The Street of a Thousand Blossoms

  She looked into the mirror and caught Haru’s eyes. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

  Her sister smiled. “Where else would I be on your wedding day?”

  Aki tried to smile. The words were a comfort, if only for a moment. She felt helpless among all the grandeur. After Aki’s hair was styled, Momoko-san, an older woman who specialized in preparing brides for the traditional wedding ceremony, arrived. She knelt in front of Aki and evenly applied a creamy white makeup all over her face, so that she appeared to be wearing a thin, white mask. Momoko-san then darkened her eyebrows and Aki felt like a ghost, with only her eyes and lips appearing natural. Just after, her lips were painted a bright red and she was reminded again of the photo of her mother as an apprentice geisha and just how much she resembled her.

  On a stand near a full-length mirror was Aki’s white silk wedding kimono with elaborate embroidered cranes stitched into the material. Underneath it, she’d have to wear several underrobes and another white kimono. This way of dressing carried on a tradition begun by the brides of the samurai. White also symbolized the beginning of her new life as Hiroshi’s wife and the end of her old life as Tanaka-san’s daughter. It was a complicated ritual, which she was just beginning to understand. Aki would be changing two more times, from her wedding kimono to an ornate red and gold flower-decorated robe, and finally, to a deep purple mixed-pattern kimono usually worn by a young, unmarried woman. Afterward, as a married woman, she would no longer be able to wear such a bright kimono. The idea of not being able to do something turned over in her mind. It was followed by a sudden, sharp pain that gripped at her stomach and made her hesitate. Aki quickly glanced into the mirror again, but Haru was no longer there.

  The Sakura Tree

  While Aki was being helped into her wedding kimono by Momoko-san, Haru slipped out to the courtyard for some fresh air. It was the first time she’d been alone since returning to Tokyo; she found the constant buzz of voices almost too much for her to bear. Each time Haru returned home from Nara, she noticed that even the air was different, heavier with fumes that made her head dizzy. Upon arriving home, the first thing she saw was the sakura tree her father had planted in front of the house, along with a few new shrubs by the front gate. It brought her a measure of calm to see them.

  Haru walked across the courtyard to the stable, knowing it was most likely empty, the wrestlers having been given the day off to attend Hiroshi’s wedding. She’d made the trip across the yard hundreds of times as a girl, but in this instance it felt strangely unfamiliar, as if she were crossing new territory. The wooden door creaked open and she had the impression of being young again, sneaking a peek at her father’s rikishi. Only this time, Haru was looking for a place to be alone for a few moments. She stepped into the practice room, the dirt floor soft against her wooden sandals. The room was dim, smelling of damp earth and sweat; the bold white line of the dohyo almost glowed. She walked to the edge of the circle and stopped. Ever since they were little, she and Aki were told repeatedly that girls were never to touch the dohyo. As an adult, she thought, If it’s so sacred, why can men touch it?

  Haru suddenly felt the weight of all the things she should and shouldn’t do upon her shoulders. During Aki’s engagement party in June, she had borne the whispers of women dressed in expensive kimonos, who openly wondered why Haru, the older daughter, wasn’t marrying first according to tradition. She felt their furtive glances when they thought she wasn’t looking and their false smiles as they bowed to her. She’d had enough of their narrow-minded, old-fashioned thinking and had only wanted to leave.

  Haru looked down at the simple round of dirt and felt a quick, sharp urge to step over the line and onto the sacred ground. After all, it wasn’t made of clay like the real tournament dohyo. She glanced around the dim room to make sure she was alone before her bare foot slipped out of her sandal and balanced just over the white line. In the next moment, Haru’s foot brushed and then rested on the cool dirt. Just as quickly, she pulled it back and into her sandal. Her heart raced as she stood perfectly still and waited for the roof to collapse or for the gods to strike her down, but neither happened. Haru turned around to see the practice room unchanged, even if something small and hard inside her had.

  It would always remain her secret, her first step toward an unknown direction, and Haru found solace in knowing that tomorrow she would be on the train back to her life in Nara. She couldn’t think beyond that. She closed her eyes for a moment and took several deep breaths until she thought she heard Aki calling for her. They were to leave for the Shinto shrine within the hour. Haru glanced at the silent room and then hurried back to the house to get dressed.

  Marriage

  Hiroshi stood next to Aki at the altar in the middle of the temple’s ceremony room. He wore a black silk kimono, the Matsumoto family crest of two pine trees emblazoned at five different areas in white. Under his kimono, he wore a hakama, a pin-striped pleated skirt. Aki resembled a beautiful light in all white. She kept her gaze lowered and glanced shyly up at him once before the ceremony started. When the priest began his chanting, the austere formality of the ceremony filled the clean, spare room. They stood before their family members, who sat in two rows to each side of them, facing each other. Hiroshi’s obaachan sat to his right, and next to her were Kenji and Mika-san, chanting silently along with the priest. He glimpsed Haru sitting next to Tanaka-sama on Aki’s side and caught her eye for just a moment before she looked away. After the purification ceremony, the priest called upon the gods to bless them, ending the ceremony with the san-san-kudo, the ritual of sharing sake. Hiroshi held the first of three flat cups and sipped from it three times, handing it to Aki, who took three sips from the same cup. This was repeated with the second and third cups, and then sake was offered to their families. Hiroshi thought of how similar these wedding rituals were to a sumo match, the preparation taking much longer than the ceremony itself.

  After the private ceremony, Yokozuna Takanoyama and his new bride, Aki-san, stood and smiled for a multitude of wedding photos, including the press waiting outside of the hotel. Their guests dined on a lavish eleven-course banquet, with each dish symbolically representing felicity, prosperity, and longevity. These delicacies included abalone, konbu, a fish with its head and tail turned up to form an eternal circle, clams whose two shells symbolized a couple, and lobster with its lucky red color. After dinner, they lit a candle at each table to symbolize their new life together, and Hiroshi hugged his obaachan and bowed low to his father-in-law, Tanaka-oyakata. At the end of the evening, Hiroshi and Aki bowed to their families and friends before they retired upstairs to an awaiting suite.

  The suite was large and inviting, with a balcony overlooking the lights of Tokyo from the sitting room. On the table were gifts, bottles of sake, champagne, and wine, bowls of rice crackers, edamame, and seaweed. In the bedroom, two large futons were laid out side by side on the tatami. The newly married couple stood silently on the balcony, breathing in the cool, fresh air, until Hiroshi excused himself to bathe. When he finished, he waited on the balcony for Aki to bathe.

  It felt as if words would be an intrusion. They’d said very little since coming up to the suite and moving silently into the bedroom. Hiroshi had spent so much of his life learning the detailed rituals of sumo, each step with its own meaning and purpose. Now, as he loosened the sash of Aki’s silk kimono and it slid away from her body like water, he felt as if the rules he’d learned would be of no help. She’d just finished bathing and he felt the heat of her skin against his own as they lay facing each other on the futon. He would always remember the softness of her skin and its pale, creamy color, not unlike the white of her wedding gown. She’d seen him near naked in his mawashi belt during practice and on the dohyo, but her body opened up like a flower to him as he moved toward her slowly, gently. She was so lovely, and his fingers traced the rise of her hip as she shivered under his touch. He slowly undid her hair, which spread across the pillow like black silk, the tips
still damp from her bath. He kissed her lightly and his fingers found the nape of her neck, caressing it slowly, sending a shudder through his own body. Hiroshi looked into her eyes and saw that she wasn’t afraid. Aki was waiting for him. She smiled and raised her hand to stroke his cheek as he pulled her toward him.

  Oshima

  It was December and cold as Haru packed quickly. Her small room looked as if a typhoon had blown through. She opened another drawer and took inventory. There was no need for a bathing suit in winter, even if Oshima was well known for its long stretches of sandy beach and summer tourists, but Haru folded it neatly into her bag anyway. They would be taking a train to Yokohama, and from there they’d catch the ferry to Oshima.

  Haru could hardly believe it when Professor Ito pulled her aside a few weeks ago and unexpectedly asked her to join his research group traveling to Izu Oshima, the closest of the seven volcanic islands known as the Izu Archipelago. They were to stay on Oshima for the weekend, collecting specimens on the less populated west side. She would return to Tokyo afterward for the New Year.

  The ferry only carried a handful of passengers, their research team of five, which included three fellow graduate students, Professor Ito, and herself. There was also a younger couple who kept to themselves and an older man who sat alone and read for the entire trip. It began as a calm day, cool and gray but mild. Toward the last hour of the trip, Haru left the small group and went upstairs to the top deck to watch the ocean. The ferry rose and fell against the waves, leaving a trail of milky froth behind. She felt as if she were moving on the water with nothing but the sky above and the sea below her.

  “Are you enjoying the ferry ride?” A voice rose above the hum of the ferry’s motor and the rush and splash of the water below.

  “Yes,” she said, at first quietly. Then she raised her voice when she saw it was Professor Ito. “Yes, I am,” she said, again.

  “I’ve taken this ferry many times, and still I enjoy it, provided the weather is agreeable like today.”

  Haru smiled. It was the first time they’d spoken of anything but plants or students. “Do you go to Oshima often?”

  The professor nodded. “Usually once a year. Ever since I was a graduate student like you, and then afterward when I began to teach. It’s being in the field that I love best. It breaks the monotony of the classroom.”

  The wind had started up, and Haru found it more difficult to keep her footing. “Hai,” she said. “It’s something I hope to do more of.”

  Professor Ito smiled. She thought he must be near forty, and age was just settling in nicely onto his face. At twenty-three, she was surprised at how easy it was to talk to him now that they were away from the university.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for you,” he said. “Perhaps we’ll go on another research trip together.”

  Haru blushed. “I would be honored,” she said.

  “See over there?” He squinted and pointed to the far distance.

  She saw the endless sea, a glassy mirror.

  “We may be too far away yet, but just keep focusing and it’ll eventually come into view.”

  “What am I looking for?”

  “You’ll see very soon.” He smiled.

  They stood on the deck in silence, lost in the lulling motion beneath their feet and the salty fish smell. The winds had picked up, blowing the strands of her hair away from her face. Haru felt like a young girl again, excited with anticipation. Her eyes watered. Then, as if time had stopped, she could just make out the vague outlines of something large and menacing in the distance, reaching upward toward the sky.

  “There it is,” Professor Ito said softly, almost lovingly, still pointing. “Right there in the center of Oshima is Mount Mihara. It’s still an active volcano that possesses a long and terrible history.”

  She shaded her eyes and looked hard to see the blurred lines of the volcano. “How so?”

  Professor Ito stared straight ahead. “Back in 1933, a young high school student committed suicide by leaping into the volcano. That same year, another one hundred and twenty-eight people jumped to their deaths. Can you imagine? Many thought it was Mihara that lured all those people to their deaths.”

  Haru shook her head and stared down into the water. She couldn’t imagine so many suicides. Lives swallowed by the dark shadow of a volcano. She wondered if they’d died from the fall, or if it was the heat that killed them first. Haru felt a chill as she recalled the bodies she’d seen right after the firestorm, charred black and stiff, a scream frozen onto their faces. They had had no choice, while others chose to jump into the smoldering lava, which burned hot white and didn’t leave a trace of anyone ever having been alive. “It’s such a tragedy,” she said, in a voice barely audible.

  The sea had turned choppy. The boat lurched and she grabbed on to the wet rail, her hand slipping as she fell toward Professor Ito. He raised his arms to catch her and pulled her against him, holding her tightly until the boat calmed again.

  “Perhaps we should go back downstairs,” he suggested, becoming more formal again.

  Haru nodded and followed the professor back down. From behind, she focused on his patch of thinning hair that scarcely hid the perfect O on the back of his head.

  They’d discreetly begun seeing each other when she returned to Nara after the New Year. The first time Professor Ito kissed her, he told her to call him by his given name, Ichiru. She whispered it once before he leaned forward and kissed her again.

  23

  Life Stories

  1957

  On most afternoons Akira Yoshiwara excused himself from the mask shop to take a long walk down by the river. He walked along the alleyways of Yanaka and cut across the park and through the wooded area to where the river narrowed and stilled. In another life, he might have ventured there for other purposes. Rumors were rampant that men met other men there in the dark of the woods, the silent trees masking their veiled lives.

  At forty-seven, Akira was there for other reasons. There were fewer people walking the dirt path and the trees muffled the noise from the city. Time seemed to pause. He could get closer to the river, take in the sounds and scents down by the water, the calm trickling, the faint breeze of dank earth on the warm, muggy summer afternoons, or the cold air of winter that whistled through the trees as the water rushed by like cracking ice. All of it soothed him, carried with its currents the memories of Aio and brought down his fever of restlessness. Like him, the river was full of secrets. It wasn’t that he didn’t cherish his work at the mask shop, or his time spent with Kenji. Unlike the complications he’d had with Emiko, Kenji was like a son and he felt closer to him and Mika than any of his own bloodline. Yet there was a part of him no one would ever know or understand. Sometimes Akira still thought of Sato, at other times of Emiko and Kiyo, wondering if life had been kind to them. But their faces had faded in the past few years like an old photo or a fairy tale he had heard a very long time ago. The memories came to him in bits and pieces but no longer as a whole.

  “It’s your turn to hide,” or “It’s your turn to seek,” he still occasionally heard Kiyo’s voice telling him. Akira didn’t hide or seek in the years since he’d returned to Yanaka. He simply returned to the masks.

  Akira walked slowly along the riverbank. It was a mild April and already turning to dusk. It was usually quiet this time of the day. He wandered along a path winding around the river’s edge, a section that remained untouched by the encroaching building and construction that had enveloped Tokyo since the occupation ended. On the other side of a stone walk, it sloped down to the water, a murky green in the afternoon light. He noticed everything, even the slimy moss that grew along the edge of the river like strands of a woman’s hair. If he closed his eyes and listened to the listless drift of the water, he might be in Aio again, sitting by a mountain stream created by the melting ice. Sometimes, as he watched the river flowing, he wondered what it would be like to move in the same quick, fluid motion, never setting down roots, never
staying in one place to develop attachments. Yet, Akira came to the river for exactly the opposite reason. He came to recapture his memories so he wouldn’t lose them all. He felt them return to him most intimately down by the river, as if they were ghosts that hovered just above the surface, inviting him in.

  Gifts for the Young

  Fumiko slowly lowered herself onto a cushion at the dining room table. Before she began to write, she stretched her fingers to loosen the dull ache in them that now plagued her almost continuously. She was seventy-five years old now, and arthritis made her once straight fingers look like the crooked roots of ginseng, the stubby knobs of fresh ginger root. It was increasingly difficult and painful to form her once fluid characters. Her calligraphy was something Fumiko had always taken great pride in, having won awards and ribbons when she was a little girl in Sapporo. Now, she could barely stand the sight of her shaky writing. But it was summer again and the warm weather soothed her joints, made her feel brave.

  Fumiko knew Yoshio would understand why her letters to him only came occasionally now. Who knew better how age stole away all the gifts given to the young? She smiled at the irony of her writing to him; if he were alive, his blindness would keep him from reading it. But wherever he was, writing was her way of communicating with him. Fumiko put down her pen. Her thoughts flowed too quickly and she couldn’t keep up. She flexed her hand and her fingers felt weak. She looked down at her shaky writing and frowned at the uneven lines of a child. She would certainly win the prize for the poorest calligraphy in the class now.