The Street of a Thousand Blossoms

“Maybe it was his time,” Kenji whispered.

  He wasn’t prepared when Mika glared up at him with an angry look he’d never seen before. “What time? He wasn’t given any time!” She pulled away, her voice hard and final.

  Kenji knew she was right, but it made him feel better to think otherwise. There were no guarantees in life. Wasn’t everyone given only a limited time on this earth? Like his parents? Like his ojiichan? But in his heart, he couldn’t understand the dictates of any god who would take a baby away from his parents so soon. And he couldn’t imagine how Hiroshi must feel, all the lost moments with his son. There was so little he could do to ease his brother’s pain. For the rest of his life, Hiroshi would wear grief like a scar, not unlike the one that marked his forehead; stricken and furious, helpless to save his child no matter how strong he was. Kenji remembered them as little boys, his brother the strong one, rock solid like the earth, while he was a leaf that could be blown away in the wind. Only Hiroshi protected him from nature’s forces. Now, he would do the same for his brother; open his arms wide to protect him from the coming winds.

  By the time Kenji reached the cemetery, the world around him was steeped in gray shadows. The white marble of Takashi’s headstone stood out like a beacon. Around it were the neatly arranged food offerings that he knew Aki and Hiroshi must have left earlier. He bowed to his nephew, before he knelt to rearrange the offerings, placing them to one side. From the package he carried, Kenji pulled out the brightly painted wooden truck and placed it next to Takashi’s headstone.

  Direction

  The knock on her office door startled Haru. She didn’t expect any students and hoped for some quiet time to grade papers and study for her own final exams. It was hard to believe she would have her graduate degree in June, only three months away. Haru had no idea what she’d do afterward. Since the miscarriage she’d had difficulty concentrating. Now, the sudden interruption irritated her. She cleared her throat and said abruptly, “Hai, come in,” without looking up from the paper she was correcting. The door whining open was another irritant she’d have to take care of.

  “Haru-san, I hope I’m not disturbing you?”

  She looked up at the sound of his voice, a knot instantly forming in the middle of her stomach, not knowing what might have brought him to Nara. “Hiroshi-san,” she said, surprised. She quickly stood. Then, “Is it Aki?” The loss of Takashi last year was devastating. Haru spent the weeks after his death taking care of her sister, who had retreated inward again. Haru eventually returned to Nara drained—grief a weight she could no longer carry, not for Aki, not for Takashi, and especially not for herself. She had hoped her work and teaching would provide distraction, but since she’d returned, even that didn’t help.

  He bowed. “Aki-chan is as well as can be,” he said, trying to put her at ease.

  “My father?”

  “Tanaka-oyakata is fine.” He bowed again. “I’m sorry to arrive unannounced. I’m on my way to Osaka to meet with some sponsors before the basho there, and thought of stopping in Nara to see you.”

  Haru never imagined seeing Hiroshi in her office at the university. He filled the already small, overflowing space that she shared with another lecturer with his sheer size, with the flowery scent of bintsuke, with his deep, steady voice. He was dressed elegantly in a dark kimono, standing awkwardly before her. There had to be something terribly wrong to bring him to Nara. “Is it Aki-chan?” she asked again.

  He nodded and swallowed. “Since Takashi’s death, she barely says a word. She hardly eats and sleeps very little,” he said, his gaze turned downward, staring at the scuffed wood floor. “I’m afraid she’s drifting into her own world. I’m at a loss as to what to do.”

  He appeared tired and defeated. There were dark bags under his eyes and he’d lost weight. She knew through her father that he’d returned to sumo and that things were still difficult with Aki. Haru sat back down in her chair. “What can I do?” she asked, more to herself than to Hiroshi.

  Hiroshi sat in the chair across from her. “Haru-san, you’re the one person Aki-chan has always felt the closest to. She’s the most comfortable with you. I see it every time you return to Tokyo. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think she needed you now.” He paused, took a breath, and the chair squeaked when he leaned back against it.

  It was a kind of curse, she thought, but wiped it quickly from her mind. “Are you asking me to return to Tokyo?”

  Hiroshi paused. “For just a short time, until Aki-chan is better.”

  Haru looked down at her hands, feeling a tingling at her fingertips as they lay on top of the papers she’d been correcting. She turned and gazed out the window for a moment, out at the willow tree that she loved, already missing the sight of it. Tiny buds were just balancing on its limbs. She’d loved Nara from the moment she arrived and once dreamt of spending her life here. But after the miscarriage, everything had changed. Haru was no longer sure what she wanted. Even with an opening in the department, she hesitated applying for it. She’d go home to Tokyo in June after she finished her degree, and return to Nara when Aki was feeling better. It would give her time to decide what direction she wanted to take. She swallowed her thoughts and turned back to Hiroshi. “I won’t be able to return until the term is over in June.”

  He stood up and bowed low to her. “I will always be indebted to you, Haru-san.”

  “Aki’s my sister,” Haru said, looking up at him.

  He smiled sadly.

  She stood up from her desk. “Shall we take a walk? Perhaps I can finally show you our famous park.”

  “It’s a beautiful day for a walk,” he said, smiling. “My train for Osaka doesn’t leave for another few hours.”

  It made Haru happy to think she’d be in the park with Hiroshi. The great sumo champion would step into her realm and see how small they really were in the natural world. It would, at the very least, give him a glimpse into her life in Nara. Haru stood and steadied herself. She stacked the papers she was grading and grabbed her sweater. “Shall we go?” she said.

  Fever

  Over the years, Akira Yoshiwara had found ways to compensate for having only one hand. A vise secured on the table now helped him to keep the masks steady and in place, so that Akira could even chisel out some of the features one-handed. It meant more to him this second time around. He became so adept that it was even difficult for the actor Otomo Matsui to tell the difference between a new mask and an old one Yoshiwara had made.

  Just after his fiftieth birthday a fever stirred inside of Akira Yoshiwara, unexplained warmth that made him feel as if his skin were too hot to touch. All through the week, he felt his temperature rise most keenly in the early afternoons as he worked on the masks. By evening, the October days would grow cool and windy. The fever ebbed and flowed and he knew he was ill, but dusted the notion off like wood dust during the moments he felt better. All his life, Akira had rarely been sick, even as a boy in Yokohama. He hadn’t felt this way since Emiko cared for him after the loss of his hand. A fever had taken over, and in his delirium, Akira forgot everything and only recalled his sense of release. Now, the thought calmed him. He wavered, and leaned against the worktable before he reached for a bottle of whiskey he kept atop the shelf. The sharp sting of liquid felt almost cool going down his throat, quenching the growing heat of his body. Akira looked up at the shelves to see the masks watching him and felt strangely at ease.

  By the end of the week when Akira tried to get out of bed his body refused. The fever flushed through him as he lay back onto his damp sheets. Akira drifted in and out of sleep until he heard the door of the shop unlock downstairs. He trusted that Kenji would eventually come up to see why he wasn’t already downstairs with the door unlocked and the tea made. Finally, he heard Kenji’s footsteps, light and tentative on the stairs as they approached. He felt his fever rising, his body growing heavy. Akira didn’t wait for Kenji to knock but called out for him to come in, though he wasn’t sure if he’d spoken the words aloud
before he closed his eyes and slept.

  Days later when his fever broke, Kenji helped Akira outside to sit in the warm sun. His body felt weak, cleansed by the fever. “What did I say to you when you found me delirious with the fever?” he asked.

  Kenji smiled. “That it was the second time you were being saved.”

  The Lake

  Hiroshi watched Aki slowly become herself again with Haru back in Tokyo. Her voice grew stronger and she spoke more with each day, as if she were slowly awakening from a deep sleep. Listening to Haru’s and Aki’s voices reminded Hiroshi of his obaachan and her friend Ayako-san together when he was a boy. It was the same sweet, carefree tone that he always loved and envied. He paused at the kitchen doorway and listened to their melodious words ring through the air like music, never once like the gruff staccato words and grunts that men often used to address each other.

  He studied the similarities and differences between the sisters; although they had the same inflections when they spoke, the slightly taller Haru, with the always inquisitive eyes, who never cared if her skin was tinged darker by the outdoors, was the opposite of the more fragile, black-pearl-eyed, creamy-skinned Aki, animated again in her sister’s company. Occasionally, Aki would still lapse into staring vacantly out the window, or down at the floor, lost in her own world. Moments later she would return as if she’d just stepped out. Hiroshi wondered where she’d gone and what she was thinking, but held his breath until she was herself again.

  By the end of July, Hiroshi returned to Tokyo after the Nagoya Basho. He’d been away since early July. A heat wave simmered throughout most of Japan and the air remained so hot and stagnant that each breath was a gift. Even a thin cotton yukata robe felt heavy against his body. As he watched Haru and Aki try to remain comfortable in the sweltering heat, Hiroshi made arrangements to take them and his obaachan to Hakone, where the cooler mountain air of Lake Ashino and the hot springs had long been a favorite spot. But only he and Aki finally boarded the train to Hakone. His obaachan hadn’t wanted to travel in the heat, while Haru chose to return to Nara for a visit instead.

  When they stepped out of the car at the train station, a crowd immediately surrounded them. There were few places Yokozuna Takanoyama wasn’t recognized. On most days, photographers were waiting outside their home for a quick snapshot. The rush of strangers and flashing lights terrified Aki. While Hiroshi’s driver stepped forward to clear the way, he gently took hold of Aki’s arm as they hurried along to catch their train.

  When they arrived in Odawara, they transferred to the mountain-climbing train, which wound its way up the lush mountain slope by the side of a flowing river. The higher they climbed, the cooler the air became. Away from the hot press of people and the media, he saw Aki find calm and her body relax as she watched the trees flicker by. From the train, they would ascend farther up the mountain in a cable car. Aki grasped his arm and Hiroshi pulled her close as the car swayed to the side when he stepped in. It was the first time they had laughed freely together after Takashi’s death, just over a year ago. He sat down and was careful to stay centered on the seat to balance the car as it moved slowly upward.

  “Oh, look!” Aki said, pointing below.

  Hiroshi looked down on views of the natural hot springs as whiffs of sulfur vapors floated upward and he felt as if they were being transported to another world.

  They stayed at a famous ryokan at the edge of Lake Ashino. The inn was built over three hundred years ago and was often visited by the imperial family, as well as many famous artists and writers. Yokozuna Takanoyama was given the special cottage behind the inn, surrounded by trees, with a hot spring bath and a veranda that overlooked the lake from each room. The smell of the pine trees and fresh air was a welcome change from the stifling world of Tokyo. Hiroshi and Aki were slowly getting to know each other again and he was thankful the fates had led them to Lake Ashino by themselves.

  The next morning, after they finished a breakfast of miso soup, fish, rice, and pickled vegetables, they walked down a dirt trail from the inn to a wooden dock to embark on a ferry ride across the lake. When Hiroshi stepped onto the boat, the rocking motion gave him a strange sensation, as if he’d been there before, but he shook it off and helped Aki step down onto the deck. It was a pleasant excursion; the boat was filled with other guests from the ryokan who tried not to stare at the famous yokozuna. At one point, the ferry slowed down and shut off its rumbling motor so that the passengers could enjoy the majestic view of Mount Fuji that rose before them like a towering god. It wasn’t until they had docked again that an old man, with a wrinkled face and thinning gray hair, approached Hiroshi and bowed very low, introducing himself as the captain of the boat.

  “Sumimasen, please excuse me for bothering you, Yokozuna Takanoyama. Never in my life did I think we would have this opportunity.”

  Hiroshi bowed back. “How may I help you?”

  “I would like to apologize, Yokozuna-sama. I have met you once before a very long time ago.”

  Hiroshi tried to place the old man’s face. Was he a friend of his grandparents’? If so, he had no memory of the man at all. “I don’t understand,” he said. Aki had stepped back on the dock and waited for him.

  The old man fidgeted with the soiled hat in his hands. “You see, I’ve lived with the guilt for the past thirty years, of how I left all my passengers in the water after the boat had sunk.” He shook his head and tears brimmed in his eyes.

  “What are you saying?”

  “That I’m the one responsible for the deaths of your mother and father when you were just a baby.” He took a deep breath and continued. “When I read the story of how you were orphaned, I knew it was my boat that had struck the rocks and left you without parents. I would give anything to take that evening back.” He bowed low again.

  Hiroshi stood in disbelief as the other passengers milled around them. “It can’t be …,” he said.

  “We had drunk too much sake that night. We had no business taking passengers out to sea. I have lived each day trying to forget. And when I saw you board this morning, I knew that the gods had given me a chance to apologize to you.”

  “Why did you leave?”

  “I was frightened. I swam away.”

  Hiroshi remembered all the stories his obaachan told him as a boy, and how she had always wished the captain of that boat dead. Now, here he was standing before him, a small, withered man who looked no more a killer than his own grandfather had. “And what do you expect of me now?” Hiroshi asked, his own voice sounding strange. “Forgiveness?”

  The old man shook his head. “It will never be my place to ask that of you. It was simply my way of finally accepting the guilt, to say it out loud to the one living person whose life I altered that night.”

  Hiroshi swallowed but didn’t say a word. He didn’t feel the anger he always imagined as he pushed past the old man and stepped out of the boat without turning back.

  “Do you know him?” Aki asked when he joined her back on the dock.

  He hesitated and shook his head. When he was a boy, Hiroshi always believed he would track down the man who had left him and Kenji orphans. As a man, he knew the past was best forgotten. What had it to do with his life now? He would never say a word to his obaachan and stir up such painful memories. “He wanted to know if I enjoyed the boat ride,” he finally told Aki.

  She smiled and touched his arm lightly with her fan.

  26

  Independence

  1960

  At sixty, Sho Tanaka was slowing down. He entered the sumo stable and stopped to watch two young recruits at practice, wondering if he still had the energy to take them up the ranks. As a stable master, he’d already produced two grand champions, with young Sadao on his way to reaching ozeki rank. All around him was the hum of activity he’d heard for over forty years, the grunts and groans, the slaps and thuds of men pushing their bodies to the furthest limits. Sho walked through the training room, and bowed quickly back to all the wres
tlers before he made his way upstairs to his office. He knew he’d find Haru there, going over the books, making sure that everything was in order. Ever since she’d returned to Tokyo, Haru had been taking care of Aki, handling most of the household matters, and spending a few days each week helping him with the stable accounts. He glanced through the open door to see her sitting at his desk, concentrating on the books spread out in front of her. For a split second, he saw Noriko again in her profile. Had Noriko lived, he wondered what she would think of him now—stoop-shouldered and sagging, without a hair on his head. He knew many women still found him attractive. Even Yasuko-san called him “Yul-o Blenner,” after the famous American movie star, when she saw him at the Sakura teahouse. He smiled to think Haru never realized how much like her mother she was. In fact, Sho thought his older daughter grew lovelier with age.

  “I thought I’d find you here,” he said.

  She looked up and smiled. “Is everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine.” In that moment, he also saw her as a wonderful teacher, someone who listened as well as instructed. Noriko would have been so proud of her. Sho sat in the chair across from his desk, his hand running across his smooth pate. He had never regretted keeping the original building of the stable that had survived the firestorm. He had built from the past like new branches sprouting from a proud old tree. His small, cube-shaped office had remained unchanged for both practical and sentimental reasons. It was the first time he sat where his rikishi usually did, facing his desk. “I was thinking,” he said thoughtfully, “that it’s about time you returned to Nara and to your teaching.”

  Haru put down the pencil. “And who will take care of you?” she asked.

  He laughed. “What makes you think I can’t take care of myself? I’ve been doing it for years.”