Authors: Sujata Massey
The Pearl Diver (22 page)
Our strained silence was finally broken by the sound of footsteps on the stairs, footsteps that were lighter than a man’s.
“Hello?” Andrea called out as she entered the apartment.
“It’s me,” I answered swiftly. “Hugh showed up, too, but he’s not staying long. Andrea, I’m so sorry. Whoever broke in took the box.”
“I was afraid of that,” Andrea said. “So it’s all gone? The pictures and the papers?”
“Not the letters,” I reminded her. “You still have her words. I’m sorry I haven’t chained my aunt down to do the translation yet, but I promise you I will later tonight.”
“If you hadn’t picked them up at the restaurant today, I don’t know what would have happened,” Andrea said. “Someone went through a few people’s lockers there tonight. My wallet was taken. I had to borrow money from Alberto to take the Metro home.”
“It sounds as if someone’s quite interested in you,” Hugh said.
I was thinking the same—and also, that when I’d talked to Alberto half an hour ago, he hadn’t mentioned the locker theft at all. Was it because he didn’t have time to talk, or was it because the thefts weren’t something that he was upset about?
“I’m too shaken up to stay here tonight,” Andrea said.
“I understand that. I think you should just take anything that’s really important to you, and we’ll find you somewhere to sleep.” I stopped myself, realizing that I couldn’t volunteer Hugh’s apartment. Maybe she could go to the Naganos, but I’d have to check with them first.
“David from the restaurant already gave me his key. But he lives on Capitol Hill—”
“Splendid. We’ll drive you.” Hugh made a move toward the door.
“Actually, I was hoping to take most of my clothes with me.”
“I’d be glad to carry them out,” Hugh said, not sounding glad at all. “The problem is that I can’t see a damn thing in here.”
“I’ve got two flashlights in the kitchen. Just wait.” Andrea moved off.
“Did the lights go out before today?” I called after her.
“Yep. The electric company turned them off last week. When I pay off the bill, I’ll get them back, but it’s been tight, now that my wages are lower.”
Andrea came back holding two turned-on flashlights in her hands. I aimed the one she handed me at the floor so I could find Hugh’s ring. Its emerald sparkled like green fire in the tiny spotlight. I picked it up and handed it back to Hugh, who stuffed it in the breast pocket of his suit, and then started hauling clothes.
By the time we were all in the car, it was clear to Andrea that there was serious tension between Hugh and me. She did most of the talking on the way to David’s apartment on Capitol Hill. She told us that she’d spoken to her landlord about the broken locks, and he had said the locksmith would come the next day. But David didn’t mind if she stayed awhile. He was worth a roll between the sheets, every now and then. I saw Hugh stiffen at this comment; he wasn’t used to girls talking like that. But he didn’t know the restaurant world. I made a big point of laughing uproariously at what Andrea had said. For a few minutes, it took my mind off the fear.
Andrea handled the key in David’s front-door lock as if she’d
used it before. Then we hustled the clothing into the first-floor apartment of a narrow row house. Andrea waved us away, telling us she could hang things up by herself.
Finally we were done and back in the car. Hugh made a move toward the driver’s seat, but I stopped him.
“Why don’t I drive, because I can drop you off at home before I go out to Bethesda to bring my aunt home?” I suggested.
He looked at me for a long moment. “I’m not going home.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“I’ve too much bloody work to do! I need to go back to finish some writing.”
“But that’s crazy! It’s eight-thirty now.”
“I’ve been away from the office for seven days, taking care of you. Now I realize there are other people who need tending.”
I wasn’t going to ask him how he planned to get home. Another taxi, probably. He could call one to pick him up from his ivory tower when he was good and ready.
I turned on the radio to cover up the silence as we headed back downtown to K Street. He got out of the car on K Street without saying good-bye, and I didn’t wait to see if he got into the law firm’s steel-and-glass tower. I flipped through the CDs in the changer to find the artist I really wanted to listen to: Rachael Yamagata. Just like the woman in her song, I was worn down like a road—an extremely bumpy and patched one. But the irony was that I was behind the wheel of my lover’s car, and still had a place in his bed. This was going to be a complicated break.
Norie, as I’d expected, was distraught when I finally arrived in Bethesda. I picked at the plate of tempura they’d left in the oven for me as I described how Hugh and I had moved Andrea and her valuables to the home of a restaurant friend.
“Where does this friend live?” Yuji Nagano asked. I started to answer, but then stopped myself. Outside of Norie and me, and the Norton family in Virginia, the Naganos were the only ones
who’d known about the existence of Sadako’s letters. I’d thought they’d been trying to help me with their stories about her—but what if they hadn’t? What if something had happened between the Naganos and Sadako that they needed to keep secret?
“He lives in the city,” I said slowly. Sadako had been a sad, lonely, and beautiful young woman. It was Yuji Nagano who’d known she was a diver—she had told him things she hadn’t told the women in the group. Could he have loved her? And could there have been complications, a threat to his own marriage?
“He? Akiko is staying with a man?” Yuji Nagano sounded worried.
“We also stay with a man: Rei-chan’s fiancé, Hugh,” Norie interjected. “It’s best to have protection in a city like Washington. A woman should not stay alone.”
I was amused by my aunt’s quick display of old-fashioned logic to throw off Yuji Nagano, but she wasn’t going to let me off easily. After we made it into Hugh’s apartment and I started to make a pot of tea for the two of us, she pointed to my hand.
“Where is your engagement ring?”
“I returned it.” I couldn’t meet her gaze, because I felt tears starting at the edges of my eyes. As angry as I’d been, I would never have broken up with him. I wouldn’t have given up, the way he had.
“What are you saying?” Norie’s voice broke. “I’m here to help with your wedding!”
“We’re not getting married after all. And let’s talk about something else, please.” I held up the packet of letters. “I tried to start this, but I’m hopeless at it. Do you have enough energy to help me with it tonight?”
“Rei-chan, I think it’s more important that I help with your marriage!”
I shook my head. “Let’s not think about it. Please. These letters are all Andrea has left.”
Norie settled down on the couch with the letters. I brought over two cups of green tea and some
sembei
crackers and sat, with a pen and paper, cross-legged on a
zabuton
on the floor. I was all ready to transcribe.
Sadako’s early letters were written to her sister long before the wedding. Robert Norton had been sent on temporary duty to a U.S. Marine base in California. The letters describing how Sadako flew by plane for the first time, and then moved into a small apartment off base, were filled with a mixture of sadness about the break from her family, but also wonder at what lay before her.
A letter from the plane said:
Robert tells me that it will not be too difficult to find a judge. Here, weddings can occur in many places. Churches and hotels, of course, but also office buildings, even outside in gardens. It is so dry here, though, that I do not think a garden would be a nice place. Robert asked me my dream, and I said it was to marry beside the sea. I explained to him that if we were beside the sea, I could think of you on the other side, with nothing between us but the water.
The next letter talked about the wedding itself.
We had many guests, American and Japanese. Omura Reiko-san and Kiyoshi Junko-san, those friends from Tokyo I told you about, are now called Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Wilder. They wore their best kimono to the wedding. You would have liked Jones-san’s kimono. It was a silk crepe patterned with lily flowers. Wilder-san’s was a crepe with a design of orange and gold roses. As for mine, it was a deep-red-and-orange silk brocade with a pattern of ducks embroidered on it in gold thread. Unfortunately the weather was cold, and I fear the ladies were as chilled as I. Another surprise was to see some guests who were not invited, two men who served with Robert in Vietnam. At our wedding party, they talked to him for such a long time that when he returned to the festivities, he did not seem to be enjoying himself. I asked Robert if he had invited them, and he said he hadn’t. Maybe it is an American custom, to visit weddings without an invitation. If so, it is a custom I do not care for. Despite the surprises, the wedding was joyful. After
the ceremony we had a tall cake with many layers, all white, decorated with sugar roses.
There was a letter about married life.
Dear Atsuko,
I am trying hard to be the kind of wife Mother taught us to be, but it is a challenge. Robert is eager to eat handmade American food, but I have trouble making it correctly. They have a leafy green vegetable here similar to
horenso
that they simply call green. It is a green color, but a more bitter taste. Since Americans have a sweet tooth, I could not imagine that this could be considered delicious alone. To improve the taste I added sweet mirin syrup. Robert noticed right away and instructed me that the correct flavoring to add is a piece of pork, preferably from the pig’s bottom. I was embarrassed because there were some people who had come to our house to eat, people from his hometown. There is a woman who I think would like to have him. She follows him with her eyes, and she talks loudly about their happy times in high school. She said very little to me except for hello and good-bye and how different the greens tasted.
I am determined to cook correctly. Wilder-san says that I should buy this green already cooked in a can. I will do that next time. Sometimes I think Robert is so particular about cooking that he would like to cook himself! I am not complaining, of course, but it certainly is a surprise.
Norie read on in Japanese, the intentness of her voice showing to me that she was as fascinated as I. Sadako’s letters were haunting, because even though they were written to her sister, it was clearly a one-way conversation: a monologue, stories told to which there was never a response. All the letters had been returned, unopened, to America, yet Sadako had resolutely written on.
Dear Atsuko,
You will be the first to know that I am going to have a baby. I can imagine how Mother and Father will feel about it, so please don’t tell them. Robert and I are very pleased, though it will mean a lot of hard work. We have finally been offered a house on base, which is a good thing, because it
will save us money. Unfortunately, I’m not as strong to pack and move things. I don’t have a friend who can help me organize now that Wilder-san has been transferred to Kansas and Jones-san went back to Japan. You may recall me telling you that the marriage did not succeed with Mr. Jones. It was a big shame because she tried very hard to be a good wife. Robert says that he will ask some of his friends to help us move house. I hope they are friends who will speak politely. Some of the ones I’ve met say they can’t remember my name, so they call me Mama-san and laugh. It’s disrespectful, I told Robert. He told them to call me Sadie. I don’t like that either. We agreed that if we have a boy, he will name the child, and if we have a girl, I will name her. I can promise you she will have a good Japanese name, and I will make sure people know how to say it.
After Norie read that particular letter, I tried to blink back the tears, but I couldn’t.
“What is it, Rei-chan?”
“It’s just—” I couldn’t tell her that the mention of the baby’s name made me think of my own lost, nameless child. “Will you read some more?”
There were letters about the pregnancy and about the decision in the end not to move on base. There were letters about the birth and the first few months, brief windows into the intimate world of a mother and baby.
Akiko sleeps well during the night, waking me only three or four times for milk. She falls back to sleep close to my heart. Her hair is becoming curly, like Robert’s; I love to tangle my fingers in it. I think her nose is quite like yours, Atsuko, and her eyes, everyone says, resemble mine. She can hold my glance for a very long time now, and I think she is beginning to smile.
Sadako told her sister that while she always called Andrea by the name Akiko, Robert insisted that Andrea was the name on the birth certificate. Comments like these showed that the strains between husband and wife were growing. Sadako’s letters began to shift from adoration of the baby to complaints about her own
fatigue, and about Robert’s increasing absence from the home. There was also a letter mentioning the return of the men who’d crashed their wedding party.
I have asked my husband their names, but he said I wouldn’t be able to pronounce them. I think I could. My English is poor, but not so poor that I can’t learn a name. There are two of them, one black and the other white. They came to my door one afternoon, just after Akiko had fallen asleep. They wanted to wait for my husband to come home from work. I told them they could not wait inside since the baby was napping in the living room.
They came in, though. They pushed right past me and sat down. They had come before; I had not told you much about it, but every time they’ve come, I’ve been frightened. There’s something between them and Robert. He won’t tell me what it is. Usually, they have ignored me, but that day, it was not the case.
One of them noticed me glance at our telephone and laughed in an unkind way. It was as if he was warning me not to call anyone. The other man went over to Akiko’s crib and moved her blanket. I had been frozen in place, but that action made me move. I went to the crib and told them not to touch her, to get away. The man who had been standing over Akiko hit me so hard that I could not see anything for a minute. When I could move again, I grabbed up Akiko and ran into the bathroom and locked the door. It is a small lock on the door, and I am sure they could have broken it easily. They did not try that, but they did not leave. When Robert came home and asked where we were, they laughed. Robert convinced them to leave the apartment with him, to go to the bar on the corner. After they all had gone, I unlocked the door and came out.
They had gone through everything, Atsuko. Opened every chest and closet and moved things all around. I realized that they had come intending to do this to the apartment. It didn’t matter if I was there or not. And surely, Robert had seen what they’d done, and they knew he, too, would be too frightened to report it.
From my window I can see water. Remember how we used to swim together? Diving deep, reaching in the secret places to find the oysters with treasure inside. I was not afraid of the water then. I would rather have played there than gone to school.
But this ocean, the Atlantic, frightens me. It tempts me, but I resist. Anyway, I know that you are not on the other side.