The Street of a Thousand Blossoms (70 page)

It was the last thing Haru thought about before an explosion ripped through the air, a noise so loud and familiar to all who had lived through the bombings during the war that she saw people around her instinctively dive to the ground, hands over their heads, as they were taught to do during the bombing drills. Haru moved forward without
thinking, her arms going around Aki and Takara, trying to protect them. There was a general confusion, and while some ran, most stayed right where they were, too stunned to move. The twenty years between war and peace disappeared in an instant, as fragile as flesh. Moments passed before Haru heard voices of reassurance. “It’s all right! It’s all right!” someone shouted. In the far distance, sirens blared, coming closer. She looked up to see a great plume of smoke rising from the ground floor of a tall building just across the street. Only then did people slowly get up, dust their clothes off, and quickly continue along their way.

She saw how remnants of the war would always haunt those who had lived through it. Haru held on tightly to Takara, only to realize that Aki had slipped from her grip. Where was she? She looked frantically around, holding Takara’s hand. “Aki,” she yelled. “Aki!”

It was Takara who pulled at her sleeve and pointed down the street. Aki was cowering in a doorway, her hands over her head. Haru rushed over, pulling Takara along.

“Aki-chan, it’s all right, it was only some accident across the road,” Haru coaxed. She saw her sister’s entire body trembling as if she’d lost control. “Stay right here,” she said to Takara. Very slowly, she approached Aki and put her hand on top of hers. “Come now, everything’s going to be fine.”

“Okasan,”
Takara said.

Aki looked up.

“Everything’s fine,” Haru repeated.

She stepped out of the way so Aki could see for herself, as she glanced fearfully through her fingers like a child. The steady beat of life had returned to the Ginza, the heat and noise embraced them again. Slowly, so did Aki. Her hands slid away from her face and wrapped around her body as Haru helped her up. Her unsteady steps soon grew steadier as they walked back to the train station. Takara pulled at her sleeve, and when Haru bent over, she whispered,
“Okasan
is tired again.” Haru held on to Aki’s arm with one hand and Takara’s hand with the other. Aki remained silent on the train, having retreated again into a world where she felt safe and
comfortable. When the train pulled into their station, she looked over at Haru and asked, “Are we home?”

They never set foot in the Wako Department Store again. It wasn’t until much later that they learned an old boiler had blown up in the building across the street, leaving one man injured.

From the window, Aki watched Tamiko-san leave the house with the bamboo basket she carried every morning to the market, the wooden gate slamming closed behind her. When she returned, Aki could usually tell by the contents of her basket what they’d be having for dinner; potatoes, carrots, and turnips meant a sweet vegetable stew, along with fish or pork tonkatsu. A whole chicken meant teriyaki or sukiyaki. She put such thoughts out of her mind; she didn’t need to guess what Tamiko would have in her basket when she returned today.

Aki glanced at the clock to see that it wasn’t quite ten. All morning, the radio had blared news of the twentieth anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hiroshi had already left for another meeting with sponsors. She no longer cared who his meetings were with, whether they represented cold drinks or snack foods or tires. Takara was out with Haru and she smiled at the thought of her little daughter, so bright and curious at age five. She carried their best qualities, Hiroshi’s strength and her once youthful inquisitiveness. With Haru’s nurturing care, Takara would always be safe and secure. She didn’t allow her thoughts to wander any further.

Aki knew she had no more than two hours before Tamiko returned. She stood up and went to the hall closet. Her mother’s lacquer chest with the phoenix on top was stored there. She knelt and opened it, removed the tissue paper and the red kimono with the
white peonies her mother wore as a young
maiko
, along with the red undergarments and her black-colored obi, which was interwoven with gold thread, her wooden sandals, makeup case, and her elaborate hair combs. Aki carried them all back to her room, where the photo of her mother as a young geisha apprentice, dressed in the very same kimono, sat squarely on her desk. She laid out the kimono on her futon and sat down to slowly begin applying her makeup first. From the green leather makeup case, she took out a glass container with a powdery white makeup. Then, with a flat brush, she mixed some of the makeup with water until it became a smooth, white paste. Aki studied her mother’s photo before applying the makeup to her own face and neck. From the dark, waning moons of her eyebrows to the bright red of her lips, Aki painstakingly copied each detail from her mother’s photo. Her hair wasn’t right but she pulled it back and pinned it up in a chignon. Then she placed the bright flower combs to each side of her hair. When she finished, Aki leaned back and stared into the mirror, at the face that could almost be her mother’s staring back at her.

Aki’s heart raced. She was almost there. She turned around to look at the kimono on her futon. The most complicated part of dressing would be tying the wide obi around her waist by herself. It was long and awkward and had to be wound around several times, a difficult task with the long scroll sleeves of an apprentice geisha’s kimono hanging down. She tried a number of times and finally settled on fastening the many cords in the front, instead of in the back. It would never look as though a professional had dressed her, but it would have to do. She stepped up into the three-inch-high wooden sandals and felt as if she were rising out of herself.

Aki looked into the mirror and glanced at the photo one final time. She smiled and bowed to the geisha she saw reflected back at her.

The kimono was heavier and more cumbersome than Aki thought as she made her way through the garden. She carried rope and a wooden stool from the kitchen. The wind was blowing warm and
muggy, the underrobe clinging to her back. The click-clack of the
maiko
sandals made it even more difficult to walk on the uneven stone path. But there was no hurry. No one would be home for at least an hour and she had plenty of time to walk through the garden. She stopped for a moment and looked up. The sky was a clear blue, the color of a calm sea. Aki remembered clear, hot days like this when she was a little girl, and how she was the first one up and out of the house to stand in the courtyard and stare up at the sky. She sometimes imagined it was the sea above her. She closed her eyes and heard the roar of the waves breaking and smelled the salt-fish breeze. She was that same little girl who had wanted to know if it rained because holes were poked in the sea sky. Was the sea sky crying? These thoughts felt like a lifetime ago.

Aki walked slowly down the path, hoping to choose a tree whose limbs were strong enough. She couldn’t afford any mistakes. She began to worry that none of the trees in the garden could support her weight as the laurel tree had supported the old gardener in
The Damask Drum
. The
sakura
weren’t fully grown and the willows and maples were too fragile. Aki’s thoughts moved quickly back and forth until her gaze rested on the old pine tree near the pond. Much of the garden had been planned around the existing pine, and now she smiled to realize why. She looked back toward the house one last time, but didn’t allow herself to think of Takara or Hiroshi, Haru or her father. It was better this way.

She threw the gardener’s rope over the sturdy tree branch and watched it whip around once and come back to her. She did it again a few more times and pulled it taut against the branch before she moved the wooden stool underneath and set it steady. The area beside the pond was still cool from the shade of the tree. She carefully stepped up onto the stool, balancing herself with the help of the rope. Then she carefully placed the loop of the rough rope, thick and heavy, around her neck. Could it be as simple as this? She closed her eyes and saw her mother again on that awful day of the firestorm so many years ago, pulling Aki in one direction, while she fought to go in another, back to where they’d lost Haru. “This way,” her mother’s voice screamed above the roar, but Aki dug her feet squarely in the
dirt where she stood and refused to move. The world was dark smoke around her when she suddenly turned at her mother’s scream to see her back engulfed in bright flames like some strangely beautiful bird. She saw again the look on her mother’s face, her eyes wide in pain and surprise as she pushed Aki roughly away from the fire. Afterward, all that she’d lost was her voice; along with the memory that it was her fault the fire had devoured her mother. She saw it all so clearly now as her mother’s flaming body turned away from her and disappeared into the thick, choking smoke, leaving her alone and directionless.

Aki balanced unsteadily on the stool, lifted her arms so the long sleeves of the kimono hung down and fluttered in the warm wind like banners. She looked up at the blue sky that filtered through the branches of the pine tree like pieces of a puzzle, and relaxed at the thought of being reunited with her mother. Aki closed her eyes and counted,
ichi, ni, san, shi
…, before she kicked the wooden stool away.

Hiroshi’s meeting had ended early. From the moment the car dropped him off at the house and he stepped through the gate and into the garden, he felt something was wrong. The wind blew hot and then stilled; everything was too quiet. When Hiroshi found the house empty, he walked through the garden, following the path down to the pond. Immediately, it felt cooler in the shade of the willow trees and shrubbery. He began to understand why Haru and Takara spent so much time in the garden, squatting over some plant, delighting in every new discovery. The rustling birds sang out in the trees. He had just rounded the corner toward the pond when he stopped. At first, it appeared to be an
obake
, a ghost, wearing a bright red kimono, dangling in the air. His heart raced as he drew closer, recognizing it was Aki wearing the red kimono with white flowers
hanging limply from the tree branch, her head cocked to one side. There was a stool turned over, a wooden sandal on the ground. Closer, he saw Aki’s bloated and distorted face, as her protruding eyes peered down at him accusingly, and Hiroshi felt his legs go weak. His voice was a strange, stunned moan as he called out, “No!” before his breath caught in his throat. The air was suffocating, or was it grief pressed heavily against his chest? He wrapped his arms around Aki’s legs and lifted her up, loosening the taut noose from her beautiful neck. The red, leathery rope burn had left an ugly necklace against her soft, pale skin. Her head fell forward and the past returned with its relentless power as he saw again Aki’s mother down by the river after the firestorm.