The Favorites (8 page)

I
n
the parlor, next to the tokonoma alcove, a narrow storage recess ran horizontally along the wall. It had miniature sliding doors made of the same durable paper as the
fusuma
room dividers. This space had been designed to store seasonal hanging scrolls, but the Kobayashis used it for their photograph albums.

Five years ago Sarah had preferred the newer vinyl albums, filled with pictures of herself as a baby and a toddler. But ever since the talk about black-market rice and snakes and adoptions, she had become curious about the older albums at the back of the shelf. Those books were of better quality, covered with aged fabric that had faded to shades of brown and indigo. Their silk tassels, now rust colored, still had centers of bright purple.

Today she was leafing hurriedly through the “war and occupation” album. There weren’t many pictures from that period, barely enough to fill up the book. The photographs were tiny. Some were the size of playing cards and others even smaller, glued onto the black cardboard pages like stamps in a collection.

She was looking for a specific photograph, and here it was:
the only picture of Mr. Kobayashi’s former wife. It had been taken in their garden in Manchuria, a year before she contracted typhoid fever and died. She had a round, blank face and rosebud lips, exactly like a
kokeshi
doll, and she was so petite she made young Mr. Kobayashi look tall in contrast. The baby boy bundled in her arms would also contract the fever, but survive. After the war, Mr. Kobayashi would bring his sickly baby back to Japan and marry Sarah’s widowed grandmother. This baby was Sarah’s uncle Teinosuke.

She was looking for this picture because her uncle was coming for lunch today, and she had overheard her grandmother saying in wry tones that Teinosuke took after his mother. To the girl’s disappointment, the face on the page revealed no new clues to the woman’s personality. She scrutinized the picture, remembering Mrs. Asaki’s words at their last tea. She had always assumed this doll-like creature was a romantic lost love, a parallel to her grandmother’s Shohei. But in fact she had been second choice…just as her husband was now.

Sarah’s uncle lived almost two hours away in Osaka. He was the same age as Mrs. Nishimura, and he was a bachelor. More important, he was insignificant within the family. He was on the periphery of the women’s “outside” circle.

But none of this was outwardly evident. When he arrived, a heaping platter of his favorite food was awaiting him on the low dining table: fried pot stickers stuffed with pork, ginger, and garlic. This was accompanied by individual dipping bowls of soy sauce, vinegar, and hot chili oil. “Chili oil makes you sweat,” Mrs. Kobayashi had explained to Sarah as they set the table. “Sweating is very healthy in the summer.”

Teinosuke Kobayashi was noticeably shorter than his stepmother and stepsister. Either the babyhood fever had stunted his growth, or else he had inherited his natural mother’s petite
frame. Young Teinosuke had been afflicted, all throughout grade school, with thin, flyaway hair (“sort of brownish, like a Caucasian baby, very strange,” Mrs. Rexford said), which was surely a lingering effect of the fever. Perhaps the illness had also affected his ability to learn. His grades were poor, and he was the only child in their entire extended family who had not gone to college.

But now, in adulthood, he exuded good health. Peering up at the others from under a glossy shock of black hair, he tucked into the gyoza heartily, his Adam’s apple working up and down. He talked unendingly about business—he worked with insurance of some kind—in a loud, knowing voice.

“Aaa,”
replied his father, nodding and chuckling affably. “
Aaa…Aaa…
is that right.” But eventually the elder Mr. Kobayashi excused himself from the table and returned to his workshop. Over the years, his son’s academic and professional disappointments had cooled his interest. For Mr. Kobayashi, who had always lived in the shadow of his more accomplished brother, success was extremely important.

After Mr. Kobayashi’s departure, there was an awkward silence.

“Tei-kun,” said Mrs. Rexford. “Are you still playing pachinko as much as you used to?”

Her stepbrother replied, rather stiffly, that he was.

“Take me sometime,” she teased. “Come on!”

“No!” he said, scandalized. “You know nice women don’t go to pachinko parlors!”

“You could be my chaperone. It would be fun.”

“No, no,” he said, shaking his head grimly. “It wouldn’t be proper.” But exercising this masculine authority had revived his confidence; before long he was bragging again about business.

Long ago, Teinosuke Kobayashi had wielded great power
within the family. As a child he had been instinctively clever about leveraging his position as a sick, motherless boy. When his stepmother disciplined him he sought out his father and complained, knowing he would get full sympathy. For Mr. Kobayashi had finally realized that although his wife performed all her duties with conscientious effort, she was never going to love him. And he found little ways to punish her for it.

Teinosuke also had a champion in Mrs. Asaki. If he ran down the lane to tell on his stepmother, the older woman marched right over to the Kobayashi house to demand an explanation for the boy’s tears. In those days, despite the boundaries protecting her own adopted daughter, Mrs. Asaki had no qualms about meddling and keeping her sister-in-law in her place.

Yoko, several years older than her stepbrother, had watched all this and seethed. Knowing better than to confront Mrs. Asaki or her stepfather, she did all she could to make life easier for her mother. Her grades were impeccable, as was her conduct at home. She kept a sharp eye on Teinosuke. She itched to punish him in private, but that would have created even more trouble for her mother.

Sarah had little sense of how hard those years had been for her grandmother. But she did understand that time had brought about a gradual power shift. She felt great sympathy for her uncle. Apparently her mother did too; her stepbrother’s reduced position brought out a noblesse oblige that was so warm and natural, so heartfelt, that even Sarah fell under its spell. Of course Mrs. Rexford was capable of putting on an act. And yet—the girl was sure of it—there was genuine kindness there, a kindness that belied or at least balanced out her earlier disparaging remarks.

“Remember that time, Tei-kun,” Mrs. Rexford was saying, “when you ate three bowls of noodle soup at one sitting?
Aaa,
those were the days, weren’t they?”

“They were, Big Sister,” he said. Sarah was moved by his childish honorific.

After a leisurely lunch, Teinosuke took his leave. He ruffled Sarah’s hair before stepping down into the vestibule. He had always been a kind uncle.

Afterward, washing dishes in the kitchen, Mrs. Rexford gave a snort of laughter. “Good Lord!” she said. “Will he ever stop putting on airs.” But she didn’t seem bothered. In fact, she seemed quite cheerful.

“You know what?” she told her mother. “I think living in America has liberated me.”

“
Soh?
How’s that?”

“I didn’t feel any anger today,” Mrs. Rexford said. “Not even a twinge. It’s all gone.” She hummed a little tune as she rinsed a porcelain dipping bowl.

“You did seem to have a good time,” agreed Mrs. Kobayashi. She took the wet bowl from her daughter’s hand and wiped it with a dishcloth.

“That’s because I have perspective,” Mrs. Rexford boasted. “I can empathize with the little boy he used to be.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“This is so encouraging,” said Mrs. Rexford happily. “If it can happen with someone like Teinosuke, just think how nice it’s going to be when Tama comes to visit!”

T
ama
Kobayashi—now Mrs. Tama Izumi—was Mrs. Kobayashi’s final child, the only offspring of the second marriage. She lived in Tokyo with her husband and little boy. In a few days, they would be riding out on the bullet train for an extended visit.

“It’s good timing,” Mrs. Rexford told Sarah. “You can relax around your aunt Tama. She’s
real
family.” They exchanged a knowing glance.

Sarah couldn’t wait. Her aunt Tama had been pretty and fun-loving, with fashionable clothes and bright lipstick. The girl could remember a time when her aunt was still unmarried, when she used to live here at home. She was constantly going off on dates in her fiancé’s sports car instead of taking the streetcar like everyone else. Little Sarah, intoxicated by this whiff of an exciting outside world, had trailed her everywhere. She had fantasized about having her for a big sister. She had fantasized about having her for a mother.

In preparation for the Izumis’ visit, Mrs. Kobayashi and Mrs. Rexford began pulling down extra futons from the storage closet. They hung them out to air in the laundry area, which
was a tiny cement courtyard with a covered drain in the middle. One accessed it through the family room, stepping down from an inner veranda onto a neat row of red plastic utility slippers. This roofless space was rigged with washing lines for light items such as clothing, and sturdy bamboo poles for the heavier items. The strong summer sun flooded down, and the air quickly became suffused with the scent of warm cotton.

“Little Jun and his father can sleep in the receiving room,” panted Mrs. Kobayashi as the two women, working in unison, heaved a silk coverlet over a lowered bamboo pole. Its patterned side faced out. The red and blue carp were slightly faded from age and sun, but the silk had been protected from human skin by a wide rim of white cotton casing. “Tama can squeeze in with the two of you in the parlor.”

“Banzai!” cried Sarah happily. She was perched on the ledge of the inner veranda, swinging her bare legs and watching her elders as she nibbled on a snack of dried whitebait and cheese.

“So as I was saying”—Mrs. Rexford was also panting—“I was always so harsh to her and now I feel bad about it.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” said Mrs. Kobayashi. “You were only children.”

The women lifted the bamboo pole in unison. Raised arms trembling with effort, each fitted her end into the loop of twine hanging overhead. Then Mrs. Rexford said, “I have a confession to make. Remember that time Tama drank the entire bottle of rationed milk from the icebox?”

“I do. I had to lie and tell Father I’d mismanaged the household funds.
Aaa,
he was so angry…”

“Well,” said Mrs. Rexford, “I cornered Tama afterward. I was so mad I slapped her, right across the face.”

“Oh, Yo-chan! She was just a little girl!” Then after a pause, “What did she do?”

“She stood there and sniffled. I said, ‘Look what you’ve done! My mother’s getting yelled at, and it’s all because of you!’

“She looked ashamed, but she stuck out her chin and said, ‘She’s
my
mother too.’ I told her, ‘Then act like it!’”

Having finished with the futons, the two women climbed up onto the veranda and into the shade of the family room. Sinking down gratefully onto the floor cushions, they picked up round paper
uchiwa
and fanned the moisture from their faces.

Sarah followed them inside. “What’s for lunch?” she asked timidly. But the women were too engrossed to pay her any attention.

“But Tama never learned,” continued Mrs. Rexford. “Time would pass, then she’d do something else just as thoughtless.
That
was the problem.”

Mrs. Kobayashi nodded regretfully. They fanned themselves in silence.

Little Tama had grown up largely unaffected by family tensions. She had both of her natural parents and she knew nothing about her half sister’s adoption, at least until she was older. In truth she was a little self-centered. Mrs. Kobayashi, typical of postwar mothers, had raised her with unusual leniency, as if to atone for those hardships that had forced her older children into premature adulthood. Or maybe the girl was just born that way; someone had once remarked that she was, after all, Kenji Kobayashi’s daughter.

“But she was always a good girl at heart,” said Mrs. Rexford, “never sneaky or mean-spirited like Teinosuke. When I think of her following me around, wanting my approval no matter how much I scolded her…” She stopped, overcome with emotion.

“There, there,” soothed Mrs. Kobayashi. She reached over with the
uchiwa
and gently fanned her daughter’s face. “Forget
all that. You’re both grown women, and this is your chance to develop a true womanly friendship.
Ne?
”

Mrs. Rexford nodded.

“I know how much you wanted that with Masako,” said Mrs. Kobayashi.

Mrs. Rexford nodded again. It was a source of sorrow that Mrs. Nishimura, whom she romantically regarded as her “true” sister, never dropped her outside face in her presence—or in the presence of anyone else. “It’s so hard to
talk
to her,” Mrs. Rexford had lamented. “She won’t even gossip.”

“At least with Tama,” said Mrs. Kobayashi, “you have a chance.”

Real family, all staying in the same house! Even after her experience with the Asaki household, Sarah had romantic notions about large families. She liked the companionable lulls: she and her cousins often sat on the garden veranda, watching Mr. Kobayashi as he chain-smoked and stared off into space and sketched in hurried spurts. With the women’s occasional laughter in the background, the girls sat contentedly within the aromatic haze of his cigarette smoke, sucking on popsicles from the snack shop. Being on the periphery of adult focus was a new experience for Sarah. She liked it. It felt like a sign of tacit approval.

Neighbors, too, were family. There was always someone nearby to whom she could bow a greeting: housewives in the narrow lane, buying greens from the vendor’s cart; an old man wearing geta and watering the shrubs outside his slatted wooden gate. Even strangers, passing through on their way to somewhere else, seemed to know who Sarah was. Early on she had made the mistake of bowing to random people in the open-air market, assuming everyone knew her family. “Who were you
bowing to just now?” her mother or grandmother would ask, puzzled.

Best of all were the titles of familiarity. Friends of the family, shop clerks, even strangers who happened to drop handkerchiefs in the street were addressed as Auntie, or Big Brother, or Granny. To Sarah’s satisfaction, Momoko and Yashiko addressed her as Big Sister.

“Don’t you miss living here?” she once asked her mother. “Don’t you ever wish you’d married someone from Japan?”

“No,” said Mrs. Rexford. “And if I had, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Yes, I would! And I’d be completely Japanese, instead of just half.”

It wasn’t that Sarah had anything against Fielder’s Butte. She liked its austere beauty: miles of empty fields that, in summer, gave off an aroma like bran muffins; giant oak trees left over from Indian days; an industrial-sized sky of flat blue, blank except for the freewheeling hawk or the white trail of a plane. But thinking of it now gave her a forlorn feeling.

This, here, was the center of the world. The landscape confirmed it: hills of bright green rising up all around them, a lovely distraction to her unaccustomed eye. Sometimes in the evening, when she and her elders strolled home from the bathhouse in the gentle gray light of the narrow lanes, she looked up at the hills glowing in the last pink wash of sunset. In that light they loomed so close, so clear, she could make out individual trees packed tightly together like broccoli florets. “In ancient days,” her mother explained, “those hills kept our city safe from invading warrior clans. That’s why it was the perfect location for the royal court.” As they headed home, Sarah felt those hills shielding them from the huge sky that, in Fielder’s Butte, made the sunsets so lonely and stark.