The Street of a Thousand Blossoms by Gail Tsukiyama
“Ah, that’s why it’s taken me almost a year to straighten your books out.”
Sho smiled. “I happen to understand my accounts perfectly, and that’s all that matters. Besides, if it’ll make you feel better, I’ll hire a professional to do it for me.” Since Hiroshi had reached the rank of yokozuna, the stable had benefited from sponsor money. Sho had even been thinking of building a new wing to the stable, along with a large new office for himself. But in the end, he had decided to keep things the way they were.
“And Aki-chan?”
“She can take care of herself. Besides, Aki-chan has Hiroshi to care for her. She isn’t your responsibility. I want you to return to Nara and be happy.”
Haru nodded. “Hai,” she said.
But he wasn’t sure she was convinced. Even as a little girl, she’d had a mind of her own. Tanaka stood up and paced the floor. “Haru-chan, you’ve made me very proud with all your accomplishments. Now it’s time for you to enjoy all that you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Go back to Nara and your teaching.”
“What makes you think that’s what I want?” she asked.
He stopped. “Isn’t it?”
“I thought it was.”
“Then go back and see if it is. If it isn’t, return to Tokyo because it’s your decision. Not because of Aki-chan or your old, failing father, but because it’s what you want.”
He watched her glance down at the open accounts book; the dark quick scratches were a blur from where he sat. When she looked up again, there were tears in her eyes.
Homecoming
When Haru stepped off the train in Nara, she felt the first trace of fall in the air, lighter and sweeter, not the crowded, hot breath of Tokyo. As she walked down the street toward her apartment, the waning light set everything aglow; even the trees seemed ablaze. She had been hesitant to leave Tokyo, unsure of what there was to return to in Nara. But even Aki seemed resolute that she should return. Just the day before, Haru had been combing out her sister’s hair, trying to put her at ease, when it seemed just the opposite was happening.
“You must be excited to be returning to Nara.” Aki glanced up at her in the mirror.
Her sister had been calm and playful all morning. There was a healthy color to her cheeks again, nicely offset by her kimono with magenta flowers. “I’m not sure,” Haru said.
Aki raised her hand and caught her wrist as the brush stroked downward. “Don’t you want to return and teach?”
“I’m not sure,” Haru repeated.
Aki turned around to face her. “Is it because of me? Please don’t worry, Haru-chan, I’m all right now.”
Haru smiled, and her gaze found an unexpected contentment in Aki’s eyes. It startled her at first. She had noticed something different about her sister since she returned from Lake Ashino, a tangible joy. She was free to return to Nara.
Haru had left Tokyo with a heavy heart. She missed her father and sister and the life she knew so well, filled with voices and childhood comforts. Was the ghost of her unborn child still haunting her? Did she really want to stand in front of a classroom of students? She felt a cool wind blow as the trees rustled and waved. As she rounded the corner and her apartment building came into view, she saw the brightness of Nara again, a place she loved. Haru smiled and walked faster, more lightly, as if toward the open arms of an old friend.
The Secret
Aki was pregnant again. Even before she saw the doctor, she felt the baby growing inside of her, a faint, fragile pulse of life. She thought back to their week at Lake Ashino last August and smiled. Ever since, she and Hiroshi had found happiness again. She rubbed her stomach; she couldn’t be more than two months along, still barely showing. The idea that she could keep this secret to herself for a little while longer calmed her. No one had to know just yet.
Ever since she was a little girl, Aki had loved secrets. “If I tell you my secret,” Haru once said to her, “you have to hold it inside and never let it out. If you do, it won’t be a secret anymore.” Aki was five and nodded enthusiastically. She remembered how the fullness of the secret filled her body, weighed her down with importance. She was the keeper of Haru’s secret, even if she could no longer remember what it was.
There were very few secrets in Aki’s life now. She was married to the great Yokozuna Takanoyama, and any opportunity for a private life was confined behind the gates of their house. Once they stepped outside, their every move was scrutinized and followed by reporters and photographers. She hated the flash of their cameras, which temporarily blinded her as if she were caught doing something wrong, her eyes wide with fear. She felt the panic as voices shouted questions at her: “Where is Yokozuna Takanoyama?” “When will you have another child?” “Do you think the Yokozuna will win his next tournament?” She began to think that they waited outside just to torment her, and as much as she tried to ignore them, Aki couldn’t just walk by bantering with them as Hiroshi did. Her pregnancy would simply be another headline in the newspaper, which she wasn’t ready for. She rubbed her stomach, the slightest rise only she felt. The baby was hers and would remain her secret for as long as possible.
Pursuit
By late November, the weather was unusually mild, cool and comfortable with a hint of wetness in the air. The first time Kenji followed Mika was just a few weeks before. It was unexpected and on sheer impulse. He was on his way to the mask shop when he caught a glimpse of his wife’s back, the blue-green of her kimono as she made her way down the alleyway and through the crowd toward the train station. She was even more beautiful now, ever since she’d begun to wear traditional kimonos again. In the past few years she’d become even more involved in her father’s textile business, designing fabrics in bright, vibrant colors that he could see from afar. He found himself following the blue-green of her kimono as if it were a mirage he was trying to get to, a calm, placid lake he could swim in.
The next day, and the day after, when Kenji followed her to the train station, it was with a calm awareness that there was something desperate in his pursuit. Yet, he felt strangely closer to her from a distance, similar to when they were university students and he sat behind her, loving her from afar. It became more and more difficult for Kenji to keep up with her schedule, all the meetings and travel. At the same time, their marriage had come to a standstill and he searched his mind to find movement again. He wondered if it would have been different if they’d had a child, something they no longer talked about. Their evening conversations were reduced to a minimum of words until Mika looked up and said, “I’m going up then,” and went upstairs, his gaze following. It began to sound like a refrain from a Noh play each night. He felt her slipping away from him and sometimes thought it better if they’d yelled and screamed, giving voice to their frustrations.
Each morning for weeks, Kenji pursued this same pattern. He waited for Mika to leave the house and followed her down the alleyway at a careful distance. Just once, early on, did he venture too close and thought Mika might have seen him, his heart drumming as she moved quickly along, lost in her own thoughts. He stood across the road and watched her enter the swarming station and hurry down the stairs to the train, disappearing from sight. Only then did he wind his way back through the crowds, already late for his morning tea with Yoshiwara-sensei.
By December, when Kenji stepped out into a cold wind, Mika was wearing a saffron-colored kimono with a burgundy obi, which made it easy for her to stand out in the crowd. She walked at a brisk, confident pace, and each day he seemed to notice something new about her; how she fixed her hair in a chignon, or tied it back away from her face, sometimes in a braid, sometimes not. She stared straight ahead and never looked back, never curious about the people around her. And she always seemed to be carrying something. Some days, she was weighed down with material samples and he wanted to rush forward and take the weight from her shoulder. But he held back.
Kenji didn’t know what made this morning any different from the others, but the same impulse t
Kenji had just poured a cup of tea when he heard the front door of the shop open. He stepped out of the back room, surprised to see Mika standing there, flushed and breathing hard as if she’d been running.
“Is everything all right?” he asked.
“You stopped following me,” she answered, and dropped her material samples to the floor.
“You knew?”
“From early on.”
“Why did you come all the way back?”
She paused to catch her breath. “I came back for you,” she finally answered.
27
With Child
1961
From the moment Hiroshi found out Aki was expecting another child, a flicker of apprehension stayed with him. What if they should lose this child, too? His uneasiness grew each day leading up to the tournament, and as he stepped up to the dohyo for the first match of the spring basho in Osaka, he remained unsettled; the glare of the lights felt suffocating, the roar of the crowd too loud. Usually, when something bothered him, Hiroshi trained hard and concentrated all his worries into winning. But even the cool clay of the dohyo felt foreign to the hardened calluses on his feet. When he locked eyes with his opponent, he felt nothing of the fighting instinct that had helped him to reach grand champion. Moments later, Hiroshi felt his leg tripped out from under him as his back slammed hard against the dohyo. The entire stadium went silent in disbelief, and it took him a moment to realize that he’d lost the match, until the gyoji declared the winner by pointing his war paddle toward his opponent. All he wanted was to lie there for another moment, forgetting.
He won his match the next day and the day after, nine out of fifteen bouts and his lowest numbers since he’d reached the rank of yokozuna. Still, he gained another tournament win. Hiroshi was on his way to becoming one of the most successful sumo wrestlers in Japan’s history. Not since before the war, during Futabayama’s reign, had a wrestler been so popular. His anxiety calmed and turned to exhaustion by the time he returned to Tokyo and waited for the birth of his second child.
Aki’s pregnancy and delivery went so smoothly, he thought it was a gift from the gods, a small token after the death of Takashi. His daughter, Takara, which meant “treasure,” was born in April. She had Aki’s fair skin and her black-pearl-colored eyes. The first month after Takara’s birth was happiness. Aki took to motherhood with the ease and calm that came with a second child. When Haru returned to Nara, Hiroshi moved nervously through the house, checking on the baby while she slept, placing the tips of his fingers lightly over her stomach to make sure she was still breathing. He watched her with an intensity he sometimes felt the baby understood, though she couldn’t possibly at such a tender age. Still, Hiroshi felt her eyes following him as he hovered near during her feedings. He began to believe that if Takara survived through her first four months, the length of Takashi’s short life, she would live a long, healthy life.
A month after Takara’s birth, Aki suddenly stopped breast-feeding her and a nurse was brought in. Over the next few months, Aki slowly retreated into her own world again. She sat silently in her room, not wanting to see anyone, paying less and less attention to the baby, or him, hardly sleeping, and no longer caring about her appearance.
Hiroshi was lost as to why Aki would withdraw from life now with a healthy, beautiful new baby to care for. His obaachan and Mika tried to give him answers when they came to visit.
“Aki-san just needs a little time to herself,” his grandmother said.
Mika nuzzled little Takara. Hiroshi knew how much she and Kenji had hoped for a child. “I’ve heard that some women are in tears for months after childbirth,” Mika said. “It’s hard to control your emotions. Aki-san should be fine in a little while.”
As the weeks wore on, Hiroshi tried to take their words to heart. As July approached, nothing had changed. It was late morning and the air already hot and sticky when Hiroshi carried the baby over to where Aki sat and stared out the window.
“Aki-chan, look who I have here,” he said, keeping his voice calm and direct.
Aki remained silent, her gaze directed out the window.
“Aki-chan, Takara needs her mother.” He leaned closer to her with the baby.
She turned and looked down at the mewing baby for just a moment before closing her eyes and shaking her head. “Take her away,” Aki said, at first quietly. Then she seemed to rise out of her lethargic state, her eyes wide, almost fearful, as she screamed, “Take her away! Take her away! Take her away!”
Hiroshi quickly turned away from Aki, holding their crying daughter close. He couldn’t tell if it was anger or disgust that guided him back to the baby’s room. That afternoon, he talked to the finest doctors in Tokyo, hoping they could help Aki.
Hiroshi began to spend more and more time at the Sakura teahouse, where he was treated with the respect a great yokozuna commanded. The alcohol dulled his pain, while the voices and laughter made him forget his troubles at home. Sponsors were more than happy to take good care of him. Geishas were there to meet his every demand, and one new geisha in particular, Meiko, made him especially happy. He knew that Yasuko-san, the mistress of the teahouse, was an old family friend of the Tanakas’ and disapproved of his growing friendship with Meiko. She’d known Haru and Aki since they were babies, and even the great Yokozuna Takanoyama, with all his fame and wealth, couldn’t stop her from making sure Meiko was often called away to other parties at rival teahouses.
On a particularly still, humid night in August, Hiroshi arrived at the Sakura with a party of ten, already in a sullen mood. Aki had been particularly unresponsive that evening. They were ushered into the banquet room with the large, low table where geishas attended to their needs, and Hiroshi drank his sake down quickly. He already felt slightly drunk as he watched the geisha who served him pour more sake into his cup. Suddenly, he asked loudly, “Yasuko-san, where’s Meiko-san? Why is she never here anymore? Are you hiding her from me?”
Yasuko smiled and walked over to Hiroshi, kneeling beside him. “And why would I do that?” she said softly.
Hiroshi drank down another glass of sake. “Perhaps you’re jealous of our friendship.”
Yasuko laughed and leaned closer. “Perhaps you should rethink your friendship with Meiko-san.”
Hiroshi smiled at first before he suddenly slammed his glass down, sake splattering on the low table and on him and Yasuko. Angrily he yelled, “Who are you to tell me who to be friends with?”
The entire room stopped talking and looked their way. He glared at them, not seeing anything until the murmur of voices and laughter returned.
Yasuko remained calm. She leaned over to him and said discreetly, “Perhaps, Hiroshi-san, I’m your only real friend here tonight.” From her obi she extracted a handkerchief to wipe away the sake that had splashed her cheek.
Hiroshi cleared his throat and remained silent. Of course, he knew she was right. He didn’t know anyone in the room well; they were all business acquaintances, no more. He watched Yasuko-san stand and move away from him, stepping lightly out to the hall and kneeling as she closed the sliding door to the banquet room. Voices continued to buzz around him as he watched her slowly disappear before his eyes.
Another World
Aki couldn’t sleep. It was August, hot and muggy. She lay on the futon next to Hiroshi, glad for the cover of darkness. From the other room, she heard the soft mewing sounds of her daughter, Takara. She was four months old and had already outlived her brother Takashi by three days. As much as Aki loved her, she couldn’t bear the thought of losing Takara to some silent death, as well. Was it possible to love a child too much? The feeling came to her gradually; a growing anxiety that spread through her veins
Hiroshi’s sleep was full of noise and movement. He’d been drinking. She watched him and dreaded the daylight, when she’d have to get up and face another day. The doctors poked and probed, asked her questions as if she were a child. Mostly, she kept silent. How could she tell Hiroshi that her head ached and her hands trembled so much she didn’t dare pick up Takara for fear of dropping her? It was better to separate herself from the baby before anything happened.
Out of the darkness, sounds arrested her. She heard the frogs singing in the black night, the swish of a branch against the side of the house, and the clock’s relentless ticking, which echoed too loudly in her head. Aki covered her ears and stayed in that hollow vacuum for as long as she could. In it, she felt safe from the world and from herself.
The House
September still smoldered. Fumiko arrived at Hiroshi’s house early in the morning, before it became too hot and she was forced to stay indoors. She smiled to think of what Yoshio used to say, that it was like touching the coals of the ofuro, it was so hot. Even with the heat, she was determined to visit. She’d come to see her great-granddaughter, Takara-chan, but more important, she came to see Aki.