The Electrical Field (29 page)

“Gomen, gomen,” I muttered. I dabbed at his shirt and the spreading stain I saw there.

“Iie, iie. It’s okay.” He stood up and stepped back, away
from me. For the first time in Yano’s presence, I felt my own clumsiness.

“It’s all right, Saito-san,” he repeated, examining himself. Abruptly he unbuttoned and removed the shirt, rolled it into a ball, and dropped it to the ground. Stood there crudely without an undershirt, but I saw a reddened patch of skin on his chest. “It’s an old shirt anyway,” he said, though it appeared hardly worn. I bent down to retrieve it. “Let me wash it for you,” I started to say but he snatched the shirt from my hands so roughly that it burned my palms.

“Please,” I said, reaching for it again. “Allow me.”

“No, no, Saito-san. You shouldn’t wash for me,” Yano said more firmly, and no sooner had I opened my mouth to insist once again than the tearing of cloth startled the air; he’d ripped the shirt in two. I could only stare at the tatters held in each of his hands. The man was crazy.

“You see, Saito-san, it’s no good. Nothing but a cheap old shirt of no value, really. Anyway, green tea doesn’t stain, you know that.” Without another word, we both settled back in our chairs.

Then I could only stare at the ground, the thickening, deepening grass under us, and a small mushroom that had sprouted under Yano’s chair. “It’s getting chilly,” I said. “I’ll lend you one of Stum’s shirts.” I half rose. I needed to be relieved of his company, if only for a few moments; to have him clothed and covered.

“No, no, Saito-san, don’t bother. You know me. Cold-blooded. A snake.” He smiled his jumble-toothed smile.

This time I did not insist. I could not help noticing that, for a nihonjin, Yano had a fair bit of hair on his chest; not
as much as hakujin men in magazines or on TV, but more than Stum or Papa, or Eiji. Thinking back, it was ridiculous, even obscene, to be sitting in my backyard with Yano like that, and yet I remained there, continuing to sip my tea politely. Relieved, I suppose, to have Yano’s comments about Chisako and her Mr. Spears diverted, to not have him ask me anything.

I felt sullied by the memory of Yano and that whole afternoon; I despised myself for letting him occupy my mind, for granting him the slightest bit of understanding. After all, wasn’t this running through of events in my head a way of making sense of all that had happened, of the unspeakable act Yano had committed? How could there be any sense, any understanding? I wanted him out of my thoughts. Away from me.

Yet he stayed, as he had that day, as I’d let him. In these woods his voice kept intruding, his face. Too close, too alive. “Hear that?” he’d said, and I’d heard nothing. Before I could stop him, he’d sailed into my living-room, scampered up the stairs. I had found him with Papa, tipping a glass of water to his lips. “Ojiisan, genki? How are you, old man?” Such tenderness from such a crazy, half-clothed man.

“He’s holding on tight, isn’t he, Saito-san?” Yano whispered as he set the glass down. Yes, I thought to myself, observing the purse of Papa’s thin, thin lips.

“I would not,” Yano stated, watching Papa in his bed, the trickles of water from the corners of his mouth. Watching without a trace of distaste or hint of recoil. “You would not either, Saito-san, would you? Not with your pride. We’re not so different, you and I.”

I said nothing. But to myself I thought: no, I would not. I knew better. Papa on my back, the jut of his bones into my sides. The burden of him, my chances meagre as they were, dwindled down to so little. My life. Yano was watching me closely, slyly. He wanted to make me see how little difference there was between us. Between me and a murderer; brutal, brutal man. Yano had meant to leave no burden behind, but he had.

It was late and the light in the ravine was changing; brightening in that muted way that showed up every beating thing in the air before dying away. I could fool myself into believing it was an afternoon like any other by the creek behind my house, when I’d find Sachi with Tam in that spot by the willow, spy their tipped-over cans of soda, their jackets flung onto the grass, arms wrung inside out. I’d never meant to stay. No more, I told myself. I ran home, snagging my stockings, sweating like a pig, praying I’d get there without anyone seeing, before Stum arrived from work.

I started to run now, now that I wanted to be caught. I called out, expecting her to appear at any time but the bushes here were different, thicker; they smothered my cries. I stopped, unsure if I should turn back, if I’d been wrong and she was someplace else. How I longed to be at my window behind glass, safe and blameless, home free. I longed to take back time, take back the words to that silly game between Sachi and Tam.
Chi chi, chikubi, chin chin, chimpo.
I’d convinced myself it was harmless babble. But word by word I’d sent them into a forbidden place, so tiny and dark that they would never climb out.
Tell me, Miss Saito, just this one more word, I won’t
tell anybody.
I made her beg for it and cling tighter to me than to her own mother. I whispered in her ear and she raced away, down to the creek or up to the hill to meet him. This web of secret words knit them together, and they fell in love with the feel, the smell, the sound of themselves, held in their bony arms. In love. How she ran home to me, calling my name from far out in the field; how she flew up my steps, eager to report back.

“Tam told me everything,” she trilled high up, delirious. “I can’t tell so don’t ask.”

I knew full well that she yearned to tell; my seeming indifference could only tempt her more. For why would this boy’s secret not be safe with me? She sat unusually pensive, watching the electrical tower. “He’s never told anybody. Not a soul.”

I did not press her, not that time. I gave a long sigh, a surrender. She would not betray him for me. It was no longer a game.

And now he was gone. Didn’t I know how it felt to be left alone, deserted by the only one who knew you and loved you just the same? Pulled you close, took your secrets and gave some back, and then was gone? I would have done anything to make things the way they were before and to never be alone again.

The dog suddenly zigzagged in front and I let out a shriek. I chased after it as it flew among the bushes and came out alongside the creek. I heard voices, familiar, echoing, but I couldn’t tell if they were from memory or if they were real. The dog must have heard the voices too, for it halted and sat again, ears up, obedient once more. One had to be Sachi’s;
she had to be all right, but the sound was tinny and monotonous, as if from a radio. Before I could make out a word, the voices faded. The dog reeled, snapping at air, barking wildly. “What is it, girl? Where?” I flung myself around coaxing the dog to some trail, some scent. A small light pierced my eye then vanished. I nearly collapsed at the sight of it, the relief; it was her, it had to be her. If I’d blinked I might have missed it. But the light flashed again, closer this time, as sharp as ever. As it was on nights when I’d seen that same beam from my window: Sachi’s, tunnelling out of the darkness to meet a second one, Tam’s, flickering across the electrical field. Then
click
and they disappeared. I thought I heard the rustle of grasses as they ran to meet one another, voices overlapping, delirious, but they were far away and my windows were shut. Long after they were gone I imagined lines of light, traces of their flashlight beams converging; incisions healing over in the sky.

I approached the copse where the light had seemed to come from and called again. Softly, I warned myself, fearful she might flee, but I heard my own cry, a scream barely held back. I must have been blind until this moment, because only now did I glimpse the yellow police ribbon all around, looped from tree to tree, loosened and tattered, but still lurid. I glanced down at where I stood, at my feet; could I be trampling the ground where Tam had lain? Where Yano had struck himself down? I lifted one foot, then the other, and beneath was a patch of green flourishing from the rain, clean from it. Cleansed the way Yano would have wanted.

“Sachi!” I cried. The sound was muffled as in a dream where the air is a pillow and everything floats, half dead.
“Sachi!” The dog was barking with my cries. I dropped to my knees, my body throbbing, aching. I felt my palms sink into the lush grass, too exhausted to recoil from it. I was sobbing dry, hollow sobs. “Sachi,” I called once more. “Come out! Please, come out!” I half lay down, spent. I felt the paper-thinness of my skin; I was melting into the dust of this special light.

She was holding her fists out to me, clenched, sitting cross-legged at my side. Grimier than I’d ever seen her, and beneath the grime she was pale, deadly pale, with a ghostly calm. Her eyes and nose were gummy, her hair matted into a nest. I detected the tiniest tremor she could not control. She’d been out here all through the day’s rain. She nudged my shoulder, and I saw that the cuts were festering, the scabs scratched away, the blood dark. I could only stare and she nudged me again, hard with her knuckles. “Which one, Miss Saito? Left or right? Pick one,” she demanded. Another of her games. Through everything, she kept it up.

“Left,” I finally said.

Slowly she opened her fist and held it out to me. A miniature flashlight, a metallic cylinder, small enough just to fit in her palm, to be squeezed. “You picked Tam’s,” she said. She clicked the switch back and forth. “It’s dead,” she mumbled, and threw it down on the grass. She rose to her knees, clicked on the flashlight held in her other hand, focusing it yards away, on the foot of a tree tied with a tattered ribbon.

“That’s where I found it,” she said. “He left it for me.”

I took my coat off and tried to drape it on her shoulders, but she pushed me away. Suddenly I remembered the dog.
“Yuki!” I shouted. “Yuki!” Instantly it came bounding out from nowhere, circling us, half playful, half fearful, pausing to stare with its human eyes. Sachi called to it softly—“Come girl, come”—but it wouldn’t. “Yuki!” she finally bellowed, harshly. It came, responding to the brutality in her voice that was familiar, lost as it was without Yano to smack it down. Then the dog was licking her streaming eyes and the runny business from her nose, the slime of its tongue sliding across her face. She hugged the dog so tight it squealed, so tight, and I remembered how close she and Tam had held one other, as if their prickly, sore bodies were in the way. Finally the creature broke away from her and sat again, sentry-like, at the edge of the wood.

Carefully I inched closer to her, and at the same time pulled her down onto my lap. She was limp in my arms; she let me drape my coat over her. She gave in to me, as I knew she would, as she always did sooner or later. She held on, her arms not quite reaching around my thick waist, bunching my skirt in her fists. I touched her hair and it was rope in my hands, coarse and strong enough to tie things with, hang them up, bind them.

“He was going to die anyway,” she said, matter-of-fact, poking her head up from my lap. “That was the secret he made me never tell.”

I was about to say that we all do, eventually, or some such absurd thing. Be silent, I chided myself. Be nothing but silent, wordless, blameless comfort.

“Tam had this lump on his neck.” She lifted her nest of hair, pointing to the back of her head. “Cancer,” she said bluntly. “It was growing and changing colour.” She eyed me
warily, my doubt. I was beginning not to know her, this adult-like acceptance. “It was this big.” She suddenly opened her mouth wide, distorting her face to show me her tongue; there was the disturbed, rebellious child once more. She looked pitifully hideous; too sad to laugh at.

“I know you don’t believe me, Miss Saito. He never went to the doctor, but it wouldn’t have done any good.”

I nodded.

“You never believe,” she said with a resigned sigh, heaving in my lap. How I disappointed her, how I fell short.

I lifted her chin; I wanted to be gentle with her, this child, to think only of her and leave my despised self behind. “I believe that you believed it,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said callously.

Tam and Sachi. Nothing, no one else counted.

He was lanky, stretched too thin, more than ever that one day up on Mackenzie Hill; perhaps it was true, perhaps he was already dying. His hair was a sickly blue-black bruise covering his head under the sparkling sun. She was whispering a word—one of the words I’d given her, I couldn’t guess which—into his ear. This time she’d surprised him; he didn’t know, couldn’t know where she’d gotten it. He let her lie on his back with her arms stretched out into wings, like the planes that sailed over them. What was she, she whispered, just loud enough for me to hear between the planes.
DC
-10, he burbled, his belly pressed into the grass. Their games, their secret codes. Other times, he’d named the planes, watching their silver bodies soaring overhead:
DC
-7, 707, 727, Boeing 757. She buried her mouth into his neck, biting, sucking at something, while he howled and
giggled. She licked and licked, hard and with care, as if she could heal it.

He’d rolled onto his back then, playfully, tumbling her off, both of them face-up to the planes. The mood between them changing minute to minute, gathering up, then floating away, like clouds. Tam lay there; the boy could never show he wanted anything too much. Not like Sachi, who always wanted, wanted so much; she clawed you for it, for what Keiko never gave. Tam could wait. Not like his father, not like his mother. Wait there, sweaty and bundled up. Lie there, still as could be, eyes closed, the sun beating down just enough to collide with the cool edge of the breeze.

Sachi had moved from my lap and was clawing at the grass now, but it was thick; thicker than the flimsy sod of our lawns. She took the key that hung from her neck and stabbed into the ground; sawed out a ragged patch, gripping it, solid like flesh. She tugged it fiercely as she did so; I winced at the sound, the ruthless tear of its roots, like hair from a scalp. The reddish clay soon lay exposed, parched despite the rain. She smoothed the earth, sifting out pebbles, and dragged her finger through it to scratch: T A M, then below that: S A C H, and a fat heart around them, then a line with two slashes through it. “That means for ever,” she said. Methodically she replaced the patch of grass and tamped it down with her foot, a surgeon stitching up the wound.