The Woman in the White Kimono Read online

  I wait on his reaction without glancing up.

  “What about this one?” He taps the larger kanji to the right.

  “That says...” My heart beats wild, a frantic bird caged inside my ribs. There is no misunderstanding that symbol. “Girl.”

  “Girl?” He readjusts the scroll for closer study. “Six moons we are blessed, girl?” His forehead bunches.

  I open my mouth to speak, but let the silence linger and reach for his hand and place it over my middle.

  He takes a sharp breath.

  “You’re saying you’re pregnant with a girl?” His gaze drops to where our hands rest over the tiniest swell.

  “Maybe. It’s not confirmed.”

  His gaze finds mine. “But you think so?”

  I nod.

  He stares. I knew my news would be water to a sleeping ear, unexpected and shocking, but I don’t think he’s happy.

  My chest constricts. I sit up. “You’re not happy.”

  “No, it’s not that.” He leans up and cups my checks. With his thumbs, he wipes at their moisture. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You remember the story I shared when you found me here? How Okaasan told me of the baby bird? And that the choice of what to do was in my hands?”

  He nods.

  “This little bird...” I motion to my abdomen. “And you, that was my choice. I didn’t want to force yours. I wasn’t trying to trap a husband. So, I waited until we married, but...” I consider his eyes through the tears of my own.

  “Come here.” Hajime wraps me into his embrace, strokes my hair and whispers, “I chose you, too. And I am happy. I’m stunned, is all. I wasn’t exactly thinking about a baby yet.”

  “You’re lucky,” I say. “I have thought of nothing else.”

  * * *

  Tokyo Bay was once rich in the fishing industry and known for shipbuilding. Now industry makes the coast rich by poisoning the fish and polluting its shores. The smell is a mix of salty air and fumes and makes my already queasy belly roll.

  Fanning my face, I try my best to smile and be of good company. Community Day invites everyone, so we agreed to bring Maiko’s daughter, Yoshiko, and her friend Kimi. This is to thank Maiko, but also as company for my ride home.

  The congested ship hosts crew, family and grade school children. They are everywhere, and navy photographers capture it all. Hajime waves one over and kneels between the girls, then goads me to stand beside him. The girls join in with his pleading, but I don’t like the attention, so I only take a small step closer. With plans to persuade Hajime’s commander to sign the US marriage documents, I’m nervous enough.

  “Did they forget to wear their school uniforms?” the photographer asks, noting how the other children wear theirs and wave regional flags to show their school spirit.

  Maiko’s daughter and friend have plenty of spirit, but no school. To avoid discrimination, the mothers take turns to teach within the village. Today, I’m the teacher, and Hajime is our guide. To avoid the repeated question, it will be our only photograph.

  After the camera flash, Yoshiko and Kimi spring up still smiling, unaware of my irritation. Hajime rests his hand at the hollow of my back, all too aware. I reach for Yoshiko’s hand and she takes Kimi’s as we return to our stroll around the deck.

  “Why is a ship called a she?” Kimi asks.

  I translate their nonstop questions as we walk in unhurried steps along the rail.

  “A ship,” Hajime says, looking among us all, “is like a beautiful woman. She’s admired for her slim waist, heavy stern and cute fantail.” He eyes me mischievously.

  I smile. The girls give him their absolute attention, eating up his foreign words.

  Yoshiko tugs at my dress. “What does he say? Why is a ship called a she?”

  Oh. I smile, not sure how to translate. “He says because they’re pretty.”

  They stop and give incredulous looks to Hajime. Adolescent fingers perch high on too-skinny hips.

  He laughs. “And if you take care of her, really good care...” Leaning close, he bumps my arm and smiles. “Then she takes you on a journey you never thought possible.” His eyes drop to my middle, where my hand rests, then glances back to the girls. “I might be a father. Baby, akachan.”

  Their eyes grow wide, darting from me to him. I laugh and nod, happy for my news, but happier for his reaction. If a ship is a woman, then a man is the sea. He is respected for his depth, his wide reach and immense power. He is one thing on the surface and a million other things beneath. I enjoy what is underneath. A happiness. He tries on the word father like a new coat and is proud of its fit.

  Yoshiko and Kimi imitate Hajime’s salute to a passing officer. This has become their game. He pretends to catch them, and they laugh, feigning innocence. Even though they can’t understand him, they gobble up his constant attention until someone steals it away.

  “I’ll be right back,” Hajime says, and takes off through the crowd.

  He approaches a stout man with white-gray hair peeking from under his cap. He’s a bullfrog, with an overlapping neck and jaw, and lips that stretch wide into a thin frown. After a minute, Hajime motions in our direction.

  Is that his commander? His narrowed eyes slice through me, leaving me cold. I give a respectful bow, anyway, hopeful he respects our marriage per Shinto tradition and agrees to sign. He doesn’t acknowledge or return my greeting.

  I watch their faces for clues and try to guess their conversation. Does Hajime explain how we will live here? That I’m not wanting a ticket to America? The girls laugh, so I turn. A group of children taunt lazy seagulls with bits of sesame bread the sailors give them.

  “May we?” Yoshiko and Kimi ask together.

  I nod and spin again to Hajime.

  He is busy talking. His commander is busy looking elsewhere, weight forward as though ready to jump away. Did Hajime confess how I may carry his baby? Will it matter if I do? Why must this be so difficult?

  The girls squeal, again grabbing my attention. Brave gulls dive to snatch treats from their exposed fingers. Wings flapping, they caw and screech and stir up laughter. When I look back, Hajime is walking toward me, and the commander has sprung away.

  “What did he say?” I ask as he leans on the rail beside me. “Will he sign now?” My brows arch high with hope.

  “No, but I’ll keep working on him.” Hajime lifts his cap and rakes his hair only to reset it. “When exactly do you think you’re due?” His brows have creased. It’s as though, now, the news of a baby has settled and allowed worries to surface.

  I shrug. “Our Little Bird is a February baby, but I have yet to see a doctor.”

  “There’s a navy hospital near the base. I’ll get you set up when I return.” Adjusting his cap again, he begins to walk.

  “Girls.” I wave for them to follow, then fall in line beside him.

  He talks more to himself than to me. “But what about when I’m gone for weeks at a time? What if something happens? Or if...” He jerks his head toward me. “I need to make sure getting back isn’t a problem.”

  “What do you mean?” I furrow my brows. “Why would getting back be a problem?”

  “Cricket, I’m out of the navy in a couple of months. My service is up in October, and I have to travel to the US for discharge, remember? And we knew if the commander didn’t sign the marriage paperwork, I couldn’t apply for a spousal visa.”

  “Yes, but you can get a work one.”

  “Right. But that takes time, and I’d need to find a company to sponsor me. Before, we had lots of time, but now?” His worried gaze drops to my midsection.

  I stop walking. “But now we are married. Your commander must sign.”

  The girls run ahead, now waving for us to follow.

  “I’ll keep trying.” Hajime squeezes my hand with a quick tug a
nd walks. “And if he won’t, I’ll figure something out, okay?”

  My heart sinks. We talked about the difficulties of his return, I knew of the delay, but I didn’t think of how a baby changed their importance.

  We circle to where we boarded the ship. The girls continue to ask questions as I translate, but it’s not fun anymore.

  It’s also time to leave.

  The girls bow goodbye, then wait for me near the pier just off the gangway. Hajime and I stand at the ship’s handrail. Since outward shows of affection are taboo, only our shoulders touch. Me, hands clenched around the metal banister. Hajime leaned forward on forearms, one hand wringing the other.

  Gulls swoop in, curious if we have treats to share. Gentle waves lap the ship’s side. Schoolchildren laugh and dart around us, but we remain silent. We are fish seeing three sides of a raised net. Even as we focus on the open sea, we’re trapped and sense the woven fibers cinch.

  “Two weeks is too long,” I say at last.

  “I know.” He shifts to face me. “I left money in your suitcase, but if you need anything else, ask Maiko and Eiji. I asked them to look out for you. And when I’m home, we’ll set up all the needed doctor appointments, okay?” His words weigh with worry.

  I reassure him, telling him how I’ll spend his time away—getting better acquainted with our neighbors, making our little house a home and counting days until he is in my arms once more.

  We perform like the wooden dolls of the bunraku puppet theater, on display for all to see, while our true selves stand, shrouded in black, hooded robes, just within the shadows. I want to say so much more—I love you, I’ll miss you, I’m scared—but a personal gift and its story will have to do.

  I reach up and unfasten the silk scarf knotted around my neck. “When my father traveled for business, he’d bring us small trinkets from faraway lands.” I run the red-and-white fabric through my fingers. “When he handed me this scarf of hand-painted silk, I knew he’d made a mistake. It was too grown-up, too exquisite, for a such a little girl. He must have intended it for Okaasan. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It is for you. For the honored woman you’ll become.’ I wear it always, hoping to reach this expectation.” I hold it out and offer it to him. “In loving you, as your wife, I believe I can.”

  Hajime straightens and shakes his head. “No, I can’t, that’s too important. That’s from your dad.”

  I place it in his hand and close his fingers, allowing mine to remain on top. “By sharing its importance, I guarantee its safe return.” Through lashes, I find his eyes. “And yours.”

  Hajime’s eyes lock on to mine and glint. A translucent flash that rivals the shimmer of stone chips embedded in Yokosuka’s famous Blue Street, where we met. And like that, it’s as if we are alone. No bustling passengers, no swooping gulls, no lapping sea.

  Without regard for rules or protocol, he pulls me close. A kiss to my head. Another near my temple. A whispered promise at my ear. “I love you now and always, Cricket.”

  I hold on tight, both to him and his words, hoping he heeds the familiar tug home from the gravitational pull of Little Bird’s moon.

  SEVENTEEN

  America, Present Day

  I parked the Caddy in my father’s driveway, gathered my shopping bags and opened the door to his condo. “I’m back.”

  The words echoed in the near-emptied space. I stood in the doorway, stunned the habitual greeting had slipped out.

  I released an exhausted breath and stepped inside. In place of my father watching the baseball game with the volume too loud, there were boxes and booming silence. Pops’s things were, for the most part, packed and sorted. And as for his life, aside from his military records, I had nothing more to search except for his stories, which was why I’d stopped on my way and spent a small fortune on supplies. I had tacks, sticky tabs, dry-erase markers and three maps. One of the world and two of Japan: the first showed roads, rail and cities in detail, and the other was an oversize educator’s edition used in classrooms. It spanned six feet with gorgeous illustrative elevations and featured a write-on laminated finish.

  Using a kitchen chair as a stepstool, I hung the large map of Japan on Pops’s emptied living room wall first. Beside it, I tacked up the detailed street guide and, above it, the world. I pinned my father’s letter, snapshots of his shipmates and the woman in the white kimono underneath, then I stepped back to take it in. An investigative wall was something I used as a journalist. By flagging locations and tacking up my research—in this case, my father’s past—it helped to see the bigger picture and zero in on possible connections.

  I’d start with what I knew for certain.

  Pops was active military from 1954 to 1957. He’d served primarily aboard the USS Taussig and, on it, crossed the Great Divide. I flagged the international dateline within the Pacific Ocean on the map, then found the US Navy base on the peninsula in Yokosuka and tagged that, too.

  But what did I know from my father’s stories? I glanced at the naval base pin. Pops said a giant anchor weighing sixty thousand pounds sat at the entrance gate where he would sometimes meet his girl. I slid my father’s kitchen table into the middle of the living room as a makeshift desk, then searched the navy website on my laptop.

  As a young girl, I had tried to understand. “If the anchor was so big and heavy, how did it end up on land?”

  “An earthquake,” my father had said. “One so big it stirred a massive sea monster from a thousand-year sleep. When it woke, it swallowed the harbor of ships in its yawn.”

  He said the anchor was all that was left behind. Maybe my father should have been the writer. I laughed to myself as I clicked through the navy’s photo gallery on my laptop: an aircraft carrier recently deployed, the navy exchange shop, a sign for family housing and—I froze—a massive black anchor. There it was. And while it wasn’t skyscraper tall as I’d envisioned as a girl, even tipped on the T-bar it reached higher than the gate.

  Only it wasn’t at the front gate anymore. According to the caption it’d been relocated to the Womble Gate entrance in 1972. I added a pin to the map. Pops would have had a great story on how they moved it.

  My gaze dropped to the photo of the woman in the white kimono. I needed to confirm the kimono was, in fact, a wedding dress or it didn’t tie in to my father’s “wedding under an ancient tree” story. Back at my laptop, I searched “Japanese traditional wedding kimono” and within seconds, I had several matches.

  The same layered white fabrics and half-moon headpiece filled my screen. Unlike Pops’s photo, these images were crystal clear, showing intricate patterns woven into the outer robe with delicate stitch work along the padded hems. Captions called the dress a shiromuku and said they were often seen in traditional Shinto-style ceremonies held in the famous shrines near Tokyo.

  Is that where my father had seen one? There were photos marked Tokyo.

  Excited, I searched “shrines in Tokyo” and discovered dozens—some featured elaborate gardens, others war memorials and museums, and almost all claimed an ancient tree.

  Tokyo earned a pin even if I couldn’t narrow down a shrine.

  What else?

  What about the “street of blue” where Pops took one step, found her staring and fell in love? My fingers danced across the keyboard to type the query, and in one simple search for “Yokosuka’s blue street,” my father’s story came to life.

  I smiled, because there it was, just as he’d described. A dark asphalt street with imbedded blue and white stones that sparkled like a river of light. No wonder he stooped down to touch them, even in the photos it gave the illusion of movement.

  In my father’s full “Blue Street” story, he’d said it started at the gangway and spiraled through the city like the path from The Wizard of Oz, but the street I found was straight and narrow and didn’t connect to the pier. A slight exaggeration, but it did exist. Just like the Great Div
ide, the gigantic anchor and the bride.

  I pinned the location on the map, then stepped back and stared in awe, because, like Dorothy, I’d been swept away to another world. A familiar one. One where my father belonged. For the first time since I’d read that letter, a sense of harmony returned. Through my father’s stories, the man I knew had returned, and in looking at that map, I saw him everywhere.

  If only I could forget the letter and everything it implied. I wanted to. I was desperate to talk to him. To understand. I kept spinning over the same two questions. Was my father’s letter an attempt to clear a guilty conscience or a life’s regret of unfortunate circumstance?

  I was desperate to believe it was the latter, that everything I knew of my father held true, but his secret shook me to my foundation, and to rebuild it, I needed proof. But I wasn’t finding anything, and while my father’s stories held truth, they weren’t giving me answers.

  What if I never got them?

  My gaze dropped to the envelope tacked below the map. I’d already checked the address several times only to find the house as numbered didn’t exist, but it was a safe assumption the city on the mailing address was correct.

  I located Zushi on the opposite coast from the base and placed a pin on the map. It was a mere ten-minute trip by train. But in the 1950s? Minutes later I had my answer. Zushi Station opened in 1889, and while the travel time was extended, the lines did connect. I flagged it and, with a thick red dry-erase marker, traced a route between the two.

  The seaside town was small, which surprised me. According to my father’s “Tea with a Merchant King of Empire” story, it was a traditional house that time forgot. Within such a small area, how many traditional homes could there still be? Back on my laptop, I searched “traditional houses in Zushi, Japan,” and while I scrolled the results, I remembered his words.

  Her home sat at the top of a small hill, and she’d said I’d know it by the curved, clay roof tiles.

  When I asked him why they were curved, he’d said to ward off evil spirits because demons only traveled in straight lines. For days after that story I’d spun in circles, taking the meaning as literal. I laughed under my breath, because here I was, a grown woman, searching for the home’s literal description.