The Language Inside (10 page)

I treat it like an assignment

that I want to do well

and add an extra page

for her grandparents

or cousins in Tohoku

but I miss just being with Madoka

with Madoka I could always talk

                                        or not talk

either way she understood

like before we left Japan

when Madoka and I went to the beach

to swim before dinner

it wasn’t very clean

never is late August

but Madoka’s head bobbed on the waves

the cliffs rose in the distance

and above them, nearly not there

the faint gray stamp of Mount Fuji

when a plastic bag

turned into a jellyfish

we scrambled out, showered

then walked to the end of the beach

where the windsurfers go in

and where the rocks of an ancient

artificial island

surface at low tide

we waded through shallows

over rippled sand

staring at those rocks

heaped hundreds of years ago

to make the safe harbor

we’d studied in school

and as we stared at that history

which I’d come to think of as mine

Madoka said softly

amerika-jin ni nacchau
—

               you’ll turn into an American

I
am
an American
I said

but inside you’re Japanese
Madoka said

using the word
nakami
—filling

for inside

I laughed

said
well, that won’t change

good
Madoka said

and don’t start talking all loud and obnoxious

or eating too much

I won’t!
I said

don’t change
she said

then I noticed

her chin trembling

we wandered back from the sandbar

and when we reached dry beach

she stopped

remember when we first went up to Miyagi

after the tsunami?

I nodded

and we first looked into Jiichan

and Baachan’s house?

I nodded

I didn’t think I could do it

I thought I’d made a mistake

going there so soon after

and with my aunt still missing

but you just grabbed one of the shovels

handed me a bag and started in on the mud

bag by bag,
you said

you’d read that on someone’s blog

that’s how to get it done

and you were right, bag by bag

she looked at me sideways

then turned back to the waves

they’ll be waiting for you up there, you know

all of my relatives

I whispered

it might be a year

sick at the thought

I could be away that long

or longer

she nodded

that’s okay

they’ll still be waiting

her eyes glistened

and I knew that it wasn’t so much for our parting

as for all that had happened this year

all we’d seen together

               smashed cars

               fish in trees

               sad eyes of people

               and debris we’d bagged and added

               to heaps upon heaps of debris

               in an endless stretch of ruined towns

I stood with her on the wet sand

this friend I’d walked to elementary and

middle school with

               took ballet with

                         played volleyball with

this friend whose grandmother’s arms

               we’d held as we searched the rubble

                         of her missing daughter-in-law’s home

we didn’t need words

we just inhaled and exhaled

side by side

watching the waves

until she said

we’ll weigh you

before and after

what?

she smirked

to see if you get fat

she was good at that

reading the air

saying the right thing

at the right moment

moving us along

back to joking

I gave her a shove

we walked up the shore

unlocked our bicycles

and rode back to her house

to eat our last two-family meal together—

for how long?
I knew we all wondered

at this school in Massachusetts

I listen to clips of conversations

move from class to class

biology to art to English to Chinese

wondering who of these 1,200 students I should talk to

and how I can begin conversations

or try to make friends

with my filling

so different from theirs

I don’t know when to say what

I don’t know if something’s funny or not

I don’t get sarcasm

layered over sarcasm

and jokes made by

unjoking faces

I know how to read silence in Japan

I can read the air in Japan

but I don’t have a clue

how to read the air here