger.

As soon as Kenji Kobayashi had returned from Manchuria, he had come to the Asaki house with his baby boy. Mrs. Kobayashi avoided his eager, hopeful eyes. She had always known, in a vaguely scornful way, that he carried a secret torch for her. But she felt no respect or admiration. He was a charming ne’er-do-well, a wild card, which appealed to some women but not to her. And he was short. She would never feel safe and protected again, being married to a man no taller than herself.

“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.

A
fter
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.

Once, many years ago, Mrs. Nishimura had vowed that her
daughters, too, would have lunches like that. But she had no knack for the complex alchemy of flavors. She had to content herself with presentation, arranging the
okazu
with an eye for color and texture that rivaled her skill with cut flowers. The way she rationalized it, Mrs. Asaki’s expensive condiments made up for any shortfalls in flavor. As the widow of a government official, the old woman received a generous lifetime pension, most of which she spent on shopping sprees for the family. Their modest meals, budgeted on Mr. Nishimura’s salary, were mixed with disproportionately decadent treats such as liqueur-filled European chocolates or rustic tofu made from scratch by artisans.

More than once, in a moment of pettiness, Mrs. Nishimura had thought how much more helpful it would be if her mother just pitched in that extra money toward the household budget. Then she was ashamed of herself. They were already living in this house rent-free, and she knew how important it was for her mother to surprise and delight in her role as benefactor. Now that Mrs. Asaki was too tired for shopping sprees, she increasingly relied on money envelopes. Every so often she slipped one into someone’s hand, stuffed with bills earmarked for a specific indulgence: new bicycles for the girls or an afternoon of golf for the man of the house. But this was no longer done from a position of strength, and Mrs. Nishimura felt sad for her mother.

In the adjoining room, the girls had risen from the low table. She could hear them bustling about, shoving books into their schoolbags and throwing remarks back and forth. “Where’s my science report?” wailed Momoko. The girls’ voices grew loud and excited as they prepared to enter the real world.

Mrs. Asaki, still seated at the low table, was reprimanding someone about something. Mrs. Nishimura couldn’t make out the words, but she knew that tone of disapproval. Her heart sank. Why did her mother have to choose such inconvenient
times? As it was, the girls had a short fuse when it came to her constant meddling. It wasn’t such a problem with Yashiko, but there had been several skirmishes with Momoko. “Let it go,” Mrs. Nishimura once told her daughter in private. “She just wants to feel like she’s still relevant in your life. I know she’s controlling, but that’s just her way. She’s not the type to beg.”

“Why are
you
so protective of her feelings?” Momoko had asked. It was a peculiar question, so peculiar that Mrs. Nishimura knew her daughter was referring to the adoption. She had almost forgotten that her daughter knew. The girl had shown so little interest at the time—as Mrs. Rexford had said, a grandmother wasn’t the same thing as a mother. And when Yashiko was told, several years after that, she had been more concerned about her upcoming field trip.

Now Momoko’s question opened up a strange new dimension between mother and daughter.

Mrs. Nishimura did not say what she felt. Her daughter, at seventeen, might be old enough to know the facts, even shrewd enough, in some misguided way, to draw conclusions that made her feel protective of her mother. But she lacked the life experience to understand gray areas. She couldn’t put herself in her grandmother’s place and know what a mother might feel, year after year, when her only child didn’t cleave to her—
truly
cleave, like Mrs. Kobayashi and Mrs. Rexford. It was something Mrs. Nishimura could never make up to her adoptive mother, no matter how much she tried. This remorse, perhaps more than she realized, had shaped her own choices in life. She had persuaded her husband to keep living in this house. She had kept a slight emotional distance from her girls so they wouldn’t be burdened with a sense of obligation. The less she expected of them, the less chance she would suffer her mother’s fate. But none of this was Momoko’s business. Not yet.

“Because,” she had replied, “she’s my mother, and I honor her. What a question.”

Now Mrs. Nishimura slid the flat steel lunchboxes into their embroidered bags. Hoping to forestall any bickering, she hurried out to the informal dining area.

“Here you are,” she said a little breathlessly, holding out the boxes to the girls. “Go now, go. You’re going to be late.”

“Masako, take a look at this.” Mrs. Asaki’s face was grave with disapproval. She gestured to the girls’ buckled canvas bookbags, the wide straps of which were slung across their navy jacket uniforms. “The material is starting to fray. Girls, why can’t you be more careful with your possessions?”

“Everyone’s bags are like that, Grandma,” said Yashiko cheerfully.

“When I was a young woman,” Mrs. Asaki said, “we never left the house unless our
furoshiki
cloths were in perfect condition. No loose threads. No tiny rips. It was a point of honor.”

“It’s not so bad, Mother, really,” said Mrs. Nishimura gently. “People nowadays don’t hold schoolbags to the same high standard as
furoshiki.
Besides, it’s just not economical to keep replacing them.”

“If you’d come to me,” said Mrs. Asaki, glancing at Momoko, “I would have bought you as many bags as you needed.”

Momoko held her tongue.

In less than a year, the girl would be leaving home. How quickly the time had gone! Mrs. Nishimura wished her child’s last year could have been more carefree. It occurred to her that in all these years of keeping the peace, of avoiding conflict and assuaging her private guilt, she had never stood up for her daughters and her husband.

“Girls!” she cried. “You’ll be late for school! Now go!” The girls fled down the hallway, calling out a formal
“Itte kimasu!”
in farewell. Stepping out into the hallway, she sent them off with a wave and the formal response:
“Itte rasshai!”
A few minutes later the heavy outer door rattled open, then shut. And the large house was silent.

Mrs. Nishimura returned to the dining area, where her mother sat at the low table swallowing the last of her miso soup. Drained, she sank down onto a floor cushion. Drawing out a clean pair of chopsticks from the container on the table, she reached over in a gesture of companionship and picked an eggplant pickle from her mother’s condiment dish.

“They have a nice clean taste, don’t they,” said Mrs. Asaki. Mrs. Nishimura nodded in agreement. She munched silently.

Later today she would catch the bus for choir practice. Her heart lifted at the thought. She wished she could feel this same kind of lift at home. She thought of the afternoon with Mrs. Kobayashi, when deep, powerful emotions had risen to the surface. She wanted to feel that again…

But first there was something she had to do. “The girls are at such an awkward age,” she began.

“
Maa maa,
they’re fine children!” said her mother brightly.

“A really awkward age,” Mrs. Nishimura repeated gently. “They’re so combustible. They don’t mean to be, but…Sometimes they just need a few minutes to themselves. You know, to let the steam out.” Something in her voice must have alerted Mrs. Asaki, for she looked up with a wary expression.

Mrs. Nishimura charged on, her mouth dry. “It might be best,” she said, “if you stayed upstairs during certain periods, just when they’re most easily provoked…” She forced herself to hold her gaze. In her mother’s eyes was an odd expression: not sadness, not hurt, but the weary relief of someone who has fought hard and lost. That look, Mrs. Nishimura thought, would haunt her to her dying day.

“Like maybe…the half hour right after breakfast,” she continued, choking a little. “And the half hour…right when the girls come home from school. It might be easier on everybody.”

Mrs. Asaki did not argue. “
Soh,
perhaps that’s best,” she agreed crisply. She rose to her feet and headed down the hall to do the laundry. No one expected her to do housework, but the old woman liked to be useful. On sunny days she often worked outdoors in one of the utility gardens, crouching over a plastic basin and scrubbing at the girls’ canvas sneakers with a toothbrush.

Alone in her kitchen, Mrs. Nishimura began washing the breakfast dishes. It took several minutes for her mind to fully grasp what she had done. Tiny tremors began running along her spine. How had she found the courage? She had to turn off the tap and take several deep breaths before she could go on.