“If you think it’s for the best,” I finally managed to say.
I could see my father relax. “Stephen, perhaps you would like to come to Kobe for the O-bon Festival? It would be a nice change for you.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I think Matsu mentioned a celebration here in the village,” I lied. I didn’t want him to see how I felt. I looked down and began to unbutton my shirt. “I think I’ll go for a swim. Do you want to come?”
My father smiled. “No, you run along, I’ll watch you from here.”
JUNE 29, 1938
My father was right. The weather has changed dramatically in the past two weeks since his visit. We’ve had what Matsu calls “The Baiu” or “Plum Rains” which are said to last exactly six weeks. While sometimes there are downpours, more often there are sunny days mixed in with days of misty drizzle that hang on, leaving everything damp and mildewy. In Hong Kong, I’m used to summers where I could actually see tears trickling down the walls from the humidity. The plum rains are an almost refreshing change from the endless blue skies we’ve had.
This morning when I went out to the garden, a cloud of mist had descended upon it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful. I didn’t notice Matsu already at work at the far end of the garden until he suddenly stood up and began walking out of the mist in my direction. “What’s wrong?” he said, “you look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
I’ve tried to capture this ghostly beauty on canvas, but like anything too beautiful, it becomes hard to recreate its reality. There’s something about being too perfect, that evenness which at times appears stiff, almost boring. I finally gave up after several tries.
JULY 5, 1938
I’ve spent a great deal of time down at the beach, which has been relatively empty because of the unexpected rains. I swim in the warm mist, and sometimes I stay submerged under the water when it begins to rain, watching the drops dance on the surface like fingers touching skin.
I saw Keiko once in the village when I went in with Matsu. She was with Mika and only glanced quickly in my direction, bowing just enough to give respect. Mika did the same before she pulled her sister off in another direction. But, unlike our other chance meetings, I could see that there was something in Keiko’s eyes that had changed. She stood in the thick mist, her hair damp against her forehead with some secret knowledge as to who I was. She had watched me sleep, maybe even understood the fact that I was dreaming of being with her. There was something intimate between us now. I could feel it pull us closer, away from all the others even as I watched her turn and walk away from me.
JULY 9, 1938
This morning Matsu told me the story of a small village in the mountains where the plum rains never cease. Year-round the heavy mist lies over this village, never lifting for a moment to allow the villagers time to see the blue sky, or breathe in fresh, dry air. When I asked him why they would stay in a village that never saw the sun, Matsu raised his head and smiled. “Because they are honored the plum rains have chosen their village to stay with,” he answered. “They feel bad luck will befall them if the mist should rise. Bad spirits will find their way to the village.”
I walked outside to find the garden still covered in thick mist. I found myself startled by strange sounds coming from nowhere, shadows moving without faces, spirits trying to find their way. But after so many weeks of it, I’m beginning to feel suffocated by the rains, by the thought that it will never lift and I’ll never feel the sun again.
JULY 16, 1938
The plum rains have suddenly stopped. I woke up to find the sky a soft, pale blue, which also means that the summer season in Tarumi has officially begun. By early morning there were voices and footsteps of children and their parents making their way down the road to the beach. What was once my sanctuary has become a place I purposely avoid. Families lie side by side under colorful umbrellas on the beach, trying to keep out of one another’s way. It’s almost comical. Occasionally I see a girl who reminds me of Pie, and I can’t help but watch her frolic on the beach from a distance. Then almost in the same instant, I realize that Pie must have grown a head in the past year, that perhaps she has changed more considerably than I can imagine. I wonder if I’ll recognize her when I get home? These thoughts make me quickly turn away from the child on the beach, taking refuge in Matsu’s garden where the sweet, summer blooms of deutzia and crepe myrtle soothe my fears.
I was in the garden this afternoon when Matsu came back, mumbling about all the people in his way as he walked past me. “Half of them don’t know if they’re coming or going,” he said. Then he stopped momentarily to hand me a blue envelope which was addressed to me from Pie.
Dear Big Brother,
Just a short letter to let you know how terrible I feel that we aren’t coming to visit you in Tarumi. Mah-mee broke the news to me last night, and I admit I didn’t take it very well. In fact, I threw a tantrum that makes me almost embarrassed to think about now. It was finally Ching who dragged me to my room, telling me Mah-mee didn’t need that from me now. “What about me?” I asked. “You have more than you know,” Ching answered. It was then that I almost wanted to tell her about my work at the Red Cross, but I thought better of Mah-mee finding out so I remained quiet. I do feel ashamed of myself for acting like a child, but first our Christmas holidays were cancelled, and now our summer vacation. I really wanted to see you. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask. After all, it’s almost a year since you left.
Sometimes I wonder if you look different? I bet you’re still as handsome as ever. The girls at Lingnan must really miss you. Lots of them have come home from school for the summer. A few of them have been brave enough to come to the house asking about you, especially Sheila Wu, who has come by twice. Even if I’m not crazy about her, she has guts. Unfortunately, I still look the same, homely as ever with this short hair that Mah-mee feels is less trouble than long. It does stay out of my way when I’m rolling bandages, so I don’t complain too much.
I hope everything is all right with you. I really wanted to see this village Yamaguchi that you’ve written about. I might have even been of some help. But now that I won’t be seeing you this summer, I feel it’s too long and hot. Even Anne and Henry refuse to come home. They would rather stay in Macao, so Mah-mee has hinted we might be going there.
I have to go now, Ching is waiting for me to go to the market with her. I’ll write again soon. I miss you.
Love,
Penelope (Pie)
JULY 25, 1938
This afternoon the crowds were so noisy, I gave up trying to paint and walked toward the woods. It was significantly cooler under the shady pines. I wandered through the shadows thinking of how Sachi had hidden under a thick pile of leaves and pine needles, frightened and all alone until Matsu found her. As I stood there, lost in my own reverie, I heard the crackling sound of leaves and looked up to see Keiko in the near distance. She walked slowly, her head bowed in thought. My heart began beating as I waited for her to move toward me. I didn’t want to frighten her so I waited quietly until the scent of her jasmine perfume reached me first.
“Keiko-san, I said, stepping forward.
Keiko looked up, startled. “Stephen-san, what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to get away from the crowds.”
“So did I,” she smiled.
We spent the next hour walking through the woods, speaking in low tones until we both fell into a comfortable silence. The air was warm and sweet. When I reached over and took her hand in mine, Keiko didn’t resist. It wasn’t until we reached the main road that she reluctantly let go of my hand and slowly slipped away from me.
AUGUST 8, 1938
The days have been hot and slow. I haven’t seen Keiko again. I’ve tried to keep myself busy by painting or taking long walks to avoid the crowds. Then after dinner this evening, Matsu came into my room carrying two short-handled nets. “Come along,” he said, “and wear something you don’t mind getting wet.”
By the time I had changed, I found Matsu waiting for me in the garden carrying an oil lamp, two unlit torches, a wooden bucket, and the nets. I took the torches and followed him out onto the road. It was dusk, just before night and our shadowy figures in the gray haze seemed unreal. We turned toward the road to Yamaguchi and walked in silence. The sound of crickets filled the warm night, interrupted only by my own voice asking, “Where are we going?”
“Not far,” Matsu answered. He turned off the road and onto a narrow trail which led through the trees. He stopped a moment and lit the lamp, illuminating the dark path in front of us. The deeper we walked, the cooler it became, the smell of dank earth and eucalyptus growing stronger. After a while, we came to a cove surrounded by trees and rocks.
“Here we are,” Matsu said. He lifted the lamp so I could get a better look.
The light set the dark green water aglow. I stepped back when I saw something leap from the water and fall back in again. “What’s that?” I asked.
Matsu laughed. “Tomorrow’s dinner,” he said, as he set down the lamp. He slipped off his sandals, rolled up his pant legs, then proceeded to light a torch. He handed one to me and lit the other. Carrying his torch and one of the nets, Matsu began to walk into the water. As the glare of his torch illuminated the water, I could see silvery-white flashes leaping up all around him. He swung his net in midair, quickly collecting a number of shrimp as big as my fist.
I picked up the other net and stepped into the water, swinging my torch slowly from side to side, ignoring the sucking pull of the cool mud around my feet. It wasn’t long before I felt the shrimp scratching against my legs, leaping up, and splashing all around me. I quickly raised my net, and let them catch themselves one after another as they jumped toward me. By the time I turned back toward Matsu, he was emptying his catch into the wooden bucket filled with water. I could hear the dull scratching of the shrimp on top still jumping, squirming wildly with their last breath.
AUGUST 16, 1938
I hadn’t lied to my father after all. Matsu had plans for the O-bon Festival and asked if I would like to join him. I said yes, even before I found out that Fumiko, Matsu’s older sister, was returning to Tarumi from Tokyo. Her imminent visit lifted our spirits considerably. Something almost boyish suddenly emerged in Matsu as the days grew closer to the celebration. Not only was it a day to honor the dead, it was a homecoming, a celebration of “furusato,” one’s birthplace and spiritual home. People born and raised in Tarumi would return yearly for the O-bon Festival. After a trip to the Buddhist Temple to visit the graves of their ancestors, there would be food and dancing in the village to entertain the returned spirits.
On the day Fumiko was to arrive, I walked to Tarumi with Matsu and waited anxiously with him at the train station. It wasn’t just that I was curious to see another member of his family; it somehow still surprised me that Matsu really was part of a family. He seemed to be on his own so much of the time, I’d forgotten that he was once someone’s son and still someone’s brother.
The train station was already crowded. The summer visitors were much different from those during the rest of the year. Many women dressed in Western-style clothing held an air of sophisticated boredom at the slow, lazy pace of Tarumi. After almost a year here, I’d grown used to the village life, and sometimes I wondered if I’d ever be able to return to the fast pace of Hong Kong.
We waited beside a group of locals who anticipated relatives home for the holidays. More people pushed their way onto the wooden platform as time went by, until you could hardly move and the hum of voices grew increasingly loud. But painfully obvious to me once again was how the women and children outnumbered the men. The sparse group of men who smoked and milled around the station were well past the fighting age. It still bothered me, as if I were supposed to be somewhere else but had somehow missed the train.
Matsu glanced at the clock, appearing more and more anxious. He wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. And though he was dressed in a worn, dark-blue kimono, I noticed he was cleanly shaven and his kimono freshly pressed. Suddenly, we heard a low rumbling, and in the near distance we could see a flood of smoke as the train screeched, moving in slow motion as it approached the station. The crowd seemed to move in one breath, pushing forward even though there was no place to go.
When the train came to a full stop, Matsu told me to wait for him as he inched up toward the doors. It seemed to take forever for the first passenger to step down. I stood back, trying to follow Matsu above the sea of heads, but he had disappeared into the crowd.
Voices filled the air with greetings.
“Tadaima, I’m back,” someone said.
“Okaeri naisai,” another answered, welcoming him home.
I watched the homecomings, and wondered how it would feel to wait for my family to come off the train. There would be the usual nervousness in the pit of my stomach, the anxiousness of time moving too slowly. If things had gone as planned, I would be greeting them all now, but because of my father’s indiscretion and the Japanese advancements in China, everything had vanished into the air. A sensation of homesickness swept through me as I watched strange faces and bodies disembark, looking for some familiarity among them. I was staring off in a different direction when I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned around to see Matsu and his sister, Fumiko.
“He’s daydreaming again,” Matsu said, laughing.
Fumiko smiled and bowed. The top of her gray head bent toward me and I could faintly smell narcissus. I bowed back and when we both stood erect, she was shorter than I imagined. The thickness of age showed on her body, and like Matsu’s, there was a certain strength in it. But it was Fumiko’s face that captured my attention. It was one I would have loved to paint. She wasn’t beautiful, not in the way that Tomoko must have been, nor did she have the roughness of Matsu. Her attraction wasn’t in the form of perfect features, but from the deep wrinkles, age spots, and eyes that have seen much of what life has to offer. Fumiko had a face that had been enriched through time.
“I’m very happy to meet you,” I bowed again.
“You are just as Matsu described you,” she said, looking toward him.
“And how did he describe me?” I asked, speaking louder, above the noise of the crowd.
“That you looked just like your oj-san,” she said, as she raised, then lowered her voice.
Fumiko insisted on making lunch when we returned to the house. I couldn’t get over how easily she had stepped into our lives, settling in like another summer flower in the garden. We sat around the wooden table in the kitchen as Matsu directed her from his stool. As always, he felt uncomfortable when he had nothing to do.
“You must know by now, Stephen-san, that Matsu cannot sit still. Even as a young boy, he had to be doing something.”
“You sure it isn’t Tomoko you’re talking about?” Matsu asked. He stood up and helped her place a pot of water on the stove.
“Both of you,” Fumiko said.
I listened, thinking how it was the first time I had heard Matsu speak of Tomoko as if she were alive. And suddenly, it was as if the ghost of her filled the room with us. Matsu became young again with his older sister chiding him.
“It wasn’t easy living with you two,” he teased.
Fumiko dropped thick udon noodles into the pot, making sure they were separated and wouldn’t stick together as they cooked. “I suppose so,” she said, “but then, you didn’t pay any attention to us anyway!”
Matsu sat back down and began to peel a peach, anything to keep his hands busy. “I couldn’t understand either of you then,” he said.
Fumiko stopped what she was doing and turned around. “I don’t think I did either,” she said. “If I had, I might have been more understanding.”
For a moment, I thought I should get up and leave, that their conversation should belong just to the two of them, but it was Matsu who suddenly cleared his throat, placed both of his hands squarely on the table, and pushed himsel
f up. He mumbled something about the garden, left the peeled peach on the wooden table, and was just as quickly gone from the kitchen.
“It’s Matsu’s way,” Fumiko said softly, as she watched her brother leave. She turned back and stirred the noodles. “He always has had difficulties speaking of Tomoko, even after all these years.
“Were you still here when Tomoko …”
“Killed herself?” she asked, turning toward me.
I nodded.
“I was five years older than Tomoko, and had already been married. I had moved with my husband to Tokyo just six months before. I always thought she would join me there one day. Tomoko was always a dreamer, she never had her feet on the ground.” Fumiko shook her head. “It was such a tragedy, because she was a beautiful girl, so full of life. I remember the day I received the telegram telling me of her death. I thought it was a big mistake. I told my husband, so he wired back only to receive another telegram confirming Tomoko’s suicide. I sometimes dream of her as a grown woman, still beautiful and living happily. But then I wake up. And after so many years, I still return every year to honor her spirit, hoping that she has found some peace in the other world, which she couldn’t find here.”
“How was Matsu?” I asked.
Fumiko rinsed and drained the noodles. She then gently dropped the steaming bundle into another pot of boiling broth. “He was always quiet and hardworking. Did you know he was the one to find Tomoko?” she asked, not waiting for an answer. “During her last days,” Fumiko continued, “my mother said Tomoko was closest to Matsu. It seemed so ironic, since before then, she would have little to do with him. I sometimes wonder if I could in some way have helped Tomoko through her despair.”