Above the East China Sea: A Novel (55 page)

As the shadow of the banyan tree spreads long across the courtyard, and a cooling breeze from the East China Sea brings the scent of the ocean, the villagers gather in the place where their ancestors had once assembled to hear Hatsuko’s father read out the wishes of the emperor. As Hatsuko had asked, the village priestesses have donned their white robes and wait to carry out the ceremonies she has prescribed. The procession to the tomb is about to begin when two strangers arrive.

Mitsue, delighted that the
kami
had succeeded in relaying her invitation through the drummer, greets the
hāfu
girl, who arrives with her mother, also a
hāfu,
but one who looks so
Uchinānchu
that Mitsue understands the spirits’ special interest in her daughter. Mitsue and the others are pleased that the mother, though a soldier with a soldier’s rigid bearing, speaks their dialect in an enchanting way, like a child, a well-mannered child who was taught the respectful ways to address her elders. When she introduces herself as Gena, the villagers whisper among themselves, impressed that the soldier’s mother had given her a name that means “silvery” in Japanese. They theorize that Silvery’s mother must have been at one with the
kami
to know that her daughter was going to be a warrior and wear bits of silver on a uniform. Silvery’s daughter, though, has an unpronounceable name that puzzles them until someone who spent years cutting cane in the Philippines tells them it means “light.” Whereupon Mitsue announces that the name
Light is even more prescient than Silvery for a remarkable girl who would become an agent of the
kami.

As Silvery speaks, Mitsue is overcome by the feeling that she knows this woman soldier. Or, at the very least, that she reminds her strongly of someone she knows but can’t quite recall. Mitsue is still trying to place the frustratingly elusive memory when Silvery tells the gathered villagers that she is sorry for intruding; it was her daughter’s crazy idea. Mitsue rushes to assure her that she and her daughter are very welcome. That, in fact, she went to a great deal of trouble to invite Light. Her daughter is an exceptional young woman, she adds. One clearly blessed by the
kami.

All eyes turn to the special girl Light as the others beam an approval that needs no translation. Their attention makes Light and her mother nervous. Silvery, who appears unused to hearing her daughter praised and, seeming not to believe that they are truly wanted, continues apologizing. Consulting frequently with a dictionary on her phone, Silvery explains in the babyish way so at odds with her crisp, bluish-gray camouflage uniform that her older daughter was killed recently and that Light has taken her sister’s death very hard. She says that Light insisted on coming here today because the online grief counselor who is mentoring her through the stages of grief had ordered her to come. None of the villagers know what an “online grief counselor” is. Silvery consults the dictionary on her phone several times and pieces together a translation.

“My daughter’s ‘death guide,’ ” she tries, “her ‘spirit teacher’ told her to come.”

Light looks uneasily from her mother to the villagers, and only relaxes when, after a few seconds’ delay while they absorb the words, they begin muttering,
“Un, un,”
and bobbing their heads in enthusiastic agreement. “Death guide?” “Spirit teacher?” Of course, she must mean
yuta.

Silvery explains that this death guide had ordered Light to come today, saying that it would help her to accept her sister’s death. That it would give her closure. Here Silvery illustrates the strange English word by touching the tips of her forefingers and thumbs together, making a circle. The villagers nod their heads with even greater enthusiasm, understanding Silvery’s “closure” symbol immediately. They
agree it is the perfect way to represent the obligation of helping a dead relative complete her long journey to that other realm.

Silvery then points to the green-and-red bag her daughter is clutching and, rolling her eyes to indicate that she realizes how foolish it is, explains that Light insisted that they stop on the way to Madadayo, so that she could scramble down one of those steep black cliffs all the way to the beach below. Alone. Light wouldn’t let her come. Silvery tells them that she waited at the top of the cliffs for more than an hour while her daughter was down on the beach. Silvery asks them to understand that Light has been through a hard time, but she seems to be coming out of it, and that’s the reason she is indulging this obvious misinterpretation of Ryukyuan ways. Poor Light, Silvery continues, believes that whatever she collected on the beach is required as some sort of offering. She asks Mitsue to please try to understand when Light presents her with … Silvery stops to consult her dictionary again and, shaking her head at the inadequacy of her translation, and finally finishes with “old wood of the sea.”

Mitsue and the villagers wave off her apologies. Who among them has not consulted a
yuta
? And then performed whatever task, no matter how outlandish, that she prescribed? Really, there is nothing to understand. The grandmothers who see their granddaughters in this girl who is both bereaved and favored of the gods, are the first to open their arms to her and wrap her in hugs. It takes several stunned moments for Light to believe in the novelty of being accepted so immediately and so completely by a new group. But as she breathes in the wet hay smell of green tea and Pond’s cold cream coming from the old women, she relaxes with a deep sigh into their embrace. Light borrows her mother’s phone dictionary and, laboriously plucking out the words, gestures to the assembled and says, “Everyone. Here. Madadayo. My grandmother.”

The villagers put their hands close to their faces and clap gentle claps of delight.

With all the apologies and explanations out of the way, Mitsue declares it time, and the procession begins. At the edge of the village, they stop short just before reaching the gate of a house where a young boy is recovering from a bout of pleurisy. A rope of rice straw is quickly fashioned and placed at the gate to prevent Hatsuko’s spirit from taking
the sick boy with her. Outside of Madadayo, they wind their way through the open fields. The breeze has stopped and not a puff of wind rustles the crops. Clouds hang like shimmering layers of mica that the setting sun shines sideways beams through. Red-bellied lizards dart out of the tall
susuki
grass, their silver tails wiggling calligraphy into the dry dust. The sweet potato vines glow in the focused light, their leaves so bright it hurts to look at them. Acacia trees shaggy with yellow flowers canopy the path. The mourners march in silence, their only accompaniment the lamentations of the cicadas droning out the grief of all creatures who must leave this green and gentle place.

When the trail narrows and enters into the cool, permanent dark of the thicket of red pines, the priestesses in white lead the way. The woods are cool and smell of resin. Light leaves her mother’s side and allows all the mourners to pass her by until Mitsue, in the rear, reaches her. She signals to the old woman to hang back and they let the others go ahead, watching as the priestesses disappear in the dark. When the last mourner has been swallowed up in the folds of deep green, Light removes a package from her Christmas bag and hands it to Mitsue. Mitsue unwraps the soft pastel flannel and finds sea-washed bones light as balsa wood.

Mitsue strokes the bones, whispers, “Tamiko,” on a long exhalation, and presses her cousin Hatsuko’s lost sister to her chest. Her friend’s prayers have been answered.

The mourners are already kneeling when Mitsue and Light join them in the courtyard enclosed by a rock wall ringing the tomb. As the priestesses say the prayers and set forth the offerings Hatsuko has stipulated, the mourners of Madadayo weep. The smell of black Okinawan incense returns them to the golden time before the war, when they and Hatsuko were young and they ran together through the sugarcane fields and into the shadowed woods where they shared all the secrets of a mysterious world. They remember Hatsuko’s sister, Little Guppy, always trailing her about like a baby duckling, and how the happy girl’s round cheeks would turn red in the cold as they stood in the winter wind blowing up the black cliff high above the East China Sea and sang the old song of farewell that saw off so many young men and women leaving their poverty-stricken island for Hawaii, Peru, Los Angeles, Brazil, the mainland.

After all the prayers and paper birds and flowers have been offered, the coffin is carried into the tomb. Mitsue places a tray holding Hatsuko’s favorite teacup, rice bowl, her set of chopsticks, and teapot on top of the coffin. In the center of the tray, at a spot she estimates to be directly about Hatsuko’s heart, Mitsue nestles the flannel-wrapped bundle, gives it one last pat, and bids farewell to the cousin who was a sister to her for seven decades.

As the rock slab is replaced, Mitsue’s tears are ones of relief, because she has finally discharged her solemn duty. When the men reseal the tomb, though, sorrow descends, for she realizes that never again will she have anyone to share her life with. Whom will she discuss all the exciting news of the past few days with? Mitsue now can only guess what Hatsuko would make of the American girl, Light, who was silent and almost detached until the moment when Mitsue carried the flannel-wrapped bundle into the tomb. Why, she wants to ask her old friend, did seeing that cloth, a worn baby blanket bright with ducks and elephants, disappear forever cause the girl to collapse in the wrenching sobs of the freshly bereaved? And what would her dear cousin have to say about the mother, Silvery, who did not immediately take her grieving child into her arms but waited until that child turned to her? And how would Hatsuko have described the expression that crossed the soldier’s tight face when she finally did fully embrace her daughter? Would her old friend agree that the look seemed to be one of wonder? As if, until that moment, Silvery had never properly held her own child? And then why, after her mother whispered something in her ear, did an identical look of wonder cross the daughter’s face? It is puzzling. But then, the
Amerikās
are a puzzling people.

But what Mitsue wishes most that she could confer with Hatsuko about is what happened next: Holding her only remaining child, Silvery smiled. And when she did, Mitsue knew exactly who Light’s mother reminded her of: Aunt Junko and cousin Chiiko, for she has the same gap between her front teeth as they did. The same gap that
even Chiiko’s sweet girl Little Mouse did. But it’s not just that gap; Silvery simply looks like one of Aunt Junko’s daughters. Mitsue is certain that Hatsuko would scoff and say that such a connection is impossible: Junko’s daughter, Chiiko, died in the war and Chiiko’s daughter, Little Mouse, was never heard of again. Hatsuko would remind her that, after the war, they themselves had searched for a gap-toothed toddler in all the camps. And, besides, look at Light. No gap there. Only neat, straight teeth. Still, Mitsue thinks, watching the two visitors, mother and daughter, as they walk side by side away from the tomb back through the dark woods to Madadayo. Still.

It is nearing twilight when the funeral party exits the tunnel of green and emerges into the open fields. A wild, piercing cry high overhead stops the group. They search the sky until, in the waning rays of the evening sun, they spot a crested serpent eagle as it rises from the tallest branches of an ancient Ryukyuan pine. A band of white borders the majestic spread of the eagle’s wings. The wing tips extend out beyond the white like dark fingers raking the sky as it glides silently from its perch, then wheels in the sky and heads west. The mask around the bird’s eyes turns to gold as it faces the sun. With one mighty stroke, the bird soars on, out toward the Pacific Ocean. No one can recall the last time they saw such a bird, once so plentiful in their youth, and they all watch until the eagle disappears from view.

SIXTY-FIVE

It’s a little weird, though not totally unexpected, that Jake ignores me when school starts a week later. Ignore, though, that isn’t the right word, since I can feel a spot on my back heating up like there’s a laser aimed at it from where he stands at the edge of the crowd gathered on the front lawn of Kadena High School, staring at me. Christy and the rest of the Smokinawans are with him.