Radiance (21 page)

Daisy pulled open Keiko’s top drawer and reached in. Oh, that felt strangely erotic, to touch her slips and undergarments, fingertips brushing satin and silk. She pulled out a peach nightgown and then a chiffon scarf with a hand-rolled hem. Where had all this come from? Dr. Carney, of course. Or Bertha Atchity. She rubbed the fabric between her fingers, the rainbow chiffon turning them yellow, then violet, then red. She pushed her hands into the drawer again. Had she ever felt such creamy satin, such gorgeous watermarked silks? And such colours: cloud white, mimosa, petal pink. And stockings—such stockings. Daisy dug her hands into the pile and her knuckles grazed something hard, which she pulled from among the creamy negligees.

It was a simple box, about ten inches long by three inches wide, unvarnished but prettily made, with dovetailed joints. Its wooden lid could slide off, like a pencil case. The faded letters on top read,
Burns Goldenloaf Cheese. Burns and Co., Ltd., Toronto,
Canada.
Beside these words was a black line drawing of a windmill with a maiden waving beside it. She wore a polka-dotted dress and a Dutch-girl cap.

This was a treasure box brought from Hiroshima. Daisy’s heart beat harder at the sight of it, and when she slipped it open—this was strange—she saw a tiny brooch inside. It was not just any brooch: it was Stacey Atchity’s butterfly brooch. She picked it up. It was cold and heavy between her fingers, its back gold. When she turned it over she saw the enamelled wings painted a dusty purple, like pansies, the jewelled antennae made of golden wire, the faceted garnet body.

Oh, this was duplicity. This was rare. So rare it felt scalding. At last, this was something Daisy could understand. Who wouldn’t want to steal from the Atchity family, with their perfect house and their lovely sweaters and their good-as-gold World Federalism? Their wholesome luck. Their delightful children.

Keiko must have taken it the week they showed her around Manhattan. Stacey had noticed it was missing on the ferry ride to Staten Island and had whispered as much to her mother, who searched for it desperately. The butterfly had been a gift from Dean’s mother. In the end, Bertha reprimanded Stacey so severely she burst into tears; while Keiko, sitting on the ferry bench in the cold sunshine, must have known where it was the whole time, on the ground by the smokestack, perhaps, or beside the lifeboats. And when the others moved off, she must have scooped it up, placed it in her pocket.

What else was in that box?

An ebony elephant with ivory tusks. It fitted neatly into Daisy’s palm, and must have fitted neatly into Keiko’s when she snitched it from wherever she snitched it from. Maybe from Eleanor Roosevelt’s desk. It looked valuable, with its ropelike tail, bony haunches, glowing belly of black wood.

Also in the box: A pair of calfskin gloves, trimmed in black. Irene’s probably. A king cob marble. Walter’s lighter. Two photographs. These last were in sepia shades, dog-eared. Daisy carried them to the bed, where it was brighter. The way the light fell on them, the white parts jumped out and the blacks became opaque and dull.

The first photo was clearly of Keiko’s mother. Now this was a surprise. Everybody knew that the child was beautiful. But that the mother was beautiful too, that was a secret that Keiko had kept to herself, a knot, a seed at her core. She looked so quietly elegant and well put together in her coat of Persian lamb, her small, slightly military hat cocked to one side. Her eyes were large, and probably the same startling colour as Keiko’s. They held a look of sorrow, as though she could already see into the future and knew what to expect.

The other photograph was of a little girl. It was Keiko—Daisy could tell from the wary, intelligent gaze, the slight frown. But it wasn’t the Keiko who had come to them, thin and scarred and determined to survive, but a pudgy girl of perhaps five. Her hair was cut just above the ears, and she wore a ceremonial kimono of such a small size! Daisy could picture how Keiko’s mother must have delighted in dressing her for this photograph, having her hold out her arms for the embroidered sleeves, then turn and turn so that the
obi
could be wrapped around her tiny waist, telling her not to cry when she found the layers of padded material itchy and hot.

Keiko’s mother must have touched Keiko a hundred times, just in this one act of dressing her. Perhaps the aunt, Yoshiko, had helped as well, the two women bent over the girl.
Be patient, don’t fidget. We’ll be done soon.
But they weren’t done soon; it seemed to go on and on forever: there were those toe socks,
tabi,
to place on her feet, and pretty wooden sandals, and three or four or
even five layers of silk and embroidered satin weighing down the girl’s shoulders. The scarf was tied with an enormous bow, as though it wasn’t made for a child’s kimono at all, as though this were dress-up. Then her smooth cheeks had to be painted white, and perhaps powdered too, so that the paint wouldn’t smudge, and lipstick needed to be applied, and black eyeliner. Oh, how these women must have delighted in it all, dressing Keiko like a little doll. Perhaps they had cried for joy when they were finished: she was so small and lovely, with the headdress tinkling, the lotus flowers around her ears and that lily clutched in her dimpled hands.

D
AISY TELEPHONED
I
RENE
, but there was no answer. She phoned the hospital but wasn’t allowed to speak to Dr. Carney. In a fit of desperation, she telephoned Dean Atchity and spoke to his secretary: “I’m the host mother of Keiko Kitigawa. I need to speak to Mr. Atchity immediately.”

Surprisingly, the secretary put her through.

“Mrs. Lawrence.” Dean Atchity’s voice, as usual, carried a bounty of good things, like a well-laden merchant ship—green lawns, humanitarian intentions, the World Court, support for Negro desegregation, a bust of Whitman (which Daisy had seen on his desk).

“I want to visit Keiko,” Daisy said. “But they say I’m not allowed.”

“Really? How strange.”

“Have
you
seen her?”

He had—though not often, as Dr. Carney kept a close watch over her. But he believed she was recovering nicely. Stronger by the day. He would have Irene ring Daisy immediately. As host mother, he said, she must have access. Daisy hung up, not minding at all about getting Irene into trouble.

A few minutes later Irene telephoned.

“So,” she said. “You’ve spoken to Atchity. No need, I was about to ring anyway, to let you know the girl can go home.”

“When?”

“Soon. Day after tomorrow.”

“When can I see her?”

Daisy could see Irene’s shrug, even through the telephone. “Any time. Come in today if you want. Suit yourself.” When Irene hung up, Daisy went quickly to Walter’s study. He had the boxes of
Dark Night
open, and he was bent over one of them, reading through an earlier draft.

“We can see her, Walter.”

He put down the file and sighed. At first he seemed disoriented, like a deep-sea diver breaching the surface. Then he smiled.

“How’s she doing?”

“Recovering—that’s what Atchity says.”

She switched on the overhead light—Walter had been working in near darkness—and then went into the kitchen and telephoned Joan Palmer.

“We have good news,” she said simply. “Keiko is coming home.”

She did this knowing that Joan would phone Evelyn, and Evelyn would phone Fran, and that by the end of the day they’d know in the teachers’ lounge and in the drugstore, that Mr. Strickland would congratulate her when she crossed the fields to pick up milk.

Let the news be spread. And what was odd—considering how much hate she had felt for these women—was how good it
felt to pick up the telephone, to dial Joan’s number, to pass the news along.

Y
OU DO SOMETHING.
And then you do something else. And before you know it, the universe shifts in your favour.

Little acts. It is always little acts in fairy tales. It is a heel of bread given to an old woman at the crossroads, the releasing of a mouse from a trap. Daisy’s thoughts moved gently but relentlessly in this direction. She took the train into town, six copies of
American Hair
resting on her lap.

At Mount Sinai Hospital, Keiko lay in bed on her back, eyes closed, face bandaged. The room smelled of disinfectant and something else, something unmistakably putrid beneath the higher smell. Daisy wondered if it was the edges of the graft beneath the bandages. She wanted to open the window, get a cross breeze blowing, but no, she forced herself to breathe it in, whatever it was, the scent of radioactivity, the scent of death—breathe it in, then breathe it out again. Keiko opened her eyes.

She didn’t acknowledge Daisy in any way. She seemed to be looking inside as much as out, and her eyes had a film over them. The bandage on her face had a patch of yellow ooze in the area where the scar had been. Daisy wondered what the graft looked like: if it was holding on, adhering, as it should, through hundreds of small capillaries, or if it was refusing to attach itself to Keiko’s tissue. When she looked into Keiko’s eyes, the girl was studying her, but not as though she expected a thing from her. More as though Daisy was a stranger.

A copy of a Mary Marvel comic book lay beside Keiko on the bed. Daisy opened it and asked Keiko if she wanted to hear the story. Keiko nodded. Daisy pulled her chair close. She read the balloons of dialogue and pointed to each picture: Mary Marvel holding a car in one hand; Mary Marvel apprehending criminals, one of whom had a mottled, deformed face with cauliflower bumps for ears. Daisy shot a glance at Keiko, but she registered nothing.

“You’ll come home soon,” she told her.

After a while Keiko fell asleep.

I
T WAS
K
EIKO’S MOTHER
who told her what to do.

This was on the thirteenth day after the operation, as she lay in bed, a stack of hair magazines beside her. Already she was beginning to mend, at least on the surface, though the nurse who brought her food reported a high fever. When she opened her eyes, Mrs. Lawrence was studying her.

“Keiko,” she said. “I’m hoping that from now on we can be good friends.”

That was when she heard the swish of the animal’s tail. Not a heavy drag, a dry whisper on the linoleum.

The next day Keiko was sitting up, waiting for her dressing to be changed, when Mrs. Lawrence arrived. She read to Keiko from a Mary Marvel comic book. “What do you think of this picture?” Mrs. Lawrence asked, but Keiko said nothing. After a while she turned the page.

When Mrs. Lawrence left, Keiko closed her eyes. She could
feel the ghost of the scar on her face. There had been red blood on the bandages at first, then black blood and now, finally, the flow had stopped, except for occasional ooze. On the surface she was healing. On the surface she must be grateful.

At first she thought the scaly tail must belong to a rat, but then she remembered her grandfather saying that the foxes on Shikoku had ugly thin tails. It would not speak to her. Instead, it slipped under the chair by the door, then disappeared down the hallway, its rough tail dragging across the floor.

She slept soundly, and the nurse brought her a cup of tomato soup and some cottage cheese and Jell-O, which she left on the bedside table. After a while, Keiko heard the rustling of papers and opened her eyes. Mama sat at the end of the bed.

“I came back,” she said.

She had the same tiny birthmark under her right eye, the elegant curled hair, the sorrowful eyes and bitten fingernails. Keiko tried to explain that she was sorry for having the scar removed, sorry, too, for what happened on the bridge—the bridge that spanned the river near their house. Hiss of paper above the hospital bed. Her mother pressed her hand to Keiko’s forehead.

“Don’t speak,” she said. “Just listen.”

“They want to know so much. They keep asking questions.”

“What about the others—Mrs. Lawrence and her husband. And that red-haired boy?”

“That boy is in love with me.”

Her mother tilted her head. A boy in love is useful. She sat at the end of the bed. Rather than speak, she gestured in a wild but precise calligraphy. This. She drew in air. And this. And this—this is how you flee from a burning city.

“But I can’t.”

“You must.” After a while she added, “Have I shown you my back?”

She turned. Her clothing had been burnt away, and her skin was marked; not as the skin of a
hibakusha
is burnt, with charred ridges and crusty edges, but in shades of bruised purple and inky green, like a blurry tattoo, forming a pattern of leaves and flowers.

S
HE CAME BACK
to Walter and Daisy on June
1
. The fields had erupted in buttercups. Daisy would always remember that because, exhausted and bandaged as Keiko was, sitting between them in the front seat, she had turned to look out at the shock of yellow fields.

That was on the drive home. But first they picked her up at Mount Sinai.

When the Lawrences arrived at the hospital, Irene was waiting in the lobby, wearing a black and white outfit. No kiss on the cheek this time, no whispered questions as to whether her nylons were straight. “Wait here,” she said severely. “Keiko will be down in an instant.” And in an instant the elevator doors opened and there she was, flanked by Dr. Carney and Dean Atchity. Bandages covered her, eyebrows to chin, so that only her eyes, forehead and lips were visible. Coming towards them, the effect was different from Keiko’s face on the pillow, white on white. We’ve erased her, Daisy thought. The girl looked just like the Invisible Man. He wore bandages too—over his invisible body, invisible face—but when he unwound them at the end of the day, there was nothing there.

That was the first thought Daisy had, seeing Keiko bandaged.

They came forward slowly. Atchity’s and Carney’s shoes rang on the tiles, magnified by the acoustics, but Keiko’s made no sound. The whole procession seemed to take forever, and to have a formal significance, as though Keiko was being led from her bridal chamber; but because of the wavering light in the lobby, it might have been a bridal chamber at the bottom of the sea.