The Electrical Field (13 page)

I held my smile. I turned abruptly, still smiling, and carried that smile on my face until I reached the edge of my front yard. Only then did I let it drop. Sure enough, Yano’s
shout rang across the field as I was about to open my front door. I felt like the guilty suspect on the television show Papa often watched, who always lets his guard down once the detective has left, only to have him return seconds later. “Saito-san!” Yano bellowed. Reluctantly I turned. He was waving frantically, his smile regained. “Your first ikebana lesson! Tonight at seven. Chisako expects you!”

Inside, I found Papa sitting in his wheelchair at the window, with the television off. He appeared more alert than usual, more restless. Even on such listless days, he refused to struggle with his cane, partly out of laziness and partly out of pride. It irritated me to see him languish like this, and it occurred to me to remind him that he had not been so proud in the old days, when Mama sent me out after him; then he had not hesitated to lean his heavy body, heavy with drink on Saturday nights, on my slight girl’s frame. Perhaps in some way he was haunted by that memory, for he would not allow me to help him up the stairs, preferring Stum to do so.

Papa could watch show after show of games and soap operas interspersed with the news.
As the World Turns, Another World, What’s My Line
, even
The Dating Game
. The drone of it was endless. It filled me with nausea, the gaudy flicker of colours and faces that distracted me from my reading and crossword puzzles. As a concession to me, he kept the volume low. But at that moment the television was off, a slate with our own shadows passing across it, and he was pointing out to the field and struggling with words.

“Yano-san wa …”

“Hai, Papa. Yes, that was Yano.” I hurriedly closed the
drapes; the light had begun to grey unexpectedly, as it could even in the early part of the day. That shadowy cover of cloud that could easily dampen the spirit.

He was still pointing wordlessly when I said: “Tea, Papa?” Without waiting for a response, I went into the kitchen to put on the kettle. I set two cookies for each of us on a plate. When I came back, he was studying the flyer I’d carelessly left on the coffee table, using his magnifying glass. His one eye loomed insect-like through it.

“Nani desu ka?” He wanted to know what it was. I snatched it from his hands, more roughly than I meant to, and crumpled it up. These things could be unsettling, really, and for no good reason.

“A silly meeting, Papa,” I told him. No sooner had I sat back in my chair than the kettle began to sing. I got up but, when I did, Papa had blocked the space between the chair and the coffee table so that I couldn’t move. Back then, in spite of his legs being weak, his arms were strong enough to manoeuver the wheelchair. His face was remarkably smooth and unsunken; the skin was still thick. When he was angry, though, as at that very moment, the skin tautened over the bones of his face, and the veins protruded in an almost violent way. The kettle was screeching.

“You, baka, ne!” he shouted. That word, baka, stupid, never far from his lips. He slapped his palm on the table. I shrank back; he still intimidated me in those days. I uncrumpled Yano’s flyer and showed it to him. “It’s about us getting money from the government,” I shouted above the screaming of the kettle.

“What for?” Whenever Papa uttered a single word or
phrase in English, he changed in my eyes. He became a different person, for better or worse. Perhaps it was because we communicated so little. He became lucid to me; less forgiveable.

“For the camps,” I said.

I don’t know if he understood, but he took Yano’s flyer from my hand and crumpled it up again. He started to laugh as he wheeled himself away from me. I scurried to the kitchen to turn off the stove.

Papa had switched on the television when I returned with his tea. He’d turned the volume up louder than usual. He was still chuckling to himself as he struggled from his wheelchair to the chesterfield. He heaved himself over, his laugh turning to a choking cough. Usually he remained in his wheelchair until Stum came home; during the day he wanted to remain mobile, I suppose. But by five minutes before five-thirty each afternoon, he was waiting by the doorway for Stum to arrive. Today he seemed anxious to settle in to watch a particular program, so I left him there. He was so involved that later I let him and Stum eat their dinner in front of the television, while I went up to my room.

At seven I was at the Yanos’ door. For the longest time there was no answer. In the shadows outside, I chided myself for having listened to Yano, for making such a fool of myself; for wasting so much time deciding what to wear. I’d even sat myself down in my darkened bedroom, breathing deeply, calming myself before venturing out, for I rarely made visits anywhere without Stum or Papa, except for my shopping trips downtown. I was making my way back down the driveway, dreading the lonely return across the dark field, when Yano called after me. It was, I admit, with some relief that I
turned back, clutching my offering of little rice cakes. He rushed to usher me inside the house.

Yano was more flustered and excitable than ever; that I sensed immediately. His hair was more unkempt than when I’d seen him that morning, and he was perspiring, as usual. I suppose he was anxious, eager at the prospect of Chisako and me becoming friends. A scent filled my nostrils; it was a mingling of Yano’s pungent body odour and the not-unfamiliar smell of fried fish and daikon. This half-known thing disconcerted me; made me flush with shame at our shared habits, our odours. For my home was no less fragrant than Yano’s. It was ridiculous, really, to be concerned when we had so few visitors.

I bent down to remove my shoes, but Yano insisted I keep them on, and led me into their living-room. A momentary gratitude welled inside me for his kindness in welcoming me. I felt sorry that I normally harboured such repulsion for him.

I expected to find Chisako in the living-room; I was readying myself to greet her. But the room was empty, though crowded with booklets and newspapers; a card table with a typewriter was surrounded by open books piled face down, spines cracked. The local telephone book with the odd name underlined. The dog and children were nowhere in sight.

“Wait here, Saito-san,” Yano said, seeming to vibrate with impatient energy. He pointed to a lumpy chesterfield whose armrests were threadbare. “I’ll get Chisako.”

I scanned the room, the stacks upon stacks of papers, and saw no flowers or vases, no implements normally used for ikebana. The walls were yellowing and bumpy from old wallpaper being painted over. A calendar from the grocery
store downtown hung crookedly beside Yano’s table, scribbled on, dates furiously circled beneath a photo of a placid Japanese garden. On a sheet of paper in the typewriter I noticed one word had been typed, but repeated three times, each time spelled differently, then x’ed over. The last time correct: “abrogation”, but x’ed over just the same. It could have been one of my word jumbles, the long and challenging kind that came at the end of the week. There was dust on the sheet, untouched for some time. I reached to flick the dust aside, as was my habit, when I heard movement behind me. I turned to find Chisako hovering at the doorway, alone, face hidden within her hair, as she’d appeared that day in her slippers out in the field.

I bowed slightly. “Hello, Yano-san,” I said, offering the cakes. I was more awkward in those days, and stumbled over my greeting. “Thank you so much for—”

“No need to thank me, Saito-san,” she broke in abruptly, striding into the room. Again I was struck, as I had been at our first meeting, by her shyness; it was the part of her that floundered in spite of the forthrightness of her speech. I realized that if our friendship was to develop at all, I would have to show some initiative. But in time Chisako would outgrow some of that diffidence—helped in some small way, I believe, by our meetings, which later became quite frequent. She took the package from my hands, bowing. “Lovely,” she murmured, then carelessly placed them atop one of the stacks of papers.

As I stood in that room the thought came to me, like a chilled breeze, that perhaps this was all Yano’s idea; that he had forced the idea on Chisako and she was made nervous by
my presence and the expectations Yano had raised. Perhaps she was not happy at all to be here with me.

As if sensing my agitation, she drew back her hair from around her face and said: “Don’t worry, Saito-san. I am an excellent teacher.”

“I’m not …” Worried, I was going to say, I suppose. I touched a hand to my flushed face. It seemed I was incapable of finishing a sentence, uncertain of what precisely I intended to say. But she had already disappeared through another doorway, which I assumed led to the kitchen. She reemerged a moment later bearing some implements and a bunch of flowers.

“Please call me Chisako,” she said as she set the things down on the chesterfield. “I don’t like ‘Yano’.” She frowned as she said the name, exaggerating the sound of it. “It isn’t a nice name, is it?”

I was struck by how fluent her English was, but refrained from remarking on it. Instinctively I knew we shared that borror of hearing ourselves vulgar or rough in our own ears; we both strove to better ourselves. I heard too, in her I’s, rolling in that telltale way, that she was trying very hard; I could imagine her sitting before her reflection in a mirror, making sure her tongue touched the edge of her teeth and roof of her mouth in just the right way, pronouncing a word over and over.
Lovely, lovely.

She cleared off Yano’s card table, without a thought, it seemed, to preserving whatever order his things were arranged in. She dropped them to the floor. “My husband is very untidy,” she said, pushing the books aside with her foot. She then unwrapped the flowers and laid them on the table.
Those were the flowers that have stayed in my memory: shasta daisies, white with yellow centres, badly wilted and brown at the petals’ edges. With each move she made, petals fell to the carpet. I contemplated gathering them up but left them, too self-conscious to do so. Chisako seemed oblivious, and quickly, wordlessly began clipping the flower stems to varying lengths.

She sighed now and again, as if tired, perhaps bored, and again it occurred to me that this had all been Yano’s idea and that she was merely going through the motions to satisfy him. I searched for words to make a gracious exit, searched in vain, watching her slender, dexterous hands take up the stems and the clipping shears. I stood awkwardly behind her.

“Saito-san, you know all this, don’t you? Heaven, earth, man?” Her hands bustled around the brown blossoms with a kind of hurried grace, indicating the three levels at which the flowers would be placed. “It’s a little silly, don’t you think?” She kept on busily with the task, stabbing the narrow stems into the sharp points of the kenzan as the odd petal drifted down. “There are so many schools of ikebana and everybody disagrees. In fact, I prefer the Western way of flowers in a vase, all together. It’s more natural, don’t you think?”

I was silent at first but then: “No,” I answered, with a firmness that surprised even myself. “This is much more beautiful,” I said. “Everything in its place.” I don’t know where these ideas came from, but as I pronounced them I was convinced of their truth, of the fact that beauty must be protected and preserved, and be given its proper place.

Chisako looked up at me with a mildly shocked expression that seemed genuine. “Why, Saito-san. That is a very Japanese thing to say. But you are nisei, like Yano. Born here, ne?” I nodded. “So, so so,” she murmured thoughtfully. “How unusual.”

“You studied ikebana, I suppose,” I said, waving my hand clumsily at the flowers.

“Yes, every girl does. I studied the style of Ikenobo school. Very classical,” she said, sighing. “It seems so far away. My school-days.”

“Do you miss Japan?” I thought of those icy waves that washed over Eiji and me at Port Dover. One after another, and the elusive speck I could never see that Eiji said was Japan. Where he promised to take me.

“Samui, Saito-san?” I must have shivered, for Chisako was looking at me with concern. She hugged herself to make sure I understood. “Cold?” She reached for a man’s sweater draped on the chesterfield. Yano’s, no doubt.

“No, no. Iie.” I tried not to flinch at the thought of Yano’s sweater next to my skin. “It’s all right,” I added.

“No, Saito-san, I do not miss Japan,” she said tiredly. “Nihonjin are so …” She searched for the word, wrinkling her nose with distaste. “So … seigen suru. Wakarimasuka? Do you understand, Saito-san?” I shook my head, but I could guess what she meant. “So stiff,” she explained.

“Also, they are short.” She held out one hand palm down by her ear to show me. I realized then that she was tall for a Japanese woman. She giggled, covering her mouth. “Yano is not so bad, of course,” she said, and she moved her hand away to show her smile for the first time. “That’s why I married
him. He is Canadian, not nihonjin.” It was not exactly an unflattering smile, the way her upper lip pushed up over her slightly protruding teeth. “He’s a nisei,” she said, as if she had to explain that to me.

Yano bustled into the room, and Chisako stepped up beside the arrangement with head cocked to gaze at it. “Saito-san didn’t need a lesson at all,” she declared. “Look at the wonderful ikebana she’s done.”

I recall when Chisako stepped back from the flowers she alone had hastily arranged. She looked from me to her agitated husband and back to me with one knowing glance. I felt the thrill of that conspiracy, of the intimacy between us in the lie of that moment. We stood there, we three, before the arrangement of sickly, wilting flowers.

“Utsukushii desu ne?” Yano exclaimed.

“Yes, it is,” I said. “It is beautiful.” I suppose to show that I understood.

There was silence, then Chisako’s sudden laughter, which seemed to crack the surface of Yano’s beaming face like water poured on ice.

“What?” he demanded, the smile gone.

Chisako kept on, unable to stop. “Utsukushii,” she whispered, convulsing with half-silent laughter. “Utsukushii,” she repeated, glancing at me, clutching her side. Before I could stop myself, I felt my lips curling up, though I didn’t fully grasp what was so funny.