the war was over, the worst was behind them.
Mrs. Kobayashi felt hysteria rising up within her.
“Yo-chan,” she said quietly, “come sit at the table.” The child came willingly, clutching her marbles in one hand and dragging her floor cushion behind her with the other. She hesitated as she approached, as if sensing the force field of her mother’s emotions.
“Put the cushion here,” said Mrs. Kobayashi, patting the floor beside her.
While everyone continued chatting, she rested her hand on her daughter’s back where no one could see. She ran her hand up and down over the small shoulder blades. The child smiled up at her, with a soft look in her eyes that was exactly like Shohei’s.
Mrs. Kobayashi’s hysteria subsided a little. I can do this, she thought. I’m getting through it, one minute at a time. She forced Masako out of her mind. Over and over she stroked this small person beside her, the only person whom it was safe to love.
Afterward, she and her husband-to-be went for a short stroll to Umeya Shrine. They chatted pleasantly of China’s history, of people they knew in common, of the crayfish she and Mrs. Asaki had caught in the Kamo River. At one point he cleared his throat. “I know I can’t fill my brother’s shoes,” he said. “But I’ll do my best for you and Yoko.”
“I’m in your debt,” she murmured demurely.
He said nothing about the child she was giving up. For this she was grateful. During their long marriage, it would never come up between them.
Growing up by the sea, Mrs. Kobayashi had heard tales of tsunami as tall as skyscrapers, looming over villages for several moments before crashing. Life’s destructive force, said the grownups with hushed reverence. So heartless, it’s majestic.
That night she lay upstairs in the Asaki house with a sleeping child on either side. There was a faint roaring in her ears. She thought of villagers looking up at a wall of water, a split second before their annihilation.
This new life ahead, this feudal arrangement straight out of history books, had been beyond her ability to imagine. But now, for the first time, she saw how it would be. It would be ordinary. That was the shock of it. They would eat noodles and play with babies and talk about the new restaurant on the west side of town. No one would acknowledge the brutality of it. No one would even notice.
How would she survive? She had no inner resources; she had been rich and pampered all her life. What defined her? Nothing but frivolous memories from her old life. Picnic parties in the mountains with friends from work…the first time Shohei had asked her to tea…one lovely evening when she had glimpsed a star through a hole in her oiled paper umbrella…little Yoko taking her first steps, in a pair of pink kidskin shoes.
Sometimes, if she remembered hard enough, the old romance and possibility and joy bubbled up in her once more like ginger ale.
If this feeling was all she had left, then she would curl her whole being around it. Like a barnacle, she would hold tight while the tsunami crashed over her. I will protect my core, she thought. I will not become a hard, bitter woman.
chapter 35
After that rainy-day incident, what was the right way to act? There was no rule of etiquette to follow. It was as if a large stone had dropped into their pond, and no one dared move until the ripples died down.
Mrs. Nishimura and Mrs. Kobayashi occasionally crossed paths at the open-air market. They paused for a brief chat, as usual. But they never lingered, and they never walked home together.
Mrs. Nishimura went about the busy life of a housewife. Each morning she woke at sunrise to prepare breakfast before her husband’s long train commute. Her breakfasts were less elaborate than those at the Kobayashi house, but as long as Mr. Nishimura had his miso soup and his bowl of rice, he was happy. His underlings, he told her, ate hurriedly prepared, overly sweet breakfasts like toast and jam. “How could something like that possibly hit the spot?” he said, shaking his head and taking a deep, long swallow of broth. Mrs. Nishimura was touched by his awkward gratitude.
Afterward she saw him off, standing by the outer gate just as her own mother had done decades ago. But Mrs. Nishimura, being of a different generation, gave a cheerful wave instead of a formal bow.
Then it was time to