Above the East China Sea: A Novel (47 page)

For a long while after, Hatsuko waited expectantly for the moment when Tamiko would be returned to her for a proper burial in the family tomb. Hatsuko was buoyed by happiness at the thought that she and Tamiko would be reunited forever in the next life. Then she read an article in the
Ryūkyū Shimpō
about widows of soldiers missing in action staging a protest at the prefectural office because they would be cut off from their husbands forever, since their bones had never been found. The widows were outraged at how little progress had been made in identifying the remains that had been recovered. A photograph taken secretly in the vast government warehouse where unidentified remains were stored accompanied the sad story. It showed shelves filled from floor to ceiling with nothing but the skulls that had been recovered from construction sites. The photo made Hatsuko recall that Reiko, with her single-fold eyelids, long face, and proper Tokyo Japanese, had been from the mainland. As usual, the Japanese government had lied to her, and she gave up hope of finding any help in her search.

In spite of that disappointment, an anticipation that Hatsuko recognized as silly and beyond logic seized her each year as the three days set aside for the return of the departed commenced, and she prayed fervently that this year, her sister’s spirit would find its way to her. Each Obon that passed without a visit from her little sister caused Hatsuko’s desperation to grow; she had so little time left. Then, three years ago, right after the monsoon rains, Hatsuko had awakened feeling like a puppet whose strings had been cut, barely able to lift an arm or a leg.

While Hatsuko was still recovering and couldn’t make her tongue stop betraying the words in her head, Hideo seized upon the opportunity to pack his “auntie” away to this place that had “home” and “happy” in its name, but which was neither. Here Hatsuko knew despair almost as dark as she’d experienced in the Americans’ detention camp after the war; her beloved Tami-chan would never find her way to this soulless place.

Every morning the aggressively cheerful activities coordinator would fling her door open without so much as knocking and chirp out, “Hatsuko, the others are waiting for you. Don’t be naughty and make the group wait.” And every morning, Hatsuko yearned to turn her face to the wall and refuse to ever again leave her bed. That was when she forced herself to recall Onaha Buten, the legendary musician she’d met in the detention camp after the war. Onaha had survived horrors to equal anyone’s, yet had somehow summoned the
mabui
to fashion a
sanshin
from an old Spam can so that he could sing and play for his fellow detainees. With Buten’s trademark song playing in her head—“Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Rise up, come on, rise up! Fall seven times and jump up eight. Let the world know. About our Uchina”—Hatsuko would rise up one more time.

UKUI
THE LAST NIGHT

FORTY-SEVEN

Late on the afternoon of the third and final day of the festival for the dead, Hideo and his wife, Saori, and their two daughters arrive to fetch Hatsuko for the lavish dinner to be held in the Royal Ryukyuan Banquet Hall, where they will bid farewell to the spirits who’ve returned, and hopefully send them back to their world happy.

Hideo and Saori’s daughters are already dressed in their Eisā dance costumes, and the sight of them in the traditional short-sleeved, navy-blue kimonos with closed fans tucked into yellow obis, hair pulled back under polka-dotted kerchiefs, causes Hatsuko’s heart to ache with the swell of memory. They wear the same work kimonos that she and Tamiko wore when they were girls and their island was a place out of a fairy tale. The steps the girls practice are the very ones that she and Tamiko danced so long ago, when they escorted the spirits of their ancestors back to the tombs and never seriously believed that they, too, would ever get old and die.

Hatsuko tells Saori that she is not feeling well enough to accompany them. At that the wife heaves a sigh of impatience and reminds her that she was the one who insisted upon inviting her cousin Mitsue. Arrangements have been made. Mitsue is waiting even now to be picked up in Madadayo. Besides, the dinners have already been paid for, and whether they’re eaten or not, no money will be refunded. Because the girls beg her, their favorite auntie, to come, Hatsuko acquiesces.

When they arrive at Madadayo and she sees the familiar thatched roof, Hatsuko feels as if she herself is an Obon ghost returning to a home she will never again truly inhabit. Her spirits rise tremendously,
though, when Mitsue, still able to hop about like a little bird, comes aboard the van. At dinner, Mitsue encourages her cousin to drink the many toasts to honor the dead that are being imbibed. “We’ll be joining them soon,” Mitsue says, laughing. “And we don’t want any hard feelings when next we meet, now, do we?”

Soon she and Mitsue are leaning together, their cheeks flushed, singing the old ceremonial songs in thin, quavering voices that neither of them recognizes as their own. Because they know they don’t have many Obons left, Hatsuko and Mitsue agree to drive into Naha with the family to watch the Eisā dancers from all over the island parade through the streets and alleys, sweeping the dead back where they belong for another year.

In the van, the great-great-nieces make a big fuss over their old aunties. Hatsuko and Mitsue, speaking in the dialect that Hideo and Saori don’t understand, agree that the girls are quite sweet, in spite of their horrible parents. The girls’ excited chatter combines with the smell of face powder to unloose a flood of memories that washes over the two old women. Hatsuko closes her eyes and Tamiko is again beside her in the cart, swaying back and forth in time to Papaya’s rolling gait. They are girls once more, laughing and whispering about which boys they might see that night in the nearby village.

In Naha, Hideo drops his daughters off at the far end of Kokusai-dōri, where dozens of teams of dancers and drummers are assembling for the parade. The rest of them then drive back to park and make their way to the spot Hideo has already picked out for parade viewing. Hatsuko clings to Mitsue, who is so much steadier on her feet, as they follow Hideo through the masses of spectators. People pack the parade route. They perch on the sills of upper-story windows and on rooftops. They pack into alleys and line the steps of outside stairways. A tall man with a news camera on his shoulder, followed by a pretty woman holding a microphone, push their way through the throng. Bar owners send hostesses with trays full of glasses of iced oolong tea and
awamori
into the crowd. Haughty tourists from the mainland stand apart from the common folk. Immense Americans freeze gaggles of their friends in the flashes of their cameras. Hatsuko and Mitsue exchange disapproving glances when the Americans, always eager to flaunt their triumph, rudely hold up Vs for victory each time they are photographed.

The old ladies are buffeted by drunken revelers as they totter along. They search the crowd, but don’t see one single familiar face. Even Hideo and his family seem to be strangers, and Hatsuko misses not only the ones who are gone but even the Okinawa she once knew, for it, too, has been lost.

“Aunties,” the odious Hideo calls back when Hatsuko and Mitsue fall behind. “You should have asked us to get you wheelchairs.”

“I’m fine,” Hatsuko barks at the toad. She leans even more heavily on her cane and curses the silly shoes they’d stuck on her feet at the nursing home. Puffy balls of white dough with Velcro closures like a child would wear, the ridiculous shoes force her to shuffle along.
Bare feet!
She’d walked the length and breadth of this island in her bare feet. Potbellied Hideo, trying to look patient and benevolent, wouldn’t have lasted one day. With or without shoes.

Hideo makes a sour face and hisses at his wife, “All the places at the front will be taken if we don’t hurry. I won’t get any good video.”

“Let him go on,” Mitsue pipes up. “We’ll be fine.”

“Go ahead then,” Saori says to her husband, with an annoyed sigh. “I’ll wait for them.” Happy to be free, Hideo rushes off. “Save us a spot,” Saori calls after her departing husband.

“What is wrong with watching from right here?” Hatsuko asks.

“No, no, this isn’t a good spot for video,” Saori answers sharply. “Hideo has the place all picked out. He’s even told the girls to look our way when they pass.”

“How much farther is it?”

“Just up ahead. Right there on Kokusai-dōri.”

“Lean on me, cousin,” Mitsue says, and Hatsuko, knowing her own legs won’t carry her any farther, does just that.

“Thank you,” she whispers to Mitsue.

When at last they stop, Hatsuko, breathing heavily, her legs trembling, raises her eyes and sees a lighted green arch with white doves on either end spreading their wings and rising toward the heavens. In the middle is one word. In her own dialect, Hatsuko pronounces it out loud: “Peace.”

FORTY-EIGHT