Requiem

  “Look,” I tell Kay, “I’ll go. I’ll visit him. I’ll drive right up to his goddamned doorstep. Give me the directions.”

  “You don’t have to swear,” she says. And there’s a sudden softness to her voice that makes me remember her as she once was, up on the slope behind the camp, trying to teach me to read, helping me to collect pine cones to decorate, admonishing when she heard anyone say a swear word, urging me to run down the hill to chase away the ghosts—something I’ve never quite managed to do.

  But you can, Lena’s voice says, suddenly, in my head. It’s as if she’s beside me again. Put the fates to use. Chase away your ghosts. This is your chance.

  I wonder for a moment if Kay is crying.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I didn’t mean to swear. It’s just that I hadn’t made up my own mind about seeing First Father—not yet. Give me the directions.”

  I take them down and write them on the back of Otto’s new business card, which I’ve pulled from my wallet while standing in the phone booth. I flip the card over and see an engraved chrysanthemum in one corner, symbol of the Imperial family. Otto’s publishing address and phone number are prominent. With Japanese characters I don’t know how to read down one side. A prelude to his retreat with the Buddhists in Japan. And now, directions to First Father’s house on the back.

  I continue west through miles of rolling hills. I had phoned Greg immediately after talking to Kay.

  “I might be able to get back to Ottawa for my twenty-first birthday in the summer,” he told me. “Unless you can make it to Cape Cod. If you can swing it, it might be easier that way. Everything will depend on the dates around my program. And there’s someone I want you to meet—you and Miss Carrie, too. Her name is Caitlin; she’ll be at Woods Hole with me. We managed to be accepted into the same program. I’ve been seeing her for a while now. She’s in two of my classes here,” he said. “She’s great, she’s just great. You’re going to like her, Dad. And she doesn’t like to be called Kate. Full name only.”

  I felt his happiness. I felt happiness for my son. And Lena’s voice prods me again.

  Greg will be fine. And you won’t have to look for a bride. He’ll do it on his own, when he’s ready. All in good time.

  I keep on until suddenly, starkly, I have a thrilling view of what appear to be walls of black slate. Pushed up by the earth’s internal forces. Dark silhouettes on my left, snow peaks on my right. A bit farther, and I see that some of the mountains are heavily treed. When I’m close to Jasper, several plump bighorn sheep bound past the car as if in welcome.

  Something is settling into place. Neatly, the way Greg’s case of rock samples used to go snap, click in his palm. A familiarity roused from deep sleep as I drive farther into the mountains. As real and subtle and deep-down present, as if I had never left.

  Uncle Kenji, I now recall, helped to build this road I’m on, the one that eventually became the corridor, the Yellowhead Highway. Uncle Kenji’s first camp was a road camp.

  I drive and drive. Basil, content to look up from time to time, sniffs the air, looks out at shapes that block the sky, settles back.

  “This is what it comes to, Basil,” I tell him. “I haul out a map of this outrageously vast country and get into my car and pack my friend the dog, and carve a route from east to west, and come upon an amazement of eruptions that have been thrust up out of our recent geologic past. And we drive through them as if there’s nothing that cannot be accomplished, as if there’s no mountain that cannot be moved.”

  I hear a snuffle from the back. Look around again. I am in British Columbia and the sky has not fallen; the mountains have not crumbled. This is the province of my birth; the province of the birth of my parents, all three.

  After a day’s drive, when I drop south, I realize that anything could be waiting on the other side. Mule deer, for a start. I see them standing under shelter of the trees. Yellow wildflowers, brash and sturdy, everywhere I look as I descend into Kamloops, my ears popping, out of the higher hills and into the lower hills. This dry and sunny climate. Sunny, well into the evening hours. The wide valley looking as if the mountains on all sides slid back voluntarily and allowed the North and South Thompson rivers to meet.

  I pull over to a roadside restaurant, feed Basil at the edge of the parking lot and go inside to find food for myself. I order a steak, mashed potatoes, a cheese salad. But when the food is brought to my table I see that it was a mistake to stop here. The steak is too bloody; the mashed potatoes are instant; the cheese salad has no cheese. I question the waitress and she tells me the cook ran out of cheese.

  I know when to give up. I order a coffee and pull out the road map, pull out Otto’s business card, match Kay’s directions on the back of the card to the map and see that I’m not far from First Father’s house. Probably not more than five or ten minutes away.

  The car is steamed up from Basil’s barking, and I wipe a rag down the windows. I start the engine and brace myself. The road is dusty once I leave the highway, but hard-packed and wide enough for two cars. There aren’t many houses, and they’re small; they look as if they’ve been gathering dust for a long time. I pull over to check directions again, see the mailbox painted black, a low-slanting roof, outside shutters closed over south-facing windows. Exactly as Kay described. There’s a good-sized garden at the side, which she did not mention.

  The house is smaller than I imagined. Can’t be more than four rooms at most. But no truck in sight. And then I remember Henry telling me that First Father and Uncle Kenji purchased a truck together years ago and share the use of it. They get their groceries together, their supplies, whatever they need, whatever they drink—I have no idea. The truck must be at Uncle Kenji’s.

  I go to the door and face an uneasy silence. I trip over the step, worn smooth and sliverless. He’d have heard me drive in—or maybe not; he might not hear well. He’s eighty-four, Kay reminded me on the phone. He’ll be in his chair, facing the door. The door is never locked. The way he sits, he looks as if he never gets up, though he must, to cook and eat and sleep.

  I rap at the door and there’s no response. I push it open and step inside. There’s the mat, set out to receive shoes that will never touch the surface of the inside floors. It all comes back, like a sudden gust of winter. And a heap of shoes farther inside, but not all belonging to one person, surely. When I look more closely I see that they are slippers. Some meant for visitors. Slip out of one pair and into another.

  No lights on. I flick a wall switch and a spartan kitchen jumps to life. Rice pot on the counter, an electric rice pot, its cord haphazardly wound. A blue-and-white rice bowl I recognize, chopsticks beside it on a bamboo pad. A bottle of shoyu on a shelf. A bad print of Mount Fuji on the wall.

  Mother’s willow basket is on the floor, in a corner by a chair. The same basket that was stuffed with as much she could carry the morning we boarded the Princess Maquinna, the mail boat that took us away from the coast. The same willow basket that hid the one pair of dolls that escaped the burning pyre. Now it is filled with papers and magazines. There’s no other reminder of Mother, that I can see. And there’s First Father’s chair, with cushioned seat and wooden arms. The place smells like childhood, and part of me is reeling.

  “Hello,” I call out. “Hello. It’s Bin.”

  No response.

  I push open the bedroom door. This room is as spartan as the kitchen. A double bed, roughly made. Dresser, closet, bedside table with a book on top, a badly frayed palm-sized book with a red cover.

  He never discussed his own fate, I now realize. That wasn’t part of the ritual.

  I go out to the car and bring in my bag. I leave the shoulder pack in the car. The manila folder is still in there, but I haven’t looked at it since I left home. It’s almost dark now. The mountains have stretched into their heights to shut out the light; I’d forgotten how quickly it happens. I’ll stay overnight, sleep on the couch—if he has one. I peer into the living room and see that th
ere’s a pullout against the wall, with several blankets folded on top. Probably where Kay and Hugh sleep when they visit. A second chair faces a TV. There’s a small bathroom, off to the side. First Father must be at Uncle Kenji’s. Maybe he’s having his supper there.

  Basil takes up position beside an unlit wood stove in the living room. A wood stove means a woodpile, somewhere. It must be outside the back door. And the night chill has begun to drift in.

  I return to the kitchen and see the note on the table. I don’t know how I could have missed it the first time through. A message, hastily scrawled, written in ballpoint.

  BIN

  Kay phoned to say you might be coming here, but your uncle Kenji came to pick me up. He finally persuaded me to go to the coast with him. Vancouver, and then the ferry over to the island. Your cousin will take us out on his boat a few days. Might be my last chance to try out my fisherman’s legs again. Our old house on the coast was torn down, they told me. It gave more than a few men a hard time when they tried to knock it apart. I built it to last. On our way back, Kenji and I will look for you.

  The note is unsigned, and there’s no date. So matter-of-fact I want to tear it to shreds. But I don’t. I fold it over and over, stare at it in my palm.

  I bring in the Laphroaig. And the piece of mat that Basil sleeps on.

  I pour a bowl of water and watch Basil drink like a camel.

  I pour myself a two-finger Scotch. Make that three.

  I slump into a chair.

  What did I think I was expecting?

  I’m in the living room, drinking my third Scotch, thinking of the lousy meal I was served at the restaurant. And then I think of the Japanese food Kay used to prepare whenever Lena and Greg and I visited. Everything tasted a bit fishier, a bit saltier than the food we ate at home. Kay’s food tasted like childhood and looked like childhood. Even the stacks of prawns with their heads and beady eyes, though we never had prawns in the camp. And sushi, so many kinds, and green tea—homegrown—and tsukemono, the thin but crunchy pickles Mother and Kay used to prepare together. The smell of brine, shoyu, cucumber, some sort of mash made of rice bran, stone weights pressing it all down. There’s no aroma like it. Which sets me to wondering if the large crock that once stored them has been stowed somewhere in this Kamloops house. There might be a basement.

  I find a door off the kitchen and steps going down. Small house, small basement. The ceiling is low. But there’s a workshop down here, and a workbench with a vise at one end, a chunk of wood clamped in its jaws. Tools are laid out neatly, the way I lay out my own brushes. A tall homemade stool has been pushed close to the bench.

  Above the bench, at eye level, something hangs on the wall. Something vaguely, faintly recognizable. A piece of cardboard, boxboard, a faded pencil drawing nailed to the wall, the nail hammered through its top edge to hold it in place.

  Two horses, or attempts at horses, one large, one small, the head of the smaller horse tucked under the neck of the larger. An alert eye, an animal ready to bolt. The head and nose of the smaller horse resemble the beak of a grotesque giant goose. A child’s drawing.

  Yanked from my hand.

  Disappeared, the day I was given away.

  Kept more than fifty years.

  I don’t bother to open the pullout. I lie on it in the living room and pile on the blankets. Basil, the hound who knows the scent of grief when it’s all around him, drags his mat over and settles at the end of the couch. I reach out a hand and rub the coarse coat of his back, the soft and silky part of his ears. The warmth of him. The life of him. He groans, and rolls over heavily, an animal who no longer wants the burden of memory.

  CHAPTER 28

  1996

  Lena woke and saw me standing beside her, looking down. She was lying on her back on the floor, on a small pink mat laid on top of our own carpet. Miss Carrie had seen her drive in, rolled up the mat and wheeled it over on her walker, insisting that Lena borrow it; it was her remedy for almost every ailment. A pillow supported Lena’s neck; a thin blanket was pulled up to her chin.

  “You’re home,” she said. “Come and tell me about the fates. I was thinking about them. I want to hear them again.”

  “I thought you were at the university all day.”

  “No classes Friday afternoons, remember? I had a bit of a headache, a bit of dizziness, and decided to come home early. I’m glad it’s the end of the week. Who invented the week, anyway? Why does time have to be divided into days, weeks, months, the school year? Anyway, I’m home. And this mat is so comfortable, I don’t ever want to get up.”

  It was November and I’d been to the National Gallery, and had stopped to see Nathan on the way back. Figure out a title, he said. If we’re planning to do a show, you have to come up with a title.

  There was a book on the floor beside Lena. On top, a large bookmark with a message—BAN LAND MINES: NO PRODUCTION, NO EXPORT, NO USE, NO STOCKPILES. One of Lena’s causes. She was frequently recruited by others at the university who looked to her for support.

  “Tell me about the fates,” she said again.

  She looked tired, despite having had a nap. Tired, unfocused, something else I couldn’t put a name to.

  I sat down on the carpet beside her.

  “First Father,” I began, “took the red book down from the shelf. He read back to front, top to bottom. He always started with Hiroshi …”

  “Hir-o-shi,” she said, interrupting. She slowed the syllables and stared at the ceiling, as if seeking approval for her pronunciation. Then she added, “Henry.”

  “Because he was number-one son.”

  “Skip to your fate,” she said. “Never mind the others. Yours is the one that makes me laugh.”

  I leaned back against the chesterfield and thought, Laugh? When did laughter ever exist?

  “First Father said, ‘Bin, you are youngest, number-two son, born in the year of the tiger. A tiger may be stubborn, but can chase away ghosts and protect.’“

  “Tell me the end part,” she said, knowing already.

  “‘But because your time of birth was at the cusp of the year of the rabbit … ‘“

  “You are destined to be melancholy, and you will weep over nonsensical things.” She recited the rest, smiling. I ventured a hand over the familiar bones of her wrist and felt the pulse of my wife. It was rapid, too rapid, as if she’d been running in her sleep.

  “Who were you not supposed to marry?” she said.

  “First Father didn’t tell me that part. He probably didn’t think my marriage fate would be important.”

  “But it is important. You chose me. Tiger chose dog.”

  “Other way around. Dog chose tiger.”

  “Is that the way it happened? Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. And wondered who had chosen whom. At the time it hadn’t seemed like choice. More like inevitability. It had seemed right. Was right. A good match. She was smiling again. I looked past her and through the living-room window. A child of the sky had taken a thick marker and looped a line of gloom around the base of each cloud.

  “Do you remember,” she said, switching topics, “when we drove to the cabin on the Gatineau River? An hour’s drive from here.” She spoke as if it had been years ago instead of only a few weeks. “We took the cooler with us—the one with the green lid. I packed the oilcloth with the red-and-white squares, hoping there’d be a picnic table at the place.”

  I continued where she left off.

  “Another couple arrived, and stayed at the only other cabin. They were accompanied by two young girls: their daughter, Florence, and her friend Lise. There was a softness to the distant hills on the other side of the river. That was the view we saw from shore. The visual suggestion was one of a series of far-off valleys, each folded to the next, the muted wrappings of red and gold.”

  “Say that again, will you?”

  “Which part?”

  “The visual suggestion. I want to hear you say it.”

&
nbsp; A moment preserved.

  We were both silent, and then she said, “That was the night you told me about the fates.”

  “I remember how you laughed.”

  “I’d never heard any of that before. You’d been holding on to secrets. What else haven’t you told me?”

  “If I’d known the fates would amuse you so much, I’d have told you earlier.”

  “I’m glad nobody ever tried to predict my fate,” she said. “I’d have been menaced. I am menaced. My head feels as if there are lines criss-crossing inside my skull. Slicing up my brain. Sorry,” she said. “Sorry for that unnecessary dark moment.”

  Basil chose this moment to do a circuit through the room, dragging his mattress in his teeth. The past few days, he’d begun to lift the mattress out of his basket and drag it around, ensuring that he’d be seen.

  Lena called him over for a pat.

  “Come here, you outrage,” she said, and he dropped the mattress in the doorway between living and dining rooms. He took up position beside her. She tried to reach for him, but her arm wouldn’t move.

  “What’s wrong, Lena? Have you seen the doctor?” Something inside me had gone still.

  “I called,” she said. “I have an appointment first thing Monday, before classes.”

  But the words came out slurred, and she closed her eyes and I saw what was happening, and I ran to the phone.

  Emergency response was fast. Miss Carrie stood at the top of her veranda step when she saw the flashing lights, but I had no chance to speak to her. Other neighbours had come outside and were standing on the sidewalk as Lena was carried out of the house on a stretcher.

  I was told which hospital she was being taken to, and followed in my car. My heart was racing; my throat was dry. I hadn’t stopped to phone Greg, or leave him a message. Everything that was happening—Lena’s faltering attempts to speak, Basil’s frantic barking, the solemn faces of neighbours as I pulled away from the house, the streets through which I drove, which suddenly seemed hostile and unfamiliar—everything was telescoped, as if each part of the emergency had conspired to occupy less space and less time than real space and real time. The ambulance left me far behind and Lena was already in Emergency by the time I parked my car and ran to the entrance.